A Circle of Time

by Marisa Montes

  “Do not concern yourself about my father. I will speak to him. Isa and Mamá have taken well to you. That is what is important. Papa seems like a bear, but he is really a pussycat.”

  More like a cougar, Allison thought.

  “But why did you want me back before the eighteenth?”

  Allison struggled to find the right words. “I had a feeling...”

  Tere cocked an eyebrow. “A premonition? Like Magda’s?”

  “Well, maybe not quite like Magda’s, but yes, a premonition. A very, very strong one.” Allison’s eyes pleaded with Tere. “Please promise to be back before the eighteenth.”

  “What kind of premonition?” Tere’s eyes narrowed as she studied Allison’s face.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “I take premonitions very seriously, Becky. I simply need to know what you feel.”

  “Danger,” Allison replied, recalling Magda’s premonition about Becky. “Very serious danger, and maybe ... death.”

  Chapter 18

  It’s so sad, Joshua,” Allison told him as they strolled in the rose garden after dinner. “I think Isa even tried to hang herself. And all because of that ultra-controlling father of hers. He won’t even let her mother visit her.”

  “I’ve heard her crying sometimes,” said Joshua, “in the evening or in the early morning. It’s the spookiest sound I ever heard. First the wailing, like a baby crying, then the sobbing. About rips out a feller’s heart to hear it. Makes you feel so helpless.”

  “If I could only get through to Isa,” Allison continued. “I’d like to make a difference with her while I’m here. But what can I do? In the future we’ve got some incredible shrinks—psychiatrists, doctors of the mind—but even they have trouble curing mental illness.”

  “Tell me about the future, Allison,” Joshua said.

  Allison perched on a cement bench. Joshua joined her. She breathed in the scent of roses and cool night air as she decided what to tell him first.

  “There are wonderful things, Joshua, incredible things. By 1970, we’d gone from what was considered science fiction to reality.” Allison turned to Joshua, her eyes sparkling. “Joshua, an American astronaut walked on the moon!”

  Joshua’s eyes opened wide. “The moon! Nah, you’re just fooling—”

  “No, it’s true!” Allison felt as giddy as if she’d just walked on the moon herself. “And we’ve got satellites traveling in space, taking photographs of other planets and sending them back. We’ve got a thing called television—an electric box with moving pictures on a screen in the front, and microwave ovens that can bake a potato in less than ten minutes, and an electronic brain that holds information from thousands of books and looks like a small, flat typewriter, and airplanes that fly us from San Francisco to New York in half a day—”

  “Whoa, whoa! My head is spinning. Sure you’re not making this up?”

  “Oh, no, Joshua, and there’s so much more.” Then Allison’s smile faded. “But for all the good things, there’s bad, too. So much violence: Our country becomes involved in two world wars and three other major wars. When Mom was my age, she never felt afraid to go to school. Schools were safe and clean. Now some kids carry guns to school, and drugs ... Kids are dying all the time, killing each other—little kids, younger than us. Some kids live with the fear they’ll never grow up. My school’s pretty good, but you hear about the others.”

  “Why don’t they just not go to school?”

  “Can’t. For one thing, it’s the law—kids have to go to school. For another, without an education—Well, you know how bad you want to be a doctor? Can’t do that without going to school.”

  Joshua nodded somberly. “Like Magda says, sometimes you gotta take the good with the bad. It sure is a shame. The future sounded like paradise. Tell me more of the good things.”

  Allison thought for a moment, then she smiled. “I know something you’ll like. They’ve made great strides in medicine. Scientists have discovered how to prevent some diseases, like polio and smallpox, and how to treat others, like infections, pneumonia, and tuberculosis. They’re always looking for cures to new, deadly diseases. And”—Allison lowered her voice to a whisper, as if she were telling a ghost story—“they can transplant organs from dead animals or humans to other humans.”

  “Transplant?” Joshua looked green.

  “They can take a baboon’s heart and sew it up in a living person, in place of his sick heart. And they can take a human heart or liver or other organ from someone who’s just died, and they sew it inside a living person.”

  Allison watched Joshua digest the information. His mouth gaped. “I’ll be tied to an anthill and left for dinner. Putting a dead person’s heart in a living person!”

  Allison’s tone grew serious. “My dad was on the waiting list for a new heart—he had a bad heart—but he died before he got it.” Allison smoothed her emerald-green skirt as she swallowed a sob.

  “That’s a real shame, Allison.” Joshua scooted closer to her and placed an arm around her shoulders. They sat silently for a few minutes, listening to the croaking of a frog in the distance. Then he said softly, “What about you? What are the doctors doing for you?”

  Allison told him about her impending brain surgery, then went on to explain about the coma. “I’ve heard about comas on television. Sometimes people lie in the hospital for years and never wake up. Other times, they wake up after a few days or months, or even years. I just hope I’ve got a really good neurosurgeon—that’s a doctor who operates on the brain.”

  Joshua took her hand in his. “I hope so, too, Allison.”

  She noticed again how perfectly her hand fit in his. Then another thought occurred to her: It was Becky’s hand that fit so well, not hers. Would my hand fit as nicely? Maybe that wasn’t important. Maybe the fact that their spirits seemed to mesh was all that mattered.

  “I hope your dreams come true, Joshua. I hope you become a doctor.”

  “Maybe”—Joshua’s expression grew intense—“if I live through the earthquake, maybe I could become one of them brain doctors and study real hard, so I’d be ready to operate on you after the accident.”

  “What a sweet thing to suggest.” Allison felt a warm glow radiate inside her chest. “I’m afraid it won’t work, though. My accident is ninety years from now. That would make you—”

  “A hundred and five years old,” said Joshua, his shoulders drooping. Then he perked up. “Do people live that long in the future?”

  Allison grinned. “No. More people live longer than they do now, until about eighty or ninety. Any older is rare. And no offense, Joshua, but I’d rather not have a really old man operating on me, no matter how good a surgeon he was when he was young.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Joshua said with a sigh. “What are you going to do—if everything goes well? Marry some feller and settle down?”

  Allison snorted, pushing him away. “No way! At least I won’t marry until I have a career. Even then, I won’t ‘settle down’! Women don’t do that in my time. But I’ll tell you—even if I had to live in your time, I wouldn’t just marry and have babies, and stay pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen.”

  At the word pregnant, Joshua’s face reddened.

  Allison laughed. “Sorry, I forgot to act like a demure young lady.”

  “I reckon I never heard a girl talk like you. Well, other than Miz Teresa, who’s kinda hotheaded.”

  “Women are people, Joshua. Smart, capable people. People who count and are important to society. Men can’t go around bullying us and thinking for us and telling us to keep quiet the way Don Carlos does with his wife and daughters. Be prepared for a shocker. In the 1920S, women finally gain the vote. Imagine, Joshua, the slaves were freed, and it still took another fifty-some years for men to allow women to be counted! Then in the 1960s, the women’s liberation movement begins, and women speak out and stand up for equal rights in the workplace and in society. If you’re a man—watch out!”
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br />   “After meeting you, I believe it,” Joshua said with a laugh. “Do all girls in the future think like you?”

  “A lot, but not all. Some women still think feminism is a dirty word.”

  “Feminism?”

  Allison considered for a moment whether she should start a discussion on the equal rights of men and women. Even in the nineties, she’d gotten into heated arguments with her teachers and some boys in school over women’s rights. She knew what Don Carlos would say about feminism, but Joshua was young, and he seemed so open-minded and eager to embrace new ideas. Why not? If she could convert one man in 1906...

  “Being a feminist means that you believe that men and women should have equal rights under the law and in the workplace,” Allison went on to explain.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Joshua cried, staring at Allison, his eyes starting to bug out. “You believe all that? That women should be doctors and lawyers and fight in wars?”

  “I don’t think anyone should fight in wars, but if a man has to and a woman wants to, then yes. But let me finish.”

  Joshua was continuing to stare, his mouth gaping, but Allison ignored him and plowed ahead.

  “I think the problem is that some women seem to think being a feminist means that you are some kind of man-hating, picket-sign-carrying type who marches in demonstrations and burns her bra and yells a lot about how badly she’s been treated.”

  “Burns her what?”

  Allison glanced at Joshua, who looked as if he’d just staggered off a sailboat that had been caught in a storm, and grinned. “Trust me, Joshua, you don’t want to know. Anyway, if a girl has ever been told that she’s not as smart as a boy or that she’s not good at math or science because she’s a girl or that she can’t play in a game she wants to play in because it’s for boys or that she can’t go somewhere because she’s a girl, and if she’s ever thought, That’s not fair! she’s thought like a feminist.

  “My mom didn’t think she was a feminist until she had to start working again after Daddy died. Even though she was smarter and a better accountant than some of the men in her firm, she didn’t earn as much money, and she got passed over for promotion by a guy who started working for the company five years after she started. So she quit, and she’s working for herself. That’s all feminism means, a belief that men and women should have the same rights.”

  Joshua was shaking his head. “This all makes my head spin. All the women I’ve known have been wives and mothers and—”

  “No, Joshua. Think about it. Magda is a healer. And Tere is, well, Tere is her own person. She doesn’t do what her father wants—she does what she wants. Maybe she’ll be a wife and mother, maybe she won’t. But whatever she does, it’ll be her decision, I just know it. Even Isa rebelled because she wanted to marry the boy she loved, not someone mandated by her father. All I’m saying, and all that feminists are saying, is that women should be allowed to think for themselves the way men are allowed to make their own decisions.”

  Joshua nodded. “Magda’s a healer ... I never thought of it like that. It’s so natural for her, but I just think of her like my second mother.”

  “That’s just my point, Joshua. Women can be mothers, and they can have a job doing something they love.”

  “So what are your plans?” he said with a look of dread in his eyes. “Not a soldier or a sailor or a pirate, I hope.”

  Allison grinned. “I told you, I don’t believe in war. Although a pirate on the high seas might be fun.”

  A look at Joshua’s face made her break out in giggles. At the sound of her laughter, Joshua relaxed, and the humor returned to his eyes.

  When she stopped laughing, Allison shrugged. “I’m not sure what I want to do. I haven’t decided yet. The way I carry on about people’s rights, Mom says I should be a civil rights lawyer. But I love nature and animals and the open air too much to sit in a stuffy old office or law library. I can find another way to fight for civil rights. I’d rather be either a forest ranger or a veterinarian—an animal doctor.”

  “Animal doctor,” Joshua repeated, considering.

  “Or a forest ranger. I’d work for a national park and help take care of the animals and the environment. I wanted to work as an intern this summer—to see how I liked it. I was going for an interview with the ranger above Devil’s Drop when the car—a sports car, much faster than the motor cars you have now—hit me and sent me flying down the cliff.”

  Joshua winced at the reminder of how Allison’s accident had occurred. He took her hand again and squeezed it tight. “We’ve got to get through this, Allison. You and Becky and me. Alive.”

  That night, before getting ready for bed, Allison stood before the mirror. She shuddered as she examined the strange face and figure. It was still a shock to look into a mirror and not see her own face gaze back. And she couldn’t rid herself of the feeling she had seen that face before, somewhere other than on the girl in the mirror.

  “How grand you look, Allison,” Joshua had told her that evening when he first saw her in the emerald-green gown. “Just like a lady—like you belong here, in this mansion.” His eyes and impish grin were more teasing than ever as his gaze traveled the length of her gown and back up to her loose golden waves, resting finally on her face.

  Being inside Becky’s body felt like being in her own body. It was easy to forget her true physical appearance. So when Joshua complimented her, she had blushed, blossoming under his admiring gaze. But now she was reminded that each time he complimented her, it was really Becky he was complimenting.

  As Allison shed the green gown and slipped into the simple white cotton nightgown Tere had given her, she continued to ponder her predicament. It was one thing to live in another person’s body without knowing what you look like—almost like playing make-believe. But looking in the mirror reminded her that this was no game: Allison Anne Blair’s spirit was locked in Rebecca Lee Thompson’s body until her debt to Becky was paid or until Allison, herself, was dead.

  Allison opened her eyes. She was in a strange bed, in a dark room. As her gaze slid over the unfamiliar furniture, the sound of voices drifting through the open window dragged her attention from her surroundings. She padded barefoot over the cold tiles to the window.

  A full moon cast its silvery glow over the rose garden and lawn. Agitated voices continued, somewhere around the corner of the building. Remembering where she was and why she was there, Allison ran to the French doors and slipped outside, rushing amid the shadows, following the sound of the voices.

  “Understand me, woman!” said a man’s voice. “I will not be blackmailed. Now get off my property this instant!”

  “You won’t be so hoity-toity when your precious secret is out and—”

  “Listen to me”—the man spoke through clenched teeth—“if you ever breathe a word of this nonsense to anyone and upset the members of my family, it will be the last word you speak! ”

  “Nonsense, eh?” The woman gave a short, bitter laugh. “If it was such nonsense you wouldn’t be so riled up.”

  “It is nonsense. Nothing but a nasty lie dreamed up by a scheming, greedy woman to avenge her jealous nature and profit from the misery of others.”

  “Lies or not, do you want your precious Tere and Isa and your dear Ana—”

  “Never! You hear me—never utter the names of my family again! I will pay to get you out of our lives. But don’t ever let me catch you on my property again as long as you live!”

  The woman snorted. “You think you’re so high-and-mighty. Well, you’d better pay up.”

  “Madam, I have given you my word, and the word of a Cardona Pomales is solemn.”

  “Humph! I’ll contact you—”

  “I shall be the one doing the contacting, and after that, I never want to see you again. Is that clear? Now get off my land!”

  The woman snorted once more. Allison peeked around the corner in time to see the bulky form of Sadie Thompson turn and hobble away from the stiff and formidable
figure of Don Carlos.

  In the shadows opposite where she stood, Allison noticed a crouched figure, who also had been listening to the argument, rise and slip from view.

  Chapter 19

  An urgent knocking at Allison’s bedroom door dragged her from a heavy sleep. “Becky, wake up! Becky!”

  Pale morning light barely illuminated the room. The early morning twitter of birds floated through the open window.

  The insistent knocking continued.

  Allison slid from her bed and unlocked the door. She’d locked it the previous night due to a case of jittery nerves. The moment she cracked open the door, Tere burst inside.

  “Isa is missing. She must have escaped during the night. Socorro and I have searched the entire house, with no sign of her. She must be in the woods.”

  “How could she escape?”

  Tere waved a hand impatiently. “A window perhaps—that is not important right now. First, we must find her, later, we can worry about how she got away.”

  “It’ll just take me a minute to dress,” Allison said, forgetting how long her new clothes took to put on. “Is Joshua here yet? Maybe he can help.”

  “A very good idea. I will have Socorro and the maids search the rest of the estate, then I will look for Joshua. We shall meet you at the front gate.” Tere rushed off, leaving Allison alone with the task of getting dressed.

  When she lifted the green dress and spotted the dozens of tiny buttons that had to be dealt with before she’d be ready, she tossed it aside and slipped on Becky’s old clothes. Threadbare, maybe, but they were quicker and more practical in an emergency.

  “Boy, could I use some good old blue jeans and a T-shirt right now,” she muttered as she ran barefoot through the corridors of the mansion.

  Joshua and Tere were waiting for her at the gate. At Tere’s raised eyebrow, Allison explained, “There wasn’t time to do all those buttons.”

  “I suppose you are right,” Tere replied. “We must not waste time. We must find Isa before she harms herself. Joshua, you know these woods better than anyone. Where should we start?”