“Yeah, you did it.” He wouldn’t be so thrilled if he was the one doing the time traveling. She hooked a tush cheek over the edge of his barrel. “I thought you’d be harder to convince.”
“Ever since I realized I knew how to do it, I’ve expected…someone…to come back.” He looked at her. “But not…”
“A woman.” He couldn’t help being a chauvinist. Life hadn’t taught him differently. Yet.
“Well, yeah.”
She jumped to her feet and faced him. “You not only sent me, you chose me.”
She realized she had her hands on her hips and her feet planted in a pugnacious manner. She could be Mrs. Cleaver chewing out the Beaver—only in military green and mud. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t even slightly like Mrs. Cleaver. But she probably looked like someone pugnacious, though please not Rockman…
“Why?” He rubbed his head again. “I don’t mean to be…but why?”
Mel crossed her arms. “Well, I do have some rather unique qualifications. And a personal stake in the outcome.”
She sat down again. It was warmer sitting next to him.
Jack’s brows rose. “A personal stake? Who—” He stopped. His face cleared of puzzlement, not mud. “Norm? You’re related to Norm, aren’t you?” Mel nodded. “Wow, Norm’s daughter?”
She shook her head. “Not daughter.”
Jack’s blue eyes widened. “Not? Then what—”
“Granddaughter. That baby in his pictures from home? That’s my dad.”
Jack looked like he’d taken one to the stomach. “Norm’s granddaughter.” He looked at her. “Then we weren’t—”
He stopped and this time Mel knew exactly why. She leaned against him.
“No.” She sighed and thought he did, too. “We met, we meet for the first time in about sixty years, give or take a few weeks…”
“Sixty years.” Now he sounded winded-plus. “I’ll be…”
“Pretty…octageneric,” Mel finished for him. She didn’t want to say old or make him do the math on his age. Seventy-plus sounded worse when you were young for some reason. “But you were still pretty sexy.” She flashed him a smile and got a half grin in return. “I’d always been curious about you. None of the surviving crew seemed to know what happened to you. I used to look at your picture and…wonder where you were and what you were doing. The mystery hero who liked H.G. Wells…or so I thought.”
“It must have taken me that long to work the kinks out of time travel.” He still sounded shocked. He rubbed his face, but the frown stayed in place.
“Either that or…”
“Or?” He half turned to look her.
“Or you had to wait for the same time…” she finished in a rush, “you sent me last time.” She braced for more shock.
“The same time…so this is, what, a second try?”
He was pretty quick, but then he’d had time to think about time travel and its ramifications.
“More like a fix. From what you told me, or will tell me, we messed things up and I had to come back and straighten them out.”
“That must have been some meeting.” Jack sounded and looked amused.
She gave him a mock jab with her elbow. “No kidding.”
Jack rubbed his face again. “There’re so many things I want to ask you, but there’s no time.” He kind of shook himself, like a dog getting rid of water. “So what happens next? What do we need to do to fix things?”
Mel glanced at him, knowing she was making a brace for another shock face.
“What?” Jack asked. No surprise he sounded wary.
“There’s kind of a problem with next.”
“Problem?”
“You said this might happen, but it was a theory and I feel I should insert here that you shouldn’t be messing with things when you only have theories about what will happen. But playing the blame game doesn’t really help us right now. I know that—“
Jack grabbed her shoulders. “Mel, what’s going on?”
“I…” she added in a rush, “don’t know what happens next.”
There was a silence.
“You have to know what happens next. If you’re really from the future. I would have told you everything I could.”
“And you did.” Mel was embarrassed to hear herself sounding like a first grade teacher reassuring a less than stellar student. “It was a very thorough briefing. It was outstanding. Only things have changed. I may have helped with a few things I accidentally did, I didn’t notice anything at first, but now time is fluxing, at least I think that’s what it’s doing. I feel it, but I don’t know, I mean, this is my first time, even though technically it’s the second time.” Her eye twitched and she shook her head. “Anyway, some things are the same, but not quite.” She turned and gave him an over-bright look. “At least we are in France.”
Jack rubbed his face some more, but it didn’t look like it helped much. “A few things?”
“If you saw a spy running and you knew it and could do something, wouldn’t you?”
Jack stared at her for several heartbeats before chuckling. “Probably would. And I’m sorry I missed it—though I expect I’ve seen the physics lesson.”
Mel smiled slowly. “Maybe. I have many moves.”
Jack’s chest expanded, then contracted in a breath that sounded shaky. “I’ll bet you do.” It was his turn to give himself a shake. “Okay, let’s start with what’s the same.”
“Well, us. France. The war. And most of the people who died up in the plane were kind of right.”
“Kind of right? What’s the short version of kind of right?”
“Ric was supposed to die, but not in the plane. He was supposed to be here with us. Larsen was supposed to die in the plane, but didn’t. None of us are supposed to be here. We weren’t here, in this place. We were close to here, if we’re where I think we are, but not…here. I know there weren’t any priests in your briefing. But there were cellars. Just not this one.”
“I’d hate to hear your long version.” Jack sighed again. “And what about Norm?”
“According to you, he was supposed to be badly injured but survive. Because of the poor medical care in the POW camp, he spends the last part of his life in wheelchair.”
“But that’s not what you remember?”
Mel shook her head. “I don’t remember him at all. He died.”
“So that’s what we did wrong.” Jack slid his arm around her waist. He started to pull her close.
Mel leaned away. “Don’t hug me too tight. I need to pee.”
Okay, that was probably too much sharing, even if it was the truth.
Jack chuckled. His teeth were straight and white in his dirty face.
She leaned against him, her head right over his heart. He didn’t smell that great, but neither did she. In this case, the two negatives didn’t add up to a positive, but she didn’t care. If they were so wrong as a couple, why did it feel so right? Why did she feel so at home with him?
“Do you know what’s hardest for me to believe in all this?” Jack asked, his voice changing from exasperated to deep and sad.
“What?” Mel asked the question, even though she knew the answer.
“Sixty years. Sixty years apart? It’s really sixty years between…us?”
Actually it was more. “I’m afraid so.”
Jack went quiet again. Mel was content to listen to his heart thump against her ear. “What I don’t understand is why I started all this in the first place.”
“It’s because of Ric.” Mel quickly told him what she knew. “I just wish I knew what happened to Norm. I didn’t see him leave the plane.”
“Larsen said he bailed out with the others.”
Mel nodded. “I’m not liking Larsen all that much.”
Jack chuckled. “I don’t think he likes you either.” He went quiet again. “When’s your pick up time? I know I arranged a way out for you, right?”
Mel nodded. “Christmas morning, if—”
> “So we just evade capture for four more days and you’re home free?”
“Well…”
“What?”
“I think the underground wants us to help them do something.”
“We can’t—”
“I know. I thought that, too, but I just have this feeling we should.”
“Mel—”
It was probably a good thing Larsen came back right then.
* * * * *
Mel wasn’t sure who was more surprised when she stuck her head in the basin of water the priest’s housekeeper had prepared for Mel to wash her face. The priest or the housekeeper. But that surprise was nothing to when she emerged from the mini-bath and was revealed as a girl. Luckily all this had been preceded by a visit to the water closet or she’d have breached bladder containment at the first contact with the cold water.
“You are a woman—” he stopped and tried again. “I have not observed such a thing.”
Mel couldn’t help it. She grinned. “Now I’m sure that can’t be true, mon pere.”
She surprised a laugh out of the old man. His face was a kind one but sad. The humor lightened and brightened his overall aspect and made him almost handsome—though no amount of laughing could restore his hair.
“The Americans send their women to fight this war?”
Mel almost told him, not yet, but managed to restrain herself. “No, sir. I’m a reporter. I was lent this gear so I could fly in a bomber.” The housekeeper gave a disapproving sniff. “It’s very cold up there. Ice Station Zebra cold.” Oh, they wouldn’t get that allusion, would they? The book hadn’t been written yet. “North Pole cold.”
She shivered, not entirely artistically either. It was very cold in the old kitchen with her head wet, despite the fire in the big fireplace. She rubbed her hair with the coarse towel that had been provided. The water in the basin looked brownish red in the flickering light. She wondered whose blood she’d washed off, and hoped it wasn’t hers. She cautiously probed her scalp and found a gash that felt bad, but probably wasn’t. As if it had forgotten its duty, but now remembered it, it now started to throb.
“You are injured?” the priest inquired.
“Apparently.” At a word from the priest, the housekeeper moved over and examined it. “It’s probably a shrapnel wound, from the flak.”
“You flew in the American plane up there?” The housekeeper looked astonished.
“Not only flew in it,” Mel said ruefully, “got shot at and had to parachute out of it. While I’m getting a great story, I’m going to have a little trouble filing it.” On the upside, the relatively sedate parachute descent was much better than the non-parachute leap into the time vortex or the HALO drop for that matter—though the landing was definitely the worst.
Mel got another smile from the priest but a suspicious look and another sniff from the housekeeper. A change of subject seemed indicated. Mel looked around her.
“This is a wonderful room.”
She had a feeling it was French country décor, mostly because this was France and this was the country. That she knew the term was because of exposure to HGTV.
The curtains were pulled across the windows, but the cheerful though modest fire in the massive fireplace gave off a welcoming light. The air was filled with a delicious smell of something cooking in the pot suspended over the fire. Bright pots hung from the ceiling, as did some clumps of what could be spices. Mel wasn’t up on anything that didn’t come from a bottle, so she wasn’t sure.
A big wooden table held center stage, its top scored with years of living and eating. On the end away from her washing basin, a bowl and a hunk of bread waited. Mel fingered her short hair into what she hoped was a semblance of order, then cast a hopeful look toward the food.
“Has mademoiselle been ill?” The housekeeper looked as if she’d like to stand between Mel and the priest.
“No.” Mel was scared, tired and homesick, but not ill.
“You are very young.” He looked grave as he exchanged glances with his housekeeper.
“I’m twenty-eight,” Mel said, then smiled at her reflexive reaction.
“And not married.” The housekeeper sounded disapproving.
The priest smiled at Mel. “I’m sorry we couldn’t do anything about your clothes.” He indicated a chair. “Please, sit and eat.”
Madame shuffled away and Mel sat down. The food was slightly better, too. The bread was a welcome addition to her fluid diet, though Mel looked at it, then at the priest.
“Is this your supper, Father?”
His gaze flicked away, giving her an answer.
“I can’t take your food.” She pushed it toward him, but he firmly pushed it back.
He gave her a flickering smile. “I can afford to miss one or two.” He patted his round stomach. “My people make sure I don’t go hungry…even when they do.”
“You’re only doing it because I’m a girl,” Mel said. But she did pick up the spoon. This was better than the other soup. “It’s wonderful. Your country’s reputation for cuisine is restored.”
He chuckled. “I am fortunate in my housekeeper.”
“You are indeed.” Mel ate quietly for a few moments, but couldn’t resist the urge to just talk. “Your English is excellent.”
“I spent time in England as a young priest.” He hesitated. “Your French is quite fluent. Have you been to France before?”
Mel shook her head. “I have a good memory, that’s all.”
Mel fingered the dry bread for a moment. Finally she looked up. “Do you take confessions from non-Catholics, sir?” His dark brows rose and Mel added hurriedly. “It’s not a sin or anything. Well, I guess it could be if it was you, but I’m not a priest, not that I could be, but I’m not a nun—”
“My dear, what do you want to tell me?”
“Sorry.” Mel gave him a rueful grin, but it faded off her mouth as she searched for the right words. “I just wanted someone to know something. About Jack.”
“This Jack,” he pronounced it the French way. “—he is one of the men in my cellar?” Mel nodded. “And you wish to tell me you love him?”
“Yes. How did you know? Am I that obvious?”
He smiled in a kindly way. “I did not know you were a mademoiselle until you dipped your head in the basin. No, when you said it would be a sin for me, it was, how do you say, the clue?”
“I guess that did kind of give me away.” Mel nibbled at her bread, and sipped some soup before continuing. “It’s just that events will pull us apart. And even if they didn’t, well, he’s a flier and there’s a war. I don’t want to burden him with how I feel, but I wanted to say it. I wanted someone to know that I love him.”
“You think this will be a burden for him?”
“We have a dark and dangerous journey ahead of us, mon pere. He’s already worried about me, though I can take care of myself very well, and well…it’s complicated.” She was tired of saying it, mostly because it was so true.
“Love is always complicated, but it is also a gift.”
“Well, then our situation is more than complicated.” She sighed and pushed her chair back. “And he’s waiting for his supper. Thank for listening, mon pere.”
“It is what I do,” he reminded her with a slow but still kind smile.
Mel started toward the cellar with an inward sigh when the housekeeper suddenly reappeared, her face white and twisted by fear. She said two words.
“The Boche.”
Mel picked up the pace, but a knock sounded on the kitchen door before she could take more than a single step. She looked around the room, seeking a refuge. Then she looked at the priest.
“I have a plan. Sit down at my place,” she ordered. “Clear the bowl I was washing with, then answer the door, but slowly, Madame.”
“Slowly,” the priest echoed.
As the housekeeper did as ordered, Mel moved to a row of coats hanging from a rack right by the door. There was a row of boots on the flo
or beneath the coats. One coat didn’t have boots with it, though. This was the coat Mel slipped into, sliding her feet back until she was neatly against the wall at the end of the row and partly in shadow. The coat was long, covering all of her but her feet, though she had to bend her knees slightly to keep her head below the neckline. Her position wasn’t comfortable, with her knees bent and her breathing a bit confined, but at least it was warm. If she could have hooked her collar on the rack, she could have slept. At least until terror kicked in.
“Remarkable,” the priest murmured.
The heavy coat somewhat muffled her hearing, but Mel felt the swirl of cold air as the door was opened and the housekeeper ushered in the unwelcome visitor.
“Herr Oberst Thorhaus,” the priest said, in French. Mel was familiar with the German colonel’s dossier. He’d been assigned to oversee this district shortly after the occupation began. Following the massacre here, he’d been assigned to another district, where he refused an order for a mass execution—and been executed with the occupants of a French village. However, his delay had enabled some of the people, and all of the children of that village, to escape. One of those children had grown up and was something important in the study of immune deficiencies. History recorded Thorhaus as, if not an honorable man, then at least a redeemed one.
While her brain produced facts about the German colonel, she heard a chair pushed back and the shuffle of feet against the floor as the priest rose to greet his uninvited guest.
“I did not expect you this evening, Herr Oberst.”
That sounded odd. Was Thorhaus a frequent visitor? That had to be awkward if the priest were part of the underground. Or perhaps it was a benefit? Who would expect the priest to be an active underground member?
“I felt a need to talk to you after the unfortunate accident at the Bouvier farm.” His voice was also the cool, cultured voice from their landing site and from the farm. And now he had a name. “I did not authorize action. Leutnant Kass has an unfortunate instinct for haste.”
“Judgment does not belong to me,” the priest said. “Will you sit?”
Through a slit in the coat, Mel could sort of see the Colonel look around. “You’re eating in the kitchen? I thought you might be out when the only light was back here.”
Out of Time Page 21
