Home in Time for Christmas

by Heather Graham

  Jake shook his head. “And it has to mean something,” he said.

  “Yes, it means you had ancestors. And that maybe neither Jake nor Serena stayed on in Gloucester after the war,” Melody said.

  He turned to look at her, offering a rueful half smile, shaking his head. “You’re never going to believe me, are you?”

  “Jake, this is what I think, or what I want to think. You do work for an historic company somewhere. I hit you. You thought you were all right, but you’ve really got a concussion.”

  “You want to think that?” he asked.

  “It’s better than thinking that you’re an actor, taking advantage of us in some way,” she said, keeping her eye on the car as they walked out.

  He stopped moving. She turned around. He stood in the snow, tall and straight.

  “Perhaps I should leave,” he said.

  “Oh, good God, what would you think?” she demanded. “Your story is preposterous.”

  “I’m not a liar,” he said, his jaw rigid.

  “You’re not a liar. Look, try to understand my position,” she said. “I’m sorry. Please, let’s just go downtown. You’ll love the tree.”

  “I’m not a liar, and I’m not a child,” he said. She was startled when he came to her and set his hands on her shoulders. “I’m telling you the truth. I swear, before God, that I’m telling you the truth. And I must get back. This world—this is a wonderful world. And I’m sure I’d be happy here. But I have to see that my sister is safe. Her name has disappeared from all the records. By God, don’t you understand? I’m afraid that she saved me somehow, and wound up dead herself at the hands of the British. Maybe I need to go back and die. But I can’t leave her fate hanging…on my life. Can’t you understand? Please, I’m begging you.”

  She stared at him. Truth or not, she was convinced he wasn’t an actor. Or he wasn’t acting when he spoke to her now. She let out a deep breath.

  “Let’s go into town. There’s an Internet café. We’ll start trying to find New York records regarding the Revolution,” she said.

  She waited for him to ask her what an Internet café was.

  He didn’t.

  “Do you know what that is?” she asked him.

  “Of course.” He was still stiff. Still touching her, and still close. And she suddenly thought it was all too bad; she really liked him. Liked his touch on her. Liked the way his eyes met hers.

  “Your brother showed me his computer and explained what he could about the electronics of it last night.” He shook his head. “You communicate at the speed of light. All over the world. You don’t question that words suddenly appear in your e-mail. You send pictures—moving pictures. You can connect to one another live, see one another’s faces from across the globe. That, you must understand, is to me no different than the fact that I am suddenly here.”

  He was earnest; he was passionate. She was tempted to touch his cheek, and tell him that it was going to be all right.

  But it wasn’t going to be all right. He was flesh and blood, certainly. He was no ghost.

  And living beings did not transport through time.

  She stepped back. “Let’s head to town. We’ll go to the Internet café, and we’ll look in some shop windows. You can be treated to a bit more culture shock.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  As they headed for the car, he suddenly stopped again. Melody heard a droning noise, and she looked up. A plane was moving overhead.

  “My God,” he breathed. He looked at her. “A plane.”

  “You know what a plane is?”

  He smiled. “Your brother told me about aeronautics. Men have gone into space. Man has come so far—you’d have thought he would have found a way to stop war by now.”

  “Technology has come forward,” she said. “Man—not so much. Come on.”

  He opened the driver’s door for her and walked around to the passenger side. When he was seated, she reached over to show him where his seat belt was. He had already found it. “I am understanding this,” he told her. “Perhaps you would be willing to teach me how to drive this type of vehicle,” he said.

  “Um, sure,” she said.

  She eased out of the driveway. “Winter, however, isn’t a great time to learn to drive. You can skid on the black ice. And I think we’re going to have some kind of ice storm either tonight or tomorrow. I heard about it on the radio, coming in.”

  He smiled.

  “What?”

  “Well, I now know a lot about your life,” he said. “Your mother told me a great deal about you.”

  “She did?”

  “Yes, she said that she had thought you were happy. She’s glad I’m here, as long as I’m not here as a buffer. She thought you were in love with a young man named Mark, who will be here tomorrow night or Christmas Eve, and she doesn’t really understand what went wrong.”

  “My mother should not be talking about me.”

  “She loves you.”

  “She still shouldn’t have been giving you my personal history.”

  He shrugged, looking out the window, still rapt at anything they passed. “I believe she assumed I knew about your life. And you’re very lucky, you know.”

  “Oh?” she asked carefully.

  He looked at her. “Your parents are both living. They love you, and they love your brother very much. You have a wonderful home, a beautiful place to come home to, and that’s something very special, something to be appreciated.”

  She felt a flush rise to her cheeks, and she winced inwardly.

  He was right.

  She spent way too much time dreading what they might do, and not appreciating them for all that they were.

  Not even realizing that she needed to appreciate the fact that she had them both, they were still young and vital, and would one day make wonderful, crazy, eccentric grandparents.

  “You’re right,” she said quietly. “I am very lucky.” She chanced a quick glance at him. “So, tell me more about your life.”

  “Why? So you can call me a liar?” he asked. His voice didn’t rise with the question; he spoke with dignity.

  “You know, it’s rather cruel and unchristian not to forgive,” she said.

  “How can I forgive you when you do think I’m a liar?” he asked.

  She let out a groan of frustration. “I don’t think you’re a liar. I think you’re…hurt. But tell me more about your life. Apparently, you wowed Father Dawson.”

  “Have you met him? He’s a charming man.”

  “Um—no. Actually, we did grow up going to church. I go in New York. Sometimes.”

  “Ah.”

  “Okay, please, I like church. But sometimes, if you grew up with my mom, it’s a little weird. She’s seriously friends with a community of Wiccans. They come and go saying ‘blessed be,’ all the time. One of her best friends is Muslim, and my dad takes me to parties thrown by a lot of his Jewish contemporaries all the time.”

  He was smiling. “There’s nothing wrong with ‘blessed be.’ Belief is in the spirit, it creates the soul, and I think it’s beyond wonderful that this country has come to a place where people are truly free to worship how they please.”

  “Don’t go thinking the world is all hunky-dory,” she warned. “People out there still have prejudices. They practice cruelty. As you’ve learned—there’s always a war to be found somewhere.”

  “But there’s always hope, too, isn’t there?” he asked.

  She shook her head, unable to prevent a smile. “Okay, there’s the tree my mom was talking about. I’ll park, and we can walk around.”

  She parked. The day was cold, but the sun was out. The snow glistened in beautiful shades of dazzling silver. Kids raced around the little gate that kept the tree safe, throwing snowballs and laughing.

  Melody found herself suddenly whacked in the head. She turned around to see a boy of about eleven looking horrified. But even as he stared at her—an adult—in trepidation, a small smile started
to curve on his face.

  “Hey!” she protested. But she found he made her laugh, and she reached down and formed a snowball quickly.

  He realized her intent too late, and she got him good on the shoulder. One of his friends cried out, “She’s in, she’s in—get her!”

  “Hey!” A rain of snowballs was suddenly coming at her.

  But she wasn’t fighting alone. Jake was laughing behind her, dishing up and throwing as fast as he could.

  One caught her in the chin. “Devils!” she accused.

  Jake grabbed her by the shoulder, leading her behind an embankment. To her astonishment, other adults started joining in, which made other children join in. From somewhere, a stereo was sending “Joy to the World” out among the crowd, and though she was getting wetter by the minute, the snowball fight was like a return to her own childhood and a simpler time of life.

  She suddenly stepped out to get a really good throw in.

  “Get down!” Jake warned. He’d come behind her, and he pressed her shoulder, getting her out of the way as a mammoth white flurry came soaring by. He was armed and ready to return fire, but she slipped down beneath the pressure of his touch.

  Another hail of snowballs fell upon Jake, and he slipped into the snow beside her, almost on top of her. The next thing she knew, there were five or six children standing around them, pelting them. She was laughing so hard she couldn’t fight back. Jake reached out, though, and brought one of the kids down, and suddenly they were all slipping and falling and lying together in the snow. Jake rolled, and he was on top of her; he lifted his weight and stared down into her eyes, smiling.

  “It’s true that some things never change,” he said softly.

  Some things never changed. Moments like this. When he stared down into her face, that smile on his lips, and she wanted to touch his face because some things never changed. There would always be that spark that could exist between a man and woman, and whatever it was, chemistry, pheromones, a tone of voice, a scent, whatever the sex researchers came up with, it suddenly wrapped her in a warmth that took away the slightest feel of the chill of the snow.

  His expression grew oddly taut and grave, and he smiled again, and eased himself up, extending a hand to draw her up with him. She was stunned when she heard the kids around them applauding. A little girl said, “Wow. Cool grown-ups. Don’t see that often.”

  “Good fight, kids!” Jake said. He looked at her. “You’re trembling. Let’s get in out of the cold.”

  “The Internet café is right over there.”

  He slipped an arm around her as they walked. It was a natural gesture. It wasn’t a pickup. It was a courteous way of keeping her warm.

  They stepped into the café. There was an empty table by the hearth where a warm fire was burning. The fireplace didn’t offer the only heat in the room, but it was cozy looking and extremely inviting.

  “Sit, and hold our place. I’ll get coffee and pay for the time,” Melody told Jake.

  He caught her hand as she was leaving. “I’ll repay you for this. I swear. I am not accustomed to allowing anyone to pay my way.”

  She smiled. “Of course.”

  At the counter, she bought coffee, paid for a half hour of time on the computer and returned. She logged on with the code given to her by the café clerk. A list of recent news choices flashed onto the screen, along with a picture of President Obama.

  Jake stared at the screen, entranced. “That man is the president—of the Unites States?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, of course,” he said. “I watched the movies…of course. It’s incredible. I love this new world of yours. We have come so far. I had never imagined.”

  “Yes, it’s amazing. But as I told you before, there are still people out there who hate each other for being of a certain color, religion, nationality or sexual persuasion. Laws have come a long way. But there are people out there who would change them again. It’s still a fight to see that we are all treated fairly.”

  “But the laws…my God, I am proud.”

  She smiled. Then her smile faded. She was playing his game, and he was so easy to believe—but what he kept telling her was impossible.

  “All right, I’m looking up New York in the Revolution on Google,” she said.

  He sat there quietly in amazement. Thousands of pages popped up so Melody did a search with Jake’s name and the Revolution.

  To her surprise, pages popped up. “Jake Mallory, Patriot hero,” were key words in many of them.

  “You were a hero?”

  He shrugged. “I was the same as many a man. I happened to get caught. What does it say about me?”

  She went on. There were references to the many pamphlets and essays he had put out in various papers of the time. Thus, when his company was captured during one of the many battles and skirmishes that took place before the British solidified their hold on the city, he was selected to be executed as an example to others. Nathan Hale had already gone to the noose.

  “Is there any reference to my sister?” he asked anxiously. They were trying to read together, which wasn’t easy.

  “I’m not seeing anything yet. Oh, look—here!” Melody said.

  “Where are you? Where, where?”

  Melody read out loud. “‘Jake Mallory’s execution took place at 10:00 a.m. on the morning of December 22. Though Christmas was quickly approaching, the commander in charge, Major Hempton, wanted the people to be given a severe warning regarding rebellion against the mother country. He believed that Mallory’s execution would warn citizens away from speaking or writing against the Crown, or harboring any individuals involved in any covert or open subversive activities. Historical references to the day are sketchy, one witness wrote of a snowstorm that obscured the execution. Another wrote of a bizarre storm of roses. There are no eyewitness accounts to be found that say whether the execution was carried out, and there are no death records for Jake Mallory. It’s possible that the execution was carried out, and that Mallory’s body was quickly buried in an obscure plot since the execution caused something of a Christmas riot, or a mass hallucination.’”

  She stopped reading and stared at Jake.

  “There’s no reference to Serena,” he said.

  She exhaled. “There are more pages, more references to be read.”

  She looked away quickly. Why did so much seem to be true?

  Perhaps his job had been portraying Jake Mallory at a theater. Or at a park. Through the park service, national or state. Maybe he put on a one-man show, and now believed, with his whole heart, that he was this man.

  “May we keep reading?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  One of the references read, “Jake Mallory disappears from the end of a hangman’s noose. Witchcraft suspected in New York execution.”

  The article wasn’t really that bizarre. The author this time suggested that Mallory’s friends had devised a way to spirit him away when the noose was tightened. Perhaps his British captors, fond of the man, had even helped in his escape.

  Another article finally mentioned that Mallory’s sister had come to the execution, and created a scene, thus allowing for his escape.

  Jake read aloud. “‘Mallory was hanged from an open gallows. His body should have been visible to all witnesses. That they speak of sudden snowstorms and rose petals suggests that the escape was cunningly and meticulously planned.’”

  “So you escaped,” Melody said.

  “I wish there was another reference to Serena,” he said.

  “Well, here’s the good news—we can’t find anything that suggests that she was captured, held or killed by the British. I’m imaging that whatever happened that day, chaos probably broke loose and she simply went home. I’m sure she was all right,” Melody said.

  The screen suddenly warned them that their time was up. She realized that despite the fire, she was still shivering.

  “Let’s get home,” she said huskily.

 
; “Home,” he said.

  Melody couldn’t help but grin then. “You did say that it was your home, once. So…”

  “Home,” he said again, and he smiled. “But it’s your home now. So thank you, thank you for taking me there.”

  Her heart fluttered again.

  Why couldn’t she feel this way about someone sane?

  They left the café and walked to the car. He was thoughtful, staring out the window as they headed to her house.

  Just as they pulled into the driveway, there was the sound of an explosion.

  And a huge puff of smoke erupted from the laboratory at the back of the house.

  5

  “Dad!”

  Melody was out of the car so quickly that she nearly slid facedown in the ice. She caught herself and went racing for the back, barely aware that Jake was behind her.

  As she came around the corner, Keith was leading her father out the door of the laboratory; both men had blackened faces.

  “Dad, Dad, are you all right?” Melody demanded, running to him.

  “I did it!” he cried, grabbing her and swinging her around.

  “Dad!” She strained against his shoulders, forcing him to put her down. Keith stood wryly at his side, wiping at his face. “Dad!” she scolded. “That was an explosion. Is the fire out? Are you all right?”

  Keith answered. “All out—much more smoke than fire. What you saw was bright light—alpha light, as Dad is terming it.”

  “What are you trying to accomplish?” Melody demanded.

  “A frequency for physical movement,” George told her.

  “What?”

  “It’s complicated,” Keith said.

  She threw her brother a furious glance. “I majored in art, not stupidity. Dad, please, I’m so afraid that what you’re doing is dangerous. And I do think you’re brilliant, and I’m grateful, but I love you and I just think that you should be working on…things that will be useful in life.”

  “The Clapper is useful if you’re elderly and it’s difficult to get up and turn out the lights,” Keith said.

  “You’re telling me that Dad is trying to improve on the ‘Clapper’?” Melody demanded.