“A lot had to happen in the meantime,” I whispered, watching Case as he positioned a borrowed fiddle beneath his jaw. My throat ached at the memory of what I’d put Case through before I understood that he was mine, that we belonged together.
When you know, you just know, he’d once said.
And I know you are for me, Patricia.
“Ax,” I heard myself whisper.
My hands were in fists.
Camille, seated to my left, leaned closer. “I can’t hear over the music. Did you just say ‘ax?’” She angled her beer bottle so I could better see the label, which featured a well-built man wielding what appeared to be a battleax. The beer, Warrior’s Ale, was from a local brewery.
“I…” Words stuck to my tongue; I slowly shook my head, indicating never mind.
The past year I’d spent so much time sitting at this very table along with Ruthie while Marshall and Case performed. I couldn’t begin to count the number of times we’d commented how wonderful it would be if Mathias and Camille were also in attendance, and now here I was with my older sister but no Ruthann. No Marshall.
What if we’re never all together again…
No. Tish, no. Don’t think like that. Stop it.
You have to believe we have the ability to bring them home.
I didn’t want Camille, let alone Case, to worry about me and so I forced myself to relax and appreciate the music. Case bowed the fiddle with his eyes closed, as usual, while the father and son gave their guitars a workout and Mathias sang; his voice was as rich and true as always. Old-school country, one song flowing into the next. I rested both palms on my belly, imagining that the baby could hear the notes, admiring the way the stage lights glinted on Case’s beautiful auburn hair, already envisioning our daughter with a soft cap of red-gold curls.
Listen to your daddy making music, I thought. Music is in your blood, my sweet girl.
Garth and Becky arrived and Garth was pulled onstage to much applause and encouragement from the growing crowd. Perhaps an hour passed; though I had not consumed a drop of alcohol I felt slightly inebriated, my thoughts rippling from one to the next. I kept thinking I saw Ruthann in the crowd of swirling dancers. My vision seemed to blur at increasing intervals. I despised the way something seemed to be holding its breath at the back of my mind, creating a pressure-cooker of increasing tension. Twice I’d felt Camille’s concerned gaze alight on me.
Something’s wrong. Something is so wrong.
I knew if I asked my sister she would admit to sensing the same thing, and so I kept quiet.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” I finally told her and Becky.
“Are you all right? Do you want me to come with?” Camille asked, but I shook my head.
No one else was in the stalls, to my relief. Alone, I bent forward and cupped my face, which was unpleasantly sweaty. I inhaled against my palms, trying to regroup.
It’s all right. Nothing is wrong – at least, not anything new.
You’re just tired. You’re pregnant, for heaven’s sake, and you didn’t sleep last night.
I tried to recapture the hopeful feeling I’d experienced earlier, at Clark’s.
It’s all right. Stop this. You have to start taking better care of yourself.
I splashed my face with cold water then patted it dry with a scratchy brown paper towel. Thank goodness I hadn’t worn any mascara this evening. I studied my eyes in the mirror; they appeared stark and bloodshot, rimmed with dark shadows.
Think, Tish.
I prided myself on being a problem solver, someone dedicated to her work, to logic and careful research. I’d completed law school in the top ten percent of my class and hated the current haze shrouding my mind. Though I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, the word I’d spoken earlier had taken root. I knew I hadn’t been referring to a weapon; all my instincts screamed that Ax was a person.
But who?
Why does that name seem familiar?
My phone, which I’d tucked in the back pocket of my jeans, suddenly vibrated. I fished it out and fumbled through my pin code; someone had just sent a text.
I need to talk to you. It’s important.
My heart seized with a violent thrust. I almost dropped the phone. For a horrible second I thought the text was from Robbie; dead Robbie entombed in his expensive coffin for the past two months. Sweat glided down my temples as I examined the words again, seeking the sender’s phone number and a rational explanation. I didn’t know the owner of the ten-digit sequence but did recognize the area code, 773. Chicago.
Despite my shaking fingers, I composed a response – Who is this?
Derrick, came the immediate answer, blunt and without further explanation. Call me right now if you can.
My heart convulsed again, this time in alarm. After weeks of hearing nothing from him, Derrick was suddenly ready to talk? I vacillated between the need to immediately dial his number or scurry back to the bar to tell Camille and Case. Before I made a choice either way my phone vibrated again, flashing a new message and communicating a repetitive sense of urgency – It’s important.
The next thing I knew I was pushing open the front door and striding outside, tense with restless energy. Assaulted by cold darkness I inhaled the thin late-winter air, searching the assemblage of parked cars and trucks as if for a sign of Derrick; I had no idea if he was in Chicago, Jalesville, or someplace else entirely. Since our confrontation with Franklin in Chicago in February, I no longer feared or hated Derrick; he had tried to warn Case and me, had told us we should leave when he knew Franklin’s appearance was imminent. And while I would hardly consider Derrick a friend, I felt an undeniable connection with him. If what we believed was true, he and I had once been married. Unhappily married, but still; something existed between us whether I wished it or not and that something could perhaps save the lives of my family.
The lot was at once familiar and alien, a stretch of blacktop I’d parked my car upon hundreds of times – but never before had it felt so menacing. Twenty feet from the safety of the front entrance I stood alone between diagonal rows of mute vehicles, heart clubbing, my breath creating an increasing vapor cloud.
Stop it, Tish, you’re imagining things. You’re not in any danger.
I pressed the icon to make a call and brought the phone to my ear.
Derrick answered on the first ring.
“Tish?” His voice was a hushed demand.
“It’s me, what is it?” I scraped hair from my forehead, shivering, my sweat evaporating in the breeze. From a short distance away I eyed The Spoke, its entrance merry with glowing beer signs. The stage was not in view of the front windows but I imagined Case and Mathias up there, playing and singing. I’d been absent from our table long enough to arouse concern; Camille would come looking for me any second.
“It’s Franklin, he’s done something,” were Derrick’s next words.
Anger and frustration tangled together in my throat, propelling forth a volley of fury. “What do you mean?! I’m tired of this bullshit! Who the fuck is Franklin? Why is he dangerous?!” I drew a shuddering breath and heard myself wail, “What has he done with Ruthann? Where is my sister?!”
“Listen to me!” Derrick yelled in an attempt to elevate his voice over mine. “I am so sorry I can’t even begin to tell you. I should have told you these things a long time ago, but I was fucked up. I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t want to betray my family…”
“What things are you talking about?!”
Derrick spoke in a quaking rush; in my mind bobbed an image of his face, pale and glossy with sweat, one hand gripping his forehead. “Franklin is Fallon, they’re the same person. His real name is Fallon Corbin Yancy and he was born in 1853, in Pennsylvania, to Thomas Yancy. He can travel through time, Tish, and does often. He’s made millions for Father and me, and Ron-fucking-Turnbull, since the nineties. I met him for the first time when I was about ten or so, and he’s been in and out of my life since then. My father reveres h
im, it’s like he’s a god. Franklin can do no wrong in Father’s eyes but he’s incredibly dangerous, like I’ve told you. I’ve known for a long time but I’ve never dared to speak out against him.”
I absorbed this tirade in semi-shocked silence, finding room to be ashamed that I had not guessed earlier. The truth had been right in front of us many months ago. A picture formed in my memory, blotting out the parking lot of The Spoke – I saw Ruthann sitting at my kitchen table, winding spaghetti noodles around her fork while laughing at something Marshall was saying, her beautiful hazel eyes flashing with love and adoration as they rested on him, seated to her immediate right. Their first date, last August, during which I’d convinced them to come to dinner at our trailer because Case and I were so excited they were finally dating and because we missed them. I ached from the inside out with the desire to return to that particular yesterday, to that very evening, and scream out the knowledge I now possessed.
I collected my voice. “How many people know this? Did Robbie know it? Was that why he was killed?”
Derrick’s voice was hoarse with conviction as he ticked off names. “Father, myself, and Ron Turnbull. No one else to my knowledge but I’ve always suspected Christina. It’s our most carefully guarded secret, so it would have been a long shot for Rob Benson to have found out. It’s possible, though. I’m not kept in the loop on everything, I assure you. I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am. I tried to get you to leave Jalesville as long ago as last summer. You wouldn’t have been entangled in everything there, if you had.”
“Why now?” I demanded, astounded by the mass of what he was unloading. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this earlier?”
“I couldn’t, don’t you see? For one thing, I’m afraid for my own safety. But now it’s gone too fucking far. Franklin is losing touch with reality. He’s obsessed with causing harm. I’m trying to get my father to see the truth.”
“Harm to my sister? To Ruthie?! Has he seen her in the past?”
“He has, and he hates her, Tish, with a ferocity I can’t explain. It’s on par with his hatred of the Rawleys and the Spicers, families whose interests have opposed his since the nineteenth fucking century.”
“Where is she? How can she get back here? How the hell can we stop him?” Questions tumbled end over end from my lips.
“Your sister somehow ended up around 1882. Time moves differently between then and now, I can tell you that, but I don’t know much else. Not nearly as much as I should. And I have no idea how to stop Franklin. He disappears without warning. He wants to stay here in the twenty-first century more than almost anything, but he always gets…snapped back, I guess, like a rubber band, to his original timeline. To a particular area around Jalesville, which was the first place he jumped through time. Why do you think we’ve been buying up that land for our own? Franklin thinks he can figure out how to close off the time barrier for good.” He heaved a shuddering sigh. “God, I know how insane this all sounds…”
“Derrick, I believe you! Keep talking!” I imagined what Case and everyone else would have to say after I dashed back inside The Spoke and summarized this volcano of a conversation. I was afire with purpose, already envisioning what we could do with such a wealth of information. The phrase ‘close off the time barrier for good’ set every alarm bell within my head to clanging.
We have to try tonight, I realized, thoughts racing ahead. We can’t wait until tomorrow. We have to drive out to the old homestead and try to bring them home before it’s too late.
“You don’t even know how dead I’d be if he knew I was telling you these things,” Derrick was saying. “I’m afraid it’s already too late…”
I froze, startled anew; he’d spoken the exact phrase I’d just been thinking, ‘too late.’ I cried, “What are you talking about?”
“He’s done something terrible. I don’t know what exactly, I haven’t seen him in the flesh since Rob’s funeral outside St. Helen’s. He was ready to kill me that day for knocking him to the sidewalk so you and Case could get away. I haven’t heard from him since then. But he called me tonight, only about five minutes ago, and left a message.”
“Can you play it for me?” I hardly recognized the high, reedy bleat of my voice.
“Hang on, I’ll try.” I heard fumbling and Derrick cursed. Slightly away from the phone he said, “Here, listen.”
Franklin’s recorded voice sounded poised, a man with no cares in the world – “I’m in town. Just arrived, and I’m curious to see what’s changed. I hope to hell they remember. She does, but it’s only a possibility, not a probability. I had such a good idea while I was away, far better than my original one. Fate is with me, brother, as you’ll soon see. And it’s a beautiful fucking thing.” Franklin chuckled and my blood congealed.
Though I knew it was an illusion sparked by my terrorized mind, all light seemed to blink from existence, plunging my body within deep, swirling water. I should have cried out, I should have turned and fled, but instead I was rendered immobile, floundering in watery gray depths.
Fate is with me, brother, as you’ll soon see –
As if from a distant shore, much too far away to reach, I heard Derrick saying, “I don’t know what it means, only that it’s something bad. You can hear how goddamn crazy he sounds.” And seconds later, “Hey, are you still there? Tish? Are you there?”
Case’s name hung suspended in my throat.
More than I’d ever known anything, I knew I had to get to him in that moment, that everything depended on it –
But a force beyond my power to control liquefied my legs and I sank to the blacktop. The cold ground seeped through my jeans. Instinctively I covered my stomach with both forearms as danger asserted itself with onrushing aggression; bile surged and I gagged. I heard Camille screaming. I heard Case yelling for me, his deep voice wild with fear, but I could not respond.
Tish! Where are you?
Where are you?!
Chapter Eleven
Jalesville, Montana - March, 2014
A ROARING FILLED MY EAR CANALS, THE OMINOUS REVER-beration of tons of water thundering over my flyspeck existence. Crushed beneath the liquid weight I huddled, sheltering my head, eyes squeezed shut in abject denial of what was happening; a part of me recognized I would never withstand such assault. My body swayed and jerked, caught in a current so far beyond my control I was no longer certain I even retained physical form or possessed an identity.
Later, the silence that followed was almost more deafening.
My eyelids parted to darkness. I blinked, lifting my chin with a slow, careful motion, black night penetrating my awareness. I lay atop gravel, curled in a compact fetal ball, clutching my shoulders in the opposite hands. Single words jabbed like small knives.
Alive.
Dry.
Quiet.
My thoughts gained form and substance.
How can I be dry when there was so much water?
Where’s Case? Where’s Camille?
Oh my God, where are they?
I lurched to all fours, pebbles rough beneath my palms and knees. Despite the dizzy undulations in my head I staggered to a standing position, seeking the only center I knew – my husband, who was mere yards away inside The Spoke. I had no idea what in the fuck had just occurred here in the parking lot but Case would make everything right again. I knew he would. He never failed to make my world right.
Thoughts were coming fast and hard now; unmerciful.
Wait a second…
I was just talking to Derrick.
He said that Franklin is Fallon Yancy.
And Fallon said –
He said –
My eyes roved across the scene before me, struggling to make sense of it; I hadn’t until this second processed the fact that the parking lot in which I stood was different than it had been earlier this evening. My phone was no longer in my hand, though I had no memory of setting it down.
What in the hell is going on?
No blacktop. No sign with a lighted arrow, announcing ‘The Spoke.’ No bright glint of bar lights or the reverberations of music being played nearby. No rows of cars and trucks, just a single green Toyota with Minnesota plates, silent beneath the streetlight. The basic structure of the wooden building housing the bar remained intact but it was silent and empty as a long-abandoned home. The windows gaped like staring eyes as I flew to the front entrance and yanked at the knob. Locked. Stunned, I turned away from the door and spied a battered For Sale sign pasted on one of the windows, ghostly in the glow of the solo streetlight.
“Case!” I shouted, jogging across the gravel to the curb lining Main Street, frantic for any sign of life, a fixed point by which to orient myself. Wild with fear, my gaze darted up and down Main, which was devoid of cars but otherwise basically the same thoroughfare I’d driven over hundreds of times; there was the single stoplight, and Nelson’s Hardware, and the law office…
I ran down the block toward the building where I had worked since last summer, breathing hard, pressing my hands to the cold windows in order to peer inside. Of course I could see nothing but darkness within the confines of the office. Seconds ticked past, along with my accelerating heart. I retreated two steps, scanning the words Al had painted on the window last August to celebrate my joining him in legal practice, gold letters in fancy script proclaiming Howe and Spicer, Attorneys at Law.
“What…”
I reached and traced a finger over the surnames, scripted in black, and which had not changed since I’d first seen them, long before I’d decided to make my stay in Jalesville a permanent one.
“Howe and James…” I whispered, releasing a sharp, disbelieving breath, spinning around to confront the deserted street. Frightened confusion blurred my vision. I placed both palms against my cold face, taking stock, seeking reality – seeking what I knew to be true. I was wearing heeled boots, fitted dress pants, and a coat, a long wool one I didn’t recognize. When I’d exited The Spoke I’d been wearing jeans, my well-worn snow boots, and Case’s blue plaid flannel over a white t-shirt. My hair was much longer than it had been only minutes ago when I’d been talking to Derrick in the parking lot, falling in thick curls over my shoulders like it had all through college. A quick examination of my left hand showed I was not wearing my wedding ring.
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