Elliot rolled his eyes but he did as Darcy instructed and swung the door shut. The perfumed scent was overpowering inside the tiny box and the smell was giving him a headache. He told himself he’d count to five and then he’d climb out but unfortunately, he never had the chance.
Chapter Seven
When he thought about it afterwards, Elliot was never sure what happened first. He knew he was about to open the door to get out but what came next might have been either the ear-splitting bang, Darcy’s shout of horror, or the blinding burst of furnace-hot light. Anyway, it didn’t really matter which was first. It was the end result that mattered.
Several seconds after what Elliot eventually came to think of as the catalyst, he had the sudden bizarre sense that he was moving at a rapid speed before coming to an abrupt halt. Panic took over as he battled to open the door but it wouldn’t budge. Dizzy and frightened, and now painfully pushed up against the side of the box with his shoulder twisted at an odd angle, Elliot managed to wrestle one leg out from beneath him just far enough to enable him to aim his foot at the door and kick hard.
The door buckled under the force of his hammering foot and he saw a thin wedge of light shine through the crack at the side. “What in the devil’s name happened, Darcy?” He put his shoulder up against the door and shoved it open before tumbling out onto what he thought was the table in Darcy’s house.
Except it wasn’t.
He blinked in the bright light and gazed around, dumbstruck by what he saw laid out before him. The table was gone, the room with the plans and diagrams tacked to the wall was gone, and Darcy himself was gone. In their place was… what? He seemed to be in woods of some kind, or at least a parcel of vacant land with short, stunted grass and a few straggly, unhealthy trees. He shut his eyes and opened them again, thinking that his mild drunkenness of the previous night had returned, or perhaps he’d experienced a brief moment of memory loss. What just happened?
“What are you doing here? He was supposed to give me some warning. You’re lucky that I saw the lights otherwise we’d be in no end of trouble.”
Elliot turned to see a young woman wearing a man’s garb of a loose shirt and slim, fitted trousers. He’d seen women like this before, but not often. Sometimes women dressed as men in an attempt to find work on the docks or perhaps to wrangle themselves a position as a member of the crew on sailing ships, although they were quickly outed as soon as anyone noticed. Her black hair was loose and untied, as if someone had interrupted her before she could fix it into a bun and find her bonnet, and her eyes were a startling shade of blue. “Who are you?”
“Ramona.” She seemed annoyed, or perhaps perplexed was a better way to describe the look on her face. “Where’s Darcy?”
The mention of his new friend’s name gave him some relief. If she knew Darcy, she might be able to point the way back to his house. Once he was at Darcy’s house, he could easily find his way back to the streets he knew well and he could then put this whole sorry episode behind him. “You know Darcy?”
She looked past him at the time machine, apparently noticing it for the first time. “What did you do to the door?”
“It was stuck. There’s not much room in there and I was frantic to get out. Wait, have you seen this machine before now?” He pulled off the helmet, suddenly aware he was still wearing it and feeling foolish for doing so.
“Yes, of course I have. I’ve been inside it more times than you can count.” She walked with quick steps across the grass to inspect the machine further. “Darcy will be really mad if you’ve broken it.”
He stared down at her shoes, the likes of which he’d never seen before. They were made of a brightly coloured fabric and the toes were round and blunt, rather than following the narrow natural shape of her foot. That was another thing – her feet were huge. She was tall for a woman too, nearly matching him in height. No wonder she thought she could get away with passing herself off as a man.
“Why did he send you so early? You are Elliot Cinder, aren’t you?”
“Yes…” He stared at her, trying to make sense of her words. She was bold and outspoken, much like the ladies of the night who lurked around the laneways, yet she didn’t give off the broken aura and downtrodden misery of a woman who was forced to sell her body for a shilling or less. “Are we far from Darcy’s house?”
She gave a mirthless laugh. “You’re a funny one. That wasn’t mentioned in the brief. Where did Darcy find you?”
“Chaney’s Tavern.” It felt as if days had passed since he sat and drank his gloomy, solitary tankard of beer at the dirty little tavern. He looked hopefully out through a gap in the trees, over to where he could just glimpse the grey stone side of a building. “Is Chaney’s far from here?”
She stared at him as if trying to determine if he were serious or perhaps playing a prank. “You’re very lean. A strong breeze would probably blow you away but I guess Darcy knew what he was doing. How much did he tell you before he fired up the machine?”
“Fired up the machine?” Her words made no sense but she was still staring at him as if she expected him to have the answers to her questions. “Darcy didn’t tell me much. He showed me the machine after a light breakfast of tea, toast, and marmalade and he asked me to slip inside to test if the door. He said he wanted to test the fit. As soon as the door opened again, I was going to make my excuses and leave.” He shrugged helplessly. “I really don’t know how I got here.”
“Crap. This isn’t good.” She barred her teeth into a grimace, which strangely enough enhanced her fine cheekbones and hinted at a certain prettiness if only she’d bothered to dress herself properly.
Crap? He wasn’t shocked by the word but he’d never heard it used in that context before. She’d used it as an expletive rather than a descriptive. But then again, Ramona wasn’t anything like any woman he’d ever met before.
“Ok, tell me what you know.” She had her hands on her hips now, which only served to highlight her broad shoulders. Perhaps she had managed to fool the men down on the docks and get herself some haulage work. Lifting crates built muscles but it wasn’t the best look for a woman. Women were supposed to be dainty and light, with slim shoulders and coy glances. Annie.
“Tell you what I know? I know that I met a man named Darcy Darcel at Chaney’s Tavern last evening. He paid for a few drinks and a platter of cheese and bread before offering me a room for the night.” He hesitated, wondering if she’d be offended if he insulted her friend. He lowered his voice confidingly to compensate. “I’m not sure how sane he is.”
Her laugh this time was genuine and pleasantly musical to his ears. “Darcy’s about as sane as any man can get. You don’t have to worry about that.”
Elliot raised his eyebrows but he continued anyway. “He kept telling me that he needed me to complete a task for him in the future. Over one hundred years in the future, to be exact. He said I had the attributes that women needed to keep them safe and protect them.” Annie’s dear face flashed up in his mind again and he hurriedly cleared his throat and moved on. “He showed me his fancy machine, I went to bed, and in the morning we shared breakfast before he took me back to the room where he’d stored it. To tell you the truth, I was more interested in the depictions of his dreams that adorn his walls than I was in his machine.”
“And that’s it?”
Elliot had thought it was more than enough, but apparently it wasn’t. “He has some interesting ideas,” he finished lamely.
She turned away again to look at the machine, shaking her head as she inspected the buckled door. “I think you’re here by mistake. That’s why you arrived earlier than expected. This is a problem that I don’t have time to deal with today and I’m not sure what Darcy would want me to do.”
Her uncertainty had a minor charm of its own but Elliot was more than ready to be on his way. “I should go. Point me in the right direction and I’ll leave.”
“No!” She whirled around, her eyes flashing brilliant blue spa
rks that he might have found attractive in another setting and another place. “You can’t go anywhere on your own. Not until we get this sorted out.”
She was beginning to irritate him. “I’m not accustomed to women telling me what I should do,” he said stiffly. “Good day, ma’am.” He went to tip his hat but he realised he wasn’t wearing one. He’d left it … where? His overcoat too was missing, left on the coat stand at Darcy’s house. He suddenly felt naked and very exposed. He needed to get back there and collect his things.
“No. You can’t go.” She said it with authority, as if she expected him to obey her without question. “We’ll be in all kinds of trouble if I let you go. You’ll have to come back home with me until I’ve worked out what to do next.”
“I beg your pardon, but I am not the type of man to accept a strange woman’s invitation into her home. You clearly have me confused for someone else, someone of far looser morals than I.” He spun on his heel, his eyes fixed on the grey building that he’d sighted earlier. “Good day.”
“Uh-uh.” She lunged forward and grabbed a fistful of the back of his shirt with a grip containing a surprising amount of strength. “Weren’t you listening? You’re not going anywhere without me.”
Chapter Eight
“Unhand me.” Elliot had grown tired of people asking if he was listening when they all talked in riddles to begin with. He twisted out of Ramona’s grip and glared at her.
Ramona kept her hand up in the air, as if she was considering grabbing him again. “You don’t understand. Something has gone terribly wrong. You shouldn’t have come this far without adequate preparation and I don’t know how you’re going to get back now that the machine is out of service.”
“I’ll walk back. My feet haven’t let me down before.” Once again, he set off to walk through the trees. She didn’t try to touch him again but she hurried to match his stride. “Elliot, it’s impossible to walk back. You’re not where you think you are.”
“I have an excellent memory. As soon as I see a few landmarks that I recognise…” He reached the edge of the woods and came to an abrupt halt, unable to believe what his eyes were seeing. There were no cobbled streets, no narrow lanes, and the smog-laden skyline laid out in front of him wasn’t remotely familiar. The sky itself looked different, the blue colour thinner and more watery than he remembered. “What is this? Where am I?”
“I’ve been trying to tell you. You’ve jumped forward to the year 2020. I know it’s a lot to take in without any preparation but you’re doing remarkably well. The helmet clearly didn’t work and Darcy will have to look into why at some stage. I do have a backup but we haven’t finished testing it.” She pinched her bottom lip between her teeth as he turned his dumbstruck attention back to the scene in front of him. The street was flat and smooth, unlike the cobbled, paved, or rutted roads he was used to. There was feeling of space without space and the buildings looked too square and perfect to be real. Not only that, but there were a large number of horseless carriages moving at great speed along the causeway. He felt suddenly nauseous and out of his depth. He’d somehow landed in the middle of a waking dream and he had no clue of how he was supposed to get out.
“Sorry about this.” Ramona pulled something out of her pocket and before he knew what she was doing, she’d wrapped a flexible strap around his wrist and fastened it tightly. “This won’t hurt a bit.”
When Elliot next opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was that his head felt heavier, as if someone had stuffed it full of rags. He had a vague and bizarre idea that the overstuffed feeling was due to new knowledge that he hadn’t yet found a place for but he couldn’t figure out how he’d come up with such a notion. The second thing he noticed was that he was lying on the grass and Ramona was gazing down at him.
“You’ll probably feel a bit strange,” she said, mastering the understatement. “But not half as strange as you would’ve felt if you had walked out into that crazy modern world without any idea of what you’d be likely to see.”
He jumped to his feet and she put out a cautionary hand to steady him. “Careful. Don’t move so fast. You’ll be a little woozy for five minutes or so.”
New words tumbled over each other inside his head, new certainties where before there had been none, and a new understanding that he would find little here to shock him. He raised his fingers to his temples and massaged gently. “What have you done to me?”
“Modernized you. Right, I’ll take you back to my place and we’ll sort out a plan. We might as well make the most of you while you’re here. It’s not as if there isn’t plenty of work to do. There’s always plenty of work to do.” She marched off and he hurriedly followed her, suddenly anxious about being left alone. “Your place? Your tene…” A strange word swooped in unbidden to replace the word he’d been about to use. “Apartment?” It felt odd on his tongue, a word untasted but at the same time cautiously familiar.
“Yeah. It’s just across the street, which was why I noticed your arrival.” She stepped to the edge of the footpath and looked left and right with the ease of someone who had done this many times before.
“Cars.” He stood beside her and watched in amazement as the vehicles sped past. He knew these machines without ever having known them.
“I have one for you to use while you’re here. It’s a little beat up but it will serve the purpose.” She glanced at him then, her face alight with curiosity. “How long are you staying? Did you discuss that with Darcy?”
“I discussed nothing with Darcy. I was finishing my cup of tea and then I was going to leave.” The band on his wrist pulsed gently, soothing away some of his fears with a magic of its own.
She pulled a face. “It’s worse than I thought. Darcy must be beside himself. I’ll try to contact him later and let him know you’re ok.” Without warning, she slipped her hand into his. “We can cross now. This part will take some practice, at least until you get better at judging the speed of vehicles, but think quickly and walk quickly and you should be alright.” She tugged on his hand and they trotted across the street to reach the square and tall building on the other side. “This is my apartment block. You’ll have your own apartment of course, but I’ll need a day or two to organise it. This whole thing has caught me on the hop. Darcy has never done anything like this before.”
The words boss, manager, and supervisor swirled through his head and he grabbed for one of them. “Are you the manager of whatever it is that Darcy asked me to do?”
“Sort of.” She punched a code into the keypad on the door. Bizarrely enough, he knew what everything was and why she was doing it. His head throbbed and the stuffy feeling grew worse. She peered at him closely. “Are you ok?”
“I think so. There are so many new things in my head.”
“I’m not surprised. We haven’t had anyone from so long ago come here before. You’re the first from the 1800s. Our other candidates were all from more recent times.”
She went to place her hand on the door handle but he reached past her to take it from her. “After you,” he said valiantly. It was an attempt to show Ramona that he wasn’t so far gone that he’d forgotten his manners but Elliot also knew of the hidden message behind such an act. Opening a door for a woman might be deemed as polite and courteous but it left the man entirely in control of the situation, just as nature intended. With the young lady made to feel secure by this show of his good intentions, a man could step in behind her and do whatever he wished. Not that he would, of course. The thought had obviously briefly crossed his mind, especially when he glimpsed the thrust of her buttocks in those outrageous pair of trousers, but he made sure his thoughts kept traveling on rather than lingering where they shouldn’t.
She pushed the Up button for the elevator. I know elevators, his brain insisted. He gazed around, bemused rather than shocked. The knowledge he needed to recognise everything he saw slipped deftly into place without any prompting on his part.
“I’m on the fifth floor. I’l
l try to get you an apartment in this block but I’m not sure if we have any vacancies. Anyway, I’m sure we’ll manage.” She stepped into the elevator ahead of him. “You’re in for some exciting times, Elliot Cinder.”
He warily stepped in beside her before the doors closed. “Why did Darcy choose me? He knew me by name when he approached me and I didn’t get around to asking him how he knew it.” He didn’t add that he was drunk at the time.
“Darcy has his own way of knowing,” Ramona said mysteriously. “And he wasn’t the only one involved in the decision. Your personal history played a large role in your selection for the role. I’m very sorry, by the way. About Annie. It must’ve been devastating for you.”
Her unexpected use of Annie’s name bought a lump to his throat. He ducked his head to hide the sudden shine of tears, pretending an interest in the strap on his wrist. “What do you know of Annie?”
“I know she was a very lucky young woman to be loved in the way that you loved her,” she said simply. The doors whispered open again. “This is my floor. Come on in and we’ll have a chat about what you can expect next.”
Chapter Nine
Her apartment was a wonderland of new delights but the part that amazed him the most was that she lived here alone. Several times now, he’d asked her to confirm it.
“I don’t know why you find it so surprising. You lived alone.”
“Yes, but I’m a man,” he insisted. “Men have certain privileges.”
Her eyes widened and she grabbed his wrist to check that the fastening on the strap hadn’t loosened. “There’s our first blip. I told you this was untested. You were supposed adopt the knowledge that both genders are equal.”
Lay Down Your Hand Page 4
