Third Time is a Charm

by Cate Martin

  When I was feeling more myself, I plunged into what I really wanted to say. "I have some things I wanted to talk to you to about," I said to the two of them. "I was just working on my meditation practice when I thought of a way that I could make sure that my body is still breathing even when my consciousness is away from it. I'm not sure what people that do that astral projection thing do, but when I'm in that place I can see the threads that connect all things. I see my body like a web of energy all interconnected, but I can also focus on the threads that are individual parts of my physical form. So I just had to grab a couple of them that corresponded to my lungs and make sure I stayed in contact with my body with those threads. My heart takes care of itself, thank goodness."

  "That sounds like the same sort of thing I've been reading about," Brianna said.

  "Well, all I know is, it worked. I was careful, I checked back on myself a lot, but I managed to leave my body. Three separate times."

  "That sounds really risky," Sophie said. "I thought you were going to wait for someone to watch while you attempted this?"

  "I was, but it just sort of flowed out of that meditation practice," I said. "I wasn't really thinking about trying to do it; I just tried to do it. There was no plan. But it worked."

  "Still, I want you to promise you won't do that again. Not that exact thing, of course. If you say it's safe, then I'll believe you that it's safe. But don't try another risky thing without letting one or the other of us know what you're up to."

  "We do the same with each other, Sophie and I, when we try new things," Brianna said.

  "While, mostly Brianna," Sophie said. "She's the daredevil."

  "Fine," I agreed readily, reaching for another sandwich. "But that's not all that I wanted to talk to you about."

  "Okay, so go ahead," Sophie said. The coffee machine had finally finished running, and she filled three mugs and carried them over to the table. Brianna brought the rest of the Styrofoam container, and she and Sophie took a sandwich each as they waited for me to talk.

  "Some of this I told you last night, but just let me say it all again in order. I'm still trying to get it all straight in my head."

  The two of them nodded, picking at their sandwiches, but didn't interrupt.

  "So it all started last night," I began, "in the hallway outside of that empty apartment building. I was just walking by the door when I felt the sudden splitting pain in my head. At the time I wasn't sure what it was. It could've just been a really intense headache. I've never had a migraine, but I imagine that anything that could be described as a thunderclap headache would be pretty close to what I was feeling right at that moment. But I didn't know what it was, or what it meant.

  "That was the only one that happened before I saw the two of you. So, like I said, I wasn't sure what it was. But then, when I had gone to my room to go to bed, it happened again. Only this time, it wasn't a headache. It was a burning pain across my throat as if someone had just slit my throat with a knife. It was very intense, but like before it ended very quickly. That was harder to chalk up to natural causes. Headaches people get all the time, but a pain like that across the outside of your throat? It just didn't seem natural.

  "So I decided to go back to the apartment, to see if I could find out more about what was going on. I still didn't really have any kind of a theory, except for that it seemed to have started outside the apartment, so perhaps the apartment was part of it. So, like I told you, I found that key and went next door and used it to get into the apartment.

  "There was nothing in it but dust and cobwebs and an old wardrobe in the bedroom. It was dark - the lights didn't work - but when I opened the wardrobe door I know I was looking inside an empty wardrobe for at least a part of the second. But then I was attacked again. This time it was like being stabbed all over my body, first in the chest and then in my back. And when I opened my eyes, there was a body, and it had been stabbed all over, just where I had felt the pain the moment before. And the body was from a different time period."

  "But we don't know that for sure," Sophie said. "There could be other explanations."

  "I suppose so if one wanted to keep an open mind about all possibilities," I said. "But I don't think that kind of openness is going to do us much good. Because we know that there are ways to connect our time to that time. And even though we've all looked and we're sure that our bridge wasn't part of it, that doesn't change that basic fact. If we see the body of a man dressed for 1927, it's not exactly improbable that he's from 1927. We know that there are ways to move through time, and we also know that the bridge here is not the only one."

  I waited for the two of them to respond. Sophie was nodding thoughtfully, but Brianna was just staring down at the top of the table, a mouthful of food that she seemed to have forgotten to finish chewing puffing out her cheeks.

  "The wardrobe isn't over there anymore. The police moved it. I wanted to get another look at it, but it's gone," I said.

  "But you said you looked at it pretty closely last night, right?" Sophie asked.

  "Yes, I did. I didn't notice anything in particular about it. It seemed like it might be magical, but it was nothing like Mina Fox's crystal ball. Nothing like that at all."

  "Well, it wouldn't be," Brianna said, realized she was talking with her mouth full, and quickly chewed and swallowed before going on. "The crystal ball contained Mina Fox. That is a very rare particular kind of magic. I wished we'd've gotten a chance to look at that wardrobe. I would like to do some tests on it as well. There are lots of ways of crafting magical objects that don't involve such malignant energies."

  "But we're surrounded with that kind of stuff," Sophie said. "This house is full of it. Maybe a good next step for Amanda would be to be spending more time in that other place, what did you call it? The web world?"

  "Web world works," I agreed. "And that's not a bad idea."

  "No, I think it's a very good idea," Brianna said. "In fact, it would make sense to look at some specific items first. Miss Zenobia created lots of things with the specific purpose of containing magical things she didn't want to get loose. If you examined enough objects enchanted with such spells, you'd know them again if you saw them."

  "That's a good idea," I said. "But there was something else I was stewing over," I said. "I was thinking about why was I was feeling these things all."

  "Because you were closest?" Sophie suggested.

  "But that second time, I wasn't. I wasn't even in the building. So, did it mark me with the first one and follow me here? Or was it something else?"

  "You have a theory," Brianna said.

  "Yes, I have a theory," I said. "Because that man, I'm sure he was from 1927. He moved across time, not using our bridge, but somehow he moved across time."

  "And time is your sort of magic?" Sophie asked.

  "Exactly," I said. "What if that's why it happened to me? Maybe I'm more attuned to disturbances in the space-time continuum or whatever. Or what if it was my power that attracted the sensations to me?"

  "Interesting," Brianna said. "Actually, I've read about something not too different from that."

  "Really?" I asked.

  "Yes, I don't know about time magic in particular," Brianna said. "There are other kinds of magic certain witches have more of an affinity to. The most common are those having an affinity for a particular element. Like fire or water or earth. And the attraction with objects connected to that same element, that's actually pretty common. Some witches have it worse than others, of course. It depends on your raw power and your capacity for control both. But I'm thinking of one fire witch in particular. She was one of the ones who had no training until she was an adult. Her mother died or something. But she was a fire witch without knowing it, and she attracted fire like nobody's business."

  "That doesn't sound good," Sophie said.

  "It wasn't," Brianna said. "Every house she lived in as a girl burned down within a year or two of her moving into it. It was pretty tragic. I mean, she didn't
even know she was a witch. At least not the first couple of times."

  "Then what happened?" I asked.

  "Some other witches found her and took her in. And then she studied. She studied her power, and magic in general, and she learned how to control the attraction."

  "Sounds like something I need to work on," I said. "I don't want this sort of thing to keep happening."

  "Or to intensify," Sophie added. I nodded.

  "Well, I can see if I can find that book," Brianna said. "Also, I could ask the witches that raised me. They know other witches, lots of other witches. One of them must've had experience with this. Like I said, the elemental kind of magic is pretty common."

  "I would appreciate that," I said.

  "And I need to find you some of those magical objects," Brianna said, already fishing her little notebook out of her pocket. She turned to a blank page and started making a new list. With lots of bullet points.

  "Really, there's no hurry," I said. "When you have the time. I have some things to work on in the meantime myself."

  She gave me an absent-minded nod but kept on writing out her list.

  I took one more egg sandwich and carried it up the stairs with me to the library. But I didn't go back to the little corner table where all those books were still waiting for me. Instead, I went to another little windowless alcove, the one where we kept our computer.

  After a few moments working my search engine magic, I had a name to go with the address for the apartment next door to Nick's grandfather.

  Mr. and Mrs. Lambeau.

  Only a last name, no first name. And further searching didn't turn anything else up. But then, Nick's grandfather had said that they kept to themselves.

  Still, I wasn't sure how much use I would get out of knowing just the last name.

  I looked at the clock in the corner of the computer screen and saw that it was a couple minutes after eight. A perfectly reasonable time to be calling someone.

  But when I called Nick's cell phone, it went straight to voicemail. I disconnected and sent him a quick text.

  Nick, hope all is well. Any updates?

  I waited, probably for too long, but he never answered. I supposed he was in class and had to keep his phone put away.

  Still, I couldn't wait around all day. I had to find something useful to do.

  I supposed if I searched online resources long enough I could find a list of everyone that was reported murdered or missing in November 1927. I even knew where I'd start such a search.

  Or I could just go to 1927 and check the local papers there myself. Yes, that was the much more appealing option.

  Chapter 9

  As much as she talked about it, Brianna had never quite gotten around to building a weather prediction machine. Well, not really predicting, just telling us what things were like on the other side of the bridge in 1927.

  Still, that's what almanacs were for. I quickly checked and saw that while the temperature was largely the same, they'd had some recent snow. So boots would be in order.

  I was cautious going up the attic steps in case I disturbed Sophie, but she had gone on to some other activity, and the room was quite empty. Without her warm wind, it was chilly and dark in the space under the slanted roof. I scurried over to my closet and assembled an outfit as quickly as I could, remembering to include hat and gloves, boots and a coat. Then I went back to my much warmer room to change.

  Dressed and wearing Cynthia's little amulet tucked under the neckline of my burgundy day dress and with the golden skeleton key in one pocket, I went downstairs and out the back door.

  The thin wool of the coat wasn't as wind resistant as more modern fabrics, but it was warm enough. I was still feeling a little shaky from all of the work I had done that morning, so I conserved my energy and just let the amulet carry me across time.

  I would feel guilty later about missing the opportunity to practice what was really the key spell of my calling.

  Then I was once more in the backyard, but a version of our backyard with shorter trees, different garden features, and a fresh layer of snow covering everything. It was lovely but almost too bright under the full light of the morning sun. I scurried up the steps and into the solarium. There I took off my hat and coat and slipped out of my snow-covered boots. There was a row of warm slippers standing near the back door. I didn't know whose were whose - I didn't even know who was around in 1927 - so I just chose a pair at random and slipped my stockinged feet inside.

  The heater that kept the house warm might've been newer in 1927, but it wasn't any more effective. The house was filled with the same slightly chill air as it had in my day.

  I passed through the kitchen and up the front steps to the library. As always, it look like I had just missed everyone. Books sat on tables with the pages open, notebooks covered in writing beside them, pencils resting as if they'd just been set down. There were plates of toast with a few bites missing, and they didn't look the least bit stale. Even the cups of tea that rested nearby were still steaming.

  The table closest to the door, under the windows that opened out onto the porch that stood over the front door, was where Mr. Trevor always put the newspapers in the morning. But he hadn't started that tradition; it was already how they did things in 1927. I pulled a chair over to the table, sat down, and paged through every newspaper from cover to cover, scanning every story for the slightest hint of anyone being murdered or any prominent person that was missing.

  Nothing. Nothing at all.

  It was possible that the man I saw wasn't anyone important enough to be reported in the newspaper. I hadn't gotten a good look at his clothes, not in the dim light that came through that narrow window. Especially not in the shadows inside the wardrobe. I'd only gotten a good look at his hat.

  It had seemed like a very nice hat, nicely made and stiffly new. I was sure that he must have been someone important. So why wasn't he in the paper?

  Was it possible that the wardrobe didn't follow the same timeline as our bridge? In that case, he might've died weeks or months ago.

  He might not even be dead yet.

  If only Nick could get back to me with details. The police had the body, but I doubted they would get an ID, as helpful as having a name would be. But perhaps he could get me a photograph? Something I could carry around in 1927 and ask people if the man looked familiar?

  Having gone through every newspaper, I went to the shelf in the library where we kept all the local directories, one for each year as far back as the school had existed. In my day, this shelf was overflowing. In 1927 there was still lots of room. I started with the most recent directory then went back one by one for at least ten years. There was no sign of any family named Lambeau living anywhere in St. Paul.

  They might've been recluses, or they might have kept themselves out of the directory for some other reason, nefarious or not. But if they were as wealthy as Nick's grandfather had implied, they should be listed. As a prominent family, it wasn't really optional.

  Which left the possibility that they just weren't in St. Paul yet. That made sense. They couldn't have moved into the condo until the late 1980s. I guess I had just assumed that they'd moved in there from some other part of St. Paul. But they could be from anywhere.

  I ran a hand through my hair in frustration. They could be from anywhere; the body could come from any time. I wasn't really narrowing anything down.

  I went back downstairs, slipped my feet out of the warm slippers and back into the boots. I buttoned up the coat and pulled the hat down low over my ears. The gloves were very thin and not very warm, but my coat had pockets deep enough to keep me warm up past my wrists. I plunged my hands in those pockets because I wasn't intending just to go back to the present. I was going to take a walk around 1927.

  Or rather, I wanted to take a walk around the web world of 1927.

  I went out to the end of the back porch and looked up at the house next door to Miss Zenobia Weekes' Charm School for Exceptional Young Ladi
es. In my day, this was a condo built in the 1980s. It had been something else in the years between, I knew. But right now it was the house that belonged to Coco and her family. At some point it was going to burn down, I'd never looked up exactly when. I kind of didn't want to know. Brianna said we couldn't change things that had happened in the past and was very insistent that we never, ever try.

  The house that was built to follow, I knew, hadn't lasted very long either. But that wasn't fire. It hadn't been built well in the first place and was torn down by new owners to build the condos.

  There would be no reason at all for the wardrobe to have existed on that plot of land through so many different buildings and owners, but I just had to be sure. I sat down on the end of the porch, making sure to keep the wool of my coat underneath me so I wouldn't get too cold.

  Then I closed my eyes and shifted my awareness to that other place.

  This time it happened in the blink of an eye. It was getting easier and easier. I looked down at my body, then caught hold of the threads to keep my lungs functioning.

  Now inside the web world, I looked up at the building next door. It was perfectly ordinary, in truth, but with more little knots of thread that I knew meant living people than I expected. I'd never been inside of it, I'd only ever met Coco outside in her yard and the rest of her family not at all. But given the time period and the wealth of the family, I would guess they had a lot of servants.

  There wasn't any sign of the wardrobe. There wasn't any sign of anything magical at all. It was what I had expected to see, and yet still I found it vaguely disappointing.

  I came back to where I had left my body, the thread still pulsating gently in my non-corporeal hand as my body kept breathing. Then I looked up at the house looming over me. Miss Zenobia Weekes' Charm School for Exceptional Young Ladies. In my time, it looked perfectly ordinary, if a bit overly filled with not-so-ordinary things.

  There was something wrong with what I was looking at now. I couldn't see exactly what it was, but something was telling me that there was something just a bit off. What was it?