The Grandmother Paradox

by Wendy Nikel

  “There will be no funny business here,” she warns us, glaring at me in particular. I just grin. Despite her penchant for floral décor, Mrs. Rosebloom has the scrappy, solid appearance of a boxer. No, I won’t be crossing her.

  When morning arrives, Mrs. Rosebloom invites us to breakfast in her bright, floral-adorned dining room, and—not wanting to get on her bad side—I immediately concede, even though I’d rather get started on our task right away. Dr. Wells has agreed to visit the newspaper offices and place the ads which Juliette wrote on the train, while the two of us plan to gather our stack of flyers and head to the Columbian Exposition itself. There, we’ll scope out the men hanging around the midway, strike up conversations about the shows, and arrange auditions for those who have a knack for magic and a desire to travel. All we need is a place to hold the auditions, and—as I enter Mrs. Rosebloom’s parlor—I decide it will do quite nicely.

  “Mrs. Rosebloom,” I say, putting on my most charming smile. “What a lovely home you have here.”

  “It’s been in my family for generations,” she says, ushering me to the breakfast table, where we find a spread of scrambled eggs, sweet rolls, and platters of fruit. “It was built by my great-grandfather, first house in the neighborhood. Used to have a clear view to the lake from the widow’s walk.”

  I nod appreciatively as I load up my plate. After weeks of fairground food and watery stew, I’m eager to have something with a little more substance. Across the table, Juliette’s already nibbling on a piece of toast with jam, and Dr. Wells stirs cream into his tea.

  “Mrs. Rosebloom,” I say, “I was hoping that we might make use of your parlor as we interview candidates for the position we’re trying to fill. None of the rented rooms are large enough for a proper display of magic, and that way, you could watch as well… be our test audience. What do you think?”

  Mrs. Rosebloom purses her lips, and for a moment, I worry she might say no.

  “Yes, I suppose that will do,” she says. “Though you’ll need to inform me ahead of time so that I might have refreshments prepared.”

  “Refreshments?”

  “Well, I can’t possibly host a show without refreshments. I’ve a dozen ladies in my quilting circle; I suppose I’ll have to set up the chairs on the outside edges of the room so you have plenty of room for your show.”

  “I… A dozen? For the show?”

  “That doesn’t seem fair to you? Use of my parlor in exchange for a bit of amusement for a few old biddies?”

  Juliette smiles at me over her coffee mug. She looks as though she’s fighting back laughter.

  “Sure,” I say, throwing up my arms. “Why not?”

  “Good.” Mrs. Rosebloom wipes the corner of her mouth with a napkin embroidered with—what else?—a rosebud. “More coffee?”

  After we’ve eaten our fill, Juliette offers to remain behind and help Mrs. Rosebloom clean up the breakfast things.

  “We won’t be long,” she promises, and the two women smile as though they’ve just been itching to get us men out of the dining room so they can discuss us privately.

  Dr. Wells chatters about his plans for the day: “First stop will be the Tribune’s office, of course, to place those advertisements. Let’s see… 1893. No Chicago World or Examiner yet, though the Herald is still in print, so I ought to stop there as well. I could wait with you until Miss Argent is ready to leave—”

  Suddenly, I have an idea.

  “No, no. You go on ahead,” I say. “I believe I forgot something up in Mrs. Rosebloom’s parlor.”

  “Indeed?” Dr. Wells raises his eyebrow. It’s a feeble excuse and I know it doesn’t fool him, but he sighs and waves me away. “Well, go on then with whatever it is that you need to do. I shall meet you two for dinner, correct?”

  “We’ll be there,” I promise.

  As soon as Dr. Wells descends the stairs, I turn and head the other way, careful to keep my footfalls light. As I pass Mrs. Rosebloom’s door on the second floor, I press my ear to it just long enough to ensure that Juliette is still inside. I don’t like the thought of snooping through her things, but when else am I going to get an opportunity to search for the journal?

  Juliette’s voice is muffled through the door, but I feel like I’d know it anywhere. “Whatever do you mean, Mrs. Rosebloom?”

  “I see the way you two look at one another.” Our hostess’s words are harder to make out, and the next ones I don’t catch at all, though from the tone, it sounds as though she ends with a question.

  “I don’t know,” Juliette says. “To be honest, there’s a lot I don’t know about him. I wish I did. I can’t help but feel that he’s hiding something from me.”

  I step away from the door, my heart heavy. The uncertainty in her voice pains me. There are so many things I wish I could tell her, but I can’t.

  It’s hard to pull myself away, but I don’t know how much time I have, so I race up the stairs and turn the knob of Juliette’s door carefully, praying she didn’t bother to lock it when she went down to breakfast. Fortunately, it opens with barely a creak.

  I scour her sitting room first, pulling open the table drawer and sifting through the pockets of Juliette’s coat. By the time I finish, I’m sweating, and—irritated—I throw my own coat on the chair where I’ll be sure to see it before leaving.

  In the back room, I search beneath the canopy bed and in the dresser drawers before reluctantly turning to Juliette’s trunk. Somehow opening that seems a greater invasion of her privacy than looking in Mrs. Rosebloom’s furnishings, but I have to find that journal for Dr. Wells.

  I kneel beside the trunk and its lock clicks open easily beneath my fingers. Neatly folded clothing takes up half the space inside—soft swatches of cotton and muslin and a silk gown I’ve never seen on her, all smelling of heady lavender. On the other side are books and other personal effects. I turn them over reverently, reading each of the books’ titles, wondering how many times she’s read each one, which is her favorite, and how I might bring them up in conversation without admitting to snooping.

  Finally, I find the journal, tucked between Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon and Jane C. Loudon’s The Mummy!: Or a Tale of the Twenty-Second Century. The irony is not lost on me.

  I flip through the pages, searching for the one that’s lost in Dr. Wells’s time. There, in the back, whole and clear and undamaged is the image of the Wormhole Device.

  There’s a noise in the other room, and, panicking, I tear out the page opposite it, which is filled with equations entirely indecipherable to me and I shove it into my pocket. I toss the book into her trunk, bringing the lid down gently just as a figure steps into the doorway.

  Juliette.

  I draw in my breath, bracing for anger and irritation. She has every right to be offended, but when she meets my eye, her expression is one of wide-eyed wonder.

  “I’m so sorry—” I begin, but then I see that she’s holding my jacket in one hand and the shining black orb of the Wormhole Device in the other. Her gaze flickers from the device to her trunk, where the journal with its matching illustration lies.

  “Take me with you,” she says.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Take you…?”

  “I know what this is,” she holds out the device. “I know what its purpose is, and now it makes so much sense. Where you’ve come from, all the strange things you’ve said, that entire discussion with Dr. Wells at the tavern. You’re from the future.”

  My mouth feels dry. This is not how this is supposed to go. But I can’t lie. Not to her. “I can’t.”

  “Can’t what? Can’t tell me?” She settles her hands on her hips. “Or can’t take me with you?”

  “Look.” I run my fingers through my hair. I’m completely unprepared for this conversation. “I can’t explain everything. In fact, I don’t think I can really explain anything else without breaking the rules—”

  “There’s rules? What are they? Do people frequently time trav
el where you’re from? When you’re from,” she corrects herself.

  “No. No, this… it’s a well-kept secret. Hardly anyone knows it’s possible and the few who do aren’t allowed to discuss it. I shouldn’t be talking about this. Not here. Not now.”

  “How far into the future are you from?” Juliette asks. “At least tell me that much.”

  It’s a simple question, or at least it should be. “Technically? About a hundred years.”

  Juliette raises her eyebrows and whispers, “A hundred years. We must seem so primitive to you.”

  “No, not at all. In fact—”

  “Viggo,” Juliette says sharply. “Did you know that was going to happen? That he was going to—”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Then why are you here? Why here? Why now? What makes this time, this place so important?”

  “I can’t say any more right now, but once all this is over…”

  Juliette frowns. “So, you can’t say any more, and you won’t take me with you. How long do you intend to stay?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Juliette looks away, her frustration and disappointment apparent.

  “I’ll stay as long as I can,” I promise. “And before I leave, I’ll tell you as much as I can. I swear. I wish I could say more, but…”

  But what good would it do her to know what I know about her future? What good would it do to tell her that her life is in danger because of something her great-great-granddaughter did? Because she saved my life?

  “You’re going to leave, then?”

  “Not yet.” At the hurt in her eyes, I begin to wish I’d never have to. What would it be like, remaining here with her? But, no. Dodge is waiting for me back home in the 22nd century.

  “Just promise me,” she says, unable to meet my eye as she holds out the Wormhole Device, “that when it’s time for you to go, you won’t forget to say goodbye.”

  My hand touches hers as I take the orb. “I swear, Juliette, I won’t.”

  The famous White City of the 1893 World’s Fair rises up before us as Juliette and I ride the crowded El Train to the Exposition. Since our discussion in her room, Juliette is quieter than usual, but every so often, as if she can’t even help herself, she leans in and whispers excitedly about some of the things she hopes to see there—the Women’s Building, the replica Viking ship, the moving sidewalk—and then, as if recalling our purpose, quickly adds, “After we’ve found a magician, of course.”

  Eventually, I can’t help but suggest, “You know, we could spend the morning looking about and then hand out our flyers in the afternoon.”

  “Could we, you think?” Juliette smiles as if I’ve just offered her the moon.

  “Why not? It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

  “I’d like that. We ought to see Ferris’s Wheel, too.”

  I cringe, thinking of how primitive the constructions of this time are, how creaking and shaky the thing must be.

  “It’s perfectly safe, you know,” she says with a hint of teasing in her voice. “They have precautions in place—locks on the doors, metal screens over the windows. You’ll like it. I promise.”

  We join the throng funneling into the fair from the train platform, and the enormous Transportation Building looms over us with arch after perfect arch standing out against the otherwise classical-style architecture.

  “What do you think? Should we go see the Railways of the World exhibit?” I ask, offering Juliette my arm. The smile she gives me is warier than usual, a small difference that tears at my heart and makes me wish again that I could tell her everything.

  The morning sun traverses the sky all too quickly, and when noon comes, we’ve barely seen a fraction of all that the fair has to offer. We skipped the Mines Building but lingered for far too long in the Electricity Building—built in the style of the Spanish Renaissance—as Juliette marveled over neon lights and Tesla’s alternating currents and the 82-foot “tower of light” made of shimmering bits of cut glass. From there, we ducked onto the wooded island and wandered the paths around the lagoon, enjoying the cool shade of the trees in the heat of the day and the less-crowded Hunter’s Cabin and Japanese Pavilions. There, we sit on a bench, watching the crowds pass as we rest our weary feet.

  “What about that man with the top hat?” Juliette asks, pointing to a gentleman who’d just passed us on the walk.

  “What about him?”

  “He looks like he’d make a fine magician.”

  I shake my head. “He looks too uptight to me.”

  “What do you suppose his life story is? His goals, ambitions? Why is he here today?”

  “I don’t know. He looks like a businessman to me.” I lean back and cross one leg over the other, breathing in the scent of summer flowers and the lagoon. A breeze ripples over my skin, and everything feels so peaceful, so right that for a moment, I forget the tension of our discussion this morning. I forget that I don’t belong here, with her.

  Juliette frowns, obviously disappointed by my answer. “Well, what’s he doing here, then, if he really is just a businessman? On a weekday when he ought to be at work?”

  “He’s probably here on his lunch break.” Then, in an attempt to make her smile—a desire that’s been growing stronger every day, regardless of how much I try to tell myself, logically, that it’s a dangerous pursuit—I add. “Either that, or he’s an undercover detective who’s made arrangements to meet an anonymous informant today regarding information about a murder case.”

  “Yes!” Juliette beams at me. “That’s perfect. It’s obviously a long unsolved case, one very personal to him: the murder of his former lover. Though the informant doesn’t know that, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “What about those women?” Juliette gestures slyly to a group of women—perhaps in their late thirties or early forties—all walking together with arms linked, clinging to their bonnets and laughing and chattering merrily.

  They look like any ordinary group of women out enjoying a day at the fair, but with Juliette’s eyes twinkling at me like that, I can’t let her down. “Suffragists.”

  “Suffragists?” Juliette nudges me playfully with her elbow. “Well, that’s hardly worth noting. Plenty of women are suffragists, myself included.”

  “Oh, these aren’t just any suffragists,” I continue. “These are an elite group of suffragist spies—black widows, who’ve sworn a pact to marry themselves off to the most influential and wealthy gentlemen in society and then poison them to gain complete access to their resources.”

  “Scandalous!” Juliette shrieks with laughter, and I’m overcome with relief that finally, it seems, she’s forgotten—if not forgiven—my secrets. “What about him, then? That fellow on that bench there. The one with the prominent nose. He’s been sitting there all alone since shortly after we arrived, just reading that pamphlet. He must have some story.”

  I lean forward to glance around her, pausing briefly to admire the masterful shape of her profile before focusing on the man at the bench.

  Even from this distance, I can make out his face, wearing a mustache that looks itchy, not quite right for him, as though he’s unaccustomed to wearing one. His long legs are stretched out ahead of him, and it takes me a moment to realize where I’ve seen him before, a moment to recognize the band on his wrist.

  “TUB.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “TUB?” Juliette asks. “What’s TUB?”

  I pull her to her feet. Out of the corner of my eye, the TUB agent tucks his pamphlet into his jacket.

  “You’re going to have to trust me on this one,” I say. “We have to lose him.”

  How did he find us anyway? Has he been trailing us since Saginaw, just waiting in the shadows for an opportunity? I think back to our actions over the past days—the train tickets we bought, the guest book we signed at Mrs. Rosebloom’s, the flyers we’ve been half-heartedly handing out throughout the day—all ways that someone in the futur
e could track us to this time and place.

  “Is this part of the game?” Juliette asks, her expression a mix of confusion and amusement.

  I still can’t figure out how to answer her. It’d be easy to tell her that it’s a game, make her believe the danger is only an illusion, but would that be fair? I hate the thought of lying to her.

  Together we dash down the wooded pathway toward the bridge leading off the island. We have to get back to the rest of the fair, where we can melt into the bustling crowds and disappear.

  “Chandler? What’s going on?” Juliette asks, struggling to keep up. “Does this have to do with… with where you’re from?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Why? Who is he? What does he want with us?”

  “I’ll explain later.” I stop and look around. The Women’s Building looms before us, and beyond that, Ferris’s wheel rises up like an enormous bicycle tire on the midway. The midway. We can lose the man among the crowd. “This way.”

  One thing’s for certain, the midway is busy—a chaotic jumble of entertainers and spectators, of colorful flags and exotic costumes, of scents and sights and music and dancing. Even if we weren’t evading a homicidal time traveler, it’d still be a struggle to stay together in the dense crowd.

  We rush down the street, passing the nursery exhibits, the log cabin, the Irish village, the Dutch settlement, until finally I pull Juliette into the shadows of a German castle. All around its courtyard, people meander about, taking in the sights. An orchestra plays in the grandstand. Couples are bowling in horseshoe-shaped alleys, and the scent of beer is sharp and heavy in the air.

  Inside the stone arches of the castle, it’s darker and quieter, but I still don’t feel safe. Music echoes around us, and Juliette leans in close—so close that I’m momentarily overwhelmed by the scent of lavender. She whispers in my ear.