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Steamside Chronicles

Copyright 2010 by Ciar Cullen

ISBN: 978-1-936394-09-8

Cover art by Dara England

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC

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Steamside Chronicles

Ciar Cullen

DEDICATION

My heartfelt thanks to Wendy, for going Steamside with me, even when it seemed dangerous to do so. This is for my grandmother, Lil Cullen, born in 1890. She would not have approved of this book, but she always approved of me.

Chapter One

In which our heroine meets an occultist and is mysteriously transported to another dimension.

Since the night I traveled to 1890, I’ve tried not to obsess over where I might have turned left instead of right, or not opened a door that should have stayed closed. Perhaps if I were a Sex in the City kinda girl, things would be different. I can’t imagine ever chatting about shoes or my romantic escapades over mojitos. I don’t think I’ve even had an escapade—aside from being thrown back in time. I don’t drink mojitos, whatever they are.

It’s not that I never had a boyfriend or alcohol, but the guys I met and beer were alike—you knew what you were getting into, and that the effects wouldn’t last long. You were best to combine the two. You could blame the sex on the booze and pretend you didn’t care about the guy. A loathsome existence, I know. My theory was, a female cop’s odds of meeting a straight, attractive nonfelon in New York were about as good as a large meteor dropping into the Hudson.

I went to Central Park on a hot August Saturday night fantasizing about a Tom Hanks You’ve Got Mail type guy strolling with his dog—not that I ever thought Tom Hanks was hot. Yeah, that’s just how it worked out. I met a guy all right, and he’s way hotter than Tom Hanks.

A few of my friends were moonlighting as security guards at a festival, so I had a good excuse to wander and mingle. New Yorkers love a feel-good event, especially in a year when a recession has a death grip on everyone’s nerves.

I typically avoided festivals, carnivals, and oddities. I hate the stuff—freak shows, clowns, and carousels with their creepy music. The older I got, the worse it got, and I chalked it up to work stress manifesting in a weird way.

This event was full of the creepy stuff, it had an historical theme, a lot of Victorian stuff. I wandered alone for a while away from the crowds, hanging on a bench near the Needle, an Egyptian obelisk, watching the Ferris wheel lights twinkle in and out above the trees.

I finally grew bored and joined the throng. I strolled by one striped tent, intrigued by the vague smells of old lady, old liquor, and recently snuffed candles. Annalise Pettigrew’s hand-lettered poster pronounced her purveyor of the finest crushed mummy for both cures and pigments; retrocognition, hypnotism, and séance for enhancing the understanding of the spirit world; proven herbal remedies for all disorders; and finally, soothsaying, with a specialty in questions of a romantic nature. The last one hooked me.

The woman was a hoax, I reminded myself, and wouldn’t know anything about my future love life. But I was bored, a little desperate, and there were worse ways to get gypped out of a twenty.

Ha.

Expecting an aging New Yorker with the voice of lifetime smoker, I had to force my mouth closed when I saw Miss Pettigrew, or Petti, as I call her these days. She was not only young and not a gypsy, but she looked a lot like an alternative Mary Poppins.

She sported a crisp white shirt and vest, a long black skirt, a pocket watch, and a little top hat. Her short hair stuck out in magenta and black points, like she stepped out of a Japanese cartoon. She smiled and patted the table with her black lace gloves in a merry fashion.

“Huh,” I managed. I surveyed the tent and wares—strange metal loops, dials, and gears soldered in complex configurations. It looked like an antique science lab gone awry.

“Huh, indeed! Are you enjoying the festivities, Miss Fenwick?”

She was good. Better than the chick at Coney Island who told me I’d be married with two kids by twenty-five.

“How’d you get my name?”

“Have a seat.” She pulled off her peculiar little round glasses and tucked them in her vest pocket.

Here it comes, I thought. Cough up a twenty. Buy a crystal.

“The name on your badge. That is your badge? Emily Fenwick.”

Miss Pettigrew giggled, dimples popping into life on her rosy cheeks. She was cute, I had to admit. I don’t think I was ever cute, not even as a toddler, so she’d already pissed me off.

“Yeah, it’s my badge. Aren’t you clever?”

“You are ‘moonlighting’, as they say?”

“No, I’m not working tonight. I got the badge so I wouldn’t have to pay to get in.”

“Are you able to use firearms? You can handle yourself in a prickly situation?”

“I’m a cop. How prickly are we talking?” What the hell? Perhaps it was the woman’s attempt at sounding mysterious or foreign. Maybe she was a theater student. I wasn’t going to tell her how well I could shoot, that my father had resigned himself to turning his daughter into his son by taking her to the range. No, Detective Fenwick, retired NYPD, never got over having a girl. I probably joined the force as a kind of penance. That my mom nearly died giving me life and couldn’t have more children, cemented the disappointment.

“Shall we get right to it, then? I’ve prepared a few questions to help guide us.” She pulled out a leather bound notebook, flattened it open to a fresh page, and dipped her quill pen in a bronze inkwell.

“How much to get you to predict I’m going to meet a tall, dark, handsome stranger?” Wow. I generally wasn’t so upfront about my sad personal life. Something about Miss Pettigrew was bringing the pathetic out into the open.

She met my eyes without offering an answer. Her stare chilled me. and I was tempted to call off the reading, but didn’t want her to think she intimidated me. The things we do to avoid the judgment of complete strangers. God, to have that moment back. Would I do anything differently?

“One. Are you afraid of heights?”

“No.” Heights scared me to death, but this wacko wasn’t going to hear about it. She nodded and scribbled a note in a feathery script.

“Two. Are you averse to killing?”

“Killing? I arrest killers.”

“How about those who kill in self-defense?”

“That’s up to the courts. Are you trying to hire a hit man? I don’t get what…”

“Do you have children?”

“You’re the psychic.”

She smiled and scribbled again.

“Now think before answering, Miss Fenwick. If you saw a lightening bug the size of a horse, what would you do?”

Strains of the X-Files theme…

“Will it eat me?”

“Let’s pretend that we have no idea whether or not it poses a threat.”

Pretend? We have to pretend this? “Why would I kill something that isn’t going to eat me? I mean, unless it’s so gross I couldn’t stand the sight of it. Am I being Punk’d?”

I glanced around for cameras, but the place was a jumble of brass widgets and dim lighting. I was ready to leave, I swear. I still don’t know what made me stay. Maybe that awful carnival music hypnotized me. It sounded like it was coming from inside the tent one moment, but far away the next, tinny and old. My arms and legs deadened, and I wondered if someone had rufied my Coke.

Miss Pettigrew tapped her pen against her lips before making another notation in her book. I watched in a trance as the ink trail dried. Her hand grew translucent, her cute face shimmered in and out of existence.

“Who the hell are you?”

“I’m your new best friend forever. And you are about to meet a tall, dark, handsome stranger.”

The floor fell out from under me. My skin ripped away in long strips as I tumbled around the universe, banging my head on clouds and scraping my feet on mountains. Have you ever been thrown to the bottom of the surf, dashed around by a big wave and unable to figure out which way is up? Multiply that panic and disorientation by a million and add excruciating pain. I’m sure I screamed before passing out, even though I don’t remember hearing it.

I woke in a train car, alone. Not Amtrak, not New Jersey Transit, or the Long Island Railroad. This car was full of wood and brass and elegance, except for the soot-covered windows. I managed to sit upright as it pulled into the station with a mind numbing screech and whistle. The sign said ‘Grand Central Depot’.

I didn’t need a sign to tell me what my soul knew. I’d boarded the express train to insanity. Miss Pettigrew met me, waving from the platform as if we were old pals paying an overdue social visit.

“Welcome to New York,” she chirped, dimples springing to life.

I stumbled down the steps onto the platform, clutching the railing so I wouldn’t fall or vomit from the ride to sometime else. A couple of characters joined her—a young guy of Asian descent with what looked to be leather dreadlocks, expensive clothing, and a smile that pulled at your libido—Pettigrew introduced him as Screw. Screw kissed my hand. He still does sometimes, and I pretend to hate it.

His pal, a tall lanky Black guy with a dozen visible piercings, wore clothing with straps everywhere, most of them sheathing short knives. Barber, his name was, nodded at me as he sized me up like he might use one of the knives on me.

“Nice tat,” he mumbled and broke into a friendly grin at odds with his appearance.

“I don’t have a tattoo.” Did I? Or was I someone else, someone with a tattoo and friends named Screw and Barber?

Pettigrew waved them away and linked her arm through mine, pulling me across the platform to a stairwell. She stood on tiptoe and whispered, like an adolescent girl sharing a secret. “Miss Fenwick, a TAT is a new recruit. It means Torn Away from Time. That was high praise coming from Barber.”

“Great.” I choked back the bile threatening to erupt. Screw pushed past us and mounted the brass railing to ride backward down the winding staircase. “Get her to the Man, she’s really pale. She needs juice.”

Juice? I needed my freaking sanity. I needed heavy sedation.

As it turns out, that’s what juice is. I must have met the Man—his real name is Jack—that day, but I don’t remember anything about it. I do remember falling asleep to the distant sound of marching music, and watching a lightening bug the size of a horse fly past by a grimy window. It didn’t look like it was going to eat me, so I didn’t bother reaching for my pistol. Which is good, because that was still in my locker at the station. In 2010.

That was over a year ago.

Chapter Two

In which Miss Fenwick develops affection for her captor.

It was almost my twenty-sixth birthday, but I hadn’t told any of the Punks. I don’t dislike attention, but I didn’t want to learn that no one cared. My birthday was always hot, and as I waited in the sweltering sun in my widow’s regalia—layers and layers of black (all female TATs wore black until they graduated)—I yearned for it to be any other August. I glanced out at Central Park’s Great Lawn as I waited for the Man to return to collect me, trying to avoid the bad habits—21st Century habits—that plague me and annoy the hell out of Petti. Hair twirling, finger tapping, foot wiggling—none of them appropriate for a lady.

Waiting for the Man set my nerves on edge. I was anxious to just see him, to be in his presence; at the same time knowing his appearance would signal a return Steamside, as my companions had christened our own slice of late Victorian hell. The Punks love naming things, including calling themselves punks. It fits some of them. But you have to cut them a break. I mean, we’re stuck in 1890, at least half the time. I’m not sure when the other half is, or if it is a when. Even the hardiest psyche—that would be the Man himself—sometimes has trouble adapting to the little details of our existence.

Petti told me I’m fitting in Steamside, and sometimes I believe her. You don’t know how important fitting in becomes until it’s all you can cling to. I thought I’d left that worry behind in high school. Since no one Steamside seems to understand why or how we got here, we’re all in the same leaky boat. I know I’m the weakest link. I cry a lot.

If Jack—the Man’s real name—saw me crying, he’d run his hand through his black hair in annoyance. I know enough psychology to chalk up my crying to post-traumatic whatever. When a guy rounded the corner, I bit back a groan, it wasn’t Jack. I knew this stiff, a constable or whatever the 19th Century called cops. He rubbed at his chin with one hand and swung a Billy-club with the other as he approached me. In my full widow regalia, I didn’t have the look of a prostitute, so he settled on a slow formal nod.

Do not look annoyed. You are pleased with his concern for your wellbeing. A subtle smile is allowed.

He tipped his hat and moved on, no doubt assuming I waited for a lover. In a sense I did, but Jack was my lover—no, my love—only in my dreams and fantasies. Yeah, he was talk, dark and handsome. Petti’s a scream. Jack is her brother.

In the distance, I heard the strains of a brass band practicing in the park. Anytown, USA, except it happened to be the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The crap that goes for Normal entertainment is astonishing. I don’t mind the opera so much, and the Punks go in for it. The Punks also love to dance, and waltz lessons had been part of Petti’s initiation. But the total fixation on marching music is too much. The word “Sousa” makes the female Normals swoon. Of course, everything seems to make them swoon, including the sight of a bare table leg. I can’t imagine how they procreate.

With thoughts of sex, thoughts of Jack inevitably followed. I’m sure I wasn’t alone. Jack was hot, and I often tried to imagine him tinkering back home in his shop—at least the rumor was he’d been a carpenter. Sigh. The Man in a t-shirt and worn jeans. Would it make him more approachable if he didn’t wear crisp white collars?

I don’t know why he intimidated us all. I don’t think he tried to, or if he did, he didn’t try hard. The Punks respected him, and always avoided gossiping about him, or questioning how he came to be their leader. No one seemed to remember a time when he wasn’t in charge.

The Man didn’t flinch, no matter what came down the pike. It was unnatural, saintly, and very puzzling. The men wanted to be like him, the women wanted to be with him, and as far as I could tell, no one came close on either count.

Where the hell was he? He’d gone off to investigate the newest gaping hole in time or space, or whatever was getting shredded and threatening the world. And the future. Whatever, you get what I mean. If there’s no 1890, then there’s no 1891, and ultimately, no 21st Century. Which is a problem for someone who wants to go home.

I looked at my tiny pocket watch for the umpteenth time. A newsboy, no older than eleven, waved his paper pleadingly before me. Women typically didn’t buy the news, but I couldn’t resist the child, with his Oliver Twist looks, scuffed up shoes and scruffy hair. I rummaged through my drawstring bag for a few pennies, and dropped them all into his hand. Hell, it wasn’t my money, and the kid looked thrilled. He broke into a run before I realized I didn’t know how much a newspaper cost. I glanced at the headline—something about Germany and Kaiser Wilhelm that didn’t mean squat to me. Would I be here during the First World War? I didn’t even know when it would start.

The tap of Jack’s peculiar quick pace on the path hit my nerve endings like lightening. What would he say? Did we have something else to do before shredding Steamside? Would I throw up this time? His waistcoat tails flapped in the warm air as he rounded the corner from under Gothic Bridge. His pale cheeks flushed as he pointed to the sky and hurried to my bench. I stood, terrified that…that what? I wasn’t sure what to be terrified of anymore, but Jack was about to tell me.

I stared up through the trees and saw the tail end of a blimp.

Jack turned me with a hand on each shoulder to face him from inches away. His deep brown eyes flashed in anger. He was going to kill me.

“What?” My blood boiled from the contact of his hands, my preemptive anger at whatever tongue-lashing he would dish out, and my terror that I’d screwed up somehow and might cry in front of him.

“Did you do that?” He pointed to the blimp, which glided over the Park with a faint hum. “Did you imagine it into existence, Fenwick?”

“Do what? It’s a blimp…” No, idiot, it’s not a blimp. It’s the blimp. Or more accurately, dirigible. A chill broke August’s hot hold on my body. I’d seen a lot of interesting things in 1890, but the Hindenburg shook me. Knowing how many people would die, perhaps. How many? I couldn’t remember much about it. Just the terrible footage of the devastation made more eerie by the swastikas.

Footage?

“That’s not right.” I clutched at Jack. He didn’t pull away, but blew out a deep breath and threw an arm around my shoulder in a way Petti would not have approved. I guess he decided I was a moron—I am sometimes. More importantly, he didn’t think I was responsible for this one.

“It will go down in Lakewood, New Jersey. It’s a few decades early, but who’s counting? Damn it.”

He sat on the bench and pulled me next to him. “Give me a minute.”

As if I’d do or say a thing to make him angry or move away. I’d never sat with him. Sleeve touching sleeve. I noticed the tiny dark hairs on his wrist, the smell of sweet pipe tobacco and shaving soap, his breathing. His tan hands were those of a working man, despite his starched clothes.

“It’s getting worse, Fen. I’m failing. We’re failing.”

“We’ll figure it out.” As if I had any clue how we were going to stop time from going haywire. So lame, telling the Man it would all be fine.

“Let’s shred Steamside so I can think in peace. I know you hate the shred.” He glanced at me in challenge. That I even figured into his thought process thrilled me.

“It’s not that bad. Not as bad as an axe to the skull. Close.”

“It hasn’t gotten better for you, you’re like a TAT.” But his voice was laced more with sympathy than disdain. And he’d called me Fen, a nickname no one else had used.

“We’re screwed, Fen. Royally. I’m failing you.”

“Me?”

“I meant all of the Punks.” He arched a brow and smiled a bit. I didn’t know him well, didn’t know that look. I guess I amused him, with my obvious crush. He was probably so used to crushing the hopes of his female charges. For just a moment, though, I caught a hint of a glimpse of a connection.

Jack took my hand and pulled me close before we went to the land that time not only forgot, but never knew existed. In that moment, right before the ripples of a continuum gone noncontiguous tore my flesh apart, Jack leaned in and mumbled that my mourning period was over. That one embrace was more sensual than some of the sex I’d had. Maybe it was the layers of itchy clothing separating us, or the inappropriateness of it for the era—downright shameful. Perhaps the heat of his breath on my neck, grazing me like a phantom kiss. Or perhaps, I was just so obsessed with him that I couldn’t separate my fantasies from reality anymore. He electrified me.

“Wear blue,” he ordered.

“Blue?”

He nodded.

“Do you like blue?”

He simply smiled in a way that fired my nerve endings into overdrive.

I did wear only blue, from that day on. I found my Punk name and my Punk style, which included the showing of a fair amount of cleavage, a killer pair of round sunglasses, and a skirt I drew up on one side to show off my legs. And the pistol the Man himself left on my bunk, strapped to one thigh. Everyone has a day, now and then, that helps define them. I cried less after that day. I belonged, even if it was only among Punks.

Chapter Three

Miss Fenwick takes a position of importance.

Steamside living wasn’t a hell of lot more glamorous than downtown 1890 New York, where immigrants languished in squalor. We shared quarters, at least two to a room, in a handful of brick row houses and tiny workshops. Our town, if you want to call a few square miles a town, had one half-cobbled street and even gas streetlights. It looked like a little lopsided medieval fortress, walled in a circle on a low hill. It took the Punks over a year to build the Wall, made of mud bricks and odds and ends of lumber. On second thought, it wasn’t much like a medieval fortress unless you were drunk and squinted. More like a fortress a neighborhood of adolescent boys might build.

As far as anyone could tell, we were pretty close, if not on, Central Park. Superimposed, I guess you’d say. At least when we shredded to Normal, that’s where we always ended up. I’d tried to think myself somewhere else, from a different spot in the Park to a different city. Nope, you’d close your eyes, stand in what the Punks dubbed, for obvious reasons, the Vortex, and let it pummel you through to the other side. When you opened your eyes, you’d be facing the Great Lawn, with your back to Cleopatra’s Needle. We always slipped into Normal 1890 unnoticed, although there were a few close calls. The Normals could see us, talk to us, and assumed we were just like them.

“Where ya goin?” Petti fell in step with me as I sauntered down Main Street, as we called our path near the Wall. She always found me, like she had a Fenwick homing device. She never seemed to want anything in particular. I guess it was her way of socializing. One thing about Steamside—you were never alone. It got tiring. I had sympathy for prisoners, who could never find quiet, but the company never quelled loneliness. Except as far as I knew, I hadn’t done anything to deserve my prison.

“Oh, thought I’d pick up a few things at the store.” We didn’t have a store, of course. We stole every brick, beam, pipe, hatpin, tin of tea, and rack of lamb from Normal. Of the fifty or so of us, ten worked as full-time thieves—taking orders from the Man and picking up odds and ends to trade with the rest of us. I learned it paid to get close to the (Artful) Dodgers, as we called them. Or at least not to piss them off.

They called the rest of us Whores, because there wasn’t much you wouldn’t do for something new to read, or a new corset. Not that I did that—but a few might have, including Screw. He never seemed to run out of exquisite clothes.

Petti took off her top hat and threw it precisely onto a bent nail protruding from the Wall’s ladder. “Tired of that hat. I’d really like a new one. But I’m too lazy to go to Normal for a new one.”

She reached into her drawstring silk purse and pulled out a Tarot deck.

“Huh, they have Tarot in 1890?” She rolled her eyes and fanned the cards out in her palm, indicating I should pick one.

I ignored her.

“I’m practicing. Come on, Fen, don’t be such a sad sack.”

“Oh, all right.” I tapped a card and she examined it, and then shoved it back in the deck.

“Not good. Not good at all.”

“Hell, what now? You’re always bringing me such great news.”

“Your living arrangements are about to change.”

“Meaning?”

“Jack’s putting you up in Screw’s room. Switching me to Barber’s room.”

“What the hell for?” Oh, God, does he mean me to hook up with Screw? To get me off his back? Am I that obvious?

“Our job is to obey orders. You’ll enjoy Screw’s company. Maybe you can apprentice in his shop.”

Screw could make anything, if you could pinch the right raw materials, and sometimes it was as if he made something from nothing. The Dodgers brought back beautiful watches, only to have Screw gut them and use the tiny gears and springs for one of his widgets. He’d outfitted the lot of us in goggles, although the only one who needed them was the Man, and his few friends that got to ride with him occasionally. I bartered my cell phone (no, you can’t hear me now) for a yo-yo with clock gears and jewels that glinted in the sunlight when it spun. Most of the women (and a fair number of the guys) wore jewelry that looked like it came from the inside of a tiny factory, made by Victorian elves. Screw was responsible for our style as he’d been into this Goth look back home.

Screw’s creations weren’t all about aesthetics, though. His drafting table (I heard that the Man made it for him) held the original plans for our town, the Wall, and a good deal of our furniture. I’m pretty sure I saw a prototype for a robot in Screw’s machine shop, but he frowned when I asked him about it.

“Do you know what a robot is, Fenwick?” I’d cringed at his disdain.

“Got it. No computers, no artificial intelligence. Still, it looks a lot like an R2D2 or something.”

“It’s a steampowered street sweeper.”

“We don’t have a street, do we? I mean, there’s a half of a street, but it’s dirt. Why would we want to sweep it?”

He’d rolled his eyes.

“So it is a robot?”

“Go play with your yo-yo.”

The guy was a mechanical wizard, MIT graduate, all around geek, and very sarcastic. And he was beautiful, in a way no man has the right. Great skin, and long, thick eyelashes.

I guess as roommates go, I’d scored. But who was really behind the switch? Was Petti bored with me? I couldn’t shake the feeling that Jack was pushing me into another man’s arms. Hell, he probably didn’t think about me, much less care about my stupid crush.

I wanted a cool talent, but it would definitely not be in Screw’s workshop, as Petti well knew. Screw banned me from all the workshops because of my total lack of mechanical aptitude. He joked that I could break the velocipede he was making for Jack’s birthday just by thinking about it. It turns out he may have been close to the truth.

The irony wasn’t lost on me that I was terrified I’d get kicked out of Steamside, when I’d spent most of my days cursing I was there in the first place.

Once I’d recovered from what I suppose amounts to a nervous breakdown (I try to forget about those weeks), they put me in the kitchen. When they realized I only knew how to burn water and couldn’t ever make decent coffee in the odd bronze contraption that didn’t resemble a Mr. Coffee machine, they tried me in the laundry. I ruined one of Jack’s best shirts, which sent me into a second spiral of depression.

You still don’t get it, I know. I’m not weak. I’m not a helpless dimwitted blonde. You might not do any better in my shoes, okay?

“Petti, can I ask you something and get a real answer?”

“I give real answers.”

“You give circus tent answers. Try really hard, okay?”

She folded her glasses and tucked them away, put her hand on my arm to show me she was listening.

“Why does it seem like everyone here is happy except for me? I don’t think I belong here.”

“None of us belong here, Fen. Sweet thing.” She laced her arm in mine and we continued our walk. “Someday, when you and Jack are curled up in one another’s arms, ask him about our first year here. How much we cried. How insane we felt.”

She’d done it again, deflected every brain neuron with mention of her brother. I couldn’t remember what I’d asked her. I wouldn’t miss the relentless teasing of my old roommate as I fell asleep. Petti would prop her cute little head on one hand and look at me from her bunk. “I wonder who Jack is with tonight.” Or “I think I saw Jack looking at you today.” Then she’d leave me to stare at the ceiling.

“You’re a bitch, Annalise Pettigrew.” She giggled as I stormed off to my room to gather my pathetic bundle of possessions and move in with Screw.

* * *

My stomach churned when I heard him in our room. What the hell did Screw think about the new arrangements? I didn’t knock because no one knocked Steamside. You simply made enough noise to warn others you were coming.

Screw looked up from his bunk, where he filed at one of the endless pieces of metal strewn about the room.

“Welcome to Neverland. I’m sure we’ll get along splendidly if you don’t snore and you don’t touch my things. You don’t snore, right?”

“From one asshole roommate to another. Splendid. If you don’t mind, you can take your things off my bed.”

“They’re yours.” His grin lit up the dingy cell.

A fall-action Winchester rifle and a six round .45 Remington pistol lay on the bunk. My dad had an Italian replica of the .45. He’d always said his collection would go to me, during the peaceful, remorseful times that followed his drunken tirades about me or my mom.

Screw peered up from his work with a smirk. No, I’m not one of those gun freaks, don’t get me wrong. I’d been taught to shoot from an early age, primed for a career in law enforcement, and endlessly reminded of my failures by my father.

“Do you know what these are worth?” I couldn’t take it in. They weren’t antiques, but brand new. I had trouble sometimes getting over the newness of stuff that should be on the Antiques Road Show.

Screw sniffed out a laugh. “Probably about ten bucks a piece. The Man said if you don’t know how to use them, bring them back to him. But you did brag a bit to Petti about shooting.”

“Jack bought these for little old me?”

“I thought girls liked perfume and flowers. Weapons.” Screw smacked his forehead.

I laughed at that, and Screw joined me. Not a day went by that some chick didn’t hit on Screw, bringing him gifts.

“Oh.” I sat on my bunk and checked out the line of the rifle. “I guess that means I’m a cop or something? Or am I supposed to hunt? I’m not a hunter.”

“I don’t think you’re the new sheriff in town. If you hadn’t noticed, the trouble is outside the Wall.”

My heart sank. I know I’ll seem like more of a wuss to you, but think about it. If all the nasty shit from your nightmares came to life and wandered outside your city, you wouldn’t want to be guarding the city limits, would you?

Here there be dragons. And dragonflies the size of dragons, along with less attractive super-enlarged vermin. And every other freaking nightmarish creature you’ve ever seen in a horror movie, read about in a book, or woke over in a trembling sweat. It’s an alphabet soup of paranormalcy. I mean, we have zombies. Real zombies. Witches, werewolves, monsters, aliens, gigantic everything… If you’ve dreamt about it, it lives Steamside. Because, you see, that’s how they got there in the first place. You all are to blame. We see your nightmares. Petti thinks they crawled through the Vortex with us.

Most of the stuff can’t hurt you. That’s the irony of nightmares, I guess. You just tell them they aren’t real, and poof! Kinda like waking up. A few take some convincing and go down with a fight, gnawing or clawing or spitting fire. Petti thinks those are the products of the insane, people who can’t separate their nightmares from reality. It’s not pretty up there on the Wall.

“Ammo?”

Screw thumbed to the nightstand. “You’re on duty tonight. Jack said to be careful. He’s running out of jobs for you, you know.”

“Jack can kiss my ass.”

“In your dreams.”

“And yours, I bet.”

Screw laughed, not at all offended, leaving me once again to wonder about him. It wasn’t the first time I tried to picture him and the Man locked in a hunky embrace, and not the first time it did something for me.

I loaded both weapons, trying to calm shaky hands, wondering how I was going to kill the hour before dusk. I felt like I was about to walk the green mile, but no one had been killed on the Wall since my arrival. A few were gnawed by various creatures, but Barber had sewn them up well enough. The rumor was that Barber had been kicked out of med school, but he’d evidently retained enough basic knowledge to handle minor ailments.

Things could get a bit hairy without antibiotics. We used whiskey or morphine to kill pain. Jack locked the latter up in his quarters, or we’d all become addicts. Just about every medicinal elixir in Normal contained morphine, and the number of people addicted to the stuff was astounding. Jack forbid the Dodgers to bring Bayer’s new medicine, heroin, Steamside.

Jack purportedly had a bit of an absinthe habit, which I found a little pretentious. Screw said it was just because he was from New Orleans, which is famous for the stuff. Everyone defended Jack, whether he needed it or not. I guess the truth is that we all loved him. Maybe we just needed to believe in something or someone.

“Night, Screw.”

He peered up. “Don’t widen those emo blue eyes at me, Fenwick. You’ll be fine, and I’m not going to hug you goodbye, no matter how much you beg me.”

“Screw you.”

Screw threw down his file and pulled me into his arms for a shocking, tantalizing, too quick kiss on the lips. I thought my legs would go out from under me. I wiped my mouth in a dramatic display of disgust while trying to get my body under control.

“Just in case a zombie gets you,” he explained with a self-satisfied smirk. I must have looked dreamy. I piss myself off so much.

“I’ll bring one back as a pet.” I turned to the door and he grabbed me by the shoulder. I was afraid to turn, afraid I’d cry or pour my guts out. I wasn’t a TAT anymore; I had to suck it up, all the time. Just like back home, on the job as an EMT. Sure, we had the heart attacks and high fevers, car accidents and false alarms. But also beaten and raped women, children killed by parental neglect, teenagers blowing each other’s heads off over drugs. Some things stayed with you. Sometimes you just couldn’t suck it up. I prayed the Wall wasn’t going to be one of them.

I squeezed Screw’s hand without turning around and mumbled goodnight.

“Say hi to Sweet Pea for me.”

Sweet Pea was in charge of the Wall. We’d never exchanged more than a quick greeting, and I worried about impressing her, about impressing Jack. I’d show up early for my shift on the Wall and hope they’d notice my courage and team spirit.

The sky turned gunmetal gray and the few gas streetlights we had, thanks to Screw, came to an eerie glow on the uneven road. I nodded to a few Dodgers going out for their own rounds and even found the nerve to ask one to bring me back stockings if he could. They called him Prince Albert, but I suspected it was more his likeness to the singer Prince than any royalty. Short and wiry, he approached me and poked me in the arm with his walking stick that no doubt doubled as a weapon. He eyed me for size and slipped into the dark alley you took to get to the train station. I’d climb the ladder and guard Prince Albert and all the Punks from the night terrors. I’d blow the suckers into a whole other dimension. I hoped to hell Jack would see it. I’m a damned good shot.

Sweet Pea was neither sweet nor small, but rather 6’2”, all sharp edged, physically and temperamentally. She preferred to be called Lieutenant and even wore an old Union uniform. Old in 1890 years. It had patches on the pants, jacket, and hat, and made her look like a scarecrow, with her unkempt black curls poking out at odd angles. She intrigued me.

When I climbed onto the Wall, she stubbed out a cigar and called me over with a slight jerk of her head.

“Reporting for duty, Lieutenant.” I was joking, but she nodded in approval.

“You’re early. That’s good. Two rules. Don’t waste ammo.”

“That’s one.”

She widened her deep brown eyes.

“That would be the second rule too?”

“Damn straight, little missy. Fenwick, right?” Shades of a bad war movie. Sweet Pea looked like my 7th grade gym teacher, who always frightened the hell out of me.

“Did you ever play basketball, Lieutenant?”

“Did you ask that because I’m tall or because I’m a Negro?”

A Negro? Was that what the uniform was about? “Both, I guess. You just look like a baller.”

“Fenwick, I’ve had this conversation so many times I could puke. If you ever get home, look me up on the Internet. Last name is Jones.”

“You don’t go to Normal much.”

“Oh, I get around. The grand balls and dances of New York society. The fine dining establishments and haberdasheries.” She clunked me on the head like she was telling me I could have had a V-8. It took me a second. Maybe that’s why Screw didn’t do Normal much. Was there a Chinatown yet? Were his ancestors working on railroads?

“That’s why the uniform?”

“Nah, I just don’t fit into much.”

Something deep inside me clicked, clicked hard. I could do things she couldn’t. It was easier in 2010 to pretend society was fair. She ran the damned Wall though, and with bigger balls than the men.

“You’re there.” She pointed to one corner. “Don’t leave unless you’re told. If you faint, make sure you fall sideways. Ninety percent of the apparitions will fade away without you doing a thing. Another five percent or so will disappear if you tell them to. The rest, you kill.”

“Aren’t some of them unstoppable? Aren’t zombies already dead?”

“Nope.” That was the sum of her reassurance. I wanted to argue the zombie point, but the subject seemed closed.

I checked my rifle for the tenth time and waited. The sun had just started to dip beneath the trees, and the sky turned umber, then charcoal, then black. It took a half hour that felt like twenty.

Have you ever been afraid to fall back asleep after a bad nightmare? I was waiting for nightmares, for many of them, in succession. I defaulted to my 2010 training rather than Sweet Pea’s orders. At the first sign of movement, I fired. And killed a clown. Hell, it could have been one of my own nightmares since I hate the things, but I groaned the second I got off the shot. Sweet Pea would have a boot far up my ass for that one.

“Fenwick, what was that?” I expected to hear the theme from Platoon. Clown down, clown down, in slow motion. Oh, the humanity.

“Sorry, Lieutenant. Just nerves.”

She clucked at me and went back to her post. “TAT.” She spit the word out like a curse, but I heard her chuckle a bit. Sweet Pea was in her glory.

From my peripheral vision, a small girl ran like her life depended on it, terror etched across her face. A man with a knife ran after her, and every synapse in my head sent the signal to kill him. My trigger finger didn’t itch, it burned to the bone.

“Hey, you!” You could have heard me back in Modern. “Leave her alone!”

Poof—they vanished. I glanced at the Lieutenant, who nodded. I got it. You woke them up. This was a snap.

The parade continued—rapists, a lot more people with knives, tigers, a few more clowns, a couple of talking dolls, and some normal looking folks who I guess were frightening only to the dreamer. The war dreams disturbed me, maybe because I’d never had one myself, maybe because I imagined some Vet being tortured every night by painful memories.

Some of the images made me laugh—ridiculous oversized dogs, cats, and rats, millions of huge spiders, snakes, that sort of thing. A few people flapped around, and I wasn’t sure what to do about them until Sweet Pea called to me. “They’re drowning. Don’t worry about them.”

Don’t worry about them? I’d seen a lot in my Modern career, but I’d never watched anyone drown, or the horror on their faces. Damn.

I’d only fired a few more rounds and patted myself on the back for getting the hang of things right away. I fantasized about the Man getting a report on my skills on the Wall. “She’s a natural. Brave, consistent, stupendous shot. We’re so lucky to have Fen with us.” Okay, I couldn’t imagine Sweet Pea saying that about anyone, but this was my fantasy.

I copped a glance at my pocket watch. Two hours? Not twenty?

“Need a break?”

“No, I’m fine.” I was dying for a break, but she wasn’t going to hear about it.

I recognized the next dream protagonist right away. Her profile, her hair swept up into a tight ponytail, her uniform, her movements. I don’t even know if I called out to her. It’s surreal to see yourself as you never have—from a distance. And worse, in danger. I knew it was a dream, at least I think it was, but the horror of what was about to happen to me tore at my chest. I chased a young guy, my gun drawn. I told him to stop. I don’t know how many times I told him to stop. He didn’t. Instead, he turned, and got off a shot before I could.

“Jesus!” The shaking, frantic voice was my partner’s. Juan leaned over me, tears pouring down his cheeks, pressing hard on the left side of my chest. It was like falling Steamside, but worse. No longer on the Wall, no longer in layers of blue silk, I lay in a grimy wet street in the Bronx, my life leaking onto Juan’s uniform as he crushed me to his chest, crying out in anguish. I heard sirens, I saw lights and heard other voices, and then the noises faded away.

“What are the goddamed odds of that?” Sweet Pea swore and held me to her chest as Juan had, rocking me like a toddler who had scratched her knee. I must have hit the deck, at least remembering to fall sideways instead of off the Wall. Sweet Pea smelled of coffee, cheroots, and lavender. “It will be all right, Fen, you’re okay now.”

I couldn’t imagine how it would be all right, ever again.

Chapter Four

A reluctant hero leads his genteel companions.

Emily Fenwick was drowning in denial. When Petti first brought her case to me, I had no reservations about the choice. How could I have known this one woman would turn Steamside—and me—upside down? My sister is the psychic.

I watched Fenwick climb the ladder to the Wall, shotgun and ammo slung over one shoulder, pistol strapped to her thigh (God, those thighs), golden hair falling out of its pins and draping down her back… Yeah, it’s like that. The sort of woman you notice, not because she’s beautiful (she isn’t, I suppose, but she may as well be a supermodel, her pull on me is so strong). She’s tall, with the bearing of someone who can take care of herself. I hate when she cries, because I know she’s proud and hates the tears. I can’t tell her anything she wants to hear—that I know how to get her home, that it’s all a bad dream. It doesn’t help that she’s had a thing for me since day one.

She’d taken her post early, no doubt to impress us. It did.

Barber called to me from my window and pointed. I didn’t need my spyglass to identify her, but I used it. I’m just a guy, only human. Voyeurism isn’t my thing, but this was Fenwick. It bothered me that she’d captured my imagination. It bothered me a lot.

I’d come to think of myself as immune to caring about anything but saving my assigned parcel of time and space. In the early years, I’d make friends and then be saddled with excruciating loneliness when they’d be whisked away from me.

The Punks were easy to lead and hard to lose. This lot had stayed on for a long time, though I tried not to let myself get too comfortable. They were like characters in a role-playing game. As soon as one was knocked down, another would pop into place, with a little help from my sister. It seemed the two of us were fixtures. Maybe that’s the difference between Purgatory and Hell—the length of the sentence. And knowing that you’re dead. At least that’s the only conclusion Petti and I could come to after years of agonizing over what had happened to us.

We both had vague memories of our own deaths, together in a car on the New Jersey Turnpike in winter. The last thing Petti had said was “Slow down.” Next stop, 1886.

We stopped counting (or pretended to) after about a year, when hell broke loose. It had been hard enough trying to make ends meet in 19th Century New York. It helped that I’m a carpenter and Petti’s into scams—her séances far more profitable than my cabinets. We just about had it down when the Vortex pulled us Steamside, trapping us amidst nightmares and monsters. We hid, foraged, and fought to survive the demons until Petti summoned the psychic strength we didn’t know she had to will us back to Normal. That first shred was damned painful. It’s a matter of learning not to fight it, but some never pick it up. Like Fenwick.

One day as we strolled through Central Park discussing for the thousandth time our impossible situation, Petti stopped cold next to the ancient Egyptian obelisk the Normals had dubbed Cleopatra’s Needle.

She clutched at my sleeve. “This is the place of the vortex. That is what’s screwing everything up. Time.” She pointed to the obelisk. “It called to me. Didn’t you hear it?”

I looked down at her cute round face hidden beneath a silly veiled hat. She was serious, eyes wide, little gloved hand shaking against her lips.

“What did the big bad obelisk say to you? Did it speak English or Egyptian? Let’s get a drink, Petti.” She’d gone over the deep end, but who could blame her?

“It didn’t say a thing, asshole. It communicated in a way you can’t hear. I think it’s cursed.” Her voice rose an octave and the floodgates opened.

“The obelisk isn’t cursed. King Tut’s tomb wasn’t cursed, nothing’s cursed.” Except us. She was on the brink of a major meltdown. I couldn’t handle another one. Not because I didn’t care, but I didn’t know how many more times I could tell her everything would be okay without collapsing myself. Things weren’t going to be okay. I couldn’t help her, or the people of New York, or myself. The best I could manage was to stay alive, if we were even living.

We didn’t talk about the obelisk again until years later. She could never explain to me how it could cause a rip in time, and I couldn’t argue that the vortex to Steamside wasn’t in the shadow of the two hundred ton block of Egyptian red granite.

In the meantime, we started to collect friends Steamside. The first, Jeremy, frightened the hell out of us. We were in our little lean-to, and Petti was on guard duty. There weren’t so many creatures Steamside in those days, but enough to warrant a pistol. A whistling cut the night quiet, like someone had set off a small rocket. And like something from a cartoon—plop—there was Jeremy. Poor guy. He was only eighteen, and he never got over the first part of the adventure. He disappeared within a month of his first shred.

Petti has kept a log of all our visitors, those who stayed on and those who’ve disappeared. I’ve lost count, but it’s in the hundreds. All of them are our modern contemporaries—we always looked forward to meeting someone from the Forties, for example, or even the future. As far as we could tell, we were a hundred and ten years off, every time. Our first question used to be “What year is it?” Now we don’t bother asking.

By 1889, we were up to about fifty and seemed to be holding steady. Because the ghouls increased, we’d recruit if our numbers dropped. Petti would appear psychically, she called it. I don’t think she understands why some Moderns can see her, and some can’t, but it’s not hard to narrow down your choices when you’re invisible. “Lost souls,” she calls them.

Fenwick was the eighth real ‘recruit’. The Punks with the longest tenure are Screw and Barber. With Petti, the four of us formed a kind of secret steering committee for Steamside. I’m at the helm.

We’ve done a lot. Our little burg is fairly well fortified against the ghouls. The Punks (we have Screw to thank for that name) have even created a kind of zeitgeist for Steamside. I suppose it’s a longing for modern things in a semi-modern era. They labor to create a counter-culture to call their own. Gloves and monocles mix with jerry-rigged machines, short skirts, and modern haircuts. The women seem fond of heavy makeup that reminds me of my old high school Goth days. When we shred to Normal, we polish up our Victorian best. Cleavage gets demurely covered, strange hairstyles hidden under hats. Thankfully, these Normals are all about hats.

To be honest, Steamside is a bit of a mess. We don’t eat properly, the Punks tend to be a little promiscuous (or maybe I’m more old-fashioned than I used to be), and we’re pretty rough around the edges in a lot of ways. We don’t have plumbing, but rely on a stream and cistern we built. It’s rough at times, bitter cold in the winter, boiling in the summer. I’m no Eagle Scout, and we’ve had to really pull on every bit of ingenuity combined to manage. Thank God for Screw.

At least we don’t fight amongst ourselves. It’s us against…well, everything else. I’d say we’re closer to characters on a reality TV show than anything. ‘Survivor’ sans the island. We do manage some fun once in a while.

Screw is a self-taught accordion player, and Barber plays the tuba well. I got out of him that he was a band nerd in college. Everything echoes off our town Walls, and when I heard the strains of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” coming from Screw’s room late one night, I had to lay down a noise ordinance. He ignored me, of course, but made up for it by making me a steam-power velocipede for my birthday. (He was so excited, he gave it to me early.) The thing does ten miles an hour, but since our town is only a few miles square, I don’t need much more than that. The band has gotten a bit better, for an accordion and tuba. Fenwick plays the violin, although she sounds a little rusty. I think she’s waiting for her invitation. The woman has been so desperate to fit in. That’s why I put her on the Wall, to give her some purpose.

I’d spent a good part of the day being lectured by Petti on a number of issues, foremost the deployment of Emily Fenwick.

“She’s not ready!” Petti stomped her foot in a gesture I’d known since she was in kindergarten and I was in second grade.

“When will she be ready? Who the hell is ready for any of this?” I hated these decisions.

“She has adjustment issues. Not the typical ‘what the fuck is going on’ ones.”

I knew what she meant. The worst sign—Fenwick had thrown in with us without a hitch. When she asked the standard questions—why, how long, why, how, why—and we didn’t have straight answers, she’d nod, and take the brush-offs. She is the first of the Punks to never have marched into my quarters and demand I take her back to Modern.

She buried her anger, pain, and confusion deep behind those amazing blue eyes. When the seriousness of her predicament hit her—and it would—she’d be the sort to try to kill herself—or Petti and me. At the very least, we’d have a wacko on our hands I’d need to inject with juice.

I had so much to deal with already. A month earlier, on the same day, I’d spotted two huge anachros. The Titanic docking without frozen corpses on it or gaping holes in its hull. It wasn’t the right decade, the right month, the right anything. I’d turned away before the passengers disembarked. Weren’t they in for a shock? Why didn’t it hit the newsstands the next day?

My stomach was still in knots from the Titanic when I spotted the Hindenburg. I jumped down Fenwick’s throat, even though I couldn’t guess how she could have caused either blip. Just for a second it had occurred to me that a sprinkling of harmless wrinkles had turned into a steady flow of anachros since Fen had joined us. Hell, she was just a regular woman. Nothing special about her. Still, I wondered about her, about the coincidences, but I kept those thoughts to myself.

I’d graduated Fenwick from TAT to Punk, even though she wasn’t ready. I just felt bad about yelling at her. And yeah, I had a thing for her. It was all I could think of to make her happy.

I came home for juice that day. I wanted to pin Fenwick to the floor, tear the clothes off her welcoming, warm body, and have sex for a week. Since that seemed rash, I settled on numb. I don’t do it often, I swear. They think I keep morphine in my study to use on TATs melting down when they first arrive. That’s true. But time and space were caving in on me, on us. I was failing. I was supposed to save the world with fifty screw-ups in their twenties. God, I was still their age, but I felt like an old man. Whine away, Jack. No one’s listening.

“She’s gunning for something. Holy shit, how much ammo did you give her? Who’s up there with her?” That was more than Barber said on an average day.

“Go up and talk to her.”

Barber arched a brow in a rare, if subtle, show of insubordination. That’s your job, his eyes spoke, but he nodded, and left to rein Fenwick in.

Truth is, I didn’t trust myself. The woman had a bad crush on me. They all did, men and women, though they didn’t understand it was just part of living Steamside. If you didn’t pin everything on your leader, you had nothing. They glamorized me, babied me, lavished me with gifts, followed my every order and every move. Besides Petti, Screw was the one Punk I thought of as a friend. An equal. He followed my orders, but always with a wink and a nod.

Someone decided I loved absinthe (or Screw started the rumor as a prank), so I got another damned bottle of the shit every other day. If you turn a gift away, you break their wee hearts. It’s another part of my sentence—I can’t let them know what a fraud I am. They think I have some master plan for getting us rescued. I don’t. Don’t wish for too much fame, love, and attention. You can’t imagine how annoying it is, how guilty it makes you feel.

I tried to put Fenwick out of my mind and turned to my sister, ready for another assault or list of grievances.

“You’re sweet on her.” She leaned her dimpled cheek in her gloved hand and studied me in her laserlike cross hairs. It wasn’t a question, which pissed me off.

“Sweet on her? How very 1940s of you.” I guess I was “sweet” on her, but it was immaterial.

“You’ve never sent Barber before when there’s trouble on the Wall.”

“He’s my bodyguard.”

“Assassin.” She wrinkled her nose in a cute fashion that reminded me of our mom, and I forced myself not to smile. I was supposed to be angry at the subject of my nonexistent romantic life.

“Yeah, right, assassin. I wonder about him sometimes. He’s a little too fond of those scalpels. I’d love to know the real story behind the med school fiasco.”

“You’re trying to navigate around the subject of fair Emily Fenwick. Ah, there! A gentle blush now graces your manly cheek.”

“Annalise Pettigrew, you’re on ice so thin a mosquito…”

“Irked into using my real name for the first time in ages! She hits her mark.” Petti blew the smoke from her imaginary pistol.

“So what? So she has great legs? I’ll drop the whole saving the space-time continuum thing and concentrate on getting laid. Is that your suggestion?” In fact, that sounded so appealing at the time, I wondered what the hell was stopping me.

“All work and no play makes a dull, dull Steamside king. Speaking of which…” Petti arched a brow in a silent offer to change the subject, warning me that in doing so, we would venture into territory I wasn’t going to like much better.

“Whatever. Go.”

“Screw and I have been discussing morale. I know.” She held her hand up to ward off comments. “He likes my idea.”

“Which one? Screw likes all your ideas, if you hadn’t noticed. What the hell doesn’t the guy like?”

“He has a thing against Prince Albert, but that’s a secret.”

“I thought they were, whatever. You know.”

“Sex partners? Screw is straight.”

“Since when?”

“Since the last time I was in his bed.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! You and Screw? When the hell…Jesus. Anything else you want to confess?” I wasn’t shocked at all, just trying to gain the upper hand.

“It’s not going to work. You don’t care about Screw and me, because if you could pick anyone for me, it would be him. Anyway, that’s over for now.” She waved her hand as if she swatted a fly. “We’re not as compatible as I hoped.”

“Dare I ask why not?”

“You do not dare. Now, back to the poor morale. Because we seem to be in a bit of a rut—that is, neither gaining the upper hand nor losing ground…”

My attention trailed off a bit. I thought I heard a yell for help from the Wall.

“You haven’t attended to their needs, staying in your quarters, going all Heathcliff on us. Nothing would lift their spirits like dancing!” Her eyes twinkled in mischief.

“Fine.” I’d turned my back so she couldn’t see my smile.

“Fine?”

Ha. Let her chew on that for a minute, wonder what to do with all her prewritten arguments.

“And you’ll be at the opening, of course. If you come, all the women will come. And if all the women come, all the men will come.”

“Great.” I imitated her chipper tone without adding the sarcasm she expected.

“We do have to lay in supplies, and I don’t want to put too much of a burden on the Dodgers. I’ll consult with Screw.”

“Fine, you consult with your former lover with whom you are not compatible but are in cahoots with.”

“Cahoots? I don’t like the implication of that.”

“You love it. You’ll start using the word every chance you get.”

“The first night will be on your birthday! Music and food and strippers and games…”

“Strippers? Jesus, Petti. Strippers?” I swung around and she winked.

“Just leave everything to me.”

“No marching music, okay?” I hated that shit. And I couldn’t imagine women stripping to Sousa, although if anyone could pull it off, it would be Petti. A sudden picture of Victorian strippers, all some facet of Fenwick pulled me out of Heathcliff mode.

“Is Fenwick in the band yet?” Or is she one of your strippers? I wonder if she’s okay. Maybe I should go out there.

“I guess you’ll have to show up.”

* * *

I struggled to push down worry over Fenwick as I turned in for the night. I had almost drifted off when Barber blew through my door, Fen passed out in his arms. My blood turned to ice as I lit the candle near my bed. Barber scanned the room for somewhere comfortable to put her. I helped him lay her on my bed, heart in my throat. Her breathing was shallow, her skin damned pale. For a second, I thought she shimmered, like they do before they shred away and don’t come back. God, I didn’t want her to go yet.

Chapter Five

How Miss Fenwick became troubled.

Screw held my hand and tried again to get me to sleep.

“At least take off those damned boots. They’re covered in blood. I don’t mind a messy roommate, but I draw the line at blood.”

“Don’t forget the entrails.”

“And slime. There’s green slime in your hair. What was that?”

I shuddered. I’d heard people talk about involuntary shudders before, and I experienced one. Goody. “The thing from Ghostbusters. Barber called it ecto-something.”

Screw sniffed out a low laugh. “Ectoplasm.” He lost it, hugging his stomach, tearing up in laughter. “Honestly, baby, Ghostbusters? That thing is ridiculous, a cartoon. I can’t believe anyone had a nightmare about that. How many rounds did you fire into him?”

“Fuck you.”

Screw took a deep breath and sat on the floor. He pushed newsprint under my feet, unlaced my entrail-, blood- and ecto-whatever covered boots, and threw them out the window into the street. God knows what mess I’d left in Jack’s bed.

“So what am I supposed to wear now? Size eight is not an easy find. Albert just got those for me. These women are so freaking tiny…”

I was getting wound up again. I’d promised the Man I would try, just try to relax. It’s all he’d asked of me after I punched him. I had an appointment with the great one the next day, to continue our discussion once I’d calmed down. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing the shiner I’d given him. He’d put me in Screw’s protective custody, I suppose, since we don’t have a jail or mental institution Steamside.

“Now I will have to scrub latrines. Jesus.” I rested my head on Screw’s shoulder.

“At least you didn’t shoot him. Could be worse.” Screw examined his manicured nails. I knew he wanted to counsel me somehow, but he held back. “Maybe you can take him a bottle of absinthe. I think I have an extra one.”

Screw smelled like mulled wine—he’d been drinking I guess. It was comforting, like being home for the holidays. “I saw you. You were checking up on me. It was sweet.”

“I didn’t go out.”

Bullshit. I’d made it up the ladder when the unmistakable sound of Screw’s steamboard—a long skateboard with a tanklike contraption on the back—made me look down. And looking down isn’t my forte when I’m on a ladder. My boot heel slipped, but I caught myself on the next rung and refocused enough to see Screw rounding the corner, hair flying behind him. He looked about fifteen when he boarded, because he just wore cut-off formal pants and his boots. Screw in motion half-naked was a wonder to behold.

“Then someone stole your board. I heard you go back and forth near the Wall a dozen times. It’s the only steampowered skateboard in existence. Seems like a bit of overkill to put an engine on a skateboard.”

“How did you hear anything over your own cursing and gunfire? You woke the whole freaking town.”

I hung my head in shame. I’d snapped, big time. I got into a fistfight with the man who had total control over my life. And for dessert, I’d told him I loved him. He’d laughed. Laughed.

If this place isn’t Purgatory, then the Pope ain’t Catholic. Which of course means I’m dead. I’d heard a few of the Punks use Steamside and Purgatory interchangeably, but I’d never put it together. It’s together now.

“Tell me more.” Screw laced his fingers in mine. “Get it all out.”

“Sweet Pea hasn’t posted it on her blog yet? Right, I guess it will have to wait for tomorrow’s extra.”

The Man’s bed was bliss. Thicker than my bunk, with soft clean sheets smelling of him—shave cream and hair tonic. Spicy and exotic and manly. I don’t know how long I’d been there, but when I opened one eye, I saw Barber and the Man squatting near me, speaking in low tones. Petti was at the end of the bed, wringing her hands in an un-Petti-like way. The memory of the end of my life in the Bronx washed through me and surfaced in waves of sobbing. I didn’t care who saw me or what they thought. I think it was the Man who shot something into my arm.

The Man must have ordered everyone out of the room, because after I surfaced from my stupor, I found myself alone with him, still curled up in his sheets. He was reading, back toward me, leaning against the bed. The light in the room had changed, and I had the vague sense it was morning, that he’d waited at my side through the night.

I didn’t move, but glanced around his inner sanctum. Not much fancier than our quarters, it had a tattered Oriental rug, a lot of stuff nailed to the walls in no particular scheme—photos of pretty girls from magazines—Gibson girls, I guess they were. What looked like woodworking tools were nailed on the wall next to maps of the city, printed schedules of trains or ships, I couldn’t tell, drawings of ships and bridges, and a few bookshelves with maybe a dozen leather-bound volumes.

On a small nightstand stood what looked like a French coffee press, and next to it a hookah. His hats hung on hooks, as did ties, odd bits of rope and cloth, some oily rags, and a dressing robe. It was a manly mess. I’d expected some measure of luxury, but the only acknowledgment of his station was the comfortable bed, and the fact that he roomed alone.

As the fog lifted from my brain, another wave of grief clutched at my chest and despite wanting to suck it up this time, I fell into another sobbing spell. When moments later I came up for air, Jack was rocking me in his arms, like Juan had, like Sweet Pea had.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, not sure what I felt sorry for. He hadn’t plowed a car into me, but he’d brought me here, or at least his stupid sister had. Why was it my fault?

“Oh, Emily.” He pushed me away and ran the back of his hand across my tear-soaked cheeks.

“You have sexy eyes.” When I realized my speech was a little slurred, I also realized I’d spoken. “That was out loud, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, it was. Thanks. You have pretty eyes. They’re a little red right now, though. And your eye makeup is on your cheeks.”

“Oh no! Not eye makeup smears! Am I all bloody from my mortal wounds too? A girl shouldn’t go out like that.” Jack smiled a little and shook his head.

“No blood, at least not yours. They’re nightmares, Fen. You didn’t die out there.”

I turned away from him, caring a little that I did look awful. He rubbed some warmth into my shoulder for a few minutes. When he stopped, it felt like the universe had gone cold.

“You gave me morphine?”

“Not much. The effects should have worn off by now.”

“I’m a cheap date. Can’t hold my juice. Not that this is a date.”

“Of course not. I couldn’t get a woman like you into my bed on the first date.” I rolled toward him, expecting a grin or little twinkle in his eye, but he looked serious.

“You’re full of shit on every level, aren’t you?”

“Pretty much. But I meant that.”

“Whatever.” A woman like me? I wanted to know what that meant, but it seemed a little pointless.

“Let’s sit you up and see how that feels.” I grabbed his shoulders as he hoisted me to the edge of the bed. I caught him copping a quick glance at my body, and looked down, a bit horrified that I was overflowing my gut-stained bodice. I looked like a horror-movie trollop and felt like I’d been hit by a truck.

“When do we get to the part where you explain to me that I’m dead and that you’re the Prince of Darkness?”

“I’m the Prince of Screw-Ups, Fen. I had no business putting you on the Wall, and I have no answers for you regarding your status as dead or alive. I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

Huh? Was it a dream? Hadn’t I been shot in 2010? I’d never gone to Central Park, never entered Petti’s tent of mystical psychic hoo-ha. No, I floated out of my body in the ambulance, if not before, and gone straight to…

“Wait, what do you mean about the Wall? I was awesome!” I tried to stand but it wasn’t happening without his help.

“Don’t try…”

I swatted his hands out of the way. “Stop looking at my boobs.”

“For Chrissakes, just relax, would you? You’re hungry and dehydrated and still in shock. Sit down!”

“Tell me if I’m dead or not! Tell me!” I pounded on his chest, terrified, frustrated, longing for him to hold me again and make sense of everything. Wasn’t he the Man? Didn’t he know what the hell he was doing? No answers? If he didn’t have the answers, who did?

I wriggled my right hand out of his grasp and as he went to capture my hand again, I clocked him. A full-on, right hook to the eye. I froze in horror.

“God damn it!” He backed away from the bed and held his hand over his eye. “What the hell?”

“Shit, I’m sorry.” I started crying again and he walked to a cabinet. Afraid he’d dope me again, I scrambled to my feet. But he was just pouring himself a drink. “I’m sorry, Jack.”

“S’okay.” He sat in a worn leather chair and held the glass up to his eye. “I’m used to the ranting and raving, just usually don’t get decked.”

“I slipped, I swear.” I tried to walk toward him, but the floor started moving in one direction, the ceiling in another.

“I’m in love with you. Help me. Tell me I’m not dead.”

“That was out loud, again.” Before I passed out, I heard him laugh.

Chapter Six

In which our hero’s fortitude is tested.

I found Screw in our pathetic little machine shop, more of a lean-to against the Wall. Littered with odds and ends of scrap metal, copper and bronze tubing and cast-off tools, nuts and bolts in piles everywhere, the chaos of the place contrasted with Screw’s impeccable attire. Everyone Steamside had their own sanctuary—Petti’s Grassy Knoll where she liked to host outings, my private quarters, Barber’s Little Shop of Horrors (as we called his knife-throwing alcove), or Lieutenant’s stool on the Wall.

I tried to give Screw privacy when he was tinkering, because I respected the need for a space of one’s own, but also, he made some damned useful things.

“You hit something, didn’t you? The alignment is off.” He didn’t look up from my velocipede, and I knew from experience that was a very bad omen for the discussion ahead. No matter how hard Screw concentrated on one of his geek projects, he rarely skipped a chance for a smile.

“It would be dented if I’d hit something.”

“Then you hit one hell of a pothole.”

“On our beautiful smooth paved streets? Nah.”

“Go ahead, ask about her.”

“I came for my bike. I need a bit of air. When will you be done?” I needed to ride to California, maybe join the Gold Rush, if it’s the right time for that. Or ride off a cliff into the Pacific and get it over with.

“You know what the worst part is? She seems more worried about your eye than the fact she might be dead. Oh, and something about telling you she loves you.”

Screw dropped his wrench and stood toe to toe with me. I had about an inch on him at six feet, and he was smaller framed, but he seemed imposing. I’d never seen him angry, not even when he first found us. Screw and Steamside were synonymous. I think he’d been rescued from some desperate emotional trauma in Normal by getting swept here. He embraced his life with us, not speaking of home or philosophical questions of the afterlife and our purpose. I never knew what he hid beneath his fantastic personality, more fantastic intellect, and good looks. I always imagined it a door left closed with good reason.

Screw might have been a better leader for the Punks. I imagine he thought the same thing, but in a silent gentleman’s agreement, I kept the job. But he was our soul. And he was my friend. I loved him, in that ‘okay for a guy to do’ kind of way, and he knew it.

“Look, Screwball, Petti already read me the riot act this morning. Barber isn’t speaking to me.”

“How can you tell?”

“His silence is louder than usual. How the hell could any of us have imagined she’d witness her own death on the Wall?”

“Her death?”

“Whatever, death, near-death, coma, nightmare, whatever.”

“Wanna know why I’m pissed off, Jack?”

“Not particularly. I came for my bike.”

“You came to see how she is. You’re going to wuss out and not meet with her, avoid her as much as possible. Just because she was high on juice and spurted out some shit about being in love with you. What the fuck? Grow a pair. If you want her, either do her and get it out of your system, or be up front with her about why you can’t. But don’t put her on the goddamned Wall before she’s ready just to get her out of the way! It’s like you were hoping she’d crack. Oh, and moving her into my room in hopes we’d hook up—not too subtle.”

“She was good up there, Screw. Sweet Pea said before she got hit by the car, she had it nailed. What should I do with her? Make her mend my shirts? She’s really bright.”

“She’s a basket case, a tall, smart, gorgeous basket case. I know you do the ‘I’m the king of the world’ thing to keep us all grounded. I wouldn’t mind if you have to drop it for your own sanity once in a while. If you want to pull her into your close circle, do it, be upfront about it. If not, let her sew buttons and don’t work so hard at not caring. It just makes it obvious you do.” He blew out a deep breath. “Except to her.”

“I’m not dying for anything. I’m trying to fix…”

“Whatever’s wrong with 1890, I know. Maybe nothing is wrong with it? Who cares? Did it ever occur to you we could just put down our marbles, leave Steamside, live in Normal, and watch it all unfold?”

“Of course. For the first year I was here. You haven’t lived in Normal, Screw. You don’t get it.”

“Haven’t I? Don’t I? You talk as if you’re the only one to have experienced anything since leaving Modern.”

“I’m not preaching. These Normals are beginning to get over a war—on their own soil. They’re in the middle of chaotic changes. Politics, technology, the economy, the immigrants. Do you want to unleash this alternate hell on them? They’d be like children. I know we’re supposed to be doing this. I know it.” God, I didn’t know anything anymore.

“I think so, too. I just wondered if you’d given up. ‘Cause if you hadn’t noticed, we’re losing. And taking pot shots off the Wall isn’t cutting it.”

“I noticed. It’s worse than you know. I saw the Titanic and the Hindenburg.”

Screw wiped his brow and stared at me. “No shit. When?”

“The day I took Fen to Normal.”

Screw and I locked gazes. I flinched first, bending to pretend I was inspecting the velocipede.

“How many anachros did we have before Fen came here?”

“Uh, not sure.”

Screw threw his hair over his shoulder and folded his arms. “You mean you’re pretty sure they started when she arrived.”

“I’m not sure of the date. Maybe about the same time.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. The good news is that we might find a solution. The bad news?” I shrugged.

“That it might mean something terrible about Fenwick. Like getting rid of her.”

“Keep an eye on her for me, would you?”

“Do it yourself.”

“It can’t be me. Don’t you get it? I can’t play in any reindeer games. I’m the Man—dispassionate, invulnerable, a regular Spock. I can’t get tied up in her, especially if she’s the one…somehow…”

“The one. You mean, with a capital ‘O’, don’t you? Maybe if she’s the one causing the problems, she’s also the one who can fix this. Maybe she’s not the villain. Maybe she’s our Neo.”

“No, she’s no villain. At least she’s not doing it on purpose. Screw, don’t say anything to her about the anachros, okay? Maybe I’ll take her to the obelisk and see if it resonates with her somehow. Of course, I might be risking more anachros if they’re tied to her.”

“Wow, cool first date. By the way, you know about the big dance tomorrow, right?”

“Hell.”

“Dude, it’s your birthday. Your public will be crushed if you don’t show.”

“And you’ve already told everyone to get me absinthe, haven’t you?”

Ah, there was the sly grin I knew and loved.

* * *

I’d shown up at Jack’s quarters armored for our meeting and pitched a fit to Barber that he’d gone out. I’d barely slept, fretting about whether he’d be madder at me for slugging him, or if I’d be madder because I was dead. Or not dead. Whichever. Instead, Barber announced that the Man had an appointment, and had asked Petti to take me for an outing. An outing? Was that my consolation prize for death?

We were in Indian summer, and riding a bike uphill, no matter how many wheels it has, is hard work. Petti and Barber showed no signs of slowing down, no matter how I complained. I’d gotten a little soft in the last year, so had my thighs. You keep hearing how our ancestors worked so hard they didn’t need to join gyms and lift weights. Not so, the fine ladies of Manhattan.

“Are we there yet?” I’d already shredded the bottom of my skirt on the spokes of my enormous tricycle.

“Stop bitching,” Petti called over her shoulder. I didn’t think Petti capable of breaking her 1890s character and etiquette. But there she was, wearing only bloomers and a camisole, cursing at me, smoking a pipe.

“I can bitch all I like. Bitch! Bitch! Bitch,” I yelled with each push of the pedal, hoping it would give me some relief from the lump in my throat that said ‘dead, dead, dead’.

We labored over the bumpy lane up the hill past our town, full of ruts and fresh tracks from Jack’s velocipede. So, his urgent business was to take his bike out for a ride.

“Can we get a horse?” I called to Petti. She turned back with a disdainful frown.

“I’m serious.”

I wanted to go fast. Except for shredding back and forth to Normal, which didn’t give you a sense of velocity, I hadn’t gone fast in a long time. Nothing was fast anymore. You couldn’t even dress quickly, with ten pounds of underwear to get on.

Everything about Steamside annoyed the hell out of me since the awakening, as I’d dubbed my nightmare—or vision—of dying. Petti assured me that everyone goes through a meltdown here. It had just taken a serious event in my case.

“I don’t care if you’ve all been through it. You’ve lied to me for over a year. You’re a bunch of sadists, keeping my own death from me.”

Poor Juan, I thought. He would never be the same, never. Was he the one to tell my parents?

Petti had squeezed my hand and stared into my eyes. “It’s not clear whether any of us are dead or not. Do you think you’re alone in this? I swear to you. We don’t know how we’re here. We haven’t lied to you. Everyone wants to go home.”

So I found myself on an outing, boiling over with emotion, angry at the Man for blowing me off, angry at him for laughing at my goony, stupor-induced declaration of love, angry at myself for halfway meaning it.

We settled on an embankment of a little brook, and Petti spread out a blanket while Barber unpacked food from a burlap bag. A very small roasted chicken. Leftover potatoes and cabbage from last night’s meal. Three biscuits.

“I’d like a burger. And potato chips. And a cold beer in a can.”

Barber and Petti exchanged a glance and a sigh.

“I’m not allowed to want anything?” I stripped off my shoes and thick stockings and threw them at Petti. When I was down to my bloomers, Barber collected my clothes and hung them over a low-hanging branch.

“We all want things. We want to fix 1890.” Barber took off his hat and jacket, rolled up his shirtsleeves, and lay back on the blanket, hands folded across his chest. With that, he fell asleep as I flapped and squawked like a disturbed chicken.

“Fix 1890? I want 2010. I want to know who won American Idol. I want movies and subways and grocery stores. I want tampons, damn it. God, I’ll never see the end of Lost.”

Petti ignored me, picking at her meal and letting the last rays of summer kiss her round cheeks.

So that was it? They were going to let me get it out of my system somehow, and ignore me? I plunked on the grass near the stream and watched a pair of red-winged blackbirds light on cattails. Their trilling cry pierced the air as they flashed scarlet epaulets. I lay back and listened to them and the sound of the water trickling off miniature falls.

The sputter of an engine inspired the adrenaline rush I always got when the Man was near. Would he stop and join us? Would he talk to me? Would I talk to him?

“Oh dear,” Petti clucked in annoyance. “He’d better go home.”

“I’m not going to hit him again, if that’s what worries you.”

“He was to leave you alone for a bit.”

The velocipede spit a puff of smoke as Jack cut the engine. I rolled onto my stomach to watch Screw bend down to check one of the tires and Jack watch him. Which wasn’t so unusual, except Jack was shirtless, and wore old trousers rolled up to the knees, and his boots. A chain with a handful of keys bounced on his chest as he turned and started down the hill toward us. I fought to hold onto my righteous anger as I took in how hot the Man was. And God help me, he had the coolest tattoo around one arm.

“He’s at sixes and sevens,” Petti put her hand on my arm as I sat up. “I know the look. Careful, Fenwick.”

“Me? He’d better watch his sixes and sevens.” I rolled onto my side away from him to hide my flushed cheeks, sorry for the loss of a Baywatch moment.

“Jack.” Barber’s baritone signaled his arrival. Either Barber wasn’t asleep or Jack’s mere divine presence woke him.

“My man Barber. Enjoying the day?”

“Indubitably. As well as the charming company.”

“The company is a little more charming than usual. Petti, haven’t we spoken about the whole traipsing through the countryside in underwear thing?”

“Indeed we have. On several occasions. I take it you’ve forgotten the outcome of those conversations? Fen and I are entitled to run butt naked through the woods if we like.”

“I’d like that,” Barber volunteered.

Screw popped down by his side and took off his shirt.

“Seen her,” he pointed to Petti. “Room with her,” he pointed to me. “What’s your hang-up, Jack?”

Why were they acting so differently around me? The Victorian veneer had rubbed off each of them. As if I were backstage, seeing how they prepared for the magic tricks, each was more real, more Modern.

I sat up and found the nerve to stare at Jack. “This is some kind of meeting. It’s about me, isn’t it? You’re going to vote me off the island.”

“Trust me, sugar, if I was going to vote anyone off the island, it would be me.” Jack sat at my feet, and although I knew it was inappropriate, I propped my feet in his lap. He laughed a bit, but I think I surprised myself more than him.

“No one’s ever called me sugar. I think I hate it.” I loved it.

“You can take the south out of a boy…” He shrugged and began a foot massage that went right to my belly. Well, a little lower.

“You blew off our meeting. Afraid I’d hit you again?” Screw cleared his throat in a not-so-subtle message to tread lightly.

“Aren’t you just a little pistol today?” Jack squeezed my feet and pushed them off his lap. Damn it. “I had to shred to Normal and check a few things out. We’re going there tomorrow, maybe stay a few days.”

“Who’s we? Do I get any say in this?” Oh my God, was I going to Normal with the Man, alone? For a few days? Was he going to dump me off at some flophouse to get rid of me? My righteous anger turned to anxiety.

Petti looked up from the dandelion necklace she was weaving and glanced at Jack. He nodded and stared at me straight on.

“So, Fenwick, we’ll need to get you more clothes, those of a married lady of society. You’ll need a cover. We’ll go as husband and wife.”

“As if.”

“Well, we can’t pretend that you’re married to Screw or Barber.”

“So we’re all going? You’re hiding something. You’re going to dump me somewhere, aren’t you?”

Screw sat and hugged me from behind with his head resting on my shoulder. “We like you. No one’s going to dump you anywhere. I promise.”

“Drink the Kool-Aid and don’t question the Man.”

“That’s right. You’ll see. The more we five are together; you’ll understand how it works. You’re one of us, now.”

One of them? I loved the sound of that, and hated it. I lay back down on the blanket and watched fluffy white clouds drift east. At least the air currents went in the same direction Steamside as they did in 2010. I could hang onto that. The spot reminded me of my Aunt’s farm upstate, where I’d go into the fields to be alone and smell the non-city smells. Like that scent tomato leaves give off when you rub them.

I volunteered for the Wall that night. I know what you’re thinking. How could she? But I knew Juan would probably be back on duty soon after the accident. And sure, I wanted to prove something to Jack, to all of them. The Lieutenant was happy to see me, and said so. It made it worth it.

Chapter Seven

A lovely evening of music and merriment.

Of all my birthdays, my twenty-eighth will stay with me forever. I was ‘almost’ happy. For Petti’s sake, I was prepared to put a good face on. An hour into the party, I wasn’t acting.

She’d enchanted our mess hall into a sepia-toned Mardi Gras. The Dodgers must have worked for weeks, tearing apart a piano and bringing it Steamside, bit by bit. I knew Fatty, a guy from Iowa, was a pianist, but I’d never heard him play, of course. Nor did I dream he would know how to fix and tune a piano.

“Not perfect.” He grinned like something out of an old movie over his shoulder as he pounded away. “Prince Albert lost two of the keys.” It didn’t matter. He was in his glory as he laid out a version of Piano Man, a song I hate more than a sledgehammer to the head. The guy was from Iowa, after all, a poster boy for wholesomeness.

The women were in their Punk best, a few of them in no more than corsets. It didn’t matter that a few of them were fat, a few skinny. I’d never appreciated the female form as much as I did that night. And they seemed damned happy to be out of their layers. Petti was giddy over the news that the bustle was going out of style, and the women talked for a half hour about it.

Screw noticed my subtle glances at the attendees. “She’ll be along.”

“Shut up. And thanks again for the bike.”

“But wait, there’s more!” He pulled me by the hand like a child and led me to a large boxy thing covered in a blanket. “Go ahead, open it. It’s from all of us. Everyone did their part.” He bounced up and down like he was at a 90s concert as the Punks gathered around for the big reveal.

“Nah, let’s wait until later.”

“Go ahead, everyone’s waiting,” Fen said from right behind me, peering over my shoulder. It felt right to have her there. I didn’t turn around, but nodded to let her know that somehow, it mattered. She mattered. And was mattering more every day. I think I stopped trying to fool myself at that very moment. It wasn’t her connection to any vortex that made me want her at my side.

I pulled the blanket off and cried out in astonishment. Holy shit, a pinball machine. An honest-to-God pinball machine. The launcher launched the ball, the levers worked, the bells rang, and it even kept score, with little white tin flip cards.

Screw was still jumping up and down, clapping. I grabbed him and twirled him around. We chest bumped, fist bumped, high-fived, and laughed ourselves senseless.

“You’re a fucking genius. Dude. I’m speechless.”

“You called me Dude! Everyone, did you hear it? The Man broke down and said Dude! Petti and Barber decorated it.”

“And did a damned fine job.” I ran my hand over the glass, burning each image into my brain. Photos of the French Quarter. Pressed flowers and naked ladies. Ships and compasses. Astrolabes and woodworking tools. And the cover of Beeton’s Christmas Annual, featuring Arthur Conan Doyle’s new story about a detective.

Fen tapped me on the shoulder and handed me a present, tied in black lace ribbon.

I sobered up from my pinball high. Would she see it on my face? That I’d spent a night fantasizing about her, spent the rest of the day trying to shake off the heat of the images I’d conjured from my imagination? Women could pick up on shit like that.

She wore her own clothes, her 2010 clothes. I don’t know if it was a statement, or if she wanted a break from the frilly stuff. She was stunning, in a tank top, jeans, and sandals. I broke down inside a little. It wasn’t her, but the look of someone from my time, our time. I had worked so hard through the years to escape the longing for home, and here Fen was, digging up that longing.

“What have we here?” I’m proud I managed a little dignity.

“I think you figured this one out. And by the way, I haven’t read it yet. I mean, not in years, so I get it back when you’re done. Can’t figure out why I’m excited to read it. I can recite it. Screw begged me to rip the cover off for the pinball machine.”

I never met a woman who liked Sherlock Holmes, not in the way I did.

She shrugged, reading my mind. “My dad was a detective. I also watch—watched—CSI and all that stuff.”

“Bet you’d make a great detective.” Lame, sounding lamer by the minute. Luckily, Fatty chose that moment to break into a polka, and the Punks scattered to make room to dance. I’d put the brakes on marching music, but hadn’t been quick enough to ban polka.

Barber whisked Fen away from me and I pushed through the weaving couples to find a drink. At least twenty bottles of absinthe lined the makeshift bar. Sweet Pea was tending and saluted as I approached.

I saluted back and she broke into a big grin. “Absinthe?”

“I think I’ll save that for my quarters. Any whiskey?”

“No ice. Do you mind straight up? No twist, either.”

“Straight up is great.” I sipped for a while with Sweet Pea and we watched the dance in silence. Until I couldn’t restrain myself.

“How’d she make out last night?”

“She’s here, isn’t she? Looks pretty good to me.”

“You’re not talking.”

“What happens on the Wall, stays on the Wall. Most of the time.”

“She’s okay to be up there?”

“We’ll see.”

“Lieutenant, you’re a little insubordinate tonight. Given I’m in charge and it’s my birthday.”

“Yeah, I guess I am. If you don’t ask any more questions about Fenwick, I won’t tell everyone you pour presents of absinthe down the drain.”

“Damn. How?”

“We have an understanding then?”

“Yes ma’am, we sure do. You’re in charge while we go to Normal tomorrow. May be gone a few days. If anything happens…”

“Sir, if anything happens and you manage to get to Modern, I’ll be a happy woman. In a way, I hope to never see you again. Good luck with whatever you’re up to.”

“Thanks.”

I played pinball most of the night, until everyone was drunk and pawing one another like it was a frat party. As I suspected, the women in underwear did a weird little dance somewhere between stripping and the Rockettes. It wasn’t very erotic, but we cheered them on and they seemed happy.

Petti sat near me on the floor and leaned her head on my shoulder. I held her hand and didn’t say a million things. I love you. I can’t believe you did all of this for me. I hate myself for not getting you out of this. I hate myself for driving too fast that night. I wondered what she wasn’t saying.

“Look at Emily in her jeans. Party animal.” Petti pointed through the crowd at Fen playing Beirut or some other drinking game. “You’d better slow her down. She doesn’t hold her substances well.”

“She gave me a first edition of Sherlock Holmes.”

“Baby, they’re all first editions. Go to her.”

“We’ll see.”

Instead, I sat on the bench with Fatty, who hadn’t taken a break for two hours. Fenwick caught my eye from across the room and slammed her empty drink on the table, rim down. She made a strong-arm motion to indicate she’d been victorious and I waved and laughed. It was almost normal human interaction. God, did I say she wasn’t beautiful? She’s incredibly beautiful.

Fenwick wound her way more steadily than I’d imagined possible to the piano and leaned on the top. “Play it once, Fatty. For old times' sake.”

Fatty stared at her, confused. I couldn’t have buried my smile if I tried.

“Play it, Fatty. Play ‘As Time Goes By’.

Fatty laughed. “I’m not sure I know that one, Miss…”

“Ilsa. I'll hum it for you. Da-dy-da-dy-da-dum, da-dy-da-dee-da-dum...”

Fatty winked. Despite the missing keys, he played beautifully.

“Hello, Rick,” Fen muttered in a throaty attempt at a foreign accent. She slipped off the piano, brushed her hand along my forearm, and with a little come-hither motion of her finger, headed out the door. I watched her go, watched the life drain from the room.

And realized too late that everyone was staring at me. Not their ‘you are awesome’ stare. A new look, one of disappointment. They wanted a happy ending, even if it wasn’t their own. Well, Casablanca didn’t end that well either. I shrugged, but they didn’t turn away. You think I was a wuss for not following her? It was one of the hardest things I’ve done in 1890, and that’s saying something.

Screw brought me a fresh drink and motioned everyone to get back to the party. “I suppose this isn’t the time to tell you how lame you are.”

“You don’t really expect me to hook up with Fenwick while she’s drunk.”

“Just needed to hear you say it.” Screw grinned and we went back to pinball.

* * *

I was pretty proud of myself for falling asleep when I hit the cot rather than waiting for Jack to follow me to my room. I knew he wouldn’t, but it had felt really good to tease him.

I watched Screw straighten his waistcoat before donning his newest jacket, a soft gray sack coat. I fiddled with his enormous floppy bow tie.

“It just hangs there, limp. Aren’t ties supposed to be crisp?”

Screw didn’t tolerate criticism of his clothes, so I took every opportunity to take a jab at his penchant for the newest styles.

I wasn’t a clotheshorse in 2010, and I sure as hell didn’t know what I was doing in 1890. Petti corrected my choices every Tuesday when the Dodgers hosted a clothing exchange. The mess hall turned into a Salvation Army outlet gone haywire. If you were tired of a hat, or had outgrown a corset, you turned it in and picked up a new one. Everyone was pretty fair, even offering suggestions to one another.

It helped that I was taller than the rest of the women, except Sweet Pea. I got what I needed, and always in blue.

“Just because you’re a makeover screaming to happen…” Screw wound my hair in his long artistic fingers and did his magic. He was the only one able to keep my mane pinned into a proper chignon that wouldn’t fall to my shoulders within minutes. He said it was a type of structural engineering.

“Are you sure you’re straight?”

He clenched pins in his mouth and took them out one by one as he wrestled with my hair. “You can do better than that. Don’t forget your pistol. Strap it to your leg, unless you want me to.” Screw wiggled his brows.

“What is Barber going to do? What are you going to do, Screw?” It wasn’t a comfortable question.

“The Civil War was won by the North. The school system failed you.”

“Meaning you and Barber can stay at the same hotel with us? I don’t think so.”

“I’m a merchant from San Francisco, in business with Jack, and Barber is our man.”

“Oh hell.”

“Spoken like a 21st-Century white woman. Barber goes to walk in his ancestors’ shoes, as he says. He’s turned it into a positive, just like he does everything.”

“And you? What does it do for you?”

“I get offered opium a lot. You meet a lot of interesting characters downtown.”

“It’s like a Sherlock Holmes story. You in a smoky opium den with a secret agenda. What is our agenda, by the way?”

He shrugged. “Something to do with you and anachros. Ask the Man. I just work for him. By the way, that bit last night was harsh.”

“What bit?”

“The watch me be angsty over Jack while pretending not to care bit at the piano. Wasn’t fair to him. What was he supposed to do with all of us watching and you plastered?”

“Nothing.” He was supposed to run after me, pull me harshly into an embrace, kiss me, tell me how much he wants me. “Nothing,” I repeated.

Screw pulled one of his rings off and slid it onto my finger. “Don’t forget that you’re married. And not to me.”

“Then there is an upside.”

No, there wasn’t. I couldn’t shake the feeling this trip to Normal was all about me. Now the Man was pissed off at me for flirting with him at the party. If I was now part of the inner sanctum, why did I feel like a target?

Chapter Eight

A remnant of antiquity carries great import for our friends.

“Nothing.” Petti walked back and forth in front of Cleopatra’s Needle for half an hour. At one point she did the unthinkable and in clear sight of the Normals, put her hand on the obelisk, closed her eyes, and hummed.

The same damned cop who always walked the east end of Central Park stopped cold and watched her.

“Crap,” Screw muttered. “Say something, Jack.”

“He’s not going to arrest a society type.”

I left the bench and strolled to stand by the cop. “My sister is a bit of an Egyptophile. I imagine she’s reminiscing over our travels.”

“She’s a wot?” I hated this guy. Pompous, chip-on-his-shoulder, wannabe tough guy.

“She likes things from Egypt. That,” I pointed to the obelisk with my walking stick, “is from Egypt.”

“At least she can’t pinch it.” He snorted out his laugh and looked at me for a reaction.

“Very good, Officer.”

“Just mind she doesn’t take a pick to it. Property of the city, isn’t it?”

“I’ll keep an eye on her, my good man.”

He sniffed in satisfaction and wandered down the path of Greywacke Knoll, arm cemented to his back, chest puffed out.

“Hate that guy,” Fen said as I approached the bench. “I keep thinking he might be an ancestor. Reminds me of my uncle.”

“Stay in character.”

“Tell that to your sister.” Fen pointed to Petti, who was now hugging the obelisk.

“Oh, Annalise! Tea time.” My sister could be a freaking handful.

“Yes, dear Miss Pettigrew, do come now! Is she off her rocker?” Fen looked to me for an explanation.

I sat between her and Screw while Barber wandered in lookout mode, smoking a pipe. She had that scent all the women did in Normal—lavender or lilac or something. I also detected a bit of machine oil. She’d cleaned her pistol before we left. The two combined to disturb my libido, and I wasn’t sure which part of her got to me. The crack shot or the soft curves. Maybe the combination. I had to stop thinking about the gun strapped to her thigh and didn’t need Freud to point out the metaphorical significance of that fantasy.

“Petti once heard the obelisk call to her.”

“I want some of what she’s taking.”

“This is where we first arrived from our 21st Century lives. This is where we end up when we shred to Normal. She thinks the obelisk is a vortex, or marks a vortex, or something.”

“It doesn’t mark a vortex. The Normals put it up a few years ago—what would they know about vortexes? What is a vortex, anyway? It came from Alexandria, was taken there by Cleopatra as a gift to Mark Antony. The original location was Heliopolis. Tuthmosis the second, or third. Can’t remember which.”

“Why do you know that?” I took another deep breath of machine oil and flowers wafting off her.

“You think I don’t read? Didn’t go to school?”

God, she was sensitive about my every move, every word. How the hell was this going to work if I couldn’t talk to her?

“Stop turning everything I say into an insult. I would simply like to know how you know that. Did you study about it in school? Did you read up on it yourself? How? Simple question, looking for a simple answer.”

“I’m descended from some wacky archaeologist. Although I use the term lightly, because I think he was more an Indiana Jones kind of guy. You know, dig and take. My grandmother had a book of his drawings.”

Cosmic convergence and coincidence battled it out in my brain. Petti had given up her stone hugging and joined us. She tapped her finger on her lips and I knew she was working on the same thing.

“Nah,” I said to Petti.

She gave me an ‘are you sure?’ look. I shook off her question with a look only she’d know. Later, it said.

Screw broke the silence with a groan. The rest of us saw it at the same time—a little boy with a clubfoot, limping behind his siblings, dragging his kite. I imagined him trying to keep up, running through the grass as fast as he could—but not fast enough to get the kite airborne. God, I wanted to pick him up in my arms and make him laugh, make him my son. Tell him he could do anything, be anything, that the world didn’t care about deformities. But that’s only a half-truth in 2010, and it sure as hell wasn’t true in 1890.

Besides, we’d seen much worse. Deformities of every variety that would be sliced off with a laser or cured in an hour of surgery in Modern. Hacking coughs that would kill for the want of an antibiotic. The number of Civil War amputees still limping on the streets of New York was astounding. Children dying from Scarlet Fever, the measles, and God knows what else.

We called these Screamers. The moments when you wanted to tell the idiots what to do, but you couldn’t. You wanted to scream, but waited until you were Steamside and had a drink instead. We’d soothe ourselves with platitudes. ‘You’d never convince them,’ or ‘We don’t know enough to fix it ourselves,’ or the worst, ‘We shouldn’t interfere’.

“Twenty-Eight,” Screw mumbled.

Fen looked at him, puzzled.

“TOS, Episode Twenty-Eight,” he expounded.

“Riiiight.”

Petti held up her hand to ward off Screw’s lecture on one of his favorite topics. “Star Trek, the Original Series, Episode Twenty-Eight. In which Kirk and Spock must go back in time to stop McCoy from doing something that will change history.”

“Is this one of those things? You know, where you shouldn’t meet yourself in the past or the universe might implode.”

Barber knocked the ashes from his pipe. “That’s a paradox. We call ‘Twenty-Eight’, when we encounter a moment in Normal in which we would like to interfere, but feel we shouldn’t. Or in most cases, where we don’t know how.”

“But in those paradoxes, aren’t you changing things by just being here? Aren’t we? By talking to that cop. Maybe it stopped him from…”

Screw cleared his throat. “Been there, Fenwick, had that conversation. A zillion times.”

“So do you call ‘Twenty-Eight’ when a woman is about to be run over by a carriage? Or a child who can’t swim falls into a pond? I don’t believe it.”

I wondered for the hundredth time what Emily Fenwick was like, without fear and anger coloring every thought and word. Still a little cocky and defensive, maybe never happy. Smart, attractive, strong, and pretty sane, was my guess. And we’d taken it all from her. Maybe.

“Well, let’s try the obelisk another day…” I stood and offered my arm to Fenwick as the unmistakable roar of a modern car engine made us all spin toward Fifth Avenue. It was tough to see over the incline, but it sure as hell looked like a silver sports car.

As the five of us watched in amazement, the car jumped the curb and jolted down the hill, skidding and spinning out of control, until it finally rolled onto its roof. One man was thrown from the car, another mangled in its wreckage. Barber closed in on it before the rest of us, but before he reached it, car and passengers misted into nowhere.

“It was a Porsche,” Barber mumbled, pulling off his hat and rubbing at his neck.

“A Porsche,” Screw repeated numbly. “With a number on it, like a race car.”

They looked at me for an explanation.

Fenwick pulled at my sleeve. “It didn’t have one hundred thirty on it, did it? Did it?”

“Yeah, it did,” Screw said. “Why? Phew, that was freaky. I mean, my nerves are still buzzing.”

Petti adjusted her hat and let out a deep breath. “Jack, look at the Normals.”

I’d noticed they noticed nothing. A middle-aged couple walked serenely along the path near the phantom wreck, and our annoying park constable made another pass near the obelisk, no doubt worried about Petti making off with it.

I nodded to Petti. “As I thought. They don’t notice any of it. The Titanic docking, the Hindenburg gliding overhead, James Dean wrecking, and God only knows what else.”

“James Dean?” Petti put her gloved hand to her mouth. “Oh, what a shame. I would have loved to have spoken to him.”

“Yeah, what a shame.” I looked at Fen and she paled as we locked gazes.

“Stop looking at me like that!” She turned her back on me. I grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her toward me.

“Tell me. Go ahead, tell me you didn’t think of James Dean today. God knows why you would, but you did.”

“Me? Why does it have to be me?” But her eyes misted over and I saw her doubt and frustration. “Send me home, go ahead. I dare you.”

“We’re not sending you anywhere. I know you don’t mean to do it.”

“Mean to do what exactly? Think? How can I not think? I’ve thought about Snickers bars, but they haven’t materialized. Have you noticed that?”

“Three disasters. God knows how many more.” I stood for a while, staring at the serenity of the Park, taking in the sounds of the busy street behind, mulling over the only clue to our present circumstances.

I could practically hear the gears turning in Screw’s brain, but he was silent as well.

Petti clapped her hands to bring us all around. “Why so glum? This is good, very good!”

I gave her my ‘what the hell’ look.

“The Normals aren’t affected, as far as we know. Fen must hold some clue in that noggin of hers, which is a start. I’d say we’re headed in the right direction.”

“Direction?”

“To getting back to Modern. Come on, now, let’s enjoy this day and see what more transpires. For a couple of Sherlock Holmes fans, you don’t seem to be intrigued by this mystery. Let’s get on the case at once!”

Chapter Nine

Tripping the light fantastic on the sidewalks of New York…

Since none of us knew what else to do, we wandered back to the Hotel Henry. Petti complained that the Waldorf Astoria hadn’t been built yet. I don’t know where she developed a taste for the finer things—our upbringing had been one of solid blue-collar sensibilities. Brand-name cola had been a luxury, Friday was fish-stick night, and you didn’t earn an allowance by doing chores. You earned peace, maybe a chance to stay up past eight.

I enjoyed strolling down Fifth Avenue, despite the dust the carriages kicked up and the smell of manure as they readied the bottom of the Park for new plantings. Fenwick didn’t flinch when I offered her my arm, and I fancied we made a pretty good pair. She walked fast, and I had to keep pulling her back to the lethargic stroll of the socially blessed. We didn’t discuss disasters, and I prayed I could keep her spirits up so she didn’t think about them.

The five blocks took an hour. Screw had to look at everything. Lampposts, watch shops, carriage wheels, paving stones, horse harnesses, and the organ of the organ grinder. The monkey didn’t interest him at all, but Fenwick giggled and played with him, which relieved me. I wished I had a strong antidepressant to give her, but if a monkey worked, I was fine with that.

“Careful, they bite,” I warned.

“Bah. It’s a white-headed capuchin. They’re harmless.” He climbed up and down her arms, sat on her fine hat, and tipped his own little hat for a tip. Fenwick looked at me, her gaze pleading.

“Do we have any money?”

“For the little rascal? Of course, dear.” She was asking if we had money at all, or if we’d be stealing our way through this ‘vacation’.

I fished a few pennies out of my pocket and the grinder fell over me with gratitude in a thick Italian accent. I knew he rented the instrument, and the pittance would at least allow him to break even for the day.

“Fatty would love this,” Screw said to me. “I mean, if we could take it back. It’s like a music box, with a number of songs embedded on the roller.”

“I’m sure you could make him one. It’s just a computer, isn’t it?”

“No, it most decidedly is not.” I might as well have called his mother a whore. Perhaps worse.

“On and off signals, right? A raised bump to play a note, no bump for silence. Zeroes and ones. Isn’t that a computer?”

“Are you serious?”

“Come on; let’s go back to our rooms. We’ll freshen up and take in dinner, discuss things.”

“I want a cheeseburger,” Fen said. “I really, really want a cheeseburger. Do you think if I told them how to make one, they would?”

“Why the hell not? As you said, we wouldn’t let a carriage hit a child, so I guess it won’t hurt to introduce a cheeseburger before its time.”

She smiled at me. A bright, wide smile that made me grin in response. A little more hopeful, I offered my arm to Fen and she took it.

My peace was cut short a few minutes later as we approached the Hotel Henry. In 2010, you don’t notice the white noise of modern life.

In 1890, engines, the few you’d encounter, were enormous, loud, and confined to locales like the railway station or factories.

As astonishing as the police helicopters circling overhead was the complete lack of reaction from the Normals on the busy street. It stopped the five of us in our tracks.

Screw pointed downtown, and without skyscrapers in the way, you could see a good distance down the length of Manhattan. The sky was specked with more helicopters, circling the same empty spots on the horizon.

Petti sobbed out a cry, and I pulled her hand away from her face. “What?”

I realized as soon as the words were out, at the same time the rest did, that we were watching a slice of a day we wanted to forget, nearly had forgotten. But it was an odd slice, with no twin skyscrapers, no crowds, no sirens, no dust clouds or rushing fire trucks. Only helicopters, searching for a way to understand.

Barber sat on the stoop of a cigar shop and held his hat to his chest. “Damnation. What a thing.”

“Wouldn’t it be something if we could pull that child from the way of a carriage?” Screw said.

Yeah, Fen had been right. No one would hesitate to stop a disaster, no one could. But we were breaths away from events leading to the war to end all wars, from an economic crash that would have men jumping off the tops of buildings and leaving children in rags. Who were we to change the course of events? Just a handful of renegades.

Petti shook her head in disbelief as she wiped her eyes. None of us looked at Fenwick. But she clutched my hand and squeezed tightly. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered breathlessly. “I did this one too. God, make it stop.”

* * *

You’ll think I’m shallow, but for a while, I was more worried about the sleeping arrangements than the importance of anachros. While Jack and I had checked into the Henry as husband and wife, Barber had stowed our belongings in the same room. I imagined we’d all switch rooms after dinner. Me and Petti, Jack and Screw, and whatever unconscionable spot they’d give to Barber. Instead, I found myself in the tiny privy, sponging the dust of Fifth Avenue off my face and wondering how I would change into evening wear without Screw’s help.

The Man was feet away, penning notes in his tiny diary, sitting at a desk looking out onto the Avenue. No doubt absorbed in weighty matters while I sweat it out. There was no way of getting into my evening attire without more space. I pulled on Jack’s dressing robe and peeked around the door.

“Can you go somewhere else for a while?”

He looked over his shoulder before scribbling in his book. “Sorry, you’ll have to get over it.”

“I know they have a library or lounge or smoking room or bar or whatever they call it downstairs. I saw one.”

He turned and faced me. “That’s my robe. Don’t get girly smell all over it.”

“Come on, Jack.”

“Firstly, when in Normal, one stays in character and plays the assigned role.”

“No one consulted me about my role.”

“Secondly, I’ve seen you half naked with blood and guts sprayed all over you. I’ve seen you in your underwear. Okay, 1890s underwear. What the hell is the difference? You used to go to the damned beach in 2010 in a bikini, parading back and forth in front of strangers.”

“I never paraded. I am so not a parader.” All right, at least not since college.

“I’m watching you like a hawk. There’s a very slim chance you’re not causing the anachros, but I want to see every one of them while you’re in Normal. Look, I’ll turn my back, and stay turned, how’s that? Christ, I’m stuck in a goddamned Cary Grant movie.”

“I didn’t ask for this.”

“Neither did I, sugar.”

I wanted to snark back, but realized the truth. We were all in this together, and I was being a royal pain in the ass, even for me. Jack hadn’t killed me, he hadn’t—at least to my knowledge—created the mess we’re in. In fact, it was becoming pretty obvious part of the mess was connected to me. Jack hadn’t treated me badly. He’d taken a punch, accepted my accusations, tried to help my self-esteem by putting me on the Wall. Why couldn’t I cut him a break? Because he just wasn’t that in to me. I’d gone out one Saturday looking for love, and found Jack instead.

“Hey, Jack.”

“What now?” But he saw it on my face and his expression softened.

“Sorry. I’m okay. So, what are you writing?”

“When I can’t think of anything to write, I just jot down whatever comes to mind. Makes me look busy. Makes me the Man.”

“My dad used to do that, write in a little notebook. Of course, I take it you’re not writing about how I disappointed you today, are you?”

“Yikes. Want to talk about it?”

Poor guy, asking a woman if she wanted to talk. Sure I wanted to talk about it. I wanted to talk with him forever, about everything. What would he think if I described my childhood? He’d grown up in a loving family, with a sister who still worshiped him. I’d peer out at the city lights across the river at night, kneeling on my bed, chin propped on the windowsill, praying some other couple would come to claim me. Or would he enjoy hearing about my scrapes with the law as I nearly burnt out at sixteen? The weeks I’d disappear, live on the streets, or hide out at a boy’s house.

So good at walking on the knife edge, so close to slipping into the world of addicts, but always pulling back at the precipice. Because, in that unspoiled place we all have deep inside, I had perspective beyond my years. I’d known there just might be another way to live, if I could hold on. I’d been approaching thirty my whole life, and now that the calendar said it was true, at least I could say I was a survivor. Is this what you want to tell a guy who makes the sun rise for you, fills your dreams with joy and your days with fantasies?

“There’s not much to tell, really. I’m your average girl with an average background.”

My heart raced at his stare. “You’re average? God, nothing’s average since you arrived. You change everything around you. Maybe even time itself. Maybe me.”

“Don’t lay that at my feet, mister.”

“Talk more, Fen. I love to listen to you when you aren’t mad at me. I…”

What? Tell me Jack. Tell me, I wanted to scream. Spit it out. I fascinate you, you’re glad I’m here, we should be in this room together.

“Can you hook me up?” I’d managed three of four layers, and pulled up the heavy, beaded lavender gown.

Jack groaned as he pushed his chair back.

“I’m not being difficult. I literally can’t do this alone.”

“It’s not that. Never mind.” I turned my back toward Jack and waited. He stood but didn’t take a step. I’d never understood what people meant about the air growing heavy until that moment. Heavy, quiet, full of potential.

He cleared his throat and took a few slow strides. He wasn’t nervous, couldn’t be nervous. Just worried about my obvious crush on him, maybe afraid I’d jump him or something.

I swung around, my dress clutched to my chest, and he dropped his hands. We stared. I thought I’d cry for a second, I was so mortified. He was lost because of me. A guy with a whole world on his shoulders, and I’d plunked a satellite on for good measure.

I don’t know where I found the nerve. “Jack, we should maybe talk.”

“We maybe shouldn’t. I’ll just write it down in my little book, how would that be?” He pushed his hand through his hair and kept staring.

“I want to say I’m sorry. Not for being mad about…well, everything, but about taking it out on you. And for acting a little adolescent around you, like at your birthday party. I was drunk, and I didn’t mean anything…”

“Shit.”

In two steps, he pulled me into his arms. It was the opposite of shredding. The floor fell out from under me and there was a lot of disorientation, but no pain. No pain. I think I made a noise, or said something, perhaps his name.

He hovered inches over me, his face angled over mine, staring at my mouth, digging his hands into my bare back. In the last year, time was always doing something screwy. Now it stood still. So still, I’m sure my heart was caught between beats.

I was terrified he’d change his mind, come to his senses. Realize it was me, Fenwick, just a convenient girl in an inconvenient century.

“Emily,” he murmured. He sounded sad, but not for me. Then I knew it was something. Maybe not what I wanted, but not nothing.

“Jack, after all, a kiss is just a kiss.”

“Oh hell.”

No, a kiss isn’t just a kiss. At least not this one, not with Jack, not for me. I don’t know how long it had been for him, but he poured so much into me, took so much from me.

We fit, God, did we fit. The brush of his skin, rougher than mine, the fullness of his lips, his scent, his moans, the strength of his hands as they wandered over my skin. We told our fantasies with that kiss—that he would be in charge, that I would welcome anything, he was hungry for it all. I came up for air and he pulled me back in, as if he’d never be finished kissing me. My skin tingled at his touch, and the heat and throbbing between my legs became unbearable as he pushed his body closer to mine, to nestle his erection against me.

When I thought we were through, he placed his hands on my cheeks, pushed me against the wall, and started over. I’d dropped my dress and now stepped out of it, not caring if it was right, or too soon.

But it was too soon. He took a step back. And then another. I felt cold, and empty.

“Jesus, Fenwick.”

“Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare tell me that was a mistake.”

He sniffed out a laugh and straightened out his hair and shirt, adjusted his pants.

“If I could form a coherent sentence…” He laughed and threw up his hands. “See, I can’t. Jesus, sugar.”

“Oh, okay then.”

“You started it, by the way.”

“Really? When I told you I loved you? Tell me you didn’t take that seriously.”

“No, I didn’t. But you did flirt with me at the party.”

“Sue me.”

“And then you go on and on about Screw. Screw dresses me, Screw this and Screw that.”

“You’re a head case, you know that?”

“So you and he don’t have a thing?”

“Squeeeeek.”

“Huh?”

“That was the sound of the tables turning. I think I like it.”

“You aren’t going to answer me, are you?”

“Squeeeek.” I stepped into my dress and turned my back to him again. I caught a glimpse of his smirk in the mirror as he approached. God, he was handsome. Just…God. He looked at me in the mirror and I had to look away as he fumbled with the button loops on my dress.

“My fingers are big from carpentry, sorry. I’m doing my best.”

“Take your time.” But I struggled to breathe. My lips tingled from the kiss, and my chest ached at his closeness. “You will have to go get Screw to do my hair.”

“Wear a hat.”

* * *

“There will be three of us.” Damn. My sister and a woman I’d just kissed like a lovesick kid. And she had kissed me back. Hell, she molested my mouth.

I kept turning away from both Petti and Fen, because one would know something was up, and the sight of the other made my pulse race straight to my crotch.

Fen looked amazing, and I don’t even think she knew it. Her skin was flushed, I gave myself credit for that, as well as her reddened lips and rapid breathing. She was just as nervous as I was about Petti, too. Petti has that effect on people. For almost three decades, I’d find myself second guessing the most inane things—two teaspoons of sugar in my coffee instead of one, shirts with stripes going what she called the ‘wrong way’, tattoo on the wrong arm. And God help me, the day I bought a pair of brown socks, you’d think I’d burnt down a nursery school with the children in it. It crossed my mind that she’d have a great deal to say about Fenwick. Not that she’d hate it, or love it, but just because. The one thing she swore she’d never do is be like our mother. I don’t think women have a say in that. My sister sure didn’t.

Petti was now complaining about eating in the hotel restaurant, but I wasn’t in the mood for hauling ass in a carriage downtown. Fen seemed relieved, once she learned Barber and Screw had taken off for parts less stuffy. I loved that she worried about them, and was a little relieved when she asked repeatedly if Barber would manage all right. I didn’t want to hear Screw’s name from her mouth for a long while. He dressed her, she said. He did her hair and buttoned her up. Oh, yeah, I had it bad, and it was getting worse.

As I ordered for us, feeling a little guilty for having to do so for modern women, I thought Fen would ask about her cheeseburger. But she sat silently, hands folded in her lap. I could practically hear the wheels turn.

“We need Normal friends,” Petti declared.

“Friends? God help us, why would we want that?”

“So we can attend events.”

“Events?”

“Events. Balls and dinners and whatnot.”

“We’re here to talk to an obelisk and understand anachros.”

“It isn’t talking back. I think Fen needs to take a crack at it.”

She turned her attention to Fen, who fiddled with her napkin.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“Tired I guess. Big day. The shred and obelisks and twin towers and James Dean dying and the monkey…”

“The little monkey tired you out? You emptied two weapons on the Wall the other night, and the night before drank the men under the table. You aren’t tired. You’re…hiding something.” Lord. She was in Discovery Channel mode.

“Leave Fen alone, Petti.”

Petti sat back and grinned. I knew the look, and braced myself.

“This is rich. Oh. My. Stars. You know that you’re a Leo and she’s a Leo. That’s not good. Let me look at you.” Petti turned in her seat to get a solid look at Fen’s face. “Wow. He laid one on you. Looks like you had that lip plastic surgery when it goes wrong.”

Fen held her hand up over her mouth. “Shut up, Miss Pettigrew.”

“For now.” Petti turned her gaze on me. “You have some explaining to do. I thought Fenwick was verboten. Did you two have sex?”

“Shut up, Miss Pettigrew.”

“Yes, Mr. Pettigrew.”

“Can we please get back to business? Tell us more about your ancestor, Fen. The one who was an Egyptologist. It’s not idle dinner conversation. It’s a long shot, but it may be meaningful.”

“I’ve told you most of what I know. Percival Fenwick squandered a small fortune mounting expeditions all over the world. One of them was to Egypt. Um, now that I think of it, he’s probably there now. Or then. You know? He may have died abroad, I don’t remember.”

“Gotcha. So if he’s an adult in 1890, then he’s your great-great-great-great grandfather, give or take a great.”

I managed to look at Fen without being overcome by the masculine equivalent of swooning. She stirred boiled potatoes around on her plate in an un-Fenlike manner.

“What aren’t you saying?”

“Don’t like discussing the family much. Grandma always said it started with Percy. He was cursed and the family stayed cursed.”

“What do you mean by cursed?”

She shrugged and dropped her fork, and I dropped the subject. I’d pry it out of her, maybe have a lot of fun doing so. I wrestled to keep the image of a near-naked Emily bound, hand and foot, pleading with me… God, what had gotten into me? I never think that way. Hardly ever.

“You’re not asking about the disasters. I’m just waiting for you to get to it.”

Petti arched a questioning brow at me, and in our way, we agreed to add to the puzzle.

“Jack and I also have an ancestor who traveled the world in search of fame and fortune. Mostly fortune. Claudin Pettigrew. He might be about the same age as your Percival.”

“Along with several million other Americans.” Fen seemed more uneasy with the topic, but Petti pressed on.

“Claudin, as you might imagine, was French. Our great-grandfather was the first to settle in the south.”

“As invigorating as this conversation may be, I’d like to see the dessert menu.”

“Cake. There’s only cake. We could go to an ice cream parlor, but for now—cake.”

“Cake’s good.” Fenwick sat up and stared at Petti and then me, cheeks burning. I put my hand on hers because she seemed to need the contact, or maybe I did. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure it out.”

She wasn’t listening. I followed her gaze and saw what drew her attention. An in-your-face The Original Series, Episode 28 event.

Our waiter was having a heart attack. The crash of china and cries of guests and workers as they fumbled to help brought us all to our feet.

Without hesitation, Fen went to her knees next to the ashen man, her hat fallen to the floor, her hair escaping into a waterfall of gold onto her shoulders. She pushed at her sleeves and called to me.

With her hand on his wrist and her ear to his mouth, she told me to open my pocket watch. “He’s not breathing.”

She started chest compressions, counting and stopping, counting and stopping, then listening for breath. “Did someone dial…”

Her look implored me to do something, to make it different. The maitre de pulled at her arm, but she shook him off and went back to her compressions.

Petti tried to manage the chaos of patrons shocked by the odd behavior of a young woman pushing on a man’s chest. I tried to manage Fen. I’d watched enough TV to know she’d go until her arms gave out, long after it was too late. We both knew that even if his heart beat again, what were the chances he’d live for more than a few minutes, or a few hours? Where were the cardio catheters, the drugs, the bypass surgeons? Too far away.

After several minutes, Emily sat back on her heels and closed her eyes. I squatted next to her and put my hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t say anything, Jack, okay? No platitudes.”

“You got it.” And I did, oh, how I did. “Come on, let’s get out of here. You’re drawing a lot of attention we can’t afford. I don’t mean that as a criticism.”

“I know.” She put her hand over mine and stood. I peeled off a few dollars for our meal and left Petti to explain to the staff that Fenwick was a foreigner, and that this was the newest treatment for heart ailments. Who knows, maybe it would catch on.

Fen pulled off her shoes and plopped on her belly onto the bed. I poured us both a glass of sherry and sat near her. She rolled onto her back and without meeting my gaze, took the glass and downed the sickening stuff.

“This is tough for me, Fen.”

“Are we going to have a ‘let’s not have a relationship’ talk? Can I have a rain check for that? It’s nothing personal.”

It was all personal. The fact that I didn’t have her in my arms, that she wasn’t crying, that I didn’t know what the hell I was supposed to do, that I wanted to cry myself. It was personal.

“Wanna get out of here, do something?” I wanted to turn back the clock about two hours and finish what we started. I took out my watch and checked the time. Emily clutched at my hand and I slowly opened it, unsure what she wanted.

“What’s that?” She pointed to the fob. I unclipped it and put it into her palm. She studied the scarab attached in gold, turning it over to read the inscription on the back, then swung it back and forth.

“Earth to Fenwick.”

“What does the CHP stand for?”

“Claudin Pettigrew, our ancestor. I don’t know his middle name.”

She reached beneath her bodice, withdrew a thin gold chain, and swayed it back and forth as she had mine.

“I’m tired of coincidences, anachros, and weird stuff like this. I think we should talk about Egypt.”

Chapter Ten

No rest for our weary friends.

We didn’t stay in Normal that night, even though it was late by the time Jack woke Petti to tell her about my scarab. We could have stayed; it would have made sense. My theory is that Jack didn’t want to deal with the sleeping arrangements, i.e., didn’t want to sleep with me and didn’t know how to tell me. We waited for Screw and Barber to return to the Henry and then skipped out on the bill, skipped out on New York.

I reached for Jack’s hand right before the shred, but he slipped away a few seconds before me. For a moment, I watched them go, like characters from The Original Series returning to the Enterprise, full forms dissipating into twinkling Victorian cutout dolls.

I considered stepping off the shimmering sidewalk beneath the obelisk, staying in Normal, trying to go it alone. I pictured them coming to life in Steamside and looking at one another in shock. Where’s Fen? Jack would be frantic. If he thought I’d done it on purpose, he’d be hurt, right?

Or would he just be anxious that I’d disappeared with the key to his mystery? Perhaps furious. So close, he’d think.

This is your brain on love--you over-think every move, every look, every word. Even words, gestures, and looks that happen only in your imagination. I glanced around at the Park, thinking that I preferred life Steamside, working on the Wall, and eating with the Punks, whether Jack was there or not. And of course, I couldn’t give up on the Man yet, just because he hadn’t fallen into bed with me. I couldn’t give up on him at all. That’s the other stupid part about falling in love. Everything feels hopeless, and hopeful, at the same time.

I glanced at the obelisk, wondering about Egypt, wondering about my parents, and then closed my eyes and let go, let the pain of the shred distract me from the ache in my chest.

The ache turned to a gut clenching burn as I opened my eyes and saw Juan bending over me on the street. “Hang on, Emily, hang on. You’ll make it.”

“I’ll make it?” I’m not sure I spoke aloud. I glanced around to be sure I wasn’t caught in another dream, grounding myself in the smells and sights of a rainy night in the Bronx. Sirens screamed through my brain, my limbs went numb. I wanted so much to grab onto Juan’s shirt, to touch his face, but I couldn’t lift my arm.

Had Steamside been a dream, a near death experience? Jack wasn’t real; he hadn’t kissed me. Petti hadn’t fussed over me, Screw hadn’t amused me. I’d never taken a shot off the Wall, because there was no Wall. No Man.

“I’m not ready, Juan.”

“You’ll make it, Emily. You’re banged up, but your vitals are…okay.”

“No,” I whispered. The effort to speak brought on vertigo and nausea. A head trauma, I corrected myself. “I’m not ready to come home.”

Juan brushed at my hair as the beep beep beep pounded pain into my head when the ambulance backed up. I closed my eyes and let myself drift, knowing I could slip away forever by doing so. I thought of being in Jack’s bed, curled up in a haze while he sat near me.

The pain of my injuries dissipated and my head cleared, only to begin the spin that signaled shredding. It took me a full minute to understand where I was, that Barber was steadying me in his long arms and patting my back. I glanced over his shoulder at Jack, who looked like he did when I clobbered him. Angry, confused, and trying unsuccessfully to cover both feelings.

“Don’t do that again, Fenwick.” He turned on his heel and walked toward his quarters. Sweet Pea intercepted him. They fell in step together, no doubt while she gave Jack a report on the happenings of the day.

Too tired for a snappy comeback, I let Barber, Petti, and Screw fuss over me a little as we headed to our rooms. I didn’t say a word about going home. I didn’t know what to say. Which was the dream? I needed time, time, time. Please God, I thought, let time be still for a while.

I flopped down on my bunk as they chattered on about anachros, scarabs, and nightmares. I didn’t give a damn, and they couldn’t make me.

The noise level rose to a decibel beyond my tolerance when Sweet Pea knocked on the open door and greeted us.

“Everyone get out! I have to sleep or I’ll kill someone.”

“Then you’re not going to like what I have to say.” Sweet Pea chuckled.

“You are fucking kidding me.”

“Nope. He says because you violated the code, you get the Wall. In about five. I’ll get the coffee going.”

Screw rolled his eyes, Barber and Petti backed out of the room.

“And what will he do if I politely decline? Huh? Shoot me? Send me back home? Make me go to sleep without dinner? Well, I’ve had dinner, and it was awful. A man died at dinner. A man died at dinner…” And I died in the Bronx. But I came back. I came back, and I don’t know why.

“Shit.” Screw took off his top hat and shook out his hair as he sat on his bunk across from me. I cried, and he watched sympathetically. He didn’t move to comfort me, nor did he seem uncomfortable watching me cry. Oddly enough, it shortened my jag a bit, and I wondered if he’d responded that way on purpose.

He opened his pocket watch, a sign to me of his loyalty to the Man.

“Two minutes, Fen. Don’t be late. You frightened us all. And you broke the code.”

“Fuck the code.”

“No, fuck you for doing that to us, to him. To me.” Screw changed his clothes in front of me, pulling on his shorts and his Modern Converse sneakers. Damn it. He was going to walk me to the Wall if he needed to.

“Can’t he cut me a break?”

“Why should he? Because you’re so cute, because you kiss so well, or because you have a scarab like his? Or because you administered CPR and it didn’t work? One minute.”

“If you say one more thing, I swear I’ll put a bullet through that pretty face of yours.”

I stripped off my Normal outfit and pulled on my oldest frock. Screw threw me my rifle. The pistol was still strapped to my leg.

I would have run to the ladder, but in my exhaustion, running with loaded weapons was a no-no. Lieutenant greeted me with a cup of her terrible coffee, and I threw it back without a word.

“I hear you had a rough time in Normal.”

That wasn’t the half of it. “Take a running leap off the Wall, Lieutenant.”

Sweet Pea chuckled and went to her corner. I liked her a lot.

Since the sun had set hours earlier, the nightmares were in full parade already. I didn’t have time to be anxious. No, it was different. I wasn’t anxious—there’s a difference. I knew I’d be okay, that I’d do my job well enough, better than well enough. I liked this.

I’d been in the zone only a few times in my life. The hyperfocused state in which things are in slow motion for you alone. In the zone, you can make a three-pointer with your eyes closed, know you’re going to knock one out of the park before the ball gets to the plate, sense trouble before it materializes. I guess regular girls found great shoes on sale that way.

“Lieutenant.”

“Yes, Fenwick?”

“Why are the dreams all modern? All of them—the clothes, the people. Why no 1890 stuff?”

She narrowed her eyes and scanned the field for nightmares. I pointed to a lost woman, wandering in tears, reaching her hands out as if she were a mime trapped in a box. In Harry Potter pajamas. “Wake up, lady. You aren’t lost. And buy new pajamas. That’s lame.” Poof.

Sweet Pea shrugged as if it weren’t a relevant question. She knew her job and did it, no questions asked.

I watched through the night for any non-modern anomaly. Zip. I let a giant rabbit round the wall and pass into Steamside unscathed, just to scare the Punks if they awoke. I thought it was a brilliant practical joke and my glance at Sweet Pea dared her to say anything, but she shrugged with a smirk. “If it makes you feel better. Nothing more dangerous, though, or I’ll shoot you myself.”

At daybreak, I returned to my room and fell into bed with my clothes on. I couldn’t have slept more than three hours when Screw rubbed my back and handed me a cup of coffee. I was starved, and pretty sure I’d missed reveille and breakfast.

“Time?” I mumbled.

“Lunch. And then we’re meeting. Bring your scarab.”

“Sure, who goes anywhere without their scarab?”

* * *

“She’ll be along in a second, Jack. Try to relax. And lighten up on her. Fen had a scare or something. She was really pale when I woke her.” Screw shrugged an apology for his roomie and prepared himself an absinthe in his precise, ritualistic fashion.

I shot him a look I hoped spoke volumes, not sure what I meant. Fen had scared the hell out of me, and it made me angry she had that power over me. Let the others think I was worried about her scarab, or even worried about her. I thought it was over, that I’d lost her, that for some reason she’d left me. Not Steamside, but me.

Fen appeared in the doorway and lingered there, as if she didn’t want to jump into the pool, but dangled a toe in to test the water. Again in her jeans and tank top. This time I was sure it was a statement.

“What are we talking about?”

“Scarabs, anachros, whether or not to set up a basketball hoop, and politics.”

“Politics?” She crinkled her nose. “God, I don’t even know who the President is.”

“Benjamin Harrison. Heard him speak. Dull as a turnip.”

Petti snapped her fingers for attention. “Kids, kids, time’s a wasting.”

Fen sighed and stepped forward, dug into her jeans pocket, and pulled out a duplicate of my scarab. I turned it over to read the inscription. PDF.

“Percival Fenwick. Middle name?”

She shrugged. “Maybe David. We have some Davids in the family.”

Fen sat on my bed next to Screw. Dark circles rimmed her eyes. She looked like she needed a hot meal and a month of sleep. I had a momentary guilt trip for putting her on the Wall. It was the code thing to do, but I did it for the wrong reason. An abuse of power. Would Benjamin Harrison abuse his office? Probably. Shame ate at my gut. All the time Steamside, and I’d managed to avoid abusing the Punks for personal reasons.

Petti took off her glasses and cleared her throat. “Let’s assume that Claudin Pettigrew and Percival Fenwick knew one another. Good?”

“May as well. Of course, scarabs are popular now.”

“We have to start with some assumption, Jack. The scientific method. So, Claude and Percy were pals. In Egypt together. The real question is for Screw and Barber.”

Barber laughed. “You got to be kidding me. You think I have a family tree like yours? In Normal, my ancestors are not likely to be explorers, trust me.”

“How do you know, Barber? You’re part white, aren’t you?”

“Petti, come on…”

“Well, isn’t he? Look at him. He’s partly European. I’m sorry, Barber, but it’s a fact.”
Barber laughed. “I’m not offended. I am what I am. But I can’t give you the ethnic breakdown.”

“And then there’s me.” Screw rested his chin on his hand and smirked. “Go for it, Petti. You’re going to put a Japanese man in Egypt in 1890?”

Fenwick flushed and opened her mouth to speak but I shook my head to warn her off. Damn. She thought what I did, that Screw was part Chinese. All those cracks about building the railroad, San Francisco, and Chinatown. He’d played along the whole time.

“So, neither of you have seen a scarab in your family, nor heard any mention of an Egyptologist?”

“What’s your real name, Screw?” Fen couldn’t seem to come to grips with her mistake.

“Jade Kung Fu.”

“Sorry I asked.”

“Oh, come on. I’m not sensitive about it. It’s Jasper Corwin.”

“Corwin?”

“Shhh.” He held a finger up to his lips. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m not their real child.”

So, one of Screw’s secrets, not the most important no doubt, out in the open. Adopted.

“How about you, Barber, what’s your name?”

“Franklin James Barber. Nothing very mysterious there. A solid American name, grounded in my mixed heritage. Slave and European.”

Screw flopped back on the bed and Fenwick did the same. I didn’t like the proximity of their limbs on my bed linens. What did go on in their room? Why the hell had I put them together?

Petti looked at me and shrugged. “What now? Ask all the Punks if they have an ancestor who went to Egypt? Or if they’ve seen a scarab like these?”

Screw sat back up. “Look, two may be a coincidence—counting a brother and sister as one. Three would be unlikely. Four would be statistically significant.”

“But what would it mean? That we’re here because someone we’re related to went to Egypt?”

Fenwick answered for us all. “That we’re cursed because someone we’re related to went to Egypt.”

“Do you believe that? Egyptian curses? What could they have done, released a demon mummy guy or…or release a mummy guy?”

“Does it make less sense than being here because you died on the New Jersey Turnpike in a storm or I died in the Bronx on the job? By the way, do Barber and Screw remember dying?”

“I was in jail,” Screw said. Jail? That was the first I’d heard of it. Secret number two.

“Whoa. You going to leave us hanging like that? A white collar crime no doubt. Got it! You hacked into a government computer.”

“Your view of me is so narrow, Jack.”

Fen snapped her fingers in imitation of Petti. “Enough! God, no wonder nothing gets done around here. Have the four of you sat around talking for years?”

Petti laughed. “Oh, someone is a wee bit testy today. Needs a spoonful of sugar to help the punishment go down, doesn’t she?”

“I’m exhausted and armed, so shut the hell up, Petti.”

I whistled to shut them all up. “Let’s get back to it. Screw, do you remember dying, or coming close?”

“Nope. I went to sleep one night, and woke here.”

“How about you, Barber?”

“I was at the Y, showering after practice.”

Petti stood and brushed at her skirts. “I suppose I’ll just go ask people if they have a scarab, yada yada. Screw and Barber, come help me.”

Fenwick started to leave, but I pulled at her elbow. I had to know why. Why she’d stayed behind, if only for a moment. I had to know that it wasn’t me.

Chapter Eleven

Matters of the flesh.

Fen pulled the thin gold chain from her pocket and dangled it in the air. “I would like it back, if it’s all the same to you. Or do you keep everything until the sentence is over?”

She wandered to my window and seemed rather interested in the grass growing on the knoll past the Wall.

“Aren’t you going to complain about the punishment for violating code?”

“Nope. I like the Wall, and I like Sweet Pea. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she’s a friend.”

“Are you going to tell me why you violated code?”

She faced me and folded her arms over her chest. “I don’t know why I stayed behind.” Her lids fluttered and she brushed her hand along my desk, rearranging odds and ends piled there.

“What are you holding back?”

“Who’s asking? The guy who runs Steamside with a somewhat malleable fist? Or the guy who kissed me in the Hotel Henry?”

“Both. Both of us need to know. One of us a lot more than the other.” There, that was all she was getting out of me. A hint of a sliver of caring. I had to get those tables turned back around.

“Did you finish A Study in Scarlet yet? I’d like to borrow it.”

“That’s how you’re going to change the subject?”

“No, I just didn’t want to forget. I’ve been tired, and I keep forgetting to ask you.”

“When have I had time to curl up in my easy chair with a whiskey and pipe and book?”

“You hate the absinthe, don’t you?”

“Did Sweet Pea tell you?”

“She probably saw you pour it out the window like I did. There’s a great view right into this room from the Wall. Not that I’ve been watching. You’re the Man, it wouldn’t be right.” She had a sexy smirk, and she put it to good use.

I reviewed my evening habits—did I undress in plain view of the Wall? Or God help me, do anything more personal?

“Uh huh. All right, peeping Fen, let’s try this again. Why didn’t you shred Steamside with us?”

“I was a little late. I came, didn’t I?”

“You hesitated. You thought about staying in Normal. I want to know why.”

“I don’t know. That’s the honest-to-God’s truth. I glanced at the obelisk and flinched. I stopped following orders for a minute. Your orders, Petti’s, Screw’s, Sweet Pea’s. I stopped drinking the Kool-aid for a moment. Can you understand that, Jack? You make the calls for everyone. I left my shitty family when I was seventeen and never looked back. Went to school, worked my ass off, got a job, stayed out of prison and shelters—well, mostly. Voted every time I was eligible. I just needed to choose one thing, and be willing to deal with the consequences, like I have my whole life. So I did. I came back, and I didn’t have to. Doesn’t that count?”

Did she choose Steamside or me? Or were we the same to her? “Why did you come back?”

She bit at her lip and struggled whether to tell me something. I realized what happened before she had a chance to tell me, and my knees nearly gave out from under me.

“Emily, did you go home? Did you go to Modern?”

She nodded and put her hand to her mouth. I knew she tried hard to stop the tears, but it was no use. “It was horrible. It was what I saw on the Wall.”

“The shooting? You went back to 2010?”

She nodded again and broke down fully. I rushed to her and folded her in my arms, rubbed her back to calm her, calm myself. She could go back. One of us had made it. Did it mean… What did it mean?

I held her at arms’ length and stared into her eyes. “Are you sure you didn’t imagine it?”

“How can I be sure? But it was more than what I saw before. I felt it. I saw the ambulance pull up for me. I spoke to Juan.”

“Were you okay? I mean, were you going to make it?” I didn’t know how to ask more subtly. But it was so important to me, to all of us.

“Juan said I was okay, but I’m pretty sure I had some head trauma. And my vitals were weak. I felt kinda cold. Numb.” She rubbed at her arms.

“How did you do it? God, we’ve tried for so long, tried everything we could think of. Meditated, chanted, remembered, talked… Petti can put herself there for brief periods, but she says it’s like a dream, and she can’t stay.”

“I don’t know how I did it. I think I could have stayed. I really don’t know. I’m so sorry. I’d try again, but then…”

She shrugged.

“No, no, don’t try. At least not until we know more.” I pulled her in again and kissed her forehead, wound my fingers in her hair and clutched onto her for dear life. No, she couldn’t risk it. “And did you do anything special to come back?”

“I don’t think so. Maybe. Maybe I thought about Steamside. Maybe I thought about you.”

I tried so hard not to let the thrill in my body show on my face. I might have grinned over her shoulder in a goofy, shucks-gosh-golly kind of way.

“I empathize, Fen.”

“You don’t suppose there’s a chance Percy and Claude were related, do you?”

“Not in any way that would be statistically significant morally or genetically for us. Of course, we could consult with Screw about the odds.”

“Let’s not.”

I was on her in an instant, senseless as we locked lips. We fell to the settee near the window and kissed ourselves into a no-time, no-space dimension that was just for us. No Steamside, no Normal, no Egypt. Just wondrous sensations, emotions, and heat. God, the heat. I know we mumbled things, whispered things, mostly one another’s names, but beyond that, it’s a blur of lust and unquenchable longing.

I tried to hold back, hold something back, but after holding back for years without her, and what seemed like years with her, I couldn’t.

I carried her to the bed and pulled her tank top over her head, kissing her neck as she ran her hands over my back and through my hair. It didn’t shock me that her bra was a serviceable white—it matched the woman. It did shock me that it was the most alluring bit of lingerie I’d ever seen. Scandalous, because of its anachronistic nature, partly because it was Fen. I was in bed with Fen, and she was on fire.

She pushed me away to unbutton my shirt. I stepped away to rid myself of it along with my undershirt. She traced her fingers around my arm, around my tattoo, like it was a treasure, ran her hands across my chest, tracing paths of flame on my skin.

God, breasts. Beautiful, real, soft flesh, under my fingers, under my tongue. I thought I’d come when she arched up to sandwich herself against my hard-on. I’d been with dead fish, as men say, and Fen was the opposite of that. Alive everywhere, alive for me. I could have sucked on those breasts for hours and been a happy guy, except I’d miss her mouth and have to go back for that.

When she sat up, I groaned in frustration.

“Too fast?” God, I could barely speak. I could barely keep up with her. She had to be kidding.

“No. Not too fast. Never. Just…” She drew the spread over her chest and brushed at her hair.

“Emily, for the love of God…”

“Back home, in my apartment, on the nightstand, is a makeup case. Mascara, lipstick, that sort of thing.”

“Fascinating.” I was ready to throttle her.

“That sort of thing,” she repeated with emphasis. “Things you might need if you’re in bed with a guy.”

Can you say major downer with emphasis? I lowered my forehead to touch hers and let the breath whoosh out of my lungs.

“So, not too fast. It’s not like--stop Jack, or you’re doing something wrong, Jack, or I don’t want to do this, Jack?”

Fen laughed and shook her head vehemently. “No, it’s more like--I don’t think we want to be hauling a baby around, do we?”

“Baby?” I’m smarter than that, I swear. But if you’re not a guy, you wouldn’t get how blood rushing out of your brain makes you a temporary moron.

“You know, those little people who cry a lot? I can get pregnant here, can’t I? I guess if I’m dead I won’t. Oh hell, I don’t know! Do you?”

“No, I guess I don’t. I think there’s birth control in 1890. I’m sure there is. God, I hope there is.”

“Ask Screw.”

“Yeah, I’ll ask Screw. No, you ask him. If I ask him, he’ll know it’s for us.”

“And he won’t if I ask him? God, maybe he’ll think I’m coming on to him?”

“I’ll kill him.”

“Oooh, I like this side of you.”

“There are, of course, other adventures of the body and spirit that don’t require birth control, if I might be so forward?”

“Like kissing?” The gleam in her eyes made me laugh and we fell back into a make-out session. We giggled like kids, and then the giggling fell away as we pulled off our clothes. All of them.

There’s nothing sexier than a woman who likes sex. I don’t even remember if Fen had a little tummy or if her butt was big or small. I remember that she seemed to love my body and covered every inch of it with kisses, bites, and licks. Jesus, I died a million times. I thought I was a good candidate for canonization when I flipped her on her back when she started caressing my cock.

I pushed her legs over my shoulders and teased her into wildness. At first I thought she’d hesitate to let me, but she just jockeyed for a better position, clenched her hands in my hair, called my name repeatedly. The scent of soap and sex, the soft textures of her silky folds, the reaction of her entire body to my strokes… I was in my own Heaven. Maybe it’s a power trip, but tough shit. I was good, at least that’s what she told me. And when you’re in love, you want to hear things like that.

She hugged me for a few minutes and rallied the strength to lavish me with kissing, nipping at my neck, my ears, my nipples, and oddly enough, my tattoo. The woman had a thing for my tattoo. By the time she made it to my cock, I was ready to explode. One solid stroke of her tongue almost did the trick. She licked her way around my sack, pulling each node into her mouth and tickling it with her tongue. Blissful torture. When she added strokes of her hand, I hit the ceiling.

“I’m going to come.” Duh. What a pronouncement.

Fen lavished her tongue over the tip and then pulled more of me than I thought possible into her mouth. Her moans took me over the edge. Her moans of enjoyment (and God I hope they were real), were the best part. I poured into her mouth and cried out, maybe even cried. Hell, I don’t know. I was lost. The reverse of shredding, but just as disorienting. Gone away, alone, fearing you’ll never feel that way again. But when I came to, home was in my arms, kissing me again, telling me not to forget to talk to Screw.

Chapter Twelve

Our heroine is filled with regret.

Petti and Screw descended upon me like vultures when I returned to my room hours later. I was flying on adrenaline, lust, and confusing emotions, and pretty sure it all showed.

But they weren’t there to gloat. Screw held up three fingers.

It took me a second. Right, ancestors. “You found someone else? Really?” Damn. I didn’t want my new romance to get short-shirted by a dramatic occurrence.

“Calliope. She remembers her grandmother having a scarab like ours. And has stories that jive with the time period. Doesn’t remember the man’s name, or which side of the family he was on.”

Calliope. Why her? She was petite, pretty, and I’d once overheard Screw say she’d been chasing Jack around for a few years. Since she reported to Prince Albert, I’d chat him up and make sure Calliope was occupied for the next millennium.

“So, what’s next? We look these guys up in the phone book? Go on Ancestry-dot-com?”

Petti tapped her lips. “I suppose we do have to find them. Find out what they’re up to, and if it’s the cause of us being here.”

The knock at our door startled me, because no one knocks Steamside. More startling was that when Screw opened it, the only thing we saw was a cat. A beautiful, blue-eyed Siamese cat, with dark legs and head markings. He wandered in, eyes wide, and jumped onto my bunk.

Petti pushed the door wider and there stood Jack, looking like he wanted to crawl under the bunk. Fifteen minutes earlier, we’d been naked, holding onto one another for dear life.

“Cat got your tongue, Jack?” Petti motioned him into the tiny room and he sat on Screw’s bunk.

“Found a cat,” he mumbled. “Thought someone might like a cat.”

“Yes, yes, how lovely. You and Fen just screwed the afternoon away, and you brought her a present. Snap out of it, would you?”

“We don’t have a flower shop, so a cat seemed like an okay present.” He looked at me. “Isn’t it?”

Screw punched him in the arm. “Who are you, and what have you done with the Man?”

Petti punched me in the arm. “How could you let this happen? Don’t you know he has important business? And Jack, honestly, where did you get the cat? Someone might miss him.”

“Albert said he was wandering around the obelisk, and seemed a little lost.”

I smiled at Jack. “I’ll call him Percy. He’s beautiful.” You’re beautiful. Can we go back to your room and never leave?

Screw groaned. “Look, at this rate, I’m going to have to launch a mutiny. Jack, listen. Calliope has one.”

“Calliope? One what? Oh, a scarab? Wow.”

“Try to show a little interest, asshole.”

“Shut up. Who has one?” He ran his hand through his mussed hair in a gesture I was coming to adore.

“Calliope. God, did you guys do drugs too? So what do we do now?”

“I guess we have to find our ancestors, figure out what their connection is, and hope in so doing, we learn why we’re here.”

He did snap out of it, and so did I. I mean, aside from the fact that my body was on fire and my brain was oatmeal. And I was in love.

“Do you think Percy is hungry?” I loved this cat. And I’m a dog person. No one had ever given me a living creature before. I thought Jack was a genius for doing so. Again, your brain on love.

Petti punched me again.

“Ow. Stop that, or I’ll hit you back.”

Jack prodded the greenish skin around his eye. “She’ll hit you, Petti. So, you got everything you need from Calliope? I’d rather not confront her.”

I let myself breathe again. Calliope would not get a visit from the Man. She would not get a present of a cat.

Of course, Petti had her psychic mojo going. “That’s it! No nookie for you two until you get things back under control. Screw, you get Jack and I get Fen. I’ll move in here tonight. Jack is under house arrest until further notice.”

“Very funny.” Jack pulled himself up straight, tucked his shirt in, and looped his suspenders back over his shoulders.

“No one’s laughing. You can play pinball, read your Sherlock Holmes, whatever you like. But you aren’t leaving your quarters until you come out with a plan, and not one that involves fluffy kittens and buttercups. Send for any of us, except Fen, if you need to bounce ideas off someone.”

“Fuck you, Annalise. I’m in charge here…”

“Then act like it, Jack.” I covered my mouth with my hand, horrified at what I’d said. The ramifications of that one sentence could be devastating for me, for us. I wasn’t telling him to ignore me, I was trying to help him. But it hit me that Petti was right, Jack wasn’t himself, was getting lost in a theme park that had my name on it. It thrilled me, but I didn’t want him to resent me, blame me for distracting him. So I’d gone and insulted him in front of his sister and friends a few minutes after making love to him. My heart fluttered in a bad, panicky way. I was an idiot.

Jack shot me a scathing look and then stared at the cat like he wanted to kill it, all his anger channeled at the only creature who wasn’t giving him a hard time. He left without another word.

I got up to follow him, but Petti and Screw blocked my way. Screw hugged me. “You said the exact right thing, Fen.”

“I didn’t mean it. I was trying to support him, tell him it was okay to concentrate on important things.”

“You were trying to tell him you aren’t more in love with him than he is with you. In a very roundabout way. But he’s too in love to see it.”

“I’ll go to him,” Petti offered. “I can explain…”

“Nope.” Screw put his foot down, and not for the first time, Petti let him.

Chapter Thirteen

Our hero falters.

Emily Fenwick. How could I have fallen for her?

“Then act like it, Jack.” What happened to her appraisal of me as the most awesome man who ever lived? Now I was stuck with her, tortured with getting over her, saddled with needing her to solve our mystery.

Screw babbled on about how long it would take to get to Egypt. I half-listened until it occurred to me I could go and leave Fenwick behind. We knew our ancestors’ names, I had the scarabs, no doubt Screw and I, and maybe Petti, could take care of whatever we’d find there. Fen would be in the way—a distraction, just like Screw and Petti—and Emily herself—were trying to tell me. I’d warned myself from the moment I’d seen her that she was off limits, that something about her would complicate my life.

Why? Why would she turn on me like that? Not since my junior high prom, when Mary Sue Tindall told me at her door that she was going to the dance with someone else, had I loved and loathed a female. At least this time I wasn’t clutching a dying wrist corsage and wearing a dorky powder-blue tux.

I wanted my cat back. I kind of liked that cat, which of course is why I gave him to Fenwick. He’d acted like a normal cat, the way cats do in 2010. I’m sure everyone would get a good laugh over Percy once word spread. Shit.

Fine. “Fine,” I said to Screw.

“Which fine? Fine, go to Egypt, or fine, we don’t know how to get there?”

“I presume we’ll take a ship. Unless you have a better idea?”

Screw shrugged. He had that patient look on. The one that said ‘I have a better idea, but I’m going to pretend you came up with it’.

“Spit it out, Screw. How do we get to Egypt without taking a ship? Talk to the obelisk and ask it to take us to Egypt?”

“You’re sitting down, right? Right.” Screw winced, sat at the foot of my bed, and fussed with his elaborate braids.

My gut somersaulted. Emily had already shattered my action-adventure-romance dreams. Not Screw too. I couldn’t handle losing my anchor.

“You know another way. If it were brilliant, you would have told me already. Which means it’s something I’ll hate.”

Screw glanced at me and shrugged. “It’s me you’ll hate. I’ve been waiting for the right moment. I guess this is that moment.”

“Get me a drink first, then tell me why I’ll hate you.”

He pulled a folded newspaper from his jacket pocket and threw it onto my lap before going to my cabinet and pouring me two fingers of whiskey.

I sat up and glanced at the paper, not caring much about the Normal events of the day, but drawn to the headline Screw meant for me to see. “Archaeologist Claudin Pettigrew to speak on important new discoveries in Egypt.” It was a tiny notice only, tucked under a report of a murder trial, and I might have missed it but for the hieroglyphic markings on a drawing. The caption read, ‘Sponsored by the Ra Society’. I pulled out my watch and turned over my scarab, certain before I did that I would find them to be a perfect match. Screw handed me my whiskey and bit at his lip. He took a quick glance at the article and nodded.

I leaned back on the pillows and let the whirling in my brain settle. I could go listen to my ancestor give an Egyptology lecture. Was it wise? Would it matter? Should I shoot him and see if I disappeared?

“Screw, I don’t hate you for this.” He winced again and I sighed and folded the paper.

“But wait, there’s more!” He laughed nervously.

I didn’t join him, but folded my arms, waiting as patiently as I could for him to find his nerve.

“Jack.” He looked into my eyes, his own narrowed in anguish, a deep furrow between his brows. “The Ra Society meets in secret. The members hide their identity better than CIA operatives. I don’t know if it’s safe for you and Claudin to be together in the same place, but it’s your choice.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“It’s a major Twenty-Eight moment. I don’t think you’ll disappear, but I’m still worried for you. And I can’t let him see me.”

“You can’t let him see you. You know my great-great-whatever, and he knows you.”

“Right.”

Screw paced the short length of my room. He rolled and lit a cigarette; I waited as patiently as I could before strangling it out of him. My friend had secrets far deeper than being adopted and doing time in the big house. My friend. Was he? His hand shook a bit as he took a deep drag and leaned against the wall.

“I always pictured this moment differently.” He turned and faced me. “I can’t lose you, Jack. You’ve kept me sane.”

“Dude, seriously, that look isn’t going to work on me. I’m not one of your groupies. Spit it out.”

“I’m a former member of Ra. I’ve been in 1890 longer than you, longer than all of you.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.”

“Go ahead.” I don’t know if I was more angry, hurt, or curious.

“The good news is that there are only about ten of them, Jack.”

“Them? Aren’t you one of them?”

He shook his head. “I quit. Didn’t like their agenda.”

I motioned for him to pick up the pace. He nodded and squatted against the wall.

“Just like you, I ended up in Normal. I just never told you. It was like heaven when I found you and Petti.”

“So you were alone and it was bad. Got it. Explain this Ra group.”

“They shred—they call it trip—through space, and they mess with events, for gain. Money and power.”

“How? They don’t come Steamside. Where do they go?”

“Pretty much anywhere they like. Cleopatra’s Needle really is a vortex. Petti’s right. The Society members go everywhere, anytime they want. You could too, with the knowledge they have.”

“Which you will immediately give me.” I now knew what high blood pressure feels like. My cheeks were on fire, the blood pounded in my ears. All this freaking time, and we could have left New York without a horse, train, or ship, without cowering behind our stupid Wall and playing a video game with our own nightmares.

“No, you don’t get it. They’re really from 1890, and still stuck in 1890. We’re the only ones from the future. They’re society types—antiquity freaks—who stumbled upon the secret of the obelisk. They skip around, playing beat the archaeologists to discover treasure and massage their self-image as masters of the universe.”

“Wait!” I took a gulp of whiskey and rubbed at my aching head. “Just give me a second.”

People say ‘I need a drink’ all the time, and don’t mean it. I wanted something stronger. I wanted juice, which was locked up in my cabinet a foot away, but the desire appalled me.

Screw stood and paced again. “Have you caught up yet?”

“No, I haven’t fucking caught up yet. Why should I believe anything you’ve told me?” I thought about everything I’d shared with my best friend. How much had been real? I didn’t know a guy could get his heart broken by another guy—well, not a straight guy.

“That’s it, I promise. Not that my promises are going to mean much after today. I’m the only Modern Ra member.”

“So my ancestor is one of these Ra loonies, and goes flitting around the world to steal artifacts and God knows what else.”

“Right.”

“And about ten of them know how to do this, using the Obelisk.”

“Right.” Screw almost added a question mark to his response.

“Do you know if the Obelisk vortex whatever sucked us here?”

“It’s likely. Ra knows how to use the vortexes—there are more than that one—to move spatially, but not temporally. But one thing is for sure—there weren’t anachros until Fenwick came along. I think because we’re from the future, we’re causing the living dreams. But Fen, her very thoughts bring damnation.”

“Do you think we can figure out how to make it do time as well as space?”

“I don’t think we can dial up a date on it, if that’s what you mean. As far as I know, Fen is the only one to have skipped through time—and that was more like a dream, right?”

Did I trust Screw? Did it matter? “Fen went back to Modern again. I don’t think it’s a dream.”

Screw whistled through his teeth. “She didn’t stay?”

“It was the same scene. Worse. They were putting her into an ambulance. And she said…” She said she came back for me… “Never mind.”

“I see. She should probably avoid the lecture as well.”

“Seriously? You know Percy Fenwick?”

“Pretty well, actually.”

“Holy shit.”

Screw fumbled with his pocket watch. I thought he might tear up. “It probably won’t matter to you, but try to put yourself in my place. You were all I had, the only thing keeping me sane. I was afraid of what you’d do if you knew. I didn’t want to involve you with Ra. They’re dangerous, Jack. I mean, shoot you while you sleep dangerous.”

Screw sat near me on the bed and seemed to want to comfort me, but couldn’t find a physical way to do so that wouldn’t make me more uncomfortable. “I think we need to figure out what old Percy and Claudin have been up to in Egypt.”

“Not that mummy curse stuff again?”

Screw shrugged. “Dude, I saw a six foot tall rabbit last night hopping around Steamside. If you hadn’t noticed, you’re not in Louisiana anymore.”

“Where’s the good witch when you need her?”

“I think she’s back in my room. Unless, of course, she’s actually the bad witch and the cause of all this.”

Barber brought dinner for us, and the three of us ate with a minimum of conversation. When I fell off to sleep, with my friends still in my quarters, it was to the sound of shots off the Wall. Yeah, Fen was a great shot. I’d be better in the morning, I promised myself.

* * *

I walked up and down the “street” of Steamside, hoping I’d hear his voice, or the sputter of his velocipede. Percy trotted alongside me, like a dog, which was kind of freaky, but I was happy for the company.

Steamside was quiet, as if it were up to something. Like shimmering into nothingness. I breathed easier when a band of Dodgers, a few hauling burlap bags, rounded the corner from Normal. Calliope smiled in her pretty little way, and in my lovelorn state, I fancied that she looked sly. Perhaps Jack hooked up with her to get back at me?

No. She called me over with a wave and slipped something into my hand. “Don’t tell anyone. This will go great with your blue dress.”

“They’re all blue.”

“No, your Punk dress.”

A cool beetle pin with wings that moved and looked almost mechanical. “Hey, thanks. It will look good.”

“Catch you later.”

Huh. That wasn’t the evil Calliope of my fantasy.

Petti fell into step with me so quietly I jumped when I noticed her.

“Miss Fenwick.”

“Miss Pettigrew.”

“Out for a constitutional with the cat, I see. Must walk the cat at least twice a day.”

“I don’t get it either, but he follows me.” I shrugged. It was the least of my worries. Petti bent over, plucked Percy from the ground, and carried him like a baby.

“Steamside seemed quiet up until a few minutes ago. Made me a little…”

“Queasy?”

“Yes! God, Petti, you get everything.”

“It’s called anxiety, Fenwick. You’re in love and it’s making you insane. You’re looking for my brother and wondering why he won’t come for you. You’re trying to convince yourself it would be a good idea to go to him. Then in a split second, you’re terrified to face him. He’s pouting. My guess is that he’ll do so for a long time. I mean, weeks. And that you may have lost him forever.”

My legs went to jelly. God, it’s what I thought, but you look to other women to say things like “I’m sure he’ll call,” or “He must be tied up at work,” or “He doesn’t want to appear too eager.” It’s part of the female code. And then when he never calls, you discuss all the reasons he’s an ass and you’re better off.

“Why don’t you tell me what you actually think? Damn.” I picked up a pebble and threw it at a rat scurrying across the street.

“You can hit a target at a hundred yards with a pistol but you can’t hit a rat at fifteen feet with a stone?”

“Good, sweet. You came out to taunt me today. I’ll have my cat back, if you don’t mind.” I grabbed Percy and he looked at me suspiciously. “Oh, I won’t hurt you, Percy.”

“Jack’s going to Normal with Screw. An Egyptology lecture at the Met at four. I suggest you spend whatever time necessary to make yourself stunning and go with me.”

“Won’t he be pissed if I show up?”

“That’s your problem. Fix it. As much as I hate seeing him gush, he doesn’t do somber well. It’s the lesser of two evils. Besides, I want another crack at old Cleo’s needle, and I can’t go alone. Someone has to be a lookout for the stiff with the Billy club. You’re nominated.”

“Why aren’t you going with the boys?”

“You have a problem with authority, Fenwick. I trust you realize that? Have you ever just gone with the flow, even for one day?”

I thought the question a bit unfair, given we lived in an alternate dimension, but she had a point. If I went with the flow, where would it take me? To Jack’s door.

“You need me along because Jack told you not to go. I got it.”

“Splendid.”

Chapter Fourteen

She bathed with roses red, and violets blue,

And all the sweetest flowers, that in the forest grew.

I was back in Heathcliff mode, as Petti would say. You know those moments when you wake up and remember? That someone has died, or someone has broken your freaking heart. God, I hate that feeling. I tried to snap out of it before Petti could catch me feeling sorry for myself.

A night’s fitful sleep hadn’t diminished my anger at Fen, nor my obsessive rehearsing of every moment we’d spent together, every word exchanged, every touch.

The sight of her standing in my doorway, looking beautiful, softened the pain a bit. I armored myself by putting on the Man face as I fastened my shirt collar.

“What can I do for you, Miss Fenwick?” I blocked the doorway, but she ducked under my arm and scurried past me.

“I’m going with the flow.”

“Good for you. What the hell does that mean? And why did Barber let you in here?”

“I asked him to.”

“Great bodyguard. I suppose you aren’t here to kill me, though. May I assume that?”

“Yes.” She sat in my armchair and stared at me, head tilted to one side. “At least for the time being.”

I ignored her. As long as I could. “That dress is not quite blue.”

“It’s periwinkle, and it’s blue.”

“When I ordered you to wear blue, I meant real blue. Not faux blue.”

“Periwinkle is not faux blue. It’s called periwinkle blue, which makes it a blue. I’m requesting a change to another color. How about green? Is there a form I must fill out? Will you sign a form for a transfer to green? Or would that be a code violation?”

I glanced at her, praying she wouldn’t ask about the whole color thing. It was one of my lame attempts early on to achieve authority, and I’d stuck with it. Of course, Fenwick would be the first to ever rebel. Our tryst put us on equal footing, and I’d have to work at getting back on track. Problem was, I couldn’t think of much to do that. She was my equal in every way, and we both knew it.

“I don’t think I’d like you in green.”

“Well, you sure as hell don’t like me in blue! And you don’t like me naked, either.”

“You don’t think that. You’re on a fishing expedition, and I’m not biting.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

Fen stood to leave, and the air left my lungs. So I’d let her go, and that would be it? She hesitated at the door.

“This is where you tell me not to leave,” she said, without turning around to look at me.

“I think this is where you tell me what you’re doing here in the first place. In periwinkle.”

Her shoulders dropped and she faced me. “When I told you to act like you’re in charge, I meant something else. I meant I’m falling in love with you, and I want to protect myself, in case you don’t feel that way. I didn’t want you to think I’d interfere with your work. That I’d be a good girlfriend or whatever. In other words, I’m here to apologize, in periwinkle. Which is, in fact, a blue.”

My brain and heart were out of sync. I forced myself to pour a bit of Fitch’s tonic in my palm and run it through my hair, to take time to go through her words. To make sure she’d said it. Yep, she had.

I could pout some more, which didn’t make much sense because I was thrilled. Instead, I ran the comb through my hair and turned to her for approval. “Okay?”

“You’re handsome. You’re always handsome.”

“I take it you’re going to the lecture with us?”

“Petti asked me. Is that okay?”

“Would you instead allow me to be your escort? It seems only proper, as we are sweethearts.”

For the first time, I enjoyed watching a tear drift down Fen’s cheek. She wiped it away with her gloved hand; I withdrew a handkerchief from my pocket and offered it to her.

“What time is the lecture,” she sniffed out through my handkerchief.

“I thought about it too, sugar. Rain check? My room, tonight? And every night after that?”

“Whoa, pretty sure you didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Every night goes on for a long time.”

“Time’s relative for us, isn’t it?” My God, I think I’d meant what I’d said. I skipped the makeup kiss and finished dressing. Fen might have been disappointed, but I worried she’d recognize love in a kiss. Women are funny that way.

But I was such a goner that I actually forgot to tell her Percival Fenwick was alive, well, living in New York, and part of a secret society that tripped through time. And that she was likely to see him in an hour or so.

Petti got her event. The Met painting room overflowed with society types feigning interest in the speaker, and scholars ignoring the society types. My ancestor could draw a crowd, I thought with a mixed sense of pride and wonder. We didn’t have a clue how we’d get a word with the great archaeologist in the throng.

Screw paced at the back of the hall, pulling out his pocket watch, eying the crowd.

“Corwin, won’t you join us closer to the dais?”

“Thanks, no, Pettigrew. It’s stifling in here, my good man.”

“Indeed. Any sign of the Society members?”

He leaned in and removed his monocle. I waited for his whisper, but without saying a word, he nodded toward Claudin Pettigrew as he acknowledged the applauding crowd.

In each of my cells, a fraction of this man’s DNA matched mine. He checked his pocket watch and from it dangled a scarab. I reached into my own pocket and felt the same scarab. The Original Series, 28, for real.

I sidled between the women and put my hand under Petti’s elbow. “Don’t leave my side. I’ll explain later.” She nodded without looking up, forever trusting of me. Fen glanced at me and indicated Claudin with a quick movement of her eyes. I patted her hand and she stiffened.

“Will it be all right?” she whispered. “Don’t disappear on me or anything.”

We concentrated on the lecture, which astounded the audience and bored me to death. Where were the slides, the 3D animation of the tombs he described? Claudin brandished a few pieces of pottery and droned on in his heavy French accent about a new chronological sequence for the Old Kingdom, whatever that was.

Fen reached for my hand and squeezed it when he mentioned his young assistant, Howard Carter. “Tut,” she whispered.

I leaned in, and caught a whiff of lavender. “Tut what?”

“He’s going to find King Tut in a few years,” she muttered between clenched teeth.

“Jolly for him.”

When Claudin finished, his fans rushed him like he was a rock star. “Let’s go,” I told the women.

Fenwick pulled at my sleeve and indicated a tall man standing a few yards from us. She looked up at me, her blue eyes asking what she dared not speak. I don’t know how or why she recognized Percival Fenwick, but I understood the feeling of vertigo, of wrongness. I nodded and squeezed her hand, leaned in and whispered to her that I loved her. I didn’t tell her it would all work out, because I’d stopped believing that the day I saw the Hindenburg.

Screw whispered, “Let’s go home,” and I trusted his gut instinct that nothing good would come of hanging out with little bits of ourselves.

Chapter Fifteen

Rallying the troops.

Steamside whispered.

Just days earlier, Steamside partied, rolled with laughter and music, echoed the clank of the pinball levers on Jack’s birthday present, and the happy songs from Fatty’s piano. This afternoon, the Punks spoke in hushed tones and went about their chores in a somber manner. If they gossiped, and they did, they did so behind closed doors.

We sprawled on Petti’s Grassy Knoll. This time I knew the meeting wasn’t about me, but that didn’t bring me much comfort.

At first we didn’t talk, but watched Screw fly a kite—the old-fashioned shape I knew from early childhood with paper glued to thin wood cross-bracings. He’d used a poster for Fitch’s men’s shampoo, and we watched a happy couple in evening dress flutter, dip, and rise with the light breeze and Screw’s pull on the string.

Given the circumstances, I thought his behavior a little bizarre, but no one raised an eyebrow. Jack had calmed down considerably, and I’m sure he’d already had the ‘come to Jesus’ fight with Screw over keeping the Ra Society business from us in private. We were in Phase Two of Operation What-the-Hell Do We Do Now.

After a half-hour of lying on a blanket and watching Screw’s kite, trying to ignore whether Jack was paying attention to me or not, I nudged Petti.

“What?” She widened her eyes, as if I’d cursed in church.

“When are we going to talk?” I whispered.

“When Screw is finished.” She frowned as if I’d lost my mind. These four had their own secret code of social interaction that escaped me at times.

Screw lost his kite to a tree limb and abandoned it, although I offered to climb up to get it. Not that I like heights, but I felt sorry for Screw. He looked like Jasper Corwin, mixed-heritage guy stuck in an alternate dimension, not the grounded happy genius of Steamside.

So he sat, and it went pretty much like I expected. We argued with Jack not to tell the Punks about Ra, about the vortex, whether Screw should still be Steamside elite. I kept to myself and let Petti take the lead. Honestly, I didn’t know the right course. Without superpowers or the One Ring, we had to figure shit out on our own, or rather, Jack did. I wanted to help him, or perhaps, I knew I could.

“Tell the Punks,” I blurted out. “Tell them everything. Ask them for support. If you want to stop these Normals from creating anachros and beating up archaeologists for gold or whatever, then ask the Punks to help. If you don’t care, they’ll drop it, too. They’ll do what you ask, Jack.”

“I know they will. Petti, would you tell them to assemble before dinner? I’d like to hang out alone for a while.” Ah, he really had a love-hate relationship with his role.

I hesitated as the other left, not sure what alone meant to him, hoping it included me. He stripped off his shirt and lay back, looking like a carefree guy wasting an afternoon in the sun. I knelt near him, admiring him, wondering about our future together and the future of Steamside.

“Don’t think too much, Fen. It doesn’t help much.” He pulled me down into an embrace, I gave him silence and acceptance, figuring that’s what most guys want anyway.

In the end, he gave a damned good speech in the mess hall. The Dodgers rotated on the Wall to allow the guards to come in, so he had to talk twice. All the Punks who were able to stay listened twice. I stayed, of course. As much to admire him, and bask in the ‘he likes me’ thing.

I can’t say he was honest—he didn’t reveal all he knew about Cleopatra’s Needle. I know it was for the best, so they wouldn’t end up hurting themselves somehow, but I also know it pained him to hold back. Free will and all that. I was relieved he didn’t mention that I’d gone ‘home’.

I left the mess hall to the ‘boys’, as it was clear Jack still had stuff to clear up with Screw, and I wasn’t sure how far this ‘we’re seeing one another’ thing extended.

It wasn’t even past supper, but I climbed the Wall to hang out with Sweet Pea. She didn’t need to be there that early either, but it was her real home.

She poured me a cup of her terrible coffee and handed it to me without comment. I handed her a new Union cap I’d bought from Prince Albert, and she took it with a giant grin.

“I don’t think I’ve done anything to deserve a present.” God, she was thrilled to death. People are funny, the things that can touch them. For Jack, it was a pinball machine. For Sweet Pea, a new cap.

We sipped coffee and stared at the tree line for a while in silence. It was so damned comforting to be around women who didn’t talk about being fat or shopping. Sweet Pea never questioned how I could be a crack shot and still like dresses that showed off my figure. She was one of those people who become more beautiful when you get to know them. I took a hard look at her, wondering what she hid beneath her quirky clothing and messy hair.

She shoved her old cap into her ragged pants pocket and tilted back in her chair. “I guess you know more than the rest of us about this Ra Society.”

“I don’t know that much.”

Sweet Pea arched her brow and sniffed in disdain. “You’re sleeping with the Man. You’re a regular swell now.”

“I don’t think they call people swells in 1890.”

“Not talking, then? It’s okay.”

“We’re friends, aren’t we, Lieutenant?”

“Thought so.” She took a long draw off her cigar.

“Me too. So you have to trust me. If I knew something I could share, I’d share it with you.”

“That’s all right then, I guess.” I swear, Sweet Pea was forever saying things that sounded like lines from half-remembered old movies. Right now she was straight out of Shawshank Redemption. “You think we’ll ever get out of here, Fen?”

I didn’t expect that from her. Part of me wanted to tell her I’d gone home, perhaps to finish what I’d started—dying. I didn’t want her trying it, didn’t want anyone to. “Not really. No, I don’t.”

“Me neither. It’s why I like it up here. I figured it out pretty early on. I think I like Steamside a bit better than Modern in some ways. Life on the road can be harsh. And there’s no money in coaching women’s ball. I’m a loner, and no one bothers me here. Except you, and you’re not too annoying for a talkative white woman.” Her grin was infectious.

“I may like it a little myself.”

“That’s a good thing, ‘cause your boyfriend is standing right behind you.”

Before I could turn around, Jack hugged me around the waist and rested his chin on my shoulder.

“Evening, Lieutenant.”

“Sir.” Sweet Pea tipped her new cap. I think she wanted him to notice it, but he didn’t mention it. Sweet Pea’s uniform was the equivalent of a new hairdo to other women. Men were missing the gene to notice, Jack no exception.

“Think you might be all right with a substitute tonight? I’d like to borrow Fenwick.”

“That would be between you and the little woman. I’ll need someone.”

“Of course. How would Barber do?”

“I think he’d do. If he can keep up.” Her sly wink made us both laugh.

I turned to Jack, who kept an arm around my waist.

“Why, Mr. Pettigrew, this is like standing on a bridge in Paris or Venice. How romantic.”

“I’ve earned a little romance today. What do you say?”

“Lead on.” My. God. So, we were something, and that something was out in the open. Way out. I could have flown off the Wall and winged my way over Steamside, buzzed the Punks for fun. I soared, scared and excited.

Chapter Sixteen

A gentle hand to guide them along.

I’d agonized over where to take Fen more than how to deal with the Ra Society. Shame on me.

Steamside is a street and a few rickety buildings inside a mud-brick wall against a hill. Aside from my birthday party in the mess hall, there wasn’t…anything. No restaurant, no little café.

Make no mistake, my mission was clear—me and Fen in the sack. But to the sound of Sweet Pea firing at zombies? Or Screw riding his steamboard? There would be no romantic dinner (I think it was shepherd pie night in the mess hall, and that was a very bad thing), no subtlety of any sort. Still, it was home, as much as any place was home now.

So in a lightening strike of clarity, I realized I’d already blown it. I’d utterly zoned on the romance until she mentioned bridges in Paris or something up on the Wall. Shit.

I mean, this is Fenwick. The tough chick. The shoot at zombies all night and not complain about it girl. It’s not that I forgot she was female. Hardly. More like I forgot that she might care. I was out of practice, and terrified I’d lost my touch, if I’d ever had one.

It had been months since Calliope and I had come together in unbridled drunken lust for one embarrassing night of near-intercourse. I won’t explain why it didn’t work out, but blaming it on the booze is a good start.

Calliope turned into a shrew after realizing the alcohol was the source of my amorous advances, and we’d barely spoken since. I don’t know if that one got around Steamside, but if it did, the Punks had cut me an awesome break over it. Since then, I’d sworn off the Punks, and fortunately, Calliope had sworn off me. (She’d reminded me too much of Petti anyway, which had freaked me out a bit once we were in bed. Plus the booze, as I said.)

There was no swearing off Emily. She consumed me. No doubt part of it was the welcome distraction from the weird shit going on. But since the Hotel Henry, I’d dropped some heavy weight bearing down my spirit. I remember the moment now—when I told her my notebook was garbage—made up nonsense. When I told her I was a fraud, and she looked like she dug me even more.

Maybe I’m delusional, but I can almost believe she’d like me in Modern, wearing my jeans, working in my shop. Calling her “sugar.” She made it okay to be the Man, for the Man to be Jack, for Jack to be an average guy. I think. I hope.

Now I had an arm around her and no place to go. It killed me to suggest Normal, but I couldn’t think of another solution.

“Want to take in Normal? Maybe get a room at the Henry again?” Very smooth, Jack. Excellent.

“Normal? Um, okay, sure.”

Sweet Pea coughed “bullshit” and shook her head.

“Something on your mind, Lieutenant?”

“Permission to speak, Sir?”

“Thanks for asking, even if you’d find a way to say it anyway.”

“Fenwick has had enough of Normal for a while. She likes Steamside, just said so a few minutes ago. You should take her to your room.”

“Jesus, Sweet Pea.” It’s such a drag to be a guy who blushes.

“Jack?” Fen extracted herself from my arm and twirled her hair into a knot. “She’s right. Can we stay here?”

I thought I’d break down in relief. To say my new girlfriend is low maintenance is an epic understatement. She unstrapped her pistol from her thigh and handed it over to Sweet Pea. “In case Barber needs one,” she said.

We took the ladder to our street and sauntered what I hoped was nonchalantly toward my quarters. But Steamside watched us go. The Punks acted normally—Dodgers dispensing goods to various drop-off points, the Reverend (our main cook, a former pastor) hammering a notice of the forthcoming week’s menu on a board. (Not that anyone read it—you ate what he put in front of you. But he was a little delusional, thinking if he advertised in advance, people would look forward to the food.)

“Hi Reverend.” Fen waved. It made me proud that she was kind.

“Trying brownies on Wednesday, Fenwick.”

“With nuts?”

He shook his head. “Some of the Punks have nut allergies. Sorry.”

“That’s why I asked. I can’t have them either. I’ll come help make them, okay?”

“I’ve plenty of help, never mind. Just enjoy!”

Fen laughed and whispered, “My reputation in the kitchen.”

“You aren’t allergic to nuts, either. You’re soft, soldier.”

“Look who’s talking.” Her laugh was free, a wonderful sound. Not a laugh of sarcasm, or irony, but one of pure enjoyment. I loved it. I loved it about her; I loved so many things about her. I closed my eyes for a moment, wondering if when I opened them, I’d be home in my shop, worrying about bills and my parents’ health, worried about Petti’s cancer, wondering how to break up with Lacey.

I opened my eyes and I was Steamside, an ugly non-place made bearable, almost beautiful, by the exceptional woman at my side.

She reached for my hand, sensing, I think, that I was thinking about her. I brought it to my lips and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Would it be sleazy to ask you to come to my room?”

“It would be incredibly stupid of you not to.”

* * *

I’d been in Jack’s quarters three times, once in a morphine stupor, once very angry, and once so nervous I couldn’t think. I looked around, watched him look around in amazement, and knew the makeover wasn’t his doing. He wouldn’t know how to begin to set a scene for romance, although my guess is he’d consider it, then shrug it off in annoyance. But there it was—a tiny round table set for two near the window, with fresh wildflowers in a jelly jar and several long tapers embedded in glassware that looked like test tubes.

His bed—and you couldn’t get around what a centerpiece of the room it was—now festooned in crisp white cotton and flower petals strewn about the pillows. The perpetrator of this makeover had cleaned and folded Jack’s clothes, making the room smell of Hudson’s Soap.

“Petti,” I murmured. “Has to be.”

“Want to make a wager?”

“Only if you swear you didn’t do it.”

He arched a brow.

“Right, you wouldn’t know where to begin. I like that about you. All right, Holmes. You’ll buy me dinner if I guess correctly?”

“I buy your dinner every night.”

I grabbed the magnifying glass from his desk with what I hoped was a dramatic flourish and examined the bed. “Common wildflowers. Fresh linens. Doesn’t narrow it down. Nothing remarkable here. Unless…”

“Yes? Do tell!”

“Only one person folds this perfectly. Only one Punk cares deeply about clothing.” I put down the glass and rubbed at my chin. “It must be…Jasper Corwin!”

“Capital, well done!”

We regarded one another for a moment. Delay, deflection, humor—we were out of options. We were alone, together, and I for one felt paralyzed by it. He didn’t move to kiss me. He didn’t move at all. He just stared, and I stared back. We both jumped at the knock on the door.

“It had better be damned good!” Jack opened the door to reveal Screw dressed in his best suit and tie, a crisp linen towel draped over his arm, balancing a tray of food.

“Room service, Sir.” Screw whisked by us and went about setting the table with real silver, glass wine goblets instead of our normal tin cups, and a bottle of red wine. He held up a finger and rushed to the door, where he lifted a second tray.

The plates were covered, but the unmistakable scent of grilled meat made my stomach growl. When he finished setting our places, he bowed and pulled out a pitch pipe.

Jack and I looked at one another incredulously. Screw was going to sing? He indicated we should take our seats and pulled out my chair. Screw blew a note into the pipe and Fatty, Dozer (a quiet guy who helped Screw build things once in a while), and Sweet Pea entered with a flourish.

“Who’s on the Wall?” I asked.

Sweet Pea flipped me the bird.

“Is this going to take long?” Jack asked.

Screw folded his arms. “As long as it takes. We weren’t ready for your birthday, but I think someone,” he turned and glared at Dozer, “finally learned the lyrics.”

He snapped a beat out with his fingers and blew into the pipe and my God, they sang. To this day I don’t know why it made me cry. The silliest, oldest song. Fatty took the lead.

“When you're alone, and life is making you lonely, you can always go…”

He gestured for us to finish the line. “Downtown?” Jack said.

Screw held up his hand. “It’s not a question. Come on, you guys. You too, Fen.”

He snapped his fingers and Fatty started from the top.

“When you've got worries, all the noise and the hurry seems to help, I know…”

“Downtown.” We responded this time and the quartet really took off.

“Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city, linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty. How can you lose? The lights are much brighter there, you can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares and go…”

We all sang, well, Jack and I mostly laughed. When they came to the last verse, Screw took over, slowing it down and walking to the table to link Jack’s hand and mine.

“And you may find somebody kind to help and understand you, someone who is just like you and needs a gentle hand to guide them along…So, maybe I'll see you there, we can forget all our troubles, forget all our cares and go…downtown, everything's waiting for you.”

We applauded and the singers high-fived each other and exited, laughing and excited.

Jack threw his hands up. “I will never understand that guy. Not in a thousand years.”

“It was wonderful. He’s wonderful. You’re wonderful.”

Jack smiled and leaned his head in his hand, elbow on the table. “I used to think I was the unluckiest guy on the planet. But I have these amazing friends, and you…you just…”

Jack sat up and left the thought unfinished. “Screw didn’t have to do this. You know I wouldn’t make him wait on me or any nonsense like that, right?”

“Not your style. People do things for you because you’re you. You know that, don’t you?”

He didn’t respond, and I thought I might have struck some nerve, so I dropped it and uncovered the plates. And nearly fell over. Cheeseburgers. Two for each of us. With a pile of potatoes that vaguely resembled French fries.

“I really, really love him. But no ketchup? Is there ketchup yet?”

“I’m not sure.” Jack uncorked the wine and poured a bit into his glass, swirled, and tasted. “Not bad. A Bordeaux. Imagine you’d pay a thousand or more for this vintage in Modern.”

“Yeah, where’s eBay when you need it?” I was halfway through my first burger by the time he poured the wine. It was dark and rich and heady right away.

“Can you do me a favor?” The blush again. I was starting to understand it wasn’t embarrassment, but another kind of heat that flushed his cheeks. “Take down your hair.”

“Why?” I stopped with burger halfway to my mouth.

“It’s how I pictured this. With your hair down. I don’t want to offend any feminist sensibilities…”

“You pictured this?” Oh boy. Nerves on fire again.

“You haven’t pictured this?”

“Maybe a few times.” Maybe four times an hour for the last year. Maybe while falling asleep every night, changing the fantasy a hair each time.

“What did you picture, those few times?”

I shook off his question and downed my wine. He refilled my glass and stared. I pushed at the second cheeseburger, but went back to the wine instead.

“Liquid courage.” I pulled the pins from my hair and it tumbled to my shoulders. Honestly, it felt a little silly as I shook it out, like some bad shampoo commercial.

“Why do you need courage? We’re not strangers, not strangers to a bedroom. You’re having second thoughts?”

“I’ve had nothing but second thoughts since that night in Petti’s tent of mystery. Except about you. On that topic I’ve been consistent.”

A smile pulled at one side of his mouth and he let out a sigh. “Tell me more.”

“Egotistical much?”

“Emily, I think you’re waiting for me to make a move. I’m waiting for me to make a move.”

“So that makes two of us waiting for you to do something. How long you think that might take?”

“I need something first.”

“Condom?” Hell. He did not forget that.

Jack laughed and shook his head. “No, got that covered. I hate to bring this up and ruin the moment. If we’re having a moment. I guess we’re not, because I won’t make a move.”

“For the love of God, Jack. You’re going to tell me not to take this seriously, aren’t you? Or that there’s no future for us, or some shit like that? Just save it, okay? I knew it.” I caught the lump in my throat before it moved north and manifested as weepiness. No, I didn’t see it coming at all. I stood and drained my wine before heading for the door.

“Oh, no, you don’t.” He was on me in an instant, his grip like steel on my arm. “You don’t listen. Ever.”

“Say something worth hearing, and I’ll listen.”

“Shut up for a minute.” Jack took a deep breath and led me to his chair, pulled me down on his lap. “Come to Santa. Are you listening?”

I nodded. My pain/pleasure center battled it out in my brain as I bathed in Jack’s nearness and embrace and feared for my heart.

“I’ve said this to Petti. I’m not ready to tell the rest. But you deserve the truth before we become more involved. We may be together for a long time. A very long time.”

Okay, so far, so good. No, this was very good. Aha, the penny dropped.

“You don’t think we’re leaving. Ever.”

“Right. I’ve never known what to do about it. I haven’t had a single good idea since I got here, and I’m no closer to figuring it out. Just because you went home for a while…”

“Yeah. Not especially interested in experiencing the rest of my death.”

“But what if you don’t die, Emily? What if you went back, and nothing much was wrong. You could have your life back.”

“And I could end up dead, with no world to call my own.”

We regarded each other from a distance that sizzled with thought and emotion. I wasn’t ready to make a commitment not to try. But gut wrenching fear of reliving the pain of Modern served as good insurance I’d be Steamside a while longer.

“Do you think you’ll try?”

“Do you want me to? I know it matters for everyone.”

He sighed and ran his fingers through my hair. “I don’t want to think about it now. I only know I want to be with you, right here, where I can touch you.”

“Well, don’t they say that’s all we ever have? The here and now?”

We both knew I was lying. We both thought about the future. About me and the damned anachros, about whether anyone besides me could return. I didn’t like being the key to anything.

“I wouldn’t mind a lot of here and nows strung together.”

“Did I ever tell you why I went in Petti’s tent that night?”

“I’m not sure you did go into her tent. Maybe into the hospital. But go ahead.”

“Right. Anyway, my memory is that she advertised psychic readings about love. I wanted her to tell me I’d meet a Tom Hanks guy.”

“Tom Hanks? Really?”

“No, not really. I mean, a regular guy, looking for someone like me. Exceptionally handsome, of course. Preferably blue collar, emotionally available. Two out of three ain’t bad.”

“Funny.”

“She promised me a tall, dark, handsome stranger. If it doesn’t work out, then we’ll have to go to separate corners of the century, okay?”

“It’s a deal. God, Fenwick.”

“What?”

“I haven’t breathed since I came here. You let me breathe.”

“Breathing is good. Kissing is better.”

Chapter Seventeen

Drawing the blinds.

For once, time was on our side. Jack took his time, and it drove me nuts, in a good way. I normally wasn’t shy in the bedroom, but this was the Man, my Man.

We hadn’t met at a bar and gone back to his place. We’d met in another dimension, and inched our way toward each other for over a year. Of course, I’d probably moved two inches for each of his millimeters.

Maybe it was magical thinking on my part, but it struck me that this might be my last man, my forever man—dare I say it? The one. But for that to happen, I needed to be his one. And since I didn’t even know if that was possible—if we’d be in the same century or dimension the next day, it changed everything.

This was new. Jack wasn’t one of the guys from the job, or the softball league. When you aren’t certain a fling will end before it begins, when it’s no longer a fling, romance takes on a life of its own and you lose control. I knew already that if he did the Steamside equivalent of calling the next day, I’d pick up the phone. I hadn’t been that emotionally available in my life. I didn’t need a therapist to tell me that.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not repressed. But I think I could have kissed Jack for hours and been completely satisfied. At least my heart would have been. He had this way of putting his hand on my cheek and guiding me, taking over, that melted my brain.

I stopped for breath and to pull back a bit so I could look at him, his handsome tan face, to touch a stray lock of hair fallen into his dark eyes. I even touched his thick black eyelashes, gently running my finger along the tips. I needed to connect with every bit of him. I loved the freedom he gave me to wander over him with my lips and fingers, to learn all the tiny nuances that made him unique.

Every inch of him delighted me—the ripple of tendons and muscle in his forearms, the curve of his biceps, the tiny scars on his hands from carpentry. I kissed every bit of him left bare by his clothing, and he seemed to drink it in.

“You’re something, Emily.” He ran his hands through my hair and caught my gaze, held it, and leaned his forehead on mine.

“I’ve heard that before.”

“You know what I mean. I expect you to disappear any minute, shimmer away from me. You’re too good to be true.”

“That’s a new one.”

“Come on. You’re beautiful.”

Really, I’m not. I’m pretty average looking. But in Jack’s embrace, I almost felt beautiful.

We took little breaks from kissing to sip at our wine, but finally, he moved to the bed and put his glass down. He held his hand out and I went to him, hungry for him, in love with him.

The candles had flickered out, and as night fell over Steamside, we undressed one another in the low light from the gas lamp on the street. It cast velvety shadows on his skin, on his well-toned body. I hope like hell it hid my flaws, but by the time we were both naked, it hardly mattered.

He kissed all of me, sometimes sweetly, sometimes playfully, and sometimes like he wanted to devour me. I’d never let a man have everything, without flinching or pulling away, wondering or worrying.

Jack traced paths from my chin to my wet womb with his hot tongue and full lips. He teased me into shudders as he sucked on my nipples and nested his fingers in my short curls. When he lapped and kissed my wet folds, I arched to pull him in, empty, dying for him to fill me. I suppose I called out, I must have. But I only remember what he said, how he sounded. Breathy and victorious, moaning my name, calling to God when I stroked his erection. He’d push my hand away for a moment, whispering “Not yet,” and then pull me back to him, unable to resist.

“I don’t want to wait,” I protested.

“I don’t know if I can,” he answered.

He rolled on a condom, and I know we both wondered if we needed it, if it would even work. He prodded my opening with his fingers and I guided him in.

“Oh. My. God.” I nearly wept when he filled me and nuzzled his face in my neck.

“Oh, Sugar.” He moaned, again and again. I braced myself on his shoulders as he moved gently at first, then clutched the bed as we rode together, finding our own secret rhythm. His eyes were dark, sexy slits as he gazed at my face, watching me come, watching me love him. The waves that broke through my body brought him to release, and he pressed his lips to mine and groaned in ecstasy.

I don’t know how long we lay in one another’s arms, or who spoke first, but we kissed and murmured bits of half-love talk. We sat and sipped wine, told tales of our past, caressed each other’s egos.

If it had ended there, I’d have been satisfied. But that was the beginning of our evening. I think we were trying to fit into one night all the fantasies of a year.

You see, I think my fantasies had been about romance, his about sex. When we brought the two together, we were bound in a way that took both of us by surprise.

Jack took me by surprise, literally and figuratively, when he pushed me onto all fours and rubbed me from behind, playfully biting and swatting at my ass. He kissed my neck and pressed into my womb and whispered, “I don’t want to see your face when I say this, in case it’s not what you want to hear. But I’m falling for you. I have fallen for you. I love you, Emily. I’m in love with you. I don’t want it to end. Tell me that’s what you want.”

I could barely remember my own name, but I remember exactly how he sounded, how the room smelled, how my body felt as he pushed into me. Perspiration rolled from his forehead onto my back—I remember how the drops felt as they hit my skin. My chest ached with his words, filled to the brim with his words.

“Yes,” I managed, through tears I didn’t want him to see. Lame, but I made up for it later. He pushed hard, very hard, as if he wanted to claim me. I remember one moment when a voice deep inside me told me to let go. To let him in, to let myself accept what he said at face value. I soared; we soared together. When we finally faced one another in the darkness, I found the courage to put my hand on his cheek and tell him everything.

How my crush on him had begun. How it had turned into an obsession. When the obsession turned to friendship and admiration, when the fantasy turned to lust, when the lust and friendship turned to love. I told him how I looked for him everywhere, waited for him to appear, even looked forward to the pain of shredding just for the chance to be near him. How I had kept a shirt of his I’d ruined and hid it under my bed, like an adolescent girl.

I confided my worry that he’d find me too much of a tomboy, how I’d burn with anger if I saw him talking to the female Punks, how hard I’d worked to get a book for his birthday.

He stared at me, sometimes frowning, mostly smiling as I went on and on.

“But you knew all that, didn’t you?” I asked him.

Jack leaned up on one elbow and brushed my hair through his fingers. “More or less. But it’s really, really nice to hear.”

Chapter Eighteen

In which an error in judgment results in tragic occurrences for our friends.

A lot of things are hard in life, much harder than what I did at sunrise. At the time, it was like running a marathon, swimming the English Channel, and climbing Everest, sequentially. I left the comfort of Jack’s bed, of his arms, his scent. Comfort isn’t quite the word. That multiplied a thousand times, and then multiplied exponentially. Screw would be able to do the math.

But I had promises to keep, and miles to go… Okay, a few hundred feet, but it felt awful. Jack slept as if he hadn’t done so in a long time. I watched him for a while, in that way you do when you’re in love. Where morning beard stubble is more beautiful than a sunrise, and a tiny mole you hadn’t noticed becomes a beauty mark.

I’d sworn on a stack of imaginary Bibles to Petti that I’d go with her to Normal that morning. Still obsessed with speaking to Cleopatra’s Needle, and unable to extract the secret tripping formula from Screw or Jack, Petti wanted a go at it. I knew by now that one would have an easier time stopping a train with a toothpick than stopping Annalise Pettigrew when she had her mind fixed on something. I thought of ratting her out to her brother, but decided I’d be enough of a safety net. I could use a gun, could overpower a woman the size of a fifth grader if I needed to, and didn’t think she’d get anywhere.

I spruced up in the public shower without going back to my room. Screw would have a lot to say about me and Jack, and a hell of a lot more to say about Cleopatra’s Needle. I wasn’t in the mood for any of it. I wanted time to savor the lingering phantom hands of Jack, his lips, the aftersex muscle warmth and shivers.

Petti handed me my pistol with a frown. “Where’s your hat? You look like hell.”

“I can turn this car around, little missy.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” Petti knocked on one of the dorm rooms and ordered a groggy Punk to get me a hat. It wasn’t more terrible than any I owned, just not my style.

I pinned the silk and feathered monstrosity on, straightened my dress to Petti’s satisfaction, and we were off.

Normal’s morning quiet knocked a bit of nostalgia into me. I’d always enjoyed Sunday morning in Manhattan, before the city woke up and needed coffee. After working the toughest shift—Saturday night—I’d stroll off my nightmares and stop in Dean & DeLuca’s, grab a paper to read the baseball box scores more than the hard news, and in nice weather, settle in on a bench. Petti caught me fantasizing about doing that with Jack.

“If you need to tell me all about your undying love for my brother, do it now, before we get down to business.”

“Maybe some other time.”

“Good.” We took the path under Greywacke Arch to the obelisk. Petti settled on a bench and stared at the granite needle. I sat next to her. Two ladies out for an early stroll.

“Miss Pettigrew, before you do anything stupid, I want to offer this warning. If you endanger yourself, or me, or my newfound romantic bliss in any way, you will die a slow, painful death. Got it?”

“Did you get your scarab back?”

“God, and Jack tells me I don’t listen.”

I unfastened the chain and handed it to her. So clearly, Petti thought the scarab was a secret decoder ring to the Obelisk. Who was I to argue? Likely the Ra Society passed them around like Masonic rings—symbols only, not to be used like magical whatnots.

Right, you see it now, what I didn’t at the time. And of course, I wouldn’t be mentioning it if it weren’t important to what transpired. Hindsight and all that crap. All I had in 1890 was hindsight. And a really, really good looking boyfriend. Who I was about to leave behind.

Despite some understanding of Star Trek lore, I’d never thought of myself as the girl wearing red. The one the scriptwriters will off on the planet when the alien monster attacks. I thought of it years later, that despite Jack’s orders to wear blue, I’d been in the red guy’s position a lot in those first few years.

Petti mumbled something about Ra and held the scarab up to the morning light to compare it to the weathered hieroglyphs on the obelisk.

“I’ve been doing some research on old Cleo here. And…”

“Is it there?” I wanted to go home. To Jack. She wouldn’t be rushed, and held up her hand to shut me up.

I saw it when she did. I’d carried the scarab my whole adult life, and never thought much about it, assuming it either named some ruler or place, or said made in Egypt.

In fact, that’s what it did say. Petti squealed and held her hand to the cartouche containing the right inscription. She turned to me in amazement. “It matches! It matches yours and Claudin’s and Jack’s—well, those are really the same one, and I suppose Percy carries one as well. I suppose all the society members do, to remind them of what to do. What do you think, Fen?”

“Doesn’t that just confirm what Screw said?”

“Screw hasn’t said a word about how they do their shredding to other places. And Jack won’t tell me.”

“Then back away from the monument. It’s called a vortex for a reason.” I reached out to grab her wrist. Jack and Screw knew she wasn’t above trying something clever that wasn’t clever at all. They’d been right on.

“It says…”

“Come over here and tell me what it says. Come on, Petti. I’m serious.”

“The son of Ra, Thuthmosis III, the ever-living, made this monument.”

As I pulled one way on her arm, I felt a stronger pull back, and my heart dropped to my stomach. We were shredding, all right. Before the pain subsided and I could open my eyes, I knew we wouldn’t manifest Steamside. I called to Jack, to make it better, to hold me in his arms and rest his chin on my shoulder from behind, to tell me he’d never let go. But he hadn’t let go. I’d been the one to let go. I hoped like hell he’d understand I didn’t leave him.

* * *

When Annalise and I were on the Turnpike that snowy night, we were returning from an appointment with her oncologist at Sloan Kettering. The news was good, very good. She was a survivor, and except for vigilant check-ups, should live a great life.

I’d almost expected the worst. Our lives had been falling apart bit by bit. We’d lost both our parents within the space of three years. Dad went shortly after Mom. It’s common, as well-meaning acquaintances were more than happy to remind us. Men either whither or remarry once the wife passes. As our parents were halves of a whole unit, tied in a way I never understood until I met Fen, I knew Dad’s heart would break.

We weren’t kids, but I for one had the sense of being an orphan. Hard to explain. I still had the carpentry business; Annalise bounced from job to job but always landed on her feet. She’d put so much into caring for our mom, and then Dad, that I think she was confounded when that need passed. We weren’t that unhappy, just a bit unsettled once the grief passed.

When she learned she had breast cancer, I became the caregiver. Well, Petti didn’t need much from me, just a shoulder. And she moved in with me so when she was weak from the treatments I could help. It brought us closer, all those events. We were both survivors.

My longtime fiancé (those two words together are man-speak for ‘it’s not happening’) gave me the ultimatum for the third time. I thought she was a bit unfair, maybe even a bit jealous of the time I spent with Petti. Whether Lacey was serious or not this time, I’d had enough. I’d set a date to break it off. I never knew what was wrong with Lacey—nothing really—until I fell for Emily. She wasn’t Fenwick.

I never had to tell Lacey that she wasn’t the one.

I explained this to Screw and Barber after waking up alone, after reading Emily’s note, after looking everywhere.

Petti couldn’t let Cleopatra’s Needle go. She couldn’t let anything go. She had developed this living-life-largely attitude, for good reason, and she swept everyone in her sphere into the flow with her. You either caught her enthusiasm, or she’d kick and scream until you gave in.

I knew Emily had gone with Petti out of friendship, and probably wanted to talk about her escapades with me, or whatever it is women talk about when it comes to men. Fenwick’s note soothed the initial shock of feeling the empty spot next to me when I woke. More of a gaping hole in my chest. I’d awoken several times, my subconscious telling me I’d done something extraordinary. I’d broken several longstanding personal records in one evening. A few I can even talk about—I admitted I’d never been so in love, I managed to tell Emily about that, and I didn’t worry she felt otherwise.

It struck me as healthy and out of character. I nearly cried when I realized I might lose whatever sanity I’d found in Emily. And then did cry (just for a moment, of course) later in the day, when we came to the conclusion that the two people most important in the world to me were in another dimension, or somewhere way too far away in our dimension.

We have a code, and everyone learns it. It’s like the Scouting code of honor. Don’t harm another Punk. Don’t harm anyone in Normal, except in self-defense. When in Normal, act Normally. Don’t waste anything Steamside. Don’t stay in Normal for more than two hours without written permission from the Man, or from Screw in the Man’s absence. If you want to leave Steamside permanently, do the right thing and notify the Man first so the Punks don’t waste time worrying about you. The Original Series 28 rule about interference, which we never managed to follow. Fifty plus items in all, and each Punk could recite them like the Pledge of Allegiance. Our little council agonized over these laws, trying to balance free will and Steamside harmony. Okay, so the founding fathers we weren’t, but we did our best.

Petti would not break the code, I argued to Screw and Barber. She wouldn’t stay in Normal to sightsee without telling me. We’d scoured Steamside (which took about five minutes), shredded to Normal and checked out our usual haunts, and finally came home. Tired, pissed off, and scared, seven hours later I couldn’t stand another minute of waiting.

“Could she have figured it out with Fen’s scarab?” Wired on caffeine, nicotine, and delaying any other –ine use, I tried to stay calm, knowing that to flip out would be ineffectual. And I sure as hell wanted my sister and my girlfriend back.

Screw cursed up a blue streak. “You gave Fen back her scarab?”

“She took it off my desk. It was hers, after all.” Damn, too touchy over the girlfriend.

“Don’t you think Petti has the wile to get the scarab from Fen? You gave her the keys to the kingdom. The Egyptian Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom. It has the words on it that allow you to trip.”

“Go on.” Words? You just said ‘words’?

“The hieroglyphs on the south side, the one you face from the walkway, way down at the bottom. The scarab matches the obelisk. You say the right words, and let her rip.”

“Where? Let her rip where? Where did they go? Don’t you think you should have freaking warned me about this?”

Screw had told me he tripped to every continent during his Ra tenure. The world had never seemed bigger or more threatening to me than at that moment.

“She’ll be near a Vortex, for sure.”

“How many possibilities?”

“We’ve counted at least a dozen, but there must be more. Some of the locations are predictable, in a New Age kind of way—a Mayan observatory, the pyramids at Giza, Macchu Picchu, the Bermuda Triangle. Others are weirder—a spot in Arizona, one near San Francisco, ones without ancient monuments—at least surviving ones. Holy places, I guess you’d call them. Ra decided the ancient cultures probably recognized the vortexes as sacred and marked them with temples and such.”

“The Bermuda Triangle? That’s a bunch of crap.”

Screw arched a brow and folded his arms. “You’re living in an alternate dimension of the 1890s and you think the Bermuda Triangle is crap? Jack, I want them both back as much as you do.”

“Do you really? You love them as much as I do? My new girlfriend and my only living relative?”

“Right. Sorry. I’m just saying I’m not lying or bending the truth.”

“This isn’t helping them. Where would Petti go?”

“Don’t forget Emily can go back to Modern.” My stomach dropped. No, she had said she wasn’t ready to try again. She wouldn’t go after last night. Not without saying something.

“Well, if she did, there’s not much we can do about it. Ra members never crossed the time barrier. And Petti is missing too. I think they’re in 1890.”

“Do you get a choice where you’ll go? Dial it up on a GPS?”

“In a way you do. You use your mental GPS. Some are better at it than others. In fact, a few Ra members never returned. Either they liked where they went, or they’re still tripping around the world, trying to get back. My thought is that Petti would have focused on the Obelisk itself and the inscription. That would take her to Egypt.”

“Then we’re going to Egypt. Barber, hold down the fort.”

Screw motioned for me to sit, and pulled a scroll of world maps from my bookshelf, and spread one out on my desk. “We’ll go to the Valley of the Kings.”

“Not the pyramids?” I imagined the pyramids must be the most mystical spot on Earth.

“Nope. Valley of the Kings, where Ra members end up every time. I’ve done the trip myself. It’s not a hospitable spot for anyone. We’re talking the desert, Jack. Two women alone in the desert against men who don’t want anyone interfering in their business.”

“Shit.” Petti, didn’t you trust me enough to tell me? I’d failed her. I knew better than to let one of her fixations languish. I wasn’t sure we could die, but I was pretty sure we could spread to opposite ends of the world and never find one another again.

My only solace was a page torn out of my notebook, left on my desk next to my watch.

Jack, I’m keeping a promise to your annoying little sister to shred to Normal for a short visit. I don’t have the nerve to write all I’d like. I’ll simply say thanks for a great night. Yours, Fenwick. Oh, what the hell, just in case—I love you.

Chapter Nineteen

Hail! O Egypt that nourishes me.

There’s heat, and then there’s Egypt in the middle of the day when you’re wearing ten layers of clothing. And a big stupid hat.

The shimmering waves of searing air dancing over the sand may not have been our biggest problem, but I knew damned well that we’d keel over if we didn’t find shelter and water soon.

I resisted the urge to verbally batter the shit out of Petti, who alternated between numb silence and enthusiastic babbling about our success.

“Success! This is a success? Take a look around!” I kicked at the sand and threw my hat like a Frisbee, then retrieved it immediately as the sun baked my skull.

“But it worked! The obelisk worked! And we’re here! Where are we?”

I screamed in frustration. “You’re a nutcase, do you know that? What the hell were you thinking?”

“You don’t have to take that tone with me. We’ll get home, I’m sure of it.”

“Oh, are you? Is the great Wizard going to sweep down in his balloon and sail us home? Or you could try tapping your boots together a few times.”

“Screw did talk about building some kind of balloon, you know, one of those blimp-style balloons.”

I rubbed my throbbing temples. “Petti, listen to me. Screw is not going to build a blimp and fly to Egypt. I know he’s a genius, but we’re going to have to get out of this ourselves.”

“Well, if you keep announcing our arrival by carrying on, perhaps someone else will help us. They must have heard us in Arabia, or whatever the next country over is.”

“So, what do we do to get back? How do you undo what you just did?”

“Are we really in Egypt?” She fanned herself with her hat and I pulled it out of her hand and plunked it back on her head.

“Don’t waste energy.” I pointed to a ruined mound in the distance with a few standing columns. “That’s not Palm Springs.”

“Okay, okay.” Petti took a few deep breaths and nodded. “I can do this. I’ll just reverse the whole Tuthmosis thing.”

“Reverse it? How do you reverse ‘King so and so built this thing for Ra’?”

She tapped at her lips and I saw real fear take hold. “I don’t know. Oh, Fen, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know it would pull you in, please believe me. You grabbed my wrist and…”

“I was there, Petti, I remember. Let’s not review. Time to move on, and figure out a way to save our asses.” And that was going to fall on me, because my traveling partner was about as impractical a woman as I’d ever met. Wait for Screw to build a blimp, indeed.

I scanned the landscape, hand over my eyes to shield them from the blaring sunlight, before remembering my Punk sunglasses were tucked in my holster. I put them on and double-checked that the pistol was loaded.

We were pretty much in a bowl of sand, with an opening to one side. Cliffs rose hundreds of feet around us, dotted with scrub, and dark patches that might be caves. A mile away, or perhaps several, hard to tell, was the opening of the bowl, a valley that seemed to go on forever. I knew damned well that Petti wasn’t in shape enough to march through this valley in the worst heat of the day without water. I started to feel a bit woozy myself.

“You don’t have the faintest clue how to get us back using the scarab, right?”

“No.”

“Then we have to find shelter, water, and blankets, or something to build a fire.”

“A fire! Are you insane? It’s a thousand degrees.”

“It won’t be tonight. Haven’t you been in a desert before?”

“No, I have not fucking been in a desert before. I’ve haven’t even been west of the Mississippi.”

“You still haven’t. Follow me.”

This I could do. Put a meltdown on hold and face an emergency without blinking. I hadn’t done it when I’d first arrived Steamside, but I had my feet under me now. And Jack wandered through my heart and brain, murmuring that he waited for me, that he missed me, that I needed to come home.

Even if he didn’t love me, though he’d said so, I sure as hell loved him. And I was going to get his sister back to him, no matter what it took. Of course, I had no idea how to do that. Which made me love Jack more, thinking that he’d felt this way for years, with fifty people counting on him.

“Wait! We need to leave some marker here, in the sand.”

“To tip off murderers where the two women can be found, or to let the vultures know where our bodies are?”

“To let your brother know we’re here. Because he’ll do everything he can to get you back. If he can figure out a way to locate us…” I faltered for a moment. Hadn’t Screw said that Ra members ended up all over the world? Maybe they didn’t automatically come to Egypt. God. “He’ll figure it out. What can we use that he’ll recognize as ours? Let’s see, we need all of our clothing against tonight’s cold. And our hats for the day. Come on, Petti, help me think.”

“How about this?” She pulled a tiny notebook like the one Jack used out of her silk drawstring bag and a tiny pencil.

“Good! Write him a note.”

She pulled her glasses from her vest pocket and sat on the sand to pen our SOS to Jack.

“Can I see it?”

“Help yourself.”

I love you. Fen loves you. If you find this, we were here.

“That’s it?”

“What’s left to say?”

Nothing. I held the note down with a rock, pretty sure no one would ever read it. I shook off the dread and pointed to the cliffs. “I think we might get a little relief up there. Do those dark spots look like caves?”

“Unfortunately enough, they do.”

“Not a good time to tell me you have a fear of caves.”

“Makes more sense than a fear of clowns. Lead on.”

Slow going didn’t begin to describe it. Our clothes weighed us down, and my muscles ached from the heat and thirst. I worried for Petti—she was tough, but not used to strenuous physical workouts. You had to know, deep inside, that you could push past pain and exhaustion. She didn’t know how strong she could be, so I spent my mental energy propping up her spirits.

It took an hour to reach the slope of the cliffs, but at least we could rest in blessed shade.

“We’re not going to have to drink our own urine now or eat snakes, are we?”

“Not just yet. Maybe tonight. Right now, we have to get up there.” I thumbed at the precipice that hadn’t looked so daunting from a distance.

Petti squinted and I turned to follow her line of vision. A piece of cloth hung limply in the still air near one of the rock face openings. Was it a marker or an old remnant? I weighed the dangers of our own Goldilocks coming home to find us in his quarters against dying under the sun. If someone used the cave as shelter, there might be water, priority numero uno.

“Right, that’s where we’re headed.”

Petti shook her head. “Impossible.”

“You have to trust me now. I’ve done this a million times.” Not. I’m terrified of heights and had bailed on a date that included rock climbing. The guy had been hot, the date a disaster. “We’ll zigzag our way across the rocks, so it’s not like going straight up, see? Now someone has already been there, so it’s doable. I’ll lead the way, and all you have to do is put your feet exactly where I do.”

“No.”

I glared at her. “I’m going to save your fucking life, whether you want me to or not. Take a deep breath.”

“No.”

I hated to pull it out, but it was my only card. “You owe me for bringing us here. Hell, you owe me for bringing me Steamside.”

“I liked it better when you were a TAT.”

“Trust me; I’m a lot more useful to you now. Here we go. Then we can sit in shade, hopefully eat and drink, and rest.”

Unless someone marked the cave decades earlier.

It wasn’t as bad a climb as I feared, and despite a few treacherous spots where loose rock made us slide a few feet, we did well. I coached Petti on with encouragement, but she got the hang of it and toward the end, waved me off as if I were annoying her. My nerves didn’t set in until we were several yards from the opening. The marker, a kerchief tied to a walking stick, seemed fresh.

“Hello the cave!” I cupped my hands and repeated my call.

“Hello the cave?”

“I think it’s the way you call to Normals in this kind of situation. I saw it on Masterpiece Theater once,” I whispered. “Remember, we’re in Normal.”

“Shouldn’t we have put together a story of why we’re here then?”

Shit. Of course. Two women wandering the Egyptian desert, one of them with a pistol. “We’re tourists; we wandered off and got lost.”

“Anyone home?” Anyone who isn’t a fugitive living in the desert, or a gang of thugs, or an insane religious sect?

“Do you speak Arabic? It just occurred to me that we might run into an Egyptian.”

“Ya think? I know how to order Mexican food with a good accent.”

“God, we’re screwed.”

“It doesn’t seem like anyone is home. Let me go first.”

Petti rolled her eyes as if to say she hadn’t intended to fight me for first dibs on the cave.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness inside the enclosure that was a bit smaller than our mess hall. The cool musty air carried odors of cooked meat. I glanced around to ensure no one was home.

“Petti, it’s safe!” I called. She ducked in the entrance and plopped down onto the cave floor. Please God, let there be water. My nose and throat burned from the sand and dust inside the cave, and my lips had started to crack from exposure.

Now I could see the whole area, I scrambled to a pile of cloth and jugs against the cave wall. One earthenware jug felt cool to the touch and I wrestled the cork from the top, stuck my finger in, and put it to my mouth. An empty flask lay on the ground nearby and I balanced the jug between my legs as I struggled to pour water into the flask. A little spilled, and I prayed the owner would forgive me. I could barely forgive myself.

I ran to Petti and put the flask to her lips. She didn’t ask if the water was good—we both knew it didn’t matter. Sun or water—pick your poison.

She took a swig and choked a bit, the dust in her throat and nose making her cough, and then took another swig. She handed it to me but I put it back in her hands and went back to the jug to drink. It wasn’t Perrier, but it did the trick. I broke into a sweat and knew we’d made it just in time. I refilled Petti’s flask, drank more myself, and we rested for a bit, leaning against the cave wall, shoulder to shoulder.

Not yet, I told my nerves and my tears. Not until I’m in his arms again.

I put my hat on the cave floor and encouraged Petti to lie down and use it as a pillow. I unbuttoned her vest and helped her out of it, took off her boots and thick stockings, soaked my handkerchief in water, and dabbed at her clammy forehead and neck. Despite a little lightheadedness, I was doing okay. I felt her pulse and knew she’d suffered a bit more.

“I’m going to investigate a bit. Try to rest.”

“Is there anything in here that might eat us? I really don’t want to go that way, as someone’s meal.”

“Don’t worry, I have my pistol.”

Ugh. Animals. I hadn’t thought of that one, but there could be snakes, scorpions, or a dozen other creatures. My fifth grade world geography and biology failing me as I tried to figure out what might live in a cave in Egypt. I turned to the manmade items to take inventory.

Three huge jugs of water, which so far hadn’t made us sick. One flask, and one animal skin that looked like part of a bagpipe—I assumed that was a canteen of sorts. Matches! A bit of kindling near the remains of a previous campfire. A few coarse blankets. A tin with weird-looking patties in it that I hoped were edible. They smelled a bit like oat and honey cakes, so I dubbed them dinner. Another tin had dried jerky (I didn’t want to know of what animal). God, it was better than a thousand dollar gift certificate to Nordstrom’s, honestly. Christmas and birthday rolled into one.

After another filling drink from the jug, I turned to the next pile, covered over with sailcloth. Dust rose from the ancient objects when I lifted the cloth, and in my heat-induced stupor I imagined I heard a soft moan rise with it. These weren’t drinking jars, for sure. Sculpted animal heads covered the smooth stone vessels, eight in all, each over a foot tall. I’d seen photos of such objects, but only knew they were ancient. One square wooden box had a lock; I rummaged around for a key, with no success.

The last item was wrapped in cloth. Fairly certain it was a book and might lead us to know whose home we invaded, I unwrapped it, feeling a bit intrusive.

Petti propped herself on one arm and took a swig from the flask. “What is that stuff?”

“Feeling a little better?” I stalled as I opened the brown leather journal and scanned through the feathery writing, praying it belonged to a sensible gentleman who would return to rescue us at any moment.

“I’m fine. Is that a book?”

“It’s a journal.” I sat back on the cave floor and put on my reading glasses, unsure I’d seen correctly.

“Whose?”

“It’s a recording of the activities of the Ra Society members for the year 1890. They’re here, I guess. It names Pettigrew and Fenwick, as well as others I don’t recognize. Oh, and here’s Howard Carter!”

“Who’s Howard Carter?”

“He’s going to dig up King Tut in a decade or so.”

“Oh, right. That Howard Carter. Screw isn’t mentioned?”

“Not from what I can see. Look.” I took the journal to Petti and showed her the drawing of the area. “Valley of the Kings.”

“Like, dead Egyptian kings and their tombs.”

“I have to guess there’s only one. Pretty sure the tomb of Tuthmosis III is nearby—see, look here. And I’m thinking we have some things from his tomb with us—a few jars.”

“The scarab, the Obelisk, and now the jars. I don’t like this.”

“Come on, Petti. You’ve watched too many Mummy movies. Tuthmosis isn’t coming after his innards.”

“I don’t think I like Egypt.”

As the sun set and the coolness of the cave gave way to a chill breeze coming off the desert, I was reassured I’d done the right thing. We were sheltered, fed (although my stomach had protested a good deal at the dried anonymous animal flesh—Petti had suggested we call it goat and leave it at that), and I’d built a small fire at the mouth of the cave.

Petti questioned me about the wisdom of broadcasting our location with a fire beacon.

“We want to be found,” I snipped back. “And it will help keep creatures away.”

“I thought you said there were no creatures.”

I was paying for my first year Steamside; I know it. She had something to say about every move I made. How did Jack do it?

“Nothing I can’t handle.” I brandished my pistol and wrapped a blanket around Petti. “Go. To. Sleep. You have a bit of heatstroke.”

“Doesn’t that mean I shouldn’t go to sleep?”

“That’s a concussion or a drug overdose.”

“How about you?”

One. Two. Three. “I’m fine. And I’m going to guard us while you sleep, okay?”

I twirled the pistol around my thumb.

“That’s quite admirable.” Petti rolled her eyes, but while she didn’t want to appear weak, I’m sure she was happy I’d taken charge. She looked like hell and probably felt worse.

She fell into a fitful slumber, giving me time to read more of the journal without her constant chatter. Not calming bedtime reading, that journal.

“Fenwick and young Carter speak of near death at tomb fifteen collapse; must find alternate entrance. Pettigrew making bizarre claims of curses; acting irrationally. Threatening to reveal all we know of tombs. Society votes to end him.”

End him? Hell, were they going to kill Jack and Petti’s great-whatever? I closed the journal and snuggled up close to Petti, trying to forget about curses and Victorian hit squads. I watched her sleep, studying her for resemblances to Jack. And I finally let the tears escape. Tears for the distance from Jack, for the distance from my century, and for some old hurts that surfaced now and again like Polaroid images when the chips were down.

I wasn’t quite sure why I felt sorry for myself until the picture came into focus. That picture usually had my mother’s face, bruised from my father’s drunken blows, drawn and sallow from her own self-loathing and addiction. ‘She did the best she could’, I repeated the mantra that had brought me to adulthood. It usually made the Polaroids fade again. The last few days were a rollercoaster of emotions, I wished I would have gotten off the ride at the crest, in bed with Jack holding me and telling me wonderful things.

Petti groaned and curled into a fetal position, small hand curled under her chin. I loved her too. I loved more people Steamside than I had in Modern. What did that say about me, I wondered.

I jumped when a figure appeared in the cave entrance, beyond the fire. I went to one knee and aimed, arms extended, steady. I shook inside, especially because I’d never killed a real person, only dreams.

“Who’s there?” Hell, I didn’t want to mortally wound some famous archaeologist, even if he was just a plunderer. I sure as hell didn’t want to kill my own ancestor. That would be a major paradox thingy.

The answer was a ferocious, bone-chilling scream that blew hot air from the fire toward my face. I fell back and stared in horror at the rotting remains of a man taking steps through the flame.

“Oh hell, Petti, wake up!” No, no, no, no. It had to be a dream. Where was our Wall, our Lieutenant telling me what to do?

Petti tossed and turned and twisted her blanket into a ball.

“Wake up, damn it!”

The mummy dude pointed to the jars at the side of the cave as I scrambled as far away as I could.

“Go away!” Nothing. He howled and approached the jars. This was wrong. Very wrong. Why was Petti’s dream interacting with objects?

I fired. And fired again. He spun and looked at me in surprise and anger. And disappeared.

Petti screamed.

“Now you wake up! Thanks a lot.”

“What’s wrong? What did you kill?”

“One of your dreams. Seen the Mummy lately? That was really, really annoying, Petti.”

She shrugged and curled back up. “I didn’t dream about a mummy,” she murmured. Thankfully, she didn’t take in the importance of that statement, or she was mistaken. I preferred to believe the latter.

I awoke to the light clanking of bells echoing off the cliff side. Achy from sleeping on hard rock and feeling a bit guilty for falling asleep at all, I stepped past the embers of our fire and peeked out. A small caravan of four horses and two camels weighted down with boxes and sacks snaked along the valley floor. I could make out a man on one of the horses, but in the light, I couldn’t be sure. There had to be more. He wore a white headdress and long robe.

To call out or hide?

I shook Petti awake and pulled her to the entrance.

“Oh snap!” She tapped at her lips. “Is it safe to get their attention? Are they…?”

“Heathens? God, this is embarrassing. I don’t know anything about Egypt. I don’t know if they’d take care of us in luxury or sell us to a…whatever.”

“Sheik. Sell us to a sheik.”

“Wrong country. I think. I think it’s a pretty advanced place, Cairo. But then, we’re out here in the middle of nowhere. I think this is a lot further south. I know the Nile is around here somewhere, but in which direction? Our water won’t last forever, and I have no idea where to find more except by trekking across the desert.”

My gut churned in uncertainty. Hell, whoever wrote that journal didn’t seem like an upstanding citizen, plotting to kill Claudin Pettigrew. Perhaps he was already dead.

“Damn, what would Jack do?”

Rocks fell down the hillside near us and I jumped back, expecting a slide. Instead, a man with a white headdress jumped from above to the cave opening. Petti and I both cried out.

“What would he do, indeed?” Jack laughed as he opened the scarf to reveal his face.

Petti and I ran to his arms and he nearly crushed us both. He held onto her as he kissed me on the lips. I cried, oh yes, I cried then.

Chapter Twenty

Trouble in the land of the Kings.

“Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.” Screw pulled away his scarf, hugged Petti, and blew a kiss at Fen.

“Tell me you didn’t just say that.” Fen ran to him and was pulled in for another group hug.

I couldn’t stop staring at Fen. A little sunburned and a lot dirty, she was gorgeous.

“Mademoiselles, for your pleasure, two fine Egyptian stallions, replete with ladies’ saddles.”

Fen put her hands on her hips. “If you think I’m riding side-saddle…”

Screw looked at me and shook his head. “We could have taken in England, or Tahiti, but no, you had to come rescue these two.”

We sheltered from the sun against a rock overhang. Frankly, I didn’t care much where we went, now that I had them both again. Petti chattered on about her error as I held Fen’s hand, intending to never let go. She recounted their trek to the cave, how Fen had taken care of her, not leaving out a single detail, as it seemed to me. At least every freaking minute seemed accounted for.

“I have something for you, Jack,” Fen said. I wondered what she’d pilfered from the explorer’s belongings. She’d held it to her chest as we descended to the valley floor, and now presented it to me.

“How about if you just tell me what’s in there so we can move along before the sun rises further.”

“It says that Ra is going to kill Claudin. I don’t know if they have already.”

“Ra!” Screw took the journal from me and scanned the contents. He caught my eye. “Damn it. I think this was written by Gaspar, the head of the French Archaeological Service.”

“Claudin was alive and kicking at the Met a few days ago at the lecture. When is that entry dated?”

“It’s in code. Unless they’ve changed it…uh oh. Was the cave recently occupied?”

“Yep. Still smelled of cooked meat when we entered.”

“I think they’re about a day ahead of us.”

“What happens if they kill him, Screw?” Fen bit at her lip and glanced at me. “I mean, do the Pettigrews…”

“If they kill Claudin, do Petti and Jack go poof? I have no idea.”

Fen put her hand on my arm. “Sorry to say this, but they think he’s gone loco. Talking about curses. Can’t say I blame him after what I saw last night.”

“What did you see?”

“A mummy. I think he wanted his parts back. Like from the movie.”

“Come on, sugar.”

“Petti dreamt him.” Fen didn’t look convinced and glanced in Petti’s direction.

“I didn’t dream about a mummy. I told you that, Fen.”

“Maybe one of the Ra members did. Maybe that’s what’s scaring Claudin. If they aren’t used to anachros and the night zombies…”

Shit. Screw and I had planned to ignore Ra, come to Egypt, scoop up our loved ones, and get home.

“But kill him?” Petti wrung her hands. “What’s wrong with these people?”

Screw threw an arm around Petti. “They’re probably afraid that if he goes off the deep end, he’ll talk, and they can’t afford the talk.”

“But if he talks about people tripping through vortexes and robbing tombs that haven’t been discovered yet, never mind mummies and curses, won’t he be dismissed as a nutcase? I can see Bellevue in his future, sure.”

Would I ever be free to just live? Or near-live, as the case may be? At least Emily was at my side. And I had two notes saying she loved me. Maybe this would be our life together, if we had a real future.

“So, looks like we need to enter the Valley of the Kings and find Claudin before they bury him along with the pharaohs.”

“Aren’t we in the Valley of the Kings?” Fen asked.

Screw reached into his saddlebag and drew out a map. “Not the active part. I’ve been here twice. We have to move through that pass and head East, toward the Nile and Thebes. It’s not far, just over that ridge—see the pyramid shape on top of that hill? It’s manmade.”

I couldn’t do it, couldn’t ask them to go through more. “I think Petti and Fen should go Steamside. Screw and I will take care of Claudin.”

Petti shook her head, as I knew she would. “I got us into this, and I’m sticking it out to the end.”

I looked at Fen, who smirked. “You have to be fucking kidding me. Free will and all that, right? You’re stuck with me, Pettigrew. Until you tell me you’re not.”

I closed my eyes and weighed the awful options. Tell the woman I loved that it was over between us to guarantee her safety, or let her choose her own destiny. Or was I kidding myself? Being selfish and disguising it as respect for her?

“Don’t try it, Jack. It won’t work. Even if you tell me you hate me and want to marry Fatty, I’m going with you.”

See? She’s all that. I kissed her and hugged her in front of my sister and best friend. And when it didn’t begin to touch how I felt, I pulled her hand to my lips.

I love you, Fen. “Awesome. We have clothes for you guys.”

Screw and I checked on the animals while Petti and Fen changed into desert wear. We packed up their clothes and while Petti rode side-saddle, Fen managed to loop her skirt through her legs and ride western style.

She looked at me as we started our short journey. “This isn’t such a bad life, is it?”

I smiled. It sure as hell wasn’t. I just hoped it would stay a life once they killed Claudin Pettigrew.

We hugged the hills for two hours to stay in the shade until the sun rose to its zenith. Instant, brutal, mind-numbing heat seared our lungs as we lost the shelter, and we drew our scarves over our faces and fell silent. We had to get through to the Eastern valley for the horses’ sake as much as our own. I’d made a silent promise we’d return the stolen beauties to their owner. I’d grown weary of the theft, and made a silent vow that if we got home—Steamside, that is—we’d find a new way to support ourselves.

Relief and wonder mixed at the scene before us when we rounded the pass. Screw hadn’t described our destination in detail—we’d been focused on the women and securing (aka stealing) provisions. Now, we stopped, all taking in the grandness of an alien landscape doubly blessed by nature and human interference.

A ribbon of dirty blue edged in lush greenery cut the harsh desert in two. The Nile. I reached for Fen’s hand, wondering what she thought and felt. Screw pointed to massive twin statues on the West bank of the river, as if we could miss them. I didn’t know their names, but I knew they would outlive all of us, whether Normal or Modern. Beyond those, massive temple structures rose to meet the cliffs, carved into the limestone as if giants had built exotic sandcastles. My problems seemed small, as I thought of the number of souls who had lived and died through the ages in this great land. Who was I to think I mattered? In a wink of an eye, I’d be gone, like the ancient kingdoms fallen into glorious ruin.

Two boats with slanted sails cut through the water in graceful silence. Hypnotized by the scene, it took me a moment to realize Screw had spoken.

“Do what?”

“We’re going the other way.” He thumbed away from the river toward the imposing hills behind us. The Valley of the Kings, rolling folds of rock dotted with men, camels, horses, and architectural remains. I didn’t have a clue where we’d find Claudin, and I was pulled back into my mundane little world.

But we had to water the horses before we climbed the hills. I prayed the water was clean enough for us all. We watched women draped in layers of colorful cloth fill enormous jars and then balance them on their heads. So we filled our flasks and tin cups and drank.

Petti squinted in disgust. “I do not want to know what is in this water, so please don’t tell me.”

We found a little shade and too many mosquitoes under a cluster of date palms on the riverbank while the horses and camels drank. Fen and I took the opportunity to hold onto one another discreetly, as the Egyptian women glanced at us a few times. I rested my chin on her head as I watched the sailboats.

“Wow, Emily. How cool would this be if things were different, you know? If we met in Modern, and came here on vacation…”

“You’re on dangerous ground there, mister. Sounds a lot like relationship talk.”

“I guess it does. That bother you?”

She pulled her veil away and smiled. My heart skipped a beat. I couldn’t imagine any time, any place, without her.

“Jack, we’re here now. Don’t you get it? We don’t need Modern to see the Nile together. We’re doing it this very moment. If it’s an illusion of time, or Purgatory, or Heaven, or a vortex…what does it matter?”

I choked back tears. I’d put my life on hold to survive, to try to fix something that never needed my help. Could we live, really live?

“Let’s go, everyone saddle up. We’re going to rescue Claudin. Screw, any idea where he might be?”

Fen pulled at my sleeve. “Let’s just ask those guys where he is.” She pointed at the workmen high in the hills, excavating tomb entrances and passing baskets of sand and slate down the line. “A few of them are wearing heavy pants and hats. Only Europeans would be that stupid.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Things, wonderful things.

Jack reminded us we were in Normal, and to keep our story straight. We were two married couples, rich adventurers, hoping to get a glimpse of antiquity.

As we followed Screw’s lead and zigzagged into the Valley of the Kings, I wondered how many tombs had already been excavated, how many had been robbed, and how many remained for future generations to discover. Somewhere, to my left or right, I had no idea, but close—King Tut lay undisturbed. Would we alter history, stop a discovery that had mesmerized the world, or would we hasten the event?

Screw held up his hand as a signal to stop our trek and pointed to a man approaching on horseback, as fast as the loose shale and sand would let him. He waved at us and dismounted, running to Screw’s side. We circled round him.

He was so young—a boy really, obviously American or European, and oddly familiar.

Jack leaned in to me and whispered, “He was at the lecture.”

Howard Carter! I gulped back a squeal.

“I say, do you speak English? I need help.” Carter’s pants were torn, his shirt filthy, and a nasty cut marred his temple.

Jack dismounted and the rest of us followed suit, revealing our faces and trying to reassure him.

“I know I look a fright, but you must believe that I’m a scholar and must find help…the authorities perhaps…although that will take too long.” He ran his hand through his dusty hair and stared at us pleadingly.

A scholar? He was sixteen or seventeen, a skinny clean-shaven Brit looking anguished and lost. I handed him my flask and he drained it with mumbled thanks. Jack poured water into his kerchief and Carter wiped the dust from his eyes and patted at his cut. He took a deep breath and inquired as to our identities.

Jack told him our fictitious story and asked how we could help.

“No doubt you’ll think me daft, but a friend of mine is in grave danger.”

“A tomb collapse?” I blurted out without thinking. The journal had mentioned one collapse with Carter and Fenwick in it.

“Yes! But I believe the collapse is part of a foul plot to destroy my friend. Just weeks ago I was almost killed in tomb fifteen.” He pointed to his right at a dark rectangular opening in the rock face. “I suspect my companion at the time caused the collapse.”

God. His companion at the time was Fenwick. My great-something was trying to kill Howard Carter?

“Now another of my friends is lost, perhaps buried in the newly opened tomb of Tuthmosis III.” He wiped at his tears. “I fear for his life. These men—they are insane, truly insane. Bloody hell, how did I get involved with them?”

Screw kept his face covered, no doubt fearing his ethnicity would give him away, that Ra had described their former Asian member.

Carter fell to his knees and wept. “I’m a student, alone. My mentors, Gaspar and Lorraine—I’m worried they want the finds for themselves, that…oh, it’s too hard to explain. The one I fear most is an American.”

My heart sunk. So the asshole strain did run in the family, and it had my father’s name all over it.

Jack knelt by him and held his shoulders. “Now, young man, rally yourself. We’ll help you, but you have to have your wits about you.”

Petti brought him more water and Carter regained his composure. I dabbed at his cut, which thankfully, was superficial.

Carter’s eyes were rimmed in red from crying and exhaustion. I didn’t dare lock gazes with Jack. We were in for an interesting time. My ancestor was trying to kill his. Tricky situation.

“My companion is a Frenchman named Pettigrew, Claudin-Henri Pettigrew. I call him Henry. Henry and I are at odds, I imagine you’d say, with the other archaeologists. He and I have both suffered a few too many mishaps for it to be coincidental, and now…now he’s trapped. I saw the American running away from the excavation, and I’m now convinced he’s responsible for the mishaps. This one may have killed Henry.” He eyed us suspiciously for a moment as we took the information in. “You’re Americans, aren’t you?”

“My good man,” Jack helped him to his feet. “We may be Americans, but we don’t condone murder. Lead us to this place so we can try to assist your friend.”

“It may be too late.” He ran his hand through his hair and sighed. “I should not wish to put the ladies at risk, perhaps they should stay behind.”

“We will protect them,” Jack answered. He glanced at me to ask if I was ready to shoot if I needed to, and I inclined my head. Hell. I wasn’t ready to kill a Fenwick. I tried to do a quick calculation of whether the idiot had already fathered the child who would father the child who would father… Then I cursed for not listening more carefully to Grandma’s stories.

We tied the camels and their clanking bells to a rock and proceeded up the hill, stopping many yards from the tomb entrance.

“Where are they?” Jack asked Carter.

“They’ll be in their tent on the other side of that outcropping. They don’t know I escaped. I’m sure they think we’re both dead.”

Jack signaled me to join him out of reach of Carter’s hearing. “Fen, if Claudin is dead already, then we know there’s no affect on us—no paradoxical result, get me?”

“Yep. Then we just walk away from the whole mess? And take Carter with us. If we see Fenwick or Gaspar or Lorraine, I’m to shoot them?”

“Don’t kill Fenwick. No matter what. Try not to kill any of them, unless they fire first or try to bury us, but leave Fenwick to me.”

“You going to tickle him into submission? Come on, Jack, they’re armed and dangerous.”

“So are we.” He leaned in and kissed my forehead. “We’ll get out of this, okay?”

“I love you too.” I turned on my heel, but Jack pulled me in for a kiss. Screw broke us up.

“Look, guys, Petti’s still suffering in this heat. She needs shade and water. I suggest she and Carter stay together. He knows how to get home if they have to make a run for it.”

“Right,” Jack said. “Mr. Carter?”

Howard approached us. “We must hurry.”

“We will. Mr. Carter, I want you to stay here and keep an eye on Mrs. Corwin.” He indicated Petti with a nod of his head.

Petti brushed the dust off her hat. “I’m coming with you.”

“We don’t have time for this, Petti. Stay with Carter. It’s important that as many of us as possible return.” He put an emphasis on the last word, and Petti nodded in acquiescence.

“I hate this shit.”

Carter raised his brows at her curse.

“How do you make it in there, Carter?”

“There are two openings. They dug into the main vault from the doorway you see from here. And there’s another entrance from the side. I don’t know if that is now blocked with fallen debris, but that was my route of escape.”

“Good. Carter, I’m depending on you. If you sense that things have gone south, beat a fast retreat.”

“Gone south?”

“Gone badly. It’s American slang.”

We hugged the hillside and tread as lightly as we could so as not to start a rockslide, not even a small one. I broke into a sweat of nerves and wiped at my forehead. After twenty minutes or so, we were at the tomb’s side entrance. My heart fell when I saw the debris, but the men started at it without hesitation, clearing sand, rubble, and the heavy wooden beams that had propped up the excavation.

“Try to be quieter!” I hissed at them as I stood guard.

Screw whispered back as he flipped me the bird. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

My laugh was cut short by the unmistakable feel of a gun barrel pressed into the back of my neck. I dropped my pistol and put up my hands. Jack and Screw both cursed and raised their hands.

“Looking for something, gents?” I turned and watched anger turn to amazement as Fenwick realized I was a woman in Egyptian male clothing. He was small, and thin, and didn’t look much like anyone in my family, including me, thank God.

“Who are you?”

Jack took a step forward but Percy waved him off. “Stay right where you are, mister. What are you three doing?”

“Just a few tourists taking a look around,” Jack quipped.

“And you guard your backs with a useless woman?”

Oh. He. Did. Not. I knew that tone. I’d lived with that tone for seventeen years. God knows how many generations of Fenwick males had taken that tone to deride, derail, and demean women. I didn’t give a shit what century it was. This was no gentleman.

“You coward. You worthless, piece of shit, coward. Greedy, tomb-robbing, murderous son of a bitch. Let me tell you something, Percy. You’d better mend your ways, or someone’s going to put a bullet through your brain and stop you from breeding scumbags just like you. Son of a bitch.”

“Emily, stop!”

“I’m just getting started.” I saw red. And a flash of something else, someone else. My grandfather, the nasty drunk. Telling tales about his father, the nastier miser. Percy saw it in my eyes, that I’d lunge at him given half the chance, and he took a step back. And slid on the loose shale onto his back right into a sharp rock. It split his skull open like a knife to a watermelon with a sickening crack.

I closed my eyes and felt the world spin. I’d killed him. I’d killed him with words. There was a wife, kids, weren’t there? Oh my God. Was I still alive?

Jack’s hug brought me around. I looked toward Percy but Jack turned me back. “Don’t look. It’s messy. Sugar, he had it coming.”

“I killed him.” Sort of. It felt like I had.

“No you didn’t. Even if you shot him, you’d probably be saving others by doing so. Including Howard Carter, and if we’re lucky, Claudin. Come on now, brave heart. Let’s see if we can get into this tomb.”

I helped clear debris, but couldn’t clear the picture of a pool of scarlet staining the sand. We stopped to listen for signs of life, but heard nothing. Jack went in first, shimmying over loose rock on his belly.

“It’s black in here,” he called out.

Screw and I looked at each other and cursed. Not a flashlight in sight.

We called back and forth to Jack to stay in contact with him. He went silent for a few minutes, and Screw started in after him.

“Be careful,” I warned.

But he backed out, followed by Jack, who brushed himself off, held up a scarab on a chain, and shook his head.

“Oh.”

Jack sat on the ground and pulled his own scarab from his pocket and compared it to Claudin’s. The same scarab, of course. Not alike, not copies, but the same one, side by side. “Imagine that,” he said. He brushed the dust from his eyes and I thought perhaps a few tears with it.

Screw sat next to him. “He was a damned nice guy, actually. Remind me to tell you about him some day.”

I looked down at Percy Fenwick, his blood staining the sand red, the sun already drying it.

“He wasn’t as nice, Fen. I’m sorry. I think this will end Ra.”

That helped a little, I guess. “Maybe we can have a little chat with Carter now, get him to rat out Gaspar and Lorraine.”

“A kid’s word against that of the French Archaeological Service? Dunno.” Jack sighed, still weighted down with the loss of someone he never knew.

“Then he’ll just have to start his own dig, with some trustworthy Brits,” Screw suggested.

“Something tells me that’s just what he’ll do. I remember his photo at the Tut exhibit. He didn’t age well. We could save him a lot of time if we told him King Tut is here.”

“Where’s the fun for him in that?”

In fact, Carter was made of stronger stuff than we originally imagined. Young, beaten down, and grieving for his companion, he put his foot down when Screw revealed himself as former Ra and that we would return immediately to New York.

“I can’t go back yet. I must do one thing.”

Screw tried everything in his power to talk sense into the youth, but he wouldn’t budge.

“Look, Corwin, you don’t understand. You were here only once. We unstopped a flask that must be sealed again. As I am the only one left of the archaeologists, it is upon me to put things right.”

I knew right away what he meant. “The jars, the canopic jars containing Tuthmosis III’s organs.”

“You’ve been in the cave?” Carter shuddered and looked as if he might break down. “I spent one night there, and would not do so again if it meant giving up my life. He came, he came cursing and howling and demanding reparations.”

“He? Then we really saw a mummy?”

“Indeed, the spirit of one at least. These kings wrote warnings to all would-be plunderers, but as cultured archaeologists, we do not believe in such curses. Until they breathe death upon your face. I only want to put things right. Fenwick and Pettigrew are both dead, and I take it as a sign that we trespassed where we were not meant to go.”

Jack groaned. “Fenwick slipped and Pettigrew was caught in a tomb collapse. Howard, they were accidents, ones that could have happened in Britain or America.”

“No, these things are said to carry into the future. The locales have a saying that to rob an ancient tomb is to bring misfortune for seven generations, culminating in a soulless wandering for the seventh.”

Well, that shut the four of us up fairly quickly. Soulless wandering? Is that what we were doing? If we put things right somehow, would we stop our soulless wandering?

Jack reached for my hand and squeezed it tightly. I imagined, I hoped, that he thought if only for a moment what would happen to us. Would we end up back in Modern, not knowing one another, forgetting our lives Steamside, never meeting? Would he and Petti die on the Turnpike, would I slip into a coma in the ambulance?

We set Carter up in the shade and moved out of earshot, the four of us.

Screw spoke first. “Just saying, does anyone else think this might do the trick?”

No one answered.

“Do we want it to do the trick?” Ah, there was the million dollar question. Of course, we all wanted our old lives back, we wanted our jobs, our families, some assurance that normalcy would be with us the rest of our days.

Petti grabbed Jack’s hand and he looked at her and smiled. “Jack, I don’t want to go home. I like my life. I like the adventures. I like 1890.”

Jack looked at Screw. He shrugged. “That’s two of us. I have no one at home. The job’s a bore, I was never in prison, and I like the Punks.”

I was next, and I looked away, to take time to look inside. I thought of Steamside, and Sweet Pea. Fatty and Calliope. The Reverend and Albert, and forty others who made the best of purgatory, day in and day out. It didn’t matter what we wanted. They deserved this. And I knew Jack would think the same.

“We have to do this.” I brushed Jack’s cheek with my hand. “The Punks would want us to try.”

He pulled me in and I died a bit. How many more embraces would we have?

“It’s all I have,” Jack said. “The promise I made to try to get them home.”

Screw nodded. “Who’s to say it will do a thing except let Carter sleep better at night.”

Jack turned from me, and I knew this time to let him be. He was the Man, and I, no matter what we shared, I couldn’t take that burden from him.

“Carter, let’s get to the cave and retrieve the King’s guts.”

As the sun set on King Tuthmosis’ crushed tomb, with his canopic jars placed near the corpse of Claudin Pettigrew, we rode back to the spot of the vortex, ready to claim our futures.

Howard looked a trifle surprised when Jack pulled us all in tightly. “I love you, Emily. If I never see you again, I hope somehow you’ll remember that.” No one else spoke, and Screw took Jack’s scarab in his palm and closed his eyes.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Home is where the heart is.

By the time we had Howard cleaned up and installed in the Hotel Henry with a good amount of cash in his pocket and a new suit of clothes, the shock had worn off a bit. The four of us had our wish, and fortunately for Howard Carter, it was still 1890.

I’d taken a real liking to Carter and wished we could care for him Steamside, but figured we’d tempted fate and paradoxes enough for a while. He swore up and down that Ra would come crashing down around the few remaining members who were rotten eggs, but I imagined he’d need to earn a bit more of a reputation in the archaeological community before anyone would listen to him. And be older than sixteen. He’d rest up and book passage to the UK to finish his studies.

My real concern was Petti. She’d rested at the Henry, and still wasn’t herself. I sat next to her bed and watched her sleep. She stirred and sat up.

“I’m sorry, Jack. To have put you through that.”

“I should have known it was coming. You lecture everyone about going with the flow, but sometimes a little planning is in order.” Why bother? We’d gone through this a million times. Mom would rush into my room, panicked. “Annalise is missing!”

“Again?” I’d search a dozen likely hiding places, including a few trees, a storm drain around the corner, and the back of the ice cream truck. She’d usually giggle, even after learning her punishment.

She wasn’t giggling now.

“You’re a good brother.”

“I’m an average brother. I’ve taken better care of the Punks than I have you. Sometimes, I don’t understand you, don’t know what you need or why you do the things you do. I never have. Guess I never will.”

“I got the itch this time. I think I was running away from the fact that we’re ghosts. We are, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, I think so. You know, Einstein believed in ghosts.”

“Now you sound like Screw. And Einstein did not believe in ghosts.”

“Well, he believed in the paranormal, at least late in his life.”

“Didn’t he go kind of bonkers?”

“At the end. Dementia, I guess. Or maybe he used up his brain with all those big thoughts. But while he was in his prime, he had a theory.”

“Duh. Heard of it.”

“Well, Screw told me that one of the corollary theories was about vortexes being a dent in the fabric of time. A dent that swirled inward and brought energies into it instead of away from it. He conjectured that such a vortex could capture spirits and all sort of mystical phenomena. He was right about most things. Why should this be different? I’m pretty sure it’s not a mummy curse that brought us here.”

“At least it feels like being alive.” She fussed with her skirt and avoided my gaze.

“Then why so sad? Isn’t this what you wanted? 1890 and Steamside?”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“What do you mean?”

“What do we do, Jack? I don’t need to collect Punks to shore up the numbers, or teach everyone how to behave Normally, or even stay Steamside, for that matter. These vortexes—they open the whole world. I know you intend to tell the Punks.”

“It’s only fair. I don’t own them. They can go anywhere, do anything. The Normals don’t even notice the anachros, the nightmares are our own, and we can defend against those.”

“I don’t want you to lie to them. I just don’t know where I fit in.”

“Fit in? Where do any of us fit in?”

“You have Emily, Jack. It’s different. You’re a team, a good team. I really care for her.”

Duh. Men, brothers especially, can be idiots.

“Do you think Fen and I are going to go tripping around the world without you?”

“I wouldn’t blame you. Hell, I would in your shoes.”

She brushed at a tear and I pulled her in for a hug. “My whole adult life, you’ve been my center. How can you think that would ever, could ever change? My God, Annalise, I love you. Do you think I came to Egypt to get just Fen? I nearly died thinking I’d lost you!”

“You have to believe me, Jack. I didn’t mean to pull Fen with me. I thought somehow I could find my own way.”

“You tried to leave me?”

“Maybe subconsciously. To set you free. You’ve taken care of me for too long. I’m not sick anymore. You can stop.”

“Don’t talk like that. We’re together, for as long as we have. That may be a long time. Just enjoy this, Petti. We deserve a little fun, even if we’re dead and in the wrong century.”

“Yes sir.” She hugged me and cried more, and I joined her. I finally knew it was time to stop lying to myself, to them all. I had nothing for them.

Petti, Fen, Screw and I took a day to ourselves to rest Steamside after our welcome home. The Punks had a million questions and I promised a million answers, but begged off for some rest.

* * *

Summer gave way to Fall with a whimper. I noticed the change in the angle of the sun’s rays as it set on Steamside. I walked the Wall, my cat, now named Carter, following my steps. Sweet Pea had the night off, and I was alone.

Screw snuck up on me and poked me in the back.

“You walk on little cat feet, like a Ninja.”

“Still think I’m Chinese, don’t you?”

“Aren’t Ninja Japanese?”

“I have no freaking idea.” We laughed. “Come on, you’re off duty.”

“I’m in charge here. I tell me when I’m off duty.”

“The Man put out an all-call and sent me to get you.”

“Leave the Wall unattended?”

Screw put his hands on my shoulders and held my gaze. “Say goodbye to the Wall, Fen. Stand by your man and all that shit. Come on, I’ll need you to prop me up as much as you’ll need me.”

“He’s going to tell them everything, isn’t he? He’s going to…to shut us down? Why didn’t he talk to me first?”

“He’s going to set us free. He’s setting himself free, Fen. Let him.”

“I do not like the sound of this, and I intend to blame you.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Small walled town up for auction, going for a pittance.

Screw and I stood in the back of the mess hall. He belonged up front, maybe I did too, but I was determined not to distract Jack.

The first stunning development, at least to me, was that Jack wore his own clothes—black t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Two scarabs hung on his necklace of keys as his only ornament, save his tattoo. Whether or not he intended it as a statement, it spoke volumes. Oh, yes, and by the way, he looked hotter than ever.

Petti stood by his side as he explained the details of our trip to Egypt, including the demise of our ancestors. The Punks hung on every word. Prince Albert raised his hand, and just like at a Presidential news conference, Jack pointed to him.

“Yes, Albert?”

“You’re still here. And Petti and Fen.”

“Right, so Albert’s question is whether or not we can change history without jeopardizing our own existence. And it seems we can.”

I leaned to Screw. “Prince Albert’s a little slow on the uptake, huh?”

But Albert wasn’t finished. “So if we’re the only ones who see the anachros, then maybe they’re residual hauntings, not intelligent hauntings, like us.”

“But the Normals see us, Albert.”

“Maybe because we want them to. Perhaps the anachros, being inanimate, don’t get that choice.”

Screw nodded. “Nice point, actually.”

“Everyone, I don’t pretend to have all the answers. I hope that we’ll learn more, but for right now, your guess is honestly as good as mine.”

The Punks murmured to one another and Petti clapped her hands for silence.

Jack went on to describe the vortexes and how to use them, if one so chose. He told them I had managed to get to Modern, but that it hadn’t been fun and games.

“God, he’s resigning.” My heart fell. He’d failed as the Man, in his own eyes. How could he not see the success sitting before him? Four dozen individuals from diverse backgrounds. They’d been traumatized, and he’d cuddled them in his arms, nursed them back to sanity. He’d given them purpose, a safe haven, and hope. Jack found a way to feed them, clothe them, even entertain them. He’d guarded them from their own nightmares. He was their father, and he was quitting. How could he not see what everyone else could?

Another Dodger, Scissorhands, raised his hand.

“If we can go anywhere, then we’re basically just living in Normal. What if we don’t want to live in Normal? Can we stay here?”

The Punks chatted to each other as if this were foremost on their minds.

“Of course you can stay here. You all had a hand in building Steamside, in making it what it is. You’re free to do anything you want, go anywhere you want.”

He sounded frustrated, and I was about to raise his anxiety level a notch. But I wanted it to come from me. The others might not have the nerve, but they sure as hell wanted the answer. I raised my hand.

He frowned and pointed. “Yes, Miss Fenwick?”

“Where are you going, Sir?”

The cry went up from all the Punks, my question repeated in a number of ways. “Yeah, where are you going?” With the unasked question: Can we come too?

“Hold onto your hat, Emily Fenwick,” Screw whispered and took my hand. “And don’t blame me.”

Jack flushed, not the good flush he got when we were alone, but a flush that meant he wanted the earth to open up and swallow him. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to…um, Miss Fenwick about this in private yet, but…”

Fatty catcalled and stood. “Why do you need to speak with Miss Fenwick about it, Sir?” The Punks laughed and looked around, finding me in the back with Screw. I waved and they laughed more.

“I think I’ll turn it over to Miss Pettigrew at this point.”

Petti stood, folded her glasses, and pushed Jack aside.

She surveyed the crowd to garner anticipation, as if she were about to preach a bit of old-fashioned religion.

“Imagine! Put all your notions of Normal aside for a moment. Imagine that you could be yourself. Dress as you do now, drink and party as you do now.” She stared at Prince Albert. “Imagine if you didn’t have to steal for a living.”

“I don’t mind stealing that much,” he protested.

That annoyed the hell out of her, but she waved off the thought and forged ahead.

“Never mind. Imagine touring the world, seeing great wonders, without even needing a vortex. You would be the center of attention, the talk of the town, the spectacle of the century! Children would remember you their whole lives.”

Jack cleared his throat.

“What?” She snapped.

Jack motioned for her to pick up the pace, but she wasn’t having any of it.

“Sailing great ships, riding spectacular train routes, exploring Indian territory on horseback.”

Screw laughed. “She’s selling it hard.”

“What the hell is she talking about,” I asked him. He put his finger to his lips.

“We have the talent. We have the know-how.” She spread her hands across the imaginary sky to indicate an imaginary sign.

“Pettigrew’s Steamside Circus.”

The Punks murmured.

“That, my friends, is what Jack and I are going to do. Screw will join us, of course. We’ll work our way across this great land spreading joy and wonderment. And then, who knows? To Europe, most likely. And lands beyond, perhaps even the mysterious Orient.”

Jack stood and held up his hand. He looked pretty mortified. “I think that’s probably enough for one day. As I said, you are free to do as you like. Stay Steamside, live in Normal, shred to another place. We’ll run things normally for another week. At midnight next Sunday, anyone who might like to join us should meet at the shredding station.”

Petti nodded. “We’re having another party on Saturday night, so prepare to get skunked!”

Jack scanned the group for a moment and gulped.

“I just want to thank you all for putting faith in me, for helping to keep things together. I’m sorry I couldn’t find a way to get you all home.”

Jack bolted from the room before the Punks had a chance to utter a word. I went to follow him, but Screw held me back. “Let him grieve a bit, Fen. He’s been here a long time. Some things you have to do alone.”

But he hadn’t asked me if I wanted to go. He hadn’t asked me to join the circus. And he knew damned well how much I hate clowns.

* * *

I rode as fast as I could, which of course was no faster than the velocipede would take me. I could barely see through my goggles, splattered with mud. I don’t think any of the Punks had ever gone as far away from our town as I had. My refuge was a hill about an hour’s ride away. I’d come here during my darkest moments, on foot before Screw had built my bike.

I needed this place, where no one could find me, where no one knew my name, not the squirrels or birds or whispering breeze. And I needed for it to remain a secret, my secret.

Yes, they were still there. I’d brought my spy glass, to make sure. On the far bank of the river, or really just a meandering tributary of what I guessed was the Hudson, a dozen small thatched huts hugged the bank. A fire always burned in the center, sending gentle spirals of smoke into the air. Young boys chased after one another, and girls clung to their mothers while they washed in the stream or did the myriad chores women do.

I’d only seen the men twice, but they were there now, pulling their bounty from sledge-like wood contraptions. Deer, squirrel, hare. The scene mesmerized me with its tranquility and timelessness.

In my head, I called them Mohegan, but I really had no idea. Nor did I know if the time they lived in was hundreds or thousands of years before 1890.

My one secret from my sister, from Screw, even from Fen. Steamside wasn’t just another place, it was further in the past. Which is why I’d once hoped we could get back to the future. But that would stay my secret.

Anyway, once in a while I’d come and check on them, make sure our nightmares weren’t disrupting them, and that they were oblivious to a bunch of lost souls a few miles away. Because I knew that someday, they’d be pushed away, or killed by my ancestors’ illnesses.

I couldn’t—wouldn’t hasten that. One curious Punk, and their way of life might end sooner. It wouldn’t be on my shoulders. It wasn’t a politically correct thought or moniker, but I thought of them as ‘my tribe’. I took care of the Punks by being at their beck and call, and took care of My Tribe by guarding them from the Punks.

Now I’d abandon them, both of my tribes.

I waved goodbye to the Indians, to no one watching. I could always come back, I told myself. We weren’t dismantling Steamside, and no doubt with a number of Punks deciding to stay, I’d always be welcome to return. I just wanted as many of the Punks as possible to get back to Normal, and leave the deep past alone.

How much harm could a circus bring to 1890? I laughed and got back on my bike. With Petti running the show? God. Emily would keep me sane. My stomach turned in nerves at what I was about to do. The easiest part was telling the Punks I’d be leaving Steamside, that they were free to go. The harder part yet to come—Emily Fenwick.

Chapter Twenty-Four

A lovely surprise.

I’d kill him. Like my sparkly watch-part yo-yo, thrown away and then yanked back, away and back, away and back. He held the string and I’d spin for him.

Petti called to me on the Wall and I peered down at her. “Go away, I’m on duty.”

“Don’t make me come up there.”

“Suit yourself.”

I’d retrieved Sweet Pea’s chair and pouted there for an hour, gazing out at the trees and seeing nothing, waiting for the Man. Fuming mad. So, to him commitment meant he called the shots without discussing anything. Had he ever used the word commitment? Of course not. What man actually used the word? Hell, sticking to one TV station without surfing was too much commitment for most of them.

Petti threw her bag onto the plank walkway of the Wall and clutched at the ladder. “At least give me a hand.”

I clapped. She cursed and crawled onto the plank.

“You have many annoying tendencies, Fenwick.”

“Stuff it. I heard it already from Screw. I’m to support the Man, understand what he’s going through, blah blah blah.”

“You love him, don’t you?” Petti leaned on the guardrail and stared out over Steamside. I pulled her back a bit.

“Don’t lean so far. I don’t know if ghosts can break a neck, but I don’t want to have to haul your little ass around if you hurt yourself.”

Petti turned toward me and sat on the walkway, her legs curled underneath. “Now, have you decided your role in the circus? Because Screw and I agree your marksmanship is quite remarkable, as you know, and with a bit of tweaking…a revealing costume, for example…”

“God! You’re making assumptions too? How insulting. You’re just like your brother.”

“Yes, yes, you wanted to be consulted, yada yada. We know all that. We hope to be ready within a month’s time for our premiere performance. Of course, we’ll need to post the event, garner interest. Perhaps bribe a newsman to write about us.”

Howard Carter settled in Petti’s lap, and I retrieved him and held him tightly. “Ignore the evil lady and she’ll go away.”

“Screw’s dirigible will create the greatest sensation, of course, with a banner announcing our arrival streaming behind. It will have to be large enough to read from the ground.” She tapped at her lips and then made a notation in her little book.

“Screw’s dirigible? He doesn’t have a dirigible.”

“He will. The Dodgers think we have supplies to get through the week and have turned to helping him.”

“How long does it take to build a dirigible? Even Screw can’t pull that off.”

Petti shrugged. “He says it’s modest in proportions. I’m sure he’s on target. Now, I’m counting on you to pull together an act, perhaps on horseback, like Annie Oakley. Can you do that in a month?”

“How about if I shoot at clowns from the dirigible?”

“Now you’re just being silly.”

* * *

After returning from my secret place and changing for a quick trip to Normal, I was exhausted.

Emily would be a bit miffed, I guessed, that I hadn’t spoken to her before the Punks about the circus. But I had to get that speech out of the way. I needed to go to her as another guy lost in time and space, not the Man.

I know I was jumping the gun. I’d put it all out there for her to shoot down if she wanted. I’ve had my share of close calls with women, but this one couldn’t come quickly enough. I’d never wanted anything so much. I wanted to know that we’d always be together. Because I’d never been happier, dead or alive, and it had to last.

Petti descended from the Wall and rolled her eyes at me. “Best of luck. You’ll need it.”

“Oh, God, really?” My stomach churned already.

“You did the unthinkable. Assumed a woman would run away to join the circus with you.”

“She won’t?” If she didn’t want to come with me to Normal, she sure as hell wasn’t ready for a commitment. God, I’d really overshot my target. Maybe the Punks were to blame, I wondered. Building me up all the time, making me believe I was more than I am.

“Of course she will. She’d follow you anywhere. But you didn’t ask.” Petti poked me in the chest.

“Shit. You think… Oh, hell, Petti, what’s she going to say if I ask her to marry me?”

Petti’s eyes widened and she held her hand to her mouth. “For real? Jack, are you serious?”

“I thought so. I mean, I love her. I can’t imagine being without her. Why would I want to be without her? Is that enough? Is there something I’m not thinking of? Help me out here, Annalise. I know I can be clueless about what women want.”

Petti regarded me curiously and let out a deep breath. “I actually think you’re ready for this. I’m speechless.”

“God, she’s really mad, huh?”

“Don’t blame me for the shallow traits of my sex, please.”

Petti stood on tiptoe to kiss my cheek. I climbed the ladder to the Wall, steeling myself for the wrath of Fen.

She turned away when she saw me.

“Sugar, I know you’re mad.”

“I’m not mad.” She petted her cat and stared at nothing.

“Whoa, you’re furious. Okay, let me explain.”

“Save it. You’re a busy man, I understand.”

It’s not how I envisioned the moment, but she forced my hand. I pulled out the ring and showed it to her.

She frowned at first, and then her eyes looked a little misty, which encouraged me.

“I couldn’t do this until I resigned my post as the Man.”

She mumbled. “What’s this?”

“This ring. This thing I’m about to do. I need to know if you say yes, that you know you’re…” God, this was hard. My hand shook, my heart felt as if I’d been slapped by those paddles.

What the hell. “That you’re willing to marry—okay, let’s call it go steady with if that helps—an average ghost with no prospects, no future, and a crazy sister, who plans on starting a circus.”

“Marry? Marry?”

“Go steady. Let’s call it that.”

“Marry? I heard you say it.”

“You know that thing couples who love one another do? Look, I know it may seem sudden, but it just feels like the right time. Shit, it’s too soon. That’s okay, we can just go on like we are if you want. I’m cool with that.”

“What if I don’t want to join a circus?”

Tears flowed down her cheeks and she wiped at her eyes and smiled. My heart rejoiced. She loved me. It would be okay.

“If you don’t want to join a circus, then we do whatever it is you do want to do. But I promised Petti I wouldn’t skip out on her.”

Emily stood and threw herself into my arms, into a kiss. “I’ll join the circus, Jack.”

I went to one knee, but she pulled me to my feet. “You don’t have to beg. I’ve been ready for you since 2010.”

I pressed the ring onto her finger and she admired it. I guess I did okay. It was important to me to pick it out myself, although several of the Dodgers had offered to steal presents for Emily after my slip at our meeting. And pick it out I did. I’d sold both my scarab and Claude’s scarab—identical of course, to buy it.

“It’s perfect. You’re perfect.”

“I love you, Fenwick. We’re a good pair.”

“Damn straight, Jack Pettigrew.”

“I don’t know how long you want to wait, but maybe the Reverend could help us out.”

“Oh, right. Jack?”

“Hmnn.” I was finished talking, ready for kissing.

“Did it have to be a circus?”

“Sorry, Sugar, I’ll make it up to you.”

“You didn’t ask me if I intend to go back to Modern.”

“Do you?” My heart stopped.

“What the hell would I do that for?”

“You’d see the last episode of Lost.”

“I’m living it. With the man of my dreams.”

* * *

Steamside played. It juggled, twirled, somersaulted, walked a tightrope, fired flaming arrows, and regrettably, clowned around.

While Jack helped Screw and his crew on the dirigible, Petti planned her circus in earnest. She drew columns on our mess hall wall, with spots for Punks to sign up for various roles. We had too many clowns, that’s for sure. But what the hell were you supposed to do if you didn’t have a classic circus skill?

Calliope had been a gymnast in college and put together a little routine that would have annoyed me if I weren’t engaged to the man she once chased. Now I felt a little sorry for her, but she was as chipper as ever toward me. I had to give her props for that.

So far, our plans included Fatty playing the wagon-cart calliope (which we had yet to build or acquire), Screw performing amazing feats of magic, Barber throwing knives, a few tumblers, and several clowns.

Petti tapped at her lips and frowned. “It’s a little pathetic.”

“Maybe a month is ambitious. We’ll need animals, right? Lions and elephants?”

“No animals, except horses. We’re not going to hurt exotic animals.”

“Maybe I can train Howard to jump through a hoop?” God, this was bad. “At least we have your tent.”

“My tent?”

“Sure, just like in Central Park. I remember the sign—every word.”

“Really? Tell me.”

“You advertised crushed mummy for cures and pigments; retrocognition—that’s past life regression, right?”

She nodded.

“Then I think it was hypnotism, séances, herbal remedies, and soothsaying, with a specialty in romance.”

Her expression caught me off guard.

“Didn’t it say that?”

“Why, that’s perfect! But I certainly had no such sign, nor was I in a tent.”

“Of course you were. Weren’t you?” I didn’t remember my work shift before I went to the festival in the park, but I remembered Petti’s tent. True, several hours were missing.

“Then where did we first meet? Steamside? This is wrong—I remember you, I remember everything about the tent. I even remember drinking a Coke right before I entered. And then I came here, on an old-fashioned train through a tunnel…”

“There was no tent, no train, no tunnel. Only your partner hugging you as you lay dying. You could see me because you were already gone.”

“I was already gone. Dead. That’s why no one else can see you in Modern, why you don’t go there anymore. Only the dead see you.”

“A psychic tent, huh? What a wonderful idea. Let’s move on, shall we? I don’t suppose Sweet Pea can walk on stilts, do you?”

I glanced at my beautiful emerald cut engagement ring, wondering if I’d trade it for another chance at life. No, I had everything I needed, finally. I had it all. Odd that I had to die to really start living.

I wondered how hard it would be to hit a target from horseback. I was willing to give it a try.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ciar Cullen—In one word, multifaceted. Swimsuit model, actress, entrepreneur, neurosurgeon, humanitarian, mild psi abilities. Oh, a biography, you said?

Ciar rhymes with beer and has a “hard c”. Ciar took her mother’s name to honor that grand lady’s Irish heritage. She is actually a middle class, middle aged dreamer with a background in archaeology and a love of history, nature, and good hazelnut coffee.

She’s published 15 books and several short stories—most of them paranormal.

Ciar never dreamed about becoming a writer, has not been penning stories since she could pick up a pen, hasn’t won any awards that are actually meaningful, and is not a member of the RWA. She hopes to retire one day to a small island, population two.

She lives in New Jersey with her husband, a photographer, and one magical talking cat.

You can visit Ciar’s website at:

http://www.ciarcullen.com

Table of Contents

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