Secrets of the Time Society (2 page)

As Millicent’s hand closed on the doorknob, Rebecca opened her mouth to say something, but she stopped herself just in time.

“Goodbye, then,” Millicent said. “I’ll see you in California?”

“Yes.” Rebecca nodded. “I’ll be there.”

She watched Millicent leave the room and then sank back into her seat, staring angrily at the flames burning in the fireplace. So the gift of time travel wasn’t really hers. The thought was like a sickness.

Rebecca hadn’t thought twice about snatching the key years ago, on the one day she had managed to escape her governess and secretly explore the household staff’s quarters. The Windsor family butler, Byron, had died suddenly, and Rebecca’s childhood infatuation with Byron’s
handsome son—an infatuation that had grown into an obsession—had implanted in her the desperate need to explore his dead father’s room before the man’s presence was forever wiped away. Rebecca had been raised with the belief that none of the servants had belongings of their own, that all their possessions belonged to the house they served. So her twelve-year-old self, drawn to the exotic golden key she found on the late butler’s pillow, had picked the key up and stuck it into her dress pocket without shame, then put it away in a secret box containing other pilfered possessions.

She’d forgotten about the key until the box resurfaced just this year. Now seventeen, she knew when she saw it again that the key was special. It had twitched before her incredulous eyes, as though it were desperate to get out of the box and come to life. And it had brought Rebecca to life, sending her into futures far more exciting than the ornamented cage she lived in as a young Victorian heiress. Yet Rebecca had never really given the key its due. Though she knew it contained magic, she had refused to credit her remarkable ability to time travel to anything other than herself. It had always been of the utmost importance for Rebecca to feel like the most powerful force in her world. But now, to know that the greatest experience and achievement of her life would never have been hers if she hadn’t stolen a
butler’s
key years ago … it was unthinkable!

As Millicent’s words about the Time-Travel Gene echoed in her ears, Rebecca was overcome by a wave of nausea.
Did Byron intend to give the
key to his son? Does this mean that
he
was supposed to be the time traveler … and not me?

Rebecca tried to imagine telling her beloved what she had done; that the miraculous power she had told him about was stolen from his dead father and was likely meant to be his own.
He would never speak to me again; he would never look at me again
. She panicked.
He would be lost to me forever. I can
never
tell him
.

Rebecca wrung her hands desperately. All she wanted was to go on as if she hadn’t learned the truth about the key, but did she dare? What if the Time Society discovered she was a fraud? She couldn’t imagine Millicent August taking the news kindly. Rebecca could lose everything.

But I’ll for certain lose everything if I tell the truth
, Rebecca realized.
Yet if I go on as before, I can still have it all: unimaginable power as a member of the Time Society and a life spent with the man I love
.

As she looked down at the Time Society handbook in her lap, the secrets held within its pages seduced her, silencing her conscience. “I am the keeper of the key now,” she quietly declared. “The power has been transferred to me.”

Rebecca sat stiffly with the other spinsters on the balcony above the Windsor ballroom. It was their duty to chaperone the dancing debutantes and young men, making sure no one enjoyed themselves too much.
As if
that were even possible
, Rebecca thought wryly, remembering the balls of her youth: the constricting gowns, the intricate dance steps of the quadrilles that were such a bother to remember, and the boys crowding her who clearly only wanted access to the Windsor fortune. And now here she was, nearly forty years old and feeling like a stranger in her old home—the home that now belonged to her saintly brother George and his family. Life’s regrets had etched deep lines in Rebecca’s face, had grayed her black hair. She was all too aware that the boys she used to dance with, now attending the ball as husbands and fathers, would no longer recognize her.

She watched the blur of dancers in their formal finery without really seeing them, heard their laughter and chatter without really listening, until a change in the scene made her blood turn cold.

Her niece’s fiancé, the handsome young Philip, was leading an unfamiliar girl into the ballroom, gazing at her with an intensity that gave Rebecca the uncomfortable sensation of having trespassed upon a private moment. Her heart dropped as she remembered how her own face had once glowed the same way, how she had basked in the precious hours spent with the one person she wanted most—before she learned the ugly truth that he had never returned her feelings. The memory was too painful, and she pushed it away, letting anger consume her instead, as she wondered how Philip could look at anyone else like that when he was engaged to poor Violet. Rebecca stood up to find her niece, but then
she saw the girl in Philip’s arms more closely. Her smile seemed to pierce Rebecca’s skin.

It was the very smile that had belonged to the man who stole Rebecca’s heart and brought about her downfall—the butler’s son. This girl looked
just like him
.

Rebecca was vaguely aware that hushed whispers and shocked gasps were filling the room. The dowdy Agnes Andrews, seated next to Rebecca, turned to her with a scandalized expression on her face. “Is he
mad
, dancing by himself like that?”

Rebecca stared at Agnes “By himself …?” she echoed.

The woman behind Rebecca clucked disapprovingly. “I suppose he thinks he’s being amusing, dancing with the air,” she said with a sniff.

So the others couldn’t see the girl.

“I—I’ll be just a moment,” Rebecca muttered. She hurried down the stairs and into the thick of the ballroom. Something else was wrong—the girl looked out of place, her blue chiffon dress too plain for the occasion, her neckline shockingly low. Rebecca inched her way to the edge of the dance floor, as close to Philip and the girl as possible without being too noticeable.

As she watched the girl look into Philip’s eyes and sway in his arms, Rebecca nearly doubled over. The girl wore a key around her neck—a golden key shaped in the ankh symbol, with a sundial carved into its bow. It was the very key that had been taken from Rebecca, the key that
she so often reached for in her dreams—and there was none other like it in the world.

“Michele,” she heard Philip breathe. Rebecca shuddered to learn the girl’s name. She inhaled a shaky breath, trying to make sense of the heinous facts. The man she’d loved and lost had fathered a child, and as if that betrayal weren’t enough, he had given this loathsome daughter of his the key.
She
was a Timekeeper now, a member of the desirable circle that had so brutally shut Rebecca out. And now Michele was trying to destroy the Windsor family by breaking up Violet’s engagement, just as Michele’s father had destroyed Rebecca herself so many years earlier? Well, Rebecca could simply not allow any of this to go on.

A high-pitched ringing sounded in her ears as she turned and walked out of the ballroom. Once out of sight of her family and the party guests, she took off into a run. Her carriage was waiting outside, and she ignored the questioning look on the driver’s face as he jumped up to open the door for her.

“I need to depart for California at once,” she commanded.

“But Miss Windsor, your private rail car isn’t available at this hour,” the driver protested. “And you’ll need your baggage—”

“Just take me to the train station now,” Rebecca said through gritted teeth. “And you mustn’t say a word about this to anyone.”

She leaned back against the plush upholstery of the carriage, closing her eyes as she remembered the last time she had been in California. It was nearly a lifetime ago.…

Rebecca’s first impression of the Time Society’s headquarters was that it looked like a beautiful porcelain castle, with its gleaming white latticework and its turreted red roofs soaring into the sky. She turned her face to the sun, soaking in the California warmth she’d never before experienced. She held a card from Millicent August in her hand, engraved with the date and the Time Society logo: a coronet circling a finely drawn clock. Holding the card while the key pulsed against her neck, Rebecca had been transported from her New York City bedroom to the Aura Hotel.
I’m here
, she thought giddily, her pace turning into a skip as she approached the entrance.

For a moment Rebecca stood outside the front doors, peering in. The dark wood-paneled lobby was filled with gentlemen in black tails and top hats, accompanying wives in billowing evening gowns and upswept hairdos as they languidly made their way toward the banquet room for dinner. Rebecca waited for one of the footmen to open the door and let her in, until she remembered that they couldn’t see her. She took a deep breath, pushed through the doors—and let out a startled gasp.

An invisible hand had waved itself over the scene, erasing all traces of a normal hotel. The guests she had just been watching faded into ghostly nothingness and the lobby enlarged to more than twice its size, the ceilings rising so high that Rebecca could hardly see where they ended. And then two spinning tornadoes whirled into the room, like a choreographed storm. Rebecca scrambled back in terror—until the tornadoes revealed themselves as
people
, a young man and woman.

The woman was dressed in such a scandalous style, it made Rebecca feel a funny combination of appalled and envious. The short, low-waisted skirt revealed her bare legs, her blouse had enough sequins to costume a burlesque performer, and her chin-length hair boldly displayed her naked neck.
You could get arrested for looking like that in 1888
, Rebecca thought.

The gentleman looked much more normal, dressed in a navy military uniform with gold buttons. He had clear blue eyes and his hair was a wavy blond pompadour. He stepped forward to greet Rebecca.

“You must be our new arrival,” he said, giving her a slight bow. “Rebecca Windsor, born 1871, am I right?”

Rebecca nodded, staring at him in confusion. He chuckled.

“We have to learn all the Time Society members’ birth years. That is how we know what time they truly come from,” he explained. “But forgive me for being so rude—you don’t even know my name! I am Hiram King, born 1818. And this is Ida Pearl, born 1920.”

Ida stepped forward and held out a pink-manicured hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Hello,” Rebecca replied breathlessly, staring in fascination from one to the other. She turned to Ida. “You must know everything about the future, then, having been born in 1920!”

Ida chuckled. “Not quite everything. There are still plenty of secrets left to uncover.”

“Are you both age shifting?” Rebecca asked eagerly.

“I am,” Hiram said with a wink.

“And I am my true linear age, twenty-one, traveling back in time to meet you in this moment,” Ida answered.

“I read about age shifting in the handbook and I tried following the instructions, but it hasn’t worked for me yet,” Rebecca lamented. “Why would anyone
want
to be their true age if they could be any age they choose?”

“Well, much as we need sleep for our bodies to function, we also need time to be ‘in rest’ at our true age. Age shifting takes quite a toll on the body, and spending too many days as your younger or older self can limit your total life span.” As Rebecca absorbed this information, Hiram gallantly held out his arm. “Now, Millicent asked us here to show you around the headquarters before the official grand opening reception.”

Rebecca fell into step with Hiram and Ida, and they walked through the cavernous lobby, stopping at a bronze elevator adjacent to a red-carpeted staircase.

“Timekeepers who wish to spend the night need only reserve a room at the front desk.” Hiram nodded at a reception area across the way, which was overseen by a line of men in black suits and women in starched white blouses and black skirts. “Then you take this elevator or the stairs up to the guest rooms. Each room is outfitted in the décor of a different period and filled with the books and newspapers of the day, which helps us get acquainted with the era we are traveling to. So, for example, say I am returning to the year 1830 after being in this year, 1888, for a number of days. I would reserve room 1830, and there, surrounded by the furnishings, artwork, and writings of 1830, I’d be reminded of the customs and rules of that year. Behaving out of line with the time you are in has had disastrous consequences for several Timekeepers, so it is very important to assimilate.”

Rebecca barely heard Hiram’s warning, she was so enchanted by the prospect of countless rooms decorated in the styles of different time periods. “How far into the future do the guest rooms go?”

“The designers of the headquarters can only build rooms for as far into time as we’ve experienced,” Hiram explained. “We have a research committee in charge of gathering the literature, décor, and newspapers from each year to fill the period rooms, and naturally, they cannot work
on a room based on a time that none of us has ever been to. The farthest that a Time Society member has traveled into the past is 1492, while we’ve gone as far into the future as 1991. This means that when you visit the headquarters today, in 1888, you will find rooms dating from the very discovery of America all the way up to the year 1991. As new future years are unlocked, additional rooms are added.”

“1991—it sounds positively inconceivable!” Rebecca marveled, wondering what inventions she would find in that room.

“Moving on, then. Ida is quite the culinary expert, so she will be glad to tell you about the dining at the headquarters,” Hiram said with a smile.