Secrets of the Time Society (3 page)

Rebecca followed them down the corridor until they approached an airy restaurant, with floor-to-ceiling windows revealing the ocean and the sandy beach. Round wooden tables filled the room, and a couple dressed in inconspicuous black clothing were the only diners there. They were eating the oddest-looking dish Rebecca had ever seen, using what appeared to be sticks in place of silverware.

“The restaurant is nearly empty now, since most of us are saving our appetites for the feast later this evening,” Ida said, grinning. “The wonder of this place is that you can order the oldest or the most modern dish you like, from mutton chops to sushi.”

“Sushi?” Rebecca had never heard such a funny-sounding word.

“Why, that’s what that couple over there is eating. It’s a simply delicious Japanese dish of raw fish wrapped in rice. You can eat it as finger food, or with chopsticks in place of utensils,” Ida explained.

Rebecca wrinkled her nose. Raw fish hardly sounded like an acceptable meal to her.

“We have shops and recreation here at the headquarters as well,” Ida continued proudly. “There is an extensive costume shop where we can purchase the appropriate wardrobe for our time travels, a currency exchange, and of course, a bookstore. We have a swimming pool outdoors, and it is always quite entertaining to watch the vastly different bathing suits on display.”

A chime sounded loudly, and Rebecca jumped. She looked around but couldn’t find the source.

“It’s the headquarters clock,” Hiram told her. “It’s built into the walls, so it chimes equally loudly in every room. That’ll likely be Millicent summoning us. Come along.”

Rebecca trailed after them, still taking in all the strange and delightful sights. “Does Millicent live here?” she asked.

“No, but close enough. When the Aura became our new headquarters, Millicent moved into that charming redbrick house next door,” Hiram replied.

They entered a formal room that reminded Rebecca a bit of the parlor in her mansion back home, with its gilded ceilings and rich furnishings
in the style of the palace of Versailles. A silver-haired woman in a long red velvet dress stood waiting for her. Millicent August.

“Hello,” Rebecca greeted her excitedly.

Millicent didn’t return her smile. “Hello, Rebecca. Hiram and Ida, thank you for your help. You may go now.”

Hiram and Ida nodded, looking taken aback by Millicent’s manner. Rebecca swallowed hard as she watched them leave, her throat dry with sudden nerves.

“There’s someone here to see you, Rebecca,” Millicent said, her quiet voice a warning.

Rebecca’s body and mind felt paralyzed with fear as she watched the door slowly open. In walked a young man, who eyed her accusingly.

“You!”
Rebecca gasped.

Rebecca approached the three-story Victorian house next door to the Aura Hotel, knowing somewhere in the logical part of her mind that this couldn’t be a sound idea, that her journey here was a mistake, that Millicent August had made it very clear years ago that she never wanted to see Rebecca again. But adrenaline and hysteria were drowning out Rebecca’s common sense, and she found herself banging her fist persistently on the door until it at last opened.

The shriveled, wrinkled woman who answered the door shocked Rebecca into momentary speechlessness. Millicent August was a skeleton leaning on a cane, her hair wispy-thin.
She’s not age shifting
, Rebecca realized.
This is Millicent at her true age—over a hundred years old
. Rebecca didn’t know whether the sight was admirable or grotesque.

As she and Millicent stared at each other, Millicent’s steely eyes suddenly narrowed. “Rebecca Windsor,” she snarled, her voice weak but somehow still intimidating. “I told you I never wanted to see you again. You’re a liar and a thief and—”

“He had a child!” Rebecca interrupted, her voice rising in anguish. “He had a child in the future—he broke the law of your Society! And now the girl has gone back in time. I saw her at my family’s ball in 1910. She’s after my niece’s fiancé—he can
see
her! She’s trying to ruin my family. You must put a stop to it!”

Millicent paused, then grudgingly opened the door just wide enough for Rebecca to step into the entrance hall.

“And what do you expect me to do?” Millicent asked coldly. “Have the girl killed?”

Rebecca rubbed her forehead in desperation. “Change things—make it so he never had a child, so she can’t exist.”

“What if I told you that the girl is a member of your own family?”

“My own family?” Rebecca echoed, uncomprehending. “What could you possibly mean?”

“You aren’t the only one who has discovered this girl, Rebecca. He had a child with Marion Windsor in 1993. The girl you seek to erase is not ruining your family—she
is
your family.”

“No.” Rebecca shook her head. “That can’t be true. He would never betray me like that, not with someone of my own blood!”

“It wasn’t betrayal. It was love,” Millicent said simply.

“No!
” Rebecca roared. She felt wild with anger and pain, and she lunged for Millicent, furiously pushing her against the wall. “You’re the liar!”

Millicent’s elderly body hit the wall hard, and her head cracked against it. Her eyes rolled back, her final expression one of shock. Rebecca watched in horror as the woman crumpled to the floor, blood streaming from her skull.

“No!” Rebecca fell to her knees, shaking Millicent desperately. “Come back, come back, please!” How could someone so powerful die so suddenly, so easily? Rebecca caught sight of herself in a hallway mirror and shuddered. Her hands were covered in Millicent’s blood.
Murderer!
her reflection taunted.

She leaned over Millicent’s body, her throat filling with sobs as guilt ate at her insides. And then a glint caught her eye: Millicent’s key.

Millicent wore it around her neck under a high-collared dress, just as Rebecca had once done. Rebecca’s fingers trembled as she touched the key. It was bigger than the one she had worn long ago, the shape bolder,
with a diamond in the center of the bow where the sundial was carved. Once again, Rebecca’s dark desires took over.

With this key, I can time travel again
, she thought longingly.
I can change things—I can
fix
things
.

And for the second time, Rebecca Windsor stole a key from a corpse.

Rebecca stood outside the Windsor Mansion gates, looking up at the lights in the windows. She could easily imagine what the scene inside looked like—her “perfect” brother, George, dining with his snooty wife, Henrietta, and their children, including that Clara girl from the orphanage whom they had oddly decided to adopt. But that wasn’t the Windsor Mansion Rebecca would be entering.

She held Millicent’s key in both hands and whispered, as if it were an incantation, “March the ninth, eighteen hundred and eighty-eight.”

The flood of energy that filled Rebecca as her body rose above the ground, spun through the air, and landed back on Windsor Mansion property twenty-two years in the past was so exhilarating that she momentarily forgot all about the terrible crime that had made it possible. All she felt was the relief and satisfaction of having the power of time travel restored to her.

The Fifth Avenue block on which her home rested was suddenly quiet. The land on either side of Windsor Mansion was still empty, and the sounds of Model T Ford automobiles were years away. Rebecca eagerly pushed through the gates, racing through the front garden and up the steps, much more like a girl of seventeen than a woman of nearly forty. She was returning to her home as it had appeared when it was hers; to her body as it looked when it was young and unspoiled.

As Rebecca slipped into the mansion, she caught sight of her governess walking briskly into the library.
What would she think if she knew what was to become of me? What would my parents think?
Rebecca wondered. But she pushed the unsettling thoughts aside, focusing instead on her task.

She hurried up the stairs to the third floor, her palms sweating with anticipation as she approached her bedroom. The red-carpeted hallway led to the familiar French double doors. Turning the knob and entering at last, she saw the seventeen-year-old Rebecca Windsor of 1888, frozen in front of her dressing mirror in the lilac-and-white princess bedroom. And just as she had studied in the Time Society handbook years ago—the handbook that had also been wrenched away from her by Millicent August—forty-year-old Rebecca Windsor of 1910 reached out her hand to touch her younger self. Staring into the mirror, Rebecca watched as she and her younger body gasped in unison, a
tightening force gripping her chest as the two of them moved seamlessly into one.

A smile curved Rebecca’s lips. Millicent’s key, hanging on a gold chain around her neck, had done its job. Though she was her forty-year-old self in mind, she was now seventeen in body. And anything was possible.

As Michele tried to calm her terrified mind, the multiple girls in black slowly merged into one. The girl stared at her with hatred. Michele tried to run, but the sand held her rooted to the spot
.

“I know who you are,” the girl hissed. “I know who you come from.” She stepped closer, her smile full of malice, and Michele shrank back in horror
.

A stranger appeared in the distance, his voice competing with the sounds of the waves crashing against the shore. “Michele, run! Save yourself!”

Peering into the night, Michele tried to make out the man’s form. Who was he? Why did his voice sound so familiar? Wait. Was this …? It couldn’t be, could it? Her father?

“Michele, wake up!” he cried, his voice full of urgency
.

Michele could feel the girl’s gaze pierce right through her. Why did this girl she didn’t even know hate her so much? Was she someone from the
past? It was another set of unanswered questions to add to the list she’d been accumulating during her time travels
.

“I’ll be watching you,” the stranger whispered, slowing turning and drifting back to where she’d come from. As her silhouette vanished into the night, Michele’s dream slowly began to fade, and along with it, her father’s faraway presence
.

As her dream swirled away into a distant memory, Michele jolted awake, breathing a sigh of relief at finding herself safe in her bedroom of the Windsor Mansion. But fear lingered on her skin like a persistent scent. It all seemed like an endless charade, one that had followed her into the present. But somehow her father knew who this girl was. Maybe he could help reveal another layer of this new life.

She leaned back against her pillows, trying to soothe her mind by returning to the usual subject of her dreams: the love of her life, Philip. Though she had come so far in the past few months, she had the sudden feeling that her journey had only just begun.