Timeless
Authors: Alexandra Monir
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Love & Romance, #Concepts, #Date & Time
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2011 by Alexandra Monir
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Monir, Alexandra.
Timeless / by Alexandra Monir. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Forced to live with her wealthy, estranged grandparents in New York City after her mother dies, sixteen-year-old Michele retreats to her room where she finds a diary that transports her back to 1910—with life-changing consequences.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89410-7
[1. Time travel—Fiction. 2. Wealth—Fiction. 3. Social classes—Fiction. 4. Families—Fiction. 5. Love—Fiction. 6. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. 7. New York (N.Y.)—History—1898–1951—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.M7495Ti 2011
[Fic]—dc22
2010019657
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v3.1
D
EDICATED TO MY PARENTS,
WHOM I LOVE AND CHERISH
FOR ALL TIME
.
Contents
M
ichele stood alone in the center of a hall of mirrors. The glass revealed a girl identical to Michele, with the same chestnut hair, ivory skin, and hazel eyes; even wearing the same outfit of dark denim jeans and black tank top. But when Michele moved forward, the girl in the glass remained still. And while Michele’s own neck was bare, the reflection in the mirror wore a strange key hanging from a gold chain, a key unlike anything Michele had ever seen
.
It was a gold skeleton key in a shape similar to a cross, but with a circular bow at the top. The image of a sundial was carved into the bow. The key looked weathered and somehow wise, as though it weren’t inanimate, but a living being with over a century’s worth of stories to share. Michele was momentarily seized by an urge to
reach through the glass and touch the curious key. But all she felt was the cool surface of the mirror, and the girl with Michele’s face betrayed no notice of her
.
“Who are you?” Michele whispered. But the mirror image didn’t respond, didn’t even appear to have heard. Michele shivered nervously, and squeezed her eyes shut. What
was
this?
And then, suddenly, the silence was broken. Someone was whistling, a slow melody that created goose bumps on the back of Michele’s neck. Her eyes snapped open, and she watched in shock as someone joined the girl in the mirror. Michele’s breath caught in her throat. She felt paralyzed, unable to do anything but stare at him through the glass
.
His eyes were such a deep blue they seemed to dazzle against his contrasting thick dark hair. Eyes the color of sapphires. And though she could somehow tell that he was around her age, he was dressed like none of the other boys she knew. He wore a crisp white collared shirt under a white silk vest and tie, formal black pants, and black patent leather shoes. In his white-gloved hands, he held a black top hat lined with silk. The formal clothing suited him. He was more than good-looking, much more than could be conveyed by the word “handsome.” Michele felt an unfamiliar ache as she watched him
.
Her heart racing, she stared at him as he carelessly peeled off his gloves and dropped his hat, the three items falling together in a heap on the floor. He then reached for the hand of the girl in the mirror. And to Michele’s astonishment
, she
felt his touch. She quickly looked down, but though her hand was empty, she could feel his fingers interlacing with hers, the sensation causing a flutter inside her
.
What’s happening to me?
Michele thought frantically. But
suddenly she couldn’t think anymore, for as she looked at the boy and girl embracing in the mirror, she felt strong arms encircling her own waist
.
“I’m waiting for you,” he murmured, smiling a slow, familiar grin that seemed to hint at a secret between them
.
And for the first time, Michele and the mirror reflection were in sync as they both whispered, “Me too.”
Michele Windsor awoke with a shock, gasping for breath. As she took in the sight of her darkened bedroom, her heartbeat slowed and she remembered—it was just The Dream. The same strange, intoxicating dream that had haunted her on and off for years. As always, waking up from it brought the pain of disappointment into the pit of Michele’s stomach, as she found herself missing him—this person who didn’t even exist.
She’d been just a little girl when she’d first begun dreaming of him, so young that she hadn’t yet resembled the teenager in the mirror. The dreams were infrequent then; they came just once or twice a year. But as she grew up, looking like the twin of the girl in the mirror, the dreams began to flood her consciousness with a new urgency, as if they were trying to
tell
her something. Michele frowned as she slumped back against her pillows, wondering if she would ever understand. But then, Confusion and Mystery had been principal players in her life since the day she was born.
Michele rolled over onto her side, facing her bedroom window, and listening to the waves lapping the shore outside the Venice Beach bungalow. The sound usually lulled her to sleep
quickly, but not that night. She couldn’t seem to get those sapphire eyes out of her head. Eyes that she had practically memorized, without ever having seen them in her waking life.
“See that I’m everywhere, everywhere, shining down on you …”
The pulsing hip-hop beat of the Lupe Fiasco song “Shining Down” blared from Michele’s iPod alarm the next morning. She unearthed her head from the covers and pressed the Snooze button. How could it already be morning? It felt like just moments earlier that she had managed to fall back to sleep.
“Michele!” a voice sang out from across the hall. “Are you up? I made pancakes, come eat them before they get cold.”
Michele’s eyes flickered open. Sleep or pancakes? That was a no-brainer. Her mouth was already beginning to water at the thought of her mom’s specialty. She threw on a robe and fuzzy slippers and padded through the modest house until she reached the cozy kitchen. Marion Windsor was in her usual morning mode, sipping coffee while studying her newest clothing designs in her sketchbook. The crinkly sound of Marion’s favorite old jazz record, by none other than her grandmother Lily Windsor, echoed from their vintage record player.
“Good morning, sweetie,” Marion greeted her daughter, looking up from her sketchbook with a smile.
“Morning.” Michele leaned over to give her mom a kiss and glanced at the sketch she’d been working on. A long, flowing dress with a bit of a Pocahontas-circa-2010 feel, it was right in
keeping with the other bohemian-chic pieces in her mom’s line, Marion Windsor Designs.
“I like it,” Michele said approvingly. She settled into her seat in front of a plate of golden pancakes topped with strawberries. “And
this
, I definitely like.”
“Bon appétit.”
Marion grinned. “Speaking of food, do you have lunch plans with the girls today?”
Michele shrugged as she inhaled her first forkful of delicious pancake. “Just the usual, nothing special.”
“Well, I have a free afternoon, so I was thinking I could pick you up at lunch and we could go for burgers at Santa Monica Pier,” Marion suggested. “What do you say?”
Michele gave her mom a sideways look. “You still feel sorry for me, don’t you?”
“What? No!” Marion said innocently.
Michele raised an eyebrow at her.
“Okay, fine,” Marion said, relenting. “I don’t feel
sorry
for you, because I know you’re so much better off without him. But I can’t stand to see you hurt.”
Michele nodded, looking away. It had been two weeks since her first real boyfriend, Jason, had broken up with her on the eve of the first day of school. His exact words had been “Babe, you know I think you’re the best and all, but it’s my senior year and I can’t have the baggage of a relationship. I gotta live it up, play the field. You get it, right?”
Uh, not exactly
. So Michele had to begin her junior year with a broken heart, which grew all the more painful last week, when word spread that Jason was hooking up with a sophomore, Carly Marsh.
Marion reached across the table and squeezed Michele’s hand. “Sweetie, I know how hard it is to see your first boyfriend with someone else. It’s just going to take a little time to heal from this.”
“But really, I
should
be over it,” Michele vented. “I mean, all he ever talked about was water polo, and he was about as romantic as a toothpick. I just really miss—I don’t know.…”
“That butterflies-in-your-stomach feeling of wanting to be with someone, and knowing they feel the same way about you?” Marion guessed.
“Yeah,” Michele admitted sheepishly. “Exactly.”
“Well, I can promise that you’ll have that again, but with someone so much better,” Marion said intently.
“How do you know that?” Michele asked doubtfully.
“Because we mothers have an intuition about these things. So when you see Jason with Carly, do your best to just shrug it off and think how lucky you are to be free for a guy who’s actually worthy of you.”