B008AZB1XW EBOK (4 page)

Simon came to her side. “What is it?”

She pointed at the man in the photograph. “Look.”

The man in the photograph looked confused and in some pain, but there was no mistaking who he was. It was Evan Eldridge.

Chapter Four

“Dear God,” Simon said, leaning closer for a better look. “Is that…?”

“Mr. Eldridge.”

When Elizabeth had traveled back to 1906, she’d stayed at the Eldridges’ home. She’d spent weeks there and hour after hour in the parlor where Evan Eldridge’s portrait hung. She’d heard the pain in Mrs. Eldridge’s voice as she recounted the last time she’d seen her husband. She’d said it was her worst nightmare come true. He’d been a member of the Council for Temporal Studies for years and been on countless missions through time, just like Simon’s grandfather. Until one day, he left and never returned. Mrs. Eldridge had always assumed he’d been killed, but the man in the photograph was quite alive. At least, he was alive in the 1940s.

“When is this?” Elizabeth asked as she scanned the text next to the photograph. “I don’t see any dates.”

She picked up the binder and took it into the front room. “I’m sorry to bother you,” she said as she placed it in front of the woman at the desk. “Do you know anything about these? These photographs? When they were taken?”

The woman put on her glasses. “Hmmm. No, just what it says there. Something about Guy’s Hospital. It was a feature in the Times, I think.” She flipped through a few more pages and pointed to a small news clipping. “Yes, there we are. September 18, 1942, Guy’s Hospital. Poor man appears to be suffering from a case of amnesia. It wasn’t uncommon. All that bombing, it’s a miracle anyone kept their wits about them.”

“Yes,” Elizabeth said, her heart racing almost as quickly as her thoughts. “Thank you. I don’t suppose we can have a copy of this?”

“I’m afraid we don’t have the facilities for that.”

Maybe it was available online? Most of the newspapers had digital archives now. Of course, she didn’t have her computer and she knew Sebastian’s home didn’t have wireless anyway. Surely, there was a cyber-café in town.

She grabbed Simon’s hand and dragged him out onto the sidewalk. “Where’s the closest Internet café?”

“Tell me you’re not seriously considering traveling back in time, “ he said in a strained, hushed voice, “into a war zone, for God’s sake, to virtually kidnap a man we’ve never even met.”

“I am.”

The vein in Simon’s temple started to visibly throb. “Let’s discuss this at home,” he said with great effort. “Please? We agreed it was better to not know what happened to the people we left in the past.”

At the time, she’d agreed, but her initial resolve had lasted a whole two weeks, which was actually a week longer than she thought it would last. She’d looked up Charlie Blue from their trip to 1929 New York, but she never did find anything. She’d managed not to look up Teddy or Max. Yet.

“This is different,” she said.

Simon narrowed his eyes.

“It is. First of all, we didn’t leave him in the past. He was part of the future when we were in the past and now that we’re in the future, he’s part of our past, but it isn’t the same past, so it doesn’t count.”

“Elizabeth.”

“Don’t ‘Elizabeth’ me right now. You can’t tell me what we just saw doesn’t bother you.”

Simon looked around anxiously and took her by the arm. “Of course it does,” he said. “But there’s nothing we can do to change it now.”

“That’s just it. We can.”

Simon stopped walking. “We shouldn’t.”

“Why? He doesn’t belong there and you know it.”

“I don’t know anything of the sort and neither do you. We have to believe this is how things are meant to be. Anything else is madness, Elizabeth.”

“Then color me mad.” That garnered her a few glances from passersby.

Simon waited until they were alone again. “Elizabeth.”

“We have the watch. We know where and when he is. How can we
not
do something to help?”

~~~

The drive back to the cottage was a silent one. All Elizabeth could think about was the last time they’d had a conversation like this. The Council had asked for her help and she’d blindly trusted them. She and Simon fought; she left; he followed. He should have listened to her and, as it turned out, she should have listened to him. The last thing she wanted was a repeat performance. If they were going to do this thing, they had to do it together or not at all.

Simon opened one of the bottles of wine they’d picked up at the market. It was starting to get chilly outside as the sun set, and he built a small fire in the grate in the parlor. Elizabeth slipped off her shoes and tucked her legs under her on the plush sofa. Simon sat opposite her in a large overstuffed chair. The silence sat everywhere else.

Elizabeth took a sip of wine and looked into the glass for inspiration. She had an army of arguments ready to march, but she was afraid none of them would make any difference. Simon wasn’t exactly a fan of time travel. He’d made that clear enough. Several times. How could she possibly convince him it was the right thing to do? Despite the danger. Despite the insanity of it all.

She took another sip and wondered if you could get Dutch courage from French wine. “Simon,” she started. “I know it’s crazy.”

“Completely. Certifiably.” He noticed her frown and lifted his hands in apology. “I’m listening,” he said.

“All right. First of all, we know the Council isn’t going to help, even though they should. They’ve proven that “no man left behind” isn’t exactly their company motto. And that leaves us. We are, literally, the only people who can.”

“Yes, just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”

“I’ll get to the should in a minute. Just wait. Second of all, it’s not like last time or the time before. We know exactly what we need to do and where and when to do it. Thirdly, there’s no King Kashian or Madame Petrovka. There’s no big bad.”

“Excepting the Nazis, of course.”

Elizabeth paused. “Okay, I’ll give you that one. But, we’ll be in London, well after the Blitz, so it’s not like we’ll be jumping right into the middle of the Battle of the Bulge or something.”

“The Battle of Britain, no, of course not, just right into the middle of a city ravaged by years of war and still bombed on a regular basis.”

“A little research and we’ll know what’s safe and what isn’t. And, we’d only have to stay long enough to get Evan out of the hospital. We can plan it so that we’re in and out in just a few days.”

Simon thought about it for a moment. “You’re assuming there’s an eclipse shortly after our arrival that we can use for our return.”

“Well, yeah.”

Obviously he remained unconvinced, but he had promised to hear her out and was true to his word. “All right. And the should?”

Elizabeth sat forward. “You feel it too, Simon. I know you do. It’s the right thing to do. It’s dangerous. It might even be crazy. I’ll admit that. But that doesn’t change the fact that there’s a man who needs our help and a woman who deserves it.”

Time for the trump card. “If positions were reversed,” she said. “If Evan saw a picture of you or me trapped in the past, injured and lost, what would you want him to do? Would you want him to say it wasn’t his business? That it wasn’t worth the risk?”

Simon stared at her for a long moment and then set down his wine glass. Finally, he stood and walked over to the window. “I think you know the answer to that.”

She joined him at the window. “Then is it right to expect to receive what we aren’t willing to give?”

She put her hand on his arm and urged him to turn around and face her. “We’ll be all right.”

“You sound awfully certain.”

“I am. It’s one of the pleasant byproducts of being delusional.”

Simon laughed briefly and then grew serious again. “This isn’t so simple.”

“I know. But it’s the right thing to do, and we both know it.”

Chapter Five

The next several days were a flurry of research, argument and planning. Simon hadn’t been pleased that she’d brought the watch with them to England. When she’d explained that it wasn’t something to be left lying around, especially not with a Council that Should Not Be Trusted lurking about, he’d agreed, reluctantly.

When it came to the research, Simon was deep in his element. He’d learned quite a bit from his last experience preparing for a trip back in time. He prepared a list of items they’d need including: passports, identity cards, and ration books.

Despite how exacting the records from the period were, there were still blind spots - little things like bombing raids. It certainly wouldn’t be anywhere near as dangerous as London during the Blitz when the Nazis bombed England for nine months straight and the city itself for 57 consecutive nights. 1942 wouldn’t be half as bad as the later period of the war, when the Nazis resumed bombings with doodlebugs and V-2s. It was a relative lull, but there was no way they could tell when and where each and every bombing raid took place. In the end, they had to be satisfied with a good idea of what sections survived unscathed. If they stuck to them, they should be all right.

Clothing and other supplies were fairly easy to come by. Even forging documents of the period was simple enough. National identity cards were readily available on eBay and collectors and replica makers had every bit of ephemera they could possibly need including passports, travel papers and War Department Identity Cards. Manipulating them to add their real names and photographs was simple enough.

They’d just returned from a shopping excursion when Elizabeth noticed a large vase overflowing with yellow and white roses on their front doorstep. She carried it inside as Simon took their packages into the study.

“Should I be jealous?” Simon said.

“The question is, should I?” Elizabeth handed him the attached notecard. “It’s addressed to you.”

Simon sat down behind the desk. Elizabeth put the vase on a side table.

“They’re from Aunt Victoria,” he said. “A peace offering.”

Elizabeth rearranged a few of the flowers and pricked her finger on one. “With thorns. Now, that’s what I call passive-aggressive.”

Simon laughed. “Are you all right?”

“As long as they haven’t been dipped in poison.”

Simon got up from the desk. “ Let me see.”

Elizabeth held out her finger. Simon examined it with excessive care and rubbed her hand gently before kissing her palm. “Does it hurt?” He kissed the inside of her wrist.

Her cheeks flushed. He knew what kissing her there did to her. “No,” she said. “But it hurts a little here.” She pointed to her bottom lip.

Simon leaned forward, his eyes dipped down to her mouth and back up. “Here?” he said before he took her mouth in a gentle, tugging kiss.

Elizabeth let out a shuddering breath. “And other places.”

He kissed her neck. “I’m afraid this requires,” he said punctuating each phrase with another kiss, “further investigation.”

“Thorough,” Elizabeth said between gasping breaths. “Thorough investigation.”

Simon’s hands pulled her body against his and the phone rang. He pulled back and was about to go in for another kiss when the phone rang again. “Bugger.”

He let her go and went to the desk. “Remember where I was.”

Elizabeth wasn’t about to forget, but the call wasn’t a quick one and the moment was gone. The man on the phone was one of the currency collectors they’d contacted. Simon insisted that they buy an obscene amount of currency. He’d traveled as a pauper once and had no intention of repeating the experience. In any period, money was their most useful tool.

Simon had tried to explain early English currency. In 1971, the UK and Ireland had adopted decimalization, so that everything was based on units of ten and one hundred. That made sense. Pre-Decimalization money, the sort they’d be using, did not. Twelve pence in a shilling and twenty shillings in a pound, half-pennies, farthings, half-crowns and tanners and dozens of other coins and bills had left her completely and utterly lost.

She’d have an easier time keeping their cover story straight than their money. They decided to keep the backstory simple. She and Simon were newlyweds, now living in America. They’d seen the photograph of Evan, Elizabeth’s uncle, in the paper and had come to collect him.

The real trick for their cover story had been finding a compelling reason Simon wasn’t serving his country in the war. By 1942, every able-bodied man in England under the age of 51 would have been in the service. Special exemptions were given to a few categories of men, including those in the employ of a foreign government. That meant Simon was a professor working with the American government on some top-secret projects for the Department of Substitute Materials, whatever that was. The simpler the story the better. Luckily, without computers and long distance calls being rather expensive, it was doubtful anyone would or even could do much checking up on them. They were also counting on the fact that the hospital beds were at a premium and the administrators would be inclined to release Evan without much ado just to free one up.

A penumbral eclipse that would allow the watch to activate was just three days away. Simon and Elizabeth planned to arrive in London on September 18, 1942, the day the photograph of Evan was taken. A return eclipse was less than a week later. It all sounded doable. Even though she knew it was dangerous, Elizabeth couldn’t hide her excitement. Given the chance, who wouldn’t want to travel in time? See history as it really was? In spite of the dangers they’d faced and the ones she was sure would surprise them this time, she counted herself incredibly privileged to be able to go. Even though he blustered on about the risks, she knew Simon felt the same way. Deep, deep Marianas Trench down.

The night before the eclipse Elizabeth woke from a strange dream. Memories of it disappeared like smoke as she got her bearings. She rolled over to snuggle up to Simon, but his side of the bed was empty and cold. She slipped on her robe and headed down to the study. The light from inside stretched out into the hallway.

Simon sat reading in Sebastian’s overstuffed club chair and he lifted his eyes from the pages when she padded in. It wasn’t unusual for him to get up in the middle of the night and go into his study at home and read until the early morning hours.