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"Amanda?"

"Huh?" The girl didn't look up. Her tongue stuck out slightly between two pink lips. Jaci watched as she studiously placed one block on another, then a third on top of that.

"Where did you get all your toys and furniture?" She thought of Gustav Dentzel, and knew Nicholas was good friends with the furniture maker.

"Uncle Nicholas made it."

"What?" That was impossible. Besides, she had been with him when he ordered the chest made for Amanda. The man had too much energy to spend such an amount of time carving little animals and fitting pieces of wood together to make a chest. Nicholas spent little time inside, even on the coldest days, and Jaci couldn't imagine that energy confined to a small woodworking shop.

Amanda added a fifth block to her growing tower before answering. "Uncle Nicholas did, too, make it. A long time ago he gave me these animals for my birthday."

Considering Amanda was only five, Jaci had to smile over her use of "a long time ago". Still, if Amanda said Nicholas made these things, she knew it was fact. She was impressed.

"Look, Miss Eastman, I made a sky scratcher," Amanda said with excitement, calling her attention back to the stack of blocks.

"That's skyscraper, Sweetie," she responded, smiling at Amanda's mispronouncement. Of course, she was happy that Nicholas didn't hear, for she wasn't sure the word was in existence in this time.

Jaci decided she might be warmer sitting on the floor beside Amanda. She gathered her skirts and slid off the rocker, crossing her legs Indian style beneath the piles of wool she wore. Idly, she stacked and unstacked blocks and other scraps of wood that Amanda used to create imaginary monsters. Without realizing it, Nicholas had provided his niece with the best learning tools possible--bits and pieces of wood--which allowed Amanda to stretch her imagination.

Jaci glanced down. While her mind had meandered, she had stuck small, notched sticks together to form what looked like an airplane with two wings. Idly, she moved her hand back and forth, making the little plane "fly."

"What's that?" Amanda scooted over and looked curiously at her creation. Jaci chewed on her bottom lip, wondering whether to talk to Amanda about airplanes. She wouldn't have to say anything about the date the Wright Brothers flew, which was another thirty years into the future. Perhaps the child would think of it as a legend, like the ones she had told her at other times.

The clock in the hallway chimed the hour. "I think I have a good nap time story for you," she said, struggling to get up from the floor without tripping on her skirts and throwing herself into the fire.

"Aw, do I have to take a nap?" Amanda argued, even though her eyes drooped and she yawned in the middle of speaking.

"If you want to hear the story of this, you do." Jaci flew the little airplane under her nose, turning and pretending to fly it over to the small bed on which Amanda slept. "Quickly pick up your toys, or there won't be time."

It took no time at all for Amanda to toss her toys back into the box and close the lid. Jaci helped her out of her dress and shoes and she scooted beneath the covers. She reached out and took the airplane and waved it back and forth as she had seen Jaci do.

"Does it make a noise, like the animals?"

"Yes, it does." Jaci scrunched up her face, trying to figure out how she would explain it. "It makes an engine noise."

Amanda looked at her blankly, so Jaci took her wrist and moved it back and forth in the motion of the plane, imitating the sound of an engine.

She sat on the edge of the bed and began her story. "Once upon a time, there were two brothers named Orville and Wilbur."

"Like Uncle Nicholas and my papa?"

"Yes, but these brothers owned a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio, instead of a horse farm."

"Bicycle? Molly saw one in Philadelphia and they're terribly dangerous and not at all the proper thing for a lady to ride." Amanda shook her head as she spoke and Jaci thought her much too wise for five years of age.

Deciding to hurry the story along, she said, "They also had a sister named Catherine."

"Like me," Amanda squealed. "I have Uncle Nicholas and papa. I'm not the sister, but it is close to the same, isn't it?" Before Jaci could answer, she continued, "Do they take care of her? Catherine, I mean?"

"Yes, of course they take care of her, just like you. Now, if you're going to keep interrupting me, I won't be able to tell you the story of the airplane."

"Airplane. That's what it's called?"

Jaci sighed and Amanda got the message, settling back on the bed.

"Orville and Wilbur had a bicycle shop where they sold and fixed things, but they decided to build an airplane that they flew through the air."

"Why?" Amanda breathed the single word in wide-eyed awe. "How could they do that? Nothing flies."

"Birds do," Jaci answered. "You see, one day their father bought them a little toy. It was a bird that the boys wound up and the wings would flap and the toy would fly through the air."

"Oh, my." The very idea must have overwhelmed Amanda, for she lay there with her mouth open. Jaci decided not to go into a lot of particulars.

"The Wright Brothers studied hard and made little airplanes they called gliders before making a larger one. Finally, they put an engine on it and went to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. They took turns flying through the air."

"What about their sister? What about Catherine?" Being a girl, apparently the sister was more important to Amanda than the idea of flying through the air.

"Wilbur and Orville took Catherine for rides in the airplane. And when the boys got hurt flying their airplane, Catherine would help take care of them."

Amanda yawned and closed her eyes, her fingers still wrapped around the wooden plane. "It's nice to have somebody take care of you."

Jaci leaned forward and kissed her brow. "Yes, it definitely has its advantages."

Jaci tiptoed across the room, turning to the sleeping child as she pulled the door shut. Satisfied that she would sleep a few hours at least, she turned to go to the kitchen for coffee.

"Who
are
you?"

Jaci clamped a hand to her mouth to keep from screaming. Pure reflex brought her other hand up to push against Nicholas's shoulder. "Good Lord, you scared me to death."

"Answer me." He grabbed her extended hand tightly.

"Shh...." She put a finger to her lips and walked down the hall away from Amanda's door. Since Nicholas clutched her wrist, she figured he'd follow.

He did, but when he thought they had gone far enough, he pulled her to a halt.

"Miss Eastman, I couldn't help overhearing your story. I can certainly appreciate the legends you have recited before to my niece. And while such stories don't have any basis in fact, they are somewhat understandable. This time, however, I must question telling her a story of such outlandish proportions. Flying ships, indeed."

She jerked her hand out of his grip, both angered at his highhandedness and slightly frightened that he had heard a story about the future. She would have to bluff her way out of it.

"It was only a make-believe story about something that might happen in the future. Maybe some day we'll fly--" At his look of outright disbelief, she thought again. There must be something she could.... "You don't recall the story of Icarus and Daedalus?" Were those the names of the Greek mythology characters? She noticed his hesitation and breathed a little sigh of relief. Still, he squinted at her with suspicion.

"What about balloons--hot air balloons?" She was grasping at straws.

"Do you perhaps refer to the Confederate's attempt to construct a spy balloon during the war? The myriad display of the ladies' silk ball gowns, sewn together to make a balloon which was captured before they hauled it a mile up river?" For a man who espoused the fact that the war was over, she thought his tone held quite a bit of northern arrogance.

She tried to change the subject. "Yes, well, it doesn't matter. It was simply a story."

"Ah, Miss Eastman, but it does matter. A balloon is a far cry from a machine that flies through the air with an engine attached."

She had begun to hate it when he called her Miss Eastman. It always meant she was in trouble.

Looking up, she found his gaze intent on her face, as though trying to see inside her head to where her memories hid. She stared at him, hoping he would accept the story, and her.

"Who
are
you?" he asked again, slowly shaking his head in disbelief.

He had asked her that question before, and each time she had answered with less and less information. After all, he didn't believe her, anyway. The first time she had said she was from the future, he had accused her of being addlebrained. What good would it do to explain?

"I just am." She looked at him sadly. In the three months she had lived at Wildwood, she had come to care about its occupants--all of them, and yet she still didn't understand the significance she played in this household. Was she to spend the rest of her life here, baby-sitting his niece, growing old in a world still very foreign to her?

She didn't wait for him to dismiss her. She turned and hurried to her own room, quietly closing the door behind her. She didn't want to forget who she was, nor the world from which she had come. Yet every time she let a little bit escape through stories to Amanda, she got caught. How was she to keep her memories alive?

* * *

Jaci should have known that walking away wouldn't end their discussion if Nicholas deemed it incomplete. This morning when Molly came to her room and said Mister Westbrooke requested her presence, she realized she had only postponed the inevitable.

As she walked downstairs to the study, she tried to come up with a logical explanation for the stories she told Amanda. However, there was nothing logical about motorized flying machines in an era where the word
horsepower
was taken literally.

Nicholas bid her enter when she knocked on the door, and he immediately rose from his chair. He looked quite handsome, his dark hair pulled back and the gray streaks adding to his sophisticated appearance. In the warmth created by a glowing fire, he had forgone his jacket, his shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal strong arms lightly sprinkled with dark hair. His casual attire added to his charm, and to her nervousness.

"Miss Eastman, how pleasant of you to pay me this visit." He motioned her towards the chairs by the fire.

"You
requested
my presence."

"Ah, yes, but of late I seem to be ignored in my own house when the need suits." He grinned at her, and she couldn't help but smile back.

She seated herself, gracefully sliding back from the edge until she came to rest against the velvet of the cushion. He appeared to be in a good mood, and she sincerely hoped that was a good omen. She'd soon find out. "I thought you were going to call me Jaci?"

"I believe I did say that at one point, didn't I?" He had seated himself across from her, propping one booted foot over the other knee, his fingers steepled in front of his lips. He had such a look of concentration that Jaci soon began to squirm, feeling like a bug under a magnifying glass.

"You and I have had some lively debates, have we not?" he asked, his expression not varying or giving anything away.

She didn't know whether he was angry, upset, or merely curious. Until she determined the exact direction of this conversation, she decided to answer with a simple, "Yes."

"While your stories to Amanda are creative, I hesitate to have her head full of nonsense like Indians in the sky, and now flying machines."

She straightened. So that was the topic of conversation today. Perhaps it was time to see exactly how open-minded Mister Nicholas Westbrooke was. "What if they're not nonsense?"

"Come now. I know there have been attempts, but no one has ever created a motorized flying machine. Are you telling me that the Wright brothers have done so? Why haven't I heard about it?"

"Not
have
done so. They will do it." She spoke barely above a whisper, but he sprang on her words.

"You're saying it will happen in the future. You're speaking again about being from the future?" His voice rose.

She sat with head bowed, staring at her fingers entwined in her lap. She wouldn't lie, but she sincerely hoped he would drop this particular discussion. There was nothing she could do about her origins, and nothing he could do about getting her back there. She didn't want him angry enough to send her away from Wildwood.

Nicholas stood and began to pace in front of the fireplace. His next words caught her totally by surprise. "Let me play the devil's advocate for a moment. I don't believe you, mind, but just suppose--"

She jerked her head up to stare at him.

"Suppose you are from the future. Why don't you invent a way to get yourself back? I mean, surely there are things you have in your time which we have not been blessed with yet."

His sarcasm wasn't lost on her. If she could, perhaps she should invent something that would put him in his proper place. However, not only did she not have the knowledge to invent anything--not even fast speed film, and photography was her love--but what if she should somehow change the course of history?

What if--she voiced her thoughts. "If I invented something early, or somehow altered events that made an impact on history, it might change my own history as well. I mean, suppose whatever I did somehow altered the history of Texas, and because I messed with things here, I wasn't born when I actually was. I wouldn't exist then--in the future--so how could I slip back through time and end up here?"

As she spoke, Nicholas had come to stand in front of her, hands locked behind him and an incredible look on his face. She grimaced. "This is very confusing. Does it make any sense at all?"

"Somehow, I understand what you're saying, and that worries me no end." His high brow wrinkled as he frowned.

"So, what happens now?"

"I am still not convinced that what you say is true." When she started to protest, he held up a hand. "I said I understood your confusion, but whether such a concept as time travel could actually be accomplished or not--" He shrugged those eloquent shoulders and shook his head, his hair picking up highlights from the fire. "I think that blow to the head you received when you landed among my horses did more damage than we thought."