Now and Forever (69 page)

"Lucy!" All thoughts of violence forgotten, Abigail clutched the doll to her breast and began to sob. The tears came all the way from the soles of her feet, big ugly gulps that would have embarrassed her had there been anyone around to hear. Big fat tears rolled down her dirty cheeks and she was glad there was no one there to see her wipe them away with the back of her arm.

The only person on earth who loved her was Lucy and see what she had done to her. Everything Abigail had suspected about herself was true, every terrible thing she'd heard whispered when they thought she wasn't listening. She was as ugly of spirit as she was of face and even Papa was counting the days until she left for the Girls School of the Sacred Heart.

"If only the little one was pretty," Cook had said the other night as she stirred the stew pot bubbling in the grate. "Pretty makes up for a multitude of sins. That might warm his cold heart some."

But Abigail knew she wasn't pretty. Her hair wasn't shiny like gold coins or red as the leaves that had fallen from the trees. It was mud brown, as ordinary as the day was long. And instead of eyes as blue as the sky, hers were round blots as grey and ugly as winter rain. Was it any wonder Papa always frowned whenever she entered a room?

"I'm sorry, Lucy," she wailed, clutching the doll even tighter. She had a mean, wicked temper and now Lucy would be the one to pay the piper. It wasn't fair, it just wasn't--

She tilted her head to the left, listening. What a strange sound that was, a sputtering hiss that made her think of a big tomcat with his back arched, ready to fight. She knew by the clouds towering overhead that a big snow storm was on its way but not even the winds that howled down from the hills made such a horrid noise. Heart thudding inside her chest, she peered into the surrounding woods, afraid she might see a giant peering back at her with fire in his eyes.

Cook had told her a story about a ferocious mean giant who feasted on the bones of wicked Englishmen. Abigail had the feeling a small girl from the colony of New Jersey would make a tasty morsel.

She waited, but the woods remained still and silent. The noise sounded again, louder this time, and Abigail wished she'd stayed closer to home. Hunters trapped bear in these very woods. She tried to imagine what she would do if a snarling, furry beast leaped out from behind a tree, ready to pounce. Maybe if she ran real fast she'd be able to make it back home before anything terrible happened to her

 
She tucked Lucy inside the front of her cotton dress and was about to hike up her skirts and run when she saw the most amazing, the most splendid sight in the world! There, dancing across the tops of the trees, was a big red ball, so big that it blotted out the sky. It moved slowly, hissing as it did, swinging a funny-looking basket beneath it.

She watched, awestruck, as the bright red ball seemed to dip toward her in salute, then suddenly caught a breeze and rose higher and higher until it didn't seem big at all anymore.

"Oh, Lucy," she whispered, her temper and the frigid weather forgotten. "Did you ever see anything so beautiful?" It had hovered over the stand of pines just to the left of the clearing, as if beckoning her to jump in the basket and go off on a grand adventure. And she would have, too, if it hadn't floated away before she could run over and grab hold.

Short legs pumping fast beneath her skirt, she ran toward the trees. If the big red ball returned, she and Lucy would be there waiting and they wouldn't think twice before leaping aboard.

Papa would feel so bad that he'd forget all about that school in Boston and let her stay with him forever. And Mama would hear about her wondrous adventure and she would come back home to stay and the big white house would be filled with laughter the way it used to be.

#

It wasn't like Dakota had never been in a ridiculous situation before.

Just two months ago she'd accepted a blind date with the son of her mother's favorite tarot card reader from south Jersey, a guy named Brick who sold vinyl siding for a living and had all the creative imagination of his namesake. They'd spent a terrific hour and a half discussing the relative merits of faux cedar shakes before Dakota developed a sudden headache and had to cut the evening short.

"You didn't give him a chance," her mother had said in an exasperated tone of voice. "Elly read his palm a week ago Thursday and she swears she saw your name scrawled across his life line."

Which didn't surprise Dakota. Her name was scrawled across the life line of every loser on the Eastern seaboard. As bad as that blind date had been, nothing--not even the time she'd trailed toilet paper from the ladies room at the swanky Palmer Inn--was worse than this.

You didn't need psychic powers to know nothing good ever happened when you threw fate a curve ball.

Anyone with a brain knew her destiny was clearly tied up with Andrew and Shannon's. She'd been fading away like a ghost in an old B movie and she had no doubt she would have vanished into thin air in another moment if she hadn't managed to scramble aboard with Andrew's help. Climbing into that gondola had been the equivalent of psychic CPR.

She glanced at her hands. She couldn't see through them. That had to be a good sign. Wherever she was, she was solidly connected. But where was she? Where were Andrew and Shannon? And, even more important,
when
were they?

Her stomach lurched as she remembered the sickening sound the basket made as it scraped the tops of the trees and the look of fear in Shannon's eyes.

"They're fine," she mumbled. Their destiny had never been in doubt. She was the one who'd been heading home with a bag of jelly donuts, only to find herself propelled headlong through time.

You panicked, kiddo. The second that balloon tilted, you were ready to bail out.

"Ridiculous!" She'd heard that little girl as clearly as she heard her own voice and something, some suppressed maternal instinct, had taken over and forced her to leap from the basket.

You leaped just before it went down, Wylie. You'd have been something on the Titanic.

So she was an idiot. Big deal. A few crossed neurons and she'd conjured up a lost little girl that only Dakota Wylie, Super Librarian, could rescue.

Now, there she was, a good twenty feet off the ground, clinging to the branch of a maple tree that didn't look strong enough to support a blue jay, much less a plump American woman who believed in physical exertion only at gunpoint.

Of course there was always the remote possibility that some kind soul with a reinforced aluminum ladder would come strolling through the woods in search of a damsel in distress.

Why on earth had she eaten that last raspberry jelly donut anyway? Those few ounces of fat and sugar might be enough to send her crashing to the ground. She shifted her weight over to what she prayed was a sturdier limb.

The branch creaked loudly in protest but it held and she breathed a huge sigh of relief. Somebody should invent a way to determine these things without offering yourself up as a human sacrifice.

As it was, if the fall didn't kill her, the weather might. The dark, jagged cloud cover that had rocked the gondola was gone now, replaced by heavy ivory-colored skies that promised snow. Lots of it. Goosebumps marched up and down her arms and her teeth chattered from the cold. Her T-shirt and jeans weren't going to cut it for very long.

Now you've done it, Wylie. Leave it to you to screw with the forces of destiny.

She clung to the branch as a furious blast of wind shook the maple. Maybe she wouldn't have to worry about climbing down from the tree. Another icy gust like that and she'd drop to the ground like an overripe peach. She longed for a down-filled jacket and fur-lined boots. Hard to believe last night she'd been praying for central air-conditioning and something cool to drink.

So now what, hotshot? How are you going to get out of this one?

What if she'd jumped out during the Seventies and was being condemned to a lifetime of disco music and platform shoes? She'd need a shoehorn to get her hips into one of those slinky polyester dance dresses, the kind that required lots of attitude and breasts that saluted the sun.

Well, there was no hope for it. She couldn't hang there like a bat for the rest of her natural life. Those snow clouds lowering overhead meant business and if she was going to find shelter before nightfall, she'd better get to it.

In the next tree a woodpecker tapped relentlessly against the hard wood. The machine gun rat-a-tat-tat provided a counterpoint to the din of two jays squabbling overhead. Another, sweeter sound floated up toward her.

"Oh, Lucy...it was so beautiful!" A child's voice, high and clear.

"Hello!" Dakota called out. "Is somebody there?"

She waited, listening to the quality of the silence. Was she crazy or was it different than it had been a few moments ago?

"I heard you," she continued, trying to sound as friendly as the circumstances would allow. "Don't be shy. I need your help."
And I need it now.

 
She waited, scarcely breathing, as the branch she clung to creaked ominously. Finally she heard the crunch of frozen leaves underfoot as a little girl of no more than five or six stepped into the clearing.

Her brown hair was plaited into two uneven braids that drooped over narrow shoulders. She wore a heavy woolen cloak that brushed her ankles and leather slippers that had seen better days. The cloak was unfastened and Dakota spied a plain cotton dress, faded from many washings. There was nothing of the twentieth century about the child.

Was this the little girl she'd heard just before she leaped from the gondola? She waited for the stirring of her blood, the rush of excitement that always accompanied a leap into another person's mind but there was none.

The girl's narrow face was pale, her nose unremarkable; the last time Dakota had seen eyes that wide and round was at a revival of
Annie
. The child was a little slip of a thing with an air of sadness about her that Dakota could feel in her very bones without benefit of psychic help.

A coincidence,
she thought, looking away. The woods were probably lousy with kids. Just because the Little Match Girl down there had popped up right on cue didn't mean she had anything to do with Dakota.

This couldn't be her destiny. Kids weren't part of her karma. She'd known that since she was fourteen years old, and she'd be willing to bet that not even the fact that she'd barreled through time like a human cannonball could change that fact.

Chapter Two

"I'm up here," an unseen monster called out to Abigail. "In the maple tree."

 
The monster could see her! It made Abigail feel shivery inside, the way she did after Cook told her an Irish ghost story. Even though she knew she shouldn't, she turned toward the voice.

"The
maple
tree, little girl, not the chestnut."

"But the leaves are not--" Abigail pressed her lips together to stop the flow of words. She didn't want the monster to know she couldn't tell a maple from a chestnut without their brightly colored leaves.

"Look right, and then look up! Believe me when I say you can't miss me."

Don't listen to the monster, Abby. You'll be gobbled up like one of Cook's apple pies.

Terrible things happened when you listened to monsters but she didn't know how to say no. Slowly, carefully, she peered up as ordered. "I still cannot see you."

"Don't you watch
Sesame Street
, kid? I said, look right." The monster didn't sound quite so friendly this time.

Abigail popped her thumb into her mouth, the way she always did when she was afraid of something.

"That's it!" the monster bellowed. "The hand you just used...that's your right. Turn that way."

Cautiously Abigail did. Her eyeballs all but popped from their sockets at the sight of the creature with the black curls and white shoes. The monster wasn't so terribly large but it seemed to Abigail she'd never seen feet so big in her entire life. Why, the soles of the monster's shoes were thicker than the feather mattress on her bed!

"So you finally found me."

"Ohh," Abigail said as her breath locked deep inside her chest. The monster sounded like a girl but no one, not even a boy, would have such short and peculiar hair. "Oh my!"

"Look," said the monster, just as pleasant as can be, "this isn't the most comfortable spot in town. Bring me a ladder and then we'll talk."