Somewhere in Time (The Crosse Harbor Time Travel Trilogy) (38 page)

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 20th 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."

Abigail took a step backward. "No."

"Help me get down from this tree and I'll give you something special."

"You're a monster," Abigail said. "I want you to go away."

"Hey, I may not be a
Vogue
model but isn't that monster business getting kind of personal?"

Abigail clutched Lucy tighter. She didn't understand everything the monster said but she had to pretend she did. You had to be clever to best them. "If you're not a monster, then what are you?"

#

Somewhere between "Hello, little girl," and "Bring me a ladder," Dakota had lost total control of the situation. The sky was growing darker, the wind was howling and, unless she missed her guess, those were snowflakes drifting past her nose.

"Listen, kid, think of me as your fairy godmother. Now will you please find somebody to help me down from this tree?" Historically fairy godmothers got good press and from the look of interest in the kid's eyes she'd said the right thing.

"Are you a fairy godmother like in Cook's stories?"

"Absolutely."

Now all she had to do was provide some physical evidence. Whispering a silent prayer to the goddess of women-stuck-in-maple-trees, Dakota unloosed her death grip and waved her left hand in the air.

Her six silver rings reflected the fading light and she milked the effect for all it was worth, moving her hand in a wide arc like a crazed traffic cop. Her crystal bracelets proved even better. The kid seemed downright spellbound as the stones refracted the light into arrows of pure color.

Thank God good taste had never marred her talent for overstatement.

"Are they magic?" The child's tone was downright reverential.

In for a penny, in for a pound.
"Yes, and if you help me get down from this tree, I'll prove it to you." How hard could it be to dazzle a little girl with an eye for gaudy costume jewelry?

"If they're magic, why can't they get you down from the tree?"

"They're a different kind of magic," she hedged. A logical kid. Just her luck. "They don't do tree magic."

"You're not a
real
fairy godmother."

Dakota tried to look demure. "Why do you say that?"

"Fairy godmothers are pretty."

"Like you're another Shirley Temple?" she muttered under her breath. She forced herself to bestow her best smile on the little darling. "Maybe I'm a different kind of fairy godmother."

"No." The child shook her head. "There is only one kind."

"Listen, kid, I'm trying real hard, but you're making it awfully tough to like you."

"I do not like you either." The little girl's trembling chin punctuated the words.

Dakota cautiously shifted her weight over to a lower branch and pretended the creaking noise wasn't a portent of disaster. "You're not going to cry, are you?"

On cue the kid's eyes flooded with tears.

Dakota wrapped her legs around the trunk of the tree and eased herself down a good eighteen inches to another miserably scrawny branch. "There's nothing to cry about."
At least nobody called you a monster.

The kid's mouth opened wide and she let loose with a wail loud enough to be heard in the next county.

"Jeez." Dakota grabbed for the next branch down and breathed a sigh of relief when it didn't crack beneath her weight.
Maybe if you'd paid more attention to aerobic conditioning and less to aerobic eating...
"Crying never solved anything. Why don't you tell me what's wrong?"

The child clutched her pathetic excuse for a doll and mumbled something.

Dakota leaned forward. "What was that?"

"Papa doesn't..." The rest of the sentence was whispered into the doll's head and punctuated by noisy sobs.

Stay out of it, Dakota. Whatever it is, keep your nose out of it.
Kids weren't her strong suit. Most people found their honesty charming but it scared the hell out of Dakota.

The branch creaked loudly. "What about your papa...?"
Does he have a nice ladder I could borrow?

The plain little girl fixed her with an unnervingly adult gaze. "Papa doesn't like me because I'm not pretty."

That was quite a non sequitur. It took Dakota a moment to get her bearings. "I'm sure you're wrong."

"Mrs. O'Gorman says it's so. And so does Rosie and William and Cook--"

"What does your father say about this?"

"He says I'm incor--"

"Incorrigible?"

The kid nodded. "And that I must leave tomorrow for the Girls School of the Sacred Heart in Boston."

Dakota sighed. It was straight from a segment on
Oprah.
"And you were running away?"

"I won't go away to Boston. Mama ran away and that's when Papa stopped loving me."

Dakota's heart lurched.
I don't want to hear this.
She had her own thwarted destiny to worry about. She didn't need the child's problems too. Kids got annoyed with their parents every day of the week then forgot their annoyance by bedtime. "Your mother ran away?"

"To Philadelphia."

Dakota took a deep breath. Now they were getting somewhere. "And where do you live?"

The child pointed beyond the clearing to the west. "The big white house."

"And where is the big white house?"

"It's--" The child froze and tilted her head.

"What's the matter?" Fear rippled up Dakota's spine. She'd heard the noise too. "That's only the wind in the trees." She winced as the branch trembled. "Hey, wait a minute! Where are you going? Don't--"

Too late. The little girl vanished back into the woods as the branch Dakota was clutching groaned, cracked in two, and sent her crashing the rest of the way to the ground.