The Day Before Forever (5 page)

Alanna shrugged, not missing a beat. “That's why we keep you guys around.”

“Let's see,” Peter said, interrupting the conversation. “It's on this street here.”

“The hostel?” I asked.

“Yeah, it's hard to find. We kept walking past it on our first day here. There's only one sign—”

“There it is.” Alanna cut Peter off, pointing to a tall, narrow sign reading The Brock Terrace Hostel.

There was a narrow monochrome door to match the plain sign. Peter was right; it was easy to miss if you didn't know what you were looking for.

“Watch your feet,” Alanna said, hopping over the one step that led up to the door.

I wasn't sure how run-down or just plain
off
this place would look, but when she pushed open the door I was pleasantly surprised firstly by how clean it looked.

The door opened to a parlor of some sort. It was so small that the four of us took up most of the space available.

Like the sign and the door outside, the tiny front room was completely black and white. A white table was facing us, small enough to fit into the tiny room and with barely enough space for a black computer monitor and a small silver bell. Behind it were two white doors I supposed led to the rest of the hostel. Two identical chairs were placed on either side of the door where we were standing. They were wooden and just painted black, so they didn't look particularly inviting.

Alanna went up to the desk and hit the bell.

It didn't take too long for us to hear the shuffle of feet from the next room. One of the white doors opened. A burly man with a shaved head and a beard the same size as his face squeezed out of the door.

“Alanna! Peter!” The man clapped Peter on his back. “And
you brought friends. Wonderful!” He sat on a stool on the other side of the desk. “What can I do for you?”

Nothing about this man matched the decor of the place. He wore a green flannel shirt, tucked into well-worn jeans, all held up by a thick belt around his middle. The silver belt buckle gleamed as much as his shaven head did. His eyes squinted at us, and I was sure he was smiling, but his heavy beard hid everything from view.

“We wanted to see if we could get a place for our friends, Henley and Rebecca,” Alanna said.

“I'm afraid it's a bit last minute—” Henley started.

“Nonsense!” the man said. “The best traveling is done last minute. You can't plan out adventure.” He began digging through the drawers on his side of the desk. “Henley, you said?”

“Henley Beauford.”

“And Rebecca Hatfield,” I volunteered.

“I'm Aaron. I'm guessing you'd like a private room?” he asked. “As opposed to a bed in one of the dorms?”

“That would be preferable,” Henley said.

The man pulled out a few papers and started jotting down some information. “And how would you like to pay for the room? Credit card? Traveler's checks? We can even do cash if that's more your thing.”

Henley didn't even hesitate. “Cash, if that's all right.”

“Certainly.” Aaron turned the form he was filling out toward us. “Just sign here. It's thirty pounds a night. How many nights are you staying with us?”

“We're still not sure,” I said. “Maybe a week?”

I knew staying a week would be hard on us financially, but I
hoped that would buy us time to find additional funds somehow. Money was crucial to get around. And there was no telling when we'd need money suddenly. If either of us got in trouble with the law because we weren't even supposed to be alive in this time period, or if we needed a quick getaway—that would all require money.

I knew I couldn't stay in this time period too long either. That was one of the side effects of immortality: keep time traveling or slowly lose my grip on reality and ultimately be driven insane.

“Of course. That's fine. Let's put you down for a week, and you can always extend your stay with us.” Aaron made a note of that on the form. “Would you like to pay for that week up front, or just pay the hundred-pound deposit first?”

“We'd best pay the deposit first.” Henley paused before quickly clarifying. “We need to get the cash first.”

“Well, you can always pay by card,” Aaron said. “Save you a trip.”

Henley saw his mistake. “W-we'd just rather pay in cash.”

Aaron gave us a quizzical look but didn't say anything more. “Here are your room keys.”

He handed us each a metal key with a wooden tag attached. The wooden tags had a painting of a flower. “Blue Flax,” it read.

“These are beautiful,” I said.

“Thank you. I did the paintings myself. We named the private rooms after flowers.”

Henley counted out a hundred pounds and handed it across the desk.

“Very well,” Aaron said, putting the money away in a locked
drawer. “Shall I show you to your room?”

We parted ways with Alanna and Peter.

“Why don't you come down when you're ready for dinner?” Alanna said. “We can meet here in about an hour? Is that reasonable?”

We assured her that was fine and followed Aaron out the white door closest to us.

Aaron led us down a cramped corridor. It was so narrow that his shoulders took up most of the room, and I couldn't see ahead of him to where we were going.

“Your room, Blue Flax, is the first door to the left after you turn the corner,” he said.

Sure enough, the bend in the hallway came and we stopped in front of a white door with small painted blue flowers spanning the wood.

“Why don't you try your key?”

I had almost forgotten that I was holding it.

The room was simple enough—a bed, a blue bedside table, a freestanding wardrobe in the corner, and a rickety door I assumed led to the bathroom. The bedside table had an alarm clock set on it—nothing fancy. The walls were the same stark white as the entrance room. The hardwood floors creaked ever so slightly as Henley stepped across the room to unload the bag of clothes he had been holding onto the bed. As he did so, the newspaper I had stuck into the bag fell out.

“This is perfect,” I told Aaron.

“If you like, we have optional cleaning—just a daily tidying up and a weekly change of sheets, if you end up staying with us that long. Of course, it's an extra charge, but would you be
interested?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but Henley responded before I could. “No, we're fine.”

“Thank you, though,” I tacked onto the end of his sentence. I hoped that made it sound less curt.

“Very well,” Aaron said, backing out of the door. “If you need anything, do stop by the front desk and let me know.”

There was a click as the door shut behind him, and finally Henley and I were alone.

I inadvertently yawned.

“That's exactly how I feel about today,” Henley said. He took a seat on the edge of the bed and kicked off his shoes.

“The day's not over yet.” I reminded him we had promised to meet up with Alanna and Peter shortly.

“They're almost . . .
too
helpful,” Henley said.

I walked over to the bed and sat next to him on the bright-red quilt pulled taut over white sheets. The bed was so small that I was squished into his side.

“I think they mean well, though,” I said. “Besides, they've been so helpful. It would have taken us twice as long to find a place to stay tonight.”

“I know . . . I just can't help being cautious.”

Henley said “cautious,” but I knew it was more a sort of paranoia. I knew that because I had the same feeling in the bottom of my stomach. It was a feeling that made it hard to trust anyone, really. First the whole immortality thing, then this murderer getting closer to me—it was enough to set anyone on edge, but I didn't want it to be a reason to not trust anyone ever again.

“Some people are just good people,” I said.

Henley took a moment to lie back on his forearms. I felt the bed shift with his body weight, and was comforted by feeling him—all of him—right next to me.

Henley spoke slowly. It was as if we both thought that we could figure out a plan of action if he just stretched his words enough.

It was useless to say “I don't know,” so we sat there in silence thinking through all the possible things we could do.

“We need to get home,” I finally said.

“Home? You mean Miss Hatfield's house?” Henley said.

He forgot it was my house too. And in some ways, his only home now as well. We didn't have anything else.

“The same house the killer trashed? He knows where you
live.
He knows
exactly
where to find you, Rebecca.”

“Well, do you have any better ideas?” I asked.

“We have to get away,” he said.

“That doesn't really answer the question of where we're going, does it?”

“We can't just stay here.”

I knew he was right.

Henley continued. “It's a foreign country. We know no one. We may not be close in time to the killer, but we're close geographically.”

The last we saw of the murderer had been in the Tudor court in England. This wasn't 1527, but it was still the same country and location.

“I guess we need to make it back to the States,” I said. “But to do anything, we need money.”

“We currently have three hundred and sixty-four pounds,”
Henley said.

“And ten dollars,” I reminded him.

There was a pause.

“That deposit took a lot of our money,” I said.

“There wasn't much to begin with.”

And it wasn't even our money
, I added mentally.

I got up from the bed and reached for the bag on the other side of Henley. Wordlessly, I started going through the clothing we had bought and began ripping the tags off.

“What did you get for yourself?” I asked, even though I was already pulling out the clothing Henley had bought.

“Just a shirt and some jeans,” Henley said. He crossed his arms behind his head to prop himself up. “Jeans seem very popular here. Have you seen how many people are wearing them? It's as if it's mandated somewhere that every second person must be wearing jeans when in a group in public.”

“I guess it's just like how everyone wore gloves in your time,” I said, still tearing off tags.

Henley screwed up his face. “No . . . no, it's different.”

I tried not to laugh. He seemed convinced.

I picked up the now slightly crumpled newspaper that lay limply on the other side of the bed. I tossed it to Henley.

“You might as well read up on current news and learn something useful instead of just lying there.” I was teasing, but Henley actually picked up the paper and started reading it intently.

I took the bright-green backpack we had bought and looked over its many zippers. It might have been conspicuous, but at least it had many pockets. The biggest compartment looked spacious enough to hold the clock. After losing it in Tudor England,
there was no way I was going to leave it in the hostel room when we went out.

Picking up the clock from the pile of things on the bed, I tried it for size. It fit well.

Deciding it would probably be best to change into something more contemporary, I took off the belt around my waist and the flimsy linen shift I was wearing. I oddly didn't feel concerned at all about changing in front of Henley. Though things were a little different because he had a body now, I figured he had seen everything before. When he had been without a body, he probably couldn't help but see everyone change. I giggled at the thought.

Looking at my choices in front of me, I settled for what Alanna had called a “crop top” and the jeans.

Try as I might—and I did try very hard to tug the shirt down—the top seemed to only half cover me.

I heard Henley laugh behind me, and I turned.

“What?” I asked.

“I think that's how it's supposed to be worn,” he said, eyeing me. “I'm not the biggest fan of jeans, but I like them on you.”

“I thought I'd change for dinner so we don't stick out as much.”

“I always miss the best things,” Henley grumbled. “Like you changing . . .”

Apparently he'd been too engrossed in the paper. I shook my head at him, but a giggle slipped by.

“From the 1900s or not, I
am
a man.” Henley folded the newspaper.

“I'm quite sure you saw your fair share when you were
bodiless like a ghost.”

“You forget that I'm also a gentleman!”

He feigned feeling hurt, and I threw the nearest piece of clothing I could find at him. It landed harmlessly in his lap. Luckily for him, it was his jeans.

I changed the subject. “Did you learn anything useful from reading the paper?”

“Everyone's worried about the government and the economy. It's the same in every time.” Henley stood up.

“So nothing interesting?”

“I didn't say that,” Henley said. He started taking off his shirt. “I figured out how we're going to get more money.”

“What are you doing?”

Henley froze. “The same as you. Changing.”

“I— But can't you wait until I turn around?” I quickly turned my back toward him, but not before he saw how red my cheeks were getting.

“I figured we were close enough for me to change in front of you.” He laughed. “It's not as if we haven't been through centuries of life-or-death situations together.”

“Well—” Somehow it felt different.
This
was different. Henley had to have seen me change a multitude of times when he was without a body. But this was one of the first times I had seen so much of him.

“Well, what? Being hunted by a murderer doesn't faze you as much as a man changing near you?” Henley laughed his full, all-encompassing laugh. It was the kind of laugh that made other people stop and appreciate it. “I hope I never stop being able to make you blush furiously.”