Timeless (8 page)

Michele stopped short, taken aback. And then she heard Dorothy moan in a hoarse voice, “We should have told her.…” Or was it
“shouldn’t
have told her”? Michele couldn’t quite make out the exact words. And did the “her” refer to Michele or Marion? Michele’s head spun with questions, but one fact was certain: the stoic, composed Dorothy she had met was a facade. It was clear that her grandmother wasn’t well at all.

Walter murmured something in his low voice that Michele couldn’t hear. She walked up to the master bedroom door, but when she reached it, she stood uncertainly in place. What could she do? Barge in and ask what was going on?

“No, Walter! It hurts when I look at her—it’s like there’s a ghost in the house,” Dorothy burst out.

Michele gasped and started to back away from the door. But just then, the door flew open. Walter stood staring at her in shock.

“What are you doing eavesdropping?” he snapped.

“I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to—I heard crying,” Michele babbled.

“Your grandmother is not herself right now,” Walter said in a softer tone. “She’s grieving for Marion. As we all are.”

Michele nodded, desperate to get away. “I’m going back to my room now—sorry.”

Without looking back, Michele turned and took off for her room, tears springing to her eyes. She suddenly felt afraid of her grandparents, and despite what they said to the contrary, she
had a strong sense that she wasn’t really wanted here. One thing was for sure: Michele was determined to stay away from them as much as possible.

Michele lay on her stomach, her notebook propped up on her pillow, as she tried to write. She chewed anxiously on the end of her pencil, wondering if she had lost her talent along with her mom. She hadn’t been able to write one decent line since Marion had died.

Heavy rain pounded outside, and the gray sky lent an eerie hue to her bedroom. Michele shivered, pulling her robe more tightly around her shoulders. A glance at the mantel clock atop her fireplace showed that it was just after six-thirty. The next day was Monday, October eleventh—her first day at Berkshire High School. With that miserable thought, Michele flung her notepad and pen across the room, where they just missed her desk.

She wondered, for what felt like the millionth time, how her mom could
ever
have imagined that Michele would fit in or be comfortable in this new world.
How could she not even
tell
me she was naming her parents as my guardians in her will?
Michele had never known Marion to keep secrets from her. Why now, when she had no way of uncovering the truth?

Michele lay on her bed, staring into space and trying to quiet her frantic mind. And that was when she saw it, something she hadn’t noticed before: a lock on the bottom drawer of her antique desk.

Curious, Michele got up and rattled the knob of the locked
drawer. A thudding sounded inside, and Michele felt a flare of interest. Something heavy was locked in that drawer. What could it be?

Michele grabbed a couple of hairpins off her vanity table and stuck them inside the lock, wiggling them around, but to no avail. The lock stayed firm.
Oh well
, she thought with disappointment. Just as she was heading back to bed to continue her wallowing, she saw the key from her father twitch, ever so slightly, on her bureau—just as it had done the day before. But she had to be imagining it … right?

Michele sank back onto the bed, eyeing the key warily. Suddenly there it was again—the key twitching,
moving
from left to right. Michele yelped, scrambling back in terror.
Am I going crazy?
she thought fearfully.
Isn’t this what happens when people lose their minds?

The key continued its strange movements, as if it were anxious to get Michele’s attention. Michele pinched herself as hard as she could and flinched from the pain. She definitely wasn’t dreaming.

Her gaze fell on the locked drawer. As she glanced back at the animated key, an idea flickered in her mind. It was crazy … but then, she had to try something to stop the key’s spasmodic movements.

Steeling herself, she walked over to the bureau. She squeezed her eyes shut as she reached for the key. It stopped moving and she picked it up. Barely able to exhale, Michele approached the desk. With a shaky hand, she tried to fit the key in the lock.

The key burst to life. Michele cried out in shock, stumbling backward, as the key didn’t fit into the lock but instead
melded
to it like a magnet, sparking and moving as if it contained a hidden battery.

The desk drawer swung open, the key falling forward into it. At first Michele was too afraid to look inside. What other bit of crazy witchcraft or voodoo could be waiting there for her? But her curiosity got the best of her, and she gingerly took a peek.

Lying flat in the drawer was an ancient-looking leather-bound journal. The skeleton key was pressed to it like a paperweight. Michele’s heart raced. Had this journal belonged to one of her parents? Were they trying to communicate with her somehow? She quickly stuck the key into her pocket and opened the worn and dusty diary. But to her disappointment, the name “Clara” was engraved in calligraphy on the inside cover. Beside that was written the year—
1910
. Michele flipped open the diary to the first yellowed page.

10/10/10

Today began just like any other day, but it quickly turned into much the opposite.…

As Michele stared at the date, her jaw dropped. Today was also 10/10/10—October 10, 2010!

Just then, the gold mantel clock sounded a chime. And suddenly Michele had the inexplicable feeling that her hands were stuck to the diary pages. She tried to pry them off, but she couldn’t let go!
What is this?
she thought anxiously as she continued her attempts to yank her hands off the diary.
Did the pages turn to glue over the past century or what?

In the most terrifying motion Michele had ever experienced, the diary seemed to
pull
her into its binding, and she found herself falling headfirst into an abyss of pages. She screamed at the top of her lungs, her stomach swooping sickeningly, as though she were on an upside-down roller coaster.

“Help!”
she shrieked. “What’s happening to me?”

She was swimming now, in a sea of papers and ink, as the diary had somehow enlarged to a monstrous size, able to swallow her whole. Then the diary pages vanished, and Michele screamed again as her body involuntarily spun and swirled around her bedroom—a bedroom that seemed to change with every glance, strange-looking figures entering and disappearing at the speed of light. The room seemed to turn older and older as she spun, and without warning, the spinning stopped and everything was once again clear and in focus.

Michele hit the floor with a thud. The scream she heard when she landed was not her own.

Standing right in front of Michele was a waif of a girl with pale skin, red hair tied back in a braid, and green eyes. She looked just like the painting of Clara Windsor hanging in Michele’s room, but unlike the aristocrat in a sumptuous ball gown, this pale-faced girl wore a ratty, ill-fitting black dress and looked entirely out of place in the elegant bedroom. Michele scrambled to her feet in terror, but she fell to the carpeted floor again, dizzy and weak.

Clara stared down at Michele, her eyes wild.

“What—who—
who are you?
” she gasped. “Wherever did you come from?!”

“I—what are
you—”
Michele could barely speak as she
gaped at Clara. She looked frantically around the room. Every trace of modern life was gone. Michele’s desk, laptop, and iPod were all missing, and her toiletries on the vanity table had been replaced with funny-looking powders and thick hairbrushes. Instead of cars whizzing by outside the window, Michele could have sworn she heard the clip-clop of
horses
trotting up Fifth Avenue. What
was
this?

Suddenly, a young woman burst into the room, her expression alarmed. She wore a maid’s uniform of a plain black dress with a starched white apron.

“Miss Clara! What is it? What’s the matter?”

Clara shakily pointed at Michele. “She—she appeared in my bedroom like an apparition!
How did she get in here?”

The maid frowned. “I don’t understand what you speak of, miss.”

“Why her! The girl in the abominable clothing, right there!” Clara’s voice was hysterical.

“Miss … nobody is there,” the maid said after a pause. She eyed Clara with concern. “Now, you’ve had a very strange and exciting day, and it’s to be expected that your imagination would run away with you after all that. It’s late. You must lie down and get some sleep before you have a fainting spell.”

“You don’t … you don’t see her?” Clara asked, her voice rising higher in panic.

“No, Miss Clara. There is nobody there,” the maid answered patiently. “Would you like me to bring you up some tea or warm milk to help you calm yourself? Perhaps some smelling salts?”

“No … No, that’s quite all right, thank you,” Clara said,
attempting to collect herself. “I’ll just be off to bed, then. You’re right. I must be feeling faint.”

The maid gave her a reassuring smile. “Good night, miss. Ring the bell if you need anything. Rest well, and do feel better.”

After the maid had shut the door behind her, Clara fixed her attention back on Michele, looking fearful. “Why could she not see you? Are you a ghost? Have I gone mad?”

Michele pinched herself again, and the pain followed on cue. As she stared at the crystal clear scene in front of her, she felt her stomach drop further in alarm. Was it possible that she
wasn’t
hallucinating all this? But in what alternate universe
could
this be real?

“What year is it?” she asked, though she was afraid she already knew what Clara’s answer would be.

“Why, 1910, of course,” Clara replied, giving Michele an aggrieved look. “But please,
what are you?
What do you want with me?”

Michele stared back at Clara, her mind whirring. How could she possibly have traveled back in time
one hundred years?
Why in the world had she been sent here? And how was she going to answer her terrified great-great-aunt? She couldn’t very well say, “Actually, I’m one of your relatives from the future. A hundred years in the future, to be exact.” So Michele said the first thing that popped into her head: “Yeah, I am, um, a ghost. My name is Michele.”
After all, I’m not technically alive yet
, she thought grimly.

Clara let out a frightened moan.

“No, I’m a good ghost. More like a spirit,” Michele hurriedly added. “You know, like Casper.”

Clara looked blankly at her, and Michele realized that Casper the Friendly Ghost probably hadn’t been created yet.

“What I mean is … I’m here to help you.” Michele thought this was possibly the dumbest thing she could have come up with, but to her surprise, the fear seemed to leave Clara’s eyes at these words, and she looked at Michele eagerly.

“Did my mother send you?” Clara whispered, her face brimming with hope.

“What? I—I don’t know,” Michele stammered.

“I was just now praying for her to help me—or to send help for me,” Clara said.

“Wait … so your mom died too?” Michele asked. This could not be eerier or more unbelievable. “What did you want help for?”

Clara took a deep breath and then told Michele her story. As Clara spoke, Michele could see the words in her mind, written in Clara’s handwriting. She remembered that these were the words on the pages of the October 10, 1910, diary entry that she had been reading when she’d been sent back in time.

“Tonight you see me surrounded by gilt and glamour … but until now, all I’ve ever known is the grime and grit of the streets,” Clara began. “While other girls my age were experiencing their first kisses and first automobile rides, I spent my days at the local orphanage—my home since my parents died when I was little. All I’ve ever had is cleverness. I tutored the other orphans to earn my room and board, and I taught myself through books at the library … my one safe haven.

“Today began just like any other day, but it quickly turned into much the opposite when the butler from the famous
Windsor family made a surprise appearance at the orphanage. It happened that the family patriarch, George Windsor, had somehow learned of my existence and insisted on taking me in, as a foster daughter. I cannot understand it, and from what I am told, it sounds as if I am being given a trial family. But who would take in a teenager, and a stranger at that? What do they want with
me
?

“I wasn’t permitted to object or question it. I was simply ordered to pack my bags and leave the only home I’ve ever known. I arrived and my new family was waiting for me in the Grand Hall. Now I have a railroad-president father, a socialite mother, an eighteen-year-old brother, and two sisters: seventeen-year-old Violet and ten-year-old Frances. But none of these people besides Mr. Windsor seems to want me here. I do believe the others want me out. So then, what is going to happen to me? Why am I here?”