Time's Echo: A CHRONOS Files Novella (3 page)

"Ladies and gentlemen, I…
am
…the
Amazing
Boudini
. Tonight you will see—"

Easley's eyes are still closed, but his hand goes up,
signaling me to stop. "No, no, no. I don't want to see your card tricks,
rope tricks or the rabbit you've got up your sleeve. Any fool can learn those
and you wouldn't be here if you hadn't mastered them. You'll need ten minutes
of filler before your finale and damned if I care what it is. Just skip to the
main event and don't waste my time with the crap you feed the audience."

I'm kind of relieved. Skipping the other tricks means
there's less chance I'll mess something up. Unfortunately, I practiced the act
in order, so I stand there for a minute, trying to remember the lines I use to
introduce the finale.

To hell with it.
I'll drop the
stage act entirely. Easley's an ass, but he's right about one thing. If I can't
sell it with the finale, it's never going to work. Stage magicians are a dime a
dozen.

I pull the jacket off again, toss it offstage along with my
hat, and climb the steps to the wooden platform behind the coffin. Eliza goes
up the opposite set of stairs, holding two sets of handcuffs and the keys.
Daisy follows a few steps behind me with the other handcuffs and the larger set
of shackles for my ankles.

Holding the first set of cuffs above her head, Eliza yanks
the chain taut several times. Then she pivots to show it from all angles before
starting to attach the cuffs to my wrists.

"Make sure they're tight," Easley chimes in,
actually bothering to open one of his eyes. "We need to see what he can
do."

"Yes, dearest."
She gives
him a smile I hope to God I never get from Kate and ratchets the cuffs another
notch tighter. When the cuffs are snug—a bit too snug—on my forearms, Daisy
follows with the second set, Eliza with the third, and then Daisy attaches the
ankle cuffs.

It's tough to balance in these things, so the girls help me
sit down on the platform. I spin my feet over the edge and then slip down into
the coffin, about six inches below.

As soon as the lid closes, I twist slightly to secure the
latch and pull out the CHRONOS key attached to my belt. I lock in the stable
point on my bed, twenty minutes after I left for the trolley.

Kate has fallen back asleep, with her arm flung over my
pillow, right where I need to land. I scan forward twenty minutes, then half an
hour. Then forty minutes. Her arm is still there. I can feel the coffin moving
forward as Eliza and Daisy roll it toward the audience, and I know I can't
waste any more time hunting for a moment when Kate's not hogging the bed. She's
just going to have to deal with that arm getting a bit squished.

I blink to lock in the location and hear her muffled "
ow
" before my eyes open. She pulls her arm out from
under my neck and rolls toward the wall.  I nudge her with my elbow.

"Hey, sleepyhead."
I
nudge her again. "Wake up and grab the keys, okay? These cuffs aren't as
comfortable as they look. And I want to get back so I can get this over
with."

She yawns and stretches, then climbs over me to grab the key
ring. Her brow creases as she slips the first key into the lock. "Why are
they on so tight? Your arm is all red."

"Easley is a world-class jerk. But I think the job's in
the bag. The last guy quit without notice."

"Yes." She smiles, unfastening the second set.
"Clive the Debonair is now performing at a theater in Woonsocket.
A six-month contract.
It pays surprising well for such a
small venue."

I should have known.

"I'll bet it does." I sigh and slide my hands out
of the cuffs on my forearms, as Kate removes the ankle cuffs. "You
couldn't have told me this?"

"Didn't want you to go in
too
cocky."
She scoops the cuffs off the floor and hands them to me.
"And I did say that you'd get the job, didn't I?"

Kate starts to get back on the bed, but I put my hand on her
shoulder. "Might as well stay put on the floor," I say, tossing her
one of the pillows. "He's going to want to see this at least twice. You
don't want to get squished again, do you?"

"Not unless you're going to stick around long enough to
do it properly this time."

I grin at her and lie back down, holding the cuffs in one
hand as I activate the medallion with the other.
"Patience,
my love.
You need to learn patience."

∞

Easley is staring up at me from the orchestra pit. Standing
in the pit makes him seem even shorter—from up here, I can count the few
remaining strands of hair plastered to the top of his skull. This is the fifth
angle he's chosen to view my finale. In addition to his initial vantage point
near the front, he's watched from stage right, stage left, halfway back in the
audience, and now, from the pit. I wonder if he's planning to climb up and view
the act from the bloody rafters above the auditorium next.

I truly hope not, because I doubt I can make another jump.
If these weren't short, local hops, I'd already be tapped out. It took three
tries for me to get back to the coffin on the last attempt and now I'm wishing
I'd taken Kate's advice and waited there for a few hours to, as she puts it,
"recharge my batteries." But I really want to get this over with.

After a moment of standing there, saying nothing, Easley
disappears around the side of the pit. I hear his feet tapping up a small
flight of stairs, and then he walks over from stage right.

"Eliza!
Daisy!"
He snaps
his fingers as he says each name, as though he has magical powers and can make
them appear before him at will. They
do
appear—Daisy scurrying like a
mouse and Eliza taking her own sweet time about it.

"Bring the damn cuffs! I want him to do it again. Out
here in the open this time, where I can see."

Daisy is already scuttling back to grab the cuffs before I
can answer.

"No, sir.
With all due
respect, that's a trade secret."

He doesn't look convinced, so I add. "It's part of my
agreement with Mr. Houdini. If I break it, you and I both land in court."

Easley thinks about that for a minute, and then waves a hand
at Daisy, shooing her away like a fly. "Be here Friday. By three so you
can get familiar with the girls."

I'm tempted to note that getting familiar with the girls
appears to be
his
specialty. Since that seems unwise under the
circumstances, I just nod and stick out my hand to shake on it.

There's a grease stain from the handcuffs on my shirt, a few
inches above the wrist. Easley's eyes flit over it and down to my outstretched
hand for a second. Then he reaches into his pocket and slaps a dollar bill into
my palm.
"An advance.
Get a haircut. And clean
your shirt. You look like a bum."

Easley starts to follow the girls backstage, but the sound
of raised female voices from the wings apparently makes him think better of it.
He turns on his heel, heading for the exit.

"Yes sir, Mr. Easley. I'll see you on Friday.
At three."

 "I said
by
three," he shouts over his
shoulder. "Not
at
three."

It takes a lot of gall from him to dig at me about
timeliness when he kept me waiting half the afternoon, but I just shove the
gear into my bag. I need to get out of here before the Little General changes
his mind.

∞
3
∞

 Anyone can see where the developers for
Norumbega
Park got most of their ideas. The park opened in
1897, just four years after the Exposition in Chicago. There's even a fountain
in the center of the park that's a cheap copy of one of the fountains at the
World's Fair. While it's a puny imitation of the Expo,
Norumbega
has the advantage of being permanent—at least until 1963. It will be here long
after the trolley lines that provide the park with electricity are replaced by
cars and buses. The Expo, on the other hand, was torn down six months after the
fair ended, and except for those with a CHRONOS key, if you missed it, you
missed it.

I won't be mentioning these similarities to Kate, however.
She's a bit touchy on the subject of the World's Fair. It was twelve years ago,
but I remember her face in the glow of the CHRONOS medallion like it was
yesterday.  I remember her leaving me with Katherine, the woman who would
one day be her grandmother, and pushing both of us toward the window, away from
the fire. I had nightmares for a solid year where I'd wake up screaming, the
smell of smoke and death fresh and vivid in my mind. Most of all, I remember
Kate going back to deal with Holmes on her own. The medallion strapped to my
thigh is the one she put around my neck that night. She made me swear I
wouldn't take it off, and I've never once broken that promise.

Kate remembers none of it, even though I'd swear she was
younger when it happened. Katherine can't remember it either, and I
know
she was younger, only a few years older than I am now. Kate suspects the entire
thing was a trick by Prudence and the Cyrists, and I'll admit that Prudence
could pass for Kate in the eyes of a stranger. But I'm a long way from being a
stranger to either of them. I could tell them apart at fifty paces. I could
tell them apart in the dark. And I can't imagine why Prudence would want me to
have a spare medallion.

Kate and I have long since agreed to disagree on that point.
Doesn't matter.
I know it was her.

The sun's been down for well over an hour when the trolley
pulls into South Station. Jess's store is just a few blocks over and I'd
planned to stop by and tell him about the interview, maybe grab Kate a ginger
ale. But it'll keep until tomorrow, I guess. Kate will be waiting for the news.
And even though she seemed pretty confident, I'm looking forward to letting her
know I didn't blow it.

I take my usual shortcut through the alley to shave off a
few extra minutes. About twenty feet in, I feel a sharp tug at the back of my
collar. My fists are up as I wrench free and turn back toward the street. Three
guys, two of them with at least twenty pounds on me.

There's barely six feet between the buildings, so there's
not much room to maneuver. I focus on the two bigger opponents, saving the
short guy for last.

That's a mistake, it turns out. He's the one holding the
club.

My last thought as I hit the cobblestones is that I really
should've stopped to get Kate that ginger ale.

∞

"Hey, mister.
You, okay?"
The voice is high pitched, like those awful singers at
Norumbega
.
It hurts my head.

When I open my eyes, a small, grimy boot is nudging my
chest. I start to pull myself up and then a sharp burst of pain makes me
reconsider, so I just shift my eyes toward the source of the noise. The girl
staring down at me is in her teens. A boy a few years younger, most likely her
brother, stands behind her.

"
Yer
bleedin
'.
You know that?" Her voice is like an
ice-pick to my brain.

"I didn't." I move myself slowly into a
half-sitting position, and lean back against the wall of the building behind
me. "But it doesn't surprise me."

"
Ain
' a lot
of blood.
I cut my leg last summer and there was way more than that.
Mama said I might even need stitches, but Papa said it was too much money to
call in a doctor, so she'd have to stitch it up herself, and she didn't
wanna
do that. Papa said—"

I hold up my hand to cut her off. "What time is
it?" I'm hesitant to ask, since it means she'll speak again and my head
really can't take it, but maybe the boy will answer this time.

No such luck.
"After eight-thirty.
We got off work at eight. That was a while ago, so maybe nine, I don' know. You
think it's nine yet,
Jer
?" she asks the kid, but
he just shrugs. "Well, I'd say maybe closer to nine.
Could
be after, even.
Anyhow, you okay?
'Cause we
gotta
get home."

Yes, please. Go!
Even though I don't say it out loud,
my expression must've gotten the point across, because they both give me an odd
look and head back toward the street.

I lift my fingers to the side of my head and they come away
sticky, but not dripping. The girl was right. It's not a lot of blood. There
is, however, one hell of a lump beneath the cut.

The bag with my gear is gone, along with my jacket. I glance
down and see that they've taken my dress shirt, as well, leaving me in just an
undershirt and pants. My pockets are flipped inside out, so they scored maybe
five dollars total, counting the buck that Easley handed me when I left
Norumbega
.

No shoes. No belt. No watch-chain that was clipped to the
belt and therefore, no CHRONOS key. I'm guessing it will turn up in a pawn shop
within the week, unless they just toss it. I can't bear thinking about that
right now, as it'll mean adding one more missing key to Kate's list.

Dragging myself to my feet, I brace against the wall,
fighting down a wave of dizziness.
It's
most of a mile
to my place, but Jess's house is maybe two blocks in the other direction. Looks
like Kate will get that ginger ale after all. Or more likely, she's already had
it. I'm at least an hour late, judging from the estimate of my shrill angel of
mercy, and Jess's store is the first place Kate would look.

I pass the darkened windows of
John Jessup Fine Tobaccos
and Sundries
a few minutes later and work my way up the staircase to Jess
and Amelia's apartment. When I reach the top, I'm still a bit disoriented, so I
pause for a moment before knocking.

They're early risers, so they could easily be asleep
already. During the months that I lived in the storeroom downstairs, I learned
that breakfast was likely to be a cold one if you slept much past dawn.

I knock again, and finally hear Amelia's voice. "Who on
earth at this hour…"

"It's Kiernan Dunne, Mrs. Jessup. Sorry, but I need to
see Jess…"

The door opens a crack. She peers out at me, dark eyes
widening when she sees the blood. Her gray hair, which is usually up in a knot,
now hangs down in long thick braids with light blue ribbons at the end. The
braids, along with the dim light of the lantern, make her seem much younger
than her seventy-odd years.

"Little wonder you're in trouble, out roaming the
streets at night." Her mouth tightens, but she opens the door, stepping
aside to let me in. "Get inside, you fool boy."

Amelia hides a soft heart behind a shrew's tongue. When I
started work at the shop last year, she carried on something awful about how
Jess didn't need to be hiring anyone when there was barely work or money for
the two of them. But she made sure I had a comfortable spot to sleep in the
storeroom and I don't think I've eaten better since I left the Cyrist Farm.
Even though she'll give Jess all kinds of hell about some little thing he's
forgotten to do, her eyes always soften when he comes into the room. And her
brow creases with worry when he struggles with tasks around the store that were
a lot easier when he was thirty-five than they are four decades later when his
hands are twisted with rheumatism.

She shakes her head as she looks me up and down. "I'll
get Jess up and we'll see what can be done with you. Stay there on the
mat."

She's still muttering something under her breath when she
comes back out of the bedroom a few seconds later, heading into the kitchen.

 Jess is right behind her. He's a tall man—he may even
have been taller than I am when he was young—but the years have hunched him
over. What little hair he has left is pure silver. It's standing up in odd
little tufts on his head right now, a very different look from the meticulously
groomed, dapper man who stands behind his tobacco counter during the day.

He pushes his glasses onto his face and gives me a long
look. His blue eyes are concerned, but he laughs. "I suppose you're gonna
tell me the other fellow looks worse?"

"No. All three of them got away without
so
much as a scratch. The club the short bastard was
swinging might have cracked when it met my skull, though."

He snorts and shakes his head. "You need to sit
down—no, no, not there.
Amelia'll
kill us both if you
get blood on her sofa. Come into the kitchen. She's not gonna be satisfied
until we get you bandaged up."

"Kate—"

"Was here just before the store
closed up at eight.
She thought you might've stopped by to let me know
about the job and lost track of time. That was more than an hour ago, so I
imagine she's plenty worried by now. Where did this happen?"

"An alley off of Harrison.
Just after dark."

"Hmmm…surprised Kate didn't see you on her way
home."

"Yeah, well, unlike me, Kate's smart enough not to take
a shortcut through the alley." That's likely true, although not the full truth.
Kate didn't have to walk more than twenty feet to get to the store, since she
set up a stable point out back months ago.

"Well, least they left you your pants, boy. How much
money were you carrying?"

"More than I wanted to lose. But they also got my gear
and my dad's medallion." The sinking feeling hits the pit of my stomach
again as I think about the CHRONOS key.

Jess
tsks
once and tips my head to
the side a bit so that he can see the knot.

Amelia appears beside him, holding a bottle of whiskey and a
dampened handkerchief. I hiss as the cloth touches the cut.

"Oh, stop being such a baby," she says, but she
moves her hand so that she's dabbing the cloth around the edges of the cut now,
rather than dead against it. She motions with her head toward the collection of
photographs carefully arranged on the mantel and on the bookshelves in the
parlor. "I tended to three sons and five grandsons and several girls who
managed to get into as many scrapes as the boys. I think I know what I'm doing.
You've got gravel or glass or something in there. It's hard to see for all that
hair. And you might as well take off those britches and let me see if I can
salvage them. They're likely ruined, but I'll do what I can about that tear
tomorrow and try to get the blood out."

Ten long, torturous minutes later, the cut on my head is
clean and Amelia has bandaged it, along with one I didn't even realize I had on
my knee, where the pants were torn. I'm dressed in some of Jess's old clothes—a
bit too loose at the waist, but a pair of suspenders takes care of that. I'm
still barefoot, because my feet won't fit into any shoes Jess owns. And even
though I lied and said I'd already eaten, I've been fed a thick sandwich of
leftover bacon and cheese, along with a glass of milk and an oatmeal cookie.
Amelia tried to talk me into staying overnight in the storeroom, but finally
threw her hands up and huffed off to bed when I insisted that I needed to get
home.

"Are you sure you can walk back, son?" Jess asks
in a low voice after she's closed the bedroom door behind her.

Truthfully, I'm not entirely sure, even though I'm feeling
much better. I plan on taking the same shortcut Kate did, however, now that I'm
clear-headed enough to use the CHRONOS key without the risk of landing God knows
where.

"I'm okay," I say, glancing at the clock on the
mantel. "And I need to get going. Kate will be worried."

I slide the wooden chair back from the table and take two
steps toward the door. A wave of dizziness and nausea passes through me, nearly
driving me to my knees.

"Whoa there, boy."
Jess
reaches out and grabs me, holding me steady, his gnarled hands surprisingly
firm on my shoulders. "I don't think you're going any further than the
couch."

It's not the head injury. At least, I don't think it is.
I've felt this sensation several times before, but never this strong.

I stagger backward and Jess eases me onto the sofa as the
room shifts. The changes are tiny, almost imperceptible. A doily on the table
near the door seems to evaporate. The clock in the middle of the mantel is the
same and the hands still say
it's
nine twenty-seven.
One of the photographs to the right of the clock, however—a picture of a girl
maybe seven or eight years old—disappears. All of the other pictures slide an
inch or so to the right. Some of the photos have small changes, too—a girl who
wears braids instead of curls, a boy who's lost his coat.

Someone is mucking about with the timeline. And this doesn't
feel like a minor adjustment.

Jess sucks in his breath and now it's my turn to grab him.

"What's wrong? Are you okay?
Jess?"

He doesn't answer, just sinks down into a chair, his face
pale.

"Jess?"
He still doesn't
respond. My voice rises, panic seeping in. "Jess!" He looks like he's
having a stroke or something. I'm about to call for Amelia when he grabs my
arm.

"That curtain. I saw it change right in front of my
eyes." He jerks his head toward the wall behind him. "And how many
samplers are over there?"