After they’re out of the room, Dad slides over on the bench a bit so that he’s facing me and Kiernan. “I don’t know how well you knew the other Katherine,” he says to Kiernan, “but that’s really not her.” He looks at me. “Has Connor said anything more to you about her health?”
“Just that it’s not going to improve. He said he’s seen several of these outbursts, and he thinks it might be the steroids. Apparently they mess with your mood.”
“Katherine didn’t even have cancer in the other timeline,” Kiernan says. “Maybe we could go forward, get some better drugs.” His eyes shift down to my jawline for a split second, and I know he’s thinking about the hydrogel he used after I was splashed with the acid in Hotel Hell. I don’t even want to think about how badly I would be scarred if he hadn’t.
“Maybe,” I say. “Katherine and I talked about it before, but she said it was something they have to catch early. I don’t know if it would just be a matter of pills at this stage of the game, but they might have something that would buy her some time. I’m not sure how I’d convince some future doctor to help. How did you get the hydrogel?”
“Swiped it from the medical center at Nuevo Reino.”
“So . . . do you think you could get in there and snag an anti-cancer drug from . . .” I stop and think for a minute. “Katherine said around 2070, I think?”
“Nope.” Connor’s back in the kitchen. He walks over to the fridge and pulls out a beer. “Harry? Kiernan?” They both nod, and he brings the bottles to the table.
“What do you mean nope?” I ask after he sits down.
“It’s not going to happen, Kate. You cure her, and you risk screwing up any progress we’ve made thus far. Katherine and I have discussed this many times, and I can’t budge her on this one. It could change too many variables. So, nope.”
He reads my expression and says, “I don’t like it either, Kate. But we both know she’s right. I can’t shake the feeling that we’re skating on ether each time you grab a key. It’s like that Kerplunk game—eventually you’ll pull out a straw that brings all the marbles tumbling down.”
I doubt Kiernan even knows what Kerplunk is, but he nods and takes a sip of his beer. “Last time the final straw was 1938. I don’t know why. Maybe one or more of those keys ends up with people in the inner core—I’m not sure where Simon’s key or Patrick Conwell’s key comes from, or any of the other regional temple leaders.”
I turn toward Connor. “So how much do you know about the 1938 jump? I’ve got the information Katherine gave me and a little from Kiernan, but there’s not much in Other-Kate’s diary.”
“I know there were three historians stranded there, all embedded with the FWP—the Federal Writers’ Project. That location was used frequently by CHRONOS, because it was a sweet setup. The project hired thousands of unemployed people to record the life stories of average people. In places where jobs were scarce, if you could write a coherent sentence, they’d put you to work.”
Connor takes a swig of beer and then goes on. “Any place where the FWP was active was a great place for CHRONOS to hide, and it made an excellent training ground for new agents. Given all of the New Deal publicity about the FWP, people weren’t the least bit surprised if someone they didn’t know, maybe even from another town or up North, showed up on their doorstep, asking them to tell their experiences under slavery or whatever—”
“Slavery?” I ask. “It’s 1938.”
“So? Someone born in 1855 would be in his mideighties in ’38, likely to have some pretty solid childhood memories about living under slavery.”
“And,” Dad adds, “they’d have even better stories about the Reconstruction era. Your mom used FWP interviews in one of the classes she taught.”
“Yeah,” Connor says. “There are transcripts online, even a few audio recordings. But to get back to CHRONOS, the publicity around the program meant they could slip in and ask some questions of their own, especially in places like Athens, Georgia, where there was a lot of FWP activity. Anyone whose research dealt with the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century did an FWP jump at least once. Katherine was at the Athens site in February of ’38, trying to get information on popular arguments against allowing women on juries, something Georgia resisted until the early 1950s. She thinks Saul was there once in ’37, possibly a few other times. Abel Waters and Delia Morrell spent a lot of time at the two CHRONOS FWP sites in the South, so it’s not too surprising that’s where they got stranded. They were there with a trainee—Katherine can’t remember his name.”
“I think it was Grant,” Kiernan says. “Although I don’t know if that’s a first name or a last name.”
“Well, this jump worries me,” I say. “We save it for last. But I want to do at least one trip ahead of time to get my bearings. I can observe Delia’s crew from a distance, maybe, but mostly I just want to get a feel for the time and place.”
“Okay,” Connor says, penciling something onto the paper in front of him. “So, first Australia, then Russia, or wherever Moehler is—and we work on Georgia as we go along?”
“Yes.” There’s one last question on the list, so I turn to Kiernan. “Do you have any idea how many medallions the Cyrists have in total?”
“No. Simon and Prudence always have one. And I’ve never seen Saul without his, although that’s clearly a power thing, since he can’t use it. I thought that each of the regional leaders had a medallion, but if they do, then the numbers you mentioned earlier don’t add up.”
Kiernan stares at his bottle for a minute. “If I’d had to guess before I heard Connor say how many keys you have here, I’d have said they had twelve keys, because that’s how many people they have with a reasonably decent ability to use them, at least to the best of my knowledge. But if you have fourteen, some of them can’t have a key.”
“Have you ever been in a group of them?” Dad asks. “A meeting, maybe?”
“Yeah.” He tallies something up on his fingers and then says, “Six. I think. Counting mine. That’s the most I’ve seen in one place. So, even if we don’t count the Houdini key, it means at least one of the five keys we’re going after on these three jumps is one currently in their possession. One they’re gonna miss. We take that key and . . .”
“All the marbles come tumbling down,” I say. “Kerplunk.”
∞8∞
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
July 29, 1905, 9:58 a.m.
My 1905 dress is on top of the faded quilt that covers Kiernan’s bed. I don’t see him at first, and then there is a slight movement in the periphery as he walks into view and crosses over to a small mirror on the wall next to the red curtain. He’s wearing the white shirt and black pants again¸ although I don’t see the tie.
He catches sight of me in the mirror a few seconds after I blink in. I expect his usual grin, but this time his face is troubled.
“What’s wrong?”
He runs his tongue across his teeth and shakes his head. “I’ve just . . . I’ve decided this isn’t a good idea.”
Okay, if someone had told me yesterday that Kiernan was willing to call off this trip, I’d have been relieved. My experience with his field trips hasn’t exactly been positive. I guess I’m just contrary, however, because now I don’t like that he’s canceling it, especially since he didn’t bother to ask my opinion on the matter.
But mostly, I know that Kiernan was looking forward to this. I glance around this room, this bubble he lives in where he can still imagine that his Kate exists. I don’t know if it’s because this project was something he shared with Other-Kate or because it’s something concrete that he’s doing on his own to fight the Cyrists, but when he talks about it, that tiny, fluttering spark of hope in his eyes flares into a flame. And though I really shouldn’t let myself care about that, I do.