“Katherine said that happened to her, as well.”
“But,” he continues, “even though I do believe you, Katherine was right. I don’t think we should give up these keys until we know for certain there’s no return trip. I hope you can understand that?”
I nod. We’d kind of expected this.
“You’re not going to be able to get out until then, either, Kate. I mean, unless you came in from a stable point outside of Dallas, you’re stuck—”
“I can actually leave from right here,” I say. “I have to arrive at a stable point, but I can jump to another point from any location. It’s what Saul was trying to set up for himself, but it didn’t work.”
Evelyn is still staring at the frozen image of Dad with his arm around me, tears streaming down her face. I’m not sure if she’s even listening.
“What does he want, Kate?” Timothy asks. “Why did Saul do this?”
A few months back, I asked the same question of Katherine and Connor. The only answer they had for me then was that Saul wanted power, all the power he could get. And while we have more information now, that’s still the gist of it.
I shrug. “He wants to play God. To decide who lives and who dies. To create his version of paradise, where only those who see things his way get to stick around.”
We’re all silent for a moment, and then I ask, “Where should I meet you tomorrow? And when?”
Evelyn turns toward me halfway through the last question, like she’s just remembered I’m in the car, and hands me back the phone. She pulls her CHRONOS key from underneath her sweater and blouse and yanks the chain over her head, almost throwing it at me.
“Just give her your damn key, Timothy! We’ve tried to reach HQ five times already. There’s no reason to think we’ll get a signal tomorrow.” Her voice softens a bit as she looks at me. “You don’t need to come back, Kate.”
“Thank you, Evelyn.” As I’m stashing her key in the pocket of my sweater, something occurs to me. “Um—if I should happen to show up again and start asking questions, double-check my eye color, okay? And look for this.” I pull back my hair a bit and turn my right cheek toward her, revealing the relatively new and, thankfully, fading pink scar on my neck. Aunt Prudence might be smart enough to wear green contacts, but she doesn’t know about my encounter with H. H. Holmes in Chicago. “If you don’t see the scar, it’s not me, and you can’t tell her anything. She’s with Saul.”
Timothy pulls the CHRONOS key from his pocket as he unfastens the little clip that attaches it to his belt loop. He holds the glowing blue circle level in the palm of his hand and stares at the hourglass in the center, watching as the sands flow back and forth.
“What color is it for you, Kate?” he asks.
This seems to be the CHRONOS equivalent of chatting about the weather. Everyone sees the light at the center of the medallion differently. “It’s blue,” I reply. “Like an impossibly bright sky.”
A sad smile touches his lips. “Really? Me, too. It’s pink for Ev.”
I smile back at him and then glance over at Evelyn. “Dad can only pick up the light occasionally, but when he does, he says it looks pink to him. So, I guess he gets that from you.”
Her bottom lip quivers a bit. She reaches over and places her hand on the side of my grandfather’s face, a face so much like that of the son they’ll never see grow up.
“Timo, that life is over. Just give her your key so she can get back home. And get rid of that stinking chili dog. We’re not on vacation anymore.”
∞2∞
BOSTON
July 23, 1905, 8:06 a.m.
“Got them!” I tug the medallions out of my pocket and wave them in front of me.
“Was there ever any doubt?”
Kiernan is sitting cross-legged on a wooden crate, exactly where I left him, a smile still on his face. For him, only a minute has passed since I left for Dallas on this most recent attempt to get the keys from Timothy and Evelyn.
This storeroom is listed as an official CHRONOS stable point—that is, one of the locations that historians can jump to—between the years of 1898–1932. The first time that I traveled to 1905 Boston, I came in the middle of the night, slipping out of the storeroom into the darkness of the main store. I left an envelope just inside the door with Kiernan’s name on the front and nothing inside but a slip of paper with today’s date and the time, 7 a.m. For me, that was three weeks ago, and I’ve popped in twice since then to get Kiernan’s feedback on our plans for collecting these two medallions.
“It may have been a foregone conclusion for you,” I counter. “But things looked shaky for a while. Evelyn picked up on the fact that they were probably dead.”
He shrugs, his dark hair brushing his shoulders. “I think that happened last time, too. You told me then that Katherine was against your dad getting involved, but you insisted. Timothy and Evelyn were still an easy grab. Who could deny a request like that from their own granddaughter?”
“Uh . . . Saul Rand, maybe? Otherwise, I would just waltz up to him and say ‘Pretty please, Grandpapa, abandon your evil plan for world domination. For me?’ ”
“You have a point,” Kiernan concedes with a chuckle. “I should have clarified that any human being with half a soul would not deny that request. But perhaps you should find Saul and ask. He might be a sucker for pretty green eyes.”
I can feel the blush rising to my face, so I turn away and pretend to be interested in the containers of tobacco on the shelves behind me. I lift a lid and breathe in deeply. The pipe tobacco has a rich, earthy aroma—nothing like the secondhand cigarette smoke I’m forced to breathe in along the DC sidewalks. I used to enjoy the scent of a fire on a winter’s night, but since my recent encounter with H. H. Holmes at the World’s Fair, the slightest whiff of smoke makes my body tense up. If Kiernan hadn’t come back to rescue me that night, I’d have been one of the many skeletons found in that hotel.
“So, who’s next?” I ask him. “I mean, last time, which medallions did she go after?”
She is the other Kate, the one that I know Kiernan wishes were here in my place, the Kate-Past who doesn’t exist anymore, thanks to Saul rejiggering the timeline.
“I have the information that we were working from back in my room.” His emphasis on the word we is faint, but I know he’s trying to remind me that Other-Kate is just the flip side of me, even if I can’t remember her. Kiernan reaches his hand out toward me. “It’s a short walk away. Shall we?”
“I should get back home. Katherine’s waiting.”
“Oh. I assumed you’d gone home before coming here.” There’s a hint of question in his voice. I know he’s wondering why I’d share good news with him before telling my grandmother, Dad, and Connor.
I’m kind of wondering that myself. I pulled up Boston 1905 without even thinking. As I look down at my shoes, however, I realize that I can’t stay, even if I wanted to. The knee-length skirt, sweater, and brown saddle shoes were appropriately demure for 1963 Dallas, but they’ll draw far too much attention here. “I’ll come back later. I’m not exactly dressed for—”
“Don’t be silly,” he says, walking toward a tall cabinet in the back of the storeroom. “We both know that you can arrive back at Katherine’s at the exact same time you left, so they’ll never know you were delayed. And I’ve got a solution to your fashion dilemma.”
Kiernan opens the cabinet door and holds up a dress on a padded hanger. The dress is one piece that’s meant to look like two. The white blouse has a high Gibson-girl neckline, and the dark skirt is narrow and looks like it will hit me about midankle. He takes it off the hanger and turns the dress around, revealing a long row of pearl buttons. There is a slight ripping noise as he pulls the sides apart, and I think at first that he’s torn the fabric. Then I see the white strip of Velcro running up the back.