“I went back when the theater was empty,” he says, “and I set a stable point in the auditorium, up in the fly space. The area above the proscenium?”
I have no idea what either of those words mean, but I nod so that he’ll keep going.
“That way I could see the entire audience. They aren’t there every show. Tito was exaggerating. I’ve been doing this for over two weeks, and they’ve been there maybe one show out of three. Usually Simon is with her. Sometimes it’s June. She’s the doctor down at Estero. Once it was another guy—I don’t remember his name. Pru just watches. Just stares at the stage when I’m up there.”
“That’s what she was doing when I saw her. She looked . . . odd.”
“I didn’t get close enough to see her very clearly, but it’s like she’s, I don’t know, drugged or something. I’m pretty sure she was expecting—she was always wearing one of those dresses that are gathered up high, so it’s not noticeable, or at least not as much. I’ve seen Pru at every age, Kate—well, every age between seventeen and, I don’t know, maybe forty. I’ve seen her both times she was with child, and I’ve seen her pretty near stark, raving mad. But I’ve never seen her like that. Like she was a shell, almost, with no one inside at all.”
I finally look up at him and nod. That’s pretty much what I thought when I saw her at Norumbega, even though it was only a brief glimpse.
“So Prudence had two children?” I ask.
“She had two pregnancies. One was miscarried. And I have no idea how many children. I’m guessing maybe twenty total.”
He sees my expression and shakes his head. “After the first two pregnancies, Pru put her foot down. Told Saul she was tired of puking all day, and he agreed but only on the condition that she give up her eggs. There were dozens of Cyrist women more than happy to carry her babies to term. And let’s just say Estero had an extremely modern infirmary from the very beginning.”
“Who was the father?”
Kiernan shrugs. “To be honest, I don’t know. It wasn’t something Pru ever brought up, and I wasn’t stupid enough to ask.”
He draws in a deep breath and releases my hands, then reaches up and rubs his temples. His eyes stay locked on my face, and I feel like he’s measuring me, deciding whether or not to say what’s on his mind. “There were six men at the Farm, the one we were at in Illinois, who had some ability with the key, including me, although I was nowhere near a man at that point and my abilities may have been the weakest of the lot. My da was a lot better with it. And I know for a fact that they tried to convince him to . . . shall we say, donate to the cause?”
“Did he?”
“No. I didn’t understand a lot of what was going on back then, but I put the pieces together later. It was one of the things he fought Pru about. Not the main one, but . . . I remember him telling her once that he was doing his damnedest to get his one child out of their clutches so why would he be fool enough to let her take more of them hostage. It didn’t make sense then, but looking back . . .”
We sit there in silence. I have other questions, but I don’t have the energy, physical or mental, to ask or process the answers.
Kiernan finally pushes himself up and stands. “I need to get out of this suit.”
While he’s dressing, I remember the second reason I’m here. “I’m thinking it would make more sense if we . . . I mean, if you don’t come with me on these other jumps. We don’t know what information they have. They might be scouting out the same locations we are.”
His shadow pauses momentarily behind the red curtain, and then he resumes dressing. He doesn’t respond until he comes out from behind the barrier, and judging from the annoyed look in his eyes, he doesn’t like what I’ve said, but he’s having a hard time disagreeing with it.
“Okay,” he says, plopping down on the bed next to me. “You’re right. We shouldn’t be seen together anywhere they might be watching. That doesn’t mean I’m letting you go in alone. I’ll jump in ahead of you and come back after you’ve finished. But I’ll stay in the background, like I did at Port Darwin.”
“But . . . you didn’t go to Port Darwin.”
“Did you really think I’d let you out onto the beach with that monster prowling about?”
“Monster?” I stare at him blankly for a minute, and then my mouth falls open. “The crocodile? Kiernan, what did you do?”
“What do you think I did? I shot the bloody thing.”
“My God, Kiernan, you can’t do that! Those animals are endangered—I mean, well, maybe not in 1942, but—”
“Endangered? What on God’s green earth could possibly endanger that creature? Three bullets to the head and it was still coming at me.”
I cover my face with my hands. Is it worth explaining about the endangered species list? Is it even relevant? The turtles those crocs grab from the shoreline are probably even more endangered.
“Never mind. It doesn’t matter. What did you do with it?” I ask. “I think I saw where you shot it, but there was just a big red puddle in the sand.”
“I didn’t do anything with it. Four men came over from that camp up along the ridge—”
“The military post?”
He nods. “I think so, yes. Anyway, they heard the shots and came to see what was up. They fired a few more rounds into the thing for good measure and asked if I wanted it. When I said no, the four of them heaved it onto their shoulders and carted it off the beach. I’m pretty sure they were going to eat it.”
Ick. “Really?”
“Seems fair enough to me. It would certainly have eaten them, given the chance.”
He slides off the bed and opens the cubbyhole beneath, removing a leather holster and a revolver. Just looking at the thing, cold and black in the palm of his hand, makes me nervous.
“Another crocodile hunt?”
Kiernan looks at me, his eyebrows raised. “Probably not. But there are other sorts of monsters. And a gun won’t do me much good if I don’t have it on me.” He slides the floorboard back into place and straps the holster over his shoulders, then clips the revolver into place. “I’d be happier if you were armed, too, but since I never could get you to carry one in the past . . .”
I bite my lip, hard. “Do you have another gun hidden under the bed?”
“No,” he says, his voice both surprised and a little worried. “I can get one, but you’ll need to learn to use it. And there’s no point, unless you think you actually would use it if you had to. Are you sure?”
I’m not at all sure, but I nod anyway. As much as I hate the idea of carrying a weapon, I know it’s stupid not to be prepared. Holmes had a gun. Simon has a gun. Whoever shot Moehler most definitely had a gun, and I’m sure he’s not the only Cyrist that Saul has armed. And no matter how many hours I spend in the attic, no matter how hard Sensei Barbie’s eventual replacement works me, I’ll never be able to dodge bullets in midair.
He leans his head back against the bed and stares at the stars on his ceiling for a moment. “I have to clear out of here. So, I’ll contact you.” He tosses me his key. “Put in a place and time that works for you.”
It’s a little before one at Katherine’s. I put in three—even though Moehler’s killing has disrupted the schedule a bit, I have a promise to keep at 2:00 p.m.
“Where will you go?” I ask.
“Jess’s, for tonight—or at least I need to check in with him and Amelia before I go. Tomorrow, I’ll head south, find a place near Athens. It’s always easier if my jumps are just temporal, not to a different physical location as well. Might help to give us a base location for the 1938 jumps, too.”
“Okay . . . but don’t you need to keep doing the Norumbega shows? Otherwise, they’ll know we know—”
“Not if I do the shows at some point. Houdini still has the key, and we still have to get it.”
“Could you build up a small buffer of shows now? How many trips do you think you can manage tonight?”