SIX
I held Ryan’s hand as we drove to Guarda’s. My other hand tightly clasped the gris-gris Lovie gave me that I put in my pocket. I knew the protection charm was worthless against Guarda’s powerful magic, but it was still comforting, if only because Lovie believed it was effective and I trusted Lovie. The trailers of The Sidiel rolled by my window, and I gulped the mounting anxiety that was growing inside me by the second.
Do we know what we intend to say to Guarda? Drake asked.
I almost jumped at the sound of his voice inside my head since everyone was so quiet in the cab of Ryan’s truck.
Drake’s question reminded me of his sentiments about Guarda potentially harming Dorothy, if Guarda were the true source of the mysterious disappearance of stuck spirits. A pang of nearly overwhelming fear for Dorothy gripped me, and the strong emotional reaction astonished me. I couldn’t explain it, but in that moment, I was absolutely sure that we had to protect Dorothy from Guarda.
“We shouldn’t mention our theory that Dorothy is a stuck spirit,” I said to the others, although I was still looking out the truck window.
“Then how do you propose we find out if Guarda can, in fact, allow you to reach Dorothy, assuming Dorothy is nothing more than trapped energy?” Christopher asked.
Though I couldn’t see his face, I clearly pictured him sneering at my stupidity.
“Well,” Lovie said, her warm voice calmly interjecting, “we don’t really need to know about that part yet, do we? We just have to get Peyton and Drake back to Dorothy’s time to figure out what happened to her.”
“Yes,” I answered, and my voice was soft. “We can at least do that much for Jill and Ada.”
From the time Dorothy disappeared to when the newborn Memaw Alice was discovered… was it two weeks? Drake asked.
Yeah, I answered immediately. It dawned on me in that moment what Drake was getting at. Though Dorothy disappeared in a relatively narrow window of time in the afternoon, a newborn baby was discovered two weeks later. And Dorothy must have been alive to give birth to the baby. That was a problem. What if we had to stay in the past for two weeks to figure out what happened to her? What would we wear with nothing but the clothes on our backs? How would we eat? Where would we stay? How would we get around the city?
Last time Guarda sent you back, didn’t she send things with you? The potion you had to drink to allow you to return, for example? Drake asked.
Yes, but nothing she tried to send back with me survived. “Lovie,” I said aloud. “Last time, Guarda assumed she’d be able to send physical items back with me.”
“Yes,” Lovie said. “I remember.”
“Drake made the point that this time, we may need some extra resources as Dorothy disappeared two weeks before Alice was born.”
“Peyton?” Ryan turned from the road long enough to give me a serious look. “Last time you were only gone a day. Not even a whole day. And you were practically comatose when we brought you back. There’s no way you can stay under for two weeks.”
“Maybe it doesn’t get worse the longer I’m there,” I answered with a shrug, hoping that was the case.
“It affects you more the longer your body and spirit are on different planes of existence,” Christopher answered pedantically.
I rolled my eyes.
“It is important you don’t stay longer than a few days at most,” Lovie added.
“What happens if she stays past that?” Ryan asked.
“It might be difficult to reunite her body and spirit,” Christopher answered nonchalantly. “Not that we have a ton of experience with that,” he added, “but from what we’ve heard.”
So helpful.
My first inclination was to brush it off, but I wondered what might happen to Drake. Would going back affect him adversely too? The thought made me feel sick.
We will just have to get back as soon as we can, mon amour, Drake said quietly.
He must have felt my reaction to Christopher’s words. I wondered if he knew they were because I was worried about him. Well, with my next question, he’d know.
“How will it affect Drake?” I asked, making my voice soft to try and ease any tension from Ryan over the subject.
Remarkably, Christopher was silent.
“We don’t really know,” Lovie answered. “But if I had to guess, I’d say, he’d probably have an easier time than you crossing between planes. Things are more fluid for spirits who are detached from their own bodies.”
“I suppose it might be too much for him to come back and stay in your body if you’re strained beyond your limits; but if that occurs, he could always go back to haunting the house,” Christopher hypothesized.
I somehow managed to keep my mouth shut, even though I desperately wanted to ask if Drake could eventually return to my body once I recovered.
“What do you mean ‘strained beyond her limits?’” Ryan asked, his voice low.
“I thought we already covered that,” Christopher responded dryly.
“Then how would…” My voice trailed off as I realized it would probably not be a good idea to present the scenario I was considering in front of Ryan.
“What, Peyton?” Lovie encouraged.
“Would I just stay back in time, or…?”
They were quiet again, and Ryan’s hand squeezed mine more tightly.
“We don’t really know, honestly,” Lovie answered.
“Theoretically, if you kept the body alive,” Christopher said, as if discussing an abstract science experiment.
“Peyton. You’re talking about Peyton,” Ryan said through gritted teeth. “Not some random body.”
I should’ve been more concerned about the scenario, but I wasn’t. Maybe I was just too worried about everything else to consider that. Before I could really dwell on all that, my mind wandered and I wondered what could happen if I were stuck in time. If it happened to my spirit, what were the odds they could bring Drake back, even if it were supposedly easier?
You must know that I won’t leave you, mon amour. Even if it’s a possibility, Drake murmured.
Thank you, I thought back.
“We must respect the time limit,” Lovie said, her warm voice reassuring. “And then all will be fine.”
Ryan exhaled a heavy breath, which suggested to me that he wasn’t convinced all would be fine. But he laced his fingers in mine, pulling my hand onto his lap as he turned the truck down Guarda’s long driveway. I felt a deep pang of guilt at the thoughts that flashed through my head, but before I could really concentrate on them, we were in front of Guarda’s shack, faced with our next task.
We were all quiet again as Ryan put the truck in park, but kept the engine idling. I eyed the scraggly trees in front of the hovel that was her home. Even over the rumbling of the truck’s large engine, I could hear the clanking from the glass bottles that hung in the trees, put there to supposedly catch spirits, both good and bad. The compulsive urge to protect Dorothy happened again as I watched the bottles swaying in the wind.
Then another realization hit me, right in the gut. I would be a spirit, detached from my body, just like Drake. What potential traps awaited us, especially with Guarda knowing how vulnerable we were? I shivered, wondering what it felt like to be relegated to only the essence of myself, encased in cold, hard glass and dangling helplessly in a tree. Then my thoughts turned to Dorothy. Where was she trapped? What was she experiencing?
It isn’t too late to decide against this, mon amour, Drake said softly. For all we know, maybe the reason Dorothy is stuck is because of Guarda.
Well, then we’re in the right place to find out, I answered back. I told Jill and Ada I would help them. And I meant what I said. I popped open the truck door and got out.
Ryan and Lovie followed my lead, exiting from the monstrous pickup and taking up protective positions along both sides of me. Christopher, who was apparently banished from Guarda’s house a long time ago, stayed in the truck. Lovie seemed uncharacteristically nervous, which struck me as odd. Though she didn’t trust Guarda either, I’d never seen her so nervous. I wondered if something happened. Our last Guarda encounter hadn’t shaken Lovie this much.
Lovie took the lead and knocked on the door, glancing at me while we waited in the relative silence of the truck’s engine behind us and the bottles clanking in the trees when the wind blew. She seemed to realize I sensed her anxiety because she gave me a reassuring smile. She hardly turned her attention back to the door again before it opened.
Guarda didn’t waste any time. She barely glanced at us, then walked back into the darkness of her house.
Ryan and I exchanged a look, but Lovie stepped over the threshold. I inhaled a deep breath, then followed her with Ryan at my heels and his hand on the small of my back.
The hair on the nape of my neck stood on end as I entered the house, and the strange smell of it entered my brain and triggered an instinctive reaction of dread. Though the house harbored uneasy memories for me, I couldn’t find any real reason for my adverse reaction to the place.
Drake murmured something calming to me, but I was too busy looking around to catch what he was saying. I was on high alert, taking stock of everything. Guarda’s house hadn’t changed much since the last time we were there, not that I could tell anyway. Glistening white skulls filled the shelves of one wall, and other shelves held tiny bottles filled with various ominous-looking mixtures. The naked baby dolls in the jars were still creepy as hell.
“Thank you for meeting with us on such short notice,” Lovie said, her warm voice providing some comfort.
Guarda grunted her response as she smelled the contents of a jar, then capped it, and put it back on the shelf before she grabbed another. As I watched her movements, something about her reminded me of the young Guarda. The one who commanded Peter into doing her bidding. I recalled a chilling encounter I had with someone who looked exactly like the young Guarda. That was in the graveyard at Peter’s funeral, but it couldn’t have been Guarda.
I continued watching how Guarda moved as she rummaged through her jars on the shelf, that familiar sense of uneasiness growing in the pit of my stomach. Something about the way she shifted from one foot to the other, the mannerisms. It was quicker, less jerky than the way I remembered her. She was moving with the spryness and agility of someone much younger.
Or was I just imagining things?
“We were wondering if you might be able to send Peyton back in time again,” Lovie inquired politely.
Ryan shifted his weight uneasily, edging closer to me.
We all stood in awkward silence while Guarda busied herself with whatever she was doing with her jars and continued to completely ignore us.
“And we were wondering if it’s possible to send the spirit who is currently possessing her back with her as well,” Lovie added.
Guarda stilled at hearing that, then finally turned to face us, her milky white eyes fixed on me. She shuffled toward me, stopping right in front of me, still staring.
All three of us were tense, Ryan especially, as she continued to bore those ungodly eyes into mine. She reached for my chin, her bony fingers grasping it without taking her eyes off mine, as if she were looking past them and directly into my brain. Her mouth hung open slightly, revealing her toothless gums.
I swallowed hard but didn’t look away. It wasn’t because I couldn’t look away, but I was strongly compelled to stare back, regardless of what my mind really wanted to do.
Is she looking at me? Drake whispered, the tone in his voice suggesting he was again trying to lighten my anxiety. She is making me feel quite naked.
Finally, her lips twitched back into a smirk, making me even more uncomfortable than when she was just blankly staring at me.
“I sends them back,” she said. Her hand fell from my face and she turned away from me, returning to her shelves full of jars.
“But…” I started, addressing Guarda and expecting her to turn back around. When she didn’t, I continued, “How is it even possible? Drake would have been alive at the same time so if his spirit takes up actual form, wouldn’t that stand to reason that there would be… two of him?” Guarda abruptly waved at me over her shoulder, indicating for me to stop talking. I blinked a couple of times, and sensed the odd idea that even if I wanted to talk, it would take too much effort to do so. There seemed to be a sudden disconnect between my mouth and my head.
“Jes don’ let ‘em meet,” Guarda finally said.
“Who?” I asked for clarification although I was fairly sure she was talking about Drake but with Guarda, it was always better to double check.
She looked at me like I was a blithering idiot. “The spirit that lives past death, an’ the one that has yet to travel through death.”
I opened my mouth to ask more, but she stifled my words with just a look.
“There’s something else,” Lovie started.
Guarda appeared to ignore her as she shuffled past us to the skulls on the wall.
“Last time, Peyton was supposed to take back some physical items with her, but they didn’t make it through,” Lovie explained.
“This time, there are things she must have with her…” Ryan added.
“Mmm,” Guarda said, but it seemed she was only responding to Ryan’s voice. She made no indication that she was pondering his or Lovie’s words. Judging by her reaction to him, she seemed more like she was savoring the familiarity of her lover’s voice.
It made me gnash my teeth and I fought against the surge of possessiveness toward Ryan that overcame me. The next second, an overwhelming urge to protect him swelled inside me. Strangely, Guarda seemed to pick up on what I was feeling, even though her back was turned toward me. She chuckled, as if she found my childish emotions humorous.
Ryan was clueless.
Shall I define her as a ‘whack job’? Did I use that term correctly, mon chaton? Drake asked, trying to distract me from the simmering anger that bubbled inside me. I wondered if he were also trying to pretend he couldn’t feel the strange effect Guarda had over me.
We all waited while Guarda picked over the skulls, her slender fingers caressing each one in a lavish gesture that did not suggest anything remotely close to affection. When she finally selected one, she turned back around to face us.
“This one was pregnant,” she said as she carried the skull back to the shelves that held the jars. “Two spirits, travelin’ across the divide together.” She mumbled to herself, as if she were completely alone in the room.
I looked at Ryan, who was staring at the skull in absolute horror, while Drake whispered something in French and sounded disgusted. Lovie, apparently better equipped to handle the thought of death and birth being so closely intertwined, spoke up again.
“Can we send physical items back with Peyton?”
Guarda halted as she turned to Lovie. “If ya do it right this time, o’ course.” She paused just long enough to give Lovie an offended stare down.
Lovie closed her mouth and politely smiled.
Guarda went back to what she was doing, gathering potions and other items I didn’t really care to know the origins of. I looked at Ryan who was still tense, but stood his ground with his hands on his hips. Lovie watched every move Guarda made, silently taking stock of what she was doing. I patiently waited, wondering about the things Guarda was putting together that she would use to weave her magic through me, and separate my spirit from my body.
We will be okay, mon chaton, Drake said softly. I kept the demon away from you. She is just an old woman.
If Guarda reacted to Drake’s words, I couldn’t see or hear any sign of it, but for some reason, I possessed the firm understanding that she must have heard them. I also knew from watching her movements and the way they too-perfectly resembled the young Guarda in the dark moments I’d previously witnessed, that Drake was wrong, and in more ways than one.
Guarda suddenly looked right up at me and stared me right in the eyes for three seconds flat. “I’m not interested in the spirit you think I am,” she said flatly.
I had to wonder if she was talking about Dorothy…
SEVEN
I looked at the Google map of New York City on my phone, eyeing the little, yellow stars that marked each place Dorothy Arnold was spotted on her walk. The star at the end of Fifth Avenue seemed to stare back at me; the final place she was seen. A printed version of the map was tucked into an antique purse that I would (hopefully) be taking with me back to New York City in 1910, if all went according to plan.
“Are you nervous?” Ryan asked as he smiled down at me.
“No,” I lied before returning the smile.
Where are the flying automotives? Drake asked, his voice shrill with excitement. I thought you said they were large. Shouldn’t we have seen them by now if they’re so large?
When I didn’t answer, he added, Put your phone away, mon chaton, I am getting nauseated from your carsickness.
It still amused me how he said “carsickness.” The term sounded so foreign coming from him. Sometimes, he simply invented words, like “flying automotives,” usually because he was too awe-struck to remember the correct term.
I tucked my phone into my purse, a smirk appearing on my face. We should see the planes soon. Just as we drove under the signs directing traffic toward outbound flight terminals, Drake shrieked in my head, and the sound made me cringe.
Is that one? Is that it? he asked.
A plane was flying lower over the road, making its landing approach. It was so close, I could see all the little nicks and imperfections in the wings.
Yes, I answered flatly, although I was still amused at his jovial surprise. That’s the kind we’ll be on.
Unbelievable, he gasped. Explain to me again how it works, ma minette. You said the shape of the wings combines with the power from the engine…?
I tried to recall the brief tutorial Drake and I read together on Google. Although this was the first time he’d ever seen a plane up close, I’d pointed out plenty of them to him in the sky. Yes, the top part of the wing is shaped differently from the bottom part, and the way the air moves over the wing decreases the air pressure above the wing…
Impossible. It’s simply impossible that something so large and heavy and metal and filled with people and cargo could become airborne…
It doesn’t seem possible, I agreed, but he was too fascinated by what he was seeing to hear the rest of my explanation for how planes flew. He probably didn’t even hear the beginning of it.
Next came baggage check, security, and finding our boarding gate, which led to so many questions from Drake that I almost had to shut him out to keep my sanity. But we pushed onward, and waited until they called our flight. Not long afterwards, we were shuffling down a small hallway to board the plane.
As soon as the small door came into view and the interior of the plane was visible, Drake’s excited chatter trailed off. I was so caught up in all the things I had to do to get us on board (dragging my luggage, keeping track of my boarding pass, staying in line, etc.), that I didn’t realize Drake went completely silent until the flight crew welcomed us onboard.
My brow furrowed, and Ryan who was in front of me, turned to catch my expression.
“Something wrong?”
I wiped the mild concern from my face and smiled. “Nope.”
Ryan’s gaze lingered on me, and although he smiled back at me, the worry didn’t quite leave his eyes.
We slowly found our seats, getting stuck behind the slo-mo, ambling passengers who stopped in the aisle to stow their carry-ons up in the overhead bins. Drake was still silent, but I was too worn out from waking up so early and getting ready for the trip to inquire after him.
We finally sat down: Ryan, Lovie, and me in the window seat on one side of the plane, and Christopher on the other side of the aisle where he pointedly ignored all the curious looks of the other people on board. He sat with one leg crossed over the other, reading a newspaper that he brought from home (Who’s Who in Voodoo Weekly), and keeping all three seats to himself. I smiled, wondering what poor soul would draw the unlucky ticket that relegated them to sitting next to Christopher. As long as it wasn’t me, I didn’t care.
Mon chaton?
Yes?
Do these machines ever crash?
I looked out the window, growing excited for takeoff. I loved flying. Yup.
What?! What happens if we crash?
One of the flight attendants, an overly cheerful man with an impeccably groomed mustache, took the phone off the hook at the front of the plane and announced, “Good mornin’ New Orleans!” with a big smile.
Let’s hope neither of us finds out, I answered.
The man pointed out the emergency exits and proceeded with the rest of the safety speech. Drake didn’t utter a single word until he heard that the passengers seated at the emergency exits had to be strong enough to lift the doors off.
How far are we from those exits? Oh, good God! There’s an old woman seated next to the one closest to us! There’s no way she could possibly…
The flight attendant asked the woman who wasn’t much past fifty if she could open the emergency door and she smiled and said yes. Satisfied with her reply, he went to ask another person further back in the plane.
Is he really moving on? He’s just accepting her answer without any proof? He should have forced her to attempt to open the door instead of taken her silly word! We are doomed! We must switch seats at once!
I shut Drake out to save both of our sanities, fully expecting the hell he’d give me when I turned the lights back on for him, but I was too exhausted to care at the moment. I let my head fall back against the seat and shut my eyes. Ryan picked up my hand and began to rub my palm with his fingers.
“Tired?” he asked me gently.
It brought a small smile to my lips. “Yes,” I murmured without opening my eyes. I was afraid I’d shatter the unusually peaceful lull if I even twitched the wrong way.
Things had been tense between us all week. After seeing Guarda, and collecting what we needed from her to successfully travel back to 1910, or so we hoped, we had to wait until the following weekend to catch a flight to New York. Ryan couldn’t get away until then and there was no way I would go without him. He was already upset about everything that was happening.
In the meantime, Drake and I did our best to prep for the trip back in time. By far, the most troubling obstacle to overcome was obtaining money from that time period. Drake mentioned some distant relatives in New York that we could borrow the money from, but neither of us really liked that idea. We wanted money in our pockets as soon as we landed in 1910. For a while, bumming money from Drake’s family seemed to be our only option, until we managed to find someone online who worked in the entertainment business making historic props. He supplied us with realistic money from that era.
Through our connection with that guy, we also got clothing for me: a blouse and long skirt, a coat, a purse, shoes, the works. It was dusty and well-worn, but hopefully, no one would notice. And Drake said we had more than enough money to buy a new outfit if it came to that. We also did all of the research: plotting Dorothy’s path on the last day she was seen on a map of Manhattan. We had to locate a hotel from 1910 that was still standing so we could have a point of reference. Hopefully, no one in 1910 got hold of my starched, white sheet of color-printed Google map directions! That would have certainly been a difficult anachronism to explain.
With everything we had to accomplish, the week flew by. But it was stressful, and I felt exhausted, like I hardly slept at all. To make matters worse, Ryan was stretched thin trying to finish everything he had to do in time to take the weekend off. What little time we shared together was spent trying to catch up on a few precious hours of lost sleep. Ryan managed to get some, while I just lay there, staring at the ceiling. At least I had Drake to keep me company. I even shut my eyes several times to visit him in my mind so we could discuss the upcoming trip in person.
A soft jolt made me open my eyes, and the plane began to roll backwards. Ryan was reading a book, but holding my hand. It felt like we should have been more focused on each other, spending more time together before this risky “foray” as Ryan called it. But I didn’t know what to say and even though we were on an even keel, the stress of the week was still looming, creating distance I didn’t know how to bridge. I looked out the window as I watched the runway and felt lonely. The gloomy weather only exacerbated my mood. Small raindrops pattered on my window, and I vaguely wondered if it’d be a rough flight. I sighed gently and inwardly chanted the words to let Drake back in.
I fully expected a severe scolding, but instead, he was silent.
Drake?
I am not speaking to you right now.
He sounded legitimately pissed, which made me feel bad. I’m sorry, Drake. I just needed a break. When he didn’t reply, I added in a soft voice, We’re about to take off. Still nothing. That’s the best part.
I looked out the window, my head still uncharacteristically silent. Too tired to prod Drake any further, I resorted to inward reflection, remembering the last time I was on a plane. I was leaving California, and more importantly, my ex-husband, Jonathon behind. It was strange, and not that long ago. I tried to imagine what Jonathon would say about my life now. I couldn’t, really. My head just couldn’t wrap around seeing Lovie and Jonathon in the same room. He was a stuck-up attorney who only viewed the world in black and white. Asking him to go see Guarda with me? I practically laughed out loud at the absurd notion.
The engines in the plane began to roar to life beneath us as we taxied to the runway. The pilot said something incoherent over the speaker, but I managed to piece together that we’d been cleared for takeoff.
Is this it? This is it, isn’t it? Drake asked, his tone resuming the near freak-out level from before, when I previously had to shut him out.
I took a deep breath, hoping it would help him relax. It’ll be great. You’ll see. There’s nothing like flying through the tops of the clouds for the first time.
With that, the aircraft lurched forward and I settled back into the seat as the plane accelerated to become airborne.
This is not natural, mon chaton.
I couldn’t help it so I laughed. Drake was trying so hard to stay calm.
“Drake enjoying himself?” Ryan asked in a hushed voice. To my complete surprise, there was no hint of annoyance in his tone.
“He was really excited until he heard the safety lecture. Then he totally freaked out,” I said. “He seemed mostly worried that the old woman sitting near the exit wouldn’t be able to work the emergency door.”
Ryan chuckled. “He probably has a good point there.”
Don’t tell him that! I did not…
Drake’s voice was abruptly cut off with a gulp as the front part of the plane became airborne, tilting us backwards. Seconds later, the back wheels lifted off the earth, and we were suspended in the air, the landscape zipping by as trees, roads, and cars became more remote beneath us.
We are flying, Drake gasped.
Yep. Like birds. But it’s warmer and we have snacks, I answered.
He was quiet until we made it up into the clouds and our seats shook when we hit a pocket of turbulence.
What’s happening? Is this normal? Why is this metal box shaking so much? And that horrid, thunderous sound! Is that what it’s supposed to sound like?
I knew he was less than a breath away from screaming into my head that we had to take out the old lady sitting by the emergency exit.
Yes, it’s normal. Going through the clouds causes turbulence.
How can it be so bumpy in the sky? What could we possibly be bumping into? he asked, his voice still strained.
I was about to tell him I had no idea when we suddenly burst through the clouds into smooth air and radiant sunshine. The enormous sun washed the puffs of clouds under us in the golden, morning light.
Drake was again silent. Thank God.
Pretty good, right? I asked.
It is… I…
I expected him to continue, but he didn’t. So we sat like that. I kept holding Ryan’s hand while Drake and I gazed at the endless clouds bathed in sunlight.
***
The hotel room was warm and cozy with clean, sleek furnishings and fluffy, white bedspread and sheets. It should have been comforting. But I was far from comforted.
I snuck into the large, cream-colored bathroom with the yards of fabric that would supposedly transform me into a convincing 1900s debutante. My previous forays into the past had me waking up fully clothed; once, I found myself in the white nightgown of a murdered woman! Another time, I was wearing a most unflattering shift from the 1920s.
At that time, my memories were enough to clothe me; but this spell was altered in order to transport material possessions. That meant that I’d be able to take the money and the map, but I’d have to change my outfit. Otherwise I’d arrive in the year 1910, wearing a pair of tight fitting, blue jeans and a deep V-neck, pink t-shirt. I dared not clash so starkly with the fashion of the times!
I prayed the outfit would quash any suspicion. And as we were destined to arrive during the depths of a New York winter, I also hoped that the thick layers of mothy wool would meet the challenge. I unfolded the long coat—a high collared, deep navy jacket. Then I turned to the tailored, cream blouse with a scooping neckline that I would wear with the long, navy blue skirt that reached the ground. The long slip of a skirt was so dusty that I sneezed when I separated it from the pile on the counter. A white corset with the stiff boning of a baleen whale fell out from my hefty pile of material.
As I looked at the corset, the weight of what was to come loomed into stark focus. I was supposed to go back in time to solve a century-old mystery, yet I didn’t even have the skill set to figure out the mystery of how to put this corset on. My hands were clammy and I was plagued by doubt.
I blew my hair out of my face before seeing my reflection in the mirror. My mouth was a disgruntled line and my cheeks were flushed with frustration. I envied Drake, all he had to do was show up as himself.
As if on cue, he chimed in. I detected his smile even before he spoke. Do you require my assistance, mon chaton?
Consciously avoiding my reflection in the mirror, I shimmied out of my own clothes and folded them up on the counter, wondering when I’d see them again. Putting on the corset without the aid of a mirror was also quite a struggle, but I’d rather endure Drake’s disgruntlement versus providing him with a peep show. His prowess in instructing me how to get into my outfit wasn’t lost on me and must have been gleaned from the removal of so many similar outfits in his own time.
After wrestling with an assortment of thin, white undergarments and hearing a few candid belly-laughs from the man inside my head, I finally managed a small victory. Well, at this time, anything counted.
“You okay in there, Pey?” Ryan’s voice lilted from outside the bathroom door.
I pinned a large, flowery hat over my updo (which was really more that I twisted my hair up into a semi-bun and then tried to secure it with about a hundred bobby pins. Somehow there was still hair sticking out left and right) and steeled myself with a quick exhale before opening the door. It would have to suffice.
“Wow,” said Ryan as he took in all of my navy coat and flower-hat glory.
The corset lay abandoned on the bathroom counter. I’d given up the battle. This twenty-first century feminist couldn’t bring herself to do it. More truthfully, it had less to do with my abhorrence to the socially accepted, ideal shape of women and more to do with my failure to fit it around my waist. His eyes settled on my breasts, which, I admit, were more than a little enticing as they spilled over the front fabric. (I feared anyone getting close enough to see the Victoria’s Secret tag on my bra!)
Ryan looked back and offered me his charming, dimpled smile. For a moment, I felt like we were getting ready for a fun Halloween party—except I was the only one dressed up. Grasping the seriousness of the occasion once more, his smile instantly faltered. Nerves racked my body and rendered me limp.
Lovie and Christopher were standing slightly crouched over the bed. “Let me see the sheet again,” Christopher droned with an exasperated wave of his hand.
Lovie handed him the piece of paper, then looked at me with widened eyes as if to ask, Can you believe him? Christopher studied the notes Lovie made after we left Guarda’s. I managed a smile at Lovie, but failed to succumb to her attempt to lighten the mood. She handed me the rolls of counterfeit bills we stashed in the suitcase and I pocketed them in the deep folds of my coat. I made a mental note to thank the progressive twentieth century fashion designers who realized the importance of pockets! If the objects we brought couldn’t be transported this time, we’d be up a creek without a paddle or worse.
Both Lovie and Christopher were trying to figure out what went wrong the first time we attempted this. When I traveled back to find the Axeman, I was supposed to bring several physical items on my journey with me, but none of them got through. This time, I had the added complication of bringing Drake through time with me.
“You ready?” Ryan asked in my ear.
“I guess,” I answered, looking into his honey-colored eyes. Last time, we had a moment to say goodbye before I had to take the plunge. This time, it didn’t happen, which left me feeling anxious.
“Do you have the map?”
“Yes,” I said with a slight eye roll.
“Your money?”
“Yes!” I giggled. He was acting like a nervous mother permitting her child to go on her first class field trip. I rattled the clutch I was holding in my right hand so he could see I hadn’t forgotten any of the essentials.
“I’ll be here,” Ryan said, echoing the same words he said to comfort me last time.
I just smiled and kissed him. He kissed me back, but the moment was almost ruined by Drake’s protests until I swiftly shut him out. It was just Ryan and me for a moment. The chatter between Christopher and Lovie faded away when I felt the warm sensation of Ryan’s lips on mine.
When we pulled apart, it was quiet and we looked closely at each other. I opened my mouth and was about to tell him I loved him until I was rudely interrupted by Christopher loudly clearing his throat.
“I think we’re ready,” Lovie said. “But we can give you another moment if…”
Ryan and I smiled at each other, and I knew he felt the same way I did.
“I love you,” I said, and the words rolled easily off my tongue with the familiarity of saying them often.
“I love you too,” he answered, then kissed my nose.
I inwardly allowed Drake back into the world, realizing this could be the last time before we actually saw each other in person.
Ready, Drake? I asked him.
Oui, mon amour, he said.
I didn’t miss the underlying excitement in his voice.
I nodded to Lovie and she took a deep breath. “Okay then. Here we go.”