Wayfarer

The beautiful fa˚ades of the buildings that rolled by, with all of their glorious arches and domes, looked as though they’d been painted with jewels. It made the contrast of what was happening on the streets that much bleaker.

Etta leaned back against her seat, resenting the thick white fur coat Winifred had stuffed her into. The truth was, she burned with the desire to be herself, to see more clearly the points at which she and Henry might intersect. But dressed so grandly, wearing another creature’s skin, and still feeling the burn of Winifred’s crash course on period etiquette, she felt the pressure to let Etta slip away. To disappear into this false image of a lady.

Her dress was a thin, rose-pink silk sheath, cut straight and falling just above her ankles. The topmost layer was sheer, draping over her in scalloped tiers, each edged with the smallest bit of shimmering fringe.

Before they’d left the venue, Henry had handed her a pair of white gloves that stopped just above her elbow and a long strand of pearls, and had given Winifred some sort of diamond—hopefully crystal—barrette to affix in Etta’s hair. After an hour-long struggle, the woman, with the help of two other maids, had managed to wrestle Etta’s hair into something resembling finger waves, pinning the length of it up and under like a false bob. She’d be lucky not to find bald patches later that night when she finally got to take the pins out.

Etta wrung her hands in her lap, glancing around—at the driver, at Jenkins in the front passenger seat, at Henry. He had his gold pocket watch open again, but quickly snapped it shut. Etta caught a glimpse of the time: seven something. Way too early for there to be no other cars or carriages out on the street besides the ones that were parked, or those that looked more like tanks—clearly military. Here and there, a few scattered people moved by, ducking into shops or making their way home. It reminded her of the short time that she and Nicholas had spent in London during the Blitz; this scene had all the uneasiness of the last dying leaf on a branch, waiting to fall.

“Are we in the 1920s?” Etta asked, turning to look at Henry again. It was an obvious guess based on the cars, style of dress, and small touches of décor in the hotel.

He, however, had turned his head to look up at something the car was racing past—flagpoles?

“1919,” Jenkins offered, turning to speak to her through the partition. “It’s—”

“I thought the reforms had been passed,” Henry said, with an edge of anger. Jenkins and the other guard seemed equally startled by it. “Why does the city look this way?”

They’ve already broken from the original timeline, Etta realized. In some way, big or small, the timeline had altered enough that Henry no longer fully recognized some of the parts in the century’s great machine.

“Some socialist leader was imprisoned, caught red-handed in an assassination attempt on the minister of the interior,” Jenkins explained. “A small alteration, not nearly enough to cause a ripple, only a headache for our preparations. Rumor has it there are some of the old Bolsheviks out working people up about it, hence the military presence. Give it a day and it’ll pass.”

“Bolsheviks,” Henry muttered, pressing a hand to his forehead, “or Ironwoods?”

A single drop of sweat worked its way down the ridges of Etta’s spine.

“This isn’t the St. Petersburg you knew?” she pressed. “You seemed surprised by the state of the city.”

“It’s called Petrograd in this era,” he corrected, with his usual gentleness. “I am surprised to see the state of it, knowing the reforms to improve lives across the country had passed. Whatever messes have been made, we’ll clean them up while we’re here.”

The first tap against her window sounded like a rock kicked up from the road—it was the second hit that made her turn, just as a man launched himself out of the darkness of an alley and leaped over the sidewalk.

His arm craned back like a pitcher’s, and Etta gasped, instinctively cringing as a bottle hurtled toward the car, smashing against her window. Another man, a woman, more, surged out from the city’s cracks and crevices.

“Faster!” Henry barked, reaching into his jacket for a pistol.

“Trying!” the driver barked right back.

Another stone flew toward the web of cracks on her window, but she refused to be pulled down, to have her face pressed against the seat until she was nearly smothered by leather and flickering fear. Clattering, shattering, smashing. The whole car rocked with each hit.

Etta searched the buildings around them for more protestors. Up high, on top of a bakery, two cloaked shadows moved. As impossible as it was with the distance between the buildings, they seemed to easily make the flying leaps to keep pace with the car. There was a flash of silver, like a blade—

Or a gun.

This time, she yanked Henry back down with her as a gunshot—two—shattered her window, blowing shards of glass inside, over her head, along her back. Etta’s whole body jumped at each blast, one hand pinned beneath her, the other rising to cover her right ear.

The men up front were slinging words and orders to each other over her head. Etta fought to breathe, to sit up again, but the heavy weight of Henry’s arm kept her down until, finally, the shouting outside became muffled. The car wheezed and shuddered, but began to cruise faster.

She stayed in that same awkward position for the next ten minutes, until she felt the wheels of the car begin to slow. Henry released her, still swearing beneath his breath. Etta sat straight up, her vision black and spotty. She brushed small, sparkling pieces of glass from her coat and hair, watching, stunned, as they collected in her hand and lap like ice.