Now and Forever (36 page)

Was this how it was in the future then, where even something as unimportant as a woman's toenails received an artist's attention? And, even more astonishing, he wondered if there were people in this world who made their living providing that attention. He tried to imagine himself kneeling before a woman, paintbrush in hand, but the concept was more lustful than practical and best put from his mind.

"The back door is broken," she said over her shoulder, "so we'll have to go in through the kitchen. The bathroom's right there."

He was surprised that such a big house didn't have a separate building for the kitchen. No man of wealth would welcome the stench of singed chicken feathers wafting through the parlor. Indeed it was a most average house, no more or less imposing than the ones he had known in Boston and New Jersey.
 
Made of stone and brick, the house stood two stories high. Three chimneys graced the roofline and a pair of dormer windows looked out toward the woods beyond the pond. The windows were six-over-six, the sashes painted white and in need of some repair.

Andrew felt it difficult to contain his disappointment.

Thus far, except for the rectangular pond and the newspaper tucked under his arm, his surroundings were much as he remembered them. The house he'd shared with Elspeth had boasted a large backyard with a stone wall blocking off the vegetable garden, same as Mistress Shannon's.

Mistress Shannon opened the side door then pressed her hand against the wall. Instantly the room was flooded with the light of a dozen suns and Andrew stepped back in alarm.

"Sweet Jesus!"

The woman looked at him. "Are you okay?"

"'Tis bright as midday."

She gestured toward the ceiling. "Recessed lighting."

He leaped onto a ledge and placed a hand against the ceiling. It felt cool against his palm. "Where would the candles be placed?"

"Get down from there, you colossal idiot!" Her voice rose in agitation. "Get your filthy feet off my counter
now
."

He ignored her. "'Tis a most clever device but I am of a mind to find the candles."

"And I'm of a mind to call the police if you don't come down from there."

He did as the lass bid. His boots left clods of dirt on the table top and he brushed at them with his arm. The reddish brown dirt fell to the shiny white floor. She looked angry enough to strike him and by all that was holy he could not fathom why.

She pushed a chair toward him and motioned for him to sit down. "If you didn't look so dreadful, I'd throw you out on your ear," she said. "Sit down while I pour you some iced tea."

The chair was a shiny silver metal, bent into a curving shape that pleased the eye but baffled the mind. He wondered what silversmith had accomplished such an enormous job for there were five more chairs exactly like it surrounding the matching table. Attached somehow to the metal was a cushion covered in a fabric he'd never seen before. It was slippery to the touch and shiny yellow in look and when he sat down upon it, the squeaking noise it made was most astonishing.

She crossed the room and swung open a white door, revealing a closet, also bright as day, which held all manner of foodstuff.

"O.J., milk, there's the iced tea." She removed a big green pitcher then poured the liquid into a tall glass. "Drink this," she said, handing it to him.

He gulped some down then drank some more. "A pallid brew," he observed, "but cold." He wondered how that state had been achieved.

"A simple thank-you is sufficient."

He studied the glass, then the half-filled pitcher. "I see no evidence of tea leaves. Perhaps that is the problem."

"Awfully picky for a trespasser, wouldn't you say? If I were you, I'd drink the tea and keep the opinions to myself."

"'Twas not my intent to criticize, mistress."

The look she gave him brooked no argument. "If you need the john, now might be a good time."

"John?" Thus far he had seen no evidence of a man.

"The bathroom," she said, sounding exasperated. "The privy, as you called it."

He brightened. At last, something he understood. They both spoke English but the variations within the language were extraordinary. He refused to believe she had an indoor privy and pointed out the window. "The wooden structure beyond the blue pond?"

"Very funny, Mr. McVie. That's the cabana." She pointed down the hallway. "Second door on your right."

 
#

"You are one very strange man," Shannon murmured as Andrew disappeared down the hallway. You'd almost think he didn't know what a bathroom was. She'd been to Scotland twice. They had bathrooms over there and overhead lighting and everything else the 20th century had to offer. Her unexpected visitor acted as if these things were brand-new inventions.

She heard the bathroom door open then close behind him. At least he understood the concept of privacy. When he leaped up on top of the counter she hadn't been sure civilization had quite reached his rung on the evolutionary ladder.

She looked out the window in the direction from which he'd first appeared. Dusk was washing over the tops of the trees and there wasn't a sign of life, save for a blue jay squawking his loud displeasure. McVie's spotters should have found him by now. In the past it hadn't taken more than ten minutes for wayward balloonists to be retrieved.
Cheer up,
she told herself. Maybe they were collecting his gear at this very moment and would come traipsing across her backyard any minute in search of their cohort.

Of course there was also the possibility that he'd been fool enough to go up without any backup system at all, in which case she'd just call him a cab and he could worry about his blasted balloon and gondola in the morning. It wasn't like her to let a stranger into her home, especially not when she was alone. From the moment she'd heard him land in her trees her reactions had been completely skewed, as if she were being ruled by her emotions rather than her brain.

Her eyes strayed toward the telephone. Maybe she should call Dakota and let her friend know what was going on.

The idea had some merit and she was about to reach for the receiver when the telephone rang.

"I should've known it would be you," she said as Dakota's familiar voice greeted her. "You do this all the time."

"It's one of the problems with being psychic. My phone bill takes a beating." Dakota laughed. "Is everything okay? I was meditating and kept hearing your mantra."

Shannon, who was not a believer in mantras and things that went bump in the night, cut to the chase. "There's a man here."

"I know," said Dakota. "I could feel it in my bones. Is he friend or foe?"

"Neither. He's a weird Scotsman. If I didn't know better, I'd say he's not part of this century."

"Maybe he's not," said Dakota, who believed in just about everything. "Where did he come from?"

"My backyard," Shannon said with a slight laugh.

"I mean, how did he get there?"

"His hot-air balloon went down in the woods."

Dakota sounded almost disappointed. "One of those guys from the festival?"

"I suppose so." She wished she sounded more certain. The man was in her house, for God's sake, and she hadn't had the brains to ask for identification. What on earth was the matter with her? She was usually a lot smarter than that.

"Do you want company?" Dakota asked. "I could drive over."

"I'm fine," Shannon said. "But thanks for--" She tilted her head to the side and listened.

"Shannon? What's going on? Are you still there? I'm picking up some very strange vibes."

"He's flushing the toilet. What on earth is the matter with the man?"

"Flushing the toilet is a
good
thing," Dakota said. "It's leaving the seat up that drives me crazy."

"Nobody flushes five times in a row."

"Maybe he's sick."

"Again? That makes six times! I don't care if he did hit his head. He can wait for his friends in the woods."

"Shannon, maybe--"

"I'll call you later."

She hung up the telephone, her heart pounding double-time.
 
Colorful was one thing. Crazy was another. Normal people didn't flush toilets as if they were playing an Atlantic City slot machine. Normal people flushed them when they needed flushing.
 

Quietly she stepped into the hallway and listened. It sounded as if a plumbers' convention was going on in the guest bathroom. Water ran full-blast. The toilet flushed continuously. And above the racket came McVie's exuberant, "Bloody hell!"

"Enjoy it while you can, buster," she said, marching toward the drawer where she kept her gun, "because you've flushed your last commode."

 
#

It was a miracle, that's what it was. A bloody miracle. Water everywhere and on command! Andrew crouched on his hands and knees and peered into the white marble bowl. A veritable whirlpool of icy cold water swirled about then vanished, to be followed by another whirlpool at the tug of the brass handle.

Then there was the waist-level basin that provided an endless stream of water so hot it caused mist to form on the looking glass behind it. And there wasn't a fire anywhere to be seen. To make matters even more fantastical, the entire wall was a giant looking glass where he saw himself grinning like a jackanapes as he watched the water swirl about the marble bowl.

Nothing Emilie and Zane had told him had prepared him for this surprise. He felt beneath the bowl and touched the cold tubes of metal that disappeared into the wall. Did the water come through those tubes or did it make its exit thusly? And why was it necessary to force water into a room from so many places? What went on in here that required so much water of so many different degrees of heat?

She'd called it a privy but it was not like any privy he'd seen or imagined. There was a seat attached to the white marble bowl and its purpose was obvious but that splashing water and the loud noise it made had him reluctant to put it to use.

Besides there was the question of the other waist-level basin. There were only so many things a man could do in a privy and none of them had anything to do with looking glasses or fresh flowers displayed in glass bowls.

He opened the doors beneath the basin and stuck his head inside the small cabinet. It smelled of cedar and more roses and he sneezed at the combination. His hand fell upon a container and he withdrew it, holding it up to the fading sunlight at the window.
Air Freshener
, it read in bold type. The words held no meaning for him. He turned the receptacle over in his hand.
Make your house smell like an English garden.
Most peculiar. He sniffed at the container and caught the scent of roses again.
 
He tapped the metal cylinder against the floor but nothing happened. Then he spied the words
Press here
on a ridged button at the top.

He did so, sending a cloud of sickeningly sweet flower scent into the room. "Great God in heaven!" he roared. "'Tis a stink unlike any I've known."

His eyes watered as a mist of scent settled across his head and shoulders and he stood up and plunged his head into the warm water flooding the basin. At that moment the door swung open and, through the water streaming down his face, he saw the Mistress Shannon standing before him with a pistol pointed straight at his heart.

Chapter Three

"'Tis a small gun," Andrew McVie mused, "but I fear it is more deadly than the firearms I knew."

Shannon gripped the pistol with both hands. "Over there," she said, motioning toward the wall. "Put your hands against it and spread 'em."

"A strange request to make of an innocent traveler."

"I'll show you strange. Now spread 'em."

"The words are familiar but the usage is not."

"Oh, for God's sake. Don't you watch cop shows in Scotland?"

He looked at her with the blank expression she was coming to know.

"Put your hands against the wall and spread your legs so I can frisk you."

A broad smile spread across his craggy face, making him almost handsome. "Mistress, I am your humble servant."

He did as told. There was something intimidating about all of that raw maleness that was hers for the taking. Not that she wanted to take anything but still the whole situation was exciting in a bizarre way.