Passion (10 page)

“When are we …?” Luce stared at him, confused.

“You have no idea, do you?” He slapped his forehead. “You’re tel ing me that you dove out of the present without any fundamental knowledge about stepping through? That how you end up when you end up is a complete mystery to you?”

“How was I supposed to learn?” Luce said. “No one told me anything!”

Bil ut ered down from her shoulder and paced along the ledge. “You’re right, you’re right. We’l just go back to basics.” He stopped in front of Luce, tiny hands on his thick hips. “So. Here we go: What is it that you want?”

“I want … to be with Daniel,” she said slowly. There was more, but she wasn’t sure how to explain it.

“Huh!” Bil looked even more dubious than his heavy brow, stone lips, and hooked nose made him look natural y. “The hole in your argument there, Counselor, is that Daniel was already right there beside you when you skipped out of your own time. Was he not?” Luce slid down the wal and sat, feeling another strong rush of regret. “I had to leave. He wouldn’t tel me anything about our past, so I had to go find out for myself.”

She expected Bil to argue with her more, but he simply said, “So, you’re tel ing me you’re on a quest.” Luce felt a faint smile cross her lips. A quest. She liked the sound of that.

“So you do want something. See?” Bil clapped. “Okay, rst thing you ought to know is that the Announcers are summoned to you based upon what’s going on in here.” He thumped his stony fist against his chest. “They’re kind of like lit le sharks, drawn by your deepest desires.”

“Right.” Luce remembered the shadows at Shoreline, how it was almost as though the speci c Announcers had chosen her and not the other way around.

“So when you step through, the Announcers that seem to quiver before you, begging you to pick them up? They funnel you to the place your soul longs to be.”

“So the girl I was in Moscow, and in Milan—and al the other lives I glimpsed before I knew how to step through—I wanted to visit them?”

“Precisely,” Bil said. “You just didn’t know it. The Announcers knew it for you. You’l get bet er at this, too. Soon you should begin to feel yourself sharing their knowledge. As strange as it may feel, they’re a part of you.” Each one of those cold, dark shadows, a part of her? It made sudden, unexpected sense. It explained how even from the beginning, even when it scared her, Luce hadn’t been able to stop herself from stepping through them. Even when Roland warned her they were dangerous.

Even when Daniel gaped at her like she’d commit ed some horrible crime. The Announcers always felt like a door opening. Was it possible that they real y were?

Her past, once so unknowable, was out there, and al she had to do was step through into the right doorways? She could see who she’d Her past, once so unknowable, was out there, and al she had to do was step through into the right doorways? She could see who she’d been, what had drawn Daniel to her, why their love had been damned, how it had grown and changed over time. And, most importantly, what they could be in the future.

“We’re already wel on our way somewhere,” Bil said, “but now that you know what you and your Announcers are capable of, the next time you go stepping through, you need to think about what you want. And don’t think place or time, think overal quest.”

“Okay.” Luce was working to tidy the jumble of emotions inside her into words that might make any sense out loud.

“Why not try it out now?” Bil said. “Just for practice. Might give us a heads-up about what we’re going to walk into. Think about what it is you’re after.”

“Understanding,” she said slowly.

“Good,” Bil said. “What else?”

A nervous energy was coursing through her, as if she was on the brink of something important. “I want to nd out why Daniel and I were cursed. And I want to break that curse. I want to stop love from kil ing me so that we can final y be together—for real.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Bil started waving his hands like a man stranded on the side of a dark road. “Let’s not get crazy. This is a very long-standing damnation you’re up against here. You and Daniel, it’s like … I don’t know, you can’t just snap your pret y lit le ngers and break out of that. You got a start smal .”

“Right,” Luce said. “Okay. Then I should start by get ing to know one of my past selves. Get up close and see her relationship with Daniel unfold. See if she feels the same things I feel.”

Bil was nodding, a wacky smile spreading across his ful lips. He led her to the edge of the ledge. “I think you’re ready. Let’s go.” Let’s go? The gargoyle was coming with her? Out of the Announcer and into another past? Yes, Luce could use some company, but she barely knew this guy.

“You’re wondering why you should trust me, aren’t you?” Bil asked.

“No, I—”

“I get it,” he said, hovering in the air in front of her. “I’m an acquired taste. Especial y compared to the company you’re used to keeping.

I’m certainly no angel.” He snorted. “But I can help make this journey worth your while. We can make a deal, if you want. You get sick of me—just say so. I’l be on my way.” He held out his long clawed hand.

Luce shuddered. Bil ’s hand was crusty with rocky cysts and scabs of lichen, like a ruined statue. The last thing she wanted to do was take it in her own hand. But if she didn’t, if she sent him on his way right now …

She might be bet er of with him than without him.

She glanced down at her feet. The short wet ledge beneath them ended where she was standing, dropped o into nothing. Between her shoes, something caught her eye, a shimmer in the rock that made her blink. The ground was shifting … softening … swaying under her feet.

Luce looked behind her. The slab of rock was crumbling, al the way to the wal of the cave. She stumbled, teetering at the edge. The ledge jerked beneath her—harder—as the particles that held the rock together began to break apart. The ledge disappeared around her, faster and faster, until fresh air brushed the backs of her heels and she jumped—

And sank her right hand into Bil ’s extended claw. They shook in the air.

“How do we get out of here?” she cried, grasping tight to him now for fear of fal ing into the abyss she couldn’t see.

“Fol ow your heart.” Bil was beaming, calm. “It won’t mislead you.”

Luce closed her eyes and thought of Daniel. A feeling of weightlessness overcame her, and she caught her breath. When she opened her eyes, she was somehow soaring through static- l ed darkness. The stone cave shifted and pul ed in on itself into a smal golden orb of light that shrank and was gone.

Luce glanced over, and Bil was right there with her.

“What was the first thing I ever told you?” he asked.

Luce recal ed how his voice had seemed to reach al the way inside her.

“You said to slow down. That I’d never learn anything zipping around my past so quickly.”

“And?”

“It was exactly what I wanted to do, I just didn’t know I wanted it.”

“Maybe that’s why you found me when you did,” Bil shouted over the wind, his gray wings bristling as they sped along. “And maybe that’s why we’ve ended up … right … here.”

The wind stopped. The static crackling smoothed to silence.

Luce’s feet slammed onto the ground, a sensation like ying o a swing set and landing on a grassy lawn. She was out of the Announcer and somewhere else. The air was warm and a lit le humid. The light around her feet told her it was dusk.

They were sunk deep in a eld of thick, soft, bril iant green grass, as high as her calves. Here and there the grass was dot ed with tiny bright-red fruit—wild strawberries. Ahead, a thin row of silver birch trees marked the edge of the manicured lawn of an estate. Some distance beyond that stood an enormous house.

From here she could make out a white stone ight of stairs that led to the back entrance of the large, Tudor-style mansion. An acre of pruned yel ow rosebushes bordered the lawn’s north side, and a miniature hedge maze l ed the area near the iron gate on the east. In the center lay a bountiful vegetable garden, beans climbing high along their poles. A pebble trail cut the yard in half and led to a large whitewashed gazebo.

Goose bumps rose on Luce’s arms. This was the place. She had a visceral sense that she had been here before. This was no ordinary déjà vu. She was staring at a place that had meant something to her and Daniel. She half expected to see the two of them there right now, wrapped in each other’s arms.

But the gazebo was empty, fil ed only with the orange light of the set ing sun.

Someone whistled, making her jump.

Bil .

She’d forgot en he was with her. He hovered in the air so that their heads were on the same level. Outside the Announcer, he was somewhat more repulsive than he’d seemed at rst. In the light, his esh was dry and scaly, and he smel ed pret y strongly of mildew. Flies buzzed around his head. Luce edged away from him a lit le, almost wishing he’d go back to being invisible.

“Sure beats a war zone,” he said, eyeing the grounds.

“How did you know where I was before?”

“I’m … Bil .” He shrugged. “I know things.”

“Okay, then, where are we now?”

“Okay, then, where are we now?”

“Helston, England”—he pointed a claw tip toward his head and closed his eyes—“in what you’d cal 1854.” Then he clasped his stone claws together in front of his chest like a gnomey sort of schoolboy reciting a history report. “A sleepy southern town in the county of Cornwal , granted charter by King John himself. Corn’s a few feet tal , so I’d say it’s probably midsummer. Pity we missed the month of May

—they have a Flora Day festival here like you wouldn’t believe. Or maybe you would! Your past self was the bel e of the bal the last two years in a row. Her father’s very rich, see. Got in at the ground level of the copper trade—”

“Sounds terrific.” Luce cut him of and started tramping across the grass. “I’m going in there. I want to talk to her.”

“Hold up.” Bil flew past her, then looped back, flut ering a few inches in front of her face. “Now, this? This won’t do at al .” He waved a nger in a circle, and Luce realized he was talking about her clothes. She was stil in the Italian nurse’s uniform she’d worn during the First World War.

He grabbed the hem of her long white skirt and lifted it to her ankles. “What do you have on under there? Are those Converse? You’ve got a be kidding me with those.” He clucked his tongue. “How you ever survived those other lifetimes without me …”

“I got along fine, thank you.”

“You’l need to do more than ‘get along’ if you want to spend some time here.” Bil ew back up to eye level with Luce, then zipped around her three times. When she turned to look for him, he was gone.

But then, a second later, she heard his voice—though it sounded as if it was coming from a great distance. “Yes! Bril iant, Bil !” A gray dot appeared in the air near the house, growing larger, then larger, until Bil ’s stone wrinkles became clear. He was ying toward her now, and carrying a dark bundle in his arms.

When he reached her, he simply plucked at her side, and the baggy white nurse’s uniform split down its seam and slid right o her body.

Luce ung her arms around her bare body modestly, but it seemed like only a second later that a series of pet icoats was being tugged over her head.

Bil scrambled around her like a rabid seamstress, binding her waist into a tight corset, until sharp boning poked her skin in al sorts of uncomfortable places. There was so much taf eta in her pet icoats that even standing stil in a bit of a breeze, she rustled.

She thought she looked pret y good for the era—until she recognized the white apron tied around her waist, over her long black dress. Her hand went to her hair and yanked of a white servant’s headpiece.

“I’m a maid?” she asked.

“Yes, Einstein, you’re a maid.”

Luce knew it was dumb, but she felt a lit le disappointed. The estate was so grand and the gardens so lovely and she knew she was on a quest and al that, but couldn’t she have just strol ed around the grounds here like a real Victorian lady?

“I thought you said my family was rich.”

“Your past self’s family was rich. Filthy rich. You’l see when you meet her. She goes by Lucinda and thinks your nickname is an absolute abomination, by the way.” Bil pinched his nose and lifted it high in the air, giving a pret y laughable imitation of a snob. “She’s rich, yes, but you, my dear, are a time-traveling intruder who knows not the ways of this high society. So unless you want to stick out like a Manchester seamstress and get shown the door before you even get to have a chat with Lucinda, you need to go undercover. You’re a scul ery maid.

Serving girl. Chamber-pot changer. It’s real y up to you. Don’t worry, I’l stay out of your way. I can disappear in the blink of an eye.” Luce groaned. “And I just go in and pretend like I work here?”

“No.” Bil rol ed his flinty eyes. “Go up and introduce yourself to the lady of the house, Mrs. Constance. Tel her your last placement moved to the Continent and you’re looking for new employment. She’s an evil old harridan and a stickler for references. Lucky for you, I’m one step ahead of her. You’l find yours inside your apron pocket.”

Luce slipped her hand inside the pocket of her white linen apron and pul ed out a thick envelope. The back was stamped shut with a red wax seal; when she turned it over, she read Mrs. Melvil e Constance, scrawled in black ink. “You’re kind of a know-it-al , aren’t you?”

“Thank you.” Bil bowed graciously; then, when he realized Luce had already started toward the house, he ew ahead, beating his wings so rapidly they became two stone-colored blurs on either side of his body.

By then they had passed the silver birches and were crossing the manicured lawn. Luce was about to start up the pebble path to the house, but hung back when she noticed figures in the gazebo. A man and a woman, walking toward the house. Toward Luce.

“Get down,” she whispered. She wasn’t ready to be seen by anyone in Helston, especial y not with Bil buzzing around her like some oversized insect.

“You get down,” he said. “Just because I made an invisibility exception for your bene t doesn’t mean just any mere mortal can see me. I’m perfectly discreet where I am. Mat er of fact, the only eyes I have to be watchful about are—Whoa, hey.” Bil ’s stone eyebrows shot up suddenly, making a heavy dragging noise. “I’m out,” he said, ducking down behind the tomato vines.