The Sphere: A Journey In Time (4 page)

Well, I thought, at least I knew what I would do for the next half hour or so. I took another sip of wine, then picked up the spoon to my sundae. I zoned out as I stared at a tree, listening to the sound of the water spraying in the fountain, and let a spoonful of ice cream and brownie melt in my mouth. The moment felt unreal, like I was in a dream. Any minute now I would wake up and Mary would yell at me for not being down in the kitchen. Then Shakespeare would come and let me read another of plays. That was reality. This was a memory from long ago.

I shook my head, as though that would help to clear my mind.

Chapter 4

I woke up with a bit of a hangover. I kept as still as possible for a moment. My bed felt much softer than normal. I was loathe at the idea of getting out of bed to begin my morning chores. Where had the smell of body odor gone? And where was the smell of fresh baked bread for breakfast? Was it still night time? What was going on? My head throbbed painfully. Of course. I was no longer in Stratford, I was home. I had drank that bottle of Bordeaux. And then I had drank that second bottle, and then that scotch. The scotch was probably a mistake.

I decided to blame the time change for effecting my ability to cope with the alcohol. There was something I needed to remember, something from yesterday.
Something about the pond.
I decided to continue laying on whatever it was I was laying on.
The pond in the Japanese garden. Japanese?
No, I had decided against learning Japanese a while ago. Even if I learned the language, the likelihood I would be sent back to a point where I needed it would mean I would also likely have to look Japanese. While it might have been easy to tint my pasty white skin a darker color for my Egypt trip, I doubted changing my facial structure to blend in on a more intimate mission would go well.

I rolled over and instantly regretted it. It was readily apparent that I was facing a window now. Though my eyes were closed, I could feel the difference in illumination burning through my eyelids. My brain felt like it was still turning over as well. The pond. I thought a groan might somehow help, but the noise merely made a throbbing pain join the moving sensation of my brain. When was the last time I had been hungover? Certainly not since moving to this place. I was pretty sure they stocked my medicine cabinet with something that would be useful. I just had to make it to the bathroom.

Where was I anyway? I knew I was in my place, I remembered coming home. It was soft. There was a blanket. My foot was slightly pressing against something. I rationalized that it must be the couch. The bed was larger than this. If I was facing a window that meant my back was to the back of the couch. That was a good start. I rolled off the couch onto my hands and knees, keeping my eyes closed.
Pond.

I tried to get my bearings. The bathroom would be down at the end of the hall. I shuffled forward on my hands and knees to the end of the rug and pulled myself upright on the lounge chair. With my eyes still closed I felt my way down the hall. I left the bathroom light off, opened the medicine cabinet, then opened my eyes slightly. Through the bleary slits I could see the bottle of phenederil and managed to fumble the lid off. I tossed one in my mouth and turned the tap on. I hated trying to swallow a pill without a glass of water, but I didn’t want to try and make the trip back to the kitchen without some drugs in my system. I managed to get enough water from my hand into my mouth to get the pill down and plugged the sink. I watched the tap water fill the basin and thought back to the pond. I splashed some of the water on my face and gave it a good rub before looking down at the water again. Some dirt was floating on the surface of the sink water. I watched it float around for a minute before the idea finally came back to me.
Sailing!

That was what I wanted to do with my two weeks. Learning to sail in a private tropical paradise seemed like a great way to expand my mind, yet still have fun. Besides, it might come in handy someday. I dried my face off and took a deep breath. The drugs were already doing their magic. I strutted back to my living room and said to the space, "Message to Jim, I want to learn sailing. Send." A soft beep let me know the message had been sent. I went into the kitchen and put some water on to boil. I pulled a serving of steel cut oats out of a cabinet. "Mail." A screen appeared in the air over the back of the range. The most recent message was from the planters. The one before that was from Noah, another librarian. Noah was one of my better friends in the complex. We were discouraged from mixing with people not in our field. I focused my eyes on his message and said, "Read." Noah's voice filled my kitchen.

"Hey Addy, my guess is you're either making yourself a grilled cheese sandwich with some of that horrible processed cheese substitute you seem to love, or you did the right thing and left business off till the morning, in which case you're stirring your oatmeal. Either way, when you have some free time during the next day or two I could use a little help with my prep for next week. I need a woman's opinion on something, and you're the closest thing around. Missed ya!"

I couldn’t help but laugh at his message. We frequently made up excuses to consult on each other’s prep work so we could force ourselves to have some fun and not get burnt out. Not that we often had missions we weren’t looking forward to. Often another perspective helped with the prep work though. It was strange, I hadn’t seen Noah in over five months, but for him it had only been a few days. I heard another soft beep as I stirred my oatmeal. Jim had responded to my message. It was barely 6am, and I wondered if the man ever slept. "Read."

"Sailing sounds like a wonderful idea. I'll see if I can set that up. You should have your files from the planters by now. Remember, one week. If you finish early I'll make you translate it into another language."

I knew he was not joking and somehow doubted he would let me pick the language. I mixed some brown sugar in with my oatmeal and poured a glass of orange juice before retiring to the couch. "Mail." The screen disappeared from the kitchen and reappeared in the air over the coffee table. My eyes rested on the message from the planters. "Open." The message opened on the screen and the attachment showed up as a smaller document on the side. I read through the first sentence and decided I did not want that sort of formality with my breakfast. I focused on the attachment of my transcribed journal. "Open." I settled down to read through the account of my time in Stratford. Most of the journal entries were fairly banal. My first few weeks I worked as a maid at an inn near the center of town, while working to build up trust with Mary, and arranging a convenient absence of her other maid. Most of the entries were about me complaining of my treatment and my gradual befriending of Mary, but one in particular caught my attention.

Wednesday, July 8th, 1598

Another interesting sighting today. Henry Wriothesley, the number one man of interest on my scout’s list came to the inn today and is spending the night. He was accompanied by another man also on my list, but further down, Byron Goodfell. I tried eavesdropping on their conversations but there were so many people about today it was difficult. It mostly sounded like they were talking politics anyway. Henry, like William, largely ignored me but Byron kept giving me queer looks. I wonder if he thought I might be of service in other ways. Something about him seemed off, it was kind of creepy. Maybe I’ll try to talk to him tomorrow, see what he can tell me about Henry.

I hadn’t paid that much attention to Byron since he wasn’t that high on my list of potential sonnet subjects. But I remembered the feeling he gave me the few times I did see him. It was like he knew something wasn’t right with me. I had shrugged him off as being eccentric at the time. “Search Byron.”

A list of four more entries popped out to the side of my journal. Each of them had a mention of Byron in them. I focused on the top one first, “Open.”

Thursday, July 9th, 1598

Well no luck today. Henry and Byron left rather early to head to William’s house. I asked the innkeeper if they often come through town to visit Shakespeare and he told me to get my head out of the clouds. He said that an Earl would have no interest in a simple maid like myself and I should remember my place. I wanted to smack him, but demurred to his intolerable wisdom. Definitely don’t need to be attracting more attention to myself.

I didn’t think that entry very interesting, and focused on the next. “Open.”

Saturday, July 11th, 1598

I can’t wait to get to the point where I can write about something other than the innkeeper’s daily tortures. Today was a fun one-he found me-

Nevermind that. Byron just came back. The innkeeper brought him up to my room and told me I had to show him a good time or risk being thrown out in the streets. When the innkeeper left I told him that I hadn’t agreed to this when I was hired. Byron said something about me having nice teeth for such a lowly maid. I pleaded with him to leave me be and he said he would enjoy my company for a few more minutes then tell the innkeeper I had been well worth it.

I never thought to prepare for this in my training. Perhaps I should step up the timeline. I got lucky with Byron, but who knows who else the innkeeper will bring up to my room. I wonder if this is the sort of thing that could get him trouble with the authorities. Probably not, it would probably just bring them around more often.

I hadn’t given much thought to the few weeks I had spent at the inn before moving to work for Shakespeare. Frankly, I had wanted to forget most of it since it was largely unpleasant. This entry was the only occasion where the innkeeper had tried to sell me off as more than just a maid. I had forgotten about it almost immediately after leaving the place and wasn’t very keen on reliving it now. Perhaps I would leave this part out of my rewrite. I glanced at the last entry in the search list. “Open.”

August 1st, 1598

Byron and Henry came by the house today. Byron gave me a funny look and mentioned how fortuitous it was that I happened to be picked up by William Shakespeare as a maid. I agreed that he was a much better employer than the innkeeper. The smile he gave me betrayed something, I’m just not sure what. I think maybe he knows that I somehow had a hand in the other maid’s unfortunate incident. Perhaps he thinks Mary and I were in on it together. I didn’t notice any particular treatment of Henry by William. I’ll admit, he’s a pretentious little fop, but that’s not unusual for men of his status in this time. They took him somewhere out of the house. At least now he seems to be past his highly focused phase.

I realized that even if Byron had suspected me of orchestrating the former maid’s demise, there was little to be done about it. Furthermore, it no longer mattered. Byron was long gone and there would be no need to even mention him in my rewrite. I ignored the fourth entry involving him, knowing I would read it soon anyway.

It took me a good hour to read through my journal. I had no idea where to begin, so I looked back at the message from the planters. Their plan was to create a blank journal and rewrite my embellished journal entries with a quill pen. Then they would chemically age the journal and plant it at an auction for a well known book collector. In the back of my mind, I wondered for a moment if they would also kill a well known book collector to speed the discovery. I made a mental note to mention the thought to Vanessa as a joke at some point.

I took my dishes back to the kitchen and placed them in the cleaner. There was no sign of my hangover left, so I decided to go for a run. I had gotten a fair amount of exercise in Stratford but it was mostly heavy lifting and climbing stairs. It would feel good to get a nice long jog in and clear my head a bit. I changed clothes and stepped outside my door.

I paused just outside to gaze at my surroundings. Though I had only been gone a few months, it felt unfamiliar. A short distance to my right I could see the entrance to the Mission Enclosure where I had arrived yesterday. It was where we did our prep work and some of our research for time travel. The faint outline of its own dome-like enclosure was just barely visible on the other side of the glass. Further along the circumference of the main central living dome was the entrance to the agricultural department. Like the living dome, its enclosure was glass to allow sunlight in. It was also much larger than any of the other domes, due to the fact that it housed gardens and fields.

On the opposite side from the traveling chambers was another enclosed dome, larger than the one I worked in. Next to that, the entrance to the outside world. I had no idea what went on in the other dome. I didn’t even know what it was called. By way of experiment once, I ran around the circumference of the living dome. Though the doors to the agricultural dome and my own research dome slid open easily as I ran by, the other doors did not. I turned left and headed down the row of apartment doors to the gym.

The place was deserted this early in the morning so I had no trouble finding an empty running simulator. I selected my favorite trail and headed inside. It was a mostly level trail that wound through the woods, across a few small streams and past a waterfall. Within a few minutes of the trail it was painfully obvious that I was out of shape. I stopped near the halfway mark at the waterfall for a break. "Journal entry, November 18th, 1598."

The general computer voice used for text transcription sounded like Sean Connery to me. It seemed like such an odd choice for something meant to be generic. I paced back and forth in front of the waterfall trying to catch my breath as he repeated the words from my journal entry.