Timeless (12 page)

CHAPTER 22

It didn’t take long for us to pinpoint the location of the ring.

“Where is that?” I asked, looking at the spot on the map. The location felt familiar. Almost like I knew where it was, although I had never been there before.

“It appears to be a residential address,” Misty said. “If we want to find the ring, we’ll have to go inside.”

“Like breaking and entering?” I couldn’t believe she was proposing such a thing.

“Nothing so incriminating, no.” Misty looked deep in thought. “We’ll figure something out. But first, we have to go there and scout out what we’re dealing with. Once we get more information, we’ll come up with a plan.”

I didn’t like the sound of that, but I didn’t have any better ideas, so we squished into Misty’s small car and headed to our destination.

* * *

When we pulled up in front of the house, I knew why the location felt familiar.

“That’s the house from my past,” I said breathlessly. “The one I lived in when I was her—Elizabeth.”

I remembered it clearly from when I described it without meaning to in French class earlier in the school year. Two stories tall, white wood siding, and the wraparound porch covered with ivy. The swing attached to a huge tree in front—the same swing from the memories I had with Drew when we were our past selves. It was the swing my past self sketched him sitting in when our families had no idea we were together.

I couldn’t believe I was here, and that this place existed. I mean, I knew it existed, but it always felt like it existed in another life—because up until now, it had.

“You’re sure the ring is in there?” I asked Misty.

“That’s what the pendulum said when Chelsea did the tracking spell.” She pulled the car up to the end of the driveway and put it into park.

“What do we do now?” I asked. “We can’t just knock on the door and tell whoever lives there that we’re searching for a garnet ring she has, because it was mine in a past life and since my best friend accidentally cursed me to die, we need the ring now because it might be able to take us back in time, where we can stop the curse from happening in the first place.”

“Did you really get that out in one breath?” Misty laughed.

“And someone’s probably home,” I added, “Because there’s a car in the driveway.”  

“Lizzie has a point.” Chelsea looked at Drew, like he might have the answer. “What are we supposed to do from here?”

“Don’t look at me,” he said. “I was hoping no one would be home so we could go inside and look around. We could wait for whoever lives there to leave, but we have no idea when that might be.”

“I’ll have to distract them, then,” Misty said, like this was no issue at all.

“And then what?” I looked at her with wide eyes. “Have us sneak in and find the ring?”

Her eyes glinted with mischief. “Precisely.”

I couldn’t believe she seriously suggested that. “How are we supposed to find the ring in the house?” I asked. “And what if the owner is wearing it? Then we have no chance.”

“If the owner is wearing it, then I’ll be able to see it, and I’ll handle it,” Misty said. “Now, calm down and think. Where do you think you would be most likely to find a ring?”

“A jewelry chest in the master bedroom,” I said the first idea that popped into my mind. “At least that’s where my mom keeps her nice pieces.”

“That wasn’t hard to figure out,” Misty said. “So, here’s the plan.”

She proceeded to tell us her crazy idea that just might work.

CHAPTER 23

I couldn’t believe we were going through with this. I’d only broken one rule in my life, when I’d sneaked out of my house to spend time with Drew before anyone knew we were together. Every time I did that, I felt awful knowing I wasn’t being honest with my mom.

Now I was breaking and entering? It was one thing sneaking out of my house, but sneaking
into
one? One that wasn’t mine? Maybe it was mine in a past life, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but now a complete stranger owned it. According to the law, I had no connection with this house.

This would be my first—and hopefully last—criminal act.

Drew and I were waiting in the car with Misty, since Chelsea had gone ahead to check out the situation. Misty’s cell phone lit up with a text message.

“Chelsea says it’s all clear,” Misty whispered in her best Mission Impossible voice. “Go join her and I’ll do my thing. Once I leave with the owner, do exactly what I told you.”

Drew and I got out of the car and closed the door. We walked to the house, my hand staying in his the whole time.

“You’re shaking,” he said, giving my hand a squeeze. “Relax.”

“How am I supposed to relax knowing what we’re about to do?”

“If you want, you can take Chelsea’s position on look-out and she can go inside the house with me to find the ring,” he suggested.

“No way.” I didn’t have to think twice about my answer. I didn’t want to be the one outside—by myself—while Chelsea was in the house with Drew. “The house layout is in my past memory, so I’m the best one to go inside with you and find the ring.”

“Let’s get this over with, then,” he said. “It shouldn’t be too hard—we’ll be in and out of there in no time. Plus, this is nothing compared to what we have to do after we get the ring.”

He had a point, but it wasn’t making me feel any better.

Drew and I walked as quietly as possible around the house and joined Chelsea by the side.

“What did you see?” I asked her.

“It seems like there’s only one person home—a lady who looks like she’s our parents’ age,” Chelsea said. “I peeked through the windows on the first floor, and there were no bedrooms, so you were right that the master is on the second floor.”

“Great,” I said. Hopefully Misty was right and her self-proclaimed “gift of gab” would distract the lady who owned the house long enough for us to sneak inside and get the ring.

Now we just had to wait for her to do her thing.

I couldn’t see Misty from where the three of us stood to the side of the house, but I heard her walk up to the door and knock. A few seconds later, someone answered.

“How may I help you?” a woman asked in a polite British accent.

One thing I’d noticed since arriving in England was that British people always sounded polite. They could be talking about the most vulgar thing ever and still make it sound proper.

It was hard to imagine that in my past life, I had an accent like that, too.

“I’m so glad someone’s home!” Misty said, sounding flustered. “I was on my way to meet a client and my car broke down in the middle of the street! I have no idea what’s wrong with it, and my cell is getting such terrible reception that I can’t make an outgoing call.”

“Oh, dear,” the woman said, not sounding bothered at all. She introduced herself as Barbara, and from her voice, she sounded older, like the type of woman who sat inside knitting and reading all day with a bunch of cats nearby. “Would you like to come inside and borrow my phone?”

“Do you think you could take a look at the car with me?” Misty asked.

“As much as I would love to help, I’m hardly an expert with cars …” Barbara replied.

“At least come outside with me and let me borrow your cell,” Misty insisted. “You must have a different service provider than I do, and I’ll want to be near the car when talking with the professionals, don’t you agree? It would be much easier to tell them what’s wrong.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Barbara said. “Let me fetch my cell and I’ll go outside with you. Wait here—I’ll be back in a minute.”

After Barbara got her cell, the two of them headed toward the car. I peeked around the side of the house to get a glimpse of what Barbara looked like. I could only see the back of her head, but she didn’t look like I’d pictured. From this angle, I guessed she was in her forties or fifties. She was tall, with long brown hair, and she was wearing workout clothes. I supposed she wasn’t expecting company.

“You have to move,” Chelsea whispered to me, reminding me why we were here.

Drew led the way to the back of the house. I followed him, unable to believe I was going through with this.

Just like Chelsea had said after her initial investigation, the back door was unlocked. I supposed residents of the English countryside didn’t worry about people breaking and entering when they were home.

“Good luck,” Chelsea said before Drew and I went inside.

I was still upset at her about everything that had happened in the past few months, but I was glad we were sort of friends again. I hoped that given time, our relationship would return to normal.

Well, as normal as it could be given what we’d gone through.

Drew and I walked into the house, and I was struck with déjà-vu. The breakfast area looked familiar, with its wooden floors and windows looking out to the backyard. It wasn’t completely as I remembered, though. The electronic objects inside, like the coffee maker, microwave, and toaster, felt out of place. Still, I could perfectly visualize what the kitchen looked like before modern conveniences existed.

“The stairs are near the front,” I whispered to Drew, anxious to keep moving. As much as I would have loved to explore every nook and cranny of this house where I’d lived in a past life, we had a time constraint. I didn’t know how long Misty could keep Barbara occupied with the car breaking down story, and I didn’t want to test our luck.

We walked to the stairs, trying to be as quiet as possible. I was better at this than Drew. Every time a plank of wood squeaked beneath his feet, I cringed, even though Misty and Barbara were at the end of the driveway and neither of them could hear us. Still, it was nerve-wracking.

I took the lead as we walked up the steps, and I didn’t need to think twice about where the master bedroom was. I just opened the door and walked inside.

But while I knew the layout of the house, that was the only thing about it that had stayed the same. Barely any of the furniture remained from when I lived there in my past life; it was like everything about that existence had disappeared.

I wondered what had happened—if my family took the furniture with them when they moved, if they sold it, or if the new owner got rid of it to make room for her belongings. The house couldn’t have been kept in the family, since I was an only child, and my past self didn’t live long enough to marry and have children.

What had happened to my parents back then? Did they move after the death of their only child to start life fresh, or did they die in this house at an old age, ending the family line forever?

“Is everything okay?” Drew’s concerned voice brought me back to the present.

“Yeah,” I said. “Being here and knowing that this is where I used to live is just a lot to take in.”

“I understand,” he told me. “But we have to find the ring and get out of here. Maybe we can look around at some other point, but now isn’t the time.”

“I know,” I said, and looked around to locate the jewelry box.

It wasn’t hard to find. It sat on top of an antique chest of drawers—I recognized the chest as one that had been there when my past self had lived in the house. It looked freshly painted and renovated, but it was definitely the same one.

“It’s over there,” I said to Drew, pointing at the wooden box that was also a relic from the past.

We walked up to it, and stared at it as though afraid to touch it.

“You can open it,” he told me, watching me intensely.

I looked back at the box, unable to believe that this might hold the ring the two of us had made a promise on all those years ago, in a life we were only beginning to remember. A promise to be with each other forever … a promise that was strong enough to transcend time.

I lifted the lid of the box and there it was, sitting in the center of the ring section. The gold band with a half-moon of garnets along the top, gleaming even in the low-lighted room.

Looking at it sent images flashing through my mind of Drew and I together on the field outside this house, when he presented it to me and told me he ended the engagement with Catherine and it was me he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. How he didn’t care what his family thought, or what they would do to him out of anger. It was worth it for us to be together, because he loved me, and he would never find anyone else he wanted to be with more.

Before either of us could grab the ring, my cell phone lit up. A text from Chelsea.

911 – they’re heading back to the house!

Panic pounded through my chest, and I showed Drew the text.

He grabbed the ring from the jewelry box and shoved it into the front pocket of his jeans. “Keep quiet, and maybe we can get out the back before she sees us,” he whispered.

We tip-toed out of the bedroom in time to hear the front door open. I froze at the top of the steps.

“Thank you so much for your help!” Misty’s voice resonated through the entire house. “I can’t believe it was something so simple!”

“It was no trouble at all.” I could tell from the edge in Barbara’s voice that she was getting annoyed. “Is there something else you need?”

“I’ve got a long drive ahead, and would appreciate using the loo before heading out,” Misty said. “I’m also dying of thirst—do you have any iced tea, perhaps?”

“I’ll go fetch it,” Barbara said, and then directed Misty to the restroom.

“This is our chance,” I whispered to Drew. “We’ll have to leave through the front door.” I couldn’t believe I sounded calm, when I was freaking out inside.

“Let’s go,” he said, not wasting any time before rushing down the stairwell. I followed him, cringing every time my steps were loud enough to be overheard. Luckily, the stairs led straight to the front door.

We burst outside, making sure to shut the door quietly behind us.

Once on the porch, I took a deep breath of fresh air and ran with Drew down the driveway until we reached the car. Chelsea was already there waiting for us.

“I can’t believe you guys made it!” she said, breathless from what I guessed was also her dash to the car. “Did you get the ring?”

“It’s right here.” Drew patted the front pocket of his jeans.

“When they went inside the house, I thought for sure we were going to get caught!” I ran my hands through my hair in an attempt to tame my curls. “I can’t believe we got away with it.”

“What’s going to happen when Barbara realizes her ring is missing?” Chelsea asked.

I hadn’t considered that part, but now that Chelsea brought it up, I ran through the possibilities.

“If we don’t succeed with our plan, she’ll eventually realize it’s gone,” I said with a shrug.

“And if we do succeed with our plan?”

I met her eyes, and tried to sound more confident than I felt. “If we do succeed with our plan, then she won’t notice the ring is gone, because it never would have been hers to begin with.”

“What does that mean?” Chelsea looked confused.

“If everything works out the way we want, I will never have died in the past, so the path the ring took to get to this point will have changed completely,” I explained. “My past self will live a long life, with the ring in her possession, and will probably pass it down through her family so it doesn’t end up with a stranger like it did in this reality.”

Chelsea nodded, although I could tell she was having a hard time digesting this. I could somewhat grasp it because of the books I enjoyed reading, but Chelsea never shared my interest in science-fiction and fantasy.

I didn’t have more time to explain time travel theory to her, because Misty hurried down the driveway and joined us at the car.

“Did you get the ring?” she asked, her eyes wide in hope. “Please tell me you did and I didn’t go through that for nothing.”

“We got it,” I assured her. “Although I thought for sure when the two of you came inside that we were going to get caught.”

“You left through the front door?” Misty asked.

“Yes.” I nodded.

“Good,” she said. “Now, let’s go to the store and get the three of you back to the past.”