Clockwiser (20 page)

We heard cupboards and drawers open and close in the kitchen and the sound of the espresso machine steaming milk.

“Maybe we should get out of her way,” I said.

Willie and Lucinda followed me to Nate’s room. He didn’t move from his computer desk when we piled in and sat in a row like three monkeys on the edge of his bed. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.

It was awkward to say the least.

Nate turned to us, but he didn’t look anyone in the eye. “I’ve been working on a heritage site.”

“Did you find anything?” I asked.

“The Turner museum only recorded three generations of the Watson family line. Samuel said we had to find out if anything would change if Willie stayed.”

“We already know that Henry will die if I don’t go back,” Willie said.

“Not necessarily,” I said. “It’s possible that someone else could’ve been there to save him if you weren’t. We don’t really know the circumstances of that situation.”

“Okay, here’s Willie’s family.” Nate pointed to his computer screen. “I’m starting with Sara and Henry’s lineage.”

Nate tapped away on his keyboard and I stood to peer over him. I could smell Nate’s cologne, and if we weren’t in the middle of this stupid fight, I was pretty sure I would’ve shoved my face into his neck. He shifted in his seat.

“This could take a few minutes.”

Gotcha. I backed up and distracted myself by staring at the posters of all Nate’s sports heroes. It was either that or gag at the way Lucinda and Willie made eyes at each other.

The Tom Brady poster was the largest, and my eyes darted to the flattened ball that lay on the trophy shelf nearby. The ball that started it all with Nate and me. If I hadn’t jumped up spontaneously to catch an over throw by Tyson that day Lucinda and I stayed after school to watch the practice (or more accurately, watch the hot guys and specifically Nate), none of this would’ve happened.

I walked across his room and picked it up, running my fingers against the hole in the middle of Tom Brady’s signature. I remembered the horror I felt when some upstart from the past missed the squirrel he was aiming at and hit Nate’s football instead.

So much had happened since then, it felt like another lifetime ago.

Nate swivelled to look at us. “I’m done. There are a few gaps, but I was able to identify one living relative, still in the Cambridge area. A Clarice Watson. Married name, Porter.”

I carefully placed Nate’s ball back on the shelf.

“Clarice Porter? That’s the same name as the cop who saved Tim’s life.”

Willie crumbled a little. “Sara and Henry’s great, great, great, granddaughter, saved Tim’s life?”

I put a hand on his shoulder. “A cosmic coincidence?”

Nate’s fingers kept clicking at his keyboard. Then he turned to us. “I can’t find anyone else in this area with the same name.”

“So?” I prompted.

“Well, I’m no physicist,” Nate said, “but what happens when the date of the day Willie saves Henry’s life passes in the past and Henry dies. His whole ancestry would be erased, right?

I shook my head at the catastrophic possibility. “Talk about a huge butterfly.”

“I’m confused,” Willie said. “What do butterflies have to do with anything?”

“It’s this theory that a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazonian rain forest could cause a ripple effect in the universe that would create a tsunami on the other side of the world. Basically, every little thing that happens has a big effect elsewhere at another time in the future.”

Willie’s jaw went slack. “And I’m the butterfly?”

My heart sank. “I guess you could say that.”

Willie closed his eyes and let out a long breath. “That settles it then,” he said. “I have to go back. I have to save Henry. I have to save Tim. I have to save the world.”

It sounded dramatic but it could be true.

Or not.

“Maybe Nate’s right and someone else will save Henry,” Lucinda said. “We can’t give up on Willie’s life so easily. There must be someone else there, right? Because you’re not?”

“But what if we’re wrong?” Willie said, looking at her. “What if no one else is there to save him? Then poof! Sara’s whole lineage disappears. Including Officer Porter.”

“We don’t know if that would happen,” I insisted.

Willie’s eyes settled on me. “We don’t know that it won’t.”

Was Officer Porter the only one who could’ve saved Tim? And if Willie didn’t go back, would Officer Porter really cease to exist?

The whole thing was giving me a headache.

Willie hid his face in his hands. “As much as I don’t want to die,” he said through his fingers, “I can’t take a chance with the outcome. I have to go back.”

“Oh, Willie.” Lucinda, burst into tears.

Then she leaned into him and kissed him on the lips. Instead of closing his eyes like most people do while kissing, Willie’s eyes grew wide, and I wondered if he’d ever been kissed before.

I turned my back to them, to give them a little privacy. I felt for Willie. If he went back, he’d die and miss out on his chance to experience what it was like to fall in love, to raise a family, to make his mark in the world.

On the other hand, if he didn’t go back, Sara would miss out on those things, not to mention that Henry would miss out, too.

Nate raised his eyebrows at the make-out scene on his bed.

His eyes came back to me. “You need to see this.”

I thought he’d come up with a solution to Willie’s dilemma so I grabbed Willie’s hand. “Break it up, you two.”

I pulled Willie over to look at Nate’s laptop. He’d found another Civil War site and had been browsing through old black-and-white photos.

“What’s this?”

“I came across this site yesterday, and I thought I should show it to you. These are photos of soldiers in the Union army, Willie’s regiment, the 13th Mass. Photography was getting a good foothold during that era, just in time to record quite a lot of the war and the men in it.”

I shot of fear tingled my spine. “And...”

“I just found this.”

Nate clicked on an icon he’d shrunk at the bottom of the screen. It opened up, and there in front of us, in his Union army uniform was Tim.

I felt like I couldn’t breathe. “What does it say? Did he die?”

Before Nate could answer me, my head started spinning. I already had Willie’s hand and just in time I grabbed Nate’s arm. The three of us tumbled through the spiral of light, and we all landed with a thud on the ground surrounded by tall trees blowing wildly in the wind.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

CASEY

A rush of wind blew my hair into my eyes. I fell to my back in an exhausted heap staring up at the blue sky. Tall trees thick with a canopy of leaves swayed overhead like giant upside-down brooms, sunlight pushing through in long fingers of light.

Despite the wind, my ears became attuned to the presence of forest noises--bugs and birds, squirrels and foxes--and the absence of car engines, TV chatter, background music, and air traffic.

Willie looked like someone had slapped him across the face.

“Are you okay?” I asked him.

His head slowly bobbed. “Are we really back? My parents, my family, alive?”

I forced myself to sit up. “Yes and yes.”

“Do you know where we are?” Nate asked.

I’d never tripped from his house before and he lived a good ten minutes away from me by car.

“Not exactly,” I said.

“I’ve got to get home,” Willie said. “I need to see my family. And then...”

And then re-enlist. I wondered what kind of punishment they’d hand out. But if the history we read about in the library remained true, he did in fact get re-enlisted. Probably due to the shortage of soldiers. No sense keeping an able-bodied person locked up behind bars.

Willie started walking, pushing through forest brush and Nate and I stepped in behind him. Eventually, we hit a dirt road, more of a horse path, really. We followed it until we came upon a highway marker.

“I know where we are now,” Willie said.

“Great.” I pulled out small twigs and leaves that had gotten caught in my hair. “We have to do something about our clothes when we can.”

Willie took the lead. “We have plenty at home.”

He did indeed know the way to his farm, and we circled in the back way on the same path Josephine and I had used to sneak out on our doomed horseback ride to retrieve Tim. When I thought of him in that old Union army photograph I felt a weird mix of pride and fear, and extreme annoyance. What a brat!

I just hoped he was able to stay out of trouble, and by trouble I meant not lying dead in some field. I had Nate with me now, so if we had to pin him down forcibly to get him home, we would do it.

We stopped by the water pump, taking turns scooping up water to sooth our parched throats.

“What’s the plan?” Nate asked.

Before we could answer, another voice interrupted. “Willie?”

“Josephine!” Willie ran to his sister, and twirled her in an emotional hug.

“Oh, good Lord, Willie! Do you know how much trouble you’re in?” Josephine backed away and took a long look at her brother, wiping tears from her eyes. “I’m just so glad you’re alive.”

Then she saw our clothes. “And what on earth are you all wearing?”

“Is the family okay?” Willie asked, ignoring her question.

“Well, we’d been told you defected. A collection of soldiers came and searched the whole house and property. We didn’t believe them, of course. We were sure that something horrible must’ve happened to you. Ma’s in a dreadful state.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

“What happened to you, then? There was also talk that you’d gotten very ill and in a state of delusion, wandered off the base and got lost in the forest to be eaten by wild animals.”

“Josephine,” I said, needing to get us back on track. “I know you are a great keeper of confidences...”

Her eyes lit up and she nodded.

“We promise to explain everything later, but first, do you think you could get us some clothes and meet us at the cabin?”

“I can’t wait to hear this one,” she said leaving us alone to work on a story.

“What are we going to tell her?” Willie said.

We kept ourselves shielded by the trees at the back of the property as we made our way to the back side of the cabin where we waited for Josephine.

“That’s not a bad idea,” I said. “About you being ill. If we go with that one, then the army might go easier on what punishment they choose.”

“I suppose it’s as good as any,” he agreed. “And I really don’t want to go down in history as a defector.”

I smiled at him. “I don’t remember reading anything like that about you.”

We heard Josephine’s hushed voice, calling, “Willie.”

“We’re behind the cabin,” he called back softly.

We took the clothing Josephine handed to us. “So?”

Willie kept to the story about being ill, and somehow by the time he was finished, Nate and I happened to have found him lying in the forest almost dead.

Josephine’s forehead wrinkled up.

“I’m confused,” she said. “I thought Nathaniel had enlisted in Springfield. Did you defect, too. And Cassandra, why are you dressed so wantonly?”

Nate and Willie looked at me with cocked eyebrows, waiting for what kind of story I would concoct now.

“Um, well, the thing is Josephine, we’re from a poor family, and so sometimes, uh, Nate, uh, Nathaniel and I...” What? What do we do? Then it hit me. I added with a rush, “... join a Vaudeville show.”

“A Vaudeville show?” Josephine’s eyes brightened with curiosity. “What is that?”

“It’s entertainment. You know, singing and dancing and acting. We take it on the road, from village to village.”

Oh, the tangled web we weave.

“But, why haven’t I heard of it? Do you perform in Boston?”

Nate broke in. “It’s not really very good. We’re not proud of it, so we don’t tell our friends. But we really do have to get going.”

“Yes,” I said, agreeing. “I’m going to sneak into the cabin to change.”

I changed into the dress Josephine brought for me as quickly as possible, wanting to get moving on our quest to find Tim.

When I got back to the guys, they were already changed. Josephine had left to give them privacy.

We stood awkwardly, staring, knowing that we needed to say goodbye, and that we’d never see Willie again.

“Cassandra and Nathaniel,” Willie said, reverting back to our nineteenth century titles. “It’s been an extreme honor and a pleasure.”

“For us as well.” My eyes started swelling along with my throat and there was no way I could keep the waterworks at bay.

I studied Willie’s blue eyes lined with golden lashes, the way his pale skin was sprinkled with freckles, and how his copper curls hung on his forehead.