Overseas (52 page)

“And what else? It can’t just be that.”

“Well, I suspect there might be some question of emotional connection.
The person must have an emotional connection to the modern period.”

“But what connection could Julian possibly have to 1996?”

“Perhaps because you were alive.”

“But he didn’t even know me!”

“He
would
know you. If time is really as flexible as this, as circular, then it wouldn’t perhaps matter whether he’d met you or not.”

I sat back, absorbing this. “Have you discussed this with anyone? A physics professor? Because you can’t just go around ripping holes through the freaking space-time continuum, all by yourself. Like you’ve got some voodoo power, like the Force or whatever.”

He went quiet for a long moment. “I can’t explain it. I don’t know what it is. Why I should have it; how I acquired it. Whether I’m the only one. But there it is.”

There it is
. So simple, so impossibly intricate: a stone thrown into a shoreless pond, the ripples radiating out into infinity. Infinite consequences; infinite possibilities. “Let me ask you something,” I said. “If I wanted to go back to 1916, and prevent Julian from ever being on that patrol, he might stay where he was?
When
he was, I mean?”

“I don’t know. That’s an interesting question.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, whether you can change the history of it. We know, don’t we, he
did
come forward to our time. So is it possible for you to go back and change that? It’s a great risk, to you and him.”

“But if he dies now,” I said, “wouldn’t it be a chance worth taking?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. What are the ethics?
Are
there ethics? I don’t know. The mere flutter of a hummingbird’s wings…”

“Would you do it for me, though? If we land in Manchester, and find out they’ve killed him, would you do it? Would you send me back?”

He took a bite of his sandwich and chewed patiently. “What would you do there?”

“I’d find him. Try to change his plans.”

“You realize,” he said, swallowing, “that Julian disappeared near the end of March 1916, and that shortly more than three months later his company went over the top on the first day of the Somme. The captain that day, Julian’s replacement, was killed.”

“But he’d have a chance, wouldn’t he? I could tell him, warn him. I could guide him through the rest of the war.”

“A chance. A merest chance,” he said. “And then, only if it worked. Only if you could, in fact, change history. Or whether some cosmic force would prevent you.”

“It’s worth it,” I said recklessly. “Don’t you see, I can’t do
nothing.
I can’t just let him die. You saved him once; surely I can do the same. I have to, after all. It’s my fault he’s in danger in the first place.”

Hollander sighed and stared out the window. In the last few minutes, a pale blue glow had spread out over the horizon, as the airplane hurtled toward the approaching dawn. I slipped my wristwatch over my fingers and spun the hands around five times. “It’s nine o’clock, British time,” I said. “They’ll be landing soon. If not already.”

He turned to me. “Very well. If it all goes badly, if they’ve…” His throat worked; he shook his head. “Then I’ll do it. But you must be ready. You’ll appear at Southfield in 1916; you’ll have to find clothes, food, shelter. Make your way to France. You’ll need money.”

I looked at my wrists. “No problem,” I said, taking off the triple gold bangle around my wrist, one of the few of Julian’s jewelry gifts I regularly wore. “And my earrings. They must add up to several ounces, at least. I can change it for local currency when I’m there. Gold’s always gold.”

“What about your necklace?” Hollander nodded at my throat.

“My necklace?” I put my hand to my collar and looked down. “Oh. When did that get there? He must have… when I went upstairs to freshen up for dinner…”

In fact, I’d gone upstairs to vomit. Julian stood there in the bedroom when I came out, looking concerned. “I’m okay,” I’d said. “Just the usual.”

He’d put his arms around me and held me for a minute or two, not saying anything. “I hope you’re not standing there feeling guilty,” I’d whispered into his chest. “I’m the luckiest woman in the world, carrying our baby.”

“Kate. You beggar me sometimes, do you know that?” He’d turned me around in his arms and slipped something around my neck, clasping it with nimble fingers before I could object. “A wedding gift. You’re not allowed to say no.” Then he’d turned me back around and started kissing me, not with the usual tantalizing deliberation, but as if his life depended on it.

So until this exact second, I’d forgotten it was even there.

I fingered it now, large round pearls the size of gobstoppers, black alternating with white. “I can’t sell these. They were his wedding present.”

“I’d take them with you, though,” Hollander said practically, “just in case. Put them in your pocket.”

I fumbled with the clasp; my fingers were trembling too violently, and in the end I had to ask the professor for help.

I took them over to the closet, where I’d hung my raincoat, in case of typical English weather, and slipped the pearls into the inside pocket.

Hollander cleared his throat. “As I said, you’ll have to make your way to France. I’d suggest the Folkestone crossing; the passage from Dover may be quicker, but possibly more dangerous. U-boats, you see. If we were in my office, with all my research notes, I could tell you which ships to avoid.”

I nodded and sat back down in my seat.

“I
can
tell you exactly where to find him in France,” the professor went on. “He spent the previous few days before his patrol on a seventy-two-hour pass to Amiens, in order to meet with some of the divisional heads about new tactics. Arthur helped him to arrange it all. He’d been after them with memoranda for months, you see, trying to change…” He shook his head. “I don’t suppose that matters. In any case, early the first morning, he attended matins at Amiens cathedral. That’s well established, with an exact timeframe. You could wait for him outside.” A frown passed across his face.

“Matins? What’s that?”

He roused himself. “The early morning service in the Catholic liturgy.”

“Julian’s
Catholic
?”

“He converted in the weeks before he disappeared. You didn’t know that?”

“No. I didn’t.” Another unopened box. I stared down at my Diet Coke, counting the bubbles.

Hollander fell silent. I lifted my head and watched him, watched his fading blue eyes stare out of his round heavy-jowled face, all of it weighed down as though the struggle against gravity were becoming too much to bear. Why him?
How
him? How could this ordinary mortal have that kind of extraordinary power?

“Professor,” I said at last, leaning forward and taking his hand, where it lay limp on the table, “we have about two hours left before we land. You’re going to need to tell me everything you know. Just in case.”

S
OUTHFIELD LAY SIXTY MILES
to the southwest of Manchester, and as each precious yard spun out from the tires of our rental car, it became harder and harder to force down the panic. Julian’s plane would have landed two hours earlier, I knew. Plenty of time for Geoff or Arthur to drag him to Florence Hamilton’s grave; plenty of time for all kinds of scenarios, each one more unimaginable than the last.

I forced my brain to concentrate on other things, immediate things, like remembering to stay on the left-hand side of the road. How to go around a roundabout without getting killed. How to convert kilometers per hour into miles.

Not that
that
mattered much. I pushed the little tin-box Fiat to its limit, and we still weren’t going much faster than the tractors harvesting the fields on either side of us.

“Your husband’s a billionaire,” grumbled Hollander, “and you couldn’t rent a car faster than this one?”

“It was the only one they had left. We landed late, remember? All the
morning flights had taken the good ones. Besides,” I added, throwing the gearshift back into third in an attempt to bring more power to the failing wheels, “you’re the freaking tree-hugging Marxist around here. I’m all for Maseratis.”

I was trying to joke, but in reality I was terrified: each lost second put Julian closer to his fate. Farther, possibly, away from me. I didn’t want to have to go back to 1916 to save him. I wanted to be in time, to save him now, to stay with him here.

Unlike many of the grand English country estates, Southfield hadn’t been transferred to the National Trust at some point during the long mid-century of 90 percent tax burdens. The Ashford family still spent much of the year there, not quite in the same style as Julian’s day, with its foxhunts and house parties and eleven full-time gardeners, but still resident. Not open to the public. Which presented a problem, because it meant there were no helpful signposts along the roadways to tell us where to go.

At least I had Hollander, who’d visited the place several times while researching his book. It had been an admiring biography from the beginning, and so the family had taken him up with enthusiasm, sharing papers and showing him around the estate. “The cemetery is a bit off the beaten path,” he told me. “You have to know where it is.”

“We can do that? Just walk onto the estate and wander over to the cemetery?”

“Walking rights are fiercely defended around here; besides, who would know?” Hollander shrugged. “The house is a good mile or so away, and at the moment it’s only the dowager in residence. Her son likes to spend his time in London, shagging models, as they say.” His tone didn’t convey any particular disapproval.

“And the son is what? Julian’s cousin?”

“Distant. Here’s the turnoff.” He pointed to a small drive on the left.

“Seriously?” I swung the ungainly Fiat onto the track.

“It’s not the main drive, just one of the estate access roads.”

“Jeez,” I muttered, concentrating on not getting the car stuck in one of the enormous potholes cratering the surface of the drive. “I guess you know it pretty well.”

“My dear girl,” he said, “I’ve spent most of my life researching your husband and his contemporaries.”

I shook my head in wonder. It looked like the area had seen a fair amount of rain recently: mud slipped under the Fiat’s tires, slowing us down, and the newly stubbled fields on either side of us lay tired and wet and brown. “These are all part of the home farm,” Hollander said absently, “the land the estate farms for itself, as opposed to letting it out to tenants. Coming up at the end of the drive is the start of the parkland.”

I peered ahead and saw a stand of trees, the leaves still lush and green, huddled around a hillside. A few drops of rain splashed down on the windshield; I pressed the wiper button once, whisking them away. “It had better not storm,” I said.

We bumped along as fast as I dared in the mud and potholes, with our ridiculously underpowered car. I should have stood my ground at the car rental place, I realized. I wasn’t used to this billionaire thing yet; I could have demanded better. I could have made some irate phone calls, flashed my obsidian credit card, demanded a Range Rover. Bought a freaking Range Rover, for God’s sake. What was I thinking? Julian’s life was at stake.

“How do we know they came this way?” I demanded. “Shouldn’t there be tire tracks?”

“They might have taken another access road. Come up the other side of the estate.” He was peering ahead too, looking for some sign of human activity.

I swiped the windshield again. A few sheep crouched in the field to my right, stirring anxiously. Was it going to storm? “How much longer? I can’t see anything, just the trees.”

“I don’t know. It’s been years,” he snapped. “A few hundred yards, maybe. Then it’s a good half-mile walk through the park.”

“And no one’s going to see us?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know the conditions anymore! Maybe a gamekeeper, who knows?”

I shut my mouth and kept driving, until we came to the end of the track and parked the car next to the fence and jumped out. I checked my watch. Nearly two o’clock. “Where do we go? Hurry!” I urged him, slipping in the thin layer of mud. The rain began to patter lightly on my coat, turning more earnest. I looked up at the shifting iron-gray sky, mottled with threatening clouds, and turned up my collar. Just all I freaking needed: British weather.

I spied a stile along one side of the fence and slipped down the muddy track toward it, hearing Hollander grunt along behind me. “Come on,” I said, holding out my hand to help him cross. His tall awkward body lurched over the rungs, narrowly avoiding disaster, just as I felt a gust of wind spray my cheek with stinging rain. “I think we’re going to get nailed,” I said. “We’ve got to hurry.”

A footpath wandered out from the stile, and we scrambled along it, following the slope of the hill toward the trees. “The edge of the lake is just on the other side,” Hollander said, breathing with effort, “and the cemetery is laid out near the shore, between the ledge and the water. You can’t see it right away, because of the overhang.”

“Are you okay?” I asked, trying not to panic; he’d winded himself, just walking up the hill at three miles an hour. My own muscles were ready to burst with energy and adrenaline. All that running with Julian, all that training. I wanted to sprint, to fly.

“Fine, fine. Go on ahead. I’ll be right there,” he said.

“I can’t leave you…”

“I’ll be fine!” he puffed. “Just find him!” He gestured impatiently, brushing me away.

“Okay. I’ll run ahead and see what’s up. I’ll yell if I see anything.”

I didn’t know what to expect. It seemed like a lonely chance they’d come this way. We’d just speculated, Hollander and I, based on the fact that Julian’s plane had landed in Manchester.

And what the hell would we do if we saw them?
Trust me,
Julian had said.
Go home. Wait for me.
He’d be furious with me now. If he were still alive.

I sprang forward into a jog, sliding over the rocks and muddy bits in the footpath, past shivering trees flinging off droplets into my hair. My raincoat flapped wildly in the strengthening draft, and I slipped my hand into my pocket to secure the pearls inside.