Shadows Falling: The Lost #2 (23 page)

27

“I think I saw her. I know I saw her.” Better to leave no room for doubt, I think.

“
Where?” Sam looks at me, confused. “Here? Now?”

“
A bit ago. Outside, on the other side of the window I was standing at.” We are outside now, strolling through the paths and walkways of Mina’s estate, like a pair of lovers, only we are too distracted by other things to properly play the part. There are others, though, who hide off in dark corners, giggling and toying with each other. I feel slightly jealous. Why are we the ones affected by time travel? I have changed my opinion of the whole thing. Once I thought it would be delightful to never be tied down, to wake up someplace new; now I want Sam anchored here with me forever. At least I think I do. “Over there.” I gesture back towards the north side of the mansion.

“
Did she know you?”

Strange
question. Then again, maybe it isn’t. She may have recognized me from my odd night in Bedlam, when she scrawled her name on the wall and pulled the diary out of my hands. I always thought she knew me somehow, but I attributed the feeling to the way she addressed her reader in the diary. “I don’t know. She seemed to want me to see her. Do we look for her? Sam, I don’t know what to do. This whole thing is too fantastic. I don’t even know where to start.” I don’t really want to talk about Rose. I’m consumed with how long I have with Sam before he sleeps and leaves me forever. “How long?”

“
How long what?” he replies, carefully, but I know he knows what I’m referring to: how long before he leaves me.

“
Don’t waste time being polite.”

“
I never do. I just...” He runs his fingers through his hair again. He has lost his mask somewhere. “I just don’t know how to say everything that should be said.”

“
You’re trying to figure out how much I know, you mean.” A bit of bitterness creeps into my voice, unbidden.

He appears taken aback at my honesty.
“Yes,” he murmurs. “I suppose you could say that.”

“
What is your name? Don’t lie to me, please, Sam. I can’t bear that.” I also can’t bear having kissed a married man, but one unbearable thing at a time, if you please.

“
What is a name? It doesn’t matter.” We had paused in the darkness of a willow tree, but now he moves on again, restless.

“
It does matter. It does matter if your name is Luke Dawes!” I catch up and grasp at his elbow. I stare into his beautiful face, his dark, disloyal face. “How could you? How could you?” He won’t look at me though, and I find my legs giving out. I sink to the cold ground. “How could you?” I repeat, but it’s little more than a whisper.

For a long moment, no one says anything, and just when I think he is going to walk away from me, he folds up his long legs and sits down. Close, but not too close. I think he knows I wouldn
’t stand for it. “Rose is gone,” he says, carefully.

“
No, she isn’t.”

“
She is.” His tone is firm. “She’s been gone for some time. I don’t think she’s coming back. The girl I loved is,” his voice cracks, “gone. I’ve tried everything I can. Eventually, I’m going to travel. We’ve been here over a year, and it’s been months since I’ve seen her. She doesn’t know me anymore. What am I to do? I can’t find her.”

“
I’m not sure you’ve tried hard enough.” The bitterness is back. I don’t look at him; instead, I wind blades of grass through my fingertips and sift dirt. My lovely gown is getting mussed and dirty. I will never wear it again, so it hardly matters. I may even burn it after tonight.

“
You’ll never know how hard I’ve tried,” he answers, harshly. “It isn’t as though I want to move on without her; she’s my wife. God! She’s my wife.”

“
You do still love her then?” Now my voice is small, like a tiny child’s. What do I want him to say? That he does? That he doesn’t? He’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t, and either one leaves me behind.

“
I always will. But, Lizzie,” Sam
—
Luke—reaches for my hand. I sternly tell my body to thwart him, to pull away, but it doesn’t obey, and my traitorous hand holds his desperately.

“
Don’t say it.”

“
Why? It’s true. I love you.”

I do pull away then.
“Don’t say that! Just don’t. You can’t,” I answer, flatly. “Not if you still love her.”

“
I would have said the same thing just a few weeks ago, but something’s changed. This wasn’t part of my plan.”

“
What exactly was your plan? Playing bridge and driving cars—” I stop, horrified. “That car is stolen, isn’t it?”

“
That’s the top of your worries right now?” Sam looks amused. I can’t think of him as Luke; he’ll always be Sam to me. “I’ll give it back if you like. I’d like to do something right to please you in all of this.”

“
Forget the car. I haven’t forgotten what Rose spoke about with you. You’re a murderer. You met her in Bedlam, and then you helped terrorize her family. How can that be you?” I can’t reconcile what I feel for Sam with what I know of Luke. This is ridiculous. Why ever did I allow myself to fall for him, much less come wandering out into the night with him with no protection? Am I the dullest girl in all of history? This man has rubbed shoulders with Jack the Ripper. He has spent time locked up in a mental institution. He steals cars when he’s bored. Even Marianne would be out of her element and run away, screaming. Then why am I not moving?

“
You can’t believe everything Rose says.”

“
Can’t I? I assumed so when I didn’t believe the Lost were real. Now I don’t know what to believe. I know you’re a liar.”

“
Yes.” This is said slowly. He is proceeding with caution. “But if I’ve lied to you, it’s been to protect you. You’ve become intertwined with Rose’s life. She won’t let you go now.”

The thought is somewhat horrifying, but also not surprising.
“Wonderful. You go traveling off to some magical island, and I’ll just stay behind and fend off your violent wife. I feel like Jane Eyre. You should have locked her in the attic.”

“
An attic wouldn’t hold her.” I can’t believe we’re joking about this, but a smile curls his mouth. “And you wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to find a decent Grace Poole these days. But I have been thinking about an idea.”

“
What?” I still don’t think I should be sitting out here in the dark with him, but my feet are loath to move. How is possible to be so comfortable with a possible murderer? There must be something wrong with me. Is this what love does? Makes you blind and stupid? I was better off without it.

“
Nora.”

I
’m confused, though that’s becoming my normal state of mind. “Nora? In Bedlam? What of her? She doesn’t know anything. Whatever she does know is locked away inside her mind.”

“
But if we can get her to remember just enough, just enough to help me travel where I need to go…” he trails off. And looks at me expectantly, as though what he said just made any sense at all.

“
Where do you need to go? I don’t understand.” I shake my head.

“
I think,” he proceeds carefully. “I think if I can bring back Sonnet and Noah, they could help Rose.”

I
’m appalled. “For one thing, if you think they’d help, you’re as batty as Rose.”

“
You don’t know Sonnet like I do.”

“
Whatever. She’d be a fool to come anywhere near her sister after she what she did to her.” I remember the entry about the locked house, not to mention the murder of her best friend. Not things easily forgivable. “Besides, you couldn’t find her. She could be anywhere.”

“
I know where she is.”

I sit up straight and gape at him.
“What? How? You didn’t tell Rose?”

“
No. She was losing all touch with reality. I knew all along where they would end up after 1888, but I didn’t think it would help anyone to say. When we, Rose and I, found them the first time, when we found Noah’s arrest record, I found something else: an article about a hospital in Africa that named Israel Rhode as a founder and a photo that said,
Not pictured: Noah Gray, Sonnet Gray.
”

“
I can’t believe you kept that from her all this time. When? Where and when?”

“
1889. They hadn’t traveled eras yet, just continents. Like we suspected, actually. After Emme’s funeral, they just ran. Probably followed Dr. Smythe’s footsteps: they were living with him at the time. I don’t know how long they stay there, but I know they were there in October of 1889. I know the village even. I think this could work.”

”
If you can convince them to come back here with you and Nora. And if we can get Nora to remember how to manipulate traveling. She’s been here for a long time, hasn’t she? Years and years, and she hasn’t woken up anywhere new!” I’m skeptical of such a wild idea, and I’m also not convinced he won’t travel away and leave me with his wife.

“
But if it works, if we come back, I could possibly get Rose back. The sight of Sonnet, of Rose’s obsession, could be what brings her back. Something tells me you won’t be with me when there’s still a chance of finding and helping Rose. And if it doesn’t work,” he falters. “Then I have to move on.”

What an insane mess I
’ve gotten into. I long suddenly for boredom, for changing bedpans, for sewing circles with Mina. My heart is heavy, and my head aches. I want him to kiss me, and yet I regret the ones we already shared. They are filled with poison.

“
There’s nothing in it for me either way,” I reply, bitterly. “I’m in love with a married man, and not just a married man, but one who will disappear forever at any moment. I should go away and never come back. That’s what I should do.”

“
Please don’t.” He has to know I won’t, but he still looks worried. I’d smooth his anxious brow if I didn’t still want to slap him silly. “You made a vow to help those who needed your help.”

“
That’s a cheap shot.” I almost choke on the bitterness.  “And it’s not fair.”

“
I know. She needs help, Lizzie. You’re the only one who can help me. I don’t have much time. If I travel without her, I’m gone forever. I can’t get back the way she can. And she won’t look for me because she doesn’t know me any longer.”

I
’m silent for what feels like ages, while I quietly will myself to be somewhere else, anywhere else. If I could travel through time, I’d go anywhere right now and never come back.

“
All right,” I say, at last. “What do you want me to do?”

********************

Stay where he could find me again, he’d said. Stay awake. Don’t be alone. Don’t go home. Stay where there are plenty of people: Bedlam. He’d pay Miss Helmes, he said, so she wouldn’t give me any trouble. He’d look for me in Nora’s room when he got back.

Which is where we are now, convincing an old woman
that she holds special powers.

It
’s not going well.

“
I imagine Carolina was a beautiful baby,” Sam is saying conversationally. He is holding her paper thin hands and helping her eat a biscuit, as though it was any other unremarkable tête-à-tête. We’ve been here for three hours. I want to jump out of my skin. “And remember when she married Noah? He is a nice man.”

“
He drinks too much,” Nora says, then.

I do jump at that, and even Sam allows his eyebrows to shoot up.
“You remember?”

“
I remember something,” she replies, slowly. “Some things I remember now. How do you know my baby? Carolina?”

“
I’ve never met her, Nora, but you’re my grandmother.” Sam leans forward and I can tell he wants to embrace her out of excitement, but he doesn’t. Good call on his part: the insane don’t appreciate random acts of affection. Of course, being married to Rose, he probably knows that better than anyone. “Carolina had a little girl, two little girls actually: Rose and Sonnet. I’m Rose’s husband, and I need to find Sonnet. If I tell you where and when she is, can you take me there? Bring us back here?”

“
Through time, you mean?” Nora looks appalled. “I don’t do that anymore. I had forgotten. It’s been so long, hasn’t it? Look at my hands. Am I very old?” The spider veins and wrinkles and age spots are like a novel written on her hands.

Neither Sam nor I want to answer. Finally, Sam nods.
“It’s been a long time. But you can help us now. It’s very important that I get to Sonnet and bring her here. Will you help? Do you think you can do it?”

It took another hour. Another hour of biting my nails, my stomach churning, Sam being ever patient. For a thieving murderer, as Rose called him, he was long
-suffering and calm. I kept jumping at the slightest sounds, which, when you’re at Bedlam, is a silly thing to do. The sounds here are endless. Once, Miss Helmes walked by. She saw me sitting there, by the side of Nora’s bed, but she didn’t say anything. It was a new day, the day after the ball, and she looked a bit worse for wear. So do I, after being up all night. My ball gown feels heavy and cumbersome. I lost my mask. I lost the diary. I suppose it doesn’t matter. I tell myself it doesn’t matter, though soon it may be the only link to Sam I’ll ever have. Small comfort. Here I am, helping the man I love fight for the sanity of his wife. It doesn’t get any stranger. I should have my head examined. I wonder if Dr. Ford has any openings later in the week.