Timekeeper

ALSO BY ALEXANDRA MONIR

Timeless
Secrets of the Time Society
(an ebook original)

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2013 by Alexandra Monir
Jacket art copyright © 2013 by Chad Michael Ward
Map illustration © 2013 Michael Pietrocarlo

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

“Just the Way You Are” by Billy Joel copyright © 1977 Impulsive Music. Used by permission.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Monir, Alexandra.
Timekeeper / Alexandra Monir.
   p. cm.
  Summary: Bewildered by a new student at her Manhattan high school who does not know her but seems to be Philip Walker, her lost love from her time travels, and threatened by Rebecca, who has held a grudge against her family for 120 years, sixteen-year-old Michele Windsor seeks help in her father journals and The Handbook of The Time Society.
  eISBN: 978-0-375-89413-8 —

[1. Time travel—Fiction. 2. Love—Fiction. 3. Revenge—Fiction. 4. Wealth—Fiction. 5. Social classes—Fiction. 6. Families—Fiction. 7. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. 8. New York (N.Y.)—History—1898–1951—Fiction.] I. Title.
  PZ7.M7495Thm 2012    [Fic]—dc23    2012016869

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v3.1_r1

Dedicated to my amazing father,
who I would gladly travel back in Time for.
Shon Saleh, thank you so much
for all of your love, support, knowledge,
and inspiration.
I’m so lucky to be your daughter!

Contents

Cover

Other Books by This Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

 Chapter 1

 Chapter 2

 Chapter 3

 Chapter 4

 Chapter 5

 Chapter 6

 Chapter 7

 Chapter 8

 Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Author’s Note

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Excerpt from
Timeless

T
ime may be the master of most human beings, but yours is a body and soul it cannot conquer. This unshakeable, undisputed force, which turns day into night and infants into elders, keeps its inner workings and phenomena under a mostly impenetrable veil. If you are reading this, then you have been chosen to lift the curtain. You are a Timekeeper: one of the select individuals born with a gift that enables you to move and manipulate Time
.

We Timekeepers can walk among people of the prehistoric past and just as easily transport to distant futures. The Key of the Nile, which we all possess, marks us from the rest of the population. These powerful keys, descended from Ancient Egypt, represent the hieroglyphic character for eternal life. And in fact, the ability to travel into the past and the future enables us to exist far beyond a human’s life span
.

Before you proceed, it is crucial to know and understand your gift—a gift that, depending upon how it is used, can lead to either great fortune or terrible tragedy
.

—THE HANDBOOK OF THE TIME SOCIETY

1

DAY ONE

Walter and Dorothy Windsor lingered over their afternoon tea, peacefully unaware that the one they feared had stolen through the gates to their home. As Walter thumbed through the
New York Times
and Dorothy hummed along to the symphony echoing from the nearby radio, the girl in black strode up the white stone steps and turned the knob of the front door, unseen by the Windsor Mansion’s household staff. While her footsteps echoed through the Grand Hall, Walter sweetly reached over to touch his wife’s cheek. It had been so long since they’d been happy, and now, with their granddaughter finally in their lives, it seemed they might be getting a second chance.

Suddenly the library doors swung open, and all the light
left the room. Dorothy let out a strangled scream, clutching Walter’s hand. Hot tea streamed painfully onto Walter’s legs as he knocked over his cup in shock. For a moment the only sound was the frenzied crescendo of the piano and strings from the symphony playing on the radio, until Walter found his voice.

“Rebecca,”
he gasped.

The door slammed shut and Rebecca Windsor stalked toward them, her mouth curved in a knowing, mirthless smile. Even as Dorothy cowered in her husband’s arms, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from Rebecca, unable to fathom how a woman long dead could so realistically appear to be herself at age seventeen. She looked just like her chilling portrait from the Windsor family album of 1888, with the same angular pale face, steely dark eyes, and black hair piled onto her head in a fashion that accentuated her sharp, unwelcoming features. The folds of her voluminous Victorian dress swathed around her like drapes of armor. She looked terrifyingly alive, yet there was a translucence to her appearance that made her almost inhuman.

“Why are you here?” Dorothy burst out, her voice thick with tears. “We did everything you asked—you said it would keep her safe, but you lied! Our daughter is dead because of you!” Her whole body shook with agony as she remembered the last time she had seen Rebecca, and the horrors that had followed.

“You failed,” Rebecca said coldly. “You
failed
to keep Marion away from Irving, and that is the reason why she is dead,
and why we now have Michele on our hands. You were supposed to prevent the girl from being born, not bring her into my house to live!” Her voice rose with fury.

“This hasn’t been your house in over a hundred years, Rebecca,” Walter shot back. “It’s our home now, and we are the only family Michele has. She will live with us for as long as she likes.”

“The only family she has? You must be forgetting her father,” Rebecca hissed. “Now that you’ve gone and brought her to New York, it’s only a matter of time before she finds him. The girl has inherited Irving’s
talent
.” She spat out the word.

Walter and Dorothy stared at each other, aghast.

“Yes, that’s right. She’s gone into the past and made a mess of things. Just as her father sought to destroy my life and took your daughter from you, Michele too is leaving carnage in her wake. Didn’t I
tell
you what happens to children born from crossed times?” Rebecca’s voice lowered to a deceptively silky tone. “The only remedy is to alter the past. Michele must not exist. It’s time for us to work together again.”

Dorothy covered her mouth with her hand as if she were going to be sick.

“We won’t hurt our granddaughter,” Walter snapped.

“It doesn’t have to hurt. If you follow my instructions, Michele will simply vanish, as if she’d never been born. What’s more, you will have your daughter back.” Rebecca’s voice lilted as she dangled the carrot before them. “After all, without Irving and Michele, Marion would still be alive today. Wouldn’t she?”

“Stop it!” Dorothy sobbed. “Stop torturing us. We trusted you once, and it was a terrible mistake. Why are you
doing
this?”

“That man took everything from me!” Rebecca shouted, her face contorting into a monstrous mask of rage. “I won’t stop until there is nothing left of him.”

Suddenly, a loud crack sounded in the room. Rebecca reached up in alarm, grabbing at her face, but it was too late. The youthful layers of skin began to peel off, disappearing piece by piece as they fell to the floor, leaving behind a pockmarked skeleton of a face crumpled with wrinkles. Her body shriveled and shrank, a tall teenage frame transforming into that of a grotesque old woman in her last breath of life. Dorothy buried her face into Walter’s shoulder, horrified by the sight, but simultaneously feeling a flicker of relief as she remembered from years ago that Rebecca was forced to slink back from where she’d come when her youthful façade faded. Only this time, Rebecca’s face betrayed no hint of defeat.

“Seven days,” she said, her mouth stretching into a chilling smile. “That’s how long I must endure being separated from my physical body—that’s how long I’m forced to live like a ghost. It may be painful, but it’s hardly any time at all.” She leaned forward, a malicious glint in her eyes. “All I have to do is remain in your time for seven days, and then I’ll have achieved my full human form and Visibility here in this century. Do you know what that means?” Her now-elderly voice filled with hate. “It means that everyone, not just you two fools, will be able to see me, and when they look upon me they will find
a perfect girl of seventeen. It means that I will have human strength once again, combined with my power as a Timekeeper. In seven days,
I can kill Michele myself
. Just like that.” Her eyes narrowed. “The choice is yours. Do you want your granddaughter killed—or do you want her to simply disappear, as if she never even existed? You know what needs to be done, and you must decide quickly. As I said … seven days is hardly any time at all. I’ll be seeing you then.”

Rebecca’s image wavered above them before disappearing into a spinning wind. Walter and Dorothy clung to each other, their faces stricken.

“What are we going to do?” Dorothy whispered.

Walter didn’t answer.