Timekeeper (18 page)

10

THE DIARY OF IRVING HENRY
February 2, 1888

Millicent August smiles as she hands me a thin stack of papers, each stamped with the Time Society symbol of a coronet circling a clock. “Once you’ve signed these contracts you will be formally inducted into the Time Society.”

I scrawl my signature and feel a flash of unexpected sorrow.
Nothing will ever be the same again
. The innocence of youth disappeared the moment I discovered the truth, and my former life vanished along with it. I’ll never again be Irving Henry, the happy-go-lucky university student who considers the downstairs rooms of the Windsor mansions my home, who has a family in Rupert and the rest of the Windsors’ staff. For the first
time, I am truly on my own. I know it’s for the best, and of course I realize that this newfound gift is the great adventure I always wanted—but still, I find myself wishing I could cling to boyhood just a little longer before facing the unknown world alone.

“I imagine you won’t be returning to the Windsor Mansion,” Millicent says, as if reading my thoughts.

“No,” I answer firmly. “I’ll never live there again.”

“And what about university? Will you return to Cornell?”

“I’m not certain what I’ll do,” I admit. “All I know is that my old life doesn’t fit anymore.”

Millicent nods understandingly. “Yes. I can see that. Well, all Timekeepers are welcome to stay at the Aura for as long as they need. Would you like to reserve a guestroom? You can begin your first mission right away—your initiation. While in the coming months you will be assigned different years to visit and protect, your first mission is simply to
learn
the ins and outs of time travel, in the date of your choice.”

My heartbeat quickens as I remember my vision from the secret passageway.

“Yes, I would like to start straight away. And I already have a date and place in mind.” I take a deep breath. “1991 New York.”

Millicent’s eyebrows rise. “Any particular reason?”

“I want to go as far into the future as my mind can imagine,” I answer, which is rather true.

“You will require preparatory help with this mission,” Millicent cautions. “One of our Timekeepers who calls 1991 the Present will coach you before you make the time leap. We always have to be careful of those with the Gift of Sight when we travel, which is why we must assimilate into different time periods and
not draw attention to ourselves. 1991 will be like an entirely different world for you.”

“I can do it,” I say boldly, though inside I’m beginning to feel my first flicker of nerves.

Millicent smiles. “If anyone can pull off an impressive feat, I imagine it might be you.” She pauses. “There’s something else you ought to know about your father. Byron was one of the few Timekeepers, along with myself, who was powerful enough to time travel without a key. He was rather famous in the Society because of it.”

I stare at her, speechless.

“Are you all right?” Millicent asks.

“I—I thought I knew my father so well,” I reply, when at last I find my voice. “He was always my hero, but I thought he was just a simple, good man—my father, the butler. Why wouldn’t he tell me about all of this? And what perplexes me all the more is why he would go and work as a servant when he was an all-powerful time traveler. It doesn’t make sense.”

“He wanted you to be normal for as long as possible. That’s what most of our Elders want for us before we are exposed to time travel. My grandmother was the same with me when I was young,” Millicent confides. “Besides which, being the butler to a family like the Windsors is a fairly prestigious position.”

I nod slowly. “Will I—will I be able to do it, too? Travel without a key?”

“It’s unlikely. We haven’t yet found two Timekeepers within the same family who can both travel keyless. But there are other gifts I expect you will uncover,” she says, her eyes crinkling as she smiles at me.

Moments later I am alone in the Headquarters library, surrounded by a pile of books to prepare for my first mission. While I eagerly flip through
The Mechanics of Time Travel
, I hear the sound of the door opening. A young woman walks in, wearing an outfit so bizarre, it reminds me of my Christmas Eve vision of an alternate Fifth Avenue.

She is dressed in pale blue denim trousers, something only
cowboys
wear in my Time, with a blindingly bright orange T-shirt under a denim jacket. Her shoes are unlike any I have seen, a strange combination of canvas and rubber. Oddest of all is her hair, which is tied like a horse’s tail to the back of her head. The girl notices my blatant staring and chuckles.

“I take it you’ve never seen anyone from my Time before.” She approaches me, holding out her hand. “I’m Celeste Roberts, born 1975 and coming from my Present of 1991.”

“What?” I gape at her.

Celeste peers more closely at me. “Wow, you’re
really
new, aren’t you? This is so exciting!” I nod self-consciously.

“Okay, tell me your name, when you were born, and what Time you’re coming from,” Celeste instructs. “That’s how we greet all Timekeepers we haven’t met before—so we can keep track of who everyone is and what Time they’re truly from.”

“Oh. All right. I’m Irving Henry. I was born more than a century before you, in 1869, and I
am
in the Present—1888.”

“Wow,” Celeste breathes. “You’ve been dead for
ages
where I’m from!”

“And
you’re
technically not alive right now,” I retort, shaking my head with amazement. “This is some incredible magic, isn’t it?”

“Seriously,” Celeste agrees. “So I hear you’ve chosen 1991 for your initiation mission! It’s a bold choice, but you’re in for a treat. The nineties are a
blast
. I’m here to prepare you for the dramatic changes ahead, so let’s get to it!”

I follow Celeste through the vaulted hallways of the Headquarters, trying to keep up as she chatters away. “It’s not just new clothes that you need. You’ll have to get a haircut immediately—you look way too old-fashioned. Short and parted off to the side, that’s how all the attractive guys wear their hair in the nineties. And remember, if you’re approached by anyone with the Gift of Sight, always go by Henry Irving instead of your real name. No one your age would ever be called Irving.”

“All right,” I say uncertainly, as we reach a whimsical tri-level boutique called Epoch Clothiers. Mannequins in the windows model the widest variety of clothing imaginable, from Elizabethan dresses with matching ruffs, colonial-era riding uniforms, and ball gowns and tuxedos from my century, all the way to women’s dresses that cut off as high as the
thigh
, and men’s sports clothes that look like they were designed for outer space.

I hold the door open for Celeste and as we enter, a tiny woman flits before us, wearing a long empire-waist dress and clutching a measuring tape in her hands. Her hair is a curly blond bob and her eyes look almost lavender.

“Hello! Welcome to Epoch Clothiers. I’m Lottie Fink, born 1863. What can I help you with?”

“I’m looking for clothes to wear in 1991,” I tell her, feeling my pulse race at the thought. This isn’t just a daydream anymore.

“Ah! Now that is a request I don’t hear every day,” Lottie says with a smile. “Follow me upstairs.”

As we pass racks of clothing, I suddenly remember that all of my money is in New York.

“I don’t have any money with me,” I mutter to Celeste. “I should go—”

“Don’t worry, that’s common here,” Celeste reassures me. “All Timekeepers have an open tab at the Headquarters, and we’re billed twice a year. You can even borrow 1990s dollars from the Currency Exchange and they’ll just add that to your tab.”

I exhale with relief. “The Society thinks of everything, don’t they?”

Lottie stops in front of a collection of eccentric-looking clothing, handing me a stack of plain cotton shirts in a variety of colors and three pairs of blue denim cowboy trousers similar to Celeste’s. “Jeans and T-shirts—these will be your wardrobe staples in the 1990s,” Lottie declares.

Jeans
. So that’s what they’re called. I look up at Lottie in surprise.

“Men and women both wear these … jeans? And where are the sleeves to the shirts?”

Celeste laughs. “They’re T-shirts, they’re supposed to have short sleeves. And everyone wears jeans in the nineties—old
people, kids, guys, and girls. The only difference is that us girls wear them tighter and guys wear them baggier.”

Lottie lifts the lid of a shoe box and shows me a pair of white rubber and canvas shoes with the word “Adidas” written on the side. “These are called sneakers, and you can wear them almost every day with jeans.”

Celeste holds open a shopping bag and I place the items inside, still eyeing the funny articles of clothing with amusement. Lottie darts among the racks and returns moments later with a pair of tan pants and a navy blue jacket, another shoe box under her arm.

“For more formal dress, you can wear these khaki slacks and a blazer over one of your T-shirts, with this pair of brown leather shoes.”

“He should have a black leather jacket too,” Celeste tells Lottie. “And a couple of Tommy Hilfiger sweaters.”

Nearly an hour later, I walk out of Epoch Clothiers unrecognizable from the man who first entered. After choosing my wardrobe, Lottie led me to the barbershop at the back of the store, where a barber cut my wavy hair short and shaved my mustache, giving me a boyish appearance younger than my nineteen years. Instead of my three-piece Victorian suit and bowler hat, I now wear Levi’s jeans and a black T-shirt, with a rounded-top hat that Lottie calls a “baseball cap.” I feel strange and stiff, like I’ve stepped into someone else’s skin, but Celeste grins at me approvingly as we leave the store.
“Much
better!”

Celeste leads the way to the wood-paneled lobby, an enormous space with a ceiling that stretches as high as the eye can
see. “There’s your last stop,” she says, nodding at the Reservations desk. “Millicent already reserved Room 1991 under your name, so all you have to do is pick up your key and take the elevator to the ninth floor.”

I look at Celeste gratefully. “I don’t know how to thank you for everything. I would have been lost in all of this if it hadn’t been for you.”

Celeste grins. “Oh, it was fun. It’s been a couple years since this world was new to me—it’s been kind of exciting to see it through your eyes.” She gives me a warm hug. “Good luck in 1991, and call me if you run into any trouble. You can find my number in the yellow pages under Brick, New Jersey.”

“Yellow pages?” I echo. But Celeste has already disappeared.

I turn the key to Room 1991, my hands trembling with anticipation as I wonder what I’ll find inside. I remember Millicent’s words from earlier that day.

“Each room here at the Aura is designed to fit a different time period, filled with the décor, literature, and papers of the day. This is to help us assimilate into the era we are traveling to. For example, if I am traveling back to the year 1750, I would spend the night in Room 1750, studying all the documents and artifacts from that year that our Researching Committee has collected
.”