Time's Enemy: A Romantic Time Travel Adventure (Saturn Society Book 1) (16 page)

The girl reminded him of Bethany when she was young and full of questions, back before she figured out he didn’t know everything. Charlotte was old enough to know better, but hadn’t yet developed the attitude that anyone over thirty was clueless. If she wanted to be an inventor, he had no doubt she’d succeed, provided her family didn’t discourage her.

He found that once he started answering her questions, he didn’t want to stop, even when they were about Bethany. Especially when they were about Bethany. It was the acknowledgment he needed, craved, that his daughter had been a special person, that her memory lived on.

He explained that the distant relatives he thought lived in the flooded area were his great-grandparents. Even his grandma hadn’t been born yet.

He avoided the subject of war, fearing if he told her World War I would start in Europe the following summer, he could influence the course of history and contribute to his disturbance of the fabric of space and time that so concerned the Saturn Society. And although he didn’t want to attempt an explanation of computers, he did show her his cell phone.

Too bad the battery was dead. Even though he couldn’t call anyone with no service, he wouldn’t mind taking a few pictures, so he could have proof later that he’d really been to 1913. Although that was probably against the Society Code, too. “It won’t work in this time,” he said with a dry laugh. “Or we could phone for rescue.”

The comment sobered Charlotte. “Tony? How many people will die in this flood?”

He pulled her close against him before he answered. “I’m not sure, but I’m afraid quite a few.” He thought about her freaking out when she regained consciousness. Better change the subject. “By the way, what day is it?”

“Tuesday. March twenty-fifth.”

It had been Friday when he’d warped, he remembered the shopkeeper downstairs saying so. His head flopped back against the crate. “I’ve slept for over three days.” No wonder his phone was dead.

Charlotte drew herself up straighter. “Three days?” Her mouth formed an
O
.

The two of them sat watching the rain, which had slowed to a light sprinkle. Not much else to do, with no way out of the attic. A couple times during the afternoon, boats hurtled down the current the next street over, strange, flat, makeshift crafts. By the time Tony got the window open to yell, the boats had disappeared.

Charlotte’s shoulders slumped. “They’ll never hear us, the water’s so loud.”

Tony pressed his lips together. “Guess all we can do is keep trying.”

Charlotte stared at the floor, her gaze unfocused, then her head snapped up. “I know! We could build a raft.”

“How?” Tony frowned at the wooden crates. “I don’t exactly see any tools lying around.”

“Well, let’s look again.” Charlotte clutched the blanket below her neck and strode to the opened crate. While she dug through the tins of tobacco, Tony searched the floor.

“Nothing in here.” With a sigh, she let the lid fall and moved to the next crate. In her shifting shadow, something under the front eave caught the faint sunlight seeping through the window. Charlotte glimpsed it at the same moment as Tony. “A screwdriver!”

Maybe there was hope after all.

By late afternoon, Tony’s hands were blistered and sore from using the screwdriver to pry apart a half-dozen crates. Charlotte was trying to lash the lids together with some electrical cords she’d found in a box of junk. Tony wasn’t optimistic that they’d be able to construct anything seaworthy, but building it at least kept Charlotte occupied.

The waters had continued to rise, and lapped at the first step below the attic floor. The door of the warehouse across the street was completely submerged, and the pile of debris Charlotte had ridden in with had grown smaller as the water carried pieces away and encroached on the remains.

They tried to ignore their growling stomachs. Thank God the tobacco came in tins, or they’d have to worry about dehydration, too.

“Tony?” Charlotte squirmed. “I have to go.”

“Go—” Then he realized. “Oh. Uh, I guess you’ll have to use a tobacco tin.” They hadn’t found anything larger, so that would have to do for a toilet.

He emptied a can, handed it to her, and waited while she scurried behind a couple crates.

By saving the child’s life, he’d taken on an awesome responsibility, though one he was glad to have. He’d stay with her, keep her safe until they found her family.

And if they didn’t?

He’d take her home with him.
As if.
He almost made a face at the absurd turn his thoughts had taken. For all he knew, he was trapped, destined to live the rest of his life nearly a hundred years earlier than he should have. Even if he did manage to get back to the twenty-first century, he doubted he’d be able to drag someone else along.

But what if he could?

They’d have a great time. He’d take her places—the zoo, the kids’ Discovery Museum, to movies. He wouldn’t travel so much. Screw his job, if he had more important things to do. Even if it was just hanging out at home and watching T.V.

If only he’d realized that when Bethany had been little. But he’d gone along with Dora’s urgings, chased the American dream, the illusion of success.

If fate gave him a second chance with this child, he wouldn’t screw up. He wouldn’t forget to tell her he cared. Wouldn’t blow off her birthday party because he had to leave town on business. He’d introduce her to cartoons and Barbie dolls and video games. Maybe she’d play sports, like Bethany.

They’d go to the park and he’d teach her to shoot hoops...

He heard her slide the window open and pour something out. “Tony... come look.” She stood at the window in the far end of the attic. He walked over so he could see where she pointed.

From somewhere beyond the warehouse across the street, a thick plume of smoke rose into the air.

“Fire,” Tony whispered. He slowly lowered his hand until it rested on her shoulder. “Who’d have thought, in all this rain.” Fortunately, it was far away. If fire reached the Smoke Shop, the place would go up like a box of matches.

Then something exploded, with a boom that reverberated through the attic, knocking Tony and Charlotte to the floor.

C
HARLOTTE SCREAMED.
T
ONY PUSHED HIMSELF
off the floor. “Holy shit, what was that?”

Trembling, Charlotte crawled into his arms. “I think it was a few streets over.”

He stroked her back and rocked as they both stared out the window. Chunks of flaming wood rained into the water. Most of it extinguished the instant it hit the rushing flow, but one big chunk of roof burned until it floated down the street and out of view.

Charlotte’s arms snaked out of the blanket and gripped Tony around the waist. “I’m scared.”

He pulled her close. “It’s okay, honey. I’m scared, too.” The kid amazed him. After all she’d been through, she was just now admitting she was scared?

Small blazes sprung up in the vicinity of the blast. Tony and Charlotte were safe as long as the wind blew in the opposite direction from the Smoke Shop.

Throughout the afternoon, more little boats went by. None came close enough to hail except for one already full of refugees. Tony threw open the window and he and Charlotte hollered as loud as they could, but the man with the oars shook his head apologetically as the craft disappeared around a corner.

Charlotte wandered to the other side of the attic, where she’d found Tony’s wallet, and amused herself by digging through a box of electrical junk she’d found. She examined each item with the eye of a jeweler assessing the value of a gemstone. Tony couldn’t help smiling. She had the curiosity to go with her aspirations, no doubt there.

As he watched, the enormity of what he’d done struck him.

He’d zipped a century into the past. Into a time where it was commonplace—expected, even—for a father to discourage ambitions like Charlotte’s. A time when a woman who worked outside the home was in the minority. When many would call a little girl’s wish to be an inventor foolish.

But he’d also fallen into a time when Dayton was in its glory days of industry and innovation. The age of the Wright Brothers, Charles Kettering, and cash registers. A far cry from Tony’s own time, where many equated Dayton, Ohio with
boring
.

After seeing the city streets filled with over twelve feet of water, he’d never look at them the same way.

When night fell, the darkness was nearly absolute. Only the lurid glow of distant fires illuminated the sky. Tony and Charlotte huddled at the window, hoped and prayed the fires didn’t come nearer. Once in a while, something else blew up, and plumes of flame shot skyward.

“Tony?” Charlotte’s voice was small in the dark attic. “What’s making all the fires?”

“My guess is the weight of the water on the streets is rupturing the gas lines beneath them. Then someone lights a match and next thing you know...”

Shivering in his arms, she sneezed three times. She’d been doing that a lot, and Tony feared she might be getting sick. He rubbed her back, though it couldn’t do much to warm her.

Eventually, she fell asleep in his arms. Her legs and arms twitched, and she made little mewling sounds as if she were back in the water, struggling to swim. Unwilling to wake her, Tony stayed where he was, sitting with his back against a crate, his feet propped on the lashed-together skids that were their poor attempt at raft building.

In the second story windows of the warehouse across the alley, a match flared. It snuffed out a second later, followed by the crack of a gunshot.

The church bells had just rung ten o’clock the next morning when Charlotte saw the fire down the street. She pressed her forehead to the window, barely able to feel the glass against her numb skin. Would she ever be warm again? Tony’s hands felt like chunks of ice when he held her.

Sometimes he paced. One time Charlotte counted nine round trips. When he sat beside her, he stared out the window, his eyes unfocused. “Tony? Are you all right?”

He slid an arm around her, but kept staring outside. “Yeah.” She wasn’t sure she believed him, especially the way he jumped whenever someone shot a gun nearby. “Trying to get the rescuers’ attention,” he muttered. That’s what he’d said at night, when the gunshots woke her.

He rubbed her arms over the blanket. “Man, what I wouldn’t give for a hot cup of coffee and one of Bernie’s sesame bagels.”

Charlotte twisted to look up at him. “I don’t know what bagels are, but I wish we had some, too.” They’d given up on the rafts when they’d run out of electrical cord. The planks they’d been able to tie together wouldn’t be enough to hold Charlotte by herself, let alone the two of them.

The rain had finally stopped, and the water was beginning to recede. By noon almost half of the door across the alley showed above the floodwaters. Downtown, fires still burned.

Charlotte clutched the blanket to her body and walked to the crate where he’d laid her clothes to dry.

Her dress was still damp. She wasn’t sure what they’d do or how they’d escape if the fires came near, but she didn’t want to be caught wearing only her bloomers and a blanket. She grabbed her clothes, then started to sneak behind a crate to pull them on when something sparkled on the floor.

Tony’ quarter. She’d slid it beneath her dress while he wasn’t paying attention.

She sneaked a glance at him. He was still looking out the window. Surely he wouldn’t mind if she kept the quarter. He’d told her they weren’t worth much in his time.

But to Charlotte the quarter was something magical. It was real, he’d told her so. And so were the other coins he’d shown her, and his tiny, square telephone, and the Ohio Driver License.

The quarter was proof that he wasn’t batty, that he really had come from the future.

He’d come back in time a hundred years to rescue her.

Maybe that meant she’d grow up to be someone important.

The idea settled over her like a fuzzy blanket. She slipped behind the crate and dressed, then pocketed the coin.

She’d barely donned her stockings when the biggest explosion yet rocked the building. She clapped her hands over her ears, unable to suppress a wail. Tony threw himself to the floor. “Holy shit!” Outside, wood splintered and popped. He pulled himself up and rushed to the window, but Charlotte beat him to it.