Downtime Read online

  "Aw, come on. How can you tell?"

  She laughed. "The day I've been watching for, waiting for, and he wants to know how I can tell. Morgan dear, you know how attuned I've always been to everything going on with you." Her brown eyes narrowed quizzically. "It's not all good, though. Not all good. You've got those little wrinkles..." She smoothed a hand over my forehead. "So tell me already."

  I told her. Not that it was easy. Even the best of moms might've wondered if it wasn't time to call in the men with the butterfly nets. But my mom was a little different. She'd always seen the big picture, the same way Sully now saw it; and even though she wasn't dead yet, she had always been as serenely certain about all things concerning heaven and earth as he was. My dad had always said she was more certain than God, Himself. And when I told her I'd fallen for a guy long since dead, she frowned not in disbelief, but as if she wanted to muddle out some way to resurrect him for my sake.

  Then it dawned on her, the bad news I was trying so feebly to convey.

  "You're going to him," she said gravely.

  "I'm going to try." I paused. "It might not work--"

  "I think it may." She half-covered my hand with her smaller one and squeezed. "You have a reason to go. Dear James, he said as much." Dear James was how she always addressed Sully. Everyone was dear to Mom.

  "Don't tell me you can see Sully now, too?"

  She considered herself a "little bit psychic." Though she'd never mentioned seeing any ghosts except Dad, she seemed to communicate with him on a daily basis. I'd always thought it was wishful thinking--until now.

  "No, your father told me James had mentioned it," she confirmed as her cell phone rang. I nodded for her to go ahead and she smiled in embarrassment and answered it, keeping her voice only just loud enough to be heard by whomever was on the other end. As I finished my steak, I wondered if she might want to come with me. But as I listened to her discussing inventory with Sarah Lambert, her business partner and a woman she'd been friends with since girlhood, I realized she had a whole life here she wouldn't want to be spirited away from.

  Ending the call, she put away the phone and looked at me wistfully. "I've always wished I could see you more often, dear. I just didn't imagine it would end up being by the same means I see your father. I suppose it's better than nothing at all, but I do so miss the hugs."

  It hadn't occurred to me that if I went back, I'd be dead--before I was born. Just thinking about it too closely gave me a headache. "I'm sorry, Mom."

  "Oh, now, what is there to be sorry about? Let's order dessert and you can tell me about Ezra. I want to know all about this fellow who's done the impossible."

  Noting the impish light in her eyes, I indulged her. "The impossible being..."

  "Oh, Morgan, if you only knew how long it took me to convince your father he was in love." She rolled her eyes. "And you're just as bad. I was in despair--"

  "Mom."

  I interrupted her for once, thwarting the lecture by giving her the photo of me and Ezra. She stared at it in wonder, then up at me as if she were reassuring herself it was her own child in the picture. "Oh my dear. My own baby. Look at you. My goodness." Her gaze drawn back to the photo, she gazed at it until the cheesecake arrived. "He looks as though he has the necessary patience," she concluded, placing the photo beside her plate.

  "Funny, Mom. Yeah, I don't know how, but he does." I just wondered if he had enough patience left to take me back. "I think he's done the impossible just putting up with me as long as he did."

  "And you think he's going to be angry at you when you go back?"

  I dug furrows in the cheesecake with my fork. "Yeah. And he's got every right to be--"

  "Not once he knows why you're there. You are going to tell him you love him?" When I looked up at her in exasperation, she laughed. "Well, I had to ask. It wasn't easy, squeezing those words out of your father." Her voice softened. "Now I hear them every day. Now he knows."

  I couldn't help asking. "Knows what?"

  "What's important. And I think now you do, too."

  "I'm a slow learner," I acknowledged with a rueful twist of my mouth.

  "We learn when we're ready." She put down her fork, her own dessert half-eaten, and took up the photo again. "Will you be able to visit?"

  "I don't know. It's a rough trip." I couldn't tell her it was a trip I might not survive. "You want to keep the picture?"

  "May I?" She brightened. "Why don't you leave some more photos and maybe a few letters in a safe place for me? I suppose your father will let me know how things turn out for you. But I would so like a few keepsakes. Could you?"

  I was hesitant to make any promises, but I wanted to give her something before I left. I noted that she had not alluded to the idea that I might be the one to eventually tell her just how my life with Ezra had gone. Not even seeing the big picture shielded a person entirely from the hurt of losing someone in the flesh. "Remember the board I hid those cigarettes under in the storm cellar?"

  Her eyes widened. "I'd have to sneak back onto the property."

  "Nah. Just tell them you left some keepsakes behind. They'll let you dig them out."

  I rode back to the boutique with her, wanting to leave her among friends. She tucked the photograph carefully in her purse and talked about Ezra as though he were already part of our family. As I headed for the airport, I had a typical one-sided conversation with my dad--only this time, I was the one doing the talking. I asked him to look after her and keep her in good cheer when she missed me the most. Maybe he wasn't as thick-headed as he'd been in life--as we'd both been--but I wanted to make sure he remembered. And I tacked on a little reminder that I loved him, too.

  As surreal as it felt to leave my own familiar life behind for good, the prospect of being with Ez again had me in a buzz of anticipation and excitement that grew with every mile I passed. The flight back across the pond was damned near interminable. I dozed intermittently and dreamed of him, waking to see lush green far below and the gleam of tall buildings in the distance. London, the most beautiful city in the world...

  What Leonard Gladstell would have given to hear me admit that.

  Thirty minutes to closing, I slipped in past the crowds heading out of the museum. The dreamlike sense which had cocooned me for the last several hours was yielding to ever increasing anxiety. What made me think whomever had pulled me back the first time would let me return now? I was asking for a hell of a lot. What if the answer was no? What if I had lost Ez for good?

  "Come on, Sully," I muttered as I pushed open the door to the storage room. "Look, I know my track record stinks. But you know me well enough to know..." I sucked in a deep breath, trying to not think I was just talking to thin air. "Being here without him sucks. Goddamn, does it." I sat for some time as the noise of people coming and going dwindled to a deep cavernous quiet broken only by the lone shuffle of a security guard checking for stragglers. Dead tired, I decided I needed a good night's sleep. Maybe Sully would give the matter some thought and maybe tomorrow morning...

  I checked into a nearby hotel and dropped into bed without bothering to undress. The brutal buzz of an alarm clock woke me at eight and I lay in bed, still jet-lagged, and wondered what the hell I was going to do. Had Sully heard me? Had anyone? Was there any way to convince them to let me slip back to 1888?

  Maybe I needed to make a more direct appeal.

  I closed my eyes and willed him near. "Ezra? Any chance you can hear me? And help me? I'm trying to get back to you." An unexpected lump in my throat choked me into silence. I shoved away the blankets and shot out of bed. Goddamnit, I was going back. If I had to spend day after day in that musty little room until someone up there got the message, I would.

  I showered, dressed, then grabbed breakfast on my way back to the museum. The day passed with excruciating slowness as I tortured every spirit within earshot with a rambling monologue, appealing to Sully, Ezra, my father, and anyone else with even the smallest influence.

  It al
l got me approximately nowhere. I'd heard the old saw about God sometimes answering prayers with a firm no. But if this was a no, He was going to have to speak up a little. In fact He was going to have to slam me down hard, because I wasn't giving up. I couldn't.

  When the museum opened the next day, I was the first one through the door, ready to plead, beg, grovel, and bribe, if necessary. They'd sent me back once, Sully and whomever else had a hand in rescuing me, and I'd still be there if it hadn't been for my stupid, stubborn refusal to listen to my own heart. I couldn't guess what reason they had for not letting me return, unless this was some sort of object lesson intended to really impress upon me the error of my ways. Someone up there wanted me to learn what a dumb jerk I could be. Okay, I'd learned it. I didn't like to think I'd have to spend the rest of my life paying for it.

  But maybe that was the case. Another day gone and I was no closer to finding my way back. I went to bed earlier, though I wasn't particularly tired after dozing off and on in the storage room. I wanted to fall back into the dreams I'd had lately, to spend some time with him, the only time I'd ever have with him again, it was beginning to seem. But the dream that came was more a nightmare as I walked down a snowy road in the middle of nowhere, Ezra far ahead of me and oblivious to my presence. Wrapped in his coat, he carried a book under his arm, and despite my calls, never turned once to look in my direction. I woke in the dark and buried my face in the pillow, refusing to consider that someone was once again trying to send me a message.

  On my way back to the museum, I stopped at the library to get my hands on photocopies of half a dozen newspapers surrounding the date of the next murder. I didn't expect to find anything helpful in them, but I figured I might as well have something to read while I waited. Back in the dusty corner of the storage room that had become the center of my universe, I tried to think about anything other than that dream, but it wouldn't leave me alone. Perhaps I was viewing it in my present miserable single-minded context of wanting to get back to him, but the dream had seemed so real and--deliberate. What had it meant? Why had he been walking away so determinedly? Was he trying to tell me he didn't want me back? Was Sully trying to tell me I simply couldn't go back, no matter how much I wanted it? Or was it just a manifestation of my own fears?

  "Man, the guys with the nets are going to be coming for me any minute now." I slumped down and stared at the dust motes floating in the light under the door. It was a light intermittently broken as museum visitors shuffled past, none of them in the slightest aware that a lunatic was sitting in their midst. "I'm not leaving, Sully. I'm not going anywhere unless it's back to him. Got me?"

  Whether Sully got me or not was left to my imagination. I wondered if I had any chance of finding my way back on my own. That book was probably still out there somewhere, a little more torn and faded, but still waiting on the shelf for anyone who wanted a little jaunt through the ages. There was bound to be some sort of local witches association who'd do the casting if the price was right. Only problem was, I had a pretty strong sense that if the higher-ups didn't want a bit of hocus pocus to work, it wouldn't. Whatever had moved me back a century was something more than a circle of warm bodies and a few words in Latin.

  The fact of the matter was, if they were going to let me go back, they'd have done it by now. I'd blown it. Blown my chance for a lifetime with the best damned soul I'd ever known. It made all the other stupid things I'd done in my life look inoffensive by comparison. Worse still, I'd hurt Ezra in the bargain. Hurt him unforgivably, in a way I could hardly bear to think about. I sat for an endless stretch of time, soaking in that one thought until I knew I had to get out of the museum before the cops found me in a sobbing heap and threw me out.

  I wandered into the museum proper, trying to adjust to the noise and flow of the real world--my real world. But I didn't want to leave the museum. Instead I made my way back to the books, with a slim hope of finding one in particular. I'd given Ezra a lot of shit for not knowing the title, but I couldn't remember it myself, now. It was a needle in one immense haystack.

  Browsing on the chance it would turn up, I came across a familiar name. Montague, James Francis. My curiosity got the better of me and I started searching for information on the people I'd met, compelled to know if any of them had found some sort of happily ever after.

  Jem hadn't. Succumbing to mental illness, he'd filled his pockets with stones and walked into the Thames. Though I hadn't predicted a happy end for him, the reality shocked me all the same. He had seemed a complex, intelligent man still in search of himself. A century later and he might have survived his demons.

  Speaking of demons... Another familiar name cropped up after a short search: Blanchard. George himself was mentioned by name, with no other personal information. Then my eye caught the name of Charlotte Eleanor Blanchard Weatherley, Mrs...

  She'd married and judging by the photograph, not long after splitting with Ez. Plump and smiling, her curling dark hair still untouched by gray, she stood beside a bearded fellow with warm eyes and the faintest hint of a smile on his own lips. Around them sat a litter of five kids, all bright, mischievous-looking pups. I wished I could tell Ezra. He would have been happy and relieved to know she hadn't suffered their broken engagement for very long.

  As for Sid, anything of him might be contained in one of the newspapers around November ninth--the date of the Ripper's next murder--if I'd even affected history that much, which apparently I hadn't. The November tenth paper reported on Mary Kelly's murder in stark detail, concluding with a report that an attempt to track the Ripper with dogs had failed. About to move ahead to the next issue for any indication of Sid's recapture, I noticed a small article tucked inside the paper with the headline, "Death in Lodging House Fire". It took me a long minute to force my gaze from the headline to the article itself, three tiny paragraphs which took all of ten seconds to read. The house had burned to the ground but only one resident was home at the time, a Mr. Ezra Glacenbie, the only son of Sir William and Lady Edith--

  I could see him walking away from me in the dream, never turning, just moving steadily onward, further and further beyond my reach. Now I knew. He was going to die when morning came and I couldn't do one damned thing to stop it. I stared at the words on the page while the inescapable fact of his death shredded me inside with deliberate agonizing precision. A voice from faraway announced that the museum was closing and a new jolt, of sheer terror, went through me. I couldn't leave, I couldn't go.

  I wouldn't. Forcing myself to breathe, I got to my feet and reeled blindly back to the storage room. It was the closest I could get to him and it was so goddamned far away. I shut myself in and dropped into the darkest corner to let come whatever was welling up like a tidal wave inside me. The gasp that echoed in the gloom made me clamp my mouth shut, trying to stay silent. My throat might be too tight for breath, but the pain surging up from my gut had no problem erupting from my lips in wordless grief. I couldn't stop it and after a minute I didn't try. Every minute that took me from November eighth to November ninth took Ezra to his last morning on earth. I had walked away from the life I wanted, the love I needed, and I was paying the price. But I wasn't paying alone. "Sully, are you here? Listen to me. I've got to tell you something. You've got to listen."

  Silence answered, at least, to my ears. But I had to believe he was here. I had to know someone was listening. "I've fucked it all up, okay? And I don't expect you guys to fix it. Not now. I'm still here so--I get the message, all right? But listen. Why the hell are you pulling him out of the game so soon? Don't you think he deserves a little better? Don't you think Kathleen and Derry deserve better?" This was going to fucking kill them. But I couldn't think about that right now. "Whatever I've asked you for in the past, Sully, it's all been minor shit compared to this. And I'm not going to ask for anything ever again, I swear to God--not anything--if you'll just take care of this one thing for me. It's all I want."

  Was he listening? Could he do anything even if he was? "S
ully? Just one thing, okay? Let him live."

  Silence again, a steady companion of mine for the past three days. Of course I was so damned dense that Sully could have been standing in front of me, yelling in my face, and I'd never have known it. "Just give him the chance to find some happiness again, and I won't ask for anything else, if I live to be a hundred." Not that I was planning to. Not without Ezra.

  I knew in the morning I would check the newspapers again and whatever I found there would be the final decree on Ezra's fate. As soon as the museum was closed, I intended to look for the book. Chances were I couldn't go back even if I found it; but in the handful of hours left, I could do nothing else. I couldn't sleep. I didn't think I could ever sleep again, in terror of dreams that might make me believe for a few brief seconds that he was alive and well, that he hadn't died horribly--that he hadn't died because of me.

  I felt so sick, I couldn't sit up, let alone stand. I leaned over my knees and drew in a few deep breaths, trying to pull myself together. It was my last memory before the sound of concerned voices roused me back to consciousness.

  "He's coming 'round, I think."

  "We should fetch a doctor."

  "No, no, he's all right. Give him a minute."

  How they'd found me when I knew I hadn't left the storage room I couldn't guess. I must have made some noise when I'd passed out. And by the sound of things, I'd be on my way to the hospital in a few minutes. A warm hand rested on my forehead, a feminine hand, and I caught the scent of violets. "Morgan?"

  I knew that voice. I was unconscious. I was dreaming. I knew that voice...

  "I told you this was a bad idea. Here, let me have a go."

  And that voice, I realized, as another hand patted my cheek insistently. I struggled toward full consciousness, climbing out of a deep pool toward a surface that glittered with light. It exhausted me to open my eyes--but the effort was worth it a million times over when I saw the anxious faces hovering over me. The worried, beautiful lot of them in the gentle glow of a lantern, they weren't ghosts, they were real and they were here. I seemed all at once to reach the surface, to bask in the light and breathe in air that warmed my blood.