But Not Forever Page 4

  I ran my finger under the loose bandage where seven knots of thread lumped up across my tender forehead. The sweaty flannel nightgown had twisted around underneath me. I stretched out my legs and arms and said good morning to the room with a groggy yawn.

  More giggling and feet scrambling. Two little heads ducked behind the foot of the bed.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “You know who we are, Emma.”

  Emma again. I sighed. “Who am I, then?”

  The brass curlicue at the end of the bed had four small hands wound around it. “Our sister.”

  “Emma’s your sister . . . and you think I’m Emma?”

  Two children stood up and bobbled their little heads at me.

  “Come over here, let me see you. What’re your names?”

  The smallest one sprinted across the room, crossed behind the life-size doll, and circled back. He jumped up on the bed. “I love guessing games, Emma! I’m Miles. You know who I am. There stands Jacob.” He pointed his tiny finger at the other one. Silky blond curls hung to their shoulders and their eyes were as clear and blue as the sky out the window panes behind their heads. They were beautiful. I had mistaken them for girls.

  Jacob walked from the foot of the bed around to the side where I lay propped up on pillows and took my hand. Wrinkles creased his brow. “Mother said you are sick and we are not allowed to bother you.”

  They were dressed in baby-blue sailor suits with navy buttons and navy collars. Their little black ankle boots were polished to mirrors. “You’re welcome to bother me. You’re both adorable. Are you guys going to a party with those fancy clothes on?”

  “No,” said Miles. “We are being sent outside to play on the swing.”

  “Well, you have really nice clothes on for just messing around in the yard. Like matching uniforms.”

  Jacob ran his palms along the buttons on the front of his shirt. “Mother has us dress every day in this play apparel. You know that.”

  “How would I know, silly? Climb up here on the bed with Miles. Where are we?”

  “More games?” Miles jumped three times on the soft mattress with the last fall ending in my lap. “Oof!” He caught his breath and squealed with both of his little hands on my cheeks. He pressed his face to mine. “We are in the biggest house in Monte Cristo!”

  Growls from my stomach ricocheted around the room, sending Miles tipping off me and into hysterics.

  “Kerry is seeing to your breakfast tray,” said Jacob, patting my hand. Concern for me rippled his brow again.

  “Good. I’m starving.” I patted him, returning the favor, and set my throbbing head back on the pillow. Jacob and Miles sat against me and held my hands as if it were the most normal thing to do with a visitor. The bedroom door swung partway open and Kerry pushed it the rest of the way with her elbow, coming toward us with a tray of food. She fixed the tray and a big cloth napkin across my lap and opened the window, letting woodsy smells drift in with the warm breeze.

  Tantalizing breakfast aromas mixed with the clean air. I untangled myself from the boys and picked up the toast with one hand, glopping lumps of jam across it with the other. I held it up, taking big bites and licking the sides before the jam could drip down my arm. The milk spilled down my throat in three big gulps. I finished the toast, nabbed the hardboiled egg, cracked and peeled off the shell and devoured it. I licked the jam bowl clean.

  “Yum, that was good. I haven’t eaten since Snohomish—bread pudding. Kerry, can I use a phone? I don’t have my cell with me, and I want to call my family and let them know I’m okay. They have to be totally frantic about me by now.”

  Kerry, Jacob, and Miles stared. Of course they did. I had made a pig of myself. I wiped sticky jam off my fingers and face.

  Kerry closed her mouth and then opened it again. “You seem well this morning. I . . . I am pleased you had an appetite for your breakfast. The madam will allow you downstairs today, but only if you have your memory back. You mustn’t continue to speak of odd things, or Doctor Withers will be summoned. You do not want that now, do you?”

  “Absolutely not. No more Doctor Withers. And no more Emma. I just want outta this house.”

  Kerry sighed. “You would be best off to pretend you are Emma, then.”

  “Is this a name game?” asked Miles.

  “No more games,” said Kerry. “Master Jacob and Master Miles, please remove yourselves from the bed and leave the room with haste. The miss must dress.”

  “God, you’re so freaking formal with them. They’re just little kids,” I said.

  Kerry’s mouth dropped open again.

  “I have to go to the bathroom, Kerry . . . I have to pee. And a shower would be nice.”

  Alarmed, she pushed the wide-eyed boys out of the room.

  “No comprende?” I asked. “I feel like we’re speaking different languages. How about . . . toilet?”

  She narrowed her eyes at me for a moment and then walked behind a screen. She rolled out a wooden box on wheels with a shallow white bowl rattling around inside. Worry lapped across her face. “She’s waiting for you in the parlor. You need to be well, now. For your own sake, please stop this peculiarity.” With that, she followed Jacob and Miles out the door as I blinked down at the makeshift toilet squatting in the middle of the room.

  MY own things were nowhere to be found, and my ring now hung from a gold chain around my neck. The mysteries in this house just kept piling up. With no other choice, I put on the white dress Kerry had left out. It choked me around my neck and squeezed me around my waist. Maybe this family belonged to a strict, no-jewelry sect that oppressed females and small boys with uncomfortable clothing and unusual toilets. Whatever it was, I ignored the boots with the pale buttons and left the room. I wanted out of this place. But first, I had to find a phone.

  I put one hand on my sore ribs and the other across my forehead and moved down the staircase. Something felt off. The smooth oak floor in the entry stared back at me. What was it . . . what was wrong? I turned around. The dark opening at the top of the stairs gaped at me like open jaws.

  Twisting back, I stared at the front door. I had seen Evan swinging into an old house on that same door. And land in an entry on his back—the very entry in front of me.

  Only it had been old rotten wood.

  Covered in old rotten dust.

  And now it was new.

  I pushed at my heart. It skipped a beat, skidded with a thud, and raced in my chest. “Oh, my god, no, no, no . . .” My whimpers started small and rose up like a tornado.

  I tripped across a red carpet, stumbling into the first room. It was crowded with dark furniture. And little things. On every surface. On every shelf. On every wall.

  Heavy drapes stretched across tall windows, strangling the light. I zeroed in on a grand piano in the corner. Beautiful. Glossy. New.

  Someone’s hot breath chafed my neck. “Why are you whining?” she said. “Are you listening to me?”

  An arched doorway—the dining room. I wheeled in a circle, herky-jerky. Red velvet drapes hung too thick, too heavy. A chandelier hissed, its tiny gas lights illuminating green and blue iridescent fireplace tiles. A preening peacock.

  Yes. I knew that peacock.

  The top left-hand drawer in the cabinet held candles. I didn’t need to see inside to know this.

  The woman stalked me, stabbing at my shoulder. “You are a terrible girl after that tomfoolery in your closet. I will not have this, not again.”

  I swung to the voice. Her finger aimed at my feet. “Where are your shoes and stockings? And where is your sash? Your hairbow?”

  I reeled away.

  Kerry’s arm stretched out to mine. I slapped at it and ran past the piano. I crossed back over the red carpet toward the door. I yanked it open. The porch railing rose up in front of my clutching hands.

  Tree stumps dotted the landscape beyond a rolling green lawn.

  Logged and cleared. Logged and cleared. Logged and cleared.
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  A swing hung from a tree next to a barn. A large stuffed pony and its bright blue cart stood in the dirt. Jacob and Miles waved their arms at me. They called out Emma’s name.

  I hurtled down the stairs and turned around to face the house. Shiny new colors. A shiny new mansion.

  Porches. Turrets. Gingerbread trim.

  No one I knew would be hunting for me at the river—or anywhere else in this place—

  “Emma!”

  The ground rushed at my body. Gravel bit into my knees. My hand came at me, slapping my mouth. Smothering my scream.

  KERRY darted in front of the woman and ran down the stairs. “Up with you, miss. Let us go get your shoes on.” She hauled me to my feet. “She’s fine, madam, just chilled. We will be down properly dressed. This is my fault. I should have assisted her in her dressing today. She’s still a might unsteady.”

  Anger flooded off the woman in waves and dripped straight down her dress to my bare feet.

  “Make sure she stays in her room until supper, Kerry. See that she is bathed and dressed properly this time. I will have the tub sent to her room. And do something with her hair. I will not have it hanging down in her face. She is a wild animal. Repulsive.”

  “Yes, madam.” Kerry took me away from the woman and dragged me, like a limp doll, upstairs. She pushed me into the pink room. Backing up tight against the far wall, her face was as horrified as mine.

  The egg and toast and jam churned in my stomach as the awfulness of my situation bubbled up inside. I was swirling down to crazy-town. “I’m going to throw up. I swear I am.”

  I held my arms out. The bedroom slowly stopped gyrating. The floor stabilized. The nausea was passing.

  “Who are you?” she whispered.

  “I’m Sonnet,” I whispered back. “Who are you?”

  “Kerry. Your nanny.”

  My nanny. My nanny. My heart sank. “What’s the date today?”

  “August fourteenth.”

  “The year, Kerry.”

  “1895.”

  My mind glittered shards of glass. Pieces as distinct as my own fingers and toes. I saw everything as it was. Finally. How could I have not understood? “The clothes, the language, the stares. You had no idea what I was talking about. Cars and phones and showers . . .”

  I paced back and forth, panting like the animal I had just been accused of being. “Stupid. Stupid! My life is supposed to be in front of me. Not behind me. How did this happen? How?” The doll standing in the corner mocked me with her stony eyes and old-fashioned dress. A dress I hadn’t really seen until just now. I hadn’t seen anything, anything until now. I wanted to kick the doll over, smash her perfect, jeering face.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  I pushed the lace on the window to one side. The same window Rapp had pried open a few days ago was still open from breakfast this morning. The wind blew the mountain air across my face. I gulped it deep into my lungs. My hands stretched out in front of me.

  Still mine. Still my hands.

  “How long ago did the accident happen, Kerry? When did I hurt my head?”

  “Three days before this day,” she whispered.

  “No one here knows they’re living in a place that will go bust eventually and turn into a dark, scary forest for people like my family to chill out in. You have no idea what’s in store for this mountain. But, of course—how could you?” I crushed my fist against the windowsill. “What family in their right mind has a summer picnic in the middle of a damn ghost town?”

  I wrapped my arms around myself and faced the poor girl still squashed against the wall. I may as well have been blabbing in Pig Latin. “Kerry, my name is Sonnet McKay. I’m from the year 2015. One hundred and twenty years from now. I know how impossible this sounds.”

  “You haven’t been the same since your injury.”

  “You believe me?”

  She swung her head back and forth, her eyes pasted to my face. Bits of red curls popped from her white cap and her mouth was frozen into a silent gasp. “What has happened in this house of late? My mind reels from hearing you speak on this distressing subject.”

  “I don’t blame you. I’m acting like a crazy girl who looks like someone named Emma who plays with dolls in this pink room, sleeps in this bed . . .” My throbbing head sank like a sack of potatoes into my hands. Tears slid through my fingers. My side hurt every time I drank air into my lungs. “How do I just turn into some identical person from 1895? No one will believe me. I’ll be trapped here forever with that, that witch—”

  “There are differences. Things that make no sense.”

  I spread my fingers and peered at her. I lifted my head. Encouraged.

  “Where did those clothes come from? Such odd red canvas boots with bouncy bottoms, more likely for a man than a girl. And your hair. How could it be shorter? I cut your hair. You have no scissors! And your undergarments, no more than silky ribbons . . .” Pink flushed up her neck and onto her cheeks.

  “The ring,” she went on, talking to herself as much as to me. “Emma would not have dared wear a ring in this household. She would have known the punishment. Where Emma would have acquired a ring like that I do not know. It’s impossible. You wanted it back, so I slipped my cross off its gold chain, and put in its place your ring. I set it around your head and under your nightgown while you slept. I could not imagine what else to do.”

  “You were the one who brought my ring that night? You put it around my neck?”

  “Aye. Keep it hidden from her.” Her eyes had slowly let go of the horror. Light trickled in. “I had my doubts, but this morning I saw. With my own eyes, I observed you. And now I know. You are not Emma. I know Emma. I have known her for almost four years. Your voice is different. Your spoken language. Your movements and manner. You are not her.”

  “You believe me?”

  She nodded.

  Kerry believed me. My knees crumpled under the white dress. I made it across the room and dropped onto the bed.

  Kerry moved from the wall she had been leaning up against to the window and the view of the trees and river beyond the house. Her hand touched the windowsill I had just wacked with my fist and ran along it, smoothing its slick, wooden surface. “What does this mean? How will you find your way back again? It’s too much to be borne. I rightly should be afraid of you, but curiously I am not.”

  “I don’t know what’s happened or why. But I’ll find my way home again if it’s the last thing I do.”

  “I will help you. You have my word on it. But you mustn’t act like anyone but Emma now. I will school you. Nothing odd anymore. Emma is quiet. She acts meek and docile—at the very least with her mother. I have no idea what the madam has in store for her, but whatever it is, it will be accelerated with your behavior.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I believe she wants Emma out of this house and far away from her husband and the wee ones. Yes, I am sure of it. I have been listening and watching. She’s just waiting for the right time to convince her husband. And your actions have now given her cause to initiate her unholy plan.”

  I shivered. Unholy plan. “Why does she hate her daughter?”

  “There is no earthly reason for it. She’s a good girl. Her father loves her very much and has no ill will toward her. And Jacob and Miles are devoted to her, much to their mother’s dismay. The madam dotes on her boys, but toward Emma, something is wrong about her heart.”

  “What’re their names?”

  “John and Rose Sweetwine.”

  “Rose Sweetwine? Oh, that’s a good one, Kerry. A pretty rose. A delightful tasting wine. The irony . . .”

  Kerry smiled wide and giggled. “Aye, incongruous it is, indeed. She should be called ‘Thorn.’ Thorn Sourwater for the despicable way she treats Emma.”

  There was a knock on the door. Two men hauled a steaming tub of water into the room as Jacob and Miles ran by in the hallway, laughing and bouncing a ball between them. Kerry took towels and a bar of soap o
ut of a dresser drawer.

  “You take a bath. I must go see to the boys. I will return and help you dress for seven o’clock supper. We can speak on how to survive in this grand house then.”

  “Where are my clothes, Kerry? My bouncy-bottomed boots?”

  “They are safe with me. I gathered them from under the bed the night I brought you the ring. I was afraid Bess might clean and find them.”

  I caught her hand and hugged her before she could leave. “Thank you.”

  “Can you do this, miss? Can you be her?”

  “I can do whatever it takes to get me home.”

  “Then I swear my allegiance to you and your mission.” She stood on her toes and kissed me on the cheek. And with that our pact was made.

  I waited until the door closed and then folded the tight material around my arm up where an African leather and silver bracelet wound around my wrist. I loosened the knot and rolled it over my hand. Kerry had missed it. I would keep it with me for good luck. I stuffed it deep between the feather mattresses and then patted at the ring hanging under my dress. A temporary fix to hide who I was.

  Yes. I could do this. But not forever.

  A magnificent grandfather clock stood tall and mighty in the study across from the dining room and gonged seven times. A flaming log burned in the peacock fireplace. I slid the bulky dress into Emma’s chair and hunched over, meek and docile, exhaling my nervousness away. I secretly took in the formally dressed Sweetwine family dinner. Rose—or Thorn, as Kerry had branded her—sat at one end of the long table, her husband at the other. The boys sat across from me. Like a faux family in a high-end magazine, the matched set of four were flawless. I stuck out like a wild, red-haired, freckled-skinned, genetic throwback.

  Heavy silverware surrounded an exquisite gold-rimmed plate. I tried to remember what to eat with which fork as a large woman wound around the table with a steaming platter of food. My rumbling stomach greeted her as she held the platter close so I could stab at chicken and potatoes. Her round face gleamed down with goodness. I smiled up at her. “Thank you—”