Echoes of Tomorrow (18 page)

Picking out the oldest looking one she could find, she held her breath and lifted the lid.

Empty.

So was the next one.

Minutes turned into hours as Elise ripped into boxes and broke clasps on trunks, only to find caches of canceled checks, love letters from lonely soldiers, old clothes and myriad other useless items.

The sun sat low in the sky when she rose stiffly to her feet to break for dinner.  A dusty, dying ray of light pierced the dimness through a small western window, illuminating a darkened alcove she'd forgotten about.  There in the dim light stood a battered, water-stained steamer trunk.

Elise's heart jumped to her throat as she shoved boxes and furniture out of the way to clear a path.  She could feel her pulse racing.  Her hands left moist fingerprints on the latch as she opened the lock.

The lid fell back with a thud, causing swirls of dust to rise like miniature explosions.  The dust had settled and Elise had sneezed several times before she dragged her sleeve across her eyes and approached the container again.

Dismay tainted her hope when her eyes fell upon the contents.  The interior was filled with what appeared to be ledgers or logs of some sort.  They were, indeed, very old, but the water stains on the exterior had done their damage inside as well.

The first book she picked up fell to pieces when she tried to open it.  In fact, all the books lining the top layer fell apart.  The second layer was in much the same condition, but the third layer proved to have two books that stayed in one piece.  Unfortunately, the black ink was so blurred with water stains it had turned a very pale brown.  Unreadable.

Elise dug to the very bottom and pulled three books out of the center that seemed to be in better shape than the rest.

Nervous fingers brushed across the covers, wiping off years of mildew.  She said a little prayer that one of these would hold an answer.

The binding on the first book crackled as the stiffness of the cover gave under her insistent fingers.  Pages stuck together, but with gentle patience she soon separated them.

Elise's breath caught when the flyleaf fell open to her.  She felt dizzy for a moment and had to force herself to quiet her hammering heart.

Journal of J. Reed Blackwell
was inscribed in elaborate script across the top of the flyleaf.

She released an involuntary sob and had to still her fingers to keep from ripping the pages.  With deliberate slowness she eased the page over and looked heavenward before looking back to the book.

Accounts Paid - Oak Vista Plantation - 1840

"Damn!"

Heedless of possible damage now, she rifled through the pages, looking for a new account year.

That book was soon discarded in favor of the next.  This one held the accounts for 1842.

"Come on, come on, come one," she pleaded as she picked up the final book and opened it without hesitation.  It was a book of poems, and she wondered what it was doing in with the household ledgers.

Her breathing stopped completely, her heartbeat a loud roar in her ears.  She couldn't believe her eyes.

"He's not coming back," she whispered to herself.  Disbelief muddled her thoughts and she looked again at the writing.

Tears flooded her eyes and fell to her cheeks.  Her voice was husky with emotion when she spoke.

"I'm going to him!"

Joyous wonder lit her face as she watched a fat tear fall upon the inscription written by her own hand:

To the most wonderful man in the world.

I love you, darlin.'  All my love, Elise.

Suddenly the world seemed brighter, her heart grew lighter as she hugged the book to her breast.  Surely she could float above the earth if she tried right now.

The nightmare was over, almost before it had begun.  She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she would go to Reed.  Now her job was to find the portal to his world and enter it.  This would not be an easy task - she didn't have the first clue as to where to look or what to look for.  But she would continue to search until she found the means to get back to the one man in all of time that was perfect for her.

*******

The nightmare was not over.  For two weeks Elise combed the house and grounds for any viable explanation to Reed's jumping back and forth in time.  She went to the library and spent hours upon hours researching even the tiniest article on time travel, so she'd have at least a hint as to what to look for in her search of the grounds.  There were as many theories on the subject as there were authors of the articles.  She came to the conclusion that if she could fly faster than the speed of light, she could get back there on her own.  If.  If, if, IF!

Elise could find nothing whatsoever that indicated special powers or a potential to move someone through time.  She was painfully aware that the most mundane item or action, one that she might already have dismissed, could be the key to her transportation to Reed.

She had reached a point where the more she searched, the more distraught she became. Hopelessness threatened to engulf her.  She had to keep reminding herself that she
would
go back in time.  The inscription in the book proved that to her.  But she also realized the note could have been written the day she got back there or years later.  Was she doomed to search for years before finding the answer?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The jangling ring of the telephone jerked her from her depressing reverie.  She gently laid aside the book of poems she'd been reassuring herself with and stretched across the length of the couch to snare the phone with thumb and forefinger.  She had to clear her throat twice before she could speak.

"Hello?"

"Hello, babe.  Did you get my messages?"

Elise restored the receiver to its cradle in a manner she hoped would do damage to Jeffrey's eardrum.

"That sonofabitch."

He'd been harassing her by phone all week.  Somehow he must have gotten wind that Reed was gone.  After the first couple of calls, she'd begun to screen them with her answering machine.  If only she hadn't been caught off guard with her musings and made the mistake of picking this one up.

It rang again.  After the third ring the machine got it.

"Elise, I know you're there.  I also know you've taken a leave of absence from your job.  What's the problem, Elise?  I told you Romeo would split.  You know we can work this out if you'd stop being so damn stubborn.  Just pick up the phone, baby......Pick up the damn phone, Elise!  You're going to..."

The long beep of the machine disconnected the increasingly irate voice on the other end.  Elise felt the hot flush of anger and fear on her skin.  Jeffrey was becoming more insistent in his pursuit of her, and the quicksilver change of his temper brought back feelings she preferred to stay buried.  She was going to have to check with an attorney to see what it would take to keep him away from her.

Her anger at Jeffrey started the adrenaline pumping.  She jumped up and began pacing, trying to clear her mind of the phone call and focus on the problem at hand.

For the thousandth time she went over her last day with Reed, dissecting every movement and analyzing it.

Her mind scanned back to the couple of hours before the party. 

The pair had finally come up for air and decided they were starved.  Elise searched the cabinets for a snack while Reed toyed with the crocks from the basement and reminisced.  She thought back to their conversation and watched it run like a movie in her mind.

"No one knew why my father had the closet built in there, but Nell used it to dry some of her herbs and store a lot of her remedies she kept mixed up.  Oh, look."  Reed popped a wax top off of the small crock.  "It looks like..." he took a sniff, "it is!  It's Nell's herbal tea!  She use to brew this for me all the time as a child to help me sleep."

An idea lit up his eyes.  "I wonder if it would taste the same."

Elise screwed up her face with a dubious look but Reed was already at the sink, running some water.

"C'mon.  Let's try it."

The dull
thunk
of the doorknocker sounded before she could answer.

"Hold on, that's probably the paper boy."

Reed was mumbling to himself when she re-entered the kitchen after paying the neighbor kid.

"How does one go about brewing tea?  ELISE!" he bellowed, then grinned and shrugged when he discovered her behind him.

"Well, darlin', I don't know how Nell did it, but being the modern woman that I am, the only way I know how to brew tea is in my Mr. Coffee."

She stuffed a filter into the coffee holder, then gingerly shook some of the questionable tea into it.

Looks like mulch,
she thought as she tried to guess the correct amount to use. 
Smells like it, too.

Reed paced in front of the coffeemaker like a little boy in front of an oven full of cookies.  It struck Elise, like a blow to the center of her chest, how homesick he must feel to be this anxious to taste tea that was a century and a half old.  Their tour had dredged up memories that, in his mind, were only six weeks old; not all that long by today's standards, but for a nineteenth century man catapulted into an alien time, it must seem like an eternity.

The last drop hadn't fallen into the pot before Reed  scooped it up and poured a cup.  He offered it to Elise, but she shook her head, and with a  wrinkled nose handed it back to him.

"I think I'll pass this time, darlin'.  You enjoy, while I make us a snack."

He sipped the tea as if sipping a magic elixir.  A dreamy look of pure enjoyment suffused his face.  He'd drained the coffee pot of every drop, checking periodically to make sure Elise hadn't changed her mind about joining him.

After their snack the pair curled up in a hammock in the backyard like a pair of lazy cats in the sun, their bodies entwined.  With a sigh of contentment, she'd scrunched in closer and allowed her body to relax.

He'd awakened her in the best possible way she could imagine, with more than enough time to get ready for the party.

Elise stopped her pacing and came to the decision that she had to do something more constructive than just relive old memories.  They shed no light on her problem and they were becoming more painful instead of less.

A glance at the clock told her it was only late afternoon.  She had plenty of daylight left to search around the outbuildings again.  She trotted down the stairway and through the kitchen.  The storm door slammed behind her on her way out.

*******

Several hours later, the only things Elise had uncovered  were more dirt, cobwebs and rusty junk.  She was so tired she could barely put one foot in front of the other, but with single-mindedness she plodded toward her Jacuzzi bathtub.  A long, hot soak was what she needed.   The stairs felt like Mt. Everest, but she finally made it to her bedroom door. 

Her exhausted mind was beginning to play tricks on her.  In the fading light she thought she saw a body stirring on her bed.

"REED!"  Her heart flew to her throat and she scrambled to switch on the light to be sure she wasn't hallucinating.

There was, indeed, a body on the bed, and for a moment her joy knew no bounds.  But the joy quickly turned into a coil of fear, paralyzing her limbs, when she recognized Jeffrey's oily smile.

"Hello, sweetheart.  I hope you don't mind that I made myself comfortable.  You left the back door unlocked so I decided to wait for you inside."

Elise's paralysis didn't last long.  She jumped for her tear gas but realized she’d left it with her purse downstairs.

Jeffrey sprang from the bed at the same time.  He grabbed her arms and pinned them at her sides.

"Elise, let's just talk this through.  I know we can work things out if you give me half a chance."

She struggled to free herself and realized his stance prevented a direct knee to his groin.  She relaxed for a minute and pierced him with a look that could kill.

"Yes, Jeff, I'm sure we could work things out.  We could pick up where we left off, couldn't we?  You could try to control my life, and when I don't bow to your wishes you could beat me senseless.  I could be stupid enough to hang around and let you do that until you finally beat the life right out of me, either physically or emotionally.  You pompous maggot, you're more conceited than I ever dreamed if you think I'm going to allow you to dictate one movement I make or layanother finger on me.  Now get your filthy hands off me."

"Who's going to make me, Elise?  Your beloved husband has disappeared."  A lightning bolt of pain stabbed her heart, but she'd die before she'd let him see it.  "So unless you have another knight in shining armor tucked away somewhere, I say we're going to do this my way."

His hand came around to roam roughly across her body, violating her and making her gag.  He started pressing her toward the bed.

She knew she had to act fast.  She let her body go limp for a second, and when he tightened his hold to catch her, she reared her head back and brought it crashing forward into his temple.  She saw stars, but she heard him wail and his grip loosened.  She was out of his hold in a flash and managed to put the bed between them before he recovered.