Echoes of Tomorrow (2 page)

Up to this point Reed had not moved from sheer shock of waking to find a strange woman dressing in his bedchamber.  But enough was enough, and he meant to get to the bottom of this.  Beautiful or not, he refused to be ordered about.  What did she think he was going to do, cower in a corner while she shook odd-looking keys in his face?

He flung the quilt aside, swung his legs over the side of the bed and prepared to escort the uninvited guest from his chambers.  Before his feet hit the floor, a thin stream of liquid shot from the leather case and struck him directly in the face.

Pain such as he had never experienced in his life seared across his face.  His eyes slammed shut and burned with the intensity of a flame on his flesh.  He fell onto the Aubusson carpet, gasping for a breath that wouldn't come.  His throat constricted, and he writhed in helpless agony.  All that existed for him was the pain, the difficulty in breathing, the lack of control in his limbs.

An eternity passed, then, blessedly, an icy wet object fell across his face and hands.  After several moments the smallest degree of control began to slip back into his body.  With slow, jerking movements he pressed the wonderful, soothing cloth against his face.  When he tried to remove the towel,  the burning increased tenfold.  Another towel fell onto his hands and he scrambled to grab it and scrub the fire from his skin.  Somewhere in his mind a small voice told him he must look like a groveling fool, but at that moment a cold cloth seemed like the most important thing in the world.

In gradual, almost imperceptible stages, the pain began to subside, and he regained control of his breathing.  He drew the last cloth from his face and looked up to see the stranger standing a safe distance away,  that damnable leather case still pointed at him.

"Who the hell are you, and how did you do that?" she yelled, her arm still unwavering.

Reed could not believe his ears.

"Who am
I
?  And what do you mean, how did I do that?  You are the one who did it, Madam!  Or are you saying you did not try to blind me with that...that thing in your hands?"

The stranger's look darkened.  She pushed the case closer, her voice menacing.  "How did you appear on my bed while I stood there and watched it happen?  And don't tell me you're David Copperfield."

Leather case or no leather case, Reed shot her a look that said she was mad.

"
Your
bed?  Madam, this is my bed, and I'm not David anyone.  My name is Reed Blackwell and I own this plantation.  Now suppose you tell me who you are, and why you are in my bedroom, half-clothed."

The stranger's eyebrows shot up with a ‘surely you jest’ look in her eyes.

"Look, jerk," she stated, "this is my plantation.  I'm Elise Gerard and my name is on all the papers, including the deed.  I own everything on Oak Vista, lock, stock and barrel."

"I said my name is Reed, not Jerk, and if this is another practical joke instituted by the McNeely brothers, then you have all carried it to a very tiresome extreme.   I would be more than pleased to pay you to go away.  Name your price."

The strange woman stood there, anger and indecision warring on her face, the only sound in the room the metallic
ching
of keys dangling in her shaking hand.

"Get up," she ordered after several seconds.  "You can explain it to the police." She waved the leather case toward the bedchamber door.

Reed slowly got to his feet, deciding to play along.  Arguing might get him another dose of that liquid fire in his face.  Besides, all he need do was catch her off guard and disarm her.

He glanced around the room, looking for something with which to bind her hands, if need be, when he realized with a start that some were very different.  How had she changed the heavy draperies on all the windows?  And the bed hangings and counterpane?  Even some of the furniture had been rearranged.  Where was his mother’s hope chest?

Before he could look closer at the bedroom, his eyes fell on the open door to his dressing room.  He stopped dead in his tracks. 

What, in the name of all that
was holy, had happened?  There, off in his dressing room, sat a strange, beige, porcelain-looking seat, with a rounded bottom on a pedestal. Along one wall sat a huge, oblong tub, big enough for two people to sit in, with a stopper at the bottom and gold knobs on one end.  If he didn't know better he'd think it was a bathing tub, but that monstrosity could never be taken out and emptied.  Indeed, the thing looked to be a permanent fixture.  A shelf made of marble ran along another wall.  A bowl had been formed into it with the same kind of hole in the bottom and the same gold knobs on top.  Around the mirror above the shelf were small, round globes, glowing like lanterns, but no flame lit them. 

As he stared, rooted to the spot, the woman made a wide berth around him, reached past the door and hit a small knob on the wall.  Every one of the glowing globes went out at exactly the same time.

Reed's gaze left the now dark globes and slid to the woman.  He clenched his fists while his heart banged in his chest.  Little hairs at the back of his neck rose to rasp against his shirt collar.  He swallowed in a vain attempt to moisten his throat.

"What has happened to my home?"

The woman stared at him, a bewildered look mingling with the wariness in her eyes.  Through his baffling haze of disbelief he thought for a moment her guard had slipped, but then she spoke.

"We're going downstairs, and we'll talk it over while we wait for the police.  If you try anything I'll give you another face full of tear gas." 

Was her threat tinged with confusion?

Reed fought jolts of alarm at all the changes as he and the woman walked the corridors of the home they both claimed.  Most of his furniture remained there, but in different places.  New paintings hung on the walls, and every now and then he passed an unidentifiable contraption.

The first was a small white panel on a wall with colored blinking lights and numbered buttons.  The woman stopped and punched a few of the buttons.  Reed only had time to make out one of the words on the panel: 
Alarm
.  She motioned for him to move on ahead of her and he walked past more of those glowing globes and buttons on the walls.

He almost caressed the familiar staircase with relief until his eyes fell on yet another contraption sitting on a small table at the bottom of the stairs.  This one was a small, black box with red, glowing numbers on the front that read 9:15.  As he watched, the numbers changed to 9:16.  While he wondered at the workings of this amazing clock, his gaze drifted across the table and he again stopped dead in his tracks.  For the first time in his life, his head spun and the room swirled around him.

There on the table next to the box sat an open appointment  book.  At the very top in bold, black letters was printed: 
March 19, 1994.

The woman, unprepared for his sudden stop, collided into him.  She immediately jumped back up two steps and aimed the canister at Reed's face.  Her posture relaxed when he failed to move.

"Why does this book say March 19, 1994?" he asked in a barely audible voice.

Only a heartbeat of silence elapsed before she answered.

"Because, Mr. Copperfield, I haven't had a chance this morning to change the page to the twentieth."

Reed turned his head toward her but his gaze remained on the calendar.  In a shaky voice, he asked, "Can you prove that it is 1994?"

For some reason, a gut feeling maybe, Elise believed this man truly needed proof.  She was reasonably sure she wasn't dreaming all of this, but she had no other explanation for this morning's strange occurrences.

She couldn't deny what shed seen.  This man, this gorgeous man with the double-take face, had materialized on her bed like an eerie vapor while she'd struggled to button this ridiculous dress.  At first she’d thought it was a trick of the morning light.  The lumpy quilt that covered him looked like part of her unmade bed.  But the translucent vapor solidified, and the lump rolled over and stretched.  No, there had to be a logical explanation.  She'd seen too many magic shows not to know the most astounding illusion was a fairly simple trick.  But when he'd questioned the date, the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.  Her mind snapped back to the present situation.

"Proof? Proof. Yeah, sure.  Proof.  Let's see..." Elise's mind scanned possibilities.  How much more proof do you need than a calender?  She snapped her fingers when an idea popped into her head.  She darted the few feet to the front door, keeping the tear gas on him at all times, and scooped up a huge, rolled newspaper from the porch.  With a triumphant smile she flicked the paper open.  There, in bold print above the headlines detailing the latest presidential problems, was printed: 
Sunday, March 20, 1994
.

While Reed absorbed this piece of evidence, Elise yanked out the drawer in the table beside them.  She rummaged through it for a second, then fished out several coins.

"Let's see, 1965, ‘81, ‘77," she read aloud as she scanned the spare change she always threw in the drawer.  "Wait.  Wait.  Here's a penny minted in 1993.  Is that good enough?  You know we're barely three months into `94, and this money's been here a while.  If you need more proof I can get my billfold and see if I have..." 

Her last word trailed off, and she snapped her mouth shut.  This was insane.  It was bad enough trying to prove what year it was.  What was she doing, offering to get her billfold for a total stranger?  One who’d dropped into her home uninvited and unexplained.

Reed just stared at her while long, silent seconds ticked by.  His eyes never left hers when he reached into a pocket of his slacks and pulled something out of it.

He offered his hand to Elise, and when she opened her palm he laid the object in it.  His fingers were icy against her skin, but the warmth of his body lingered on the metal in her hand. 

She tore her eyes from his.  A twenty dollar gold piece shone up at her from the center of her palm. 

Elise's father had been an amateur coin collector.  Without having to examine the coin much closer, she knew it had to have been minted in the late 1830's.

When she looked into Reed's face, her confusion and fear were mirrored in his eyes.  But when she allowed a certain degree of skepticism to taint her features, his sky blue eyes took on a sort of helpless look.   He reached into his other pocket and pulled out a small piece of paper.

She hesitated before taking the folded scrap of paper and opening it.  When she read the words her skin crawled and chill bumps formed on her arms.  The tear gas canister fell unheeded to clatter on the table. 

In her hand she held a clipping from a financial page of an old New Orleans newspaper, dated March 18, 1844.  The problem was, the paper didn't look old; no yellowing or dry, cracked edges.  It looked as if it had been freshly printed.  But Elise knew by instinct that this wasn't one of those novelty papers that can be printed at the mall for five dollars.

"That was given to me last night," Reed stated quietly, "by a friend who wanted to interest me in investing in one of the companies in that article."   He pointed to one that gave details of several "up and coming businesses."

She continued to stare at the paper.  She walked blindly into the parlor and dropped like a rock into the nearest chair.

The ridiculous gown she'd been struggling to get into earlier immediately flew up and whacked her in the face.  She knocked the stupid hoop skirt back down and rearranged her position to accommodate the skirt.

Thank God, she’d slipped on a pair of jogging shorts under her skirts.  Embarrassed at her clumsiness, she shrugged and tried to act nonchalant.

"This is Azalea Festival time, and since my home is on the tour, the Chamber suggested we wear period costumes.  I'm not used to wearing a bird cage."

Reed took a breath to reply when a loud knock jarred the front door.

"Damn."  Elise catapulted out of the chair and rushed to the  door.

At least fifteen people of all ages and sizes filtered into the foyer.  Most of them came in gawking at the staircase and furniture.

"Hey, he really looks authentic."  A rotund woman in shorts batted her eyes at Reed.  "This is the first house we've come to that has a man dressed in costume.  All he needs is a silver mint julep cup in his hand."

Elise chanced a glance at Reed.  He stood there, looking thunderstruck, then turned on his heel and strode into the drawing room and out of sight.

Dear heavens, the woman was right.  He looked as if he'd just stepped out of the nineteenth century.

"Excuse me, everyone.  Excuse me," Elise shouted.  "I'm  sorry, but this house will have to be taken off the tour for today.  We have a problem, you see.  A, uh...an illness that needs to be quarantined.  The measles.  And I'm sure none of you want to be exposed.  I assure you your money for the tour of this home will be refunded.  Just see your tour guide.  Thank you."  Elise herded everyone out the door and apologized again as they left.  She stuck her head out for a few words with the tour guide, then shut and locked the door.

When she turned to dash back to Reed in the drawing room she was brought up short.  The day was getting worse by the minute.