Race to World's End (Rowan and Ella Book 3) (6 page)

It had been a
good day. It had rained enough to fill the white shirt he used to catch water
by his cave. He’d decided that it was the last thing he’d move and today was as
good a day as any.

As he came up
over the rise he saw the ship and instantly dropped to his stomach. He couldn’t
be sure they hadn’t seen him but the few men who were on the beach didn’t seem
to react as if they had.

His heart raced
as he lay there, frozen, watching them.
Shit!

Although he had
no reason to believe they wouldn’t return, he’d hoped for longer. He watched
two men in a dinghy at the bow of the ship. One of them jumped out and
disappeared in the water. He came up with his hand stretched out. At first
Rowan thought they might be crabbing or trying to find bottom-feeders. Then he
saw the other man hand the swimmer a tool of some kind before he disappeared
again into the water.

They were
repairing their ship.

Who except pirates would need to do that on an unchartered
island?

As Rowan watched,
he tried to see if there was anything about them that might reveal if they were
from a different time than his own. Their clothing looked old-fashioned, but that
could just be the typical attire for poor sailors in any timeline. He watched
the men work on the ship until his eye was drawn to a figure on deck.

He was tall, dark,
with a flowing robe and a low-slung belt. He wore a red scarf around his long
hair. He stood on the deck with his hands on his hips, and even from this
distance he exuded an air of absolute authority,

Everything but the eye patch
, Rowan thought grimly.
 

Suddenly, two
figures emerged from the jungle at a run. Rowan could see they were excited and
the other men on the beach quickly gathered around them. He was surprised to
see that they had gone into the island, and as he strained to make sense of their
loud, eager voices, he saw one of them turn and point in the direction of his
cave.

An icy needle of
fear started in his spine and shot up to his brain.

Shit!

The white shirt
hanging in front of the cave.

 
 
5

Cairo
1925

The ride home from
the bazaar had been a quiet one. Halima thought taking a horse-drawn cart would
distract Tater—and Ella too—but it only seemed to make things
worse.

Ella’s eyes
scanned the streets and shops as they passed through the old marketplace of
1925 Cairo.

“But it’s such
good news, darling,” Halima said, rubbing a hand on Ella’s shoulder. “
Effendi
lives.”

“I know, I know,”
Ella said. “But you’d be surprised how quickly the joy of learning that was
replaced with the agony of knowing
when
he lives.

“It was a shock.”

“You could say
that. He might as well be dead.”

“Shhh Ella. Stop
that.”

“Stop that,
Mommy!” Tater squirmed down from the seat between the two to get a better look
out the window. Ella caught him and held him by the window.

“Thanks. I needed
that,” she said. But her voice was devoid of humor.

Halima refused to
give in to the anxiety that had threatened to engulf her ever since the word
had come about
Effendi
.

“It’s just so
hard to believe, looking out onto the world, seeing the blue sky, the birds,
hearing the noises of our daily round…” Ella paused. “It’s just unimaginable to
think that he’s not in this world.”

“But not dead,” Halima
said firmly.

Ella turned to
her. “I see what you’re doing, Halima,” she said.

“That is good,
dearest. It makes doing it a little less difficult if you work with me.”

Ella looked back
out the window and her eyes filled with tears. “Nowhere in this world,” she
said softly. “Nowhere alive in this world.”

Halima took a
breath and forced herself not to speak. She would allow Ella her indulgence for
at least the time it took to ride back from the Old Cairo Market to their
townhouse. She would grant her dearest friend at least that much time to grieve
before being forced to act.

“You think I’m
being melodramatic.”

“Of course I do
not.”

“Something bad
must have happened to him to have him…move out of our timeline.”

“He fell over the
side of a ship.”

“Yeah. That would
do it, I guess.” She paused. “Fell or was pushed.”

“In any case.”

“Olna said she
saw signs that would place him in the eighteen hundreds. And since she already
said Rowan and I tend to land in exact one-hundred year increments, that means July
10, 1825.”

Halima nodded
solemnly, but inside she smiled. Her dear one didn’t even need to take the full
time of the carriage ride to shake out of her dejection. Already she was
putting the pieces together and thinking about what she must do.

“Where did they
say they thought he went over?”

“Somewhere off
the coast of Libya.”

“And that’s a
huge area, isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Ella pulled Tater
up onto her lap and frowned. “What if he’s on an unchartered island? Olna said
she saw a beach in her dream.”

“Did she see
people?”

“She wasn’t clear
about that.”

“A beach sounds
like an island.”

“It does, doesn’t
it?”

Tater was growing
restless and Halima wanted Ella to focus on her burgeoning plan—and the
future. She reached out to the child and he eagerly scrambled into her lap.

“I have to find
out exactly
when
the
lifeboat—and Rowan—was noticed as being missing,” Ella said.
“That’ll at least give me a searchable area to work with. Were there any storms
during the time he jumped ship?”

There was that
nascent dry humor Halima had missed so much this last week. “Not that I know of,”
she said.

“Olna said he’s
in distress,” Ella said, looking back out the window as the carriage stopped to
allow a motorized taxi to push ahead.

“That would not
be surprising,” Halima said softly.

“No. I know. It’s
just that…thinking of Rowan…you know…in distress…”

“It’s alright,
dearest,” Halima said. “It’s going to be alright.
Rowan
is going to be alright.”

Ella turned to
look at her for the first time since they’d climbed into the carriage. “Thank
God for you, Halima. I don’t know how I’d get through any of this without you.”

Halima squeezed
her hand and smiled. As the carriage pulled up to the townhouse, Halima noticed
a look of resolution come into Ella’s face.

“He’s alive. I
know
when
he is and I know roughly
where
he is.” She turned to look at Halima
and her expression was replaced by a mien of growing panic.

Halima gathered
Tater into her arms and wrenched open the carriage door. “I’ll make us a nice
cup of tea, shall I?”

The tea helped.
Tater agreeing to go down for his nap and then actually falling asleep helped
even more.

Ella stood by the
tallest window in the library’s townhouse and looked out onto the residential
street. They missed the worst of the day’s heat. On a day like this, Ella often
thought of the daily summer rains back home in Atlanta. She heard Halima
reenter the room and turned toward her. “I can’t waste any more time.”
 

“You’re not.
You’re thinking.”

“
Processing
, we used to call it back in
2013. Is there any more tea?” Ella walked to the coffee table but Halima was
already pouring her a cup.

“In order to
avoid mistakes,” Halima said, handing her the teacup, “it will be important for
you to
process
all the facts before
you act.”

“Olna said she
can come up with forged documents for me,” Ella said, sinking into the couch
cushions with her tea. A little spilled on her fingers but it was no longer
hot. “She can give me forged entrées into 1825 society to help explain the fact
I’m an unattached woman traveling alone.”

“That is good.”

“I’m guessing I
have less than a month before the Americans come and escort me and Tater to the
Cairo airport.”

“I believe they
intend to return you home by ship.”

“My point is,
it’s not just Rowan who’s pressed for time. If I’m going, I need to go
now
. God, Halima. Am I crazy?”

“No. But I fear
we do need to talk about the main impediment to all of this. Before we can
arrange your costumes for 1825 or sort out which jewels you’ll pawn for
money...”

“Tater.” Ella set
her cup on the coffee table. “You’re right. How the hell can I leave him?
What’s the point of talking about this? I can’t leave him.”

Halima pushed a
plate of date-nut cookies toward Ella and said nothing.

“But if I don’t go
and at least
try
to get him back,
then Tater goes forward in life without a daddy. And if I leave and something
happens, he’s an orphan.”

“It is a very big
decision.”

“I can’t go. I
can’t
not
go. How can I leave him?”
Ella stood and began pacing. “Like my mother left me?”

“It’s not at all
the same.”

“Maybe Rowan is
trying to get back here, you know? What if I leave—risk
everything—and then he shows up here at the townhouse next week?”

“Makes one wonder
why he hasn’t done it already.”

Ella chewed a
fingernail and turned back toward the window. “The only thing that has made me
feel less like killing myself is making plans to go find him,” she said. “But
when I think about all that that entails—abandoning my child—I feel
worse than before. But what else can I do?”

Halima moved to
Ella’s side and put her arms around her. Ella clung to the older woman. Her
familiar scent, the solid, unyielding set of her shoulders seemed to give Ella strength.
“What can I do, Halima?” she murmured as the tears trickled down her face.

Halima pulled a
folded square of laundered linen from her pocket and dabbed at Ella’s face
before pressing it into her hand. “You’ll do what you have to, dear one,” she
said.

A moment passed
and Ella said quietly, “I left word for Marvel about what’s happening. She’ll
be cool with you staying here while I’m gone. When the Embassy comes for me, tell
them that Tater and I are already gone and then make sure you don’t take Tater
to the park after that, or any place else public.”

“I will, Ella.”

“If…if I don’t
return…”

“You will.”

“But if I don’t…”

“I will surrender
the child to Mrs. Spenser to be raised by her and
Effendi
Spenser.”

“No, Halima. I
know Marvel and Josh will help you all they can but I want
you
raising Tater—even if you have to take him back to your
village to do it. I’ll tell Marvel in a letter what I want. My will is going to
leave everything to Tater, with you as his legal guardian.”

Ella watched Halima’s
eyes fill with tears. She tried to remember the last time she had seen the
woman moved so emotionally. She hugged her tightly. “I couldn’t ask for a
better, more loving mother for him.”

Halima sniffed
and reached into her pocket for a handkerchief for herself. “Does this mean
you’ve made your decision?”

“What else can I
do, Halima? I have to find him. I have to at least try. I just pray, like I’ve
never prayed for anything before, that I come back to Tater. I will not do to
him what my mother did to me.”

 
“You will come back.”

Two days later Ella
stood at the Cairo Airport with Halima and Tater. In her valise was a selection
of outfits and jewelry. The jewelry she intended to sell as she needed money.
After two more visits to confer with Olna on the specifics of deliberately
crossing over to 1825—and then back again to 1925—Ella wore her
mother’s necklace, which had propelled her on her two previous trips through time.
The flat gold medallion of the necklace was no bigger than Ella’s thumbnail and
featured a unique insignia of two hearts intertwined with what looked like the
letter V. Ella had been told it was designed by a long-dead ancestor. It was
all she had of her mother.

 
She also packed Rowan’s uncle’s dog tags,
which had special significance for him and would help in his return to 1925. Olna
believed that for those individuals who had a propensity for traveling through different
times a sacred or beloved talisman coupled with strong emotion was the key to
managing it.

The plan was for
Ella to fly to Casablanca, where she would immediately change into period
clothing and, clutching her valise and wearing her mother’s necklace, transport
herself to 1825 Casablanca. If Rowan washed ashore anywhere nearby—Algiers
or even Tripoli—or if he was rescued or shanghaied, word would eventually
come of it to Casablanca. Rowan was a handsome, six-foot-four white man with
crystal-blue eyes. He stood out in a crowd—especially in 1825.

 
“I worry about your accent.”

Ella turned to Halima
who, for all her assurances that everything would be fine, had clearly been
secretly weeping all morning. “I’ll be fine. It’s not my American accent so
much as forgetting to use formal speech. It doesn’t come naturally to me.”

“Please be
careful.”

“I will.” Ella
knelt to give Tater a kiss on the cheek. “I won’t be gone long, little guy,”
she said, forcing her voice to sound light. “You’ll be a good boy for Halima,
right?”

“Musket-turds!”
he crowed.

“Yeah, well, I’m
working on that.” She tried to memorize his features and burn the image of them
into her brain. “The Three Musket-turds.” She stood and scooped him into her
arms, holding him until he began to struggle to be put down. “I’ll be back,
darling,” she said, her voice starting to choke with the urge not to weep.

“You must board,
dearest,” Halima said, tears streaming down her face.

Ella set Tater
down and, still holding his hand, hugged Halima to her. “Thank you, Halima for
everything,” she said. “Take care of my boy. Take care of yourself. I love
you.”

“I love you too,
dear one.”

“Love you,
Mommy!” Tater called as he grabbed Halima’s hand and began tugging her away.

“Love you, too, baby,”
Ella said as she collected her valise and walked to the waiting plane, her
throat tight and aching with emotion.

After ten hours
and one stop to refuel and pick up mail, the flight to Morocco was sufficiently
terrifying enough to comfortably distract Ella from what awaited her on the
other end. During their brief stop in Tunis to refuel, Ella excused herself
from the confines of the small aircraft long enough to empty the contents of
her stomach in one of the handy airsickness bags—something she’d never
come close to needing to do in her entire life.