Show, The (17 page)

"How is it that you know me, Miss Smith?"

Grace, arms crossed, glared at her questioner.

"You're my uncle."

"I'm your uncle. OK. That's a start."

Alistair rubbed his hands together and tried to imagine where this was going.

"And which of my adventurous brothers is responsible for bringing you into the family?"

"Benjamin. He is the father of my mother."

"I see. I'm your great-uncle then. So are you Edith's daughter or Lucille's?"

"Lucy's."

Grace continued to stare at Alistair but did so with less fire in her eyes.

"And who is your father?"

"William Vandenberg."

"Interesting," Alistair said. He brought a hand to his chin and chuckled to himself. "Tell me, Grace . . . may I call you Grace?"

"You may."

"Tell me, Grace, why is it that I don't know you?"

"You don't know me because I haven't been born."

Alistair smiled. He did not know the roots of this lovely creature's delusion, but he knew that his attempt to find out was proving far more interesting than his weekly bridge game at the Faculty Club. He repositioned his chair and made himself comfortable.

"Let me tell you one of many reasons why I'm skeptical of your story. Lucille Green, my niece, your 'mother,' is eighteen years old. She lives in Falmouth, England, with her family and has not, to my knowledge, been married or had children, much less children who appear to be at least her age, if not a few years older."

Grace sighed and unfolded her arms. She looked at the floor for a moment, as if trying to decide how she wanted to proceed, before lifting her head and returning to her interrogator.

"I asked for you because you're my only connection to this time and place. I have never met you. I know only of you. I know only that my mother and my aunt came to Seattle in 1918 to attend the university and to start a new life in America."

"How did you know they are coming here? They are planning to leave England as soon as the war is over and it is again safe to travel commercially."

"I know because I'm from the future."

"Yes, yes. So you say," Alistair said. "Is there anything else you can tell me about our family or the future? It would perhaps help your credibility."

Alistair expected the substantive part of the conversation to end there. He knew that even a well-educated lunatic could go only so far. He was surprised when Grace answered his question.

"Your wife is the former Margaret Sprague. You met her at the exposition in aught nine and married shortly thereafter. You adopted a girl named Penelope, or Penny, and live on a ten-acre estate northeast of the city."

"You're quite correct – on all counts, I might add. I'm impressed. But that is knowledge that you could have obtained rather easily from discussions with my colleagues or even from public records. Why don't you tell me something that only the daughter of Lucille Green would know?"

Grace looked away for a moment and shook her head, as if put off by the idea that she had to further establish her credentials. When she finally spoke, she did so deliberately.

"You have been in this country for many years and have returned to England only twice – in 1905, I believe, and in 1912. You were in New York, awaiting your passage, when the
Carpathia
arrived with the survivors of the
Titanic
."

Alistair sat upright in his chair.

"You saw many of the passengers leave the ship, including a young girl carrying a small porcelain doll. The girl dropped the doll as she moved through a crowd, and you picked it up. You made several attempts to find the girl and return the doll to her through port authorities, but you could not find anyone willing to help you. So you took the doll with you to England, where you again attempted to learn the identity of its owner."

Grace turned away to watch a nurse bring a glass of water to an elderly patient in the next bed. A half-pulled curtain divided the room. When the nurse left the room, she continued.

"You tried to reunite the doll with its owner but were unsuccessful. So you kept the doll, bought a similar one in a London shop, and brought both to Falmouth. You gave the first doll to Lucille but did not reveal how you came by it until you wrote her a letter for her sixteenth birthday. The doll wore a dark blue dress, which covered a small imperfection on its right thigh. I know this because my mother gave the doll to me on my sixth birthday. It was one of my most treasured possessions."

Alistair asked no more questions. He instead stared blankly at the woman with the unbelievable tale, a woman who bore an unmistakable resemblance to his nieces, and reminded himself that time travel was the stuff of science fiction.

CHAPTER 32: MARGARET

Kenmore, Washington – Tuesday, October 8, 1918

"She can't stay."

Margaret Green quickened her step as she tried to keep pace with her husband of nine years. She wanted this discussion just as surely as he did not.

"Give it a few days. That's all I ask."

"Give what a few days, Alistair?" she asked as she caught him by the back door. "You bring a strange woman home with you and you expect me simply to set another plate at the table?"

"What you really mean to say is a strange,
attractive
woman. Am I correct?"

Margaret released his arm and stopped. She could offer a thousand reasons why Grace Smith should not occupy the guest residence on their estate near the northern tip of Lake Washington, but none could hold up to the only one that mattered. She sighed and lowered her eyes.

Alistair Green, forty, returned to his 32-year-old wife and placed his hands on her shoulders. He then moved the hands to her face and gave her a gentle kiss.

"I love you, darling. You know that," he said. "This is not about how I feel about you or anyone else. This is about showing compassion to someone who has no one else and does not deserve to be thrown out on the street or placed in a psychiatric ward."

Margaret looked at her husband with suspicion and awe. She understood why he had been a debating champion in college. She understood why he had advanced so quickly as an academic. He could persuade a peacock to give up its feathers. But that did not mean he was right.

"I understand your position, Alistair. I admire your willingness to help someone in need. But why must
we
be the ones to carry her burdens? I'm sure there are many others in the community who could provide the assistance she needs."

"I'm sure you're right. I know you're right. But this is not simply about providing a lost soul with good Christian charity, Margaret. She knows things. She knows things about me, about us, and about my family in England that she could not possibly know unless . . . unless she had indeed traveled through time."

"You can't possibly believe that rubbish. She also told us that she was married. But did you see a ring on her finger? Did you see any evidence that she is who she says she is? Did you see anything to suggest that she is anything but an accomplished liar?"

Alistair stepped away from his wife and walked across the porch to a pillar that supported the roof. He placed one hand on the support and gazed at his property, an expanse of orchard, garden, and grass that ran to the edge of a forest two hundred yards to the west.

"Actually, I did," he said. He turned to face Margaret. "When Grace left her room at the hospital to change clothes, I went through her purse. I know it was wrong, but I had to know if she was telling the truth. I had to know if there was anything to support her account."

"And what did you discover in her purse?"

"I found several things. I found her license, of course, the one with the distant dates. But I also found rigid cards with elevated letters, a strange device with numbered buttons, and several photographs –
color
photographs of our mystery woman, a young man, and two girls who appeared to be a year of age. One of the photographs showed Grace and the young man in wedding attire."

"Did you find anything else?"

Alistair looked at Margaret with thoughtful eyes.

"Indeed, I did. I discovered a ring. I very much doubt it was one she wore at her wedding. It was a ring that bore a butterfly instead of a stone – a trinket, really, like something we might purchase for Penny at a fair or a market."

"Did you find her wedding ring?"

"I did not. But I did find something that perhaps explains its absence."

"And what is that?"

Alistair put a hand in his pocket and retrieved a slip of paper. He handed it to Margaret.

"This looks like a receipt, a receipt for a ring repair," she said.

"Look at the date."

Margaret scanned the top of the slip and saw "10-3-2002" scribbled in ink. She then examined the bottom and noted the name of a Seattle jeweler and its street address.

"I inquired about the business this morning."

"And?"

"It does not exist. There is no such jeweler in Madison Park and no such jeweler in the city of Seattle. The address is a vacant lot. But it won't be vacant for long."

"I don't understand."

"There is a man named Levy who plans to build on the site early next year. The man is new to Seattle but not new to the Northwest. He apparently has many shops in Portland and even one in Tacoma. The man is a jeweler."

Margaret sighed and closed her eyes.

"I'm not asking for endless patience, Margaret. I'm asking only for a week or two. If she is who she says she is, then she has suffered a terrible trauma and deserves our sympathy and our help. Please give me the time I need to learn more about her and help her get settled. Give me that and I will conclude this matter quickly."

Margaret glanced at the guest house and then at her husband. She was still not comfortable with any of this. She did not want a strange, beautiful woman intruding on her happy home, even if she was a helpless time traveler from 2002. But she conceded that her reasonable husband had once again made a reasonable case.

"I'll give you two weeks then, three at the most," she said. "But I want my house and my life back by the end of the month."

CHAPTER 33: GRACE

Saturday, October 12, 1918

Grace surveyed the dining and living rooms as Alistair walked into the kitchen to make tea. She saw ornate china cabinets on one end, impressionist paintings on the other, and a whole lot of wealth in the middle. Uncle Alistair was not only a smart man but also a rich one.

"Do you like cream or sugar?" he asked as he returned to the dining room table.

"Cream would be nice."

Alistair added a shot of cream to Grace's tea and placed a cup and saucer in front of her.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"I mean thank you for taking me in. I overheard you speaking to Margaret the other day. I know she doesn't want me here, and I don't blame her. It's just so hard . . ."

Grace dissolved into tears and retreated to the bathroom, just as she had done at least twice a day since she had arrived. She found it nearly impossible to speak or be around others and, for that reason, had mostly kept to herself in the small cottage behind the main residence.

She found it particularly difficult to be around seven-year-old Penelope, who had much in common with the talkative, curious 89-year-old woman who had provided Grace with a home in the summer of 2000. But Penny was a young girl and young girls reminded Grace of the twins she had left at home on a night that grew more distant with each passing hour.

"I'm sorry," Grace said as she returned to her chair. "I promised that I would speak to you, and I will. It's the least I can do to repay your kindness."

Grace watched Alistair light a pipe, take a draw, and place the pipe on a porcelain ashtray in the center of the table. She did not like smoking or smoke-filled rooms but did not complain. Indeed, she found the sight and smell of her uncle smoking a pipe oddly comforting.

A moment later, Alistair dropped his matches in the pocket of his tweed vest and tapped ashes in the tray. He stirred his tea and looked across the table.

"I'm still a bit skeptical of your claim, but I want to hear your story. Something is troubling you, and I believe it would help to talk about it."

"What would you like to know?"

"I'd like to know everything, but let's start with your parents. You say your father was a man named William Vandenberg. Who was he and how did he meet Lucille?"

"My father was a Lutheran minister. He came to Seattle as a young man to attend seminary and met my mother through the church days after she arrived from England."

"Did they have a long engagement?"

"It depends on your definition of long. They married months after meeting."

"Good grief."

"They didn't even wait to get my grandfather's permission. They married in July 1919 and moved to my father's hometown of Mankato, Minnesota, where he headed a small congregation. I was born there in 1920."

"Minnesota? You told me yesterday that you lived abroad."

"I did. I've lived most of my life overseas. When I was four, we moved to St. Louis, where my father trained to be a missionary. We went from there to Africa for six years, the Philippines for three, and China for three. We moved to Seattle just ahead of the Japanese occupation."

"Occupation?"

"There's another war coming, Uncle, a much bigger and bloodier one."

"When? Where?"

Grace paused before answering. She did not want to needlessly alarm this man, or anyone else, but she saw no point in keeping the knowledge to herself. A lot of things were coming, nasty things, and there wasn't a thing she could do to stop them.

"It won't start for several more years, but when it does, it will engulf the world. Everyone will be affected, many in particularly awful ways."

"Will America be a part of it?"

Grace nodded.

"This country will join the fight in 1941. I'd tell you more, but my knowledge is limited. Most of what I know about the war I learned recently through books and magazines. I did not live through most of the conflict, nor did my parents."