The Christmas Eve Letter: A Time Travel Novel (9 page)

Eve tried not to sound irritable.  “Yes, of course I’m sure.  I’ve lived there for over a year now.”

The man turned and looked out the window, folding his hands into his lap.  The coach moved on.  Eve watched snowflakes dancing across the windows. 

When the man spoke, it was in a deep, even voice.  He did not look at her.

“Young woman, have you fallen down?  Have you hurt yourself in some way?  Do you know where you are and where you came from?”

His words struck like a blow to the stomach and she made a little sound of anguish.  Yes.  Something was very wrong.  She glanced about, feeling as if she were in a waking dream that made no sense.  In a whirlwind of emotion and memory, her mind began to compute, think and reason.  She licked her dry lips as an image of the lantern flame flooded her eyes.  The lantern!  Evelyn’s lantern.  John Allister’s lantern.  The lantern that had so frightened her!

The man turned, meeting her gaze.  She had a feverish, wild look, as if she’d just seen a disaster.  He tried to give her a reassuring smile, but it failed.  Then he looked genuinely worried. 

At first, Eve refused to acknowledge it.  She was a smart, educated and reasonable woman.  She did not believe in the occult—in fantasies.

“Madam, are you quite yourself?” the man repeated.

“No… No, I’m not all right.  I’m…Just lost or something.  I’m…definitely not myself.”

He continued to stare at her.  She grew snappish and disoriented.  “I don’t know what’s going on, okay?”

“Shall I take you to a doctor?”

Eve looked at him again.  She focused.  She froze.  “A doctor?  No, no, I don’t need a doctor.  I need…”  Her voice trailed away.

At that moment, Eve knew the unthinkable had happened.  The impossible had occurred.  The unimaginable had materialized.  The mind-blowing, Earth swinging-off-its-orbit had happened—or she had completely lost her mind. 

But no!  She wasn’t dreaming.  Her pulse was strong.  The sights and smells were real.  The man seated next to her, retro dressed and looking like an actor from a costumed drama, was also real.  The smell of the leather was real.  The people back on the promenade dressed in those period clothes were real.  The carriages were real.  It was all real!

Her neck stiffened, as one frantic thought chased another.  How could it have happened?  How did it happen?

Eve took in a quick breath to try to calm her galloping emotions.  She had come to full wakefulness now, and it was a nightmare.  An awful, dizzying nightmare!

“You look quite pale,” the man said, with some unease, seeing her swallow hard and squirm.

Eve’s heart pounded and she was sure her blood pressure was off the charts.  Her face flushed hot.  Suddenly she felt like a trapped animal in a burning barn.  All she wanted to do was burst through that carriage door and tear off into the night and run and run until she collapsed or escaped or found herself home with Georgy Boy.

“My dear woman, have you left the Bloomindale Asylum?  Shall I take you up there?”

Eve looked at him, trying to process and understand.  Of course, he thought she was crazy.  Out of her mind.  Of course he did.  Wouldn’t she if the roles were reversed?

“No.  No.  No Asylum.  I’m fine.  Fine,” but she heard her own frazzled voice.  She didn’t sound fine.  She sounded like she was insane.

“Do you work for the Towers Nursing Home?  It is up in that area.”

Eve tried to relax, tried to let the reality of what had happened sink in, but she couldn’t stamp down the rising panic.  She began to tremble. 

“No… No.  Never mind.  Forget about 107
^th
Street.”  Eve instinctively felt her forehead with the back of her hand.  She was burning up with fear.

“I’m just a little confused.  I just need to sleep or something.  I need food or something.  I just need to rest.  I’ll be fine in the morning.”

“May I ask you for your name, madam?”

Blinking rapidly, Eve shot him a look.  “My name?”

She felt as if she couldn’t breathe.

“Yes.  If you would be so kind.  What is your name?  Perhaps I can help you find your family or some friends.  They can help you.”

Eve looked at him again, carefully, certain she’d seen him someplace.  She was convinced of it.  She couldn’t speak.  She just stared.

He lifted his regal chin, now trying to summon patience.  “Young woman, I cannot help you if you will not let me.  You are obviously in some sort of distress.  I just want to help you.”

Eve continued staring at him, straining to remember.  She finally found her voice. “What is… What is your name?”

“My name?  Forgive me.  I would have introduced myself earlier, as any gentleman would, but you seemed in such anguish.”  He gave a little lift of his head, as if he were a king. 

“I am Albert Wilson Harringshaw.”

Eve’s mind locked up.  Her poor brain couldn’t take another blow.  It stalled and then it shut down.  She felt herself droop and weave.  She was slipping away into dark shadows.  She felt herself slip away, and there was nothing she could do about it.  She began to fall from a great height into a dark pit.

Her eyes rolled back into her head and she wilted, falling to her right.  Her head struck the glass window and she was out.

CHAPTER 8

When Eve came to, she realized she was lying on a divan, covered by a rose crochet blanket.  She lifted her torso and looked around slowly.  The room was a plush Victorian parlor groaning with possessions: large gilded mirrors; hanging gas lamps; ornate framed oil paintings of white clouds, cherubs and angels; and jade, marble and porcelain figurines, displayed on claw-footed mahogany tables.  The décor was mostly burgundy:  burgundy love seat with matching chairs and velvet burgundy drapes.  There was a gold and marble fireplace with a crackling fire, and a lush carpet with floral patterns of plum, rose, and lavender. 

Eve stared in a half-dream/half-waking state, caught between two worlds, staring up at the gas lamps and the blue-edged flames caught behind the etched patterns of the glass shades.  She seemed to hover for a time, like a ghost, before she became fully conscious.

Someone had removed her raincoat and her boots, leaving her dressed in a light blue sweater, a patterned button-up blouse and designer jeans, not exactly Victorian attire.  On an impulse, she searched her neck for the gold pendant.  It was there.  The lantern, her purse and her cell phone had all disappeared, but the heart pendant had not.  It gave her small but welcomed comfort.

Where was she?  She lifted up on elbows and blinked around, her eyes now fully open.  She heard muffled voices coming from an adjoining room, a woman’s voice, and a man’s deep authoritative voice.  They were arguing in whispers and sighs.

And then it struck her.  The nightmare of what had happened back in the park and in the carriage.  Albert Wilson Harringshaw’s carriage.  The park bench.  The lantern!  Blistering fear slowly crawled up her spine, and again she felt the pulsing animal instinct to break and run.  Several deep breaths helped to calm her agitated mind.  She had to stop the spreading raw panic that seemed to fill every atom of her body. 

She had to think and reason.  Eve’s father, the FBI agent, used to say, “There is nothing you can’t handle in this world if you don’t lose your head.  You are equal to whatever comes at you.”  Yes, but what world?  What world was she in?

Eve dropped back down on the comfortable divan, her eyes taking in the black-varnished wood with burgundy upholstery and buttons.  Her chest was still heaving.

She placed her arm over her eyes, willing herself to go back to sleep.  Maybe when she woke up the next time, she’d be back in her own bed and back in her own time.  Georgy Boy would come bounding onto the bed and lick her face and everything would be right with the world.  She heard her own whispery voice say “Georgy Boy.” 

And then she heard the loud ticking of a grandfather clock and the soft hiss of the gas lights.  Eve was not stupid.  She couldn’t deny what had happened to her—she couldn’t pretend it was just a dream—because she knew it was not a dream.  Either she was lost in some nightmarish hallucination, she was going insane, or—the unbelievable and unthinkable had happened—she had somehow traveled back in time. 

Years ago, while she was studying for her degree, Eve had taken mental health courses at NYU.  She’d seen patients who believed themselves to be famous people, and she’d worked with patients diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.  But she didn’t have any of those symptoms.  She was the same rational person in the same body, but she suddenly found herself somewhere in the past, or lost somewhere in the depths of her own crazy mind.

She fought to clear her mind and think.  As she heard the whispery argument continue in the next room, she forced herself to review the events and face the facts as she saw them.  What exactly had happened?  Twice when she’d lit the lantern, strange things had happened.  The melting away of floors and worlds.  Colored lights and cold winds.  A feeling of falling and flying.  Those had all happened.  She did not imagine any of them. 

And all of these events had occurred after she’d lighted the lantern—after she’d stared at the flickering light.  That golden light that seemed to envelop and swallow her.  But the whole thing was just too incredible and ludicrous.  It was just a flame.

She sought answers in the air, struggling for any rational thought.  Did that light somehow open a window into the past?  Did she somehow fall through it?  Was that even possible?  

As crazy, silly and outrageous as it sounded, once again Eve couldn’t ignore the apparent fact that because of the lighted lantern, she had been changed—transported to another place and time.  What other possible explanation was there?  She’d seen it all with her own eyes.  She had experienced it.  This was a reality.  It was here, now.  She was lying on a divan in a Victorian parlor under gas lamps.  She’d met and seen Albert Harringshaw with her own eyes.  Yes, this was reality and, whatever had been the cause of the incident that had brought her here, she was stuck in this reality.  At least for now, she was pinned to it, like a pin in a pin cushion. 

All because of that stupid lantern.  The lantern she’d been attracted to back at Granny Gilbert’s little antiques shop.  Why hadn’t she just let Granny Gilbert keep it? 

Eve’s rational mind still worked to reject the idea of time travel.  How could an old lantern have the power to send someone back in time?  It was silly.  It was the stuff of fairy tales, novels and movies.  It was the stuff of stories told around campfires or in bedrooms deep into the night when you couldn’t sleep.  There was no scientific foundation for it.  There was no plausible or reasonable explanation.  And yet, here she was.  She was alive, breathing, thinking, and being.  She was very much HERE.

“So, what now, Eve?” she said, whispering to herself.

And what about Albert Wilson Harringshaw?  Did the lantern somehow have a homing device, or a beacon, or a GPS chip that was able to beam him to her while she sat on that park bench?  And why him, and not his brother, who wrote about the lantern in his letter, for whom the lantern was so important?

Eve rolled her head from side to side, her entire body a mass of anxiety and tension.

When she heard footsteps approach, she shut her eyes tightly.  It was the little girl response.  If you can’t see the monster, maybe it’s not there, so you squeeze your eyes even tighter and pray.  “Go away, monster.  Please just go away.” 

But it didn’t go away.

Eve sensed someone standing close by.  Reluctantly, she opened her eyes.

A gray-headed, portly man stood over her.  He appeared to be in his middle 50s.  He wore a black wool suit, a waistcoat and a white shirt.  His small, dark, watery eyes were curious, widening on her as he fully took her in, her face, her hair and her clothes.  He had florid cheeks, a bulbous nose and mutton chop whiskers.  Eve’s first thought was that he looked like a big Muppet.

He cleared his throat.  “I am Dr. Eckland.” His voice was rich and formal.

Eve rolled her head further right to see Albert Harringshaw and a woman—a full- figured, attractive woman, with gleaming chestnut hair swept up to the top of her head, with bangs frizzled over her forehead.  She wore a gorgeous, long, deep purple two-piece silk bustle dress with buttons up the front and an elaborate hem.  It had a low waist and a low bust, supported by what must have been a corset.  A dazzling double string of pearls adorned her neck and she gave off scents of rose and lilac. 

The doctor cleared his throat again.  He indicated toward his two companions.  “I believe you have met Mr. Harringshaw?”

Eve nodded, still focusing on the woman’s fabulous dress.

Dr. Eckland turned to the woman.  “May I introduce you to Miss Helen Baxter Price?” 

Miss Price gave Eve an indulgent smile.  Eve flashed back to the description of Helen Price in Albert Harringshaw’s biography on Wikipedia, and the coldness grew inside her.  This was
the
Helen Price she’d read about, his mistress.

Eve calculated that Helen was about her own age, and she saw an immediate distrust and hot jealousy in Helen’s eyes. 

Eve nodded again.  She was still too overwhelmed with her new reality to speak.  She felt fragile and scared, not wanting to do or say the wrong thing to push herself off balance.

The doctor reached for a chair and lowered himself onto it, keeping his gaze on Eve.

“May I ask, what is your name?”

Eve swallowed.  “Eve…”

“What is your last name?”

Eve had the presence of mind to avoid using her last name.  If she
had
gone back in time to 1885, and if Evelyn Sharland was alive and well, Eve did not want to raise any suspicion.

The doctor waited.  All three waited.  Helen gave an arrogant sniff.

For some inexplicable reason, Eve suddenly thought of Jackie Kennedy. 

“Kennedy.  My name is Eve Kennedy.”

The doctor blinked in satisfaction.  “Is it Miss Kennedy or Mrs. Kennedy?”

“Miss.”

Helen lifted her chin in dissatisfaction.