The Day Before Forever (25 page)

“Took you long enough.” Henley smirked. “There are some things I'm still better at, even in times you're more familiar with. Admit it.”

I ignored that and waited till we reached the front of the
line.

Two taxis pulled up to the curb. The family of four in front of us took the first, and we took the second.

I gave him Miss Hatfield's address.

“Yes. Yes,” he said.

I thought he had heard and understood me, but I couldn't be certain.

As we left the airport behind us, the scenery outside started to turn into buildings and then skyscrapers. We were heading into the city.

“So is it your first time here?” our driver asked.

“No. It's been a while, though,” I said.

“You've both been to New York before?”

“I was here a
long
time ago,” Henley said.

I couldn't tell if he looked sad because he was facing away from me, looking out of the window on his side.

“I bet a lot has changed,” the driver said. “The city keeps changing. That's what makes New York the greatest city in the world.”

“‘The more things change, the more they stay the same.' Or at least that's what they say, right?” Henley said, still looking out the window.

It hadn't even occurred to me that this quick trip into New York might be difficult for Henley, as it was his first time back since he'd lived here more than a century ago.

“I'm a New Yorker born and bred,” the driver said. He took one hand off the wheel to gesture wildly with it. “My parents too. And their parents. My grandpop used to sit me on his lap and tell me about the time when carriages filled the city. Can
you imagine? Carriages. Horse-drawn carriages.”

Henley was looking up at the skyscrapers, ducking his head in the taxi so he could see the tops of the buildings. “No, I can't begin to imagine . . .”

When we got to Miss Hatfield's brownstone, I waited for the driver to drive away before taking Henley's hand and dragging him away from the front entrance.

“Why aren't we going in?”

“We are,” I said. “We're just getting the key. It's not like my copy of the key survived traveling to Tudor England.”

Miss Hatfield's brownstone wasn't on the corner of the street, but the house next to it was. We went around the block to the side of the neighbor's house. There were four miniature trees in green pots decorating that side of the house.

“Let me see if I remember correctly . . .”

I walked up to the second pot and felt behind the plant. My fingers dug into the dry soil. I didn't feel anything.

Maybe I had gotten it wrong? Maybe the key was in the next pot or the second from the right instead of from the left?

I was just about to give up and try the other pots before suggesting somehow breaking into the house when my fingers felt cold metal.

“Here we go.” I retrieved the small key and shook it free of the dirt. “Just like Miss Hatfield to hide keys in potted plants that aren't even hers.”

Henley tried to keep his face emotionless at the mention of his mother, but there was tension behind his masked face.

I led Henley back around to the front of the house. I had no trouble fitting the key into the lock, and it turned with a familiar
click. I pushed the door open.

It was dark inside, as we stepped over the large pile of mail that had collected on the floor. A little dusty. But it had always been that way. Miss Hatfield had always kept the dust covers over the furniture that wasn't used every day.

As I walked down the hallway, I almost forgot that Henley was following a few paces behind me.

“So what do you think?” I asked, since he hadn't said anything since entering.

“I'm not sure what to think.”

At least he was honest.

“I hadn't really thought about where my mother lived, but I guess I imagined it a bit differently,” he admitted.

“But it's not like you haven't seen the place before. Granted, you weren't in a body, but—”

“It's different,” he said, and left it at that.

We entered the kitchen. It had been my favorite room, despite all the horrible things that had happened there. Miss Hatfield had slipped the water from the Fountain of Youth into my lemonade there. The fifth Miss Hatfield supposedly killed herself there in front of my Miss Hatfield. But it was the most homey part of this house—the most
normal
.

Many things change when one becomes immortal, but the need to eat stays. It's universal and it's
normal
. Miss Hatfield even occasionally baked here.

I flipped the light switch so we could see better, but the lights didn't go on. I tried again, before realizing the electricity bills hadn't been paid in God knew how long.

“Are you sure there's even a credit card here?” Henley said.
I ran to the desk Miss Hatfield kept.

It was a mess. Piles of spilled papers all coated with a thick layer of dust. I rummaged through it as best as I could.

Not finding anything that resembled a credit card, I started looking through her drawers.

There. In the back.

I grabbed the credit card.

Rebecca Hatfield
,
it read. That was the upside of having the same name.

“Henley! I found it.”

SIXTEEN

I WOKE UP
when Henley wrapped his arms around me and hugged me close from his side of the bed.

It was dark in my bedroom in Miss Hatfield's house because we had lowered all the thick blinds before going to bed, but I was sure it was already morning.

Henley's touch still made my breath catch. I hoped he didn't notice. He would make some joke about it. I knew Henley well—his thoughts, his words, his entire mind, really—but his touch was foreign. In the dark, if I tried really hard, I could almost make myself believe this was the same Henley I had known all those years ago in 1904. I could clearly imagine his blue eyes and the way his dark hair flopped into them at times. In the dark, it was real. I could make it real with my imagination.

“Henley . . .”

“I'm sorry. Did I wake you?” he asked.

I assured him he hadn't.

“Then was it that nightmare again?” He was referring to the dream I'd had once before of Miss Hatfield dying.

I turned to face him in the dark and ran my fingers through his hair.

“I wish I could stop it,” he said. I knew he was talking of my nightmares.

“I know.” I placed my hand on top of his, feeling how much larger they were than my own.

“It's time to get up and get going.” He pulled away from me and got up from bed.

I sat up in the dark. “Can you even see where you're going? You don't know the house well.”

“I think I'll manage. Don't worry about me.”

But I did worry about him. Henley had changed—whether he knew it or not—since the days when he had been ignorant of immortality and since his time in the turn of the century. New York had changed without him. He hadn't seen much of the city yet, but he was bound to see this.

“Let me open the blinds,” he said, moving toward the window. There was a flurry of dust as he did so.

As I suspected, it was already bright outside and sunlight streamed in, momentarily blinding us.

“The first sunlight of the day is always dazzling, isn't it?”

“It always is . . . I'm just going to grab a glass of water,” Henley said.

I listened as his footsteps pattered away before I remembered we wouldn't have running water in the house. Henley would notice quickly enough.

“Rebecca!” He sounded urgent. Henley's voice didn't sound
like it was calling me to come to him. It sounded like a warning.

I shot up out of bed just as Henley burst through the bedroom door.

“He's found us.”

“The killer?” I asked, scanning his face.

“Juana. Whoever it is. They've found us.”

I slowly walked past him into the kitchen. I didn't know what I would find.

In the middle of the room was a dead bird sitting in a pool of its own blood. It was a large bird, almost the size of a small human child. But its feathers were so matted, I couldn't tell what kind of bird it was until I got closer.

“A peacock.”

“And it also had its head severed,” Henley said.

“Is it a warning of some sort?” I asked. “A sign that he's watching? I don't know what he could want . . .”

“The peacock's often shown as the symbol for eternal life,” Henley said.

“Eternal life cut short,” I said, remembering what Henley had said when he had seen the snake in the hostel room. “He's followed us to New York.”

“I'll take care of this.” Henley pushed me out of the room, and I stumbled out.

I sat there on the edge of the bed until Henley came back.

“We have things to do today,” he said.

I assumed he meant buying plane tickets and reserving the hotel. Everything we needed to get out of here.

“There are things
I
would like to do. Need to do.” Henley's lips were in a grim line.

“What things?”

“Places I need to go,” Henley said. “I'd like to go to the cemetery. I'd like to see my home—my
former
home.”

“Do you really need to?”

I didn't know what seeing those places would do to him. This was different from meeting descendants you shared a last name with but didn't actually know. Henley would see that his home wasn't
his
home anymore. It would feel like he didn't have a place to call home. Like the world forgot him. I didn't want to see him get hurt.

“Yes.”

I got out of bed slowly. “Well, then . . .”

I found a washed pair of jeans and a clean, comfortable T-shirt in my closet, untouched for ages. I put them on, sorry I didn't have any clean men's clothing for Henley to change into.

I had a bit of time to throw out the spoiled food in the fridge. Since the food was about three years old, it had all but rotted to a paste covering the fridge shelves. I couldn't even tell what each food used to be. Luckily, the fridge had also dried the rotted food, so the smell was contained. After cleaning up, I made sure the pantry had enough nonperishable food to sustain us for a day or two. Henley tried to wash up, but he soon found the water was turned off. I had forgotten to tell him that the bills hadn't been paid.

He met me downstairs with the backpack slung over one of his shoulders. We didn't talk about the peacock.

Henley didn't ask me if I was ready to go. He just looked at me. I didn't say anything either. We left the house and started walking.

I knew the way to the cemetery from Miss Hatfield's house by heart. It was a half-hour walk, but it went by quickly. I struggled to keep up with Henley's pace. I knew we were getting closer when we passed St. Paul's Cathedral and the mob of tourists always parked around it.

I didn't know what Henley was trying to get out of this visit. But I hoped I could do my best to support him.

“Where is it?” Henley asked, as we stepped through the gate.

I wordlessly led him down the one lone path. I didn't have to count the rows of headstones to know where to turn. My legs remembered.

I stood silently in front of a grave that was all too familiar.

Henley drew a shaky breath, but he wasn't looking at the grave I stood next to. He was staring at the one next to it.

Eliza P. Beauford, Loving Wife and Daughter.

Henley made no move to talk to me.

I remembered the last time I had been here in this cemetery. I had been gazing at Henley's gravestone, and I had realized I knew nothing about this man I had fallen in love with. I had seen his name etched into the tombstone:
Henley A. Beauford
, but I hadn't even known what the “A” stood for.

But now I knew.
Ainsley.
A little old-fashioned—to be expected—but a good middle name nonetheless.

“I had to pay my respects,” Henley said suddenly. “You understand.”

I told him that I did, carefully standing in front of his grave, blocking it from his sight.

“W-what are you . . . ?” Henley trailed off when he saw his
own grave.

I didn't want him to see it. I didn't know what it would do to him. I didn't know if he was ready. If anyone would ever be ready to see their own grave.

Finally, I couldn't stand the silence anymore. “Say something.”

“What's there to say?” He nudged me aside to get a better look at the tombstone.

A few more minutes went by.

“So that's what they chose to put on my tombstone?” he said.

It might have been a funny moment, if it hadn't been a tombstone we were looking at and if we hadn't been talking about Henley dying.

“I wonder who chose the words,” Henley said. “Eliza wasn't there anymore. It's not like we had any children to take on the burden of making arrangements . . . It was probably a business acquaintance, maybe helped by some of the household staff.”

Henley stood there a moment longer in silence. I put my arm around him, not knowing what else to do.

“Are you ready to go now?” I said quietly.

Henley nodded slowly. “I'd like to see my—
the
house.”

“If you want.”

We walked from the cemetery to the Beaufords' city residence. I led the way for the first few minutes, but once we entered the historic district with all the old buildings, Henley knew exactly where we were and he led the way.

I hadn't been back to Henley's city home in modern times. Even for me—when I thought I had lost Henley for good—it was
too painful. It didn't hold many memories for me, since Henley and I had spent most of our time at the country house. But it was still linked to Henley and that whole other life I had left behind.

Now, I didn't even know if the building was still standing. Maybe they had knocked it down decades ago to replace it with some shiny new skyscraper or apartment complex? I wanted to prepare Henley for the worst, but I didn't know how or what to tell him.

As we reached the street it was on, Henley started running.

That made me run too, but I couldn't run fast enough, so Henley shot ahead of me. I saw him stop on the sidewalk far ahead. He had probably found the location. But was the building still there?

When I caught up, I saw what had made him stop.

Yes, the building was there. But more than that, the building—Henley's house—looked
exactly
as it had in 1904.

There were no telephone wires or TV satellite dishes to mar the facade. The bricks were the same. The front steps had the same weathered look to them as they had when Henley's father was still trudging up them.

The door was slightly ajar.

I knew I shouldn't raise the possibility, but I couldn't help myself. “Do you want to see inside?”

I climbed the first two steps to the front door.

At first, Henley didn't budge from his spot on the sidewalk, but he soon followed me. He was the one to push open the door.

What we saw was not what we expected. It wasn't supposed to be like this.

Henley's eyes had shown no emotion when he first laid eyes
on Eliza's grave. They had shown no emotion when he saw his own grave. They hadn't even changed when he saw the outside of his former house. But now, they misted over.

We stood at the door, hand in hand, looking upon rows and rows of white plastic desks, with people seated in matching plastic chairs at each one. The house had been completely gutted. It was all one floor, one big room with a high ceiling. There was linoleum on the floor. The walls were painted over in white. None of the grandeur of the previous age remained.

Henley broke free of my grip, went back out of the door, and started walking down the street the way we had come.

“Excuse me,” I said to the closest person I found. “Could you tell me what this is?”

“This office? Why it's Katara Designs.”

Seeing the blank look on my face, she elaborated. “We design stationery and fabric prints?”

“Um . . . Well, thank you.”

I walked out the door and caught up to Henley.

“We should get going to a library or someplace we can find a usable computer,” he said without looking at me.

“Don't you need a moment? We could take the rest of the afternoon—”

“I'm fine.”

I didn't argue with him.

We walked back to Miss Hatfield's for me to grab my laptop. It was something Miss Hatfield had insisted I get to “assimilate into the technological era.” I grabbed it quickly, and we walked to the nearest Starbucks, since that was the first place I could think of with internet.

We sat down at an out-of-the-way table.

I handed Henley a Visa gift card. Maybe we could use all of these before we started using the credit card. We still had quite a few left. “Could you go in and buy a drink while I set up the computer? We should make a purchase if we're going to stay here and use their internet.”

“What kind of drink do you want?” Henley looked at the menu on the wall. “It looks like they have a lot of options.”

“Anything is fine. We can share it.”

I opened my laptop and plugged the charger into the wall. It took a few minutes for the laptop to boot up since it had been dead for who knew how long.

Once I had logged on to the internet, I pulled up the browser and looked up plane tickets to Florida first.

I had thought we'd have to fly into Miami and then somehow take a taxi all the way to the Keys, but there was a connecting flight from Miami to the Florida Keys Marathon Airport. And though they were expensive, since I was looking at flights that left tomorrow, it was still only about three hundred dollars per person—nothing compared to the international flight we had taken.

Henley came back with an iced coffee just as I was selecting the plane tickets.

“We can leave tomorrow,” I told him.

I took the backpack from him and took out the credit card.

He sat down. “What time?”

“Um . . . 11:20 in the morning is when the flight leaves, and we'd land at 5:34 p.m., according to this.”

A few clicks and I bought the tickets. I didn't have a
printer—Miss Hatfield had never bought one—so I couldn't print out the tickets ahead of time like I had before, but that was a minor issue. They could print them out for us when we checked in. Another minor thing was that I couldn't get seats together, since the tickets were so last minute.