The Time Travelers, Volume 2 (4 page)

Tod had to live in an era of computer keyboards. Tod got bored sitting still that long. He did not want to spend his life typing.

Luckily, he had a truly brilliant idea: designer water.

People were thrilled by water in bottles. Tod couldn’t figure out what they saw in those bottles, other than water, but they sure did, and they sure paid for it. How many businesses were there where all you needed up front were some bottles and your own faucet?

Of course Tod’s Kitchen Tap Water probably wouldn’t sell. So he was taking the water from the spring at Stratton Point, an old waterfront estate that was now the town beach. Over the spring was the original pump, with a curved red handle, which had to be pumped several times to get the pressure up. Then Tod had to lug all those gallons of water away. How many times did a person want to hang around the picnic grounds pumping water by hand?

Once.

So Tod was diluting the water from the spring at Stratton Point with his kitchen tap water, and it tasted just fine.

An artsy friend designed a label for his bottles: pine trees (Stratton Point didn’t have any), a romantic mansion (the Stratton mansion had been torn down), and a sweet tumbling brook (the water came out of a rusty pump). According to business magazines, red was a selling color, right up there with cobalt blue. He was going with red. He obtained several thousand
eight-ounce plastic bottles and spent happy hours sticking labels on them.

The designer water business gave Tod plenty to think about when he was home. His parents had gotten back together, so thoroughly that they were having a second honeymoon right there in the house. They were so mushy Tod had to spend all his time with his face averted.

Sure, Tod was glad the family was back together and all that stuff, but he wished they weren’t
this
together. It was embarrassing. Tod wished he lived in a time when men led their lives and women led theirs, and nobody had to pay attention, or make an effort, or compromise.

He used to have an ally of sorts: his sister, Annie. Annie and Tod had never gotten along well, but they got along somewhat, in certain circumstances. But Annie had a chance to spend a semester abroad and was in Norway, while he was bottling water and watching his parents smooch.

Then the water didn’t sell.

It turned out there was a lot of competition in the bottled water business. This was discouraging for an afternoon, and then Tod realized that he had to do some serious marketing. The first thing to do was to increase demand for water. People had to drink more of it.

He was going to hire pretty girls in tights and spangles
to sell his water at the high school, but the principal said this was sexist—plus school was not about sales, it was about knowledge.

Then he decided to convince people that cafeteria liquids (milk, soda, iced tea) were defective, and gave you disease, and you’d better buy Stratton Point Spring Water. The cafeteria ladies threatened to beat him up.

Okay, fine. If people wouldn’t drink it, they’d wash in it. He’d sell it in the chemistry and biology labs. “Your hands are safer from acids and frog blood if bathed in Stratton Point Spring Water.”

It turned out that people who were willing to pay almost two dollars to drink water were not willing to pay to wash their hands in it. Tod tried to point out how stupid this was, but the class told him to get lost, and take his water with him.

Well, there were always tourists.

Tod went downtown among the leaf peepers—in October, New England was full of tourists from the rest of the United States, Europe and Japan—and hawked his water. At last! Success! Foreigners who did not know much about water in the United States were delighted with this souvenir. Tod’s former scoutmaster, a man who lived up to being clean, strong, honest and true, said if Tod didn’t give back the right change, he was a dead ex-Scout. This cut Tod’s income, but still, he sold every bottle in one weekend.

So Tod went down to Stratton Point to get more spring water, because what with scoutmasters on his case, he had to have at least a drop or two of the real thing in each bottle.

Tod was not thinking of love.

Tod did not have a whole lot of use for love, being more interested in money. Besides, love involved girls, and Tod was not that drawn to girls. They giggled; they resembled his sister and mother, who were extremely difficult human beings to understand. Tod figured when he was thirty and a millionaire, established in the world and driving several cars, maybe racing them, there would be time for love. No need to rush it.

Carefully arranging her enormous skirts to prevent grass stains, Devonny Stratton went down on her knees and prayed for rescue. All brides forced into weddings pray for rescue. But there could be none, for only a man could rescue a woman, and the man in Devonny’s life had arranged the marriage.

Far across the meadows, the three towers of the Mansion glinted in the sun. Between Devonny and that imposing silhouette were hundreds of elm, chestnut, maple and oak trees, brilliant October blurs of scarlet, gold and yellow. What a contrast was the dark cold green of the holly garden where Flossie and Johnny had dared snatch a moment.

By now, Flossie would be back at the house, probably agreeing to golf with Gordon or Miles. Her flushed cheeks and pounding heart would not betray her, for Gordon and Miles were so proud that each man would think himself responsible.

Devonny too must return to the house with nothing in manner or speech that could betray her. Fury and fear alternated in her heart. Fear won.

The next few years should have been such fun! Her girlfriends and Strat’s buddies from college—laughing, rowing across the little lake, having clambakes, dancing in the ballroom, acting out plays, and laughing again.

And it was not to be.

“Mama,” she said brokenly, though she hardly knew her mother. The two children had been kept by Father when he divorced and began his string of remarriages. Mama lived in poverty, with barely enough to keep warm in winter, never mind stay in fashion, and give parties for friends.

Devonny thought bleakly of her mother’s awful dark little house in Brooklyn, only one room heated in winter; only one servant to help. How could Flossie possibly find romance in poverty?

In all these years, Mama had found no way around poverty, and if she could not help herself, she certainly could not help Devonny. Mama had not been able to help Strat either, though she had tried.

Father was lying to Lord Winden about Strat’s end, claiming that Strat died in a hunting accident in the mountains. But they did not know that. Strat had vanished. That was all they knew.

Devonny herself had given an order to Annie Lockwood: If you have no other way to save Strat, bring him with you into your own century.

It was such a strange thought: that Strat might be out there—breathing, running, laughing, reading the paper—but not for a hundred years.

What if Strat came back?

The question of money would also come back. If Father’s only son returned, it would be much less likely that Devonny would inherit everything. And much less likely that Lord Winden would want Devonny. In fact, Lord Winden would
not
want Devonny!

As for Father’s threat … forbidden to marry; a useless dried-up old spinster kept in a separate room … if I could get Strat home, thought Devonny, I could prove he is no lunatic. Then there could be no blackmail! And Strat would take care of me. He’s a man now, and would overrule Father. I would not be thrown into a marriage like a ball into a game! I could marry for love.

I must bring Strat home
.

Devonny straightened the long glimmering yellow skirt. She retied the lovely sash. She touched the
cameo at her throat. She felt the freshness of the flowers on her hat.

How had they done it?

How had they stepped through?

What magic word, or place, or thought, or need had ripped her brother and Annie Lockwood through a century?

“Strat!” she cried. “Strat! I need you!”

But nothing happened.

Devonny stomped her small foot, but her soft leather sole made hardly a sound in the high grass. She did not even have the power to make noise.

There was no Annie Lockwood. There was no Strat. In fact, what her father had told Lord Winden was probably the truth: that Strat was dead in the mountains.

“Somebody help me,” said Devonny tonelessly. She did not raise her voice. “Somebody think of something to do,” she said, not loud enough to make a swallow change flight.

She shaded her eyes to see the nearest village on the shore. Was Strat there? Just a few miles away—and a hundred years?

If she stepped through, as somehow they had stepped through, could she find him? Would he be waiting for her? Would he even know her?

Devonny clasped her hands and held them before her. She addressed Time, which held Strat:
I need him
,
she said,
take me to him. I have no power. Only my brother can save me
.

Tod put his mouth to the spigot and drank several cooling gulps. He never worried about stuff like germs or dirt. When he got a mouthful of rust, he just swallowed it. Tod never got sick. It was a matter of choice. You wanted to stay well, you informed your body, and it obeyed you.

Within seconds, Tod was hideously sick.

His head was coming off. His whole body was being wrenched apart.

Tod had never even had the flu. He could not imagine what was happening. He wanted to throw up, or grab on to something, or scream, but there was no Time.

Time, he thought; and somehow, grotesquely,
he could touch time
.

Time, which was invisible, like love or power, pressed up against him, and scraped his skin, and tried to break his bones.

Tod tried to brush it off himself, as if he’d walked into spiderwebs, but he had no control over his hands, and then his hair peeled away as if he were being scalped.

There was so much Time.

Years and decades of Time, fat swollen hours of
Time, like disease. The sickness lasted a century, and yet used up no Time at all.

Then came the after-feeling of sickness: a thin brain and a weak belly. Tod found himself still gripping the red-handled pump, still kneeling on the soggy grass.

He tried to breathe deeply but his body was unwilling. He panted in a shallow fashion and forced his hand to relax on the pump handle. A drop of water lay neatly on the rim of the spigot. It grew larger, and fell. The paint was not peeling. The red was shiny, as if painted that morning. There was no rust around the iron rim. In fact, beautiful brass trim covered the place where Tod had just put his lips.

What if the water’s poisonous? he thought. Oh, that’ll be great. I can’t wait to announce that downtown. You know those tourists who overpaid for my bottled water? Well, get the hospital beds ready.…

Using the pump for support, Tod stumbled to his feet. He felt disoriented, or else carsick.

A girl was standing there. He didn’t remember running into anybody else at Stratton Point.

But this was not anybody.

She wore an enormous dress, yellow satiny stuff cascading all around her. She had really strange shoes on—but then, Tod’s mother often wore shoes that a normal human would never shove over his toes. She had on an amazing necklace—but then, Tod’s sister
wore necklaces made of anything from crystals to plastic bear claws. This girl’s hair, however, was in a class by itself. Long separate cylinders jostled for space on her shoulders and delicate tiny wisps lay sweetly on her cheeks and forehead.

I’m in the middle of a photo shoot, he thought.

The girl was staring at him with an incredulous expression, and now she was extending her hands, slow motion, as if she wanted to dance. “Yeah. Hi,” he said nervously. “How are ya? I’m outta here, sorry I interrupted.” He looked around to see the camera crew and retrieve the water carrier.

No camera crew. No water carrier.

No picnic ground. No parking lot. No car.

In fact, no road.

The sickness rolled over him again, and he focused once more on the girl. She was very pretty, although Tod tried not to judge these things; it just got him interested in the girl, and he was not ready to allocate time to girls. She was laughing, she was coming toward him, it was some creepy joke, it was—

She hugged him.

Tod had never had a girlfriend. Never been hugged by any female person except a relative, and then usually under orders. She was amazingly soft. She was definitely and completely not a boy.

She was laughing with delight. “Who are you?” She released him. “I’m Devonny. Have you come for
me? Is Strat with you? How did you do it? I am so happy to see you! How are you going to save me?”

“What?” said Tod, feeling that his life had just come apart in some essential way. “I’m Tod Lockwood,” he said, because he was still sure of that.

“Annie’s brother!” she cried, clapping her hands.

She was wearing gloves. Tod had never seen anything so strange in his life. The gloves were lace and her real fingertips stuck out. Around her wrists the lace was gathered with living flowers, a sort of rose bracelet. The lace muffled her clap, giving it a strange, indoor sound.

“Annie sent you,” she said joyfully.

Tod felt marginally better. It was not surprising that his sister, who was nuts, would have friends who were nuts and dressed crazy. “Nope, Annie’s still in Norway,” he said. “This is my own business. I sell bottled water.”

A lace hand flew to her mouth and an expression of horror crossed the girl’s face. “What do you mean, Annie’s in Norway?”

“Well, you know, she got accepted in a student exchange, and she’ll be in Scandinavia for six months. Then we take an exchange student in our house. She’ll be back in February.”

“She sent you instead, then,” said the girl, and her smile became peaceful. “I,” said the girl, “am Devonny Stratton.”

“Cool. I didn’t know there were any Strattons left,” he said. He kind of liked the name Devonny. “Town’s owned the place for fifty years.”

“What place?” she said.

Yes, undoubtedly a friend of Annie’s. They were nothing but computer errors, Annie’s friends. Or viruses, depending on his mood.