Twin Speex: Time Traitors Book II (8 page)

“What?”

“She told me when we met at Café Lilli—our local hangout in the old neighborhood,” he clarified. “But more importantly, she talked about how our mother…” He faltered and then cleared his throat. “…how oddly she was acting, how she had met this very strange man in a cemetery. It just struck me in that moment that Ivy must have the answers. That maybe it was something familial or genetic.” He shook his head, as if trying to dislodge a troubling memory. “When she lay dying, I… I had the feeling she wasn’t surprised, almost as if she had been expecting it.”

Odell pulled the gold necklace from his pocket, and Ava recognized it immediately as the one that Ivy always wore. The chain was very delicate. A flat, wafer-thin disk about the size of a quarter hung from it. There didn’t appear to be any engraving or decoration. It was just a plain golden disk.

“She gave this to me and said ‘
proditoris aevus
.’ Those were her last words.”

Ava raised her eyebrows. “Latin? What does it mean?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “
‘Proditoris’
means ‘traitor’ or ‘betrayer.
‘Aevus’
can mean lots of things relating to time—a certain time of life, old age… passage of time.”

She furrowed her brow. “So, ‘old traitor’… I guess we can assume that there is some sort of betrayal going on.”

“Considering she was murdered, that is a reasonable conclusion. But I think it’s bigger than that.” She looked at him expectantly and he continued, “She gave me this necklace for a reason. I think it holds answers.”

“The necklace?” She looked skeptical.

“No, not the necklace itself. I think it may be a key or maybe a map.”

Ava held out her hand, and Odell dropped the necklace into it. She turned the disk over and looked at it closely. “There doesn’t seem to be anything on it. I don’t know—maybe if we dunk it in lemon juice or throw it on a fire…”

Odell laughed, and the tension drained out of him. His face reflected back at her a relaxed and open expression. “You mean like ‘the one necklace to rule them all.’ ”

She smiled at him. “Something like that, I guess.”

He sobered, but still the corners of his mouth were lifted in amusement. “I have an idea where we might begin, but I’ve got to get back into the house.”

“What’s stopping you?”

He told her about his encounter with the police during the last time shift.

“I don’t know when it may happen again, and I can’t be sure they’re not on the lookout for me in this timeline.” He cleared his throat and looked at her a little sheepishly. “I left the hospital rather hastily.”

“What? They didn’t say you were free to go?”

“Well, they didn’t tell me I was being detained either.”

She gave an irritable shake of her head. “For real? So they could be looking for you?”

“I don’t know, but I can’t take the risk of getting picked up.”

Ava sighed deeply. “You need me to get you into the house.”

He smiled ruefully. “Not so much get me in, as create a diversion.”

Seven

Somewhere in the North Atlantic –Late April 1775

EVELYN PULLED THE instrument up by the sturdy string to which it was attached. She looked at the reading and then jotted it down on the chart Billy had given her. She noted other bits of information: wind direction, course, longitude and latitude, the hour, date, and water character. In the last few days, she had taken over the measurements from Billy, who either sulked in his cabin below or stared moodily off into the distance when on deck.

“What’s it say?”

She swung around to see him leaning against the mast watching her. It was the first time he had spoken to her in days.

Evelyn looked at him sympathetically, but merely replied, “It’s about twelve degrees warmer than yesterday evening.” She gazed out over the rolling waves and added, “I saw two whales.”

He walked up next to her, and they both stared out at the endless sea. It had been weeks since they’d left Portsmouth, and their destination was drawing near. Evelyn found it hard to believe they would ever see land again. She had begun to feel outcast, exiled to this small ship, destined to roam the seas forever. Only the confident actions and self-assurance of the crew and Doctor Franklin were able to convince her otherwise.

Evelyn had been fortunate in gaining her “sea legs” almost immediately. Billy and Uncle Hershel were the only two of the group to experience seasickness, and that, for only the first couple of days.

“He’s my grandfather,” Billy finally said, without looking at her.

She nodded. “Yes, I know.”

He looked at her now and challenged sharply, “
Did
you know?”

Evelyn reached over to clasp his hand warmly in her own. “Billy, how could I have known? I’m only a couple of years older than you. Mother told me only
after
your grandfather told you.”

He smile wanly and returned the pressure of her hand. “I’m sorry.”

Evelyn was surprised by his reaction to the knowledge that Benjamin Franklin was his grandfather. William Temple, Billy to all but the adults, who called him Temple, was the illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin’s own illegitimate son, also named William; who was now the Colonial Governor of New Jersey.

She had thought he would be ecstatic. Evelyn had known him almost all her life. Each was the sibling neither of them actually had. Billy was smart and curious, and she could tell he wanted to please his famous grandfather. He was usually good at pleasing adults. By all accounts, even those of her generally perceptive parents, he was a typical boy. And so he was, but for one thing. She didn’t like to think of it as a weakness, more like a vulnerability. He sometimes exhibited a lack of resolve, and a need for something just out of reach. She didn’t know how to put it into words, but he revealed it in little ways only a contemporary would notice.

“He didn’t say anything about her.” Billy sighed.

Evelyn jerked her thoughts back from their meandering path. “About who?”

“My mother, ninny!” he replied hotly and then apologized again. “I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “I want to be happy… I mean, I am happy. I… I just don’t understand how he can know nothing about her. I think she was a whore,” he choked on the word.

There it was… the raw spot, the thing just out of reach.

Evelyn looked out at the ocean, afraid to meet his eyes. Her mother had told her the same. Only Evelyn wasn’t to mention it to Billy. Mother’s great friend, Fancy O’Sullivan, had known his mamma.

Evelyn remembered Fancy’s words when dedicating a new infirmary at one of her transition houses in London.

“Prostitution kills women every day. It is an almost exclusively feminine consequence of poverty.”

Billy’s mother had been only one death of many. But years before, Fancy had tried to get her off the streets. The pretty daughter of a respectable country farrier, she had been tempted from her home by the handsome face and empty promises of a junior officer in the militia. In London, she had been passed from one of his friends to another. Too ashamed to go home, she stayed on and plied her trade in an exclusive London brothel. But her demons had led her to gin and, eventually, to the streets.

It was Fancy’s opinion that the sheltered daughters of the “decent folk” who fell into prostitution were harder to extract from the trade than those who were born into it like herself.

“I guess it’s the difference between falling from heaven and dragging yourself out of hell,” Fancy had once explained. “They had lost everything, and I had nothing to lose. Their spirits were broken, and mine was hardened.”

It was Evelyn’s own mother who had given Fancy the opportunity she needed to free herself from the bonds of poverty and the degradation of prostitution. But it was Fancy’s own courage and quick wit that allowed her to take advantage of her good fortune.

Far from keeping her background a secret, Fancy used her connections with some of London’s most progressive members to fight for the women among whom she had worked. The transition houses weren’t merely places where the prostitutes could find safety and kindness, although they could. They were also schools and training grounds for skills and trades.

When Fancy discovered that jobs were hard to come by for the newly educated women, her transition houses morphed into businesses that could employ them. Bakeries, laundries, dressmakers, and even art, for some of the women were talented painters and writers. It wasn’t easy. Finding a market for their goods was always a struggle, and many women returned to the often more lucrative business of whoring. But many didn’t, and some even broadened their businesses out into the surrounding communities.

Fancy would secure small loans from her benefactors for such efforts. One such patroness was Margaret Prime. Her late husband, Geoffrey, had been a close friend of Evelyn’s father. Evelyn didn’t know her well. Margaret on occasion visited her mother, and she was always present at any event connected with the transition houses. Left with four small children and her own vast fortune, Margaret was Fancy’s partner in all endeavors.

It was this work and this relationship that had kept Fancy in London as they traveled across the ocean to the colonies. She had stood on the pier with their family and friends to bid them good-bye. Uncle Simon and his wife and two daughters, Evelyn’s best friends, Tabitha and Sarah, were grouped together as if for a family portrait. Uncle Cyril, tall and thin, wasted from too much drink and illness, his cynical eyes sad and hooded, stood beside them. Aunt Barbara, her only blood relative, had come. Her good-natured husband, John, and their rambunctious brood of six were also there.

Yet, it was the sight of Fancy that stayed with Evelyn. She was heavily cloaked against the late winter chill, but Evelyn could still see her eyes large with loss, tendrils of short, dark hair escaping from under her hood. She walked down the length of the pier as the ship pulled out to sea. There she had stood, looking up at the deck and Evelyn’s mother, until she was lost to them in the mist and distance.

Later that night, Evelyn overheard her parents talking. She had quickly discovered the ability to lurk unseen in the profound darkness of a ship’s deck at sea. The swells were large, but her parents braced easily against the rail. Her father had an arm around her mother’s shoulders.

“She would have come,” he said, “if you had explained.”

Her mother replied in a voice rough from crying, “I know. That’s why I didn’t tell her. She has built so much, done so much good. Her life is in London… in England.”

“Odette, all she has built is in jeopardy. Fancy would be the first to understand that.”

Evelyn saw her mother’s silhouette give a firm shake of its head. “No, I won’t put her through it again.” She turned to wrap her arms around him and lay her head against his chest. “We can’t know for sure what awaits us in the colonies. But whatever it is, it is our fight—my fight.”

Evelyn crept back to their cabin and was left to wonder what exactly her mother was talking about. She had been told that their move to the colonies was an extension of her parents’ abolitionist work. Her father was to set up an office in Philadelphia. With the help of Doctor Franklin, he would establish a practice based primarily on challenging slavery using the framework of English law. It was something he had done with some success in London.

Evelyn wasn’t enthusiastic about the move. She had, however, believed in the reason behind it. She was proud of her father and his work. Evelyn knew her mother’s involvement was important, as it was with the transition houses. She worked hard, but always from behind the scenes. Evelyn had heard her mother speak eloquently and at length on both issues, but never in public.

It was puzzling. Her mother was no timid mouse. She had once been a prima ballerina for the Theatre Royal, a position that required political acumen as well as artistic virtuosity. She definitely kept her daughter in line, Evelyn thought ruefully.

But here was an even bigger mystery; to what “fight” was her mother referring? Slavery? Evelyn was confused. She knew the situation in the colonies to be explosive, and there was serious talk of revolution. Was she referring to that? How was it their fight? How was it her mother’s?

“Evie! Ho, Evie, are you even listening to me?” Billy tried to curb the irritable edge to his voice.

She looked back at him and smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry, Billy. Your mother…”

He swallowed and looked broodingly out again at the sea. When had she become so pretty? Since the age of seven or eight, he had seen Evelyn two, maybe three times a year, generally during school holidays. Often, she and her family would join him and his grandfather on trips to the coast or the Lake District. Once, they hiked the highlands of Scotland and wandered through the ancient ruins on the Isle of Man.

They had fallen into the easy relationship of brother and sister. Adventures were planned and carried out in secret; silly games were invented and played with serious endeavor; revenge was plotted and abandoned; arguments were fierce and quick to dissipate; he was always glad to see her, but never really sad to leave her behind.

What had changed? Certainly not the thick, wild head of black hair, dark complexion, and strong, willowy figure so like her mother’s, or the startling blue eyes she had inherited from her father.

Billy envied, and sometimes resented, her quick wit and intelligence. With her thoughtful and scholarly focus, she more readily grasped his grandfather’s musings and eclectic interests when Billy was often left in the dark. He had overheard her speaking at length with him about the changes in water temperature and what it might mean in regards to the origins of the Gulf Stream, as was named the current of water that ran within the ocean. She had understood almost immediately the charts Billy had offhandedly passed to her that day he had learned of his connection to the great Benjamin Franklin.