A Husband in Time Page 2

  “That’s very nice.” But she was more interested in the tale he’d been telling before.

  Cody joined them then, having heard the tail end of the sheriff’s comments. “You’re dead wrong about tryptonine, Sheriff,” he said, then grinned innocently at his mom and added, “if you’ll pardon the expression.”

  “Cody!”

  “Come on, Mom. Everyone learns this stuff in fourth grade. The quinaria virus was cured by Bausch and Waterson in 1898.”

  Jane scrunched her eyebrows and shook her head. “Are you a walking encyclopedia, or what?”

  He shrugged and looked past her to Sheriff O’Donnell.

  “Well, now, that’s a bright young fellow you have there, Ms. Fortune. Cody, is it? Well, Cody, m’boy, you have part of it right. But you don’t know the whole tale. Did you know, for instance, that Wilhelm Bausch and Eli Waterson spent most of their time competing against one another? Great researchers, sure enough. But more focused on getting the jump on each other than on the importance of their work. Blinded by ambition, you might say.”

  Jane saw Cody’s eyes narrow suspiciously. But he listened.

  “It was their friend Zachariah Bolton who finally brought them together. And only by working together were they able to find the cure.” He waved a hand to indicate that they should follow him and turned back toward the living room, then headed up the stairs. “Come on, I want to show you something.”

  Jane knew she was grinning like a loon, but she couldn’t help herself. “Isn’t this great, Codester? A house complete with a ghost and a historical past?”

  “Mom, you’re too into history. Get with the nineties, willya?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Hurry up, I want to hear the rest of this.” She followed her son, noticing the way he paused just outside the door of the room at the top of the stairs. He stood still for a moment, staring at that door. Then shivered and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand.

  “You okay, pal?”

  “Yeah. Sure, fine. C’mon.”

  Sheriff O’Donnell headed into a bedroom farther down the hall, snapped on a light and waved his arm with a flourish when they entered.

  Jane caught her breath. “My God,” she whispered, blinking at the portrait on the far wall. “It looks like a Rockwell!” She moved closer, ran her fingertips lovingly over the ornate frame, then touched the work itself. “But it can’t be. This has to be at least a hundred years old.”

  “You have a fine eye, Jane.”

  “I know antiques,” she said with a shrug. “It’s my business. This is unsigned. Do you know who did it?”

  “Ayuh, unsigned, and no, I don’t know who the artist was,” O’Donnell said. “But it’s yours, along with everything else in the house. Including the old safe in the attic, still locked up. Might even be some of Zachariah Bolton’s old notes and such tucked away in there. Yours to do with as you please, just as your grandmother’s will specified.”

  Jane couldn’t take her eyes from the portrait on the wall. A very Rockwellian painting of a dark-haired man, eyes passionate and intense, hair rumpled, white shirt unbuttoned at the neck. In one hand he held a small contraption with springs and wires sprouting in all directions, and in the other a tiny screwdriver. Gold-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, and those piercing, deep brown eyes stared through them at his work. And beside him, right beside him, dressed in identical clothes—though in a much smaller size—sat a little boy who couldn’t be more than five or six. He had carrot-colored curls and bright green eyes, and he was tinkering with a tiny screwdriver of his own. The two sat so close they had to be touching. And the connection between them was so strong it was palpable, though they weren’t even looking at one another. At the bottom of the painting was a single word: Inventor.

  “That there is Zachariah Bolton, ma’am,” Sheriff O’Donnell told her. “And the boy is his son, Benjamin.”

  “Benjamin,” she whispered. “That was my grandfather’s name and this child looks enough like Cody to be his…” Jane’s voice trailed off.

  “Little brother,” Cody finished, stepping farther into the room.

  “Bolton was a friend and colleague to Wilhelm Bausch and Eli Waterson. In fact, they both said publicly that they considered him one of the greatest scientific minds of their time. One of the few things they agreed on, it was. Well, sir, when little Benjamin died of quinaria fever—”

  Jane gasped, her eyes snapping back to the mischievous green ones in the painting. “Oh, no. That sweet little boy?”

  “Yes, ma’am. And the day the boy passed, Zachariah Bolton went plumb out of his mind. The grief was too much for him, they say. Locked himself in the boy’s bedroom and refused to let anyone in. When they finally forced the door, he was long gone. And he’d taken the poor little fellow’s body right along with him. Bolton was never heard from again. Now, Bausch and Waterson were distraught enough over it that they vowed to find a cure for the disease that took little Benjamin. And by heaven, that’s just what they did.”

  Jane blinked away the inexplicable tears that came to her eyes as she heard the story. “That’s so incredibly sad.”

  “Yes, ma’am, that it is. I can take that painting down, store it somewhere, if it’s going to bother you.”

  “No,” she answered quickly. “No, leave it right here.” Her eyes found those of the inventor again, and she could almost feel his pain.

  “The place hasn’t changed much over the years,” the sheriff mused. “Aside from some fresh paint and paper, it’s almost exactly the way Bolton left it. Almost as if it’s been…waiting…or something.”

  Jane frowned at the man. “But it’s been a century.”

  “Ayuh. After Bolton vanished, his friends, Bausch and Waterson looked after the place. Kept the taxes paid up and so on, always insisting Bolton would come back someday. Course, he never did.” Quigly shrugged and heaved a sigh. “The house was left alone for a short while, of course, after the two men passed. Went to the town for taxes, and naturally the town kept it up, hoping to sell it one day. Never did, though. Not until your Grandma Kate came along. And even when she bought it, she refused to change a thing.”

  Jane could understand that reluctance to change this place. It had a soul to it, as if it were a living entity—or was that the lingering presence of the long-dead scientist she felt in every room?

  “Hey, Mom?”

  She turned, surprised that Cody’s voice came from a distance and not right behind her, where he’d been standing only seconds ago. “Codester? Where are you?” She stepped out of the master bedroom, into the hall. Cody stood two doors down, in front of that room at the top of the stairs. The one that seemed to have given him a scare before.

  “I want this room, if it’s okay with you,” he said. Frowning, Jane went to where he stood near the now open door. He looked in at a rather ordinary-looking bedroom, with no furniture to speak of, and nothing exceptional about it except for the huge marble fireplace on one wall.

  “I kind of thought this room…gave you the willies. Isn’t this where you thought you saw something before?”

  “That’s why I want it,” Cody said. He looked at her and shrugged. “If there is some kind of ghost hanging out around here, I want to know about it.”

  “Gonna analyze it until you convince it it can’t possibly exist?”

  “Maybe,” he said, grinning. “So when are the movers gonna get here with my Nintendo?”

  Two

  1897

  Thunder rumbled and growled in the distance, and Zachariah got up from the chair where he’d been keeping constant vigil to light the oil lamp on his son’s bedside table. Benjamin had always been afraid of thunderstorms. Just as Zach fitted the glass chimney into place, Ben stirred, as Zach had known he would.

  “Father… Oh. You’re right here.”

  “Where else would I be?”

  “Working on the device, of course. You waste an awful lot of time sitting here with me, you know.”

  “I like
sitting with you.” Thunder cracked again, and Benjamin reached for his father’s hand, found it, and held tight.

  “There, now. No need to be afraid, son. You know thunder can’t hurt you.”

  “That doesn’t make it any less noisy, though,” Benjamin said, quite reasonably. “How much longer will it last, Father? It’s been storming all night.”

  Zachariah pulled the gold watch from his vest pocket, opened it and then turned its face toward his son. “It’s only 9:08, my boy. It hasn’t been storming all night, only a couple of hours. And it will end any time now, I’m cer—”

  His words were cut off by the loudest, sharpest crack yet, this one so loud it even made Zachariah jump a bit. At the same instant, the night sky beyond Benjamin’s window was ripped apart by a blinding, jagged streak.

  “Father, the lightning! It’s hit something!”

  Zach moved to the edge of the bed and gathered his son in his arms. “There now…” he said. “It wasn’t as close as it seemed.” But he kept his gaze focused on that one spot in the night where the lightning seemed to have struck. And as he watched, he rocked his son, whispered to him, stroked his hair.

  Within seconds, a pinprick of light danced in the distant sky. And then it began to grow, and spread, until Zach recognized it for what it was. A fire. And from what he could see, it was the old Thomas barn, nearly three miles away, that had been hit, and that was now burning. No great loss. It was an old, decrepit building and hadn’t been used in years. The only thing inside, so far as he knew, was some musty old hay.

  Benjamin fell asleep in Zachariah’s arms, and Zach remained right where he was all night long, holding his precious child and watching the growing blaze in the distance. Soon it illuminated the entire night sky. The barn was old, tinder-dry, and had gone up like a matchstick.

  Zach ought to be working. He knew he should, for so very much depended on the success of the current experiment. And he was so close. So close.

  Right now, though, Benjamin needed him. And right now he couldn’t bring himself to leave.

  But as the sun rose high the next morning, and spirals of smoke still rose from the charred remains of the old Thomas barn, Zach gently tried to extricate himself from the bed without disturbing Benjamin. And he did. A bit too easily. As he got to his feet, it hit him that, sick as he was, Benjamin was normally a very light sleeper. He should have at least stirred when Zach got up from the bed.

  A cold chill crept up his spine as he turned to face his son, who hadn’t so much as stirred in his sleep all night.

  And then Zachariah Bolton’s heart froze over. He shook Ben’s frail shoulders gently, tapped his pale cheek. But there was no response. His son had slipped into a coma. The state that marked the final stages of his illness. Death was only twenty-four hours away now, perhaps less.

  There was no more time. None whatsoever. He must act now, and if the experiment had side effects, then so be it. He’d suffer whatever he must in order to save his son’s life.

  He reached into his vest, and removed the device from its pocket. There was no longer any reason to stay by his son’s side. Benjamin wouldn’t wake again. Not unless… Not unless this worked.

  Leaning over the bed, he stroked his son’s coppery curls, kissed his forehead. “I’ll be gone for a little while, my Ben. But I’ll try to arrange it so it’s only an instant for you. I don’t want to leave you, but I must to get you healthy again. Understand?”

  Benjamin’s auburn lashes rested on his chalk-white cheeks, and his breath wheezed in and out of his rail-thin body.

  Zach straightened and pushed his hands through his hair. He looked like hell. He knew it without a glimpse at the looking glass. His clothes were rumpled, vest unbuttoned and gaping. The thin black tie he’d worn the day before hung loose from his collar. He’d planned, though. There was a small satchel in Benjamin’s wardrobe, with a change of clothes and the things he’d need. Including proof, should he be questioned. He took a moment to retrieve the satchel. No time to change. Not now. Ben could very well expire while his father worried over such trivial matters. But once Zach was gone, time would virtually stand still for his son. Time enough to bathe then. If he was displeasing to those he met, well, too bad for them. Not that he was likely to meet anyone at all. Each time he’d opened the portal, it had shown him an empty, unlived-in version of his own house. Not that he cared right now who he might meet, or what they might think of him.

  He wasn’t thinking of himself. Not at all. He wasn’t thinking of society, either, or of the repercussions he knew full well might come from his tampering with nature this way. He flatly refused to consider those. The only thing on Zachariah Bolton’s mind was his son. His precious Benjamin. The only thing that mattered right now was finding a way to save his child’s fragile life. The child who was, right now, precariously close to death. And he could do it. Zachariah Bolton could do it. He could travel backward through time. He could go back to a time before his son had been exposed to the killing virus that was trying so hard to take him. And when he arrived there, he’d take Benjamin away, somewhere safe. So that when the virus pummelled Rockwell, Ben would be far away. He’d never be exposed. And when the danger had passed, he’d bring Ben home safe and sound. He’d never become sick. He’d never die. He’d be all right. Zach would return here, to this time, to find his son healthy and well again. With no memory of having been sick at all.

  Zach’s heartbeat escalated as he pointed the device toward that spot in the very center of his son’s bedroom. He had no idea what the spot was. A wrinkle in the fabric of time. A rent. Whatever it was, it was only here, in this room, and he suspected it had been here, hovering in the air above the ground, even before the house was built. He’d attempted the experiment in numerous locations, but here and here alone had he found success. One night, when he’d been working in here so as to be with his ailing child, he’d discovered the portal purely by accident.

  With his thumb, he depressed the initiator button. And a pinprick of light appeared in midair, at the room’s center. Holding the device steady, he turned the expander dial, and the light grew bigger, brighter, until it was a glowing sphere that extended beyond the ceiling and the floor. A mist-filled, glowing orb. But even that began to change. The mists cleared and took on forms, and in moments Zach was looking into what appeared to be a huge mirror. And the mirror reflected this very room back at him. Only in another time. He could clearly see that the wallpaper was different, and the curtains in the windows were different, and the furnishings. Everything. Right down to the small body bundled beneath the covers in the bed. Benjamin? Before he was taken ill, when he was well and strong and healthy? This was going to work. It was going to work!

  He only hoped it didn’t kill him. Every test so far indicated there would be side effects. The tea cup Zach had pushed through the portal a few days ago had shattered. He’d made adjustments to the device and tried again. The apple he sent through had withered, and he’d made still more changes. The mouse…the mouse had died. And though Zach had recalculated and made even more changes, he couldn’t be certain he had it right this time. So, yes, there might be side effects. Serious ones. He just didn’t know what they would be, yet. But—he smiled a little—he was about to find out. “You’re going to be all right, Benjamin. I swear to you. You’ll be well again!” And Zachariah Bolton stepped into the light, and promptly felt a post wallop him right between the eyes.

  Jane Fortune couldn’t sleep. There was simply too much on her mind. Oh, not the house. The house was perfect, she’d known that the second she saw it. The aging but elegant Victorian, standing like a guardian of the sea. The rocky Maine shoreline below. The songs of the waves that would sing her to sleep under ordinary circumstances.

  Her new antique shop—Jane smiled at the words—was now a reality. She’d researched the area, made new contacts and stocked up on local finds. She’d been open for several weeks now, and business was brisk. The guest house—a miniature copy of the main
house, perched at its feet as if the house had given birth to a pup—was perfect, just as Jane had known it would be. Even the nearby town, appropriately named Rockwell, was picture-perfect. The epitome of the New England fantasy. A place time and progress seemed to have forgotten. It boasted a corner drugstore complete with a soda fountain and a barbershop with an old-fashioned candy-cane pole outside. When she walked along Rockwell’s sidewalks, she half expected to round a corner and spot four men in flat-topped straw hats and handlebar mustaches singing about strolling through the park.

  But as Grandma Kate used to say, when things seem too good to be true, look out, because they probably are. What if the business failed? What would she do then? Go running back to Minneapolis with her tail between her legs?

  No. No, this move had been hard enough on Cody. She wouldn’t uproot him again. She’d make this work, somehow. She had to, for her son’s sake.

  But financial worries were not the only things troubling Jane’s mind tonight. She was more concerned about her son than about anything else. Cody’s wish for a father had gnawed at her heart from the second he uttered it in the car that night. He was an intelligent child—gifted, the school officials called him. He knew he’d had a father once. But while Jane didn’t believe in lying to her son, she hadn’t told him the whole truth about Greg. He knew only that his father had been a talented musician who died when Cody was still a baby. She’d left out the rest. She’d never told Cody how taken in she’d been by Greg’s idealism and sincerity, and the beauty and meaning behind the songs he wrote and played in clubs around Minneapolis. God, when she thought now about how quickly she’d fallen in love with him…

  She’d been a fool. Greg’s idealism had fled the second some L.A. big shot heard him play, and offered his band a recording contract. A pregnant young girlfriend who had made it clear she wanted no part of her family wealth, hadn’t fit in with his new and improved plans. She wouldn’t have wanted such a shallow and irresponsible man raising her son, anyway. She knew that now. But she also knew her son ached for the lack of a father in his life.