The embankment where we had eaten lunch was on the side of the lagoon closest to the Midway, only a few minutes’ walk to the Sixtieth Street station. We arrived a bit ahead of the expected twelve-forty-five departure so that we could, once again, find a place to sit relatively unobserved before Katherine’s group arrived. I sent Kiernan off to buy us a couple of subway tokens, just in case we did have to board, and to find us a spot on a bench.
Meanwhile, I doubled back one block to visit the “necessary” that I had spotted on our walk over. The “Public Comfort Station” was much larger and more modern than I had feared it might be, although the multiple layers of clothing were still a royal pain.
I was rearranging my bonnet in the small dressing mirror above the sink when I felt a light tap at my elbow. It was Katherine. She grabbed my arm and yanked me around the corner.
“I thought that I saw you coming in here,” she said in a low whisper. “Mrs. Salter—or whoever she is—followed me. She’s in there.” She jerked her head toward one of the stalls. “If you want to talk we need to leave now—we have only a few moments. I can’t seem to shake that woman.”
We dashed across the street toward the buildings that the various states had sponsored to parade their individual accomplishments, history, agriculture, and industry. The California Building was directly opposite the restrooms. I followed Katherine through the doorway and over to a gigantic tower made entirely of oranges, which I had to admit looked much more impressive in living color than it had in the black-and-white photos that I had seen. The display was apparently getting a bit overripe, however, as the unmistakable tang of molded citrus swirled in the air around us.
Once we were out of view of the entrance, Katherine held up my wrist to compare my bracelet to her own. The chains were different, but the charms were identical—a single jade and pearl hourglass, with a small chip in exactly the same place. “Tell me who you are, where you got this bracelet, and why you are here,” she said.
“I can’t answer the first question,” I told her. “But the answer to the second question is that you gave it to me. And I’m here to tell you that you need to return to CHRONOS headquarters immediately. Go straight to the stable point near the cabin. I’ll get a messenger to contact Saul—”
“But why? This isn’t standard protocol!” she said. “I’ll be back at the same time whether we finish our work here or not. CHRONOS doesn’t interrupt the jump even for a family emergency.”
“What is standard protocol if the historian is in danger?” I asked. “You are in danger, even if headquarters doesn’t know it.”
She didn’t answer, so I continued, looking her directly in the eyes. “Listen carefully. I’m going to tell you as much as I can. I can’t tell you everything without—well, you understand, right?”
“You don’t want to mess up the rest of the timeline if you can avoid it.”
“Right. Tell HQ that you’re sick and cancel your next jump.” She started to interrupt again, but I held up a hand. “You’re creative—you’ll think of something. A stomach bug might be convincing given recent events. Oh, and keep that appointment with your gynecologist, okay?”
Her eyes widened, and I continued. “Your suspicions about Saul are correct,” I said, and then paused, trying to decide how much I could tell without changing her actions. “He’s been bringing medicines from your era back to this one. But you cannot confront him about it until he returns from the next jump to Boston—the one you’ll be skipping.”
“Why do I need to skip that jump?” she asked.
“Because I don’t want to have to travel back, track you down, and extract you again at that location!” I said, a bit exasperated. “You need to stay put in your own time for the next few days.”
I made myself take a deep, calming breath and continued. “When Saul gets back, try to convince him to talk to Angelo—but wait to tell him about the baby, okay? You’ve got a solo trip planned next week, correct?”
She nodded. “To Boston, 1853.”
“You do need to make that trip. It’s…” I hesitated. “It’s safe.” I didn’t sound very convincing on that point, even to myself. The image of Katherine’s face after her fight with Saul floated before me, and I couldn’t help but remember her description of Angelo’s and Shaila’s deaths, but I pressed on. “And it’s important.”
“Is that all?” she asked.
“Try to avoid Mrs. Salter?”
“Who isn’t actually Mrs. Salter, according to you. A woman, I might add, who looks quite a bit like you, beneath the superficial differences in hair color and the glasses. Who is she? Is she the reason I’m in danger?”
I shook my head. “I’m going to have to follow the lead of my mentor here and tell you that’s strictly on a need-to-know basis, and—”
“And I don’t need to know. Funny. That’s the same line my mentor uses.”
“Well…” I shrugged. “It’s not exactly an original thought. Suffice it to say that if you can avoid her on the way back to the stable point, it would probably be for the best.”
“That may be easier said than done.” She narrowed her eyes slightly, and I could tell she was still trying to decide whether to trust me. “So tell me, how did that charm get chipped? The little hourglass?”
“An altercation between a carriage door and a starstruck young CHRONOS agent, as I understand it. Mr. Douglass is over at the Haiti exhibit, so you might want to avoid him as well—just in case he remembers the incident and asks you to return his handkerchief.”
Katherine gave me a cool, measured stare. “I’m the only one who knows that story, so you must have gotten it from me… but I have a very hard time believing that I would have directed you to interfere like this. It’s entirely against—”
“Yes,” I said with a tight smile. “I know. Against CHRONOS regulations.”
There was another long look and then she sighed deeply. “Okay,” she said. “I’m going to tell Saul that I’m leaving. I’ll make some excuse. He may want to come back with me, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t, given his recent behavior.”
“Just be sure that you don’t let him know the reason why…”
“I won’t,” Katherine said. “I’m going to follow your instructions to the letter. Skip the next jump, keep the gyno appointment, and avoid discussing my suspicions about Saul’s actions—and that’s all they are, I would remind you, suspicions—until the 26th. I’ll make the jump on the 27th. I just hope you—or maybe I should say we—are doing the correct thing here.”
I thought back to Connor’s comments a few weeks earlier. “So do I. But as a good friend of mine—of ours, actually—recently told me, I’m pretty sure that what we’re doing is right. Sometimes, right and correct aren’t the same thing.”
She didn’t look entirely convinced, but she nodded and took a few steps toward the exit, before turning back. “Just in case we run into the ersatz Mrs. Salter, perhaps we should leave separately? She seems to have taken a rather intense dislike to you and your young friend.”
I agreed, and Katherine headed toward the door. I don’t know if it was a premonition or just that I was feeling nervous, but I only gave her about a twenty-second lead and then I headed toward the same exit that she had taken. As luck would have it, a large group burst through the door and I shoved my way against the tide of the crowd, which was almost entirely over the age of sixty. I muttered apologies and stood on tiptoe to look for Katherine over their shoulders as I pushed through the last few people and began to make my way down the steps in front of the building. One old woman rapped me on the leg with her walking cane. I really couldn’t blame her, since I’d nearly knocked her down.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, I didn’t—” I began, and then stopped short as someone shoved the woman directly into me. I stumbled on the first step and just barely caught her before she fell. I was busy trying to set her back on her now very shaky feet when her assailant put his palm against my chest and pushed hard.
I fell down the last two steps and landed ungracefully on my backside. The man’s suit threw me off for a moment, since I’d previously seen him only in a ratty T-shirt and jeans. The jagged scar near his right temple was new, and it looked a bit like something that one might get if he were whacked very hard with a tire iron. He had added a truly pathetic little mustache, but there was no mistaking the face. I’d seen it too recently and much too closely for my liking.
“Hi, Katie,” Simon said with a glint in his eye. “Imagine meeting you here. Catch you later, okay?”
And with that, he began walking at a rapid clip toward the Sixtieth Street station. Several members of the crowd I’d just pushed my way through came over to help me up, and one rather gallant gentleman, who was eighty if he was a day, tottered a few steps after Simon, shouting and shaking a fist in the air.
By the time I was on my feet, Simon was halfway to the station. A bit farther ahead I saw Katherine, who hadn’t managed to shake Prudence. The two of them were approaching the platform where the mayor’s group had assembled to await the train, which was chugging toward the stop. I raised my skirt and managed a weak imitation of a run, but it was clear that I wouldn’t reach them before Simon did.
The only thing I could hope was that my voice would travel better than I could. I pulled in a deep breath and shouted, pointing directly at Simon, “He’s got a gun! Stop him—he’s got a gun!”
I’m not sure if the group at the station heard me, or if they heard one of the many fairgoers who screamed and repeated “a gun” in the chaos of the next few seconds. But the mayor’s party all looked in our direction. Simon glanced over his shoulder once and then turned back toward the platform, his hand still in his pocket, as Prudence, with a maneuver worthy of a defensive lineman, tackled Katherine to the ground.
They both fell forward, Katherine’s sleeve snagging against the wooden railing, ripping the cloth from shoulder to elbow, just before her head smacked the edge of the platform. The screams of the crowd were now mingling with the roar of the train as it pulled to a stop. Saul knelt beside Katherine, and Prudence jumped to her feet, scanning the faces in the station.
I rammed my way through the mass of people, trying to get closer to Simon, but I couldn’t find him in the crowd. I didn’t think that he would have been brazen enough to make a temporal jump in broad daylight with hundreds of people nearby, but then he had been perfectly willing to make a jump in a crowded Metro station after snatching the diary, so who knew?
Two men in matching suits were walking purposefully toward the mayor. A Columbian Exposition security badge was visible on one of their shoulders. “False alarm, everyone. False alarm—the young lady was mistaken. We have everything in hand.”