No Man's Land (Ch40)
The final chapter of Theda's Time Machine, the historical fantasy novel by Alison Bull.
Grand Central Terminal, April 24, 1918.
New York Herald Tribune headlines:
GERMANS NOW HAVE AN INVISIBLE GAS
ALLIES RALLY TO STEM GERMAN TIDE
U.S. TROOPS HOLD FIRM AGAINST HUN ASSAULT
Theda flipped the newspaper pages, smearing the fresh ink under her fingers. She saw it next to the advertisements for $7.95 dresses, Pear’s Soap and a call for Wireless Operators:
HIGHLY ESTEEMED PHILADELPHIA DOCTOR, FAMILY, STILL MISSING
Philadelphia law enforcement has confirmed that there is still no sign or communication from Dr. Harold A. Evora, a renowned physician known for breakthrough work in respiratory illnesses and a highly regarded medical school instructor. Dr. Evora, along with the nation’s top medical experts, was called by the United States government to leverage his medical expertise in the war effort, most notably to aid those who have been injured by the poisonous gas that has proven to be one of the most deadly weapons mankind has ever known.
Dr. Evora was called to duty at Fort Riley, Kansas, a formerly mid-sized army base that has seen its numbers surge as newly enlisted soldiers are trained at the facility. Evora had worked with a team of scientists and doctors for several months before his wife, Margaret Evora, and two daughters, Violet and Theodora, set out for a visit in early March.
Evora was listed as a missing person in early March and was thought to have fled the base under suspicious circumstances that officials have not yet disclosed. It has been confirmed that Mrs. Evora and her daughters held tickets to return east on March 6th, but never boarded the train. Their whereabouts are still unknown.
Recent events regarding the younger daughter, Theodora, have been brought to light from Philadelphia law enforcement and it is suspected that she may have had ties with a socialist gang currently under suspicion for a failed bombing in the heart of Philadelphia in late February.
Under the article was a grainy picture of the Evora family that spiked fear in her heart. It was the portrait her mother had the family sit for just before the Christmas of 1917. A sterling silver frame had protected the final photograph on the desk of Harold Evora in their Philadelphia home.
They’ve been in my house. There were moments in the past six weeks when acute pain seared through her very soul; the pain was a banshee that shepherded dark fantasies of perishing in the barn fire instead of living in a world where her mother and sister vanished, and her father a fallen angel. If it hadn’t been for the kindness of Jackson and Conlin, she may have buckled.
Now, a new sensation bubbled up that vaporized the pain. It was white hot anger, and she was better able to embrace that. It was useful. It was going to help her get her mother and sister back.
And perhaps, find her father.
The Code of Hours. Ex Codice horae. The words on her father’s notebook. Neither Jackson nor Conlin knew its meaning, but, as was the letter and code that brought her to the little shed in the field, he had left the word there purposefully. He wanted her to see it. She would figure it out. In time.
She folded the paper and gazed down from where she stood on the balcony under the three story windows on the Vanderbilt Avenue side. At this early hour, the crowd was light. Men and women dodged the central clock and filtered into the entrances to the train tunnels just as a sparkle of light gilded the triangular windows high above the main hall of Grand Central Terminal.
“Theda? Are you alright?”
Jackson. She flipped through newspaper and handed him the article, studying his face, memorizing it, while he read. He and Conlin had decided to journey back (forward?) to 1946. That morning, the trio walked up Forty-Second Street, past the trashcans overflowing with the remains of purple hyacinth and white Easter lilies, emitting a decaying-sweet scent that made the hard lump in Theda’s throat, the one that a sight or scent triggered into instant existence, swell. Easter. She composed herself and walked through the door that Jackson held for her.
I don’t want him to go. The last few weeks had bonded the three with the invisible threads that tied those who had fought side by side together for life, but there was something extra that bound her and Jackson. If he left, would those threads stretch through time in an unbreakable string?
They had had come to the busiest place in New York City before dawn to see if the underground passage were still viable in 1918. Conlin and Jackson had wanted her to go with them, but she declined. She wasn’t ready to see the future by skipping ahead twenty years. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, because she could feel it. The pull that Jackson and Conlin told her about on their long drive from Kansas to New York City. They weren’t lying, not about any of it. There was a place in this building where she could walk into another time. All she had to do was go there.
“Van Horn said they were alive when he pulled them from the fire,” Jackson said over the paper. He crumpled it and tossed it into an open garbage can. “He would’ve said if they were mortally injured. Or dead. Maybe they’re in hiding.” But she heard it in his voice.
“Or maybe they’re prisoners.” She broke eye contact and placed her hands on the railing and lightly touched her mother’s garnet firefly ring on her finger. Where are you?
Jackson stood next to her. “Notice something?” he pointed to the thickening crowd.
She nodded. Masks. Here and there people were wearing white surgical masks over the bottom half of their faces, darting between casual strollers and heading for the exits. Everything is true. Jackson had told her of his last conversation with Private Billy Rankin. She pictured his handsome face, smiling, speaking to as many people as possible on the long train ride from Kansas to whatever port he would set sail from. It’s incalculable. He’s deadlier than the gas, and no one would ever know.
“It’s coming,” Jackson rubbed his hands together. He spread his hands, then clasped them again. For the first time since she had met him, he seemed at a loss for words.
“And the good news is that you and Mr. Conlin will be far, far away from it.”
“I’m staying,” he blurted.
“Pardon me?”
“I’m staying. Here. With you.” He mistook her stunned silence as a rejection and said quickly, “You think you’re in the clear because you got away, and that’s always the most dangerous time. They’re out there. That little article in the paper is setting it all up. Those stories are planted to drag out your criminal past. Spoiled rich girl making trouble? The public will eat it up and turn against you just as sure as the wind shifts. And once they lock you up, there’ll be no one left to talk about what happened in Kansas in March of 1918.”
“Except for my father.” It wasn’t difficult to imagine what would happen next. A steady stream of negative stories would push her even further underground, until Margaret and Violet suddenly appeared, allowed to resurface by the powers holding them. It would draw her out and they’d have her. Jackson was right. She would see life either through iron bars, or not at all.
“Your father is the piece they never counted on. Aside from Cyril, I don’t think any of them know what he is. They’ll think they’re drawing him out, too. Not realizing he’s gone for good.”
The gravity of the situation shifted slightly, knowing that he was staying, and inside she felt the first lift of hope since speeding across the Kansas fields in the Martin Wasp. Across the massive main floor of Grand Central, she spotted Conlin, striding with purpose, shoving two packs of cigarettes in his coat pocket. She almost smiled. He had made several comments on how the cigarettes tasted better in 1918 and he wasn’t going to go home without a few packs to enjoy.
“There’s something else I wanted to say to you,” Jackson faced her and removed his fedora. His hair had grown in until the army buzz cut was gone, the dark brown in sharp contrast to the bright blue eyes, but also softened his looks from hardened soldier to cinema star. Theda had caught more than one woman doing a double-take when they were out in public but was pleased to note that he didn’t have what her mother had called a ‘wandering eye.’ She began to face him but stopped when she noticed a man peel himself away from the wall, drop his newspaper into the trash and follow Conlin, matching the rhythm of his steps, getting closer.
“None of this is easy for you, I realize that, but I was wondering if…”
“Asa. Look.”
Conlin had spotted them and lifted his head and grinned. He bound up the stairs leading to the balcony but the man was five paces behind and gaining.
“Conlin!” Jackson called.
Conlin read Jackson’s expression correctly and ran up the steps, the man closing in on him. Jackson strode forward, shouldered Conlin out of the way and grabbed the man’s lapels, slamming him against the wall and lifting him up a foot until his face was level with Jackson’s. The man’s feet dangled. Theda walked closer. His shoes are red! He wore some sort of red shoe with white, rubbery soles and a round medallion-like symbol over the ankle. Conlin saw her looking and nodded at her. He’s not from now.
“Who the hell are you?” Jackson said.
The man laughed. His hat, which had been too big to begin with, fell from his head, rolled and landed by Theda’s feet. His hair was long! It had been pushed up under his hat and now it tumbled to his shoulders. What kind of man has long hair?
"You’re Asa Jackson,” he grinned and Jackson lowered him until the red shoes were touching the ground. “He said you’d be a bruiser. Wanna let go? Big guys like you have the grace of a wrecking ball. Hands off, Bluto!”
Jackson slowly loosened his fingers. Bluto? Theda reached over and pulled the coat open. His shirt was thin and had block writing that said STONE TEMPLE and another word that she couldn’t read.
“You, too? Handsy. Thought you were supposed to have better manners in this day and age? Unlike us barbarians of the digital era.” She let him go and he looked her up and down. “Evora.”
“You better tell us who you are. Now.” Theda said.
“He’s the Archivist.” Conlin said quietly.
The man winked and pointed at Conlin. “Very good, Mr. Conlin. Name’s Paul. Paul Waters. Andersen gave me the very proper title of Archivist, but I think it sounds a little old fashioned, but considering where I am,” he rolled his head and around, “it’s apropos, right?” He dropped his voice and the playful tone with it. “Did Andersen make it out?” He asked Conlin.
“No.”
Waters closed his eyes and when he opened them, they were wet. “He was going down in Kansas. He knew that. Don’t worry about me, he told me. Still stings, though. I liked that man. Better than pretty much everyone.” He retrieved his hat and plunked it on his head.
“Why are you here?” Theda asked.
“Got something to show you, although it’s gotta be pretty wrinkled now,” he shot Jackson a look. He pulled up his coat and underneath was a messenger bag. He opened it and took out a large black and white photograph. “Ever hear of Dreamland, in Coney Island?”
“Yes. It burned down a few years ago. I was there once when I was a kid,” Theda said.
“You were there twice,” Waters handed her the photograph.
It was one of the main attractions of the exquisite amusement park that had burned to the ground in 1911. The photograph was of the Hell Gate, with an enormous bat-winged demon statue lazily draped over the top, peering down into the crowd. Theda remembered holding tighter to her father’s hand when they walked past it in the hot summer of 1907.
“There you are,” Jackson said over her shoulder. In the photograph, she stood in front of the Hell Gate as if waiting for someone. She was wearing the same coat and shoes she currently wore.
“This was one of the last photographs to be taken in Dreamland, before it went up in flames in May of 1911,” Waters explained. “Before Andersen left, he told me to search for you, Theodora. His theory was that you’d turn up in New York in two different time periods. One, earlier in the 1900s and the second, after the Millennium.”
Theda looked up. “How would you know when to find me?”
“Outbreaks,” Waters said. “The Dreamland fire occupied the news cycle for months, but what no one remembers is that there was an outbreak of several infectious diseases throughout the city. Many New Yorkers were sent to North Brother Island, where they were in quarantine. And,” he said. “Treated by a doctor who, according to the locals, performed ‘miracle’ cures. That doctor’s name was Harold T. Anthony.”
Theda lowered the photograph.
“You know what’s funny?” Waters went on. “These big geniuses can’t even make up a totally different name! Can’t outsmart the search engine!” He laughed, but stopped when he noticed their grim expressions. “Why don’t we go somewhere else? I feel grimy. Those underground tunnels aren’t exactly the Waldorf. And I’m starving.”
“I’m supposed to go to 1946,” Conlin said.
“‘The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men’” Waters said in a Scottish burr and chuckled.“Why go to 1946 when you can rip up an island dripping with deadly disease? Let’s find some breakfast. I heard the food safety laws weren’t so hot now, but no e.coli either, right? Let’s get out of here before I fade into another year.” Waters retied his coat belt and headed toward the exit.
“Andersen trusted him,” Conlin said and opened a pack of cigarettes, shaking one out into his hand, and Theda knew he wasn’t going to see 1946 for quite a while.
“He’s a lunatic,” Jackson snapped. “Let him go. We don’t need him.”
“How did I get to 1911?” Theda asked, staring at herself in the photograph. “Wearing the same coat and boots as I am now?”
“I’m going to catch up with him,” Conlin lit the smoke. “I’ll see you two outside.”
When he was gone, Jackson said quietly, “What do you want to do?”
“Who will stop my father if I don’t?” She lifted her chin toward him. “Who would I be if I didn’t try?” I wouldn’t be Harold Evora’s daughter, would have been the correct answer a month ago, but now sounded like a false advertisement.
He reached out and touched her cheek, lightly running his thumb over her cheekbone, and dropped his hand. “You’d be an oddball rich girl who wears ugly shoes.”
She laughed, the first real laugh since she left Philadelphia. “Let’s go, then.”
He took her hand and they walked out of Grand Central Terminal into times unknown.
THE END
LOOK FOR ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR THE BOOK VERSION OF THEDA’S TIME MACHINE, SHADOWTIME, BOOK ONE OF THEDA’S TIME MACHINE, COMING OUT IN 2025!
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The adventure continues! Yay!
Great job! I've been thoroughly hooked throughout!
Well done, Alison. I enjoyed the journey. You wrote relatable characters and a mind-twisting plot that kept me on its hook. All the best for publication in book form. And I look forward to Book 2.