I frowned. “I thought you didn’t like visiting Rose much anymore.”
“Not to see Rose. She’s not so bad anymore, though. She’s been nicer. I meant to see my mother.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because this is when I was born.”
Part Five
Shatterdate
One
Leave tomorrow when you’re called.
I stared at Curtis as he continued. “When I started, anyway. My birthday’s in three days, but Mother says I was hard coming. That’s what she says. ‘The boy was so hard coming, the girl almost died.’ That’s a silly way to say it, though. She wasn’t a girl when she had me.”
I half stood, bumping my head on the low ceiling. “You’re coming this soon? I mean you came … this soon? I thought she wasn’t due … I mean, she didn’t look … Oh, man, I gotta go.”
“Why?” said Curtis. “You don’t even know my mother. And it doesn’t matter. I was born. Why do anything?”
In a sense, that was true, wasn’t it? I was going to get home. Curtis was going to be born. Was there anything I could do to change anything?
The boy was so hard coming, the girl almost died.
What was her mother’s stupid plan, anyway, to just let her daughter have a baby all by herself in that half-converted barn? And me, a kid, what was I going to do? I didn’t even want to be near the birth of a baby.
I clutched my hands into fists to stop the shaking. Things weren’t supposed to sneak up on me like this. I was from the future. I could travel in time.
I wasn’t supposed to deliver a baby. Professionals were supposed to do that.
Doctors.
Nurses.
“Curtis, I need a piece of paper and a pen, and I need you to sneak me back into the house, to the mirror. Can you do it?”
He frowned, but nodded.
Five minutes later, we were in Rose’s old room. “I’ve got this figured out,” I said to him. “I’m going into the future for a few minutes. When I come back, I’ll bring help.”
My first stop was ten years up, 1937. Empty as it had been for days. I looked at my watch and left a note:
Lilly,
If you’re really a nurse by 1947, meet me at 2:12 PM at the mirror on August 30. Rose is giving birth, and she needs your help. Please.
Kenny
Crossing my fingers, I went into 1947.
And for the first time that year, things started working the way I thought they should.
She was there. Ten years older and eyes filled with wonder, she was there.
She wore a plain blue dress, and her hair was shorter, a little darker. She carried a tightly packed leather bag.
“You got older,” I said.
She smiled, that same warm smile from … well, last month, but ten years ago as well. “You stayed the same.”
“You came.”
She shrugged. “How could I not? You know, I never saw you again? After Peg and I—” There was a noise outside. Lilly’s head whipped around. “Kenny, that might be Peg’s father. He’s been prowling all around the whole day. I think he’s getting desperate to find her. They’ll report her missing in a day or two. We’d best go.”
I had a million questions to ask her, but she was right. Thirty years ago, Rose needed help.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get going.”
“How can this work?” Lilly said. “It’s only supposed to open up for Peggy, isn’t it?”
I grinned, happy to be the one who knew. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ve got a key.”
The door to the carriage house banged open. I thrust my hand into my pocket to get the key and grabbed Lilly’s elbow.
“Wait,” she said.
I looked down the stairs. There, carrying another man over his shoulder, was John Wald. He grinned up at me.
“Well-timed, lad. I have him here, though a more tricksy rabbit has never bethump’d my wits.” He half turned and let me see the face of the man he was carrying, all tied up, the man who had shot me two months ago, still in what was left of his raincoat. He was, if anything, wilder now, but I knew at once it was him. Thick ropes bound him and a gag stopped his mouth, but he glared at me with silent, fiery hatred. It was, I was sure now, the same face as the man with the yellow tie. But there was something else. What was it?
“You caught him,” I said. “But how are you here? How did you know the right time?”
Wald smiled and touched his nose. “Auld John Wald knows many a hidden thing, Kennit. Where pass we that our tales may be expounded?”
“But wait. How is Prince Harming here? He put that mirror in water. How did he come through it? Never mind. I can’t deal with this now. We’re going back to 1917 to save Rose and the baby.”
Wald looked for the first time at Lilly. He grunted and smiled. “Lillian Huff, thou art a woman now, and fair with time indeed.”
She blushed. “Thank you, John. But it’s not Huff. I’m married now.”
“’Tis well and good. ’Tis how the world enblooms anew.” He started up the stairs, and for all his age, you would hardly know he was carrying a man on his back. “I know not how this fool fits in along this path, but hereabouts Peg’s father searches wild. I feel clasped to thy purpose, lad. I’ve bound him tight and must, I think me, bring this doom along.”
I didn’t particularly like the idea, but I couldn’t disagree. The idea of having Wald come along was comforting, and at least this way I would know where the crazy man was. For now I shoved aside the question of how he could be here.
At least he was tied up.
John seemed mildly surprised at my downtime access, but there was no time for questions. I let Lilly in first to see if the coast was clear. John needed my help to wrestle the wild man inside. As soon as he realized where we were going, he began to strain against his bonds. John grabbed him by his torn shirt-front and pulled him close. “Peace. Thou must be bound. We’ll help that girl to birth her child and then turn back to riddling thee.”
He went in first carrying the man’s shoulders while I, with my string and spoons, followed trying to help, but mostly just avoiding kicks in the face.
Lilly was waiting in the Silverlands. “I can hear talking downstairs. We’ll have to just go out and in again.”
As soon as he emerged into 1937, the wild man began to scream into his gag, the frantic shriek of a desperate animal. We carried him out, Wald almost tripping on Lilly’s bed, Lilly herself shutting the door to give us a few seconds extra. “Hurry,” she whispered.
I held onto his feet by the rope and went right back into the mirror as soon as I was all the way out. The Silverlands widened by the day, and the pain of that long, cold passage was distracting.
As I stepped down from the low dresser, the man kicked me with all his strength. His feet caught me in the chest and I was flung back, tumbling over Rose’s bed and falling between it and the dresser.
The wild man was on his feet first, and before I had a chance to react, he launched himself at me. I had nowhere to go. His full weight fell on me. My left arm was trapped under the bed, and my right pressed against the dresser. He thrashed frantically, trying to hit me in any way he could. His head slammed against mine, and some part of him dug into my stomach. I felt what little air I had been able to get into me rush out. A second, then third blow to my solar plexus, and I was about to throw up. All the while, his muffled screams filled my ears.
“Leave him alone!” shouted a voice, and the man was partially heaved away. I tried to push upward, but now there were two bodies pressing on me, struggling and grunting. I tried to punch, but there was no room.