That sounded like Emma. After years of working with her, I knew she was always surrounded by a blast radius of toxic drama. She was doing good work. But she also loved to pit her friends and followers against each other, demanding unreasonable loyalty, or seducing people then going cold. She played so many power games in her personal life that it was hard for me to believe she truly wanted to abolish power structures.
Soph leaned on her elbows and flicked ash onto a dainty shell plate. “Maybe Lucy enjoys the publicity because she wants more fame. She’s probably never had to struggle for anything in her life.”
“I tell you, she was a slave!” Aseel banged a hand on the table, dark eyes narrowed. “She’s struggled!”
“It’s well documented that she was a slave,” I said. Both women stared at me. That’s when I realized my mistake. The evidence had only come to light a few years ago, in my present.
“What do you mean, well documented?” Aseel had a knife in her voice. “Documented by whom?”
“Well, I… I guess… scholars?”
“How do you know that?” Soph was wary. “What did you do after working with the anarchists?”
I thought about our conversation up to this point. Both women were clearly open to radical ideas, but they had a healthy skepticism, too. They were against violence and sectarian drama. So I decided to take the risk. “I’m going to level with you. I’m a traveler. In my present, scholars have discovered strong evidence that Lucy Parsons was African American. A former slave.”
“African… American?” Aseel tried out the unfamiliar term.
“People study women in your time?” Soph’s face lit up.
“Yeah. In fact… I’m on a mission for a group of people who research women’s history.” I really hoped that I wasn’t making a giant mistake. But if I wanted their help, they needed to know.
Soph sat up, smoothed her collar, and poured another round. “Okay. Tell us everything.”
I cleared my throat and felt a nervous tingle. “I’m a geoscientist, and I’m trying to make an edit in the timeline.” Aseel and Soph gaped at me. What I’d admitted was taboo, even among subversives. The Chronology Academy hadn’t been founded yet, but deliberately editing history could still get you banned from the Machines.
I continued. “I can’t tell you much, but I’ve witnessed men—travelers—trying to revert women’s rights to education. Trying to control our bodies, sometimes lethally. I’m trying to stop them.” I thought of Berenice again, and quelled a rush of terror. “I came here because they seem to be taking inspiration from Anthony Comstock. I don’t think he’s their leader, but he’s some kind of… historical beacon.”
They glanced at each other. Soph toyed with her glass but didn’t drink. “Comstock arrested my friend Penny in New York. He… he dragged her to the police station when she was in the middle of an abortion, along with her patient. They let the poor woman die, bleeding on the floor of the police station. Penny committed suicide rather than go to prison.”
I was shocked. “I heard him give a speech in New York where he bragged about how many abortionists he’d driven to suicide. But I thought he was saying it for effect.”
Soph shook her head and I realized she was on the brink of tears. “I’m so sorry,” I said gently. “That’s why I want to make this edit and stop the men who follow him.”
Aseel looked grim. “That’s a tall order. Comstock is a special agent for the post office. He can snoop on anyone’s mail and have them arrested if he thinks it’s obscene or indecent.”
I nodded. “He’s looking for newsletters exactly like the ones you write, Soph. He’s gotten some courts to agree that information about birth control is obscene.”
“I know.” Soph walked to the window, looking mournfully into the empty street. “I’ve worked very hard to stay out of his way.”
“How do you plan to make this edit?” Aseel demanded.
I desperately wanted to spill the whole plan, but I’d already broken too many rules. Revealing the future was against the law in most time periods. It was also a form of cruelty, a theft of people’s agency. Of course some travelers did it, but I wasn’t going to stoop that low. I needed a way to explain myself without causing harm.
“Comstock is making laws now that will last generations. But we can’t stop him directly. I’ve already tried that, with the anarchists. We have to taint his ideas somehow, make them seem repugnant to the general public.”
Aseel cleared her throat in the same way she did at the theater when she was running out of patience. “Very well, but as I asked before, how are you going to do that specifically?”
“Comstock is trying to branch out beyond New York and go national with his crusade. That much he’s already announced in various places. It’s a matter of public record. You can see why the theaters of the Midway are something he’d be very, very interested in.” That was as much as I could tell them, without veering into dangerous territory.
“He’s already shut down some theaters in New York, right?” Aseel asked.
“He has. And some bars. But the Midway could turn the tide back against him. If I can interfere with his work there, I think I can make the edit. But I can’t do it alone.”
Soph’s face had gone from somber to mischievous. “I’m in.”
“You are?” Aseel was dubious. “I mean, I like you, Tess. But I barely know you.”
“I understand that. We don’t have to do anything yet. All I ask is that you keep your eyes open and watch for any hints that Comstock or his YMCA boys might be coming.”
Aseel raised her glass. “Okay. I’ll drink to that.”
We all drank, but a mood of sobriety had overtaken us and it wasn’t long before we retired to bed.
EIGHT
BETH
Irvine, Alta California (1992 C.E.)
A couple of postcards came, but Hamid didn’t write much on them. One featured a bizarre 1930s incarnation of Mickey and Minnie, and another was a 1970s “family photo” of Donald Duck’s more obscure relatives. I grabbed them out of the mail before my parents did, tucking them into my SAT study guide between the sections on multiple choice guessing and algebra review. The only people who knew about me and Hamid were my friends, and I planned to keep it that way.
I got Hamid’s final postcard on a scalding day when the air conditioner filled our house with an otherworldly whistling noise. In a supposedly happy scene from Disney World, people dressed as the Seven Dwarfs ogled Snow White in an especially creepy way. I flipped it over to read his note: “See you after July 15 I hope.” That was a week away. I immediately ran to the bathroom and threw up. The alien was back in my chest, and I had to get it out.
Or maybe something else was going on. The next morning, I threw up again. On the third day of hurling, I started to panic. My period was late and I was barfing for no reason. I kept thinking about a movie we’d watched in seventh-grade health class about a girl who died from a coat hanger abortion. The teacher gave us one of those unconvincing “I’m your buddy” speeches about how abstinence was the only way to prevent pregnancy. I could still hear his voice in my mind as he dispensed this wisdom. “There’s one simple rule: Wait. Until. You. Are. Married.” He punctuated each word by smacking a fist into his open hand. “That’s why sex education is so simple. Because there’s only one rule. See how easy that is?” He grinned right at me and winked. I think it was supposed to be fatherly, but it made me nauseous.