Fragments (Out of Time) Read online

  FRAGMENTS

  (Out of Time, Book 3)

  Monique Martin

  Copyright Notice

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 Monique Martin

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission.

  Cover Photo: Karen Wunderman

  Cover Layout: TERyvisions

  Formatting: Jason G. Anderson

  ISBN 10: 0984660720

  ISBN 13: 978-0-9846607-2-8

  For more information, please contact

  [email protected]

  Or visit: www.moniquemartin.weebly.com

  Acknowledgements

  This book would not have been possible without the help and support of many people: Robin, who I can't thank enough and who makes writing fun; Dad and Anne; Mom and George; Eddie and Carole; Michael; Melissa; Mel; JM; Vicki and all the wonderful people who sent notes of encouragement along the way.

  I’d also like to thank the thousands of people who help preserve the past through books, websites, museums and sheer will.

  Chapter One

  “Remorseless. Malevolent. Putrescent. This creature will feed on your fear like scavengers sucking marrow from a bone.”

  Elizabeth watched Simon pace restlessly at the front of the lecture hall. The tension was palpable in every word, in every stride he took across the auditorium floor. His cut-glass British accent was sharp, but his deep baritone voice was deceptively gentle and subtly magnetic. She’d always thought half the students in his class came just to hear him speak.

  “Far worse than the Harpy of Greek mythology, this harridan will try to poison you,” he said before stopping to grip the edges of the lectern and lean forward. Elizabeth felt herself mirroring his movement and edged forward in her seat.

  Simon’s eyes fixed on hers and the amber flecks in his deep green eyes sparked with intensity. “Mark my words,” he continued, “You will be eaten alive.”

  Elizabeth frowned. “I’m sure your Aunt isn’t that bad, Simon.”

  “You haven’t met her yet.”

  Elizabeth’s laugh echoed through the empty lecture hall. Hours ago, the last student from Simon’s Introduction to Occult Studies class had fled the university eager to get a head start on Spring Break. She was anxious to do the same and would have if Simon hadn’t felt compelled to warn her about his family. Again. She gathered her bag, lighter now that the final papers had all been graded, and joined him near the podium. “It’s been ten years since you’ve seen them. Maybe they’ve mellowed.”

  Simon shook his head. “Scotch and red wine mellow, but not my relatives, I’m afraid.”

  Elizabeth had endured Simon’s warnings for the last few weeks, which was odd since the whole vacation to England idea had been his. At first she’d thought he was just being dramatic, but now with zero hour fast approaching, she wasn’t so sure.

  “Last chance to back out,” Simon said.

  Her stomach tightened a little bit more, but she waved a dismissive hand. “It’ll be fine.”

  “I still think we should go straight to my grandfather’s house in Hastings.”

  “And miss seeing Grey Hall, birthplace of the great Simon Cross?” Elizabeth still couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that Simon was actually a baronet and had a big old country estate to prove it.

  “One night,” Simon said, “and even that will sorely test the levels of my patience.”

  “You have levels?”

  “Amusing.”

  Elizabeth tipped her head back and put on her best Cockney accent. “You must be barmy, guv’nah.”

  “You promised. “

  “Right ho!”

  “Elizabeth.”

  “That was the last time,” she said and sealed her promise with a kiss on his cheek. “I swear.”

  Simon didn’t look convinced.

  “Pip…pip?”

  Simon tried to frown, but couldn’t quite manage it. Although, the smile that touched the corners of his eyes didn’t last long either.

  “I’ve got it out of my system now. Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t embarrass you.”

  Simon’s eyes clouded over. “That, I can assure you, is not what I’m worried about.”

  “I had my shots,” she said with a grin that quickly fell. “I don’t actually need shots, do I?”

  Simon chuckled. “No.”

  “Well, it’s my first time out of the country, if you don’t count the time I got lost in Juarez, which you shouldn’t because I didn’t even know I was in Mexico until I wasn’t anymore.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense at all.”

  “I know,” Elizabeth said as she slipped her arm through his. “Now, come on, I still have packing to do.”

  “Still?”

  “And I need to stop at the mall.”

  “God help me.”

  ~~~

  Being an experienced time traveler somehow didn’t prepare Elizabeth for actual travel travel. Not that it was bad. In fact, it was nice, very nice. When the town car pulled up in front of Simon’s house, she should have known that this trip wasn’t going to be like the last time she’d traveled by plane. Then, she’d taken a Southwest flight from Santa Barbara to Lubbock and sat squished between a young man wearing half a bottle of Axe Body Spray and a businessman with an unfortunate glandular problem. This time, she wasn’t flying cattle class. Heck, they weren’t even flying first class. Leave it to Simon to find an airline with an upper class, class.

  Each passenger had his or her own suite that was nicer and more spacious than her first apartment. Each suite was really a pod with privacy partitions like a work cubicle and a large reclining seat that extended into a full-length bed.

  Elizabeth tried to sleep. She really did, but it was impossible. She knelt on her seat and peeked over the partition at Simon. “Whatcha doin’?”

  Simon kept his eyes on his book. “Playing the banjo.”

  “Very funny.”

  Simon put his book down and looked up at her. He studied her for a long moment. He’d been doing that a lot lately. Just looking at her. At first, she’d thought it was sweet. He’d look at her, smile and then look away, almost shy, which would have been charming if it weren’t so alarming. Simon was many things, but shy really wasn’t one of them. Now, when he looked at her, deep, deep into her and then looked away, she had a vaguely uneasy feeling. Like something needed to be said and he just couldn’t bring himself to say it.

  “Why don’t you have a drink and try to get some sleep?” Simon finally said. “It’s a long flight.”

  “I know,” she said, but didn’t budge.

  Simon pushed himself up from his seat and kissed her. “Try to sleep, darling. You’ll feel better if you do.”

  Elizabeth chewed her bottom lip and nodded as she slid back down into her seat. She pulled the cocktail menu out of the seatback pocket and looked for something warm and boozy.

  “You could always read Aumond’s last book,” came Simon’s voice from behind the partition. “That always does it for me.”

  Elizabeth snorted and rolled her eyes at the gentle barb. A cocktail was sounding better all the time. He’d finally come to understand why she’d considered a job with another professor, but he hadn’t forgotten her wandering academic eye. Simon never forgot.

  Elizabeth wished she could sleep; it just wasn’t going to be possible. She called for the flight attendant and ordered a hot toddy. It
couldn’t hurt.

  Aside from the excitement of seeing England and getting a glimpse into Simon’s past, she was beginning to think she was a little, itty-bitty bit terrified of flying. Well, not the actual flying, but the potential crashing. It was silly. She knew the physics involved in flying, but she couldn’t shake the absurd and intense feeling that her will and her will alone kept the plane in the air. Her life and the lives of everyone on board depended on her ability to stay alert and shop in the Sky Mall.

  The hot toddy arrived frighteningly fast and she watched the flight attendant glide back down the aisle. She took a sip. It didn’t help. There was always shopping.

  Sadly, as appealing as it was to imagine being able to smoke meat in the comfort of her own kitchen or ionize her water for youthfulness and wellness, her mind kept wandering off the pages and back onto her relationship with Simon.

  Their trip to 1906 San Francisco had given them both a fresh perspective. There had been a much-needed shift in their relationship that gave Elizabeth confidence in their future. They were partners now. Elizabeth’s personal life had never been so full of promise. Her goals for her professional life on the other hand, weren’t as clear.

  She squirmed in her seat and toyed with her drink. She’d mastered her Master’s and could continue on for a doctorate or…something. What that something was she didn’t know, but she did know that she owed it to herself to see if she could put a few names to it. She’d always thought she’d end up teaching, like Simon, but now she wasn’t so sure.

  Elizabeth spent her life reading about the impossible only to find herself face to face with it. It was hard to get excited about reading someone else’s theories based on bits of ancient text and third hand stories when she could be out there experiencing it first hand.

  It was all the dang watch’s fault. Who knew in less than a year she’d go from grad student to time traveler? She remembered the night clearly. Time traveling for the first time wasn’t exactly something a person forgot. Simon’s grandfather’s effects had been delivered to Simon’s house and she helped him go through them. Amidst the strange artifacts was grandfather Sebastian’s pocket watch. But this was no ordinary pocket watch; it was a time travel device. After they unwittingly activated the watch during an eclipse, she and Simon traveled back in time to 1929 New York City.

  It seemed all of the stories Sebastian had regaled Simon with as a child, adventures in Eighteenth Century France, the American Civil War, and the rest, hadn’t been imaginative stories at all. His grandfather was a member of something called the Council for Temporal Studies, a group of time traveling explorers and anthropologists.

  When she and Simon had been transported to New York, she’d been a victim of circumstance, but later, when the Council for Temporal Studies had come to ask for her help, she’d gone to 1906 San Francisco willingly. Both experiences had changed her, changed the way she saw herself. Her world had gone from the narrow confines of academia to something where anything not only seemed possible, but apparently was.

  Elizabeth stood at the proverbial crossroads and all the lights were green.

  ~~~

  Elizabeth stared at the luggage carousel in a daze. The sleep she’d fought so hard against came, but never stayed. Half asleep and half awake, she leaned against Simon and watched the bags float by.

  “Bugger.”

  “What’s wrong?” she asked through a yawn.

  When Simon didn’t answer, she followed his gaze. Behind the ropes that separated passengers from picker-uppers stood an expressionless man with a black suit, black cap tucked under one arm and a neatly printed sign in the other that read: “Sir Simon Cross.”

  “I told them not to send a car,” Simon grumbled through clenched teeth.

  “Damned inconsiderate.” Honestly, Elizabeth didn’t see the problem. It clearly beat the alternatives of fighting for a cab or walking God knew how far. Of course, Simon knew his family better than she did. If sending a car and a driver to save them from public transportation was an affront, then color her affronted. Also, relieved.

  “I specifically said that—” Simon started, but Elizabeth cut him off when she saw their luggage coming down the chute.

  “Bag! The black one.”

  Simon leaned forward to look down the carousel. “They’re all black.”

  “The one with the squiggly red ribbon.”

  Simon reached for the bag and heaved it off the conveyor with a grunt. “Good God.”

  Elizabeth checked the tag to make sure it was hers and then surveyed their luggage. “That’s it. We’re good. And,” she said, touching his arm, “it was a nice gesture to send the car.”

  “It wasn’t— Oh, all right. I’ll pretend it was. But I’m doing this for your benefit and not theirs.”

  “Noted. And thank you.”

  It was still dark when they left the airport. Elizabeth tried to see through the tinted back windows of the car, but it was all just a blur of lights.

  “There isn’t much to see,” Simon said. “We’re outside London and Grey Hall is still over an hour’s drive from here.”

  Elizabeth slid across the seat and rested her head on Simon’s shoulder. He put his arm around her and pulled her close. “But it’s England,” she said not trying to hide the awe in her voice.

  “Yes, England.”

  There was a longing in his voice that Elizabeth hadn’t heard before. “You miss it, don’t you?”

  “Some things, yes. A great deal.”

  “Well, it is home.”

  “It was once.”

  They lapsed into a tired, but comfortable, silence as they made their way through the darkness and early morning traffic. Elizabeth snuggled into Simon’s side and let her mind wander.

  Simon’s life in England was a bit of a mystery to her. She knew he’d moved to America shortly after Oxford and that his parents had died in a car crash about fifteen years ago. He didn’t talk about them very often. Estranged in life and in death. Their passing meant that Grey Hall and the title of baronet was his. He seemed almost ashamed of both of them. If she’d been a Countess or something, she’d be counting all over the place. Or not. Class systems and titles weren’t something she understood. All she knew was that for Simon, going home meant visiting ghosts of a life he’d tried too hard to forget.

  Between the cloud-like suspension of the Bentley and the warmth of Simon’s body, Elizabeth felt herself drifting on the edge of sleep. She tried to stay awake, but the next thing she remembered was Simon brushing back her hair and kissing her temple.

  “Wake up, love. There’s something I’d like to show you.”

  Elizabeth sat up and rubbed her eyes. It took her a moment to shake the sleep from her brain. “Are we there?” All she could see outside the window was a big, dark hedge.

  “Almost.” Simon got out and came around to her side of the car. “You don’t mind a bit of a walk, do you?”

  Elizabeth shook her head and took Simon’s offered hand as she stepped out of the car. The cold morning air helped her shed the last remnants of sleep. She arched her back and stretched, admiring the enormous hedge that appeared to run the length of England.

  “We’ll walk from here,” Simon told the driver. “Please take our bags up to the house.”

  “Of course, Sir Simon,” acknowledged the driver, touching his cap.

  After the car pulled away and disappeared down the lane, Simon took Elizabeth’s hand and led her to the other side of the road.

  “Sir Simon,” Elizabeth said with a giggle. “That kills me.”

  When they reached the far side of the road, her laughter died. Her breath caught in her chest. She’d heard of breathtaking, but this was the first time she’d actually experienced it. Grey Hall was breathtaking. Beneath the still-lifting fog of morning, gentle, rolling hills spread out as far as she could see. A blanket of lush pastures with small thickets of trees and hedges created a patchwork quilt of different shades of green. A grove of trees formed a cr
escent around the glassy water of a pond at the base of a grand sloping lawn. At the top of the lawn was a manor house right out of “Pride and Prejudice.”

  “Shaka Zulu,” Elizabeth muttered. “You really grew up here?” She wasn’t sure if she was still dreaming or not. This couldn’t be real. People, real people, didn’t live like this. Mr. Darcy lived like this. Royalty lived like this. Okay, maybe Madonna lived like this, but people she knew did not.

  “I spent more time at school and Grandfather’s, but yes, I did. This is my favorite view. Close enough to see its charms and far enough away to be free of them.”

  “Was it really so bad?”

  Simon smiled and shrugged. “Is any childhood as terrible or as wonderful as we remember it to be?”

  Elizabeth squeezed his hand. “There must be some good memories.”

  “There are,” he conceded and then smiled down at her. “This will be one of them.”

  He pulled her into his arms and kissed her with such aching gentleness that she suddenly wondered if something was wrong.

  “Are you ready?” he asked, making it sound as if they were about to storm the beaches of Normandy.

  “I guess so.” Elizabeth nodded and Simon turned to face the road home.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Chapter Two

  Every muscle in Simon’s body tensed as they neared the house. He felt like one of Pavlov’s dogs. Just the sight of Grey Hall made his entire being clench in preparation for some potential battle, some cutting remark, some painful disappointment. The past hung like an albatross around his neck. Molting.

  He pushed out a bracing breath. “All hope abandon, ye who enter in.”

  “You know, for a comedy, The Divine Comedy is not a lot of laughs,” Elizabeth said.

  Simon smiled and then looked at the front door. “No, and you won’t find many in there either, I’m afraid.”