Fragments (Out of Time) Read online

  “And nearly got us killed,” Simon said.

  Sir David nodded regretfully. “We’d hoped to avoid that, but it was a risk we had to take. I hope you understand, I don’t take these things lightly, but in times of war difficult decisions have to be made. I don’t like involving civilians in these things, but Hitler has brought the war to our doorstep. Some things can’t be avoided. And, I think it’s safe to say, you’re not quite the average civilians, are you?”

  Elizabeth flushed guiltily and cast a nervous glance to Simon who looked completely undisturbed. If she could ever teach him poker, they would make a mint.

  Sir David smiled and waved a placating hand. “It’s all right. I don’t expect you to answer that. Regardless of my personal curiosity, which is piqued by the way, I’ve been asked by the Home Secretary not to press the matter. You’ve some very important friends here, it seems. I think the Prime Minister himself might have given the order.”

  “Churchill?” Evan said slowly and thoughtfully.

  Sir David arched an eyebrow. “Unless something drastic has happened, yes. Now, about the Shard.”

  Jack noticed Simon and Elizabeth’s hesitation. “You can trust him. If we can’t, our problems are a lot bigger than that thing.”

  Sir David stood. “I give you my word. It will be safe.”

  Elizabeth knew he could have just taken it from them. Just like Jack could have. She nodded to Simon. It was the right thing. With some hesitation, Simon handed Sir David the small leather-bound package and she felt a weight lift from her shoulders.

  Sir David unwrapped it, studied it for a moment and handed it to one of his men. “Right then. Will you be staying in England long?” he said it as though he were politely asking them about their vacation plans.

  Simon replied in kind. “We’d like to return to the States as quickly as possible.”

  Elizabeth was still a few pages behind. The realization that they’d actually done it, that the Shard was safe and not their responsibility anymore was still sinking in.

  “Of course,” Sir David said. “If my office can be of service in making arrangements, please contact my secretary.” He handed Simon his card. “She’ll make sure you arrive home safely.”

  “Thank you.” Simon and Sir David shook hands.

  Sir David turned to Jack. “As for you. I’ll smooth things over with the Brig. He’ll understand.”

  “That’d be a first,” Jack said.

  Sir David chuckled and extended his hand. “Well done, Jack.”

  Jack frowned, but shook his hand. “I’m sure glad you’re on our side.”

  Sir David laughed lightly. “Mr. Eldridge, Mr. and Mrs. Cross, safe journey.”

  He and his entourage left, and Elizabeth felt at loose ends. After being on the run nearly every minute since they’d arrived, she felt a strange sense of loss now that the Shard was actually safe.

  Jack plopped down onto the sofa. “So. Who wants to go to the movies?”

  “Maybe later, Jack,” Elizabeth said. She looked at Simon. They’d missed the eclipse and there was no telling how long it might be until the next one. She’d been so busy with the here and now, she’d never given much thought to what came next. “What do we do now, Simon?”

  “Make arrangements to go home,” he said, loosening his tie. “Back to the States, I suppose.”

  She realized they couldn’t exactly talk about things openly with Jack in the room, but going back to the States was probably their best bet. She loved England, but there was still a war on and it would be safer to wait for the eclipse back home, if they could find a way to get there. She was running down the possibilities in her mind when she noticed that Evan was being very quiet. He had that far away look in his eyes again. “Are you all right, Mr. Eldridge?”

  His eyes refocused and he turned to her. “I think I know where I left my watch.”

  ~~~

  “We shoulda gone to the movies,” Jack said. “This place gives me the creeps.”

  “I second that emotion,” Elizabeth said.

  Simon humphed as he paid for the tickets. “It’s just wax. You’re the one who wanted to tag along, Wells. I’m sure the Hope movie has seats.”

  “And miss the excitement?” Jack said. “I don’t know much, but I do know if there’s action in this city, you three are going to be in the middle of it. And I don’t want to miss it.”

  The only good thing about Madame Tussauds Wax Museum was that it was near Baker Street. However, a visit to Sherlock Holmes would have to wait for another time. They went inside the museum. It had just opened and they had the place to themselves.

  “This way, I think,” Evan said.

  The wax museum was set up as a series of narrow, themed rooms. The corridors were dark except for the mood lights spotlighting the wax tableau. Some of the figures bore a remarkable resemblance to their real life counterparts. Being so close, but still just off enough was what gave the figures a ghoulish quality that made Elizabeth’s skin crawl. They looked real, but they lacked souls. Even the ones that were supposed to be friendly had a macabre feel to them.

  It had always amazed her that it had become, and still was, a popular tourist destination and had even sprouted satellite museums all over the world. Come on, darling; let’s go look at the gruesome wax figures with lifeless eyes. Don’t forget to bring the kiddies! The whole thing made her shiver. They couldn’t get out soon enough.

  They followed Evan from darkened room to darkened room. Elizabeth kept her eyes away from the figures for most of the Chamber of Horrors, but peeked just long enough to see five heads on spikes and a bloody corpse lashed to a torture wheel. She closed her eyes and wished they’d gone to the Bob Hope movie.

  “You’d think the war would have given them enough of this,” Jack said.

  True to form, Simon examined each exhibit for historical inaccuracies and gleefully announced each that he found.

  Finally, Evan led them to the main room, the Grand Hall, where most of the historical figures were displayed. It was much larger than the other rooms, perhaps thirty feet across, but just as disturbing and dark. They passed by Napoleon and Richard III, Henry the VIII and Benjamin Franklin until Evan stopped at the figure of Winston Churchill.

  “I didn’t dream it,” he said. “At least, I don’t think so. Keep a lookout, will you?”

  Luckily, the museum was practically deserted. For the moment, at least, they had the entire hall to themselves. Evan stepped up onto the platform and a loud siren wailed. He froze.

  Elizabeth’s heart stopped and she reached for Simon’s hand.

  “It’s not him,” Jack said. He looked up at the ceiling as though he could see the sky. “Air raid.”

  Evan reached into Churchill’s pocket and pulled out his watch. “Thank you, Prime Minister!”

  “Back this way, I think,” Jack said and they all followed him. They were almost to the exit of the Grand Hall when the bomb hit. The first explosion shook the floor, the second, third, forth and fifth shook everything else.

  Anyone who wasn’t thrown to the floor, dived down on to it and took cover as best they could. Elizabeth screamed and Simon pulled her to him. He tucked her head under his chest and covered her with his body. The explosions kept coming, louder and louder, one on top of the other, thunderously loud. The building shuddered with each impact. The interior lights flickered. The figures seemed to appear and disappear in the flashing lights. Another explosion came, very close. The whole world shook. Bits of wall and ceiling tumbled to the floor. Dust rained down. And then, the lights failed and they were plunged into total darkness.

  As abruptly as they had begun, the bombs stopped.

  Simon’s weight on top of her was heavy and still. “Simon?”

  Tortuous seconds slipped by before he replied, “I’m all right. Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head, but realized he couldn’t see her. “I’m okay. Mr. Eldridge? Jack?”

  She heard groans across the room and then t
he sound of a match being lit. She saw Jack’s face in the circle of light from the small flame. He reached down to Evan and helped him sit up. “We’re okay.”

  Jack stood and gave Evan a hand up. He held the match out into the darkness. “Cluster bomb. Not good.”

  He and Evan joined Elizabeth and Simon in the center of the room. His match burned itself out and they were in the dark again.

  “Wait,” Simon said. “Don’t light another just yet. Do you smell that?”

  Elizabeth sniffed the air. Smoke.

  “No, but I hear it,” Jack said.

  He lit another match and they picked their way over the rubble and fallen figures to where the entry to the Chamber of Horrors was. It was a pile of bricks now, taller than a man. He and Simon removed a few bricks and through small holes in the pile of rubble, red fire glowed. Elizabeth could just see two of the wax heads on spikes. Their faces sloughed off, their hair on fire, and the wax skin dripped down, their faces melting. She recoiled from the sight. It brought back memories she’d tried hard to forget. Panic knotted in her stomach. “Why is there so much fire?”

  “Incendiaries,” Jack explained. “Also not good.”

  “There was another door,” Simon said. “Back by Oliver Cromwell.”

  “Who?” Jack said.

  “Give me the matches,” Simon said.

  “Light these,” Evan said. He held out two candles. “I don’t think King George will mind.”

  Simon lit them and they walked back across the room to the door by Cromwell. It wasn’t blocked.

  “Thank heaven,” Evan said.

  But Simon held up a hand for everyone to wait. He handed Elizabeth the candle and put his free hand against the door. He snatched it back and shook it. “Damn it.”

  “Are you burned?” Elizabeth said.

  “No,” he said. “But we can’t use that door.”

  They searched the perimeter for another exit. Fallen wax figures littered the floor like the dead — arms broken off, faces cracked. There were no other doors. Both exits were blocked. The building was on fire, and they were trapped.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Smoke started to fill the room.

  Simon handed Elizabeth his handkerchief. “Cover your mouth.”

  “You should use it,” she said, handing it back to him.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Chivalry was great, but she wasn’t about to let him choke while she used a filter. A piece of jagged rock lay on the floor at her feet. She knelt down and used the sharp edge to tear the handkerchief in half and handed Simon half.

  “Partners, right?” she said.

  Reluctantly he took his half and covered his mouth.

  Jack soon did the same with his handkerchief and handed Evan the other piece.

  “Come on fire brigade,” Jack whispered under his breath. He looked up nervously, hopefully.

  A loud cracking and popping sound came from one side of the room. Instinctively, Elizabeth took a step away from it.

  “Move back,” Simon said.

  Everyone edged back away from the sound. There was a strange hissing sound and more popping, then a moment of silence. Then, hundreds of pounds of wood and brick mixed with fire fell from the ceiling about twenty feet away. It was like a giant had stuck his foot through the floor above them with a thunderous roar.

  The debris crushed Napoleon. An avalanche of fiery embers tumbled down into the room through the hole. The Duke of Wellington shimmered in the heat, caught fire and melted like ice cream in the sun.

  Elizabeth squeezed Simon’s hand even more tightly as they all moved as far away from the fire as they could. She really did not like fires. She’d almost died in one on King’s yacht and since then had developed a healthy aversion to burning alive. As more fire poured into the room, a jolt of panic ran through her body like an electric shock. She had the odd feeling that this was how a horse in a barn-fire felt. She tried to catch her breath, to calm herself down, but the feeling of panic grew.

  Even more of the ceiling gave way and the hole in the ceiling across the room grew larger and closer. More fire poured into the Grand Hall. The smoke was getting thicker, darker. The heat from the fire felt like a living thing, pushing against them, shoving them against the far wall.

  Elizabeth gripped Simon’s arm and felt the leading edge of hysteria in her voice. “Simon?”

  He understood. She’d told him about the nightmares. And just as she’d held him what seemed like years ago to comfort him when his nightmares overtook him, he held her now. “We’re not finished yet,” he said.

  “Oh, what I wouldn’t do for a little lunar eclipse right about now,” Evan said, gripping his watch. Sweat ran down his cheek and the fire reflected off his pale face.

  “I was thinking of a nice cold glass of American beer, personally,” Jack said.

  “The moon.” An idea tickled the edge of Elizabeth’s mind. In a flash, she realized it had always been there. A bit of knowledge that had nested in the back of her mind. She finally opened the door and let it out.

  “The key,” she said. She pulled the chain from around her neck that held the small key Teddy had given her as a gift in 1906.

  “What about it?” Simon asked.

  “I asked Teddy what this was when he gave it to me. He said it was the moon.”

  Simon looked at her in confusion.

  “The moon, Simon. It’s the watch key.”

  Understanding, Simon took the key from her.

  “Teddy?” Evan said. “That crazy wonderful little man! Do you think…?”

  Jack looked at them as if they’d lost their minds. “Who’s Teddy?”

  Was it really possible that Teddy had created a way for them to travel without an eclipse? The moon was the key and the key was the moon. Another part of the ceiling collapsed and there was no time left to wonder.

  Simon hurriedly took out his watch. “Everyone hold hands. If this works, we need to be touching each other.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jack said. “If what works?”

  Elizabeth held out her hand. “You’re about to get that cold beer. I hope.”

  Jack clearly had no idea what she was talking about.

  “Trust me,” she said.

  He nodded and took her hand and grabbed Evan’s hand with his other.

  Elizabeth gripped Simon’s arm.

  “No matter what happens,” he said.

  “As long as we’re together.”

  “Right. Here we go.” Simon took a breath and inserted the key into the watch and turned it. Nothing happened. It couldn’t end like this. It couldn’t. Elizabeth’s anxiety reached a fever pitch. She trembled and turned to look at Simon as the fire across the room crawled closer.

  And then, Elizabeth felt the familiar tugging sensation deep in her stomach. “Don’t let go!”

  The electric blue light from the watch mingled with red from the fire and the world around them shook itself apart.

  ~~~

  The roaring of the fire and the creaking of the collapsing building were gone in an instant, replaced by the quiet of Sebastian’s study and the soft trilling of a songbird outside the window. Elizabeth felt like her entire body was still vibrating at a high frequency. She shivered to shake off the effect.

  “Hoo,” Evan gasped, summing everyone’s feelings. “That was more intense, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Simon said. He put the watch down and turned Elizabeth to face him. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded. That was too close for comfort.

  Jack stumbled, nearly falling to his knees. He looked pale and squinted with the pain of an instant and crushing headache. “Okay, what just happened?”

  Ignoring Jack, Simon leaned down and kissed Elizabeth. She slipped her arms around his shoulders. When they pulled apart she sighed in relief. For a moment there, she really thought they might not make it.

  “That’s sweet,” Jack said in a tone that clearly meant he didn’
t think so. “Maybe someone could tell me what just happened and where the hell we are?”

  “My boy,” Evan said, clapping Jack on the shoulder “You’ve just traveled through time.”

  Jack looked at Evan as though the old man had finally lost it and then turned to Elizabeth for a better explanation.

  “This might be hard for you to believe,” she said remembering her first experience, how confused and hung over she’d felt.

  “Are we dead?”

  “No, we’re just—”

  Simon poured Jack a drink. “Have you ever read any HG Wells?”

  Jack flopped into a chair. “I feel like I went three rounds with Louis. And then had some bad shrimp.” He picked up a nearby wastebasket and hugged it like a teddy bear. Despite that, he managed to drink down the scotch Simon had given him in one burning gulp. He grimaced and then looked up at them. “Okay, so what’s this time travel thing?”

  They spent the next half hour explaining time travel to Jack. Like everything else, he took it in stride. Just another adventure.

  “So this is the future?”

  “To you,” Simon said, “Yes.”

  He looked around Sebastian’s study. “Doesn’t look that different.”

  Elizabeth laughed. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

  “Can I stay? Or do you have to send me back?”

  Elizabeth had been so focused on not ending up a pile of ashes she hadn’t thought that far ahead. She didn’t want to send him back into the middle of a war, but the idea of Jack running lose in the future…There was no telling what sort of trouble he’d get himself into. “I don’t know,” she finally said.

  “We’ll discuss that when we get back,” Simon said.

  “Where are you going?” Jack said, looking mildly alarmed. “You’re not going back there, are you?”

  “No,” Simon said. He smiled at Evan. “We have somewhere else to go.”

  Relief didn’t begin to explain the expression on Evan’s face.

  “Unless you’d rather go alone,” Elizabeth said and took the key out of Simon’s watch and held it out to Evan.

  “No, that’s yours.” Evan put the key in her palm and closed her fingers over it. “Hold on tight to it.”