Fragments (Out of Time) Read online

  “There’s not much left, I’m afraid. Only a few ruins have survived. Several wars, years of neglect and Nazi bombing raids destroyed most of it.”

  “I’d still like to see it.”

  Simon nodded. “The past is part of the reason I brought you here. But it’s not the only reason.”

  “You said there was something you wanted to show me.”

  He pushed himself away from the rocks and fidgeted for a moment. It was strange to see him nervous and unsure. “This,” he said. “This is where I come from. This is who I am. Grey Hall, Hastings, all of it. I wanted you to know what’s come before so you could decide,” he said meeting her eyes, “if you want to be part of what comes next.”

  Elizabeth’s heart stuttered and she felt her pulse race.

  “I brought you to this place because, here, I can believe anything’s possible. I could even believe a woman like you would want to spend her life with a man like me. Elizabeth—”

  Chapter Three

  “Oy! This way!” A man wearing plaid tan and white shorts, and long black socks emerged from the bushes. It was all Elizabeth could do not to strangle him. “Get a move on, we ain’t got all day.”

  The man was soon joined by a plump and panting woman in a loud floral dress and two sullen children who would forever be remembered as the Moment Killers. “You’re the one that wanted to see the bloomin’ ocean. Get an eyeful ‘cause it’s the last time I’m taking you sorry lot anywhere.”

  Elizabeth looked from them back up to Simon willing him to continue. Her head suddenly felt swimmy. He’d been this close, inches away from what she was pretty sure might have been a proposal. She wanted to tell him to ignore them, but the moment was obviously gone. Simon closed his eyes and sighed heavily.

  “Simon?” she started, but he shook his head.

  “Would you like to see the town?” he asked quietly.

  “Pick up your feet!” the mother yelled to her children who were still dawdling behind. She smiled at Simon and Elizabeth. “Beautiful day, innit?”

  The father trooped past with a grunt and mumbled, “Mornin’.”

  Elizabeth smiled through clenched teeth at the invaders. When she turned back, Simon had already started toward the path to the car. All she could do was follow.

  The drive into town was quiet. She tried to lose herself in the beautiful scenery, but holy heck, Simon had nearly proposed. She thought briefly about asking him herself. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t thought about it a thousand times. But Simon was old fashioned and more than that, deep down, she was too. Not that he would have said no if she’d bucked tradition, but she knew that he wanted to be the one, that he needed to be the one, to ask.

  The town of Hastings looked and felt wonderfully old, despite a few signs of modern life. Most of the buildings had that wonderful aged patina to their stone facades. The roads were a mixture of brick and cobblestone. If the streets had been empty and a little signage removed, she could have been in Hastings of fifty or even a hundred or more years ago. For the most part, the shops were exactly what you’d find in any tourist center — a mixture of high-priced fashion and home goods and kitschy souvenirs. On their way back toward the town center Simon pointed out a small museum across the street.

  “That’s what I was telling you about earlier. Grandfather helped fund that as a memorial to Aunt Sybil.”

  A sweet little old woman greeted them at the door and accepted their donation. The Women in War museum was a small thing, only two rooms, but Elizabeth had always loved local museums. There was a heart and soul that went into them that the larger ones often lacked.

  Posters and photographs covered the walls — pictures of women serving tea from mobile canteens or knitting their way to victory. Simon immediately gravitated to a small photograph and plaque that read simply, “In loving memory of Sybil Cross.”

  Elizabeth had expected Great Aunt Sybil to look like a great aunt, but she didn’t. The woman in the photograph couldn’t have been much older than Elizabeth. She wore her WVS uniform. Her pin curl hair peeked out from the brim of her cap with the same sort of playfulness she had in her smile. She looked like the sort of woman Elizabeth could have been friends with.

  “There’s a special hospital exhibit here just for the rest of the week,” the woman at the desk said before going back to her book. “You can see it in the back room, if you’d like.”

  “Thank you,” Simon said. He and Elizabeth lingered at Sybil’s portrait for a few minutes before moving into the back room.

  There were newspaper articles, photographs and even a mannequin wearing a period nurse’s uniform. Sections were devoted to the Civil Nursing Reserve, St. Andrew’s Ambulance Association and the Women’s Voluntary Services. Original reports typed on faded yellow paper told the stories of evacuees brought into the hospitals only to be bombed out again.

  Various ringed binders were scattered across the counter with even more photographs. Elizabeth flipped through one. Images of the blitz looked like scenes from a movie. Even though she’d seen massive destruction up close and personal thanks to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, sometimes it still felt like a dream. Something once removed. The war wasn’t fiction though, and every one of the people in the photographs had been real. They’d been standing in those spots just as surely as she was standing in Hastings. She flipped through a few more pages. Newspaper stories of civilian casualties and the difficulties the hospitals endured during the bombing raids. Moving operating theaters to basements and burying radium to keep from contaminating everything with lethal doses of radiation if a bomb should strike. Patients were moved from floor to floor and hospital to hospital trying to stay one step ahead of the Nazi bombs.

  In one series of photographs an injured man was being helped into a bed at a new ward at Guy’s Hospital in London. The caption read, “Some men lose more than their homes. For some, their identities are stolen by shell shock induced amnesia.” The photographer captured a close-up of the man’s face. Elizabeth’s hands trembled.

  “Oh my god,” Elizabeth said. “Simon!”

  She could barely believe what she was seeing.

  Simon came to her side. “What is it?”

  She pointed at the man in the photograph. “Look.”

  The man in the photograph looked confused and in some pain, but there was no mistaking who he was. It was Evan Eldridge.

  Chapter Four

  “Dear God,” Simon said, leaning closer for a better look. “Is that…?”

  “Mr. Eldridge.”

  When Elizabeth had traveled back to 1906, she’d stayed at the Eldridges’ home. She’d spent weeks there and hour after hour in the parlor where Evan Eldridge’s portrait hung. She’d heard the pain in Mrs. Eldridge’s voice as she recounted the last time she’d seen her husband. She’d said it was her worst nightmare come true. He’d been a member of the Council for Temporal Studies for years and been on countless missions through time, just like Simon’s grandfather. Until one day, he left and never returned. Mrs. Eldridge had always assumed he’d been killed, but the man in the photograph was quite alive. At least, he was alive in the 1940s.

  “When is this?” Elizabeth asked as she scanned the text next to the photograph. “I don’t see any dates.”

  She picked up the binder and took it into the front room. “I’m sorry to bother you,” she said as she placed it in front of the woman at the desk. “Do you know anything about these? These photographs? When they were taken?”

  The woman put on her glasses. “Hmmm. No, just what it says there. Something about Guy’s Hospital. It was a feature in the Times, I think.” She flipped through a few more pages and pointed to a small news clipping. “Yes, there we are. September 18, 1942, Guy’s Hospital. Poor man appears to be suffering from a case of amnesia. It wasn’t uncommon. All that bombing, it’s a miracle anyone kept their wits about them.”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said, her heart racing almost as quickly as her thoughts. “Thank you. I don�
��t suppose we can have a copy of this?”

  “I’m afraid we don’t have the facilities for that.”

  Maybe it was available online? Most of the newspapers had digital archives now. Of course, she didn’t have her computer and she knew Sebastian’s home didn’t have wireless anyway. Surely, there was a cyber-café in town.

  She grabbed Simon’s hand and dragged him out onto the sidewalk. “Where’s the closest Internet café?”

  “Tell me you’re not seriously considering traveling back in time, “ he said in a strained, hushed voice, “into a war zone, for God’s sake, to virtually kidnap a man we’ve never even met.”

  “I am.”

  The vein in Simon’s temple started to visibly throb. “Let’s discuss this at home,” he said with great effort. “Please? We agreed it was better to not know what happened to the people we left in the past.”

  At the time, she’d agreed, but her initial resolve had lasted a whole two weeks, which was actually a week longer than she thought it would last. She’d looked up Charlie Blue from their trip to 1929 New York, but she never did find anything. She’d managed not to look up Teddy or Max. Yet.

  “This is different,” she said.

  Simon narrowed his eyes.

  “It is. First of all, we didn’t leave him in the past. He was part of the future when we were in the past and now that we’re in the future, he’s part of our past, but it isn’t the same past, so it doesn’t count.”

  “Elizabeth.”

  “Don’t ‘Elizabeth’ me right now. You can’t tell me what we just saw doesn’t bother you.”

  Simon looked around anxiously and took her by the arm. “Of course it does,” he said. “But there’s nothing we can do to change it now.”

  “That’s just it. We can.”

  Simon stopped walking. “We shouldn’t.”

  “Why? He doesn’t belong there and you know it.”

  “I don’t know anything of the sort and neither do you. We have to believe this is how things are meant to be. Anything else is madness, Elizabeth.”

  “Then color me mad.” That garnered her a few glances from passersby.

  Simon waited until they were alone again. “Elizabeth.”

  “We have the watch. We know where and when he is. How can we not do something to help?”

  ~~~

  The drive back to the cottage was a silent one. All Elizabeth could think about was the last time they’d had a conversation like this. The Council had asked for her help and she’d blindly trusted them. She and Simon fought; she left; he followed. He should have listened to her and, as it turned out, she should have listened to him. The last thing she wanted was a repeat performance. If they were going to do this thing, they had to do it together or not at all.

  Simon opened one of the bottles of wine they’d picked up at the market. It was starting to get chilly outside as the sun set, and he built a small fire in the grate in the parlor. Elizabeth slipped off her shoes and tucked her legs under her on the plush sofa. Simon sat opposite her in a large overstuffed chair. The silence sat everywhere else.

  Elizabeth took a sip of wine and looked into the glass for inspiration. She had an army of arguments ready to march, but she was afraid none of them would make any difference. Simon wasn’t exactly a fan of time travel. He’d made that clear enough. Several times. How could she possibly convince him it was the right thing to do? Despite the danger. Despite the insanity of it all.

  She took another sip and wondered if you could get Dutch courage from French wine. “Simon,” she started. “I know it’s crazy.”

  “Completely. Certifiably.” He noticed her frown and lifted his hands in apology. “I’m listening,” he said.

  “All right. First of all, we know the Council isn’t going to help, even though they should. They’ve proven that “no man left behind” isn’t exactly their company motto. And that leaves us. We are, literally, the only people who can.”

  “Yes, just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”

  “I’ll get to the should in a minute. Just wait. Second of all, it’s not like last time or the time before. We know exactly what we need to do and where and when to do it. Thirdly, there’s no King Kashian or Madame Petrovka. There’s no big bad.”

  “Excepting the Nazis, of course.”

  Elizabeth paused. “Okay, I’ll give you that one. But, we’ll be in London, well after the Blitz, so it’s not like we’ll be jumping right into the middle of the Battle of the Bulge or something.”

  “The Battle of Britain, no, of course not, just right into the middle of a city ravaged by years of war and still bombed on a regular basis.”

  “A little research and we’ll know what’s safe and what isn’t. And, we’d only have to stay long enough to get Evan out of the hospital. We can plan it so that we’re in and out in just a few days.”

  Simon thought about it for a moment. “You’re assuming there’s an eclipse shortly after our arrival that we can use for our return.”

  “Well, yeah.”

  Obviously he remained unconvinced, but he had promised to hear her out and was true to his word. “All right. And the should?”

  Elizabeth sat forward. “You feel it too, Simon. I know you do. It’s the right thing to do. It’s dangerous. It might even be crazy. I’ll admit that. But that doesn’t change the fact that there’s a man who needs our help and a woman who deserves it.”

  Time for the trump card. “If positions were reversed,” she said. “If Evan saw a picture of you or me trapped in the past, injured and lost, what would you want him to do? Would you want him to say it wasn’t his business? That it wasn’t worth the risk?”

  Simon stared at her for a long moment and then set down his wine glass. Finally, he stood and walked over to the window. “I think you know the answer to that.”

  She joined him at the window. “Then is it right to expect to receive what we aren’t willing to give?”

  She put her hand on his arm and urged him to turn around and face her. “We’ll be all right.”

  “You sound awfully certain.”

  “I am. It’s one of the pleasant byproducts of being delusional.”

  Simon laughed briefly and then grew serious again. “This isn’t so simple.”

  “I know. But it’s the right thing to do, and we both know it.”

  Chapter Five

  The next several days were a flurry of research, argument and planning. Simon hadn’t been pleased that she’d brought the watch with them to England. When she’d explained that it wasn’t something to be left lying around, especially not with a Council that Should Not Be Trusted lurking about, he’d agreed, reluctantly.

  When it came to the research, Simon was deep in his element. He’d learned quite a bit from his last experience preparing for a trip back in time. He prepared a list of items they’d need including: passports, identity cards, and ration books.

  Despite how exacting the records from the period were, there were still blind spots - little things like bombing raids. It certainly wouldn’t be anywhere near as dangerous as London during the Blitz when the Nazis bombed England for nine months straight and the city itself for 57 consecutive nights. 1942 wouldn’t be half as bad as the later period of the war, when the Nazis resumed bombings with doodlebugs and V-2s. It was a relative lull, but there was no way they could tell when and where each and every bombing raid took place. In the end, they had to be satisfied with a good idea of what sections survived unscathed. If they stuck to them, they should be all right.

  Clothing and other supplies were fairly easy to come by. Even forging documents of the period was simple enough. National identity cards were readily available on eBay and collectors and replica makers had every bit of ephemera they could possibly need including passports, travel papers and War Department Identity Cards. Manipulating them to add their real names and photographs was simple enough.

  They’d just returned from a shopping excursion when Elizabeth noticed a
large vase overflowing with yellow and white roses on their front doorstep. She carried it inside as Simon took their packages into the study.

  “Should I be jealous?” Simon said.

  “The question is, should I?” Elizabeth handed him the attached notecard. “It’s addressed to you.”

  Simon sat down behind the desk. Elizabeth put the vase on a side table.

  “They’re from Aunt Victoria,” he said. “A peace offering.”

  Elizabeth rearranged a few of the flowers and pricked her finger on one. “With thorns. Now, that’s what I call passive-aggressive.”

  Simon laughed. “Are you all right?”

  “As long as they haven’t been dipped in poison.”

  Simon got up from the desk. “ Let me see.”

  Elizabeth held out her finger. Simon examined it with excessive care and rubbed her hand gently before kissing her palm. “Does it hurt?” He kissed the inside of her wrist.

  Her cheeks flushed. He knew what kissing her there did to her. “No,” she said. “But it hurts a little here.” She pointed to her bottom lip.

  Simon leaned forward, his eyes dipped down to her mouth and back up. “Here?” he said before he took her mouth in a gentle, tugging kiss.

  Elizabeth let out a shuddering breath. “And other places.”

  He kissed her neck. “I’m afraid this requires,” he said punctuating each phrase with another kiss, “further investigation.”

  “Thorough,” Elizabeth said between gasping breaths. “Thorough investigation.”

  Simon’s hands pulled her body against his and the phone rang. He pulled back and was about to go in for another kiss when the phone rang again. “Bugger.”

  He let her go and went to the desk. “Remember where I was.”

  Elizabeth wasn’t about to forget, but the call wasn’t a quick one and the moment was gone. The man on the phone was one of the currency collectors they’d contacted. Simon insisted that they buy an obscene amount of currency. He’d traveled as a pauper once and had no intention of repeating the experience. In any period, money was their most useful tool.