Millicent’s eyebrows rise. “Any particular reason?”
“I want to go as far into the future as my mind can imagine,” I answer, which is rather true.
“You will require preparatory help with this mission,” Millicent cautions. “One of our Timekeepers who calls 1991 the Present will coach you before you make the time leap. We always have to be careful of those with the Gift of Sight when we travel, which is why we must assimilate into different time periods and not draw attention to ourselves. 1991 will be like an entirely different world for you.”
“I can do it,” I say boldly, though inside I’m beginning to feel my first flicker of nerves.
Millicent smiles. “If anyone can pull off an impressive feat, I imagine it might be you.” She pauses. “There’s something else you ought to know about your father. Byron was one of the few Timekeepers, along with myself, who was powerful enough to time travel without a key. He was rather famous in the Society because of it.”
I stare at her, speechless.
“Are you all right?” Millicent asks.
“I—I thought I knew my father so well,” I reply, when at last I find my voice. “He was always my hero, but I thought he was just a simple, good man—my father, the butler. Why wouldn’t he tell me about all of this? And what perplexes me all the more is why he would go and work as a servant when he was an all-powerful time traveler. It doesn’t make sense.”
“He wanted you to be normal for as long as possible. That’s what most of our Elders want for us before we are exposed to time travel. My grandmother was the same with me when I was young,” Millicent confides. “Besides which, being the butler to a family like the Windsors is a fairly prestigious position.”
I nod slowly. “Will I—will I be able to do it, too? Travel without a key?”
“It’s unlikely. We haven’t yet found two Timekeepers within the same family who can both travel keyless. But there are other gifts I expect you will uncover,” she says, her eyes crinkling as she smiles at me.
Moments later I am alone in the Headquarters library, surrounded by a pile of books to prepare for my first mission. While I eagerly flip through The Mechanics of Time Travel, I hear the sound of the door opening. A young woman walks in, wearing an outfit so bizarre, it reminds me of my Christmas Eve vision of an alternate Fifth Avenue.
She is dressed in pale blue denim trousers, something only cowboys wear in my Time, with a blindingly bright orange T-shirt under a denim jacket. Her shoes are unlike any I have seen, a strange combination of canvas and rubber. Oddest of all is her hair, which is tied like a horse’s tail to the back of her head. The girl notices my blatant staring and chuckles.
“I take it you’ve never seen anyone from my Time before.” She approaches me, holding out her hand. “I’m Celeste Roberts, born 1975 and coming from my Present of 1991.”
“What?” I gape at her.
Celeste peers more closely at me. “Wow, you’re really new, aren’t you? This is so exciting!” I nod self-consciously.
“Okay, tell me your name, when you were born, and what Time you’re coming from,” Celeste instructs. “That’s how we greet all Timekeepers we haven’t met before—so we can keep track of who everyone is and what Time they’re truly from.”
“Oh. All right. I’m Irving Henry. I was born more than a century before you, in 1869, and I am in the Present—1888.”
“Wow,” Celeste breathes. “You’ve been dead for ages where I’m from!”
“And you’re technically not alive right now,” I retort, shaking my head with amazement. “This is some incredible magic, isn’t it?”
“Seriously,” Celeste agrees. “So I hear you’ve chosen 1991 for your initiation mission! It’s a bold choice, but you’re in for a treat. The nineties are a blast. I’m here to prepare you for the dramatic changes ahead, so let’s get to it!”
I follow Celeste through the vaulted hallways of the Headquarters, trying to keep up as she chatters away. “It’s not just new clothes that you need. You’ll have to get a haircut immediately—you look way too old-fashioned. Short and parted off to the side, that’s how all the attractive guys wear their hair in the nineties. And remember, if you’re approached by anyone with the Gift of Sight, always go by Henry Irving instead of your real name. No one your age would ever be called Irving.”
“All right,” I say uncertainly, as we reach a whimsical tri-level boutique called Epoch Clothiers. Mannequins in the windows model the widest variety of clothing imaginable, from Elizabethan dresses with matching ruffs, colonial-era riding uniforms, and ball gowns and tuxedos from my century, all the way to women’s dresses that cut off as high as the thigh, and men’s sports clothes that look like they were designed for outer space.
I hold the door open for Celeste and as we enter, a tiny woman flits before us, wearing a long empire-waist dress and clutching a measuring tape in her hands. Her hair is a curly blond bob and her eyes look almost lavender.
“Hello! Welcome to Epoch Clothiers. I’m Lottie Fink, born 1863. What can I help you with?”
“I’m looking for clothes to wear in 1991,” I tell her, feeling my pulse race at the thought. This isn’t just a daydream anymore.
“Ah! Now that is a request I don’t hear every day,” Lottie says with a smile. “Follow me upstairs.”
As we pass racks of clothing, I suddenly remember that all of my money is in New York.
“I don’t have any money with me,” I mutter to Celeste. “I should go—”
“Don’t worry, that’s common here,” Celeste reassures me. “All Timekeepers have an open tab at the Headquarters, and we’re billed twice a year. You can even borrow 1990s dollars from the Currency Exchange and they’ll just add that to your tab.”
I exhale with relief. “The Society thinks of everything, don’t they?”
Lottie stops in front of a collection of eccentric-looking clothing, handing me a stack of plain cotton shirts in a variety of colors and three pairs of blue denim cowboy trousers similar to Celeste’s. “Jeans and T-shirts—these will be your wardrobe staples in the 1990s,” Lottie declares.
Jeans. So that’s what they’re called. I look up at Lottie in surprise.
“Men and women both wear these … jeans? And where are the sleeves to the shirts?”
Celeste laughs. “They’re T-shirts, they’re supposed to have short sleeves. And everyone wears jeans in the nineties—old people, kids, guys, and girls. The only difference is that us girls wear them tighter and guys wear them baggier.”
Lottie lifts the lid of a shoe box and shows me a pair of white rubber and canvas shoes with the word “Adidas” written on the side. “These are called sneakers, and you can wear them almost every day with jeans.”
Celeste holds open a shopping bag and I place the items inside, still eyeing the funny articles of clothing with amusement. Lottie darts among the racks and returns moments later with a pair of tan pants and a navy blue jacket, another shoe box under her arm.
“For more formal dress, you can wear these khaki slacks and a blazer over one of your T-shirts, with this pair of brown leather shoes.”
“He should have a black leather jacket too,” Celeste tells Lottie. “And a couple of Tommy Hilfiger sweaters.”
Nearly an hour later, I walk out of Epoch Clothiers unrecognizable from the man who first entered. After choosing my wardrobe, Lottie led me to the barbershop at the back of the store, where a barber cut my wavy hair short and shaved my mustache, giving me a boyish appearance younger than my nineteen years. Instead of my three-piece Victorian suit and bowler hat, I now wear Levi’s jeans and a black T-shirt, with a rounded-top hat that Lottie calls a “baseball cap.” I feel strange and stiff, like I’ve stepped into someone else’s skin, but Celeste grins at me approvingly as we leave the store. “Much better!”
Celeste leads the way to the wood-paneled lobby, an enormous space with a ceiling that stretches as high as the eye can see. “There’s your last stop,” she says, noddin
g at the Reservations desk. “Millicent already reserved Room 1991 under your name, so all you have to do is pick up your key and take the elevator to the ninth floor.”
I look at Celeste gratefully. “I don’t know how to thank you for everything. I would have been lost in all of this if it hadn’t been for you.”
Celeste grins. “Oh, it was fun. It’s been a couple years since this world was new to me—it’s been kind of exciting to see it through your eyes.” She gives me a warm hug. “Good luck in 1991, and call me if you run into any trouble. You can find my number in the yellow pages under Brick, New Jersey.”
“Yellow pages?” I echo. But Celeste has already disappeared.
I turn the key to Room 1991, my hands trembling with anticipation as I wonder what I’ll find inside. I remember Millicent’s words from earlier that day.
“Each room here at the Aura is designed to fit a different time period, filled with the décor, literature, and papers of the day. This is to help us assimilate into the era we are traveling to. For example, if I am traveling back to the year 1750, I would spend the night in Room 1750, studying all the documents and artifacts from that year that our Researching Committee has collected.”
I hear voices inside my room, and I quickly switch on the lights. My legs nearly buckle from what I see.
A tall beige armoire stands opposite the bed, its shelves open, revealing a black-framed screen inside. And there are real, live shrunken people within the screen, people speaking to me and laughing loudly, their clothes and hair and faces all in color.
I race up to the screen. “Who’s there? Who are you? What is it you want?”
But the miniature people inside the box, a family of some sort, don’t seem to hear me. They continue their chatter, while booms of laughter echo from somewhere unseen. I gingerly reach up to touch the screen and gasp as I feel nothing more than a shiny, hard surface. A book is propped up against it, with the title Television Manual, and I let out a long sigh of relief. Television. Celeste mentioned something about it. Yet nothing could have quite prepared me.
I slowly wander the room, which is ablaze with blinking objects that seem somehow alive. A dark gray box underneath the television is marked with the letters VCR while beside it sits a lighter gray box that calls itself Super Nintendo. A sleek white desk holds an unusual sort of typewriter with a built-in screen. I venture toward it, pressing one of the keys, and then I jump back, startled, as the screen fills with the picture of an apple. “Macintosh,” I whisper, reading the words below the image. What does that mean? The machine is now buzzing and whirring, and I back away from it.
Instead of artwork decorating the room, the walls are covered with huge color photographs. One depicts a scantily clad redheaded woman standing back-to-back with a gentleman, the words Pretty Woman running down the side of the image.
Another photograph shows five young men in matching jackets, with the phrase Boyz II Men Cooleyhighharmony written at the bottom.
I look around wildly, feeling dizzy at the sights and sounds within the room. I don’t belong in 1991, I panic. What am I doing?
Just as I’m about to retreat, my father’s face fills my mind. Father, who was powerful enough to travel through time even without his key, had believed me a worthy successor. Now is my chance to prove him right.
“I’ll learn all I can about the 1990s right here. This room has all the knowledge I need,” I tell myself. “And in a few days, my journey to the future will begin.”
Even if my memory were to fail me in the future, I would still be able to retrace, with certainty, the footsteps of my soul.
—YE SI
11
As Philip Walker drew closer to the Windsor Mansion on Sunday evening, it was with the sensation of returning to a place that had once meant a great deal to him. What’s happening to me? He’d asked himself that question countless times since the day he’d arrived in New York, but he still had no clear answers, only pieces to a puzzle that he couldn’t seem to solve.
Philip stood up straighter as he approached the tall entrance gates, his heartbeat picking up speed. The apartment building next door to the Windsor Mansion drew his attention, and as he glanced at it, his face paled. Somehow, he knew that building—just like he seemed to know the Windsor Mansion, without ever having stepped inside.
He shakily pressed the intercom button on the gate. A woman’s friendly voice answered and he cleared his throat before speaking.
“This is Philip Walker. I’m here to see Michele.”
Michele knocked over her glass of water in surprise when Annaleigh informed her that Philip Walker was there. She hastily changed out of pajamas and threw on a pair of jeans and a cable-knit sweater, running a brush through her hair and dabbing on some lip gloss before hurrying down the stairs to meet him. The sight of Philip standing in the middle of the Grand Hall, ridiculously handsome in jeans and a black sweater, sent a buzz of electricity through her.
“Hi,” she said, hoping her voice sounded a lot calmer than she felt.
“Hey. Sorry to just show up, I know it’s late. I would have called, but I realized I don’t have your number. Luckily your address is well-known.” He grinned sheepishly.
“It’s totally cool. What’s up?” As she asked the question, Michele had a feeling she already knew the reason why he was there.
Philip glanced around uneasily then lowered his voice. “I … we need to talk about last night.”
Michele spotted Annaleigh heading in their direction, and she gestured for Philip to follow her to the front door. “Want to go for a walk?”
“Sure.”
He seemed to visibly relax at the idea of leaving the house, but his shoulders tensed when they stepped through the mansion gates, with Caissie’s apartment building looming next door. Philip stared intently at it.
“It’s funny—I could swear I know that place, but it looks all wrong. There was a house there, a mansion made of red brick and white stone. And I knew your house, too, before I ever went inside.” He looked at Michele, and there was fear in his eyes. “Then last night, one minute we were talking in the lobby and everything was somewhat normal—and then it felt like I was this whole other person, this guy from another time and place who … who was crazy about you.” A flush crept up Philip’s cheeks.
All other thoughts were driven out of Michele’s mind as she stared at him, amazement mingling with relief.
“You remember, then? You remember us at the dance together … in 1910?”
“I remember telling you the date was 1910,” Philip said, in disbelief. “And I remember other things too—how it felt to miss you and wait for you. I felt how much he cared about you … like it was happening to me. And then this morning, I woke up earlier than usual. I was awake, but it was like I was sleepwalking.” His voice sounded dazed as he recounted the story. “I felt older and heavier, like I wasn’t seventeen anymore. I found myself at the piano, and then … I don’t know how, but I started playing this song that I had never even heard. My mom came into the room while I was playing, and she said she knew the song. It’s an old classical piece … called Michele.”
Michele’s throat was thick with tears.
“That piece was written by Phoenix Warren,” she said softly. “Whose real name was Philip Walker. He wrote that song for me … and then fifty years later, my mom named me after it.”
Philip shook his head as if he weren’t hearing correctly.
“And you’re right,” Michele continued. “There was a house here. It was the Walker Mansion, and you lived there a hundred years ago, decades before it was converted into this apartment building. And you have been inside my house, countless times. That’s where we met.”
Philip halted, staring at her. “What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying that what the world considers impossible is possible—at least it is for us.” She took a deep breath, a question suddenly occurring to her. “When’s your birthday?”
“I’
ll be eighteen on December twelfth,” he answered, giving her a quizzical look. “But I really don’t understand—”
He broke off at Michele’s expression.
“What is it?”
“He did it,” Michele whispered. “Philip promised he’d find a way back to me. And he did.”
“I am so completely lost here,” Philip groaned.
“Just humor me. Do you know who else lived at the Osborne, later in his life?” Michele asked. “The same person who looks exactly like you, who played piano just the way you do. Phoenix Warren, aka Philip James Walker. And you were born on the exact same day that he died.” Michele looked at Philip in awe. Elizabeth was right.
“It’s almost as if his spirit left one body on December twelfth, 1992, and was … reborn in another,” she continued. “Like reincarnation.”
The color drained from Philip’s face.
“This—this is getting even crazier than before,” he stammered. “Me, the reincarnation of Phoenix Warren? What are you going to tell me next, that you were the real Billie Holiday and we were in a traveling music troupe together?”
Michele smiled grimly. “If you can believe it, the real story is maybe even more out there. Do you think you’re ready to hear it?”
Philip took a deep breath. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
They found themselves walking down Fifth Avenue, just as they had done the first time Michele confessed her true identity to him in 1910.
“I never knew my father, but when I moved to New York two months ago, I found something that belonged to him. It was a key. A special key … one that sends you back in time. I later found out that my dad was a time traveler from the nineteenth century who went into the future and fell in love with my mom. But he disappeared before he even knew she was pregnant.”
Michele sucked in her breath as she realized she’d just told him her biggest secret. Now he knew the truth: that she was a freak of nature, a “time-crossed” daughter.