Page 3 of The Girl Out of Time
Another burst of pain. She cried out, then clenched her teeth, grabbing a fistful of sand. Her fingers grazed something cold, smooth, metallic, and she clung onto it as a pain absorber until the headache passed. Tentatively, with the spots in her vision subsiding, she lifted an oval locket, attached to a fine silver chain, from the sand.
“Hello? Blue?” Emily said as the tablet’s grainy, line-interrupted picture cleared up.
“Huh?”
“Are you okay?” Emily almost pressed her nose against the screen. “I couldn’t see you for a second there.”
Was she okay? The headache was gone, and her head felt clear, as if nothing had happened at all. She checked her finger, the silver chain still wrapped around it. No blue stain. “I’m fine.”
“It’s like the air rippled. Must’ve been a glitch in the camera.”
“Yes,” Emmeline said after a moment. How strange. She’d never had a headache this sudden and concentrated before, and for it to make her hallucinate things, like that shifting sand …
“Emmeline.” Father approached. “Come. It’s time for us to go.”
“Already?”
“We don’t want to be late for lunch.”
“Will! Check the tablet. It’s glitching,” Emily said.
“Is it?” Father took the tablet—to Emmeline’s mild complaint—and turned it around in his hand. “Looks fine enough on the outside, but I’llinspect it later. It probably needs to be recharged.” He looked at Emmeline. “Come now.”
“But we didn’t—” Emmeline started.
“Gramps, I didn’t get to say goodbye to her!” Her aunt’s protest grew quieter as Father walked away with the tablet. “When are you coming back, again?”
“We have passages booked on theLusitaniain May,” Father responded.
“Okay. Don’t forget to call me!”
“I will. Send my regards to James.”
Emmeline grumbled, stood up, and shook the sand off her skirt. One of Cousin Reggie’s servants came and folded up the table, and Emmeline ambled after her family, funneling onto the gravel path leading from the beach back to the mansion. She raised the locket to her eye level. It was rather simple: no embedded gems, just a stylish embossed border and the initials JCB engraved at the center.Hmm.Nobody in Cousin Reggie’s household matched the initials. And it wouldn’t be a servant or a villager; the locket wasn’t ostentatious, but it was still fine enough that it had to belong to someone of the upper class.
A giggle behind her brought her out of her thinking.
“You must come,” one of the servant girls whispered to another as they trotted behind Emmeline. “I have it on my best authority that Robert is going to be there.”
“You think he’ll ask me for a dance?” the other girl said.
“I’m sure he will. After he’s had a drink or two.”
They both giggled again, and Emmeline wistfully smiled to herself. The girls must be talking about the dances on Saturday nights at the local pub. It sounded wonderful: a jovial, relaxed atmosphere and good old, unconcerned village folk, having a fun night out, dancing their feet off.
She’d never know how that felt.
She stored the locket safely inside her skirt and pursed her lips as a very inappropriate—but very exciting—thought wiggled itself into her brain.
Maybe she could find out.
***
As the tablet screen went dark, Emily rested it on the coffee table and leaned back on the couch. It would be typical,expected, to say Emmeline was growing up fast, but in this case, it was more than true. For Emily, it had only been six years since Emmeline popped up on that tablet as a baby. She’d seen her grow up in flashes—extracts of her life, only served by the small screen. Will showing her how Emmeline is learning to walk. One-year-old Emmeline blubbering her first double-syllable words at her. Four-year-old Emmeline clutching the tablet in her tiny fingers, asking why Emily was inside a box. Eight-year-old Emmeline showing off her room and her growing book collection. Fourteen-year-old Emmeline leaning in with a confidential grin, telling her how the neighbor’s boy smiled at her that morning, but Father’s look sent him skittering away.
Emily could be a confidante, and she could be Blue’s favorite (well, only) aunt, but regardless of what she kept promising her, she’d never be there to hug her and take her to the movies. Because Emmeline lived in the early twentieth century …
And Emily was stuck in the twenty-first.
