Linda Lael Miller Bundle (27 page)

She didn’t say anything, but her fingers closed around the little bottle of penicillin in the pocket of her skirt. Soon, when Jonathan wasn’t looking, she would give Trista another pill.

He seemed almost too tired to lift his fork, and Elisabeth’s heart ached as she watched him eat. When he finished his meal, she knew he wouldn’t collapse into bed and sleep, as he needed to do. No, Jonathan would head for the barn, where he would feed and water animals for an hour. Then, provided another frantic father didn’t come to fetch him, he’d sit up the rest of the night, watching over Trista.

Elisabeth woke the child while he was in the barn and made her swallow another penicillin tablet. By that time, her own body was aching with fatigue and she wanted to sink into a chair and sob.

She didn’t have time for such luxuries, though, for the fire was waning and the water in the kettles was boiling away. Elisabeth found the wood box empty and, after checking Trista, she wrapped herself in a woolen shawl and went outside to the shed. There, she picked up the ax and awkwardly began splitting chunks of dry apple wood.

Jonathan was crossing the yard when she came out, her arms loaded, and he took the wood from her without a word.

Inside, he fed the fire while she pumped more water to make more steam. Suddenly, she ran out of fortitude and sank against Jonathan, weeping for all the children who could not be saved, both in this century and in her own.

Jonathan embraced her tightly for a moment, kissed her forehead and then lifted her into his arms and started toward the stairs. “You’re going to lie down,” he announced in a stern undertone. “I’ll bring you something to eat.”

“I want to stay with Trista.”

“You’re no good to her in this condition,” Jonathan reasoned, opening the door to her room and carrying her inside. He laid her gently on the bed and pulled off her sneakers, so incongruous with her long skirt and big-sleeved blouse. “I’ll bring you a tray.”

Elisabeth opened her mouth to protest, but it was too late. Jonathan had already closed the door, and she could hear his footsteps in the hallway.

She had to admit it felt gloriously, decadently good to lie down. She would rest for a few minutes, to shut Jonathan up, and then go back to Trista.

The doctor returned, as promised, bringing a ham sandwich and a glass of milk. Elisabeth ate, even though she had virtually no appetite, knowing she needed the food for strength.

Filling her stomach had a peculiar tranquilizing effect, and she sagged against her pillows and yawned even as she battled her weariness. She would just close her eyes long enough to make them stop burning, Elisabeth decided, then go back downstairs to sit with Trista.

There were shadows in the room and the bedside lamp was burning low when Elisabeth awakened with a start. Her throat was sore when she swallowed, but she didn’t take time to think about that because she was too anxious to see Trista.

She was holding her breath as she made her way down the back stairway.

The kitchen lamps were lit, and Jonathan sat at the table, his head resting on his folded arms, sound asleep. Trista was awake, though, and she smiled shakily as Elisabeth approached the bed and bent to kiss her forehead.

“Feeling better?”

Trista nodded, though she was still too weak to talk.

“I’ll bet you’d like some nice broth, wouldn’t you?” Elisabeth asked, remembering the chicken Ellen had killed and plucked yesterday. And even though Trista shook her head and wrinkled her nose, Elisabeth took the poultry from the icebox and put it on the stove to boil.

Although she tried to be quiet, the inevitable clatter awakened Jonathan and he lifted his head to stare at Elisabeth for a few seconds, seeming not to recognize her. Then his gaze darted to his daughter.

Trista smiled wanly at the startled expression on his face.

A study in disbelief, Jonathan grabbed his bag and hastily donned his stethoscope. His eyes were wide with surprise when he looked at Elisabeth, who was grinning at him and holding up the little medicine bottle.

Jonathan snatched it out of her hands. “You gave her this?”

Elisabeth’s delight faded. “Yes,” she answered with quiet defiance. “And it saved her life.”

He looked from the pills to his daughter’s placid, if pale, face. “My God.”

“It’s safe to say He’s involved here somewhere,” Elisabeth ventured a little smugly. “You should give her one every four hours, though, until she’s out of danger.”

Jonathan groped for a chair and sank into it. He opened the bottle, this time with no assistance from Elisabeth, and dumped the remaining tablets out onto the table to stare at them as though he expected a magic beanstalk to sprout before his eyes. “Peni—What did you call them?”

“Penicillin,” Elisabeth said gently.

“I didn’t dream it,” he whispered.

She shook her head and spread her hands over his shoulders. A glance at Trista showed her that the child was sleeping again, this time peacefully. “No, Jon—you were really there.” She began to work the rigid muscles with her fingers. “You never told me what you saw, you know.”

A tremor went through him. “There was a box with women inside,” he said woodenly. “They spoke to me.”

At the same time she was stifling a laugh, tears of affection burned in Elisabeth’s eyes. “The television set,” she said. “They weren’t talking to you Jon—they were only pictures, being transmitted through the air.”

“What else do they have in your world,” Jonathan inquired wearily, “besides automobiles that travel too fast?”

Elisabeth smiled. So he
had
seen something of the real twentieth century. “We’re exploring outer space,” she said, continuing with the massage and knowing an ancient kind of pleasure as Jonathan’s muscles began to relax. “And there have been so many inventions that I couldn’t list them all—the most significant being a machine called a computer.”

Jonathan listened, rapt, while Elisabeth told him what she knew about computers, which was limited. She went on to explain modern society as best she could. “There are still social problems, I’m afraid,” she told him. “For instance, we have a serious shortage of housing for the poor, and there’s a lot of drug and alcohol abuse.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Which must be why you were so angry when I sedated you,” he ventured.

Elisabeth’s achy throat was tight as she nodded. He finally believed her, and if she’d had the energy, she would have jumped up and clicked her heels together to celebrate.

Jonathan sighed. “There are people now who use opium, but thank heaven it’s not prevalent.”

Elisabeth sat down beside him and cupped her chin in her hands. “Don’t be too cocky, Dr. Fortner. You’ve got a lot of laudanum addicts out there, taking a tipple when nobody’s looking. And the saloons are brimming with alcoholics. In approximately 1935, two men will start an organization to help drunks get and stay sober.”

He rubbed his beard-stubbled chin, studying Elisabeth as though she were of some unfamiliar species. “Let’s talk about that fire you’ve been harping on ever since you first showed up,” he said. Then, remembering Trista, he caught Elisabeth’s elbow in one hand and ushered her out of the kitchen and into the parlor, where he proceeded to build a fire against the evening chill. “You said Trista and I died in it.”

“I said the authorities—Marshal Farley Haynes, to be specific—believed I killed you by setting the blaze. If—” she swallowed as bile rushed into her throat “—if bodies were found, the fact was hushed up. And the newspaper didn’t give a specific date.”

Jonathan rubbed the back of his neck and shook his head, watching as the fire caught on the hearth, sending orange and yellow flames licking around the apple-wood logs. “You’ll understand,” he said, still crouching before the grate, “if I find this whole thing a little hard to accept.”

“I think I would in your place,” Elisabeth conceded, taking a seat in a leather wing chair and folding her hands in her lap. “Jonathan, we can leave now, can’t we? We can move to the hotel in town, at least during that week?”

To her surprise, he shook his head again as he rose to stand facing her, one shoulder braced against the mantelpiece. “We’ll be especially careful,” he said. “Surely being warned ahead of time will make a difference.”

Elisabeth wasn’t convinced; she had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, a sense of dire urgency. “Jonathan, please—you must have seen that the house was different in my time. If that isn’t evidence that there really was a fire…”

Jonathan came to stand before her chair, bending to rest one hand on each of its arms and effectively trapping her. “There won’t be a fire,” he said, “because you and I are going to prevent it.”

She closed her eyes tightly, defeated for the moment.

Jonathan’s breath was warm on her face as he changed the subject. “I’m tired of lying in my bed at night, Elisabeth, aching for you. I want to get married.”

She felt her cheeks heat as she glared up at him. “Now, that’s
romantic!
” she murmured, moving to push him away and rise, but he stood fast, grinning at her. Raw pain burned her throat as she spoke, and the amusement faded from Jonathan’s eyes.

He touched her forehead with his hand. “If you come from a time where some of our diseases no longer exist,” he breathed, “you haven’t built up any kind of immunity.” Jonathan stepped back and drew Elisabeth to her feet, and she was instantly dizzy, collapsing against him. Her first thought was that the rigors of the past twenty-four hours had finally caught up with her.

As easily as before, Jonathan lifted her into his arms. The next thing she knew, she was upstairs and he was stripping her, tucking her into bed. He brought water and two of the precious pills, which Elisabeth wanted to save for Trista.

She shook her head.

But Jonathan forced her to swallow the medicine. She watched, her awareness already wavering, as he constructed a sort of tent around the bed, out of blankets. Presently, the air grew close and moist, and Elisabeth dreamed she was lost in a jungle full of exotic birds and flowers.

In the dream, she knew Jonathan was looking for her—she could hear him calling—but he was always just out of sight, just out of reach.

J
onathan’s fear grew moment by moment as he watched Elisabeth lapse further and further into the depths of the illness. As strong and healthy as she was, her body had no apparent defenses against the virus, and within a matter of hours, she was near death. Even the wonder pills she’d brought with her from the future didn’t seem to be helping.

He was searching her dresser before he consciously acknowledged the desperate decision he’d made. Finding the necklace in a top drawer, under a stack of carefully laundered and folded pantaloons, he went back to Elisabeth’s bedside and fastened the tarnished chain around her neck.

For a long time, he just stood there, staring down at her, marveling at how deeply he’d come to cherish her in the short time they’d had together. Even when he’d thought she was demented, he’d loved her.

The daylight was fading at the windows when he finally looked up. He turned and went rapidly down the rear stairway to check on Trista.

Earlier, he’d given her a bowl of Elisabeth’s chicken broth. He found her sleeping now, and her fever had finally broken.

Jonathan bent and, smoothing back his daughter’s dark hair with a gentle hand, kissed her forehead. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he promised in a husky whisper.

Upstairs again, he lifted Elisabeth from the bed and carried her down the back stairs into the kitchen and then up the other set of steps leading to Trista’s room. Within moments, they were standing at the threshold.

Although he’d never been a religious man, Jonathan prayed devoutly in those moments. Then he closed his eyes and stepped across.

The immediate lightness in his arms swung a hoarse cry of despair from his throat. He was still in his time—the same pictures hung from the walls and the familiar runner was under his feet.

But Elisabeth was gone.

Miss Cecily Buzbee hovered and fretted while the young men from the county hospital lifted Elisabeth’s inert form onto a gurney and started an IV flowing into a vein in her left hand.

“It’s a lucky thing I came by to check on her, that’s all I can say,” Miss Cecily said, following as Elisabeth was carried down the stairs and out through the front door. “There’s something strange going on in this house, you mark my words, and Sister and I have a good mind to telephone the sheriff….”

The paramedics lifted the stretcher into the back of the ambulance, and one of them climbed in with it.

“Heaven only knows how long she’s been lying there in that hallway,” Cecily babbled on, trailing after the second man as he walked around to get behind the wheel.

“Does Ms. McCartney have any allergies that you know about?” he asked, speaking to her through the open window on the driver’s side of the ominous-looking vehicle.

Cecily had no idea and it was agony that she couldn’t help.

The young man shifted the ambulance into gear. “Well, if she’s got any family, you’d better get in touch with them right away.”

The words struck Cecily like a blow. She didn’t know Elisabeth well, but she cared what happened to her. Merciful heavens, the poor thing was too young and beautiful to die—she hadn’t had a proper chance to live.

Cecily watched until the ambulance had turned onto the main road, lights slicing the twilight, siren blaring. Then she hurried back into the house and began searching for Elisabeth’s address book.

“Jonathan?” The name hurt Elisabeth’s throat as she said it, and she wasn’t sure whether she was whispering or shouting. She tried to sit up, but she was too weak. And she was immediately pressed back to her pillows by a nurse anyway.

A nurse.

Every muscle in Elisabeth’s limp and aching body tensed as a rush of alarm swept through her. Her eyes darted about the room wildly, looking for the one face that would make everything all right.

But there was no sign of Jonathan, and the reason was painfully obvious. Somehow, she’d found her way back into the twentieth century, though she had no conscious memory of making the transition. And that meant she was separated from the man she loved.

The nurse was a young woman, tall, with short, curly, brown hair and friendly eyes. “Just relax,” she said. “You’re safe and sound in the county hospital.”

Elisabeth could barely control the panic that seized her. “How long have I been here?” she rasped, as the nurse—the tag on her uniform said her name was Vicki Webster—held a glass of cool water up so that Elisabeth could drink through a straw.

“Just a couple of days,” Vicki replied. “One of your friends has been here practically the whole time. Would you like to see her?”

For a moment, Elisabeth soared with the hope that Rue had come back from her assignment, but in the next instant, she knew better. Rue was family and she would never have introduced herself to the staff as a friend.

Minutes later, Janet appeared, looking haggard. Her hair was a mess, her raincoat was crumpled and there were dark smudges under her eyes. “Do you know how worried I’ve been?” she demanded, coming to stand beside the bed. “First I talked to that strange man on the telephone, and then I couldn’t get anyone to answer at all….”

Elisabeth gripped Janet’s hand. “Janet, what day is this?”

Janet’s brow furrowed with concern and she bit her lips. “It’s the tenth of June,” she said.

“The tenth…” Elisabeth closed her eyes, too drained to go on. Time was racing by, not only here, but in the nineteenth century, as well. Perhaps Jonathan and Trista were trapped in a burning house at that very moment—perhaps they were already dead!

Janet snatched a tissue from the box on the bedside stand and gently wiped away tears Elisabeth hadn’t even realized she was shedding. “Beth, I know you’re sick, and it’s obvious you’re depressed, but you can’t give up. You’ve got to keep putting one foot in front of the other until you get past whatever it is that’s troubling you so much.”

Elisabeth was too tired to say any more, and Janet stayed a while longer, then left again. The next morning, a big bouquet of flowers arrived from Elisabeth’s father, along with a note saying that he and Traci hoped she was feeling better.

As it happened, Elisabeth was feeling stronger, if not better, and she was growing more and more desperate to return to Jonathan and Trista. But here she was, too frail even to walk to the bathroom by herself. She fought off rising panic only because she knew it would drain her and delay the time when she’d be able to leave the hospital.

“I’m taking you home with me,” Janet announced three evenings later. A true friend, she’d been making the drive to Pine River every day after she finished teaching her classes. “The term is almost over, so I’ll have lots of time to play nurse.”

Elisabeth smiled wanly and shook her head. “I want to go home,” she said in a quiet voice.
To Jonathan, and Trista—please, God.

Janet cleared her throat and averted her eyes for just a moment. When she looked back at Elisabeth, her gaze was steady. “Who was that man, Bethie—the one who answered the telephone when I called that day?”

Elisabeth imagined Jonathan glaring at the instrument as it rang, and she smiled again. “That was Jonathan,” she said. “The man I love.”

“So where is he?” Janet demanded, somewhat impatiently. “If you two are so wild about each other, why haven’t I had so much as a glimpse of the guy?” She waved one hand to take in the flowers that banked the room—even Ian and his new bride had sent carnations. “Where’s the bouquet with his name on the card?”

Elisabeth sighed. She was too tired to explain about Jonathan, and even if she attempted it, Janet would never believe her. In fact, she would probably go straight to the nearest doctor and the next thing Elisabeth knew, she’d be in the psychiatric ward, weaving potholders. “He’s out of the…country,” she lied, staring up at the ceiling so she wouldn’t have to meet Janet’s eyes. “And he’s called every day.”

When Elisabeth dared look at Janet again, she saw patent disbelief in her friend’s face. “There’s something very weird here,” Janet said.

You don’t know the half of it,
Elisabeth thought. She was relieved when Janet left a few minutes later.

Almost immediately, however, the Buzbee sisters appeared with colorful zinnias from their garden and a stack of books that probably came from their personal library.

“I saw the ghost through the front window one day,” Cecily confided to Elisabeth in a whisper, when her sister had gone down the hall to say hello to a friend who was recovering from gall-bladder surgery.

Elisabeth felt herself go pale. “The ghost?”

Cecily nodded. “Dr. Fortner it was—I’d know him anywhere.” She took one of the books from the pile she’d brought, thumbed through it and held it out to Elisabeth. “See? He’s standing second from the left, beside the little girl.”

Elisabeth’s throat tightened as she stared at the old picture, taken by the Pine River Bridge on Founder’s Day 1892. Jonathan gazed back at her, and so did Trista, but that wasn’t really what shook her, since this was a copy of the same book she’d checked out from the library and she’d seen the picture before. No, it was the fact that her own image had been added, standing just to Jonathan’s right. Cecily probably hadn’t noticed because Elisabeth looked very different in period clothes and an old-fashioned hairstyle, and because she’d been looking at the picture with the careless eyes of familiarity.

“You’ve seen this man, haven’t you?” Cecily challenged, though not unkindly. She poured water for Elisabeth and held the straw to her lips, as though alarmed by Elisabeth’s sudden pallor.

Tears squeezed past Elisabeth’s closed eyelids and tickled in her lashes. “Yes,” she said. “I’ve seen him.”

Cecily patted Elisabeth’s forehead. “There, there, dear. I’m sorry if I upset you. You’ve probably been frightened half out of your mind these past few weeks, and then you let yourself get run-down and you caught—what is it you caught?”

Elisabeth’s disease had been diagnosed simply as a “virus,” and she knew the medical community was puzzled by it. “I—I guess it’s pneumonia,” she said. She put her hand to her throat and turned pleading eyes on Cecily. “They took my necklace.”

“I’ll just get it right back for you,” Cecily replied briskly. And she went out into the hallway, calling for a nurse.

Half an hour later, Elisabeth had her necklace back. Just wearing it made her feel closer to Jonathan and Trista.

That evening when the doctor came by on his evening rounds, he took the IV needle from Elisabeth’s hand and pronounced her on the mend. His kindly eyes were full of questions as to where she could have contracted a virus modern medicine couldn’t identify, but he didn’t press her for answers.

“I want to go home,” she announced when he’d finished a fairly routine examination. Weak as she was, she was conscious of every tick of the celestial clock, and it was hell not knowing what was happening to Jonathan and Trista.

The physician smiled and shook his head. “Not for a few more days, I’m afraid. You’re in a very weakened state, Ms. McCartney.”

“But I can recover just as well there as here….”

“Let’s see how you feel on Friday,” he said, overruling her. And then he moved on to the next room.

Elisabeth waited until it was dark before getting out of bed, staggering over to the door and peering down the lighted hallway to the nurses’ station. One woman was there, her head bent over some notes she was making, but other than that, the coast was clear.

With enormous effort, Elisabeth put on the jeans and sweatshirt Janet had brought her from the house, brushed her tangled hair and crept out into the hallway. A city hospital would have been more difficult to escape, but this one was small and understaffed, and Elisabeth made it into the elevator without being challenged.

She leaned back, clutching the metal railing in both hands and summoning up all her strength. She still had to get to her house, which was several miles away. And Pine River wasn’t exactly bustling with available taxi cabs.

Elisabeth didn’t have her purse—that was locked away for safekeeping in the hospital and, of course, she didn’t dare ask for it—but there was a spare house key hidden in the woodshed.

She started walking, and it soon became apparent that she was simply too weak to walk all the way home. Praying she wouldn’t find herself hooked up with a serial killer, like women she’d read about, she stuck out her thumb.

Presently a rattly old pickup truck with one missing fender came to a stop beside her and a young man leaned across the seat to push open the door. His smile was downright ingenuous.

“Your car break down?” he asked.

Elisabeth eyed him wearily, waiting for negative vibes to strike her, but there weren’t any. The kid kind of reminded her of Wally Cleaver. She nodded, not wanting to explain that she’d just sprung herself from the hospital, and climbed into the truck.

Just that effort exhausted her and she collapsed against the back of the lumpy old seat, terrified that she would pass out.

“Hey,” the teenage boy began, shifting the vehicle into gear and stepping on the gas with enthusiasm. “You sick or something? There’s a hospital right back there….” He cocked his thumb over one shoulder.

Elisabeth shook her head. “I’m fine,” she managed, rallying enough to smile. “I live out on Schoolhouse Road.”

The young man looked at her with amused interest. “You don’t mean that haunted place across from the Buzbees, do you?”

Elisabeth debated between laughing and crying, and settled on the former, mostly to keep from alarming her rescuer. “Sure do,” she said.

He uttered an exclamation, and Elisabeth could see that he was truly impressed. “Ever see any spooks or anything like that?”

They were passing through the main part of town, and Elisabeth felt a bittersweet pang as she looked at the lighted windows and signs. She hoped to be back with Jonathan soon, and when that happened, the modern world would be a memory. If something that didn’t exist yet could be called a memory.

“No,” she said, pushing back her hair with one hand. “To tell you the truth, I don’t believe in ghosts. I think there’s a scientific explanation for everything—it’s just that there are so many natural laws we don’t understand.”