[The History Mystery 01.0] Time and Again Read online

  “It sure looks like the one on the computer,” Abby said guardedly. “But that’s an incredibly long time for it to survive. You nearly broke it just now.”

  “We could go back to that first day we met Charlotte and look at it again.”

  “Wait a minute. What am I thinking? There’s no way on earth that a computer programmer could know about this blue bowl.”

  “But it looks just like it.”

  “Well, even if it’s not Charlotte’s, it might be pretty under all the filth. Let’s take it up to the house.”

  “Yeah, Mom loves pottery.”

  “Okay, then, Michael. Set the bowl down and show us where this clubhouse of yours is.”

  He led them farther into the barn to a primitive ladder of rough boards nailed to one of the barn’s massive supporting posts. The ladder led to a square opening into the loft. He clambered up the ladder like a monkey and disappeared from view.

  Then he grinned down at them through a flurry of straw drifting down on their heads. “Come see.”

  “Oh, Michael, be careful up there,” Abby said.

  “Miss Ruth always let me play in the loft.” The tone of his voice said he was fearful this privilege might be denied him by the new ownership.

  “I’m sure Pat will let you, too, but you really should ask first.”

  “Come on up.” He waved encouragingly.

  Abby put her foot on the first rung, searched until she found a handhold, and began to pull herself up. When she was high enough to look in, she saw sunbeams arrowing through a thousand cracks and knotholes in the board walls, gilding the dust particles that floated in the air. Bales of straw—or perhaps hay, she had never figured out the distinction—were stacked at the perimeter of the loft.

  When she had conquered the ladder, Abby lay on the loft floor next to Michael and reached a hand down to Merrideth. “Come on. It’s not so bad.”

  “Oh, all right.” Merrideth struggled to pull herself up each rung. “No telling how many people have fallen off this so-called ladder and killed themselves,” she griped between breaths.

  Abby grabbed her arm and pulled her up. “You know, Merrideth,” she said, “I think you’ve lost weight.”

  A smile lit up Merrideth’s face. “Do you really think so?”

  “Ha. That’s what you get for giving up your couch potato ways, kiddo.”

  Michael scampered across the straw-strewn board floor, waving for them to come see his “clubhouse.” But she and Merrideth clung for a moment to the security of the post, staring in trepidation at the floor of the loft. Through cracks between the boards, they could see the barn below. Firmly reminding herself that her foot couldn’t possibly fit between the cracks, she started toward Michael, the floorboards creaking with each step.

  Michael’s “clubhouse” was just an old green tarp draped over a wooden frame of some sort. But they spent considerable time admiring its features.

  “This is nice, Michael,” Abby said.

  “It’s pretty cool,” Merrideth added generously. “Did you build this all by yourself?”

  “Yep,” he said and smiled proudly.

  They crawled through the entrance, which he had positioned to take advantage of what light there was. The tarp above them, like the barn walls, had so many holes that the clubhouse was not all that dark. They sat on bales of straw. A plastic milk crate in one corner served as a table. Abby smiled to see a peanut butter sandwich in a plastic bag.

  Abby studied the walls of his clubhouse in the dim light. “You didn’t nail all this together, did you?” she said, running her hands curiously over it.

  “Naw,” he said.

  Abby squinted in the dim light and then smiled. “I know what it is. Merrideth, does this look familiar?”

  “No. What is it?”

  “Think pink roses.”

  “The missing porch trellises! What in the world are they doing up here?”

  “They’re in excellent condition. Just need a coat of paint.”

  “Mom will love it.”

  Abby saw that Michael’s eyes had gone wide and alarmed. “Don’t worry. There’s no way we could get them out of the loft anyway.”

  Michael offered to share his peanut butter sandwich. They thanked him but declined.

  “I want to do more research,” Abby said.

  “You just want to go back to Brighton and see—”

  “Ha. That’s where you’re wrong. We’ll surf the web for what I want to know.”

  “And what do you want to know?”

  “I think the computer programmer got careless with his history.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I’ve been thinking. You know how Charlotte was mad because her father wouldn’t let her go to the State Fair when it was so close to home? Since when was the State Fair ever in Alton instead of Springfield?”

  “I’m beginning to think this must be a documentary,” Abby said. “And man, did they ever sweat the details. 1854, the one and only year the State Fair was in Alton. I’d like to have seen that. But since Alton was founded only thirty years before, doesn’t it seem like it would have been too small to host the fair? Of course, all of Illinois was growing so fast.”

  It suddenly occurred to Abby that she was the only one talking, babbling really, and she turned to look at Merrideth.

  Her arms were crossed over her chest and she was rolling her eyes. “That part about the fair just proves it’s not a documentary, Abby. Who would put a little thing like that in there? When we time-surf, it’s real. And that girl really is Charlotte.”

  “Kiddo, I don’t think—”

  “And if you want to go see Alton back in the day, then lets time-surf there. You’ll see it’s real too.”

  “How would we?”

  “Charlotte’s going to get on the train sooner or later and when she does—”

  “We lock onto her and go with. You’re brilliant, kiddo. You know that?”

  “I know,” Merrideth agreed with a grin. “Now let’s get surfing.”

  “Guess what?” Jonathan Miles asked, coming in the kitchen door, “Mr. McGuire didn’t send a letter. He came in person from Springfield to talk over the case.”

  Charlotte’s only comment was “Oh?” She wiped the perspiration from her face with a corner of her apron and then, taking the heavy cast iron pot of stew, started for the dining room.

  When Charlotte saw the visitor, she got mad at her father all over again. Why hadn’t he told her how handsome and young Mr. McGuire was? Her first impulse was to smooth her hair, but since she was holding a heavy pot of stew, that was out of the question. Her calico dress was stained, but there was no time to do anything about her bedraggled appearance now. Passengers expected their food on the table hot, and plenty of it, so they could get back to the station on time.

  Mr. McGuire’s clothes were ordinary, those of a country lawyer, but without the somberness she might have expected. Her eyes were drawn to his brown hair glinting in the afternoon sun. Then he looked up as she approached, and she nearly stumbled. His strong face was clean-shaven. His eyes were a leafy green, fringed with the longest dark lashes she had ever seen. And they were peering into her blue ones with interest. She set the pot down in front of him and turned quickly away, intending to go back to the kitchen to wash her face.

  But he stood politely and held out his hand. “Thank you, Miss. My name is McGuire—James McGuire. I do appreciate a hot meal when I’m traveling.”

  “You’re most welcome,” she said, taking his hand after wiping hers on her skirt. At last, she drew her eyes away and noticed the other guests sitting across the table, a pale and nervous man with his pale and nervous wife and their active—very active—little boy.

  “I’ll just go get the cornbread then,” Charlotte said, smiling weakly.

  “My Charlotte has been cooking for years,” Jonathan Miles said as he took his seat at the head of the table. “She took over after her mother passed on.”

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nbsp; “Oh, Papa,” Charlotte said and hurried to the kitchen to take the skillet from the oven.

  When she returned with a basket of cornbread, the men had risen and Mr. McGuire was politely seating a dazzlingly beautiful woman next to himself. He looked up as Charlotte approached.

  “Miss Charlotte, may I introduce Clarissa?” Charlotte nearly dropped her basket. His wife must have been in the parlor. The smile Charlotte had been wearing felt wobbly, but she fixed it as best she could. She hoped it didn’t fall off.

  “Pleased to meet you,” she said and went to her seat at the end of the table. Clarissa’s silk skirt rustled as she settled it around herself. Mr. McGuire said something Charlotte couldn’t hear and Clarissa laughed softly, her shining blonde curls bouncing.

  From his seat at the head of the table, her father turned to the pale young husband. “Where are you folks headed, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “We’re going to take Joshua to the fair,” he replied.

  Charlotte shot her father a pointed look.

  “That is, if he finishes his dinner in time,” the pale mother said. The little boy bounced in his seat and hurriedly stuffed a bite of cornbread into his mouth.

  “Time to go, time to go, time to go!” he said as soon as he had swallowed the cornbread.

  “Now, Joshua,” his mother warned, wiping crumbs from his face. “You’re going to choke.”

  “It’s fortunate that Clarissa could go with us,” the pale husband said.

  “It will be fun for me, too,” she said, smiling at Joshua.

  Charlotte frowned in confusion. “Did you meet Mrs. McGuire on the train?” she asked the pale husband.

  James choked and smothered a laugh with his napkin.

  Clarissa gasped. “I’m not Mrs. McGuire,” she said, darting a look at the man next to her.

  “But I thought—” Charlotte broke off, horrified.

  “Clarissa is my sister,” the pale young husband said.

  “Oh, of course,” Charlotte said. She felt her face burning and knew it was flaming red. She had an overwhelming urge to be somewhere far away. Maybe she’d walk to Alton.

  “I’ll go get the dessert,” she said at last and escaped to the kitchen.

  When she had washed her face in cool water and stalled for as long as she dared, she went back, carrying the warm blackberry cobbler. She was grateful that everyone had resumed conversation.

  “I’ll wager Joshua’s enjoying his ride on the train as much as he will the fair itself,” James McGuire said with a laugh. “Trains are the ride to the future, but I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that, sir,” he said with a nod at Charlotte’s father.

  “No, indeed, Mr. McGuire. I had to do some talking, but I convinced Mr. Godfrey to put the railroad through this land on its way to Alton. It’s the first rail line to the Mississippi, you know.”

  James smiled and said, “And with immigrants from Kentucky and Tennessee pouring into Illinois, I predict your little village will take off like a house afire.”

  “Papa came from Kentucky, too, and when he first got here there were no roads, no fences, and no houses—just unbroken prairie. Now there are twenty-seven houses and we have a school, a church, a blacksmith’s shop, and Papa’s mercantile. Of course, there’s also Mr. Puckett’s tavern—if you want to count that progress. And it’s been just four years since the railroad was finished. It all started when Papa built the mill—it’s steam powered, you know. Farmers used to have to travel for a week to get to the nearest mill. Now they come from miles around to have their corn and wheat ground. Papa says—”

  “Charlotte, you’re making me blush,” Jonathan said.

  “What a charmingly loyal daughter you are,” Clarissa said.

  “You have every right to be proud of your father,” James added.

  Charlotte’s face flamed again as she realized she had been chattering on like a child.

  “I just wish your mother could be here to see it all.” He coughed into his napkin and changed the subject.

  The talk turned to the fair and the weather until the depot whistle sounded. The young family rose abruptly and, saying quick goodbyes, gathered their belongings and left. When Charlotte began to gather the dirty plates and cups, James hurried to get the stew pot. “Let me help you with these heavy things, Miss Charlotte.”

  “Let’s speed it up, okay?” Merrideth said. “She’s obviously not going to get to go Alton yet. And besides, this is getting boring.”

  “I don’t think it’s boring,” Abby said. “The plot is thickening. Don’t you think James is cute?”

  “Not that cute. Let’s fast-forward and see if Charlotte ever gets on the train.”

  Abby clicked the Time Parameters menu and increased the speed. They laughed when Charlotte and the others began scurrying around, doing the washing up in double time. Even that speed was too slow.

  Abby moved the dial again and the screen became a blur of colors all blending together, then shades of gray speeding past. Every few minutes, she slowed the rate to real time so that they could follow Charlotte as she lived out her life. They watched her weeding her garden and picking flowers for the church. They watched a lot of work being done around the house: ironing, cleaning, sewing. Once in a while, a woman came to help with heavier housework.

  They saw Charlotte and her father, dressed in their best clothes, drive off in a horse-drawn buggy to the little church down the street where they joined her brothers Samuel and Frank and their families for the Sunday service.

  Only a dozen or so headstones jutted from the neatly mown churchyard, a fraction of the number Abby and Merrideth had counted in the cemetery.

  They went with Charlotte as she walked down the boardwalk of the village and got a chance to see the blacksmith shop, the school, and even the grain mill when Charlotte went with her father there one day.

  Abby took her hand from the mouse and rubbed her eyes. They were tired and burning, strained from staring at the monitor all day. “We’d better stop for a while. I’m starting to feel like a stalker again. We can’t spend our whole life up in this room reliving someone else’s life.”

  But then Abby saw Charlotte walk to the depot and sit on the bench in front. She grabbed the mouse and nudged the speed up a little. The train pulled into the station.

  “Hey, Merrideth. Maybe she’s finally getting on the train.”

  James stepped down from the train and stood on the platform smiling at Charlotte.

  “Or not.” Merrideth said.

  “I should have realized she wouldn’t be going anywhere without luggage.”

  Abby started to shut down the program, but Merrideth’s squeal to “wait” stopped her. Abby squealed, too, when she recognized the traveler who had stepped down from the train and stood chatting with James and Charlotte.

  Chapter 14

  “Charlotte, may I introduce my boss, Mr. Abraham Lincoln,” James said.

  Mr. Lincoln was very tall. His hands looked too large for the rest of him, perhaps because the sleeves of his suit did not cover his wrists. He tipped his hat, briefly revealing bushy black hair, and gave a polite bow.

  “Miss Miles, James has not ceased enumerating your charms ever since he was last here. I see he has not exaggerated one whit.”

  Charlotte’s face went hot. She couldn’t make her eyes turn toward James, although she was curious to see his reaction to this outrageous statement.

  “And, Mr. Lincoln, may I present Miss Charlotte Miles.”

  “We’re glad to have you, sir. My father would have been here to meet the train, but he had business at the mercantile. He should be here soon. I know he is anxious to talk over the case with you.”

  “Yes, indeed. Now, Mr. McGuire, if you wouldn’t mind—no, I’m sure you wouldn’t—escorting Miss Charlotte back to the house, I will meet you there presently. I need…er…something from the mercantile. I’ll walk back with Mr. Miles.”

  “Is there something I can get for you, sir?”
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  “No, James. That’s quite all right. I’ll be back before you miss me.”

  When Charlotte and James got back to the house, she excused herself to finish the meal preparations. James, refusing to stay put in the parlor, followed her to the kitchen. She put her apron back on and tried to concentrate on making gravy, a process tricky enough even without knowing James’ green eyes were following her every move. She was just putting the last of the food on the table when her father and Mr. Lincoln came through the front door.

  James took the heavy platter of roast beef from her hands. She smiled in gratitude and called out, “Dinner is ready, Papa.”

  “We’ll be right there, dear.” After hanging Mr. Lincoln’s hat on the hall hat tree, he escorted him into the dining room.

  “These are surely the best jellybeans in the state,” Mr. Lincoln said, stuffing the bag into his coat pocket. “I always like to visit your mercantile when I pass through.”

  “I’m glad you like them, sir. I send all the way to Boston for them. But I have another treat for you,” Jonathan Miles said. “Wait until you taste Charlotte’s cooking.”

  “Yes, I seem to recall Mr. McGuire telling me something about that.”

  The computer whirred as the allotted time expired and the screen blinked and reverted to the Beautiful Houses page.

  “Can you believe it?” Merrideth said. “Abraham Lincoln in this very house!”

  “This is so cool! I am a little disappointed in their portrayal of Lincoln, though,” Abby said. “I mean, didn’t they go a little overboard on the homespun routine? And that voice. It was so twangy. You would have thought they would have made Lincoln a little more presidential.”

  “But he’s not the president yet,” Merrideth reminded her.

  “No, you’re right. Just a simple Springfield lawyer.”

  “You can’t still think this is just a computer game? This has to be real!”

  Abby yawned and stood, stretching her arms over her head. “Well, whatever it is, it’s amazing. I’m going to call Kate. She won’t believe this.”