My eyes scanned both sides of the wide street for any sign of either Simon or Kiernan as I tried to recall everything Katherine had said or that I had read about the earlier jump. We had focused most of our research on the second trip. I’d just skimmed through the first one, mining it for background information about the fair itself. Katherine had said that the jump hadn’t been connected to her own research—she was there to gather general impressions about the last days of the fair and the people’s reaction to the assassination of Mayor Harrison, along with some background work for other CHRONOS agents.
I vaguely remembered her saying something about a camera, an African exhibit, and a beer garden. By African exhibit, she must have meant Dahomey Village, at the far end of the Midway. The beer garden was just ahead in the German Village, but I had no clue which day she’d gone where.
Rather than waste time trying to dredge the pieces up from memory, I paused in the shade of one of the viaducts that intersected the Midway and pulled the copy of the 1893 diary from my bag. After a few minutes of searching, I found the entry for October 28th and quickly scanned it. Katherine had spent most of the morning talking to young women at the International House of Beauty, a sort of global fashion show that was very popular—there was a long line outside both times I walked past, oddly enough with nearly as many men as women, although I suspected most of the guys were there to see pretty girls from around the world rather than to observe the latest trends in global fashion. Around noon, Katherine had walked back to the main Exposition, where she talked to some of the many workers who would be looking for new jobs in a few days when the fair closed its gates for the last time.
The next journal entry was the one I was looking for. It placed her at the German Village around 3 P.M. She didn’t stay long, however, since she was there specifically to speak with the friend of a barmaid who had disappeared a few weeks earlier. The girl wasn’t on duty until six, so Katherine decided to return that evening.
I leaned back against the brick wall of the viaduct and considered my options. Simon was also working with only the info from the diary, so he had no more clue than I did where Katherine would be between noon and three. His best chance of finding her, just like mine, was to stake out the various entrances to the German Village.
I could see one of the entrances from where I stood, but I wasn’t sure if it led into the beer garden. Shoving the diary back into my bag, I decided to head over to the German Village to do a bit of reconnaissance.
Three little girls in native costumes were working their way across the street from the Javanese exhibit, holding hands as they crossed the Midway. I had just stepped toward them, thinking I would ask if they had seen “Little Mick”—he seemed to know everyone else at the Expo—when I saw the expressions on their faces transform all at once. One small brown hand flew up suddenly, as though its owner was trying to warn me.
I realized with a jolt of surprise that they weren’t actually little girls at all but three tiny older women. The startled look on their faces was the last thing I remember clearly before I felt the sharp jab of a needle in my upper arm. The Midway began to melt into a kaleidoscope of random faces and body parts. I caught a brief glimpse of a man with a mustache and a black bowler, the colorful brocade fabrics of the Javanese costumes, and a small scuffed shoe as my knees buckled under me. Then, just shapes and colors. And finally, everything went pitch-black.
For several seconds after I awakened, I thought I was in the small, cozy spare room where I always slept when visiting my dad’s parents in Delaware. There was a slightly musty smell in the air, and as my eyes adjusted I began to pick out the intricate pattern of a crocheted doily on the nightstand next to the bed. I reached over to feel for the bedside lamp, but my hand bumped instead against a candleholder, knocking the stub of wax onto the floor. It rolled a few feet and then stopped, blocked by what I was pretty sure was a chamber pot.
This wasn’t Grandma Keller’s guest room.
I pulled back the thin blanket that someone had tucked in neatly around me. My green dress was missing. I was wearing only the white silk chemise and petticoats that Trey had so admired earlier. My right arm was unusually stiff and there was a small welt about six inches below my shoulder where the needle had punctured the skin. A red scratch marked the inside of my wrist, and the bracelet Katherine had given me was gone.
Everything was strange in the dim light, and I suspected that I was still feeling the effects of whatever drug I’d been given. Only the tiniest bit of sunlight seeped in through a dingy, grime-covered window about the size of my foot near the very top of the wall. A larger window, with closed curtains, was several feet beneath it to the right. I slid to the other side of the narrow bed and reached up to open the drapes, hoping to put a bit more light on my current situation.