Timebound(20)

“Anyway,” she continued, shaking her head as if to clear it, “I sent a letter to the granddaughter who was Richard’s caregiver before he died. I told her I was writing a history on nineteenth-century journalists and her grandfather was one of the people I was researching, and I was surprised when she asked me to visit in person. When I arrived, she went straight to her china cabinet and pulled out a CHRONOS key.

“She said that her grandfather had always been a bit psychic and he told her that one day when she was in her seventies, a woman named Katherine might come asking questions. If that happened, Richard said that she should give me that old medallion and his diary, because I’d know what to do with them.

“I packed Richard’s key away with my other belongings when I married Jimmy, a few months later. He was a young history professor, and I was a newly widowed research assistant, six months pregnant with your mother and Prudence.”

She smiled softly. “Jim should have been born in an era where knights-errant rescued damsels in distress—when he met me, he became a man with a mission. I was reluctant to marry so quickly. CHRONOS members were told to wait at least a year before making the decision on how to best assimilate. But I knew better than the others that this was, in all likelihood, something worse than a mere technical glitch. Jim and I were married before the girls were born and they were, in every sense other than biological, truly his girls. I could not have asked for a more devoted husband and father.”

“So Mom doesn’t know?” I asked. “I mean, even after the accident, you didn’t tell her that Jim wasn’t her father?”

Katherine looked a bit surprised at the suggestion. “Do you really think that I should have told her? She was angry enough at me as it was—telling her a different lie about a father killed in Vietnam was pointless. And telling the truth would just have convinced her that I was insane. I did the only thing I could do after Jim died—I tried to get her sister back from Saul. And I failed.”





Her comment explained so many other things that I found myself unsurprised that Prudence was alive—or at least, that Katherine believed Prudence had survived the crash.

“It never occurred to me that either of the girls might be able to activate the key,” Katherine continued. “There had only been a few generations of CHRONOS historians and… well, it’s not as though we carried CHRONOS equipment around in public. If the children of historians had ever shown an ability to activate the equipment, it wasn’t something I’d been told.

“I kept my key in my jewelry box. I’m not sure why. I wouldn’t have left my family if it had suddenly become active, but I guess it was just a memento—a reminder of a world that seemed almost unreal to me by that time.” She paused for a moment. “And I knew that Saul had made a jump. He was stranded, too. He thought that destroying the stable point on the CHRONOS end would mean that he had free rein—that it would allow him to go from one stable point to the next, from one time to the next, without limits. And it might have worked, but… I still don’t know what happened that day. Wherever, whenever Saul landed, however, I’m quite sure he blames me for wrecking his plans.”

Katherine toyed with the chain around her neck. “I never imagined that the key would be dangerous to the girls. Prudence found it a few months before she disappeared. She and Deborah were looking for old items to use as costumes for a school play. I don’t know how long Prudence held it or what she saw. I do know that she and your mother got into a rather nasty fight because Prudence insisted the medallion was glowing green and your mother couldn’t see it—she was convinced it was another of her sister’s little jokes.”

She was quiet for several seconds. “So what did you do?” I prodded.

“I did what most mothers would have done—I took it away, yelled at both of them, and said I was tired of their silly arguments. I refused to take either side or to discuss the issue when Prudence raised it later.” Katherine’s blue eyes dimmed a bit and she looked down at her hands. “That was a mistake. I know that now. I think she saw something that… troubled her. Maybe it was the same black void that I still see when I try to activate it—but I don’t think so. She started having nightmares and was moody. Well, she was always a bit moody, but… more so… after.”

A tear slid down Katherine’s face, dropping onto her sleeve. “I thought she was getting past it. Then, a few weeks later, I was going to walk into Georgetown with Deborah to buy her some new shoes. It was a Saturday and Jim was taking Prudence to her violin lesson, which was on campus. Prudence had this sneaky look on her face as she got into the car, but I assumed that was because she was wearing a lot more makeup than I usually allowed—Deborah said she had a crush on her violin instructor. As they pulled out of the drive, Prudence gave me a sassy grin and held up something that looked like my CHRONOS key, glowing a soft orange…