Timebound(24)

“A framed copy of this document was on the wall of my office at the university from the time Prudence and Deborah were two or three years old, so they had both seen it many times. One hundred people—sixty-eight women and thirty-two men—signed the Declaration of Sentiments from that convention. But if you look carefully, you’ll see there are now one hundred and one names. There’s another name here, near the bottom of the middle column—Prudence K. Rand. And that name began to show up in other documents as well.”

“But… why Prudence Rand? Mom’s last name is Pierce.”

“I can only assume that Prudence decided to sign this document after she met her father—Saul Rand. She was clearly trying to send me a message, but I’m still not sure what she intended to say. Did she want me to rescue her or was she just… telling me that she knew my secret? What hurt most was not knowing… Did she know I couldn’t reach her? Did she know I was trying?”





Katherine and I went back to the main floor, leaving Connor in the library with the computers, where he was investigating to see whether there was anything going on outside of the ordinary that might have prompted Kiernan’s warning. Something had been nagging me all through the previous conversation, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It finally hit me when we were seated in the kitchen, a few minutes later.

“Wait, wait, wait… before, earlier this morning, you suggested that all three of them had this recessive version of the CHRONOS gene—Connor, Mom, and… Dad?”

Katherine nodded. “It’s stronger in your father, I believe, than in Deborah. One of the nastiest arguments I ever saw between the two of them happened just after your second birthday party. I was visiting and I wore the medallion. Deborah never much cared for it—but I wanted to see your reaction. As Harry said yesterday, you were fascinated and kept calling it a ‘blue light.’ Harry casually remarked that the medallion seemed to have more of a pinkish glow. Deborah was furious. She thought I’d told him about her argument so many years ago with Prudence, and I guess she thought that we were having a good laugh at her expense. Poor Harry. He didn’t have a clue what she was going on about and couldn’t understand why she kept insisting that it was a plain bronze pendant, not pink, not green, not blue.”

Katherine sighed heavily. “As much as Harry loved—and perhaps still loves—your mother, I’ve always wondered whether he’d have been better off if I’d never pointed him in her direction. Deborah has her good points and I love her dearly, but I think she inherited a touch of her father’s temper and—”

“Wait,” I interjected. “Mom and Dad met at some sort of historical thing. A Renaissance fair or something like that. He was selling jewelry. He took the place of a friend because she was sick.”

“Close,” she said with a little smile. “Harry took the place of a young lady who was quite happy to accept one hundred dollars and have someone else spend eight hours in the heat and humidity—although I don’t think Harry ever knew I paid her. He was doing it as a favor to me. And I told him that if he met Deborah, it would be unwise for him to let her know we were acquainted. He had seen her picture and said she was pretty—and I explained he’d be starting out with two strikes against him if she thought I knew him or that there was the slightest possibility that I might approve of him.”

I stared at my grandmother for a long moment, then got up and walked to the window, watching as two squirrels chased each other up and then down the large willow in the backyard.

“Katherine… is there anything else that I think I know about my own life and my parents that is totally incorrect? The way I heard it, Mom didn’t even introduce you to Dad until they were married.”

“Well, that’s actually true—it’s just not the whole story. Your mother didn’t introduce us; I first met Harry when he was about eighteen. His adoptive parents had always told him that they would help him find out about his biological parents if he had questions. I was the most logical person to point him toward. His biological parents, Evelyn and Timothy, were also CHRONOS historians and were stranded in 1963—they were studying events surrounding the Kennedy assassination. I contacted them after my arrival in 1969. They were living in Delaware. They had a friend who put in a good word to help me get the research job in New York, where I met Jimmy.

“We exchanged Christmas cards a few times. I remember them once including a picture of a small boy who would have been your father. And then I heard nothing from them. People lose touch—and that happened even more often before your Facebook and email, and…”