Always Read online

  “Lavender,” Darci whispered.

  “Yes, dear,” one of the women said. “Our own dear Lavey.”

  Darci’s eyes widened as she tried to turn around on the couch, but turning was difficult, for she was wearing a long dress with heavy skirts that weighed down on her legs. Lavender took Darci’s hand and held it tenderly. “Darci, dearest, you gave us quite a fright. You and Jack—”

  “Jack?”

  “Yes, Jack,” Lavender said, lowering her thick lashes, her cheeks turning a pretty shade of pink.

  Darci flopped back against the hard cushion of the hard sofa. “I don’t remember what happened.” Dramatically, she put her hand to her forehead and peeked out through her fingers. When she touched her head, she found that her own hair was slicked down over her head and she, too, had ringlets over her ears. She could feel a lump of what was surely a lifetime’s growth of hair coiled on the back of her head.

  Behind Lavender, the two older women were frowning, as though they didn’t believe Darci, but Lavender’s sweet face was all concern.

  “We’d just returned from the rehearsal at the church when Jack told us you’d fainted.”

  “Church,” Darci said slowly. “Rehearsing? For your wedding?”

  “Yes, of course, you silly goose, for my wedding tomorrow when I will become Mrs. John Marshall and you and I will become sisters.”

  “Sisters?” Darci asked, again trying to sit up. “Does that mean that Jack is my brother?”

  The two older women exchanged looks, as though to say that Darci had lost her mind.

  “You need to rest,” Lavender said. “I’m sure that all the work you’ve done for my wedding has overtaxed you.”

  “Not to mention this thing that’s about to cut me in half,” she muttered, pulling at the thick cloth about her waist.

  “I agree,” Lavender said, smoothing Darci’s hair back from her face. “But corsets are a necessary evil. No woman ever looked beautiful without pain.”

  Darci started to reply that that was absurd, but then she remembered dead lifts and squats. Pain indeed! “Could I possibly see Jack?” she asked.

  “Are you well enough?”

  “I think so,” Darci answered, trying to lift her legs under the heavy skirts so she could sit up. She was still a bit dizzy, completely disoriented, and she needed someone to tell her she’d wandered onto a movie set. The alternate—that she was in a past time—was too ridiculous to consider.

  There was a knock at the door and moments later Jack walked into the room. He was dressed in an old-fashioned suit that was nearly as narrow at the waist as Lavender’s dress was. There was a moment of rushing about as the two older women pulled Darci upright and tightened the strings on the corset, then buttoned her dress. During this time Jack talked to Lavender. Peering around the women, Darci saw that Jack was practically drooling over the beautiful woman.

  Darci tried to send him a mind message. Where are we? What has happened? How do we get out of here? Do you have the silver box?

  Jack’s lack of response made her sure he wasn’t hearing her.

  When one of the women pulled the corset strings too tight, Darci sent her a mind message to ease off. The woman didn’t obey. Curious, Darci turned to the women and concentrated. No response from either of them.

  On a table beside the couch was a little beaded bag. All her life, when Darci had touched a personal item belonging to someone, she’d immediately known a great deal about that person. But when she picked up the bag, she felt nothing. She put her hand on the arm of one of the women. Nothing.

  “There now,” one of the women said, “go to him. Have your last day together.”

  “Hardly that,” Lavender said, smiling. She had perfect teeth. “Are you packed for the honeymoon?”

  “I’m getting married, too?” Darci asked, aghast, as she stood up.

  Laughing, Lavender kissed Darci’s cheek. “No, but you’re going on our honeymoon with us. You haven’t changed your mind, have you?”

  Behind her, Jack was mouthing, Please don’t go, as he looked Lavender up and down.

  Darci moved to clutch Jack’s arm firmly. “No, of course I haven’t changed my mind, but now I need to talk to my, uh, brother in private.”

  “Yes, of course,” Lavender said. “But remember, tea is at four and dinner is at seven.”

  “We’ll be here,” Jack said cheerfully as he escorted Darci out the front door.

  “What—?!” Darci said as soon as they were outside. It was hot and she had on at least thirty pounds of clothes. Before them was a village that looked like a Currier and Ives print. “I need to sit down,” she whispered.

  “See the white house with the deep porch? That’s our house, where you and I live with our father—who’s rarely at home, by the way.”

  “Our house?” Darci whispered, feeling faint. To herself, she said, I want to go home. To my daughter and my niece. To my own father.

  But the way Jack was acting made her keep quiet. Holding her arm firmly, he led her onto the porch, which was relatively cool. “Watch this,” he said, then rang a little bell that was sitting on a wicker table. Within seconds, a pretty red-haired maid appeared and Jack told her he wanted a pitcher of lemonade.

  “Yes, sir,” the maid said, then disappeared into the house.

  Darci did the best she could to breathe, which wasn’t easy considering that her rib cage was encased in a tightly laced corset. “You seem to know a great deal more about what’s going on than I do,” she said, “so tell me everything.”

  “It seems, my dear sister, that we have done the impossible, which is to travel back in time.”

  “The box,” Darci said. “That’s what the box contained.” When Jack looked at her in question, she explained. “I was told that there are twelve magic objects and each one has a specific ability. The Touch of God…” She glanced at him. “The ball I used on your friend’s shoulder can heal. Unfortunately, it can’t heal everything. I mean, I can’t change a person’s destiny to die or not die, but it works on some things, like old wounds. Except sometimes, in certain circumstances, with help, it can do other things,” she added, then drew in a breath. “Anyway, it looks like that box your father had hidden away lets people…” She trailed off as two women, wearing tight-waisted, full-skirted dresses walked past, bidding them good morning.

  She was surprised when Jack addressed the women by name. “Do you know them?”

  “My mind seems to be full of two memories. I remember my life in the twenty-first century—except for about four years when I was under the influence of various illegal substances—and I remember this guy’s life, this John Marshall’s life.”

  “So why don’t I remember being…?”

  “Darci, my twin sister?”

  “Twin?” She looked back at the street. She was beginning to sweat under her dress and longed for a shower. A shower and a pair of shorts and some sandals. And to be barbecuing shrimp with her husband and daughter, and to be with her father and sister-in-law and their daughter.

  “Are you okay?” Jack asked.

  “I don’t think I have any powers,” she said softly. When Jack was silent, she looked at him. He was leaning back in the chair, his long legs stretched out across the porch. She wasn’t used to not having the ability to sense what people were feeling. She’d been born with her powers; they were as much a part of her as her skin. “Did you hear me? How do we get back if I have no powers to find out anything?”

  The front door to the house opened and the maid came out with a pitcher of lemonade and two glasses. There was a chunk of ice in the lemonade that had what looked to be a couple of sticks frozen inside it. Obviously, the ice had been taken from a pond that winter and stored in an ice house.

  Darci decided she had too much to worry about to concern herself with dirty ice. She could be treated for typhoid when she got back home.

  Jack said, “Thank you, Millie,” and the maid went back into the house. He settled back into