FOUR
On May 20, 1869, Catriona Mitchell had been enjoying a half day off, only to be discovered that night in a lane, where she’d been strangled and left for dead… exactly one hundred and fifty years before I was strangled in the exact same spot.
I woke mid-morning, and the rest of the day passes in a fog of denial pierced by bouts of investigation. I am, after all, a detective. Faced with a question, I investigate. I’m also the daughter of a defense attorney. I play both roles here—as a detective, I build my case, and as my mother’s daughter, I try to tear it down again.
What are the possibilities here? I could be dreaming or being tricked, possibly drugged into hallucination. While it doesn’t feel like those are the answers, I can’t just trust my gut. The first step is to find something that doesn’t fit the time period. For that, I automatically reach for my phone to start checking my surroundings against factual history. But without a cell phone—or any internet—I must rely on a layperson’s understanding of the Victorian era, and I’m sure I could be fooled. Also, if it is a dream, it would match my expectations anyway.
Still, I try to poke holes in the fabric of this reality. I check the mirror, in case it’s a trick one. It isn’t, and I’m not sure how that would work anyway when I can look down and see a body that’s not my own. That takes me back to the “drugged and hallucinating theory.”
I check my hair. Not a wig or a weave. Nothing about me is familiar, and there is no chance I’m wearing some elaborate disguise.
I check my undergarments next—which is an adventure in itself—in case I find modern underwear in the layers, suggesting a logical gap in the hallucination or dream. Nope, my underwear is definitely not modern. It’s a pair of drawers—
Wait. Where’s the crotch? I have two leg pieces attached and open at the crotch. Did I rip it? No, that seems to be the design, and I think I have indeed found a logical hole… until I need to use the chamber pot with layers of skirts and I realizewhymy underwear would be crotchless. Okay,thatI did not expect.
I also test my mental faculties. I recite the alphabet backward. I walk in a straight line. I pull up the words to my favorite poems. I’m not drugged or inebriated in any way.
When I woke, I presumed my attacker lured me into the alley with a video of a young woman being attacked. Forget the fact that I’m now in the body of that young woman. Does my theory even make sense? He’s the guy from the coffee shop. He stalked me. What’s the chance that he planted the video along my run in hopes I’d hear it and respond?
No, what I heard was Catriona. What I saw was Catriona. My attacker only took advantage of it. I’d helpfully run into a dark alley, and that was exactly the opportunity he could not ignore.
Later that morning, Alice brings me a late breakfast, which I can’t bring myself to eat, not until I’ve figured out what’s going on. I manage to ask a few questions before she scampers off. Gray checks my head wound briefly, and come afternoon, Mrs. Wallace herself delivers lunch with a lecture, neither of which I’m in the mood for, but I pick at the food and pick through the lecture—mostly about how lucky I am to work for a family like this—for useful information. Then, Mrs. Wallace declaring me well enough, I’m moved upstairs to Catriona’s proper quarters.
When night falls, I slip from my room and head downstairs. There are a lot of stairs, with a lot of levels, which does make it seem like a dream until I glance out a front window and realize we’re in a town house. In Canada, that would mean a relatively small home adjoined to others. This is as big as any suburban mini-mansion, at least four thousand square feet.Three stories plus a finished attic, where the maids sleep, and a finished basement, with the kitchen and Mrs. Wallace’s quarters.
When I first woke, I’d been in a third-floor guest room. Gray and his sister also have their bedrooms on that level. The second floor is home to the dining room, drawing room, and library. I’m not sure what’s on the main level—the doors are locked and I can’t easily find anything to pick them.
I conduct an otherwise thorough survey of the house, and I find nothing to suggest I’m not actually in the nineteenth century. Moreover, while I see many things I’d expect, I also see things that Idon’texpect, but on reflection, they fit. Like gas lighting and coal stoves. Ask me to imagine this period, and I’d conjure up candles and wood fireplaces. I’m not sure I’ve ever given much thought to what came between candles and electricity or wood and oil furnaces, but gas and coal make sense.
Also, the decorating is… I don’t want to say “ghastly.” That oversells it. Slightly. There’s too much of everything—from paintings to bric-a-brac to furniture—and Victorians obviously never met a bright color they didn’t want for their sitting room. I’m saved from eye trauma by the gas lighting, which combines with the heavy drapes to keep the garish colors muted. I imagine the day when Victorians will get electric light, suddenly see their rooms in their full glory, and run screaming, retinas scarred. Again, it’s not what I expected, but when I see it, my gut says, “Yes, this is Victorian.”
I poke about the house, and I track down Alice to subtly ask about the residents. Gray and his widowed sister live alone. The staff consists of Mrs. Wallace, Catriona, and Alice, plus a part-time gardener named Mr. Tull and a stable hand named Simon.
Between the staff and the elegant home, the family seems to be what I’d consider upper middle class. Oh, and Gray’s not actually a doctor. Well, yes, technically he is—I found diplomas for a bachelor’s degree in medicine plus a master of surgery from the Royal College. But rather than keeping people alive, he takes care of them after they’re dead. He’s an undertaker, which seems to be an inherited family business.
I spend that night investigating, while my internal defense lawyer challenges everything. Finally, it isn’t my profession or my mother’s that allows me to accept what has happened to me. It’s Nan’s. She’s an amateurfolklorist who grew up in a family where they’d put out cream for the fairies. If asked whether she believed in such things herself, she’d say, “I don’tnotbelieve.” She’d heard too many stories to slam that door shut. Real fairies? Maybe not. But she did allow for the possibility of concepts beyond the conventional realm of science, like ghosts and telekinesis… and time travel.
In the end, I cannot dismiss the words of that fictional saint of detectives.
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Something happened in that lane. Two women were strangled a hundred and fifty years apart. On the same night. In the same spot. I don’t think I heard and saw an echo of the attack on Catriona. I think I saw the attack itself—through a rip in time. I heard her cries. I came running. And when I was attacked in the same manner, time tangled, and I fell into her.
Is Catriona in my body, lying in a twenty-first-century hospital bed? If I get back to where we switched places, can I reverse this?
Iwillget back there. Right now, though, there’s no escaping. During the day I played “confused and befuddled head-injury victim.” Which also gave me an excuse for staying in my bed, recuperating as I worked out my situation. Otherwise, I suspect, Mrs. Wallace would have put me to work as soon as I woke.
Once I’ve accepted time travel as the answer, I head straight to the front door before realizing I have no idea where I am and how to get back to that lane. My brain insists that isn’t a problem. Just pull out my phone and let the GPS guide me back to the Grassmarket. Yeah…
While the front door is locked, it doesn’t require a key to open from the inside, so it’s not as if I’m trapped. I’ll acquire more data before venturing out.
Mrs. Wallace has already declared I’ll resume my duties tomorrow. That’s fine. It’s the only way I’ll get the information I need to return to the lane where I passed through time. Playing housemaid is a necessary evil if I want to avoid being tossed into a lunatic asylum for my odd behavior.
Here, I have food and shelter and a job that can’t be all that difficult. Everyone expects me to be “a little off” after my injury. I’ll be as sweetand demure as any Victorian maiden, as quiet as they’ll expect from a servant girl, while I figure things out.
I have a mission, one with three simple steps:
Find my way back.