12
We have left Colin and the museum. We’re strolling down the street, in search of a spot to eat a late lunch.
“What shall we do afterward?” I ask as I pause to admire a display of glittering snowflakes and candles, marking today’s winter solstice.
“I should say return to the hotel and rest, but there is plenty of time for that, and our lovely Helen gave me this before we left.” He lifts a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “It seems your family has set another stop on our holiday hunt.”
I groan. “As much as I appreciate their efforts, it is time we did something foryou.”
“You are very kind,crécerelle. Indeed, we shall do what I want.” He waves the note with the directions. “We shall follow these and have ourselves another adventure.”
Three days later,we are due back in my time, having had enough adventures to keep us sated for the remainder of the holidays. We continued on with the scavenger hunts, which took us to a massive holiday tree in Trafalgar Square, several astounding displays of lights, and “Christmas in Kew Gardens.” We found time to rest, and we found time to do things that each of us wanted.
Bronwyn and Rosalind pick us up at the train station, and then they drive us to Thorne Manor where we head straight up to the office.
Bronwyn and Rosalind go through the stitch first. When Nicolas and I follow, I clutch his hand, as always. Logically, I know that if the stitch ever declared one of us could not pass, holding hands would not help, but it makes me feel better. I try very hard not to think of the possibility of separation. If I dwell on it, I fear I might never step through again.
The passage is instantaneous. One moment, we are in Bronwyn and William’s twenty-first-century office, and the next, we are in their nineteenth-century one. I look around at the familiar furnishings and books, and I find myself exhaling, as if I have stepped from a ship onto firm land.
I am home, in a place that I understand, and it is only once I am here that I realize there’d been part of me that held tight in the twenty-first century, always wary, unable to fully relax. I know that is also what it is like for Nicolas—whether he is in my time or my country—and while he brushes it off, saying that he is acclimating, I must always remember England and the nineteenth century are not home for him. A second home, perhaps, but we must always be like Bronwyn and William, passing between the periods and locales, cognizant of the other’s needs. That is what true partnership looks like.
When a shriek sounds downstairs, Nicolas and I both tense, ready for trouble. But my sister and Bronwyn only share a laugh.
“Sounds like the kids are having fun,” Bronwyn says.
Rosalind inhales. “And it smells as if our darling husbands have not burned Christmas Eve dinner to a crisp. Excellent. Now I may pretend I was not concerned at all.”
Bronwyn throws open the office door and stops short. “Dear God.”
Rosalind steps closer to peer under Bronwyn’s lifted arm. “It looks as if a Hobbycraft has exploded.”
I do not understand the reference, but both women laugh as they head into the hall.
We step out.
“Mon dieu,” Nicolas murmurs. “Indeed, the children are having fun. At least, I hope it is the children, though if it is not, I will refrain from judging their fathers’ decorating tastes.”
“Oh, I will,” I say.
The hall is strung with garlands. No, that quite undersells the matter. The hall is laced with garlands? Still not quite right, and as a novelist, I must get this right.
The hall istrussedwith garlands, in the way one might truss a rambunctious calf. There are homemade garlands of every type, from evergreen boughs to paper chains to strung berries and popping corn from the Americas. The children have found a way to hang them from every surface. They wind around sconces and picture frames and crisscross doorways.
“Fire hazard,” Bronwyn mutters as she pulls one away from a candle sconce. “That is a phrase I must teach my daughters for Christmas.Fire hazard.”
At another shriek, one of those daughters—three-year-old Amelia—comes tearing up the stairs, a garland of paper swishing behind her. Edmund follows with his own garland, this one popcorn and berries. Bronwyn’s younger daughter, one-year-old Grace, shrieks from her nearby crib, and through a doorway, I can see her bouncing. Two calico cats zoom after the older children, chasing the ends of the garlands.
“Please tell me Zadie is not crawling along behind you,” Rosalind says.
“Of course not, Mama,” Edmund says. “She isn’t old enough to crawl. Papa has her.”
“He’s hiding with Uncle William, I presume?”
Amelia giggles. “They’re changing the baby’s poopy diaper.”
“Which requires two people, if those people are Victorian gentlemen,” Rosalind says.
“Theywerehelping us,” Edmund says.