Page 11 of Stolen Time

“Those clothes you were wearing — ”he began, then stopped himself. Appearing to sort through his words, he went on, “I beg your pardon, but they were somewhat odd. Where did you get them?”

Sometimes, pretending to have complete amnesia could be a real plus. “I have no idea,” I lied. “I didn’t recognize them — but then, I don’t remember very much.”

“Of course,” he said quickly. “I probably shouldn’t have asked. Now that you’re ready, do you think you could speak tomy cousin Helen? I’m hoping she’ll be able to unravel some of this mystery.”

“Sure,” I said. “Although I don’t know how much I’ll be able to tell her.”

“That’s fine,” he assured me. “But I think it’s better if you at least talk to her a little. Are you all right with going to her house? She lives just down the street, so it isn’t much of a walk. I thought that might be better since she has small children.”

I had to hope someone would be watching the kids while she held the interview, or I didn’t know how much she’d be able to accomplish. The Wilcoxes — well, most witches in general, from what I’d seen — tended to marry and start families early, so it wasn’t as though I hadn’t had plenty of chances to babysit and be around little kids, starting with my sister Jessica’s two-year-old son Duncan and ranging to any Wilcox cousins who needed some cheap babysitting so they could go out to dinner or the movies or whatever.

Maybe that had been part of the reason why moving to Jerome had been so appealing. So far, no one had asked me to watch their kids, giving me that much more free time to do what I liked.

“If you’re sure it won’t be too much of an imposition,” I said.

Seth immediately shook his head. “It’s fine,” he replied. “Helen’s husband Calum can watch the children while we’re talking.”

It seemed the McAllisters were a little more progressive about that sort of thing than I might have expected from people living more than a hundred years ago.

“Well, then,” I said. “Let’s go talk to Helen.”

4

PLUMBING THE DEPTHS

Seth hopedhe hadn’t overtly stared at Deborah Rowe when she returned to the living room. It had been difficult, because in that simple flowered dress and with her heavy hair wound into a complicated knot at the back of her neck, she looked like some kind of goddess who’d descended from Olympus to consort with mere mortals.

Or at least, mere witches and warlocks.

But he did his best to keep his wits about him, despite how distracting she was, and after a brief discussion about going down to Helen’s house for the interview, they headed out. Now that Deborah walked next to him, he noted how tall she was, almost to his jaw, something he rarely encountered. She walked freely, with her chin up and her clear gray-blue eyes scanning the landscape around them as she appeared to take in everything as though she was seeing it for the first time.

Most likely, she was. Her memories might have deserted her but his had not, and he knew she’d never been in Jerome before.

Her free strides and utter unself-consciousness surprised him a little, just because the few truly tall women he’d met had tended to do what they could to make themselves lessconspicuous, as though they knew they already attracted enough attention solely because of their height. But he thought he liked that about her, liked the way she seemed unafraid of looking at the world even though she had no real idea of her place in it.

Well, with any luck, his cousin Helen would be able to fix that.

Although neither of them had a telephone — there was one at the mercantile, and another in the surgeon’s house up on Hill Street — Seth knew it was no imposition for him and Deborah to show up like this unannounced. It was late enough that the children would have all been bathed and dressed, and because they would not be attending any kind of services…not even the homegrown ones he’d described to his unexpected guest in a very small lie…he knew it was safe enough to come here, as everyone in the McAllister clan tended to stay close to home on Sundays.

In fact, Helen opened the door so quickly, it was almost as though she’d been expecting them in that very same moment. She was not a seer — their last seer had passed away some five years earlier, and so far no one in the younger generation of McAllisters appeared to have that gift — but his cousin still had flashes of intuition from time to time.

“Good morning,” she said, her tone cheery, and directed her next words to her visitor. “I’m Helen O’Dowd, Seth’s cousin. Come inside. Have you eaten?”

With a rush of shame, Seth realized he hadn’t offered Deborah any refreshment after she awoke, not even a glass of water. He had been up for hours, and had already had coffee — he rarely ate breakfast — and he supposed he’d been so flustered by her presence that he’d forgotten she might need something more than a change of clothes to refresh herself.

“No,” he replied, and glanced at Deborah. She wore a cheerful smile and didn’t look particularly hungry, but he knewwomen were often very good at putting on a public face when the situation warranted. “Helen, this is Deborah Rowe. I should have gotten her something to eat, but — ”

“It’s fine,” she murmured, even as his cousin’s expression turned immediately disapproving.

“Oh, it is most certainly not ‘fine,’” Helen said, and opened the door a little wider. “Come into the sitting room, and we can have some tea and scones.”

Because Seth knew his cousin was just as good a baker as she was a healer, he thought he might overlook his propensity for skipping breakfast to have some of her delicious raisin scones.

“That would be wonderful,” he said as she led him and Deborah into her sitting room, which was certainly much larger and grander than the space where the lost young woman had spent the night on his sofa. Fine furniture, some of it shipped in from New York and some made just down the hill in the workshop adjacent to the high school, filled the space, and brocade curtains had been pulled back from the tall windows to allow a view of the tree-lined street directly in front of the house…and to allow a peek of Sedona’s red rocks and the Mogollon Rim far beyond.

Helen gestured for them to take a seat on the settee, then disappeared to fetch the promised tea and scones. Next to him, Deborah was looking around with the same lively interest she’d displayed on the walk down here.

Well, he had to admit that his cousin’s house was very fine, probably the nicest on its street. True, on the hillside above the main thoroughfare were grand homes built late in the last century, fanciful Victorian houses with stained-glass windows and even turrets, but he thought Helen’s place was homier while at the same time being quite elegant.