Page 18 of Stolen Time

I closed my eyes and breathed in and breathed out, doing my best to slow everything down, to push away the anxiety that had been bubbling under the surface ever since I arrived here in 1926. While I didn’t meditate, I’d done enough yoga that I was pretty good at smoothing down the rough edges and allowing myself to focus on a single thing.

In this case, my room in my childhood home in Flagstaff, which I knew my mother hadn’t touched, thinking I’d be back whenever I got tired of working at the store and wanted to returnto more familiar surroundings. I’d decided to visualize that room because it was much better known to me than the one in my rented house here in Jerome — and also because I worried that if I started thinking about that particular bedroom, I’d think about Seth as well, about his quick, friendly smile and the astonishing sapphire of his eyes.

And I couldn’t let myself think about him. The last thing I wanted was to allow any thoughts of people and things in this time and place to trap me here. Besides, the important thing to focus on was a when, not a where. If I was successful, I’d still be here in Jerome, simply because my gift only allowed me to travel in time, not in space.

Thinking of my room just as it had looked before I packed my bags and left for McAllister territory seemed to be the smartest thing to do. With any luck, I’d get back within a few hours of when I left.

Walls painted a serene sage green, shining wood floors. Upholstered headboard and furniture that was a fun mismatch of wood and iron, things that shouldn’t have gone together but somehow did anyway. I’d completely redecorated the space my first year of college, knowing I wanted to leave behind the girlish pastels that had suited me just fine when I was younger but now seemed cloying, almost silly. And because I’d chosen everything myself, I knew the room very well, right down to the seeded glass vase that sometimes held pussywillows and sometimes cottonwood branches, depending on the time of year.

The image was so clear in my mind that it almost felt as if I was sitting there, rather than in the prim, pretty room that had once belonged to Seth’s cousin Daphne. If I reached out, would I be able to feel the smooth curves of the vase that always sat on my dresser?

Better not to try. I didn’t want to touch something nearby that would fling me out of my imagining.

Instead, I sat there, holding on to that mental picture, doing my best not to force anything, only to be in the moment…a moment I hoped would morph into one more than a hundred years from now.

A knock at the door. “Miss Rowe? Seth’s here, and we’re getting ready to sit down to dinner.”

My eyes flashed open. The same turret room surrounded me, with the white iron bedstead to one side and the jewel-toned stained glass bordering the windows, although the day outside had darkened, and I could tell far more time had passed than I’d thought. Was Ruth McAllister angry with me for not appearing downstairs as I’d promised several hours earlier? Her voice didn’t sound annoyed, so maybe she thought I’d taken a nap and had left me alone to sleep.

Whatever had happened, it seemed clear her arrival had broken my concentration.

So much for that.

“I’ll be right down,” I said.

6

DEEP, DARK SECRETS

He knewhe shouldn’t have been looking forward to this dinner so much. Despite that, Seth couldn’t quite keep his heart from skipping a beat as Deborah entered the dining room and sent an apologetic smile toward him and his uncle Timothy, who was already seated at the head of the table.

“I’m so sorry about that,” she said as she sat down in the chair directly opposite Seth’s. “I was trying hard to see if I could remember anything, and it seems I got so exhausted, I ended up falling asleep.”

“Did anything come back to you?” Timothy asked. Like his wife, he was in his middle fifties, although somewhere along the way, he’d lost a good deal of his hair and was now nearly bald. The straining waistband of his trousers told the tale of the multitude of good meals that had emerged from Ruth’s kitchen over the years, and yet he never seemed too bothered by his girth and would always joke that perhaps it might take a few years off his life, but at least he would die happy.

Deborah shook her head in response to Timothy’s question. It seemed to Seth that she’d tidied up a bit, since those few strands that had come loose from her bun earlier today werenow tucked neatly back away from her face. “No, nothing. It’s frustrating, but I’ll keep trying.”

“Of course you will,” Ruth said as she came back into the dining room, now carrying a platter that displayed a fine roast. She put it down near her husband’s place setting and then took the seat immediately to his right. “In the meantime, though, you should definitely eat to keep up your strength.”

Seth did his best to smother a smile. Their clan had a very good healer in Helen, but that didn’t stop Ruth from thinking her home cooking was really the solution to whatever might ail you.

Deborah nodded, and the next few minutes were taken up by Uncle Timothy carving the roast and giving everyone a generous helping, while the side dishes — mashed potatoes and peas and rolls and gravy — got passed around so they all had full plates by the time they were done.

Seeming to sense that Deborah didn’t want to continue discussing her memory loss, his aunt Ruth deftly turned the conversation to bits of chitchat about Jerome, whether it was the new restaurant coming in at the very top of Main Street, kitty-corner from the mercantile, or the prospect of an early monsoon season, considering they’d gotten some good rain just the weekend before.

“You do know about the monsoons, don’t you?” Ruth asked, and Deborah nodded.

“The summer rains you get here in the Southwest, right?”

“Exactly,” Seth’s aunt replied. “Up here on the mountainside, it often feels as if they’re fiercer than they are down in the valley, in Cottonwood or thereabouts.” She paused for a moment as she gave her visitor a considering look. “If you know about the monsoons, then surely you must be from somewhere in Arizona.”

“They have monsoons in New Mexico as well,” Timothy pointed out, but Ruth only made a dismissive sound.

“I doubt very much that she’s come from there,” she said. “It’s all Indians and artists in that colony in Santa Fe.”

Once again, Seth had to keep himself from grinning. And, judging by the dancing light in Deborah’s clear blue-gray eyes, she was just as amused by Ruth’s declarations as he was.

“Oh, I think there are a few more people than that,” he commented as he broke open his roll to butter it. “But I also have the feeling that Deborah comes from someplace a little closer than Santa Fe.”