On two different occasions, Trey rented documentaries about the Exposition and Chicago in the late 1800s. Several were about the Exposition itself, and they really brought the images and stories I’d been reading to life.
One of them gave me the creeps, however. It was filmed like a horror movie, but it was actually a documentary about Herman Mudgett, the sociopathic killer Katherine had mentioned. Posing as Dr. H. H. Holmes, a physician and pharmacist, Mudgett had killed dozens, maybe even hundreds, of young women during the time he lived in Chicago. Several of them were women he had married or simply charmed out of their money, but most were total strangers. He had the perfect setup—a building he owned near the Expo was transformed into the World’s Fair Hotel, catering to female visitors. Some of the rooms had been specifically equipped for torture; in other cases, he piped gas into tightly sealed, windowless rooms through small holes he drilled into the wall, and watched through a peephole as the women asphyxiated. Then he dumped their remains into lime pits in the basement and, in many cases, sold their perfectly articulated skeletons to medical schools for a bit of extra cash.
We didn’t make it all the way through that show. I’m not a big fan of horror movies, even of the true-crime variety, so I ejected the DVD when it became clear that the three little kids Mudgett had been watching for a business partner weren’t going to survive, either. We spent the next hour watching a much more pleasant documentary about Jane Addams and her efforts to help Chicago’s poor. I was still on edge, so we rewatched The Princess Bride to get my mind off the murders. And despite all of that, I had to sleep with the bathroom light on that night.
Most of the history that I read and watched was the same between the two timelines, except for a few references to Cyrist leaders who, like the leaders of all other major religions, had attended the World Parliament of Religions at the Expo in late September. And there were some other oddities, such as a picture of a smiling Mark Twain entering the tethered balloon ride with several young Egyptian dancers—although Twain had, according to Katherine’s history books from the pre-Cyrist timeline, fallen ill upon his arrival in Chicago and never left his hotel room.
Even though I’ve never had a great passion for history, I found the reading more interesting than I would have imagined. It felt less like research and more like reading a tour guide in preparation for an upcoming vacation, even if it wasn’t exactly a trip I would have chosen on my own.
I was also working on the practical side of things, perfecting short, in-house jumps with the medallion. I could now focus on a stable point and set the display in under three seconds. I even showed off for Trey a few times, popping up in the foyer when he arrived for a quick kiss, and then back to the library.
I also set an extra stable point in the living room and confirmed that I could, as Katherine had suspected, jump from point A to point B to point C, without returning to point A first. The restrictions that had limited the CHRONOS historians to round-trip jumps were a safety feature mandated by headquarters, and not something that was hardwired into the medallion. Unlike Saul, Katherine, and the other original CHRONOS crew, I could travel when and where I chose, assuming the existence of a nearby stable point. We also suspected that I could travel back to a known stable point from a location that hadn’t been previously set as a stable point, although Katherine wasn’t keen on having me test that possibility. Connor couldn’t think of any logical reasons why it wouldn’t work, but Katherine insisted that we should consider that to be a last-resort, emergency exit option.
The next test, before attempting a long-distance jump, either geographical or chronological, was a short hop to a local stable point. The nearest location in the CHRONOS system that was easily accessible was the Lincoln Memorial—to the left of Lincoln’s chair, outside the roped-off area, in a section that was somewhat obscured by shadows. It was listed as a stable point between 1923 and 2092. I was tempted again to ask Katherine exactly what happens in 2092, but suspected I would still be told that it was none of my business. The memorial was staffed from 8 A.M. to midnight—and was also more likely to have visitors during those hours—so we decided that a 1 A.M. arrival would be a safe bet. Katherine and Connor were both concerned that, this early in the training, I might get there and not be able to lock in the return location, so Trey had offered to be there with a ride home, just in case.
We scheduled my departure for Friday at 11 P.M. Trey was in the library when I left. I gave him a big, brave smile and said, “One A.M., Lincoln Memorial. Don’t stand me up, okay?”
He squeezed my hand and said with a huge smile, “Our first date outside the house? I’ll be there, don’t worry.”
Katherine pressed her lips together firmly, her eyes anxious. “No dawdling, Kate. I mean it. You come straight back, okay?”
“She will,” Trey said. “We’re just joking. No unnecessary risks, I promise.”
She gave him a brusque nod and turned back to me. “You don’t have to be in the exact same spot when you leave—the key has a reasonable range on it—but get as close as you can.”
I released Trey’s hand and pulled up the stable point. I had been practicing the location all day, and had watched hundreds of visitors climb the steps to the memorial, taking photographs and videos, but I now took the additional steps of pulling up the time display and locking in my arrival time by shifting my gaze on the display to the appropriate options and blinking once. It was almost like a mouse click, although I had to wonder what happened if you were trying to select and dust blew into your face. I glanced at the final control, then took a deep breath and blinked.
A warm evening breeze told me that I had arrived before I even opened my eyes. After looking around for a minute, I saw Trey leaning against one of the nearby columns. He was holding a brown bag and a large soda.
I walked toward him, breathing in deeply. “Oh, yum—I smell onion rings.”
“Yes, you do,” he replied. I had confessed a few days before that I really, really missed the onion rings from O’Malley’s, the neighborhood bar and grill where Mom and I often ate on weekends.
I smiled and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “Thank you. But you’re spoiling me, you know. And two minutes—then I should head back. Not that Katherine would know either way,” I admitted, “but we promised.”
He sat the bag and soda on the steps and pulled me into his arms. “I know, I know. We’ll eat fast—I’m going to make you share those onion rings. I even brought a mint, so if you eat neatly for a change”—he laughed as he blocked my punch to his arm—“and if you avoid breathing in their faces when you return, our secret is safe.”
It was a beautiful night and the romantic glow from the lights and the reflecting pool made me wish we could do ordinary things like this all the time. I was feeling more and more like someone under quarantine.
Trey was apparently on the same wavelength. “Too bad we can’t do this more often. Especially with your birthday this weekend…”
“And how did you know my birthday was this weekend?” I had purposefully avoided thinking about the day, knowing that it would only make me think of past birthdays, Mom, Dad, and everything else that was now missing.
He gave me a sly smile. “I have my ways. Think Katherine would give us a temporary furlough for a night out?”
I sighed. “I think we both know the answer to that. This will probably be our only night out for some time, unless you’d like to come with me to the World’s Fair?”
“Chicago I could probably do,” he said. “Eighteen ninety-three might be a problem, however.”
“True,” I admitted.
I hesitated for a moment, taking another onion ring from the bag. There was one thing I really wanted to know more about—and one person I felt I needed to see—before making the trip to Chicago.
“Maybe you could take me to church instead?”
“What?” Trey laughed for a moment and then stopped. “Oh. Charlayne?”
I nodded. “She’s not the entire reason, but yes, I want to see her.” I turned toward him. “I also want to see what they’re up to, Trey. The Cyrists. I mean, right now, my main motivations for changing this timeline are personal—getting my parents back and being able to leave the house without this damned medallion. But Katherine and Connor seem to think that the Cyrists are…”
“Evil?” he asked.
“Yeah. I guess that’s the right word. Granted, I’ve only been to one service at the Cyrist temple—and that was before the last time shift—but I just didn’t get that sense. And, on top of that, I can’t say I’m totally down with the idea of a future where many of the most important decisions you make in life are decided while you’re still an embryo.”
“I know,” he said. “I can understand why they do it, but it doesn’t leave much room for individual choice, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t. I don’t doubt that Saul’s methods are evil—I mean, he pretty clearly killed Katherine to set this up—but what about the larger movement? I feel like there’s so much that I don’t understand. And, if the Cyrists as a whole are as rotten as Connor and Katherine believe them to be, I guess I want to try and get a better idea of what I’m up against.”
Trey thought for a minute, and then nodded, giving my shoulders a squeeze. “When and where? They have something going on at the temples most days, but the main services are on Sunday mornings, right?”
“They are. Could you pick me up here around seven, before the guards arrive? If I get caught… sneaking out, I’ll just act like I’m practicing a short jump. I do that enough that Katherine shouldn’t think anything of it. And I’ve been to the temple on Sixteenth, so I’m at least somewhat familiar with the layout.”
“Why do you need to know the layout?” he asked, a suspicious look in his eye.
I shrugged. “Well… I mainly want to see Charlayne and I’m probably just going to ask some questions, but I might need to… look around a bit. I don’t know. I’m playing this by ear.”
Trey frowned slightly and then leaned his head down to nibble on my earlobe. “It’s a very pretty ear, too. Let’s just hope we can keep it attached to your head. Those Dobermans look hungry.”
I elbowed him. “They don’t keep guard dogs on the prowl during services, silly. But if you’re worried, we’ll bring a few of Daphne’s dog biscuits to bribe them.”
The onion rings were now reduced to a few tasty crumbs at the bottom of the bag. I gave Trey a good-bye kiss and popped the mint into my mouth as I walked back over to the spot near Lincoln’s chair. “I’ll see you again in just a sec,” I said, pulling up the library stable point with the medallion. “But you’ll next see me tomorrow night for dinner—so drive safe, okay?”
Now that I wasn’t nervous, I accessed the location quickly, and when I opened my eyes again I was back in the library, where Trey, Katherine, and Connor were staring at me, with slightly anxious expressions.