Yes, it was. And if it gets us closer to figuring out what’s happening in this shop, you’ll be thanking me.
I sucked in a breath and pushed the door open.
Chapter Two
The door swung open, revealing an elegant four-poster bed bedecked in rich fabrics and a lounge suite covered in white dropcloths, like ghosts lounging in the window. Heavy velvet drapes hung from every curtain rod, and through an open door on the other side of the bed I made out the edge of the claw-foot bath in the center of the octagonal bathroom. It was the bedroom I’d seen when I first entered this room over a month ago, before I knew what the room really did.
“Phew,” I let out my breath. “At least we got a decent bed.”
“And no dinosaurs.” Heathcliff stalked around the room, using the tip of his sword to lift the drapes and check under the chairs.
“It doesn’t look as though robot overlords have taken over the world yet,” Morrie said, peeling back the velvet drapes to peer out the window.
“The windows still give us a view of the present day, remember?” Satisfied no velociraptors were hiding under the bed, Heathcliff leant his sword up against the wall. “It’s only inside this room where we exist out of time.”
“I knew that. I’m not stupid,” Morrie snapped. “I judge us to be in the late Victorian era, based on the weave of these drapes.”
“Well, aren’t we an expert on soft furnishings,” I smirked as I went to help Quoth drag our supplies through the door. Morrie was already on my nerves, and the good sensations he’d created in my body while we were waiting for the others had faded completely.
“Meeeow!” As I lifted Heathcliff’s duvet, a bundle of black fur bolted out from underneath and dashed between my legs.
“No, kitty!’ I spun around in time to see Grimalkin throw herself at Heathcliff’s trousers, sinking her claws into his thigh. He roared and grabbed her by the scruff of her neck, hauling her off.RIIIIP. Ribbons of his trousers came away with Grimalkin’s claws, and probably a not insignificant amount of flesh as well.
I raced across the room and grabbed Grimalkin. She swung her paws in the air, trying to fight me. “We’re not putting you in danger. Out you go.” I turned to place her back outside, but as I took a step toward the door, it slammed shut.
‘Meow!” Grimalkin exclaimed in triumph.
Quoth grabbed the knob and tugged. “It’s stuck fast. We’re not getting out of here.”
“All our emergency dinosaur supplies are still on the other side,” Morrie pointed out helpfully.
“And my Scotch,” Heathcliff grunted.
I cradled Grimalkin to my chest. “You silly cat. We put out several days of food for you downstairs. I didn’t even pack so much as a morsel of fish for you.”
Grimalkin purred and nuzzled my cheek, apparently unconcerned about the lack of cat food in our immediate vicinity.
I set Grimalkin down on the windowsill. Outside, the village in the present day wound down for the night. The only people in the streets were stumbling home from the pub. The pale orb of the waxing moon glowed like a streetlight over the thatched roofs and Tudor buildings. Across the street, I could make out a square of light at Mrs. Ellis’ window. I hoped she was doing okay. It had been only a few weeks since her close friend Gladys Scarlett had been killed, and her cousin Brenda Winstone was now awaiting trial for murder. Given Brenda’s state-of-mind, I suspected she’d end up in psychiatric care rather than prison.
When I turned from the light of the window, my vision blackened. It was as though someone had thrown a blindfold over my eyes. Curiosity gnawed at my stomach. I wanted to search every corner of the room and figure out this mystery. But I could barely see my own fingers wiggling in front of me. I could hear the boys shuffling around, but I couldn’t see any of them.
I hate this. I hate being so useless.
From my pocket, I drew a lighter. I lit one of the candles I’d brought with me. I fumbled along the wall to locate the sconce I remembered from last time. The candle slotted in easily, but beyond the faint circle of its light I could barely make out the shapes in the room. I lit another candle and shoved it into a silver holder. I held it up near my face and navigated my way to the bed, listening to the boys as they explored the room from top-to-bottom, searching for clues.If we’d come in the daytime, I could have searched, too.But we’d thought it less likely someone from the past would catch us if we stayed the night.
“I found some more candles,” Quoth announced from somewhere in the shadows. He came over and lit the candles from my flame, then placed them in sconces about the room. It still wasn’t light enough for me to search, but at least now I could make out the figures of my boys and some of the basic furniture shapes. At the small desk, Heathcliff held up a letter to a nearby candle. “You guessed correctly about the period,” he told Morrie. “This letter is dated 1896. Do you have another candle, Mina? I’ll read through this correspondence. Perhaps it might offer an identity to our room’s current occupant.”
I fumbled through my bag and found a second candle, which Heathcliff set on the desk beside him. I lit it from my flame, leaning against the edge of the desk to observe him at work. The light illuminated the edges of Heathcliff’s face, flickering over his wild beard and dancing eyes. My heart skipped as he bent his head to read, arrested for a moment by his feral beauty.
What answers might we find in this room?All of my boys had been plucked from their novels and thrust into the world, and we still had no idea why. If this room could tell us that, if it could give them answers, then maybe Heathcliff would be able to forgive himself for who he was in his book, Morrie would be able to let go of his need to control everything, and Quoth… maybe Quoth would find the freedom he truly craved.
As I watched my boys, a base hunger rising inside me, another question crowded out the last.What might happen while the four of us are together and there was only the one bed?
I know what I wanted to have happen, and also what I was terrified of happening.If we cross that line together, we can’t go back. And as much as I told myself it was just sex, and it was perfectly fine for me to sleep with whoever I wanted while I mourned the loss of my eyesight, a niggling sensation at the back of my neck and an ache in my chest when I wasn’t near the guys suggested my feelings for them were deeper than that. If I had to make deductions, I’d conclude that maybe, possibly…
… maybe I was falling hard. For all three of them.
A grunt from the bathroom distracted me from my thoughts. I stood and thrust my candle into the room. Morrie’s shoulders strained as he held up the bath while Quoth fiddled around with the primitive Victorian plumbing. “I’m curious as to where the ancient stops and the modern begins,” Morrie explained when he saw me watching.
