“So…” I avoid looking at him by instead focusing on the leather-bound books next to his head.Leo doesn’t say anything, and I’m too cowardly to look him directly in his face to find out what he thinks.“You probably have questions?”
“Time travel?”His voice sounds shocked and a bit incredulous.“That is not possible.It is only in stories.”
“Come on, you have to have noticed how strange I am.Doesn’t this explain everything?”
Leo hits the back of his head on the bookshelf and then keeps it there, closing his eyes.“You are just…you…”
“I’m a product of another time.”
“I cannot believe I am thinking this.Butwhendo you think are you from?”
“The year 2025,” I whisper.It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud.I’m still half convinced someone is going to jump out of the stacks and commit me to Bedlam, but it feels good to get it out to someone.To get it out toLeo.
It may stop feeling good depending on what he does with the information.But for the time being, it’s nice to be honest with someone who’s been so honest to me.
“Where are you from, in 2025?”
“America.California, to be precise.Although I bet it looks different now than it does when I’m from it.I was in England for a conference, with an event at Osborne House, when this all happened.I am really a historian back home and I teach at a university.I study Indians in England in this particular time, actually.And you met me the first night I was in this time.The first hour.”
“Are you royalty?”
Even though the British aristocracy looked down on Indians and half-Indians, they still felt a begrudging respect, or maybe more a tolerance, of Indians with royal blood.Or at least to the idea of royalty, from any place.
But while still taking their lands.
It makes little sense, but I’m not going to tell them that.It’s why I’m glad I responded to Victoria’s question with a yes that night, even if I thought it was a joke.Who knows where I would have ended up if it wasn’t for that one question?
But even understanding the history, my heart sinks that it would be important to him.“No.I’m very common.”
“I don’t know that you are particularly common.”He isn’t yelling at me or calling for help to restrain me, so I risk a peek at his face.I can’t see disgust, so maybe he isn’t only obsessed with royalty.“Did you come in a…machine, or was it more a Rip Van Winkle type of transportation?”
“I hit my head falling down some stairs, so probably more the second one.”
He nods, like this is a perfectly reasonable conversation to be having.His face still gives nothing away.
“Do you believe me?”I want him to.Not just because it bodes well for my safety if he does, but because I want him to trust me.Because I like him, and I trust him.
Leo shakes his head.“I do not think I can.It’s too impossible.”
“Oh.”That’s not exactly what I want to hear.
“Can you prove it?”
“Probably.”I turn my hard-fought degree into a sideshow trick and think back on what’s happening right now.It’s hard to do when the stakes are this high.
This is the worst history test I’ve ever taken and I feel a little bad for my students.
“On June 13, Emile Lavassor will come first in the first automobile race, from Paris to Bordeaux to Paris at a whopping twenty-four kph.But he doesn’t win because he’s disqualified for having a two-seater instead of a four-seater, so Paul Keochlin is the official winner.But you have to wait for the thirteenth to verify that.And Charles, your Secretary of State for India and future Prime Minister, is having an affair with his best friend’s wife.But I don’t know how you’d verify that either.”
This was easier in Twain’sA Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.There was a convenient eclipse that the titular Yankee knew about happening in a matter of days.But I never paid attention to the weather patterns; unless something happened to derail crops and lose fortunes, it wasn’t in the books I read.
“What?Forsyth and Lady Dumfries?Thatisnews.”He’s distracted out of his emotionless response at the gossip.Now he has a look of delight on his face to know a thing that no one else does.Aside from me.
“Please don’t tell anyone about the affair.I’ve been sort of lightly threatening him by alluding to it, and if you say something he’ll know I’m talking and I’ll lose the leverage.”
Leo shakes his head.“I will not.I don’t know if I believe you or not, but I suppose we can wait to find out.At least until June 13.”
The letter must be coming before then, but it’s the best I’ll get.“Will you tell anyone in the meantime, about the time travel?”I ask.
