They stepped inside. There were six booths, five were occupied. No one present was his long lost wife, nor were the two waitresses, one of whom was Bernadette. When he made his way to her, Fable followed close behind.
“Welcome to Tess' Diner. How many?” She looked up from her notepad in her hand and when she saw Fable, she looked about to give her a happy greeting.
“We are not here to dine,” the traveler interrupted. “I’m looking for someone.”
Bernadette glanced down at the hilt of his sword sticking out of the long, steel scabbard hanging from his belt. He was going to have to put that thing away somewhere.
Bernadette looked over her shoulder at the door to the restroom. “Is one of those medievaly fairs going on in the park?”
“Yes,” Fable answered before the traveler had a chance to. “Near Belvedere Castle.”
“How are you, dear one?” Bernadette said to Fable. “I haven’t seen you at your normal places.”
“I know. I’ve been…um..” she had no idea what to give the waitress as an excuse as to where she’d been.
“Dorothea West. Is she employed here?” he rudely interrupted.
Fable fastened her wide gaze at him. West? What did it mean? Nothing.
“I’m her husband,” he went on, “Richard West,Lieutenant-colonelRichard West.”
Everything. It meant everything.
Chapter Fifteen
Ben groaned and opened his eyes, then rubbed his head. Night had fallen. How long had he been out? Fable. Heremembered her in the clutches of a man fitting the description of the man who was chasing her. The culprit had found her. He’d taken her. Ben’s belly twisted and doubled him over where he lay crumpled against a boulder behind a stand of trees. He’d been away from her, just as he’d been away from his mother.
“Fable,” he groaned out. She was gone. Into the future where he could not go. He closed his eyes, unable or unwilling to rise to his feet, feeling the weight of an entire life without her. But wait–
He pulled himself to a sitting position. Where was his horse? What force had flung him out of his saddle and into a boulder? What were those lights beyond the darkened treetops?
Rising to his feet, he squinted into the darkness of the forest. But…it wasn’t so dark. He could see high poles stuck into the ground. On top of each pole was a lantern. There was no flame, he realized as he walked under one. Where was he? He didn’t recognize the trees. These appeared in the dim light as though they had been planted intentionally in certain groups and in rows along a neatly paved road.
He wasn’t in a forest.
The tree line ended too abruptly just there, beyond another pole with a round lantern at the top.
He heard the blare of some kind of horn somewhere ahead. He moved toward it and came to a short stone wall almost hidden by the thick bushes and tree trunks blocking it. He jumped over it and landed on the other side on both feet.
Then backed up and fell on his arse when he looked around him. It was chaos. Mayhem. Horseless carriages filled the streets in two rows. One going one way and the other going the opposite way. They looked more like giant, armored beetles with eyes that lit up the street. Lights like the ones atop the poles. There were colored lights built into metal encasements and suspended in the middle of the streets. Green lights, yellowand then red lights. Red caused the metal beetles to slow their speeding and stop.
He watched while the opposite rows increased their speed when the lights turned green. It was fascinating, mesmerizing. The carriages moved with no outside help.
He finally tore his gaze away and looked up at the high structures taking every foot of the other side of the wide street. He tilted his head to see the tops of the buildings. They reached the heavens…and there were even taller fortresses in the distance. His blood raced through his veins when he realized where he was. The future.Herfuture. She was here! He’d followed her and made it through with her! Hope wasn’t lost! But where was she? How would he ever find her in the checkerboard rush of the future population?
“Fable,” he said softly. “Which way should I go?” He looked at the other side of the street, and then looked back toward the small forest. He glanced up and saw a sign high up on the same pole that housed the light. 110th Street/Central Park North. North. He remembered what Fable had told him about where she’d been before being taken back to the past.46th Street and 9th. If this was 110th Street, then he needed to go south. South was back throughCentral Park.
Wasting no time, he leaped over the short wall once again, this time, to enter the park, not leave it. He ran away from the wall and the mayhem and went deeper into the woods. While he ran, he wondered why the time-traveler brought Fable forward. How did he pull her back without the pocket watch? What did he want with her? Ben prayed it was nothing nefarious. But as the moments passed, he grew more anxious. When he found them, and he would–he was going to kill the time-traveler. He didn’t worry about getting back. He wouldn’t even think of home until he found Fable.
He hurried past gated enclosures of what appeared to be places to play for children, with swings and colorful climbing structures. He kept going. Thankfully, there were signs in the park that told him he was going in the right direction.105th Street. 103rd, 102nd…he kept going. She might not be at 46th Street and 9th, but it was all he had to go on in a completely different world.
He broke through the park on 60th Street and 5th and kept going. There were very few people around to stare at him while he ran. He finally reached 49th Street when the sun began its ascent, casting the city in a golden-purple hue. But when Ben stopped it was to stare at the maze of streets with tall buildings on every side. He’d passed a cathedral with tall, jagged steeples, a building with hundreds of flags on poles jutting out of it. It seemed a bit quieter here, with clear glass windows, clearer than he’d ever seen, without a hint of green.
He shook his head at himself, refusing to get caught up in the fascination of this place. He had to get to 9th. He turned in the direction of what he hoped was west, and hurried toward the wide road. Were these the streets on which Fable had slept her whole life? He wondered how she got any sleep at all with all the lights. The sky was starless but the city was bright like the day. He’d seen giant words strung up in lights and flat, moving images of people tall as the buildings.
He felt a new wave of pity for her at having grown up here, right here on the noisy, bright, dangerous streets. But when he found her, he wouldn’t let her know about his pity, lest she scold him. He smiled at the thought of her.
Which way? Which way?
