“He remembers,” I said. “The watch went to him. Why?”
“I don’t know,” Mr. Darcy said. “I have no idea. I think this watch may enjoy doing things that make me suffer.”
I drew back, a bit wounded at that. “I make you suffer, Will?”
“Well, I feel responsible for having done this to you!” he said to me.
“Miss Bennet,” said Mr. Wickham, “you’re calling him Will, are you? How long have you two…” He gestured back and forth between us. “What in the bloody hell is going on?”
“George, really, there is a lady present,” said Mr. Darcy, annoyed. “Watch your language.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I decided. “The watch did this, not us. We have already decided we are going traveling, have we not? It’s all very unfortunate for him, but perhaps it’s for the best.”
“What?” said Mr. Darcy. “For the best?”
“Well, before, you wished to prevent him from doing harm to anyone else,” I said. “Now, he’s trapped in Thursday along with the both of us. So, he can no longer affect the future or anyone in it.”
Mr. Darcy nodded slowly. “True,” he said. “True.”
“What are you two on about?” said Wickham, eyes wide.
“It’s Thursday every day,” said Mr. Darcy. “Not for everyone, just for us. We remember. They don’t. This has been going on for us for an abundantly long time—longer for me than Miss Bennet. I was at it for a month before she joined me in this insanity.”
Mr. Wickham blinked. “What?”
“No point in explaining it, Mr. Wickham,” I said. “It sounds mad, I know. But you’ll see, when you wake up tomorrow. It’s not ideal, but we’re making the best of it.”
“Oh, yes, making the best of it, waking up together, so I see how that’s going,” said Wickham, looking us both over. “It’s a cursed pocket watch, you say?” He rubbed his forehead.
“You believe us?” I said.
“I’ve run afoul of gypsies and the like before,” he said quietly. “I know about curses.”
Mr. Darcy turned on him. “Really? Well, perhaps you could take us—”
“We’ve tried everything, Will,” I said. “I wanted to travel.”
Mr. Darcy looked up at me. “Yes, you did. And I wanted to please you.”
“So, let’s just go,” I said. “We’re very sorry, Mr. Wickham, but we didn’t do it to you ourselves. The watch seems to have a mind of its own.”
Mr. Wickham looked at us, brow furrowed. “Every day is Thursday,” he said quietly. “That’s absolutely, abundantly, and in all other ways, deranged.”
“Aye,” said Mr. Darcy. He turned to look into my eyes. “Where do you wish to go first, Elizabeth?”
I could help but smile.
So, leaving Mr. Wickham behind to puzzle out his fate, we set off together, off into the rest of our lives, into the unending, repetition of Thursdays.
Travel, however, proved difficult.
The first time we set out on a boat, we thought that it would be much like a horse. If we were touching the horse, the horse stayed with us as the day reset, at least, so long as we were sitting on the horse itself, at any rate. Mr. Darcy had some evidence that if one was off the horse when the day reset, the horse reset back where it belonged as well.
Turned out, standing on a boat did not mean that the boat would remain with us.
The first time we set out on a voyage, midnight came and the boat reset to back where it had begun Thursday, which was the port city of Newhaven, where we had set off from.
And we were tossed into the English Channel, which was a wet and frightening experience.
