I couldn’t come right out and ask if he knew she was a time-crosser because if he didn’t know, he’d think I had lost my mind. I needed to find a way to ask without giving away too much.
“She had a birthmark on the back of her head.” I watched him for any signs of recognition. “Did she ever talk about it?”
He frowned, drawing the scar in his eyebrow into a strange pattern. “No.”
“Did she talk about her life? About anything strange or unusual?”
Sam returned to the table and took a seat on the stool. “What are you trying to ask me, Miss Adams? Did I know her before she met my brother? Yes. She was from a good family in London. Her father was a member of parliament, and we met at church when she was just sixteen.” His jaw tightened when he said, “I was the one who introduced her to my older brother, something I have regretted every day since.”
The pain and frustration and anger in his tone made me curious about his brother, but I pressed on, needing to know if he was aware of her time-crossing ability. “Did she ever say anything about a different life? In a different time and place?”
He stared at me, a myriad of emotions and thoughts playing across his face.
We sat in silence for several heartbeats, and then he said, “Yes.”
Relief made my shoulders lower. He wouldn’t think I’d lost my mind.
“How did you know?” he asked.
“Her birthmark. It means she was a time-crosser.”
He squinted. “A what?”
“It means she lived two different lives, at the same time. She lived here and then in a time somewhere else, though I’m not sure if she went backward in time from here or if her other life is in the future.”
“It’s in the future.” He rose again, this time slowly and deliberately as he continued to watch me. “How do you know about that?”
I had never told anyone in this path I was a time-crosser. Only my family in 1929 knew the truth because so many of them were time-crossers. Even Lydia, who was playing the part of Amy, was a time-crosser.
It wasn’t easy to admit the truth to a stranger.
“I’m a time-crosser,” I said.
He briefly closed his eyes, almost in disappointment, and then said, “It’s because she was a time-crosser that all of this happened.”
“All of what?”
“This.” He motioned to the room around him.
I frowned and shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
Sam leaned on the table, his face coming closer to mine. “It’s because Bess was a time-crosser that her husband was murdered, I was sent to the penal colony in Australia, and then I brought her here to this godforsaken place. It’s because Bess was a time-crosser that Paddy struggles to speak and Johnnie doesn’t speak at all.”
All I could do was frown in confusion.
He sat straight. “And if you’re a time-crosser, what pain and destruction will you cause in my life?”
“None, I hope. I—I don’t understand what one thing has to do with the other. I’ve never hurt anyone.”
“Bess didn’t do any of it on purpose, Miss Adams, just as you won’t.”
Though I was much shorter than him, I tried to make myself appear taller. “It wasn’t her fault that she was a time-crosser, andthough I don’t understand what happened to cause all of this”—I motioned to the room like he had—“I know that it had nothing to do with her time-crossing.”
He shook his head. “You have no idea, do you?”
“What?”
Sam rubbed his forehead. “Bess didn’t invite any of it. Everything was out of her control, but itdidhappen because of her time-crossing. In the end, though, she died, and we’re left to pick up the pieces, so I guess it didn’t matter.”
