Its bones were overgrown with ivy, the roof gone, the round and arched windows empty of their glass. The long center aisle bordered by archways reminded her of the walk at St. Paul’s, the vaulted ceiling replaced by a cloudless sky. It would have been beautiful when it was whole. Still possessed a haunting allure that tugged at her heart. It was a glimpse of what might have been. If she had never danced with William in the rain, her bones would be there among the moss-covered stones, overgrown with ivy, too.
“That’s what I need your help with,” Beatrix says.
She found the address easily enough. Knocked on the door and politely asked the woman who answered if she could speak to Mr. Davies.
“Moved out,” the woman said. “Don’t know where.”
Beatrix pressed her for more answers, any clue she could follow to find him. Did he have family? A job? Friends? But all Beatrix gathered was that he was an eccentric man who never remembered when the rent was due and that his landlady was glad to be rid of him.
“Can you find her?” Beatrix asks, pointing to the last name on the letter, presently living, out there somewhere. “I wouldn’t ask, but I’ve hit a dead end.”
Oliver looks at her, stunned. “You want me to look up her future?”
“Mr. Davies did a catalog of all the graves in Lancaut and researched the lives of the people buried there. Can’t you do the same in your time? Research her life and tell me where she’s living now?” Beatrix asks.
Oliver goes still. “She’s nine years old, Bea.”
“She’ll be thirty-six when you come back,” Beatrix counters.
“What if I find her?”
“Then I find her,” Beatrix says.
“And then?”
“I don’t know.” She has tried not to think that far ahead. “I don’tthink—I couldn’t talk to her. I just want to see her. To know that she’s real.” To know that there is some piece of her family, of her old life, still out there.
Oliver leans toward her. “Say I look her up in the Aevum database. I find out everything there is to know about her: where she was born, where she spent her childhood, where she went to school, who she married, how many children she had. It’s the 1800s, so if you’re lucky, there might even be photographs. Any document she was ever mentioned in will be there. Her entire life.” He taps the words on the paper between them. “But in my time, it won’t say ‘presently living.’?”
“I know that.”
“I don’t think you do, Bea,” he says quietly. “If I find her—ifyoufind her—are you going to just sit there and watch her, knowing every horrible thing that will happen in her life? The exact day she’s going to die?”
It feels like a trick question, that she should say yes, of course she can, that she won’t interfere, that she will stick to whatever time traveler’s code Oliver has sworn to observe. But they are sitting in a café garden instead of listening to a symphony. “I don’t know,” Beatrix admits.
“You can’t tell her anything,” Oliver says gently. “But if you know, how can you not?”
“Like Beethoven?” Beatrix asks.
“Like Beethoven,” Oliver agrees.
Tears prick behind Beatrix’s eyes. She folds the letter and the family tree, and hides them away in her pocket.
“I’m sorry. I wish I could help you,” Oliver says, and she can tell he means it. “But it wouldn’t be fair to you, and it wouldn’t be fair to her.”
Beatrix would laugh if she wasn’t afraid she’d burst into tears. She would like a word with whoever is in charge of fair.
May 1, 1851London, England
The iron arm of the turnstile ratchets as Beatrix pushes through it. She follows the crowd of people ahead of her. Organ music drifts to her ears from somewhere up above, merry and bright and just loud enough to hear over the excited murmur of voices.
A man in a black top hat offers Beatrix a pamphlet map of the exhibit hall for the price of tuppence, but she politely declines. She wants to explore the world under one grand glass roof. She wants to get lost.
To her left, crimson signs proudly display the names Trinidad and Bahamas, Western Australia, and New Zealand, in bold white lettering, hanging over glass displays of colorful fruit, tortoiseshell crafts, and a life-size carved figurehead meant for the prow of a ship. To her right, the Tunisians have assembled a traditional bazaar, filled with dresses and blankets, carpets and drapes, all in rich, colorful patterns. Straight ahead, an elm tree spreads its canopy of leaves under plate glass and cast iron instead of sky.
Beatrix can’t help but stare. She has never seen a tree inside a building before. Then again, she’s never seen anything like the building the tree is growing inside, either.
The Crystal Palace is a modern marvel. At least three times the size of St. Paul’s, the newspapers have proclaimed it the largest building in the world. Made of glass and iron, with an arched and vaulted roof, it sparkles like one of Queen Victoria’s diamonds in the midmorning sun. Even the tiered fountain bubbling away next to her is made of gleaming cut glass. Judging by the crowd gathered around it, she’s not the only one who finds it impressive. She searches their faces for a familiar one.
