Rose for Rose: Book Two in the Angels' Mirror Series (7 page)

Six

Wood Village, Oregon… August 11, 2013

The storm looks like it’s finally clearing
, Eugenie thought, finally able to concentrate now that she’d put the lovebirds away. Glad the thunder and lightning had lasted mere moments, she sighed.

She hated it when storms came… especially when she was all alone.

As a child, she’d loved them… but that was before her neighbor’s cow was hit by a falling oak tree. Lightening had struck it, and the tree had been spliced nearly perfectly down the middle. While it wasn’t a full-sized tree, it had been enough to hurt Mamie the milking cow, and the damage was too much to keep her alive.

Tears welled in Eugenie’s eyes as she pictured poor Mamie. She didn’t climb a tree for over a year after that, believing if she did, the tree would fall over and she’d be maimed, too.

A sudden burst of movement behind her caught her off-guard. She jumped, hitting her hand against the glass. Her stomach did a somersault and her heart began to pound.

It sounded as though something, or someone, fell!

“Hello, Darling,” she heard Clementine call in a loud voice, making her jump again. But when she jumped, she heard an in-breath, like someone else had been startled, too.

After I’ve finally come over to stand and watch the rain, tired of just watching that freaky mirror’s movements and tending to the birds, now something happens
, she thought, frustrated and frightened.

She’d seen a blur of things through the old silvered glass, from what seemed to be differing times, or at least places, and it had begun to wear on her nerves. To try to block it out, she’d turned the jukebox on and come to watch from the window, glad to listen to the Beach Boys singing about their
Surfin’ Safari
.

“Who’s there,” she asked, too scared to turn around.

Her blonde bob and uniform suddenly didn’t feel much like the armor she sometimes pretended they were.

“It’s me, but… but where am I,” she heard a young girls’ startled voice say behind her, “and who are you? What was that weird voice? One of those fancy birds?”

Eugenie did her best to calm her nerves, and after she was able to catch her breath, decided it was now or never.

In a bold move, she turned around: before her stood a tow-headed, thin and dusky girl in a blue floral drop-waist feed-sack dress that seemed a bit small, modest blue felt cloche, and worn out Mary Janes.

The look on her face was likely fright, but it was difficult to tell in the dimmed café lighting.

“Where did my brothers go?”

Unsure what to say, Eugenie did all she could to come up with something quickly.

“Why, you’re in a café,” she said, “and my name is Eugenie Jeffries. I work here. It’s after hours… What’s… what’s your name?”

Though she tried not to sound scatterbrained and nervous, she most certainly felt like it.

The girl mumbled something that wasn’t quite loud enough for Eugenie.

“Beg pardon,” she asked.

Finally, the girl met her eyes. “I said nice to meet you, but where am I?”

“Where did you begin?” Eugenie smiled at her, hoping it would help calm her nerves.

“That’s not fair! I asked first, now where am I?”

The girl all but looked ready to stamp her foot. She walked several steps closer to Eugenie, then back a step as their eyes met again.

“Well,” Eugenie began, not sure where to begin.

Oh, she wished she hadn’t eaten that egg salad sandwich.

Abruptly lurching, she tried to find something to puke in, bursting past the already overwhelmed girl and just barely making it to the bucket she’d had beside her earlier. After cleaning herself up, under the curious and watchful eye of the girl, who had come and placed a hand at her back in support, she was finally able to answer. “You’re in Wood Village.”

“Wood Village?” The girl looked at her, puzzled even more. “How did I get to... wherever that is, and where are my brothers? We were listening to music in the storm, and they were wrestling and then I… I fell, and now I’m…I’m here. With this weird music, and you!”

The words came out in a tumult.

They sounded small and scared and unsure.

“Wood Village. Wood Village. Rrrawk,” Leopold said brightly.

Weird music? Well… then is she really from…

“You’re in Oregon,” Eugenie said, feeling sheepish. “And yes… it was a bird you heard earlier. The one over there…” she said, pointing to Clem. “She’s a good girl, usually. Just talkative.”

Not knowing for sure yet where the girl was from, she could at least guess as to her era. “And what year was it when your brothers were wrestling? When were you? What part of the country were you in?”

“You sure ask a lot of questions. But I’ll have you know… my name is Rose Angela Wishart-Laurent, and I’m the daughter of one of the best fishermen in all of Gloucester Harbor! He not only catches them, but has four men who work for him, helping to dress and dry them once they’re caught. And I hope he’s alright; there… there was a storm and he was out in the boat, and he… I…”

The torrent of words finally trailed off.

“And it’s nineteen thirty, of course!”

Tentatively, Eugenie looked the girl in the eye, and then more boldly. Why, the girl had traveled eighty-three years into the future without having a clue what happened!

Was any of her family still alive?

“Dear… Rose… um…”

“Well, spit it out, please,” the girl looked frustrated despite her uncertainty. The green depths of her eyes were like swimming pools unstirred.

“Iii’m Popeye the-,” Leopold began to sing, stretching out his words.

“Not now!”

Startled by Eugenie’s outcry, he closed his beak, but then Floy started up. “I’m Popeye the-”

“No, Floy. Be a good bird. Not now!”

Eugenie began to feel a little queasy thinking of sailboats on the water in a storm. Just picturing them made her feel all topsy-turvy inside… not a good thing when her stomach was already unsettled.

The dogs began to bark again.
Probably because I was yelling
, she told herself.
Or is it because there’s a sudden stranger in the night?

“Rose, it isn’t nineteen thirty any more. I don’t know how to say this, but… you’re in a… a 1950s café, but… but the year is… two thousand and thirteen.” She paused a moment to let the words sink in. “And you’re in Wood Village, Oregon, near Portland… it’s on the other side of the country from Gloucester.”

There, she’d said it.

She felt bad to be so blunt, but why sugar-coat what was going on?

She felt bile rise once more in her throat
. Please, God, help me not to puke again, and guide me in what to do. Who do I call, and how do we do this?

The girl, face reddened now and fists clenched, looked like a proper young lady about to start a brawl.

Please, God… I can’t…

Rose turned around in a huff, sat on one of the stools, rested her face in her hands, and began to cry. There was such a jag to her tears that Eugenie wasn’t sure what to do.

And if I can’t get a grip around a crying teenager, how will I cope as a mother,
she thought, reproaching herself.
I need to get a handle on this, now!

“Why cry, Grandma?” Clem asked nobody in particular.

“Let me… there’s someone I need to call who I think can help us with this situation. Is that okay with you? I mean, we have to go somewhere sooner or later to get you some help… the… the storm seems to have… subsided now.”

To her relief, the girl nodded, hands still to face, not even looking at her.

In the background,
Cowboy Take Me Away
was just finishing, the last of the handful of songs Eugenie had put on for jukebox play.

Since there weren’t any customers about, she could play even more recent music with abandon; this was one of a small handful that lay outside the boundaries of the ‘50s theme of the place.

Picking her cell phone up from the counter where she’d left it, Eugenie dialed Paloma and Edward’s house and prayed silently there would be an answer.

As she waited for an answer, she pushed the button to raise the metal transom that kept birds off the booths when they flew.

She’d still have to sanitize before they left, but at least she hadn’t seen any bird droppings when she’d glanced around earlier after making sure the birds were all put away properly.

“What do you mean, someone else came through the mirror,” Edward asked Eugenie. “A girl, you say?” He nestled further into the deep green velvet couch and set down the water he’d been drinking when the phone rang.

With Cherish crying in the background and the boys playing with tinker toys a few feet away, he was having a hard time concentrating on the conversation and watching the three at the same time.

Paloma was taking a nap, and his energy was finally coming back to him enough that he felt somewhat helpful around the house. Since deciding a few weeks prior to be a television-free household for the children’s sake, things had gotten more creative, but loud in a different sense of the word.

“You heard me. She says she’s from the Gloucester Bay area, Edward, but from nineteen thirty Massachusetts.” Edward could hear someone talking in the background. “She says, and she repeats… her name is Rose Angela Wishart-Laurent and that her father is a fisherman on the harbor. That’s all I know right now.”

Eugenie sounded confused; tired; exasperated.

At least with the storm dying, she could go home.

As he thought over what to do, Edward wondered what his wife would say to this. Hadn’t Daniella mentioned to her that a client of hers was looking for a missing…?

But it couldn’t be, could it? Yet… it had to be her! It had to be…

“Why don’t I meet you and Rose at your place once Paloma wakes up from her nap. There’s something I need to talk with her about. We might know a bit about… well, this adds up with something Paloma and I recently…”

How to explain?

“I’m already awake,” he heard his wife say behind him, making him jump in his seat.

How had he not even heard her?

When he turned, he saw she was carrying a sleepy-eyed Petunia Rose and heading for the makeshift playpen they’d set up in the living room as an extra crib for their daughter. Softly setting the striking little Ragdoll-Siamese cat down, she picked Cherish up as he heard Eugenie agree to the plan.

“Actually, she snuck up behind me, Eugenie. She’s up. Let me fill her in and I’ll meet you, Rose, and Mark, in say…” he looked at their butterfly clock, which now hung above the playpen. “Sixty minutes or so?”

With a sigh of relief, Eugenie agreed, and told the girl with her the same. He heard a slight mumble in reply, but didn’t know what the girl had said.

As he uttered a quick goodbye, Edward wondered what was in store for them.

How were they going to keep up with everything that was happening? And was this the girl Max and Daniella Colby had told them about… the one whose brother had been searching all these years for?

With three children and two jobs between them already, though neither were working full time at the moment, he was glad that finances weren’t too tight.

Between what Paloma’s parents had left, what she’d saved, and what he’d gotten for selling the sword and garments he’d traveled through time in as antiques – along with the bit of change that had somehow still been in his pockets – they’d had enough to not just survive, but at least for a while, thrive. Thankfully, Paloma was seriously considering putting work on the back burner.
I’m surprised she hasn’t done so already, actually,
he thought.
I wonder if she’s changed her mind. We should talk that through again.

Add in those four fourplexes to co-run with Jason and Me’chelle
, he thought,
and that’s a lot to deal with on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. Not to even mention the yearly tax returns and all the stress that come with them… but at least it all brings in pretty steady income for now.

It was much more than a lot of people Edward had met could say, and he knew they were blessed.

He shook his head.

There was so much to deal with on a daily basis he wondered how it all got done, and now… now…. Include this orphan of time… and he just didn’t know what to do.

Unless she really was the Rose they’d heard about, but even then….

And don’t even get me started on Quentin Quimby
. He sighed, forcing the images away.

No… I can’t think about him now. Too much going on already. So Lord, if you could keep him at bay a while longer, we’d appreciate it. And… man, we still have a party to plan for Paloma’s birthday, to boot.

He sighed again, rolling his shoulders, stretching his arms.