Rose for Rose: Book Two in the Angels' Mirror Series (8 page)

“You’re meeting with Eugenie and Mark, and… Rose? She’s come?”

This from a curious-faced Paloma, Cherish in her arms, and twins at the ankles. He had to keep from laughing at the endearing sight.

In an attempt to be discreet with little ears around, he replied, “Une jeune fille a voyagé à travers le miroir, Mon Ange. It seems,” he continued, “she is from Massachusetts, nineteen thirty. And a young teenager…. What did Eugenie call her… oh, yes, Rose Angela… Rose Angela Wishart-Laurent… that’s as much a mouthful as my own name, if not more. And isn’t it also… I could be wrong, but… isn’t Peter’s sister’s name Rose, too?”

He laughed at the little joke he made, not sure what else to say. If this was really Peter’s sister… if this was really the girl he’d been searching eighty three years for… then what?

And if it wasn’t, what then?

He shook his head again, clearing it. He’d find out soon enough….

And he might learn more about the mirror from the girl, in any case, since it was apparent she’d traveled through it, as he had.

“Wow, really?”

She shook her headful of red-gold ringlets and he smiled at her, recalling when they’d first met, and it had been multi-hued; beribboned with pink, purple, and green streaks her best friend, Tawny had helped her with not long before he himself had traveled through the mirror and met her.

Cherish began to cry again, and since the curtain was closed, Paloma began to feed her, telling the boys to go into their room to play.

“Mama, why,” Duncan asked as Chosen threw himself down on the spot in protest, his little fists pumping the air in silence.

Why the little boy threw himself so passionately about whenever he didn’t want to follow instructions baffled Edward, since he himself grew up never being able to get away with such behavior.

And then there was poor Duncan, who always seemed to sense something was wrong, even when it wasn’t. Was he to grow into a worrywart, or would Edward and Paloma be able to rinse the thought pattern from his little mind before it became a lifelong pattern.

“It’s alright, Duncan. Chosen, it’ll be okay. Mama and Papa need to talk for a few minutes. I’ll come get you soon,” she said.

They obviously didn’t believe her, because Chosen’s protest spread to his brother, and soon they were both bawling.

With yet a third sigh, Edward lifted one, then the other, thankful they were still fairly light, and with each tucked under an arm, tried to avoid getting hit too hard as he took them to their room.

“Now listen here,” he said. “You need to do as Mama says the first time. Daddy can’t go carrying you around everywhere, and Mama can’t. She has Cherish to take care of also now, and you have to be big boys and help us make sure she has good role models. So listen to Papa and to Mama, alright?”

He was beginning to tire, and wished he could take a nap before heading to his friends’ place. Finally, after more reasoning and threatening to send them to the corner, the twins were at peace, no longer upset, playing with some GI Joes in the middle of their floor.

Glancing at the clock, Edward realized he would have to hurry in order to arrive on time. So, after briefly kissing a tired, smiling Paloma, and then his daughter’s cheek, he got his keys, pulled on his
Stetson
hat, and headed toward the door.

“Call if you need anything. I’m not sure how long this will take, alright?”

“Just be safe.”

Cherish began to fuss as Edward opened the door and headed for the minivan. Though he felt bad leaving Paloma here alone with three babies at night, he was thankful it wasn’t often.

With a turn of the key the engine came to life, and he began to whistle as he pulled out of the drive to meet the mysterious Rose.

Seven

Portland, Oregon… August 11, 2013

Mark greeted Edward at the door, and even before he could get inside, he could hear Eugenie– and who he assumed to be young Rose - talking in the kitchen behind his friend.

Mouse was barking at something, and Mark called for him to quiet down.

Poor Mark
, he thought as he entered, stopping momentarily to set his hat on the rack near the door.
First he learns he’s going to be a Dad and now there’s a teenager in his house he’s never met, from another time and place!

He tried to keep from chuckling as he found a place to sit at the long oak dining table.

Eugenie was still wearing her pale pink 50s-style waitress dress, complete with little black pin-dots and a matching black apron and nametag.

Whenever he saw her in it, or visited the café and someone else waited on him, it reminded him of the movies he’d seen with carhops in them.

With a weary smile, Eugenie moved toward him to give him a hug, then quickly introduced him to Rose, adding, “And he came through the mirror, like you. It was a few years ago, but he came from a long, long time ago… and a whole other country.”

Rose stared, then finally nodded. Her eyes held questions Edward couldn’t even begin to imagine, though he had been in a similar situation.

“Want anything to drink since you’ve come all this way? Water, juice, soda, tea,” Eugenie suddenly asked them. “I’ve also got cocoa but it’s August, after all… and seriously, who drinks cocoa in August?”

She sounded nervous.

Tense.

Unsure.

The odd little laugh gave her away, as usual. But this time, she sounded afraid, even.

Had something happened since they’d spoken on the phone?

“Actually, I do,” Edward replied, taking in the girl who was seated to his left.

Not knowing enough about the late twenties and early thirties kind of threw him, but he’d studied enough to hopefully get by. He could tell the clothing was era-correct, and the hat in front of her seemed to be one that had come back into fashion in recent years.

With a designer for a wife, he was thankful that he’d gotten at least some of those details down in his mind. Not enough to try his own hand at it, but at least enough not to feel out of place and time, completely.

“I used to,” the girl, Rose, said quietly, now fingering her hat, eyes downcast.

Mark whistled, then came to sit with them, as Eugenie turned around.

“Really,” Eugenie asked. “Cocoa in the heat?” She sounded genuinely shocked. Her eyes widened, and she turned her head a little sideways, as if waiting for an explanation.

What was so shocking about that?

Eugenie must think the world is coming to an end,
people drinking cocoa in August
, Edward told himself facetiously as he smiled, then glanced back over to Rose. He sobered his thinking quickly as he realized that, in some ways, it really had, for Rose.
Sure felt really odd to me, coming into a new time, a totally unfamiliar place, not knowing a single soul.

“Yeah, I do, really… at least I did before… before the Depression and…and before my Mother died,” she said, even more quietly.

There was a quality fit for music in that voice; sad music, but music all the same. Edward wondered briefly how well she’d sing jazz later on in life, then chided himself, shaking his head to clear it.

Now wasn’t the time for such thoughts. The girl had just mentioned something horrific in her life; something painful that deserved the honor of being listened to.

“And when was that, if I can ask,” Edward quietly asked her.

He looked at her, noticing just how very green her eyes were, and the short, flattened wave of her hair, the color of wheat ready for harvest.

The girl, who looked about fourteen or fifteen, looked up at him.

“I’m sorry to be so blunt, it’s just… my own mother died when I was born and I think maybe I could empathize, even just a little bit,” he said in reply to the query in her eyes.

He took two fingers and pinched them together, leaving a quarter inch apart, to show her he meant it, a question in his eyes. He sent her a questioning look, and she nodded silently before replying.

“Mother died less than a year ago… in March, trying to have a baby. It was the fourteenth, a Friday, and I remember it was a full moon” she began. Tears rimmed and then began spilling one by one from her eyes, and she shook them away, sniffling, rubbing at them with the back of her hands before she continued.

“My Aunts Evelyn Una and Angela Rose – I was named for her, and Evelyn was named for my Nanama Wishart – well, they were over, even though they live miles and miles away and almost never visit. And the…the baby… she was a… a little girl. Sarah Jene, well… that’s the baby… she didn’t make it, either. So, it’s… it’s been my… my Father, me, and my little brothers Steven, Michael, Warren, and Peter. I’m the oldest. Fifteen,” she said quickly; quietly.

Her voice was almost a whisper, but not quite.

Now that she was talking it was like a floodgate had been opened. She began to sob. The memories of all she’d been through must be just pouring out in a confused jumble, like happened to him for the first… well, at least five months, Edward surmised.

And with all this confession… all these memories being shared, Edward had a confirmation that this may, indeed, be the long lost Rose Peter had been searching for.

At ninety and in ill health, he might not have a lot of time to reconnect, but if they could… if Rose could see the reality of…
Edward sighed in frustration.

How am I going to break the news that Peter is the only sibling she has left, Lord? She may have nieces and nephews galore, I don’t know, but You do. And You know why this young lady had to travel like I did. Is there something in her story we’re supposed to learn from?

Edward’s mind wandered and meandered and his thoughts rose and fell like the sea.

What was he going to do? And how would he do it?

Eugenie got hot water boiling for her guests, and Mark just sat there, listening, drinking the juice his wife had put before him. Eugenie got some water and sat down with them as young Rose continued, her voice stronger now.

“Father is a fisherman and he’s the best of the best. Mostly haddock and striped bass, but sometimes he’ll go on someone else’s schooner to help hunt down some giant Bluefin… nasty to catch, he tells me. Somethin’ fierce, they are. Oh… and his name is Steven, like my brother, but only Steven J. Laurent, not Steven J. Wishart-Laurent.” She paused long enough to give a wistful smile.

“J. stands for Joseph,” she explained before continuing.

“Well, anyway, Father… he used to know someone really famous for sticking with a sea storm, Howard Blackburn, and I even met him once. He’s called the “Man of Iron,” but I never knew why.” Again, she paused.

This time, she shrugged her shoulders. Tears still slid slowly down her face, but she no longer sobbed.

Eugenie shifted in her seat; picked up Mouse carefully, once he got close enough to catch.

“Anyway, Father also knew some men who were on the
SS Portland
who died when I was… um… really little, and… and he always talks of how they were really great and how much he missed them, and I miss Father so much when he’s out at sea. Did I… did I tell you there was a storm when I arrived? Like the one when I got here, but a lot bigger? The lightning… it was scaring my brothers and so I was playing music for them and then they were wrestling, and all of a sudden I was in your restaurant,” she said, taking a pause to catch up on breathing, nodding her head in Eugenie’s direction.

At that, the whistle blew on the kettle, making everyone jump.

Eugenie moved to get up, but Mark lay a hand on her arm, “Let me get that,” he said, moving to the counter and loading cups up with chocolate powder, pouring the steaming water over it, stirring it.

Eugenie smiled, patting her dachshund as he tickled her holding arm with his nose.

Edward was relieved with the pause, for though he was glad for all the information, catching it all and keeping it straight in his head was wearing him out, despite that not all of it was new. Much of it added up with what Peter – the old man that Max and Daniella had told them about – remembered, too, and that made him smile, in spite of the heartbreak he’d heard already.

He hoped Rose would begin to discuss the mirror in more depth, but should he push her? He’d been so overwhelmed after his traveling experience it was the last thing he wanted to discuss for the first few days, until he was sure it wasn’t some dream.

He made a mental note to have Paloma call Daniella in the morning.

This was more than he could handle alone, and they somehow needed to reconnect this family, even if it was awkward or a little crazy-feeling for Rose. Peter was the only brother she had left, and a few hours ago, they were young and alive and wrestling… at least to her mind. His head spun just thinking about it.

“Do you need to lay down a while, Edward,” Eugenie asked, a concerned look on her face.

“Does it show that much?” he sighed. All day, it seemed, he’d been sighing. Just thinking of all the sighing made him want to sigh.

“I’m afraid it does, my friend.”

Eugenie then turned to Rose. “He had heart surgery not long ago, so he gets very tired, very easily.”

At this, Rose’s eyes grew wide, then began to cry all the more!

“I’m sorry. I fell through the mirror, like Eugenie and Mark tried to tell me, and I don’t think I can get back to my own time now if I wanted to. And I don’t know how God could allow this to happen, but I’m here… suddenly, really here. This isn’t a dream, and I’m not crazy… right?”

Edward began to laugh… in fact, he laughed so hard his stomach hurt.

The girl stopped crying and glared at him a moment, then seemed to reconsider.

Now he knew he wasn’t the only one thinking those thoughts after traveling through time on a mirror’s glimmer. Now he knew, but how could he get her to understand he was laughing
with relief
and not at her.

For what little good it did him, he tried to recompose himself before speaking.

“I’m sorry,” he began tentatively; apologetically. “You see, I’m laughing with you… not at you. As Eugenie mentioned… I, too, traveled through that same mirror, but a much… wider distance, in both time and space. I came from France, though I was born in London. And we’ve had to keep it a secret, only a few people. Most wouldn’t understand… so we’ll have to… to do that with you, too…”

“Might any of her family still be alive who would know her? Or maybe some great niece or nephew who could take her in?” Mark asked as though Rose wasn’t sitting there, her St. Peter’s medal in hand, waiting for the cocoa he brought her to cool.

Edward chanced a glance in the girl’s direction.

Tears threatened to yet again spill.

“Can we talk about that later? Paloma,” he turned to Rose, “that’s my wife,” he explained, “got news of someone looking for… well, I think this is the right Rose, but… we won’t know for sure until someone talks with the man.”

At this, Rose gave a start, and Mark frowned.

Gently blowing on his cocoa, Edward listened to the others as they all jumped in at once. “Who is it,” and “Oh…,” and “But we couldn’t…” all leapt to his ears at once as a reply.

And besides, whatever he could learn about the mirror and how Rose’s family had gotten it, the better… he knew it had been found in California before coming to Oregon… Seal Beach, and then Oceanside. Now he was learning with more certainty that Peter’s story to Daniella that it had been in Massachusetts, most definitely.

But what of in between, if there were one, and what of beforehand?

How did it arrive here from le château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and what journey did it travel? Where had little Mary of Modena found the thing, and how old was it? Who made it? And why, oh, why did it change with the storms and cross people through time, as though there were magic attached to it?

No… not magic,
he silently corrected himself.
There are angels about it… and not just a golden cherub adorning it, I’m certain.
For to him, the mirror had been a miracle. For he and Paloma both.

With a tentative sip of the cocoa, he wondered how he would reply and what would happen from here on out.

The mirror had, indeed, taken a second person through time, and he now wondered if more had traveled the breath squeezing, body-whipping, heart-rending whirl of the glass that now stood at Noah’s Café.