The Other Side of Anne (5 page)

After Avery left his father’s building, he drove home to the old farmhouse in Front Royal, Virginia. Being an hour’s drive from D.C., it made for a long commute, but Avery’s class schedule skewed toward online instruction. He drove to Quentin University in the Eastern Market section of D.C. only once or twice a week. Three times at most. Having peace and quiet made the drive worthwhile. More importantly, Mandy had never lived in this house. Less memories that way.

Avery’s
thoughts dwelled on Anne. For an instant, her eyes had been open, hopeful and scared, very scared. Begging Avery to help her.
I better go in and clean. Get the place ready.
Was Avery crazy? Thinking about moving Anne Boleyn in with him? Risking more secretive looks? Risking more? This was a woman who seduced the king of England. Well, where else would Anne go? Her life held more in store than being a prisoner of Pegasus. But what would Avery do with her? The situation was impossible.

“She’s my father’s problem,”
Avery whispered. “I won’t let her become mine.”

Avery
walked into the farmhouse and noticed that dust clung to the TV, to the furniture. To the magazine on the coffee table. To everything. How had he not seen it before? What a fitting symbol. Dust on furniture. Dust cloaking Avery’s damn life.

He
dropped his keys onto the table. He would do what he usually did when he had a problem: avoid it until it went away. Live people were too complicated, Mandy being a rare exception. Avery downed three quick shots of vodka and rested on the couch, retreating into the comfort of drunkenness.

A fourth shot, and then
Avery was talking with Mandy. She had the irritating habit of popping into his mind whenever she damn well pleased. She asked about anything and everything. About Avery’s day. About gas prices. About what he ate for lunch—or reminding him to eat.

I miss you, Avery. How are you?
The truck needs an oil change.

“Missing you too, babe. What do I do about Anne?”

Take care of her, of course! Move her in. But first, dust. Vacuum. I know you can do it.

Avery
blinked three times, which usually proved enough to get the Mandy-voice to disappear. He downed two more shots and laughed. All Tudor historians would kill to be in his place, but Avery preferred Anne a long dead mystery and comfortably at a distance. Easy study, easy conjecture. History was supposed to be history for a reason. Anne Boleyn was dead. She was not Avery’s problem, period.

**

Two weeks later, Benjamin called Avery to say Charles had died in his sleep. The funeral service took place a few days afterward, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. It was the largest Roman Catholic church in the United States. Charles was born a Catholic but did not practice. Neither did Avery. However, Anne Boleyn had been a practicing Catholic. Sure, she had gone along with the Reformation cause and Henry’s efforts to disband from the Catholic Church, but at heart, Anne Boleyn died a Catholic.

Or had she even died?

What will I do about Anne?

Avery
could leave Anne in Benjamin’s care, but her open, hopeful eyes haunted him. He could not abandon the woman even if he felt he was being disloyal to Mandy—which was nonsense. In any case, he’d been awake until three a.m. getting the spare room ready for Anne. Dusting and vacuuming the house. Anne Boleyn was going home.

**

Benjamin’s eyes were red when Avery went to the Pegasus building after the funeral. “I miss your father already,” Benjamin said.

Avery
surveyed the wall of monitors. “I’m sure you do. How is Anne?” Avery found her pedaling an exercise bike. She wore a white wifebeater shirt and dark blue shorts. She mopped sweat from her forehead.

“She’s fine.”

“How many people are involved?” Avery asked. “How many people know what is going on here?”

“Six,” Benjamin said. “Me.
Nate and Ted, the security guards. Anne. You. Another guy, Chris, who lives off site. Your cousin Darlton Vanher knows just enough to leave us alone.”

“So you’r
e the only scientist involved?”

“
No. The guards have science backgrounds. They’re very helpful. Anyway.” Benjamin injected a purposeful edge into his voice. “Speaking of fades.”

“We weren’t.”

“While you’re here, how about a quick examination?”

“Examination?”

“If you’re up for a thorough one, great, but quick is fine. I’d like a head scan, a body chromatography analysis, and—”

“On me?
Why?”

“Didn’t your father—” Benjamin straigh
tened. “Damn it. He promised he had. Forgive me for saying so, but he was a coward sometimes.”

“No kidding.”

Benjamin crossed his arms. “Anne is TT2, Time Traveler Two. I am TT1. But there is one other—Time Traveler Zero. You.”

Avery’s mouth went dry.
“That’s preposterous.”

“It’s true. You were retrieved when you were a newborn. Maybe that is why you don’t seem to have experienced any fades, because you were taken so young. Or maybe it’s because you were almost dead and are dead in your original time.
It could also be because you were taken in a more recent time than me and Anne. I’ve gone over your childhood examinations. Nothing there, but it is possible that now your body and better technology can give me a clue.”

Avery
ignored the fact that his heart had frozen over. He barked a bitter laugh. “Nice try.”

Benjamin lifted an eyebrow. “
Want to see your file?”

The floor tilted under Avery.
“It’s not true. My mother wouldn’t have—she wouldn’t have—”
She wouldn’t have what? What exactly happened?

“She did,” Benjamin murmured. “She was a brilliant woman.”

“You met her?”

Benjamin grinned. “Many, many times. She helped retrieve me. Why do you look so surprised? She had two doctorates. She was a genius.”

Avery’s brain turned into molasses.

“To be blunt, your father and I are—were—nothing next to your mother.”

Bella Franklin had been a stay-at-home, late-in-life mom, seemingly all too happy to fling herself into the domestic cares of her child. Avery had nearly forgotten about his mother’s Ph.Ds.

“But how?” Avery sputtered. “How?”

“Your parents and a group of their friends worked night and day for years on solving the riddle of time travel. One by one, the friends dropped out. They were tired of giving their lives over to an impossible dream. Finally, though, your mother found the missing piece. They made a few trials with a doll, and each time, the doll came back unscathed. A day came when your parents were ready to try with themselves. They had worked for years, never had a honeymoon. They figured, what better place than the past to have their honeymoon? They traveled to 1901, to Victorian England. London.”

Avery
’s pulse pounded. He had no use for this pack of lies. “Excuse me. I must get to Anne.”

Benjamin ignored him
. “They stayed only twelve hours. Because in the Whitechapel area, they came upon a pool of blood, and a woman and a newborn in an alley. The mother was dead, and at first they thought the baby was too. Your mother did detect a faint pulse. ‘We have to take this child back now,’ she argued. Your father said no, that was tempting history, tempting fate. Taking a person back was not part of their plan. Your mother insisted that she couldn’t leave a baby to die. Your parents returned home with you. Your mother nursed you back to health, and your father never forgave her for taking you.”

“It’s not true!”
Although it made perfect sense. It explained why Charles Franklin had never quite treated Avery like his child. But Avery could not accept what Benjamin was saying, not yet. How had his parents explained the sudden appearance of their baby? Did they tell people he was adopted? Or did they say that they kept Bella’s pregnancy secret because of her age and the associated risks? “It’s not true,” Avery repeated.

“You’re Time Traveler Zero,
Avery,” Benjamin said. “It’s true. You were born in 1901. Your parents monitored you carefully for years. Gradually they began to believe that they had not violated any laws of the universe. They talked again about making better machines and traveling farther into the past. Your mother understood that your father was still angry at her for taking you. She proposed an idea he would never refuse. An idea that would make them even.”

“Getting you, d
ear Benjamin Franklin.”

“You
look ill. Shall I retrieve your file?”

Avery
stalked out of the room. Benjamin was lying. Had to be. He was Avery Franklin, Avery Ezra Franklin, forty years old. He was no one else. Avery Franklin! Not TT0, not Time Traveler Zero. Time travel didn’t exist forty years ago. The infrastructure was lacking.

That’s right. Focus on Anne.

“Dr. Franklin!” Benjamin followed Avery. “Where are you going?”

“To get Anne,”
Avery retorted. “And she is none of your business anymore.” Whatever doubts Avery possessed about moving Anne in with him had vanished. He couldn’t leave her under Benjamin’s supervision.

“Dr. Franklin, I must tell you that your father and I disagreed on his plans for Anne. I advised him that you would take Anne from here, but he said perhaps it was for the best. He was wrong. It is not for the best. Even I don’t dare go out in public.
I do not ride elevators in case I disappear and reappear in the middle of an elevator shaft. You are playing Russian roulette, Dr. Franklin. Sooner or later, the bullet will get Anne. She will lose control of her fades. She will be riding in your car, fade, and reappear in someone else’s car, maybe in someone! Or reappear in the middle of the road for a bus to smash her. It is also possible that history is wrong and she dies earlier in her time than she thinks she will.”

Avery
stared into Benjamin’s brown-gray eyes, impossibly calm eyes. “I will ask Anne what she wants. This is her life, not mine.”

**

Anne stepped out of the shower and dressed in her bedroom. Somewhere in this building, at least one man monitored her. Observing her nakedness, her breasts, her buttocks, the trimmed patch of dark hair between her legs. She was a zoo animal. This time was no different from Tudor times. She had been a zoo animal then too, whose sole purpose was to breed a son. When she could not—well, off with her head.

Chop, chop.

She brushed her hair and blew it dry. She preferred her hair short. More manageable although not as pretty as her long hair.

Avery
arrived and bowed his head again. “Your Majesty.” No smile. His eyes were dark and haunted.

“
Sir Franklin.”

A hollow pulsed at Avery’s throat, and Anne stared at it longer than necessary. She wanted to kiss the hollow. She felt Avery’s pain.
No denying the current between them, and Avery wanted to ask her something—desperately.

“Ask,” Anne said.

Avery shook his head.

“
Benjamin told you,” Anne intuited. “That you’re Time Traveler Zero.”

Avery
jerked back. “It isn’t true.”

Anne shrugged. “Perhaps.”

“Have you always known?”

“Yes. M
y first day here, your father explained his first time in the past. He said he never meant to take a person from there to here, but your mother insisted.”

“What else did my father say?”

“That he would appreciate if I read your books and made some comment as to their accuracy.”

Avery
bit his lip. “Jesus Christ.” A second later, he flinched. “Forgive me. I do not wish to offend you by taking the Lord’s name in vain.”

“You offend me
not. Some people claim I am a witch.”

Avery’s shoulders sagged.
“Would you like to get out of here and stay at my house tonight? Or go to Starbucks or a movie? Maybe all three?”

Anne floundered
. “Stay at—what do you mean?”

“A different place, new to you. No
guards. No spy cameras. No spy microphones.”

“I imagine as we speak, Benjamin has gremlins entering your vehicle and your home and solving that issue. If he has not already.”

Avery’s expression clouded. “Fine. We’ll get a hotel room.”

“A hotel room.”

“Do you know what a hotel is?” Avery asked.

Anne snickered. “Yes,
Sir Franklin, I know what a hotel is.”

“
Okay.”

“I will go with you. You should not be alone tonight, Time Traveler Zero.”

Avery’s nostrils flared, and his eyes shot angry daggers into Anne’s soul. Avery was handsome, fiercely handsome. Shivers spread inside Anne’s body, and she enjoyed the sensation. Her sex drive had been mostly dormant for years—ever since her first miscarriage. Being kidnapped to present times hadn’t helped. She masturbated as a sleep aid and because it had always been an act she enjoyed. An act somewhat independent of her sex drive. Now here was this handsome man, this angry, handsome man who might be even more confused and bewildered than Anne. Yes, she desired to kiss him.