I swallowed a miserable whimper, with effort, refocusing on Camille. Case squeezed my hand and I found the courage to speak above a whisper. “It was the strangest thing that day. Case and I left the chapel because I felt so ill and Derrick followed us outside. No matter what I’ve thought about Derrick in the past, I truly believe he was attempting to warn us right then. He told us we should go and not a minute later his brother came striding down the sidewalk through the snow. And he knew us, Milla. Franklin, I mean. He spoke to us like he’d met us before that moment. He kept calling me Patricia.” It was my real name, but no one had addressed me that way since my dad’s mother, the grandma I’d been named for, passed away.
“We thought that maybe Derrick could move through time, like Marsh and Ruthie, but now we’re not so sure,” Case said quietly. I held his hand like a towrope keeping my head above floodwater, icy depths that wished me dead, no longer able to speculate about time travel or investigate powerful Chicago families with more money and influence than I could ever conceive.
Camille’s intense gaze moved between Case and me. “You think Franklin is the time traveler. That he’s the danger Derrick mentioned at Marshall’s birthday party, not Ron Turnbull.” I kept my sister well informed. She had not been at that particular celebration, which we’d held for Marsh last fall at The Spoke, but she knew about the events of the evening. I could almost see the sparks created by her spinning thoughts. “You know what this means. It means return is possible! It means Ruthann and Marshall can come home, here, where they belong.” Tears created a glossy sheen in her eyes, immediately mirrored in mine.
“Where is Franklin now? Has he been seen since that day? What about Derrick?” Mathias persisted.
“Derrick hasn’t returned to Jalesville and Jackson hasn’t seen Franklin in Chicago,” Case answered. “He’s keeping tabs on the Yancys and Turnbulls, both.” As were we, in a slightly different fashion; in addition to Mutt and Tiny and our newest dog, a lean, alert-eyed shepherd mix named Ranger, Case kept his father’s double-barrel shotgun positioned near our bed. We assumed the worst when it came to Ron Turnbull and the Yancys, and were taking no chances.
“Dad’s made discreet efforts to contact Franklin,” I added. “But he’s out of the country, apparently.”
“So when he travels ‘out of the country,’ maybe he’s really traveling to another century altogether?” Mathias asked.
I nodded. “It’s the most plausible theory we have to work with. We know time travel is possible, we know Ruthie and Marsh are capable. For whatever reason, they’re both able to move through the…” I faltered, struggling to remember the way Ruthie described the sensation. She had hated to talk about it; I could hardly bear to recall the sight of her fading before my eyes like a scene from a science fiction movie, her long hair and familiar face and limbs growing as transparent as sunbeams. Somehow the barriers, the locks and dams holding most people fixed in a certain time, did not have power over or simply did not apply to Ruthann and Marshall. Or, perhaps, Franklin Yancy.
“The boundaries of time,” Case finished for me. His voice was husky with both concern and the late hour.
“But whereas Ruthie and Marsh seemed to have no control over it, it seems Franklin does. If what we believe is true and he can return here from the past, it suggests he has some ability to manage the travel. With Ruthie, it was always because a physical object from the past…pulled at her.” I struggled not to grit my teeth at the memory.
“Maybe the real question is where does this man passing himself off as Franklin Yancy come from?” Mathias asked. “What time period is he from, originally, if not this one? And what are his motives for pretending to be a Yancy?”
“Derrick has to know the truth. He’s the key, like I’ve said before.” I chewed my thumbnail. “I’m certain he was the one who texted Robbie that night. There’s some part of him that wants the truth known.”
Camille appeared to be attempting to peer into my brain, even though we were fairly adept at reading each other’s thoughts. Changing the focus just slightly, she whispered, “Do you think Marsh found her? What if he went too far back, or not far enough?”
“I believe he found her.” It took effort but I mustered my conviction. “I truly believe that. I’ve dreamed about them. They were sitting together in the sunshine. I don’t know when exactly, but long before we were born. I consider it a sign.”
“Do you think she’s seen Malcolm?” The hope in Camille’s voice was apparent even in a whisper.
“Oh God, I hope so. I hope she’s found all of them, the Spicers and the Rawleys.”
“She seems so close, Tish, almost like we could hear her if we really concentrated. I feel it more strongly than ever now that we’re here in Montana.”
My spine twitched at her words; I felt the same.
“We think we have to pull them back, somehow,” Case said, returning to an earlier discussion. “Marshall’s presence was able to bring Ruthie back that night in January, right here in our trailer. He was able to stop her from completely disappearing. It’s not much to go on, but Tish and I believe there’s some way to pull them back here, to us. To the place they belong. And it’s up to us to do it.”
“Marshall saved her that night,” I whispered, recalling Ruthie’s twenty-third birthday, two months and about a hundred lifetimes ago. “Marsh was shouting her
