He nodded. “What kind of information?”
Jane hesitated and wondered how best to answer without ignoring Sofia’s instructions. “Information to help me return to my home,” she said. “Once I have it, I shall leave you in peace.”
Fred looked out the window again. “Do you want to leave?”
“Yes,” Jane said. “Well, no. But I must.”
He nodded and made no remark.
The machine trundled through a tunnel of blue hills and stars. Jane stared out the window up at the sky and smiled. The stars looked the same as they did in her time. The constellation of Orion still blazed across the blackness, Rigel still sparkled in blue white. Time passed more slowly up there, it seemed, changing little. She lost track of time staring upward; when she finally turned back to the carriage and looked over at Fred she found he had fallen asleep. She watched his face; it was relaxed, at peace. A piece of his hair had fallen into his eyes, the hair he had combed for her that morning. She shook her head at this strange twenty-first-century man, whom she had found so infuriating at first—and still did, in many ways—and wondered if, ever so slightly, she may have misjudged him.
He shifted his position and she thought he might wake, but he relaxed into the seat once more. She felt a weight on her leg and looked down. His hand had dropped to his side and come to rest on her knee.
Several events presented themselves as worthy candidates for reflection as Jane rode the train with Fred asleep next to her. She had walked through the London of two hundred years in the future. She had beheld her own novels for sale in a bookshop. Both were ideal things to captivate her brain and occupy her thoughts, so she was surprised when the item lingering in her mind from Maidenhead to Bath was instead the time she had spent in the company of the man who now slept beside her, and the feeling of his hand now resting on her leg.
Chapter Twenty-Six
When Sofia saw Jane the next day, she seemed surprised. “You’re still here?”
“Yes,” Jane replied. “I was unable to return home.”
Sofia looked confused. “I wonder how much longer this prank can go on, is all. Surely their budget has run out by now,” she whispered.
Jane scowled. “Yes, well. I found no sign of the house.”
“What house?”
“Mrs. Sinclair’s house. In London.”
“You went to London?” Sofia said. Her face bore a look of surprise.
Jane nodded. “With your brother.” She commanded her cheeks not to blush; they disobeyed her. She told Sofia of the house’s removal from the London landscape, the robbery, the people-eating staircase.
Sofia poured herself a goblet of wine and nodded. “You’re sticking with the witch backstory, huh?”
Jane nodded. “I saw my novels in a bookshop,” she said.
“Okay, sure.” Sofia sat down at the kitchen table and drank the wine in one swallow. She exhaled a long sigh, then shook her shoulders and nodded. “I’m a professional. I can keep this charade up for another day. Which ones?” Jane’s six novels still lay on the table. Sofia picked up Persuasion and held it in front of Jane. “Did you see this one today?”
The novel then performed two acts that were to dominate their discussions and occupy their actions for some time after.
First, the book shook and turned to dust in Sofia’s hand. Jane gasped. Sofia shrieked.
Second, the dust gathered together, and then disappeared into thin air. The women, in almost perfect mimicry, repeated their previous reactions.
JANE STARED AT Sofia’s right hand, which remained outstretched and empty, with naught but air where the little book had earlier sat. Sofia stared at the hand, too, and poured another goblet of wine with the other. She drained the goblet, all the while keeping her eyes on the hand where the novel had formerly stood. “Did you see that happen?” Sofia asked Jane in a strangely calm voice.
“The book disappeared from your fingers,” Jane replied, equally calmly.
“There was a solid object in my hand. Now there is not.”
“I concur with that observation,” Jane said, her voice shaking.
“That’s a relief,” Sofia said. “I thought I might have been hallucinating. Can you explain what is going on?” She peered under the table.
“I do not know,” Jane said. It was the truth. Her head spun. “What are you doing?”
“Looking under the table for your book,” Sofia replied, doing as much. “Perhaps I dropped it.”
“You did not drop it,” Jane said.
“Perhaps if I do this”—Sofia shook her hand and wiggled her fingers—“I can bring it back.” She flapped her hands. The book did not return. She paced the room. Jane followed her movements back and forth and grew dizzy. “Let’s start from the beginning,” Sofia began in her strangely calm tone. “Did CGI make the book disappear?”
“I do not know what that means,” Jane replied.
“Fair enough. They do fancy things with iPads these days, but even a computer cannot make molecules disappear,” Sofia said. “And we’ve ruled out drunken hallucination, for you saw it too. Are you drunk?” Jane shook her head. Sofia stopped pacing and slammed her hands on the table. “I’m going to ask you a question now and I want you to answer truthfully,” she said.
“Proceed,” Jane replied.
“Are you or are you not an actress pretending to be Jane Austen in a candid-camera scheme concocted by the producers of the film I am starring in?” She looked Jane in the eye.
“I am not,” Jane replied. “What are you doing now?”
Sofia had sat down and was lowering her head between her legs. “I am stopping my head from exploding. I suggest you join me.”
Jane secured her head at her knees. Her skull burned. She had never witnessed anything like what had just happened. Except for the occasion where she had travelled through time in a similar fashion.
“Explain to me, then, who you think you are,” Sofia said after a moment.
“I am Jane Austen,” Jane replied.
“I see.
