“Thank you, Sofia. I appreciate everything.”
“Unfortunately, you won’t be returning to your own time today. I hoped to have better news. You’ll have to stay here another night. I’ll try again tomorrow. Don’t hate me.”
“Of course not,” Jane replied. “I could never hate you.” She looked across the way as Fred walked into the kitchen. She turned back to Sofia quickly, hoping she hadn’t seen. Jane swallowed. She felt gripped between anxiety that her chances of returning home were slipping away, and relief that she was allowed to stay one more day.
A chime of oddly metallic bells sounded from Sofia’s clothes and broke her reverie. “Is there a bell in your pocket?” Jane asked.
Sofia scowled. “Oh. It’s my phone.” She turned to Jane and squinted. “Don’t ask me how it works.” She pulled a thin steel box from her pocket, the same as those everyone seemed to possess in this time, and studied it. “I don’t know this number,” she said with a grimace, then stiffened. “It must be Jack! He must have a new phone. I feel sick. Why is he calling me?” She paused. “He is calling to apologize!” She turned to Jane. “Quick, what do I say to him? How about this voice? Hellooo,” she said in a deep, husky voice.
“You sound like you have consumption,” Jane said.
“Okay, a little brighter,” Sofia said. She practiced again. “Hell-oh!”
“Better, I suppose,” Jane said, confused.
The box rang on. Sofia shook her head. “I used to be good at this stuff. Okay, here I go.” She put the box to her ear. “Hello, sexy man,” she purred.
“Is this Ms. Wentworth?” asked a shaky male voice. The voice came from the steel box. Jane leaned in closer to listen.
“Yes. Who is this?” Sofia removed the attempted huskiness and resumed her normal voice.
“It’s Dave Croft. From the library.”
Sofia sank into her seat. “How did you get this number?”
“You gave it to me,” the voice in the box said.
“Oh. What do you want?”
“I wanted to apologize for before.”
Jane stared at the box. Sofia spoke into it the same way the woman had on the train. How did it produce sound? Did the voice inside it belong to a person? Jane moved even closer to the magical thin rectangle, her eyes bulging.
Sofia shrugged and waved her arm in the air. “No need. I wasn’t bothered,” she said.
“I hope not. Because I did a little digging of my own. About your witch problem,” the voice replied.
Jane sat up in her chair.
“Funny,” Sofia scoffed. She rolled her eyes. “You found the crazy lady’s witch, well done.”
“As a matter of fact,” said the voice, “I did.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Sofia entered the University of Bristol, again, the law library this time. Dave the librarian was waiting for her in the foyer. “Why are we meeting here?” she asked him.
“Good morning,” he said. “Mrs. Sinclair is inside.” He held the door open for her, then pointed to her clothes. “New threads?”
“Just something I’m trying out.” She wore a pair of leather trousers and a T-shirt that may or may not have said Bazooka across the chest. She could not be sure, as she was not wearing her reading glasses. Her eyeballs were instead ensconced behind a large pair of rainbow-framed sunglasses that she was sure afforded little UV protection. Courtney Smith had worn the same ensemble on the cover of last month’s Teen Vogue. She swallowed. “I look horrendous, don’t I?” She bowed her head.
“No. You look great,” Dave replied. “Fashion-forward. You looked great before, too. This way.”
He ushered her toward the central reading room. The ceiling of a recital hall loomed overhead. Rows of brown study carrels lined the great room, each cubicle occupied by a student, many of them sleeping. Dave led Sofia up a steel spiral staircase and onto the open mezzanine. Rows of stacks lined the floor. He took a blue legal volume from a shelf and searched. Sofia observed his eyes as they ran down the pages; his gaze seemed gentle and nervous. He blinked with a twitch.
“Why are you helping me?” she asked then, eyes narrowed.
Dave closed the book and looked up at her. “I’m sorry?”
“You can’t be more than twenty. I’m . . . in my thirties. Do you have a fetish for older women?”
“No?” said Dave. He laughed and read on. “And I’m twenty-nine.”
“I can’t help you get your screenplay made, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I don’t have a screenplay,” he replied.
“I’m not going to sleep with you.”
“I don’t want to sleep with you.”
“Yes, you do!” insisted Sofia. “Everyone does.”
Dave said nothing.
“Don’t tell me you’re a nice person. I hate those.”
Dave put the book down. “Do you remember The Warmest Hearth?”
Sofia rolled her eyes. “The long-running soap opera in which I played the buxom parson’s daughter, Nanette? I have tried these many years to forget it.”
“It was my mother’s favorite show.”
“I pity your mother,” Sofia said.
“No need. She’s dead.” Dave turned back to the book.
Sofia slapped his arm but spoke in a soft voice. “Why did you have to ruin it by telling me that? My mother up and died, too. It was very rude of her, dying right when she was beginning to grow on me. Quite messed up my year,” she said.
“Mine too,” said Dave. “I can’t go one June twelfth without thinking of her, silly woman. Or any other day for that matter.”
“Our mothers are both thoughtless.”
“My mum’s favorite storyline on The Warmest Hearth was when Father Matthews fell in love with Nanette,” Dave said.
“Ah yes, Father Matt, the sexy priest. It was quite the scandal. The Beeb got so many letters. I wonder what Ryan-o is doing these days. That’s the actor who played Father Matt,” she added. “Probably dead in a ditch somewhere. I should give him a call. Anyway, please continue.”
“Every day I arrived home from school, and me and Mum watched The Warmest Hearth. When Nanette and Father Matthew finally . . . you know . . .”
“Had a holy union?” Sofia said.
Dave nodded. “Mum was so excited. We
