into the street.
The redhead beside her, who was wearing a truly ugly pea green gown, giggled as though her friend had said something incredibly clever.
“You know, Red,” Rue replied, shading her eyes with one hand as she looked up, and choosing to ignore both the question and the tobacco juice, “you really ought to have your colors done. That shade of green is definitely unbecoming.”
The prostitutes looked at each other, then turned and flounced away from the railing, disappearing into the noisy saloon.
The conversation had not been a total loss, Rue decided, looking down at her jeans, sneakers and T-shirt. There was no telling how long she’d have to stay in this backward century, and her modern clothes would be a real hindrance.
She turned and spotted a store across the street, displaying gingham dresses, bridles and wooden buckets behind its fly-speckled front window. “‘And bring your Visa card,’” she muttered to herself, “‘because they don’t take American Express.’”
Rue carefully made her way over, avoiding road apples, mud puddles and two passing wagons.
On the wooden sidewalk in front of the mercantile, she stood squinting, trying to see through the dirty glass. The red-and-white gingham dress on display in the window looked more suited to Dorothy of The Wizard of Oz fame, with its silly collar and big, flouncy bow at the back. The garment’s only saving grace was that it looked as though it would probably fit.
Talking to herself was a habit Rue had acquired because she’d spent so much time alone researching and polishing her stories. “Maybe I can get a pair of ruby slippers, too,” she murmured, walking resolutely toward the store’s entrance. “Then I could just click my heels together and voilà, Toto, we’re back in Kansas.”
A pleasant-looking woman with gray hair and soft blue eyes beamed at Rue as she entered. The smile faded to an expression of chagrined consternation, however, as the old lady took in Rue’s jeans and T-shirt.
“May I help you?” the lady asked, sounding as though she doubted very much that anybody could.
Rue was dizzied by the sheer reality of the place, the woman, the circumstances in which she found herself. A fly bounced helplessly against a window, buzzing in bewilderment the whole time, and Rue felt empathy for it. “That checked dress in the window,” she began, her voice coming out hoarse. “How much is it?”
The fragile blue gaze swept over Rue once again, worriedly. “Why, it’s fifty cents, child.”
For a moment, Rue was delighted. Fifty cents. No problem.
Then she realized she hadn’t brought any money with her. Even if she had, all the bills and currency would have looked suspiciously different from what was being circulated in the 1890s, and she would undoubtedly have found herself back in Farley Haynes’s custody, post haste.
Rue smiled her most winning smile, the one that had gotten her into so many press conferences and out of so many tight spots. “Just put it on my account, please,” she said. Rue possessed considerable bravado, but the strain of the day was beginning to tell.
The store mistress raised delicate eyebrows and cleared her throat. “Do I know you?”
Another glance at the dress—it only added insult to injury that the thing was so relentlessly ugly—gave Rue the impetus to answer, “No. My name is Rue…Miss Rue Claridge, and I’m Elisabeth Fortner’s cousin. Perhaps you could put the dress on her husband’s account?”
The woman sniffed. Clearly, in mentioning the good doctor, Rue had touched a nerve. “Jonathan Fortner ought to have his head examined, marrying a strange woman the way he did. There were odd doings in that house!”
Normally Rue would have been defensive, since she tended to get touchy where Elisabeth was concerned, but she couldn’t help thinking how peculiar her cousin must have seemed to these people. Bethie was a quiet sort, but her ideas and attitudes were strictly modern, and she must surely have rubbed more than one person the wrong way.
Rue focused on the block of cheese sitting on the counter, watching as two flies explored the hard, yellow rind. “What kind of odd doings?” she asked, too much the reporter to let such an opportunity pass.
The storekeeper seemed to forget that Rue was a suspicious type, new in town and wearing clothes more suited, as Farley had said, to a cowhand. Leaning forward, she whispered confidentially, “That woman would simply appear and disappear at will. Not a few of us think she’s a witch and that justice would have been better served if she’d been hanged after that trial of hers!”
For a moment, the fundamentals of winning friends and influencing people slipped Rue’s mind. “Don’t be silly—there’re no such things as witches.” She lowered her voice and, having dispatched with superstition, hurried on to her main concern. “Elisabeth was put on trial and might have been hanged? For what?”
The other woman was in a state of offense, probably because one of her pet theories had just been ridiculed. “For a time, it looked as though she’d murdered not only Dr. Fortner, but his young daughter, Trista, as well, by setting that blaze.” She paused, clearly befuddled. “Then they came back. Just magically reappeared out of the ruins of that burned house.”
Rue was nodding to herself. She didn’t know the rules of this time-travel game, but it didn’t take a MENSA membership to figure out how Bethie’s husband and the little girl had probably escaped the fire. No doubt they’d fled over the threshold into the next century, then had trouble returning. Or perhaps time didn’t pass at the same rate here as it did there….
It seemed to Rue that Aunt Verity had claimed the necklace’s magic was unpredictable, waning and waxing under mysterious rules of its own. Elisabeth had mentioned nothing like that in her letters, however.
Rue brought herself back to the matter at hand—buying the dress. “Dr. Fortner must be a man of responsibility, coming back from the great beyond like that. It would naturally follow that his credit would be good.”
The storekeeper went pale, then pursed her lips and sighed, “I’m sorry. Dr. Fortner is, indeed, a trusted and valued customer, but I cannot add merchandise to his account without his permission. Besides, there’s no telling when he and that bride of his will return from California.”
The woman was nondescript and diminutive, and yet Rue knew she’d be wasting her time to argue. She’d met third-world leaders with more flexible outlooks on life. “Okay,” she said with a sigh. She’d just have to check the house and see if Elisabeth had left any clothes or money behind. Provided she couldn’t get back into her own time, that is.
Rue offered a polite goodbye, only too aware that she might be stuck on this side of 1900 indefinitely.
Although she power walked most of the way home—this drew stares from the drivers of passing buggies and wagons—it was quite dark when Rue arrived. She let herself in through the kitchen door, relieved to find that the housekeeper had left for the day.
After stumbling around in the darkness for a while, Rue found matches and lit the kerosene lamp in the middle of the table.
The weak light flickered over a fire-damaged kitchen, made livable by someone’s hard work. There was an old-fashioned icebox, a pump handle at the sink and a big cookstove with shiny chrome trim.
Bethie
