The sense of zooming faster than light came to an end. I opened my eyes and inhaled Chris’s scent—Aveda shampoo, Obsession perfume. We were in bed, spooning, with my arm flung over her. I held my breath, waiting for the hum of my earlier dream, but it didn’t come. I lifted my head, then kissed Chris’s neck, choking back a sob. I was back!
Despite my joy, the sense of disorientation gave me a headache. To instantaneously exchange one set of sights, sounds, and smells for another was insane.
“Blanche, you are frickin’ amazing,” Chris whispered. My eyes widened. “It’s been over five weeks since your accident. I thought we’d never make love again. But these last few nights have been unlike anything I’ve ever known.” She pulled me closer as I tried to sort this out. Chris just had sex with Blanche. Jealousy flared, and I wanted to wring Blanche Nottingham’s neck.
“So everything feels…normal again?” Except that Chris had just called me Blanche, which was anything but normal.
Chris kissed my wrist. “Nothing feels normal, and that’s why I love it. You were pretty out of it those first two weeks, but you’ve really popped back. In fact, you’re better than ever. You have energy. You have drive. You really took what I said to heart. You’re bubbling over with ambition. I love that.”
I needed to watch a movie of the last five weeks. How had Blanche adjusted so well? I, at least, knew something about 1560 from my studies, but there was no way Blanche could know anything about the future. She was obviously better at adapting than I was.
“So you think I’m doing okay?” I asked.
“Are you kidding me? You’ve stopped working on those stupid Froggity paintings. You’re starting to write. It’s all so exciting.”
Another clap of thunder made us both jump. Unable to just sit there and let myself get sucked back in time, I crawled from bed and reached for my robe, which rested, as it always did, on the small chair against the wall. “I’ll be back,” I murmured and ran to the bathroom. The shock of seeing my own face brought tears to my eyes, but when I opened the robe, a plumper me presented itself. “Hell’s gates,” I snapped.
I wandered through our flat, the streetlights shining a path from room to room. In the kitchen I touched the coffeemaker, the microwave. “A stove,” I murmured. I opened the fridge and downed a glass of milk so cold I wanted to remember this moment forever. And water! I whirled and filled my glass with water, drinking three of them before my stomach began to gurgle. Why did all this taste so good, as if I’d gone without it for weeks even though my body had been here all along, free to eat and drink anything? How many of our desires exist only in our minds, having nothing to do with our bodies?
And there was my cell phone. I picked it up, anxious to call my mom again and tell her everything. But I didn’t. I needed more time to find a way to explain it.
Finally sated of my own world and feeling the past begin to fade, I returned to bed and caressed Chris’s shoulder.
“Chris, could we talk?”
“It’s after midnight, babe.” Chris nestled deeper into the covers.
“I know, but it’s really important.”
Muttering, Chris rolled over, blue eyes nearly black in the dark, face open and relaxed. She smelled of sex. She smelled of me. She plumped up her pillow. “What?”
“Could you describe everything that I’ve been doing since the accident in Rajamani’s lab?”
Chris’s eyebrows hitched halfway up her forehead. “Why?”
“Humor me, please. Let’s just say I want to make sure my version of reality matches yours.”
She shrugged. “You spent that day and night in the hospital, then I brought you home the next day. You were pretty out of it, as if everything around you were foreign. I had to show you how to flush the toilet, turn on the water, run the microwave. I was really worried about you because you didn’t want to be touched or held. You just crawled under the covers and stayed there for a week.”
I nodded. Blanche and I had both avoided reality by hiding in bed. Blanche must have been frightened out of her wits, perhaps believing she’d been transported to some sort of hell.
“Then the second week you got better. You started talking to me. You soaked up TV shows and movies like a desert soaks up water. You asked so many questions you drove me insane. Your interest in the Tudors flared up again, and you began skimming through all your books about Elizabeth I. You asked me to remind you how to use your computer and how to research on the Web.”
I shuddered. Now that Blanche was back in 1560, what would she do with the information she’d learned? Would she see that killing Dudley was a really bad idea? Would she somehow harm Elizabeth and change history?
But I was impressed at the woman’s quick recovery. Would I have been so brave as to embrace the strange world in which I found myself? Back in 1560, all I’d done was stay out of trouble.
“And this week?”
Chris’s lazy grin told me all I needed to know about the sexual component of our relationship. “You’ve been amazing, babe. Insatiable.” She sighed happily, and a pang of something I couldn’t identify nearly broke me in two. How could I be jealous of myself?
“And then a few days ago you showed me the first three chapters of your novel. God, Jamie—oops, Blanche, I had no idea you could write.” She reached for my hand. “You really took what I said to heart. I wanted you to want more for yourself, and you’re doing it. You’re reaching out in ways that would have terrified the old you.”
“You mean the me before Rajamani’s equipment zapped me nearly to death.”
“That’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think? You got a jolt of electricity, that’s all. And it was good for you. Now you’re writing a novel.”
“A novel.” I shook my head. This Blanche was unbelievable. “And you like what you’ve read?”
“It’s fucking brilliant. Sleeping with the Queen will reach out and grab everyone.”
“That’s the title?” I laughed weakly. How could this be happening? “Okay, Chris, I appreciate the recap, but I need to tell you something.”
She waited.
“The reason I needed you to explain the last weeks is because I haven’t been here.”
“You were certainly out of it that first week, but—”
“No, I literally haven’t been here. The instant Rajamani’s equipment sparked in the storm my mind—my consciousness—was transported.” I took a deep breath. “I know this sounds insane, but it’s true and I need you to believe me. I woke up in the body of a woman in 1560, one of Queen Elizabeth’s ladies-in-waiting. Her name was Blanche Nottingham.”
Chris chuckled. “Is this the story you’ll tell people to explain your pen name?”
My eyes fluttered shut. “The pen name I’m using is Blanche Nottingham?”
“I think it’s cute.”
I moved onto my knees, my eyes boring into hers. How could I convince her? “It’s not cute, Chris. I’ve been stuck over four hundred and fifty years in the past, in Blanche’s body. You can’t bathe there every day. You have to pee and crap in a chamber pot or in a stinking little closet suspended over a pit on the ground below. Drinking water is contaminated by all the shit, literally, that runs into the Thames, so everyone drinks wine and ale and is almost always a little drunk.”
Chris sat up now, frowning in anger. “Look, I know you don’t think much of my interest in neurobiology, or in Dr. Raj’s interest in locating our consciousness and perhaps transporting it someday, but that’s no reason to make fun of us like this.”
I threw up my hands. “I’m not making fun of anyone. This is the truth. This really happened.” I told her about the London I’d seen, about Ray Lexvold locked in the Salt Tower, about meeting Harriet and finally having a friend. I told her about the food, which I hated, and the beds, which were uncomfortable, and about little Vincent adopting me as his own.
Chris folded her arms. “You’ve just read all of this last week in one of your books.”
“No, I’ve been living it, Chris.”
With a grunt, Chris rolled out of bed and grabbed her pillow and a blanket from her chair. “Look, life has been pretty great this week, and now the old Jamie has come back to spoil everything, and I don’t appreciate it. You sound like a crazy person so I’m going to sleep on the sofa.”
Stunned she didn’t believe me, I pounded my pillow. No, wait. I tried to put myself in her situation. Of course it sounded crazy. She just needed a little time, but eventually I’d be able to convince her. I sprang off the bed and paced our small room until I saw my cell phone on the dresser and called Ashley. She could always make me feel better no matter what.
“Hey, Ashley, it’s me,” I said when she answered.
“Yeah, I know. The only reason I answered was so I could do this.”
“Do what?” The line went dead. “Hello? Ashley?”
I stared at the phone. She’d hung up on me.
* * *
I left Red Lion Square without saying a word to Chris. I wasn’t ready to talk to her yet because she slept on the sofa, because she didn’t believe me, and because the sex with Blanche had been so great.
When he opened his door, Dr. Rajamani didn’t look surprised to see me. “Ah, Jamie. How are you feeling?” He opened his door and welcomed me into the chaos of his office.
I took the closest chair, a wide wooden number that looked more like torture than comfort. “Dr. Rajamani, I think you’d better sit down.”
The man sat and folded his hands gracefully over his belly. Sun filtered in through his dusty window, turning his purple tunic into a soft gray. At least I didn’t have to worry about a thunderstorm today. “I am glad you are here,” he said. “I have just gotten off the phone with Chris and she spoke to me of some disturbing physiological changes from the accident you suffered last month. I am most concerned and want to reassure you that I will find out what is causing your brain to create worlds that are not real. Your brain might have been shocked a bit too much, so I will need to take a few more scans.” He smiled weakly. “Chris assures me you have no plans for a lawsuit of any kind.”
I snorted. “Dr. Rajamani, you need to know a few things. First, I refuse to have any more of your scans, ever. Second, the world that Chris described to you isn’t a fantasy. There’s nothing wrong with my brain chemistry.”
He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “You think it is psychological then?”
Boy, this was slowgoing. I leaned forward. “Chris thinks my brain is broken and that what I told her isn’t real. But remember that you said you were hoping to one day locate a person’s consciousness and then transport it?”
Rajamani nodded, smiling serenely. “I have been working toward this my entire life.”
I leaned forward. “Well, you succeeded.”
The man frowned. “I do not understand.”
“That little accident in your lab, the one that Chris thinks damaged my brain, did something entirely different. You sent my conscious mind back in time four hundred and fifty-seven years. My mind, and that of one of Queen Elizabeth I’s ladies-in-waiting, traded places. I’ve been living in 1560 since the accident. Blanche Nottingham has been living here, in my body, during that same time.”
Rajamani chuckled. “Chris tells me you have a sense of humor.”
I didn’t smile. “I ran into Ray Lexvold. Remember Ray? He disappeared after his first session with you a year ago.”
Rajamani straightened in his chair. “I do not remember that I shared the names of my other—”
“You didn’t. I had no idea who else had participated in your experiments, except for Chris. Yet I know that man’s name. He’s now Hew Draper, locked in the Tower of London for practicing sorcery against one of Queen Elizabeth’s friends.”
The professor shook his head and shot to his feet. “You are telling me lies.”
“No, I am not telling you anything but the fire trucking truth. I was there. My body wasn’t, but my mind was.”
“And now you are back?”
“Thanks to another thunderstorm. I don’t know how you transported my consciousness, but it’s definitely connected to thunderstorms, with lots of lightning.”
Rajamani’s hands began to shake as he paced. “You are not telling me lies? This is truth?” His brown eyes blazed with hope.
“Scout’s honor. You did it. And even though I really want to sue your scientific ass, I need your help.”
The man collapsed against a wall of books. “But I do not know how I did it! How can I duplicate what I do not understand?”
“I don’t know, Doc, and I don’t care because you shouldn’t duplicate your experiment ever again. Hear me? Ever again. My life has, quite frankly, been hell, and I have no clear idea what Miss Blanche Nottingham, the 1560 chick who’s put all this weight on my body, has been doing to my life. My best friend hung up on me last night, and this morning my older brother sent me a Fire truck You text. Lovely way to start the day.”
Raj rubbed his eyes. “I have done it. I have really done it.”
I stood and squeezed his arm to bring him out of his personal celebration. “Doc, here’s the thing. You have to figure out a way to make sure that I don’t go back there again, that I stay here. Can you do that? Can you shut off the GCA that’s still in my system? Give me some sort of antidote? If your success is going to be real, you must control your results. You must be able to stop me from flipping back and forth between times like a goddamned Ping-Pong ball.”
He clasped my hands. “Yes, yes, I hear what you are saying. You are right. Completely right.” He began pulling at one wooly eyebrow.
“Think, Dr. Raj. What do you need to do first?”
He pressed his lips together. “Your intralaminar nuclei are oscillating at an incorrect speed. I must take a blood sample to determine the level of GCA still in your system.”
“Let’s do it.” That a needle was involved no longer bothered me. Funny how wearing someone else’s body can put certain fears in perspective. At least this was one less thing Chris could list as proof of my cowardice.
Raj hesitated, then leaned closer. “Did you meet the Queen?” His voice quavered with excitement, which I totally understood.
“Dr. Raj, she’s amazing,” I whispered. “Strong and powerful and clever, yet still as vulnerable as you or I would have been at that age.”
He squeezed my hand. “Come to my lab. I will solve this problem for you before any thunder booms again.”