“Excuse me, ma’am. Are you alright?” I fought to open my eyes. I was exhausted, hungry, and needed to find a chamber pot. “Do you need me to call an ambulance?”
“What?” I croaked out. My throat felt as though I had swallowed the Mojave Desert.
“Do you need an ambulance?” There was a young woman standing over me. She was wearing colonial attire. She had blond hair, blue eyes, and a fake tan. But did she say ambulance?
“No, I don’t think so. Where am I?” I propped myself up on my elbows and looked around the room. It was the same setup as my room at Henry’s house, but the fabrics were all wrong. The table was in the wrong corner. I was confused. I squeezed my eyes tight and rubbed my temples.
The young woman reached for my shoulder. “You’re in the Spencer House and Museum. What are you doing in here?”
“Spencer House?” My eyes sprung open. “Museum?” I shot into a seated position.
“I believe you went to the wrong house. I am the opener for today.”
“Today? What day is it?” I was confused. The last thing I remembered was walking into my room to freshen up before I was to spend the night with Henry. “Where is Henry?”
“Henry?” She looked at me as confused as I felt. “Ma’am?”
“You know, Lord Henry Spencer. Where is he? I need to talk to him. And who are you? Are you a bondservant? No.” I shook my head. “You’re dressed too nice to be a servant. Long lost sister?”
“I think Tom will arrive later. His shift starts at ten o’clock.” She squinted her eyes, questioning what I was asking. “Do you need help up?”
“Who is Tom?” I was getting agitated. Why couldn’t she just give me a straight answer?
“Tom Miller. He plays Henry Spencer during the week.”
“Oh, no.” I felt as though a ton of bricks dropped on my stomach. My heart ached. I knew what the answer was going to be, but I had to ask. “What is today’s date?”
“July nineteenth.” The morning after the party. I must have slept throughout the night.
“I know this is going to sound strange, but what year is it?”
“Twenty nineteen.” She had a concerned look on her face. “Are you sure you don’t need me to call you an ambulance?”
“No.” I shook my head and tried to wipe the tears from my eyes. I couldn’t control the water works. She helped me stand up, and I ran over to the desk. My notebook was missing. “Where is the notebook that was here?”
“If you are talking about the brown leather notebook, we keep that in the case in the study. I only got to see it opened once when the archaeologist came to do a preservation analysis.”
I flew down the stairs, the young woman not far behind. I headed directly to the study. The house was decorated a bit differently than I remembered it. For me, it had only been yesterday. For the preservationists, it had been over two hundred and sixty years. There was my notebook, encased in a glass box. The caked-on mud was cleaned off it. I held my breath and closed my eyes. This wasn’t happening. “I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself. I’m Amelia. May I borrow your phone? I seem to have lost mine.” I patted my hips as though I looked for a phone hidden in my pockets.
“Sure,” she said as she dug into her pockets and pulled out her cellphone. “I’m Paige, by the way. I started a couple of weeks ago and I’m still meeting everyone. Sorry I hadn’t met you sooner. I love your dress, by the way. That looks so authentic.”
I looked down at what I was wearing. It was my pale blue dress that I had worn the night of the party. It looked authentic, because it was authentic colonial attire. “Hannah, it’s your mom.” Hannah and I both started crying. I was so happy to hear her voice.
“Where are you? You’ve been missing for months. We’ve been looking for you. The police tried to arrest Kyle in your disappearance. We thought he killed you.”
“Slow down. Come get me. I’m in Williamsburg at the Spencer House and Museum. Oh, and bring me food. I’m starved.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, tops.” I could hear her grab her keys and slam her apartment door shut.
I handed Paige her phone. “Thanks. Do you mind if I look around for a few minutes?”
I wiped my wet cheeks with the back of my hand. I ran my hand across the desk. Henry’s desk. I wandered into the parlor. The sofa had a chartreuse silk, but it wasn’t the same as the one I sat on a couple of days ago. Above the fireplace was the portrait of Henry’s first wife. “We found it in the attic. She’s beautiful.” Paige said behind me.
“She is.” I stared at the portrait of Caroline. “Is there a portrait of Lord Henry?”
“In the library.”
I nearly knocked her over as I sprinted to the library. I ran in and on the wall was a portrait of Henry in his uniform. My Henry. Young. Handsome. Just as I remembered him.
“Are there any other portraits of women?” I had hoped he had one painted to remind him of me. I worried about him. He would have looked for me. Maybe he thought I left him under the pressure of marriage. Maybe he met someone else and married her. Perhaps, I would find her portrait on one of the walls. I might have lied to myself when I told myself I wouldn’t be jealous.
“His wife’s portrait is at the art restorer’s shop. Some crazy guy came in a couple of months ago and threw a knife at it.”
There was a knock at the front door. Hannah’s voice rang through the house. Within a few strides, I was in the foyer, face-to-face with my daughter. We ran to each other. I didn’t want to let her go. I wiped my tears. I wiped her tears. We were an absolute mess. A beautiful, happy mess.
“We’ve got to go to the police. What are you wearing?” She held out my arms and looked down at my gown.
I turned to Paige. “Thank you for all of your help.”
“The portrait is supposed to come back next week if you want to see it. I think she looks just like you,” Paige said as we left the house.
“Did she say the portrait looks like you?” Hannah said as we walked down the front steps.
“Did you bring me something to eat? Where are you parked?”
“This way.” I could see the parking lot behind homes and across a field. “You’ve lost a lot of weight, mom. We should get you checked out.”
“I’m fine. Just hungry, tired, and I really got to find a bathroom.” I looked around the area for a restroom. I should have asked Paige before I left, but I was more concerned about Hannah than my bladder.
“What about the police? I called Detective Perez and told him you were here.” She wrapped her arm around my waist. I needed all the support I could muster. Time travel took the energy out of me.
“Who?”
“You know, Detective Perez, Fredericksburg police detective.” Hannah put the back of her hand on my forehead. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“Hannah, stop.” I stopped in my tracks and held her hand. “I promise you. I’m fine. I will tell you what happened.”
“Promise?”
“I promise you. Trust me.” I gave her hand a squeeze and caressed her face. My beautiful daughter. I thought I would never see her again. “I will explain everything to you, but I need to use a bathroom, eat everything on Betsy’s menu, and get a week’s worth of sleep.”
We continued walking towards the parking lot across the street and down the block. “You need to call Beth. She has been worried sick about you. Mom, we all have. We thought Kyle killed you. You just disappeared.”
“Why would you think Kyle killed me?” A flash of thinking I had seen Kyle at Betsy’s and Fort Ashby crossed through my memory. “He’s weird, yeah. A bit of a stalker? Sure. But murderer?”
“They originally arrested him on vandalism charges.”
It was early and the streets were empty of the tourists that would flock in later. “Where?”
“At that museum. Detective Perez told me. He took a knife to a portrait. Then, when they were doing more investigating, they discovered he had dated missing author Amelia Murray. And they did a GPS tracking thing on him and found out that he followed you to Fort Ashby. Your cellphone’s last ping was at a nearby tower and so was his.” We reached the car. I had a lot of dress to fit in her small two door Honda Civic. “I think you’re going to need to remove some layers. You are wearing something under that, aren’t you?”
“I can remove my gown and petticoats.” I unbuttoned my gown and laid it in the back seat. Thankfully, it was summer, which meant I wore only one petticoat. I tossed my bum roll and pockets on top of the clothes. I left on my stays and shift.
“Wow, corset and all, huh?”
“Actually, they’re stays. It doesn’t matter.” I flittered my hand. “I’m just so happy to see you.”
We drove north towards Fredericksburg. We went through McDonald’s drive thru and picked me up a breakfast sandwich to hold me over until I could get changed and to Betsy’s for the lunch menu. It took me four days to get to Williamsburg from Fredericksburg. It only took two and a half hours to get back.
She wanted to know what happened to me over the past few months. While she drove her little car 75 miles per hour up Interstate 95, I was hesitant to tell her. I didn’t need the shock of hearing that I traveled through time to make her veer off the road. I didn’t travel two hundred sixty-five years back to end up in a ditch.