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  Because the anachronistic woman stood right beside Monroe.

  • • • • • • • • • • • •

  Charlotte raced over, but as she approached her steps slowed. Her gallop changed to a run, to a fast walk, a stilted walk, then to a stop.

  Standing outside Suni’s in the past, Monroe was gesturing to the woman with platinum hair. She had her hand on her chin, listening, then responding. And when she did, Monroe didn’t yell loudly enough for Charlotte to hear. If he was arguing with her, it was less of an argument than Charlotte had had with him hours ago. Could it really just be hours?

  Bill breezed past, but had slowed, too.

  Charlotte shook herself, and jogged to catch up. When she got within earshot, Monroe was saying, “But what’ll be there? Won’t it be dangerous? Why the hell can’t you go?”

  “’Roe?”

  Monroe held up a hand to Charlotte, but didn’t even turn to her.

  “I can’t,” the woman said. “You’ll understand it; you’re too new at this yet to see the big picture.”

  “I get your side.” Monroe folded his arms over his chest. “You think time can be changed; we’ve already seen the outcome. But y’know what I think? I think you’re lazy.”

  The woman rolled her eyes. “Please. You think it’s a coincidence Leanor sent you here? That you met me on both trips? I needed you; you came. You can stop this, just like she asked of you.”

  “But we don’t know what she asked—”

  “Trust me,” the woman said, pushing her head forward earnestly. “Just this once, okay? Trust that I know Leanor as well as you do.”

  Shaking his head, Monroe told her, “Fine, we’ll go. But with all of history to search …”

  “Not all of history,” the woman said. “Look, one more hint. The person you have to stop …” She looked away from Monroe, to the empty air where skyscrapers used to stand.

  For the first time, Charlotte began to realize what this woman must’ve been saying. Not that Leanor wanted them to go through time and save people from disaster. Not even to save Leanor from her death. No, nothing so pedestrian. According to this woman, Leanor wanted them to stop the Blast.

  Charlotte inhaled.

  Maybe she’d learned the right lesson today, after all. That she could change time. That she could stop the Blast, however it had happened.

  The woman turned back to Monroe. “The bomber loves history. Just like you.” She lofted her mesh astrolabe in her hands, spun it, and disappeared before Charlotte could chime in, could ask what the Blast was.

  If there was a bomber—something this woman seemed to believe—why did the Blast look nothing like a bomb?

  Monroe she could question.

  “That woman,” Charlotte said. “What did she want?”

  Monroe shook his head in annoyance. “She didn’t say, just hinted. Mentioned a bomber when I mentioned that Leanor had told us to come here. It’s gotta be that same guy, the one who killed Leanor.”

  “You think …” Bill said.

  Monroe lifted his hands. “I don’t know what to think. But I know where that woman suggested we go. And I think I know when.”

  “And, what?” Bill spread his hands. “You trust her?”

  Quietly, Charlotte said, “She wanted us to stop the Blast, Bill.” In her bones, Charlotte felt it was true. Somehow or other, that was Leanor’s plan all along. Why else would she buy a laboratory so close to the Blast lines? Why take Charlotte to Suni’s—where some anachronistic woman would come visit them in the past? Why else would a tragic place like the World Trade Center be “perfect?”

  Leanor wanted them to stop the worst tragedy New York had ever endured.

  “That’s what she claimed,” Monroe said. “And of course I don’t trust her, Bill. But she said—hinted—that the locations where the Blast ended are important. It’s worth checking out, at least. Worth going to one endpoint to see what we can. And if we find nothing?” Monroe shrugged. “We’ll travel through time until we find something out of place.”

  Bill tugged at his beard, then gazed at Charlotte.

  His wide eyes, his mouth tugged to one side showed that he was once again fighting himself. The opportunity to stop the Blast was too good. Charlotte agreed. “Where, then? Which of the four Blast lines do we visit?”

  “My favorite,” Monroe said with a smile. “The onetime insane asylum known as the Octagon. But along the way, we watch for traps.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  NELLIE BLY

  JUNE 23, 2023

  Time travel was getting to Charlotte. With all the travel she’d done before today, she’d never tried traveling longer than a couple hours. Never had to force herself to keep going. She needed to sleep, but she couldn’t go home yet. When she finally saw Felix, she wanted to have answers, to have a clear explanation for why she’d acted the way she had.

  Right now, all she had was questions.

  They’d have to keep going, no matter how exhausted she was.

  On the trip to the Octagon she got to rest her eyes a little. The tram ride over a portion of the East River, to Roosevelt Island, passed in a flicker of her closed eyelids. Monroe tugged her up, and then they boarded the island’s only means of public transportation—a bright red bus that went up and down the skinny landmass.

  “I still don’t understand what an insane asylum has to do with the Blast,” Bill said, keeping Charlotte from sleeping on the bus. “Wasn’t it proven that the four endpoints weren’t important?”

  “Nothing was proven,” Monroe said. “And what do you think? The Blast just happens to start and stop at four historically important locations. That’s coincidence? No one thought maybe it’d say something about the bomber?”

  Before Charlotte had fallen asleep on the tram, Monroe had gone over his theory. Stopping the bomber here would prevent him from killing Leanor. Would set time right. If the Blast was a time event, then it made sense to stop it. Gave them carte blanche.

  He was still worried about changing time.

  The red bus slowed at its final destination—the northern tip of Roosevelt Island, where the Octagon once stood before it was taken in the Blast. “I just don’t get why you trust her suddenly,” Bill said.

  “You should’ve seen her face when I told her about Leanor’s death—sudden surprise, followed by immense sadness. No way is she working with that blue-haired monster. And when she talked to me, it was just like Leanor would. Guiding me. Letting me get to the point. You heard her at the end. I think she is—was—Leanor’s assistant somehow. Like you, Char. Didn’t you see the similarities?”

  Charlotte lifted her eyelids and shook her head.

  “I just think Ana’s on our side.”

  With a frown, Charlotte pushed herself up from her seat. Stood and let Bill and Monroe exit the bus first. In the open air, Monroe’s words didn’t make any more sense. “Uh, ’Roe?” she asked. The bus pulled away and everyone else wandered around the monument that had been built here to commemorate this arm of the Blast’s destruction. “‘Ana?’”

  “Oh.” Monroe wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Well, I figured we couldn’t just keep calling her ‘that anachronistic woman.’ So I figured, ‘anachronistic.’ Ana Chronistic.”

  Charlotte couldn’t keep her guffaw in. “Oh, ’Roe. That’s terrible.”

  “Sorta amazingly bad,” Bill said.

  “Anyway, that’s not what matters.” Monroe waved his silly nickname away. “What matters is her clue. That whoever set off the Blast loves history. At every other endpoint, there are multiple possibilities. Here there’s only one major historical event.”

  Bill wrinkled his nose, looking out at the waterway leading back into Manhattan. Lit skyscrapers towered over the dark cut leading all the way to the Hudson. “At an insane asylum?”

  But Charlotte knew. The Blast had happened at the end of Monroe’s first year teaching. For those final few weeks of school, his students craved any answers. With the police having non
e, Monroe did his best to provide the historical information he could of every landmark obliterated in the Blast. Since then, he would tease the information out, doing small units throughout the year. His lessons on the Octagon only discussed a single person. “You really think he visited Nellie Bly?”

  Monroe lifted his shoulders. “I think we can ask her in person.”

  Charlotte’s heart stopped. God, was this why Monroe suddenly trusted that woman? Because he’d get to see moments in history he’d only dreamed of? She watched him, gritting her teeth instead of asking.

  Whether Ana was trustworthy or not, this was the only clue they had.

  • • • • • • • • • • • •

  Monroe specified the time—September 30, 1887—and Charlotte spun the lights back to the date. Even if this clue didn’t work, this was what she’d wanted. Hours ago, she’d dreamed of traveling with Monroe. And once she fixed things with Felix, once she had Leanor back, this was what her life would be: traveling through history with her brother.

  Charlotte did a quick check around; despite the pinprick lights everywhere, the other tourists’ focus was on the city across the East River. She released, confident that no one would notice their disappearance.

  After the first few moments, the bay that the Blast had created illuminated in a bright flash. The Octagon returned. A tall rectangular building led away from them, joined to an octagonal shaped entryway. Atop the Octagon’s lobby, flags waved from a pristine blue dome. Too soon the luxury apartments deconstructed. A building with the same footprint, but much lower, stood in its place.

  The dome was gone, replaced by a flat stone roof. The pavement vanished, replaced by a dirt road. As time slowed, their surroundings came into crisper focus. Beautifully kept lawns lead to the entrance, but in the distance a line of women in stained dresses walked into a side entry.

  After the grandiose beauty of the renovated apartments, the smaller stone structure looked like a sad prototype. Moss and vines crawled up cracks in the walls. The windows were caked with dirt and impossible to see into. The road leading here was abandoned, weeds growing in the dirt.

  Unlike Charlotte, Monroe would have expected this. His face didn’t fall at the dismal sight, his dark eyes gleamed. They’d stepped into history, and his grin reminded Charlotte that she was right to bring him into this. She swallowed, hating the next thought that entered her mind. Right to choose him first over Felix.

  She had a lot to deal with when she finally got home.

  “So … Nellie Bly?” Bill asked as they walked toward the doors.

  Monroe shushed him. “Nellie Brown.”

  “But I thought—”

  “No one knows her by that name,” Charlotte told him. She remembered a little of what Monroe had said while preparing for his lessons. How Bly made her name as an investigative journalist here. How she wanted to report on the terrible conditions inside.

  “She’s a reporter for the World,” Monroe said, his voice hushed. “But this was her first piece that wasn’t just about housekeeping. She’d heard about the conditions inside, got herself committed, and lived here for ten days. In a few weeks, her report will come out, and a government committee will appropriate the asylum a million dollars.” Monroe paused, hand on the door handle. “A massive sum for this time.”

  “Brown is her alias while she investigates,” Charlotte clarified for Bill’s sake. He nodded sagely.

  “If that bomber loves history, he must have met her. Maybe she’ll know where he went.”

  If Ana hadn’t lied to Monroe.

  “Sure,” Bill responded, and when he glanced Charlotte’s way, she could see he felt the same way. Charlotte shrugged in response, lifting her eyebrows. This was, at the very least, a direction.

  Monroe noticed their glances, too, rolled his eyes, and shoved through the heavy wooden doors.

  Several nurses in well-pressed white caps stood at a central desk, and a few people waited in chairs off to one side, newspapers folded between their hands, unread. Despite the bright lamps and Charlotte’s clothes, dried in the sunny day of the Blast, the air was chill.

  A sign of the true conditions that Nellie Bly would reveal.

  “Good afternoon,” Monroe said to the nurses. Charlotte drew beside him, wondering how he’d sell his lie.

  “Yes?” one woman asked them, inspecting Monroe, then Charlotte. She turned to Bill. “How can I help you?”

  “Er …”

  Then Charlotte remembered. Every time she traveled far enough back, no one paid her any mind. It was always Leanor—the white woman—in charge. It seemed horrible to think of whiteness as an asset, but with time travel it was.

  “My friend, here,” Monroe corrected, understanding as Charlotte had, “read in the paper about a woman who was recently committed? He thinks she may be his wife. The newspaper said her name was Nellie Brown, but—”

  The nurse sighed. “Wait over there.” She pointed to the set of chairs and turned to the other nurses. “Another one. You’d think she was the prettiest girl in New York.”

  “Another?” Bill asked while they walked across the cold lobby.

  “When she was committed, the New York Sun and the Times both printed stories about her,” Monroe said. “We’re not the only ones to show up looking for a missing wife.”

  “Brown?” a new nurse called, staring Bill’s way. “You’re looking for Nellie Brown?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Charlotte replied on Bill’s behalf, standing.

  “What’s your interest in her?” the severe woman asked. Her graying brown hair was pulled back into a bun. Lines around her mouth showed that she rarely smiled, despite her kind-seeming eyes.

  “Our friend’s wife,” Monroe said. “She was recently lost. The picture in the Sun made us think it was her, but under a different name.”

  The nurse surveyed Bill, making some decision. “Fine.”

  She led them up a wide spiral staircase that ringed the inside of the octagonal lobby. “Nellie’s been giving us lots of trouble. Told the doctor a bunch of lies about me, making up stories. Asked for special treatment. I’m glad she got transferred from my hall.” At the top of the stairwell, she opened a door to a small room containing a table and a few wooden chairs. “I hope she is your wife. I’ll be glad to see the back of her.”

  Charlotte, Bill, and Monroe entered, and the nurse closed them in without another word.

  “Isn’t she a peach,” Charlotte said.

  But Monroe was grinning. “That was Nellie’s nemesis! Grue-something. Grute. Groose.” He snapped his fingers, eyes alight. “Miss Grupe. She hated Nellie for always asking for better food, thicker clothing, the treatment the patients deserved.”

  Charlotte frowned. “I can’t imagine she’ll keep her job long after Nellie’s report.” Not quite something to grin at.

  Monroe gave her a look, but the door opened before Charlotte could continue.

  A girl stumbled in.

  But like Ana, Nellie only seemed like a girl. Her height, the way she held herself, even the fire in her eyes told the story of the brilliant woman Monroe had mentioned. The dirty white dress, her bedraggled hair, her dirty nails, all of it put a lie onto this woman, turning her into something foolish instead of strong.

  Leaning in after Nellie, Miss Grupe said, “Five minutes,” and closed the door on them all. Leaving them alone with Nellie.

  For the first minute, they surveyed one another, Nellie staring each of them in the face, daring Bill, Monroe, then Charlotte to speak. But what could she say? They’d come to ask after a bomber, some short, blue-haired time traveler. They knew who Nellie was. Saying either of those things seemed to be a silly way to start.

  Nellie Bly folded her arms over her chest. “You know, don’t you?”

  Charlotte’s mouth fell open. Had Ana been right, then? Could this not be a trap at all, but a way of undoing the Blast? And could Nellie really tell, this easily, that they were after the other person who must’ve visited her
? “How did you know?”

  Nellie frowned. “I told the last person that the World sent. I’m close. Just give me another couple days. And don’t send someone else to ask after me. Just retrieve me. Otherwise Miss Grupe will get suspicious.”

  Huh, evidently working for the World had been that man’s lie to explain his presence. Charlotte glanced at Monroe, who said, “We’ll be sure to tell them.”

  “We just wanted to see if you’re okay,” Bill interrupted.

  “I’m fine,” Nellie said, her eyes glinting like steel. “But that isn’t the point, is it? I’m not the point, it’s these women. And things here … they’re brutal, just as I thought. They only use cold water for baths. They give us these starchy old dresses.” She picked at the fabric. “And there are dozens of women here, like me, who aren’t crazy.”

  “It’s going to be quite a report,” Monroe said.

  Charlotte could hear the awe in his voice. But Nellie didn’t appreciate it. She narrowed her eyes at him. “Yes. That’s almost what she said.”

  The world swirled as Charlotte corrected their assumptions. Not the blue-haired man at all. Ana.

  “She?” Monroe wasn’t quite ready to believe what Charlotte felt instinctively.

  “Can you describe her?” Charlotte asked.

  “Sure,” Nellie said with a sigh. “Almost white-blond hair, red jewels on her ears. Slightly … odd.”

  “They have to be working together,” Charlotte hissed.

  Monroe shook his head. Unable to see what was right before him.

  “Did you see where she went?” Bill asked. “After she met with you?”

  Nellie clenched her jaw. “I thought you were here for me.”

  “We—” Bill tried.

  “She barely spoke to me,” Nellie said. “She just shook my hand, told me she looked forward to my report. And then, after Miss Grupe took me away, I saw her ascending the spiral staircase.” She stood. “Can I go now? Let you get to your actual business?”