The Day Before Forever Read online

  Henley and I agreed it was.

  “Oh, almost forgot,” Aaron said. He passed us a folded sheet of paper. “Here’s the map. The hostel is clearly marked on it.”

  “That will be most helpful,” Henley said. He took it and put it in the backpack without even looking at it.

  “Is there a computer guests can use here?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid not, but there’s the local library. They have computers you could use.”

  I shot a look at Henley.

  “That would be perfect,” he said.

  “The library’s listed on the map. It’s only a short walk from here. Anything else I can help with?” Aaron asked.

  “Could I quickly ask if you have a lost and found box or something of that sort?” I asked, remembering suddenly Henley’s lack of clothes.

  “Lost something already?” Aaron chortled. “Lucky for you, we do. It’s right down the hall from your room. Just keep going past your room and you’ll see it. Everyone seems to leave something behind. It’s positively overflowing!”

  I thanked him.

  I grabbed Henley by the arm and walked him back to the room.

  “You wait here,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

  He didn’t even look surprised as he unlocked the door and let himself in.

  Hearing the door shut behind me, I kept walking down the hall as Aaron had instructed. I passed the Daffodil room, the Poppy room, the Foxglove room, and a few other rooms with flowers I could not place.

  Toward the end of the corridor, there was a crate with random items spilling out of it. The wood was painted a bright blue, and on first glance I saw everything from a baseball mitt to a few paperback books.

  The first article of clothing I pulled out was a toddler’s dress. It had a pink stain running down the front of it. Strawberry jam? Next was a woman’s blouse that was much too big for me. It couldn’t be used. I continued rummaging until I found a men’s black T-shirt. Sure, it was wrinkled from being stored under the mountain of objects, but it was reasonably clean and looked to be about Henley’s size. I found another shirt that said “Jefferson Airplane” on it. I guessed it was some sort of movie or band. It would have to do. For me, I found a turquoise polka-dotted shirt that didn’t look like it was from this era.

  Grabbing those three shirts, I made it back to the room and fumbled with my key. With the shirts slung over my arms, I had barely gotten the key into the lock before Henley opened the door.

  “Shirts?” I grinned up at him.

  “From the lost and found box? Won’t someone come looking for these?”

  I slipped past him. “I don’t think so. These look like they were there a while.”

  I tossed him the two shirts I had picked out for him. Henley looked over each one.

  “They look clean enough, though I don’t like the concept of wearing things other people have worn . . .”

  “Oh, like we have a choice,” I said. “You can wash them in the bathroom sink, if you’d like.”

  “I think I’ll do that,” he said. He grabbed my shirt as well before bringing them to the bathroom.

  In the bathroom, he left the door open so he could still hear me. I sat on the bed, and from there I could see Henley’s reflection in the mirror that hung on the inside of the bathroom door.

  “Jefferson Airplane?” Henley asked, as he started scrubbing with the one tiny soap bar provided.

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” I said.

  “Sometimes I feel as though I’ve missed out on quite a lot between the early 1900s and this year that we’re now in.”

  “It’s 2016,” I reminded him. “And you have.”

  “Thanks for being mindful of my feelings.”

  “Careful, your sarcasm is dripping from your voice.”

  Henley laughed. “So that’s how you treat a man who’s currently washing one of your shirts? You know, where I come from, this is a woman’s job.”

  “Welcome to the twenty-first century. And thank God we’re not in where you come from,” I said.

  I expected a laugh from Henley, but his voice grew serious instead.

  “It wasn’t that bad, was it? My time, I mean; 1904 wasn’t that bad.”

  I saw him put down the shirt he was washing and the soap. He stared at himself in the mirror above the sink, but I didn’t know what he saw.

  “It was hard,” I admitted. “There was a lot of fitting in to do. Mannerisms, dress, speech—all the things you took for granted. But that’s always the same in any time.”

  “I suppose you’re always adapting.”

  “We have to.”

  In that moment, I didn’t know whether that “we” encompassed Miss Hatfield and me, or whether I meant Henley and me.

  Henley wordlessly resumed washing and only came out once he had hung the shirts to dry from the shower curtain rail.

  “Ready to go to the library?” I asked. I already had the backpack slung over my shoulder. I felt the weight of the clock and the jewelry against the small of my back.

  “Just let me get my key from the bedside table . . .” Henley was back in a second.

  We made sure to lock our door, though I didn’t know what we were locking it against. A murderer had already walked into our room, after all.

  We waved good-bye to Aaron at the front desk and made it a block before having to pull out the map.

  “We’re going in completely the wrong direction,” Henley said. He sounded convinced, but he kept turning the map this way and that.

  “Do you even know how to read that thing?”

  “Of course I do.” He jabbed a finger at the paper. “We’re here. And it says the library is . . . here.”

  I stood on my toes to peek over the map. “That’s not the library at all.”

  “No, but—”

  “See, look. It says museum.”

  “Fine. Then why don’t you—”

  “The library’s here.” I pointed across the page. “It’s clearly labeled, and we’re walking in the right direction.”

  I took the map from Henley and folded it up before slipping it back into the front pocket of the backpack.

  Henley huffed.

  “Oh, what would you do without me.” I poked his side.

  We walked for what felt like ten minutes just like that—quipping at each other instead of talking about the more difficult things. We both wanted to forget about what was at stake, even though it was stuck in the back of our minds.

  A series of white steps led up to the entrance of the library. It didn’t look like a big building, but it felt larger on the inside than it looked on the outside. The whitewashed walls gave way to stacks and shelves of books.

  The circulation desk was right in front of us as we walked in. Immediately a curly-haired woman behind the desk eyed us sharply. I walked toward her.

  “Excuse me. Would it be possible for us to use the computers here?”

  She looked at us quizzically, but I couldn’t figure out why.

  “Yeah . . .” was all she said.

  I didn’t get it. Was I not supposed to ask?

  I stared at her until she pointed to her left.

  Perfect. That was where the computers were set up.

  “Come on,” I said to Henley.

  I took a seat at the first computer, Henley sitting next to me. There was a sign stuck to the monitor, and we read it carefully.

  “I don’t understand.” Henley was the first to speak. “We’re supposed to pay for the use of this computer by the minute? Isn’t this a library? Aren’t things supposed to be free in a library?” He squinted at the sign again.

  “It says a penny a minute.”

  I moved the computer mouse to wake the computer. A text box came up on the screen, prompting us for a credit card number.

  “Let me go talk to the woman at the desk.” Henley made to stand, but I stopped him.

  “What are you going to say?”

  “Just that we only brought ca
sh with us.”

  I let him go. Henley unzipped the backpack I held and found a pound coin. I watched as he walked to the desk and began talking to the curly-haired woman.

  She didn’t look happy. Her lips were downturned—and I didn’t think they were naturally that way. Her chin bobbed as she said something to Henley. I watched him stop and tilt his head. He was probably choosing his words carefully. The woman shook her head, but took his pound and counted out change.

  I looked away as they came walking toward me.

  When the woman came up to my shoulder, I pretended I was picking at a loose thread at the hem of my short shirt. I watched out of the corner of my eye as she did a few speedy keystrokes and typed some sort of code into another text box that had popped up. She pressed something and soon all of the boxes disappeared, leaving us with an unlocked computer.

  “Thank you,” I mumbled.

  She stalked back to the desk.

  “I bought us thirty minutes,” Henley said. “Is that enough?”

  “That’s more than enough,” I said.

  I realized this was the first time Henley had used a computer—well, really used a computer. I say that because Henley once manipulated my laptop when he was still without a body, to send me a message. That was the first time I had known he was still out there.

  I clicked the first icon and the web browser came up with the search engine.

  “This is the internet?” Henley’s eyes were intently fixed on the screen.

  I would have laughed at the look of reverence on his face then, but I knew I had worn the same expression when I had first been introduced to computers.

  “Let’s first search for an online translator,” I said, clicking. “Let’s see . . .” I pulled out the letter. “The first words are Querida Emilia.”

  Dear Emily the computer showed on its screen.

  “So you just type it in and the computer spits it out in English?” Henley said.

  “Basically.”

  I continued typing in the rest of the letter.

  “There.”

  We both craned our necks toward the computer screen to read the translation.

  “That’s it?” Henley asked.

  The translation hadn’t revealed much. It seemed like Juana was just writing a friend. She asked how her other friends and extended family were doing and mentioned she missed playing her harpsichord and recorder. The only thing that really meant much was the part she wrote at the end:

  I feel as if I should be happier. And yet I’m not. Forgive me for not being able to bear showing my face to you. I fear I have become something I am not proud of.

  “That’s it,” I said, pointing to the end of the letter. “That’s what we’ve been looking for.”

  “‘I feel as if I should be happier. . . . Forgive me.’ That doesn’t say much at all,” Henley said.

  “She says that she can’t bear to show her face to her friend. It’s because she’s turned immortal and she knows it. What else could it be? And she even says that she fears she has become something she’s not proud of!”

  “That means nothing.” Henley sighed. “She could be talking about most anything else. That she’s taken something that wasn’t hers and become a common thief. That she’s become an adulteress now. That she thinks she’s a bad daughter to her parents. It really could be anything.”

  “No, it had to be immortality,” I said. “It fits so well and there was no one else who could be immortal. And if she hates it as much as it seems in this letter, there’s no wonder she’s killed all the Miss Hatfields.”

  “All the Miss Hatfields save one,” Henley corrected.

  I shook off my mistake. “Now time for the name of the auction house,” I said, pulling up another window on the computer quickly. Glancing over at Henley, still slack-jawed at how the computer worked, I asked him if he wanted to type.

  “Can I?”

  I turned the keyboard toward him. “Do you remember the name of the place that said they specialize in jewelry among other things?”

  “Carter House.”

  “Why don’t you type ‘Carter House Auction,’ just to be safe.”

  Watching him was agony. Henley would painstakingly read the entire keyboard before finding the one letter he needed. He would slowly press that one key, as if worried he would break the keyboard. The result so far was “CaaarteerHoo.”

  “Do you mind if I finish?” I would have let him go on if we didn’t have more things to do. In his time I had been the clueless one, fumbling through social etiquette and tripping over my own curtsey. Now it was Henley’s turn to be a fast learner.

  Henley passed the keyboard over to me.

  “Here’s the space bar.” I showed him, while finishing the word.

  I pressed enter, and we watched the page of results come in.

  “Try the first one.” Henley prodded the screen with his finger.

  “Henley,” I said. “One of the first rules of using computers is that you never touch the screen. Especially not that hard.” Unless it was a touchscreen, but I didn’t tell him that part. It would only have confused him.

  I looked over my shoulder at the circulation desk, and sure enough, the curly-haired woman was watching us with her birdlike eyes.

  I clicked on the first link and it took us to what looked like Carter House’s website.

  “Obtainers of fine art and museum-quality antiques. Own a piece of history today!” flashed across the screen.

  There was a special tab for jewelry, so I clicked there.

  We accept all verified vintage jewelry from all eras. Call for more info.

  “I wonder what ‘verified’ entails,” Henley said.

  “They probably have a specialist look at it or something,” I said. “Do you think you could go ask the woman at the desk for a piece of paper and a pen?”

  “What for?”

  “So we can take down the number.”

  Henley got up to go talk to the woman and came immediately back.

  “She wouldn’t give me paper. Said she didn’t have any,” he muttered, as he used the pen to jot the number and address down on the back of his hand.

  “Just remember not to wash your hands before we call that number.”

  “What do you take me for?” Henley said.

  I didn’t answer that, and instead looked up at the clock on the other side of the room. “We still have a few minutes left on the computer.”

  I pulled up the search engine and tried to think of something useful to search for.

  “Rebecca Hatfield” I typed. Holding my breath, I hit enter.

  The search results popped up. Pages of them.

  The first few links were to online directory results of people with the first name “Rebecca” or the last name “Hatfield.” There was never a person with both.

  As I scanned the later pages, the results became more random and less relevant.

  “I don’t know if you’re trying to look up yourself or my mother,” Henley said.

  I didn’t know either. I only wanted to have some record of me—of her. Some record to show that we had existed and that I still existed here.

  “Why don’t you try me?” Henley said.

  I typed out his name, “Henley Beauford.”

  Enter.

  The page started filling up with a list of results, and I drew a long breath.

  “Henley—these are all you,” I said.

  Henley A. Beauford.

  The last time I had read those words was on his grave.

  “Look, there’s even a photo of you!” I clicked it, and Henley’s face filled the screen.

  He looked young. Almost as young as I had remembered him in 1904 . . . Maybe a few added wrinkles and worry lines. Not that you could tell much from the black-and-white photo. He was wearing a tuxedo with a white bow tie. I remembered the white bow tie from when he first wore it to dinner in 1904. Tuxes were just coming in then. Mr. Beauford, Henley’s father, had hated the way it l
ooked. He thought it was much too casual. Mr. Beauford would have been shocked if he could see what his son was wearing today. I laughed.

  “What?” Henley said. “You’re not laughing at how I look, are you? You need to remember that the flashes they used then were incredibly bright and that is the only reason I’m squinting in that photograph.”

  “You look fine,” I said. Of course, he looked nothing at all like he looked now in Richard’s body.

  Henley clicked to see the next photo.

  In this one, Henley was on the left, and an equally familiar face peered at me from the right side of the frame. Eliza.

  Eliza, along with her snobby sister, had visited Henley and his family when I was also at their country home—well, it was more of an estate than a little home. Eliza was sweet and gentle, unlike her older sister who, though a beauty, believed everything revolved around her. There was also the fact that Eliza’s sister had designs to marry Henley for his father’s money and influence—that hadn’t made her too popular with me.

  Eliza had gone blind from a fever when she was younger and was frail. That was probably a big reason for her piety and trust in God. She had maintained all the faith and conviction that I didn’t have. Henley had gone on to marry Eliza, and though Eliza had only survived a few years after she and Henley had married, I was happy two of the people I loved the most had been able to have a life together, however brief.

  There were many things I wondered about what Henley had done after I had left his time. It was easy to forget that he had lived a full life before returning to me; he had gotten married, buried a wife, grown a business . . . but most striking of all, he had grown old and died.

  Then again, it wasn’t a permanent death since Henley was Miss Hatfield’s son and therefore half-immortal. It was only the end of his life in his own time period, and the beginning of his life as a roaming ghost without a body.

  “You’re quiet. What are you thinking about?” Henley’s warm eyes sought mine.

  “All the lives you’ve led,” I said.

  He didn’t ask me anything further.

  As I continued to click through the photos, we saw photos of Mr. Beauford’s car (he was so proud of owning one of the first automobiles in the city), a few objects that used to belong in the city house, and the blueprint of the country estate. They all felt so familiar and yet so far away. I knew Henley was probably feeling this too, but even more so.