Page 20 of I Know You

“It has to be bad, don’t you think? Why else would he disappear when he recognized me?”

“I’m afraid so.” Ben leans his elbows on his knees and fists his hands together before resting his forehead against them. “I don’t know enough about Theodore Roosevelt,” he says in frustration.

I lay a hand over his. “Find some books or newspapers or something. I’m going to try the mirror some more. If that man came through after I did, there must be a way to open it.”

Ben nods and squeezes my fingers before letting go. “Good plan.” Already relief trails through his eyes. He sits up, laying his arm across the back of the sofa I’m sitting on, and I want to rest my head on his chest and curl up with him for a while—let him tell me about history and get to know him. “About last night,” he says.

I hope he’s not going to apologize for it. That really is a classic romance character thing to do, and I hate it. I replayed that kiss over and over before going to bed, still a little dizzy from it.

“What about it?” I ask, worried he’ll say something about regretting it. I don’t. Even if I did just meet him.

“It’s why you need to think about what I said before … about the future. Why you should agree to marry me, even if it’s just for convenience.”

Heat rushes into my cheeks, and I can’t help looking at Mrs. Guthrie, still embroidering, and Mr. Allen, his eyes closed as he draws haunting notes from the violin. Bizet, I think, from the opera Carmen. My father explained to me once that I liked the later Romantic composers because their music was more emotional, less standardized, evoking stories the way a film score might.

Neither of the other two in the room are paying attention to Ben and me, and he speaks low enough not to be heard. So many of our conversations take place like this, in hushed voices among the others. Another thing to look forward to when we get home: conversations alone without the fear of gossip.

“And last night you thought kissing me was moving too fast,” I say, arching my eyebrow at him.

Ben chuckles. “It seems backwards, I know, but if we were married—even in name only—we could date and get to know each other the way we’re used to.” He leans forward again, still keeping his hand on the back of the couch but letting his shoulder brush mine. “I could kiss you like I did last night without worrying about ruining your reputation.”

“Neither of us could marry anyone else, could we?” That thought shouldn’t be depressing, not with Ben looking at me with a smirk and his lips tempting me to throw my arms around him—it shouldn’t depress me because it’s him, this smart, funny, generous man who seems to have it all—but it does. We’re each other’s only options because pursuing a long-term relationship elsewhere would be like giving up.

“I think I could bear being stuck here if I had you,” he murmurs.

“Oh, such high praise, sir.” I narrow my eyes, even though his knight-in-shining-armor act has had me thinking the same thing since pretty much the moment I fell into his life.

“Darling, I’m wishing right now I could pull out my phone and look up Teddy Roosevelt’s most controversial policies or not have to retype every draft of my book—it is high praise that life could be bearable at all here.”

Darling. Talk about a thrill.

I won’t give in to his charms. Not yet, anyway. “I don’t know how I can resist such sweet words,” I say dryly, but I’m guessing the heat in my cheeks is probably giving me away anyway.

A girl has to try.

We excuse ourselves after that, both of us thanking Mr. Allen for the music, and I blush again when he and Mrs. Guthrie share a knowing look before Ben and I leave the room to go our separate ways.

It feels scandalous to go into Ben’s room, even though I’m alone and he’s been in mine often enough. How easily I’ve fallen into this life and the customs—as easily as I tumbled through the mirror. I shut the door and cross the room to where the mirror is propped against a wall.

I finger the woodwork and stare into it for several minutes. “What is your secret?” I whisper, but as I expect, no face appears to share the way home. I place my hands on the mirror, leaning into it the way I had before falling through. Energy dances over my fingertips like the pins-and-needles feeling after my limbs fall asleep, but still nothing happens. I pull my hands back.

What triggers it? What makes it open for some but not for others? The man with President McKinley seems to have a measure of control. I can assume he was unsuccessful the day we saw him outside my apartment, but he’s returned here somehow. So what does he know that I don’t?

I think of Ben telling me what happened when he fell through, mentally going over his actions, step by step. He told me there were smudges on the surface, and he’d tried to clean them off. When he started rubbing them with a rag, he noticed the reflection seemed off, so he put both hands on to inspect the weird phenomenon. A moment later, he tumbled into the lobby of The Villa in 1899—and was kicked out as swiftly as I would have been if he hadn’t been around to save me.

Again, I place both palms back on the glass, waiting. The tingling in my fingers is more pronounced, but nothing happens. Then I jump, startled, when the reflection shifts so I can distinguish at least half an inch of space between my hands and the image in the mirror. A rip of energy jumps off the surface and jolts me, surprising me so much I yank away.

I throw my hands back onto the mirror, pressing with more fervor as though I can force the mirror to accept me. I notice it this time, how the energy starts small, spinning around my fingers and pricking at them in the pins-and-needles sensation, how it grows, building and building until I know any second the same bolt of energy will strike me. When it does, I keep my palms firm against it.

“I can do this,” I say in a fierce voice. The energy means something—the passage is there, just beyond my fingertips, and I will yank it open.

A moment later, I cry out in joy as my hands sink through.

I don’t dare pull them all the way out, not even to dart across the room to pull the rope and send someone to get Ben. So I settle for making a scene. Who cares? Once I get Ben up here, we’ll be gone. No more reputation to worry about—no problem with one of the maids finding me in Ben’s room. In fact, all the better. I hope they start gossiping about us eloping when we disappear, make it less suspicious. Now I find myself hoping either Mr. Allen or Mrs. Guthrie have overheard something of mine and Ben’s conversation about getting married.

“Hello?” I cry. “Help?” After several shouts like this, someone taps on the door, and I cry joyfully, “Yes, hurry, please!” I turn so my back is to the mirror, one hand still securely inside the passage to keep it from closing in case I can’t repeat opening it again.

“Miss Granville?” a maid says, startled.