Page 63 of I Know You

“And when we get back, school or no school, we’re moving up our vacation to Europe. We’ll both need it by then, I’m sure.”

I’m able to laugh at him now. “Who are we kidding? After this, they’re definitely going to fire you.”

In the hours between when Dr. Cooper and Burke leave us and when they return with Willis and Porter, Ben and I camp out in Ben’s library. He surrounds himself with books, flipping through them and murmuring to himself about this event or that event and where Gibbons could intervene to cause the most damage to the future.

I watch YouTube videos, beefing up my knowledge of clothes just prior to the Second World War and practicing doing my own hair. I can’t count on having a maid every time I go back in time. I look up old movies on Netflix, memorizing phrases and trying to speak in the kind of rhythm the actresses did. I glance over lists of popular music, listening to a few to get a feel for it. Not content to sit still as I do my research, I multitask and practice my hand-to-hand combat training, punching and kicking into the air to the jaunty rhythm of the music or while I repeat phrases. This time, I’m more determined than ever to prove that I can fit in and be an asset to Ben other than his transportation.

Porter has little to add to our briefing. She gives us back the cases we used before to masquerade our phones and reprograms our fingerprints to be safe.

“We don’t have anything to give you on Gibbons or his activities in 1938. He hasn’t popped up in any pictures so far, so he’s being more careful about getting caught. The usual list of contacts is there.” She nods toward our phones on the library table, where she’s presumably emailed them. Her gaze flickers to me as she says, “An analysis of the few reports your mother did for World War II leads us to believe she avoided traveling back to that time period.”

I nod. As much as I’d like to see my mother again, sneak in a visit or ask for help, seeing her would only tempt me further to tell her the truth—or get Mom closer to figuring out why I don’t know the things she planned to tell me at twenty-one. Too many strings would unravel, and I can’t risk it.

“And from what we can tell,” Porter goes on, “the Allens were in England. That might be helpful if Gibbons heads to Europe…”

“You ought to at least try and travel back to an hour or so before Gibbons did,” Dr. Cooper suggests as we walk down to the car. “Then you could wait for him to step through and nab him.”

I glance over at him. “You don’t sound like you think that could work.”

Dr. Cooper rubs at his chin and comes to a halt in the entryway, mulling in thoughtful silence for a few moments. “We had thought perhaps that when you went back in time to 1901, you may have accidentally stepped off at a later time—which you’ve shown you can do, obviously, but the talent took practice. That leads me to believe it’s unlikely it happened by accident before, and the fact that you arrived two years later is as I suspected. Ben’s traveling created a pinpoint on the timeline that subsequent traveling would have to follow. I suspect that such is the case for when Gibbons traveled. You may not be able to go back.” He shrugs. “But as I said, it’s certainly worth a shot.”

The present-day Allen home is empty, and thankfully, it’s too dark to make out the familiar features of the yard. I’ve talked myself into a calm, and I mean to keep it any way possible. Perhaps by closing my eyes and letting Ben lead me to the hallway of mirrors.

Even though we have permission to be inside the house, Ben uses a flashlight to navigate so we don’t bring too much attention to ourselves. Like Ben’s home, it’s been leased for the better part of the last sixty years or so, with the family staying mostly in England. That had been among the smattering of research outside popular culture that I couldn’t help but look up. After the War and his marriage, Quint had stayed in England, near his wife’s parents, which in turn is why his parents preferred to live there, and that’s where most of his posterity lives now as well.

Ben and I don’t waste our time in the mirror hall either, though it takes more effort here for me to keep my thoughts in check. Four mirrors a year for nearly ten years—that devotion threads around inside me, threatening to break me apart.

Ben finds the one we need, and it isn’t until we stand beside the almost plain-looking, gold-rimmed mirror, and he asks, “Are you ready?” that I realize we haven’t spoken since we stepped foot in the house.

“We’re going to save the world,” I say, taking his hand.

“Without getting shot,” he adds pointedly.

I nod at him and put my fingers on the surface, waiting for the energy to spark inside me and connect with the mirror. The passage opens almost instantly, like it did when Ben and I went back to 1913 to see my mother.

Ben leads the way into the mirror, as before, and I tighten my hold. Time spins backward, figures darting through the blurry vision I’m able to keep of the mirror’s doorway. I slow by instinct as we near the date I’m looking for, flipping back through the hours, noticing a blurry figure passing by the mirror. If the Allens had security cameras in the future to safeguard their treasures, perhaps they had someone who watched over the house in the past for the same reason.

Gibbons traveled in the late morning, around ten a.m., so I attempt to push the hours backward to before that time. It’s as though I hit a wall, however. The vision in the doorway of the mirror shudders with my effort to move past it, but stays immovable at eight p.m., the length of hours between the pinpoint Gibbons created and when we set out.

“I can’t,” I say with a sigh.

“It couldn’t be simple, could it?” Ben shrugs, taking my hand and leading me out. Like in the home we visited in D.C., we both step out of the mirror instead of tumbling.

Ben furrows his eyebrows as he looks around. “The lights are on.”

“I thought they were supposed to be gone.” My heart begins to pound harder, thrumming through me so quickly it seems like a buzzing in my ears. I remember the figure that passed by the mirror. Perhaps not a servant.

Ben shrugs. “Porter was likely working off any surviving letters or whatever from the family, and she was working quickly. I’m not surprised she missed that someone was here, especially since we didn’t know the exact date,” he says in a low voice.

I nod along, knowing it all makes sense, knowing I should have thought of this before. Ben had, but I hadn’t even considered preparing myself. Maybe we’ll be lucky, and it’s just William and Isabelle.

“Clara?”

No such luck.

The voice comes from behind me, but I don’t need to turn to know whose it is. I do anyway, of course.

He comes down the stairs from the third floor, and he’s stopped two stairs and a handful of steps away from me. Ten years have certainly changed him. The still-almost-a-boy looks are gone, replaced by a square jaw and a dusting of a beard across it. He’s taller, at least by a few inches, and his shoulders are much broader. He looks so sharp in a black dinner jacket, bow tie, and crisp white shirt.