Page 46 of Time After Time

I run a hand through my hair. “She’s nuts.”

Aksel throws a small twig into the fire. It sparks, sizzles. “That she is.”

We lapse into silence. The fire pops.

“I don’t know what to do,” I confess.

“It’ll come to you. Until then, have another drink.” Aksel refills my shot glass and hands it to me.

I look at the amber liquid, shrug, and down it. At least, this way I won’t be able to use my brain until sometime later tomorrow.

CHAPTER 13

Ember

“Ladies and gentlemen,mesdames et messieurs,” declares the stout man with the silver-tipped cane and perfectly curled mustache. “I am Hercule Poirot. And tonight, there will be…a murder!”

A collective laugh ripples through the room.

Today has been loads of fun.

We played dress-up—truly committed, no half-measures. Mama brought in a stylist with racks of vintage-inspired clothing, worthy of a West End costume department.

Thanks to that incredibly generous bounty, Freja is strutting in a feathered fascinator and elbow-length gloves, as if she were born for a drawing room mystery.

Jonathan looks unnervingly comfortable in his slicked-back hair and with his walking stick, wearing one of thoseDownton Abbey-style suits.

Aksel is in a brocade waistcoat and cravat. He admits that he looks like a misplaced duke.

The kids are adorable! Anika is in a pinafore and patent shoes. Thomas is wielding a magnifying glass with deadly seriousness.

Latika is wrapped in a rich sapphire sari-inspired gown and looks like royalty.

Heidi and Giselle share a pair of dramatic cloaks and have affected Eastern European accents all afternoon.

“Ve do not smile.” Giselle holds up her glass of wine. “Smiling is for veak hearts and Americans.”

“Ve come from land of shadows and soup,” Heidi adds solemnly.

Papa has been polishing his monocle (yes, monocle) all evening.

Mama is dressed in a classic Edwardian gown with enough lace and feathers to shame a Victorian lampshade. Pearls (hers and genuine) weigh down her neck, and she’s taken to dramatically clutching them every time someone mentions murder.

Uncle Bob is a professor with a jacket with elbow patches. Aunt Tanya is a melodramatic duchess in mourning.

Ransom is dressed in a three-piece suit, looking absolutely delicious, like he stepped out of a noir film with a scalpel in one hand and secrets in the other. Calypso, equally striking in an elaborate crown and floor-length gown, wears her costume like armor.She’s the least enthusiastic among us, her smile tight, her energy cool and faintly aloof—as if all this play-acting is beneath her.

I’m in a moss-green velvet gown, complete with faux emeralds and a ridiculous (but oddly flattering) hat.

It’s like we’ve stepped into a storybook—each of us someone else, and yet still ourselves, all at once.

Poirot—or rather, the actor playing him, a wiry Frenchman with theatrical flair named Luc Besson (not the filmmaker)—paces the center rug with the authority of someone used to being watched.

“Let us begin by introducing ourselves. Who are you in this tangled web of deceit?”

We all have been given a card that tells us who we are and a description of how we must behave. We’re not supposed to share our cards with anyone.

Papa rises with a flourish. “Jean-Pierre LaRoche. Retired general. War hero. Medal collector. And possibly…a…murderer.”