Page 8 of Time for You
“What are the odds we walk in there and he’s like, broken everything?” Daphne asked as Ellie pulled out the key to Helen’s the next morning.
Getting Henry settled had been quite the ordeal.
He was freaked out by everything—the digital alarm clock, the microwave, the fridge—and that wasn’t even touching on the fact that he thought she and Ellie might be sex workers when he discovered they lived on their own.
It would have been nice to have Vibol around to manage Henry, but he’d already turned his phone to Do Not Disturb by the time they got back, and Ellie had pointed out that a disgruntled Vibol who got dragged out of bed to deal with a time traveler probably wouldn’t have been very helpful.
“He’s from the Victorian era; he’s not a caveman,” Ellie scolded.
Henry, who had been sitting on Helen’s plaid couch, jumped to his feet. “My ladies,” he said, tipping his head forward.
“How’d you sleep?” Ellie asked.
“Quite well. Twenty-first-century mattresses are spectacular.” He followed them out into the hall and back to their apartment, still looking rather dazed.
“I sent an SOS to our friends, so they’re coming over soon,” Ellie explained.
Daphne had hoped everyone would get there immediately, but Vibol had just woken up, Michelle was at the gym when Ellie texted 911 , and Brittany was just leaving her hot paramedic crush’s apartment, having finally succeeded in her monthlong flirtation campaign.
They all lived in the same apartment building as Ellie and Daphne, though, so at least they’d all get there quickly.
“I got a text from Dean this morning, and he says you kidnapped a time traveler?” Vibol said, walking in without knocking.
He stopped and looked at Henry, taking in his outfit—he had redressed himself in the suit from yesterday—with wide eyes.
But his outgoing nature won out over his clear skepticism.
He held his hand out to Henry, who stood stiffly beside Daphne. “Vibol Law. Nice to meet you.”
Henry shook his hand. “Henry MacDonald. Are you also a doctor?”
“Emergency Medicine, just like these ladies.”
Henry shot Daphne a dry look. “You don’t object when he calls you ladies?”
“It’s different,” Daphne gritted out.
“Vibol,” Henry said, mulling over his name. “Are you from the French colonies in Indochina?”
Vibol pulled a face. “He really is from the nineteenth century, isn’t he?” he said to Daphne. “It’s, uh, not a colony anymore. And I’m from Massachusetts, but my parents are from Cambodia.”
“Oh, my apologies. I’ve met a few sailors from your parents’ part of the world. My business does a lot of trading.”
Vibol nodded and leaned his hip against their countertop. “So what’s the plan? How do we get Mr. Empire back to his time?”
“We didn’t have much of a plan yet,” Ellie admitted.
“Maybe we should ask Michelle?” Vibol said.
Michelle was an OB-GYN resident, and the smartest one of their whole group. Vibol also happened to have the world’s biggest crush on her, a fact that everyone except Michelle knew.
“Why are we asking Michelle?” Brittany asked as she let herself in. “Vibol finally gonna do it and ask her out?”
“Shut up,” Vibol grumbled.
Henry frowned. “Do you lot not lock your doors? Is that unnecessary in the future?”
Brittany stared at him. “The—future?”
“He’s a time traveler,” Vibol said cheerfully. He either had accepted Henry’s story surprisingly quickly or had decided to believe it for maximum chaos. Either was plausible with him.
“A time traveler,” she repeated dully.
“It’s a long story,” Daphne said.
Ellie opened a bag of tortilla chips and passed it to Vibol. “It’s really not. Daph ran him over with her bike, and it turns out he’s from the past.”
Brittany looked at all of them suspiciously. “Are you fucking with me?”
“We’re not,” Daphne sighed.
Still frowning, Brittany stuck her hand out. “Dr. Brittany Spiers.”
“Another lady doctor,” Henry murmured. “Pleasure to meet you, Miss Spiers.”
Brittany blinked. “Holy shit, he is a time traveler. He didn’t do it.”
“Do what?” Henry said, puzzled.
“There is not a single person alive today who could resist commenting on my name,” Brittany said.
“There’s something remarkable about it?”
“It’s a pretty famous name,” Vibol said from around a mouthful of chips. “Not knowing it means you’re either super homeschooled or from the past.”
“And you know I’m not this ‘homeschooled’ business how?”
“Too normal. I mean, you’re not normal-normal, but homeschooled is a very particular vibe, which you don’t really have.”
“Ah,” Henry said in a tone Daphne was rapidly coming to understand meant he did not, in fact, understand, but he was willing to let it go for the moment.
“What’s this I hear about Daphne hitting a reenactor?” Michelle said as she walked in, tossing her long microbraids back over her shoulder. Vibol straightened almost imperceptibly. “The nurses on my shift were talking about it.”
“Is this some sort of communal tenement flat?” Henry muttered.
“Not a reenactor, a time traveler,” Ellie said.
Michelle stared at each of them in turn. “Um, what?”
“Henry’s from the past,” Brittany said.
“Have you all lost your goddamn minds?”
“Possibly,” Daphne said. “But really, he is. He’s been vaccinated against smallpox and everything.”
“Well, Daphne doesn’t have much of a sense of humor, so then it must be true.” Michelle shrugged. “No offense.”
“Definitely some taken, though,” Daphne said, and Henry made a noise that might have been a laugh.
Michelle eyed him warily. “I assume we need to get him back?”
Ellie snatched the tortilla chips away from Vibol. “We do, but no idea how.”
“Build a time machine?” Vibol offered.
“Do you know how to do that?” Brittany asked.
“No, I’m just here to be handsome and share good ideas.” He preened.
Michelle rolled her eyes. “What about moons and signs and shit like that? If we can’t science it, maybe we can, you know, woo-woo it.”
“Woo-woo?” Henry asked, but no one answered his clear question.
“Don’t look at me,” Brittany said, adjusting her glasses. “I don’t even know what sign I am.”
“You’re a Scorpio, and that is such a Scorpio thing to say.” Ellie paused mid-chip as Brittany raised an eyebrow. “What? It’s true.”
“But do you know how it might work?” Daphne asked.
“Um, if knowing all your friends’ signs gave me the ability to travel through time, do you really think I’d be here, with your dumb asses? No, I’d be off having a threesome with Paul Newman and Marlon Brando, like God clearly intended.”
Brittany sighed. “James Dean. It was James Dean who supposedly had a threesome with Paul Newman and Eartha Kitt.”
“My idea is pretty good too, though. You’ve got to admit it,” Ellie said. Everyone kept looking at her, and she sighed. “But yes, I do know a lot about it, so let’s see what we can figure out.”
“Any chance you like, pissed off a witch?” Brittany asked Henry, who was sitting at the kitchen counter, eating a piece of toast. (He had been very enamored with the efficiency of the toaster, not to mention the refrigerator, which he called “absolutely ingenious.” His cautious, newfound enthusiasm for certain modern appliances was rather charming, Daphne had to admit, if only because he would probably yelp in fear a lot less if he found them exciting rather than terrifying.)
“How would one do that, Miss Spiers?”
“You can just call me Brittany.”
“He really can’t,” Daphne replied. “Trust me.”
Henry drained his orange juice—his third glass, as apparently this was a wildly luxurious drink in his time—and shook his head.
“Miss Griffin is correct: Remembering the correct forms of address is challenging for me. But no, I have not ‘pissed off a witch,’ or at least if I did, I did so unwittingly.”
“Okay, but like, do you have enemies? People who might hate you?” She stole a look at Daphne. “Jilted lovers, perhaps?”
“I have no paramours, and despite my mother’s best efforts, neither am I engaged.”
“Let’s dig into that,” Michelle said. “Were there women who wanted to be engaged and you turned them down? Maybe someone with an interest in the occult?”
“My mother had hoped to secure a betrothal with a woman whose father owns a railroad, believing that would aid our family business.”
“And how did you feel about that?”
“I found Miss Mary to be a steady, companionable presence.”
“That doesn’t sound like you wanted to, um, you know,” Michelle said, and Henry raised his eyebrows.
“She means it doesn’t sound like you wanted to fuck her,” Daphne translated.
Either Henry was getting used to her “vulgarities” or he was simply better at hiding his shock. “I did not,” he confirmed. “However, it was she who opposed the marriage, as I believe she was—I’m not sure how to put this—not interested in the male species romantically?”
Brittany grinned widely. “Good for her. Anyone else?”
Henry hesitated, then shook his head. “No one who would bear me ill will, no.” Daphne suspected that wasn’t the whole truth, but she didn’t think now was the time to push him on it.
While Michelle interrogated Henry on possible magical enemies, Vibol, Daphne, and Brittany were using a legal pad Michelle had retrieved from her apartment to make a detailed list of movies.
Research
Back to the Future (no plutonium in 19th c)
Back to the Future II (about future, not past)
Back to the Future III (right year????)
The Time Traveler’s Wife (not a chronic illness unless onset was yesterday)
Inception (dreams, not time travel)
Kate & Leopold (Portal, maybe helpful?)
The Butterfly Effect (Ashton)
Interstellar ( No One Understands This One. No. One .)
Everything Everywhere All at Once (Not a multiverse???)
The Terminator (No machines)
13 Going on 30 (was there a body swap? How can we figure it out?)
Bill & Ted (brilliant but maybe not super applicable)
That Tom Cruise-Emily Blunt movie (no one watched it)
“I still don’t see how watching Back to the Future Part III is going to get him home,” Daphne said.
“It won’t, but we have to learn whatever we can about time travel, and unless you want to start reading super-dense philosophy and theoretical physics textbooks, this is probably the best way to figure it out,” Brittany explained.
“And I’m a nerd, but I don’t really want to do that.
Besides, we believe in science, and whatever happened here doesn’t seem to be scientific. ”
“How do we know that for sure?” Daphne asked.
“Um, because time travel isn’t real? Once you eliminate wrong answers, you have to go with whatever’s left. Which is apparently magic.”
“Are we sure it’s not a multiverse? Shouldn’t we put Everything Everywhere All at Once back on the list?” Vibol asked.
“You’re just saying that because you’re in love with Michelle Yeoh and want an excuse to watch her again,” Michelle called from the other side of the room.
“Who wouldn’t be?” he asked.
“So those are not books?” Henry asked.
“Movies. Plays, but you watch them on a screen,” Ellie explained. She was sitting across the table, scrolling through astrology websites. “You said your birthday was January 5?” She was typing into her phone, face screwed up in thought. “What year again?”
“1856. How will this help?”
“It’s a long shot, but I’ll do your chart and see if that might have anything to do with it.” At his blank look, Ellie hastened to explain. “Your star chart. You’re a Capricorn, but knowing the rest of your whole chart might help if there’s a supernatural element.”
“And nothing like, brought you here, right?” Michelle asked. “No ... ships?”
“As I said, I was walking, and I saw a shimmer in the air, and then I was here.”
“I can confirm that,” Daphne chimed in. “He just appeared out of thin air.”
“Which means no time-travel device, got it,” Vibol said, and crossed out Bill & Ted with a sad look on his face.
“Which means we’re talking about a portal, not something man-made. Have we considered ley lines?” Ellie suggested.
“The hell are ley lines?” Brittany asked.
“Explain them to me like I’m five,” Daphne asked.
“Magic places. Spots where there’s a thinner veil between our world and supernatural forces. They crisscross the world, and some junctions are believed to have stronger powers than others.”
“Wouldn’t people be randomly time-traveling all the time, then?”
“For one thing, we don’t know they’re not,” Ellie replied. “But there’s probably a confluence of factors, like moon position, his star sign, that sort of thing. It’ll take some research, though.”
“How long might that take? I wouldn’t want to impose upon your hospitality too long,” Henry said. “Unless—would it be breaking some sort of twenty-first-century taboo if I stayed with Vibol?”
“No taboo, I just only have a studio. One room, that’s it,” Vibol said. “I’m a cuddler, but don’t really want to spend however long sharing a bed with you, and I’m assuming you don’t, either.”
“I see. How long is the other flat open?”
“Helen’s not back for over a month, so we’ve got time,” Daphne said.
“I certainly hope it won’t take that long.”
“I’ll go as fast as I can, but it’ll take at least a few days, maybe a week?” Ellie was standing next to her, but Henry only made eye contact with Daphne.
“Then it seems you must put up with me for another week.”