No one at Versailles had heard of porters. And certainly none of the magic folk here believed in time travel. It was almost beyond their conception.
“The past and future are fixed,” insisted an Ordinary fortune-teller who was known for reading palms with mixed results. “Perhaps one can influence the future, as we often see manifested by changes in one’s life and heart lines, but the past is fixed. There is no way but forward.”
“Perhaps you’ve been suffering from waking visions that are not unlike nightmares,” a visiting dream reader suggested. “The mind can create elaborate fantasies when under strain.”
Even Flora, kindly as she was, seemed to take Zani’s stories with a grain of salt.
After the first two weeks, Zani ran a check on her wards to see how they were holding up. Since they seemed to be intact, she concluded she was right to be where she was. If she could not change the past, and she was here in the past and interacting with people at the court, then she was always here.
So she would need to create a link between herself here at Versailles and her dear friends in the future if she had any hope of getting home. She wasn’t sure what would work to get their attention, but she diligently tried to do something every day. She felt certain that if Will knew where she was, he would come for her. Wouldn’t he?
At first, Zani did simple things, like embroidering her initials into the hems of all the curtains she stitched. Then she grew bolder. She left handwritten notes to Will in all the books about ley lines she could find buried deep in the library.
She spent all of her free time in the gardens, placing herself in sight of any artist who sketched or painted there, hoping to be recognized centuries later.
And finally, she inquired about an introduction to the king’s mysterious alchemical advisor, who simply went by the initial “R.” Surely a learned and well-traveled magician would know more about such matters than the assortment of folk amongst the household staff. He’d been away from the court for some time, but was due back soon. She prayed he could help her.
As one month turned to two, Zani did her best not to despair. She spent her evenings stitching small items in a corner of the library, because that was where the light was best, and the candles brightest. She wasn’t naturally the fastest or the most skilled at embroidery, but she was blessed to have magic on her side. At night, while she slept, her Nimble Needle finished all of her work and still found time to work on adding essentials to her own wardrobe. She now had three dresses and a full set of undergarments to choose from.
Two months was a long time. Longer than she’d spent at Primrose Court. Yet she still hadn’t come to think of this place, this time, as home. When she closed her eyes and tried to picture home, she didn’t picture her favorite cafes in Europe or even her ancestral lighthouse. All she thought of was the Mudpuddle, and more importantly, Will and Maida. Home to her, she was coming to understand, was much more about the “who” and “when” than the “what” and “where.”
Now that she realized this, she couldn’t wait to get back to them. She worried about what she might be missing. How would she make up the lost time?
But she couldn’t think of it as losing time. Because it wasn’t. Time was no longer a linear construct for her. It didn’t start in one spot and carry on in a straight line. It fanned out and folded back in on itself. Sometimes it even seemed to overlap.
She could almost feel her teenage self present when she walked into the gardens. Zani knew she would be there, hundreds of years from now, on a class trip. She’d been, or would be, giddy with her sudden independence from her overbearing aunt. It was and would be the spark of a journey that ignited her lifelong wanderlust. How Zani had wished she could experience Versailles in its heyday on that short trip. The irony of this was not lost on her now. The universe had granted this wish.
Lost in thought, she pricked her finger.
“Ouch!” she cried out, her mind brought back to her body again. She hadn’t been minding her stitches in the darkening library.
“What happened?” Flora appeared concerned.
“Nothing, I just managed to get stuck,” Zani said, thinking this was true in more ways than one. She bandaged her finger with a spare scrap of linen. “I was thinking about home again.”
“Oh, dear.” Flora sat in the chair beside her. “I’m sorry. But for what it’s worth, my friend, I am very glad you are here.” She passed Zani a misshapen bit of pastry. “I got some scraps from the chef. They weren’t perfectly square, so they did not fill them. But still delicious, no?”
Zani bit into the airy puff. It was scrumptious, not unlike a croissant. The dough was buttery and sweet, with impossibly thin flaky layers that melted on her tongue.
“Thank you.” Zani savored Flora’s kindness as much as the imperfect biscuit. Possibly more.
“Listen, whatever brought you here to us,” Flora said, “you’re safe now. You may as well make the most of your time!”
* * *
It wasduring a formal garden moonlight reception for the king that Zani finally spotted the alchemist. The rumors that he’d finally returned from his travels abroad were true! It was still a secret exactly where he’d gone. Nobody seemed to know the truth. Some claimed he had visited the West Indies. Others insisted he was in Egypt. The prospects of what he might bring back excited everyone. She’d heard certain ladies whispering about potent love potions. In the kitchen and the library, she overheard talk of prophecies and curses, and further advances in the alchemical pursuit of gold.
The anticipation of R.’s return to court was the buzz of the evening event, second only to the gossip about the king’s striking appearance and attire.
Zani wasn’t sure what she was expecting this mage to look like. She knew nothing about the man. There was nothing recorded about him and his activities at this court that she had come across in any of her studies. In fact, she’d been surprised to learn that any alchemist was welcome at the Sun King’s court. It was a dangerous time for anyone, Ordinary or otherwise, to espouse the practice of magic in the open.
She waited in the shadows, hoping to get a glimpse of the alchemist en route to the reception. Soon, her efforts were rewarded. She saw a tall, elegantly dressed man crossing the garden. Her breath caught in her throat and her eyes grew wide as she recognized his familiar gait. As he passed by a lit torch, his face was illuminated, confirming her suspicions. Her heart jumped and skipped like a stone skimming a pod. She would know this man anywhere. Even though he was wearing a wig.
Cosimo.
He was older now and resembled the man she knew in her own time. In fact, he looked exactly like the Cosimo of her modern era. Only his clothing was different. It was odd to see him dressed in such finely embroidered vestments and heels. His powdered wig glowed in the moonlight, as if a spotlight shone upon him.
Zani followed him through the crowd for the better part of the evening, careful to keep her distance and remain inconspicuous while she watched him. When he finally stood alone for a moment beside a marble fountain, Zani seized the opportunity to approach cautiously.
