Page 14 of The Devouring Time

He steps back, swinging the door wider. “Come in.”

The house is as decrepit inside as out. The door opens onto a hallway, the parlor just to the right, its wallpaper faded and yellowed with time. Photographs of stern men glare out from heavy frames, and the upholstery on the couch and chairs is worn thin. A dank smell pervades the room.

The woman rises from a rocking chair beside the massive hearth. At a guess, she’s Barney’s mother, her hair gone largely gray and her voluminous dress more suited to the turn of the century than the present day.

Which is one year later than it should be, for me.

I can’t think about that right now. Guessing an older woman would put an emphasis on manners, I bow. “Thank you so much for your hospitality. I’m Sterling Caine, and this is Mr. Adrian Evans.”

“Ella Foster, and this is my son, Barney. Barney, take their coats and hats, and bring some blankets. Please, gentlemen, come join me by the fire.”

10

As before, her words propel Barney into motion. Divested of my sopping coat and hat, I gratefully stand in front of the fire. Evans joins me a moment later, a little sigh of relief escaping him as he holds his strong brown hands out to the flames.

“A bad night for a wreck,” Mrs. Foster says. “But I’m glad you saw our lantern. It’s not often we get visitors, and with just Barney…” She shakes her head. “Well, he’s not much of a conversationalist these days. Not that he was much of one before.”

Before what? Did he get a head injury in the war? Or on the farm, kicked by an animal or caught in some bit of machinery?

It would be rude to ask. “Thank you again for your hospitality.”

Barney appears with two threadbare blankets, which he hands to us. We wrap them around our shoulders, and Mrs. Foster says, “Barney, make three cups of tea and bring them in here.”

He shuffles off, and she turns back to us. “Once the tea is done, I’ll have him make you up a pair of rooms upstairs.”

Exhausted as I am, I’m not certain I could sleep in this decaying place. I glance at Evans and read the same uncertainty in his dark eyes.

“Thank you for the offer,” I say, “but we’ll just wait for the rain to stop and be on our way.”

Mrs. Foster shrugs. “Have it your way—I know how headstrong men can be. Barney was the same.”

As if she’d called him, Barney shuffles back into the room, carrying a tray with a teapot, three chipped cups, and a saucer with sugar cubes. Given the squalor of the place, I don’t particularly want to eat or drink anything, but I force myself to accept a cup with a murmur of thanks.

Evans cradles the cup between his hands and takes a deep breath of the steam coming off, but he doesn’t touch his lips to it. “Thank you, ma’am. A hot drink is very welcome on a night like this.”

I can’t help but notice how good-looking he is, especially when making an effort to charm. Mrs. Foster must notice as well, because she flutters her lashes when she replies, “Why, of course, Mr. Evans. It’s our pleasure.” She takes a hearty swig of her own tea, then puts the cup down and rises with the stiffness that comes with age. “If you’ll just excuse me a moment—I have to set Barney to his chores, otherwise he’ll just stand there for the rest of the night.”

Indeed, the man is simply waiting slack-faced, as if content to remain in place forever. He follows his mother gamely out of the room when prompted, and she shuts the door behind them.

I immediately toss my tea into the fire. “I haven’t seen the kitchen, and I know the water was boiled, but…”

“Agreed.” Evans makes a face and follows my lead. “I hope the rain stops soon. How are you holding up?”

The question brings me up short. “I’ve been trying not to think about it,” I admit after a moment. “I was drugged and woke up over a year later in a strange city. You tell me I no longer own half of the business I intended to spend the rest of my life building. Someone is trying to kill me, and were only stopped by some strange weather phenomenon that⁠—”

I catch myself, because it sounds insane, even in my own head. But Evans prompts me: “That what?”

“That felt as though it came from me. Came out of me.”

There. I’ve said it aloud. My next home won’t be my apartment in Greenwich, but an asylum.

Evans doesn’t speak for a long moment, only stares into the fire. “I met a fair number of French and British soldiers over there,” he finally says. “Brave, strong men. But some of them, the ones who’d been at the bloodiest battles—Mons, Passchendaele, others—when they were in their cups, they’d swear there were forces on the field that weren’t human. And I’m not talking about guardian angels or phantom bowmen. Terrible things, inexplicable.”

The fine hairs on the back of my neck rise. Emerson…

But no. Emerson died moaning, none of us able to reach him without getting our brains blown out by a sniper. He didn’t come back. I never saw him standing there in the fog, his eyes glowing with unholy light.

“Such hallucinations weren’t uncommon in the war,” I say regretfully. “Based on my own experience, I’d say they’re an early symptom of shell shock.”