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“The past will still be there waiting for us, Esta,” he reminded her. “It isn’t going anywhere. We’ll go back, but on our terms. Because we’re ready, not because we’re on the run.”
She nodded. “You’re right. We’ll need clothes and supplies. We can’t go back wearing this stuff. We’ll need money, too.” She looked out at the waiting city as though formulating a plan. But then she glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “You know, I have always wanted to stay at the Plaza.”
“I have no idea what that is, but it sounds promising.”
Her expression faltered as she stepped away from him. “I don’t know how this trace thing works, but we should get moving. Maybe they can only track us if they know to be looking for it, but I don’t think we should count on that. I took us back a few years. Not very far. Our arrival might have already triggered something.”
He slipped his hand into hers. “Then by all means, let’s go find this Plaza you spoke of before they arrive.”
A TANGLED KNOT
1980—Central Park
Esta wasn’t sure if her slipping them through time had triggered any sort of alarm. The old lady at Grand Central said she had a trace, but if her magic had activated it, no Guard arrived before she and Harte had left the area.
When the helicopter had been chasing them, she’d had every intention to take them all the way back, but as she’d sifted through the layers of time, she’d lost her nerve. And something about the moment—the soft green of spring or the calm peace of the undisturbed park, maybe—had called to her.
Or maybe that was her own cowardice. Because the truth was, she wasn’t ready. One night with Harte wasn’t enough before they rushed back and launched themselves into the final endgame. She accepted that Nibsy’s diary might show her fate, but she wasn’t ready to charge headlong toward it. Not yet. Not if there was any other way.
Once they were fairly certain that there wouldn’t be any more helicopters coming after them, they left the underbrush and kept mostly to the paths. But the farther south they went, the harder it became to avoid people. Central Park in the early 1980s wasn’t the park she knew. It looked worn out and run down, and most of the people they passed had hungry eyes. There were too many lumps of blankets and bags being guarded by bedraggled-looking souls. At the sight of them, Esta straightened her shoulders and walked a little faster.
“Don’t look at them,” she told Harte when she sensed him gawking. She kept her own eyes straight ahead. “I’m not in any mood to fight off a junkie who might think we’re dumb tourists and easy targets.”
“I know this place,” Harte told her when they came to the Reservoir. And as they continued on, he mentioned features of the park that he recognized from his own time, marveling at how much they’d changed.
“I knew the eighties were rough, but this place is a mess,” Esta told him as they passed through a large open field with patchy grass and the frames of what might have once been fencing. In her own childhood, these fields had been manicured baseball diamonds. Now the grass between them was spotty, with bare earth showing through most of the field. Trash was strewn everywhere. “This is nothing like the park I grew up in.”
They walked a little farther, and Harte noticed a building beyond the edge of the trees that he recognized. “There used to be a reservoir here.”
Esta nodded. “They covered that over in the thirties.”
“The sheep are gone,” he noticed.
“Not a lot of room for sheep in the city these days,” she told him, amused at his surprise. “Still plenty of rats, though,” she said, as one scurried across the path a few feet in front of them.
“What else did they change?” he wondered. “Is the obelisk still there?”
“Cleopatra’s Needle?” she said. “It’s still there, over by the Met. You can’t see it from here, though.” And there wouldn’t be time to go later. They could take a few days to plan, but they couldn’t risk much more, no matter how much she might want to.
As they drew closer to the edge of the park, the noise of the city grew, and soon enough they came to where the park butted up against Fifty-Ninth Street.
“The Plaza’s just there,” she told him. “We’ll need more cash to get a room without magic. For the clothing, too, but that should be easy enough. Tourists line up a couple of blocks over for carriage rides. We can head that way now. It shouldn’t take long to find a few marks.”
He followed her down the uneven, buckled sidewalk, toward where white carriages stood waiting with sad-looking mares. But her feet came to an abrupt stop before they were even close. Suddenly, her heart was in her throat.
“Esta?”
She heard Harte speaking to her, felt him move closer to make sure she was okay, but she couldn’t respond.
“What is it?” he asked, gently guiding her to the side of the pathway.
“Dakari.” She smiled through the burn of tears as she watched a young Dakari whisper something to his horse and pat it gently.
“Your friend Dakari?”
She nodded. She’d told Harte about him—about the kindness he’d showed her as a child. About how Nibsy had murdered him in cold blood to force her to return to the past with the Book.
“He’s here?” Harte asked, now searching the line of carriages.
