Passenger (Passenger #1) - Alexandra Bracken Page 0,119

celebrated for their memories—but it didn’t explain the way the passage made the air feel like it was hiccupping. The sound coming off it, its usual bellow of thunder, almost drowned out a second, lower beat. It reminded Etta of the way that you could sometimes feel your pulse in another, unexpected part of your body.

“Whatever is the matter?” Nicholas asked.

“Nothing, just…” Etta looked back at the city, slowly turning to take in the sight of the trees that seemed as if they were stepping over the walls, the faces on the Bayon that watched her with tranquil, serene smiles. When in her life would she see this again—see the city at this moment, before humanity came flooding back into it?

Never.

This was the danger, the seduction of time travel, she realized—it was the opportunity, the freedom of a thousand possibilities of where to live and how to start over. It was the beauty open to you in your life if you only stopped for a moment to look. Those things drowned out even the most basic dangers of collapsing passages, of being lost, of finding yourself in an unfriendly time.

“It’s time,” Nicholas said quietly, offering his hand.

Again, she felt her desire for music swelling in her like an ache. Her fingers pressed against her side, and she imagined how she would try to coax a song of hidden depth, and warm, wild life, from the strings. And when she passed through the damp jungle air into the electric, shivering fingers of the passage, she mourned the fact that she would never see this place again.

ETTA FOUND HERSELF AWAKE, SPRAWLED out on the grass beneath a generous cover of shade, ears ringing, head throbbing—but awake. And not just awake, but also free of the sickening swoop of dizziness that had come hand in hand with the last passages.

She sat up, brushing a red leaf out of her hair. The crisp autumn air was practically golden as it came down through the fiery shade of the leaves overhead. When she turned, Etta wasn’t the least bit surprised to see the Luxembourg Garden laid out in front of her, a vision in the warm afternoon light.

“You were correct.” Nicholas was sitting with his back against the same tree, rubbing his face. “C’est le Jardin du Luxembourg.”

Etta couldn’t stop her small, ridiculous smile. “Say it again.”

“Pardon?” he asked.

Say it again, she thought. His voice did something incredible to the French language. The words moved through her like warm honey.

“C’est le Jardin du Luxembourg,” he repeated, visibly bewildered.

“So…what day do you think it is?”

“The same day as when we woke up in London,” he answered. He knew what she was thinking.

Etta’s dress had torn in several places at the hem, and had turned from sky blue to a brown usually reserved for muddy rivers. Her boots were crusted with dried dirt and mulch, and she didn’t need to touch her hair to know that it was standing straight up in several places.

Nicholas took a quick look around—to make sure they weren’t being watched?—and began to smooth her wild waves down, collecting her hair at the nape of her neck. He was careful not to touch her skin as he pulled a ribbon from their bag and used it to tie the mass of it back. Etta was careful not to give in to the urge to lean against his shoulder and wrap her arms around his narrow waist.

Seven days. Less.

“Shall we?” she asked.

“Let’s make a slow and careful approach of this,” he said. “I want to make sure we don’t raise too much alarm.…”

And she wanted to make sure that it would be safe for him.

The odd thing was, as they passed through the last of the trees and stood on the edge of the path, Etta couldn’t get a sense of where they were in time. The women’s fashions were somewhere between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—brightly colored, finely tailored jackets with long skirts that were bustled up in the back or decorated with layers of ruffles, exaggerating the natural curves of their bodies. Hair was hidden beneath bonnets and hats, all decorated with flowers and ribbons.

The men accompanying them, or playing games of cards or chess, wore suits and top hats. Some strolled around a large basin—a central reflecting pool—with canes. Children ran through and around the artists and their easels; women sat beside one another on benches, talking idly. It was not all that different from the Luxembourg Garden of her own