out.
‘Almost!’ Her voice came back brightly through the drape, the unintended racial slur already completely forgotten by the sound of it. ‘It’s just a bit big on me.’
‘I am tightening the corset to its smallest setting to compensate,’ added Becks.
‘Hey!’ Maddy frowned. ‘Hey! No … don’t say it like that. Like I’m a butter-troll or something.’ She caught her reflection in the perspex displacement tube. ‘OK, so I’m not just some skin-’n’-bones clothes hanger,’ she muttered to herself.
‘Completed,’ said Becks, and pulled the drape to one side.
Liam held back a gasp and Maddy found herself nodding approvingly. ‘Now that looks better on you than a hoody, right?’
Sal ran her hands over the corset and skirts. ‘Feels so weird.’ She grinned. ‘I feel like a … ugh, jahulla! I know this sounds pathetic, but … I feel like a princess.’
Maddy clapped her hands. ‘I know – it’s kinda cool, isn’t it?’ She cast a glance at Liam and Bob. ‘Good … you all look the part. Now undress and bag your clothes. It’s a wet departure.’
Ten minutes later Liam, Sal and Bob were treading water in their underwear together in the displacement tube.
‘So, a nice and easy mission this time,’ said Maddy, huddled on the top step of the ladder. ‘Just find young Abe and grab his collar before he gets himself turned into Lincoln ketchup. You OK in there, Sal?’
She nodded, her teeth chattering. ‘Guess I’m g-getting a bit nervous n-now.’
‘You’ll be just fine. Remember you’ve done this before. It’s no big deal.’
‘It’s the white s-stuff that s-scares m-me …’
‘Chaos space?’ Liam shook his head. ‘Ahh, you’ll be through it in a heartbeat, so you will. Nothing to it.’
‘Could you h-hold m-my hand?’
Liam nodded. ‘I s’pose. Sure, if you like.’
‘Uhh … it’s probably best if you don’t,’ said Maddy. Her eyes quickly met Liam’s and after a few seconds he nodded. He knew what she was thinking. After all, he was the one who’d seen it up close: fused bodies, bodies turned completely inside out. Very messy. He’d told Maddy about it, but not Sal. It was a grisly detail she didn’t really need to hear and, anyway, it only happened rarely. Maddy had no idea what caused it, but when Foster had insisted Liam had to float on his own first time round … well, there was almost certainly a very good reason for that.
‘Works best if you’re all floating freely, Sal. But look,’ she said before Sal could ask why, ‘you’re going together. The other two will be right next to you. And as Liam said, it’s, like, a second, no more.’
‘I’ll sing you a ditty,’ said Liam, ‘so you’ll hear me in there … in the chaos soup.’
‘There you go.’ Maddy smiled. ‘That is, if you can bear to listen to his howling.’ She started to descend the ladder. ‘Right, we should get going, guys. We’ve been more than lucky with only small ripples so far. Let’s not push our luck.’
At the bottom she checked to confirm the displacement machine was green right across the board, then called across to Becks. ‘Punch in a thirty-second countdown.’
‘Yes, Maddy. Thirty seconds … as of now.’
‘Return window at seven in the evening!’ she reminded them. ‘And, remember, the usual back-up windows after that if you miss it!’
She could see Sal’s face through the scuffed plastic, wide-eyed with growing panic. Beside her, kicking water and still holding on to the top of the tube was Liam, saying something encouraging to her. And then Bob, keeping afloat with strong, powerful kicks. All three of them holding Ziploc plastic bags containing their clothes.
‘It’ll be fun, Sal!’ she called out over the increasing hum of the displacement machine. ‘Enjoy seeing 1831 with your own eyes!’
Sal flashed her an uncertain smile and a wave.
She stepped back into the middle of the floor as Becks’s countdown reached ten.
‘Right! Hands off, everyone!’ she shouted.
Liam reluctantly let go and began thrashing furiously and ineffectually to keep his head above water. The other two let go and managed to tread water calmly. On five seconds, Maddy bellowed over the rising pitch of the machine for them all to grab some air and duck their heads under the water.
And on one they were all completely submerged.
A crescendo of channelled and suddenly released energy merged with the boom of flexing perspex, and in the blink of an eye the three of them were gone.
CHAPTER 10
1831, New Orleans
They were standing on Powder Street nearly a whole hour before six watching the dock