The Time Travelers, Volume 2 Read Online Free PDF Page B

all two hundred acres. Like every kid in town, he loved the Point. The beaches were best, but everything from holly garden to bell tower was his, by exploration and childhood. All those neat places where the Stratton family had had fountains, lookouts and stables all those years ago.
    And yet, Tod did not know where he was standing. The sick feeling swirled through his head. His thoughts fogged up like a windshield. He, who knew every square foot of Stratton Point, could recognize nothing. Where was the road? Where was the car?
    “I did not even know about you, Mr. Lockwood,” said Devonny Stratton. “Your sister never mentioned you.”
    Mr
. Lockwood? “I don’t mention her either, if I can help it,” said Tod.
    “Is Strat living with you?” said the girl anxiously. “Did Annie bring Strat home with her?”
    “We only have one pet right now,” said Tod. “Acollie named Cotton. Listen, I’m feeling a little strange. Like, where are we, exactly?”
    There was a long silence.
    Tod had never known such silence. Not just the girl refusing to speak—
but the world
. No cars, no engines, no planes, no radios … He turned in a long, slow, full circle. There, on the Great Hill, stood the Mansion. Not the crumbling hulk the town had demolished last year. But a magnificent glittering three-towered—
    —new
building.
    The peeled sensation came back, as if his brain tissue had been left open to the air.
    “You have come to me,” said Devonny Stratton slowly, “in my Time. The year is 1898,” she said, “and you are on my estate.”
    “Get out of town,” said Tod.
    But memory was thick and suffocating in his brain. One time his sister had gone missing. Family and friends, and later police, had searched for Annie; searched every corner of this very beach and park, where she had last been seen. There had been no trace of her.
    When she had showed up—
two days later!—
his parents had allowed her to get away with the flimsiest excuse: “I fell asleep on the sand,” Annie had said.
    Had Annie, too, pressed her mouth to this pump?
    A muffled cloppy rhythmic sound interrupted thesilence. Through a meadow of asters and high grass came a woman on horseback. The woman was wearing a skirt, long and black, and rode sidesaddle.
    Eighteen ninety-eight, thought Tod. He was furious and scared and having a little trouble breathing. No wonder Annie had not been able to think of a good excuse for being away a few days. “I bet my sister loved this, huh, Devonny? She’s just the type.” Tod was not the type.
    “She fell in love,” said Devonny, “with my brother, Strat. She came back a final time to rescue Strat from a terrible fate.”
    Maybe if Tod sort of skidded along the surface here, pretended this was virtual reality, he could flick a switch and be done.
    “You must take me with you,” said the girl. “My brother must be with you. Annie must have brought him home. I need him. He must save me.”
    “No,” said Tod. “She hasn’t dated anybody this year. She sure hasn’t brought anybody home. I don’t even know anybody named Strat.”
    The girl began to cry.
    Tod hated that; it was a crummy trick. “Don’t do that,” he snapped. “What does Strat need to save you from? Don’t even think about crying. Just give me facts.”
    “Marriage,” she said. “My father has chosen adreadful man for me to marry. A man with—well, evil personal habits. A man who wants only my money.”
    “So?” said Tod. “Just don’t marry the guy. Just say no.”
    She looked at him.
    “It’s a big slogan in my day, Devonny. If somebody offers you drugs or sex or crime, you just say no.”
    “I am not in a position to say no to my father,” said the girl.
    “Sure you are. It’s America. Just say no.”
    “But I am a girl.”
    He was irritated. “Big deal. You’re half the population. Say yes, say no, make up your mind, I don’t see what your father has to do with it.”
    “It would not work. There are