Two people stepped inside Devorah’s office. What a cruel mockery of the office hours she held as a free person.
The first, she recognized immediately. In fact, Devorah had just been staring at his picture. It was the young man from the first set of photos, the one with pale skin and glasses. Now that he was closer, Devorah was able to get a better look at his costume and based on the dull colors of his clothes and white shoes, Devorah could pin him to the early twenty-first century.
The second was someone entirely new. She looked much more settled in the setting of this haunted house. Her simple black dress and unstained apron made her look like a typical servant in a grand house of the nineteenth century. Devorah cast a quick prayer towards the catgirl- the girl in front of her was clearly a real maid of some sort, and she was allowed to at least have decent clothes. Not a skimpy imaginary maid costume. Furthermore, her red curls were stuffed under a period-appropriate bonnet.
“Hi, hello!” Devorah said, waving her arms around.
“I think we’re the first ones to get here, Georgie!” The man said.
Devorah cursed under her breath. True, she hadn’t expected them to see her or hear her, but the reality of it still stung. For good measure, Devorah jumped up and down a few times.
Still nothing. She hadn’t even disturbed the thin layer of dust covering the room.
The girl, Georgie, coughed neatly into her sleeve. “Looks like it! It’s so damn dusty here…”
Devorah ran up to her boundary, just a few feet away from them, and screamed right in their faces. No response.
“Quiet, too,” the man said.
“Won’t be for long,” Georgie said. “We better start looking around. I don’t want to leave Gabe on guard for too long.”
“Worried he’ll get bored?” The man laughed.
Georgie laughed with him, then shook her head. “I’m more worried he’ll go soft and let someone pass.”
“Good point. Georgie, you start on that side. I’ll start here.”
The two of them fanned out in a practiced motion and began quickly going through the office. Devorah noted they started on the perimeter- a decent strategy, but the people in control rarely hid notes in books anymore. There were just too many to go through.
Devorah watched them rifle through, barely putting anything back. Amateurs. Others will know the place was already looted.
As they continued, she considered using one of her charges. The man was one of her targets, after all. Maybe she could grab a book and fling it at him? Manifest and keep flailing her arms?
Devorah suddenly wished she had consumed more horror content.
Then the door opened again.
“Hello!” The woman who opened it smiled at them, dimpling her cheeks. “Mind if I search with you two? Gabe said it was okay!”
This new woman was a Black woman with a kind smile. Her hair was pulled out of her round face, tied back. It made her face look like the center of the flower and her hair the soft petals surrounding it. She was just a few inches smaller than the man, but taller than Georgie. A pair of work gloves were sticking out of the cargo pants she wore, and the sleeves of her pink sweater had small dirt stains.
The man rubbed his face with a groan while Georgie just laughed. “Come join us,” Georgie answered the woman’s smile with one just as welcoming. “I don’t think we actually ever got the chance to have a real conversation, yeah?”
“Is now really the time?” The man groaned. Devorah snickered, she was torn between agreeing with him and just wanting to see what kind of information she could harvest from this conversation.
Georgie shrugged. “Now’s as good as ever, Jacob.”
Ah, so his name was Jacob, then. Jacob, Jacob, Jacob. Target number one. Jacob had the energy of a shaking Italian greyhound. Not unfamiliar to Devorah, but easy to exploit. Once this conversation was done, she was definitely using a charge to mess with him.
Jacob rolled his eyes. “We don’t want to lose time, we just figured out the code and others might start poking their noses in.” He looked at the new woman. A nonverbal like her echoed through the room.
Her smile dropped. “I do not want to cause any trouble. I can go-”
Sticking her tongue out at Jacob, Georgie went forward and shook her hand. “Good to officially meet you. I’m Georgiana, but please keep calling me Georgie.”
“And I am Kefilwe.” Finally, a name! If this cast of characters was close to the size of Devorah’s, she’d have a lot of names and faces to juggle. Best to focus on her targets for now.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
“You come from a time where women can wear pants?” Georgie asked with an expression full of yearning. Devorah longed for a pair of pants too.
“I do! I’d offer to let you borrow some, but this is the only pair I have right now. I wish I could change out of my field clothes!” A tentative smile came back to Kefilwe’s face.
“Your field clothes? You work with plants or something, right?” Jacob, who was supposedly mostly ignoring the conversation, opened a new book and paged through. “Your clothes look similar to the stuff from my time. When and where are you from? I’m from 2020, New York. Georgie’s from the Victorian era.” Devorah congratulated herself on the accurate guesses of when they were from.
Kefilwe’s eyes lit up again. For all that Devorah was trying to focus on Jacob, she found Kefilwe sweet looking. “We are close in time, yes! I’m from Botswana, in the year 2084.”
“Funny how that’s considered close in time.” Jacob said.
“It definitely is, when you consider us and the Roman,” Georgie said.
Or Devorah and her time.
“Anyway,” Jacob continued, “want to help us find anything interesting in here? Might as well keep working. I don’t think you’d be dangerous to us.”
“Gabe is just outside too,” Georgie pointed out, then coughed neatly into her sleeve.
“Ah, yes! Mind if I just look outside?” Kefilwe motioned for them to follow her to look out the window.
Devorah followed them over, thankful it managed to be within her boundary. The view outside the window was rather plain- just a portion of a driveway flanked by little roadside flowers and old trees.
Georgie spoke up. “I bet that this window is out by the front of the house. This way the housekeeper would know if someone was coming up to the manor.” Looks like Devorah was right again- Georgie did have experience working in a big house.
“It looks paved,” Jacob added. “That means cars, not horses, were coming up to the house.”
“Right! But that’s not the most interesting part!” Kefilwe pointed. Jacob frowned as he looked harder for what he could be missing.
“Ah,” Georgie said. She reached into a pocket on her skirt and pulled out a handkerchief. Deftly wrapping up her right fist, Georgie nodded. Then she punched the window with the full force of her fist.
Jacob gasped and ducked, trying to avoid shattered glass. But there wasn’t any- no glass, no blood, just a disappointed Georgie unrolling her fist from her handkerchief. Her hand didn’t even look bruised.
Devorah, just as shocked as Jacob, let out a startled laugh. Georgie looked delicate, but it seemed she was anything but. Devorah could respect that.
“I guess we need someone stronger,” Georgie said, shaking out her fist. “It didn’t feel like normal glass.”
“Georgie, don’t do that again!” Jacob took a few deep breaths. “Warn me next time, at least.”
“Sorry Jacob, I didn’t mean to frighten you,” Georgie said, looking down.
“Well,” Kefilwe butted in, “that wasn’t what I wanted to explore, but that sure was interesting!”
Georgie looked back up, quickly much less contrite than she was seconds ago. “You mean there’s something else?”
“You see the flowers?” Kefilwe asked.
Devorah leaned forward towards the window for a second look. There wasn’t anything special about them. They looked like red roses.
“The roses?” Jacob asked.
“Huh,” Georgie leaned forward too. “That’s unusual. Roses usually go in the garden. Plus, they’re actually pretty delicate flowers. I didn’t know they could thrive on the roadside.”
Kefilwe looked at Georgie with a smile and raised eyebrows. “Exactly! I’m impressed! Do you have experience with flowers?”
“Nah,” Georgie blushed, “I was just friendly with the gardeners. Do you have experience with flowers?”
“I do! Kind of!” Kefilwe seemed proud of herself. “I work in conservation, with a focus on botanical preservation. In other words, I try to help save endangered plants!”
“Endangered from what?” Georgie asked.
Jacob grimaced. “Humans. But that’s a conversation for another time.”
Devorah closed her eyes. There wasn’t much dry vegetation left on Earth by her own time. It was a pity that Kefilwe’s life work spelled out to nothing, in the end.
“So what’s weird about them? Are roses endangered in the future or something?” Jacob asked.
“Not as far as I know! And it’s not the existence of roses that’s strange- it's their variation. Those aren’t real roses.”
What? Devorah squinted at them through the window. They were red, and the petals inside folded out in a star-like shape. They looked like weird roses, maybe, but definitely roses. But there was something about them…
“Those are definitely roses.” Jacob said.
Georgie looked between Jacob and Kefilwe. “What makes you say they aren’t roses?”
“Those are actually camelias, and they’re called Middlemist Reds. But despite the name, they aren’t supposed to be a brilliant red- more like a deep pink.” Kefilwe joins Jacob in squinting. “It’s almost like someone bred them to become more red. But that would be impossible. The last Middlemist Reds died out in the 2030’s.”
Bred them to be more red… Red roses… A sharp pain behind her eyes shook Devorah from the window. That headache again. Why did it keep coming back?
“It’s not so impossible, is it? I mean, I should have died before 2030, and we’re talking now,” Georgie interjected.
“You’re right,” Kefilwe allowed, “but even before they went extinct, they were very expensive.”
The pain made her whimper. Devorah pulled herself away from the conversation, head pounding. It was like there was a man with a small hammer pounding on her skull. She sat by the desk, near her glasses.
“So why would they line a driveway?” Georgie wondered.