Secrets of the Time Society Read Online Free Page A

Rebecca Windsor stole a key from a corpse.

New York City — November 3, 1910
     
    Rebecca stood outside the Windsor Mansion gates, looking up at the lights in the windows. She could easily imagine what the scene inside looked like—her “perfect” brother, George, dining with his snooty wife, Henrietta, and their children, including that Clara girl from the orphanage whom they had oddly decided to adopt. But that wasn’t the Windsor Mansion Rebecca would be entering.
    She held Millicent’s key in both hands and whispered, as if it were an incantation, “March the ninth, eighteen hundred and eighty-eight.”

New York City — March 9, 1888
     
    The flood of energy that filled Rebecca as her body rose above the ground, spun through the air, and landed back on Windsor Mansion property twenty-two years in the past was so exhilarating that she momentarily forgot all about the terrible crime that had made it possible. All she felt was the relief and satisfaction of having the power of time travel restored to her.
    The Fifth Avenue block on which her home rested was suddenly quiet. The land on either side of Windsor Mansion was still empty, and the sounds of Model T Ford automobiles were years away. Rebecca eagerly pushed through the gates, racing through the front garden and up the steps, much more like a girl of seventeen than a woman of nearly forty. She was returning to her home as it had appeared when it was hers; to her body as it looked when it was young and unspoiled.
    As Rebecca slipped into the mansion, she caught sight of her governess walking briskly into the library.
What would she think if she knew what was to become of me? What would my parents think?
Rebecca wondered. But she pushed the unsettling thoughts aside, focusing instead on her task.
    She hurried up the stairs to the third floor, her palms sweating with anticipation as she approached her bedroom. The red-carpeted hallway led to the familiar French double doors. Turning the knob and entering at last, she saw the seventeen-year-old Rebecca Windsor of 1888, frozen in front of her dressing mirror in the lilac-and-white princess bedroom. And just as she had studied in the Time Society handbook years ago—the handbook that had also been wrenched away from her by Millicent August—forty-year-old Rebecca Windsor of 1910 reached out her hand to touch her younger self. Staring into the mirror, Rebecca watched as she and her younger body gasped in unison, atightening force gripping her chest as the two of them moved seamlessly into one.
    A smile curved Rebecca’s lips. Millicent’s key, hanging on a gold chain around her neck, had done its job. Though she was her forty-year-old self in mind, she was now seventeen in body. And anything was possible.

New York City—Present Day
     
    As Michele tried to calm her terrified mind, the multiple girls in black slowly merged into one. The girl stared at her with hatred. Michele tried to run, but the sand held her rooted to the spot
.
    “I know who you are,” the girl hissed. “I know who you come from.” She stepped closer, her smile full of malice, and Michele shrank back in horror
.
    A stranger appeared in the distance, his voice competing with the sounds of the waves crashing against the shore. “Michele, run! Save yourself!”
    Peering into the night, Michele tried to make out the man’s form. Who was he? Why did his voice sound so familiar? Wait. Was this …? It couldn’t be, could it? Her father?
    “Michele, wake up!” he cried, his voice full of urgency
.
    Michele could feel the girl’s gaze pierce right through her. Why did this girl she didn’t even know hate her so much? Was she someone from thepast? It was another set of unanswered questions to add to the list she’d been accumulating during her time travels
.
    “I’ll be watching you,” the stranger whispered, slowing turning and drifting back to where she’d come from. As her silhouette vanished into the night, Michele’s dream