Once Upon a Time Travel Read online

  I edged into the room to take one of his flashlights. Knowing that he’d be totally engrossed in his television for at least another half hour, I sprinted up the stairs to the second floor. I climbed over the thick velvet rope barricade at the top of the steps.

  A loud crash of thunder shook the entire house. I jumped, my heart in my throat. I despised thunder. And while it had hardly ever been a problem in California, it was a constant one in England. “I’m a grown woman,” I reminded myself. “I don’t need to be terrified of thunder.” I checked my phone for the weather report, rationally showing my freaked-out psyche that this storm wasn’t supposed to last for very long. The paralyzing fear still came, and I had to curl up in a ball next to the wall for a minute. Fortunately, the center of the storm moved farther away until the thunder became a slight rumbling sound in the distance. My heartbeat returned to normal, and my body stopped shaking.

  “You are fine,” I said through gritted teeth, standing up. I slid my phone back into my front pocket. Someday I’d stop acting like a scared little girl during a storm. It was ridiculous.

  I’d wanted a full tour of the museum ever since I started working here, but we were only allowed access to certain rooms on the first floor. The brochure had a bedroom called the Rose Room—a lady’s bedroom, decorated in shades of pink and gold. I didn’t know why I wanted to look at it so badly. Maybe because it was off-limits. I’d never been a big fan of rules.

  Now I had a chance to finally enter this forbidden bedroom with no one telling me not to touch or to be careful. What could be better?

  Maybe it even had some books in it. That would be better.

  Problem was, I wasn’t exactly sure where it was located. I opened several doors, sticking my head inside. None of them were it. Everything was starting to feel a bit creepy. Like I was Nancy Drew in The Mystery of the Spooky Attic. It wasn’t helped by the elongated hallway full of portraits that seemed to be watching me. I understood why they closed this area off. Not only was there the creep factor, but tourists would probably touch everything. I wouldn’t want people’s grubby hands all over my family’s pictures, either. Well, I wouldn’t if I had any family.

  This house had too many bedrooms. It was starting to get annoying. And that soccer game would eventually end and Bertie would see what I was up to, and I’d get both Bex and me fired.

  With a sense of urgency, I started checking the rooms faster. Still no Rose Room.

  Maybe I should just make do with one of the others. Investigate and explore and then head back downstairs.

  But even as I thought it, I knew I wouldn’t do it. Rose Room or bust.

  Then, toward the end of the hallway, I put my hand on what felt like the hundredth doorknob, and a sense of premonition tickled the back of my mind. This was it. It had to be.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I was right. The Rose Room. I closed the door shut behind me and flicked my flashlight around. I saw a white four-poster bed made up with a pale rose quilt. There was a large white armoire with curlicue edges that towered over me on the left.

  Next to the bed was a little nightstand with a silver mirror and old-fashioned hairbrush. I sat down carefully on the bed, touching the mirror and brush lightly. There were chairs to sit in, a massive fireplace, and as I flicked my flashlight over to the opposite side, I saw a very large portrait hanging on the wall.

  “Wow,” was all I could manage.

  It was a full-length picture of a nobleman dressed up just like the dudes in that Pride and Prejudice movie we’d watched. When I reached his face, my flashlight wobbled a bit. To say he was handsome would have been insulting. To him. Because he was godlike perfection. I sucked my breath in, a little disturbed that I was this attracted to a painting. He had that sort of blondish-brownish hair that I loved, high cheekbones that I bet made dimples when he smiled, and unsettling dark-blue eyes.

  I imagined what it would be like to meet this man at a ball. Realistically, he’d never notice me. But in my imagination, I could smile and bat my lashes at him and say, Why yes, I would love to dance with you.

  Then we’d twirl around the dance floor. Never mind that I didn’t know how to dance like that. It was my fantasy. I was the world’s best dancer.

  I came out of my daydream long enough to notice something weird. His left index finger pointed east. Almost like he was pointing at something in particular.

  Which wasn’t possible, right? But I had goose bumps. Real, actual goose bumps.

  What if?

  I couldn’t help it. I walked up to the wall, tracing the path from his hand. My fingers ran over the light-pink wallpaper decorated with a gold overlay design. Just when I’d convinced myself that this was all so stupid, I hit a groove in the wall. I held the flashlight over where my fingers had stopped but couldn’t see anything. I followed the groove, and it extended to a corner before running back across the top of the picture.

  A door. I had found a door.

  Excited, I tried to find a handle. A latch. I still couldn’t believe I had found a secret door. This was Narnia-level exciting.

  But despite running my hand all over the open space between the seam and the portrait, I couldn’t find a way to open the door. I stepped back, shining my light around the painting, hoping to see something that I’d been unable to feel.

  “Where is it?” I asked the man in frustration. I couldn’t have explained why, but I had to open this door. I had to see what was on the other side.

  Bright lightning flashed outside, and for a brief moment the entire room lit up. My heart slammed into my chest, and I tried to regulate my breathing. I was fine. And I had a mystery to solve.

  I sat back down on the bed and stared at the portrait. I tried to figure out what I was missing. It occurred to me that maybe he wasn’t pointing at something. Maybe his hand was the clue.

  I rushed back over to the painting, and it creaked as I lifted it up slightly. I reached behind it and was immediately rewarded with finding a small depression. Some sort of rope hung down, and without thinking, I tugged on it.

  The door groaned in protest as it ripped away from the wall. Dust flew out through the opening. I coughed and waved the cloud away from my face.

  I was so going to jail. I had just defaced a wall in a museum. I could almost hear Bex asking me if I planned to take a can of spray paint to the Mona Lisa next.

  I should turn around and go. Push the door back into place and hope no one ever noticed. Or that I’d be back in America by the time they did.

  But I couldn’t. A restless, frenetic energy rushed into my bloodstream, and my heart began to beat even faster. I accepted that my being arrested was inevitable. I absolutely had to see what was behind that door.

  I opened the door farther, ignoring the sound of ripping wallpaper. “In for a penny, in for a pound,” like Bex would say. I walked through the doorway and found myself in a cramped, windowless room.

  I had expected the cobwebs and the musty scent of a room left unaired for a long time, but I stopped short at the sound of a chorus of murmuring women’s voices. Spidery shivers crawled all over my back.

  “Okay, I have officially lost my mind,” I said out loud, swinging my light toward where the voices seemed to be coming from. Thankfully, that made the voices stop.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw another person in the room, causing icy fear to clamp over my pounding heart. I’d been caught! It took me a second to figure out that it was my reflection in a dusty mirror.

  Letting out a sigh of relief, I stepped forward and heard a sound. I had kicked something. Something big.

  It was a long, ivory-colored box. I lifted the lid. There was a beautiful pale-violet silk dress inside. Putting the flashlight under my arm, I lifted the dress up. It had a high waist and delicate purple flowers embroidered around the neckline. A darker purple sash tied in the back. I held it against me and realized that the dress went all the way to the floor. I had never in my whole life been able to find a dress or ski
rt that went to my ankles, let alone one this long. This seemed wrong. Weren’t all the women back then hobbit-size?

  I bit the inside of my cheek to stop my current impulse. I wanted to try the dress on. Wanted it as much as I had wanted to investigate the Rose Room and as much as I had wanted to open the secret door. After a minimal mental struggle where I didn’t try very hard to stop myself, I put the flashlight on a shelf pointed toward the mirror. Using my hand, I swiped off as much dust as I could from the mirror so that I could see my reflection.

  Sliding the dress over my head, I pulled it down. The fabric strained against my ribs, making it hard to breathe deeply. I probably should have undone the sash first. It fit, but barely. If I moved too quickly or bent over, it would probably burst open. But it was so pretty. I dusted off the surface of the mirror, studying myself. I smiled. I actually looked . . . good. This dress hid all my flaws. Like my ginormous hips.

  Kicking off my flats, I had a certain amount of satisfaction that the dress did indeed cover my feet completely. I probably should have taken off my jeans and T-shirt. But getting almost naked in this little closet was a step too far, even for me.

  I brushed my free hand along the material to straighten the folds and felt a small piece of paper pinned to the dress. Weird. As soon as I touched it, the paper fluttered to the floor. I maneuvered myself carefully and bent down to retrieve it. I grabbed the flashlight off the shelf to read the crinkled slip.

  For the millionth time that night, my heart pounded erratically. “It can’t be,” I whispered. The writing . . . the writing looked like mine. As if I had written it.

  There was no possible way. It was beyond ridiculous. I shook my head. People had similar handwriting styles. Apparently my vandalism and destruction of property messed with my head.

  What did it say? They weren’t English words. It looked like a phonetic spelling of a foreign language. I said each word aloud carefully, wondering if I could figure out what language it was. Latin, maybe?

  As soon as I stopped speaking, the flashlight blinked off, and an oppressive, suffocating darkness filled the room. I banged on the flashlight twice, trying to get it to turn back on. When it didn’t work, I let it fall to the floor. I had to get out of here. A strange, bubbly sensation engulfed me, and, somehow, I was surrounded by wind. Silvery terror exploded in my stomach when the closet door slammed shut.

  The storm outside worsened. I tried calling for help, but the lightning flared up and struck over and over while the thunder made the house shake. I grabbed for the door, desperate to escape. I had to get out.

  The wind raged harder, and I got caught up in a mini tornado that spun me around and around. I couldn’t move, couldn’t get away.

  I tried to scream, but there was no sound. My last thought was that I didn’t have to worry about going to jail. I was going to die.

  Then the blackness swallowed me whole.

  * * *

  I groaned as I came to. My head throbbed, and I squeezed my eyelids shut against the pain. My chin was sticky from where I had drooled. Gross. I rubbed my skin while cracking one lid open. I was on a wooden floor.

  Where was I? What happened? I forced both eyes open. Sunlight flooded in through the door.

  I had slept in the closet. Prisons didn’t have wooden floors, did they? No one had found me yet. I yanked up my skirt and pulled my phone out of my jeans’ front pocket, turning it on. No missed calls. Bex was probably off ecstatically celebrating the fact that I’d finally spent a night away from home. The museum, on the other hand, was going to be none too happy about all the laws I’d managed to break.

  Putting my phone back, I attempted to sit up. My movements were restricted by the throbbing headache and the too-tight dress. The dress that I now planned to return to its box before anyone knew I’d had my own personal fashion show with a priceless heirloom that was probably hundreds of years old.

  But there was no box. It was gone. I couldn’t find my shoes, either.

  The mirror had disappeared, and the shelves weren’t dusty. There were no cobwebs. Instead there were a row of boxes and some trunks leaning against the wall.

  There was no question; they definitely hadn’t been there last night.

  If someone had come in, changed the closet around, and taken the box and my shoes, why didn’t they wake me up?

  Whoever had taken my shoes probably wanted to make sure I couldn’t run off before they could call the police or Scotland Yard or MI6 or whomever it was the British called when people destroyed expensive property.

  I rolled onto my knees and stood up. The room wobbled, and I put my hand against the door to steady myself. After a few deep breaths, I felt like me again. Time to go out and take my punishment like a man. Er, woman.

  Holding my head high, I stepped into the room and tried not to scream. The room, which last night had been done up in shades of pink and gold, was now decorated in pastel greens. My mouth opened as I slowly turned around. The furniture was different. Now it was a dark cherry wood and not white. There was no armoire. The bed had been moved. And wasn’t a four-poster bed.

  Whirling around, I closed the closet door. Which was definitely a closet door and not covered in wallpaper. There were no tears, no rips.

  And my Mr. Dead-But-Still-Super-Hot crush was no longer hanging on the door.

  Nothing in this room was the way it had been last night.

  I checked my Mickey Mouse watch. I had come up to this room twelve hours ago. How could anyone have done all of this in twelve hours? Why would someone do it?

  None of it made any sense. I had to get home. The police could arrest me there just as easily as they could here.

  A young woman walked into the room carrying a pile of what looked like sheets in her arms. I didn’t recognize her, but I didn’t know anyone on the cleaning crew. She wore a white, flouncy cap and had a stiff-looking blue cotton dress on. Did they normally dress in costume to clean?

  She hummed softly to herself, obviously unaware of me. I wondered if she had earbuds in.

  “Hi,” I said, waving my hand so she could see me. The woman jumped, placing her palm over her heart.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I was just coming out of the closet. Not metaphorically out of the closet, because I, you know, like men.” Realizing how stupid I sounded, my brain decided to make it worse. “Not that you’re not attractive, it’s just how I am.”

  The woman dropped the sheets, grabbed her skirts, and ran out of the room. I chased after her. This was bad. Very, very bad. “Wait!” I called out.

  If I could stop her from talking to anyone in charge, I knew I could make her see that this situation wasn’t all that terrible. I’d managed to talk my way out of my last three speeding tickets. A janitor seemed much less daunting than an officer.

  When the yelling started, I knew it was all over. I got to the landing, and the velvet rope had been removed. Strange. I didn’t have time to think much about it because there was a full-on explosion happening in the main hallway. The woman was shrieking at an older man in a dark, old-fashioned-looking blue suit. Two younger men in matching pale-blue velvet suits with silver trimming rushed over to the duo. They were both wearing white wigs. Like they were in a George Washington fan club.

  When I got to the bottom of the stairs, all four heads swiveled to look at me.

  “If you’ll just let me explain,” I said as I approached the group.

  “Who are you?” the older man demanded in clipped, precise tones. “Who provided you entry to this home?”

  I started to explain when the double doors to my left swung open. “What is the meaning of this?”

  The bones in my knees went hollow, and I fought to stay upright. I must have hit myself harder than I’d thought.

  It was him. This beautiful man demanding to know what was going on was the man from the portrait. He had the same pair of vibrant blue eyes that had seduced me into this mess in the first place. He towered over me as he came
closer. I could only stare at his perfect face and natural, sun-kissed highlights that any woman would maim someone for. He had an overwhelming, powerful presence that seemed to fill the whole hallway.

  Not to mention that he was authentically shaggable, as Bex would say. I had to look away because I was so obviously staring. I glanced into the library, the room he had just come from.

  The library that had no glass case over the books.

  Ignoring God’s gift to women, I pushed past him to go into the library.

  “Now see here . . .” the older man said, but I didn’t care. Everything in this room had changed. The furniture, the books, the desk that Bex and I were working at last night. My purse wasn’t on the desk. My umbrella wasn’t sitting next to the door. A man was sitting in an armchair I’d never seen before, and he stood up when he saw me. He looked as confused and bewildered as I felt.

  Panic shot through me, and I ran back into the hallway. Bertie worked at night. Who was the day-shift guard? He would help. I threw open the door to the guard station.

  But there was no room. Only a small coat closet.

  My head still pounded with pain as I tried to swim through the murky haze in my mind to make sense of what was going on. My chest tightened, making it difficult to breathe. I forced air in and out of my lungs. I became aware of voices behind me, but they sounded muted, as if the people were very far away.

  I turned to look at them, but I still couldn’t hear them. I could only focus on their clothing. Even Mr. Delicious was in costume. What was the deal? Halloween was months away. I’d never heard of the museum doing any kind of reenactment. Did they have a come to work as your favorite Jane Austen character day?

  I shook my head, trying to bring everything back into focus.

  It must have worked, because I heard Sheer Perfection say, “Stephens, would you please escort the young lady upstairs to lie down? She looks as if she has been through something of an ordeal. We can straighten this out after she’s had a chance to rest.”