Page 15 of Killing Time

Devynn sent Seth a sideways look, seeming to signal that she’d rather not elaborate until they had a quorum.

“Let’s just wait until we have everyone gathered together,” he said, trying to sound utterly unconcerned. “I think it would be easier than having to explain ourselves twice.”

Luckily, Helen didn’t seem too bothered by the demurral. “That makes sense,” she replied. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a glass of water or iced tea or something?”

Since he’d already had tea and coffee that morning, he thought it would probably be smart to avoid any more caffeine for a while. “Water would be fine,” he said, and Devynn nodded.

“Same for me.”

“Be back in a jif.”

Helen left the room, presumably heading for the kitchen, and Seth looked over at Devynn.

“Maybe we should have said something to her, just to see what she thinks of our plan.”

“No,” Devynn said at once, her tone emphatic. “It’s better if we talk to everyone at the same time. I don’t really want to have to defend our plan over and over again.”

His eyebrow lifted. “Do you really think they’re going to poke that many holes in it?”

“Of course they are,” she replied without missing a beat. “Isn’t that what elders tend to do? I mean, we don’t have any elders in my clan, but that’s the impression I’ve gotten from my McAllister friends.”

Interesting. Seth had to admit he hadn’t seen anything like the clan structure he was used to when they’d interacted with the Wilcoxes in 1884, where instead there was only Jeremiah ruling the roost and his family pretty much doing as they were told. He’d wondered if that dynamic might have changed over the years, but apparently not.

They couldn’t discuss the matter further, since Helen reappeared right then, a glass of water in either hand. Seth took one from her, more grateful than he’d thought he would be. True, he’d had that coffee with breakfast, but they’d gone shopping afterward and had generally chased around, and right now, he was glad of something that would wet his whistle ahead of their meeting with Abigail and the elders.

Devynn reacted similarly, murmuring a thank-you to Helen before she took several large swallows of the water she’d been given. Afterward, she set the glass down on one of the cork coasters on the coffee table, and Seth followed suit.

“That was great,” he said. “Thank you, Helen.”

Her blue eyes were cheerful. “I thought you might need something to help you get ready for the meeting with Abigail and Josiah and Gilbert. Charles mentioned she wasn’t having a good day, so I hope everything goes all right.”

That was exactly the kind of news Seth hadn’t wanted to hear. He remembered how his cousin had been sick over and over again when she was younger, and how Helen had treated her on all those occasions despite only being in high school when Abigail was suffering through those childhood illnesses. Then again, it wasn’t as if Helen had had much choice; their clan’s previous healer had passed away when she was only a little girl, and as soon as her powers had begun to manifest, she was called upon to step into her role as the McAllister family’s one bulwark against disease and injury.

“What’s a bad day for Abigail?” he asked, and next to him, Devynn looked curiously relieved, as though she’d also wanted to find out what they might be facing but thought it might be too intrusive for an outsider like her to ask the question.

Helen had sat down on the loveseat across from the couch while they were drinking their water, and now she crossed her legs and folded her hands on top of her knees, apparently settling in to give a lengthy response.

“She’s never been strong,” she said frankly. “But after all those miscarriages and then finally carrying her son to term, it seems as if the ordeal took away what little strength she possessed. For the past fifteen years, she’s mostly been an invalid. She hardly ever goes outside the house, and in fact, rarely leaves the parlor where you met her. But her mind is still sharp enough, and since we’ve had very few trials to deal with these past twenty years or so, she’s managed to be a fairly effectiveprima.”

Probably because she’d relied on the elders to do the real heavy lifting. Seth reflected that it was a good thing the clan had such continuity with its elders, only replacing one of them in all that time, but still, both Josiah and Gilbert were at the point where they probably would have stepped down if they hadn’t been so worried about what would happen if Abigail had to workwith people she wasn’t as familiar with. Sure, they would also be fellow McAllisters, but if Abigail had really become the recluse Helen claimed she had, then he doubted she’d be on a first-name basis with most of the younger generation.

What a rough time of it Charles must have had during those years, though. Maybe the more judgmental members of the population would claim it was his just desserts for the illegal activities he’d been involved in, but Seth knew his clan didn’t believe in a vengeful god and would claim his wife’s frailty had been simple bad luck and nothing more.

“Do you know what happened to Mary Towne?” he asked, naming the former fiancée his brother had still been enamored of even after she broke things off…and was also the reason why Charles had resorted to bootlegging in the first place.

Helen looked a little surprised by the question, but she answered evenly enough, “Oh, she married a wealthy rancher over in Prescott Valley. They have a big family — five children, I believe — and he ended up serving as mayor of Prescott for several terms. From what I’ve heard, she’s had a very happy life.”

It sure sounded like it. Certainly, she’d been much luckier in her choice of spouses than Charles had been.

What would have happened if his brother had never been Abigail’s consort, and she’d ended up with the much more bookish — and compatible — Freddie instead?

A question that would never have an answer. Seth couldn’t help wondering what all this traveling in time had done to the past, but even if he and Devynn had inadvertently ended up changing a few things, it seemed that marriage to Abigail was a fate his brother hadn’t been able to escape.

“But I think it’s time we went up to Charles and Abigail’s house,” Helen went on after a glance at the slim gold watch strapped to her wrist. “We wouldn’t want to be late, not when we’re the ones who called this meeting in the first place.”

Yes, that would probably be a bad look. Seth sipped from his glass of water one last time before rising from the couch, and Devynn also allowed herself a swallow and then followed suit.

The three of them left the house and headed up the hill. Although the air felt a little cooler than it had the day before, the weather was still pleasant, and while the streets were far emptier than Seth would have liked, the bright foliage on the trees helped to cheer him a little. The ebb and flow in his hometown hadn’t affected those oaks and sycamores and elms at all, and he knew he should take comfort in the way Devynn had told him that Jerome had bounced back some twenty or so years from now, and was positively thriving in her time.

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