Free The Time Travelers, Volume 2 by Caroline B. Cooney Page B

a world England was! India and Hong Kong and Australia and Kenya …
    His daughter would enter that world; her money would give that man more power; Hiram’s grandchildren would inherit everything: the Stratton millions, the Winden estates, the power of the British Empire!
    Devonny had wanted to marry a man who would accomplish something. With my money, my dear, thought Hiram Stratton, patting her little gloved hand as he studied the famous faces along the church aisle, perhaps he will. After all, somebody is going to have to rule India. Why not Winden?
    Ruling an entire country was an attractive thought. Hiram thought he would practice saying India the way the British pronounced it: Innn-jah!
    A moment ago, they had been moving forward, but now they stopped. Hiram Stratton assumed the flower girls were slow, and he thought nothing of it. The church pleased him: filled with people come to admire his daughter’s beauty and his daughter’s titled catch. Wives would stare at Lord Winden and bejealous, because this great catch had gone to somebody else’s daughter. Husbands would stare at Devonny and wish they were young again.
    There was nothing quite so wonderful as Society feeling jealous of you.
    He was oddly impressed by his ex-wife’s strategy. Aurelia had done an excellent job. He hated to admit how readily he had been conned into action he had not planned. The woman had almost gotten away with it. But Aurelia had given him two great gifts: the gift of this wedding and glorious future … and the gift of her punishment.
    He felt a frisson of pleasure at the thought of her life to come.
    He planned her next few hours. The wedding, of course, would be a triumph. Aurelia, unknowing of her fate, would be escorted back to the seashore mansion, while Devonny and her groom left for their journey on one of the great cross-Atlantic ships. Devonny would quickly forget her mama. And he, Hiram Stratton, who forgot nothing, ever, would enjoy watching the carpenters nail boards over the windows, while Aurelia chose which blanket to keep with her in the unheated attic.
    Hiram felt a strange cold tug, as if some fool had opened a door to winter and let in a vicious wind.
    He turned, and his face hurt slightly, icy in spite of the brushy thick beard and draping mustache. He puthis hand up as if to wipe away snow, and in doing so, he realized that Devonny’s arm was not resting on his, and that Devonny—
    —that Devonny—
    Devonny!
    Tod’s university sweatshirt was a size extra large, although Tod himself was medium. It hung to his hips, and the cuffs went past his fingertips. His sneakers were his old ones, without decent laces, so they hung open like dogs’ mouths. His base ball cap was on backward, and his hair, which badly needed a trim, stuck out irregularly along the edges. His braces had broken during the week but Tod had not been in the mood to see the orthodontist, so he’d just smudged on that gummy wax the dentist gave you to cover rough braces edges.
    Time was ice, was zero.
    His skin, his teeth, his fingers, his gut hurt from the cold. He closed his eyes, but the brutal wind burned through his lids. He felt like a skier going down an advanced slope in Canada in February wearing only a T-shirt. His skin would come off, he would die or be hospitalized.
    Tod tried to come to grips with his sister’s courage, doing this willingly, but the cold and wind and speed were too terrible. He could only wait it out. He was Time’s property.
    He had agreed to come, but he had expected to run the show.
    He had a sense of landing, and a sense that he could refuse to let his body arrive completely, and a sense that even for one who wanted to travel to dangerous places, this was not wise. He could not find a grip, or a purpose, just cold and fear. His stretching hand found Devonny’s, and he seized it, and flung himself back the way he had come.
    In their pew, Mr. and Mrs. Van Stead smiled at one another.
    How well they had