Merry Christmas from Navarro Lodge, 1928

Kage Baker

That Christmas Eve Dolliver found himself walking south on Highway 1, frying to hitchhike back to San Francisco, in a very unpleasant frame of mind.

He kept frying to find some reason, some pattern of events that had resulted in the present moment. He’d made one stupid decision about living off his unemployment for a while; had that been all it took to bring him here?

That had been all it took. As he trudged along the narrow two-lane above the cliffs Dolliver made another discovery: there wasn’t much traffic along that road on Christmas Eve, and what there was wouldn’t stop for somebody in a crappy old stained coat. All that long afternoon the sky got graver and the passing cars got fewer and the dull cold penetrated more deeply into his bones.

It didn’t help that the scenery was breathtaking, looming green redwood forests that breathed out a nice seasonal balsam fragrance. In the couple of cliff-perching little bed-and-breakfast towns Dolliver passed, people looked right through him, dressed as he was, though he made no attempt to beg for change. The dogs alone acknowledged his presence, barking and threatening; and the grandeur of the surf beating against the black cliffs began to lure him, as time and the miles went by. Only the thought that suicide during the holidays was a cliché kept him from jumping right over.

Pretty soon it got dark and Dolliver had all he could do to keep from wandering over the edge in the pitch-blackness. The only thing he had to orient himself was the sound of the sea and, miles out on an invisible horizon, the spark of light that was some fishing boat or tanker. He made up his mind to stay at the next little town if he had to break a window and get himself arrested.

He came around a high curve and saw a blaze of light. Following it to 709 the edge of the road, he found himself looking down a hillside into a river gorge. There were buildings down there, where the river met the sea. Right below was the roof of a big gabled place. Painted on its slates in squared black letters, just visible by the reflection of the floodlights, were the words NAVARRO LODGE.

So he followed the road around and down, and found the turnoff from the highway: a gravel drive cutting away through the silver-barked alder trees, following the river bank. Then the gravel was lit up by headlights behind him, and Dolliver looked over his shoulder and had to scramble out of the way of the oncoming car.

He saw that it was an antique, something from the twenties maybe, beautifully restored. Somebody had money. He reflected that he should have let it hit him, and then he might have sued. He felt ashamed immediately, but reflected on the injustice of wealth and felt better.

Dolliver trudged on, beside the river that roared white over boulders, and a few hundred yards farther along he came out into the glow of the lights. There were the parked cars, lined up on the gravel; there were the lit windows of Navarro Lodge, each with its flickering red taper and festoon of evergreen. It was a rambling two-story building with dormer windows looking out on the river and the alder forest.

All the cars were antiques. Gleaming brass and chrome, bug-eyed headlights, green and black and mustard-yellow paint, leather trunks on the back. Oh, thought Dolliver, some classic car club’s having a rally. How nice for them. His envy intensified.

He paced along outside, indecisive about going in. Through the windows he could glimpse people moving—the car enthusiasts, probably, he thought, because they all seemed to be wearing costumes for the occasion. There was a smell of wood smoke sweet on the night air, a bite of frost, and how brilliant and chill the stars were! Dolliver could hear slightly drunken laughter and the tinny sound of what he guessed was a television. He could hear the crash of waves in the black winter night, dragging on the shingle beach. Distant on the horizon, the light from the ship was still there.

It occurred to Dolliver that if he took off his coat before he went in, he’d make a better impression, so he hung it on the low fence that ran along the driveway. The cold bit into him at once. Hugging his arms he sprinted up the front steps and shouldered through the doors, rehearsing what he’d made up to say, which was: Excuse me, I’m afraid I’ve had something embarrassing happen. My lady friend and I were having an argument and she stopped the car and asked me to get out and look at the right front tire. When I got out, she drove off-—she’s got my coat, my wallet and all my credit cards, my cell phone—I wonder if I could throw myself on your mercy, since it’s Christmas Eve? I’d be happy to sleep in the lobby—

He went up to the desk, dark wood decorated for the holiday with swags of holly branches. There was a man there writing in a ledger. Dolliver cleared his throat and said, “Excuse me—”

The man didn’t look up. Dolliver moved in closer and tried again. “Excuse me—”

Still, the man ignored him. He looked about twenty-five, wore a plain brown sweater over an oxford shirt, wore steel-rimmed glasses: nothing to tip Dolliver off that anything strange had happened, and after all people had been pretending they didn’t see him all day.

What did seem weird was the fact that the man was writing in the ledger book using a long wooden pen with a steel nib, and dipping from a little fireplug-shaped bottle of Schaefer’s Ink. No computer terminal, there on the desk. No telephone.

Dolliver stepped forward, put both hands flat on the desk and said, as loudly as he could, “EXCUSE ME!”

The man wrote on, with a calm and pleasant expression on his face, giving no acknowledgment Dolliver was there at all.

After a moment of staring Dolliver said huffily “Well, fine then!” and drew himself up and marched into the main lobby.

There was a big fireplace in there, made of river cobbles, with a bright fire of alder and cottonwood logs. He went straight to it and warmed himself, and as he turned he prepared another speech: Er-—excuse me, but is the person at the counter hearing-impaired? I’ve been trying to get his attention…. But as he looked out at the room, he knew.

The people in this room were also oblivious to his presence: a young girl with a powdered face and black pageboy bob sitting on a couch before the fire, right there in front of him, and a young man sitting beside her, leaning close and whispering intently in her ear. A couple of older gentlemen arguing under the deer’s head mounted on the wall, as they drank from little glass punch cups. Another old man sitting in a Morris chair, reading a hardcover book and from time to time tipping cigar ash into the smoking stand, with its thick amber bowl.

Dolliver had seen enough movies and Outer Limits episodes to guess that he’d fallen into some kind of time slip. He wondered bitterly why couldn’t he have been abducted by aliens, which at least would give him a story to sell to the tabloids.

The girl wore ‘20s flapper garb. The men might have stepped out of an old L. L. Bean catalogue, all hunter flannels. All the details of the room were perfect for the period too, the wainscoting in polished dark wood, the wallpaper with its sporting motif, the duck-hunting print patterns in which the chairs were upholstered. There was a little spruce Christmas tree in one corner with a string of old-style light s, thick mold-blown glass in shapes of fruits, painted in colors, the electrical cord wrapped in woven fabric.

A clock ticked on the mantel, which Dolliver only heard because he was standing right in front of it; otherwise it’d have been drowned out by the Victrola in the corner, on which a scratchy recording of “Adeste Fideles” was playing. He could see the old black phonograph record spinning, just as fast as a CD does now.

The song ended, and the girl jumped away from the young man and got up to change the record. She put on “The Saint Louis Blues” and amused herself by doing a little dance step alone, watching the young man from under her long lashes. She had a piquant little face, but her eyes were rather cold. The young man looked sad and stared into the fire, right through Dolliver’s legs.

Interesting as this was, Dolliver was more intrigued by the smell of dinner coming from the dining room beyond. He crossed the room, drawing no attention to himself. One of the two men drinking punch was saying belligerently:

“Sure you could. Say, you could put a radio tower up on that hill that’d pull in China, and he’s crazy if he doesn’t do it. I told him….”

The dining room had the same sporting decor, except that there were small round tables here and there on the wide plank floor, and a buffet on the far wall. There were a few couples at the tables, girls in bright beaded gowns chatting gaily with more men in plaids and checks. Somebody’s little fox terrier was wandering about begging. There was a stockbrokerish guy at the buffet, listening to a thin youth in a waiter’s jacket who was affirming:

“Yes, sir, all our own. The salmon’s smoked right up the hill in our smokehouse. And that’s local venison, sir, and the roast beef too. No, sir, the plum pudding came out of a can, but….”

“Hell with the plum pudding,” yelled another stockbrokerish type, bounding up with a cup of punch. “What’s in this stuff? It’s got plenty of pep, and I mean plenty!” He raised his cup and winked broadly.

“Applejack, what do you think?” said the other stockbroker. “They make their own in the cellar, don’t they, kid?”

“Yes, sir. We have the apples brought over special from Sebastopol,” agreed the youth.

“Well, say, I think I’ll just take a room here permanently,” chortled the drinker, and drank. “Hell with the Volstead Act!”

There was somebody else standing at the buffet too. He was helping himself, filling a plate with meat and some of the other fare that was laid out: asparagus, oysters, Stilton cheese and crackers, hot biscuits. He looked up, saw Dolliver and grinned.

“Hey, bro,” he said, chewing. He wore blue jeans, a Metallica T-shirt, a down vest; John Deere cap and sneakers. He had a thin beard, long hair. Dolliver was wearing jeans and Nikes, which was presumably how this other person from the present recognized him for a fellow time-traveler.

Dolliver stared, and the other man swallowed and said “Welcome to the Twilight Zone, huh? Doo-de-doo-doo, doo-de-doo-doo!”

“The food’s real?” said Dolliver, but he was already crossing the room and reaching for one of the plates.

“Ghost food, I guess, huh? Tasty, though,” said the other, stuffing a wad of sliced roast beef into his cheek. Dolliver picked up the plate, weighed it in his hand. It was substantial. There was a green pattern of alder cones and leaves around the rim, and the words NAVARRO LODGE in rustic letters. He took the plate and waved it slowly in front of the face of the nearest stockbroker, who never blinked; in front of the waiter, who never paused in his recitation: “…and the blackberries in the pie were picked right from our own brambles here, our cook makes all our preserves….”

“They ain’t gonna see you ,” said the other. “Really. I’ve been here since this morning, and nobody’s noticed me vet.”

“But we can affect their reality,” said Dolliver, picking up a sliver of turkey and tasting it experimentally. It was substantial too, and he was famished, so he set to piling food on his plate. “Their buffet’s reality, anyway. What’s going on?”

“Beats me, friend,” said the other. “I figure it’s one of those things like on TV. Jesus, don’t you wish you had a camera? We could get on one of those programs and make a fortune.” He chewed and swallowed and looked Dolliver up and down. “You hitchhiking, huh?”

“Yes,” said Dolliver, betting the man lived in a trailer park.

“Where you from?”

“New York.”

“Wow,” said the other. He lifted a punch cup and drank with relish. “You should try this stuff. Smooth, man!”

“Okay,” said Dolliver, spotting the wassail bowl. He filled a punch cup and had a sip. It burned all the way down. He set it carefully aside and began to eat, grimly and seriously, right where he was standing. He hadn’t eaten in two days.

“I’m from Navarro, myself,” said the other. “Back up the river. So, how’d you come to be here? Long way from home, huh?”

Dolliver introduced himself and told his story in all its humiliating detail: the company layoff, the unemployment error, the closed-out savings account, the eviction; then the ultimate finger from Fate, the old girlfriend who’d invited him out to spend Christmas with her. By the time Dolliver had blown his last cash on bus fare and got to Mendocino she’d made up with her husband and changed her mind about the invitation.

“Wow, man, that happened to me,” said the other, looking delighted. “Mv old lady threw me out of the trailer this afternoon.” Bingo, thought Dolliver. “This guy at the Christmas tree lot fucked with me about my bonus, so there was like—no money I just started walking and wound up here. Verbal Sweet,” he said, and Dolliver was mystified until the other extended his hand for a shake and he realized that Verbal Sweet was the man’s name.

“Nice meeting you , Verbal,” he said.

“You’re a college grad, huh?” said Sweet.

Dolliver admitted he was, for all the good it was doing him now, and Sweet closed one eve and nodded shrewdly. “Bingo! I thought so, the way you talk.”

Meanwhile the stockbrokers had sat down and begun to eat. The waiter sighed and folded his hands in front of him. Then he looked up sharply: the girl with the black pageboy bob had come in and was approaching the buffet, alone.

“Hello, Billy,” she said, picking up a plate.

“I was wondering if you were even going to notice me,” said the waiter quietly He looked anguished.

“I’ve got a lot to say to you, actually, but this isn’t the time,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. She tilted her head, staring down with a coy expression at the platters of beef and venison, as though she couldn’t make up her mind. She swung a finger to and fro over the dishes. The waiter’s eyes widened.

“If you’re going to insult me—”

“No.” She looked up, and there was nothing playful about her now. “Don’t take it like that. So much has happened, Billy. I’ve been thinking a great deal about this. If we could talk—”

The waiter had looked incredulous, but he glanced up into the room and then hissed: “What good will it do to talk now?” Out loud he said: “Yes, Ma’am, that’s a thirty-pound turkey. We had it in a pen behind the smokehouse. It’s been fed apple mash, so the meat’s very rich—”

“Helene.” The other man, the one who’d been whispering in her ear, approached and put his hands on her shoulders. “Dear, I’m sorry. But this means an awful lot to Dad.”

“Whoa! Lovers’ triangle,” said Sweet. “What do you want to bet she’s cheating on him?”

Dolliver just shrugged and kept eating. The waiter stared straight ahead, expressionless and pale, as the girl sighed and leaned back against the other man. Her voice was querulous as she said: “What does it mean to you, Edgar?”

“Well, I—of course I want it too, you know that!” he said.

She just pursed her lips. Beef or venison?

“Dessert time,” said Sweet happily, and served himself a piece of blackberry pie. “And you know what’s over there at the bar? Honest-to-God French Champagne. I’m getting me a glass. You want any?”

“Sure,” said Dolliver. “Thanks.”

“Edgar, I don’t care to discuss this right now,” said the girl, stepping away and selecting the beef at last. Edgar said:

“All right. But think about Christmas, Helene. Think what it could be like in a couple of years. The little tree, a little stocking, toys. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

“Sweets to the sweet,” she said cryptically, and the man smiled. The waiter coughed and excused himself, fleeing through a side door into what was probably the kitchen.

“Here you go,” said Sweet, returning from the bar. He handed Dolliver a glass of champagne. Dolliver set down his plate and drank gratefully. Sweet looked furtive and raised two fingers to his lips, miming smoking a joint. He said,

“So, uh, you got any—?” Dolliver stared a moment before he got it.

“Oh! No, sorry.”

“Damn. Well, okay. Maybe it’s not a good idea to get too messed up, what with us being here and all. We might slip through a time warp or something and I ain’t in any hurry to go back yet, are you?”

Dolliver set down his glass and reached into the fruit bowl for an orange. He said, “Not especially. It’s not as though I’ve got anything I’d miss.”

“Me either,” said Sweet. “But it’s kind of a shame we’re invisible.”

“We were already invisible!” Dolliver snapped. “You think anyone back in our own time sees people like you and I? Even at this time of year? A run of bad luck and a dirty coat makes you a phantom, man.”

Sweet listened patiently to his tirade and then went on: “Yeah, but wouldn’t it be great if we could wow everybody with computers or something? We could, like, invent TV ahead of its time and get rich.”

“Do you know how to make a television set?” Dolliver asked him. Sweet’s face fell.

“No.”

“Then that wouldn’t work, see? But you could buy stock that’ll do well,” said Dolliver. “Like International Business Machines.”

Sweet looked blank. Dolliver tried again:

“Or Coca-Cola, for example.”

“Oh, yeah,” exclaimed Sweet. He warbled a few bars of the latest Coke jingle, then frowned. “Wait a minute, you mean like the stock market? Oh, no way. You can lose money like that, I always heard. But I got an idea. If this goes on—” At this moment the two men who’d been arguing about radio reception came to the buffet and shouldered Dolliver aside, completely unconscious of his presence.

“No, it was the damnedest thing you ever saw,” said one of them, setting down his punch cup and reaching for a plate. “Why, it was nothing like the movies, and all in color, too. But you’d need a lot more than a radio tower for reception, yes, sir!”

“The fellow’s name was Baird, you say?” inquired the other. “Say, this could be big! I wonder if he’s looking for investors over there?”

“Let’s go back to the fireplace,” suggested Sweet, and he and Dolliver took their desserts and drinks and went into sprawl on the sofa.

“Here’s what we do,” said Sweet, forking blackberries into his mouth. “We go upstairs to the rooms where everybody’s suitcases are, right? And we help ourselves to whatever they got, same as we did with the food.”

“Steal?” Dolliver stopped peeling the orange. He thought about it a moment and slowly his hands started moving again. “Why not? They’re all a bunch of useless boozers, and dead anyway—I mean, by our rime. If they didn’t notice the food disappearing, maybe they wouldn’t miss jewelry. If they’ve got any.”

“All these rich people?” Sweet looked scornful. “Of course they got jewelry with ‘em. Didn’t you ever watch any old movies? Ladies used to wear necklaces and stuff a lot more than now. And they’ll have cash, too.”

“No good,” Dolliver told him, having another sip of champagne. “All their cash would be the big old Federal Notes.” Sweet frowned at him in incomprehension and just at that moment one of the stockbrokers came to stand in front of them, warming his hands at the fire. “I’ll show you ,” said Dolliver, and feeling absurdly pleased with himself he leaned forward and slipped the man’s wallet from his pocket.

“Smooth,” laughed Sweet, applauding. Dolliver opened the wallet and fanned the outsized bills. Sweet winced and shook his head.

“That’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen, man.”

“See? We couldn’t spend it in our time without a lot of questions,” Dolliver told him, putting the wallet back. “We could sell jewelry, though. If they’ve got any.”

The stockbroker moved away and Edgar came alone to stand in his place, facing out into the room. After a moment he drew from his pocket a red leather case and opened it, staring inside.

“What did I tell you ?” Sweet nudged Dolliver. “Jewels! You’re so fast with your hands, see can you get it.”

“All right.” Dolliver drained his glass and stood. Flexing his hands theatrically, he waited until Edgar had slipped the case back into his pocket, sighing; then he slipped the case out again. Edgar remained standing there, staring through him unnervingly as he sat down again and opened the case.

“Diamonds or something,” Sweet pronounced, leaning over to see. “Not bad!”

“Maybe it’s a Christmas present,” said Dolliver, looking up guiltily at Edgar’s tense face.

“Well, Merry Christmas to you and me,” Sweet replied. “We’re both down on our luck a lot worse than these dudes will ever be. So… I guess we’re splitting fifty-fifty on this?” He put out his hand and took the necklace from the box, and held it up to the firelight. It winked and threw lights on the wall.

“Sure,” Dolliver told him. “Assuming we ever go back to our own time and aren’t stuck here like ghosts.” He closed the empty case and slipped it back into Edgar’s pocket.

“Oh. Well, we could take one of their cars, if we can find some keys,” said Sweet.

“We could,” Dolliver agreed, “but we couldn’t drive away from the past, you see? Just away from this lodge. And even if we managed to take a Packard or a Model T back with us, how would we handle the registration, once we were there?”

“Frigging DMA7,” Sweet conceded with a sigh, tucking the necklace away inside his vest. “Well, if we never go back, this isn’t too bad.” He eyed the couples who were leaving the dining room. One of the flappers cranked up the Victrola again and all the younger couples began to dance to a fox trot. One girl tugged an older man to his feet and he cut a few awkward capers. Sweet leaned over and nudged Dolliver. “Hey, wonder if the women are like the buffet? D’you think?”

Dolliver just looked at him a minute and then said, “You’d better be careful. How’d you like to get a dose of something when there’s no penicillin yet?”

“There isn’t?” Sweet was horrified. “Jesus, what’d people do?”

“Gee, Mr. Wallace, you’d better get a monkey gland,” cried the girl gaily, as the wheezing stockbroker retreated from the dance floor.

“Suffered a lot,” said Dolliver, standing up. “Come on, let’s see what’s upstairs.”

There was a single red candle burning in the window on the landing, and they took it with them, since the second story did not appear to be wired for electricity. Most of the doors were unlocked. Dolliver and Sweet prowled through the dark rooms and found trunks and suitcases alone that would fetch a nice price in antique stores, plastered as they were with steamer and hotel labels. There wasn’t quite the fortune in jewels Sweet had been hoping to find, but they did manage to pilfer a nice little haul in cufflinks and one tie tack with what Dolliver was fairly sure was a diamond on it. There were a couple of art deco brooches and a couple of bracelets of indeterminate value.

“Well, this sucks,” complained Sweet as they clumped back downstairs, and the scratchy melody of “Am I Blue” floated up to meet them. One of the younger men was yodelling drunkenly along. Sweet turned on the stairs, eyes brightening. “But you know what? If we take one of the cars we can drive down to San Francisco, rob a bank or a jewelry store! Huh? Nobody’d see us.”

“You’ve got a point there,” said Dolliver, deciding not to argue with him.

They settled on the couch again, now and then rising to revisit the buffet. The evening wore on and the young people Charlestoned and shimmied in the glow of the Christmas lights. The older men sat at the edges and talked interminably about the stock market, about Herbert Hoover, about the trouble brewing again among the Serbs and Croats, about surf and stream fishing, about the big breakfast they’d have in the morning.

Everybody drank the Christmas wassail and, when that gave out, drank bootleg booze from flasks they’d brought with them. Dolliver was appalled at the cheerful and reckless way they mixed their liquors, to say nothing of the quantities they seemed to be able to drink without passing out. The dancing just got a little clumsier, the laughter of the girls got louder and shriller; and when “Stille Nacht” was played, with Madame Schumann-Heink crooning tenderly, people wept. At last in ones and twos they began to wander up the narrow staircase to their rooms.

The girl with the black pageboy bob did not drink much, or dance either. She came and sat on the couch by herself, between Dolliver and Sweet, who looked on bemused as Edgar came to crouch beside her.

“Helene, we don’t have to live with them,” he said quietly.

“Who?” wondered Sweet.

“In-laws, probably,” Dolliver told him.

“You haven’t got the spine to tell him no,” said Helene matter-of-factly, not taking her eves from the fire. Edgar stiffened and rose again, and left the room.

“Edgar isn’t doing very well,” remarked Dolliver, yawning. Sweet chuckled, watching Helene, and patted his knee.

“You can come sit on my lap, honey, I’ll give you good advice. You don’t want to marry that wienie. Marry the other guy, okay? The poor one. Billy.”

“Here he comes,” Dolliver observed, as Billy came in to build up the fire. He avoided making eve contact with Helene, but she leaned forward.

“You look nice in that jacket,” she said.

“It’s a waiter’s jacket,” he snapped. “I’m nobody and I’m going nowhere, remember? Not back east. Not to Europe. Not to Stanford or an office in the City.”

Helene put her head in her hands. “All right. But you could do more for yourself, Billy. I know you could. You have the inner strength.”

“Strength doesn’t matter,” Billy replied stonily. “Money matters, Helene. You taught me that well enough.”

“Strength matters more than I’d ever imagined,” she said, with the suggestion of tears in her voice. He turned in the firelight to stare at her, and his hand opened and he seemed about to reach out; but she looked sidelong at him from under her lashes with those cold eyes, and something about the look made him draw back his hand.

“Crying?” he said. “Or acting, Helene? It would take a lot more than a few tears for me to ever make a fool of myself again. I’ve got some pride, you know.”

“You tell her, bro,” said Sweet, slapping his leg.

Edgar had finally re-entered the room. Billy shut his mouth like a trap and turned away from the fire as though Helene weren’t there.

“Is everything satisfactory, mister?” he inquired of Edgar, in an excessively servile tone. Edgar just nodded miserably “Good. Wonderful,” said Billy, sounding as though he were about to cry himself. He stalked from the room.

Edgar approached the girl hesitantly

“Hey!” Sweet stood up. “I know why there’s no jewelry in the rooms. It’d be in the hotel safe.”

“You think a place like this has one?” said Dolliver, but he got to his feet too. They paced swiftly into the front lobby, as Edgar knelt beside Helene and began to murmur to her in a hesitant voice.

The desk clerk was no longer there, but a quick search behind the desk failed to turn up anything resembling a safe. Sweet got down on his hands and knees to thump the baseboard paneling. Dolliver’s attention was drawn by the open ledger, and he paused to examine the list of registered guests.

“Unless maybe it’s behind a painting or something, I seen that in movies too—” Sweet was saving, when he heard Dolliver mutter an exclamation. He scrambled up.

“What?” he said. Dolliver didn’t answer, so he read over his shoulder. A moment later he caught his breath and pointed a trembling linger at the third entry in the column.

“Shit! Look at that,” he croaked.

Mr. Edgar T Sweet, Palo Alto, California. The next entry was Miss Helene Thistlewhite, Santa Rosa, California.

“Same last name,” observed Dolliver.

“No! That was my grandfather’s name!”

“Uh—” Dolliver blinked at it. “Then—Helene is, what, your grandmother? Which would explain what you’re doing here. Maybe. If Helene breaks up with him tonight—”

“I’ll never get born,” said Sweet. “Oh, my God!”

He turned and bolted into the main lobby, and Dolliver went after him.

There was Edgar, still on his knees, offering the small leather case and saying,

“I swear that’s not an empty promise. Merry Christmas, Helene.”

“No,” cried Sweet, starting forward. Helene, smiling in spite of herself, took the case and opened it. She saw nothing but white silk lining inside. She lifted her eves to Edgar with a look of flaming contempt.

In that moment, Sweet disappeared. One second he was there, looking on in horror, and the next he was gone. The diamond necklace that had been in his pocket dropped softly to the carpet runner and lay coiled there like a bright snake. Dolliver turned white. For the first time since arriving there he was frightened.

“Not an empty promise?” said Helene with a tight smile. Edgar gaped at the open case a moment before beating frantically at his pockets, and then getting down on hands and knees to peer under the couch.

“Helene, I swear—” he choked. “There was a necklace in there!” He jumped up and started out for the front lobby. Dolliver hesitated a moment before bending quickly to scoop up the necklace and drop it into his own pocket.

“Oh, oh, Lord—” Edgar swept the carpet runner with a desperate stare, and ran to the desk and hammered on the bell. “Oh, jiminy crickets, Helene, it’s got to be here—I’ll get the staff to help me look—”

“Whatever you like, Edgar,” said Helene. “I’m going to go have a cup of coffee. Let me know when you manage to get something right.”

There was quite a commotion for a while, as the desk clerk and a couple of waiters—though not Billy—came out and helped Edgar search. Dolliver slunk away to the dining room, where he sat shivering. Helene was not in the dining room. After a while the commotion died down and Edgar went upstairs. Dolliver went back to the main lobby and sank down on the couch, before the fire that was going down to coals. He knew where Helene was, and what she was doing.

A waiter—again, not Billy—made a pass through the room, collecting coffee cups and dessert plates the guests had left. A few minutes later the man in the brown sweater came through, turning out the lamps and blowing out the candles. The surf beat loud on the shingle beach in the night.

Dolliver didn’t think he’d ever sleep again after that, but he did doze off sometime before sunrise. When he awoke he was freezing cold and stiff, and sitting up found himself lying on the bare floor of a ruin, as he had half expected. The fireplace was black and yawning, the floor creaking, filthy. There was trash piled in the corners. Blackberry brambles choked the windows. He ran outside and his coat at least was okay, right where he’d left it; but the cars were long gone, the road overgrown, the upstairs gable windows black and staring.

Dolliver shrugged into his coat and went his way

He pawned one of the brooches in San Francisco and got enough money to buy himself a suit, so he could sell the rest of the jewelry without drawing undue attention to himself. Within a week he’d found a job, which was ironic because his need wasn’t desperate now; the necklace alone had brought enough to set him up nicely.

He still felt guilty, though he told himself that neither he nor Sweet could have affected the outcome that night in 1928. It hadn’t been his decision. It hadn’t been anyone’s decision but Helene Thistlewhite’s, ever, and she had decided to break her engagement to a young stockbroker and run off with Eustace William Dolliver; or so the family legend went.

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