Timepiece by Heather Albano Page A

garment on top of the chest, another bodice such as gypsy women wore. Elizabeth avoided stays whenever possible, and even her mother admitted she was too slight to have any great need for them, but this once she thought she might prefer something extra between her person and the eyes that might light upon it. She laced it as modestly as possible, and though it would have been easy to tug down the blouse the way Katarina wore it, she was careful not to do so.
     
    Only then did she realize that the breeches had pockets, and scooped up her watch with a barely smothered trill of delight. She could keep it. She needn’t give it to anyone else to hold. She could tuck it into her pocket just exactly as a young man would, and fasten the chain to her bodice—yes, just so. Elizabeth looked about for a glass in which to examine the effect, but there was none.
     
    She gathered up her chemise, turned for the candle...and almost tripped over something left abandoned in the shadow. She righted herself, and reached curious fingers to investigate. A boot. She drew it closer. A man’s work boot.
     
    Kicked off and left by the side of the bed.
     
    Oh.
     
    Elizabeth picked up the candle and stretched it toward the open chest. She saw a suit of man’s winter underthings, darned and patched. A shirt, much bigger than the one she had on and the twin to what Trevelyan had been wearing downstairs. Two handkerchiefs and a cravat, all of which looked as though they had been used as cleaning rags at some point in the recent past.
     
    She looked over at the unmade bed. Pillows, plural. Each with a depression where a head was accustomed to rest.
     
    Elizabeth cast her mind back, but she had not seen any glint of a ring on Katarina’s left hand. More to the point, she was “Madame Katarina Rasmirovna,” not “Mrs. Trevelyan.”
     
    A pocket watch pulls me into the future, there are monsters on the street outside, and it’s consorting with a fallen woman that shocks me? Elizabeth asked herself sardonically. Not that she was shocked , not exactly, only surprised. She had never actually met a fallen woman before, any more than an adventuress. But perhaps that’s considered acceptable now as well? And then, with another suppressed giggle, In any case, it looks to be great fun.
     
    She swallowed the third giggle and headed back for the stairs. These she took with great care, well able to envision the disaster of tripping with a candle and an armful of cloth. At least her garters seemed to be up to the task of holding the breeches in place. At the bottom of the stairs, she turned for the living room, hesitantly testing the length of her stride, slowly finding the rhythm of it.
     
    The room was empty. The cold remnants of the tea sat abandoned in half-empty cups on the little table, but no one was there to drink them. Elizabeth poked her head around into the scullery and found it too uninhabited. Leaving her chemise draped over a chair that looked barely strong enough to support its weight, she ventured into the corridor.
     
    It was filled with a humming sound. Or—not a sound, not exactly; she couldn’t hear it so much as taste it. She pressed her tongue against her teeth and the hum seemed to vibrate in all the bones of her face. In her hand, the candle-flame shivered.
     
    She took a step toward the passageway fork that had seemed to lead to someplace large and hollow. The hum grew stronger. Had it been here before, and she just not aware of it between the artillery outside and the threat of violence inside? All of a sudden it was unnerving to stand in the dark with the almost-taste on her tongue, and she hurried forward. Her outstretched fingers touched a thick door, closed but unlatched. She pushed it open. On its other side was a hall absolutely unlike anything she had ever seen.
     
    It was bright , blindingly so, as bright as a farmer’s field under midday sun. The ceiling seemed as high as the sky would be over that field, and she