Chapter Three
Fire and Gasoline
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"Are you alright?" I heard Mrs. Ashford ask behind me.
I was still at the window, speechless. Everything being played before me seemed like a dream. I couldn't face the fact that I was awake. I liked the fact that I thought this was a dream.
I kept my eyes focused on the brown-haired man I had seen come out of the blacksmith's shop. I needed to focus on something, anything, to somehow allow myself that this was a dream. Fixating on something drew me away from reality.
"Can you hear me?" she asked.
I nodded, even though I wasn't sure if she could see my response. I still couldn't comprehend my epiphany.
Time travel did not exist, though. It was impossible. Yet, as I looked at the square below me, I knew that was the only explanation, logical or not. Their outfits were the sort in textbooks, and the buildings were too antique, even for old, locally owned shops.
"Do you want to lay down, dearie?" she asked.
Mrs. Ashford probably thought that I was losing even more of my memory by just standing, dumbfounded at everything.
"I'm fine," I said, turning to face her.
I was not fine. My temples and eyes were throbbing, my throat was dry, my chest hurt – and, on top of it all, I had never felt so alone or helpless in my life.
"Are you sure, Miss --" Mrs. Ashford began.
"Christine," I interrupted. "And, yes, Mrs. Ashford. I'm fine."
She cast me a dubious glance.
"Really," I reassured her. "I'm just disorientated, is all."
I must have been convincing enough, since started going towards the door.
"If you're alright --" she began.
"I'm fine," I promised.
Mrs. Ashford nodded and tucked a lock of curly, brown hair behind her ear. "I'll let you be. I need to get down to the bakery. I just thought it was wise that I'd use one of my moments to check on you. You can stay in the room, here, if you'd like."
I wondered if her last sentence was an order. With me, in a dress that was unlike anything else that I had seen in the last five minutes, I was sure that it was.
"I will," I said.
Mrs. Ashford gave a forced smile, then exited the room, shutting the door gently behind her.
I stood by the window, facing the room, still trying to comprehend what had happened to me. It didn't add up.
I walked over to the bed and took my heels off. I wondered if I would get a splinter while walking barefoot. I contemplated putting my shoes back on, but decided against it. I'd be back in the hotel in half an hour.
I saw my red clutch on the table next to the bed. I felt elated -- I could call Irene and beg her to keep my parents distracted for twenty minutes. I snatched my clutch and opened it, digging my phone out of it. I slid the phone open to find a black, unlit screen.
My heart sank a little, but I refused to let it sink further. The battery just had too much water.
I opened the back of the phone and took the battery out, shaking the water out of it. I put the battery back in and slid the phone open again, only to find a black screen.
"God damn it!" I said, probably a bit too loudly. I knew that there would be no way for me to contact Irene to tell her that I was out later than I should have been and to make up an excuse for me. I couldn't ask Mrs. Ashford for a phone – she seemed so out of touch with everything, that I wasn't even sure if she knew what one was.
I wouldn't let myself entertain my time travel theory. I knew that it was impossible.
I had nothing else to do but stay here. My parents, I knew, would kill me when I got back to the hotel. I had been grounded before, but the thought of their punishment, for the first time, frightened me.
I looked through my clutch, just to make sure nothing had gotten lost or stolen between the time I left the hotel and the time I woke up. My passport was water damaged, as well as my driver's license. My foundation was cakey -- I didn't bother to look at the lipstick.
Yep, I thought. I'm screwed.
Screwed didn't begin to cover what I was. My parents would find a way to make me pay for sneaking out like this. They would send me back to Brooklyn and not let me leave the house for my entire senior year, except for my job at Starbucks.
I was going to be dead by tonight.
I was helpless. I couldn't get myself out of this situation.
I flopped onto the bed, laying on my back and sighed, staring up at the ceiling.
The minutes ticked by. I wasn't sure how long I stayed in that room upstairs, my eyes fixated on the ceiling, thinking about nothing in particular, yet everything at once. I was thinking of how much trouble I would be in when I went back to the hotel, how to even get back to it, how to explain this to my parents, and how to explain to myself why I felt like I was nowhere near Kingston.
All of these things, though, were so overwhelming, that I focused on simply nothing.
My tangled hair bothered me. I sat up slowly for fear of my head throbbing. My head wasn't pounding like before – now it was a dull annoyance.
I stood up and went to the vanity and found a large, silver brush on table, with small flowers engraved into the back. I ran my fingers over it, leaving my fingerprints behind. It was nothing short of beautiful. It was so polished that I could see my reflection clearly. Even ones like this in antique stores were somehow stained or dirtied. This one seemed nearly flawless.
I tried to run the comb through my hair, but trying to do so hurt too much. Water filled my eyes. I'd work on the knot on top of my head that was my hair tonight.
I wished I had a pony tail holder with me. Tying my hair back would make me slightly more happy.
I saw a small, metal box on the vanity. I opened it to see bobby pins in there. I knew it was possible to make a bun out of bobby pins.
I twisted my hair into a bun, and slid the bobby pins into my hair, holding it in place. It was a loose bun, yes, but better than before.
I didn't know what to do next. Going downstairs and asking Mrs. Ashford for a phone or money for a cab didn't seem like the thing that I should do. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more that my ridiculous time travel theory, it seemed to make more sense.
I wouldn't allow myself to think about it any more than that, though. It didn't make that much sense. I opted for the phone/money option.
I walked back to the edge of the bed and put my shoes on, the same ache in my feet coming back as soon as I took the first step.
I walked out of my room and saw that to my left were some wooden stairs leading down. I went down them, not putting my hand on the thick railing for fear of a splinter.
I came to the foot of the stairs and came to a door. I turned the door knob and saw that there seemed to be a living room. There was a light blue cushioned chair, and a matching love seat. The walls were a dirtied white.
I went through the living room and stopped at the doorway into the kitchen. Mrs Ashford's dress was now dusted with flour; most of it on the skirt of her dress. The man that I had seen out of my window earlier, the one with the brown, curly hair, was talking to Mrs. Ashford. From a distance, I could tell that he was around twenty. He was handsome in an innocent, chivalrous way
"I think that her ship was sunk by pirates," Mrs. Ashford said. It was clear that she was talking about me to this man. "Poor girl can't remember a thing. Must've lost her memory. Hardly says a thing, she does. I'm beginning to wonder if she doesn't talk because..."
Mrs. Ashford was gossiping about me to someone? She thought that I was on a shipwreck and – what? That I was raped, or that something God-awful happened to me on the supposed ship that I was on?
"You don't think that the pirates violated her, do you?" the man asked.
Mrs. Ashford, most likely seeing me out of the corner of her eye, turned to look at me. She seemed surprised -- I knew that I wasn't supposed to hear that.
"Christine," she said, flustered. "I thought you were upstairs."
The man looked at me, shocked. He quickly diverted his eyes and looked at Mrs. Ashford, trying to pretend that I wasn't in the room. I was hurt – this man completely ignored me.
"I was," I said, looking at the man. His eyes still remained on Mrs. Ashford. "I just wanted to see if --"
Now was not the time to ask for money, I reminded myself, as I remembered that Mrs. Ashford and this man were under the impression that I was on a shipwreck. I could ask for money for a voyage home, or I could ask for directions to Kingston – she still thought that I had lost my memory, too.
I thought that it was best to keep quiet, though.
"Never mind," I dismissed. "I forgot what I was going to say."
Having "memory loss" came in handy.
A sympathetic look swept over Mrs. Ashford's face. "Oh, dear... come here, love."
I obediently walked to Mrs. Ashford. She pulled me into a sympathetic embrace. I wasn't quite sure what to say. I patted her back in response a few times awkwardly.
"You poor thing," she murmured to me. "You're lost, you have no idea where you are, you're frightened to death..."
She didn't know how close to the truth that she was.
I pulled away and looked her in the eyes. "That's so nice of you to worry, Mrs. Ashford, but, really, I'm fine."
"I don't think that you are, quite yet, Christine," she said. "You don't even remember that your dress was torn! Good gracious, look at how you're exposing yourself!"
I looked down at my legs. All it revealed were my calves. The dress wasn't even torn, I knew that I had bought it hemmed at the knees.
"With all due respect, Mrs. Ashford, my first thought today was not that my dress was ripped at the knees."
I was straining myself by being polite to her. Our personalities blended together as well as fire and gasoline.
"Course, dear," she dismissed.
I was the gasoline, and Mrs. Ashford was the fire. The fire was spreading more quickly on the gasoline, rising, becoming more intense.
"Christine, this is Will Turner," Mrs. Ashford said, directing me to the man.
I met the man's – Will's – brown eyes and forced a smile to the stranger. He smiled back genuinely. I wouldn't have been surprised if his first impression of me was that I wasn't a warm person. I didn't feel like being warm right now.
"Hey," I said.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss..." Will said.
"Werden," Mrs. Ashford piped up, before I could insist that he call me Christine.
"Werden," Will repeated, still looking me in the eye.
Childlikeness flickered into his eyes. He reminded me of a child that was so intrigued by something, but didn't dare do a thing in fear of being punished.
"Dear, you really should be going upstairs," Mrs. Ashford said to me.
I broke away from Will's curious gaze that was beginning to intrigue me – what was he thinking? -- and turned to Mrs. Ashford. I began to feel the fire rising even more between us. Who was she to dismiss me from the room like a child?
"I feel fine," I said simply, holding my ground.
"No, dear," she said, taking my shoulder and walking me towards the living room, casting a glance back at Will. Once we were alone in the living room, she said, "I really think that you should go back upstairs."
I could very well have walked out the front door that minute and never returned. I knew that I had an option to put up with Mrs. Ashford.
I had nowhere to go, though. I was beginning to think that I had gone insane, since my time travel theory made more and more sense as the day had gone on. Going back to my family seemed less and less of a possibility.
A lump constricted my throat at just the thought of that. It didn't help that Mrs. Ashford was already testing my mental stability, intentionally or not.
For the second time that day, her statement was an order.
I took half a step back and locked her gaze with mine. I was pissed – more pissed than I had been in quite a while.
"You're right," I complied, hiding my bitterness. "I should go back upstairs."
I didn't bother looking back at the brewing fire -- I could feel it's heat.
