"Ai-yi-yi-yieeee!" Janet was hollering, and Trevor tried to stifle a laugh, but it was hard.
"Is it the pain or the cold that's worse?" He asked gingerly packing more snow around her damaged ankle.
"YES," she yelped.
"I'm sorry, Babe, but if we're gonna get the swelling down, you've gotta do this." He finished the job and looked up to her still grimacing face. "Wow, you're even beautiful when you're in agony."
"Thanks."
"Where'd your little diary go? Maybe the next chapter of the Priscilla and Algie Chronicles will take your mind off your troubles."
'Or maybe not,' she thought to herself. She'd begun to notice something quite familiar in the tale. She read on:
THE WINDS have begun to blow a little colder around here lately, but I must admit, there are times when I don't feel the chill at all. Algernon and I have found a rather pleasant meeting place just outside of town, in a deserted sod house near Bloom Creek. I can usually find an hour or two a week to slip away, when Tommy and Anna are at school. It's only a short time, but it's time I find myself looking terribly forward to all week long.
"A sod house, huh? That's one desperate couple," Trevor laughed.
"No, not desperate... I'd say romantic."
"Oh, so you think it's ROMANTIC!" he looked at her skeptically. "I wasn't sure you had a romantic bone in your body for anything these days but Axel boy." Suddenly, before Janet could protest that statement, he'd snatched the diary away from her. "Let's see what's in this thing that makes you all dopey eyed..."
"Hey! I wasn't done reading!"
Trevor picked up where she left off:
AT THIS POINT, I fear sharing my tale anyplace but here would be ill advised. While it's true that the pain he brought to my sister Adrianna is years and years gone by now... I'm afraid some people just aren't able to forgive him. Oh, if they could only see what I see!
"What did he do to her sister?" said Trevor, still studying the book.
"I don't know yet. Be careful Trevor, that thing's really fragile..."
He went on reading:
ANOTHER SOUL in town speaks his name in dread is my cousin Charles. One day, as Algernon was helping me down Main Street with my dry goods for the week, Charles nearly went into hysterics. 'That man is not fit to walk the back roads at 2 am, let alone Main Street in broad daylight!' he said to his co-workers gathered in front of the tailor shop. It's more than I can bear sometimes, this weight from the past that doesn't seem to go away.
"Looks like we're dealing with a real town pariah, huh?" Trevor said softly as he started realizing some of the eerie coincidences himself.
"Can I have it back now?"
"Let me finish this..."
REGARDLESS OF HOW glad everyone might be to have me protected from what I know -- they look at what Algernon did THEN, not what he's done NOW to get his life turned around. It's simply not right.
Finally, Trevor knelt down at her feet again and handed it back over. "How's your ankle?" he said, letting his fingers mingle with hers momentarily.
"Numb."
"How about the rest of you?"
"Not so numb."
"Why don't you read us more of the diary. You need to keep your foot like this a few more minutes anyway." His eyes twinkled thoughtfully at her, and she couldn't pull her gaze away. "Go ahead, Toots, eyeballs on the book there... c'mon. Maybe she'll tell us more about this weight from the past."
Janet blinked, looked down again, and read:
BY NOW I SUPPOSE anyone reading this would have many questions for me. 'What did Algernon do that was so bad?' 'How did he get better?' 'Why is he there right now?'
They both laughed aloud. "Did you read ahead?" Janet said.
"No way! I guess I just know how the story goes." Trevor went from kneeling to sitting on the floor alongside her, and she went on:
I'D ASK THEM myself if I wasn't already painfully aware of the answers. In what seems like another life now, Algernon was what they call a mercenary, someone hired to kill others.
Another sidelong look went between Janet and Trevor.
HE WAS A despicable human being, and he'd be the first to tell you that. Unfortunately, it was just as he was leaving that life behind that he met my older sister, Adrianna. My father was running for Governor when she and Algernon began an illicit romance that left her with child shortly after father was inaugurated. Part of her burden was that Algernon chose to leave her when he heard the news.
RUNNING FROM his troubles with Adrianna changed his life. Slowly he worked himself away from the world he had known, with the intent of returning here a new man and taking on his responsibilities. But by the time he'd returned, Adrianna -- and their child -- were gone. Father had them sent away to prevent scandal. I've never forgiven father for this.
AND THE REST is legend, I suppose. I found myself in the wrong place at the wrong time so my father saw me as another daughter in another sort of danger. Ironically, Algernon was the only man fearless enough for the job. It's not a fairy tale, but it's the only story I have.
"Well," Trevor said after a moment, "it's not exactly the same. Sure, there's an ex-mercenary..."
"And a sister. And a child..."
"And a wrong-doer who changes their ways...."
Janet said, "And someone who loves her in spite of the past..." A sly grin came to Trevor's face at Janet's slip-up. "Who loves HIM, I mean."
"When did you say this was written?"
She checked it again. "1897."
"And when was that first kiss she talked about earlier?"
She flipped through the pages. "July. July 1897."
"A hundred years to the month," he realized. One hundred years to the month of Janet and Trevor's first kiss.
"Wow!" they said simultaneously. Janet continued to read as Trevor sat opposite her, carefully changing the dressing on her ankle after it had been "snowed" down.
THERE'S BEEN GOOD and bad of late. The good is that Algernon and I have grown closer with each week that he stays, watching over me as he's supposed to do. It is not the sort of thing that you'd fancy to work, and yet we have managed to spend some truly heavenly times together.
THE BAD BRINGS me back to my cousin Charles. I'm not sure what he THINKS he knows, but one thing is certain: he is determined to wreak havoc for Algernon, if not myself. He speaks to my father quite often these days, saying things like 'Surely there is another man who can protect Prissy as well as this... creature?' and 'If it takes our finding and killing those thieves ourselves, I say we stay out and get the job done already.' Heartless cretin... forgive me, I know he is my blood relative and he does this for Adrianna, but I still feel the same.
"Go Priscilla go!" Trevor cheered her on.
ALGERNON, ON THE other hand, has been most diplomatic about the situation. He is much more understanding towards Charles and his feelings, but at the same time he seems determined to prove his transformation is real. Sometimes I wonder if it is worth so much effort on his part... but then again, I suppose I will never know quite what it is to walk in his shoes."
Janet fell silent and kept her head down, as the words hit oh-so-close to home. Soon Trevor's hands reached for hers. "Sounds like I should be the one reading this, don't you think?" He gently took the diary from her hands and continued:
NOVEMBER 29... It is with an enormously confused heart that I write tonight. For it seems that Charles might get his wish soon, and it seems that it is up to me to decide whether he does or not. You see, Charles began a mission a few weeks ago to search high and low for the 'Den of Thieves' that I've been protected from for months. Not because he cares that much to see justice served on them... but on Algernon.
Well, it proved successful. I'm told all 5 outlaws have been captured somehow. I'm to identify them tomorrow. If they are the men I remember seeing all too well last winter, and I say so...t hen Algernon's services will no longer be required."
"Oh no!" Janet cried. Trevor looked up, smiling when he saw she was fine, just reacting to the story. He went on:
THERE'S MORE, THOUGH. As soon as I suggested to Algernon that perhaps this was a sign that we share our beautiful alliance with the rest of the town, I could see him retreating from me. That can never happen, he told me. I reminded him of our dilemma... and wondered how he could manage to stay in town when he could no longer earn a wage. He wouldn't even look at me, he was so distraught.
It has occurred to me to change my story; to say there were 7 men I saw that fateful night, not 5. Perhaps then they'd have to keep Algernon at my side after all. But Algernon has refused this notion, saying he will not let me turn to a dishonest life because of him.
And so my confusion grows. If I tell the truth, I may lose him forever. Why would it be so wrong to tell everyone we are meant to be? For all the darkness in his past... what could he possibly be keeping from me now?
Trevor looked straight at her on that line, saying it quite truly from his heart.
"It doesn't really say that," Janet challenged.
He held the book out to her. "Does too."
"Oh." She took the book back.
"Ready to read on?"
She bit her lip and took a breath, ready to say yes, but at the last moment, she changed her response. "There's no Axel," she said instead.