Samantha Cretney was just about to leave the museum when JB almost gave her a heart attack.

If she had blinked, she would have missed it, this man materializing out of nowhere. One second, she was finishing a seam on a surviving 1880s gown, the next, she was staring at what must be a ghost—though the man looked pretty solid now. He wasn't a scary-looking ghost. In fact, were she not stunned into oblivion, she would have found him rather handsome. He was thin but muscular, with a pointed nose and defined jaw. He had dark chestnut brown hair that flopped to one side just above his eyebrow, and a set of intense green eyes that stared into hers with what appeared to be recognition. But she'd never seen him before.

It should have occurred to her that screaming while alone in the basement of a closed museum wouldn't do her much good, especially if the man truly was a ghost, but she felt the cry of terror rip out of her throat involuntarily. He immediately shrank at the sound and backed away, cautiously, as though trying to reassure a startled deer. The usually dusty scent of the basement suddenly mingled with a hint of licorice.

"Sorry to startle you," he said, sounding almost embarrassed, like he'd caught her at a bad time. To be fair, was there ever a good time to literally appear into thin air in front of a young woman alone in a spooky basement? Still, if he'd wanted to hurt her, he should have done so by now, while she was cowering in the back corner of the room across from him, completely vulnerable.

He wore a pair of basic tan pants and a button-up flannel shirt, but he clearly wasn't from around here. The clothes hung on him like a costume, the way Victorian gowns hung on inexperienced reenactors who weren't used to moving about in so many layers. The average person probably wouldn't have noticed, but to Sam's experienced eyes, something about his gait just didn't look quite right. Slowly, carefully, he crept closer, still crouched low, probably so as not to tower over her.

Sam hugged her knees and peered between the strands of wavy brown hair that now shielded her face. What did he want?

"And this is for sure the best plan?" he asked, pulling what looked like a phone from his pants pocket. He cocked his head at the device, and then nodded, as though a satisfactory answer had appeared on the screen. "If you say so."

She didn't notice any earbuds on him, so it couldn't have been a phone call. Maybe a voice-activated text message conversation? But he wasn't enunciating or talking particularly slowly the way most phones required when translating a voice to text.

She shuddered and thought about all the times in the past when people had called her paranoid. Most people thought Sam was paranoid because she was startled easily and often envisioned worst case scenarios. That's not how Sam saw it. What others called paranoid, she called prepared. Why she constantly felt the need to prepare for murderers or natural disasters was unclear, but seeing as this man was certainly an intruder and quite possibly a murderer, the fears that had plagued her all her life seemed fairly reasonable now. And yet, for all the mental preparations she'd done in the past, she now found herself frozen, mute, helpless.

The longer she watched him, however, the less likely it seemed that he meant her harm. She wasn't about to go shake his hand and welcome him to the Hillside History Museum, but she felt brave enough now to tuck her hair behind her ears to get a better look at the man's odd behavior.

"Samantha," he finally said, and the look of recognition had not left his eyes, though she was certain she'd never seen him in her life. She felt herself shrink back into her corner. "I'm sorry to barge in like this. It was the fastest way to get you to believe what I'm going to say next."

Whatever it was, she was not going to like it. Of that she was certain. "H-how do you know m-my name?" she managed to stutter.

His eyes blazed with even more intensity and he knelt closer, the smell of licorice a bit stronger now.

He took a deep breath and rubbed the bridge of his nose, as if what he was about to tell her would not be easy. "I know your name because I'm from the future. And pretty much everyone in the future knows your name."

She blinked. That was definitely not what she expected. Part of her thought he must be crazy, saying such nonsense, but then…hadn't she just witnessed him emerge out of nowhere, as though from another dimension? If he was crazy, then so was she.

"From the future," she said, "and you know me because in the future everyone knows me?" The words sounded just as ridiculous coming from her mouth.

He shrugged, almost apologetically. "I know," he said. "I know how that sounds. Just bear with me for a bit longer while I explain and then we can talk business."

Then we can talk business? She was, apparently, in possession of something, or some knowledge, that he felt was important. This hardly made sense. What could she—a curator and fashion historian—possibly offer someone who claimed to be able to travel through time and witness history himself?

"Let's go somewhere I can actually show you what I mean," he said, grabbing hold of her hand. His grip was firm, but not violent. Protective was more accurate. "This is going to get strange, but you'll be okay."

She had not given him any inclination that she wanted to follow him, but before she had a chance to even attempt to break free from his grasp, the room started to spin. Slowly, at first, like the rotating stage from when she'd performed in Les Mis, then faster, to the speed of the teacup ride at Disneyland, and even faster until she was certain they were outrunning the speed of light.

Her head throbbed. Her stomach twisted. The lights that appeared in the distance burned her eyes. If he felt as ill as she did, he did a great job of hiding it. He just drifted beside her, still holding tightly to her hand, as they raced toward the lights below.

"Timesickness is very common on your first trip," he said, as though that was somehow supposed to comfort her, "but we're only headed to a time hollow for now. You'll be okay once we land."

Unable to speak, she just gaped at him. Timesickness? The word sounded so dumb, she might have laughed if she weren't terrified. And what was the other word? Time hollow? That was less funny. That just sounded ominous. She swallowed hard and squeezed her eyes shut. Maybe she'd wake up and realize this was all a nightmare.

Yet somehow she knew it wasn't.