Sunset bled into twilight, and still Sam saw no clearing in the dense forest; the impassive evergreens harbored their secrets, indifferent to whatever travelers strayed too far into their realm.
Tony tugged her forward, but she tightened her grip on his leash and stood firm in the middle of the leafy path. "Tony," she said, and the black lab turned around and cocked his head. "Tony, we're lost." Admitting it out loud somehow triggered alarm bells inside her. Her breath accelerated to a panicky staccato. "I can't believe I didn't charge my phone before this." For a minute, it looked like Tony understood what she was saying, but he soon dropped his snout back to the ground and sniffed under a jutting tree root.
They had to find a way out of the forest before the light faded completely. There had been signs all around the park entrance warning visitors about the cougars that hunted in this area at night. She usually carried pepper spray on her walks in Ohio, but couldn't bring it beyond the Canadian border, so she left it at home. Victoria was supposed to be a safe city and she was only staying for a year so she could complete her internship at the museum downtown as part of her masters degree. She'd been sure she could get a new bottle of pepper spray if she needed it—until she learned it was illegal to carry in Canada without a license.
Why had she let Tony lead her so far from the main path? She didn't even like hiking. Would anyone find her body here amidst the damp ferns and pine needles?
They had to get out.
A faint memory about trees and being lost in the woods flashed in her mind—moss grew facing north, right? A quick glance at the tree trunks told her that information would be of no use. Every tree was wrapped in velvety green. Besides, she realized, how would it help to know which way north was if she didn't even know what direction she was supposed to be headed?
"Ughhhhhh!" She was such an idiot. She was going to die out here in the middle of a foreign country all because she was too stupid to bring a portable phone charger or figure out basic geography.
Suddenly, Tony's head jolted up from the ground and he stood erect. His tail stuck straight up and started twitching, his weight shifted forward toward something in the bushes ahead. A chill slid down Sam's back as his ears flattened backward and he released a low growl.
"T-tony…?"
Tony growled again, louder, this time. Sam shrieked and felt the leash slip from her fingers. Inside the bushes, something growled back and she glimpsed a pair of flashing eyes. A voice in her head screamed, COUGAR!
And then she was racing away, numb to everything but the crunch of leaves under her feet and the pounding in her chest. She let her feet carry her down a hill, past a stream, through acres of seemingly endless trees until finally, she reached a familiar rock shaped like a rhino.
"YES!" she panted. That meant the park entrance was just— "Just around the corner!" And within seconds she was there, right at the edge of the forest beside a wooden outhouse and a little cabin across the street with a sign that said Informationand another one below it that said, Dogs must be on a leashand…
She skidded to a halt, realizing what she had done. "TONY!"
A man in a park ranger uniform stepped out of the cabin at the sound of her cry.
"Everything okay, Miss?" he asked.
"No! My dog…cougar…Please!" She was right in front of him now, tugging on his sleeves like a maniac. "PLEASE!"
"Slow down," he said in what he must have thought was a soothing voice. To Sam, it just sounded condescending. "Cougars don't usually get near humans if they can help it. Are you sure that's what you saw?"
"Yes…I mean…" Had she seen a cougar? She'd hardly gotten a good look at whatever the thing was in the bushes before she bolted. "Maybe it wasn't a cougar, but it was something. Please, my dog is still out there!"
The ranger nodded and reached for his walkie-talkie. "I'm going to check something out," he said into the radio. "There's a young lady here who looks pretty spooked."
She hated how he said "spooked," like she was overreacting. She wanted to smack the stupid mustache off his face and tell him to hurry the hell up.
When they finally found the spot where Sam had seen the thing in the bushes, the path was deserted. No cougar. No Tony.
"Are you sure this is where you were?" the ranger asked in that same infuriating tone. "You did say you were lost, right?"
"I remember this spot," she insisted. "I saw its eyes right there!" she pointed at the bush.
The ranger knelt down and peered into the bush. Slowly, he stuck his hand inside. When he pulled it out, he examined something on his fingers. "You may be right," he said, still staring at his hand. "This looks like cougar fur."
Dread burned a hole in Sam's stomach. Where was Tony?
...
"TONY!"
Something shook her awake and she found herself lying in bed with her throat burning from the scream.
"Sam, look at me." JB's face was barely visible in the candlelight, but she recognized its familiar contours. He was sitting on the bed beside her with a handkerchief, which he used to dab the sweat off her forehead. She realized she was drenched and still shaking. "Bad dream?" he asked gently.
She nodded, though it wasn't a dream—it was a memory, one she'd tried to suppress ever since the day it happened. Of course, she couldn't stop it from creeping into her dreams to remind her what a worthless coward she was, running off when Tony—the creature she loved most in the entire world—had stayed behind to protect her. No one had ever found him, not even a body. She always told herself that meant he might have just run away…met a cute wolf out in those woods, fell in love, raised a litter of puppies…It was stupid and childish to hold onto such a fantasy, but it was how she lived with herself.
JB set the handkerchief aside and placed a hand on top of hers. "Just breathe," he murmured. "You're okay."
She shut her eyes and exhaled.
"Do you remember anything from the last hour?" JB asked after a moment. "Do you remember the dance?"
The dance. Yes, of course she remembered. She'd shown up with Sarah at around eight, they met up with Mary and her friends, then she went down to the first floor with JB to watch the dancing and then…and then what? Vague flashes bobbed to the surface of her memory: a glass of wine…the smell of licorice…soft hair…lying down with her cheek pressed against…Oh, god. "What happened?" she asked cautiously.
"I think someone tried to drug you," said JB. "You had one sip of wine and then you started stumbling and slurring words and I ended up having to carry you out."
"Oh." She felt a twinge of disappointment, but then the urgency of the situation dawned on her. "Wait, you think someone drugged me?"
"I can't think of another explanation. You only had one sip."
Something else occurred to her. "How loopy was I? Did I do anything embarrassing?"
"…No. Not that anyone else saw, at least."
Great. That meant he'd seen it.
"You did mention someone named Tony," he added. "Then just now you woke up screaming the same name. Who's Tony?"
"Nobody," she said, probably too quickly.
He raised an eyebrow, but didn't press her. Instead, he asked, "Did Mary say anything about where she got the wine?"
Sam shook her head. "No, just that I should try it."
"Any idea why she'd try to drug you?"
"What?" He couldn't possibly think Mary was behind this. "She wouldn't. I only met her last week, what reason could she have?"
JB looked unconvinced. "Didn't you say you recognized her name?"
"Yeah, but I must have been wrong. I mean, wouldn't you recognize it too if she was famous or something?"
"Not necessarily,' said JB. He furrowed his brow. "We're in damaged time, remember? Anything's possible."
Sam closed her eyes and scoured her memory for anything related to the name Mary Ashford. Green tea with lemon…jazz music…the screen of her laptop… "I think…I think I read about her in college, when I was studying at the campus coffee shop…Can I see the elucidator?"
JB shrugged and fished the thimble out of his pocket. "Not sure it will help much. This time period is still blocked from view."
Sam waved away his comment and took the thimble. "I can still see what twenty-first century Google has to say about it—Voice commands, please. I'd like to Google something. Twenty-first century style, none of that fancy future Google stuff."
JB chuckled.
Tiny letters flashed around the thimble: PLEASE PROVIDE A KEYWORD OR PHRASE.
"Mary Ashford…um…1817, Birmingham." At her request, the elucidator morphed into the shape of an iphone and the screen revealed several hits. But she only needed to see the title of the first hit to understand why she remembered Mary. Her heart dropped into her stomach. "No…no no no no."
"What? What does it say?"
"We need to find Mary." Sam bolted upright, but the room started to spin. Curse that stupid wine, or whatever it was.
"I'll go," said JB. "Tell me what's going on."
Her tongue suddenly felt too wet, like she was about to throw up. She gulped. "Mary Ashford was part of the carbon copy murders."
JB's eyes bugged out slightly. "What?"
Sam nodded shakily. "I was in college when I heard a podcast about this and went down a rabbit hole researching the case after class. There were two murders—Mary Ashford and Barbara Forrest. Both in Erdington, both on Whit Monday, both after a party. They were the same age, had the same birthday, and their bodies were even found in the same area the next day. But Barbara was killed in the seventies, so it couldn't be the same killer unless…"
"…unless he was a time traveler," JB finished. He hurried about the room, snatching his coat and boots as he spoke. "That would explain why I don't recognize her name—the murders weren't supposed to happen in original history."
"What time is it?" Sam asked, scrolling through the online articles about Mary's death. "It says she was last seen alive at her friend Hannah's a little after four in the morning."
JB stretched out his hand. "Toss me the elucidator."
Sam obeyed, and he caught it just as it transformed back into a thimble. "Elucidator, what time is it?" The thimble blinked and JB winced. "It's four right now."
"Is that enough time?"
"It will have to be," said JB. And then he was out the door.