Chapter 12

"Harry," commented Roger Collins, clasping Harry's hand, "I want to thank you for helping David. Is there any way I can reward you, anything I can give you to illustrate my thanks?"

Harry Johnson hesitated. "Well," he said, "you know, Cary Olivo offered me sort of the same thing. You see—I'm going to be training in culinary arts with Coterie, and I'll need a kitchen to work in. And I was thinking of asking Mrs. Stoddard if I could work here—cook here on the new stove. My mother," Harry pointed out, grimacing, "my mother knows hospital corners on bedsheets and she can clean a room, but God help us—she can't cook. That's why I had to have my bowel resection. The doctors told me that I nearly died from my mother's cooking. So, I'm bound and determined to learn how to cook, and cook really well, you know? Like—become a professional chef." Harry blushed with pride. "So, I wonder, may I cook here at Collinwood as I learn? Uh, you might know that I'm dating Tish Lemon, whose uncle owns Coterie. I've told Tish and her family that I'm really interested in—"

"You can cook?" Roger blurted. "You can? Can you, truly?"

"Oh, hey, I'm a pretty fair chef so far. I've had to learn a little in self-defense," Harry explained. "My mother's cooking, well, it nearly wiped me out. Mrs. Stoddard knows, but don't tell my mother; she has no idea. Ma never studied to be a domestic, anyway. That was never her idea of what she wanted to do with her life."

"What did your mother want to be?" Roger asked, intrigued.

"Oh, ma always spoke about wanting to be an accountant," Harry confided.

"An accountant!" echoed Roger.

"Yes," confirmed Harry. "But I believe that, deep down, she has always wanted to be—a taxidermist," Harry smiled. "Of course, I don't think that that calling has helped her cooking any."

Roger blanched.

"Sure you won't come along? There's room for two in there." Buzz Hackett touched Hallie Stokes on the cheek as they stood in the dumbwaiter room.

Hallie smiled. "I can't," she said. "Not now. You take care of yourself over there and have a good trip, and—don't forget me."

"Jellybean," Buzz vowed with a grin, "I sure won't."

He hesitated, then quickly kissed her cheek.

"Have a happy life," he faltered.

Then Hallie found the courage to step forward and give him a hug.

"You are certain that it will be safe?" Barnabas asked.

Roxanne Drew nodded.

"I'm not entirely sure that I grasp all of what has happened," she murmured to Barnabas and Julia, "but I know I was asleep and that I couldn't waken. I was trapped. I don't know how much time passed. I'm just glad that it's over and that I can return to Claude again."

Roxanne bent her head and made to slip into the dumbwaiter; then she stopped short. She slowly turned back to Barnabas and Julia.

"Why can't I just say what I feel?" she mused aloud, looking from one to the other of them. "I feel like you took care of me," she told Julia, "and that you—" she nodded to Barnabas, "rescued me. And that you did more. That you wept over me." Roxanne colored in embarrassment and the pink flush of her cheeks heightened the beauty of her face and the glimmer of her eyes. "I feel that I owe the two of you so much.

"And—" she stepped close to Barnabas. There was a faint puckering of her brow. They faced one another for a moment, silently.

"You have such a romantic face," Roxanne murmured. "It is as though you are some strange Galahad, from another time and another place, and that you and I have met before. Only, we haven't. I would have remembered you."

Coloring deeply, Roxanne took a demure step backwards.

"Well. Thank you both for helping me. I wish I could convey my feelings a little better, but perhaps I've said enough."

She bent her head once more to the dumbwaiter, then again came away from it. Smiling, she reached for Barnabas' hand. He gave it.

She pressed it softly to her cheek.

"Dr. Hoffman," Roxanne whispered, "take care of this one. He's something extraordinary."

After both Buzz and Roxanne had departed for their separate worlds in the dumbwaiter, Hallie noted a curled piece of paper on the floor. She went and picked it up. She read it, and gasped, then chortled.

"Oh, I don't believe it," she cried, showing the note to Barnabas, Julia and Elliot. The two men were just then in the act of lifting the davenport into the dumbwaiter where it would sit, half in and half out of the carriage, so that it could not be pressed into service by anyone, in this timeline or any other. She waited until the men had staggered back from their task.

"It's the other half of the note David and I had, I think! Where's the first half? Oh, here it is—if—yes, look, they do fit together. Oh, good grief. Here is what the note read in its entirety."

Cross this threshold, which is a passage to a world unknown but long deserved, though

it appear only a dumbwaiter fashioned by the fallible hands of man. It is, under

heaven, the gateway to all that you desire. Deposit your dreams and hopes behind

this little door and you will be afforded that for which your soul has clamored. God

speed your journey, Sarai. You know how and where to reach us if you need. Our

prayers go with you, that you will long celebrate your freedom from cursed slavery in

the new land of Canada, among new friends. Write to us when you have that new life!

Quentin and Lena Collins, your friends, 16 September 1851

"David was right!" Hallie cried. "Oh my gosh. Collinwood was helping slaves escape during the Civil War!"