It was just past dawn on the prairie, and, like every morning, Amelia prepared to do her chores. Except something about this morning felt different. Maybe it was the first whisper of winter in the air. Or maybe it was the unconscious, handsome man with porcelain skin and curious clothing she was about to discover lying in the field. A man who would open her mind to new possibilities and her body to new feelings.
Amelia was alone that morning, and she was determined to do everything perfectly, just the way her father would. She knew how important these few days were, how much her parents were counting on her. They had taken her little brother and left her alone for the first time ever, the entire farmstead, the log cabin, the livestock all in her care. They had left for their annual trip to Kansas City, to sell the crops that just been harvested and to buy the supplies needed for the rapidly approaching winter.
Coming out of the back of the barn, she saw smoke over the rise. A cry rose in her throat. Not a prairie fire! Even though the crops were all harvested, it would be impossible for Amelia to sound the alarm, save the livestock, and start battling a fire all by herself. She raced over the hill and almost tripped over him, coming down the other side.
He looked so peaceful, as though he was sleeping. He was long and thin, with dark hair and the palest, most beautiful skin she had ever seen. It was even paler than hers, at the end of winter. And certainly paler than it was now, tanned by hours spent working in the sun. Who had such pale skin at the end of harvest? And what was he wearing?
There was some sort of . . . well, it was like a very small train engine . . . behind him, shiny and silver. Smoke was pouring out of a gap in the front, but there did not seem to be any actual fire. Amelia couldn't understand what she was seeing, where this . . . train had come from, even what it was. It made her head spin, and she worried that she, too, might pass out beside the stranger.
The stranger. He looked like a normal person, just like everyone she knew. She would concentrate on him. Amelia looked down at him, wondering how seriously he was injured. She saw nothing obvious. She gently reached out to touch his forehead.
His eyes popped open, and they screamed at each other, the man struggling to sit upright, Amelia struggling to get away.
"Who are you? Where am I?" he yelled, angrily, gripping the front of his unusual red shirt with what appeared to be a spider embroidered on it.
"I should ask you the same! This is my family's property, and you have trespassed here!" Amelia parroted his own tone.
"I'm Cooper, and I am not trespassing!" He looked around him, his head swiveling rapidly side to side. Then he continued, but much softer this time, "But this is not where I intended to be." He looked at his train engine and got up. "Oh, no, no, no! Something has gone wrong!"
He swung back to look at Amelia, who was still sitting on the ground. "The date! What is the date? And where am I?"
Amelia got up and put her hands on her hips. His angry tone had returned, and she was not about to let a stranger, a trespasser, no matter how beautiful his skin was, speak to her that way. "It's November third. You're in Kansas, on my family's farm. My name is Amelia."
"Kansas? What year is this?" He raked his eyes up and down Amelia, and suddenly she felt a blush. There was something about this look. She had never been looked at that way before. "Based on your clothing and hairstyle, I would conjecture the later half of the 19th century. I mean, the 1800s. Perhaps you are not aware of the astronomical year numbering system. Although you should be, as it was in 1740 that the French astronomer Jacques Cassini invented the year zero and -"
"I know what the 19th century means!" Amelia interrupted him. Who did this stranger, this Cooper, think he was, to talk to her like that? On her own farm? "It's 1886. And you have a lot more explaining to do!"
