Parallel [ONC 2020] // Shortlisted

Chapter Four

"There, you look almost normal!" Ricky said. She took a step back and tilted her head towards me.

She may have thought I felt normal, but I felt far from it. Ricky had convinced me to wear a pair of what she called jeans, attire that Mother would have slapped me for wearing, a shirt with sleeves that stopped partway down my upper arm, a pair of lace-up shoes in a colour Mother would have fainted at. I was showing far too much skin and my legs were on display far more than they should have been. Ricky had even forced me to wear something she called a bra, something that supposedly acted like a corset, but I wouldn't know.

"Normal? This is improper! A lady's legs should never be exposed in such a way," I said.

"Maybe for you, but this is pretty normal. The problem is, you still look like Harriet Longdale and it doesn't take a genius to see the similarities between you and the painting in the hall. I have an idea. "

I watched her walk to the other side of the room and dig around in one of drawers. She pulled up a pair of dark rimmed glasses before walking back to me and putting them on my face.

"I don't need glasses; I have perfect vision."

"They're not real, it's just glass. If glasses work for Superman, they can work for you."

"Superman?"

"Forget it." She grinned. "Come on, Mitch will be wondering where we are, and I want to know if he found anything that might be helpful."

Ricky nudged her head towards the door, and I stood rooted to the spot. I didn't want to step out of the room, not in the clothes I wore. The entire outfit was improper and not something I wanted other people to see me in, even if it were a different time. Mother had made it certain that I knew all there was to know about etiquette and the correct way to handle myself in public and this went against everything she had taught me.

Although she may not be around in this time, I would not let her down and throw away all the values she had taught me.

The longer I remained standing in the room, the more annoyed Ricky became. She raised an eyebrow at me before crossing the room back to me and grabbed my arm, dragging me out of the room and back down the stairs. Ricky had an iron grip and nothing I did could shake her off me, it felt as though she would pull my arm off if she tugged any harder. She dragged me back down the stairs and towards the drawing-room.

Mitch had seated himself in the far corner of the room at one of the larger tables. He had books spread open around him and appeared to be tapping away at some small, rectangular device that made the strangest noises. It lit up his entire face as though he were holding a candle under his chin. Ricky pulled me over to him and forced into a chair at the table.

"Ah, there you are." He looked at me. "Not sure about the glasses, but you blend in a lot better. If we see anyone, they won't suspect a thing."

"Did you find anything?" Ricky asked, throwing herself down on the other chair.

"Not really. There's what we already know about Harriet Longdale in 1882, her disappearance on the night of a planned theatre trip was put down to an elopement with a gardener and nothing was heard after that."

"It's complete nonsense, I have never spoken to the gardener, let alone planned an elopement with one."

"The gardener left around the same time, so it's probably an excuse."

"Anything on ghosts?" Ricky cut in.

"Nothing of interest. There is a theory I found called Stone tape. It's basically this idea that buildings retain past events and then play them back like a recording. It's the closest thing I have to the idea of timelines running parallel to each other."

Ricky groaned and slammed her back against the chair. It looked as though she expected far more from his search then she got. I don't know what she expected, the entire thing seemed crazy regardless of which century a person came from. Ghosts, parallel timelines, none of it made any sense and yet I appeared to be living in it. Living in a scenario that seemed improbable even in a story book. The idea of being able to rectify something that seemed illogical made no sense.

Even though Mitch's original search appeared to reveal nothing that may have helped us in finding out how I could get back home, Ricky seemed to be determined. She grabbed the rectangular object from Mitch and started to tap violently at a series of letters, I couldn't see what she was doing, but it looked rather odd. The longer she typed, the more infuriated she became.

With no knowledge on what the two of them were talking about or any way to help them, I pushed myself up from the chair and walked back out into the hallway. Mitch followed me. I walked a little further down the hallway, taking note of all the paintings that had been hung up. Most of them were of our family, including one painted on Father's birthday just two months before I ended up somewhere else. The last painting, I had never seen before, and yet it was of me.

"Your brother Luke had that commissioned in 1897, he said it was to be you as he remembered since you disappeared when he was only ten. Do you remember that day?"

The painting was of me sitting at my desk. It was a still image of the conversation we had had that morning, when he had asked me about ghosts.

"Yes. In my mind, it took place only a few hours ago. Luke had been barred from going to the theatre, but he didn't want to stay here alone because he believed the house to be haunted. He said he had heard noises in the night."

"It must have meant a lot to him, if he had it painted."

"Perhaps, either that or it is because it's the last image he had of me before I seemingly disappeared from my own time."

"Were you close? You and Luke?"

"Not really. He was a pain from the moment he learned to walk, but if we can't figure out how I'm supposed to get home, I wish I knew him better."

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A/N - We're back! Let me guys know what you think of the chapter! Also, you are not ready for what I have planned. Not ready at all.