“Nothing, John, just making a small investment in our future.”
J.B. cocked his head, then nodded. “Sounds good.”
Mildred kissed him on the cheek. “Doesn’t it, though?”
Epilogue
“Heavens, sir, are you hurt?”
At the sound of the query, Dr. Silas Jamaisvous, or, rather, Torrence Silas Burr, as he’d been known in a previous life a long time ago, opened his cold pale eyes. Above him was a woman in her late twenties with a delicate heart-shaped face dressed in period clothing of what he associated with being late Victorian. She looked concerned, almost frantic, about the status of his well-being.
Jamaisvous didn’t recognize the woman, so his first thought of being awakened from a lengthy bad dream was probably incorrect, although up until this instant of hearing the new voice, he’d been under the impression of plummeting downward from a great height with no visible sign of ground below. Since he’d been having the same nightmare of falling since he was a young boy, he’d assumed he was indeed sleeping.
But who was the woman?
The line of thought was doubly rammed home by the fact he was resting on a hard surface, not a mattress, and he could look down his prone body and see a slightly scuffed pair of black dress shoes, and for all his eccentricities, Jamaisvous wasn’t inclined to wear shoes to bed.
He turned his attention back to the lady in the old-style dress standing over him. A gingham bonnet was tied tightly over her auburn hair, but a few wisps had escaped from the top and dangled coquettishly over her creamy white forehead. She looked so worried, so fragile, that Jamaisvous had to stop himself from reaching up and tucking the stray hairs back where they belonged…while offering up his own words of reassurance that everything would be all right.
“Can you hear me?” she asked. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” he said from his supine position. “I fell, I think.”
She shook her head in a manner indicating she knew exactly what he was talking about, which was good, for Jamaisvous was still attempting to find his footing-at least, in a figurative manner. He was glad she hadn’t expressed any curiosity over how a man fell and ended up prostrate on his back. Until the queasy sensation in his stomach went away, he was quite content to remain flat on his back until he had to try to move his inclined body.
“This lot is a hazard,” the woman scolded, her eyes raking over the empty area in which Jamaisvous was resting. “Fencing should be put hi place if construction is going to be continually delayed, else children and adults alike shall continue to use it as the quickest route between two points!”
Jamaisvous merely listened to the tirade and took in a breath of oxygen, feeling the cool of the dusky air flow agreeably into his lungs. The air tasted good and clean, but there was no hint of salt, which even if his own eyes hadn’t provided a series of essential clues, told him he was by no means still in Puerto Rico.
“Of course, I’d expect to find children playing their games here as opposed to a man dressed in the formal attire of a scientist, although I must say I am not familiar with the cut of ascot around your neck,” the woman continued as she fetched a swallow’s-eye blue kerchief from the sleeve of her dress. “Your nose is bleeding. Here, press this against your left nostril. If any blood gets on that white lab coat you will never be able to wash it out.”
Jamaisvous took the proffered piece of cloth and wiped his nose, bringing back a bright smattering of blood. He then stuck out his tongue, running it along the exterior of his upper lip. The blood he tasted was indeed fresh.
“My ascot…?” he asked, finally comprehending the first half of the woman’s statement.
“Around your neck,” she said, and mimed tying a bow around her own graceful throat.
“Oh! My tie. Um, yes. New fashion. From Europe,” he said dryly.
“Ah, that explains it!” she replied brightly, kneeling and offering a hand to help raise and support the bleeding Jamaisvous.