A terrible thought seized him—what if the princess found the secret pin and opened the locket? She might think the photographs were some sort of magic. It would be dangerous for him and dangerous for the princess. The witch talk might start up again. He could just imagine Princess Mary brewing that cauldron of lies. It was witch rumors that had cost Anne Boleyn her head, with a bit of help from the king. Nicholas had made Rosemary promise to take the pictures out of the locket before she left that last time, in case they were discovered. She had agreed and told him that he too must destroy the other pictures she had brought to show him of their daughter, even though he kept them safe in his locked box where he stored precious metals for his work. However, he couldn’t destroy them—it would be too hard. And when Rosemary left and did not come back, he was glad he had not destroyed the pictures. But why had she never come back, and how had she managed to leave the locket behind? She wore the locket always. How long had it been since she’d left? Seven years? Eight? Rose must be nearing thirteen, for she was a couple of years older than Elizabeth. Princess Elizabeth was not yet three when her mother was beheaded. And now she was almost a young woman herself. But the witch talk had started when she was just months old.

  Nicholas Oliver had tried to reconstruct the timeline of the events before Rosemary had left for good. Anne Boleyn had been crowned queen in May of 1533. The baby princess had been born in September of 1533. The former queen, Catherine of Aragon, had already been banished to an obscure palace. She was to be moved again, and this time her daughter, Princess Mary, had been attending her. But unbeknownst to either of them, Mary was to be dropped off at Hatfield to help tend the newborn Princess Elizabeth. The humiliations devised by Anne Boleyn were unending.

  Rosemary had served in the royal household for some time. Perhaps five years. She had begun in the confectionery making sweetmeats—candied fruits, decorative treats and delicacies. It was a small kitchen that was one of several connected with the main kitchen. Her handiwork was exquisite, and she soon was moved to the wardrobe, where she worked on the delicate stitching required for Anne Boleyn’s extravagant gowns. Queen Anne insisted that stitchers for the drab previous queen had no idea how to work a fine fabric with gold thread. “It looks as if it’s been gnawed by a goat,” she had declared. And thus Rosemary was sent for.

  “She’s quite impossible!” Rosemary had fumed once to Nicholas. “But hey, I’m a Realtor. I deal with impossible clients all the time.”

  By that time, of course, Rose had been born in that other world of the unimaginable twenty-first century, on the distant continent of America. She was a toddler back in Haverford, Pennsylvania. Rosemary had hired a nanny for little Rose because of her busy real estate business.

  A “Realtor” was what Rosemary’s profession was called, one who sold homes. It was hard for Nicholas to imagine a vocation like this—a woman actually working not as a servant—but apparently the money was quite good. Of course, in that odd way in which time tangled for such travelers as Rosemary, when she was gone from him it might be weeks in her world when only a few minutes had elapsed in his. But then one time the minutes stretched to hours, and the hours to days, then months and years. Nicholas knew she was gone for good.

  They had not planned on conceiving a child. But she had. They were both thrilled, of course, though there was no way that she would have dared bring a child into his world. However, she kept him apprised of all the major events. When little Rose began to crawl, then walk, make her first scribblings, she had documented it all with this strange device, the camera. She even brought him one of the first pictures Rose had drawn of a person. Just the head, of course, with a big wobbly smile and a scribble of hair on top. Rosemary had written “Mama” across the top. He had tucked it away in his safe with the other mementos—more pictures of Rose. Rose on her first day of school. Rose ice-skating. Rose on her bike. He’d never seen such a contraption as a bike before. Rose in something called her Brownie uniform, and then her Girl Scout one. Rose midplunge from a rope swing over a pond. He could almost hear her scream of delight. How odd things were in that distant twenty-first century. But Rosemary helped him imagine it. He also imagined that the reason that Rosemary had never returned was that she had met someone in her own time and fallen in love. Although she swore she never would. He only hoped he was a good man who would take care of and love his little Rose, the daughter he had never met.

  The image of that gold rose locket suspended from the neck of Princess Elizabeth flared in his mind again. Rosemary certainly would have taken it with her when she left. She felt it had a power through which she could control her visits. Her comings and goings. He thought it was nonsense. He asked her how she had first come to his world, and the conversation came back to him now.

  All I can remember, Nicholas, is that I was working in my garden. I was transplanting a damask rose. They’re delicate. You have to be careful. The soil temperature has to be right. Perfect if there’s a warm, gentle rain falling. This rose came from a cutting of a very old one my mother had that she gave me. I planted it at midnight—an old gardener’s trick. Midnight on a full moon. I just remember the silver light of the moon shining down on my shoulders, and then suddenly I was no longer at 35 Ashbury Lane. I was at Richmond Palace. Elizabeth hadn’t been born. Queen Catherine of Aragon and the king were in their rose garden and I could hear them quarreling fiercely.

  And then you met me, Nicholas had replied.

  Yes, and then I met you. We fell in love, but I still often had trouble controlling my time travels. I couldn’t just come and go as I pleased. But once you made me the rose locket, it all became so much easier.

  But now the rose no longer hung hidden beneath the bodice of his beloved but swung brazenly from the princess’s neck, the Lion’s Cub, Elizabeth. How had that happened? He felt a rage begin to simmer within him.

  Franny was no more at ease than Nicholas had been three days before, but she was jittery for a somewhat different reason. When the gentleman had come striding toward her, she had stopped in her tracks with the milk pail. She could hardly believe her eyes. It was the man whose picture she had seen in the locket! He approached her directly. “Child, can you direct me to the palace cofferer, Master Parry?” She could hardly speak and simply stared at him. He bent over a bit. His face filled with concern. “Did you hear me, child? Are you deaf?” he asked gently.

  “No, no, sir. I believe Master Parry’s round the other side of the stables. He’s traveling with the royal princess to Greenwich.”

  “Thank you, child.” He slapped a farthing into her hand and rushed in the direction she had told him. Franny stood fixed to the spot, as if her work clogs had been bolted to the ground. “I can’t believe it!” she murmured. “It’s him! And he looks so much like Rose.”

  She had tried and tried to write a letter to Rose.

  Dear Rose,

  Something very strange happened today. I seen a man . . .

  The man . . . But she always paused at this point. She knew what she wanted to say, but she was actually almost frightened to write the words: “The man whose picture is in the locket.” It seemed dangerous to even mention the locket. She wasn’t sure why, but the locket was part of a deep secret. She recalled those moments after she first met Rose. She had begun to wonder if Rose was like some of what she and her family called the Others. The Others were just like her own family, except for the fact that they all had eventually disappeared. It was a dangerous thought to even have. Her mum and father would be angry. It was their secret. It must never be found out. And if she told Rose that she had seen her father . . . She could not complete the thought. It was just too frightening.

  It was Franny, of course, who had urged Rose not to worry about the locket but to find her father. Her own words clanged in her head like the sound of the loudest church bells. Why not try to find him— your father? The real man, not just the picture in the locket. . . . Anything’s possible, Rose.

  Well, she’d found the real man for Rose. Or rather, he’d found her. And now she was frightened. She’d asked Andrew about him and he’d told her the man’s name was Nicholas Oliver and that he was the king’s goldsmith. He was not certain where the man lived. So many times Franny had tried to write this letter. But she could never get the words exactly right. And she worried that if Rose did find her father, she might leave, leave like those others before her. Her mum had warned her to be careful about making friends with the wrong people, people like themselves. “Such attachments can’t last, Franny. Simply too dangerous.” But then just four days before Rose left for Greenwich, she had said something. She had whispered it to Franny. “Every time I see the princess and that locket, it still makes me mad. I don’t think she’s discovered the pin that unlocks it yet. I hate to think of her looking at those pictures of . . . of . . . of my father . . .”

  Now Franny would be brought to Greenwich. She had been sent for by the Gentleman Usher, Master Cornwallis, the head of the Hatfield staff. A scullery girl was needed. So Franny would now be able to tell Rose in person. It would be better than sending a letter, as there were always spies about. A letter could be stolen. There were already rumors about the spies of Princess Mary. Jane the Bald was said to be one. Really odd. Wasn’t that what Rose had said about her in the letter? She smiled when she thought of Rose’s letter, knowing she would see her again soon.

  Chapter 26

  The Marks of September

  Dear Diary,

  First things first: sitting on my desk, in front of my very own eyes, are the shoes of Jane the Bald! And tomorrow I am going to take them to Berks Dry Cleaner’s and see what they can do. They are stained with egg yolk from September 10, 1544. That was the date of my most recent visit to England. When I got back and carefully made my way around the shattered glass of the greenhouse, it was still October 31. I hadn’t looked at the clock when I left, but I think it was around 9:30 when I got back after trick-or-treating. As soon as I was back, I ran upstairs to Shirley’s room and told her about the broken window.

  But the point here is that I was gone to Greenwich for about three minutes tops tonight. The first time I was at Greenwich, when I met the prince, I was whisked back here for a few days, yet nobody from that old world seemed to miss me at all.

  My question now is, how can I control my comings and goings? I am at time’s whimsy. I feel as if I am like a ball of yarn a cat might play with—but not September! I trust her. She is the least whimsical creature I know. What was the word Mom always used? “Capricious.” Mercurial, capricious. My mother’s vocabulary seems to have been enriched by crazy people buying and selling houses.

  Rose sighed and closed the diary, her eyes shut tight. Would she ever stop missing her mom? Did she want to stop missing her mom? She had better get some sleep. Tomorrow was a math test. Undoubtedly there would be some geometry on it. Her conversation with the Princess Elizabeth drifted back to her.

  “Isosceles triangle, perhaps?”

  “Two equal sides.”

  “An equilateral triangle?”

  “All sides equal.”

  Soon she was fast asleep.

  “Well, that’s a miserable, rotten trick.” Rosalinda’s voice scalded the air the next morning as Rose entered the sunroom, or as her gran called it, the “conservatory,” where breakfast was served. It was a circular, pleasant room with tin-lined troughs for plants beneath every windowsill. This was where her grandmother proudly displayed her favorites from the greenhouse when they were in full bloom. The air now swirled with the summer scent of sweet peas. Gran took enormous delight in these “tricks” of the season as she called them. The troughs were spilling with the delicate little blossoms in summer colors of pale pink, lavender, and white. Rosalinda smiled sweetly toward an especially robust explosion in one trough as the sun streamed through the arched window.

  “Pastels! Such a relief. Far too much orange this time of year. By the way, is Calvin able to fix the broken glass?”

  “Oh yes,” Shirley said as she came in with a plate of scrambled eggs. “He came early this morning, but I was telling Mrs. A, Rose, how you and I did the temporary fix with the cardboard.”

  “Well, that could have been dangerous,” Rosalinda murmured somewhat breathlessly. “You could have cut yourself.” The old lady seemed to struggle slightly for a breath. “In my day, children who indulged in mischief on Halloween merely soaped windows.”

  “And in mine it was shaving cream,” Shirley offered.

  “Harmless fun stuff,” Rosalinda said. She turned sharply toward her granddaughter. Rose felt her gaze settle on her. “No mean girls at your school who might be bullying you, are there? Bullies are everywhere, you know, through every age in time and place.”

  “Oh no, no, Gran.” She crossed her fingers under the table, thinking of the Mean Queens, that wicked Trio of Doom. “Everyone’s been very nice to me.”

  “Any clues at all as to who might have done this?” Shirley asked. Rose shook her head. Another lie. There were clues all over the place. She’d spotted them when she took dustpan after dustpan of shattered glass to the back-alley trash cans. The first clue was a sprinkling of glitter on the pavement in the alley. You-know-who’s calling card. Then there were the smashed Disney Princess masks. But she would say nothing.

  When Rose arrived at school, most of the kids were still outside and had sorted themselves into their usual clumps of friends. She saw Lisa, Brianna, and Carrie in their huddle, a very tight huddle at that. Their backs were turned on the rest of the schoolyard. Some wannabe sixth-grade Mean Queens, the remoras, were circling but keeping a wary distance. Sibby was trying to get Brianna’s attention.

  Rose headed toward her three buddies, who were with a couple of other kids, including Susan. “Have you seen them?” Joe tipped his head toward where Carrie, Lisa, and Brianna huddled.

  “Well, yeah. Not that they ever talk to me.”

  “No, I mean up close. Their faces.”

  “What about their faces? That thornbush?” Rose asked.

  “Worse than that,” Anand said.

  “What?”

  “Claw marks. Lisa looks like she tangled with a tiger,” Myles replied.

  Rose blinked. More like a cat, she thought. September! My feline in shining fur.

  At that moment the three turned toward her. She felt as if she were caught in the crosshairs of a rifle. There was an angry-looking scratch that ran diagonally across Lisa’s face.

  “Oh dear!” But the words came from Susan, not Rose. Rose felt only a surge of anger. She turned away.

  Joe stepped closer and whispered to her and Susan almost conspiratorially. “The good news is that I made the cut for the Snow Show.”

  “The ice skating show?” Rose asked.

  “That’s great, Joe,” Susan said, but his face turned serious.

  “But there’s bad news too . . .”

  “What could be bad news?” Rose asked.

  “Brianna did too.”

  “But still, Joe. I bet you’ll beat her.” Susan stammered a bit and blushed furiously. “I . . . I . . . I mean, I saw you do that double axel when I was at the rink last week. You were great.”

  “Thanks, Susan, but we both have to do a final audition for the lead.”

  “But wouldn’t the lead have to be either a boy or a girl?” Rose asked.

  “Gender neutral.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The choreography is the same. If it’s a boy, he’s a prince. If it’s a girl, she’s a princess. It’s an adaptation of the story of Saint George and the Dragon. They’ll either call it Saint Georgia and the Dragon or Saint George. You know—why shouldn’t gender equality be part of fairy tales?”

  “So you get to fight a dragon on ice?” Susan asked.

  “Yeah, actually it’s pretty cool. I don’t mind the idea of a girl in the part. Just that girl.”

  “I agree,” Rose said, and Susan nodded vigorously.

  “Me too!” she whispered.

  School was uneventful. The math test went exceedingly well. The Mean Girls kept their distance. She supposed the rock through the window—indeed, the whole Halloween attack—would qualify as a Trio of Doom special-ops effort. What would these evil girls dream up next? Rose was nervous about seeing Lisa at her riding lesson that afternoon.

  Everything was great when she got to the stables. She looked around, confident that she would see Lisa getting her horse, Miss Dimples, ready. But no Lisa. At that moment Jamie came up instead.

  “Hi, Rose. Have fun on Halloween?”

  “Oh yeah. Hey, where’s Lisa?”

  “Her mom called and said she wasn’t feeling well.”

  “Hmm . . .” It’s her face that isn’t feeling well, Rose thought. September had done a number on her face.

  “Okay, well, let’s get you up.” Jamie said, giving Ivy a pat.

  It felt good to forget. Forget Halloween, though it had been fun in its own way. Forget the Mean Girls, the Trio of Doom, the snotty Lady Margaret, Snail Head. Forget the imperious young Elizabeth and the treacherous Princess Mary, whom history would come to call Bloody Mary. Forget that Edward was going to die so young. For ahead of her a new, higher jump loomed. This was what she must focus on. First she had to look ahead and pick out a tree, anything to center her attention on. As the jump neared, she must squeeze with her legs to keep Ivy going. Then she must begin stride counting and know when she was three strides away from the jump—that would be the takeoff mark. At the same time, she must relax the reins so Ivy could stretch out her neck. Keep her heels down. Lower leg straight, with her knee in line with the ball of her foot. There was the thrilling sensation when she could feel Ivy gathering her muscles for the jump and then the magical moment when Ivy’s hooves left the ground and they sailed. Yes, sailed into the air, sailed toward the sky. Together, just the two of them, Ivy and Rose, and finally Ivy’s gentle yield to gravity. And together they would land as softly as a ballerina completing a grand jeté.