Emmie and the Tudor Queen by Natalie Murray

Author:Natalie Murray [Murray, Natalie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

12

I had to be dreaming, hallucinating—anything. My dad lay beside me in my bed in twenty-first-century Hatfield, a man I hadn’t set eyes on in the better part of a year. I thanked the stars that I was on top of the covers and he was beneath them.

I pivoted off the bed as Dad rolled over, blinking at me through eyes still hooded with sleep. He looked older then I remembered and thicker in the jaw.

“Emmeline?” he said, his mouth a stunned hole. He elbowed his way upright. “Carol!”

“Mom!” I added, rubbing my eyes again like he might disappear. Through all of my traveling back and forth through time, I’d come to know when something bizarre was really happening and when it was a dream. This was legit.

Feet thundered up the stairs, and Mom appeared in her bathrobe, her wiry blonde hair flying in all directions. Ruby scampered over to me, her wagging tail a whir of silver.

“You’re back,” Mom said to me. “Did you…” She breathed at Dad. “How did you…”

He slid his bare feet onto the frayed carpet, revealing loose cotton shorts, an old university T-shirt, and a round belly. “I’m confused. You said that Emmeline was missing again.”

“She was, I…” Mom couldn’t speak right, and I felt responsible.

“I wasn’t missing,” I clarified in my Tudor nightdress. Dad gawked at me, but mostly at my face. “I told you that I was in Tudor England,” I said to Mom. “Even though you’ll never believe me, it’s where I was, and I’m not going to lie about it anymore.”

Dad scratched his upper back, the side of his nose, and his forearms. It wasn’t bed bugs; he’d just never been comfortable in our family. What was Mom thinking when she invited him to stay over?

“Where is your special friend Nick?” she asked me in an apprehensive voice.

“He’s back in his time,” I replied like that was normal. “The Catholics are planning a rebellion, so he traveled to the north to deal with it. I thought I’d pop home in the meantime.”

I fought the urge to burst into raucous laughter. If I wasn’t careful, Mom or Dad could have me locked up. They both stood and gaped at me.

“Do you still have your key?” Mom said. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“You know that’s not how I got here.” I sank into the edge of the creaky bed and yawned. I never slept well during a trip through time. “What are you doing here?” I asked Dad in a small voice.

“I told him you’d disappeared again, so he came over,” Mom cut in. “We called Paul and Livvy in England to see if they’d heard from you, given this whole British obsession.”

Paul was Dad’s cousin from Clacton-on-Sea. We’d stayed with him and his wife Olivia back when we lived in England, which felt like a thousand years ago.

“I’d had a bit too much wine to drive,” Dad added quickly, his cheeks tinting pink. We both knew that Mom’s stalker tendencies didn’t need to be encouraged.

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