Revelle by Lyssa Mia Smith

Author:Lyssa Mia Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

Eighteen

Jamison

Roger insisted we couldn’t visit Nana until at least noon, so I lay awake all morning, trying to conjure a plan to untangle the Revelles from the time traveler’s clutches.

They could survive without the winter theater. And with moonshine, they might be able to stretch their supply to keep their doors open a little longer. Buying from other Night District businesses wasn’t an option. Every day, another storefront shuttered its doors, unable to afford Dewey’s high prices. And if the Revelles turned against Dewey, could they survive his wrath?

Hard to outsmart a time traveler when I couldn’t even punch a time traveler.

A little before noon, Roger led Trys and me to the long, barracks-like building behind the Big Tent. The salt air and sun had stripped the wood of its color, leaving it gray and bare. The Fun House occupied the second floor, but the first floor was for the Revelles.

“Three to a bedroom, usually, and more if you complain,” Roger said proudly. He led us down the narrow hallway lined with old playbills, family portraits, and the occasional declaration scribbled on the wall: Caroline Revelle, 1876, brought the crowd to their feet with her operetta! Arthur Revelle, 1893, juggled seventeen fireballs!

Trys flattened against a wall as a pack of small children rushed past. “In my house, I used to go an entire day without seeing anyone but Dewey and my tutor. Even on the weekends.”

“We can’t all live in mansions, Trysta dear.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” She ran her hand along a poster of a beautiful woman posing on a tightrope. “I would have killed for something like this.”

“Me too.” Part of me still would.

Roger pointed to the name on the tightrope walker’s poster. Ruth Revelle. “See Nana?”

“Wow. Your grandmother was a looker.” Trys smoothed the poster’s folded edge.

“Don’t let her hear you say that in the past tense.” Roger knocked on the door. “Nana? Are you decent?”

“I’m never decent,” Nana’s muffled voice called. “But I’m always ready for company.”

Roger opened the door—and took a step back as if he’d been struck.

An elderly white lady sat in the chair across from Nana, two horns barely visible in her pale hair. Flanking her on both sides were two young women. They were both beautiful, with iridescent ivory horns peeking out from sheets of dark, wavy hair, and eyes as green as summer grass. The one closest to us stared at Roger as if he were a hallucination.

Nana could not have looked more pleased. “Roger, you remember Margaret, of course.”

My gaze snapped to Roger. So this was the elusive Margaret. After years of hearing about her, she’d become a myth to me, but the girl gaping at us was certainly human, though as pale as a ghost.

Never before had I seen Roger rendered speechless. He stared at Margaret desperately, as if she’d cease to exist if he looked away. Whenever he’d spoken of their relationship, he’d done it with his usual air of casualness, and I’d known it was an act.

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