A Watch in Time – Chapter 1, Part 2

A Watch In Time
A Full Length Story by Golden Keyes Parsons
Chapter 1, Part 2
(Click Here to read Part 1)

“No, I’m not ill. This is my house, and I don’t know who you are. Where is David?”

The young servant stared at her. “Why, it’s Tildy. Don’t you know me? I been with you since we been chil’ren.” She wrung her hands on her apron. “Oh, dear.” Tildy turned and ran through the dining room door. “Mama!”

Lily picked up the album and followed her, stopping to glance at the glowing candlelit chandelier above the table and the candelabra scattered throughout the room into the parlor. She reached for the electrical switch beside the door finding only blank wall space. She shook her head. “David!”

An older black woman with a colorful scarf wrapped around her head bustled into the dining room followed by Tildy. “Your face is white as a sheet, Miss Lillian. You look like you done seen a ghost.”

“And who might you be?”

“See, Mama? She don’t know us. She not well.”

“Mama” felt of Lily’s forehead. “No fever. Did you bump your head?”

Lily brushed “Mama’s” hand away. “No, I didn’t bump my head. I’ve been in mother’s room looking at this family album. I’m perfectly fine. Where’s David?”

“He packin’. You know the Lone Star Guard marching out in the morning.”

“The Lone Star Guard?” Lily sifted through the labyrinth of her memory and her studies in Texas history at Baylor University. That was the unit from Waco that fought in the Civil War. She looked around the dining room again—definitely her house, but different. No electricity. Black servants. She sat at the table before her trembling knees buckled beneath her.

“What’s today? What’s the date?”

“Why it’s July 21st.”

Lily waited for what she desperately wanted to know, but didn’t want to hear. “Yes?”

Tildy cleared her throat. “Uh … 1861.”

Lily folded her hands together to halt the quivering that threatened to take over her entire body.

“They leave tomorrow?”

“Yes’m.”

“I must stop him. He can’t go to war. This is a horrible mistake.”

Tildy took her by the elbow. “Let me help you to your room, Miss Lillian. You’ll feel better after you rests for a bit.”

Lily shook her arm free. “After I see David. I don’t need any assistance. I’m fine.”

“Yes’m.” The servant clasped her hands in front of her chest, and stepped back.

Lily grabbed the book, ran out of the kitchen and up the staircase. A light shone from under David’s door. Without knocking she stepped inside.

David, bent over his bed closing a duffle bag, turned to grin at her. His hair was pulled back in the familiar pony tail, but his arms were void of tattoos. No earring.

“Almost finished packing.”

Lily’s mouth hung open. “Where are you going?”

“What do you mean? You know perfectly well where I’m going—off to whip some Blue Belly Yankees.”

This had to be a horrible dream. I simply need to wake up. She bit the inside of her lip. What if it’s not a dream though? What if by some bizarre time warp I’ve really been catapulted back to 1861? She tasted blood.

“Listen to me, David. You cannot go. The cause is doomed. The South will be ravaged and hundreds of thousands of men are going to lose their lives. You will fight valiantly, but by the end of the war at Appomattox only 17 of the Lone Star Guard will remain.”

“What are you jabbering about? What’s Appomattox? We’re going to make short order of the Union troops. They don’t stand a chance.”

“Please believe me. I know what I’m talking about. I … ”

David patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about this. I’ll be back before you know it.”

She stepped into her remaining family member’s arms, and began to sob. “You mustn’t go. I cannot lose you.”

David kissed her hand. “Nothing’s gonna happen to me.” He chucked her underneath her chin. “You’re beginning to sound like you agree with Sam Houston. And we showed him what we thought about his sympathies with the Union—ran him out of town, we did, after his speech on New Year’s Day.” He snickered.

Lily Kate held his hand to her cheek and wet it with her tears. “I cannot bear to lose you.” She pulled back and looked at his hand, gasping at what she saw—across the back of his hand—a fresh slash. “How did you do this?”

“You know how I did that. Opening a box for you before supper.”

Lily swooned and descended into the welcome oblivion of unconsciousness.

Join us next week for part three…

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