The Color of Spring Lightning Read online

  The Color of Spring Lightning

  OVERHEAD, thin, cottony clouds blew across the bright blue sky in frilly wisps, but Kody couldn’t appreciate such beauty at the moment. Where had the storm gone? Each nerve in his body screamed with agony. He squinted his eyes closed again. It hurt even to breathe. He gasped from the effort.

  The crackling noise and flash of light drew Jarvis’s attention from farther up the sunny hill. He saw the figure crumpling to the ground and ran toward it.

  “Gads! Are you alive, sir?” a light baritone voice yelled from somewhere to Kody’s right. He opened his eyes and tried to roll over to find the source of the voice but then closed his eyes. The sun just seemed too painfully bright.

  “Hold still, sir,” the man’s voice said, very close now. Kody felt some sort of cloth draping over him and tried to sit up, but he slumped back into the grass. His muscles resisted moving and thrummed with throbbing pain from the effort.

  “No, just lie back. Clear your head,” the man’s voice advised.

  Jarvis gazed down at the disheveled man twitching with obvious pain. He glanced up at the sky, looking for any signs of that peculiar lightning striking again.

  Kody finally managed to open his eyes and keep them open. He stared up into the face of, he would guess, a thirty-year-old man with huge, bushy yellow sideburns. The silly facial hair and rounded hat the man wore almost made Kody laugh. But the intensely worried look in the man’s honey-colored eyes and the growing throb of Kody’s pounding head stole any humor from the moment.

  “Can you speak? Are you injured?” Jarvis asked as he glanced into the victim’s eyes and checked for abnormal pupil dilations. He had read somewhere that was what physicians checked for in cases of drug overdose, but he wasn’t sure how applicable it might be. The man’s blue eyes looked to be in order, in any case.

  Kody tried to answer, but his voice fell out in a strangled sort of wheeze. He shook his head.

  “Lie still and collect yourself, then. I am Banks, Jarvis Banks, good sir,” he said, looking Kody over for any signs of injury.

  Kody cleared his throat. “Kody… I’m Kody,” he managed to whisper.

  “Kody?” Jarvis asked with a hint of doubt in his voice. “That’s quite an unusual name, Mr. Kody.”

  “No, first name. Kody Higgins.” As the throbbing in his head eased, Kody tried to sit up again.

  “I daresay, what cruel parents to burden one with such a name. Just move slowly, Mr. Higgins. Perhaps we should summon a physician?”

  “Physician?” Kody asked, puzzled at the man’s strange choice of words. His head still felt all mushy, leaving everything off balance. He realized he was draped in some sort of trench coat, presumably Jarvis’s.

  “Yes, just to verify you bear no serious injuries from the ordeal.”

  Kody glanced around the city park. In a way he couldn’t quite put his finger on, things just seemed to be… not quite right. The dark storm seemed to have suddenly vanished and left behind a nice, sunny day. “What ordeal?”

  “Goodness, Mr. Higgins, do you not recall? Why, the lightning, of course. I saw the flash and turned to see you slump to the ground when the thunderous noise struck. It was such a frightful sight, I feared I would find you dead.”

  Kody probed his memory for some reason why he would be in the park in the middle of the day. He did recall going to work earlier that morning, but after that he… he what? He couldn’t seem to collect his memories of the events after getting to his office. “I… I don’t remember what happened,” he finally admitted.

  “Don’t strain yourself, then, let’s rest a bit. Are you in any pain?” Jarvis asked while glancing at Kody’s arm.

  Kody followed Jarvis’s eyes to his wrist and saw the large, reddened patch of skin starting to blister, like a bad sunburn. “Not really, at least not yet.”

  “We should be thankful for that much, at least. It does appear most of your clothing was destroyed.”

  Kody looked under the trench coat. His T-shirt and cargo shorts did look a bit singed, but they appeared to be mostly intact, so Jarvis’s comment just left him confused. He looked over Jarvis again. His forest-green costume of a three-piece suit fashioned from some sort of wool looked too formal for such a warm spring day. He must be on his way to a wedding or something.

  “You may wear my coat until you can return home and dress yourself again. The coat won’t cause as much of a scandal, I venture.”

  With growing awareness, Kody consciously noticed how quiet the world seemed. Faint clickety-clacks and an indistinct young shouting voice were the only sounds around him. A sudden strange chill slithered through Kody. He took a deep breath and looked around again. The park didn’t appear any different, but he realized the city around it was… gone. Well, not gone, exactly. The brownstones along Penbroke Avenue were still there, looking somehow shiny and new. But the Conner Tower, the Lentura Building, hell, all of the skyscrapers were missing. Taking a closer look at the avenue, Kody couldn’t find any cars or trucks at all. Instead, horses and carriages flowed and hurried along the road. “What the fuck?”

  “Sir,” Jarvis said sharply. “I can make some allowance for your recent trauma, but please refrain from such course language in the future.” Jarvis looked over Mr. Higgins again, noticing the shorter cut of his hair. Maybe he was recently released from military service? That could account for his gruff language and sense of confusion.

  “Oh, sorry,” Kody muttered as he shook his head. He looked over at Jarvis again. With that hat and those bushy sideburns that stretched all the way down to his jaw and pointed forward at the bottom…. The icy chill coursed through him again. Kody noticed the slightest wear around the cuffs of Jarvis’s suit coat. He didn’t fit into those strange clothes like someone wearing a costume. Jarvis seemed too comfortable in the green garb.

  Light laughter drew Kody’s attention down to the street. Three young women in long dresses were looking toward him. The trio stood at least seventy-five yards away; their laughs and voices would only be able to carry that far in a strangely quiet world. One of the women pointed her frilly umbrella at them before the gaggle burst into more giggles.

  “We should get you home, before drawing too much attention. Can you stand?”

  “I think,” Kody said as he leaned forward. Jarvis offered his hand and helped him to his feet. He quickly helped Kody get his arms in the trench coat.

  “Where do you reside?” Jarvis asked while buttoning the coat around Kody.

  “Just off MLK,” Kody replied, gaping at the horses in the bricked street.

  Jarvis puzzled over the strange sounding abbreviation. “Where again?” he asked politely.

  “Martin Luther King Boulevard, a few blocks over there.” Realizing he was barefoot, Kody looked down and saw two melted plastic blobs, presumably the remains of his beige flip-flops.

  Jarvis frowned. “I fear you may be more addled than we thought. There is no such street here in Waldenburg.” He glanced over Kody with concern. “Perhaps you are traveling?”

  Kody felt that spooky chill again. “Uh, yeah, I’m traveling, I guess,” he said, trying to recover.

  “Then where are you boarding?”

  Kody squinted, not knowing how to answer. This was such an impossible situation, but the nagging cold of reality couldn’t be ignored. This wasn’t his Waldenburg. At least it wasn’t the city Kody had grown up in; not yet, anyway.

  Watching Kody’s confusion, Jarvis motioned toward the street. “I dwell just down there,” he said, pointing to one of the brownstones on Penbroke. “Let’s get you indoors while we sort out this situation.” Suddenly feeling strangely protective, Jarvis wanted to take the man’s arm and lead
him, but he quickly abandoned the idea, knowing public decorum must be maintained.

  “Okay.” Kody followed closely behind Jarvis down to the street. He kept his eyes focused on Jarvis’s back, trying to ignore the unfamiliar era around him. He had to keep raising his gaze up, because his eyes kept wandering down to Jarvis’s nicely toned butt.

  As they neared the street, Kody flinched when the stench of manure and waste clawed its way up his nose. How did Jarvis not notice this horrible stink? Kody looked down to where he expected the curb to be, but only saw a narrow ditch oozing with dirty-looking water running along the bricked road. He was obviously in a time before the glories of concrete covered the city.

  They navigated across the road, carefully placing each step to avoid the horse dung and other unpleasantness scattered around on the bricks. Kody was ever conscious of being bare-footed.

  On the corner, a young boy barked, “Blockade continues! Cuba surrounded!” as he offered newspapers to the pedestrians around him. The boy’s barks seemed loud in this place, with only the clickety-clack of the horses’ hooves on bricks and the swoosh-swoosh of carriage wheels to compete with. Without the hums of engines, air conditioners, snatches of music from radios, and various other electronic beeps and honks, the soundscape seemed vacant.

  Kody glanced up from the bricked road when they crossed another ditch and was briefly surprised to see street lamps stationed at each walkway. But he soon noticed the globes had no light bulbs inside. The lights must be gas-powered.

  Jarvis led them up the steps of his building and ushered Kody inside. They stepped into an entry hallway, with some sort of living room on the left and a dining room on the right. Instead of that stale-attic odor Kody expected from such buildings, it smelled of plaster and wood varnish. As Jarvis removed his hat and placed it on an empty hook among a row of various other hats, Kody breathed in the fresh “new house” aroma.

  This smelled much better than the street. Kody smiled as he looked Jarvis over. Under that hat, Jarvis had hidden a full head of flaxen-colored hair, trimmed in a crew-cut style. Kody had always had a soft spot for blonds.

  “This seems like a nice home. How long have you lived here?” Kody asked as Jarvis led him past the dining room and into a small kitchen area. Jarvis motioned for him to sit on one of the stools of a small prep table, which looked to function like a kitchen island.

  Jarvis went to the sink, trying to keep his mind on the task at hand. He retrieved a basin from the cabinet and started pumping the spigot handle to fill it. He could not afford to entertain such carnal thoughts about this man.

  “You must be feeling better,” Jarvis said as he pumped more water into the basin with the old-fashioned sink spigot. “I do believe that was the first complete sentence you have spoken since we met.” He brought the basin to the table before retrieving some cotton towels from one of the drawers. “To answer your question, I’ve been here since the building was completed; just less than a year ago.”

  Jarvis moistened one of the cotton towels in the basin of water before leaning forward for a closer look. He pushed back the man’s dark-brown wavy locks, using the towel to wipe away the dirt and grass along Kody’s forehead and left temple while trying not to gaze too much into his baby-blue eyes. Jarvis suddenly stopped and studied Kody’s face intently, trying not to notice how cherubic he looked.

  Kody felt like some sort of lab animal under scrutiny before he saw a brief hint of something pass in Jarvis’s gaze. Was it admiration, maybe?

  “Mr. Higgins, may I inquire of your age?”

  “I’m twenty-nine,” Kody lied. He was actually thirty-two, but looked good enough he felt he could still get away with shaving off a few years.

  “I see. And what’s your great secret for having that remarkably unblemished skin at such a mature age?”

  “No secret,” Kody said, taking a closer look at Jarvis. “Just clean living, I guess.” He noticed Jarvis’s skin looked a bit roughened from what appeared to be bad acne scars and some other kind of lightened pockmarks scattered about his visible cheeks.

  Jarvis tightened his gaze like he didn’t quite believe Kody. “Take off the coat. We should check your arm.”

  Kody stood and started unbuttoning the coat. “And how old are you?”

  “I am only twenty-six, so you are my senior, Mr. Higgins.” Jarvis kept his eyes down as Kody stood. He would not be enthralled by this man, he promised himself.

  “Just call me Kody, or even ‘hey you’. That mister stuff is getting irritating,” he told him as he slipped off the coat.

  Jarvis blanched momentarily from the casual attitude. “Fine, then. Kody. Put your hand on the table.”

  Kody complied. As Jarvis carefully examined the blistering burn above his wrist, Kody glanced around the kitchen for some sort of hint of what the date might be. He was surrounded by the garish colors and patterns of the Victorian period, but Kody did notice a few more modern touches, like the simple pulls on the cabinets and the plain arts-and-crafts style of the table and stools where they sat. His rough guess of a year would be 1900. It would be difficult to confirm without asking Jarvis directly, but he didn’t want the man thinking he was addled again.

  “This doesn’t appear too extensive, not much worse than a kitchen burn. We can salve and bandage it.” Jarvis looked up at Kody’s T-shirt. “That undershirt is of such delicate weave; is it some sort of silk?”

  “No, just—cotton.” Kody caught himself before saying polyester. He didn’t think synthetic fabrics had even been invented yet. Except maybe nylon, he couldn’t recall exactly when that had become available.

  Jarvis glanced up at Kody, a question etched heavily onto his face. “Oh? Just cotton? And hand-painted by Trader Joe?”

  Shit. Kody had forgotten his T-shirt had the logo on it. “Yes, he’s a friend of mine,” he lied again with a smirk.

  Jarvis stared at him incredulously. “It seems… peculiar one would go to such lavish lengths to decorate a mere undershirt. Are you a wealthy man, Mr.—I mean Kody?”

  “No.” Kody shook his head fiercely. “And actually quite poor, now that I remember why I was in the park. I wandered there after getting—released from my employer this morning.”

  “I am sorry to hear of such difficulties,” Jarvis said with sincerity, still closely studying Kody.

  Kody tried to think of some way to steer Jarvis’s attention in another direction. “Do you live alone here?”

  “Yes, I’m a bachelor,” he replied while looking at Kody’s chest. “A confirmed bachelor, some might say.” Jarvis glanced up into his face while holding his breath.

  Kody smiled slightly. “Is that your way of coming on to me?”

  Jarvis quickly pulled on a stoic expression. “I must confess, I’m not familiar with that expression. What do you mean by ‘coming on to’?”

  Taking a deep breath, Kody paused to think about this situation. It was finally sinking in that, Lord knows how, he had traveled back in time over a hundred years. Despite however handsome and available Jarvis might be, he shouldn’t just blunder ahead. This would need some careful consideration. And he needed some time to think on it. “You said something about salves and bandages a minute ago?”

  “Oh yes.” Jarvis jumped to his feet. “Quite right. Excuse me while I fetch them from the powder room.” Jarvis hurried away into the house.

  Resigning himself to the fact that some sort of time travel had occurred, Kody was still left with the big question of what to do about it. Since such a random event brought him here in the first place, it left the likely possibility that he was permanently stuck here. How much right did he have to “muck around”?

  But maybe the bigger question should be, what should he tell Jarvis? The man already showed growing suspicion; it seemed unavoidable that Kody would have to tell him at least some of it. But how much detail to divulge? Should he mention the upcoming European war, or the World War that followed soon after Roosevelt’s assassination? Kody would just
have to play it by ear.

  Jarvis returned with a short glass jar of goop and a rolled-up strip of cotton bandage. He lingered in the doorway, looking at Kody’s legs and the cargo shorts, studying them briefly before his gaze traveled to Kody’s bare feet. Jarvis walked around the table and opened the jar. “This will soothe the burn, if nothing else,” he told Kody as he gingerly smeared a thin layer of the yellowish goo onto the blisters.

  “Thank you for this. I doubt many would have bothered to rescue me.”

  Jarvis just glanced up at him briefly and curtly nodded in reply. After unrolling a bit of the bandage, Jarvis carefully wrapped the cotton strip around the burn and retrieved a pair of scissors from his pocket to cut the strip before tying the bandage end in a simple looped knot to secure it. “I’m not a nurse, and that is probably not the best work, but it should hold it in place for a few hours.”

  Kody watched as Jarvis sat down again on the other stool. He seemed to squirm uncomfortably and wouldn’t meet Kody’s glance.

  “About that bachelor stuff, it’s… fine. I’m actually that way myself.”

  Jarvis did smile slightly, but his overall concern still remained.

  “And for what it’s worth, I kinda find you attractive too.”

  “That’s all well and good, but I have the distinct impression you are merely using that as a ploy to distract me.” Jarvis looked sternly into his eyes, daring Kody to contradict him.

  “Well, maybe so. What do you think I’m trying to distract you from?”

  “These queer notions percolating in my head, most likely.”

  Kody gazed directly at Jarvis. “What notions?”

  “You, Kody Higgins… seem to have just dropped from the sky, arriving from an altogether different place, as if summoned by a lightning bolt during clear skies. I had glanced up at the rise not a moment before, and you hadn’t been standing there.”

  “Okay, then. Let’s say I did just ‘drop from the sky’. From where?”

  Jarvis chuckled as he made a hand flourish at Kody without meeting his eyes. “Your clothing and speech definitely suggest someplace… not local.”