OverTime 03: Slipping (First 70 Chapters)

Chapter 05: My Wedding Reception (Lillabit)

Goodbye to sitting in half-lotus position, practicing my breathing and repeating that I was safely back home. Goodbye to guided visualizations, in which we all contributed details to an average afternoon at, say, a movie theater or a shopping village. Goodbye to deliberately dressing and eating and talking like a millennial, to emphasize the reality of our destination.

That is how, for the most part, to time slip. And it shouldn't have mattered anymore.

Yesterday morning, when I'd left Maddie, Mitch, and Ted in Julesburg, I'd also left all intention of ever time-slipping again. Yesterday afternoon, I'd married the father of my child. From now on, I got to be a Pioneer Lillabit, a rancher's wife. Done deal, right?

It hadn't occurred to me that, as far as the castaways knew, no time traveler had ever stayed indefinitely outside their own time.

It hadn't crossed my mind that maybe I couldn't help going home!

Dreaming of the future so clearly couldn't be a good thing. Could my thoughts about any reality beyond, say, the Clinton administration drag me home against my will?!

I shook my head in silent protest. I was overreacting. Something as huge as time travel had to be more complicated than that. Didn't it?

The other castaways had said it was--and then confused me with a lot of talk about determinism, personal timelines, and trees falling in the forest.

If I had a telephone, I could simply call--or text, or email--Julesburg and ask them. But this part of Nebraska wouldn't get reception for over a century!

Oh no. I suddenly felt even sicker. Could I dare think about telephones, or did even that count as visualizing the future? I had to be Pioneer Lillabit, not Time-Travel Elizabeth! Wilderness woman! Rancher's wife! Except... wife was a position one filled, rather than a thing one was, wasn't it?

What was I, exactly? Other than beginning to panic?

I focused on the problem at hand. The best 1878 offered, for my call for help, was telegrams.

I didn't have access to a telegraph office unless we turned around and rode back to Ogallala.

Jacob corked the canteens, returned to me and, since I was sitting up, he reclaimed the saddle I'd been using as my pillow. I saw that he'd already saddled his mare. Now he moved to saddle Valley Boy. "'Bout ready? Herd ain't too long off."

Luckily, his suspendered back was to me while I gathered my wits.

I know we spent all day getting this far, but would you mind turning back? I forgot to send a telegram. Oh, and I'll need to wait for a reply.

I took a few deep, slow breaths to calm myself. I was overreacting. If accidentally slipping home--I mean, to modern times, no longer home--was at all possible, Maddie and the others would have warned me, right?

In the meantime, this was my rancher husband's third day in a row away from his precious herd, the cattle he'd sunk every bit of his savings and reputation into. If we returned to Ogallala (assuming I could even convince him), we would have to spend the night there (assuming we could get a hotel room again), and he'd be gone a fourth day. Also, that would triple the amount of time I spent on horseback which, despite Dr. Maddie's reassurances and my own comfort in the saddle, might be pushing things, baby-wise.

When Jacob glanced back over his shoulder, curious that I hadn't answered--or wasn't talking in general--I asked, "Is there any way to mail a letter? Now that we're away from town, I mean?"