Time & Tide - Original Wattpad Version

Chapter Eleven: In Which Jessie Then Wins One

I woke in what I supposed was my own room the next morning, sometime around the ass-crack of dawn. I didn't really remember a lot of what had happened the evening prior, after I curled up in a sobbing mess, and maybe that was just as well.

Gingerly, I sat up, lifted my sleeping shift to stare at the bruises on my knees. The handkerchief bundle – I turned and felt around under the pillows. Yes, it was still there. With shaking fingers I unknotted the top. My driver's licence and student cards spilled out, plastic slick against the fine white material. The cell phone was still there, the wrist watch with the peeling cheap plastic strap.

I picked up the watch and studied it.

This I could part with. The make of the mechanics was probably finer than anything they had now, despite the ruined band. The watch was still ticking, the battery insulated. It had been made to be watertight, and despite the beading of some moisture on the inside of the glass face, it was fine. Maybe I could exchange that for... instead of...

My stomach heaved again and this time I let it happen, reaching the porcelain basin in the wash stand just in time. I rinsed my mouth with water straight from the pitcher and then backed away from the reeking mess, all the way to the furthest corner of the room opposite. I sank down against the wall, buried my face in the arms and knees and did not cry. The skin around my eyes was too sore to stand it.

Wake up, I thought. Wake up. This can't be real. People don't travel in time. This isn't happening. Wake up!

The world crashed heavily to the side, swirled, and for a second I felt the crushing pressure of the bottom of the sea again, freezing and black. My lungs burned and my ears rang. Water poured up my nose, down my throat, invading my lungs, cold and sharp and--

"No!" I shouted, sucked in a desperate breath of air, opened my eyes. The world stopped swirling abruptly, and I was rooted on the solid floor so quickly that I nearly fell over. "No," I said again.

"Miss?"

I heard the servant's door open, and the same maid walked quietly but quickly to my side. "Miss, I heard a shout. Are you...?" She couldn't finish the sentence, and I didn't blame her, because what could she really say? Are you well? We both knew the answer to that one, didn't we?

Of fucking course I wasn't well.

She wrinkled her nose, no doubt catching the sour scent of vomit, turned towards the wash stand, and sighed.

"Sorry," I mumbled, really meaning it. "I can clean it up."

"No, no, Miss," the maid said. "I'll get it taken care of. Were you wanting any breakfast?"

I puffed out my cheeks in an effort not to vomit again.

"No, then," she said, and turned back to me with a small twinkling smile. "Just tea?"

"Tea and ... willow tea, if you've got it," I said. "For my... head. And bananas. Do you have bananas?"

The maid shook her head. "They're far too expensive, miss," she explained.

"But it's possible to get them?" I couldn't help the small mischievous smile that tugged at the corner of my mouth. The maid saw it and recognized what I was thinking. Her mouth stretched into a matching grin. Oh, yeah. I really liked her.

"Oh, yes, miss," she said. "But it will cost an awful lot."

"S'not my money," I offered.

"No, Miss," she said, and nodded her head. She went over to the washstand, threw a towel over the basin, and vanished back down the servant's staircase with it.