Subj: Mark's Birthday
Date: 10/14/00 1:43:59 AM Central Daylight Time
From: DSRules

Mark had taken his birthday off, and was determined to enjoy the three-day weekend. He'd rented a stack of videos and was lounging around his house watching them. A black kitten sat purring on his lap.

The doorbell rang, and Mark put the kitten on the floor. At the grumpy noise the kitten made, Mark said reassuringly, "I'll be back in a minute, Styles."

It was an overnight service delivery man. The delivery man handed him a package about the size of a shirt box, but considerably heavier. Mark signed for it, and closed the door.

"A birthday present? Must be." Mark mused to himself as he took off the brown parcel paper covering the box. He noted that the return address on the airbill was left blank, with merely a phone number with a 310 area code.

He lifted the lid off of the box. It was a proof of a book, with a post-it note attached that said, "I thought you'd be interested in an advance peek at the new book. Happy Birthday. KLC."

"KLC?" Mark wondered. "KLS is Kathryn Leigh Scott, but KLC?" He riffled quickly through the pages, but didn't find anything else to indicate the identity of the sender.

He quickly shut off the television and began looking through the book. It was a collection of portraits used on the old soap opera, Dark Shadows.

{There's the 1795 portrait of Barnabas, and Sam Evans's portrait of Barnabas, and Josette's portrait, and the portrait of Angelique in the yellow dress . . . .} Mark quickly became captivated by the rich color photos in front of him, and eventually, he began to imagine that perhaps the illustrations had been painted directly onto the pages of the book, rather than photographed.

Eventually, one name caught his eye. {Victoria Collins,} it read.

Mark was astounded by this revelation. {Vicki really was a Collins?} He glanced at the picture, and found it clearly intended to be a picture of Alexandra Moltke, only she was dressed in period costume, and that period was *not* the 1790s. He looked at the storyline given for the portrait, and it only had the date 1859.

* * *

The next morning, after staying awake all night, looking at that picture of Victoria Collins. He got ready for work as one thought cycled through his mind. {Dark Shadows never had an 1859 storyline. Where the hell did that picture come from?}

* * *

Mark showed up for work, and went through the motions of his job mechanically. He couldn't shake that picture from his mind. {Maybe it was a new storyline they were developing for after the return from 1840,} he rationalized. But he'd never heard of any such 1859 storyline.

After the first couple of hours, Mark was called into his boss's office. {Oh great.} He sighed and headed off in that direction.

He arrived in his boss's office to find one of the guest chairs already occupied by an older man, around 60 or so. "Mark, please sit down," his boss said, indicating the empty chair.

"I know you wanna know why you've been called in here," his boss said without bothering with the social niceties of conversation. "Well, they wanna pull some kind of publicity stunt. He'll explain it." He indicated the other man with a jerk of his head.

"My name is Dr. Evans," the older man began. "I'm not a medical doctor - I'm a scientist. A physicist, actually."

"What does this have to do with me?" Mark snapped, eager to get back to work and his speculation about the portrait of Victoria Collins.

"Well, as you might know, your grocery chain is losing market share, nothing drastic, but the president of the company has decided that the company needs something dramatic to increase sales."

"And?"

"Well, they've found a variety of tomato that died out in the late 19th century. Reports say that they were lush and extremely flavorful. If we can get hold of one of those tomatoes, you see, we can breed them and bring them back into the market with a great deal of fanfare and regain some of our lost customers. Possibly even win some new ones."

"How can I help? I'm not a scientist." Mark asked.

"Well, the science of it is what they've hired me for. I believe that I've found a way to travel through time. We'd send you back to a time when those tomatoes were common, and you'd acquire a few, then bring them back to us."

"Time travel? Sounds fascinating, but why me?"

Mark's boss interrupted then. "They tell me ya gotta believe in that sorta stuff for it to work. I told them that you're into whatchacall, science fiction or whatever, and they said they'd give you a try."

"So," Dr. Evans said, "if you're willing to be a test subject, we'll send you back to 1859 as soon as you have your affairs in order."

Mark didn't even have to think. As soon as he heard the year 1859, he responded, "I'll do it."

* * *

Dr. Evans had given Mark a list of things he needed for his trip into the past, as well as a budget to use for acquiring things like clothing. Unable to find mint-condition authentic vintage clothing within his budget, he went to the theatre department of the University of Central Florida and one of their costumiers to make him a dressy black suit out of pure wool, with pure cotton thread and a pure cotton shirt. {Don't know how I'd explain polyester to them,} Mark thought as he explained his need for *pure* fibers only.

Once the suit was ready, he picked it up and went to a coin shop, where he bought a few dollars in mid-19th century coins. He went slightly over his budget on this, because he wanted to be certain that he'd be able to take Vicki out for dinner or the theater, or both, when he met her. {If I meet her,} he corrected himself. There was still the matter of getting to Maine, presuming that she was even in Maine.

He met with Dr. Evans, "The trip should take no time from our viewpoint," Dr. Evans explained. "But we cannot be certain, so you'd better make arrangements to have your bills paid, pets boarded, things like that."

In his enthusiasm about meeting Vicki Winters for the first time, Mark hadn't considered his three cats. "They're like my children to me," Mark explained. "Would there be any way to take them with me?"

Dr. Evans shook his head. "I'm afraid not. I'll be hypnotizing you to send you into the past, and I don't think that I could hypnotize a cat, and even if I could, they definitely wouldn't understand what I wanted from them."

Mark sighed. "I'll see if my vet can board them, then."

* * *

After boarding his cats, and paying his bills for the next month (with money once again advanced to him from the company), Mark put on his suit, filled his pocket with change, and called Dr. Evans.

"Oh, hello, Mark." Dr. Evans said amiably as he answered the phone. "Ready for your trip?"

"Never readier," Mark responded, thinking of the picture of Victoria Collins. "What do I need to do?"

"Well, first we need someplace that's unchanged since the year you're going to be aiming for . . ."

"Oh, I can supply that." Mark smiled. "The house where I live has been here since 1887."

"So we will meet there. I'll be right over." Evans responded.

* * *

Dr. Evans showed up in short order, and suggested they take a seat in the oldest section of the house.

"I'd rather not," Mark responded, unwilling to admit that he was going to aim for a year earlier than they had discussed. "Let's sit outside. I don't want to have to hope that whoever lived here then was friendly." He smiled at the scientist.

"Sounds good to me." Dr. Evans responded as they headed out the door.

Mark found a location out of sight of the house and they sat down.

"I have one more thing for you." Dr. Evans handed him a sheet of paper. "This is all of the information on the tomato we're sending you for. We made it from all period-appropriate materials, so you don't have to memorize and eat it or anything like that." Dr. Evans, sensing Mark's uneasiness, joked lamely.

Mark chuckled appreciatively. "Thanks."

"Do you have everything you need?"

Mark checked his pockets one last time, finding what amounted to a small fortune in change, a pocket watch, and the sheet that Dr. Evans had just given him. "I hope so."

"Well, then, just lie back and make yourself comfortable, and we'll begin. Breathe slowly and deeply. You can feel yourself beginning to relax. You're warm and comfortable. You feel the muscles in your toes relax . . ."

* * *

Mark sat up. He couldn't remember anything about the induction except a feeling of warmth. {I wonder if it worked,} he thought.

He got his answer as a deep male voice with a thick southern accent came from behind him. "Who are you and what are you doing on my property?"

Mark hastily rose to his feet, brushing dust from the seat of his pants. "I was just passing through . . ." He turned to face the other man.

The other man was grimy, apparently both from physical labor as well as from lack of bathing.

{I know they didn't bathe that often 100 years ago, but there's got to be a limit} Mark thought as he surveyed his grubby companion.

"Passin' through what?" The other man replied.

"I was visiting my aunt in Kissimee, but got called back home to Savannah. I was on my way to the railroad station."

"The railroad station? You've got one heck of a trip ahead of you. Gonna have to go all the way up to Jacksonville for that."

"Jacksonville?" Mark gasped. "I'll never make it in time."

The other man squinted. "Why didn't you take the train out of Orlando?"

"That's what I was going to do. Once I get there."

"You missed Orlando by about 14 miles."

"That's just my luck. I've got the worst sense of direction ever. I guess I'm just lucky I didn't end up in the ocean or something. I don't suppose I could trouble you to take me into Orlando?"

The other man sighed. "I can't. I gotta . . ."

"I'd pay." Mark interrupted him. He reached into his pocket and took out a quarter. He threw it to the other man, who caught it neatly.

As the other man squinted down at it, Mark fervently hoped that a quarter was a decent amount of money in 1859.

"Yeah. I guess I could take ya inta Orlando." The other man responded. "My cart's over there." He indicated a stand of trees. "Let's get going. It's a long trip into town."

{Why'd I have to bring Dr. Evans to Longwood?} Mark lamented as the wagon hit another bump. {I should have met him in Orlando, or even better, St. Augustine.}

Just when he was about to ask the driver to pull over and let him out, the wagon came to a stop. "Here we are." He said.

"Where are we?" Mark looked around, but was unable to recognize any landmarks.

"Downtown Orlando." The man responded. "The train station's over there." He pointed.

"Thanks." Mark said with a smile as he threw the man a couple more quarters.

The man's eyes widened. "Thank *you*" he responded. "And if you ever need anything else while you're in the area, just look me up. Name's Jebediah Kent."

Mark made a mental note to figure out how much 75 cents worked out to as cab fare in 1859. {Boy, things have changed in 150 years,} Mark thought as he surveyed the town in front of him. {I'd love to have time to look around, but destiny calls - I hope.}

With that thought, he went to the train station.

"Hi." He greeted the man behind the counter.

"Can I help you?"

"Yes. I'd like a ticket to Collinsport, Maine."

The man fixed him with a confused expression.

"How about Bangor?" Mark offered.

More bewilderment.

"Portland?" The man didn't respond, so Mark added, "Maine?"

The man behind the counter shook his head. "I can get ya as far north as Charleston. You'll have to handle any points beyond that once you get there."

Mark sighed. {Well, I'm sure that once I get to Charleston I can get a ticket to Maine. Or Boston. Or Virginia . . .}

The man named his price and the money and tickets changed hands.

"Thanks," Mark said as he went to take a seat in the waiting area.

"Sir?" The ticket vendor called out.

"Yes?"

"If you want to take that train to Charleston, you'd better hurry up. It's leaving the station right now."

Mark swore and dashed to the platform, where the conductor was just making his last call.

"Is this the train to Charleston?" Mark asked.

"Yep. Sure is."

Mark handed him his ticket.

"Have a good trip, sir." The conductor tipped his hat to Mark as Mark jumped onto the train.

Part 6

"Sir?"

"Huh?" Mark mumbled as he awoke with a start.

"We're going to be pulling into the station in Bangor in a few minutes." The young man said.

"Thanks." Mark responded with a smile.

"You're welcome, sir." The young man continued on about his duties.

* * *

It was noon when the train pulled into the station. Mark was reluctant to leave. He'd grown quite fond of the plush velvet seats and the excellent food on the train. But his destiny called. He hoped.

He walked to the stagecoach office and found that he had another two hours before the coach to Ellsworth would be leaving. {Just enough time for some lunch.} He thought as he crossed the street to a restaurant.

He walked in and took a seat at one of the tables.

"May I help you?" A young woman's voice asked softly.

"Yes. I'd like," Mark looked up into the softest brown eyes he'd ever seen. It took him a moment to find his voice again. "A beer."

{It's her. From the painting. I'm sure of it.} Mark thought.

The waitress offered him a quiet smile. "Would you like something to eat?"

"Yes. What would you recommend?"

"My mother's roast chicken is excellent."

"Then that's what I'll have." He smiled up at her.

* * *

A few minutes later, the waitress returned with Mark's beer and the chicken.

"Would you like anything else?"

"How about some dessert?"

"My sister, Diana, makes excellent fresh fruit pies." The waitress smiled.

Mark was feeling bold. After all, if he didn't act now, he might lose his only chance. "I'll have two slices."

She looked at him questioningly.

"One for me, and one for you." He smiled.

"Oh, no." She blushed. "My father would kill me if he caught me sitting down while I'm supposed to be working."

"All right, then. What time is your shift over?"

She paused, clearly debating something in her mind. "In an hour." She admitted.

"Then I'll have another beer now, and in an hour, I'll have those two slices of pie."

Her blush deepened. "I'll have that beer out to you in just a minute."

* * *

An hour later, the waitress returned. "Would you still like that pie?" She asked quietly.

"Yes." Mark responded. "But only if you've brought a slice for yourself."

She put two plates down on the table, each containing one slice of peach pie. Then, glancing nervously around the room, she took the chair opposite him.

"Diana had these peaches shipped all the way from Georgia." The waitress said, obviously trying to avoid an awkward silence by making awkward smalltalk.

"What a coincidence. I was born in Georgia."

"Really?" She looked up at him. "I was wondering."

"Wondering? About what?"

"Your accent. I could tell that you weren't from around here."

"That's putting it mildly." Mark said to himself.

"What?" She asked.

"Nothing. Just talking to myself."

They lapsed into silence for a minute. "Can I ask you a personal question?"

"Sure." Mark answered.

"Do you own any slaves?"

Mark was so startled that he dropped his pie fork. "No. I don't. I don't think it's right for one man to own another like that."

"Oh." She smiled warmly at him. "You're an abolitionist!"

"I guess I am."

By then, they'd finished their dessert. "I really do have to be getting home. My parents will wonder where I am." She stood to leave.

Mark, knowing the etiquette of the era, stood as well. "I would like to see you again."

"I'd like that, too. But I don't know if Mother and Father would give their approval."

She turned to leave, but Mark stopped her. "Wait. At least, could you tell me your name?"

"Victoria Collins." She said with a smile. And then she left the restaurant.