Lucy Yesterday

By Sean Monaghan

Lucy Yesterday understands the subtleties of time in ways that leave James baffled. Orders of magnitude beyond his understanding.

She needs his skills though, and he enjoys the role of sidekick.

This trip, however might just tip them into an abyss more convoluted than anything before. Or after. Or in between.

With time, you never know when you are.

A twisted time travel story from the author of Cat Leaps and The Last Great Time House of Muldemar Ridge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Triple V Publishing
• Release date: Apr 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201437534

Sean Monaghan

Award-winning author, Sean Monaghan has published more than one hundred stories in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and in New Zealand, where he makes his home. A regular contributor to Asimov’s, his story “Crimson Birds of Small Miracles”, set in the art world of Shilinka Switalla, won both the Sir Julius Vogel Award, and the Asimov’s Readers Poll Award, for best short story. He is a past winner of the Jim Baen Memorial Award, and the Amazing Stories Award. Sean writes from a nook in a corner of his 110 year old home, usually listening to eighties music. Award-winning author, Sean Monaghan has published more than one hundred stories in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and in New Zealand, where he makes his home. A regular contributor to Asimov’s, his story “Crimson Birds of Small Miracles”, set in the art world of Shilinka Switalla, won both the Sir Julius Vogel Award, and the Asimov’s Readers Poll Award, for best short story. He is a past winner of the Jim Baen Memorial Award, and the Amazing Stories Award. Sean writes from a nook in a corner of his 110 year old home, usually listening to eighties music.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Call me naive, yeh? Name like that, shoulda knowed better.

This diner, right, it stood outside of Sanson, little place on highway one. Nice enough spot I guess. Got shiny red vinyl stools at the counter, mounted on chromed posts. Little footrests down near the bottom like fallen haloes.

The kitchen crackled with the gorgeous smell of frying bacon, the calls of the cook and the waitstaff. Truckers sat in booths at the windows, worn caps still on their heads, plaid shirts with one button too many left unfastened.

Some family in the corner with a coupla kids, one with a model airplane zooming it around too loudly. Mother trying to placate the toddler and father trying to figure out if he can order the big breakfast, and risk the frown, or just have the salad and a cappuccino.

Life’s tough, huh?

Me, I leaned against the counter. Slightly tacky from polish and, I guess, spilled soda.

Out on the highway trucks rumbled by. In the parking lot some guy was yelling at his girlfriend.

Right. You know the kind of place. You’ve seen them on your travels. You maybe got a favorite of your own. Some place where the hash browns are just right. Crisp on the outside, moist in the center. Perfect.

This one here, Mike’s Roadhouse, it’d been standing for a couple of decades. Mike still lived in the apartment out back. A hundred if he was a day, as they would say.

All right, hon’, Sally Winchler said to me, coming around the other side of the counter. What can I getcha? Can’t tell you how busy we been today. And Amy called in sick, you know it. But let me tell you, we’ll fill that belly of yours just right.

I smiled.

It was a patter, but from Sally, it was just natural. Career waitress. Friendly as all get out and smart as one of them big city lawyers. She ran the place now that Mike was hands off and gaga-land mostly.

Trim and spritely, she wore her dark hair in a braid, and a standard crisp clean waitress dress with apron. How she kept them looking brand new just beat me.

Soda, I said. Diet cola. Some of that generic brand you peddle.

Don’t you go getting me riled, James Decataur. I’ll have your breakfast, with a side and soda in under ten minutes. Right? Got it?

Yes ma’am.

Sally gave me a nod, tore the sheet from her order book and tacked it above the servery.

So, yeah, me, James Decataur. Been coming by two, three times a week for the best part of three years. Know Sally well enough, as far as a business relationship goes, and she knows me well enough to just about have my order on cooking before I’ve even put my bike up on its stand.

She set the soda in front of me. Light on the ice, and bubbling fresh. Plastic cup with vertical cracks. As old as the diner itself.

You take it slow on that, she told me. Don’t want you going into diabetic shock now, right?

No, ma’am. Thank you ma’am.

Sally shook her head and headed off to bus one of the tables.

So then, in walked Lucy Yesterday.

CHAPTER TWO

In the booth in the corner, the woman told the husband what he was having for lunch. One of the trucks, loaded with cut and dressed logs, pulled out onto the highway. A canary yellow Mustang darted around the front, trying to avoid getting stuck behind.

Something sizzled too loud in the kitchen and Clyde, the head cook, quickly shut it down.

I took a sip from my soda. Good and cooling and delicious.

A minor hush wafted around the diner. Almost like one of those weird wave convergence things where everyone goes quiet at about the same time. Little lulls in conversation coinciding. There were maybe thirty, thirty-five people, in a space that could accommodate ninety plus.

It wasn’t a coinciding, though. It was Lucy. Walking in. Grabbing attention.

She does that.

Today Lucy was wearing a pinafore dress of some kind, and a bonnet. I don’t know much about period clothes, and that’s pretty much what she wears.

Kind of like out in the parking lot there would be a horse-drawn wagon, some palomino or something hitched to it.

James, she said, planting her rump on the vinyl stool beside mine. Long time.

I guess. You’d be the one who knows about time.

The diner’s conversation was gradually returning to regular levels. Clyde clunked a plate onto the servery shelf and tapped the bell. He caught my eye, glanced at Lucy, and back at me with a smile.

Guess I would. Lucy looked around the room. She gave a little wave to Sally, who nodded back and raised one finger. Be right with you, hon’.

I sipped from my soda again.

Gonna need your help on this one again James.

My help? Bookwork.

Gun buddy.

Oh. I sighed. Sally dropped my breakfast in front of me. Looked at Lucy.

Same as he’s having, Lucy said.

CHAPTER THREE

We took my bike. Lucy didn’t have a wagon, but she’d