The Globe

Rule #1 of staying at grandpa's house: don't go looking for things you can't explain to your therapist without looking delusional.

Hearing her mother recite this rule was Monet's first memory of the now consistent summer trips to Paris, France, where her grandfather had holed up since his wife died. The trips had started when she was twelve, old enough to take care of herself, since her grandfather wasn't much of a babysitter, but young enough to not complain about the long flight and weird food.

Now, at eighteen, her long legs aching and the jet lag tugging at her heavy eyelids, the last thing she wanted to do was snoop around the old mansion. But it was her cousin Philip's first summer and he'd met the rule with a gleaming eye as if it were a challenge.

"Come on." Philip tugged at her wrist, his round, naive face glowing with what Monet could only assume was stupidity. "Aren't you curious?"

"Tired? Yes. Curious? No." Monet bent over and scooped up her suitcase with a huff, her weak arms buckling under the weight. For such a big house, you'd think there'd be a butler somewhere. But no, she'd spent the last six summers lugging her entire wardrobe up the glossy, cherry stained steps.

"Grandpa isn't anywhere to be found," Philip said, his calloused fingers curling around Monet's wrist once again. "It's the perfect time to go exploring. This place is huge. And with a rule like that, there ought to be something crazy hidden in the floorboards."

"Rule #2." Monet turned a wary eye on her cousin, who stood a few feet under her, his brown skin plagued with acne, his curly hair a mess around his face. "Don't assume grandpa isn't around the next corner, listening to every word you say."

"How do you know these rules aren't meant to be broken?" Philip raised an eyebrow in question, a serious look upon his young face.

"Don't be ridiculous, Phil." Monet stepped up onto the first step, her shoulders already strained from her heavy bag. The second floor loomed above them, the morning sun peering in through dusty windows, and she longed to curl up in the room she'd chosen six summers ago. It had the biggest bed in all of the guest rooms.

"You're boring," Philip said, his lip curled in disdain. "I'm exploring. You go read a book for the next four weeks."

Philip turned and ran down the hall, his sneakers slapping against the expensive rug that sat on polished wood floors. Monet stared after him as his body got smaller and smaller, closed doors and portraits of old Frenchmen blurring as he sped past.

She had half a mind to take both of their bags upstairs, stick his in the room furthest from her's, and pretend she was alone like all the summers before. But as she watched him skid to a stop in front of the last door, something unseemly surely waiting behind the old wood, she knew it would be on her head if something happened to Philip, not their grandfather's.

"Rule #3," she muttered to herself. "Especially don't go in grandpa's study; the last door at the end of the hall."

Crap, she thought. I'm the adult here. He's just a kid.

"Wait up, Phil."

She kept her head down as she passed all the portraits. She didn't know who they were, if they'd lived here before her grandfather, or if they were just random paintings. But she knew she'd never liked them much, what with their stuffy clothes and reproachful looks. A hallway to the right led to the kitchen, and every time she'd gone to eat over the years, she'd kept her head down and lips shut.

She was afraid if she looked up, they'd be staring back. And that if she said a word, they'd reply.

When she reached the study door, she crossed her arms over her chest and looked down at her cousin, a frown tugging at her lips.

"We'll be in so much trouble if we get caught," she said in her best I'm older and wiser than you voice. "Grandpa will probably call our parents. We'll be on the first plane back to LA. Ruin our parents' entire month."

"I'll take that risk." Philip reached out and curled his fingers around the golden doorknob before his eyes traveled up to meet Monet's. Something swam in the irises that she couldn't quite pinpoint. "Will you?"

Monet sighed. "I don't believe I have a choice."

Philip hesitated. Monet wondered if their grandfather was just behind the door, ready to catch them in the act of breaking not one, but two of the very specific rules.

But when the door swung open with a creak, nobody stood on the other side.

Philip didn't hesitate again. He rushed right into the study and started snooping around. Monet silently shut the door behind them and trailed her eyes over the study, her lips pursed.

It was a small room. Just a square, really. A bulky desk sat in the middle of the room, a throne-like chair stained the same cherry color as everything else in the house. Papers were kept neat in a corner of the desk and a globe sat in the other corner. A bookcase was pushed up against the left wall, leather bound books with no titles pressed close together.

Monet pulled a book off its shelf and opened it, her index finger running down the gentle binding. The pages smelled like dust and age, but no black ink punctured the yellow facade. No story written, nothing to learn, and she wondered if every single book was empty. And she wondered what a bunch of empty books were doing in a study.

"Monet, come check this out!"

The excitement in Philip's tone worried her. Had he found something they wouldn't be able to explain without sounding delusional?

She shoved the book back into place and crossed the small room to stand beside her cousin. He stood with his hips pressed against the desk, his fingers hovering greedily over the globe. She sighed a breath of relief at how normal it looked. Expensive, sure, with the countries etched in place with golden thread, the names golden plated and stapled into the soft material of the Earth. But normal nonetheless.

Until Philip pressed his fingers against the globe. The golden thread began to glow ever so slightly, yanking a gasp from the back of Monet's throat. The word Europe shone as if the sun was glaring down on it, and France flashed like that of a blinker on a car. She wanted to back away, leave before she saw too much, before she glimpsed the secrets her grandfather hid in this house. But Philip grabbed her hand and smacked it down on the globe.

It was warm to the touch. Almost like it had a life of its own. And Monet could almost feel something pulsing beneath the cloth globe, but she told herself it was nothing but a figment of her imagination. All of this was, in fact. She was still on the plane, snoozing through the last few hours, and her subconscious was reminding her how not to spend her month at her grandfather's.

But when the thread began to unravel from the globe, she wasn't sure if she could convince herself it was fake. The countries disappeared as the thread floated up into the air and surrounded Monet and Philip. The globe was now nothing but a ball as Monet could feel the thread coil around her arms, around her stomach and her waist, tangle through her hair and rip at her clothes.

Music filtered in from somewhere. It was far away, yet sounded so close, and Monet found herself reaching out for it. It was beautiful and...old, and even though she'd never heard it before in her life, she could feel every note and beat pulsing in her blood.

With a gust of wind that smelled strangely of whiskey, the thread whisked away from her body and sewed itself back into the globe.

"What the hell just happened?" she whispered, her hands gripping at her cousin's shoulders.

Philip looked around before he frowned. "Nothing. Nothing at all. We're still just in the study. See?"

Yes, that was true. The study still surrounded them, with the desk and the throne and the empty books. But music trickled down the hallway and slipped under the closed door. The same music she'd heard when she was sure she was amidst some kind of magic. A music that tasted and smelled like a home she'd never visited before.

"There's nothing cool in here," Philip said with a defeated sigh. "Let's go look somewhere else."

"I don't think that's a good idea, Phil."

"Why not?"

"Something feels...different."

"What--?"

The study door swung open, allowing that music to fill up the room. Monet could pinpoint the twinkle of a piano, the reserved reverberations of a violin, and though she could play neither instrument, she felt her fingers twitch to the melodic beat. She wasn't able to feel the stress she knew she should be when she realized her grandfather was staring into the study, a look of pure terror on his face.

He looked weird. Young. Younger than Monet's parents, who were in their forties. In fact, he looked more like Monet's age than anything else. A brown suit covered his lean body, a patterned tie tucked into his waistcoat, a golden handkerchief sticking out of his breast pocket. His usually bald head now sprouted thick tufts of black hair, his eyes bright and shining with young life. His pale skin was no longer covered in sunspots, though freckles sprinkled his nose and cheeks.

"How did you get here?" their grandfather demanded, his voice a strong baritone. He stepped into the study and slammed the door shut, his blazing eyes flicking between his two grandchildren.

"We...touched the globe," Philip said carefully. "Why do you look so good?"

Their grandfather shifted on his feet. "So you've just forgotten the rules?"

"More like ignored."

Monet elbowed her cousin before she said, "You asked how we got here. But we're still in the house. So what did you mean?"

He hesitated.

"Where are we?"

"A better question would be when are we."

"Huh?"

But when the study door swung open again, Monet didn't need any more clarification. A young woman stood on the other side of the threshold, a shy smile on her face. She was short and lean, and a beautiful green dress flowed away from her wide hips and chest. Her skin was a dark brown, her thick hair coily, and she had the kindest eyes Monet had ever seen. The woman looked almost exactly like Monet's mother, whose skin was lighter and curls loose, but otherwise they were twins.

Monet stopped herself from saying a word. But Philip whispered, "Grandma?"

"I'm sorry?" their grandmother said, head cocked to the side. Her smile remained soft and polite, and Monet wanted nothing more than to introduce herself.

"You just look how our grandmother did when she was young," Monet said quickly.

"Why don't you go back to the party, Mo? I'll be with you shortly."

Mo? Monet thought. Am I named after her? Why did I not know this?

The door shut behind their grandmother and it took everything in Monet not to follow after her. They'd never had a chance to meet before she'd passed, and now that some magical circumstance had brought them together, Monet didn't know how she could waste such an opportunity.

"You must go back to your time," their grandfather said softly.

"It's your time too," Monet said. "How did you even find that globe? Do you practice magic? How often do you come to visit grandma?"

"Can we talk to her?" Phillip asked eagerly.

"No." Their grandfather covered his face with his hands. "I shouldn't even be here. But...this night, I asked her to marry me. I come every so often, just to see her smile again. To feel that love swell in my chest like a balloon. To hear the song I did the moment I decided she was the one."

"But--"

"It gets harder to go back every time I come here," he continued. "I soon will be lost. Stuck between time. It's a bad ending for an old fool. You must not make my same mistakes. You leave this instant and you don't ever come back."

"Grandpa," Monet said, her eyebrows furrowed. But she didn't know what else to say. Could she really blame him for finding a way back to the good old days?

"I belong here. With her," he said. "I've lived a life. You have to let me make my mistakes."

Monet and Philip stared at their grandfather, neither of them sure what to do or say.

"Go," he said. "Read the books."

And with that, he turned and left the study.

Monet wished she didn't have to be the adult. She wished she could go after her grandparents, watch them get engaged, watch their love bloom into a daughter and a son, who then found their own families. She didn't want to go home when she could only hear the music here. Could only feel it here.

But she had to leave. She couldn't allow Philip to stay here. He was still a kid, still dependent on his parents. She had to make sure he got back to his life, because he was her responsibility. And she'd known that before she'd even stepped into the study.

To her surprise, Philip didn't put up a fight. They placed their fingers back on the globe and watched as the thread surrounded them, grabbed at them, carried them back to their own time. The music faded quickly, and when the thread returned to the globe, silence followed. She couldn't even remember the melody. Could hardly recall the lines and angles of her grandmother's face.

Had she been wearing green or yellow?

Philip left the study without so much as a word.

Monet sighed and glanced around the study, her bottom lip tugged in between her teeth. Her grandfather's last words to her echoed in her brain and she let her eyes fall on the bookshelf, her fingers twitching.

Read the books.

She grabbed the same one she had before, her index finger running down the binding. A title was now embedded into the leather, a pretty green against the black.

How We Met.

Monet opened the book and looked down. The pages were no longer yellow, but a bright white, the smell of dust and age replaced with binding glue and ink, which was a stark black in her grandfather's messy handwriting.

"New rule," she said to herself. "Never care if you look delusional."