It was almost midnight when Rose kissed her grandmother good night, and it was four in the morning by the time Rose completed her Queen Elizabeth dress. She turned in front of the mirror. Not bad, she thought. Not bad at all. She scrutinized the entire look. The dress was good. She slid her eyes over to her computer screen, which showed the portrait of Elizabeth as a queen. There were tons of these online. Few from when she was just a princess, however. Rose had bought a bunch of fake pearls to drape around her neck, but there was something missing, and guess who had it? The locket. My locket! Elizabeth was wearing a pendant of some sort. But it wasn’t the gold rose, the Tudor Rose—or was it? There was so much stuff going on around her neck in the portrait—pearls, lace ruffs—it was impossible to see. She clicked on the mouse and enlarged the image.

Holy moly! This was the pendant. The Tudor Rose with her photo inside—her mom in her mom-kini and Rose in her Little Mermaid bathing suit, her Aguaphile swim goggles, and clutching the Mickey Mouse pocketbook. “Oh my God,” Rose whispered as she read that the year of the portrait was 1575, by one “Federico Zuccaro, a fashionable court artist.”

It said 1575! Rose quickly calculated. Elizabeth was forty-two years old! Ancient! Older than her own mom. Yet there she was, still wearing that pendant around thirty years after she’d stolen it from Rose! What nerve!

Okay. Okay . . . stay calm, Rose. She began talking herself down. Time is very screwy here. Yeah, thirty-one years seems like a long time. But hey, time does tricky things. All within a blink of time. For all she knew, the next time she went back, Elizabeth could be eighty. No! She realized Elizabeth had died at sixty-nine. Nonetheless, she might have wrinkles instead of zits. Speaking of which, Rose noticed a zit just starting on her chin. She went into the bathroom for her industrial-strength cover-up cream. More of a paste than a cream. She never even got to reach for the tube before she emitted a little yelp as she caught her reflection in the mirror.

I’m him! “Dad!” she whispered. It was as if a younger female version of her father was staring back at her. It was the ruff, the way it cradled her chin, that appeared to give her face these clearly recognizable contours. No beard, however, just an oncoming zit. But she now realized that the shape of her face and her cheekbones were his. But who was he? Where was he? She leaned forward until her face was just inches from the mirror. “What is your name?” The mirror fogged with her breath. The reflection began to dissolve. “I need you. Please.” The pain was real. The image a phantom.

Chapter 20

A Dream of Friendship