After a moment during which Joseph poured tea for everyone, he resumed. "What do you know about Mark Twain?"
"I know he was a Great American Writer (she thought the words capitalized) whose real name is Samuel Clemens, he was born before the Civil War, he wrote Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and a bunch of other books and stories - like the one about the jumping frog - and that he was a riverboat captain and he lived in Hartford, Connecticut, and..."
"Okay, I'm impressed. How do you know so much?" Joseph asked.
"My uncle is a Mark Twain nut. His library has a lot of Mark Twain's books. He even has a statue that I used to play with when I was two or three years old. It was as tall as I was. My uncle used to read me some of the stories, and show me pictures. The best thing was, when I was three, we went to my Aunt Joanne and Uncle Danny's wedding in Hartford, and my uncle (the first one, not my Uncle Danny, because he was getting married) took me to see Mark Twain's house."
"Do you remember the house well?" Joseph asked.
"I think I mostly remember pictures of the house. I was pretty young then," Alex said.
"Of course," Joseph said. "Do you remember anything about their life in that house?"
Alex was about to say again that she was too young to remember, but then tried hard to think back to that day. "Life was very happy there while the daughters were growing up. They were the best years of their lives, until Susy died." Alex surprised herself by saying that. Joseph was surprised too. Everyone was quiet for a time.
"I'm surprised I remember that, but I do."
"Let me give you some background," Joseph said. "And let's start getting used to calling him Mr. Clemens. Mr. and Mrs. Clemens, Sam and Livy, moved into the house in Hartford just after his first two novels were published. The book was Innocents Abroad. Do you know it?"
"I think it has to do with a cruise to the Holy Land," she answered. "I never read it, but I watched part of a movie about the book. The movie wasn't very good."
"To go on," Joseph said, "the second was called Roughing It, and this one was about his years in your American West.
"Never read it," Alex said.
"In 1870, the Clemens had a young son named Langdon, who died before they moved into the Hartford house in 1874. Susy was born in 1872."
"I remember seeing Mr. Clemens in a picture with three young girls," Alex said.
"That's right. He had two younger daughters, Clara and Jean. But it's with Susy that we must concern ourselves. By the Summer of 1886, Mr. Clemens had written Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and the Pauper, Life on the Mississippi, and many articles and short stories. Mr. Clemens was a kind and loving father, and was always a friend and companion to his children. When he was in Hartford, not traveling and lecturing, he spent a lot of time with his children. They loved putting on plays and performances, especially the Prince and the Pauper, with Mr. Clemens taking one of the parts. Susy was writing a biography of her father, and they were both very proud of it.
Susy was his favorite, and he adored her. He cared more about her opinion of his work than anyone else except his wife. As often as he could, he took Susy with him on his lectures.
In Hartford, he was so busy with the children, as well as with visitors, that he really didn't get much work done. Each Summer, the family went to Elmira, New York, where Mr. Clemens did most of his writing. Even there, though he worked during the day, he was able to spend much time with his children in the evenings and on weekends.
By 1886, Mr. Clemens had become famous, and financially they were doing very well. The family was very happy, until tragedy struck. Susy died in an accident, an overturned coach."
Both Deanna and Alex had the beginnings of tears in their eyes. Joseph cleared his throat, and went on. "After that, Mrs. Clemens' health, which was never very good, went downhill quickly, and she became an invalid. Mr. Clemens was so distressed by his daughter's death and his wife's illness, that he wrote almost nothing else. The few things he wrote were full of gloom and self-pity, and nothing like his former self."
"I remember a little about that, from things my uncle told me," Alex said. Deanna sniffed and dabbed at a tear. Joseph assumed they were saddened because Susy was killed at an age very nearly their own.
"Now we come to it," Joseph said. "As Mr. Bond explained to you, there are certain critical moments in time that we call 'crosstimes.' These are the points at which time can branch into different futures. When one of our Alien Literature students was doing research on the life of Mr. Clemens, she first detected a crosstime centered on 1886. Then, as she did some routine measurements, she detected some strange -- well, call them 'vibrations' -- associated with the crosstime. She concluded that tampering had occurred: someone had changed or tried to change the course of history at that time. The 'vibrations' were there because certain strands of the space-time fabric had been cut, and re-arranged. In other words, someone went back in time and caused the death of Susy."
"But why?" both girls exclaimed in unison.
"Why indeed," Joseph repeated, somewhat dramatically. "That's what we asked ourselves. Then we called in our best Seer, Martha. She was able to determine that there had been a different history, where Susy did not die at that time, and where Mr. Clemens career spanned another twenty or more years."
"What did he do in those twenty years?" Deanna asked.
"We have no idea, but we know he did something important. The reason we know, the reason the Seer can tell something happened, is because the change on your world, Alex, caused changes on ours."
"Do you know what Susy might have done if she didn't die?" Alex asked.
"No," Joseph answered. "Understand that when a change happens in the past, the old time path simply never happened. Susy did not live beyond 1886. The change is total and complete. You would never be able to search and find evidence in your world of Susy's life after 1886, because it never happened."
"Did you find evidence here?" Alex asked.
"Not evidence as you mean it," Joseph answered. "There's nothing that was caused by Susy's living longer. But our Seer can sense more than physical evidence. She feels something missing from our world, something that would have existed had Susy lived longer or Mr. Clemens had a longer career."
"But she can't tell what's missing?"
"That's right. The relationship between our worlds is very difficult to describe. It's not a matter of a single event happening on your world, and a resulting single event on ours. The relationship is really more a matter of times where good or evil dominates one world and the influences flow over to the other world."
"Do you think that someone from my world went back in time and killed her?"
"It's possible, but we think that it was more likely to be someone from Sandorra. Do you know of our Night Lord?" Joseph asked.
"I heard his name mentioned. He's the one who was the leader of the bad guys when there was a war here a long time ago, the war that was in The Lord of the Rings," Alex said.
"That's right. Since that time, he has never regained the kind of power he had. But he has learned more subtle ways of influencing events here, and one of those ways is to promote evil on your world. There have been times when he's been able to stay on your world and gain power there, and cause terrible problems."
"Has he been anyone I might know of in history?" Alex asked.
"He prefers to work behind the scenes, where the power really is. He was one of the silent leaders of the Spanish Inquisition, when thousands were killed for religious beliefs. There are many other examples. It's possible that he took the place of Napoleon, after Napoleon's first exile."
"How about in recent history?" Alex asked.
"For the moment it would be better if I didn't answer that," Joseph answered. When Alex started to protest, Joseph said, "I'll explain the reason for that very shortly."
Alex said, "I think I need to know the reasons for a lot of things very shortly. Like the reason for this whole conversation. It's interesting, but I don't understand why it's important to us right here and now."
Joseph took a deep breath, and seemed to be debating on how to proceed. Finally, he plunged on: "We think that you might be able to travel back in time and prevent Susy's death."