The Time Collector

by Gwendolyn Womack

  Sun closed her grandmother’s fan and tucked it inside her shirt, letting it rest against her heart.

  13. THE TALISMAN

  ROAN SET THE FAN BACK on the desk and folded his hands into a compassionate heart mudra, the Hridaya.

  Sun had given him her touchstone, the object that carried her most important memories. The fact she had entrusted him with the fan was so humbling, so astounding, Roan didn’t know what to think.

  A well of emotion rose within him. He could still smell the war, the dead burning, the smell of napalm and its ammonia-like aftereffects. The acrid odor filled his nostrils and lingered in the hotel room even though he knew the scent only existed in his mind.

  He had touched many relics from the past whose imprints of war had taken him to battlefields, but Sun had experienced those atrocities firsthand. She had lived through war’s worst circles of hell and witnessed its annihilating force, witnessed it destroy the love that bound families together and send children to walk through the world alone.

  Sun had been such a child.

  An orphan of the Forgotten War, she’d heeded her family’s words and strived to live, forging her path through sheer, unstoppable will.

  Sun Kim had lived a monumental life. Where Roan made sense of his gift by looking to the past and returning lost heirlooms to their descendants, Sun had looked to the future, saving children. Roan had seen through the imprints in the fan how, when she became older, she left the orphanage in Wonju and used her gift to raise money to build a network of orphanages. Her company, BariHome, saved children orphaned by war, not only in Korea but around the globe. Sun had estimated that more than two hundred million orphans were lost in the world—an unfathomable number—with every day seeing six to ten thousand more children without homes. Sun was one of the global warriors leading the fight.

  The knowledge of her life and the last seventy years had been encoded into the fan, because Sun always kept it tucked in her breast pocket. The fan was her talisman.

  Talismans were powerful objects, embedded with the owner’s essence, their thoughts and emotions. The longer a talisman was worn, the stronger the imprint.

  This fan wasn’t a gift: it was a book of her life she had loaned him, and she expected it back, that much was certain.

  Roan possessed such a talisman too, his lucky coin, which he’d kept in his pocket for almost twenty years. The coin technically wasn’t even a coin—it couldn’t buy anything—and it wasn’t made out of gold or silver but hardened plaster that had been enameled. He couldn’t imagine giving it to a stranger.

  His coin was the original model Augustus Saint-Gaudens had made for the gold Liberty coin. Minted in 1907, the twenty-dollar gold Saint-Gaudens Liberty coin was revered as the most beautiful coin ever made in the United States.

  Roan knew the history by heart. Saint-Gaudens had been a prolific sculptor and was personal friends with President Roosevelt. Roosevelt believed only Saint-Gaudens could make a truly remarkable coin, something that would rival the coins of Europe and ancient Greece. The president, without obtaining congressional approval, hired the artist outside the Mint. There was much resistance, particularly from Saint-Gaudens’s archrival, Mint artist Charles Barber.

  The plaster model in Roan’s possession was the coin’s original three-dimensional model in high relief, the finished masterpiece Saint-Gaudens envisioned. Lady Liberty stood poised in flight in front of the Capitol, holding a torch and an olive branch to symbolize peace and enlightenment, the rays of the sun blazing behind her.

  Saint-Gaudens gave this plaster coin to President Roosevelt for his approval, and the president bellowed in triumph when he saw it, “This is the one!”

  Roan didn’t need one of the gold coins this model had made. This piece of plaster was far more valuable. His model coin held all of the stories. It held Saint-Gaudens’s passion, his drive, and the joy from his studio sessions as he sculpted Lady Liberty, working with Hettie Anderson, who he proclaimed was a goddess and the most beautiful model he had ever seen. Hettie was a rarity, an African American model, who could pose for hours with perfect concentration, and she’d held Roan’s lucky coin in her hand as well.

  When Roan found it at a swap meet in Virginia at the age of ten, he’d been fascinated by the drama. The challenges the most beautiful coin in America faced in order to meet the world had been substantial. The image on the coin needed to be obtained at press with one strike, but Saint-Gaudens’s coin required nine. Roan could hear Roosevelt’s fist pounding on the desk of the Oval Office as he shouted, “I want this coin! Even if it takes you all day to strike only one!”

  Saint-Gaudens’s coin went into production, but Saint-Gaudens died of cancer in 1907, the year the coin was released. Saint-Gaudens never saw the final result. In order to mass-produce it, the Mint had to use a model set in lower relief—but even slightly altered, it was still lauded as the most beautiful coin the Mint ever made.

  The gold coins from Saint-Gaudens’s original model were now worth millions, and Roan’s was perhaps worth even more. He always kept the coin tucked away in his pocket as a reminder that the real worth of an object could never be measured by money.

  He fingered the coin in his pocket now, reassured to feel it there, and guilt consumed him for judging Sun so harshly at both of their meetings—first in France years ago and then in New York. He’d taken the look in her eyes for arrogance when really it was strength.

  He hadn’t known her at all.

  Roan returned to the Hridaya mudra, and he could feel his thoughts centering as the enormity of what Sun had done hit him. She’d opened the window to her life and invited him in to see all her years tucked within the fan. She needed his trust, so she had sacrificed her most treasured possession to gain it.

  Anyone who possessed their ability had been marked as a target. Sun had given him her fan to help Roan understand that he was entrenched with her in this fight. She had given up her secrets because she desperately needed his help. She needed an ally and had chosen him.

  14. THE TREE

  THE FIRST THING MELICENT did when she got home from the wine bar was put her hands on the house’s front and back door to try and sense if the man had returned.

  She stood with her eyes closed, waiting for a new sensation—anything. She could still feel the man’s hold on the knob, his intention to harm them, to harm the house. She let go, more unnerved than ever, and hurried inside and locked the door. The alarm technician was scheduled to come tomorrow, but now tomorrow seemed too long to wait. She tried to assure herself they’d be fine for one more night.

  She could hear Parker upstairs in his room, and she called up, “I’m home!”

  He didn’t answer. In the kitchen a pile of his dirty dishes sat in the sink. Melicent was too keyed up to nag him to come down and wash them. Her mind kept returning to Roan’s warning. After the initial shock, the reality was beginning to sink in that he’d really flown from New Orleans to tell her she was in danger.

  She checked again to make sure all the doors and windows were locked. Then she went over to her desk and turned on the computer. Logging into her email, she found the YouTube link Parker had sent her. When she clicked on it, the views had climbed to twenty-five thousand. What the hell?

  “Parker!”

  He didn’t answer. Then she yelled his name so loud he had to acknowledge it. His door opened and he came to the top of the stairs. “What?”

  “Come downstairs. We need to have a serious discussion.”

  His whole body radiated defiance as he stomped downstairs and plopped on the couch. “What did I do now?”

  “Nothing. It’s me,” she said, rubbing her forehead. “I haven’t been honest with you about something.” Parker perked up now that this wasn’t going to be another lecture about school. She pointed to the YouTube video on the screen. “I really did find those antiques with my hands by sensing the past. I am a psychometrist.”

  There, she said it.

  Her brother gav
e her a nonplussed look. “I know. You got like two million dollars for it and you’re still not getting me a car.”

  “Oh my God, you’re impossible. Can you forget about the car for one minute?” She wanted to scream but tried to stay calm. “Some guy came to see me today to warn me that I might be in danger because I am being publicly labeled a psychometrist.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Because of this stupid video.” She pointed to the computer. “People are looking for people who have my ability.”

  “Your ability? What are you, Wonder Woman now?”

  “No, I’m not Wonder Woman.” She sighed. This wasn’t going well. “But I did sense the history of those things. How do you think I found the watch?”

  He mimicked her—“You sensed it”—and he air-quoted her to boot.

  “Okay. The point is he came to warn me about it.”

  “Because he’s a psycho who saw the video.”

  “He’s not a psycho,” she snapped, exasperated. Yes, Roan West was a complete stranger. But something about him made her want to trust him. They had shared the lantern memory. She hadn’t imagined that. “What I’m trying to say is, we both need to be on guard for anything that seems odd or suspicious.” She debated telling him about the garage doorknob.

  “So how long have you been like this?” he asked her. “Able to sense shit with your hands.”

  “Watch your language.” She pointed her finger at him.

  He rolled his eyes. “How long?”

  “I don’t know. A while,” she said, unable to be more specific. Technically it had been her whole life, though the instances had come in spurts. “When Mom got sick it got stronger and … after she passed away I couldn’t stop…” She didn’t finish explaining but jumped ahead. “And now I’m on YouTube.” She made a gesture to the computer. “So we need to be alert.”

  “Alert.” Parker air-quoted her again.

  “Yes. Alert,” she said shortly. “Can you please do that for me?”

  He gave her a sullen look. “And the car?”

  “Enough about the car!”

  “You’re the one who just got two million dollars, and I’m riding the bus. What the hell, Mel?”

  “Show me you’re back at school and get your grades out of the toilet and then we’ll talk.”

  Parker glared at her like what she was proposing was unreasonable. He stormed back up the stairs and slammed his door.

  That hadn’t been productive.

  Melicent swiveled in her chair to look at the computer screen. Just seeing the YouTube video on some psychic investigator’s channel gave her chills. There had to be a way to take the thing down. It wasn’t from Antiques Roadshow or connected to their show whatsoever. Someone with the camera crew or a person nearby in line must have recorded it and shared it.

  She fired off an email to the address listed for the channel. If they didn’t take it down, should she hire a lawyer? She couldn’t have this National Enquirer–esque video of her and “the power of her hands” on the internet forever. Why had she even said it in the first place, on camera? What had she been thinking?

  She spent an hour online researching what to do when someone posted a video of someone without permission—because she definitely hadn’t signed a waiver for this. She clicked on various articles and read about public versus private places, “reasonable expectations of privacy,” commercial usage, and infringement. It all sounded murky and in the end didn’t give her a clear-cut answer. With a sigh she gave up for the evening and shut off the computer.

  She grabbed her purse and the accordion folder where she kept all their important paperwork and headed upstairs. She needed to fill out the life insurance application and double-check their passports. More than ever she felt the urge to get out of L.A. Tonight she’d start planning the details, maybe book the tickets.

  Finding the watch was beginning to feel like a burden, not a gift. Now they might not be safe.

  When she passed by Parker’s door she almost knocked and went in so they could talk some more. She raised her hand but then dropped it. Parker didn’t understand. And if she tried to get into it more, he’d start to think she was crazy. There was only one person who grasped what she was going through—and she couldn’t stop thinking about him either.

  Tomorrow she’d call Roan and ask to see him again and share her concern about the intruder. Tonight she’d been too off balance about the snow globe to open up. But tomorrow she would invite him over so he could touch the doorknob too. He seemed to be so much better than her at reading objects.

  Hadn’t he proved that with the snow globe?

  Talk about skipping over small talk and the get-to-know-you stage. She’d been so livid with him, but looking back, she also knew her anger wasn’t fair. Her work had been for sale, out in the open for him to handle. And he promised he’d only touched one when he realized the private memories tucked within it.

  Maybe she would ask if she could refund him for all the globes and get them back? Though at the moment Roan reading imprints off her artwork was the least of her problems.

  She needed his take on the doorknob because the more she placed her hand on the knob and tried to reread the imprint, the more she couldn’t let go of the feeling that man had specifically come to her house because of her ability. He had tracked her down after seeing her on the internet—just like Roan West.

  * * *

  When Melicent went to sleep that night, she dreamed of the lantern maker. She could hear the woman reciting a Buddhist prayer, and images of the lantern maker’s life accompanied the words. Memories flickered through the dream like a pictograph whizzing by too fast. The woman’s voice grew louder, expanding with a powerful resonance, and an explosion of sound—like a glass window breaking—woke her up.

  Melicent opened her eyes to find thick smoke in the room, surrounding her in a fog. The acrid smell burned her nostrils and she gagged for air.

  Frantic, she made her way to the door and grabbed her purse and the file folder sitting on her desk, instinctively knowing she might never be coming back.

  She ran to Parker’s room through the smoke-filled hallway and saw flames licking up the staircase.

  “Parker!” She ran to the bed and shook him, but he was listless. “Parker!” She rocked him hard. “Get up!” She wrapped her arms around him and tried to sit him up.

  “What are you doing?” he mumbled in a groggy voice, his eyes half-closed.

  “There’s a fire! You have to wake up!”

  She opened the bedroom window and threw her things down into the front yard. She rushed back and put her arms around Parker’s middle to pull him to his feet.

  They made it to the window, where she forced his head outside to get air. The fire was crawling down the hallway. Soon it’d be in the room.

  The tree by Parker’s window, an enormous old camphor with thick knotted branches, was their only chance. Sadie had been wanting to trim all the trees in the yard for years, afraid that several might damage the house, but she couldn’t afford the expense. Now Melicent was thankful her mother never did.

  Parker was becoming alert as the brisk December ocean air hit him from outside and he began to cough, clearing his lungs.

  “Reach for that branch, Park. Hurry!” Melicent leaned him forward so he could grab on to it.

  Parker resisted, coming to his senses. He looked down at the thirty-foot drop to the ground and froze in terror. “No, you go first.”

  “No. Go. Now!” Her voice brooked no argument. They had seconds, and she wasn’t going first.

  His body shaking, Parker reached out for the branch while she held him steady. “I can’t. I can’t…” He quivered, his fear of heights paralyzing him.

  “You can do it, Park! I got you.” Melicent tried to support him with all her strength and forced him out of the window.

  He clutched the branch, like a cat afraid to move.

  “Crawl! Crawl to the trunk.”

 
The fire entered the room. Parker glanced back, petrified when he saw the flames.

  Melicent yelled at him. “Parker! Listen to me. You have to get to the ground! It won’t hold us both!”

  But he reached for her instead. “Meli! Meli!”

  “Parker, climb. I need to you to keep going.” She could feel the heat burning her back.

  Parker looked around, hysterical, and slid backward toward the trunk. His room was now a gulf of flames that was almost at Melicent’s feet.

  The bed caught fire. Melicent had to jump out of the window before Parker could reach the trunk. The branch bent downward, threatening to snap.

  Parker cried out as the branch bowed. Melicent hugged the tree in a moment of panic, but then she felt the strength within the wood beneath her fingers, and the sting of the bark was a relief on her skin. This weathered tree had stood beside their home like a guardian her entire life. She had climbed the branches almost every day of her childhood. It would not break on her.

  Melicent closed her eyes and clung to it. “Park, keep going,” she said, breathing out. “We’re going to be fine.” For the first time she believed it.

  Parker scrambled to get off the branch. When his weight transferred to the trunk the branch swung back up.

  The sound of sirens came from a distance, but the whole house was already engulfed in flames. The firefighters would have nothing to save. If Melicent’s dream hadn’t woken her up, they wouldn’t have survived either.

  When she reached the ground she hugged her brother to her. They clung to each other, watching the house burn. A sense of certainty filled her that she would never be able to explain: those paper lanterns she’d spent all day hanging and then dreamed about had somehow saved her life.