The Time Collector

by Gwendolyn Womack

  15. THE HOUSE

  MELICENT AND PARKER SAT TOGETHER in the back of the fire department ambulance, blankets draped around them, taking oxygen. The police had arrived too. Melicent stared at the ruins from the fire and listened to the investigator explain how the fire burned the longest and reached the highest heat at the point of origin. She closed her eyes, unable to listen to the man go on about V-patterns, electrical systems, and gas pipes. They had brought in their arson dog and found the point of origin in the garage by the water heater right near the door.

  Her eyes began to water. The garage. Arson.

  But then she’d already known. After putting her hand on that doorknob she had sensed how malicious the man’s intent had been, and now this stranger had made her home a crime scene.

  He had burned down her house with her in it.

  The investigator explained there would be forensic testing, insurance inquiries, and legal considerations. For the house, there were structural and safety issues as well. They had a whole team collecting evidence and taking photographs and video.

  Melicent was calm as she listened, or maybe it was shock. She could feel Parker trembling and put her arm around him and squeezed him tight.

  “Do you have any idea who would want to do this?” the investigator asked. “Have you noticed anything strange the past couple of days? Any signs of forced entry?”

  Parker looked at her. The conversation they’d had earlier tonight was in his eyes. He had scoffed at her then, not knowing she’d been trying to warn him—just as Roan had tried to warn her.

  “Yes,” she admitted, her voice a whisper. She felt Parker stiffen beside her. “I came home the other day and something seemed strange in the garage. When I touched the doorknob…” She trailed off, unsure how she could explain it.

  “When you touched the doorknob?” the man prompted, busy taking notes.

  “I could tell someone had recently been there.”

  “Because it was unlocked? Or the lock was broken?” he asked, to clarify.

  “No—I—something felt wrong. Like a strong hunch. Like something was out of place.”

  The investigator nodded. He understood hunches all too well in his line of work. “We found accelerant in the garage hidden under the water heater near the door,” he said, “and faint trails of gunpowder spread throughout the ground floor inside the house.”

  “Gunpowder?” Parker spoke up.

  He nodded. “There were trails along the floor paneling to spread the flames.”

  Melicent covered her mouth, her whole body shaking. That man had gone inside her home and laid down gunpowder?

  “Ma’am, can you think of anyone who would want to do this?”

  She shook her head, a sense of numbness setting in. She didn’t know the intruder, didn’t recognize him, but she’d sensed the impressions he had left. Her whole body began to shiver.

  Parker was the one who spoke up. “My sister recently sold an antique pocket watch for a lot of money. It made the papers and got on YouTube. Maybe some crazy person saw it?”

  The man nodded. “Might be a motive.” He wrote that down too. “Do you two have a place to stay tonight?”

  Parker nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  All their neighbors had descended on them like a little army. They were huddled together in their robes on the front lawn, there to help in any way they could. Jim and Ruth Mercer lived right across the street and had already insisted that Melicent and Parker spend the night. The couple had offered them the guest room for as long as they needed it.

  The investigator gave Melicent his card and got her cell phone number. He would let her know when the house was released and keep her apprised of the investigation. He said to call him if she could think of anything that might help their efforts.

  Melicent stared at the destruction, overwhelmed. Tomorrow she’d contact Sadie’s homeowner’s insurance—if her mother had any. She didn’t remember seeing it in the accordion file. One of the neighbors had brought the folder and her purse over to her after finding them in the yard. They were the only things she had left besides her car, which was parked on the curb in front of the house. She’d been avoiding using the garage ever since feeling the doorknob. She also needed to tell Tish she wouldn’t be in. She needed to call Parker’s school too.

  Then she stopped. Did her to-do list even matter now? Someone had tried to kill them. Would he try again?

  Melicent didn’t know what to do. If this was about the two million dollars, she didn’t want the money. She’d give it back.

  She stared at the car. Roan’s card was still inside. She’d stuck it in her cup holder when she left the wine bar.

  “I’ll be right back,” she mumbled to Parker, and got out of the ambulance.

  “Where are you going?” Parker asked in panic.

  “Just checking the car. I’ll be back in a minute.” She padded down the sidewalk, suddenly conscious that she didn’t have shoes on and underneath the blanket the EMT had given her she was in her nightie. She didn’t own any clothes anymore.

  Every object tied to her life was gone, every memento, keepsake, work of art, and photograph, belonging not only to her but to Parker and their mother. Their computers, their hard drives and files wouldn’t have survived the fire either. A lifetime of “saves” had been obliterated in one night.

  Their home held more memories than she could imagine. Her grandparents had bought the house after they’d married in the early sixties. Sadie had spent her entire life inside those walls, born and raised under one roof. The master bedroom was still full of all her things—and the boxes, good God, the boxes—Melicent had planned to sort them after the new year. Now all her mother’s treasures were lost. The house, which had been the keeper of the memories, had been destroyed.

  Melicent stumbled under the weight of the loss, and when she reached for the car door a sob welled within her. She heard the sound from far away as if her ears were under water. She opened the door and sat down in the car, finally allowing the full force of her anguish to come out. She put her head on the dash and wept.

  After several minutes she pulled herself together and found Roan West’s card. She needed to tell him about the man who had done this.

  16. THE CIRCLES

  ROAN COULDN’T IMAGINE how Miguel and Stuart had linked crop circles to the ooparts. After taking a shower he got out his laptop to research crop circles in more depth. He clicked on one of the most popular crop circle databases in England, which had a huge library of aerial photography. The site had cataloged photos for the past twenty-five years and gave an overview of the phenomenon.

  The average circle was two hundred feet across, though some spanned up to a thousand feet. Many of the circles showed up on farms with gently sloping hills. As Roan clicked through the pictures, he became more and more spellbound. He’d never looked at crop circles up close before. The geometrical designs were stunning in their intricacy and held a timeless, poetic grace.

  He read that the circles usually formed overnight without fanfare, during the summer months before harvest. The full grandeur of the designs could only be viewed from the sky. Most circles were created during the shroud of night, sometime within a span of six to seven hours—though a few had miraculously appeared during the day in minutes. One notorious circle in 1996 nicknamed the “Julia Set” appeared near Stonehenge during the day, according to eyewitnesses and Stonehenge security guards. The field next to the busy highway and ancient monument had been clear all day and then suddenly, within minutes, everyone noticed an exquisite design had miraculously materialized. Even more incredible, the design was an arrangement of 149 circles in an intricate fractal pattern representing the Julia set, a complex mathematical formula.

  Roan made a note of the other crop circles researchers had flagged. They were significant because they showed the circles could not have been made by any known conventional methods. The Milk Hill crop circle in 2001 appeared in full glory one night over the hills of Pew
sey Vale. The enormous design was approximately nine hundred feet wide, the length of two and half football fields, and curved in an intricate spiral that divided into six sections that contained 409 circles inside of them. The Milk Hill circle was the Empire State Building of crop circles. No one could fathom how any person, or group, could create such a masterpiece within hours, in the dead of night and under wet and windy weather conditions, and yet the circle was fully formed by dawn—a brilliant work of art lit by the morning sun for all the world to see.

  In 2000 the Picked Hill circle, a fractal sunflower pattern, was also flagged. The design contained forty-four spirals and fourteen concentric rings. 44 divided by 14 equaled 3.142, better known as pi (π). The design was near impossible to draw on paper, much less in a field at night.

  Were the circles messages? Written in a language based on math?

  One circle was a replica of a DNA strand and another appeared in the fields next to the Chilbolton Observatory, with pixelated squares that were almost identical to the pattern of a binary code sent up into space in 1974 with the purpose of contacting other life-forms. To anyone analyzing the pixels on the field, the design read like a reply.

  The database showed the marked differences between fabricated circles, which were crudely created by someone with tape measures and “stomp boards” that crushed the plants, and the geometry was far from accurate. The other circles, the unexplainable ones, were geometric masterpieces. Their creations left plants unharmed, lying on their side. Those circles remained just that: unexplainable.

  One crop circle researcher, a pilot who had devoted his career to documenting the circles from the air and on the ground, believed that the way the world was turning its eyes from these unexplainable masterpieces was a phenomenon in itself. Like clockwork, dozens of new circles appeared around Great Britain each summer from April to August. No two circles were ever alike. Some circles’ geometric designs were so confounding and impossible to create that they would spark renewed widespread public interest. Then the science-hoax argument would start and quickly stalemate all over again.

  Roan clicked on the links to all the aerial photos of crop circles from the present year. The designs were stunning geometric-like mandalas. The more he read, the more Roan found himself sliding down the rabbit hole of something he didn’t understand. Now it was almost three in the morning and he couldn’t sleep.

  Why did Miguel and Stuart think the ooparts were connected? Crop circles were fantastical enough. How did the two tie together?

  When his cell phone rang, disrupting his thoughts, at first Roan thought it was Stuart. Only a few people knew his private number. “Hello?”

  “Roan? It’s Melicent Tilpin.”

  Roan sat up, suddenly alert. She sounded strange and he could hear the quake in her voice. Something had happened.

  He launched out of bed. “Are you all right?”

  “Someone set my house on fire—my mother’s house.” Her voice broke, her words spilling out in a tangled rush. “A stranger came to my house. I felt the doorknob … I saw him—I think he may come back. I need your help. I need to protect my brother.”

  Roan was already getting dressed and throwing his things into his bag. “Are you safe? Where are you?”

  “Our neighbors’ right across the street. I’m sorry to call so late. I don’t know what to do.”

  “I’ll be right there. I’m nearby.” Roan’s mind was already in the zone, looking ahead to carve out a plan. The fire had to be connected to the group and the ooparts. There was no question in his mind.

  Once whoever did this discovered that Melicent had survived, would they come back again?

  “You need to be out of Los Angeles before the six A.M. news reports on the fire. I can make that happen.”

  “Leave town? With you?” She tripped on the words.

  “We’ll talk about the plan when I get there. Come out when you see me. Bring your brother.”

  “Wait. You don’t know my address.”

  “I know your address, Melicent.” He couldn’t help the soft edge that found its way into his voice. She’d been easy to find. Anyone else who was looking could find her too.

  17. THE WRISTBAND

  AFTER MELICENT HUNG UP, she tried to calm the adrenaline still coursing through her. She was sequestered in the Mercers’ guest bathroom. She splashed water on her face and took several deep breaths, her body still shaking from the shock of the night.

  The Mercers had finally gone back to sleep after Melicent encouraged them. The elderly couple was distraught too but needed to rest. They gave her and Parker a change of clothes, fresh towels to shower with, and an invitation to help themselves to anything in the kitchen. Parker had showered first and then Melicent. She’d brought her cell phone into the bathroom so she could talk in private. She thought Parker would be asleep from exhaustion, but he was sitting on the guest bed and waiting for her with his arms crossed.

  “Who was that you were talking to?”

  “A friend.” Melicent hesitated, not sure how else to explain Roan West. She sat down next to him and hoped her brother wouldn’t be freaked out by what she was about to say. “Park, I need you to trust me.”

  “Of course I trust you.” He sounded offended.

  “The fire tonight … was meant for me.”

  That statement lingered in the air. He frowned at her. “Because you found the watch?”

  “No, because of how I found it.” She put her hands on her legs in front of her. “My friend thinks whoever did this may come after me again. He wants to help us.”

  “How do you know he didn’t start the fire?”

  “Because I saw the face of the man who did.”

  “When?” Parker gaped at her in disbelief. “You saw him at the house?”

  “No. In my mind when I touched the doorknob to the garage.”

  Parker covered his face with his hands, looking like he might break down and cry. “I don’t believe this, Mel.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I can’t control what I see or when I see it. But I also can’t ignore it anymore.” She reached out and touched his knee. “We need to go. My friend’s coming to pick us up right now.”

  “The psycho?” He looked at her, appalled.

  “Would you quit calling him that?” she said, trying to keep her voice down.

  Parker glared and lowered his voice too. “Fine! Then you’re the psycho. What about the Mercers? We’re just going to run off in the middle of the night?”

  “We’ll leave them a note.”

  “And go where?”

  “I don’t know. Anywhere but here. We need to leave town.” She nodded to the accordion file where their passports were. “I was already planning on it. I was going to tell you.”

  Parker stared at the accordion file in shock. He was about to say something but then changed his mind. “What about the investigation? The house? Won’t it look suspicious that we’re skipping town?”

  “I’ll call and tell them we didn’t feel safe in L.A. because of the arson and are staying with a friend out of town.”

  “A friend you don’t even know.” Parker was practically choking on the words. “He could be a serial killer, a complete wacko. And we’re getting into his car like a bad eighties movie?”

  “Parker. Roan is like me. He’s here to help us.”

  “What do you mean like you?” He air-quoted her.

  “Would you stop doing that?” She swatted his hand. “He can sense things with his hands. Even more than I can.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he proved it.” Everything Roan had said about her and her mother from touching the snow globe was not only true but true with a specificity that still astounded her. And what he’d done with the lanterns was on a whole other level.

  “Well, he’s got to prove it to me.” Parker crossed his arms. “Or I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Fine! Ask him when you see him.” She threw up her arms in exasperation. “B
ut we’re leaving. Now.”

  Parker looked ready to challenge her. But when she opened the guest room door and motioned for him to go, he did.

  As he walked past her he whispered, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  She turned off the guest room light and quietly shut the door. She hoped so too.

  * * *

  Across the street, the violent remnants of the fire stood etched against the night shadows. What was left of the house had been cordoned off. The doors and windows were gone, leaving only a blackened half-standing frame.

  It was three thirty in the morning, still the dim hours before dawn. But Melicent knew the person who had done this would return to assess the aftermath. She didn’t want to be anywhere on this street when he came back.

  The Mercers, when they woke, would see her note on the entry hall table. She’d written: Thank you for the clothes. A friend came to pick us up and we’ll be staying with him. Talk soon.

  When Roan drove up in front of the house, relief rippled through her. He’d come. She turned the bottom lock of the Mercers’ front door and pulled it shut. Parker stood stiff beside her, an unwilling participant, and gave her a disapproving look she ignored.

  She hurried down the walkway to the car with her brother one step behind. Roan motioned for her to get in, but Parker stepped in front of her.

  “No, you get in the back,” Parker said protectively, and he opened up the front passenger door.

  Melicent muttered under her breath and hurried into the back seat to hear whatever her brother was about to say.

  When Parker got in the two men assessed each other.

  Roan finally offered, “You must be Parker.”

  “I am.” Parker was eyeing him like this was all Roan’s fault.

  “Thanks for getting us.” Melicent spoke up, meeting Roan’s gaze in the rearview mirror.