The Time Collector

by Gwendolyn Womack

  Melicent’s eyes went to his hands in question.

  He held his hands up to her, keeping his fingers locked in the position. “That was the first time we tried the mudras. My mother was desperate to help me expel that memory. She would sit there with me and hold my hands in the positions, with my fingers in hers, breathing with me.”

  “Like you did with me,” Melicent said, her eyes soft with understanding. She knew how it felt to be lost within a life that was not your own.

  “Then I came back.” Roan released his hands from the finger lock.

  “Your mom sounds like an amazing woman.”

  Roan gave her a half smile. That was one way of describing his mother. That doll was the beginning of the end for Roan’s parents’ marriage. They separated the following year because of the incident. His parents didn’t need to see a marriage counselor to figure out Roan was the reason they could no longer stay together. They couldn’t agree on what was the right course for their son and his extraordinary gift. Roan’s mother wanted him to stop peering into the past altogether, while Roan’s father thought his son “had been put on this earth for a reason,” and they needed to allow his ability to flourish. In the end, the solution meant living in separate houses with joint custody.

  “Was that what made you start the Heirloom Foundation? The doll?”

  Roan looked over at her and shook his head. He didn’t know how to explain Gobekli Tepe, and he didn’t want to get into too many details. “I was in Turkey visiting an archaeological site and touched something very old—too old—and I couldn’t find my way out of the imprint. I don’t know if it was the time span, the imprint itself, or the power within the site. But it felt like drowning. Afterward the whole experience made me reassess my life, my gift, everything. Our time here is finite, and I wanted to make mine count for something, something more than myself. It’s always moved me how so many memories from generations of a family can exist in a single object. It became a passion of mine to find the lost ones.”

  She nodded in understanding. “How do you return them? How does it work?”

  “I trace the imprints back to the original owner. Once I have that information, Holly and I work with both a genealogist and an online investigator to track down the descendants. After they’re located, Holly usually writes to them first and follows up with a phone call saying that a lost heirloom of their family has been traced back to them.” Roan smiled. “Many times they think it’s a scam at first, too good to be true. But Holly has her ways.”

  Melicent gave him a faint smile.

  “If it’s a rare or high-value item, she flies out and hand delivers it. Otherwise we use a private courier and arrange a delivery time.”

  His most recent recipient, Faye Young, was the rightful owner of a high-value heirloom that was part of the Lakota collection. Roan had insisted on Holly hand delivering it. Faye was the great-granddaughter of Edith Brown, a Lakota medicine woman who was the keeper of the winter count, her tribe’s recorded history.

  The winter count was a piece of animal hide that looked like a blanket. Every winter the tribe would capture the essence of their year in a picture and paint it on the hide. The symbol represented the whole community and their recorded history. Edith’s great-grandmother had been the keeper of the winter count, and her tribe’s hide stretched back hundreds of years.

  All Faye knew was that the foundation had traced the artifact back to her family and was returning it to the rightful owner. As a proud Lakota descendant of the Sioux Nation, Faye planned to donate the winter count to the Sioux Indian Museum in Rapid City.

  Holly had sent Roan a picture of Faye beaming to the camera as she held up the hide. When Roan stared at Faye’s picture he could hear the echo of the Lakota’s blessing. “Hetchetu welo,” it is indeed a good day. The picture had filled Roan with a deep joy that wasn’t entirely his own but also Edith Brown’s. Edith’s last hope before dying was that her people’s record would not be lost.

  “Returning heirlooms gives me a satisfaction that no amount of money can,” he said. “Heirlooms keep the stories alive.”

  Melicent seemed to grasp what he was saying. She was leaning forward, listening intently with her elbow on the seat rest. “How did you become so good at reading things?”

  Her question surprised him again. He wasn’t used to anyone asking him about his ability. Even his mother had stopped years ago. He tried his best to explain. “Growing up in New Orleans was like a wonderland, a training ground, being able to walk into any corner antique shop and pick up a bona fide piece of the past.” He had held a cornet of Joe “King” Oliver’s, Louis Armstrong’s mentor, and heard the music; he’d touched the fence around Jackson Square and seen the hand of Micaela Almonesta Pontalba, the “Baroness of New Orleans,” who conceived the cast iron design in 1851 after returning from France brokenhearted. He’d met Degas in his mind when the painter came to visit his cousins in 1872, and he overheard the conversation between the pirates Jean and Pierre Lafitte and Andrew Jackson at the blacksmith shop when they agreed to aid in the War of 1812 in exchange for their pardon.

  “I saw what New Orleans was like before the city changed hands from the Spanish to the French to the Americans. I saw the settlers, the immigrants from Germany and Ireland building the channel by hand. I saw the slave rebellion.”

  New Orleans had been named the most haunted city in the country, the place where they said the dead and the living slept side by side with barely a wall between them. Through the imprints Roan had walked down the steamboat wharfs, visited the slaughterhouses, and watched the white flags from the plantations being raised on a pole beside the river to call the doctor when someone was sick. He visited the room where Étienne de Boré discovered how to granulate sugar, an invention that would change the city forever. Even without his ability Roan couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. The city was his domain and he knew every inch of it, through every century.

  “Is that why you wear gloves? To keep control?”

  Roan looked down at his hands. Most of the time he forgot he had gloves on. They’d become like second skin. Today he was wearing his thinnest tactical Under Armour gloves. He owned countless pairs and brands, each for different activities. These were best for working at the keyboard.

  “I don’t want to wear gloves,” she added.

  “I didn’t suggest it.”

  “But it helps you.” Melicent considered him. “So you don’t touch anything you don’t want to.”

  Roan stared back her, seeing the concern in her eyes, and he could tell she was wary of what challenges might exist for her further down the road if she fully exercised her power.

  The gloves did help him because, unlike most psychometrists, Roan could feel every imprint, from any time, with excruciating detail to the point the boundaries of the years blurred. Most psychometrists were limited with the information they could retrieve from an imprint. But Roan was a pure receiver with the rare ability to be transported into the memory. He’d stood in the past as the future’s witness. There was no way he could explain some of the imprints he’d seen or the deep marks within history, gouges left by hatred and cruelty, over beliefs, power, and greed. Roan had witnessed tragic moments, the annihilation of life, from both world wars and the countless other conflicts that stretched further back. He’d seen how history was doomed to repeat itself until humanity acknowledged the deep connection between every living being. That was the true war, the war that never ended, and it had taken Roan many years to learn how to live in such a world. The gloves were his armor.

  “You won’t need gloves,” he assured her, and he leaned toward her across the aisle, until their faces were a breath apart. He could see the pulse at her neck speed up. He wanted to touch her. He had since he’d walked into the store in L.A.

  Here was a woman who shared his power, who’d begun to experience the thresholds that could be crossed. He’d never been able to have this kind of intimate conversation with anyone before, not
even Stuart. He found himself wanting to share his world with Melicent and invite her in.

  He searched her eyes. “I only touch what I want.”

  She met his gaze with a challenge. “Then do it.”

  Those three words unraveled his good intentions. Their lips came together in a lock, the connection between them tightening like a twisting coil. He could easily forget everything right now, where they were going, the why, the danger. His hands came up to frame her face with surprising tenderness, and it made them both pull back in surprise.

  No words were needed. Now was not the right time. They made a silent agreement not to take the kiss further.

  “You should get some sleep,” he suggested.

  “Right.” Melicent nodded and leaned back in her chair. She closed her eyes but after a moment said, “About my snow globes. Did you really only touch the one?”

  “Just the one.”

  “But you saw a lot more than what you told me, didn’t you?” She pinned him with her eyes, knowing it was true. Then she surprised him by saying, “I get to touch something of yours. At your house.”

  He laughed, not sure he was willing to concede to that demand. “I’ll think about it.”

  She shook her head and closed her eyes again. “I will. You owe me.”

  The retort died on his lips because he knew she was right. He had intentionally peered into her life without permission and seen things no one else knew, like a voyeur—or worse, a Peeping Tom. He would be lying if he said he wished he could undo the moment, because he wasn’t sorry. What he’d done was more intimate than the kiss they’d shared. The problem was he wanted more.

  As he watched Melicent doze off, he pulled out his lucky coin and rolled it across his knuckles back and forth in a soothing motion. His thoughts strayed to Stuart. Why hadn’t he called? Who was after them? The group was being targeted one by one because of their research, and Roan needed answers. He wasn’t sure what he would find at Stuart’s home. He only prayed his friend was safe.

  LONDON

  ONE WEEK AGO

  STUART WENT TO PAY FOR THE FLOWERS and wondered if he was overdoing it. He bought five arrangements on the brink of blooming. The shop owner promised they would live a long time. He hoped so—he didn’t want to have to keep shelling out for daisies.

  That morning at the post office he’d paid a fortune to express mail Hanus’s key to Roan. Afterward he passed by the flower market on his way back to his flat, just as he did every morning, only this time he went inside. Roan had mentioned on one of their climbing trips how flowers were the best imprint holders. If it had been any other person, Stuart would have thought he was joking. But Roan didn’t joke. He was also the best psychometrist Stuart knew.

  Nestling the flowerpots in his carrying basket, he hurried back to his place two blocks away. Notting Hill in the morning was always a flurry. The breeze carried an inviting scent of roasted coffee and fresh-baked bread from the bakery down Portobello Road, but Stuart didn’t stop.

  Once he arrived home, he set the flowers in strategic positions, a pot in each room. Then he took his laptop and a rolled-up map and went to the built-in bookshelf behind the sofa. The shelf swung open when he found the secret latch, revealing a wall safe inside. The safe was a hidden gem, an architectural delight, and the place where he kept all his valuables.

  Right now the safe only held his laptop and the map. He locked them inside, closed the outer cabinet, and moved the sofa closer to the bookshelf for good measure to hide the spot even more. Then he grabbed his keys and left.

  After he’d gone, the flowers watched the room like a silent witness and the stillness stretched through the minutes. It wasn’t until the day was done and the last sliver of sunlight had left the curtain’s edge that the lock in the door jimmied and turned—only it wasn’t the sound of a key.

  Two men in ski masks and black attire stepped inside, blending in with the shadows. They used high-powered penlights to pierce the darkness as they searched the house, opening every cabinet and drawer with painstaking precision, careful not to leave a trace.

  The sound of the key at the front door made them kill their lights.

  When Stuart walked in, the larger of the two men grabbed him from behind and held him in an arm lock, clamping his hand over his mouth.

  “Where are the ooparts?”

  The other man shut the door behind them with an ominous click.

  22. THE FLOWERS

  ROAN KEPT HIS HAND on the daisies and expelled a shaky breath. He was deep in the imprint, trapped by the violence of the moment. He winced as he watched the man at the door punch Stuart in the stomach, doubling him over. Stuart struggled for breath, unable to talk.

  “What is it? What happened?” Melicent asked, but her voice sounded muted and faraway to Roan’s ears. He was trying to glean every bit of information he could from the flowers.

  He’d found Stuart’s spare key hidden in the faux rock in the garden. When he walked into the townhome, he’d been alarmed to find all the flowers. Stuart had been afraid enough to put an arrangement in every room.

  He’d left them for Roan to find—of that Roan was certain.

  Roan hadn’t needed to touch a single flower to feel the disturbance in the air; the residue of hostility lingered like an electric charge. The flowers held the imprints in vivid detail.

  He closed his eyes, needing to see every second. His focus was so sharpened, the present and the past fused together and he was standing beside Stuart in the memory.

  The man at the door’s voice was laced with a Hindi accent. “Where is your computer? And the artifacts?”

  Stuart gasped for air. “Not here.”

  The large man squeezed Stuart’s arms together behind his back and pulled him up. Stuart cried out in pain as the man punched him in the gut again. “We don’t believe you.”

  Stuart pleaded, “I swear. I swear.”

  The man at the door put a hood over Stuart’s face.

  Stuart struggled, screaming in panic. His captor gave a swift jab to his temple, causing Stuart to crumple to the ground, unconscious. The man took out his cell phone and made a call.

  “We have the package but not the goods. Possibly New York like you thought.” He listened. “Yes, sir.” He hung up and turned to his friend and switched to speaking Hindi.

  They went back and forth in quiet voices as they waited by the blinds at the front window. The big man picked Stuart up and swung him over his shoulder. They slipped outside, disappearing into the night like two shadows that had never been there at all.

  * * *

  Roan opened his eyes and released his hold from the flowers to find his hand was shaking. He’d just witnessed Stuart’s kidnapping.

  So many thoughts raced through his mind at once. Stuart had bought the flowers on the same day he express mailed the key to him. Then the men had come for him.

  Who had they called on the phone?

  They wanted Stuart’s research and the ooparts—and they believed someone in New York had them.

  Sun.

  Melicent interrupted his train of thought. “He bought the flowers for the same reason you did, didn’t he? What did you see?”

  Roan turned to look at her, unable to speak, and shook his head, his mind in a panic. He needed to call Sun and warn her, but first he needed to see if what Stuart had hidden was still there.

  He hurried to the bookcase and found the latch.

  “What are you doing?” Melicent watched, mystified, as the bookcase swung open like a cabinet to reveal the safe.

  Roan closed his eyes and thought back to the numbers Stuart had used to open it: 81-2-81. He replicated the combination and the safe’s door opened. The laptop and map were still there. “This is what the men were looking for.”

  “What men?” Melicent’s eyes couldn’t have been any rounder as she watched him take the laptop case and the poster tube and close the safe back up again. She had her arms crossed and her hands tucked in beside her
. Roan could tell she was afraid to touch anything. Just as well, he thought. The hostility in the room was sickening.

  Roan set the laptop and map down on the table. “I’ll be right back. I want to check the bedroom. Watch the door. If it sounds like anyone is coming, don’t make a noise and come get me.”

  Melicent nodded, cupping her mouth with shaking hands.

  Roan tried to hurry. He didn’t want to risk the men coming back. But when he walked into Stuart’s bedroom, he stopped in shock.

  The bedroom was a disaster, the bed a tumble of sheets and clothes, the nightstand littered with a collection of empty scotch bottles. Women’s items filled two dressers—perfume, jewelry, hairbrushes, and makeup—all in piles like a rummage sale.

  Roan had stepped inside a dervish. This wasn’t an ordinary messy bedroom. This was a psychometrist’s room, chock-full of memories. Roan didn’t have time to touch everything to unravel what had happened, but he could feel Stuart’s pain all around him like a time capsule filled with grief.

  The restaurant menu sitting on the dresser drew his eye. It wasn’t a take-out menu, but an actual menu with a leather-like vinyl cover and gold embossed letters. It had no business being there.

  Roan quickly performed a Ksepana mudra to release the negative energy permeating the space so he could get an objective reading. He needed to capture the imprint quickly.