The Time Collector

by Gwendolyn Womack

  “One of the men fell. The woman’s badly hurt.” Elias quickly ushered them out of the car. “They only have fifteen minutes before they run out of time.”

  Melicent tried to control her fear. “Which man fell?”

  “Un momento.” Oscar was gaping at the group. “Who are you people?”

  “Holly Beauchêne.” Holly stepped forward. “I’m in charge of the tour.”

  Oscar looked ready to lose it. “Are you from NASA too?”

  “No.” She ignored Oscar and turned to Elias. “Get us in there now, please.”

  Elias was already hurrying to the entrance. Melicent ran to catch up, with Parker right behind her. She folded her hands into a Ganesha mudra, hoping she was remembering the position right. The stance was meant to bring strength and courage, two things she desperately needed right now.

  When she entered the cave, there was no evidence of any magnetic activity, no movement or light, only the feeling of a residual charge in the air. The magical, dreamlike chasm illuminated under her headlamp took her breath away and rendered her speechless, then her panic returned.

  Elias had a portable floodlight and was shining a wide beam over the entire area. When it landed on a pair of bodies across the cavern, Melicent let out a cry. She made her way through the crystal beds, where she found them.

  Roan was lying faceup, his face oddly peaceful. His right arm was wrapped around one of the crystals, his palm against it, like he’d used the massive rock to keep from falling. A bottomless crater was in the center of the cave where the floor had given way. Sun was unconscious on the other side of Roan, her hand clenched in his. From her body’s position it was clear she’d crawled over to him.

  What had happened? Where was Stuart?

  Elias knelt down and felt Sun’s pulse. “She’s dead,” he whispered in shock. He moved to Roan and placed his finger on his neck. “He’s still alive but his pulse is faint.”

  Horror rendered Melicent immobile. Sun was dead and Roan was barely holding on. She knelt down beside him. “Roan? Roan?” She laid her hands on his chest. His energy, his vibrancy was gone. Yet she could sense the faintest trail of him. She looked to Holly and Jocelyn, who’d just arrived with Parker. “He can’t get back. He needs our help.”

  Elias bent down. “I need to move him.”

  “Wait. Please wait,” Melicent said, her voice quivering. If they moved Roan now he might never wake up. “It’s like what happened to him before, in Turkey. The time span was too much.” She looked to Holly and Jocelyn for support, willing them to understand. “I need to try and help him get back.”

  Jocelyn seemed paralyzed with fear and unable to speak.

  It was Holly who stepped forward and ordered Elias. “You have to wait.”

  Elias shook his head. “He only has ten minutes in this heat.”

  “Then give us ten minutes.” Holly stressed, “I’ll take full responsibility.”

  Elias threw up his hands, muttering “loca” under his breath, and backed away.

  Holly met Melicent’s gaze, and for the first time there was clear trust between them. Holly nodded. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it now.”

  Melicent lay down beside Roan and took several deep breaths to calm down. She had no idea if what she was going to do would work. Her and Roan’s minds had met once, but he’d been conscious when they’d done it. What she was about to attempt was more like a search and rescue.

  “Be careful,” Parker said, scared.

  Melicent held out her other hand to him. “Hold my hand.” She knew in her gut she needed his hand in hers. Parker would be her anchor.

  Melicent put her left hand over Roan’s and the crystal he was holding. Her left hand had been her dominant hand as a child, the hand she’d been born to use, and she had to trust it was the correct one now. She wasn’t trying to read an imprint today; she was going to try to find Roan.

  40. THE EARTH

  LEAVING THE WORLD IS EASY. It’s returning that is hard.

  Roan could hear Sun’s thoughts. She was beside him, holding his hand. The imprint within the crystal had brought them to another place. They were in the center of a vast plane of vibrant consciousness, free of the Earth and the memories blanketing it.

  The collective imprints of the billions of souls on Earth had become muted. Even the imprints of Roan’s life were fading away from him, like the smoke of a firework whose light was nearly gone.

  No longer bound by the constraints of his senses, Roan’s mind expanded infinitely. Within the crystal’s imprint was an ancient memory of the Earth being born, its crust, mantle, and core forged from a matrix of iron, oxygen, silicon, and magnesium. Like an astronaut, Roan watched the world circle around the sun and the sun spin around the galaxy. They were two perfect bodies, spiraling one within the other, in the universe’s perfect dance.

  A sense of peace he’d never known before filled him. And a fleeting thought crossed his mind. Was this death?

  A brilliant star came to greet them, beautiful and beckoning.

  Roan went to step toward the light, but Sun stopped him. She took his hand again and led him away gently.

  You need to go back.

  She raised her palms to his, communicating everything that needed to be said. He couldn’t come with her.

  Roan watched her step into the light and the star extinguish. His thoughts began to dim.

  Sun was gone and he was alone.

  The infinite landscape around him vanished and he felt the sensation of falling—falling backward—falling into a cloud of fear and doubt because he didn’t know his way.

  The world he was returning to was an ocean and its waters were too dark. His worst nightmare was coming true: that the memories of the world would drown him. He could feel the depth of the years pressing down on him.

  No longer in the light, he was lost and alone in the mire beneath the ocean.

  He could only hear the sound of his heart slowing down, like a clock about to stop.

  41. THE LABYRINTH

  MELICENT CLOSED HER EYES and began to breathe in long, deep measured breaths, following every instruction Roan had shown her as she tapped into the wellspring of her ability. She tried to keep the doubt, the panic, all the questions clamoring in her mind at bay. How could she find him? How could she bring him back?

  She’d watched her mother die, watched the moment her spirit slipped softly from her body. Roan’s life force was about to leave him too. She had to try.

  She forced her mind to center on the crystal. An infinite landscape of endless moments was captured within the quartz—like snow globes—there were billions of them. Panic rose inside her again. These were memories. She could never find him there.

  She was running out of time. She could feel the lingering warmth in Roan’s hand ebbing. There had to be a way.

  She found herself praying, praying to her mother. If Roan was trapped somewhere on the other side and unable to come back, she needed Sadie’s help to find him.

  Mom. The call resounded from her heart, traveling outward, and circled around her like a raging storm.

  Its force brought her to another place and time.

  She was standing in the middle of a hospital room. The smells of floor cleaner, flowers, and coffee down the hall greeted her, just as they had every morning during the final days of her mother’s life.

  Melicent reached out and touched the red roses on the bed stand and realized that what she was witnessing now wasn’t a memory.

  “Melicent.”

  Melicent turned to the bed and her breath caught inside her.

  For a moment she was the lost little girl at Paddington station, hearing the sound of her mother’s voice again. Sadie held out her arms and Melicent embraced her, her body infused with the powerful joy of coming home, and they gently rocked together in each other’s arms.

  “Tell Parker I’m never far away,” Sadie said. “He’s holding my hand now with you.”

  Melicent nodded, unable
to speak.

  “My Melicent.” Sadie pulled back and framed Melicent’s face with her hands. “Do you know why I named you that? Your name means brave strength. The bee and the honey. The one who can fly.”

  The door to the hospital room opened and radiant sunlight spilled inside.

  Sadie’s smile held every answer. “You have a fearless heart. All you have to do is follow it.”

  Melicent suddenly realized what to do.

  She kissed her mother’s lips and the room turned to stardust.

  42. THE THREADS

  ROAN COULDN’T BREAK through the mire of the past to return to the present. Every memory that had ever haunted him through the centuries circled his mind like barbed wire. The exquisite beauty he had witnessed with Sun was no longer there.

  Here, in this chasm, he could not reconcile the geometry of life with the agony, destitution, and misery of those who had suffered in the world, were still suffering. There was no symmetry in suffering. No beauty in pain.

  He’d lived his life as the boy who remembered, while everyone around him was blessed with amnesia. His ability had kept him apart and broken his heart time and time again. He’d grown up hating the world and yet he desperately loved it.

  Now that he’d seen beyond the darkness and glimpsed the underlying fabric of life and its infinite beauty, he wanted to bring that fabric back with him and build a future. He wanted to live, to love, to endure. He wanted to grow old. He wanted to lay down his sword and relinquish his battle with time. But he didn’t know how.

  Then he heard a voice say in the darkness, “When you find yourself in a hole, quit digging.”

  The words sounded clear as day. Roy Rogers had said it. The memory was embedded in the guitar Roan’s father had bought that had changed their lives forever. Roan remembered hearing Roy say those words when he was five. Suddenly Roan was back at the flea market, five years old and holding hands with his father.

  The memory had become real.

  More than real, the past was happening all over again. Time had just bent and bowed, bringing him back.

  His father knelt down to embrace him. “Come here, son.” Robert’s arms came around him and hugged him to his chest. In that moment Roan was just a boy with so many years ahead, and yet they’d already come. He was standing in the center of time’s circle.

  Roan could feel every thought, every emotion emanating from his father. He wanted to tell his father so many things—that he was sorry he’d destroyed his parents’ love for each other. That his ability had altered their lives. That his father had passed away in their old house in Mid-City alone. But now those words didn’t seem to matter. Only their love was between them.

  His father was still with him, never gone, because love was the strongest imprint in the universe. Roan felt all the moments of his life begin to weave back together like a tapestry. And his heart opened, for the first time, like a flower ready to be filled with life.

  He heard Melicent calling to him.

  Hold on to me.

  Her voice was faint, traveling a vast distance.

            Hold on to me.

                      Hold on to me.

  He could feel her hand in his, wrapped in a Fearless Heart mudra.

  Her voice grew stronger, nearer—until he could feel her all around him.

  “Hold on to me.” The words were clear and powerful. He could feel her presence beside him. Her hand was real, clasped in his, and their fingers were braided into a lovers’ knot as she pulled him back to the world like gravity.

  * * *

  Roan opened his eyes. It wasn’t a dream. Melicent was beside him in the cave with her hand holding his in the mudra.

  Parker was holding Melicent’s other hand. Holly was holding Parker’s hand. Jocelyn was holding Holly’s. They had formed a human chain to give Melicent all their strength.

  Roan breathed in like a man who had been drowning and found air. Melicent let go of his hand with a cry of triumph and squeezed him tight.

  “You found me.” His arms wrapped around her. “You found me.” Roan looked at the group in wonder. They had all helped to bring him back.

  “I saw Dad,” he told his mother. Jocelyn let out a laugh and a cry, hugging him to her. Roan’s eyes fell to Holly, who was trying her hardest to keep her emotions in check.

  She turned away to Elias and said, “Get him out of here, please.”

  43. THE GLOVES

  THE HOSPITAL ROOM WAS STARK AND WHITE, filled with machines to monitor Roan’s vital signs. His mind and body were tethered to the world once more.

  Roan opened his eyes, waking up, and looked around the room. Two nurses right outside his door were speaking Spanish in the hallway. Melicent was in the chair beside him, dozing with her eyes closed. She had her arms crossed and a fierce frown on her face. She looked like a stern teacher waiting to reprimand him when he woke up.

  He wondered how long he’d been asleep. The memories in the cave came flooding back … the ooparts, the portal, Stuart’s insanity and jump into the abyss.

  “You’re awake,” Melicent said, sitting up.

  Roan turned to her. They gazed at each other for a long moment.

  He reached out and took her hand, kissing it, and laid it on his chest. “I’m sorry. For leaving you.” He wanted her to know how much he meant it.

  She stared at him hard. “Don’t ever leave me a note like that again.”

  “I won’t. Ever.”

  “And Stuart…” His name on her lips was enough to convey everything she knew.

  Roan squeezed her hand, pain lodging in his heart. “I’m sorry for what he did to you,” he whispered. “He almost…” Roan couldn’t get the words out. Stuart had set fire to her house and stood outside and watched.

  “He threw rocks at my window until I woke up,” she said sadly. “I thought it was a dream, but it was him.”

  Roan nodded, unable to speak. In the cave he’d witnessed everything Stuart had done: his descent into madness after Miguel’s death and taking François’s life. Roan’s trip to L.A. to meet the budding psychometrist from YouTube had factored nicely into Stuart’s plan to scare Roan into action. Stuart had set fire to Melicent’s home and then Sun’s. Stuart waited until Gyan’s wife and daughter were out of town and then he contacted Gyan, asking Gyan to meet him at Savandurga outside of Bengaluru. Stuart concocted a story about the artifacts that the Ministry of Culture had recently found there, saying that they were tied to the ooparts, and he made Gyan swear to tell no one. He instructed him to leave Descartes’s ring in his office before he departed. Stuart needed it left somewhere out in the open where it could be easily found. He told Gyan the ring needed direct light because ooparts became more reactive with the sun. Gyan did as Stuart instructed and showed up at the campsite to survey the artifacts. Stuart hired men to abduct Gyan in his sleep that night, drugging him in the twilight of a bad dream. He paid the men to hold Gyan captive while he finished his plan. As Stuart had surmised, the string of events had compelled Roan to act, and Roan’s ability had gotten them to the heart of the answer.

  Melicent broke the news gently. “The official word is that a series of earthquakes caused the accident and Sun’s and Stuart’s deaths. The mining company refunded the foundation with their deepest condolences.”

  Roan’s vision blurred with tears and he blinked them away.

  “What happened to Stuart in the cave?” she asked softly. “We found the ooparts.” She nodded to her bag. “Did he fall, like the people at the mine are saying?”

  Roan shook his head. Stuart’s body hadn’t been found and it never would be.

  “The ooparts created a doorway and he jumped right into it.”

  Roan wondered if Stuart had achieved his desire. Was he in a parallel time with Nema, living a life where he had done no wrong? Or was he lost in a void, in a place of darkness? Or was he traveling beyond this world? They were questions that
might never be answered.

  The last time he’d seen Stuart before Mexico, they’d ascended the hardest climb of their lives, a towering rock face in Hatun Machay, Peru. At the summit, they were lying on the ground, catching their breaths and staring up at the vast sky swaddled with clouds.

  “Do you believe one day we’ll be able to time travel?” Stuart had asked him. “Not just see an imprint but go there? Relive it?”

  Roan looked over at Stuart and caught the sadness in his eyes. Roan wasn’t sure an imprint could ever be real again, but he did believe there was another aspect of time that had yet to be discovered. Souls left echoes of their lives on earth. Was there a way to follow the echoes back to the original voice?

  It was a tantalizing thought, and if Stuart had asked Roan again for his help with the ooparts, in that moment, on that mountain, under that sky, Roan would have said yes and moved forward with him and Miguel with their research.

  But Stuart didn’t ask. Instead he kept his grief for Nema and his desperation to return to her close to his heart, where it continued to fester. After that trip to Hatun Machay, Roan returned to New Orleans. It was the last time he’d seen or talked to Stuart until his message about meeting in El Paso.

  Now everything had changed. “He’s gone and will never hurt you again. That’s all we need to know.” Roan held both of Melicent’s hands in a promise.

  A shadow passed over her face. “I’m sorry Sun didn’t make it.”

  Roan nodded. He’d come back and Sun had not. He’d watched her step into a brilliant starlight and move on to whatever world waited next.

  Now Roan would work to repair the damage Stuart had caused. He would put in a call to the authorities in Australia so Miguel’s body could be unearthed and returned to his family. He would explain to François’s children that their father’s death had not been a suicide. Gyan was set to be released from his captors. He’d been kept in a motel room, unharmed. Roan would travel to meet with him and try to help him in whatever way he could. And Sun’s young psychometrist in Korea who was about to join the group—Roan planned to visit her, too. The girl had never met them. She had been Sun’s protégé, and Roan wanted to help her and present her with Sun’s fan.