Winds of Time

by Zoe Matthews

  After Justin and Garrett finally left, Bridget immediately went to look through Nicky’s clothes. She mostly saw pants and shorts that, in her opinion, were too tight and too revealing. She remembered from Nicky’s description of clothing that these types of clothes were what women in the future wore, but she knew she would have a difficult time feeling comfortable in them when she was used to long full dresses. She couldn’t believe how many clothes Nicky had owned. Back at her ranch, Bridget owned exactly five dresses. She did have several aprons that she wore over her dresses to keep them clean.

  She sighed with relief when she found three long flowing skirts. The design on the material was very different from what she was used to, with large flowers on two of them and stripes on the other, but they were as long as the skirts she felt comfortable wearing. She was able to find plain, long-sleeved shirts that were the same color as one of the colors on the skirts. She hoped it was acceptable to wear the shirts and skirts together.

  Justin had told her he would bring food over to her, but she was starting to feel hungry. After changing into one of the skirts and shirts she found, she went into the kitchen and started to search for something to eat. She found a cupboard that was full of canned goods. Each can was wrapped in paper that showed a picture of what she assumed was inside. One can showed a picture of what looked like a delicious stew, but she didn’t know how to open the can. She finally found a box of crackers and ate a handful of those, even though they tasted slightly stale.

  She spent some time looking through all of the cupboards in the kitchen, finding beautiful dishes and large pans, along with another cupboard with spices and more canned food in it. After another hour of exploring, she started to feel tired and decided to take a nap. She went into Nicky’s room and laid on her bed and barely had enough energy to marvel at how soft it was before she fell asleep.

  ****

  “What’s going on, Dad?” Garrett asked after they entered their own townhouse. “Where did Bridget come from?”

  Justin lightly pushed Garrett onto a kitchen chair and started to make him a sandwich for lunch. As he made the sandwich, he wondered if Bridget was hungry and would like one. After he talked with Garrett, he would take a sandwich over to her.

  “What I have to tell you isn’t going to make a lot of sense, Garrett,” Justin began as he pulled out the bread and started to spread peanut butter on a slice. “I also need you to promise that you won’t tell anyone what I’m going to tell you.”

  “I promise,” Garrett agreed with a curious look in his eyes.

  “Bridget lives in 1894. She used two keys to travel from her time to ours. The keys are a time-travel device. Nicky and Kimberly also used these key. They traveled back in time to where Bridget’s family lives. They each married one of Bridget’s brothers.”

  “Time travel? Really? That’s so cool!” was Garrett’s response. “Can I see the keys? Can I try it?”

  Justin grinned at his son as he placed the sandwich in front of him. He should have realized Garrett wouldn’t have any problem believing his story.

  “I will ask Bridget to show you the keys, but I don’t want you to ever touch them,” Justin told him. “If you don’t know how to use them properly, they could cause all sorts of problems.”

  “Yeah, like they could take me to a place I don’t want to go, or maybe they won’t bring me back here,” Garrett agreed as he took a huge bite of sandwich.

  “Nicky and Kimberly are living on a ranch in the mountains. I have been keeping in touch with them ever since they left. The keys helped transport the letters from their time to ours.

  “I guess Bridget wanted to try the keys out for herself. Somehow she learned how the keys work and was able to appear in Nicky’s townhouse.” His tone of voice hinted at the inconvenience of her visit; however, he had to admit he was looking forward to seeing her again.

  “That is so cool,” Garrett said again. “Do you think if I ask, she will tell me how the keys work?”

  “I’m sure she will,” Justin said. “I’m sure we are going to see her quite a bit over the next few days.”

  “I bet if you take her over to Grandma and Grandpa’s house, they’ll believe you about where Nicky is,” Garrett commented.

  Justin looked sharply at his son. “What do you know about that? Have you been eavesdropping on conversations that have nothing to do with you?”

  Garrett shrugged, but he looked away guiltily. “It’s hard to not listen when Grandma is crying all the time and Grandpa is talking real loud.”

  Justin sighed. “I’m sorry you had to hear that. Yes, Grandma and Grandpa are very worried about Nicky and Kimberly. I think they are starting to believe in time travel, but it is difficult for them to accept. At first, they thought I was hiding something from them.”

  “They’ll believe you now,” Garrett said, nodding knowingly. Then he smiled. “I have a great idea. You should make a video game about the keys!”

  Chapter 9

  End of May, 1894

  Victoria filed the last of the letters she’d received that day for her mail-order bride business. She had received two letters from women back east who were interested in becoming mail-order brides, and three from different men who lived in the western United States and who wanted a bride. She had to be careful about whom she accepted and had to screen the applications thoroughly. She wanted to bring together people who wanted to fall in love, not the people who just wanted to marry for convenience or money. She enjoyed this business, although now that she’d married Collins, she was spending more time with him than the business, and she wondered if she should stop accepting letters. Maybe it was time to focus on other things.

  She heard a knock on the front door and Collins answered it. Even though they were married, he still tended to act as butler to the outside world. He didn’t want to hire anyone else to replace his position. He continued his duties he had done for Victoria ever since she’d married her first husband, Charles.

  Soon she heard footsteps and Collins appeared in the doorway. “We have a visitor. He is waiting in the parlor.”

  “Who is it?” Victoria asked curiously. Collins was acting strange.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen him before. I tried to find out what he wanted, why he wanted to talk to you, but he insists on talking to you. He is dressed very…different.”

  Victoria stood from her chair behind her desk and followed her husband, very curious about who their visitor was.

  When she entered her parlor that was used only for visitors, she saw a small round man standing in front of the large window that looked out over the gardens of her front yard. He had on a pair of black baggy pants, a starched white shirt, and a bright green velvet vest. He must have heard them enter the room, for he turned around, and when Victoria saw his face, she gasped in shock.

  Standing in front of her was a man she had only seen once many years ago, the man who had given her the first key. He was short and completely bald except for the white hair at the base of his skull. Although his face was kind, there was something about him that told her he was different, and that unnerved her.

  “Hello,” Victoria greeted him with a small smile. What was he doing in her parlor? Instinctively, she knew his visit had to do with the keys.

  “Hello, Mrs. Collins,” he returned her greeting formally. “I don’t know if you remember me.”

  “I do, actually. You are the man who gave me the first key. I don’t know your name, though.” She held out her hand for him to shake.

  “My name isn’t important,” the man said to her after giving her hand a small shake.

  “Please be seated so we can talk. May I offer you some tea?” Collins invited the man.

  The man simply shook his head, then walked towards the sitting room. After they were seated, the man continued. “I will come right to the point as to why I’m here. Do you remember the day that I gave you the key?”

  Victoria nodded. “Yes, I do. I remember that my late
husband and I were visiting in your city. I was walking around looking at different shops and stores while Charles attended a business meeting. I went into your shop and saw the key sitting on a shelf. I was intrigued. You told me the key had chosen me and that I could take it with me if I wished.”

  “Do you remember the instructions I gave you?”

  Victoria frowned in thought. The man didn’t say anything, giving her time to think back to that day. What was he talking about? Then her eyes widened and she knew what instructions he was referring to.

  “You told me I could tell only one person about the key,” Victoria said softly. At first, she had been very careful about that. For many years, only Charles had known about the key, but since he didn’t believe that it could have any power, she had never told him what the purpose of the key was used for. It wasn’t until Charles had passed away that she had told Collins. He told her he had expected something of the sort for a while since she would disappear for a few days when Charles went on business trips. After that, Victoria hadn’t thought the rule needed to be followed so strictly, and eventually had forgotten all about it.

  Even after she had first acquired the key, for a long time she hadn’t known what it actually did. She remembered that she hadn’t known that the key was a time travel device until a few months later. When she held the key, it would vibrate in her hand, but she didn’t know its power until one day when she received news that her father had passed away back in England. She had been holding the key, and as she’d sobbed in her sorrow that she would never see her father again, she pictured her childhood home in England, and suddenly she was there.

  After that first trip, she’d made many other travels to other time periods and many other places. At first, she used the key to test how it worked, but she soon went on quite a few trips, all while Charles was away on business.

  “I know that you have the second key,” the man continued. “I’m also aware that you have used the keys to further your mail-order bride business.”

  Collins broke into the conversation. “Since you are aware of the fact that she has two keys, you should be aware that she hasn’t used the keys to get gain. She has used them to help women and men find love.”

  “Yes, by bringing people from the future to your time,” the man stated firmly.

  “I’m sorry,” Victoria told him. “I guess I just felt it wouldn’t matter if a few more people knew about the keys. All the people whom I have helped have good souls; I was very careful about that. Kimberly and Nicky know about the keys and of course their husbands and their family knows about them. You can trust them. No one else knows.”

  “Except Golin.”

  Victoria’s heart fell. Of course. Golin knew about the keys. He had his own time travel key. He somehow found out that she owned them and had done his best to steal the keys from her the autumn before.

  “Yes, he knows we have two keys like his own, but I don’t know how he found out about them. I’m not even sure what time period he is from.”

  The man stood and started to pace the room, his hands clasped behind him as he walked. “Golin is an evil man who lives in the mid 1500’s. He has evil plans he wants to put in place, plans that if he succeeds will change history: my history, your history, and the future.”

  Victoria felt chilled at the man’s words. She was starting to see that her decisions about the keys had not all been smart ones, but still she couldn’t bring herself to feel sorry about it. She felt that using the keys had benefitted many people. They had given her a family.

  “What is he planning to do?” Collins asked.

  “A few years ago, in his time, a woman he wanted to marry chose to marry someone else. He wants to use the keys to go back in time and force the woman to marry him. He must not succeed. The woman now has a young son, a child that, when he becomes a man, will do quite a bit of good in his village and in his part of the world. If Golin is able to change this part of history, he then plans on using the keys to go back in time and change many things that have happened in history, before his time and ours. He wants to do this for the sole purpose of becoming more powerful and wealthy.”

  “Why does he need three keys?” Victoria asked.

  “The three keys will be very powerful if they are together. Somehow, Golin has figured this out.”

  Collins looked at Victoria with regret. “We should not have sent Golin back to his time last fall when he was at Patrick’s ranch. We should have taken his key, forcing him to stay in our time.”

  The man shrugged his shoulders at Collins words. “I don’t know if that would have been the best decision. Either way, he would have just kept doing his best to get the keys.”

  “What are the chances that he still is trying to get the two keys? Maybe he will have given up,” Collins suggested.

  “I’m sure he won’t give up. I’ve done my best to keep tabs on him, although I don’t know where he is right now. Sending him back to his time last fall did some damage to his key because of the way it happened. The key stopped working for awhile. He has been at his cottage for at least six months, but he is now missing.”

  The man stopped his pacing and stood directly in front of Victoria. “I am here to collect the keys. I need to hide them in a safe place. Because you have allowed more than one person to know about the keys, you have lost your privilege to own them.”

  Collins made a harsh noise. “Now, now. You need to realize that I had a hand in this, too. In fact, it was my idea to use the keys to help women from the future come to our time.”

  “We don’t have the keys,” Victoria broke in as she covered Collins’ hand with one of her own. “After Golin broke into our home, we knew the keys were no longer safe here.”

  The man looked upset at this news. “Where are they?”

  “We have given the responsibility of the keys to Patrick and Kimberly, the first people who we told about the keys. They are very responsible.”

  “But their entire family knows about them, am I correct?” the man asked.

  Victoria nodded. “Yes, they do. In fact, it was their youngest brother, Keegan, who came up with the perfect hiding place. They are now buried under a pile of rocks in a cave deep in the Rocky Mountains. As far as I know, they are not being used.”

  The man nodded, looking a little relieved. “Well, I’m glad to know they are safe for the time being. But I still would like the keys back as soon as possible. When do you think you can retrieve them?”

  Victoria looked at Collins who answered. “Keegan has been staying with us while he is going to school here in Denver. Since school will be ending soon for the summer, he will be returning to the ranch. We planned on going back with him for a visit. We can collect the keys then.”

  The man smiled for the first time since he had entered the home. “I will be back when you return.”

  “How do we let you know when we are back?” Victoria asked. “We plan on staying for at least a few weeks.”

  “I will know when you are back.” The man walked towards the front door to leave.

  “Mr….,” Victoria called to him, but then remembered she didn’t know his name. “I’m very sorry I didn’t keep your instructions.”

  He nodded his acceptance of her apology and gave her a slight bow. “Let’s hope that nothing else happens until I get the keys back in my care. I also must ask that the keys not be used for any reason. It would be a good idea to keep the keys hidden in the cave until you are ready to come back to Denver. Please be very careful. I don’t think I need to tell you what could happen to you both if Golin were to figure out where those keys are.”

  “Thank you for your understanding,” Collins told him as he walked the man to the door. “Please know that we will return the keys to you as soon as we can.”

  After the man left, Collins returned to Victoria’s side on the flowered sofa.

  “That was a surprising visit,” Victoria commented. “I feel very bad now. I do remember clearly that he told me to t
ell only one person, and I did follow those instructions for awhile, but after Charles died, I started to feel that it just wasn’t important.”

  “I shouldn’t have encouraged you to use the key for the mail-order bride business,” Collins said with regret.

  “I wonder what time period he is from,” Victoria speculated. “It is obvious he isn’t from our time.”

  Collins shrugged. “He seems to be a man who has quite a bit of knowledge of what could happen if Golin gets the keys. I wonder how he knows what he knows.”

  “Maybe he is from the future, further ahead than the time period Kimberly and Nicky are from,” Victoria suggested.

  Collins smiled. “You might be right.”

  Victoria stood. “I will go find Keegan and find out when he will be ready to leave for his ranch. We better get those keys back here and into the man’s hands as soon as we can.”