“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think there’s anything more to be learned. No one has come up with the answers yet. It was 40 years ago that all of that happened. 40 actual years anyway, though only 20 for us. It’s probably too late now.”
“You know, we never verified anything that the owner, Heath, told us. We just took it to heart that he was being truthful. What if he wasn’t? What if he had an ulterior motive?” Steve pressed the issue.
“Like what?” Claire was skeptical.
“I really don’t know. I just think we owe it to ourselves to check anyway. We are 70 years old now and not getting any younger.” Steve smiled.
“But you don’t look a day over 50.”
They both laughed. Funny thing is that they had only lived 50 years, so they really did look 50. Unfortunately their birth certificates said they were 70 years old. She reached up and caressed Steve’s graying temples and face that was just beginning to round out with age.
“You know, you are right. Why not?” Claire added. “It can’t hurt. Let’s do it. Let’s go tomorrow. We haven’t been there since our last trip almost 2 decades ago. I’m curious to see how it has changed. Let’s stay the weekend. It’ll be fun.”
Steve was over the moon. He was up bright and early the next morning, packed and ready to go before Claire even had a chance to eat her breakfast. An hour later they stopped on their way to see their granddaughter, Sophie, and her daughter, Stephanie. Sophie had named her after her grandfather, Steve. One of the benefits of skipping over 20 years was that they got to have a relationship with their great granddaughter. She was someone they may not have known very long if they were that much older. Since their bodies were only 50 years old, they figured they would be around for a long time to get to know Stephanie, and watch her grow up.
Three-year-old Stephanie ran and leapt into Steve's arms the second they walked in the door. For some reason that Claire couldn’t quite figure out, Stephanie preferred Steve to her. That was okay, she knew their great granddaughter loved her too.
“Grampa, I love you,” she told him as she hugged him tight. Steve’s eyes welled up.
“I love you too, Baby Girl,” Steve told her.
“Here, Grampa, this is for you.” Stephanie brushed her long brunette ringlets from her face.
“What is it, sweetheart?” Steve asked her as she handed him a folded up piece of paper.
“You can’t read it right now.” Stephanie had a serious look on her face. He could tell she meant business.
“Oh, you can look at that later,” Sophie told him. “She just had me write you a love note for your trip.” Sophie laughed at the silliness of her 3 year old.
Steve smiled and put the note in his jacket pocket.
“Come on, we should be going,” Claire told him.
They all said their good-byes. Steve and Claire headed for another weekend at the Miranda Inn. Neither wanted to say it out loud, but both were a bundle of nerves the entire drive up the island.
When they walked into the Miranda Inn a while later, not much had changed. The first thing they did was go to the café for lunch. The very first person they saw was Heath, sitting at one of the tables near the front. Steve and Claire are both recognized him immediately, though they had not seen him in about 20 years. He was now in his early sixties and had lost most of his hair. What was left, was pure white.
“Well, I don’t believe it,” Heath said when he looked up and saw who was standing at this table. “Sit down, please.”
He gestured toward the empty chairs and they promptly sat.
“So…what brings the two of you out here today?”
“We just wanted to know if you have anymore information for us about the disappearances.” Steve hesitated before adding the rest of it. “Actually, we want to find out if you have any proof of the stories you told us when we were here last.” Steve took in and let out a deep breath.
“Are you saying that you don’t believe what I told you last time?”
Heath was truly confused. It had seemed to him that they had been hanging on his every word when he told them about all the people that had disappeared from the Inn.
“Well, it’s not that…” Claire let her voice trail off. “It’s just that all we have is your word for it. We would like to know if it’s all true. We did some internet research and couldn’t find much.”
“Of course you didn’t find much. Most of the proof is here in my basement. Remember that dusty old box I told you about?” Heath asked them.
They both nodded.
“It’s still here. I’ve even done some more digging around in the records, here and there over the years, and found more things. Not much more though. Sam was very thorough.”
All three of them looked a bit sad at the mention of Sam’s name. He had been killed a few years ago, while still in prison for the murders of the elderly couple.
Heath snapped out of it first. “Well, anyway, I can get the box and we can go through everything together, if you like.”
“Yes, that would be great,” Claire perked up.
“Wonderful. Let’s order lunch and I’ll have someone fetch the box in the meantime.”
Twenty minutes later they were elbows deep in paperwork when their lunch arrived. They took a break to eat and chat about the things they had found. Four hours later, they had exhausted all of the information in the box. What they came to realize, after looking at hoards of newspaper articles, police reports, and witness statements, was that everything Heath had told them was true. All of it.
Thwap! A sudden, loud bang on the window of the cafe caused all of them to jump at once. They turned toward the sound.
“Wow, it’s really starting to blow out there,” Steve exclaimed. “And look at the dark clouds rolling in.”
The three of them had been so enthralled with their research, and all of the interesting things in the box, that none of them had noticed the storm brewing.
“There was no storm in the forecast for today,” Heath announced, brows furrowed.
“Well it’s here nonetheless,” Claire replied.
“Maybe we should go home, before the storm gets worse,” Steve told Claire.
“Why don’t the two of you stay here tonight?” Heath offered. “I don’t think you should be out driving in that.”
“I don’t know. We had planned on staying the weekend, but I don’t want to get trapped here by the storm. We should probably go home and…”
Before Steve had a chance to finish his sentence, they all saw a large tree branch hit the window right in front of them and all three instinctively ducked.
“Yeah, Steve, let’s stay,” Claire told him. “I don’t think we should be driving in that either. What if one of those trees hits our car?”
The rain didn’t start slowly, gathering up its momentum, as rain often does. It hit suddenly, and it hit hard.
“Yep, we are staying,” Steve announced.
“You know what would be fun?” Claire asked, with a bit of mischief in her voice. “Staying in room 333.”
“Oh no, I don’t think that’s a very good idea at all,” Steve replied. “What if it happened again?”
Claire could see the fear in his eyes.
“Actually, folks, we don’t allow people to stay in that room anymore when there is a storm. Regardless of the timing. And right now would be the worst time for the two of you to stay there, since it has been about 40 years since the last disappearance,” Heath warned them. “Actually you two were the last ones to disappear. No one has stayed in that room since you returned.”
“Oh come on,” Claire said to both of them. “What are the chances that it would happen again to us? Has it ever happened to anyone twice?” She looked to Heath for the answer to that question.
“Well, not that I’m aware of. But I doubt anyone ever came back and stayed there again. They’d have to be crazy to do that.”
“Yeah, Claire. They’d have to be crazy,” Steve agreed.
&n
bsp; “Yeah maybe, but so what? If we lose another 20 years, then we will still be young, won’t we? I want to stay in the room.” She then looked directly at Heath. “You’ll let us, right? I’ll take full responsibility.”
“Um, well…”
“I’ll take that as a yes. Are you staying with me Steve or are you going to stay in another room and let me chance it all by myself?”
Steve couldn’t possibly let her stay there alone. He agreed to stay, against his better judgment.
Chapter 36
That night the storm was almost as bad as the one during that fateful night 40 years prior. Steve and Claire stayed in all night, talking mostly, about anything other than what they were both thinking. Sometime around 2 a.m., they both fell asleep, out of sheer exhaustion. Early that morning, Claire woke up first. It took her a moment to get her bearings as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She slowly climbed out of bed and walked to the bathroom. She didn’t turn on any lights, because she wanted to let Steve sleep.
The fire they had lit before falling asleep was just ashes by then and the room was quite chilly. Claire crawled back under the blankets and stared at the ceiling, wondering what was next for them. She also wondered what year it was. Had they lost another 20 years? Was it simply the next day and they would go back to their lives, with their daughter, granddaughter, and great granddaughter to look forward to seeing? She didn’t feel any different and was pretty sure that nothing had changed in the few hours that they were asleep.
“Oh my god,” Steve said as he lay next to her, in the dark shadows of the room.
“What? I didn’t even know you were awake.”
“You look a lot younger than you did last night,” he told her with a smile.
“Yeah right.” Claire swatted him on the arm, playfully. It was still a bit dark in the room and she couldn’t see her husband clearly.
“Come on, let’s get up and go home. I miss everyone,” she told him as she started to crawl back out of bed.
“No, Claire.” He took her by the arm to stop her from leaving the bed. “I’m not kidding. You really do look younger.”
“What? I do not. How could that be?”
“Seriously, go look in the mirror for yourself,” he told her.
“Fine, I’ll go.” She gave him a strange look as she walked to the bathroom to get a look at the younger Claire. She knew he was joking, but she wanted to play along. She flipped on the bathroom light.
“Holy crap! You weren’t kidding. I look like I’m 30 years old again!”
“Told you!” he yelled from the bedroom.
“This can’t be real, can it?” she asked as she walked out of the bathroom. “If we lost another 20 years, why would I look younger?”
She walked over to look at Steve closer and her eyes widened as she turned on the bedside lamp. “Oh wow, you look younger too.” She touched his cheek, just to make sure it wasn’t all a dream. “What the hell is going on here?” she asked.
“I’m calling the front desk.” Steve walked over to the phone and dialed. After a moment he started talking. “Hi. This may sound like a really dumb question, but what year is it?”
Claire held her breath without even noticing.
Steve’s face turned pale as he listened to the voice on the other end of the line. He hung up the phone without responding to whoever it was he was speaking to, and turned to look at Claire.
“What?” Claire realized that she hadn’t been breathing and took in a deep breath.
“You are not going to believe this. We are back to when we originally came here that weekend, 40 years ago. I need to sit down.” Steve pulled out the desk chair and sat down carefully.
“Wait. What? How can that be?” Claire asked. “I thought people went forward 20 or 30 years. No one has ever mentioned going back.”
“Who cares? We are back!” Steve jumped up and grabbed Claire in a big bear hug and swung her around in a full circle. She laughed in delight.
“So why is it that we remember everything that has happened to us since we returned?” Claire asked.
“I don’t know. This is a weird question, but is it possible that none of it ever happened? And maybe we have been here just for the weekend? The original weekend that we came up? Maybe we are having a shared hallucination, or dream, or whatever?” Steve was suddenly doubting everything.
“How can we both be hallucinating the same thing? You remember Sophie, don’t you? And Stephanie, our great granddaughter?” she asked.
“Yes, of course. Stephanie, my little darling.” Steve thought for a moment. “Oh, I have an idea.”
Steve ran over to the closet where he had hung his jacket the night before and yanked it off of the clothes hanger. Claire watched him as he dug in the left pocket for something.
“Here it is.” He held up the folded paper in triumph, and let the jacket fall to the floor.
“What is that?” Claire asked.
“It’s the note that Stephanie gave me yesterday. Remember that I wasn’t supposed to read it until we got here? I completely forgot about it until just now.”
“Oh yes. Open it.”
Steve opened it tentatively. He was terrified that the paper was blank, erased by the circumstances of time travel. Or, even worse, never existed at all, and everything that they both ‘remembered’ never happened at all.
Once he carefully got it open, he read it out loud, smiling widely as he did. It was in Sophie’s neat handwriting. She clearly wrote down, word for word, what her daughter, Stephanie, told her to write.
Dear Grampa and Gramma. I love you so much. I will miss you. Come back from your vacation soon. Love Stephanie. My mommy wrote this for me cause I’m 3 years old and can’t spell yet.
Both Steve and Claire broke down crying. Steve took his wife into his arms. There it was, proof that they weren’t crazy. They really did have a granddaughter and great granddaughter. And everything they knew had actually happened to them.
“Oh no.” Steve pulled away from Claire’s arms.
“What?” Claire asked as she grabbed a tissue and wiped her damp eyes.
“If we are back the 20 years, or 40 actual years since that weekend, then Sophie and Stephanie don’t exist. And, Hope and Dustin are little kids,” Steve told her as he thought of the ramifications of their new found youth.
They both looked at each other and said the same word at the same time. “Dustin.”
“Oh my god,” Claire started crying. “This means that Dustin is still alive. And he’s only 8 years old. Steve, we need to go home right now.” Claire could barely get the words out.
“I couldn’t agree more.”
They hurriedly packed and walked to the lobby. They hadn’t really paid that much attention to things the day before, as they were so engrossed in their research.
As they walked past the lobby desk, they heard the clerk say to a young couple, “You are staying in room 333. It’s right up those stairs. It will be ready at three for you.”
Steve and Claire looked at each other with wide eyes.
Then the thing that finally convinced them that they were 40 years in the past, walked up to them.
“Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Jamison. Do you have your ticket?”
It was Tim Carmichael, a teenager again, working as a valet at the Miranda Inn. They smiled and Steve handed him their valet ticket.
As they got in their car and waved good-bye to Tim, and the Miranda Inn, for the very last time, Steve spoke. “Things are going to be a lot different this time around. Now let’s go see our kids.”
THE END
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
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Thorns on Wildflower Island
Wildflower Mystery Series - Book 4
CHAPTER 1 Preview
It was late. Long after midnight, and much too late on that hot summer night for Marshall Porter to be out in his backyard, working in the garden. He had tried sleeping, but the stickiness from the night only resulted in restlessness, and his wife grumbling his way. As he laid there, staring at the ceiling, he thought about that rose garden he had been promising Eliza that he would plant. He decided right then and there that the time was right. It was an unusually warm summer, and the middle of the night was the only logical time to be outside toiling. Marshall had purchased the rose plants weeks prior and put them on the back patio. There they remained.
Marshall worked only by moonlight. Not quite a full moon, but he could see as well as he needed to. He didn’t want to disturb Eliza or any of the neighbors by turning on the patio light. He hummed quietly to himself as he worked.
Completely focused on his task, he paid little attention to the noises of the neighborhood. Crickets rubbed their wings together noisily, creating a chirp that droned on into the night. Ivy that clung to the back of his house grazed the wall in the slight breeze. Something flew over his head, causing Marshall to duck instinctively. It was too big to be a dragonfly or June bug. It was probably a bat. Marshall hated bats. They gave him the creeps. He had heard they carried rabies, though he was pretty sure they rarely attacked humans. Still, he kept his eyes on the night sky. He didn’t want to find out the hard way.
Though it was the middle of the night, a dog barked off in the distance. Another answered. A third chimed in far off from another direction. They must have been quickly shut down by their people, because that was the last he heard of those three.
Storm on Wildflower Island Page 17
