No Ordinary Thing

by G. Z. Schmidt

  “My—my dad was killed in the fire,” explained the girl, clearly trying to appear brave, but the flicker of fear and shock in her red-rimmed eyes gave her away. “Where’s your family?”

  Adam’s heart hammered. He had to get to Jack’s house. “I’m sorry. I—I have to go. But first—” He held up the whimpering terrier in his arms. “Do you think you could? I found him abandoned.”

  “Oh, that’s the Bordens’ old dog,” said the mother. “They were both in the middle of their shift when the fire broke out.”

  “Mom?” said the daughter, after a long pause.

  The mother sighed. “Yes, dear, of course we can take him.”

  After they exchanged goodbyes, Adam turned and started running. He sprinted up and down the next hills, coughing from the smoke.

  Across the desolate town, the few folks that Adam ran into were either packing up and leaving or looking lost and scared. An old man stood on his porch silently staring into the distance. Twice, someone asked Adam if he was all right. He answered yes but hurried along. His hasty footsteps disturbed the confetti in his snow globe, but the town inside the glass had not disappeared yet.

  When he arrived at the redbrick, two-story house on Oak Street, his stomach sank again. The front porch light was off, like all the others up and down the street. The windows were pitch black. Adam pounded on the door, but no one answered. This door was also locked.

  He peered inside Jack’s bedroom window. The bedsheets were gone. Half the books and magazines on the bookshelf had disappeared. A few of Jack’s model airplanes remained, including the one that was half-finished last time. That particular model had now been completed, and sat in the same spot on the writing desk. Next to it were a few sheets of paper, the candlestick—this time with an unlit, white-and-green-striped candle in it—and, in the corner of the desk, Jack’s music box, its lid firmly shut.

  Dejected, Adam looked around at the darkening town. Looming ahead of him, much larger now, was the scene of the disaster—Candlewick’s Candles Corporation.

  He found himself slowly trudging to the factory. He needed to see the destruction with his own eyes. Even though the main walls of the factory remained standing, the inside looked like a demolition site, with its window shards and piles of broken cement and black rubble. There was a stillness in the air, heavy with smoke and the scent of lavender left over from the burned candles.

  Adam stood alone in the dark, helplessly rooted to the spot, not wanting to move. When he finally shifted sideways, his foot unearthed a scrap of clothing.

  Later, when recounting these dark events, Adam would leave out these details, because he didn’t want to admit that he had gotten terribly sick at the sight, and had thrown up like he had the stomach flu. He didn’t want to admit how he’d rolled up into a ball, coughing and crying until his eyes were swollen.

  When he finally managed to pull himself together, something metallic in the rubble near his feet caught his eye. It glistened in the starlight. Adam carefully dug out the object from beneath the black soot and examined it, but he couldn’t make out what it was.

  He slipped it into his pocket and wiped some of the grime and tears from his face. Other things were distracting him at the moment—like the fact that he needed to wash up badly. He decided to try Jack’s house again.

  There was still no answer when he knocked on the door, but the window to Jack’s bedroom was unlocked. Adam pushed it upward. “Hello?” he called inside.

  Breaking into someone’s house, of course, is frowned upon in many places, if not outright against the law. But sometimes there is a dire need to break the rules for a very good reason. For example, using the forbidden back door of the school to get inside, because a pair of sixth-grade bullies awaited you in the front each morning to dunk your head in the toilet. Or skipping homework in order to help your uncle manage the bakery, because otherwise you might not have a roof over your head the next month. In those cases, it is up to you to decide whether to risk one thing for something more catastrophic.

  Adam took the chance and heaved himself through the window. Again, it was lucky he was so small. He slid inside easily.

  He turned on the light switch. That was when he noticed the letter on the desk addressed to him.

  Dear Adam,

  If you find this letter, know that I am safe.

  The candle factory caught on fire yesterday. The firefighters tried to put it out, but it was too late. Dad and hundreds of other people died.

  My aunt and uncle are here. I’m headed north to stay with them. They’re waiting outside now, so this is the last chance I’ll have to talk to you. Maybe.

  Keep the music box. I know you like it. But be careful. Its music predicts death. I’m sure of that now, though you probably know all about it already. The first time it played for me, my dog got hit crossing the street. The second time it played, my grandma died of a heart attack. And the last time it played was when you heard it through my window the other day, right before my dad and so many other people were killed.

  My grandpa wanted me to have this music box. I loved him a lot, but I don’t want it anymore. I also don’t want it to go to someone I don’t trust, so I’m giving it to you.

  I don’t know if you’ll find this letter, but I just have a feeling there’s a chance. I don’t know how to explain it, but I do.

  I hope I’m right. And I hope we cross paths again.

  Your friend,

  Jack

  Your friend. Adam reread the letter five times. He’d never felt so puzzled in his life.

  He glanced at the other items on the desk. The candle resting in the candlestick looked and felt just like the ones Francine had given him. It smelled the same too, like lavender. Adam touched the wick of the candle. It was cold.

  None of it made sense.

  His gaze fell on the music box. He had been itching to inspect the item ever since he’d first heard its eerie music several weeks ago. Its handsome wood and carved features beckoned him closer. When he touched it, a tingle shot up his arm.

  There was no way to wind it. Adam examined the top, the bottom, and all four sides thoroughly, but the box remained closed and silent.

  Then he found initials carved smoothly into the bottom of one side, next to a tiny engraving of a compass rose: JCW.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  PERMUTATIONS

  “Time traveling, huh?” repeated Victor.

  The old man and Adam were sitting outside the shelter, Victor bundled snugly in his wheelchair and Adam on the curb. It was the first day of December, a sunny but chilly afternoon. Adam had to bury his hands inside his pockets for warmth. Even the sidewalk felt like ice. He shifted his legs every so often so his bottom wouldn’t freeze. Beside him, Victor peeled an orange as he listened to Adam recount his time in the town of Candlewick.

  Ever since Uncle Henry shot down Adam’s stories as if they were make-believe, Adam was extra careful not to mention the snow globe to his uncle again, and especially not his strange travels through time. But the mysterious journeys kept him from sleeping at night. After his teacher sent home a note because he had fallen asleep twice in class, Adam was determined to solve the snow globe’s mysteries once and for all, for his own sanity if nothing else. Even if that meant confiding in another adult.

  He chose Victor because the trusted old man had told many whimsical stories of his own. Plus, as a former mathematician, he was the likeliest person to consider the possibility of time travel without swatting the idea down as if it were a whining mosquito.

  Indeed, when Adam first brought up the notion, Victor merely answered, “There are many unexplored questions in this world. Who is to say time traveling is out of bounds?”

  After Adam finished recounting his adventures with the magic snow globe, Victor nodded as if Adam had told him a completely ordinary story.

  “What I am most perplexed about,” said Victor, “is the music box. An object that predicts death could be very valuable—thou
gh I personally wouldn’t like to own such a thing. Some knowledge is best left unknown.”

  Adam wasn’t sure if he agreed. Such an item would be valuable, though from what he’d observed, the music box only appeared to play a warning tune—nothing more, nothing less. It didn’t give any clues as to who, what, when, where, or how. More details would be helpful. If he could have foreseen exactly how and when his parents were going to die, for instance, he might have been able to save them. They’d still be living together now, in their spacious townhouse with a garden in the yard, sitting in front of the cheerful fireplace in the living room. His mother would volunteer at the school book fairs and show up at class parties like the other parents. His father would come in for Bring Your Parent to School Day. Adam would never again have to awkwardly explain to a new teacher that Uncle Henry was not his dad, but his uncle.

  Victor shook his head and gave Adam a tiny smile. “Anything that has happened in the past has happened,” he said, as if reading the boy’s mind. “Thus, any changes you try to make now will have happened already, and bring you right back to where you are. The outcome, the present that we experience today, remains the same. That much I am sure of.”

  “How do you know?” insisted Adam.

  “Well, it’s sort of like permutations. Say you have three spoons—a bronze spoon, silver spoon, and gold spoon. You put the bronze and silver spoons down, in that order. Where does that leave the gold spoon?”

  “Last—after the bronze one and the silver one.”

  “Right. The gold spoon can’t go anywhere but last because of the other two spoons. That’s one combination, and it represents our reality. Now, if you rearrange the order this time, and have the gold spoon be first or second, then you have a completely new combination. But then that combination represents a whole other reality, one we do not and cannot live in. Your name might not be Adam Lee Tripp in that world, wherever it is. I might not even be born.”

  “But…” Adam frowned. “Are you saying the past can’t be changed?”

  Victor held up an orange peel. “See this peel? Let’s say I accidentally drop it on the ground. It gets blown away in the wind and lands on someone’s windshield. This startles the driver, and he swerves off the road. His car is now wrecked, so he misses his daughter’s ballet recital because he has to wait for a tow truck.”

  Adam didn’t see where this was going. “And then what?”

  “Well, then the daughter, upon realizing that her dad isn’t in the audience, performs terribly. Her teacher later evaluates the recital and ends up giving the lead in the next big performance to another dancer.” Victor sucked in his breath. “So the daughter decides to travel back in time to prevent the orange peel from hitting the windshield. But then it turns out her appearing out of thin air was what startled me and made me drop the orange peel in the first place!”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Adam argued.

  “That is the paradox of time traveling. Everything up to today—to this very minute—has happened because of a specific series of events. Including anything that you try to change by going back. And I’m not saying the daughter did the wrong thing by traveling back in time,” Victor added with a shrug. “It could be that during the big performance, a piece of scaffolding falls onstage and hits the lead dancer right in the foot. So she managed to save herself by avoiding a bigger disaster.”

  Adam wasn’t completely following Victor’s line of thinking. He wondered what seemingly small incident had caused Victor’s university to lose funding and consequently make the former mathematician lose his career. Or what orange peel had caused his parents’ plane to crash. Life certainly didn’t seem fair.

  “The thing I don’t get,” said Adam, changing the subject, “is who was J.C. Walsh? He’s way older than both me and Jack. Jack would be in his forties right now, and J.C. Walsh looked to be at least sixty-something.”

  “Are you sure the initials JCW refer to the man you saw in October?”

  “No…but who else could it be?” Adam explained again how the stranger in the raincoat had carried a snow globe into the Biscuit Basket and introduced himself as J.C. Walsh. “I haven’t seen him since then,” he added. “He must’ve not liked the red velvet cake.”

  “Naw, your uncle’s baking is some of the best I’ve ever tasted,” Victor reassured him. “Has the bakery reopened?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  The broken window had finally been fixed after a long week. Uncle Henry was currently preparing special snowflake cookies for the Biscuit Basket’s reopening. That reminded Adam—he had promised to help taste test the cookies later that night.

  “I have to go,” he told Victor. “Thanks for listening.”

  “Anytime, sonny.”

  As Adam slowly walked home, he considered the initials on the music box again. His first thought had been they stood for Jack’s name—Jack Something Walsh. But Jack had said the music box was a gift from his grandpa. J.C. Walsh must’ve been Jack’s grandfather, then. Except, according to the name on the headstone, his name had been Elbert Walsh.

  Adam hopped over a puddle on the sidewalk. Maybe he could still track down Jack. But even as the thought crossed his mind for the hundredth time, he knew it was near impossible. Finding someone in the city of New York was hard enough, and his only lead there was Charlie. That had been a dead end. Extending his search to unknown towns and cities outside New York without the proper resources…well, he was out of luck.

  Back at the bakery, Uncle Henry had finished baking the first batch of snowflake cookies. The careful baker had even made each one different to truly capture the unique quality of snowflakes: some cookies had six prongs, others twelve; some had crisscross patterns; still others had strange patterns in tartan and zigzag. Each cookie was lightly dusted with fine blue and white sprinkles.

  The sight of the beautifully assorted cookies cheered up even Adam. “These look amazing, Uncle Henry,” he said.

  “Thank you, my boy. Here’s to a new beginning for the Biscuit Basket. Whoever tried to knock us down failed. Tomorrow we will be back stronger than ever—just in time for the holidays!”

  Adam helped himself to three cookies. The crunchy sugar reminded him of real snow. He couldn’t wait for a snowfall to hit New York City.

  Later, Adam went upstairs to his bedroom. After making sure the door was closed, he pulled open the bottom drawer of his dresser and carefully took out a golden disk attached to a fine golden chain.

  It was the pendulum he’d pocketed from the ruins of the candle factory.

  Adam studied the object. He’d managed to identify what it was when he returned home from his last journey and looked at it under proper lighting. The disk was smooth, and the chain looked almost brand-new. He knew, however, it was nearly a century old. The last owner he’d seen wearing it had been the Gold Mold’s father, in 1922.

  He had no doubt the item was extremely valuable. Worth hundreds at least, perhaps thousands. They could sell it and make a small fortune. But he knew he could never bring himself to do so. He’d seen its power firsthand, and the idea of letting it slip into some random person’s possession didn’t feel right.

  The alarm clock on Adam’s nightstand went off. He looked up in surprise. The time on the clock was wrong once again—as if the hour hand kept rewinding itself. It was the third time it had happened in the last few days. And it wasn’t just the alarm clock. Uncle Henry’s baking timer only worked sporadically, ever since Adam came home from the burned factory.

  He placed the pendulum back inside the bottom drawer.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  A VIEW OF THE FIRE FROM THE OTHER SIDE

  It’s often said that those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. One particular family seemed to have missed this pearl of wisdom.

  Robert Baron III had been as unpopular as his father, who in turn had been just as unpopular as his father, the first Robert Baron and founder of Candlewick’s Candles. Like his predecessors, the
third Robert Baron liked to strut around town in a tight, polished suit and sneer at the unfortunate people who weren’t born into a family of wealth (and without whom his wealth would have been impossible). He was shrewd like a weasel and as sneaky as a rat. Unlike his predecessors, he was as lazy as a sloth and had an insatiable appetite, so much so that at least one button on his suit popped off daily. He was also fond of the golden pendulum he always wore around his neck, as it was a constant reminder to others of his enormous wealth, and a constant reminder to himself of his enormous power.

  Every employee of Candlewick’s Candles had a complaint or two about the factory. The floors of the factory were constantly covered in molten candle wax. There were open candle flames all around the cramped workspace, and it was common for the workers to accidentally burn their sleeves. More serious accidents had happened, too.

  Yet somehow, all of those incidents were hushed up, forgotten. Formal complaints written against the factory disappeared mysteriously before they left the post office. Townspeople who had tried to form unions would abruptly forget their purpose and disband overnight.

  As such, on the day of the disaster, when the boiler blew and the first licks of flame expanded across the factory, none of the workers thought of the greedy owner. If anything, they seemed to awake from some sort of deep trance. By then, the fire was spreading rapidly. Volunteer firefighters tried to put it out, to no avail. Water does not mix well with wax, and their attempts only fanned the flames outward in small bursts.

  Afterward, it was revealed that Robert Baron III had been in enormous debt. A lavish lifestyle had laid waste to his inheritance, and his time overseeing the candle factory had not been as profitable as one might’ve imagined. After the fire, his mansion lay abandoned, most of his valuables were sold off, and his family name faded like smoke.

  Only one individual knew the depth of the secrets behind the factory owner’s tyrannical grip on the townspeople. He alone knew why the workers had been so easily satisfied with the dreadful working conditions and worked so long for a cruel boss. In fact, this individual had been next in line to take over the factory, and would have ruled it with the same ruthless tactics, had it not burned down, and had Candlewick not become an abandoned wasteland.