A Time Traveler's Theory of Relativity

by Nicole Valentine

“This is all on the quantum level, Gran. They’re talking about particles, not people.”

  “How do they know that? They don’t really know anything, do they?” She stood up from the table, grabbing a dishtowel off the counter and wiping her hands on it before mindlessly throwing it into the trash.

  “Gran, it’s not about human beings.”

  She was looking past him now, her mind miles away. There was an uncomfortable silence until she said, “All it takes is one little bend, and two parallel lines are no longer parallel.”

  Now Finn was confused. “Well, yeah, that’s mathematically true—”

  “I’m not feeling well, Finn. I’m going to bed. Can you clean up for me?” She began to shuffle to the doorway. “It’s one of my . . . headaches.”

  Finn hoped it wouldn’t be like Mom’s. He’d have to call Doc to drive her to the ER in Rutland.

  “Is it going to be a bad one?” he asked.

  “If I don’t rest it could get worse.”

  Her voice trailed off as she left the room and walked down the hallway, leaving Finn alone in the kitchen with the sounds of the ticking clock and the rain. He rose from his chair and began clearing the dishes. He rescued the dishtowel from the trashcan and put the leftover soup in the fridge.

  He paused in front of his bedroom door with one hand on the doorknob, listening. There were no sounds coming from her room down the hall. She must already be lying down. He hoped she would be able to rest.

  What he planned to do next would be easier once she was sound asleep.

  Chapter 5

  Finn had already searched his own house top to bottom—except for Dad’s office, because if so much as a paper clip was out of place, Dad would know. His investigation had yielded no clues about Mom’s whereabouts: no scraps of paper with cryptic information, no letters, no emails, not one hint about where she could have gone.

  But Mom never went anywhere without sending Gran a postcard. It was an old-fashioned habit that Finn found silly when she could just text her a photo.

  Gran’s house might have exactly what he was looking for.

  She clearly knew more than she was letting on.

  Late that night Finn pried open his bedroom door and moved slowly down the dark hallway, aware of his heart beating in his chest. Was the house that quiet? Maybe it was actually the grandmother clock on the landing ticking loudly. “It’s called a grandmother and not a grandfather because the door isn’t a glass panel. All the mysterious doodads and gears are hidden inside on a grandmother clock.” That’s what Gran said about it whenever anyone asked. Usually Finn didn’t even notice the ticking. Now it was the loudest noise in the house.

  He went first to the dining room. The china cabinet was jam-packed with linens, papers, candles, a 1970s fondue set, a large number of collectible thimbles, and some old records. He pushed through to the papers, but they were only old tax forms. No recent credit card statements or postcards, nothing that would give him a clue as to where Mom went.

  The living room, with its overstuffed chairs and gigantic fireplace, usually made him feel warm and comfortable, only now in the dark the fireplace looked like a gaping black hole and the chairs were sagging under its pull. He looked around, but there was nothing in here that could hide a stash of letters. That left one more place. The basement.

  No one went down there anymore. The stairs had been deemed too dangerous for Gran three years ago. His parents had her laundry machines moved up to the mudroom. When Finn was younger, Gran used to stock food down there and send him for evaporated milk or canned peaches. He’d always tried to be brave about it, but the basement was dark and full of wolf spiders. Those things were tarantula-huge.

  He couldn’t imagine what horrors it hid now, when no one even opened this door. He gently moved the hook off its metal eye to unbolt it. The door immediately sighed open as if it had been straining forever against that one little piece of metal.

  It took a moment for his eyes to register anything in the darkness below. The familiar childhood smells of dust, mold, and wood met him before anything he could see. He turned on his cell phone flashlight and saw the familiar red slatted stairs. He reached for the light switch and realized it was already in the on position. Bulb out. He walked slowly down the rickety stairs, testing each one to make sure it wasn’t rotted through. They made an awful racket; he took them one by one, listening for movement above.

  When he got to the bottom he was surprised to find the basement hadn’t turned into a spider-infested mummy’s tomb after all. Grandpa Jack’s woodworking table was still standing up against the far wall. Solid and made of oak, it looked like it was also holding up the side of the house. Gran had kept it like a shrine to him after he passed. Finn could still picture him sitting there, unrolling his canvas to reveal tools that looked capable of an archaeological dig.

  Finn picked up a copy of a woodworking magazine from 2002 and found something catching the light below it. Gran’s blue wristwatch. The one she fretted over last year because she thought she’d lost it in town. She was sure the clasp had come undone and it was gone forever. He was at once thrilled to have found it for her and disappointed he had no way of returning it without admitting he was a snoop. Though hadn’t she admitted to doing the same exact thing with Aunt Billie? Maybe she would understand . . . or maybe not.

  He pocketed the watch anyway. He’d put it someplace she was bound to find it.

  Finn continued to the back of the basement, winding his way through cardboard boxes full of seasonal decorations that required too much effort to dig out of storage anymore. He was stopped short by a colorful plastic teeter-totter. It was covered in cobwebs now, its colors hidden by years of layered dust, but Finn knew them anyway. Blue and green and vibrant yellow. His brain yielded a perfect memory: him and Faith in Gran’s backyard on this little piece of plastic made for the weight of two toddlers.

  “You were relegated to the basement afterwards, weren’t you?” he whispered to it as if it was a sad sentient being that missed its sole purpose.

  Behind it rested a stroller, the double kind made for twins. His grandparents had kept these memories in their basement, unwilling to toss them away or donate them, hiding them like an internal injury. He had come looking for clues about Mom and found only Faith.

  He decided to give up on the basement. Gran couldn’t have hidden anything here, not without someone’s help, and frankly the whole thing was beginning to make him feel like a creep.

  He was halfway up the slatted stairs again when he noticed something stuffed between the fourth and fifth stair, only visible from this angle. He pulled it free. It was a black trash bag, knotted against itself at the top. Finn sat on the stair with it in front of him.

  He found himself afraid to see what was inside. Cautiously, he opened it.

  First, he spied the familiar floral pattern of his mother’s overnight bag. He unzipped it and inside, on top of a pile of clothing, he saw his mother’s wallet and purse and phone. It looked as if someone had packed her things in a hurry, all her important things.

  All her everyday possessions were in his hands. He reached in and picked up the purse he wished he could still see hanging off the back of the kitchen chair every night. It had only been a few weeks since Mom left, but he felt as if he were holding ancient relics, as if these objects should be in a museum and only handled with white gloves. He opened the wallet and looked at his mother’s driver’s license through the little clear plastic pocket. Her signature was below the smiling photo, the familiar handwriting he missed so much and kept waiting to find in the mailbox each day. His fingers lingered over the signature as if touching it could somehow summon the signer.

  And the phone. Battery dead.

  A small bass drum began to beat in his chest. These were things she would’ve needed the last three weeks.

  Things she would’ve taken with her.

  He raced up the stairs. No longer concerned about noise, he shouted, “Gran!”

&
nbsp; How could she hide this from him? He stumbled across the threshold and didn’t bother to close it or bolt the door. He had every right to snoop! She had to give him answers now.

  “Gran!” he yelled down the hall. He had made enough noise to wake the dead. Still there was no sound on the other side of her door.

  “Gran?”

  He knocked loudly. Still no answer.

  Suddenly, someone grabbed his shoulder. He spun around to find Gran standing where she hadn’t been two seconds before.

  Chapter 6

  “Gran! You scared me.” He steadied himself against the opposite wall with his left hand, then held up the bag in his right like an accusation. “Why do you have this? Tell me. Now!”

  He expected his tone to shock her. Instead she gently nodded and said, “We need to talk. Let’s go to the living room.”

  She sat on the overstuffed sofa and patted the cushion next to her. It was more of an order than an invite. He took a seat. It was still dark, due to both the early hour and the cloud cover from last night’s storm. Finn went to turn on the lamp on the side table. She grabbed his arm in mid-reach and shook her head no.

  “I know you’re angry. But you need to listen now.” She was staring at him. Taking him in like she had never seen him before. It was very disconcerting. “I have something I need to tell you.”

  “Yes, you do! Why do you have Mom’s things?”

  She grasped both his hands and leaned in with an intensity that completely unnerved him. Finn saw flecks of gold in the blue of her eyes and wondered why he never noticed them before.

  “I’ve planned this conversation over and over in my mind since the day you were born. I imagined it would be Liz and me talking to you together and—” She shook her head sadly and Finn heard the wind whistle through the cold fireplace behind him.

  “Where is she?” Finn’s entire nervous system froze with hope and fear. Everything hinged on Gran’s answer.

  “It’s a bit more complicated than where.”

  “Is she—okay?”

  Gran pulled him in for a fierce hug. Her arms were strong, like they felt after he fell off his bike when he was little. She pushed him away to arm’s length while still holding firmly onto his shoulders.

  “She loves you. We both do. More than you can imagine.”

  “You’re scaring me.” Finn surprised himself with how small his voice sounded.

  “Oh, I don’t want to scare you!” She wrung her hands together nervously. Finn had never seen her like this. “I’m not supposed to scare you. Well, maybe I am. I don’t know! She didn’t really give me much to go on. Let’s say for expediency’s sake that it’s okay to be scared.” She eyed the clock on the cable box over the TV and frowned.

  “The message I have for you is not from your mother. It’s from—well—me. The future me, to be exact. I am the Gran you knew several years ago. How old are you now? No—wait!” She pushed her palm up toward his face so quickly she nearly hit him in the nose. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. Sorry about that.” She patted his cheek as if that would somehow realign his features. “Well, your Gran and I, we are sort of working together on this.” She shot a sad, worried glance down the hallway before she focused back on his face once more. “The Gran you know, she asked me to come forward and do this.”

  It took him a moment to register each word. There was no logic he could follow. She wasn’t joking. Her voice had a seriousness in it he had never heard before, and it made his body respond with a small involuntary shudder.

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Are you feeling okay, Gran?”

  “I know this is hard to comprehend. Try and think of me as one of your equations. Yes, that will do! Let’s see, now don’t tell me your exact age. Please. I’m going to guess it’s only about five years, though. Think of me as Gran Minus Five. That’s good, isn’t it?” She placed a hand over his—and that’s when Finn saw the watch.

  She was wearing the slim blue watch!

  “How did you find that?” He pointed at her wrist and then immediately shoved his hand into his pocket. It was empty! It was like a magic trick. “You said you lost it! I just found it downstairs on Grandpa’s table—”

  “Oh, well, now that you’ve told me, I haven’t lost it, have I? Now listen carefully and promise not to interrupt till I’m done.”

  She was staring straight into his eyes and waiting for him to agree before she continued. Finn forced his head into a quick nod.

  She took a deep breath. “I have died. Last night, I passed away in my sleep.”

  “That’s not funny, Gran!” He involuntarily looked down the hallway toward her bedroom, then back at her. Whatever game she was playing, he didn’t like it one bit.

  “I’m not trying to be funny and now you’re interrupting.”

  Her short-cropped hair had too many shades of silver and gray to count, and she smelled like peppermint. Everything about her was the way Gran always was, but something was off. Something besides the watch trick. Finn could not deny that she didn’t seem to be the same Gran as last night.

  Gran was getting older and perhaps this was the beginning of a decline. Dementia. It was entirely possible that he and Dad had missed the signs.

  “Did you ever wonder why your mother loves history so much?” asked Gran.

  “I don’t know, because she married a history professor?” This came out ruder than he expected.

  She let out a disappointed sigh, but it was directed at herself, not him. She admonished herself with a whispered, “The beginning, Beth.” Then she inhaled sharply, closed her eyes, and said, “Your mother is what we call a Traveler. She can cross the folds of time. She can travel to the past and the future.”

  Finn instantly felt all alone. Gran had lost her mind. His face must have registered his horror.

  “Now don’t look at me like that! I’m perfectly sane. Your mother is a Traveler. I am a Traveler and so are your aunts. It runs on the female side of the bloodline.”

  She looked at the clock again, then the watch.

  It was outrageous. He’d have to call Doc, tell him Gran wasn’t lucid. “You’re saying that all the women in my family can time travel?”

  “Well, don’t be ridiculous.” She lifted her chin and straightened her shoulders. “Only on your mother’s side.” She said it as if Dad’s side were somehow deficient.

  “Gran, please.” He took a last desperate shot at appealing to whatever reason she had left. “Why would our family be the only one in the world that could do that?”

  “Who said anything about being the only ones? There have been many signs we’re not alone. We just happen to be the only ones in Dorset. And that’s why it’s up to us to find your mother.”

  He remembered the bag. In his shock he had let it drop to the floor. He picked it up and brandished it at her. “How—why?!”

  “They packed that up the day she disappeared. It had to look as if she’d moved out. Your Gran and your dad, they didn’t want you—or the police—to think she had come to any harm.”

  “Gran! You told me she was okay!” The words rushed out all at once and it felt as if his last breath went with them.

  “Your Gran told me they needed everyone to think she left of her own accord.” Her eyes were wet. She hadn’t answered his question.

  “Gran—! She—she’s not . . .”

  She turned her head away. “We are all alive or dead at some point.” She looked back at him and put her hand resassuringly on his knee. “But she didn’t leave you, Finn. They’re trying to figure out when she is. Your father is tirelessly searching for clues.”

  He had tried to grasp what she was getting at. “She’s lost?”

  “We think so. We knew it would be risky. We didn’t want her to go. They—I mean we, that is, the me from your time, and your father—have been trying to talk her out of the last jump for over a year. She wouldn’t listen. She said she knew what was best. And she is the best Traveler in our family. Each genera
tion surpasses the previous one.”

  Almost all respected physicists still considered time travel an impossibility. This he knew. Still, his heart asked the next question without his brain’s permission. “So then can I”—he fidgeted in the chair—“um, time travel?” It was an absurd question and he couldn’t believe he was asking it.

  “No. No man in our family has ever been able to Travel,” she said gently. She was still monitoring both the clock over the television and her wristwatch as if something big was about to happen. “But there is another possibility. Your mother built a portal, a way to reach her in case of this kind of emergency.”

  Portal. That was a word Gabi loved. It was the kind of word one of her favorite fantasy books would use. Finn’s science books talked about wormholes, not portals.

  “It’s in a tree,” Gran went on. “A tree rooted to more than the earth. It stands outside the laws of time, an anchor of sorts, letting people travel from node to node—point to point along the timeline. She made it in case of this kind of emergency.”

  “A tree? She built a tree?”

  “No, the tree grew as trees normally do! Listen! She turned it into a portal. It’s amazing—none of us have managed anything like that before. She’s certainly the most talented Traveler we’ve ever had.” She was beaming, proud of her daughter. “The tree is a secret. No one knows about it but your mother and me, not even your father.”

  “So—she made it for me?”

  Gran shifted uncomfortably for a moment and looked away. “It was a fail-safe she made back years ago. In case she got lost. A shortcut, so to speak, a line directly to her.”

  “So, she made it for you?”

  “No. Not for me.” She looked out the window up toward Dorset Peak.

  “Well, who did she make it— ”

  Finn stopped himself in midsentence. She made it for Faith. For her only daughter, the next time traveler.

  Gran’s voice took on the brightness of someone who was hiding a darker truth. “We still think it might work for you. It’s an outside chance, but it’s all we have.”