A Time Traveler's Theory of Relativity

by Nicole Valentine

  Doc was wrong.

  °°°

  The search and rescue people came by helicopter. They lowered a man in a small clearing farther up the trail. Finn watched as the man, vibrant in his orange-and-yellow reflective jumpsuit, descended on a cable and then disappeared behind the tree canopy. In seconds he reappeared on the trail, carrying his equipment.

  He ran up to them and laid a pack at Gabi’s feet. “Are either one of you injured?”

  Finn was sure he was. His wrist still hurt and when he breathed in it felt like someone was thrusting a dagger into his ribs. At least one of them must be broken.

  He didn’t care. All he cared about was Gabi. Anyway, how could he explain that he’d been battered about in a timeless ether, or slammed against a tree by his evil time-traveling sister? He was still trying to find the words to explain it all to himself. He shook his head and saw Doc do the same.

  “Tell me what happened.” The rescuer looked at Doc, and it became obvious to Finn that neither of them had thought of how they were going to answer that question.

  Finn interjected before Doc had a chance to speak. “She climbed the tree to get a better idea of where we were and she fell.” Lying did get easier the more you did it. He realized he’d better get used to it. It was going to be a regular part of life now.

  “Did you see her fall? How she landed?”

  “No,” Finn answered.

  The man gave Doc a questioning look. Doc shook his head. “No, I didn’t see her fall. I’m a doctor. Her airway is intact, contusions on the chest, possible pneumothorax . . .” He paused and glanced at Finn before continuing. “Stable, but GCS is 5 out of 15.”

  Doc and the rescue worker exchanged a meaningful look.

  “I’ll stabilize her, and we’ll need to bring her about a hundred feet south of here where there’s a clearing big enough to cable her up. I’ll need your help. Then they’ll take her down to Dartmouth, and you can head down to meet the ground team that’s on its way to meet you.”

  “Wait. I can’t go with her?” Finn had thought he’d be by her side the whole time.

  “No, the helicopter is only equipped to take the injured and the team.” The rescuer handed a small device to Doc. “This is a beacon to help the ground team find you.”

  Minutes later, Gabi was cocooned in what looked like an orange body bag. No, Finn thought, it’s like a sleeping bag. That’s what it is.

  Finn and Doc helped the rescue worker lower her down the trail. Slowly, carefully, they plodded down the same path he and Gabi had climbed. It felt like days ago now. Finn could hear the helicopter making passes over them. Finally, they came to the small clearing. The rescue worker told them to duck and take shelter as the helicopter came close. Dirt and debris began to kick up from the wind of the blades.

  When Finn was able to look again, the man already had a giant cable hook in his hand and was hooking himself and Gabi to it. He was off to the side of her, on a small swing-like pedestal, as they lifted up into the air.

  And then Gabi was gone.

  Chapter 32

  The walk down the mountain with Doc was a quiet, torturous march. In some ways it was harder than climbing up. Finn’s side hurt with each deep breath and every footfall, and he had to concentrate hard just to stop himself from tumbling forward on the steep trail. He was exhausted and still in panic mode. Gabi falling. Mom left on the mountain. It all felt like it was happening right now. He couldn’t convince his body that it wasn’t still happening. His heart was pounding and his brain was begging for him to react to a moment that was no longer now. Or was it? Was everything now? Maybe that was what Travelers had to live with. Or maybe it was the opposite.

  His head began to ache along with his ribs.

  He tried not to think anymore. He focused on the pain instead. Dissecting it. Cataloguing it. Taking stock of where it was in his body.

  “Finn, are you okay?”

  Finn barely grunted in response. Even if he wanted to talk to Doc, which he did not, the pain in his side was too much. He needed to take quick short breaths. Adding conversation was impossible.

  They heard them before they saw them. The rescue team called out from below, and the beacon Doc carried suddenly chirped loudly in response, like a loyal digital pet.

  “We’re up ahead!” Doc yelled.

  Finn was relieved until he realized it didn’t matter. Even with the rescue team catching up to him, he still had to hike down the rest of this mountain broken and exhausted. He wanted to curl up in the moss and go to sleep. It had been ages since he’d last slept for real. His mind grew fuzzy trying to figure out how many days he’d lived in this one day alone.

  The first thing Finn asked was when he’d hear about Gabi. One of the EMTs—a woman with a ruddy, kind face—answered him. “All we know so far is she safely arrived at the hospital and is in the very best care. We have to concentrate on getting you down so you can see her back to good health, okay?”

  Looking at Finn skeptically, she offered him water and told him to sit down. Finn was happy to comply. The EMTs covered him with a blanket and asked him what hurt. Finn did his best to communicate. His brain was falling asleep on him. Words weren’t coming together the way he wanted them to. One of the rescue workers handed him a bright orange parka and Finn accepted it without protest. As they sat there Finn was sure they were asking him more questions, only he could no longer put the words together to make sense.

  “I’m real tired,” was all he managed to say.

  The rest of the trip down the mountain was a blur. They made him drink water regularly and two people held him up part of the way. His chest felt constricted and he realized that at some point they had bound his middle in bandages. He couldn’t remember when.

  The darkness was complete now and the mountain grew colder. Finn was glad for the orange parka. It was warm and comfortable and made him want to sleep. The rescuers had helmet flashlights and glowing sticks on their jackets. They passed the hunter’s cabin in the dark. Finn wanted them to point a flashlight at the doorway. He wanted to know if the animal skull was still there. He had a sick feeling that it was something Faith had left for him. A warning that he hadn’t quite understood till now.

  As the trail leveled out he saw the cluster of flashing lights at the bottom of the trailhead. There was a ton of commotion up ahead. Every bone in Finn’s body hurt. Even his gums felt bruised from the constant, tooth-rattling impact of his feet against the sloped ground.

  The search and rescue team handed him over to an ambulance crew who immediately placed him on a gurney. As he collapsed into it he felt every muscle in his body thank him.

  A man was yelling and pushing his way through the crowd toward him. Finn watched groggily as the silhouette resolved itself into someone he knew.

  “Dad?”

  “I’m here, Finn, I’m here.”

  As they moved him into the ambulance, Finn’s body warred with his mind. He was being poked and prodded, but his body was still willing itself to go to sleep. His mind fought to stay awake. He needed to ask Dad all the questions, if only he could remember what they were.

  Dad was by his side and holding Finn’s hand tightly in his. “It’s okay, son, you did it. You did it.”

  His father sounded almost victorious. He didn’t know! He didn’t know that Mom was still lost, that Faith was still evil, and that Gabi was badly hurt. Finn would have to explain how he’d failed.

  “Dad, I screwed it up. Everything went wrong.”

  “You did just fine.” He patted Finn’s forearm and looked up briefly at the EMT. That was Finn’s signal to stop talking. It would have to wait till they were alone. Which was fine with him. He was in no rush to see the look on Dad’s face when he had to set him straight with the horrible truth.

  He sank into the oblivion of sleep. He dreamed about the peacefulness that was Traveling with Mom, the comforting thrum of the light. He dreamed about the look on young Faith’s face when he told her he’d always love
her. That moment when he was sure she understood. Her eyes became full of stars, ever-expanding, like the universe. She smiled at him and then became two Faiths, each one staring at the other like a mirror. Then he dreamed of dappled amber sunlight through fall leaves, and then that light went dark. Snuffed out. The dream went from calm to a panicked search for that light.

  He woke up in a hospital bed. An uncomfortable device was pressing down on his middle finger. He raised his hand to see what it could be, and his father leapt into view.

  “How are you feeling? Don’t try to move. Take it easy, you had quite a time up there.”

  “Where’s Gabi?” Finn’s voice came out more like a croak. He was thirsty again. Dad reached over for a small plastic pitcher on a side table and poured him some water. Finn refused it with a wave of his hand. “No. Gabi. Tell me.”

  “She’s going to be fine, Finn. Some broken bones, a dislocated shoulder, and a bad concussion. She’ll need time, but she’s going to be okay.”

  The pressure of the bandages around his chest melted away for a moment. He could breathe. Gabi was alive. There was that.

  “You have a broken rib, some nasty bruising. You were both seriously dehydrated. The doctor says you will be fine and get out of here today, most likely. Gabi will need to be here a bit longer.”

  Finn didn’t want to hear that he would be fine. He didn’t deserve to be fine. “Dad, I messed up everything.”

  “You most certainly did not.” He rose up and walked over to the doorway and shut the door gently so as not to make any noise. He came back to the chair beside Finn’s bed.

  “You showed tremendous courage. I’ve never been more proud of you, Finn.”

  “Faith took herself, young Faith—”

  “I know. I know all that.”

  “Dad, you think you know. You don’t. Whatever Mom told you I was going to do, I screwed up.”

  “No, you didn’t. Young Faith is still with Mom. I found them. She left a record for me to find. Mom has had some time to make an impact on her. We think it may be enough, Finn. We think she has a chance.”

  Finn wished he could believe that. But it was hard not to think of all those timelines when Faith had turned on Mom and Dad despite their best efforts. Not to mention the timelines Faith had talked about—the ones where their parents failed her, gave up on her. Still, he tried to imagine a young Faith growing up with all the love Mom could give her. There was a glimmer of hope.

  He refocused on Dad. “Where were you?” he asked, but without the resentment that he would’ve felt a couple of days ago.

  “Your mother told me if I stayed nearby I would ruin it all. I would try and shelter you from—from this.” He gestured around the both of them at the machines Finn was attached to and the bag of fluids plugged into his arm. “She wasn’t wrong.”

  “She told you what would happen?”

  “No. Your mother and I have an understanding. I don’t like to know everything about the future, Finn. Not more than I need to. I prefer the past. It’s not good to know every outcome—I imagine your sister could tell you that.”

  Finn was trying to imagine her life, what it could be like inside her head, when he remembered all that his father still did not know.

  “Dad! I think Mom may have found a way of shutting Faith out of a node. Faith’s angry because she can’t get back to Mom and force her to teach her how to use the portal tree.”

  Dad smiled. “There is no such thing as a portal.”

  “There is, Dad. Mom left it for Faith. It’s a tree on top of the mountain.”

  “I know that’s what Gran told you. But there is no tree.”

  “Dad, there is! I saw it. I used it! There’s this tree—”

  “Yes, a tree with two doorknobs on it, only it can’t make anyone a Traveler. And a key ring that was a trinket I gave your mother when we were dating. Your mother lied to you. I know that hurts, but don’t you see, Finn? You did it. You Traveled! All on your own. You’re the first male in the line to be able to time travel. It might have to do with you being the first set of twins or the difficult pregnancy your mom had. You were a rare case, fraternal twins that shared a placenta in the womb. You shared blood . . .”

  Ordinarily Finn would’ve been thrilled to hear his dad talking about science and heredity, but he had it all wrong. “No, Dad. I’m not a Traveler. That’s not how it worked. I used the tree and it took me to Mom, and then to the quarry the day Faith disappeared . . .”

  “Yes, I remember.” Dad was sitting on the edge of the hospital bed now. Still smiling. His clueless optimism was driving Finn crazy.

  “That was Mom! She made that happen.”

  “No, Finn. That was you. Your mother said in nearly every timeline you didn’t believe in yourself. She told me we tried to teach you, to tell you the truth from the beginning and guide you through the process. Every timeline where we did that, it resulted in you—well, leaving us. We couldn’t bear to lose you. We had to create a scenario where you wouldn’t stand in your own way and no one would have any idea that you had the ability.”

  Finn remembered Traveling with little Faith, how it was easier and he thought it was because she was doing it. Could it really have been him?

  As Finn put each puzzle piece together in his mind, the air in the room became heavier, pulsing around him, and threatening to crush him in the middle of the hospital bed.

  “You knew? You knew I’d have to go through all of this?” Images of a chessboard rose up in his mind.

  “Mom thought up the tree as a device,” Dad explained patiently, “to give you courage and, more importantly, to hide your ability from Faith. And also from Gran. Gran was too close to Doc. She had a hard time accepting that he could hurt us. The tree was a ruse. You are the one who locked Faith out of that node, Finn.”

  It was impossible to make Dad understand. Dad hadn’t been there on that mountain. Finn tried to think of the right words to put together in a sentence, to make Dad see that he hadn’t done anything at all. The constant beep of the monitor next to his bed wasn’t helping his concentration.

  “Dad, I don’t know how to lock a node! I can’t Travel. That wasn’t me!”

  The beeps became faster and more insistent the more agitated he became.

  Dad put his hand to his forehead tenderly. “Calm down. It will all start to make sense. Trust me. You did all the right things.”

  Finn thought of Adult Faith’s rage. “She’s going to come kill me. As soon as she figures out—”

  Dad gave him the kind of smile you give a small child who doesn’t understand. “She doesn’t know what you’re capable of—only we do. That’s the point. She doesn’t find out. If she did, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Dad, I promise you, I did not close Faith out of that node.”

  “You may have done it inadvertently. Or sometime in the future. You’ll figure it all out as you learn more.”

  The idea of future Finn, Adult Finn, running around in time made his head ache.

  “Finn, I know it’s going to be hard to get used to, but you do have this ability.” Dad held Finn’s hand, leaving the little finger clip in place. “And you’ve been able to keep it a secret. We now have the upper hand. You did it.”

  The door to the room swung open wide and a cheerful nurse walked in. “How is our patient feeling?”

  He’s feeling confused, Finn thought. “I’m good. Much better,” he said.

  “Well, it looks like you’ll be going home with your dad in a few hours.” She came over and checked the beeping screens.

  “Dad, can we go see Gabi?”

  “Let’s give her a little time to heal. She’ll be here a few days more, and her mom is with her now.”

  Mrs. Rand! Dad said only he and Mom knew, but that wasn’t true. Mrs. Rand was there when he landed in her living room. Why didn’t Dad know about Mrs. Rand?

  He remembered Mom’s words: You have to keep secrets from those you love the most, and sometimes you have to
lie. Finn began to wonder how much Mom had told Dad.

  The nurse gave Dad some information about the discharge process and left.

  Finn whispered, “Dad, you already know, don’t you? You know that Mom isn’t coming back?”

  “Yes.” He looked down at his hands. Finn didn’t have to see his eyes to know that they were full of pain. “She lied to me as well. She didn’t tell me that part of the plan. I wouldn’t have agreed to it and she knew it. I’ve been researching her whereabouts for the last few weeks, checking death records and old graveyards.”

  “Did you find her . . . grave?” Finn swallowed hard.

  “No. I did not.”

  “But she’s never coming back, is she?” Finn asked.

  “Once you spend time around Travelers, you begin to realize there is no such thing as never.”

  Chapter 33

  The ribs still hurt, and it would take a while before Finn felt like his old self. Overall, a few days of sleep and rest had helped. He stared up at his bedroom ceiling and tried to believe in a world where he could make a huge difference. Everything he had experienced in the last few days was scientifically implausible, but he knew it was real. If he could believe in time travel, making the leap to believing in himself shouldn’t be all that hard.

  Still, it was. Infinitely hard.

  He heard the doorbell chime and Dad’s quick footsteps as he left his paper-strewn office to answer it. Soft muffled voices followed and then a knock on his bedroom door.

  “You have a visitor, Finn.”

  For a split second he hoped it was Gabi, but it was far too soon. She wouldn’t be up and about for at least another week.

  “I came in by way of the front door this time.” It was Aunt Ev, smiling ear to ear. She was less bundled up than when he’d seen her last, and there was no shimmer around her. This put Finn at ease. One Aunt Ev was more than enough.