A Matter of Time

by Brian Harmon

  Karen, on the other hand, knew Berchey and his wife much more personally. She’d catered a few of their art shows.

  He pulled into the parking lot and killed the engine. For a moment, they both sat there, staring at the colorful murals and the great, motionless gears.

  “The gallery is usually open,” she explained as she lowered the vanity mirror and checked her makeup and hair. “It’s big. Like, several rooms big. Julian can usually be talked into giving you a peek at his studio, if you’re nice, but the rest of the building is their home. We can’t go in there. So hopefully the letter’s not hidden under their bedroom floorboards or something.”

  I DON’T THINK IT WILL BE, said Isabelle. THAT’S NOT THE WAY THESE KINDS OF THINGS WORK. HECTOR SAW ERIC FINDING HIS MESSAGES IN HIS DREAMS, SO IT’S NOT HECTOR WHO DECIDES WHERE TO HIDE THEM. IT’S ERIC

  Eric blinked at these words, confused. “Me?”

  WELL, NOT CONSCIOUSLY

  “Wait…” said Karen. “So how does this work? I thought the past was set but the future was always in motion, meaning you can’t change what was, but you can change what will be?”

  THAT’S USUALLY TRUE, BUT NOT IN THIS CASE. BECAUSE IN THIS CASE, ERIC AND HECTOR HAVE BECOME SOMEHOW CONNECTED. THEIR PLACES IN TIME HAVE BEEN CEMENTED TOGETHER

  “So we’re doing this together?” pondered Eric. “Sort of?”

  NOT SORT OF. EXACTLY. YOU’RE MR. FUTURE AND HE’S THE BOY IN THE PAST. ORDINARILY, HE COULD DO ANYTHING IN THE PAST AND CHANGE THE FUTURE FOR YOU. FOR INSTANCE, HE COULD’VE PLACED THAT BOTTLE IN THE CRACK IN THAT WALL NECK DOWN INSTEAD OF NECK UP

  “What difference would that’ve made?” asked Karen.

  VERY LITTLE. EXCEPT THAT ERIC WOULD’VE FOUND IT NECK DOWN INSTEAD OF NECK UP

  “This is getting a little philosophical for my liking,” decided Eric.

  BUT NO MATTER WHAT ERIC DOES, IT WOULDN’T ORDINARILY AFFECT HECTOR, BECAUSE IN HIS TIME, IT HASN’T HAPPENED YET. BUT IN THIS RARE CASE, HECTOR ONLY HID THAT BOTTLE IN THE WALL BECAUSE HE SAW ERIC FIND IT THERE

  “But I found it by accident. It was only because I ducked into that corner to hide from that…thing.”

  “And Hector wouldn’t have known the crack was there if he hadn’t ducked into the same corner to hide from the gray agents,” added Karen as she took down her hair and tied it back again, catching all those loose strands that had slipped free.

  BUT THERE ARE NO COINCIDENCES. HECTOR HID THE BOTTLE THERE BECAUSE ERIC HAD ALREADY FOUND IT AND ERIC FOUND IT BECAUSE HECTOR HAD ALREADY HID IT THERE

  “Okay,” said Eric. “Now my head hurts, too.”

  MY POINT IS, YOU’RE BOTH CONNECTED SOMEHOW. HE’LL ONLY HIDE THOSE MESSAGES IN PLACES HE DREAMED YOU’D FIND THEM, SO HE CAN’T HIDE THEM SOMEWHERE YOU DON’T GO

  “I guess that makes sense.” And it did, oddly enough. If just a little…

  “How did you get so smart about these things?” Karen asked her.

  ALMOST EVERY TIME I WALK THROUGH THAT STRANGE DOOR AND INTO SOMEPLACE NEW, I COME ACROSS NEW PEOPLE TRAPPED IN THIS WEIRD EXISTENCE I’M STUCK IN. EVEN THE ONES THAT’RE MOSTLY GONE STILL HAVE INFORMATION TO SHARE WITH ME

  “Yeah, but how do you get so much weird knowledge?”

  BEATS ME. MAYBE IT HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH HOW ALL THOSE OTHER PEOPLE ENDED UP TRAPPED IN THIS PLACE WITH ME, BUT SOME OF THEM HAVE SOME SUPER CREEPY INFORMATION

  She shuddered. It was such a strange idea, Isabelle going around sucking the knowledge out of the heads of people who were slowly spiraling into madness in that unimaginable nightmare in which she existed. It always reminded her for some reason of brain-eating zombies. “Come on,” she said. “It’s getting hot in here.”

  Eric picked up his cell phone. It was only forty-two percent charged. He considered leaving it, but he didn’t like the idea of not being able to talk to Isabelle, so he removed it from the charger and pocketed it.

  He stepped out into the warm sunlight and looked around. When he looked over at Karen, she was leaning against the front fender, rubbing at her head again. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah… Just… Felt a little dizzy there for a second…”

  He walked around the front of the vehicle, concerned. “Do you need to sit down?”

  “I’m fine,” she told him. “Probably just all the excitement. Let’s go.”

  He wasn’t convinced.

  “It’s okay,” she insisted. “Really. Let’s just get inside and find out what happened to Hector.”

  Eric relented, but only reluctantly. He didn’t like the idea of his wife having a dizzy spell. She was probably right. It probably was the excitement. That was quite a scare they had in that furnace room. But he was still concerned. And he had a right to worry about his wife.

  Karen led the way to the Aberration Station’s main gallery entrance. They had to walk between the giant gears to get there, which Eric found strangely ominous for some reason, in spite of the bright and cheerful color scheme.

  Inside, it was just as Karen described it. There were four large rooms with high ceilings that easily took up half the building. Each room was open and well lit, filled with hundreds of paintings of all sizes. Most of them were colorful landscapes, although there was also plenty of abstracts, portraits and still-life paintings as well.

  Mounted on the wall right next to where they entered the room, there was a large oil painting of a vast, snow-covered field. Shades of white and gray and blue swept across the canvas, swirling in an icy wind. In the distance were ice-capped mountains. It was beautiful, even serene. Next to it was a much smaller painting of a lake in the moonlight, shades of blue and black and gray entwined in latticeworks of shadows, reflections rippling across the surface of the water. It was equally mysterious and peaceful. On the other wall was the busy and almost gritty image of a rain-washed city street, complete with cars, pedestrians hunched under umbrellas and litter strewn through the gutters. It wasn’t peaceful or pretty. It was hectic. It was dirty. And yet even there he could see the beauty, and in that beauty was its own sort of serenity.

  He didn’t know much about art, really, but this stuff was nice. It was pretty to look at. Calming.

  The price tags, on the other hand…well…not so much. Who the hell paid fifteen thousand dollars for a painting of a barn? Was the barn included?

  He decided this would be a good time to keep his mouth shut. He didn’t want to embarrass Karen with his ignorance of culture.

  He walked forward a few steps, taking it all in, then realized that Karen wasn’t at his side anymore. He turned to find her standing in front of a painting of a lone cherry tree, her head cocked to one side, staring at it. “You okay?”

  “Hm?”

  “I asked if you’re okay.”

  “Mm hm.”

  “You sure?”

  She turned and looked at him, then. For a moment she seemed oddly distant, as if she were lost in thought. Then she snapped back to attention. “What? Yeah. I’m fine.”

  Eric stared at her, uncertain.

  “I’m just tired, I think. Don’t worry about it.” She brushed past him and led the way deeper into the gallery, not giving him a chance to push the matter.

  The place was extremely quiet. No one else was browsing the collection and there was no sign of the owners. He took advantage of the moment to observe the rooms themselves. He was pretty sure an early twentieth century tuberculosis sanatorium and nursing home wasn’t this spacious. Neither did he think the style was quite so industrial. It appeared that Berchey had done considerable renovations on the site after he purchased it.

  That probably ruled out simply finding another bottle shoved inside a crack in the wall. Something like that would’ve been found long before now.

  Maybe this wasn’t the place after all. Maybe they were looking for another retirement home. Or maybe they’d simply run out of leads. For all they knew, Hector might never have left another message.

  No. He couldn’t think that way. Everything happen
ed for a reason. He had the distinct feeling that Hector would not stop writing his letters unless something terrible happened to him, and he refused to believe that the boy’s only purpose in 1962 was to die.

  Hard, clacking footsteps drew his attention. A woman appeared, strolling across the gallery’s hardwood floor in tall heels. She wore a light, flowery sundress and bright, colorful jewelry. Her long, brown hair was intricately braided and tossed over one shoulder. She looked to be in her mid-fifties, and yet everything about her, from her girlish style to her brilliant smile to her confident walk, gave her the appearance of a much younger woman. She was tall and shapely in a way that made him wonder if she might’ve had some work done that had nothing to do with remodeling the sanatorium.

  Karen would probably know if such a thing were true. She always seemed to have that sort of gossip. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to ask her about it.

  “Karen!” the woman cried. Even her voice was girlish.

  “Hi, Bree,” returned Karen. “How are you?”

  “I’m doing fine. How are you today?”

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  “What brings you in today?”

  “Oh, we just had the afternoon off. I thought I’d bring my husband in to browse Julian’s amazing gallery. Have you met my husband?”

  She stopped in front of them and turned fully to face him. “I don’t believe I have.”

  “This is Eric.” Then, to Eric, she said, “This is Bree Berchey. Julian’s wife.”

  “Nice to meet you,” said Eric, forcing a friendly smile. He hated introductions. They were always so awkward.

  “Likewise,” she replied. She offered him her hand and he shook it. He’d always found that awkward, too. He’d always been told that he was supposed to have a firm handshake, but he always felt overwhelmingly compelled to shake a woman’s hand gently. He wasn’t entirely sure why. He understood wanting to come off confident, but it just seemed polite to treat a lady with gentleness.

  The truth was that he wasn’t a very social person, which even he’d admit was weird, given that he was a high school teacher. But the students had never bothered him. He could stand in front of a classroom and talk about literature all day without a thought. It was conversing with other adults that he found difficult. Unless it was someone he’d known for a while, like Chad Whelt for example, he simply wasn’t comfortable socializing. He’d rather curl up alone with a good book.

  He didn’t like talking to people. He wasn’t all that courageous, to be honest. He wasn’t very fit at all. It was a complete mystery to him why the universe chose him, of all people, to do the weird things he did. He was sure there had to be someone better at all this out there.

  “Eric’s never had a chance to see the gallery before,” Karen told her.

  Bree managed to look stunned. “Oh, well thank goodness you brought him in. You can’t live in Creek Bend and not bask in Julian’s brilliance at least once.”

  “Is that so?” asked Eric.

  She smiled. “Well, to me it is. I’m a little biased.”

  “I think we all would be,” Karen assured her.

  “People tell us that they feel such a sense of tranquility when they take the time to walk through the gallery.”

  “I can see that. His work does seem very soothing,” admitted Eric, looking around at the nearby paintings. Even the one of a broken bicycle sticking out from beneath a sagging porch had a certain kind of sad peacefulness about it. Something about the story it told.

  “Have a look around. Enjoy. I’ll go see if I can find Julian. I know he’ll want to say hi. I think he’s in the studio.”

  Karen thanked her and she turned and walked away, her heels again clacking on the hardwood.

  Alone again, they turned and walked through the galleries.

  “She’s nice,” said Eric.

  “Hm?” she asked.

  “I said she’s nice.”

  “Oh. Yes. She’s a sweetheart.”

  Eric glanced over at her. Was something bothering her? Had that encounter with those creatures done something to her?

  “Any thoughts on where we might find another message in a bottle?” she asked.

  “None whatsoever. This place was gutted since Hector’s time. I really don’t think it’d be here.”

  “Where else would we go?”

  He shook his head. “You know, there’s no guarantee that I’m not supposed to find the next letter ten years from now.”

  “Oh don’t tell me that. The suspense would drive me crazy.”

  They walked around in silence for the next few minutes. Bree was right. The art in here was relaxing. If nothing else at all, it might help to clear his head. Maybe if he took a step back and examined all the details that had passed by him since he first found that letter, he’d understand better what he was supposed to do.

  But so far nothing had occurred to him.

  “Maybe it’s like the first letter,” he said. “Maybe I’ll just find it by chance somewhere random.”

  Karen didn’t respond.

  He turned and found that she was gone. After backtracking briefly, he found her wandering around in the previous room, looking dreamily at what appeared to be a series of paintings of various streets in Paris.

  “What’s up?” he asked her, taking her by the hand.

  She turned, as if surprised, and looked at him. “Oh. Hi.”

  “Um… Hi?”

  “I want to go there,” she said, pointing at one of the paintings. It depicted a small bistro, like the ones they always showed on television. Apparently every street in Paris had at least one of those. That and an infestation of creepy mimes. “I’ve always wanted to go somewhere like that.”

  “Maybe someday,” he said. He reached out and placed his hand on her cheek. She didn’t feel warm. Nor did she look ill. But her eyes were oddly distant. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she insisted. “Don’t be silly.”

  She turned away from him and stared at the painting of the bistro.

  Eric pulled out his phone and looked at it.

  Isabelle texted him only a question mark.

  Something wasn’t right. This wasn’t the Karen he knew. And it was kind of freaking him out. He took her by the hand again and pulled her toward him. “Maybe you should go home.”

  This, for some reason, snapped her back to attention. “I’m not going home,” she insisted. “I’m helping.”

  “You’re kind of spacing, actually.”

  She frowned at him.

  “Does your head still hurt?”

  She lifted her hand and rubbed at her temple again. “Little bit, yeah.”

  “You’re scaring me a little, Dasher.”

  This made her smile. “You only call me that at Christmas time.”

  Dasher was the nickname he gave her when they shared their first Christmas as a couple. (Her maiden name was Dashton.) He usually reserved it for the holidays. It gave the season that personal touch.

  Her smile faded and she looked around, blinking at the art. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I feel super spacy. Loopy. Like when I get those sinus infections and take those strong decongestants.”

  Eric studied her face. Her eyes remained clear. She looked perfectly fine except for her lack of focus.

  He heard the sound of clacking heels on tile again. “Shake it off,” he told her.

  Karen nodded and then gave her head a brisk shake, tossing her hair. Immediately, she winced. “Ow… Headache.”

  Bree returned in the company of her husband, the famous Julian Berchey. He was shorter than Eric thought he’d be, but ruggedly handsome, nevertheless, even in his paint-spattered coveralls.

  They shared another round of polite and awkward introductions and talked a little about the art. Eric had expected the man to be on the eccentric side. Practically everyone else in this town seemed to be. But Julian struck him as one of the most “normal” people he’d ev
er met. He was neither silly nor too serious. He seemed intelligent and witty.

  He genuinely liked this man.

  He glanced over at Karen and realized that she’d zoned out again. She was leaning toward Bree, staring at her. “I love your earrings,” she told her.

  Bree smiled. “Thank you. I’ve had them forever. They were an anniversary present.”

  “So pretty,” said Karen, tilting her head.

  Bree’s smile turned a little awkward.

  Eric took Karen’s hand and squeezed it, drawing her attention back to him. “So I heard somewhere that this building used to be an old sanatorium.”

  “It did,” replied Julian, puffing up a little. “The Soman Sanatorium. It was built in 1916 and housed tuberculosis patients of all ages and class.”

  “Is that so?” asked Eric, encouraging him. He was clearly quite proud of the building and its history and looked as if he enjoyed any opportunity to talk about it. “That was a part of Gardenhour, wasn’t it?”

  “It was, yes. But it was funded by private benefactors. Sort of a side venture. It’s separate from their main mission, which is focused on children with disabilities.”

  “A lovely organization,” gushed Bree.

  Eric nodded, interested. Private benefactors? He wondered if one of those benefactors was the mysterious organization that employed the agents.

  “Starting in the early fifties, the focus of the facility began to shift from TB to mental illnesses,” continued Julian. “In 1958, a new psychiatric hospital opened, better suited to care for those patients. This building was then converted into a nursing home, which operated until 1983, after which the building remained mostly vacant. Fortunately, they didn’t allow it to fall into disrepair, and I had the good fortune to buy it in 1992.”

  “Wow,” said Eric. “That’s a lot of history in these walls.”

  “Pretty bracelet, too,” said Karen.

  “Thank you,” said Bree, looking her over.

  Eric squeezed her hand again and said, “Excuse her. She’s had a sinus infection. Her decongestant makes her loopy.”