by Mike Rich
Tick, tick, tick, tick . . .
It was as if the clock on Chief’s desk was tapping him on the shoulder, reminding him that he was now officially wasting time. Nudging him to either say it out loud or keep his mouth shut.
Or maybe I should just go get Chief. He won’t be mad. He’ll be excited. He’ll know what to do.
But instead, Henry Babbitt took in a deep, uncertain breath, unable to resist.
“July,” he finally said out loud.
. . . shhccrriisstttchhh . . . shhccrriisstttchhh . . .
July
This time he didn’t wait, finishing the date with the only item left missing.
“Tenth,” he quietly said. Out loud, just as he had bef—
WHUMP.
It was in that moment that something clearly happened, though what that something was, Henry didn’t have a clue. The sound that followed his saying the word “tenth” wasn’t so much a sound. It was a feeling. Almost like the quick change in the air one felt during the strongest of summer thunderstorms. An electric sensation.
What happened after that, though, was entirely clear—despite that it was also completely and totally unexplainable.
The brand-new laptop computer on the far corner of Chief’s old desk, the one he used more as a paperweight than for anything else, slowly began to fade away, until it disappeared entirely.
Gone. Vanished.
What? No.
This week’s short stack of newspapers followed suit, quickly evaporating from Henry’s sight.
The newer books on the old man’s shelves began to fade away as well, vanishing within seconds. The pens on his desk. The Derek Jeter–autographed baseball in its small glass collector’s case, disappearing like a soft grounder into the Hall of Famer’s glove.
No, no, no.
One by one, as if in mind-boggling exact order, the contents of Chief’s study grew transparent and then became . . . nothing. Nothing at all. Henry could both see and hear the stack of Old Gray Lady editions thumping its way shorter and shorter.
The banker’s lamp on the desk eased its way from white light to gray and then black, followed a heartbeat later by the wicks on each of the old man’s candles unexpectedly and eerily crackling to life as the gentle, soft hum of electricity faded with a steadily slowing whooooooosssshhhh.
No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.
KUHTHUMP!
Henry plopped straight onto the hardwood floor, landing right on his rear. Chief’s chair, the one he’d been sitting on, was now nowhere to be seen.
The desk was the next thing to go.
The first base from Yankee Stadium was already fading.
And the golf club from Scotland? It was still there, but it was now on the floor because the one thing that had always held it up, Henry’s favorite leather chair, wasn’t there anymore.
Henry pushed himself up to run toward the door, tripping and falling right on his face as his foot got tangled in one of the royal garments from ancient Egypt. The only thing that had made his fall even possible was that the wooden box that had protected the delicate items for decades had also vanished. Those garments had never been out on the floor before, until right now.
“CHIEF?! MOM?! GIGI?!” Henry yelled out, repeating each name even louder as he ran into the hallway, seeing that everything in the corridor and on the landing was absent. It was as if a moving company had finished three days of work in the span of three minutes.
“MOM? CHIEF?” he shouted over the bannister. But the only sound Henry heard was his own voice, which had recovered enough to drown out the music playing downsta—
He stopped.
There’s no music playing downstairs. There’s not even a crackle.
Because you know there’s not gonna be a radio down there.
Henry raced down every step with barely a glance at the wall now barren of any and all photographs. Once on the main level, he stopped long enough to glance into the dining room—emptied of all its furnishings as well as the usually long-lingering aroma of Christmas Eve dinner.
Gone. All of it.
But it was when Henry stumbled into Chief’s and Gigi’s great room that he noticed something else was already well underway. Something almost as unsettling as the past three, probably now four, minutes.
Everything from the fourteen-foot-tall Christmas tree to the stunning artwork, even the hardwood floors, had been erased from the vacant room. Until . . .
A much, much different collection of furnishings slowly began to appear. Almost all of it looked Victorian in design, despite the fact that each piece looked as new as if it had just been purchased yesterday. Oak cabinets proudly stood against the wall, dark red tables covered with bright white linen were placed in each corner, and the room itself was now illuminated by brass lanterns slowly coming into view, both on the walls and on the side tables.
Henry even felt a tingle rippling over his own body; a chill that made it seem as if something had just changed about him as well.
This is crazy, this is crazy, this is . . .
Henry couldn’t catch his breath. How could he? Everything that was in the house he’d known for so long was now gone, all of it eerily replaced by what, exactly? From when, from where, from what?
“MOM? CHIEF? GIGI?” Henry called out once more, but even as he did, he knew there wouldn’t be an answer. Just as he knew—
Wait.
Something was different about the main window in front of him.
It wasn’t just that Gigi’s prized window coverings were gone, replaced by Victorian drapes. It was what he could see beyond the window, through the inch-wide opening in the curtains. Light. Henry cocked his head and stepped closer.
The snow can’t be that bright, can it? Wait, no. It’s not that it’s bright. It’s that it’s . . .
Something was wrong. Something with the color of the moonlight that was piercing through where the drapes were bunched together. Instead of being a sparkling white, it was almost . . . yellow.
Clip, clop, clip, clop . . .
What the heck? What the heck is that? He was right on the verge of panic.
In the same way the objects inside the house had slowly been appearing, now there were sounds outside that were slowly rising. Sounds that made zero sense at half past whatever in the middle of Christmas Eve night.
Clip, clop, clip, clop . . .
Clip, CLOP, clip, CLOP . . .
CLIP, CLOP, CLIP, CLOP . . .
Henry gulped.
Okay, okay. Calm down, just think it through. Everybody’s still in bed. You fell asleep in Chief’s study. That’s the only thing it can be. All the excitement of Christmas, the talk you had with the old man, it all just—
CLIP, CLOP, CLIP, CLOP . . .
No matter how hard his head tried to tell him he was asleep, Henry felt wide awake.
Nothing makes a noise like that in the middle of Christmas Eve night. NOTHING.
Just then, with the room steadily brightening from not only the lanterns but the general warmth and humidity that certainly didn’t come with midnight in December, Henry heard . . . a voice.
A voice he didn’t recognize coming from far upstairs, deep in the master bedroom.
“George? Emily?” a man’s deep and resonant voice called out. “Your mother and I are ready to head to the park. We’re already late, and we don’t want to miss anything.”
“Okay, Papa!” a young boy’s voice answered.
A rush of near-terror flooded through Henry’s veins. He looked up and over his shoulder, seeing no one. Yet.
George? Emily? Who’s George and Emily? Who’s Papa?
Henry reached for the knob, turned it, and quickly pulled the front door open. And that’s when the warm air of a summer morning brushed against his face.
SIX
1885
HENRY TOOK ONE step outside, but then couldn’t take a second. That’s because the clip-clopping sound that had lured him through the fr
ont door of his grandparents’ home was coming not from one horse-drawn carriage, but dozens and dozens of carriages moving through the snowless and bone-dry streets.
All right . . . stop. Stop, stop, stop. Close your eyes again. Now. Tight! All a dream, all a dream.
Henry closed his eyes again, but it was difficult because of the noise of the horses and voices and all sorts of other things invading his ears from all directions.
CLIP, CLOP.
“Hey!”
“Little Arthur, don’t stray now.”
Henry opened his eyes again. His completely disbelieving eyes.
The number of horse carriages was the first thing that got his attention. Sure, he and his father had seen plenty of the ones that tourists paid top dollar to take a slow lap around Central Park in, but these carriages were different.
These horses were sturdy and strong. The black carriages they pulled were shiny and spit-polished, all of them with a distinct sense of purpose.
Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. It’s New York. It’s not my New York, but it is New York. That much I know.
Central Park stood right across the brick-laid street in front of him, but the towering old trees—the “Guardians of the Park” his father used to call them—were much, much younger and noticeably shorter.
Not to mention they didn’t have snow on them, or that it felt like it was seventy degrees and it wasn’t nighttime.
There wasn’t a car in sight. Dozens of young kids—girls in summer hats, boys in sharp suits—ran across the road, their parents yelling for them not to run in front of the horses. The children would turn and laugh, ignoring the advice, and their parents would call out again with only the faintest of concern.
Henry felt hypnotized for a moment. Trying to work through the unworkable. Think through the unthinkable.
The powerful streetlights were unfamiliar too. New, yet old. Almost all of them gas-fueled, only a very few electric.
New York. Old New York.
A good many of the men in sight wore silky black top hats; the women rested parasols on their shoulders; and a band of trumpets, trombones, and tubas could be heard playing somewhere close by.
A dream, a dream, a dream, still a dream . . .
Henry kept trying to convince himself, but it was getting more difficult with every moment. Each horse-drawn carriage, each vision, was trying its best to reassure that all-important corner of his brain: the corner that sorts out what’s real from slumbering fantasy.
But there was something getting in the way. Something allowing a crest of fear to rush in like cold water through an already frigid faucet.
Nope, doesn’t feel like a dream. Stuff’s too clear.
Things are . . . I mean, look at that leaf . . . look at that wheel . . . it’s all sharp and in focus . . .
Henry whipped around and lunged at the front door, forgetting for the moment about Papa and George and Emily, only to discover that the door had closed on its own and was now locked tight.
“No, no, no, no, NO, NO, NO!” Henry now yelled the words, his heart suddenly pounding. He gave a hard twist on the doorknob, pushing and pulling, but it wouldn’t budge.
Locked. Tight.
“C’mon, c’mon,” he pleaded to himself, thumping on the door as loudly as he could.
“MOM!! CHIEF!! GIGI!!”
“Everything all right there, laddy?” a voice with a thick Irish accent called out from behind him. Henry turned to find a carriage driver looking his way with mild concern, his chestnut-colored horse snorting impatiently.
“Not often I see a screamin’ young snapper callin’ for his ma or his . . . who was it? His Gigi?” the driver half laughed through a mustache that covered his entire upper lip.
Henry was too shaken to reply. He drove his hand into his pocket . . .
All right. Okay. Phone. Call. Key.
Wait, c’mon . . . you’ve never even had a key for . . .
His hand froze. Not because of the key that wasn’t there that he now realized couldn’t have been there.
It was because of something else entirely.
“Up the yard with ya then!” The carriage driver shook his head, snapping the reins and heading away.
Henry looked down at the raggedy old coat he was now wearing—a brown and shabby jacket that had never been on his shoulders before. Gone was the gift of the New York Giants hoody he’d gone to sleep wearing, along with his favorite pair of baggy sweats—all replaced with a full set of clothing he’d never seen before.
It’s what I felt. When everything was appearing inside. That was it. What is going on?!
He plunged his hand into his other pocket, stopping as he felt something crinkle against his sweaty palm. He grabbed it and pulled it out.
It was the ledger sheet.
The ledger sheet that he now realized had somehow, incredibly, improbably, brought him back to . . .
July 10, 1885.
Henry took in the date as he looked at the box that had somehow been filled in only minutes ago. The ink that had looked faded in Chief’s office was now growing darker and seemingly newer by the second.
Now being joined by something else.
Words gracefully began to scroll into the ledger’s first empty destination box.
Central Park, New York
And once those words appeared, another set began to show up in the largest empty box, right at the very top. These words, however, weren’t being magically written in the moment by a ghostly hand, but were simply reappearing—as if the ink they’d once been written with had faded to nothing and was now finding new life.
The message read:
To whoever has found this page from my
ledger: find me. There is a way back. Or
forward. But know this too-when the final
empty box of this sheet is full, so ends
your adventure. Whatever the date and
location, there you will stay. Forever.
Henry realized that he hadn’t taken a breath—and that the next one would have to wait as well.
Sincerely, Hunter S. Skavenger
“Wait, what?!” Henry muttered as his thoughts went into overload.
Ledger . . . Skavenger . . . horses . . . clop . . . calm down . . . Mom . . . need to settle down . . .
The front door of his grandparents’ home opened behind him. A barrel-chested gentleman wearing a finely tailored brown suit, along with his strikingly beautiful wife wearing a long emerald green dress topped with a peacock feather hat, stood in the open door with their two young children, dressed much like the kids Henry had just seen running across the street.
George. Emily.
“Excuse me, young man,” the gentleman sternly said to Henry. “What are you doing standing on my front step?”
Papa.
“Oh . . . I . . . just . . . well . . .” Henry spluttered the words out. The gentleman gestured for his wife and children to head down the steps while he finished the conversation.
“Away with you. Now!” Papa’s voice carried a threatening tone as he locked the door and checked it at least twice. He waited for Henry to abandon the steps, every last one of them, before walking over to join his family. The four of them crossed the street, the reprimanding gentleman looking back over his shoulder more than once.
Henry stood on the edge of the cobblestone street, at a complete loss as to what to do next. The clock had somehow been turned back more than a century, and the closest thing he had to a home had just been locked tight by a man he’d never seen before.
His hands trembled as he looked back down at the ledger, still in his hands, before a young, hard voice yelled out a short distance away from him.
“MORNING EDITION! READ ALL ABOUT IT!”
Henry turned to see a boy of maybe ten—a newsboy, he guessed—hawking papers from a nearby corner. His ink-stained hands held a New York Times aloft, his hair much too thick for his cap.
“Ya got one there, Billy?” the kid shouted, alr
eady winding up to toss a paper to someone over Henry’s shoulder.
Henry slipped the ledger into his pocket and turned around to see a nodding fellow hawker making a sale, even though he’d run out of copies.
Wup wup wup wup wup wup . . .
Henry could hear it flying through the air, right up until it smacked him in the back of his head.
“Owwww.” Henry reached up to where the newspaper had thumped him, then watched as it fell to the ground and rolled open to the biggest front-page headline he’d ever seen.
SKAVENGER’S LATEST
HUNT BEGINS
THIS MORNING!
Henry reached for the paper in a heartbeat, his already-jumbled mind latching on to the announcement that stretched across the entire banner. The words were all in perfect order, unlike the crazy mess inside his own newspaper-whacked head.
“SKAVENGER’S THIRD HUNT BEGINS THIS HOUR! CENTRAL PARK ABUZZ!” he heard the first newsie cry out to no one in particular, while his fellow hawker walked over to Henry with an impatient look on his face.
“Hey, Ace!” the newsie said, rapping the fingers of one hand into his palm. “Ya read it? Ya owe me a nickel.”
“Just a second,” Henry was quickly scanning the front page.
It’s the New York Times, all right. The Old Gray Lady. All the news that’s fit to print from . . .
His eyes popped up to the date.
“July tenth, 1885,” Henry whispered to himself—or so he thought. Apparently, he’d said the words loudly enough that the young news-hawker had overheard.
“What’d you think it was? Christmas Day?” The newsboy shook his head, snatching the paper back. The noise leading into the park was now growing louder—men, women, boys, and girls all streaming onto every path they could find.
“No, no, no.” Henry reached for the paper. “I gotta see that, you gotta help me here!”
“I? Me? Gotta help you?” the newsie scoffed as he turned to walk away. “You got a nickel? We’ll talk. If you don’t, scram.”
“Wait, wait! Where can I find Mr. Skavenger?!” Henry shouted to him, now desperate. “I gotta find him right now!”
