Travel Glasses

by Chess Desalls

  “Oh, I see.” I cleared my throat, my cheeks steaming with embarrassment. “So, you did just take pity on me for what happened at the dock?”

  “I’ve been searching,” Valcas said. “You’re a runner, right?”

  “What? Searching?”

  “Do you run?” Valcas looked behind him again and then turned to refill my water glass.

  “Well, for exercise, yes.”

  “Good.”

  I sat there agape, wondering whether this was really the best effort he could make toward conversation. During the next few moments of uncomfortable silence I kept my mouth tightly pressed shut. So much for Uncle Al’s advice. Suddenly I felt very cold. No doubt we’d shared one of the strangest experiences of my life earlier that day. He could at least fill me in on what he knew. I was the one who’d been knocked to the ground.

  I shivered and cleared my throat. “Earlier at the dock you mentioned being new to the area. Where are you visiting from?” I asked, hopeful that this approach would eventually lead to an explanation.

  Valcas sat there, stony and indifferent. Frustrated, I stood up to leave. Just as I was about to make an excuse for why I had to go home, Valcas yelled.

  “Calla—run!”

  DESPITE MY confusion and horror, my feet obediently pressed forward. I fled past the dock, through the rocky area that would become the new picnic grounds and halfway around the border of the lake. I gasped. Valcas was already there with the yellow and black Jet Ski, waiting for me.

  “Calla, you must get on here now! It’s after you. I’ve been tracking it for months and, as I anticipated, it came back here tonight.”

  I glanced in the direction of Uncle Al’s cottage and took a few steps backward. How could I trust him? He could have explained all of this during dinner instead of ignoring me while I felt awkward and stupid.

  “I can’t. Thank you for dinner, but I—”

  A flash of bright white light knocked me down to the ground. This time the impact tore through skin and clothing. Blood seeped through the knees of my tights. I stood up and teetered.

  “Calla, we need to leave here.”

  I limped over to where Valcas was waiting and waded until I was close enough to mount the Jet Ski. The cold water numbed my scraped knees. I settled in behind him.

  “Keep your head down,” he said as we sped off.

  ANOTHER FLASH of bright light filled the sky and everything else around us. I expected to be hit and thrown off of the Jet Ski, but there was no impact. The light was also more intense, forcing me not only to keep my head down but to close my eyes. After a few moments I no longer heard the whirr of the Jet Ski’s engine.

  I lifted my head and looked around. My jaw dropped. We were no longer in the enclosed, man-made Lake Winston. Water stretched out in rippling waves in each direction as far as I could see. A breeze lifting off of the water smelled brackish. Seawater. My feet rested against wooden boards of a weathered yellow and black. I was still clutching onto the back of Valcas, who was positioned in a slightly different way than when I’d first boarded the watercraft. He swayed forward and backward. Self-consciously, I let go of him and positioned myself farther back. He rowed with both arms. The Jet Ski was gone. We were on a small rowboat.

  Trembling, but deeply curious, I asked, “Where are we going and how did you—”

  “Almost there,” Valcas interrupted, short of breath.

  “Where are you taking me? Are you kidnapping or helping me?” I resisted the urge to punch him or push him away for fear that I would fall backward into the water.

  “We’re going somewhere safer… for now.”

  Within minutes land became visible across the water. The shore was expansive, a mainland rather than an island. After much bobbing and sloshing, we eventually reached the shore. Valcas helped me out of the boat and then, as if he knew exactly where we were, he led me to a shelter dug out of a hill, a sod house covered in moss. I paced outside, my hands tightly hugging my ribs. As the sun went down a warm glow radiated from within the sod shelter and lured me inside.

  The structure was windowless with an open doorway. From the inside a worn canvas sheet hung like a curtain across the opening. The single room was wide and shallow with a ceiling that sloped toward the back of the shelter. Valcas tended a fire at a crude fireplace built into a vented corner. He worked quickly in a squatted position as he tossed and re-tossed the embers. When he looked up, the flickering flames and smoldering charcoal reflected in the dark glasses he was still wearing.

  I let out a long, slow breath as I scanned the rest of the room. It was clear from the dust that no one had occupied it for a very long time. A wooden table stood in the center of the room, flanked by two rough benches. There was a bowl and a pair of tin mugs covered in cobwebs atop the table. Rolls of sleeping bags, shrink-wrapped spools of tape and gauze, mismatched pots and pans, several boxes of tea, a wooden pipe and additional tin mugs were neatly arranged on shelves made of earth.

  Valcas was more relaxed now than he’d been all evening. Smiling, he offered me a dusty sleeping bag. “You are welcome to stay in here tonight. I will be outside.” He looked down at my knees and his smile faded. “I’m sorry about that. You get hurt every time I’m near you. I can’t promise it won’t happen again.”

  “That thing that you’re tracking.” I gulped. “You warned that it was after me. I guess you were right.”

  “You run well,” Valcas called out as he picked up another dusty sleeping bag and turned to leave the room. “Thank you for trusting me.”

  Leaping toward him, I grasped his jacket before he could exit the shelter. Did he really mean to leave me alone so soon after what had just happened without giving me an explanation? My questions came out in rapid fire. “What’s going on? What are you searching for? How does all of this involve me? And, how can you see in here with those things still on your face?” I pointed to his sunglasses. “It’s even darker outside.”

  Valcas froze at my touch. “I need your help too, actually.”

  “My help? For what? My uncle will be crazy with worry when I don’t come home tonight. Do you have a phone on you?” I asked, thinking of my own phone covered in dust. “I only brought some cash and the house key.”

  “I apologize, Calla, but there are no telephones here. The year is 1812.” His voice was pained.

  My fingers sprang loose, freeing his jacket from their grip.

  I WAITED until Valcas left the shelter before layering strips of gauze over my tights where my bloody knees poked through. Even if I were to reach the rowboat, there was no way I’d be able to find my way back home. Maybe some other living being was camping either outside or in another sod hut. I taped down the strips of gauze. Maybe the bright white light was out there too.

  I pulled back the canvas sheet that covered the doorway. My eyes adjusted to darkness broken by stars and moonlight. If Valcas thought I was going to quietly stay inside the sod hut all night, he was not only wrong but crazy. I held my breath as I stepped outside. Valcas would be well camouflaged in the dark. Tripping over him was the last thing I needed. I didn’t step on any arms or faces, so I picked up my pace.

  I felt along the hillside as I walked, hoping that someone else had thought to carve out a shelter like the one I’d escaped. There wasn’t a single tree above or around me. I was partially grateful for this because I needed all of the light of the open sky to see where I was going. After nearly a quarter of an hour of wandering, I found that the terrain was rocky with sloping hillsides and sandy beaches.

  Nobody was there to fill in the nothingness. I had no idea where I was or how to reach out to anyone who could help me. The irony of my situation crushed me like a frozen grape. I covered my face with my hands as I sank to the ground. I was finally away from anyone—disconnected from everyone—who could hurt me. I was finally alone. And I needed help.

  Valcas didn’t bother me, even if he was lurking nearby wearing sunglasses in the dark. I didn’t think he would really
hurt me. He was still a stranger, though, so I had no sure way of knowing whether he really meant to protect me. He could also turn a lake into an ocean and a Jet Ski into a rowboat. And, if he wasn’t lying about it, he was able to turn back time. These abilities amazed more than terrified me. It was this reaction of excitement that I naturally felt in situations where others would be scared. This trait, I often fantasized, was something I’d inherited from my father.

  Approaching footsteps interrupted my thoughts. I listened, trying to make out their direction and distance from me. Soft crunching sounds came from the direction of the sod hut. A figure jogged toward me. I sprang to my feet and ran in the opposite direction.

  “Calla, it’s just me.” His voice was breathy, pleading.

  “I figured as much,” I called back, running harder.

  “Let’s go back, please. I’ll inform you of as much as I can.”

  I stopped running before I heard him stop. The shore dead-ended into a rocky embankment. There was nowhere else to go. When Valcas caught up to me he offered me his arm.

  “Fine,” I said. “Is time travel really possible?”

  He brought a finger to his lips. “When we get back to the hut,” he whispered.

  I rolled my eyes, but felt myself smiling as we walked back.

  THE FIREPLACE glowed and crackled behind me as the light of the flames reflected off of Valcas’ lenses. I sipped tea while sitting cross-legged on a sleeping bag.

  “Time travel is possible and has been in operation for a long time,” he began. “There are at least two known methods of travel. This,” he said as he removed his glasses and handed them to me. “Is my way.”

  Valcas’ sunglasses did not look extraordinary. They were large enough to block light from the front and sides. Both the frames and lenses were of a similar black opaque material, light and smooth like plastic. The tops and sides of each rounded rectangular lens were shuttered. I turned the glasses in my hands, looking them over, expecting to see a power switch and control buttons. There weren’t any. Still holding the glasses in my hands, I looked up at Valcas—I was finally going to see his eyes. When I did, I froze.

  “Calla?”

  Transfixed, my eyes locked onto his. I couldn’t move them away no matter how hard I tried. Green and brown were both wrong. Valcas’ eyes were of the palest blue I’d ever seen, a milky silver-blue, with an iridescent shimmer. Too eerie to be beautiful, they appeared fake, unnatural, like holographic images fixed onto his face.

  Valcas grabbed the glasses out of my hands and covered his eyes. “I’m sorry. I should have warned you first.”

  For some reason it bothered me when he sounded pained.

  “How am I supposed to help you?” I asked.

  His brows furrowed. “I’m not sure how to explain it, but I need someone to pose as my betrothed. It would be purely ceremonial. I’m in a tight situation.”

  I frowned. “And that thing that was after me?”

  “It means that you can never go back home to the lake. It could find you there again. If you come with me, I can make sure you’re protected from it.”

  At this point my eyes burned and head ached. It was getting late, and I had a lot to think about. “I…well, I need some sleep.”

  “Of course,” Valcas replied as if he’d decided the matter. “There will be plenty of time to discuss the specifics tomorrow morning.”

  Exhaustion set in quickly once I got settled in the sleeping bag. I didn’t dream that night, but before I fell asleep, my thoughts wandered back to the dark glasses and those eyes.

  THE NEXT morning was warm, humid and quiet. I brooded as I watched Valcas untie the rowboat. My limbs were still sore from sleeping in a bag on top of a dirt floor.

  “Good morning. Are you ready to go?” he called to me from the rowboat.

  He didn’t ask how I slept, probably figuring that I’d managed pretty awfully from the look of me. I sat in the boat behind Valcas and waited while he rowed us back out to sea. I intended to keep my eyes open this time, curious about how time travel worked. Valcas began rowing faster—too fast. Blindingly fast. I reluctantly screened my eyes from the bright blur, eventually closing them when I could no longer tolerate the painful, brilliant glow.

  When I opened my eyes again, Valcas and I were approaching another shore, a thin beach that merged into a vast meadow of forget-me-nots, violets and yellow buttercups. The dock, way more impressive than the one we’d left at Lake Winston, extended far along the shoreline and out into the water. I looked down at it from a place high above the water. Valcas was no longer rowing. He stood at the far front side of the ship calling out in the direction of the dock, giving orders in a strange language.

  If I was trembling I didn’t know it. I was too much in awe of the ship, a luminous goldenrod. I counted fourteen black sails from where I sat on the topmost deck. Not long after I counted them all, Valcas called for me to disembark. He assisted me onto the dock, all the while gauging my reactions as carefully as I gauged his.

  “Welcome to my home, Calla. The palace is a short distance to the east, beyond the meadow. We can travel there together.”

  The sky was as clear and open as the field, but I didn’t see any castles. I followed a few paces behind, pretending to be interested in the foliage and taking in the scent of the grass and flowers. I glanced back at the ship until it was no longer in sight.

  Valcas led me to the edge of the meadow, stopping near the steep ridge of a cliff.

  “Now what?” I asked. “I still don’t see a palace.”

  I’d barely finished speaking when Valcas grasped my left arm with both hands and jumped off of the cliff, taking me along with him. Screaming, I flailed my free arm in an attempt to grab onto something, anything, but the air and wind slipped through my fingers. A rush of shapes in blurry greens and browns streamed upward as we fell, eventually turning into a white so bright, so painful, that once again I was forced to close my eyes.

  I WOKE up in a dimly lit salon. Valcas stood over me with his brows furrowed and his forehead creased. He ignored the parade of stuffy white dresses fluttering back and forth between us and the door at the other end of the room.

  A sharp voice stood out among the chatter and shuffle of feet. “I’d heard about ladies of distant lands with hair of coil and spiral, but this is the first time I’ve seen one.”

  “He carried her into the palace,” said a softer voice. “A rescue no doubt.”

  “But I thought he was out searching for a bride.”

  “Hush, you dummies,” said a third voice. “Of course that’s who she is. Maybe she fell ill during their journey.”

  Someone holding a pitcher of water murmured in agreement.

  It took me a moment to realize that they were talking about me. But I wasn’t sick.

  “How long was I out?” I asked.

  Valcas smiled. “Just a few minutes. Can you stand up?”

  I stood up and walked around, proving to everyone that I was just fine. The chatter stopped.

  “Thank you for your assistance, ladies,” Valcas said. “I’ll escort our lovely guest to a dressing chamber. You should prepare for the banquet as well.”

  I followed him out of the salon and through a carpeted hallway. We stopped at an arched door studded with a row of sliding locks. Valcas slid two metal bars to the right and three to the left. The door swung open.

  I balked. “What’s with the locks on the outside of the door?”

  “Local customs value access over privacy. Where the truth remains hidden from the outside, the inside imprisons the hidden.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Are you going to lock me up inside?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Not unless you plan on running away before I get to show you off as my betrothed.”

  I shrugged and stepped through the open door, into a dressing room trimmed in green and gold. Turning back toward the hallway, I said, “I’m just trying to stay out of the way of sudden bursts of aggressive w
hite light.”

  Valcas glanced at the strips of gauze on my knees where the tape had started peeling off at the corners. He frowned. “You can find local attire in the wardrobe. I will return to take you to the banquet hall for dinner.”

  “It’s already dinnertime? But we haven’t had breakfast or lunch yet.”

  “The banquet starts in ten minutes.” Valcas grinned. “Let’s call it a date this time.”

  I rolled my eyes and shut the door.

  The dressing chamber was styled to be centuries old, but at the same time it appeared to be new. A stark contrast to the sod hut, everything about the room was clean and freshly polished. Each new place disoriented me, but I couldn’t help being captivated by the concept of time travel. By now I’d figured out that blinding white light meant getting knocked flat to the ground or showing up in a new place. I had no idea what time period I was in now. There were no clocks or calendars in the room.

  The absence of anything computerized made me smile. Just a short time ago I would have given anything to be secluded in a place like this, hidden from my peers in the modern world. I considered this as I ran my hands along a lofty wooden wardrobe. Its doors were ornately carved inside and out, lacquered in forest green and accented with gold leaf. The dresses it held were no less extraordinary.

  As I changed out of yesterday’s clothing, cleaned up and covered myself in a mauve ankle-length smocked tunic dress, I remembered how horrified I was when my best online friend betrayed me. She called herself Sandra Argan. Like Valcas, she was beautiful. We never met in person, but her profile page and online albums portrayed a girl my age with tanned skin and short dark hair. She knew me as Dora Plaka, a screen name I’d chosen to honor my father, the male parent that neither one of us had. We shared pictures and stories about ourselves. We laughed at ridiculous videos we found on the web. But mostly we talked a lot about what it would be like to have a father.

  Our friendship ended abruptly, exactly four weeks plus a day ago. One day Sandra stopped talking to me and I noticed that her profile page changed. All of her photos were gone. She’d even deleted her status updates. In their place were posts of personal photos that I’d shared with her along with pictures that she’d taken from my page. She’d started a new photo album labeled “Calidora Winston.” Then she began posting lewd drawings that she combined with my face from her collection of photos—these, she called the “Plaka Portraits.”