J.J. crouched down to look across the lawn for rises or dips that might show where the building had stood, but except for the odd tree and clump of bushes, the area seemed flat. She jumped up and joined Sam again. They took slower, tinier steps, walking close beside each other.
All of a sudden, J.J.’s sneaker scuffed against something solid. “There it is.”
She knelt down beside a narrow strip of broken concrete half-buried in the lawn. She smoothed the grass away from the edges.
“Wow, the foundation has sunk into the ground,” J.J. said. “What’s left of it.” She dug around the strip with her pencil, but only found hard soil.
Sam crowded in beside J.J. “Great sleuthing!” She stood up and adjusted the camera. “Put your foot beside it, and I’ll take a photo.”
She whirred off several shots of the ground, and then took a couple facing towards Government House to help them find the sunken foundation again.
“Take some the other way too,” suggested J.J. “I’ll stay here.” J.J. set her backpack on the ground.
Sam walked to the edge of the flower bed and snapped photographs towards J.J. As she headed back, she checked the images in the camera. “They’re a little dark. We could fix them, but I’d rather we come back to take some in daylight.”
J.J. glanced up at the waning moon that had risen and was half-hidden by bunching grey clouds. The grounds were shrouded by the dusk. She just wanted to get out of there, and fast!
“Let’s see if there is any more of the foundation before we go,” Sam said. “We can measure it when we come back.” She slid her camera into J.J.’s backpack.
Sam slipped the map into her jacket pocket. “Maybe this was a corner,” she said.
With a sigh, J.J. angled the flashlight toward the ground to shine at the end of the piece of foundation.
Sam said, “I’ll walk at a right angle away from you. We’ll count our footsteps to twenty-five, to start with.”
They both stepped onto the narrow piece of concrete, clutching at each other to keep their balance.
Suddenly, the landscape wavered before their eyes.
“Jump off!” Sam yelled, yanking J.J.
They tumbled to the ground and rolled.
“Oh no,” shrieked J.J.
Right where they had been standing was a two-storey building – the staff quarters.
“We’ve gone back in time again,” Sam yelped. She helped J.J. scramble to her feet.
J.J. stared up at the wooden structure that towered before them, dark and foreboding. Above them, the stars were pinpricks in a cloudless night sky, and the moon had become a high globe of white.
J.J. stepped back, only to find a caragana hedge blocking their way. The hedge seemed to be sheltering the beginning of the wooden sidewalk that stretched towards the main mansion. The grounds extended to the west of the staff building for quite a distance before lights could be seen glinting from some houses.
“We’re really in trouble this time.” J.J. cowered beside Sam. “How will we ever get back?”
Sam put her arm around J.J. “Obviously we can’t stand on the foundation piece again.”
“No kidding, Sherlock,” J.J. shivered. “So what do we do?”
“Let’s head toward the gate. Maybe it’s only the grounds that are back in time,” suggested Sam.
J.J. looked around, but she couldn’t see the gate. Everywhere she looked, she saw trees, bushes, and tall rows of caragana hedges.
“Sheesh, George Watt sure went crazy with planting trees and hedges,” J.J. said.
•••
Suddenly, the sky brightened. It was broad daylight. In fact, it was a hot spring day, and everything was budding and turning green.
“Some might say I’m crazy,” said a deep voice behind Sam. “I prefer to call it landscaping.”
Sam and J.J. whirled around.
“We’ve shifted again,” said Sam.
Sam stared at George Watt, kneeling in a tilled patch of dirt in front of them. He had a trowel in his hand and was planting seedlings from a wheelbarrow parked nearby. The smell of freshly dug earth and matted roots mingled with the scent of lilac blossoms from farther away.
Everywhere Sam and J.J. looked, the grounds stretched on forever. All the city streets, traffic, and houses were gone. Aside from the occasional planted tree and a few out-buildings around Government House, they were surrounded by open prairie, with only a few structures far off in the distance. The sun beat down on them.
Sam's heart raced. “I don’t recognize anything.”
“Me either,” J.J. said. Her voice wavered.
“The North-West Mounted Police barracks are there,” George said, noting their curiosity. “The Territorial Administrative Buildings are that way.” He wiped the sweat from his face with a handkerchief, and then tucked it back into his pants pocket.
Sam stared at J.J. They had gone even farther back in time than they had moments before.
“It sure is empty out here,” Sam said. “And hot.” She unzipped her hoodie.
“Uh, gosh, I never expected to see anything like this,” J.J. said. She tied her hoodie around her waist.
George smoothed his moustache and gazed over the grounds. “It’ll be a few more years of work until I get this properly landscaped, with the tree plantations and all the flower beds growing well.”
Sam saw several spots where flat stones had been laid around plots of cultivated earth. A few stray plants grew in each of them.
“There’s the rose garden.” Sam pointed to where two sticks stuck out of the dirt.
George looked at her in surprise. “How did you know that? They’re nothing but twigs yet.”
“Um, I just guessed,” Sam sputtered. A rose garden grew in the same place in the present day.
“Looks like a good place to put one,” J.J. said, with a little chuckle. “My dad just planted some roses too.”
George squinted at them. He didn’t seem entirely satisfied with their answers. “You two seem to turn up in the most unusual places.”
Sam almost snorted. So did he!
J.J. whispered, “If he only knew.”
“Do your hosts know you are out here?” George took his silver pocket watch from his vest pocket and checked it. “It’s almost time for dinner.”
He clicked the watch cover shut and polished it with his handkerchief. Gently, he replaced the watch in his vest pocket and patted his chest. “You’d best be getting back before the Forgets miss you.”
Sam looked at J.J. again. She’d really like to get back – to their time – but how were they supposed to do that?
“Uh, we’re not exactly sure how to get there.” Sam stumbled over the words.
George gave them another peculiar look. “Where did you say you come from again?”
“Uh. North, we uh, come from north of here,” J.J. blurted.
Sam almost choked. “Ah, yes, right…from north of here.” Only two blocks north, so they weren’t lying, but gosh, their presence was tricky to explain.
George frowned at them and mumbled something about people with no sense of direction. Louder, he said, “Well, the Forgets don’t like people to be late for meals, so you’d best skedaddle back to the main house over that way.”
“Where’s the wooden sidewalk?” Sam asked.
George opened his mouth, then closed it again, clearly puzzled. “I’m thinking you girls had best stay with your folks at the main house, if you can’t find your way about here.” He tilted his head at them. “Follow this furrow until you come to the house. If you get lost, just cut across the yard.” He gave a little chuckle.
Sam cringed with embarrassment. There was nothing to obscure their path. No bushes, no wooden sidewalk. The main house was directly across the short prairie grass.
George continued, giving them patient instructions. “The housekeeper will let you in by the back entrance. Mind, you’ll need to use the broom to clean the dust off your shoes before you go inside, or she�
��ll be none too pleased. And you’ll have to put on proper clothes for dinner.”
As Sam and J.J. started off along the dirt path, George called after them. “If you’re lucky, you’ll be served mushrooms on toast. You missed coming back to see them pop up and be picked. There will be more poking through tomorrow, if you want to come and see. That is, if you can find your way back down to the basement,” George said, not unkindly.
“We’ll come if we can,” J.J. called.
Sam waved goodbye.
“Great,” Sam said. “Now he thinks we’re not very smart.”
“He may not be so wrong,” said J.J. with a grimace. “We seem to be in 1903, but we don’t know how to get back home.”
“George Watt will…” Sam started to say.
J.J. grabbed Sam’s arm. The landscape shimmered in front of their eyes.
A moment later, it stilled.
They were standing in the moonlight on a wooden sidewalk. The caragana hedges were grown high again.
Sam gasped. “We’ve time travelled again. Geo…”
J.J. clamped her hand over her friend’s mouth. “Don’t say his name,” she hissed. “The last time you said it, he appeared, and this time when you said it, he disappeared.”
Sam removed J.J.’s hand. “You think, by just saying Geo…” She felt a poke in the ribs. “Uh, you think if we say his name, we travel through time?”
“It’s the only thing I can think of that happened both times we saw him.” J.J. held up her hand. “And no, I don’t want to try it right now to see if I’m right. We gotta get home.”
Whirling on her heels, J.J. started to walk towards the gate, and then halted. “Drat,” she muttered, “We’re still not in our own time!” She turned back to Sam, her chin sinking to her chest.
“So how do you explain what time we’re in right now – whatever it is – and how we got here? We need to figure out what we did, and then maybe we can reverse it.” Sam frowned hard in concentration.
“We were standing together on the corner of the foundation. Obviously, we can’t do that again with the building sitting on it,” J.J. said.
“Did we say anything special?” asked Sam. She twisted her hands as she tried to think.
J.J. scowled up at the two-storey structure. “I don’t think so.”
“Let’s see what else is around here,” Sam suggested. “Maybe we’ll get an idea.”
They walked around the caragana bush and into a huge yard with several buildings. Caragana hedges rimmed the outside edge of the yard like four garrison walls. Over to their right, a small cottage sat near what looked like a huge vegetable garden. The girls could see the silk glisten on the corn cobs in the moonlight, and what looked like rows of hilled potatoes.
“That must be the gardener’s cottage Mrs. Goudy mentioned,” Sam said.
“And I bet that’s the carriage house,” J.J. said, pointing to another two-storey building with large barn type doors.
As they started walking around the perimeter of the hedges towards it, the smell of straw and manure wafted on the warm night air. A horse whinnied, and they heard a scuffle of hooves on a wooden floor. A calming voice spoke, and then a figure came through the doorway.
Sam and J.J. ducked into a gap in the hedge and watched a tall, dark-haired man swing the large wooden door closed. The wooden latch rasped as he slid it into place.
J.J. squirmed closer to Sam. They watched as the man crossed the yard to another small cottage between the carriage house and the staff residence. He held an old-fashioned lantern high to light his way. When he reached the porch, he turned towards the staff residence and held the lantern higher, then swung it slowly from side to side.
“Is he signalling to someone?” J.J. whispered.
Sam wiggled closer to J.J. to get a better look. “Must be.”
They fixed their eyes on the building and waited. Less than a minute later, a woman appeared in a top-storey window holding a similar lantern. She waved her hand in front of it, as if sending some kind of code.
“There’s his answer,” Sam whispered, as the light in the window dimmed, then went out.
The young man extinguished his lantern and set it on the porch step. He stood for a few moments, and then headed towards the residence. When he reached an elm tree surrounded by a clump of bushes, he stopped and waited.
A few moments later, a woman in a summer dress emerged through the door. The man joined her and they clasped hands, and then they hurried towards another corner of the building and out of sight.
“Should we follow them?” Sam asked, already pushing out of the hedge into the open area.
J.J. nodded, and they rushed across the yard. When they reached the building, they kept to the shadows along the outer wall until they reached the corner where the couple had disappeared. They stopped.
“Do you think we should peek around the corner?” Sam glanced back at J.J.
J.J. nodded.
“Ready?” Sam whispered.
“Yes,” J.J. whispered back, putting her hand on Sam’s shoulder.
Sam placed her hand against the wall.
The girls sprawled to the ground in a heap. The building had vanished.
They lay there gasping for a few moments, and then Sam pushed J.J. off of her. J.J. groaned and rolled onto her back.
“We’re back in our own time,” Sam sputtered. She sat up and looked at a familiar Dewdney Avenue, with vehicles rushing by blocks of houses with lights on.
“I’m sure glad we are, even if we don’t know how we did it,” J.J. said.
“I wonder how long we’ve been gone.” Sam sounded worried.
“I don’t know, but it’s dark, so it’s late.” J.J. shuddered.
“We’d better get home before our parents come looking for us.” Sam jumped up and helped J.J. to her feet. They brushed the leaves off of each other.
“Oh my gosh, there’s your backpack. We forgot all about it. I’d be in big trouble if I lost Dad’s camera!” Sam found the camera, and J.J. found her flashlight still on.
“Stay clear of that foundation!” J.J. warned. She shone the flashlight along the ground.
“I’m not going anywhere near it,” Sam said, taking several steps towards the service road. “I don’t like going back in time and not knowing how we did it or if we’ll ever get home.”
“I don’t think I want to come back here ever again.” J.J.’s voice still shook. “I don’t think I’ll get to sleep tonight either.”
“What if we hadn’t been able to get back?” Sam said with a shiver.
“No one would ever know what happened to us,” J.J. croaked.
They walked to the gate, lost in their own thoughts. The night settled down around them, holding them in a cloak of darkness as wind rattled leaves along the roadway. Something was scurrying along with them. Sam pulled her hoodie tighter and stared at the bushes across the grounds, half expecting someone to appear.
Something scuttled in the grass beside them. Sam screamed and bolted. J.J., breathing hard, was right behind her.
Chapter Five
“We’re sure lucky we made it back in time for supper,” Sam said as she sat on the braided rug in J.J.’s bedroom. “My folks were already starting to eat.” Sam dug into her backpack and passed J.J. photos of the foundation she’d taken that afternoon. Her dad had run the photos off for the girls on his computer.
“We’re lucky we made it back at all!” J.J. said. She plunked herself on a corner of her bed and riffled through the photos.
“That’s for sure.” Sam agreed. “But if we ever were to go back there again, these photos would help us find the foundation.”
“I don’t want to go there again. That was too scary going back to two different times like that. Once was creepy enough.” J.J. handed back the photos and lay on her belly with her hands holding her head. “But I wonder why it keeps happening?”
“Maybe we’re supposed to do something,” Sam suggested. “Like last time.”<
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“You mean, how we got all the ghosts to meet each other, so they weren’t lonely?”
Sam nodded.
“But this is different,” J.J. said. “This time, we’re the ones going back in time. To two different times. So how could they meet each other? And the people we saw weren’t even ghosts – they were living in their own time.”
“That’s true, I guess. Last time, all the ghosts ended up appearing to us at the same time and we could introduce them.” Sam tucked her pictures into her backpack.
“At least I can do an accurate drawing of the grounds for my poster, even if no one else will know they’re exact.”
J.J. laughed. “Yeah, that was really something, to see all those old buildings for real.”
“I wouldn’t mind going back again,” admitted Sam, “to see what they looked like inside and what they were used for.”
J.J. glared at her in disbelief.
Sam muttered, “Well, not that I really want to go back, but it would be interesting to explore.” She wondered how she could talk J.J. into just one more visit.
“I can live without seeing any more,” J.J. said firmly. She dropped to the floor beside Sam and pulled her pencil crayons out of her backpack. “We better get our posters finished.”
Sam was still looking at J.J. “Are you sure you don’t want to see more?”
J.J. looked up in surprise, a flicker of fear in her eyes. “Yes, I’m sure. Don’t even think about it any more. I’m not going back!”
“What if it’s not on purpose?” asked Sam, secretly hoping that it might happen again by accident.
“We’ll make sure we steer clear of the foundation and the basement! And if we remember not to say Geo…” J.J. stopped short. “You know who’s name – we’ll be fine.”
“I hope so,” said Sam. “Though we’re not entirely sure how we went back and forth in time.”
“We know if we say his name, it happens,” J.J. said.
“It didn’t happen when we asked about him at Mrs. Goudy’s,” said Sam. “Maybe it only happens when we’re on Government House grounds.”
“We know enough, and I don’t want to test any more theories!” J.J. shoved Sam’s poster at her across the floor. “Let’s get to work.”
Ghosts in the Garden Page 4
