He said, “I hate to break up this party, but I have classes to teach in the morning. You're all welcome to come back tomorrow, but I've got to get some sleep.”
I was actually surprised when they all headed for the door, and even more so, when Nat whispered something to Ash and kissed him. I thanked them for helping to rescue me, and shook hands with all the strangers I had known so well.
“We have a lot to talk about, Fritz.”
“I know. But not tonight. Go to bed. I'll sleep on the couch. I want to think about what happens next.”
“I need to know how we get home. I've figured out some of this, but you know more than I do. Especially about what we've done to change history and how to change it back.”
“Give me something to write on. I'll make some notes.”
Without an audience and with total solitude, I plotted the events that I had started. When I first stepped into the portal, I'd set the books, so I could step out, and go directly to Appomattox. If I was going to be stuck in the past, General Lee would be a perfect companion. My first target was the surviving brother. In my time, the last one, Richter/Richemartel, had been the most elusive and the most deadly. I shot him first, then the others. When I ran back through the portal into the hallway, the generator was gone, the window wasn't broken, and the ache from my stitches had stopped. When I went to the parking lot, my car had vanished.
I went back into the classroom, but another teacher's papers were on the desk. My books and my plan were up in smoke. I had made sure not to have my phone or any identification when I started, only a little cash in case nothing worked. I looked for a reference point, anything that would give me a sense of where I was. The teacher's files on her desk top were arranged by class. I began to scan for names and dates. The names gave it away. Some of her students had been in my classes, except they had graduated already. In the third folder, unreturned essays were dated, November 22, 2008, and all contained some lesson learned at the forty-fifth anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination.
No car, little money and a world I'd just changed chased me out of the school. Now what? With no other choice, I walked home. The rude awakening came with the “For Sale” sign in the front yard. Linda and I had bought the house the previous year, so who lived there now clearly wasn't me. The perfectly trimmed shrubs, a line of boxwood, still green and seemingly healthy warned me that I didn't live here. I'd dug up the dead bushes when we first moved in. Against hope, I rang the doorbell. I asked the woman who answered if Ms. Russell was home. No one by that name lived there, she said. Then I walked here, to Ash's house. I figured my reception would be similar from the tan Camry parked in the driveway.
As I walked, the weather turned on me. I had worn a jacket, but the clouds began to spew little white puffs with a promise of more to come, and guaranteed that I would be stranded. I hitched a ride to downtown, bought a newspaper, and searched for Hoffmann's, for a cup of coffee and a little warmth. I found neither. When I finally saw a Starbucks sign, snow covered the sidewalk.
The newspaper helped. Black Friday. If I could get to a store, I could get a heavier coat, and work out where to go. What public places would remain open where I would be unnoticed? The idea of heading to warmer climes rolled around the story of record warm temperatures in the south. The best way to get there would also be open, so I headed for the train to Philly. Exiting on Market Street, I walked toward City Hall, looking at sale signs in all the shop windows. The fifty-percent-off sign vacuumed me into the outdoor gear emporium. Ten minutes later, I left with a parka, and the first of many backpacks I would buy over the next eight years. I took the next train to the Amtrak station, bought a ticket for Florida, and said goodbye to the life I had known.
My travelogue paused when the front door opened. Nat hung up her coat before noticing me at the kitchen table. Over her shoulder she carried a bag large enough to hold the Library of Congress. She reached in and placed a notebook across from me.
“So Fritz, wanna trade notes?”
“I haven't gotten far, mostly been thinking about how this all started.”
“Do you know how to get home?”
“No. I haven't been near the portal for quite a while. I'm not even sure where I am now. I do know this isn't home.”
She asked if I thought I'd be able to figure it out. I told her that I honestly didn't know. We had only travelled in our own dimension. “So Ash and I need to have a chat.”
She pushed her notebook across the table. “We've been recording everything we planned, thought and did for months. Tonight is the only missing episode.”
I thumbed quickly through the pages. I told her that tonight the universes, or dimensions, were connected. The most important aspect, exact detail, might identify what differed from other nights. She said she'd been taking notes of everything since they had left home tonight, even while I talked. “I don't have to be anywhere early, so we can talk more in the morning. Good night.”
I wrote a reminder to ask Ashley about their relationship, and returned to my notes.
Not knowing if I'd be a suspect, I'd kept on the move. With each move, I found a local library and a free computer. Find a job, make some money, move on. For the first year, I worked my way west. When I reached California, I stayed between LA and San Diego, changing jobs regularly. When my employer or fellow employees started to get friendly, I found a new place to hunker down. After a couple of years, I started retracing my steps and aimed for the East Coast.
When my eyes finally told me to quit, I started for the couch, but changed direction to the bathroom. I looked into the extra bedroom, made up, but empty. The tempting available bed beckoned, more than the couch. I sat, laid down, and before I could think a word, sleep attacked.
Ashley's banging around early woke me, so I joined him for a cup before he left. I had my work awaiting. He had found a bridge between worlds, but not one to get us back to ours. I read Nat's journal that morning. They had planned while winter passed, and needed a storm to activate the portal. I could feel the answer but couldn't put a finger on it. Not yet. I began to retrace my steps. I had left my world and after the shootings, planned to step back, but instead, found myself in another universe, without the portal. When Ash came after me, he jumped into a parallel dimension, also without a way back. So, we needed to get back to our world to stop me from shaking the universe. Sitting now in the world I'd first caused, Ash had found me in a different universe. The portal slowly returned to my conscious thoughts. For us to get home, we needed to open the portal and find a bridge to that universe that would allow us to cross. I would need to stop myself from taking the first shot. We would have to return before, find me and stop me. Or maybe Ash had to stop me. I couldn't be in two universes at the same time. Or maybe I could go back to when I first went in, and change my mind and leave. Then none of the past eight years would have happened.
Another problem crossed my mind. I changed universes twice. At least. The second time happened while I was driving east on an empty road somewhere in Ohio. The sky rumbled, like a time-lapse picture. It seemed like only moments later that I found myself sitting in a traffic jam on the Interstate outside Pittsburgh. At the time, I thought I had been so engrossed in driving I'd missed Ohio completely. From the notes, Ash may have changed history and we might need to change that first. Maybe then the bridge back would show itself. But, the portal only opened to the past or present. To get home, time would have to be in sync. Having the quiet of an empty house allowed me to explore the alternatives, and to weigh our options. In the middle of my solitude, a nagging thought joined me. Did I really want to go home?
Chapter 38
Ashley
I CERTAINLY WASN'T in the mood for teaching. All I wanted was a long talk with Fritz. Home, really going home, had become a real possibility. Yet what about all the changes I'd been able to coerce from George, and what would happen when other me came back?
My question that day, more for me than them, asked, “Is
time travel possible? Where would you go?” Most of my seniors were taking physics, so the concepts of time travel might not be foreign. Second period, they neither disappointed nor gave me reason to change the questions. Most of the day, the students treated me to remarkable ideas. From earth-shaking events to poignant personal revelations, the students stuffed each class with delightful, inventive stories that would make the great science fiction writers proud. By the end of the day, the topic had word-of-mouth distribution. My last class ended when one of the kids said he would visit his dad, who'd died when he was a baby. Usually by that time, they were noisy and anxious to be gone. Even the bell didn't signal the start of noise as they packed up, a few stopping for tissues on the way out.
I found Fritz where I had left him. A yellow pad with pages flipped indicated that he'd hopefully spent the day developing a plan for what to do. When I settled across from him, he collected whatever thoughts he'd accumulated, and started by saying that the one thing he couldn't understand was why I was here.
“I came after you.”
“I know. But why are you the only one affected when time changed, when I shot Richemartel?”
“I don't know that I am. I've been trying to find you, but I know that Linda is different. I know George is different. So is Shaw and Tony, and Nat. I haven't seen Jane.”
“That's only for the people here, but I think we're the only ones. We're the only ones affected by the portal.”
I'd seen Fritz think about the portal since the first day he found it, but we'd never really discussed all its possibilities and consequences. We'd never considered other dimensions or universes, or just how much our using the portal might really impact our own futures.
“Maybe. Did you figure out how to turn things back to normal.”
“I don't think we can.” He told me that in order to change things back, we needed to get home first, and that would require someone in our home world finding us.
“No one but us ever opened the portal. So what do we do now?”
He pushed away from the table. One thing had changed in just the short time since I'd last seen him. His hair was graying and the forehead wrinkles and frown lines no longer vanished. The chiseled face, and a frame that had lost twenty pounds would be unrecognized if we got home.
“You can open it to where you found me, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And you can go to the places in the books?”
“Yes.”
“Where did the books come from?”
“I had them with me when I changed universes.” Fritz rubbed behind his left ear.
“You still do that.”
“What?”
“Rub behind your ear.”
“Hmm. I don't think I've done that in years. Must be you. Anyway, the books are from our time. And from the notes, you met Lee and Churchill from here, but they were different. They remembered things that happened in our future. You said, or Nat did, that they could see into their futures.”
I interrupted. “Lee could, but I'm not sure about Churchill. He could see to when we met, but not the near future, the war.”
“Let me finish this. To change history back, you need to figure out what you did, and we need to see if we can change things back from here. If we can, then we'll know that we can change them at home. We need to get these universes back to normal.”
“We may not have to,” I said. “I've seen at least three universes. We're still surrounded by the same people we know. At least here. What makes them different is the question I've been pondering. If we figure that out, we may know what we need to change, and what can be left as it is now. But I wonder what I'll have to do at school. The other me isn't held in high regard. I've been working to change that. How can I alter what I've done?”
“Everything you did here had nothing to do with the portal. You convinced them. You alone. It's the history stuff I'm concerned about.”
“Three places I think are possible, Fritz. Lee knew about you. He told me you would show up at Appomattox. I talked to Hitler in English, so he would be aware that some English-speaking country had a way to appear and disappear. I met Churchill right around the start of the war and told him he would need to help Alan Turing to decode Enigma.”
“What do you know about Enigma?”
“I'm a history teacher here. But we saw “The Imitation Game” together. But that was in our home dimension. Do you remember?”
“Honestly, I don't remember a lot about that world. It's almost like amnesia, or a bad dream. Like I'm looking up from the bottom of the ocean, covered with barnacles. I'm disconnected. Ash, I've relived all those years. I don't even know how old I am now.”
“I should feel bad for you, I guess. But I don't. You set up a puzzle when you left, so you had to know I'd come after you. Otherwise, why would you have left clues? And you had to know you would alter everything by killing someone in the past. We talked endlessly about that. And you left the mess for me to clean up.”
“I didn't want you to follow me. That's why I set the books up the way I did. To make it too hard to find me. I figured you'd take one look and know you shouldn't pursue it. I thought I could just come back and then decide where to get lost. I had no idea you'd be sucked into the void. You said it took a few days before the changes happened. That's actually interesting. I went in on Thanksgiving and the changes didn't happen until the Tuesday after. I wonder why it took so long. And you didn't set the portal up. It just happened.”
“I don't care. I want to go home.”
“Sorry, Ash, really I am. But we should look for a clue there too. Maybe we've fooled around with the portal enough that all those ripples added up.”
“You remember the ripples?”
“Yeah. I can see Tony say it and Linda getting mad.”
“Linda's home, Fritz. What really happened with her father finally hit home. She had no idea that he broke the oath, or that he had met Richemartel AKA Koppler. TJ needs his father, and I think they both need you. And I want my best friend home, too.”
“I haven't thought about them in a long time. Or I've tried not to remember. I didn't expect to get back. I need time to adjust, and I still have to find a way.”
“We have to find a way. It's not just about you, not now. Not anymore.”
“What are you going to do about Natalie? She's not going to give you up willingly.”
“I told her up front that going home was a possibility, and I've kept her at a distance even if she has made it difficult. But if we change everything back, she'll have no recollection because none of the changes will have happened.”
“Don't be so sure. I'm not. And if we can't get back, then what?”
“Then, old friend, I'll have to decide what happens next.”
“Ash, before we go back, I have a couple of stops I want to make first. Unfinished business in a world I don't want to leave. At least not yet.”
“Then let's be ready for the next storm.”
We talked about the places that I might have changed history, and how that needed to be fixed first. Fritz said he wanted to go to McNamara's before we changed anything.
Chapter 39
Linda
THE TULIPS WERE undressing, leaving a kaleidoscope blanket in the beds. All of Fritz's plantings of two falls ago brought brightness to my dismal mood. It's been four months and change since Fritz and Ashley disappeared. Thank heaven for the store or I'd be a complete basket case. Business hasn't been great, at least not for new bikes, but I've kept busy with repairs as the warmer weather approaches. Charlie told me to expect a rush when the weather changed.
Mom had been right on target, although I shouldn't be surprised. She said to take care of the house, TJ and the shop. TJ comes with me every day, so I can kill two birds with a stone. My editor would kill me for using a cliché, but for the past few weeks, getting up and running is where the rubber meets the road for me. And to make things easier, Mom has been in Riverboro more than home, so the
house has been cared for.
But I'm waiting for spring for a different reason. Eric Silver will be home for his spring break, and hopefully he'll have some new ideas on how to get into the portal. At Christmas, he had studied Ashley's notes and Jane's comments, and tried to open the portal at the high school. His swimming pool with the generator sitting in it had failed to do more than create shocks, but he said he would keep trying in his college lab. I've been tempted to call him for a progress report, but Mom said we'd see him soon enough and not to put pressure on him.
I seldom see Jane. She moved back to Washington and comes here every three or four weeks. When she is here, our conversations have been tepid. She's not involved in the activities of the new president, who doesn't know about the portal. I think she misses the action. When she's here, she spends a lot of time with the, I guess I have to call him former, president. He's concerned that the Middle East plan isn't getting more support. Many of the leaders have asked if our commitment is going to last. Projects are moving ahead, but more slowly than expected. The new president has said publicly that we should be spending money to build our military instead.
Eric will be here in the next few days. I checked the weather forecast earlier. The usual spring thunderstorms are late in starting this year, and I don't know if we'll need them to open the portal.
Chapter 40
Jane
I MISS ASHLEY. I didn't know how much until my job took me back to DC. I have plenty of time to miss him because I've been shuffled into the revised Homeland Security operation. Immigration, the border, airline travel and reheated rhetoric has generated the need for new reports on the same old, same old. A new crisis in North Korea has everyone's attention except mine. No one wanted my opinion, in spite of the analysis I'd prepared for the newcomers. So I do nine-to-five, go to my parents' place most weekends and wait for news from Linda.
The Portal At The End Of The Storm (Quantum Touch Book 6) Page 23
