As soon as their boat hit the pebbly beach, John jumped out into the shin-high water and pulled the boat and the other three boys to dry land. Daniel knew what the boy was thinking: I hope Sarah realizes she’s missing out on someone who would have made sure she never had to get her feet wet.
The other three boys got out and all four dragged the boat twenty feet further onto land to make sure it didn’t wash away when the tide changed.
“Okay, what now?” Anthony asked, as if the boys had never gone exploring across other islands before.
Without receiving an answer, he fell in line with John and Samuel as they followed Daniel toward the middle of the island and to a swampy marsh where frogs and snakes and other excitement would probably be waiting.
When Daniel picked up a rock and threw it at a tree that was about thirty feet away, it just barely missed.
“Darn it,” he said and stepped aside for the others to try.
Anthony didn’t come close and cursed his poor aim. Both Samuel and John whooped with delight when they pegged the conifer.
Further off, a tree had been blown over by heavy winds. But instead of falling to the ground, it had come to rest against another tree, a giant white pine. The boys took turns running up the diagonal path of the fallen tree to touch the spot where it rested against the other tree, twenty feet off the ground, and then ran back down again.
After the first time up and back, Daniel said, “Wanna see who can do it the fastest?” and the boys timed each other by counting off seconds with a consistent “one chestnut, two chestnut, three chestnut.”
When Samuel got to the top and raced back down again he threw his hands in the air, sure he had the fastest time.
“Sorry,” Daniel said. “You had eight chestnuts. John only had seven.”
“Reckon not!” Samuel yelled, but all four boys were already off in search of their next competition.
No matter where they went, the boys could always find things to keep them amused. The usual thoughts that plagued Daniel at night, of being stuck in a town without any hope of a more exciting life, no longer bothered him when he got to adventure like this. And he guessed that John was able to forget about Sarah and her penchant for holding hands, just as whatever bothered Anthony and Samuel—each had a private angst that made him feel like life was against him—were also able to forget their worries.
They were ten feet from a giant white rock that seemed out of place amongst the swamps and trees, when a glimmer of light caught Daniel’s eye. For a few seconds, he kept his gaze on it to make sure it was real. When he was sure it was, he changed direction and the other three boys followed.
“Think we’ll find anything interesting?” asked one of his friends. But Daniel was too focused on the light—where no light should be—to respond or even to notice which of his friends had spoken.
Two of his friends were talking the entire time he approached the sparkle of light. John was probably one of them and they were probably talking about Sarah Cunningham again. Daniel kept walking, though, not caring to look back and make sure they were following him.
“Where are we going?” one of them finally asked.
He didn’t answer.
Over a fallen tree, across a series of rocks, through tall grass. The boys kept walking.
“Hey, Daniel,” one of the boys said, then grabbed his shoulder. “I said, where are we going?”
Daniel stopped and turned around. It was Anthony standing there, still with his hand on Daniel’s shoulder. Had Anthony been saying something to him?
“Huh?” Daniel said, blinking his eyes back into reality, allowing them to leave the glittering light just for a moment.
“Where are you taking us?”
Daniel smiled and looked up. Above the boys, a pulley system was attached to the thickest branch of an eastern hemlock they were standing under. All four boys looked around for someone, the owner of the pulley and crane system, but of course they were alone on the island.
“What’s this doing here?” John said. For once, he wasn’t smiling.
They hadn’t seen anyone else on the island. They didn’t know of anyone that visited the island. There were no other signs that someone else had ever done work on this patch of land. And yet here was a block and tackle used for hoisting heavy materials up and down from… from what?
Daniel looked at the ground, rubbed his shoe against the dirt, then stepped backward. All four boys were standing inside a circle of ground that was only about two inches lower than the adjoining land. If Daniel hadn’t seen the device attached to the tree limb, the boys never would have stopped to notice the indented circle.
“Someone was hoisting something up,” Samuel said, looking at the mechanism attached to the tree limb.
“Or lowering something down,” Daniel said, his voice low and strained. In all his daydreams of stranded women and forgotten monsters and buried treasure, there had never been something as concrete as this piece of equipment to prove his fantasies might not be foolish after all. Sure, it was only a lever and pulley system and a circle of ground that was recessed directly underneath the pulley, but this was better than any figment of his imagination because it was real and it was unexplainable.
He repeated what he knew: no one from the mainland was living on these islands. No one had cabins here or a reason for visiting. There was no explanation for a pulley system to be connected to a thick branch like this.
Each boy looked up at the tackle in wonder. It was nothing more than a rusted metal surface, rounded where ropes would lift or lower heavy objects.
“Must have been here for a long time,” Samuel said, reaching up and scratching off flecks of corroded, orange metal with his fingernail.
Everyone knew not to leave their tools lying around. In a place where all of the town’s inhabitants had to band together if everyone wanted to get through the brutal winters, no one would be foolish enough to leave behind a nice piece of equipment like this.
Then the boys lowered their heads and looked down at the indented circle of ground they were standing in. Without ever having asked them, Daniel assumed each of them spent the evenings wishing for something more exciting to happen than another day of farm life. Maybe the scenarios were different. Maybe instead of stranded blonds or lockers full of gold they fantasized about joining the expedition west that everyone whispered was supposed to happen in the next few years, to explore the uncharted western territories. Or maybe they dreamed of having super powers or of becoming a famous outlaw. No matter what the fantasy was, he was sure they wanted out from the lives they had. And here was the chance.
Anthony pointed to the pulley system. “It must have been left here by pirates or robbers or someone who wanted to hide something deep underground.”
The only people Daniel knew of that had ever lived nearby were the natives, but they had all either been killed or run off their land many years earlier.
“What should we do?” John said, not wanting to do anything that would warrant a beating from his father.
“Dig,” Daniel mumbled, already dropping to both knees and scooping dirt away with his hands.
The other three boys immediately joined in. With the marsh nearby and with the rain they had been getting recently, the soil was easy to move. But after they had displaced a foot of dirt from the circle, there was still nothing.
“Keep digging,” Daniel said. The boys did as they were told.
After another foot of dirt was gone, their fingers began scraping against stone. Daniel’s heart leapt into his throat. At first, not wanting to get his hopes up, he figured it would be just another rock, common to the area and plentiful anytime the farmers plowed fresh ground. But the surface his fingers ran across was much too smooth, too flat, to be something that just happened to be under two feet of dirt. With his palm, he wiped the mud away to each edge of the circular hole they were digging. The boys were standing on a set of flagstone rocks laid out to form a flat surface.
“Loo
k,” Anthony said. “Chisel marks. Someone made them this size on purpose.”
Samuel looked back up at the pulley system directly above them. “Think that’s why the block and tackle is up there, to lay these stones down like this?”
Daniel took a deep breath and squinted. He wanted to say, “Yes, that’s exactly why someone went to the trouble of making a pulley system and bringing it here, just so they could bury a couple of stones two feet underground.” The only reason he didn’t was because his mother had taught him that if he didn’t have anything nice to say, he shouldn’t say anything at all, so he bit his lip to keep from telling the other boy just how stupid the question was.
“No,” Daniel said finally, “I think these stones are here to keep us from finding what the block and tackle was really used for, the thing that’s buried further down.”
“What do you think it is?” Anthony said.
“It’s got to be treasure!”
No one disagreed with this claim.
“Help me move ‘em,” Daniel said.
Two of the boys pulled dirt away from the side of the hole so their fingers had room to sneak under the stone.
“Are we splitting it evenly?” Anthony asked, referring to the treasure they were going to find when they removed the flagstone.
“Of course.”
With enough room to not only get their hands underneath the stone, but enough to drag one of the chunks an inch away from the others, the four boys all slid their hands under the first piece.
“Ready? One, two, three!”
All of the boys lifted at the same time, raising the flagstone up to their hips and setting it down outside the hole they were digging.
Beneath them, where the smooth stone had been, was something none of the boys had been expecting. Their young minds had imagined riches beyond comprehension. Chests of gold. Cups filled with precious stones. What they saw, though, was nothing but more dirt.
“Dang it,” John yelled.
“Don’t let your pa hear you talk like that,” Anthony said.
Samuel kicked at the dirt under his feet. “What now?”
“Keep digging,” Daniel said. And while the other three boys began moving the rest of the flagstone out of the hole, that was exactly what he continued to do.
5 – Meeting The New Family
Year: Unknown
“Hmm,” the time traveler said, raising a hand and smiling as the five natives approached.
Saying hello or any other English word would be a waste of time—or possibly worse. For all he knew, “hello” was Mi’kmaq for “I’m here to kill you.” He hoped a friendly grunt was universal. The natives ignored his greeting, though, as well as the friendly wave he offered. The five men had raced across the shoreline toward him but, upon getting within thirty feet of their visitor, they slowed to a walk, unsure of what to do next. Each man carried a weapon but none of them pointed one at him. They didn’t speak, even amongst themselves, nor did they take their eyes off him. Step by step, the five men approached slowly, uncertainly, looking at the time traveler as if he really might be a god like the girl had said.
Even though he wasn’t superstitious, he could understand why these men might think him to be some supernatural being. After all, he had fallen out of the sky with a burst of light. If the natives had seen him come ashore in his stained burlap pants and shirt, they might have thought he him to be a wandering nomad, struggling to survive. But now, almost naked, in open defiance of the harsh weather, he might have unwittingly added to the sense that he was from another world.
“Hmm,” he said again, smiling, and the unassuming air he put forth seemed to put the men at ease.
Reassured that his words wouldn’t get him killed, he said hello. First in English, then Russian, and lastly Chinese. None of the languages brought about a reaction, and so he slipped back into basic grunts.
Instead of replying in grunts of their own, they remained silent, continuing to gaze at him, as if wondering if the person they had mistaken for a deity might actually be a simpleton. In every way, they were different than he had been taught in the Tyranny’s schools. They didn’t have necklaces made of human fingers. Their faces weren’t painted with blood.
Not only do they not look like savages, the time traveler thought, they all look better off than I do.
Whereas the time traveler already had a five o’clock shadow, each of the natives had smooth cheeks. The time traveler’s stubble, along with his clothes, would have made him blend in with the masses of homeless men in one of the Tyranny’s bustling cities. Instead of having clothes that were too large or too small for them, patches covering the various holes, each of the five hunters or warriors or whatever they were, had perfectly sewn clothes made of fur and animal hides.
One of the natives said something to him, but the time traveler didn’t understand it. In response, he tapped his chest and said, “I am Anderson.” Then, opening his hands to them and pointing to himself again, repeated, “Anderson.”
“Anderson,” one of the natives said and the time traveler smiled. Then the man added, “Berzou,” and tapped himself on the chest.
Anderson smiled and pointed at the man: “Berzou.”
The men all relaxed. The bows, which had never been aimed directly at him, now dangled from each of their hands.
“March-eh,” said another native.
Anderson smiled and repeated the man’s name.
“Shvisveong,” another said, and Anderson repeated this back to the man as well.
The other two, Aris-stat and Chiasenson, didn’t want to be left out and introduced themselves in similar fashion. Anderson repeated their names as well. He had no idea how one would spell such names with an English alphabet—would the third native’s name be spelled Shuiseuong, Sveweswong, Shoov-E-Sue-Ong, or even something else?—but he felt he was off to a nice start all the same.
After he had repeated each name, the natives took turns pointing at their guest who had fallen from the sky and who was barely wearing any clothes, saying, “Anderson,” and smiling.
Once finished with the introductions, the natives motioned toward their village. Anderson nodded and began walking with them in that direction. Periodically, as they made their way between the ocean on the left and a line of trees to their right, one of the men would say something and Anderson would respond with a pleasant nod.
Most of the shore they walked across consisted of tiny pebbles, but every once in a while they would pass giant boulders, lone titans slowly battered by the endless waves. On the smaller rocks, tiny insects, some no larger than crickets, skittered over the wet rocks as they looked for food. Pelicans congregated along mounds of lava rock turned blue by the ocean salt and sun, ignoring the men to focus instead on the schools of fish making their way in the shallow waters.
Nearer the village, the forest’s edge receded back in an arc where the natives had chopped down spruce and pine to make a wider clearing for the center of their village. Houses dotted the land in no discernable semblance of uniformity, some built within feet of one another and others separated by an acre of open marsh.
As they entered the village, the five warriors nodded and offered various words to the locals. A woman with a scar running down from her eye all the way to her mouth put a blanket over Anderson’s shoulders. A teenage boy, with shoulders that jutted out to the sides like an Olympic swimmer’s, patted Anderson on the back and pointed to a duck that was being roasted over an open fire.
Anderson was unsure whether they still thought he might be some kind of deity or if they merely took him to be a normal visitor. He couldn’t have asked for a warmer welcome, though, and after a boy ran up to him with a cup of something warm and sweet to drink, he officially felt these people were his new friends.
Somewhere, in another time, his real family would no doubt be expecting a visit from the Tyranny’s men. Their crime? They were related to a suspected Thinker, someone who questioned the Tyranny’s motives and saw throug
h its propaganda. But knowing how time worked, going back into the past to change the Theta Timeline would still be the best way to help them. Even if it meant that in his old reality, the two people he loved the most were dragged away by the Tyranny’s men and never seen or heard from again.
Every possible reality was playing itself out, with an infinite amount of new realities forming every second—one where Anderson never went back in time at all because the Tyranny’s men found out about their plans and killed him and the other Thinkers where they stood; another where Anderson happened upon a more suspicious tribe who didn’t welcome him into their village; and another where a brown bear saw him walk onto shore and ate him for dinner.
But people were only aware of one reality. All Anderson had to do was change this reality—the Theta Timeline—to prevent the Tyranny from being formed. His wife and son would grow up in a world without the Tyranny’s bombs going off all over the world, without people being forced through checkpoints just to get where they wanted to go. They wouldn’t have to know what it was like to watch people beaten and kicked merely because the security services could get away with it. They wouldn’t live their lives being afraid of what to say, knowing the Tyranny was listening to every word they said. They could truly be free.
It was why he and nine other men had lined up against a wall and taken the risk of dying.
A woman brought Anderson a wooden bowl filled with cloudy liquid that he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with. Maybe wash his hands? His feet? But when he put it to his nose and sniffed, the woman smiled and he knew he was supposed to eat whatever it was. It reminded him of a sink full of water after soaking greasy pots and pans. He sipped it, though, and smiled. The woman was delighted. If he had been wandering through the wilderness for days without food, he would have gulped the bowl’s contents in one long swallow. Instead, having just eaten breakfast only hours earlier, with his wife and son no less, he forced himself to sip politely and not to give away what he really thought of the soup.
The Theta Prophecy Page 3
