The Gate of Days - Book of Time 2

by Guillaume Prevost

  “So, boy, have you made up your mind?” she continued. “Is there something here you’d like? Yes or no?”

  Sam tried not to get flustered. If the antique seller hadn’t chosen the logo herself, that must mean somebody else owned the business.

  “Was the design chosen by the person who’s at the construction site? I saw your store’s van parked next to it.”

  The woman didn’t answer right away. Instead, her eyes widened further and a nervous tic tugged at the corner of her mouth — or her beak. She looked almost frightened.

  “A construction site? What construction site?” she asked uncertainly.

  Sam was feeling his way now. What kind of information did he hope to get? Was the antique seller aware of the stone statue’s existence? And would she be prepared to tell him about it?

  “The construction site in the colored neighborhood,” he said. “It’s strange that somebody from your store would be interested in old houses getting torn down. I mean, there probably aren’t a lot of archeological finds there.”

  “I don’t understand a thing you’re talking about!”

  Sam decided to go for broke. “The guy with the van wouldn’t have that symbol tattooed on his shoulder, by any chance?” This last suggestion had a radical effect on the woman. She abruptly ducked under her counter, and for a moment Sam thought she had fainted. But she popped back up immediately, an antique musket in her hands.

  “You dirty little louse!” she snapped, pointing the flared muzzle at him. “Where did you come from? And what are you up to, sneaking around the construction site?”

  Sam quickly stepped to one side, putting himself behind the stand with the crystal goblet. He hoped the antique seller would think twice before blowing everything to bits.

  “I was just out for a walk,” he said. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

  “So who sent you, then?” she screamed. “I’m warning you, I’ll shoot! You wont be the first little thief shot while trying to rob an honest business. You tell me who told you about the work site and the tattoo, or else!”

  But her threats were suddenly drowned out by the tinkling music of the bells: a customer. The antique seller quickly hid her weapon under the counter, and Sam bolted for the door, nearly bowling over a distinguished-looking well-dressed man with a monocle. Ignoring the mans protests, he raced outside and sprinted up the next street.

  He hadn’t learned much about the strange U, but he had gotten something much more valuable: an idea for getting back to the present! Because he now remembered what the vase on the stand reminded him of: the crystal goblet belonging to the explorer Jacques Cartier, the one Garry Barenboim had willed to the Sainte-Mary Museum! Barenboim, Sainte-Mary! Sainte-Mary, Barenboim! Why hadn’t he thought of that before?

  15 All Aboard

  The huge hall of the Chicago train station, which was hung with red, white, and blue pennants, echoed with the lively notes of a jazz band and the hurried steps of travelers.

  “Are you really sure you want to leave now?” Ketty Faulkner asked.

  “I feel Fine,” Lily reassured her. “I’m not tired at all anymore.”

  It was true that Lily’s recovery had been as inexplicable as her illness. When Sam got back to the grocery store after his escapade at the Collector’s Paradise, he found his cousin sitting on the edge of her bed, about to tackle a stack of pancakes with syrup and a big glass of apple juice. The next night passed without fever, and though Lily still looked a bit pale, she was standing very straight under the track information panels and making an admirable effort to appear healthy.

  “So much the better!” exclaimed James Faulkner. “Do you have your tickets and your train schedule? The train leaves in fifteen minutes!”

  Sam nodded, holding up the papers in question. “I don’t know how we can ever thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Faulkner. Your putting us up, the money you lent us …”

  “I still think you should wait a day or two,” said Ketty. “If Lily’s fever comes back during the trip …”

  “Our family has been expecting us for four days,” said Lily. “They must be really worried.”

  Which in fact wasn’t far from the truth.

  With perfect timing, Donovan appeared just then to change the course of the conversation.

  “Mommy, look! The new Pacific 231! I’ve never seen such a big train! And it smokes! It smokes a lot”

  “Sam and Lily are leaving, darling. It’s time to say good-bye to them.”

  “So you’re going away for real?” asked the little boy.

  Lily nodded and bent down to him. From her pocket she took the little stuffed zebra Mama Lucy had given her a few days earlier. “Here, Donovan, this is a present for you. His name is Zeb, and he’s healed many a heartbreak.” She smiled a little to hear herself repeating Mama Lucy’s words. “If you ever feel sad, hug him tight and think about us, and you’ll feel better.” She kissed him very gently on both cheeks and stood up, on the verge of tears.

  “Let’s go!” said James. “It would be too bad if you missed your train.”

  The farewells continued on the platform as Ketty gave the children a final flurry of advice, as well as a bundle of food wrapped in a gingham cloth. After a last good-bye, they climbed into car number seven and sat down on the first available bench. Lily buried her face in her handkerchief to hide her feelings.

  “All aboard!” cried the conductor as he rang his bell. “All aboard!”

  With a powerful jet of steam and a deafening clanking of rods and pistons, the train got under way, gradually picked up speed, and clattered through the center of the city like a molten metal snake. Sam and Lily were quiet as the last buildings disappeared behind them and the train headed across open countryside.

  “Do you think we can do it?” Lily asked at last.

  Sam unfolded the sheet on which he had written the stages of their trip. “It looks okay on paper. This train will take us to Toronto, then we change to the local for Sainte-Mary. We’ll be there tomorrow at the latest.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant, Sam.”

  She was looking at him with her bright eyes, in which he could see both anxious concern and steely determination.

  “You mean, do you think we can find the stone statue?”

  She nodded, as if the question was obvious.

  “I think so,” he said. “We know Barenboim was using it at the start of the twentieth century, because the coins displayed at the museum and those rumors about all his strange visitors prove it. And the stone was still in the basement a hundred years later, so there’s no reason to think it moved in the meantime.”

  “What about the coins? How are we going to manage that?”

  Sam looked at the ceiling. “We still have to figure that one out. Barenboim left his collection to the city, so I’m hoping we’ll be able to get hold of it.”

  “Doesn’t it seem odd that we haven’t picked up a single coin so far? You told me once that to make the stone statue work, there had to be a coin near the statue at the place you were going. That’s what happened on your previous trips, right? But we haven’t seen a single one!”

  Sam had been wrestling with that very conundrum since his lively discussion with the lady antique seller, and had finally come up with a theory.

  “I’ve been thinking hard about that, Lily. There weren’t any coins in the cave or the Pompeii baths, or here in Chicago, but the Arkeos logo was there each time, remember? It was on the cave wall, at the bottom of the pool, and on the Collector’s Paradise van.”

  “So what does that tell us?”

  “I think the Arkeos man put those symbols there to be sure he could travel directly to certain periods. That way, instead of landing wherever the stone chooses to send him, he has a bunch of stopping places in Time — places where he left his mark. How that works, I have no idea. But I can’t think of any other explanation for the way the horns and the solar disk keep showing up.”

  “It would certainly explain
the antique store,” admitted Lily. “He wouldn’t have set it up if he wasn’t sure he could always return to Chicago in 1932.”

  “I bet he supplies the old lady at the store with his finds and then invests his profits somewhere else. Maybe he even used that money to start Arkeos.”

  “But if the symbol always takes a time traveler to certain periods, why didn’t you ever see it before?”

  Sam was quiet for a minute as he mulled this over. “Here’s what I think. For the system to work, the Egyptian sign has to be present at both the departure and the arrival place, sort of like a wire stretched between the times. It’s like the coins, see? You need one to take off and one to land. And I think that explains the tattoo on the guy’s shoulder. He had the symbol that lets him time-travel put onto his body so he could always get back to those specific times. And that would explain why the antique seller got so upset when I mentioned the tattoo. It’s the key to the whole setup!”

  “Like a built-in ticket to the right places,” said Lily approvingly. “I understand. But what about us?” She touched his arm. “You haven’t gone and gotten a tattoo, as far as I know. So why have we been finding this sign all along our route?”

  “That’s where it gets complicated,” said Sam, leaning forward. “I’ve thought it over, and I have a hunch I was tricked at the museum.”

  “How do you mean, tricked?”

  “Well, after we fought and the alarm went off, the Arkeos man rushed to the display case. I thought he wanted to steal coins and he just forgot one — the really worn one with the symbol. But afterward, when I thought about it again …” Sam paused to scratch his forehead, then continued: “I think he put the coin there on purpose for me to find it!”

  “What?”

  “Listen to me. First of all, I really don’t remember seeing this design on any of the museum’s coins that afternoon. That’s weird, don’t you think? I know you have to look really close to make out the horns, but I don’t remember anything like it. And then that coin, the one with the Arkeos design, went with us on all of our trips, right? First in the hole in the statue, then on the sun. So is it an accident that we came across the same symbol three different times? I don’t think so. This coin hasn’t just gone with us through Time. I think it guided us to specific destinations!”

  “But why would the Arkeos man want you to use it?”

  “I don’t know, but since he time-travels too, maybe its a way to keep an eye on me. With that coin, at least he knows where I go.”

  They leaned back against the bench, weighing the implications of Sam’s thinking, assuming it was correct. The train car was half full, mainly with families and couples. A little girl was running in the aisle, and a group of soldiers laughed loudly at the other end of the compartment. Small American flags hung from the ceiling, and the overall mood was cheerful. The conductor came in, followed by a very elegant young woman, then a man wearing a bowler hat.

  “Just like I told you, folks. There aren’t so many people in number seven.”

  While the conductor checked tickets, the man in the bowler went to sit near the soldiers. The young woman headed for the bench facing Sam and Lily.

  “Do you mind?” she asked.

  Sam helped put her suitcase on the baggage rack. She thanked him with a charming smile, then pulled a pocket mirror from her purse to fix her hair. With her straight white dress, dark glasses, and immaculate elbow-length gloves, she looked like a movie star. Sam didn’t realize he was gaping until Lily jabbed him sharply with her elbow, and he decided it might be appropriate to take a little nap.

  After an hours doze — during which Sam’s thoughts drifted to a blond girl with big blue eyes — the very real smell of cold cuts pulled him from his reverie. The train was crossing hilly countryside, and Lily had spread the contents of Ketty’s cloth on her lap: roast beef, sausages, salami, pickles, buns, cookies, and chocolates.

  Sam made himself an extra-large sandwich with all the goodies he could pile up and began to chomp on it, avoiding the woman passengers eye — he had his dignity, after all. It was then he noticed that the man in the bowler was up to something. From time to time, the man would turn around in his seat to steal a glance at the actress. Sam couldn’t see his face, just the movement of his hat, but there was something unnerving about his spying.

  “Do you want a drink?” asked Lily.

  Sam took a few swallows of lemonade from the bottle, wondering what the stranger could be after. He was about to whisper to his cousin when the train roared into a tunnel. The car was plunged into darkness, and Sam felt something brush by his left side. When the light returned, the man in the bowler had disappeared. Or no, actually — he had changed seats and was now sitting right behind them, not six feet from the young woman!

  Sam let his napkin fall into the aisle and leaned over to pick it up. The stranger was wearing a long, dark overcoat, its collar turned up to hide his face. He also had a strange bump at his waist — a gun? But when Sam saw the man’s shoes, his stomach suddenly knotted. They were black patent leather with white tips, exactly like those he had seen outside the grocery on the night the mobsters shook down his great-grandfather. The man in the hat wasn’t after the actress: He was after them!

  “Youhavetogotothebathroom,” he blurted into his cousins ear.

  “What?”

  “You have to go to the bathroom right away,” he repeated more clearly.

  Lily looked at him with pity. “Have you lost your mind?”

  Sam took their itinerary and wrote on the back: “Don’t argue. The man with the hat behind us has followed us. I think he has a gun. Go to the toilet in number nine. I’ll meet you.”

  It took Lily a moment to react. Then she stood up and casually walked to the end of the car. Sam counted to twenty to give her a head start, then, after a last smile at the actress, gathered their provisions and headed down the aisle. He opened the connecting door and found himself in the passageway that joined the two cars together. The noise was deafening, and he could see the tracks racing by under the joints in the platform — this was no time to fall through the cracks! He entered car number eight and started to run, ignoring peoples stares. He did the same thing in the next car and stopped just before being smacked in the face by a black door marked “Ladies.”

  “Will you please tell me what you’re up to?” asked Lily, popping out of the bathroom like a jack-in-the-box.

  “The guy in the bowler,” said Sam, gasping for breath. “He has black shoes with white tips.”

  “That’s great! What color are his socks?”

  “This isn’t a joke! He was the lookout in the street the other evening when the two guys attacked Mr. Faulkner!”

  “You mean he’s a gangster?”

  Sam grimaced. “That bump under his coat sure isn’t a book of poetry!”

  “But why would he follow us all this way on the train?”

  “No idea! They must have been watching the grocery store. Maybe they’re out for revenge.”

  Sam slid the vestibule door partly open to check his hunch. The stranger in the bowler had entered at the other end and was walking up the aisle, carefully studying each passenger.

  “Here he comes! Let’s go!”

  They rushed into car nine and ran right into the conductor.

  “Hey, kids, this isn’t the Indy 500! Where are you running to like that?”

  “My sister has diarrhea. Do you mind?”

  Giving them a reproachful look, the conductor stepped aside.

  “Thanks a lot,” complained Lily once they were in the next passageway between cars. “That was in really great taste. Ever heard of TMI?”

  “Did you want a fifteen-minute lecture? Hey, what’s this?”

  The next car was very different from the others. It had the quiet atmosphere of a restaurant, and about fifteen travelers were having lunch. Two waiters in white uniforms carried silver trays among the crisp white tablecloths, which hung down to the thick carpet. There were va
ses of fresh flowers, landscapes with lakes painted on the wall panels, and comfortable red velvet seats.

  “Watch it!”

  Sam caught his cousin and propelled her into the bathroom just as the conductor walked up to him.

  “I don’t want you hanging out in the aisles, all right?”

  Wearing his most angelic expression, Sam agreed. The conductor grumbled his way forward to car eleven, and Lily was able to come out.

  “Now were stuck,” muttered Sam. “The conductor in front of us, a mobster behind us! We have to …”

  Another tunnel. The light suddenly vanished and the roar of the train made the floor shake.

  “Quick!”

  Sam forced his cousin to her knees and shoved her under the first empty dining car table.

  “Will you quit pushing me around?”

  “Quiet!” he ordered, scrunching down next to her. “He’ll be here any second!”

  The train emerged into the light, and Sam lifted a corner of the tablecloth to see a pair of shiny white-tipped shoes coming their way.

  “Waiter!” called a hoarse, almost sandy voice.

  “Would you like to have lunch, sir?” asked the waiter.

  “No, I’m looking for two children, a boy and a girl. Have you seen them?”

  “I’m very busy with my tables, sir.”

  “They were running as if the police were chasing them. You couldn’t have missed them.”

  His tone was urgent, practically threatening. Besides the shoes, all the children could see were the bottoms of some blue canvas pants and a worn gabardine coat.

  “Unfortunately, sir, when I’m working …”

  “I understand .” There was a noise like the crackle of dollar bills. “Maybe this will help.”

  The waiter seemed to hesitate. “Actually, now that you mention it — that’s right, a boy and a girl.”

  Lily dug her nails into Sam’s arm.

  “They ran out the other end, toward the sleepers,” said the waiter. “They were running fast, all right.”