Once Found: The Pocket Watch Chronicles

by Ceci Giltenan

  On Friday evening, after dinner was over and the dishes washed, Gabe said, “I’m going to watch some TV and then go to bed early. Seven days of days start tomorrow. Do you want to watch with me?”

  She didn’t actually want to watch TV but she did want to curl up next to him on the couch.

  They were watching snowboarding, and something occurred to Elsie. “Gabe, what do you watch on TV when there is no snow?”

  He gave her a puzzled look. “I’m sorry, what did you ask?”

  “Well you called these the winter Olympics, what do you watch on TV when winter is over?”

  “Elizabeth, there are lots of other things to watch, on other channels. Do you want to see something else?”

  “I’d love to.”

  He pushed buttons on the remote and the image on the screen changed rapidly. He would stop for a bit every once in a while and watch for a few minutes before moving on. “There isn’t much on.”

  “You’re joking right? You keep going past lots of things.”

  He laughed. “You used to hate it when I channel surfed. But what I meant is, the shows that are on will be hard for you to understand without a lot of explaining. Maybe there is an on-demand movie we could watch.”

  He went to another channel that just had lots of words. He shook his head a lot before, his eyes went wide and he looked truly excited. “Star Wars. I love Star Wars. Do you want to watch that?”

  “It’s something about war? I don’t know.” She couldn’t imagine anything more gruesome.

  “No, it isn’t real. It’s science fiction. Basically it is a story that is completely made up about far away worlds.”

  Elsie was dubious, but it had to be better than the Olympics or channel surfing.

  Gabe explained a few things as they started to watch, but oddly, it didn’t take much. After she watched for a bit, she began to follow the story. By the time it was over, she was completely enthralled.

  “Well I’d start the next one but it’s really too late.”

  “There’s another one?”

  “There are five more.”

  “And you’ll watch them with me?”

  “Of course I will.”

  She sighed, contentedly. “I think sitting on the couch with you, watching a movie, is my new favorite thing.”

  He smiled at her. “I had fun too.”

  “Did I like it before?”

  “I don’t think we ever did it before. We were in medical school and there was always work and studying to do. You rarely just kicked back and watched TV.”

  “Well I like it now.”

  Gabe showed her how to use the remote and find shows. It turned out the range of entertainment available was both shocking and mind boggling. There were channels devoted to everything from history to cooking. There were even shows to help children learn things. Gabe wrote down the numbers for the channels she liked so she could find them if she wished to watch something while he was at work. Thus, by the time Saturday morning rolled around, she felt relatively comfortable staying alone while Gabe worked.

  ~ * ~

  Elsie awoke when Gabe had the next morning. After he left for work, she’d indulged in watching a little TV, but she also worked diligently to complete some pages in her workbook. Just after midday she stopped to make a peanut-butter sandwich for her lunch. She had taken the first bite when the front door buzzer sounded. She wiped her hands and went to push the intercom button as Gabe had taught her.

  “Hello?”

  “Good afternoon.”

  “I’m sorry, Gabe isn’t home at the moment.”

  “I’m not here to see Gabe. I’m here to see you, Dr. Quinn. My name is Aldous Sinclair. I am David’s father.”

  “I’d rather not let someone in who I don’t know.”

  “I understand. That is a good rule to follow, but this is rather important. Perhaps I could get David on the phone and you’ll feel better after speaking with him.”

  She thought about it for a brief moment. He was David’s father, so what harm could there be? “No, I don’t suppose that’s necessary.”

  She buzzed him in.

  A few minutes later, the doorbell to the apartment rang. She looked through the peephole and smiled to herself, remembering what Dr. Rose had said. The well-dressed man waiting for her to receive him was indeed a slightly shorter and older version of David. The man standing directly behind him, though, was huge and a little scary.

  Elsie opened the door. “Good afternoon, Mr. Sinclair. It’s nice to meet you. Please, come in.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Quinn. It’s lovely to meet you too. This is Dixon, the head of my security team.”

  “Good afternoon, Dixon.”

  “Good afternoon, Dr. Quinn.”

  “What exactly is a security team? Something like guards?”

  Mr. Sinclair smiled. “Yes. That is precisely correct. The members of my security team are my guardsmen. Dixon doesn’t like to let me out of his sight, but he will wait just outside the door.”

  “He’s welcome to come in.”

  “That is kind of you, but there are some things I want to discuss with you privately. Thank you, Dixon.”

  Dixon inclined his head and shut the door.

  Elizabeth couldn’t imagine what Mr. Sinclair had to discuss with her, and it made her a little nervous. “Can I offer you a cup of coffee, or tea? Or maybe a peanut butter sandwich? I was just making one for myself.”

  “A peanut butter sandwich and a cup of coffee sound wonderful.” He followed her to the little kitchen.

  “I like my bread toasted.”

  “So do I.”

  She popped four slices of bread into the toaster oven. “We have strawberry or peach jam. We also have fluff. Gabe loves it. I think it is atrocious, but he assures me that other people really do eat fluffernutters, as he calls them.”

  Mr. Sinclair chuckled. “Well, he’s right, people really do eat them. I think David was fond of them as a youngster, but I’m with you. I don’t care for fluffernutters, either. Peach jam would be perfect.”

  “That’s my favorite.”

  They exchanged small talk while she finished making lunch and laid it out on the little dining table. “Please, sit down.”

  “After you, Dr. Quinn.”

  “Just call me Elizabeth. I don’t exactly remember how to be a doctor anyway.”

  “No, I don’t expect you do.” He took a bite of his sandwich. “It has been ages since I’ve eaten a peanut butter sandwich. Sometimes, they really hit the spot.”

  Elizabeth took a nibble from her sandwich, then a sip of coffee. She couldn’t help but wonder why he was here. “You said you had some things to discuss with me?”

  “Yes, I do. First, I want you to know that I have known Dr. Rose for years, since we were very young men. He would never break a patient’s confidentiality; I only know you are seeing him because David told me. Over the years, Dr. Rose has occasionally suggested that someone contact me.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I have a little experience with…memory loss. That’s why I’m here. David told me about your accident and amnesia. However, he doesn’t know I’ve come to see you, and I would rather keep it that way.”

  “But when you were downstairs, you said you’d call David if it would make me feel better.”

  “It was a bluff. I was hoping you wouldn’t ask me to.”

  Elizabeth frowned. “Why?”

  “Because there are some things that are better kept secret. The pocket watch is one of them.”

  “The pocket watch? You know about it?”

  “Yes, I do because I chose to use it, too. I’m a time traveler.”

  “I didn’t actually choose to use it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Elizabeth accepted the watch, but something unusual happened. Evidently, she had the watch in her hand at the time of the accident. Our souls changed places when she hit her head and lost consciousness instead of when she went to
sleep, and she dropped the watch. With the watch here, and her in the past, time became equal.”

  Mr. Sinclair looked amazed. “I have met a few time travelers over the years, but I have never heard of that happening.”

  “It seems that I hadn’t done the thing that would have resulted in my death yet. Gertrude thinks that might be part of the reason things didn’t happen as they normally do.”

  “Why would that be part of it?”

  “As I understand it, my laird intended to ask me to do something terribly dishonest and cruel. I wouldn’t have done it, and he’d have whipped me, causing my death. Gertrude also thinks things might have happened differently because my choice was morally right.”

  “Your laird? You came from Scotland?”

  “Yes.”

  “But if you hadn’t refused to do the dishonest thing, does that mean Elizabeth did?”

  Elsie smiled. “Yes, but it was neither cruel nor dishonest for her—quite the opposite. My laird intended to pass me off as an expert midwife to someone who desperately needed one. I was only an apprentice, but Elizabeth—”

  “—is an obstetrician. Brilliant!” Mr. Sinclair laughed.

  Elsie smiled. “There is a certain elegance to it.”

  “That there is.”

  “You said you used the watch? Did you go backward in time?”

  “No, I came forward.”

  “Like me? But you stayed?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Nearly my whole life. In my time, I was a young man, just twenty-one, but I landed in the body of seven-year-old Aldous Sinclair in the year 1948.”

  “A little boy?”

  “Yes. It seems he was a bit of a handful—a brat. The Sinclairs were wealthy and lived on a beautiful, waterfront estate in Newport, Rhode Island. Wealthy people are often targets for criminals, so spiked, wrought iron fencing enclosed the entire property. Aldous wasn’t supposed to leave the grounds alone, ever. Being the defiant little monster he was, he disobeyed that rule and snuck away often.”

  “If the grounds were fenced, how did he accomplish that?”

  “There were plenty of trees on the property, some with branches that reached over the fence. He was in the habit of climbing one, crawling out on a limb, and dropping down outside the fence. The soul exchange occurred when he was climbing the tree on one of these excursions. I lost my grip and fell. It wasn’t terribly far, but I bumped my head and funnily enough, broke my left arm.”

  She smiled at his reference to her broken left arm. “What would have happened had you not exchanged souls?”

  “Gertrude was never specific about that. She said he might have slipped and impaled himself on the fence. She was there when I hit the ground.”

  Elsie was appalled. “Impaled? How horrible.”

  “Yes, and as it turns out, he had been injured many times doing the same thing. But had he made it to the other side that day, Gertrude implied something even worse might have happened. It didn’t really matter which terrible fate would have been Aldous’s. I was scared enough to never try that again. She told me what I needed to do and walked with me until we were in sight of the mansion. My memory loss was attributed to the head injury.” He smiled. “It never returned.”

  “But Aldous was only seven.”

  “That’s right. I have no memories of early childhood—at least of Aldous’s early childhood. Most people’s earliest episodic memories are from about the age of three, so while I am missing these actual memories, over the years I have been told enough that there is really no gap for me. Of course, I have my own memories, but they have faded some over the years.”

  “Why did you decide to stay? You were a grown man, thrust into the body of a child. That couldn’t have been easy.”

  “I was a grown man, but I was a peasant, a commoner. I had no power, no voice, no opportunity to advance. Regardless of how bright I was, unless I had chosen the religious life, there was no future for me other than a life of physical labor that could be cut short in any number of ways. I was in the body of a child who had absolutely every advantage life could offer and had essentially thrown it away. He had never been mistreated in any way. He had any toy or book he could possibly want. He was adored by his parents and had servants who took care of his every need. He had very few limits on his behavior, but he wanted none. His only reason for leaving the estate was for sport—because it was a challenge. One simple rule and he couldn’t follow it. His life was over and limitless opportunity stretched before me. I couldn’t go back.”

  “Did you have a family?”

  “I did. I had a wife and a child.”

  “Do you know what became of them?”

  He nodded slowly. “Leaving them was my only regret. As soon as I learned to read, I searched every history book I could find to try to learn their fate. Unfortunately, it was so long ago that finding any surviving record of the lives of two inconsequential peasants was futile. Gertrude occasionally popped into my life. She always she assured me that they were well, but she would never give me details. Each time I begged her to bring them forward. Her standard answer was, ‘That isn’t the way the pocket watch works.’”

  “And that is all you learned?”

  “No, Elizabeth. If I gave up that easily, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I started researching memory loss. I learned everything I could about it. I looked for news reports of people with amnesia and kept records. In almost every case I read about, the person’s memory eventually returned. I hoped to find someone, who, like me, appeared to have lost all memories permanently because that person might be a time traveler. But up until college, I had never found a report of that happening. Then I met Gerald Rose.”

  “Dr. Rose?”

  “The same.”

  “He said you were old friends.”

  “We were assigned as roommates during our first year, and we instantly became close friends. He was amused by my fascination with amnesia and repeatedly tried to find out why. One Saturday night early in our second year, I told him.”

  “About the pocket watch?”

  “Yes. Funnily enough, it turned out that he had been offered the watch once.”

  “Really? He didn’t tell me. Where did he come from?”

  “He went back in time and returned. It happened just before he came to college.”

  “It’s amazing that of all people, the two of you ended up as roommates.”

  “Not really. I suspect Gertrude had something to do with it. She nearly always has a hand in coincidences like that. The January after I told Gerald about my experience with the watch, something truly amazing happened. He and I were at a party. Judith Olivia Carson, a young woman we both knew casually, was there. She’d had a very loud fight with her boyfriend and stormed out of the party, intending to drive home. Although the public shouting match should have been a dead giveaway, no one knew she had been drinking heavily and was in no condition to drive. Evidently, she wasn’t really in any shape to walk. High-heeled shoes and ice only made it worse. She fell, knocking herself out before she reached the car. When she came to, she made her way back to the party, but she wasn’t Judith anymore. Gerald and I were the first people she ran into. Her head was bleeding and she had no memory. We took her to the hospital, but recognizing the signs—specifically, semantic memory loss—we asked her about the pocket watch before we got there.”

  “She was a time traveler?”

  “Yes, she was. As it turns out, after regaining consciousness, Judith would have gone on to the car. Had she driven off in the state she was in, drunk and with a head injury, she would have wrecked and been killed in the accident. She might have killed someone else, too.”

  “My goodness.”

  “As I suspect you are becoming aware, Gertrude doesn’t just give the pocket watch to someone for a lark. There are always reasons.”

  “So where
was the woman from?”

  “My village. She was my wife.”

  Elsie was amazed. “Gertrude gave her the watch after all? That’s wonderful, but what about your child?”

  “That was the heartache of it all. There had been a terrible sickness passing through the village that winter. Jo was dreadfully ill and dying when Gertrude gave her the watch. Accepting the watch meant she could have sixty days with me and, under normal circumstances, could return sixty seconds later to be with our child. But in this case, even if she had done that, the outcome would have been the same. She would have died within hours of her return.”

  “So she stayed here?”

  “Yes. But our child has weighed heavily in our hearts all of our lives.”

  “You’ve never learned what happened?”

  “No. As I mentioned, when Gerald encounters someone who has used the watch to travel through time, he puts them in touch with me. I keep hoping to meet someone who travelled to or from my era who might know something.”

  “How do they find him?”

  Mr. Sinclair smiled. “Gertrude, of course. As you can imagine, traveling with the watch can result in having to make some heart-rending decisions. It helps to have someone who understands and can assist a returning traveler in coming to terms with their decisions. So, when needed, Gertrude sends them to Dr. Rose.”

  “Have you ever met anyone who knew what happened to your child?”

  “No, but that’s why I’m here. Would you tell me your story? Maybe you are the link I have searched for. Where did you come from?”

  “The Scottish Highlands, in the year 1279.”

  “Jo and I came from the Highlands, too. You are the first person who I’ve ever encountered from that far back. I left in 1260 and my wife in 1268. What clan do you belong to?”

  “I’m a Macrae.”

  Aldous Sinclair went white. “We were Macraes. Maybe you knew our daughter, surely you did. How old are you? In your own time, I mean.”