The Unintentional Time Traveler (Time Guardians Book 1)

by Everett Maroon

  “Sure, Mom.”

  “What aren’t you telling me? Be honest.”

  Okay, don’t blink. If you blink or look up or sigh or anything she will claim you’re lying. She has some secret mother skill, the knowing skill. Smile. Sell it.

  “I wish I were still in the study and they could get rid of my epilepsy. But I’m happy to be out of the hospital and back home.” As long as she doesn’t ask me to say more, I’m okay.

  “All right. You know, being a teenager is hard. I remember.”

  Oh god, please don’t talk about this, Mom.

  “Great. Gosh, I’m so hungry. Who’s ready for dinner?”

  I put down the platter of chicken and Dad grabbed the cornbread. I tried not to drool all over the table. The food tasted so good we ate mostly without talking and Mom asked for the first time in a long time if we should play cards. If Dad was surprised he didn’t show it. I didn’t want to be the wet blanket in the group, so we went through round after round of gin rummy and then it was time for me to take my bedtime dose of medicine. I headed up the stairs knowing that the pills would knock me out in twenty minutes, but three steps up the dizziness swamped me. I grabbed at the wall on one side and the railing on the other, the brown shag carpet still under my feet. And before I could reach the landing and sit down, I was gone.

  Crickets chirped around me. I sucked in what smelled like thick summertime air. In the night I couldn’t see through the dense trees to the sky, but there was enough light coming through the leaves for me to see a little in front of me. It must be near the full moon. I took stock of my situation. Who knew crickets could be so damn loud?

  I was wearing thin leather lace-up boots that stopped just below my knees. And I had on riding pants, or some sort of trouser that had a padded inseam, and a dark button-down scratchy shirt. I patted myself. I sighed, taking it in that I was not in my body anymore. Not again. There’s being a mixed-up teenager, and then there’s this shit. I stood up. I was taller, whoever I was, than the last time because the ground was further away from me and my legs took longer to bring around with each step. I patted my head, felt a braid in the back.

  I was wearing a bra. A very uncomfortable, way too small for my frame bra at that. I dug under my shirt and tried to find the closure with my hands. Having never undone one of these I was totally confused about how to get it off of me, so I opted for the always classy ripping it to pieces technique. It was flimsy enough and collapsed under my shirt. I didn’t really have a chest that needed it anyway, or at least, I knew I didn’t need it to sustain life. Wasn’t I supposed to be excited to be this close to breasts? Isn’t this what the guys were all talking about in the locker room at gym class? As if any of them knew what the hell they were describing. I pulled my shirt open and looked down.

  Yup. I had boobs. There they were. Just hanging out, wondering where their friend named bra had gone. Maybe I’d been wearing it just to protect them from this wool shirt. Because wow, the shirt was super itchy.

  It was too much. I wanted to get a handle on what was happening to me, not have it happen when I least expected it. I hadn’t even been in Dorfpoodle’s hospital chair. What the hell? How long would I be here this time? Was I lying on the stairs at home, hoping my parents would notice me? Poor Mom. Neither of us was ready for this junk.

  I leaned against a tree, trying to snap myself out of it. Jeannine says it’s impossible that what I’m experiencing is real. I’m just in a seizure or a coma. I’m not really here, smelling warm bugs and old horse shit. I don’t really have breasts. I’m not here, I’m not here, I just want life to be normal again, even if normal means I have epilepsy. A cure isn’t worth this.

  I leaned against a tree, crying. Maybe the brain study jiggled something loose in my head? How would my parents handle it if I was even sicker than before?

  The howling of wolves snapped me out of it. Do wolves hunt people? No, right? Can I get some agreement here? I wondered, knowing that I was just talking to myself. I knew they hunted in packs, but not how many that would be, exactly. Probably they were after some woodchuck or whatever kind of small furry things lived in the forest. Baby deer. Then the howling came again, from a different place in the darkness, closer to me. I squatted down, not daring to move a muscle. All that sitting still for EEGs had finally paid off. So huzzah for that. My eyes adjusted to the low light but even so I could only make out the trees around me and the uneven ground. Recently rained on from the feel of things. The walking stick, was it near me? I felt around and found it propped up against the tree, next to me. At least I could thwack a wolf if I needed to, for whatever that was worth. I would most definitely be great at pissing off a wolf pack by bopping them with my stupid stick, so I hoped I could get out of the woods before we found each other.

  I listened for the river, and heard it come from behind me. I picked a direction uphill and hoped I’d made the right choice. My blood pulsed past my ears loudly enough that I worried I couldn’t hear everything around me. I just wanted to be back playing gin rummy with my parents at the kitchen table. Maybe this was my punishment for not appreciating my life enough.

  I walked slowly, small rocks pressing uncomfortably against the soles of my boots. My feet ached, my knees made clicking sounds as I hiked up the slope. I tried to watch out for brittle twigs because I wanted to stay quiet. Bats chirped in the trees above me, searching for insects to catch, and I hunched up my shoulders in defense, should they not notice me and fly into my head by mistake. Maybe I shouldn’t complain about the suburbs so much. I was thirsty. How I was going to press on or reorient myself, I wasn’t sure. If this was a hallucination, I just needed to wait it out, however long that took. But if this shit was for real and I was actually clambering up a hill, then I didn’t want any close encounters with bats.

  The sky seemed brighter somehow, mostly because the trees were thinning out. There was a clearing ahead, maybe even the last of these woods. The trunks of the trees were smaller, too, as if they’d begun growing more recently than in the thick of the forest. Fallen branches and the dense carpet of leaves gave way to tall grass and thistle that stuck to my sleeves and legs, but it had trouble piercing any of my clothing. That explained my ridiculous outfit. At least Jacqueline was an intelligent person, if not a fashion queen.

  I heard another sound, like a snort, and ready for an attack, spun to my right. Tied to a small birch tree was a horse. She looked at me and lowered her head a little. I walked up to her and stroked between her eyes, and she pushed into me. Then she nuzzled the pocket of my shirt, and whatever was inside mashed against my skin. I fished out a sugar cube and set it in my palm, which she ate in half a second. I untied her reins from a tree branch, and planted my left foot in the stirrup and hoisted myself up. Pulling hard, I turned her around from the edge of the woods and nudged her, hoping she’d know where to take us.

  We half-trotted along the edge of a field where a low stone wall ran miles ahead as far as I could see, and then the horse slowed to a walk. At some point I fell asleep on the back of the horse and wound up lying on her shoulders and mane. When I opened my eyes, we were underneath the doorway of a stable. The soft snores of other animals greeted us. I jump-slid off the horse and peeked outside, but nothing reminded me of the last time I’d been here. Of course that was nonsense anyway, because this wasn’t a place. This was just the interior of my jumbled brain. I was Jack Inman with a dog named King and a boring case of epilepsy. I wasn’t some girl named Jacqueline. None of this is real. Jeannine knew it wasn’t possible, so I needed to just deal with what was a delusion from a seizure.

  Delusion, delusion, I told myself.

  And yet, I still tried to find something familiar. I tied the horse into one of the stable stalls, and crept over toward the farm house, a three-story white building with a porch that ran along the front. Was this my house? It wasn’t like the house I’d seen at the top of the hill.

  As I walked I stumbled over a tree root and flew headlong into a pile of
garbage and dirt. From somewhere, a dog barked, alerting the occupants to my dangerous stalking of their tree roots on the side of the house. If it’s not the freaking wolves, it’s an attack dog. I tried to collect myself and get out of the bin, but this was taking much longer than I’d have liked. Bits of eggshell and potato peels clung to me, along with a good measure of soil.

  I tore around the back of the house, intending to get back to the stables and race away, but I stopped short, seeing the double-barreled shotgun pointed at me.

  “Hold it right there!” Then a quiet gasp. “Jac, Jacqueline? Is that really you?”

  “It sure is,” I said. I didn’t recognize the man for a minute, and then realized it was Lucas’s father. I’d never learned his name. He looked more wrinkled, with wide gray streaks running through his hair. That is a classy imagination, I thought, that can age someone in a later episode.

  He lowered the gun.

  “Imagine that. Well, what brings you back to town? You ah, you don’t smell so good.” A half-grin crept onto his face. It was the same grin that I’d seen Lucas make from up in the tree the day he fell. Before he fell, of course.

  “I had an appointment with your compost bin. Have you always lived here?” It was a stupid question to ask, but it left my lips before I could retract it.

  “No, we’re just boarding for the moment. The tavern has shut down.”

  “What? Why?”

  He walked closer to me, speaking in a whisper.

  “Jacqueline, where have you been? Nobody can drink alcohol anymore. I’m doing what I can to make a living, but I couldn’t afford to keep the building.” They must have lived in the tavern, too? I hoped it wasn’t in the tiny room with the cat and the stove.

  “Oh, of course,” I said, trying to remember from my U.S. history class when exactly Prohibition happened, like when Congress banned making and drinking alcohol. For some reason it was all wrapped up with my memory of the Teapot Dome Scandal, even though I was pretty sure they were entirely unrelated. U.S. history was first period, taught by Miss Peckerman, who also taught gym. I thought she preferred gym because she could just shout and blow her whistle, and in history those pretty much weren’t allowed. I was lucky I retained what country we were studying from all of her hatred of reading and using an inside voice.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “It sounds really hard for you.”

  A bit of stale bread fell out of my hair and we laughed. Look Ma, I’m a freak even in my hallucinations!

  “Why don’t you come inside and we’ll get you cleaned up?”

  I’d caused his son to fall out of a tree, so why was he being nice to me at all? Then it occurred to me that he hadn’t said anything about Lucas. What if the boy hadn’t survived?

  ***

  Lucas’s father boiled water on the stove, walking back and forth several times across the squeaky floorboards in the hall to bring it into the bathroom, where he poured it into the deep claw foot tub and mixed it with the much colder water from the tap. The pipes clanged and rattled every time he touched the faucet.

  “Here are some clothes,” he said, handing me a pile of dry cloth. “They’re men’s clothes but well, you wear those anyway.” He smiled at me sheepishly.

  “Thank you.”

  “Take your time,” he said, shutting the door behind him quietly. I swung the metal latch into a hook on the door, locking it more or less.

  Even though I wasn’t a fan of the rotting garbage smell I’d taken on since landing in the compost pile, I didn’t want to see myself up close again. I could be dreaming or not, but whatever this was, there was only so much I could handle.

  I took off my shirt and a worm fell to the floor. Freaking terrific. Making sure I was looking elsewhere, I lowered myself into the tub, relieved at the hot water. I watched the steam swirl upward all around me. There was no padding around the porcelain in here. Maybe this was all one big fantasy about not having seizures. After all, I’d spent how many “hours” in the woods and on a horse and I hadn’t taken even one little Klonopin pill.

  A brick of soap looked hand cut and had way more perfume in it than seemed chemically possible, but that was an advantage when dealing with eradicating the smell of decomposing food and earthworm entrails. I couldn’t help but breathe in the floral scent. Guess I should take the plunge into perfume overkill and wash my hair. I was not ready for the experience. First of all I had a shitload of hair, even if it only barely reached my shoulders. Second the long locks were like rubber bands, tangling easily, and I fought through sharp pain as I snagged my fingers in the mass of knots, yanking too hard on the roots.

  Jacqueline had a grown woman’s body at this point; it was certainly different than I’d ever seen in a dirty magazine. All of these bones were beneath a layer of softness I wasn’t used to. I wanted to avoid contact with myself so I flapped in the water, building up as many bubbles as I could produce. Once I was halfway covered, I slid deeper into the tub and let my skin burn a little. I worried I was invading someone else’s body, even as I wanted to be back in mine.

  I looked at my feet, each of which had a bright red line on the outside, along the edge, from where the boots pressed too hard against them. No wonder they ached so much.

  I stood up in the tub and gingerly got out, one leg at a time, cuddling the towel against me. Oh my god I have to dry under my breasts? Get out of here.

  I dressed quickly, noticing how ill-fitting men’s underwear were on me, but I was covered in clothes soon enough. I found a brush in the medicine cabinet and ran it through my hair, the way I’d seen my mother do, exclaiming again when it got caught up in tangles. I wiped the mirror with my hand and took a good long look at myself. Jacqueline was attractive, but probably called plain by the people who knew her. Her chocolate brown eyes were big and round on her face, and there was a small curved scar under her bottom lip. I wondered if she fretted about it when I wasn’t like, inhabiting her. If that’s what I was doing.

  Here you go acting like you’re in a real place again.

  I let the steam fog up the mirror so my reflection became a blur, and then I padded back into the kitchen to find Mr. Von Doren.

  “I knew you’d come back,” I heard behind me, from the living room where I’d just been. I turned and saw a young man holding himself up on two braces, familiar, dark long bangs dangling in front of his crystalline eyes in a way that I presumed annoyed him. His once angular face looked more square now, and a light dusting of stubble stood out on his chin and above his upper lip.

  “Lucas?”

  “I suppose it has been some time, hasn’t it?”

  “Yes, it has. How are you?” I winced because I’d asked yet another dumb question. He was standing on crutches, of course he wasn’t fine.

  “I’m well, thank you. It’s really good to see you again.”

  “How is that even possible? I made you fall out of a tree.”

  “What?” he asked, frowning. “I slipped, that’s all. I should have known better than to put myself in danger.”

  “Well, I’m sorry your legs were ruined forever.”

  He stared at me.

  “The crutches?” I pointed at his legs and then heard my mother’s voice in my head telling me not to point, so I dropped my hand quickly and pretended I hadn’t been such a dumb ass.

  Lucas laughed and didn’t seem in the least annoyed with me. “I recovered just fine after the accident, Jacqueline. These are from polio.”

  “Oh, I see. Well, I’m sorry about that, and if I hurt you after your fall.”

  “Some people get polio,” said Lucas. “As for you, well. Jacqueline, you saved my life. I owe you everything.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  I SAVED HIS LIFE. I mean, I saved his life?

  I’d thought I was at fault for distracting him, for making him fall. And here Lucas was telling me that he regarded me as a hero. My cheeks got hot, thinking of how I was stuck in this place. Well, maybe not stuck. I’d popped back out before, so ma
ybe I would again. I started fanning my face with my hands, because all of this thinking was getting me flustered.

  “There, there, where did you go off to?” asked Lucas, leaning toward me. He smiled a little bit like he knew a secret.

  “I need a drink,” I said, turning back toward the kitchen.

  “We can’t—”

  “Of water,” I said, knowing he was about to remind me that alcohol was illegal.

  “Oh, sure. Of course.” Lucas took a glass off of a shelf and crutched over to the large sink, the glass suspended between his fingers. He wasn’t slowed down at all by his weak legs.

  “Mr. Rushman got indoor plumbing last spring,” he said, holding the full glass out for me. “And this is the second house in town to own a telephone. I’d think of it as magic if there weren’t other people listening in on every conversation.” He pointed to the large black box on the wall. I’d only seen pictures of the phones with the cylinder ear piece and the cone-shaped voice receiver. It looked heavy, like it could pull the wall down with it.

  “Nifty,” I said. I didn’t share that phones were no big deal in my time.

  Outside the sunrise had made it over the top of the valley, making the rooms in here a lot brighter. I didn’t hear any farm activity in the field, though. “Where is this Mr. Rushman?”

  Lucas sighed. “We should sit down.”

  I followed him into the living room, which seemed at odds with itself. Low ceilings made it feel cramped, but large picture windows let in the prettiness of the fields and the woods at their edge. Furniture that bordered on fancy stood atop a scratched wooden floor. The wallpaper sported vines and flowers, but was bare of pictures. Looking out the front windows, I saw that we were in the lower valley. From here I could see that the town I remembered had doubled or tripled in size since I’d escaped school on Lucille’s horse. The old walking trail had become a paved road. Two black cars trudged into town with as much energy as their small engines could handle, rattling the whole way. I hadn’t seen any automobiles the last time, but Lucas had grown up, so I guessed that plenty of other things had changed in the interim. Lucas, grown up. He’d always seemed serious to me, but now there was something else about him, and I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. I figured I’d just try to get a date out of him.