“I see,” he said. He looked at me with intensity, making me feel even smaller than I already was. “Didn’t you just come from the Traver house? At the top of the hill?”
“I-I’m a servant’s child. My mother doesn’t have any money, sir.” I should just run, I thought. He won’t catch me, either. I’m the Gingerbread Man, shazam!
He seemed to guess my thoughts, because he plucked at my shirt on the shoulder, and began walking with me over to a small green house with a front picture window. It sat in the middle of the block, two other tiny houses up close on either side. I could have tried to make a break for it, but his hand was a clamp around my arm.
He pushed open a low gate and then we were marching up a few wooden steps to the front door. The man didn’t bother knocking before he pulled open the screen door.
“Darling! Come here.” His deep voice bellowed through the tiny house. It was clean enough inside, but all of the furniture seemed fragile. Like the outside paint, most everything in there was green.
From beyond the next room a woman emerged, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel. I gasped seeing a much younger version of the woman I knew from Kentucky. Still small, she stood as tall as her bones could make her, her hands free from the gnarls of arthritis that would later deform them, but her eyes flashed the same careful wisdom she had in her older years. Knowledge crashed over me: Darling knew Melvyn Traver?
I turned the revelation over in my head. Couldn’t I just kill this body? Then there would be no Dr. Traver to terrorize a town and pull Jacqueline into his web. Of course, I wasn’t sure what would happen to me, Jack, if I did that. What if my life, or my grandfather’s, was dependent on Dr. Traver’s existence somehow?
“Papa, who did you bring me here?” She assessed me, pulling at my other arm in some kind of hand off or hostage exchange. Darling knelt down to me.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, “and it is a terrible idea.”
“What, what am I thinking?”
“If Papa brought you in here, you are full of bad thoughts, little boy. What is your name?”
“Edgar,” I said. It was as true as anything else. She stood up.
“What happened?”
Darling’s father answered for me.
“He knocked over the cart, and everything fell in the street. Now he says he has no money. So he needs to work off what he cost me.”
She stared down at me again. I wanted to know how much she understood. It was impossible, right, for her to know anything about later. Right?
“Look here, Edgar. You are going to sit on that couch, and keep your feet off of it. Don’t you move one inch. We are going to have a little chat. Go on, now.”
I walked to the couch, looking back at Darling and her father. They moved into the dining room, which came nowhere near the size or opulence of the Traver house’s formal dining room. They spoke in low whispers and I couldn’t hear them. It seemed they were arguing, and then the old man pounded across the room to me, rattling the dishes in the dining room cabinet.
“If I could chain you up in the backyard until you worked off your debt to me I sure would,” he said through gritted teeth. “But my daughter tells me there are better ways of dealing with you. You mind her, boy. If you disappoint her, you will disappoint me. Understand?”
I nodded.
“Yes, sir.”
“Sir,” he repeated, shaking his head. “Lord have mercy.”
He slammed the screen door behind him. I stayed seated.
“All right, come here, child,” she said, waving me over. I slid down until my feet touched the floor, then walked over to her. Young Darling. Again she crouched down to me. Her forehead was smooth and her dress was mended at the shoulder.
“What happened to you today? You ran away for a reason?”
“Yes, ma’am.” She looked at my swollen nose and the dried blood that clung to my nostrils. I looked at the morning sunlight filtering through the lime green curtains in the kitchen. They were pretty.
“Did you misbehave today?”
“No, ma’am. I mean, I didn’t mean to knock the wagon over.” We stared at each other for a moment. I wondered why she was pausing.
“Edgar, every bad person has some good in them.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She flashed me a smile. I could see how tired she was already at this point in the day, barely scratching noon. “Come with me.”
She led me out into the tiny back yard, mostly dirt instead of grass. At the end was a small wooden tool shed. I tried not to gasp because it resembled the burning shed in my fake memory—from a seizure I’d had years before Dr. Dorfman walked into my life. Maybe all sheds were similar. That must be it.
She opened the door and motioned for me to go in first. My heart slammed itself against my chest. It was probably pure curiosity that got me to step past her and into the shack.
There, in the corner, was a decrepit barber’s chair, and strapped to the top, an aluminum helmet with a series of wires soldered to it. It looked like a freaking electric chair for executing murderers. I screamed and turned to run, but Darling caught me on my elbow and reeled me in. I ran in place, screaming through one of her hands as her free arm wrapped around me. She was a ton stronger than she appeared.
“Just hush, boy,” she said, but she didn’t sound gruff. “I’m going to send you back now before you hurt this body, because that is not the answer. You hear me? Don’t make a mistake you can’t fix.”
I quit fighting. Back where?
“You’re going to kill me.”
Darling shushed me. “I have no plans to do that. Now sit down.”
“But, how do you know who I am?”
“Promise not to run off.”
I nodded.
“Say it, boy.”
“I promise not to run.”
She released me in the direction of the chair, still blocking my path out of the shed. I saw that the wires led to a wooden box, and from there, to a hand crank.
“Explain this, please,” I said. My voice squeaked and I really wanted not to be in a kindergartener’s body right then. Actually never again would I want to be five years old.
“You’re a Traveler, a person who can move through time.”
“It’s like, a thing?” I wanted to understand, but I was distracted by the stream of HOLY SHIT repeating in my head.
“It’s a ‘thing’ as you say. A class of people who can shift from time to time. It’s hard to control and carefully guarded by people. Like me.” She relaxed the littlest bit.
“Guarded? What do you mean? Why? How do you even join up? This doesn’t make any sense!”
“Hush, settle down now. We don’t know how Travelers are born, they just are. Most of the Guardians are related to each other in some way, but we are all sworn to secrecy. We can feel it when a Traveler comes through the time current. We are here to help you and keep your ability secret.”
“Secrets are bad,” I said, almost like a reflex.
“Oh, you think it would go well for you for everyone to know you can move through time at will?”
“I can’t control it, though.”
“You can’t yet,” she corrected me. “You will learn.”
“How am I supposed to learn?”
Darling sighed, putting her hands on her hips. Come on! I have questions! Don’t be pissed at me.
“You will learn from your Guardians, and with practice.”
“But I can’t tell anyone? How am I supposed to find a Guardian? And why don’t I have one in my real time?”
“You have a Guardian in your own time, but perhaps they haven’t made themselves known to you. They must have a good reason.”
“What good reason could there be for watching a kid worry he’s crazy? It would have been a big help two years ago!” I curled my hands into fists and wished there was something I could hit. Even though I wasn’t much of a boxer.
“Maybe your Guardian wanted to learn about you
as a person first, see how you used your ability. I may only guess at their intentions.”
I wondered what it could be. Did they think I wasn’t a real Traveler, like it was just an effect of the epilepsy study? Was I not good enough for a Guardian? What the hell am I thinking! This is bizarre! I considered running past Darling, but remembered my promise.
“Well, I want a Guardian. I have so many questions. Like why did you tell me you’re a Guardian? Are you my Guardian, or are you here for someone else?”
“Little boy, not all of the answers are your business.” She squatted down so we were eye to eye. She sighed.
“I had to step in before you did something to this boy. And I suspect you learned something important in the Traver house. Is that true?”
I nodded, hoping she would just continue.
“I am from this time, not your time, so I am only a kind of temporary Guardian for you. Your Guardian will reveal himself or herself to you at some point. Use your instincts and do right, never ill, toward anyone.”
“How can I find this Guardian if they don’t come forward? How can I figure out what I need to do if I don’t tell anyone about the time travel?” And uh, I’d already told three other people—Jeannine, Sanjay, and Dr. Dorfman. No harm had come to me. In fact, they’d all tried to help me as much as they could.
Then it hit me we probably didn’t need to destroy Aimée’s parents’ television screen. Oops.
“Some Travelers have told others—outsiders—and they are instantly a threat.” She ticked off the reasons on her fingers.
“You cannot confer your ability on anyone else. You cannot bring anyone else with you. You cannot carry even the smallest object with you as you cross through time. You are of no help to any government or powerful man. All you can do is act as a spy, yet you have every ability to run away from your stated allegiances. So in all likelihood, once word gets out you are a Traveler, you will be killed and the truth of your life covered up by your enemies. That is why we Guardians are your protectors.”
“Well, way to burst my bubble.”
“Beg pardon?”
“I just mean, that’s a lot to take in.”
“You are more than capable of it.”
I nodded, to get to move on, not because I agreed with Darling.
“So how many Travelers are there? How many Guardians?”
“Nobody knows how many Travelers there are. Many. They are born all the time, and we try to help them over the course of their lives.”
“Don’t they like, have a lot of power?”
“Do you feel like you have power?”
“I mean, I must. It feels awkward, winding up in new places when I don’t expect it. But like, I could just find a time I like and…”
“And what? Do something you wouldn’t do in your own time?”
“Well, no. But like, I have knowledge. From like, the future.”
“Have you intentionally hurt anyone with that knowledge?”
“Of course not.”
“Mmm hmm. You have a strong ethical center. You should rely on it. Well now, you need to let this little boy get back to his life.” She guided me to the metal chair.
“Where do these people go when I’m uh, inside them?”
“So many questions. Your Guardian can explain that to you.”
“I’ve been jumping around for long enough,” I protested. “I want to know what’s happening, and how to stop Dr. Traver and get back to my own life.”
She stood up and stopped fiddling with the connections.
“I don’t know what your goal is or with whom you’ve been interacting. You will have to speak with your Guardian. Although truth be told I wouldn’t be surprised if you and I meet up again. Travelers and Guardians tend to meet several times if they meet even once.”
Well, if this isn’t a completely frustrating conversation. She’s freaking talking in riddles now. She noticed my frown and patted me on my knee.
“I can tell my Papa liked you,” she continued, pressing the cap into place on my head. She leaned over the box and began cranking. It whirred as she made it turn, becoming louder and higher pitched.
“How could you tell?” I asked.
“He let you in his house,” she said. “You’re the first white person he ever willingly let come inside.”
“I recall that he yanked me in,” I said.
“Don’t be splitting hairs, child,” she said, “See you around.” And then she pushed a button on the crankbox and I was gone.
***
Nighttime, back in the woods. This felt familiar. The quality of the moonlight through the trees. The humid summer air. My scratchy, tailored clothing. I was Jacqueline. That made me grateful; I knew this body at least as well as I knew Jack’s. I appreciated her surefootedness. I enjoyed her gait and the way she cut through space. I felt more centered, as if I was better able to be me.
A flicker off in the distance knocked me out of my thoughts, and I reached for a knife I knew I’d sheathed to my belt. The wolves. Maybe I’d arrived back at the same point as before. His howling preceded his movement, and I quietly tracked back to where I knew Pie was hitched.
After some time stalking through the trees I whistled out for Pie and in the distance heard her bray back at me. I’d gotten closer at least. The back and forth howling had let up some. The pack sounded further away. Finally I saw the horse, strapped to the tree the same way as last time.
“Hello, buddy,” I said, finding the sugar cube in my pocket and feeding it to her. This replaying stuff comes in handy. She sucked it down and pushed her head against me softly. I gave her a pet and then we were off at a canter, away again from the forest. I wanted no part of that place.
I took a direct route to the Rushman farm, knowing the grid of country roads between the flank of the woods and the fields. I’d dozed on my last ride to the Rushman farm. This way was faster, although not any better. Because I traveled out in the open, I caught the attention of two men in a car who were on the lookout for anything suspicious.
Body-changing time traveler? I most indeededly fit the bill.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
AWARD WINNING PIE made me aware of the car with a snort and a head pull to the side, veering us away from the road that led to the front of Rushman Farm. I turned to look as we galloped, and seeing them track me by turning their heads—two men, wearing suits and hats, following the line Pie and I made—confirmed for me they aimed to apprehend me or worse. I clicked my tongue and changed course suddenly, away from any paved surface. Thank the baby Jesus I’m getting good at this horse riding thing.
The car jerked off the road, bouncing over the uneven grass on narrow tires not made for rocks and dirt. It was a black Studebaker Roadster, a popular bootlegger’s car because it was reliable and seated four, so the illegal alcohol could fit in the backseat, or so my research back home had said.
These guys weren’t smugglers, though. Except maybe of people. Dead people.
Pie pounded over the ground, grunting, while I looked back to see how the men were responding. If we could just lose them, I could double back later and alert Lucas and the others. There was no way we could outrun a 40-horsepower engine, though, so I tried to find terrain that would stop the car.
I was about to jump a rocky stream when the car blew a tire behind us. The sound ricocheted off the edge of the woods. Pie reared up, braying in surprise. I held on to her neck, staying in the saddle, but in the process I pulled a muscle on the underside of my leg. Fire shot through me and I yelped much like Pie had just done. I pushed the horse on, grimacing and trying to go easy on my muscle, which apparently I needed to keep riding. Terrific.
The first shot rang out and a moment later, a bullet smashed into a tree near us, startling the horse again. Pie bucked as she ran into the thick of the forest, and I tried shushing her in her ear. She settled down a little, and after we had made a little more headway, I finally let her slow down.
I needed to find a way
back to the farm, to talk to Lucas or his father. I remembered Jackson, my grandfather, someone who knew about time travel. I’d only just started talking to him when I jumped into Edgar. Because I’d totally fainted in front of him.
I’d never met my grandfather in my real life—he was a two pack-a-day smoker and had a huge heart attack delivering Wonder bread when my mother was still a young woman. But he was alive in this time, and Darling had told me to see him. His cousin, Darling. And thus related to me, Darling. Guardian Darling, who had introduced him to Jacqueline when Jacqueline was still a girl, before I’d ever jumped into her life. I had to figure out what these connections meant. Was he also a Guardian? Or just clued into the whole thing by Darling?
I let Pie drink for a while until she picked up her head and huffed at me. I fished around and found a small apple in my pack, which she gobbled up in two bites.
I headed off to find Jackson Hartle.
***
We had quite a ways to go before we’d show up at his row house at the edge of the field. As the sun prepared to set, I sniffed around an abandoned strip of train cargo cars. Judging from the height of the weeds and the rusty state of the tracks, no trains had passed through here for a long while.
I slept in fits, Pie tied to a crumbling handle on the open cargo door. The wood was rotted in places and my nose filled up from the smell of mold and old piss. I hoped the horse would alert me if I were in any danger.
People came to me in my dreams. People I missed, which seemed like everyone. But at least now I knew that I wasn’t alone, even if I felt alone a lot of the time. And I had at least some pieces of a plan—find Jackson, bring him to the Underground folks, get evidence on Dr. Traver, and stop all the potential awful things from happening, like the house fire and Jacqueline marrying Dr. Evil. And back in my world, help my mother get better, and get Dr. Dorfman’s life back on track. Okay, so it was a long list, but at least I wasn’t hopeless about it. At least, not in that exact minute. Whew.
Light broke and I fed Pie the last bag of barley that I had in the pack, and an apple I’d hoped to eat myself. I was sure she was still really hungry. We needed to find some hay bales or something. I looked toward the horizon and checked that the saddle was the right tightness for riding. I hopped up and we set off.
The Unintentional Time Traveler (Time Guardians Book 1) Page 20
