Bonnie was sitting between them, just looking straight ahead, no expression on her face at all.
Sherri had known Bonnie for a very long time. That was not a good sign.
The helicopter put them down in a wide, flat area where the new mining road turned and the road into Silver City left, then after Bonnie and Duster and Sherri were clear, took off to allow the second helicopter to come in.
Bonnie and Duster took off up the road at a run with Sherri following. All three of them still had on their helmets.
It didn’t take long to get to a place in the road where looking over the edge, everything below was clear, even in the predawn light.
It took her a moment to see what Duster had spotted, then she did.
About five hundred feet below them was the remains of a blue Jeep, smashed against a few pine trees that had stopped it from tumbling another five hundred feet farther down into valley.
It almost didn’t look like a car anymore.
No one could have survived that.
Sherri knew that.
She took off her helmet and dropped to the dirt off the road.
Carson was dead.
How could that be possible?
He had died on his way to see her.
She could feel the tears coming as Bonnie sat down beside her and put her arm around her.
In the back of her mind she thought she heard Carson say simply, “I’m so sorry, Sherri.”
She was the one that was sorry.
This was all her fault and she knew it.
PART FOUR
Yet Another Ghost
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
September 19, 2017
Boise, Idaho
One year had passed since Sherri and Bonnie and Dawn had sat in the Brooks Garden Restaurant, eating lunch, and Sherri had told them about the ghost in her mansion stopping construction.
Now she was back, sitting in the same booth, listening to the same sounds around them of the waiters laughing and dishes banging together as someone bussed a table.
The place smelled of fresh oregano and French bread and she felt as if she was sitting in a jungle with all the plants, high ceilings, and wood tables and chairs and wall dividers.
Just as she had felt a year before.
Only this time she felt empty. Not angry at a fake ghost as she had been the year before, but just empty.
One year ago, in this very restaurant, the events started that had led to Carson Edwards’ death.
She couldn’t believe it had been a full year.
On that cold mountain road that morning they found his Jeep, it had taken search and rescue almost three hours to arrive and rope down the steep slope to Carson’s wreck. She just sat in the dirt back against the hillside, waiting. She knew he was dead, but the confirmation had still hit hard.
She barely remembered Bonnie and Dawn helping her down the road to the helicopter and then the quick flight back to Boise.
Sherri had stayed those first few nights with Dawn and Madison in a spare bedroom and could barely remember Carson’s funeral at all, other than the fact that it was packed. A lot of people besides her couldn’t believe he was gone.
A lot of people besides her were hurting, including his parents. He hadn’t talked about them at all in the short time they had been together. Of course, at that point he had lived upwards of eight hundred years without seeing them, so there had been no reason to bring up any family.
At the funeral in the huge chapel, she had sat a few rows back, staring at the closed coffin, holding Bonnie’s hand. Outside, the day had turned gray, overcast, and cold. Just as her life had done.
The day after the funeral, she had gone home, back to the Edwards Mansion. A month before the accident, she had sold her condo in the North End of Boise, so the mansion was her home. And she intended to make it her home, just as Carson had made it his.
For the first few days, she had just wandered around the big place, thinking she was seeing Carson at most turns.
She had traded a fake ghost for a real one.
But after another week, she came to accept that he was gone. And she had stopped imagining he was there all the time.
She finally knew he would never live in the mansion with her as she had dreamed he would. And slowly, as the summer went past, she settled into what she called her zombie routine.
Her only chore, her only job every day was keeping up the mansion. She did most of the cleaning herself, most of the minor maintenance that needed to be done. She just wanted to be busy.
The mansion was still her focus.
Completely.
For some reason, she felt that if she moved on, she would lose Carson forever. And she wasn’t ready to do that just yet.
Finally, on the anniversary of the day that she had told Bonnie and Dawn about her ghost in the mansion, she went back to the same restaurant with them where everything had started.
Bonnie and Dawn had been insistent and she just couldn’t say no. She didn’t have the energy.
She was dressed in her normal around-the-house jeans, a clean dress blouse, and her running shoes. She hadn’t bothered with make-up or jewelry and had just pulled her hair back and tied it.
Bonnie and Dawn were both dressed in jeans and silk blouses. The summer was almost over, but it was still a very warm day outside.
They made small talk as the waiter came and went with their wine and salads. Then Dawn asked her how she was really doing.
“I only knew Carson for two months, but I live in his home,” Sherri said, shaking her head and stabbing at her salad with her fork. “I think the loss of the dream, a possible future, is what hurts more than anything.”
“So you fix the loss,” Bonnie said.
Dawn nodded.
“Not ready to move on just yet,” Sherri said. “I got rid of a fake ghost a year ago and replaced it with a real ghost. At the moment I’m fine with that.”
“I didn’t say move on,” Bonnie said. “I said fix the loss.”
Sherri glanced up at Bonnie, then at Dawn and shook her head. She knew exactly what they were thinking. She had considered it many, many nights while laying in that big bed in that big bedroom without Carson at her side.
“Thanks, but no. I have thought about asking you if I could go back and just meet Carson right after he built the mansion, marry him, live in the mansion until we both had to leave. But that would feel like ripping open a wound every time.”
“You could do that over and over,” Dawn said, “for hundreds and hundreds of years your time. More than any normal relationship here in this real world.”
“I know,” Sherri said, staring into her salad. And she did. In her basement she had put up white boards and worked over and over the idea of just spending twenty years, or even fifty or sixty years with Carson every time. She would eventually want more and she knew there could never be more. They would both be in a jail of the past.
It would be as if she was living with a ghost every time.
“Not interested, huh?” Bonnie asked. She seemed almost relieved.
“He would still be dead,” Sherri said, tossing her fork down. “Every time I looked at him I would see his wrecked Jeep, his casket, and know it was my fault. He died because we met. So I’m very interested, but I just can’t do that to him or me again.”
Bonnie and Dawn both nodded. That clearly had been the reason for this lunch.
Then suddenly Sherri had an idea that sounded even crazier than she wanted to admit.
They ate in silence for a moment and she mulled over the idea until it didn’t sound as silly in her mind.
She looked up at Bonnie and Dawn. “But I wouldn’t mind doing that if he wasn’t dead today.”
Both Bonnie and Dawn had been looking down at their salads and their heads came up like they were puppets pulled by the same string.
Sherri wasn’t sure why she hadn’t thought of this before. In the two months she had been with Carson, he had explained as much
as he could about time travel.
Most of the time the conversations, done over a meal or in bed after sex, had threatened to give her a headache. But what she did understand was that with every event, with every decision, there were timelines where an event happened and timelines where an event didn’t happen.
She was simply in a timeline where Carson died in a car wreck. She understood clearly that there were timelines where he didn’t die. Where he didn’t go off that road. Where they were living together and making love at night and traveling into the past together.
“What exactly are you talking about?” Bonnie asked, looking puzzled.
“I want to switch timelines,” Sherri said, smiling at her and Dawn.
Then she went back to eating her salad feeling better than she had felt in months while her two friends just sat there puzzled.
CHAPTER THIRTY
September 19, 2017
Boise, Idaho
Sherri hadn’t said any more about her idea, but had asked if she could meet with Bonnie and Duster and Dawn and Madison after lunch.
Bonnie had agreed and called Duster. Dawn said that Madison was once again off at the same conference he had taught at last year at the same time, which is why he hadn’t gone with them the first time.
Duster had said it sounded like a conversation that would need drinks and food supplied, so he had called the owner of the Brooks Garden Restaurant, the one Sherri and Bonnie and Dawn were having lunch in, and reserved a private room for one hour away.
The rest of lunch Sherri had felt almost bubbly in her excitement. Finally, they all had glasses of wine and were sitting around a large table in a private room full of far too many plants for a place that smelled of garlic.
Duster hadn’t worn his oilcloth duster or cowboy hat, but he did have on dark jeans, a silk dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and cowboy boots.
“So what’s this idea that has you all excited,” Bonnie asked. “Since you didn’t want to go back earlier and just live with Carson.”
“You ought to have seen her change mood,” Dawn said to Duster, smiling at Sherri. “Night and day.”
“The idea is that I want to change timelines,” Sherri said. “I want to live in a timeline where Carson did not die in that wreck.”
“We all do,” Dawn said.
Duster nodded, but said nothing. He was not looking happy.
“Why do you think you can change timelines?” Bonnie asked, starting to look worried.
“Because you all did,” Sherri said, smiling.
“Not following,” Duster said, putting down his wine glass.
“Carson told me the basics of time travel and timelines,” Sherri said. “I’m not a mathematician or anything, but he did explain in layman’s terms a few things you all have discovered.”
Bonnie nodded and Duster just sat there frowning. Dawn just looked puzzled.
“Two words,” Sherri said, smiling. “Monumental Lodge.”
“Oh, shit,” Duster said, leaning back.
Bonnie just sat there shaking her head.
Dawn laughed and clapped her hands together. “Damn if she isn’t right,” Dawn said. “We all grew up in a timeline without a Monumental Lodge. We jumped timelines to one that has a Monumental Lodge.”
“That’s not how it really worked,” Bonnie said.
Dawn laughed again. “But that’s how it felt.”
“And Carson always had the Monumental Lodge in his life,” Sherri said. “So he didn’t completely understand what had happened, so he said you four just jumped to his timeline in some fashion or another. It was his way of explaining it to a layman like me.”
Duster sat forward, his gaze intense. He turned directly to Bonnie. “Did we do anything critical in the last months since Carson died?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head after thinking for a minute.
He turned to Dawn. “Did you and Madison do anything critical to the future in the last few months that you wouldn’t have done if Carson hadn’t died?”
Sherri watched as Dawn shook her head, clearly thinking. “Nothing at all I can think of.”
Duster turned to Sherri. “Can you live with knowing Carson died in another timeline?”
“I can,” Sherri said. “But if we fix this, will he be actually dead in any timeline?”
Duster sat back.
Bonnie looked shocked and lost in thought.
Finally Duster said, “Shit, shit, shit.”
He stood and Bonnie stood with him. They both turned for the door.
Over his shoulder Duster said, “Someone pay for this room. We’ll pick you all up at six in the morning in front of Sherri’s place.”
“Carson and Sherri’s place,” Sherri said.
Bonnie and Duster both left without comment.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
September 19, 2017
Boise, Idaho
Sherri hadn’t slept a wink. She had packed and then paced the mansion most of the evening, resting in her television chair for a while, then getting back up and moving. She was just far too excited to sleep.
She honestly had no idea what Bonnie and Duster were going to try. She didn’t really understand exactly what had happened with the Monumental Lodge. All she knew was that they had all gone back into the past to build the Lodge, and when they got back, it had already existed.
Carson had explained that they had returned to a timeline where other Bonnie and Dusters had built the lodge. And because they had been touching the machine, they remembered both timelines.
But since Carson hadn’t been there, hadn’t been invited into the crystal cavern yet, the lodge had always been there in his memory.
In this timeline.
At 5:30 in the morning she took her backpack out to the front porch and paced there, letting the cool night air clear her mind. She had on jeans and a t-shirt and tennis shoes, and wore a Nike sweatshirt over the t-shirt. She had pulled her hair back off her face and tied it and let it be long down her back.
The traffic was light on Warm Springs Avenue, and about quarter to six Dawn pulled in driving some sort of hybrid. She parked in the driveway near the porch and got out.
Dawn came up to the porch and hugged Sherri without saying a word. Then the two of them went back to Dawn’s car to get her pack.
Dawn was dressed almost exactly as Sherri, only her sweatshirt had a hood and was a Boise State sweatshirt.
“I couldn’t sleep I’m so excited,” Sherri said.
Dawn laughed. “I didn’t get much either. Not at all like the last time we left this town this early one year ago today.”
Sherri laughed. “If I remember right, I wanted to kill anyone who smiled.”
“Doing better this time?”
“Much,” Sherri said. In fact, she was so excited, she knew she was going to have trouble with the drive, not because of being tired, but because she was going to be like a kid wanting to get there now. And now would seem like a long ways off.
Time was always relative like that.
At that moment, Duster pulled the large white Cadillac SUV into the driveway and stopped. Sherri and Dawn grabbed their packs and headed along the driveway. Sherri had put in small ground lamps along the stone driveway and this early in the morning it felt strange to be walking on those stones.
Duster got out and opened the back so they could toss in their packs, then went to the driver’s side.
Sherri and Dawn both got rid of their sweatshirts, stuffing them with their packs before going around to the large back seats and climbing in. Sherri climbed in behind Duster and Dawn behind Bonnie, just as they had been that first trip a year ago.
Only this time Bonnie wasn’t holding pillows. All four of them were very much awake even though the sun was over an hour from coming up.
A moment later they were headed down Warm Springs Avenue toward town. No one said a word until they hit the freeway and Duster put the SUV into cruise control.
“So what e
xactly is the plan?” Dawn asked.
Duster turned on a faint cab light so they could all see each other. It wasn’t bright enough to interfere with his driving. He also had the heat down, so the car had a slight chill to it, which Sherri appreciated.
“We spent the night going over the math,” Bonnie said, turning in her seat some so she could talk. “We are going to try the best chance first.”
Sherri suddenly felt her stomach clamp up. “What do you mean by best chance?”
“I went back on the first trip on May 24th, 1902,” Duster said, “when we first met Carson. So from that point forward until we all leave together, the timeline is blocked to us. We can’t be in the same place at the same time with ourselves.”
Sherri understood that.
“So we’re going to try to go back earlier in May and attach the cords to the same timeline crystal,” Bonnie said.
“Then we meet and talk with Carson,” Duster said, “give him all the information he needs to survive and how to hide that he knows anything, and then get out of there before May 24th.”
“Problem is snow around the mine, isn’t it?” Dawn asked.
Sherri glanced at Dawn. Snow blocking them in May hadn’t occurred to her at all.
“Very much so,” Duster said. “On May 24th when I went back last year, it was mostly clear. But I don’t know how long before that. We’re going to have to all go in together and walk out through the snow, down the valley until we can find some horses to buy.”
Sherri wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that, but to save Carson, at this point she would do anything.
“I’m confused a little,” Dawn said. “I know that Madison and I have lived in hundreds of timelines over the year 1902.”
“As have we,” Bonnie said, nodding. “But in the timeline, or timelines, we went back to with Sherri, the one she met Carson, we had not.”
“By our choice to go back to that point in time,” Duster said, “alternate timelines were created without us in them. So if we are going to find one of those billions that were created where we all met Carson for the first time, we have to be careful to stay in the rules of those timelines.”
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