by Fae York
Emelia was sure that, even if she weren’t in hiding, a break from her regular routine would have been necessary. Though trying to focus on the here and now, it was difficult not to dwell on her grief.
After she had shoved all her belongings into dresser drawers, Emelia threw herself onto the king size bed. She thought briefly about reading a few chapters in her spy novel, but her grumbling stomach would not be ignored. She would have to make some breakfast before being able to enjoy her latest novel.
Emelia was padding toward the kitchen when she noticed a figure in her living room, making her jump in alarm. Aleph was sprawled across the couch, laying on his side with his head propped up in his hand.
“Well, hello there,” she said, nodding as though he hadn’t just made her pee a little.
“Paint me like one of your French ladies,” he replied, moving his eyebrows suggestively.
“Oh, stop that,” Emelia commanded, rolling her eyes and hitting him with a nearby throw pillow. “How did you find me?”
“Artemis said she’s always wanted to go to Hawaii.”
“We have good taste.”
“Yes,” Aleph said very seriously, “she does.”
In the kitchen, Emelia pulled out a gallon of milk and a couple eggs from the fridge in order to begin preparing breakfast.
“Want some?” she asked.
Aleph shook his head. “Nah. Thank you though.” He pursed his lips and put his chin in his hand. “Hang on, when did you have time to go to the store?”
“I didn’t need to. While I was waiting at the gate, I booked this room and it came with a pre-stocked kitchen.”
“You, my dear, are spoiled.”
“Considering the week that I’ve had, I think a little spoiling is warranted, don’t you?” It was a bit of a loaded question, but Emelia didn’t mean anything by it.
“True. Okay, you win.” He stood from the couch and moved to join her in the kitchen where she had fixed up a plate of eggs and toast for herself.
“How are things? In your time, I mean,” Emelia asked.
“Better,” Aleph answered, shrugging his shoulders, “but not great.”
“Do you think it worked, me leaving?”
“Well, I don’t think you’ll be safe here for long, but it will definitely buy us some time.”
“So . . . what do we do in the meantime?”
“Actually, I have something that I want to show you.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring. Her ring—or her grandmother’s ring, to be precise.
Emelia’s hand went immediately to the chain around her neck.
“How did you . . .?” She stopped when her fingers found the same ring, nestled underneath the silky fabric of her tank top.
“You gave it to me, on our wedding day,” he said, turning it over and over in his hand. “Normally, I wear it all the time, but when we ‘met’ in this time period I decided to take it off. I didn’t want to freak you out.”
Emelia shot him a disbelieving look.
“I mean, I didn’t want to freak you out before I was ready to,” he clarified with a grin. “I know you said that you don’t want to talk about . . . well, us . . . but did you know that your ring opens?”
Aleph opened the special slot on his ring and leaned it toward her.
“Yes. I’ve always wondered,” Emelia said as she stared at the picture, “who or what my Grandma was looking at when that picture was taken. I’d like to think it was my grandfather. She looks so in love, doesn’t she?”
“This isn’t a picture of your grandmother. You were looking at me, Emelia,” he said.
“What?”
“That photo is from our engagement party,” he explained. “The photographer caught it when you were looking at me across the room.”
“But, I don’t understand. How can that be . . . me? I found this ring in my grandmother’s jewelry box years ago and the picture was already in it.”
“Yes, about that,” he started, taking a deep breath. “A few years ago, Artemis and I were on a mission together in 2000. While we were there, we stopped by your grandmother’s house and put the picture inside of the ring.”
“Why would you do that? Wouldn’t my grandmother have noticed?”
“Well, it was supposed to help in this mission, to convince you to come with me. Before, no one knew about the secret opening, not even your grandmother. You weren’t supposed to find the picture before I found you, but that doesn’t really matter now.”
Aleph jumped off the counter and lifted her down too, hands around her waist. They walked through the sliding door and sat out on the hammock. He slid his arm around her back and she rested her head on his shoulder.
“You’re telling me that you never noticed that the woman in the picture is you?” he asked.
“Growing up, Meredith Jane used to tell me how much I looked like my grandmother when she was young. I just figured that it was a strong family resemblance.”
“Well sure, but that strong? You’d have to be identical.” He poked her stomach playfully and asked, “Aren’t you supposed to be a master of detail, Whiz kid of the FBI?”
“Ah yes. My powers of deduction have failed me.” Emelia threw up her hands in sarcastic defeat. “I should’ve immediately assumed that a future version of myself and my time traveling husband placed that picture inside of the ring.”
Aleph looked up at the sky in mock annoyance then began to tickle her, making the hammock swing so violently that they both almost fell to the ground.
When the hammock steadied and they settled down, Aleph spoke again. “Actually, if you look on the back of the picture, there is writing . . .”
Emelia pulled her necklace out from under her shirt and opened it. She carefully peeled the picture out of place and turned it over. There was what looked like a miniscule black scribble in the center. “Are you sure that is writing? How am I even supposed to read it?”
“We have equipment in my time for creating and examining micro documents.”
“And that is useful for . . .?”
“Besides secret love messages in wedding rings?” He shrugged. “You’d be surprised.”
“Hang on a sec . . .” Emelia popped up from the hammock and rummaged through her suitcase pockets. When she came back onto the balcony, she had a small magnifying glass in hand. Smiling widely, Emelia held it up and started, “I always carry—”
“A magnifying glass,” Aleph completed. “I know. You have one in my time too. Last year you found one in a thrift store in Maryland and you screamed so loudly I almost had a heart attack. At first I thought you might be hurt but then I realized that you were just fangirling over old-fashioned detective equipment.”
Emelia pressed her lips together and returned to his side. She sat down and he squeezed her hand softly.
Holding the tiny picture between the tips of her nails, she held it under the magnifying glass and read aloud, “My past and my future are present with you. You are the safest place I have ever been. I love you, Aleph. Yours always, Artemis.”
Emelia nudged him with her elbow. “Wow, you didn’t tell me that Artemis was so sappy.”
“Hey, sappy or not that little message of yours made me cry when I first read it,” Aleph replied.
“You cried?” she teased.
“Yes. Now, moving on . . .” He slid his ring, the one from the future, onto his finger and pretended to look at something in the distance.
“Wait,” Emelia said, staring at the ring on his hand, “I thought that you couldn’t time travel with objects? How do your ring and the pictures make it back and forth?”
“Ah yes, that’s a fun little loophole that we discovered a few years ago. For whatever reason, Time doesn’t age gold. Pure gold. The ring is gold, and the pictures inside are protected, somehow, because they are encased in gold.”
“That’s . . . convenient.”
“Well, it would be, if gold was less expensive and more abundant. To carry anything large
r than a deck of cards would be incredibly expensive, not to mention heavy.”
Emelia nodded and the conversation lulled for a moment. The swayed back and forth in the hammock, listening to the sounds of the waves crashing on the shore. After a few moments, Emelia turned over on her stomach to look him in the eyes.
“Tell me about you,” she said, “the real you.”
He gave her a curious look. “The real me?”
“Yes. Tell me about the Aleph from 2131. You already seem to know everything about me, so it only seems fair that you spill some of your secrets too.”
Aleph smiled and put his hands behind his head, crossing one leg over the other.
“Alrighty, what do you want to know?”
“Hmmm . . . Tell me something that no one else knows about you,” she replied.
Aleph thought for a few seconds. “Okay. So, when I was younger, I had a friend named Osborn who no one else knew . . .”
“An imaginary friend?”
“No. He wasn’t imaginary.” Aleph smiled. “He was . . . different. I guess he had a way of avoiding other people. He taught me a lot about survival.”
Emelia leaned forward, curious. “What do you mean ‘survival?’”
“Well, where I grew up, my parents were pretty significant figures—and that meant that they were always busy. I was an only child, and I spent a lot of time in the woods. I had all these adventures in my head and Osborn was the one would always go along with me. He was incredibly smart and very knowledgeable about things like personal defense and wilderness survival—especially for a thirteen-year-old.”
“How would a thirteen-year-old know about any of that stuff?” Emelia rolled to one side and propped her head up on her elbow. “And, more importantly, why would he need to? I thought that your future society was a utopia. Sunshine and rainbows and all that other crap.”
“Like I said before, the ‘perfect’ government that was established isn’t so perfect anymore. There are people, like Osborn, who suffer because of that.” Aleph blew a puff of air to move his hair off his forehead. “To be honest I don’t know where he learned any of those things, I would imagine that he picked them up living on the street. I never really asked him about it.”
“You weren’t curious?”
“At thirteen years old, Osborn’s home life wasn’t really the first thing on my mind. We had zombies to slay and pirates to apprehend—you know, boy stuff.” Aleph turned over on his side so that they were almost nose to nose. “Now that I think about it, I actually owe more to Osborn than I think he’ll ever know. I credit some of my tolerance for time travel to what I learned from him all those years ago.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Emelia studied his face, noting a few freckles under his eyes and on the bridge of his nose. She loved moments like this.
“That was perfect. You’re good at this game.” Emelia flopped back down on her back, causing the hammock to swing rapidly to one side. “Tell me more. What else don’t I know? I’ve got a few years’ worth of information to catch up on.”
“Okay . . . hmm something else . . .” Aleph pursed his lips and stared out at the lush jungle foliage in the distance, deciding what to share next. “When I sleep alone, I like to have my right foot out of the covers. Oh, as a teenager, I was the proud owner of my very own set of vintage Disney sheets.”
“Wait,” Emelia interrupted. “Disney is vintage?”
Aleph chuckled. “Very. I can’t remember the title of the movie, but the set that my mom got me had this cute little snowman with a rounded, but sorta pointy head.”
“Oh my. Olaf from Frozen?”
“Yes, that was it.”
“You had Olaf sheets . . . as a teenager?” Emelia snorted.
“What’s wrong with Olaf? I thought he was cute.” Aleph shrugged.
“He is pretty cute,” Emelia admitted. “Although, I wouldn’t expect to see anyone over the age of ten with Olaf sheets from this generation. Or the next generation. Or the one after that.”
Aleph put his hand over his eyes and grinned. “I am not going to share my secrets with you if you insist on mocking me.”
Emelia pulled his hand down and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “No! Please keep going. No more teasing, I promise.”
“Alright,” he said, “I really love juice.”
“What?”
“I love juice. All kinds of juice. I drink juice all the time. In fact, I prefer it to any alcoholic beverage.”
“Are you kidding me?” Emelia laughed.
“Not at all. My favorite is orange juice, but I try not to discriminate. I try to drink all squeezed fruits equally.”
Emelia was just about to make a convincing case for cranberry juice when the hammock snapped beneath them. They fell to the floor, and Emelia sat up rubbing the small of her back. Aleph was glancing at his watch again, a sad look in his eyes.
“I have to go . . .” he said with a sigh.
“Already?”
“Yes, I’m sorry darling. Time is pretty inconsistent with its intervals and improbabilities.” He stood up and helped Emelia to her feet. “But I’ll be back, sooner rather than later.”
“Okay.”
Aleph pulled her into a hug and kissed her forehead, then shimmered out of sight.
☐ ☐ ☐
Over the next five days, Aleph visited Emelia as often as he could. Sometimes visits lasted for half of the day, others only lasted for an hour or so. Their time together was filled with laughter and conversations of every type, and things always came to an end when Time started to lash out. Twice while making smoothies, Aleph almost lost his hand in the blender. Once, while walking along the beach, a huge wave came out of nowhere and knocked both of them off of their feet. Though Emelia didn’t believe it, Aleph swore that one of the birds of paradise on their jungle tour was out to get him. It seemed that Time liked to give a few warning signals before putting time travelers in serious peril. Emelia was grateful for that.
Friday night came around, and Emelia and Aleph found themselves sitting across from one another at a restaurant table just off of Kiholo Bay. They had finished their plates and Aleph was in the middle of a story.
“I am completely serious,” he said. “I didn’t know your middle name until the day we were in the courthouse getting our marriage license. The court clerk had to persuade you—despite serious protest from your end—to write it out on the form so that our marriage would be legitimate. I think we were in there for over an hour arguing over its necessity.”
“That is so embarrassing.” Emelia stirred her drink. “I’m sorry I put you through that. I can be a bit stubborn sometimes.”
“Trust me.” Aleph grinned and raised an eyebrow at her. “I know.” He pushed his plate to the side and leaned forward with his elbows on the table. “Why are you so secretive about that name anyways? I don’t think I’ve ever asked.”
“Well . . . McEntyre it isn’t just my middle name, it’s my mother’s maiden name. Because it’s a bit unusual, other people tend to ask where it comes from when they hear it. After my parents’ death, I guess I got tired of explaining. It always made me think about the fact that they weren’t around anymore. I know it’s been years, and that I have spent almost my entire life without my mom, but it still stings a little. I’d rather avoid the subject if I can.”
Aleph stopped with his drink halfway to his mouth and set the glass back down on the table. “That makes sense. However, I think that the more you talk about things like that, the easier it becomes to move forward. It won’t change what happened, nor how it makes you feel, but it does get easier.”
Emelia thought about that for a moment, then nodded her head. “That’s true. Talking about it now, with you, it doesn’t hurt as much as I remember.”
“See what I mean? Baby steps.”
“Baby steps,” she agreed.
Emelia looked up at the sky above them and smiled; it was a gorgeous night. The hor
izon was a deep blue canvas, decorated with an intricate mess of constellations. She wiggled her toes in the sand underneath her chair and smiled, wishing that memories like this could last a little longer.
“Aleph?”
“Mhmm?”
“Can you tell me more about the Minutemen?” Since the attack, Emelia had spent a lot of time thinking about the future, the Minutemen, and the part that she was supposed to play in all of it. “I mean, I know that they’re some sort of terrorist group and that they’ve connected me to Artemis . . . but I just keep thinking that there has to be a bigger picture.”
Aleph sighed and sat back in his chair. “There is a bigger picture. But, to be honest, I don’t really know many details.”
“Will you share with me what you do know?”
“Of course.” He stopped talking for a moment when the waiter came to take the check then continued. “I am sure that the name Noah Thicke rings a bell for you?”
Emelia rolled her eyes unconsciously. “Unfortunately. He’s all over the news. Everyone is obsessed with him, but I don’t see the appeal. Something about him makes me uncomfortable.”
“Well, I hate to break it to you, but pretty soon Thicke will become the next president of the United States.”
A light bulb went on in Emelia’s brain and she remembered what Vane had told her in the safehouse after the attack. “Actually, I did know that. Vane told me that Thicke would mysteriously rise to power, but I forgot he mentioned anything until now. What does that have to do with the Minutemen?”
“Shhhh . . . don’t get ahead of me, darling.” He winked. “So Thicke rose to power toward the end of 2018, but no one really knows how. He is a very influential figure, a charming individual with good ideas, but the way it all worked out still seems a little too good to be true.”
“What do you mean ‘the way it all worked out?’” Emelia asked.
“I am sure that you have noticed the terrorist attacks and the overall chaos that have been prominent throughout the country in the last few years?”
