Through the Swirling Cloud

by Kim Bond

  Chapter 2: In the Cave

  As promised, Callie did not use the wormhole to travel to any place or any time until the next New Year's Eve. Then she lay in bed again with Mr. Brown in her arms. Her babysitter sat unawares in the next room. Again, she felt an emotional tidal wave build up in her. She squeezed her eyes closed and pictured her Aunt Martha.

  Just as before, she was suddenly in her Aunt Martha's closet. Before she even opened the closet door, the smell of cookies and cake filled her nose. When she opened the door, she saw every room decorated with silver and gold streamers.

  Aunt Martha came running to the room where Callie stood smiling. She hugged her and said, "I have been waiting for you! This party will be even better than last year." She turned to Callie's faithful traveling companion and asked, "Right, Mr. Brown?"

  Callie answered for Mr. Brown in her lowest bear voice, "Oh yes!" She held her bear with arms straight out and ran to the kitchen. She snatched up three cookies and bit into them all at once.

  "Great idea!" Aunt Martha said. She made a three-layer cookie sandwich and bit into them all at once. With her mouth still full, she said, "I thought you would never get here! I almost could not wait to start stuffing my face with all of these delicious desserts."

  After a wonderful New Year's Eve, Callie returned back home to her bed. Instead of falling fast asleep, she sat there and wondered. She asked herself if she could travel to a different place, could she also travel to a different time? How wonderful it would be to travel back in time to when her neighbor, Denai, was young like her. Then she would most certainly want to play dollies again!

  She closed her eyes very tight and pictured Denai at the age of six (instead of eleven years old). When she opened them, she was on her neighbor's field with Denai on a bright sunny day. The blue sky was devoid of clouds, all except for the one funnel cloud that Callie traveled in on.

  Denai was preparing for a tea party with her dolls. When she looked up, she smiled at Callie. "Would you like to play dollies with me?"

  Callie smiled and sat Mr. Brown in a chair at the small table. "Yes, I would. Thank you. Mr. Brown will have a cup of tea."

  And so they played for hours and hours until it got dark.

  A woman's voice called from a closed screen door. "Time for supper!"

  Denai started walking toward the door. Then she turned to Callie. "Do please come back tomorrow and the next day and the next day after that."

  Callie promised, and she kept that promise. This younger Denai never recognized her as her small friend from next door because Callie had traveled back five years in time to when Callie was just a baby. Denai only knew she had a new best friend that appeared suddenly and often for tea parties in the field.

  All of that came crashing down when Aunt Martha announced the strange visits from Callie to her sister, Gayle.

  Aunt Martha looked away as she spoke. "I have been having a little visitor every New Year's Eve, and when I tell you... Well, you are not going to believe your ears! It's Callie! I am still not sure how she does it. Somehow she travels from her bedroom to my house and back again in mere seconds. Now, you know I am perfectly sane and a reasonable, practical person who does not lie."

  "My Callie? Is this some sort of joke?" Gayle's eyes squinted suspiciously.

  Aunt Martha told her all about the closet and the swirling cloud into the pitch blackness. She trusted her sister and decided to confirm the facts before she spoke to Callie's father.

  Gayle sat her down at the kitchen table. "Callie, tell me the truth now. Aunt Martha has told me you have been visiting her. How is that possible?"

  Callie's jaw dropped. "Well, well....it's just you and Dad are so busy....and I was all alone...and..."

  She put her hand on her shoulder. "You aren't in trouble. I just want to know how you do it."

  "That's easy. I lay in bed and think about everyone else having a good time except me. Then a big feeling comes up in my chest. I feel like I might explode, but instead I just close my eyes and wish to see the person. I visit Aunt Martha on New Year's Eve, and I go back to see Denai when she was younger pretty much every day...unless I am really tired. Then I just go to sleep."

  Gayle's eyebrows furrowed. "Denai? Going from one place to another is one thing, but going from one time to another is a whole other thing! You must never do it again." She stooped low and looked into Callie's eyes. "Do you promise?"

  Callie's smile turned into a frown. "You don't understand because you are always with all of the people you want to be with whenever you feel like being with them."

  Gayle stood up and crossed her arms. "Actually, I'm not with the people I love whenever I want, Callie. I would like to see Aunt Martha more often myself. Your Uncle Lee lives in Massachusetts, and I would like to see him more. I would love to see your Grandpa Joseph and your Grandma Lucy one more time, but they have been gone for many years now—God rest their souls. Then there's your Aunt Layna that you never even had the chance to meet because she died before you were even born. So you see..."

  Callie cut her mother's words off. "Come with me. It's easy and fun." She grabbed her mother by the hand and led her to her own bed. "Now lay down."

  Gayle huffed and puffed, but she did as she sat on her bed. She let go of her daughter's hand and took off her mauve heels before laying down on the white cotton sheets.

  Callie crawled in bed with her mother and took her hand again. "Now close your eyes." After Gayle had closed her eyes, she closed her own eyes. "Now just picture them. Picture all of the people you want to see again."

  When they opened their eyes, they saw they were in a dark mine shaft. Callie and Gayle were sitting in a little wooden cart on a track that zig-zagged and circled around as if it had no destination. Other people were riding in mine carts too.

  Callie looked behind them at the funnel swirling in the dark cave. "I'm not sure exactly how we ended up here. I'm sorry, Mommy." She turned to look at her mother's face. To her surprise, she was smiling as if she were Cinderella at a ball.

  "Look!" she said pointing to people in the other carts as they zig-zagged by them. "There's your Grandma and Grandpa. Look how young they look! Hi!" She waved.

  They waved back as if it were perfectly natural for their daughter to be there riding on a mineshaft cart.

  "And look!" Tears began to stream down Gayle's face. "It's my sister Layna! Hi, Layna!"

  Layna made a face. "Why are you crying like you are happy to see me? It's not like I am famous or anything. I am gonna pull out your hair later."

  "Oh my," Gayle whispered to Callie. She wiped her eyes quickly. "She does not even know she is dead. Don't tell her. She must be from an earlier time. She is not dead yet, and she does not need to know it is coming."

  Just then the cart came to a stop. Gayle watched her brother Lee walk up. His shiny blond hair lit up the darkness in the room. He looked as if he might be twenty years old at the most."You look so young!"

  Lee extended a hand to help his sister out of the cart and onto solid ground. "Yep, this is me when I am young. Now I have to go away. You two wait here."

  Callie and her mother sat together in the mineshaft for what seemed like mere seconds. Then Gayle saw Lee return, but he did not look young at all. He looked as if he had shrunk in size. His skin was wrinkled, and his head had only a small patch of gray brittle hair.

  "This is me when I am about to die. Before you go, there is someone I want you to meet." He pointed to a cave that was so black that it seemed there was no end.

  Gayle could sense it. Before the figure even began walking out of the blackness and into the light. She could sense it was herself—old, gray, wrinkled and ready to die. "No! I don't want to see it! Come on, Callie, let's get out of here!" Gayle grabbed Callie's hand and ran as fast as she could back down the tracks of the mineshaft where the cloud swirled into blackness.
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br />   Then Gayle and Callie were back in her bed. Gayle noticed the coldness of the cotton sheets. They really had traveled somewhere!

  Callie crawled out of bed. "That cave was a little scary, Mommy."