“The machine! We have to use it. Now!” I told Oliver, and he nodded, placing the bag on the floor of the room. We gathered around as he set the right date and time. Loud yelling could be heard from the corridor, and I urged him on, willing him to hurry.
Faces appeared in the window of the door. A key grated in the lock and before Oliver could even flip the switch, the door was thrown open, and orderlies rushed in, grabbing us and yanking us away from our only chance of escape.
“Get off me!” Mom yelled. “Get away from my kids!”
“Now, is that any way to behave, Maggie?”
My blood ran cold at the sound of that voice, and I knew instantly who stood in the doorway behind us. Thaddeus Banes leered as he glanced from the machine then up to Oliver, Kate, and finally me.
“Well now, isn’t this a surprise! My foster children have come to visit their mother, though something tells me you two are quite different. Is that correct?”
He bent down and picked up the machine. Oliver screamed at him to put it down. But Thaddeus didn’t listen. Tucking it safely under his arm, he ordered the guards. “Take them away. We have much to discuss. All of us.”
Our screams and fighting did nothing as we were dragged out of Mom’s room, through the facility.
Desperately, I tried to shake off the hands that held me, but it was no use. The firm grip on my arms was too strong. And as I stared down the bleak hallway that stretched out ahead of us, I knew we were in terrible trouble.
Would we ever leave these this place again?
Book 4
The Final Journey
Chapter 1
I woke up groggy and confused. When I looked around and stared at my unfamiliar surroundings, I was filled with a crippling panic.
The walls were painted a sickly green, and bars were covering the window. As I swung my legs over the bed and my feet hit the floor, I strained to remember what had happened. Then all of a sudden it came tumbling back and the memories appeared in my head one after another.
We were in some type of messed up present time…and…Dad. We’d found Dad! But he was old Dad! I glanced around the room, and the full impact of what had happened made me gasp as if the wind had been knocked right out of me.
“Mom!”
We’d found Mom locked up in this strange facility and it was all because of Thaddeus! We were trapped here in this place for the mentally unstable because of him. I had no way of knowing how long we’d been here, or even if all the others were still here. But I had to get to Oliver. We had to find both our parents, and we had to find Kate!
I sprinted to the door and banged on it until my hands hurt, but the orderlies standing in the hallway ignored me. There were bars on the window, and I could barely make out their shapes through the colored glass.
“I shouldn’t be in here! Let me out!”
“Pipe down,” one of them grunted thumping on the other side of the door.
“Open the door! Where are my parents? Where’s my brother?” I banged on the door again, my palms going numb as I continued to yell. But the orderlies ignored me.
I pressed my ear to the door and listened for other sounds, perhaps sounds of Oliver and Kate also trying to get out of their rooms. There was nothing except silence. Kicking the door, annoyed, I hoped for some sort of reaction. But all I managed to do was stub my toe. I stared back at the locked door defiantly.
I wasn’t going to give up; not now that we’d found Dad. Except he was the wrong dad. And to get the dad we wanted, the one who had disappeared from our lives long ago, one of us would be forced to jump way into the future to find the real one and bring him back. My temples gave a sharp throb at the idea of how messed up everything was now, all because of me finding that stupid machine.
But at the same time, if I hadn’t found it, we’d never have found Dad at all, and we’d also never know there was a chance of bringing our original dad back to us.
“Let me out of here!” I hollered one more time.
There was still no response, no one to open the door and allow me to escape. I paced around the tiny room, rattling the bars on the window every time I passed, just in case. I needed to think; I needed to come up with a plan. But even if I did bust out of this room, what then? I had no idea where anyone else was, or the machine, or how to even use it!
“Holly!”
I froze at the whispering voice. “Oliver?”
“Yeah, down here.”
“Down where?” I spun around, searching for the voice. I had no idea where it was coming from and for a horrible second, I thought that maybe I was going crazy after all.
“Down here. On the floor near the wall. Hurry up!”
I stared at the large bed that stood against the wall. Oliver’s voice was coming from beneath it.
Glancing at the door, I could see no faces through the window, so I sank to the floor, lifted the bedsheets and peered beneath the bed. At first glance, all I found was a dark space and a dusty floor. But when I crawled further underneath, I spotted what looked like a vent cut into a section of the wall. With the bed placed directly above it, I had no idea the vent existed. Then I heard Oliver’s voice again and knew I hadn’t imagined it.
I shimmied further under the bed. “Oliver?”
“Yes,” he called back. “Kate’s in another room on the other side of mine. If we’re going to get out of this, we need to get that machine.”
“Yeah, but we have no idea where the machine is!”
“Do you think Thaddeus is going to let that thing out of his sight? I guarantee it’s with him in his office,” Oliver’s words poured out in a rush. “I know where his office is. I saw it when they dragged us down the corridor. We need to get out of here and get that machine. And we need to get Mom.”
“What about Dad?”
“I think he might have to stay here, so we can figure out how to get his other self back.”
I worried about losing Dad, even if he was the old version. Any dad in our lives was better than no dad at all. But all we could do was hope that Oliver’s idea would work.
“I take it you have some genius plan?”
“Maybe,” he replied. “If we can get out of these rooms.”
“Well, Thaddeus can’t keep us in here forever. That’s illegal, right? I mean, technically, we’re in his care,” I cringed at the thought. “Can’t we report him for abuse or something?”
“He owns this place so he can probably do whatever he wants and no one would know about it,” Oliver muttered. “It’s not like we have any other family to complain to.”
A cold chill shot down my spine at the notion of Thaddeus having such control over us. I asked Oliver again what his plan was.
“He’s going to want to talk to us soon, I guarantee it. He’s too curious about everything we’ve done not to ask us about the machine and what we did to get it working. The second we get to his office, we need to find the machine, knock him out, grab Mom and Kate, and get out of here.”
“And go where exactly?”
“Back to the time zone that Dad said we needed to go to. We have to stop Thaddeus from ever finding the machine in the basement,” Oliver replied. “Then, we have to find a way to get Dad and destroy the machine. For good.”
“You do realize that none of our plans have worked yet?” I said quietly, glaring at the vent as if I could see Oliver instead. “And I mean, none of our plans at all, not a single one. Every time we’ve messed something up.”
“Okay, Holly…be a negative Nancy! And anyway, do you have any better ideas?”
I rolled my eyes. “Just saying…every time we’ve gone back to do something small, something else changes. What if this time we go back and make things even worse?” I hated to imagine what could be worse than this, but there was always a chance.
“We won’t, have a little faith.”
I was trying, but after seeing how dark and depressing our world could be, it was hard to think of ever getting back to our happy lives,
or imagining finding a way to have Dad there with us again. To have a chance to grow up with him, see him with Mom and be a complete family was something I’d always dreamed of.
I wanted to talk to Oliver some more about it, to try to figure out a few more details. But he mumbled something about hearing keys, and when I tilted my head towards the door, I heard them too. It was the sound of something loud and clanking moving closer.
Quickly, I shuffled back out from under the bed and jumped to my feet, just as voices sounded in the hall, and a key turned in the lock. I watched the door open and found myself staring at a stern-faced woman in a blue uniform, wearing a nurse’s cap.
She stomped inside and glowered at me. “Dr. Banes would like to speak with you, now.”
“Sure, why not,” I mumbled as I stepped nervously forward.
She followed me out of the room, grabbed my upper arm, and dragged me down the hall.
“Wait, is my brother coming?” I asked, staring back over my shoulder and digging my feet in. “Stop! I want to see my brother! Let me go!”
“Dr. Banes will meet with him in due time,” the nurse informed me and pulled harder on my arm. I winced and tried to pry away her cold fingers, but her nails dug in. “Don’t make any more trouble for yourself,” she warned.
I let my legs go limp and plopped down onto the floor. The nurse tripped and almost fell to the floor herself. Yelling for the orderlies, she glared at me. “Really, what will Dr. Banes think of you?’
“I don’t care! I don’t want to see him without my brother! Let Oliver out right now!”
“OLIVERRRRRR!!” I screamed his name at the top of my lungs, but the two orderlies appeared and simply picked me up by my arms and carried me down the hallway.
I kicked and flailed, but there was no getting out of their hold. The nurse, who strode purposefully along in front of us, smirked at me over her shoulder then turned and led the way down the long hallway. I tried to bite back my fear, but couldn’t control my trembling as the men set me down outside a solid wooden office door. The nurse knocked, and a voice on the other side beckoned her to enter. She swung the door open to reveal Thaddeus seated behind a large, timber desk. His hands were folded on the desktop, and he offered up a pitying smile that I knew was completely fake.
The orderlies shoved me forward, and the nurse pointed to a chair. “Sit down and behave yourself.”
I stared defiantly back at her, and her scowl deepened so much, I thought it might become permanent.
“Thank you, that will be all,” Thaddeus said to the nurse. “Please wait outside.”
She did as he asked and the door closed with a horrible sense of finality. I refused to look at Thaddeus, and instead, allowed my eyes to wander around his office. I was convinced the machine had to be there. Oliver knew what he was talking about, he always did. So where was the machine?
“I must admit, I did not expect to see you or your brother anytime soon, at least not the versions who understood what was happening,” Thaddeus began. “Part of me hoped I would never see you, but now that you’re here, I do have several questions I’d like you to answer.”
I said nothing and kept my gaze averted.
“We don’t have to make this more difficult than it is,” he went on. “This life is admittedly very different from the one you led before. However, if you allow me to explain, I think you’ll find there are certain…advantages to remaining here in this present time.”
I sniggered at him in disgust. “You know, for being a genius and all, you’re pretty stupid. Why would I want to be here where my mom is locked up in some tiny room, my hometown is gone, and I still don’t really have my dad? Why?”
A smile remained on his face as he sighed. “In this life, you’ll be able to gain access to whatever college you want. You can travel, you can see the world, you can do and have so many things that were not available to you before. In that other life, you were trapped in an insignificant little town with a mother who barely earned enough money to make ends meet.”
My eyes shot to his. I glared at him, and he smirked. “You have so much potential, Holly, just as your brother does. He could study under me; learn everything I know. He could change the world.”
“Like you did? You made everything worse! You ruined our lives!”
“If your grandfather had simply done as I’d asked, if he had been ready to take that last step, we would never have found ourselves in this situation!” His face turned bright red, and he shot to his feet. “That machine was meant to be our destiny, and he tried to take it away from me!”
He pointed as he bellowed, and I shifted my gaze to see Oliver’s bag sitting in the corner of the room.
Alongside it, sat the time machine. It was right there, so close. I stared at it, willing myself to leap for it. But I had to get past Thaddeus, and a nurse plus two orderlies were standing guard outside the door. What chance did I have?
At the same time though, I knew the second I left that office, I’d never get another opportunity.
I had no idea what time zone the machine was set to, or if it had even changed since we arrived. But I needed to get the machine and get away from Thaddeus so I could fix this mess for good.
I inched forward in my chair, making it easier for me to bolt towards the machine. I was much closer to it than Thaddeus who would have to run around the desk to reach me. I was aware of the orderlies and the nurse outside the door, but I had an idea to solve that problem.
There was one thing making me hesitate though. I was scared to use the machine alone. Oliver always told me I was smart, but he could think on his feet, he knew how to fix that thing if something went wrong. If it malfunctioned, if it broke along the way, I’d be stuck wherever it dumped me, and there was a chance I could end up in a place without Oliver to help me make things right.
I stared at the machine, hesitant and uncertain.
“Now then,” Thaddeus suddenly said, causing me to jump in my seat. “I believe that you, your brother and I, have all got off on the wrong foot. I propose we start over.”
“Just like that?” I said, hoping I sounded nervous because of what we were talking about, and not because of what I was building up the courage to do.
“Yes. Your grandfather and your father both saw flaws in my plans. But you two, you have so much you can help me to achieve, starting with telling me all about your adventures together. I want every detail, where you went, who you spoke to…”
He kept going, but I stopped listening as a new part of my crazy plan appeared in my head. During our first adventure back in time, I saw myself, and I started to disappear. If I used that machine and dragged Thaddeus with me…all he had to do was see himself and he’d be gone! Finished! I gulped at the idea of technically ending someone’s life, but he was the reason Dad left us, and probably the reason that Grandpa died. He was the reason for all of this. Thaddeus wasn’t a man. He was a monster. And I was going to stop him.
Knowing if I waited any longer I’d lose my nerve, I gripped the arms of the chair, took a deep breath, and lunged for the machine.
“Stop!” Thaddeus bellowed. I ignored him and flicked the lock on the office door as I passed by.
I sank to the floor and grabbed the machine, flipping the switch and holding on tight as Thaddeus hurried towards me. He grabbed for it, but I grasped it even more firmly and twisted it away to prevent him from reaching the switch. Blue light slipped out, surrounding us. As he yelled at me, the orderlies banged on the door, trying to force it open.
“What have you done?” he shouted, yanking even harder. But I had a death grip on the machine and wasn’t about to give it up. “Stop! You don’t know what you’re doing!” he yelled hysterically.
What he said was true, but I wasn’t about to stop now.
Blue light filled the office. The walls, his desk, and the items on top began to spin and shake. His hands almost knocked the dials out of place, but I stumbled back from him, clutching the machine to my chest.
>
Then I realized too late what was about to happen. Disappearing from that time zone, I landed hard on an office floor…without Thaddeus. He’d let go too soon.
“No!” I muttered, filled with frustration as I pushed to my feet. Now I’d have to find another way to make him face himself. But at least, I had the machine.
When I glanced around, my brain registered the fact that I was still in the facility. I gulped as I realized how bad of an idea this was. I hadn’t done anything except go back to the day we’d arrived in town. This meant I had a chance of running into myself.
But that also meant I could find Oliver and Kate!
I dug around the office until I found a bag that could hold the machine. Hands shaking, I managed to get it tucked out of sight, and I quickly slung the bag over my shoulder. Then, quietly and slowly, I opened the office door. There were no orderlies and no nurse.
All I had to do was get out of the building and find a way to get back to town…without running into myself and disappearing for good.
Chapter 2
Following the path that led along the side of the road, I set off at a fast pace in the direction we had come from. Although it had only been a short drive in the car with Dad, it took much, much longer to walk. By the time I saw the familiar streets of our town, still rundown and haunted looking, several hours had passed, and I was exhausted.
I sat on the ground for a few minutes to rest my cramped legs. On the bright side, when Oliver, Kate and I had originally landed in this old and shabby township, I was sure it had been a little later in the day. Because of this, I now had time to get prepared and avoid the chance of bumping into myself.
The machine on my back was heavy, but I wasn’t about to remove it, just in case. I might not have seen Thaddeus when I left the facility, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know where I was, or what I was up to. That man seemed to show up where we least expected him, and this time…this time I was going to be ready.
Time Traveler - Books 1, 2, 3 & 4: Books for Girls aged 9-12 Page 23