Christmas in Time

by Zoe Matthews

  “I don’t think this is the portal,” Garrett finally said out loud. “When I’m done here for the day, I’ll start searching this entire ranch. I’ve got to find it.”

  That decision being made, he laid down on his back to enjoy the sun on his face. It was a partly cloudy day, and the sun kept going behind clouds before appearing again. He felt himself start to drift off, but he sat up to wake himself up. He needed to finish cleaning the barn. He stood up when suddenly everything around him went quiet for some reason. The insects that were normally buzzing and the birds that were usually chirping weren’t making a sound. Then he heard it; a faint humming. What was causing that? He walked in a small circle, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. When he walked close to the circle, the hair on his arms stood on end. He stuck his arm out and felt an energy coming from the circle.

  “This is the portal! I knew it,” Garrett exclaimed. He looked around to see if anyone could see him, but from what he could tell, anyone who was working outside wasn’t paying him any attention.

  He carefully stepped into the circle, and the humming and energy grew stronger. He centered himself until he was in the middle of the rocks. Then it happened. Whish! He became very dizzy, and he felt like he was falling. And he was gone.

  Chapter 5

  Colleen threaded some colorful yarn on the loom that sat in front of her and started to work on a new blanket. She needed to make some more blankets because her last one had sold just that morning in the art gallery. She enjoyed working the gallery and was glad her Aunt Bridget had asked her to help when she finally finished school. She had been living in Denver since she turned sixteen. Although she visited her family on the ranch at least every few months, she spent most of her time in Denver.

  She picked up a skein of yellow yarn and started to work it into the pattern she was designing on the loom. As she worked, her mind drifted. She wondered if Garrett was enjoying his time at the ranch. She expected him to be back before now, so she hoped that was a good sign. She was very concerned about him, which wasn’t unusual. Sometimes she wished she could shake him and get him to wake up. He seemed to be so focused on his previous life in the future; he couldn’t see the good that was in front of his face.

  She had loved Garrett ever since she was a young girl and knew what love was. She distinctly remembered the first time she met him. He had arrived on the ranch with Bridget, Justin, and his grandparents. Bridget had used the keys to go into the future. She had wanted an adventure. She had brought Garrett back to her time, along with his father and grandparents. When Colleen first met Garrett, he was eleven, and she was ten. He seemed amazed at his new world. He loved the idea of being on a ranch, learning how to ride a horse, and doing something none of his friends even knew was actually real: travel through time to the late 1800s. They were friends almost immediately, and they spent the entire summer together while Justin and Bridget made plans to build their new life in Denver.

  After Justin and Bridget married, Garrett moved to Denver with his father and new mother. They wanted to open an art gallery that featured local artists in the western United States. It took a while for it to be successful, but after a few years, the gallery started to do very well. During her teen years, she visited Garrett every chance she got. She had a chance to attend school in Denver as she grew older, but she hadn’t been ready to leave the ranch.

  Colleen was very self-conscious of her heritage. She had only ever known her father to be Shaun. But Shaun wasn’t really her father. Her real mother was a full blood Mouache Indian, and her birth father was an old French trapper. She belonged to a group of Indians that used to live in the Rocky Mountains a few miles from the ranch during the summer. In the fall, they always left to go to their winter grounds, wherever those had been. She never knew. She didn’t remember her mother for she died when she was a baby. Before her mother died, she had asked Shaun to raise Colleen as his own, to which he agreed. They both knew that the Indian Village wouldn’t accept Colleen as one of their own because of her mixed blood. Colleen always felt Shaun was her father, and when he married Nicky, she had treated Colleen like her own daughter. Shaun had encouraged Colleen to have a relationship with her birth family, which she had been able to do until she was eleven. During that summer, the Mouache never returned, and she never found out why. She never saw her birth family again.

  Colleen never felt anything but love and acceptance from her family who raised her, but she did feel that other people judged her for her color of skin in Denver. She knew most people accepted her because of her ties with Garrett’s family, but it was still there, just under the surface. When some people had questions, they seemed to always ask Bridget or Justin or even Garrett and his younger brothers first, before asking her. She never understood the aversion to her skin color. In fact, her skin wasn’t nearly as dark as full-blood Indians, but her hair was jet black, and she had dark eyes.

  Most of the time, it never bothered her, and she ignored the people who would ignore her or whisper behind her back. But she knew she would never marry a white man, at least not in Denver. No man would want to be married to a half-breed, even if she had been well educated and been supporting herself for a number of years now. Her skin color never mattered to Garrett, not even in the very beginning. She remembered that he once told her that for the most part, skin color didn’t matter in his time. He had had black kids, children from China, South America, and even a friend who was Arab in his class at school. He thought Colleen’s mother had been very wise in allowing Shaun to raise her. He seemed to understand what her life could have been like if she had stayed with her birth family after her mother’s death.

  Colleen chose a bright red skein of yarn and worked it into the pattern. She loved to make Indian blankets and they were very popular. The blankets she made were a decent size and could easily fit on the bed of an average size. She also made smaller ones that people could purchase as souvenirs when they visited Denver. There were a few times when rich people had asked her to make a blanket with a specific pattern. She enjoyed making those types of blankets the best, because she knew they would treasure them and the pattern wouldn’t ever be duplicated.

  She heard footsteps just outside her room and then a knock on the door.

  “Come in,” she yelled as she brushed a strand of black hair from her face.

  The door opened to reveal Matthew on the other side. “Dinner is ready.”

  “Okay,” Colleen said to her cousin. “I’ll be there in a moment. I just want to finish this new pattern.”

  Matthew nodded and then walked further inside to watch her. Out of the two boys, he seemed the most fascinated by what she did. She used to make the blankets totally by hand. She would tie the yarn she needed to her bedpost. When Justin realized she was serious about making blankets, he designed and made the loom for her, and Colleen treasured it.

  “How big is it going to be?” Matthew asked.

  “Probably about five feet wide and six feet long,” Colleen answered.

  Matthew looked into a wooden box she had by her side that had all the colors of yarn she liked to use. “It looks like you are running out of green and blue.”

  “Yes,” Colleen agreed. “I need to go purchase more, but I will need to go to that store that carries a large supply of yarn at the other side of Denver. I don’t know when I can get over there.”

  “I can go with you Saturday if you want,” he offered.

  “We’ll see,” Colleen answered. “Saturdays are our busiest days at the gallery. I might need to be there to help.”

  Matthew shrugged his shoulders and continued to watch her work on the blanket with curiosity.

  “We should go eat since dinner is ready, but would you like to help me with this blanket after we eat?” Colleen offered.

  “Maybe,” was all Matthew would say.

  They went into the dining room together. Bridget had prepared a good meal, like she usually did. They were having fried chicken, mashed po
tatoes and gravy, with summer corn. She could smell a cake for dessert.

  “This looks good, Aunt Bridget,” Colleen commented. “I’m sorry I didn’t help prepare it. You should have called me.”

  Bridget shook her head with a smile. “I knew you were working at your loom. It’s fine.”

  The family gathered around the table. After the blessing was said, everyone was quiet for a few minutes while they filled their plates.

  “I’m thinking of going to the ranch next week,” Justin announced.

  “Can we go with you, Pa?” Matthew asked eagerly.

  Colleen smiled. She knew both Matthew and David loved going to the ranch. They would probably spend their entire summers up there if they had a choice.

  Justin turned to his wife. “I asked Mr. Harvey if he and his wife would be willing to watch the gallery while we are gone.”

  “How long do you want to be at the ranch?” Bridget asked.

  Colleen could tell that Bridget also wanted to go to the ranch. She hadn’t been up since early spring. The boys were still waiting anxiously for the answer to their question.

  “I’m thinking we could stay a week,” Justin said. He turned to his boys since they were trying hard not to ask if they could go again. “Yes, boys. Of course, you would both come.”

  Matthew and David grinned at their father, and Matthew helped himself to another piece of chicken.

  “This is really good, Ma,” Matthew commented before taking a big bite.

  “Thank you, dear,” Bridget said.

  “I could stay behind if you would prefer me to,” Colleen offered. “That way you wouldn’t have to ask Mr. Harvey to help.”

  Justin shook his head. “No. You are part of this family and I think it would be good if we all went. Mr. Harvey seemed very excited to be able to help. He doesn’t have a lot to do with his time since he stopped working at the bank. “

  Colleen knew that Mr. Harvey had been working at the bank down the street since he was a young man, but he had retired just before Christmas the year before. She could imagine how hard it would be to have a job that kept you busy all day for years and then suddenly you had a lot of time on your hands when you had to quit because of old age.

  She was glad Justin insisted she should come. She would get a chance to talk to Garrett. Maybe they could go on a horseback ride to where her Indian family used to live. Or even up to a nearby lake where she knew Garrett enjoyed fishing. It didn’t matter where they went. She just wanted to spend time with him.

  Chapter 6

  A mist formed over a certain part of the Rocky Mountains. It was a small amount of mist, only about six feet in diameter. It was unusual to see this type of mist in these mountains, but no one saw it anyway, except the man who laid in the middle of it. He stayed there for a moment, disoriented, as if he couldn’t figure out where he was and how he had gotten there. He sat up and looked around. As the mist cleared he could see aspen and pine trees, a meadow of colorful wildflowers, and he could hear water close by.

  “I made it,” Garrett whispered in awe. “It worked!”

  He stood, and just as quickly as the mist formed, it disappeared. He turned a full circle as he tried to adjust to his surroundings. He knew he couldn’t stay where he was, but he wasn’t sure where he was going to go.

  “I sure didn’t plan this very well,” he muttered to himself. “But how could I? I didn’t even know for sure if that circle was the portal.”

  He looked on the ground and could faintly see the rocks that formed the circle in the ground. Dirt, leaves, and sticks covered most of them. A person who didn’t know this was a portal to the past wouldn’t even know it was there. He stepped out of the circle and started to walk around. He knew he needed to remember what this area looked like, just in case he needed to use it again to get back to the past. After acclimating himself, he walked towards the water. It was a river, likely the same river that ran along his family’s property. He saw a dirt path and decided to start down the mountain. As he walked, he grew more and more excited. The path looked well cared for, and he remembered hiking on paths like this one with his dad when he was a child. He passed a few people who were going up the path, and he greeted them with a big hello. A few returned his greeting, but most almost acted like he wasn’t there.

  It took him longer than he expected to reach the bottom of the path, and he realized he was probably walking part of the same path his family took to get to Denver. It opened into a large parking lot, and he looked around eagerly. He saw all sorts of vehicles: cars, trucks, RVs, motorcycles, and bicycles. They looked different than they had when he was eleven years old. Obviously, things had also changed in that area. He wanted to go over to one large truck and inspect it, but he knew that it could be misunderstood by the people around him. And those people! They were dressed pretty much the same as he remembered, but the styles were a bit different. He had no idea how he was going to get to the actual city of Denver. Even if the past, he wouldn’t be willing to walk to Denver.

  I’ll see if anyone is heading in that direction. Maybe they’d be willing to drive me down, he thought.

  He walked up to a man, woman, and two children who looked like they were getting in their car as if they were getting ready to leave. One of the children was crying, and the other looked very tired.

  “Hi,” he said, as he approached them with a friendly smile. “Are you by chance going to Denver? If so, can I get a ride?”

  The woman looked at him almost fearfully, and the man quickly shoved his children into the car. “No, we aren’t going to Denver,” the man said shortly before climbing in his car and speeding off.

  People are definitely not as friendly as they are in the past, he thought.

  He asked a few other people the same question and got pretty much the same response. Some of them looked at his clothing strangely, and for the first time he realized this wasn’t going to be as easy as he had expected to begin a new life in this time. He had on a hand-sewn shirt that Bridget had given to him last Christmas. And his pants - they had a flap in the front with buttons, no zipper. This was one of the things that he had really missed when he first started to live in the late 1800s. Zippers hadn’t been invented yet, and it was one of the many things that had been difficult for him to adjust to. Obviously, people around him were noticing his clothing. His shoes even looked different than everyone else’s. He knew he was going to need to get a set of modern clothing as soon as possible.

  Finally, an older man felt sorry for him and gave him some money. “If you walk down the road to the bottom of the mountain, there will be a bus you can take to get where you need to go.”

  Garrett hesitated as the man held out a twenty-dollar bill, but the man forced it in his grasp before turning away. He felt embarrassed that the man felt like he needed to give him some money, but he was also grateful. He turned to thank the man, but he was already driving away in his car. After looking at the money carefully, he put it in his pocket and started down the road. He kept on the far side of the road as far as he could get. The vehicles whizzed by him quickly, making him nervous. He had forgotten how fast they could go. As he walked, he realized he wasn’t prepared at all for being back in his time.

  But was it really his time? What if the portal had taken him to another time period? He would have to somehow find out what year it was. He knew he was in the same mountains his ranch had been in because he could see some similarities, but he couldn’t see any sign of the ranch anywhere. What had happened to it?

  By the time he made it to the bottom of the road, he was exhausted. It was starting to get dark and he was very tired. He was glad to see a bus just ahead of him and quickly boarded it. After handing the driver the twenty dollars and getting some change in return, he sat down on a seat in the very back. The bus pulled away, and he was overwhelmed. This world was so different than he expected. Things were already much harder than he had ever imagined, and he didn’t even have any idea where he was going.

/>   He knew Victoria’s home was supposed to be still around in this time, but he had no idea where to find it. He could try to find Keegan, but he only knew he was living in the future, not where his house was.

  Nothing looked as he remembered it. All of his memories of the future were as a child; they were fuzzy at best. He couldn’t even remember where he had lived. He watched very carefully where the bus was going, trying to figure out what the year was from the billboards and signs that he saw. He finally saw a large sign that was advertising a marathon that had the date on it: July 4, 2017. He was in the time he wanted to be in. The portal worked the way he hoped it would. He rode the bus for almost an hour before deciding to just get off to see what he could figure out.

  After getting off the bus, he had no idea where he was. He was tired, hungry, and thirsty. He touched the money he had left that was deep in his pocket, and he figured he could use some of it to buy some food. Seeing a store in front of him, he went inside, amazed at how large it was. He walked along the aisles trying to decide what to buy, and he was shocked at the prices. What would have cost ten cents in the past cost many times more. He could easily spend all the money he had left just buying food that would only last a meal or two. He found a restroom, used it, and drank some water at a fountain. He finally purchased a sandwich after deciding that if he was careful, it could last two meals. He would need to find a way to make money as soon as he could. He desperately started to crave a beer, but he ignored his thirst. It would be stupid to waste his money on alcohol.