North of Nowhere

by Liz Kessler

  I don’t think I’d ever seen so many open jaws all at the same time. I could almost see the cogs working in everyone’s brains as they tried to process this information. It was impossible — but it was true. I knew that now.

  “Mia’s right,” Grandad said. “As soon as I saw the brochure a few months ago, I knew what it was. I recognized it as though I had seen it only yesterday.”

  “Even though, for you, the last time you’d seen it was actually fifty years ago,” I said.

  “Exactly. And that was when I finally understood why I’d had that blinding headache all those years ago as a child — the one that had me bedridden for almost the entire weekend.”

  “Two different versions of you came face-to-face!” I said. I’d seen the Back to the Future films. I knew the consequences of things like that. But this wasn’t a film — it was real life. My family’s life!

  “Exactly,” Grandad said. “Young me and old me were right there at the same time. As soon as I made the connection by looking right at myself, the pain was unbearable — for both of us. That day, I realized one thing: I couldn’t go through that again. I wasn’t sure either of us could survive it.”

  “Either of you?” Mom asked. She hadn’t spoken up till now, but she was hooked on every word of Grandad’s story, just like the rest of us.

  “Either version of myself,” Grandad mumbled. “It’s weird. Having the same moment twice, fifty years apart and from two different angles. Blew my mind. I dropped off the brochure and scurried away. Got to the end of the road. And then, even though I knew what would happen, I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t resist taking one quick glance at the boy I’d once been.”

  “And you were struck with a bad headache,” I said.

  Grandad snorted. “Bad doesn’t even begin to describe it. Never had anything like it — apart from that other time.”

  “And that was the end of our romantic weekend,” Gran said. “You spent the rest of it lying on the bed in the dark, moaning about how terrible you felt.”

  “Sorry,” Grandad said sheepishly. Gran smiled and squeezed his hand in reply.

  “That was when I knew I had done what I needed to do,” he went on. “My family would come here for their vacation. I’d done my bit to ensure that would happen. But I had to be gone. There was no way I could afford to take the risk of something like that headache happening again. It could ruin everything.”

  “Ruin everything?” Mom asked.

  “I had to make sure that young Peter was in Porthaven this week.” Grandad turned to me. “He had to be here to meet you.” Then he turned back to Gran and took her hands in his. “And to go to Luffsands for you.” Holding her eyes with his, he went on. “That was why I had to leave. I couldn’t risk Peter seeing me and being incapacitated by another headache — or worse.”

  Gran stared down at the hands wrapped around her own. “All these years, you held this in,” she said. “Why did you never tell me?”

  “How could he have?” I answered for him. Hearing Grandad’s story made me realize he was the one who’d lost more than anyone in this. A whole lifetime without his family, and a lifetime of keeping the truth from his wife. “You’ve already told us what they did to crazy people. How would your family have reacted if he’d told you that he’d come from the future to save you all?”

  “Mia’s right,” Grandad said. “So many times, I wanted to say something, and I almost did. But every time, the same thought stopped me. What if you thought I was crazy, or lying, or just a plain fool? What if I lost you? How could I try to convince you of something I could barely believe myself? So I kept my secret locked away in my heart. Carried it everywhere for fifty years. Gave everyone a glib lie about being an orphan boy on his travels when they asked where I’d come from.”

  “I’ve got a question,” I said.

  Grandad turned to me.

  “How come you went over to Luffsands in the boat? You promised you wouldn’t, but you did anyway.”

  Grandad lowered his face. Looking at the table, he replied, “You think I didn’t ask myself that a thousand times?” He shook his head. “I wanted to surprise you. I thought, what’s best — doing what I’m told, or trusting my abilities and making a bunch of other people smile? Not that there were many smiles that day.”

  “Maybe not,” I said. “But think what could have happened if you hadn’t gone. If you hadn’t taken the boat and gone back to the Luffsands of fifty years ago.”

  Gran shuddered. “I don’t even want to think about that.”

  Grandad nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “And given the chance, I’d do it all again.”

  Sal’s parents were still staring at Grandad. Neither of them had spoken for a while. Their faces had completely drained of color.

  “Peter,” Sal’s mom said eventually. “Is it really you? All this — it’s really true?”

  Grandad turned to her and nodded.

  She had a tear rolling down each cheek, making identical tracks down her face.

  Sal’s dad swallowed. “Honestly?” he said. “This isn’t some kind of joke?”

  “Do I look as if I’m joking?” Grandad asked somberly.

  “Look at him,” Sal’s mom said. “It’s obvious. He’s the spitting image of your father. Oh, Peter!”

  With that, she got up and crossed over to sit beside Grandad. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she held him close. Grandad closed his eyes and held her, too.

  “Your whole life,” she whispered. “We’ve missed your whole life.”

  Grandad held her away from him and smiled faintly. “No, you haven’t,” he said. “I kept everything. I saved it for you. I knew this day would come, and I’ve prepared for it for fifty years.”

  “Your junk room!” Gran burst out. “Of course! That’s what it was for. All those thousands of things I tried to make you get rid of.”

  “And I refused to throw out a single one,” Grandad said, without taking his eyes off his mother. His mother. It seemed so strange to say it when she was probably about thirty years younger than him. But it was true. She was his mom. And Sal’s dad was his dad. Which meant Sal was his sister. Sal who was still sitting back in her seat, silent and frowning, arms folded.

  Grandad got up and nudged me to swap seats with him. I went to sit by Gran, and Grandad sat down where I’d been. “I know this is weird for you,” he said to Sal.

  “Weird? Really? Your brother goes missing and turns up the next day as an old man? Why would that be weird?”

  “You’re angry,” Grandad said. “I understand.”

  Sal swiped a fist across her cheek. “I want my brother back,” she said into her chest.

  Grandad put an arm around her shoulder. “You’ve got him, I promise. And you’re never going to get rid of him again, OK?”

  Sal kept her arms folded and wouldn’t reply.

  “Sal.” Grandad lifted her chin. “Look at me.”

  Sal looked at Grandad through heavy lids.

  “It’s me. It’s Peter. I know it’s weird — I know it’s impossible. I know you’ll probably never get over it —”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” Sal mumbled.

  Grandad laughed. “That’s more like it,” he said.

  Sal’s mouth hinted at the beginnings of a smile.

  “We’ll work at it,” Grandad said. “Together, as a family. Please, Sal. I’ve waited for this reunion for too many years. Don’t spoil it for me now.”

  Sal leaned her head against Grandad’s shoulder and let him pull her closer. “But what if you leave again?” she asked in a tiny voice.

  “I’ll never leave again,” he said firmly.

  Sal sniffed. “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “But how can you? You live miles from us now.”

  “Yes, but remember, like I said, I’ve had a lot of time to plan this.” Grandad smiled at Gran. “You know we’ve been wanting to retire for over a year?”

  “Haven’t we just,�
�� Gran replied. “Can’t get anyone to take on the pub, though, can . . .” Her voice trailed away.

  Grandad smiled at his parents. “We want you to take over,” he said.

  “You do?” his mom asked.

  I looked at Gran. “Pip, don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “They can’t just up and leave their home and jobs and —”

  “Yes, we can!” Sal’s dad said, grinning broadly. “Why on earth not? We’ve spent the last year with job losses looming over us. How about I just take the severance money and we go for it? A fresh start.” He looked at Grandad. “For all of us,” he added.

  “It’s the perfect solution,” Grandad said, glancing at Gran, then back at his parents. “We’ll all live here together, but you take over. It’s your pub.”

  “Can we?” Sal asked.

  “I . . . We . . . We’ll talk about it, OK?” her mom said. “It’s all happening a bit fast, but we’ll think about it. It’s definitely a possibility. No promises, though. Not yet.”

  Grandad nodded. Then he stood up and held his hand out. “Come upstairs to my study, Mom,” he said. “I’ve got about twenty trunks full of photos I want to show you.”

  She stood up and took his hand. His dad had his hand on Grandad’s back. “Come on, son. And don’t skip a single thing.”

  It was weird hearing him call Grandad “son.” It was weird hearing Grandad call a woman half his age “Mom.” It was all weird. And yet, as the three of them went upstairs together to share a lifetime of memories, I realized that it didn’t matter how weird it was. What mattered was that everyone had found one another again.

  Which was when I realized something I’d found, too.

  “Hey, Sal,” I said, suddenly feeling shy.

  She looked at me. “What?”

  “You realize what this means, don’t you?”

  “It means we’re not crazy. We didn’t imagine it all.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, that as well. But even better than that . . . It means we’re related.” I stopped and scratched my head. “Kind of. I think.”

  She thought for a moment. Then her face broke out into the biggest smile I’d seen since I’d met her. It made her eyes sparkle and her cheeks glow. “Hey, I think you’re right,” she said. “We’ve both sort of got a new sister!”

  “We sort of have!” I said, linking arms with her as we got up and went to join our families upstairs. “And, more importantly, we’ve both got a new friend.”

  “There’s one thing I still don’t understand,” I said.

  “What’s that?” Grandad asked. We were walking along the beach, Flake running up ahead with Mitch, Mom in front of us with Sal’s parents, and the rest of us in a line, buttoned up against the wind. We huddled a little closer together as we talked.

  “The time-travel thing itself. How did it happen?”

  Grandad laughed softly. “I asked myself that question a million times. I used to think your gran’s father had it figured out. Those early days, something had rattled him good and proper — beyond the storm and what happened to the village. There was more to it than that. I could see it in his eyes, but he never spoke of it. And he never went back out in the boat, either. After we got to Porthaven, he didn’t put a foot beyond the water’s edge again.”

  “I never asked him why,” Gran said. “I assumed the storm had taken his confidence away. It took so much else: our home, Mother’s health. But we never had a conversation about it. Not once.”

  “We couldn’t,” Grandad said. “If we did, we knew it would open up so many other questions, and they were all either too painful or too confusing. It was as if we had a silent agreement that we would never speak of it.”

  “And we never did,” said Gran, “until today.”

  “What happened to the boat?” Sal asked.

  “Father sold it when we moved to the mainland,” Gran said.

  “First thing he did,” Grandad added. “But to answer your question about the time travel, Mia . . . it wasn’t till a few months later that I had an inkling.” Grandad picked up a stick and threw it for the dogs. They raced each other across the sand, yapping and jumping around.

  “About how the time travel actually happened, you mean?” I asked.

  Grandad nodded. “When I first landed at Luffsands,” he began, “it was all so dramatic. A massive wave had thrown me out of the boat. Thrown all sorts of other stuff out, too. I went underwater for what seemed like ages, and when I came up again, it had disappeared.”

  “The boat?”

  “Yes. I thought it had sunk under a wave. I didn’t think anything more about it until two things happened.”

  “What two things?” Sal asked.

  “The first thing was when you two turned up. The boat obviously hadn’t sunk at all, because you girls were on it! Which meant something else had made it disappear.”

  “It had traveled through time!” I said.

  Grandad nodded. “Not that I registered the thought at the time. I was too busy holding on to a chimney for dear life.”

  “What was the second thing that happened?” Sal asked.

  “It was when we went back to salvage what we could from all the wreckage. It was there, washed up on the beach.”

  “What was there?” I demanded.

  Grandad looked at me. “The compass. I thought it must have gotten washed overboard at the same time I did.”

  That made sense. I remembered seeing how the stand looked as if it had come loose. “So the boat drifted back across to the mainland, but the compass washed up on Luffsands,” I said.

  “Exactly,” Grandad agreed.

  “You should have seen my father’s face when we turned up with it,” Gran said. “I’ll never forget it.”

  “He wouldn’t let the thing out of his sight, would he?” Grandad added. “The weird thing was, he’d sold the boat as soon as possible, but he held on to the compass for another couple of years. He used to sit looking at it, just staring at it, and scribbling stuff on a piece of paper. Never told us what he was writing, though.”

  “Or what he was thinking,” Gran put in.

  “Then one day, he went out and came back without it. Said he’d taken it back to where it had come from and he was glad to be rid of it.”

  “Did he say where that was?” I asked.

  “Nope. And I never asked. But a couple of years after that, I was looking for some paperwork for something or other, and I came across the scrap of paper in a drawer. Full of scribbles and arrows and a big fat ‘N’ in the corner.”

  “That was the piece of paper we saw!” Sal blurted out.

  “Exactly,” Grandad said. “I couldn’t help wondering why he’d held on to it, even though he’d gotten rid of the compass. I wanted to know what it was all about. I ended up sitting and looking at it for hours — a bit like he’d done — trying to find the clues among the scribbles.”

  “And did you find any?” I asked.

  Grandad shook his head. “Not really. But I knew one thing. It had to have been important or he’d never have held on to it, so I put it back in the drawer. Then later that same week, I was out walking with your gran and I saw something that made me stop in my tracks. We were on the edge of town and we went past the boat shop.”

  “Shipshape,” I said.

  Grandad nodded. “And I don’t know if it was because the paper with the scribbles was still fresh in my mind or what, but something suddenly clicked. A memory. I remembered you calling to me in the middle of the storm, remembered the name, Shipshape, and it hit me. That was where the compass had come from — and where it had been taken back to. I still didn’t understand what had happened, but I knew then that I had one more thing to do in order to make sure things all worked out right.”

  “You had to make sure the compass got back to me,” I said.

  “Correct. Thankfully, it hadn’t been sold.”

  Gran laughed. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen much get sold at that place in all the years I’ve been here!
”

  “Luckily for us. So I went in and bought it — but I told him I wanted him to keep it. Then I put it in a bag and addressed it to you.”

  “And told the shopkeeper to give it to me!”

  “Exactly. I put Pa’s page of doodles with it. I still hadn’t managed to make sense of them but I figured they were important somehow, and perhaps they’d mean something to you by the time you got them.”

  “And you scribbled a note on the back, so we knew we had to keep the compass with the boat,” I added.

  “That’s right. Once I’d done all that, I could more or less forget about it — apart from the bit of my brain that never stopped trying to figure out exactly what had happened back then, and exactly what that ‘N’ was all about. I was pretty sure I’d been headed north when the shift in time happened. I reckoned the compass had hit north the moment that violent wave chucked me over the side. I was thrown off the boat, and the boat was somehow thrown forward in time in the same split second. So I was left behind —”

  “Fifty years back in time,” I said.

  Grandad nodded. “But the boat came back to the present day and got washed up on the mainland.”

  “Which was how it ended up in that bay, waiting for us,” I said.

  We walked a few steps, watching the dogs run around in circles while we each processed all the new pieces of the puzzle. They were finally falling into place.

  “The compass did that thing with us too,” Sal said.

  “I suspected as much,” Grandad replied. “Tell me more.”

  “We were sailing north, and a gust of wind hit us from behind,” I explained. “That was when it all went haywire. The compass needle started spinning and we ended up in the middle of nowhere.”

  “That was it, then,” Grandad said. “That was how it happened.”

  “When the arrow pointed north and the wind hit from the south — it sent the compass spinning,” I said.

  “And somehow sent the boat back in time,” Sal added.

  “Whether there was anyone on it or not,” I finished. “Which explains how Dee’s dad could go to work on the mainland in his own time, but the boat could slip into our time. It must have happened when it moved around on its mooring so that it was facing north and then a gust of wind hit it from the south.”