by E W Barnes
“It’s time,” Caelen said. They stood. Caelen put money on the table and followed Sharon out.
◆◆◆
It was hard to leave the illusion of safety in the warm pub and go back to where the awareness of danger was inescapable. The wind had shifted, and now ash was falling like a snow flurry in February. The smell of burning wood reminded her of the charred remains of her grandparents’ home somewhere in the future.
They had agreed that they would watch the meeting from the park. It was less likely someone would see them under the shadows of the trees, and they would still be close enough to help Rose if she needed rescuing. At 10:00 they positioned themselves across the street from the statue of Robert Clive. They could see Rose, a shadow in front of the pale stone, pacing as she waited for Kevin.
Another shadow joined her, and the shadows faced each other for a long time. Then they sat on the steps next to the statue. This was a good sign, Sharon thought and relaxed a little.
There was a terrible wailing. In the safe house it had been disturbing. Out here the air-raid siren was a terrifying sound. She felt like an animal faced by a predator, wanting nothing more than to race into a deep hole, to be safe and away from deadly claws and teeth. She was shaking. Caelen took her hand, and she held on tightly.
“What should we do?” she whispered, hardly able to get the words out.
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice ragged. The thunder was no longer in the distance and had turned into a droning sound like bees in a beehive. It was getting closer.
“We have to get them out of there,” Sharon said. She ran out from under the trees dragging Caelen with her.
She heard a whistle, high pitched and insistent, almost drowning out the low drone that sounded like bees.
Then there was silence. She felt a fist strike her in the chest, pushing against her head. There were sharp stings on her face and arms - the bees were swarming her, stinging her. The fist hit her back and her legs and there was a blinding light, then darkness.
◆◆◆
“Shar! Sharon wake up! C’mon, you gotta wake up!”
It was a man’s voice, a voice that was urgent and full of emotion. She was lying somewhere hard and lumpy and she could smell grass and burning chemicals. Her head and whole body ached. She tried to open her eyes.
“The bees got me,” she said.
“Sharon.” It was Caelen’s voice, thick and shaking. She tried to sit up, gasping at a pain in her chest as he helped her to her feet. He was covered with gray dust, and chunks of concrete that had flown toward the park surrounded them. Chunks that had been the steps on which Rose and Kevin had sat.
“Rose…” Sharon said, lurching into the street. Caelen tried to steady her, and she pulled away, staggering until she was as close to the burning crater as she could get.
She squinted in the brightness. Her eyes watered, and she could not focus. To one side of the hole she could see a dark shape on the ground. Two dark shapes, lumps in the shadows, side by side. She drew closer, risking the flames so she could be sure. She felt Caelen’s hand in hers. It was them. There was no doubt.
Rose and Kevin, her grandparents, were dead.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Caelen helped Sharon walk back to the safe house, keeping to the shadows as much as possible. Emergency vehicles and personnel hurried to the bomb site, making sure the fires were out so that Nazi bombers would have less light to aim with.
Sharon wondered what they would do with the bodies. Would they take them to a local morgue? Would they find the papers Rose had in her pocket and call the American Embassy? How would that change history to have an American citizen killed in the Blitz? What about Kevin? What papers was he carrying? Did he still have the top-secret materials he had shown to the Soviets? Suddenly she remembered her phone.
“Caelen, we have to go back! They can’t find my phone in the wreckage,” she said, trying to turn around. She was breathless from the pain in her ribs.
“It’s ok,” he said, guiding her forward again. “I looked for it. It was obliterated. There was not enough of it left for them to figure out it was an advanced technology. Just dust,” he added almost to himself.
It was getting more painful to breathe, and she wondered if she could make it to the safe house. She needed to sit for a minute or an hour or a week. As they neared the pub, she saw people standing outside watching the emergency activity in the distance.
“You all right, love?” someone asked as they passed behind the crowd. She nodded with what she hoped was a convincing expression and then returned her focus to walking and breathing.
When they finally reached the quiet security of the safe house, Sharon eased herself to into a chair while Caelen found the first aid supplies in the kitchen.
◆◆◆
There was a stinging sensation. The bees were back! She gasped, opened her eyes, and saw Caelen cleaning a cut on the back of her hand.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said. He seemed calmer now, but she knew the loss of Rose had impacted him deeply.
He handed her a glass of water and two tablets.
“Painkillers.”
She swallowed them and set the glass of water on the table. He cleaned a cut on her arm, and then on her ankle. By the time he cleaned a few small cuts on her face, the pain had dulled, and she could breathe more easily.
“All done?” she asked as he put a daub of antibiotic cream under her ear.
“For the moment, yeah.”
“For the moment?”
“You need to put a cold pack on your ribs, and I think you should clean up, first,” he said, helping her stand.
When she saw herself in the mirror in the bathroom, she understood what he meant. She was covered in gray dust. It was in her hair and her clothes, even her eyebrows. If Caelen had not cleaned her face and hands, she would have disappeared against the bathroom wall.
She was shaking again. She wet a towel and wiped off the dust with trembling hands.
Caelen was no longer in the parlor and she followed the dim light from the kitchen in the back of the house. It seemed like years ago the three of them had enjoyed their small meal together.
She could still hear rumbling in the distance. After cleaning himself up, Caelen had made tea and toast for them. She did not think she could eat but the tea was refreshing. She sipped it and the last of the trembling faded.
“How do your ribs feel?”
“They don’t hurt as much as they did before.”
He handed her a cold pack that was long and narrow to wrap around her midsection.
“This should help.”
“Where did you get ice?”
He smiled a hollow smile. “The cold is from a chemical reaction. It’s a little something from the future. Standard issue for a safe house.”
He fell silent as the thunder grew louder and they both looked at the ceiling as if they had x-ray vision that allowed them to see if a phalanx of bombers was overhead, if bomb bay doors were opening, if death and fire were heading to earth again. Sharon’s trembling returned.
“No. We won’t be bombed. The house is safe.” She glanced at Caelen. “Thinking out loud.”
“Yeah, well, I am not sure we can count on that,” he said slowly.
“What do you mean?” The trembling had reached her voice.
“I think… I think maybe Rose’s death was caused by the rapid shift anomaly. Everything we assumed about the future is now in question.”
A chill ran through Sharon. Death by bombs was suddenly not the most frightening thing in her life.
“Why am I still here?” she asked in a whisper. “My grandparents are dead which means my mother was never born, and I was never born. Why haven’t I faded away or blinked out of existence?”
“The temporal amplifier protects against paradox…” he began.
“… and if the temporal amplifiers no longer work, I won’t be protected,” Sharon finished.
An air-ra
id siren went off close by and they could hear the drone of bombers in the distance.
“We need to go back,” Sharon stood up. “We need to get the remote and go back right now.” She had left the remote on the counter in the bathroom. Ignoring the twinges in her ribs, she quickly retrieved it.
“Anything we need to make sure we take with us?” Brusqueness was barely hiding her fear and Caelen knew it.
He shook his head, and she pushed the button.
Nothing happened.
She pushed it again. There was a thudding boom in the distance followed by a long, low rumbling. The siren wailed.
She pushed it a third time. Caelen gently took the remote from her hand.
“It was in your pocket when you were thrown by the blast,” he said as he looked at it closely. “I think it was damaged.”
“Can you fix it?” She could barely get the words out.
Caelen took a deep breath.
“I can try.”
The specialized tools needed to repair temporal equipment were next to the first aid kit in the kitchen - more “standard issue” safe house materiel. Caelen now sat at the kitchen table with a flashlight illuminating the remote.
Sharon went back to the bathroom and wrapped her ribs with the cold pack. The panic had left her for now, and she was weary. She retreated to her third-floor room, no longer charming but dark and claustrophobic, each step feeling like she was pushing through mud. She wanted to lie down, to rest, to sleep, but she was
afraid she would never wake up. After staring at the bed for five minutes, willing herself to lie down and rest, she returned to the kitchen to watch Caelen work.
◆◆◆
She was in a fragrant orchard and could see houses through the trees. The trees were shaking, soft white petals drifting to the ground. As she ran through the trees, she saw a house on the edge of the grove, frightened faces in the windows. She had to get the people out. The siren was insistent, telling them, warning them. They must listen.
The sound of the siren changed. It was higher pitched and intermittent, sweet instead of demanding. She opened her eyes. Birds were welcoming a new day. The bombing had stopped.
Caelen was asleep, his head on the table. He had put away the tools, and the remote was sitting in the center of the table. She hoped that meant it was fixed and with that thought, the urgency returned. She reached for the remote, ready to wake Caelen and shift them back to the library.
A loud, sharp sound echoed through the safe house. She stiffened, sending pain through her midsection. Caelen’s head shot up, his eyes bleary. Someone was knocking loudly on the front door.
“What’s going on?”
“Someone is at the front door.”
Caelen stood up looking alarmed and left the kitchen. Sharon grabbed the remote from the table and followed him. He eased the tape off the blackout drapes in the parlor and peeked out through the gap.
“It is a group of men; some are police officers.”
At that moment, the knocking started again, then there was a metallic clicking sound. Someone was picking the lock.
Whoever it was, they were adept at it. The door was open in seconds and Sharon backed further into the parlor as five men poured into the house like water. They stopped in the parlor doorway when they saw Sharon and Caelen.
“Hello,” said one as he took a step forward. “My name is Officer Parker. We need you to come with us.”
“Why?” Sharon asked stepping in front of Caelen.
“You were seen leaving the scene of a bombing last night,” Officer Parker explained politely. “Some of our local pub goers identified you two as having been there.”
Two of the men disappeared upstairs while two others were inching their way further into the parlor.
“So? Is that a crime?”
“No, but murder and espionage are.”
“What are you talking about?” The two men moved a little closer.
“There were two bodies found in the wreckage,” he said watching them intently. “One was an official from the American Embassy. The other had top secret papers in his pocket.” Now he took a step forward.
“There was also evidence of a strange technology found at the scene. We thought you might answer some questions.”
“I am sorry, we can’t answer your questions” Sharon said, feeling a sudden sadness and remorse for the mystery they had created for the already beleaguered authorities. She reached her hand behind her and Caelen took it, his warm fingers closing around hers sending calm energy through her.
“Did you fix it?”
“I think so.”
“Fix what?” Officer Parker asked and seeing her clench her hand around the remote barked “Grab them!” to the men closing in, but it was too late. Sharon saw them lunge and then stop, like birds frozen in mid-flight.
They shimmered at double speed and then they were alone in the library.
◆◆◆
“You did it,” she breathed. She looked at the remote in her hand and then at Caelen.
“I was worried it wouldn’t work. It was banged up pretty badly. I am not sure we’ll be able to use it again.”
Sharon glanced at the bookcases next to them. “Can we get a replacement?” Caelen shook his head.
“We’d need to get one from the future, from the TPC.”
Sharon pulled the camping gear out from the crawlspace wincing at the pain in her ribs.
“I had a feeling that would be the answer.”
She dragged her sleeping bag to its usual place under the window and twitched opened the curtains to look out on the afternoon. Except it wasn’t afternoon. The sun was setting, its rays spears in the sky. Men were moving through the neighborhood, banging on doors and shouting.
“Caelen, we did not return to the same time.”
Caelen dropped the air mattress to read the temporal amplifier control panel. Before he could say anything, Sharon heard a rumble. Her thoughts first were of Nazi bombers and then the window frames creaked and the floor beneath her feet heaved.
They had gone forward in time to the day of the earthquake.
She closed the curtains and braced herself against the wall. Caelen held on to the bookcases. When the first wave stopped, Caelen stepped toward her.
“Wait,” she said. “There’s an aftershock, remember?”
“There was also a fire,” he said as she remembered in horror that this earthquake would reduce her grandparents’ home to ashes.
“We’ve got to stop it, or it will destroy the bookcases and the temporal amplifier.” The room swayed again, and they could hear the men shouting now in panic.
“Where is the main gas valve?”
“On the side of the house. My grandfather showed me how to shut it off years ago. In case of earthquakes….”
He followed her out the kitchen door to the detached garage. On a nail on the wall was a wrench her grandfather had kept for turning off the gas. She grabbed it, sucking in air at the pain in her ribs, and they headed to the side of the house where the valve was.
“What about the other homes?” Caelen asked as Sharon lined up the wrench to turn the switch on the side of the valve.
“I don’t know,” Sharon said as she strained against the stiff switch, her bruised ribs on fire.
“I don’t know if several houses caught fire or if it was one fire that spread.”
The switch gave, and she breathed in relief as it turned 90 degrees, no longer parallel to the pipe. The valve was off.
“Let’s help the others,” she said handing the wrench to Caelen.
◆◆◆
From house to house they roused people to turn off the main gas. Some were reluctant to go outside after curfew, but the earthquake made others brave as if the temblor was a reminder that there were things stronger and scarier than the police. Soon there was a small army moving through the neighborhood, helping people with their valves, or shutting off the gas at homes when no one answered their doors.
When Sharon’s ribs couldn’t take any more, she and Caelen headed back to the house. Several grateful neighbors had insisted on quietly giving them food in thanks for their help, which was a relief because they did not have the energy to shop again. They sat next each other on the floor in the library while they ate leaning against the bookcase on the wall, the other side still propped open next to them.
“You know, the bookcases aren’t even supposed to be here.” Sharon glanced over Caelen’s head at the bookcase angled above him. “You had moved them to my apartment by the time of the earthquake, remember?”
“I think this temporal amplifier is special, and that’s why they are still here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think this temporal amplifier is a kind of temporal pivot point - the place from which all the changes originated. I think the rapid shift anomaly started here and, if the Temporal Protection Corps ceases to exist, this will be the last temporal amplifier to go offline.”
Silence grew between them.
“We need to go to 1933, don’t we?” It was not a question.
“Not ‘we,’ me.”
Sharon stared at him.
“What are you talking about?”
“If the remote is broken, we could get trapped there. I was trained to deal with the possibility of not getting back to my time. You belong here, in your own time.”
“This isn’t my time, or at least not my timeline. If this timeline doesn’t get corrected, I won’t be born, and you won’t come here in the first place. You will live out your life just fine in the future. No, I should be the one to go - alone, because if I get stuck there it won’t matter.”
“It will matter to me.”
Sharon smiled sadly. “You won’t remember that I existed.”
He looked at her, hazel eyes meeting brown.
“There are some things that are never forgotten.”
He kissed her. It was like the kiss in the park in London. A good kiss, a very good kiss which she returned in kind. A kiss which would not stop for earthquakes or bombs or the end of time.