Ring of Years

by Grant Oliphant

  * * *

  Peter looks down the rows of sleeping bags and breathes a sigh of completion.

  Finally, they’re all asleep. He rubs his neck and thinks how nice it would be to join them right now. But he isn’t ready, not yet.

  Originally, they were all supposed to go together. That was the plan—both vans entering the same portal at the same time. No one getting to go first or having to go last. But then the girl came, and Tethys said that changed things. Father and daughter had to be separated. had to enter through different portals. or else they and all the others might die. So they would divide into two groups. But because different portals open at different times, contingent on their own unique conditions, Peter and his group would have to suffer through a brief delay, until the conditions were right for their portal to open.

  That, at least, was how Tethys explained it, and how all the adults explained it over and over again to Selena. Peter always suspected there was more, though, and he still does. Normally it wouldn’t bother him—Tethys isn’t accountable to him, after all. But he can’t help but think that Sara knows more than he does, and that upsets him.

  He wonders about the tape Tethys mentioned. Why didn’t she tell him about it? Was it something important that she felt she could entrust only to Sara and not to him? The very thought of it brings a tightness to his chest. Hasn’t he shown himself worthy? After all they’ve been through together, did Tethys choose Sara over him?

  He shakes his head hard to make the thought go away. How could he be so petty, he wonders. Tethys wouldn’t do that to him. And if by chance some small doubt about him had crept inside her head, then it is his job to rid her of it.

  It is his job to make her see how loyal and capable he really is.

  He knows exactly how to do it. She has given him a task: to play the shepherd. to bring the sheep home. He will not disappoint her.

  And he won’t disappoint the girl, either. She thinks she doesn’t want to be with them, but that’s just fear drowning out the truth. What she really doesn’t want is to be abandoned again, to be left alone the way she was by her father.

  By the dim light peeking through the window shades, he can just make out the chemically-induced peacefulness on the child’s face. He brushes a stray strand of dark hair from her cheek and watches the slow fluttering of her chest. The sound of her breathing is lost amid the snores and rattling exhalations around her, but he can imagine its quiet rhythm. She’s safe here, with them, among people who care about her. She may not appreciate that yet, but she will. None of these people, least of all him, will abandon her.

  “Don’t worry,” he whispers, standing to leave. “I’ll be with you the whole way, I promise.”

  He steers a narrow path out of the room, tiptoeing between the resting forms of his fellow travelers. The air has the frat-house heaviness of too many bodies in too small a space, of clothes worn too long and breath gone sour. They will have to take turns in the shower when they awake. Stale sweat smells too much like regret. Or fear.

  * * *

  The doorbell rings just as Marida’s hovering neighbor is opening the door a crack to let Natalie out. Standing on the doorstep is a man Natalie recognizes. He goes by Carter—she has forgotten his last name. They met a year ago in a film-making class, back when Natalie thought she might make a documentary about the men she met in her line of work. The instructor said her concept was unempathetic, which apparently he considered a problem. Anyway, it was enough to discourage her, and she hasn’t worked on the project since.

  When Natalie knew him, Carter was a bored-with-it-all reporter, and his presence here now suggests that at least part of that hasn’t changed. He stares at her in that blank and slightly startled way people do when they encounter someone they know in an unfamiliar setting, but he recovers quickly.

  “Natalie!” he exclaims with a pleasant grin. “What are you doing here?”

  The old lady speaks first. “You know this man?” she asks Natalie.

  She nods. “He’s a reporter.”

  “Carter McKewn, Post-Gazette,” Carter offers, which at least settles the matter of the last name.

  “Mrs. Latham is not in a state to speak with the media,” Marida’s neighbor replies icily. Natalie simplifies matters by stepping outside and letting her close the door, which she does without hesitation or apology.

  “Friendly,” Carter notes wryly.

  “Protective,” Natalie corrects.

  “Understatement.” he laughs. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here. Are you and Mrs. Latham friends?”

  “Sort of.”

  “I’ve been trying to reach you, you know. Ever since the Ralston thing broke.”

  The Ralston thing. What a quaint way of putting lt. “I have my protectors, too,” Natalie says with a faint smile, wondering how many messages from reporters her aunt hasn’t given her.

  “Any chance we could—.”

  “No,” she interjects firmly. As in, no interviews, no profiles, no quotable quotes.

  A cold breeze nips at her face. Over the rooftops of the houses across the street, a wall of dark clouds is rapidly gobbling up the sky. She briefly wonders if portals open in a downpour, and just as quickly dismisses it as a stupid question.

  God. Think. What would a little rain matter given where these people are headed?

  Carter raises both hands in a gesture of amused surrender that fools neither of them. “Had to try, it’s my job.”

  Natalie starts down the steps and it’s then she notices the lights, the ominously quiet blue-red blinking of an ambulance and police cruiser that crowd the driveway of the house next door. On the sidewalk, a small crowd has formed, heads held close in whispered consultation, hands cupped over pursed lips, somber eyes fixed on the home’s inscrutable brick exterior. Dabbing a tear from her cheek, a young woman breaks off from the group and slowly pushes a stroller up the sidewalk. A sudden gust of wind whips her buoyant blonde hair across her face, and with an anxious glance skyward, she stops to adjust her baby’s sweater, then continues on. Her eyes meet Natalie’s as she passes and she sobs something about it being unbelievable, as if Natalie knows what she’s talking about.

  Natalie glances back at Carter, who it’s a safe bet wouldn’t have passed by a scene like this without asking questions. “What happened there?”

  “How’s this for timing?” he snorts. “The lady of the house decided to off herself this morning. Of all times, can you imagine? I guess her husband just found her.”

  Natalie finds her eyes being drawn back to the Latham house. “Rough neighborhood.”

  “Rough marriage, or so the neighbors tell me. They think the husband was planning on leaving her—he was kind of a lout I guess—and she couldn’t handle it. It’s an interesting comparison, actually.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know, dueling suicides, that kind of thing. One’s prosaic, a woman despairing over her failing marriage. You can kind of understand that.” He points back up the steps. “And then there’s this. Guy has it made, nice house, family, no apparent troubles, so what does he do? He runs off and joins this weird group, drowns himself and sentences his daughter to the same fate. I mean, figure that.”

  Yeah, Natalie thinks, figure that. “Well,” she says, turning to leave.

  “Wait.” Carter steps hurriedly in front of her. “Apparently one of the victims had a boyfriend who used to be in the group. Since Mrs. Latham won’t talk to me—” He hesitates. “She won’t, will she? I mean, she’s not going to change her mind and talk with someone else?”

  Natalie shakes her head. “No chance.”

  “Then I’m going to head over there now to speak with this guy.” He continues. “You want to come along?”

  She studies him for a moment. Carter is a five o’clock shadow of a man, handsome in a perpetually end-of-the-day kind of way. His shambling gait, tussled hair and the wire glasses he keeps having to shove back up his narrow nose convey a prep school air of
studied indifference. But appearances deceive. He is fiercely curious and relentlessly observant, and whatever else

  might be motivating him now, her potential as a story is the major draw.

  It’s another reason in an already long list to say no, to just walk away, but the gauzy image of a pretty young girl posing with her prize catch keeps filling her mind. She wavers, tempted by the enticing notion that maybe there is such a thing as a second chance.

  She is still pondering that possibility when a woman comes hurtling down the steps. Momentarily frozen, Natalie watches her charge down the sidewalk and through the knot of startled bystanders. The woman is moving so quickly that she’s halfway up the steps leading to the dead woman’s house before Natalie realizes it’s Marida.

  8

  Wouldn’t You Like to Know?

  Downstairs in the kitchen, Sara is poring over one of those unwieldy maps you can never get to fold up properly once it’s opened. Near its upper edge she has drawn a circle in thick black ink around a tiny blob of blue.

  Peter looks over her shoulder and smiles. Their portal. in her meticulous, anal-retentive way, Sara is plotting the course they have both already committed to memory. “Doesn’t look like much from here, does it?” he asks.

  “What do you mean by that?” Sara snaps, not looking up.

  “You know,” he shrugs. “Just that it’s not the sort of place you’d expect to find a portal.”

  “That’s the whole point Peter,” she says snidely. “Tethys told us the portals are hidden where most people wouldn’t think to look, remember? You haven’t forgotten that already, have you?”

  “Of course not.” Why does she always have to do this, deliberately misinterpret what he says, try to put him on the defensive? It was just an innocent remark. He walks around the table and collapses wearily into the chair by the window. Outside, muted sunlight pours freely through the skeletal canopy of the trees. A few reluctant leaves, withered and brown, still cling to their branches, refusing to yield to the progress of the seasons. “Long night,” he says.

  Sara peers up at him through bloodshot eyes. The two of them were supposed to split the driving last night but she did most of it, insisting that they keep going in order to reach the safe house before dawn. Her body is paying the price now. “The others sleeping?” she asks.

  He nods. “Took long enough. They’re nervous, I think—probably could have used a higher dose. It’s not easy going second.”

  “Nobody signed up for easy. What about the girl?”

  “Still out.”

  “Keep her that way. I don’t want her upsetting the others.”

  Peter doesn’t bother arguing. The idea of keeping Selena drugged until it’s time disturbs him, but then maybe it will be easier for her that way, too.

  Although he would love to see her smile again, he doubts that’s an expression she will feel like mustering in the time they have left here.

  “She doesn’t believe, you know,” he says.

  “Obviously.”

  “She thinks her father actually died. That has to be pretty depressing.”

  Sara emits an irritated sigh. “She’s a child, Peter. She doesn’t get it. When we go to Atlantis, maybe she’ll understand. Until then, we just have to deal with it. Keep her under and it won’t be a problem.”

  “Fine.” There is a little television sitting on the counter by the sink. He flips it on and surfs through the channels, looking for the news.

  “You missed it.” Sara volunteers.

  “They had something?”

  She nods.

  “And?”

  “Just what you’d expect—suicide this, cult that, no surprises. They don’t get it at all. Like that little girl up there, only without any hope of redemption. Almost makes you feel sorry for them, how blind they are.”

  But he knows she isn’t the least bit sorry for anyone. Besides, they anticipated this. Whatever people don’t understand, they label insane, so of course that’s how the Portal Guardians have been cast: maniacs, psychopaths, pick your disorder. They can live with being maligned; they have been living with it for years. The only difference is the level of hysteria, now that they have demonstrated the true depth of their conviction. There’s nothing people hate quite as much as a real show of faith.

  “Safe to assume they’re looking for us now?” he asks.

  “They haven’t mentioned anything about us yet. But, yes, safe assumption.”

  And so their task has become that much more difficult. Not only do they have to cope with the waiting; now, they have to deal with being hunted. They came to this house as pilgrims but they will leave as prey.

  “It’s a shame we had to do that,” Peter says.

  “What?”

  “Phone in that tip to the police.”

  “Why?”

  “It just might have given us a little more time, before they started looking for us and all.”

  Sara abruptly rises to her feet. “Are you questioning Tethys?” she demands.

  “No, I was just—”

  But she doesn’t let him finish. “We did what we were told, that’s all we need to know.”

  Her reaction seems excessive, and suddenly his head fills with ugly thoughts. “You know, don’t you?”

  “Know what?”

  “The reason we had to make that call. Tethys told you, didn’t she?”

  Sara stares at him blankly. “Since when do I have to answer to you? I suggest you just start focusing on the task at hand.” Angrily, she storms out of the room and disappears up the stairs.

  Peter knows he should follow her, calm her down, maybe get some sleep.

  But he is so confused. Is Sara hiding something from him?

  No, he decides, it doesn’t matter. Sara is right: he should just focus on the task at hand.

  Trying to draw strength from the quiet. he stares out the window and tries to imagine how the house looks from the outside. It’s one of those log cabins-in-a-kit, pioneer ambiance with just the right modern touches. The place is barely visible from the road, which is what he likes about it. That and the fact there are no neighbors nearby.

  They will be safe here until the portal opens, which it will soon enough. This will be just a minor delay, not even a teardrop in the sea of time they are about to rejoin. Still, he can’t help wishing the sun along its ponderous path, willing night to fall and bring them that much closer to their time.

  Three nights, Tethys told them. Three nights and no more.

  On the third night, they will be free to go.

  * * *

  Selena’s mother disappears inside her neighbor’s house. “They must have been friends,” Natalie says stupidly.

  “Was that her?” Carter asks, meaning Marida.

  Natalie barely hears him. “Walt for me. I’ll be back.”

  He cries, “Natalie, hold on!” but by then she is already running. Marida flashed by her in a blur, but there was no mistaking the fresh expression of anguish on her face. It was like an ancient painting after it has been restored, all vibrant and clear, a stunning evocation of deep misery. For whatever reason, her desolation in that moment has touched a chord in Natalie. She doesn’t want Marida to be alone. not now. not to deal with another loss.

  She passes the bystanders and someone yells “Hey!” like they want her to stop. But a strange thought sneaks in and propels Natalie up the deceased woman’s steps: I’m all she has. So compelling is that notion, which she acknowledges as ridiculous even as it’s dictating her actions, that she follows Marida’s example and bursts through her neighbor’s doorway unannounced.

  “Marida!” she cries.

  Something hard slams into her waist and knees, and the upper part of her body pitches forward onto a slithery sort of surface that feels like it belongs to some kind of big black pouch full of rocks. As she grabs onto it to steady herself, the pouch tips sideways. Instinct kicks in, and instead of letting go Natalie latches onto the bulky package as she falls to th
e floor. pulling it down with a skull-rattling thud on top of her.

  A pair of surprised young men struggle to lift the pouch off of her and back onto a chrome gurney, and she instantly realizes what she has done.

  There’s a thick zipper running the length of the unwieldy bag, and hanging out of one end is a sticky strand of dark hair that slides along Natalie’s cheek as she looks up. “Oh God,” she screams, horrified. ‘‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

  Almost a comic moment if it weren’t so horrible and happening to her. It’s not a pouch full of rocks, but a body bag full of Marida’s dead friend.

  One of the young men lifts Natalie roughly to her feet and asks in a stern voice if she’s all right. She fights the urge to flee. What the hell was she thinking, coming in here like this? Suddenly she is struck by the utter absurdity of the idea that Marida needs her company right now; what Marida needs is help finding her daughter, not another shoulder to cry on. The world is full of those.

  An angry but familiar voice booms out at her. “What the fuck are you doing here?” it demands, as if echoing her own thoughts.

  Dread pours over her. As she turns, not so much to respond as to face her accuser, Natalie experiences a moment of intensely compressed observation.

  It’s not like time slowing down and playing in slow motion; it’s as much spatial as temporal. When she was still young and her world was still intact her mother and father sometimes watched episodes of Doctor Who, whose titular character traveled through time in a diminutive phone booth that was, in the words of the show, “bigger on the inside.” This moment is oddly like that, a capsule of time that might seem small unless you’re the one traveling through it.

  The foyer is elegant and rich. Its wood-paneled walls are adorned with a collection of modern paintings, slashes and spritzes of paint on canvas, all apparently original. To Natalie’s right is a bright sitting room brimming with decorative modern furniture, the kind marketed locally as the reincarnations of celebrated figures, some dead, some fictional: Elvis as a table, Mr. Spock as a chair, the Cheshire Cat as a vase. Snazzy stuff—showy, expensive, way upscale.