Timebound

by Rysa Walker

  “After Prudence was gone, I locked myself in a room and spent the next several weeks trying desperately to get some sort of signal from the CHRONOS key. I think I came very close to disappearing into that void—that black hole is still the only thing I can see in the medallion.”

  I hesitated. “Do you think that’s where Prudence went? Into that… black hole?”

  “I thought it was likely, at first, although I didn’t want to admit it to myself. The other possibility was that Saul had found us and that he had taken Prudence. Either way, I was determined after that point to collect every single one of the remaining keys, because I didn’t want to think of anyone else disappearing in that fashion. Twenty-three CHRONOS historians were stranded and each had a key. Most, fortunately, were headed for relatively modern eras—only four were before the fifteenth century. Several were traveling as a team, as Saul and I had done often. Twelve were handling North American history—since CHRONOS is located in North America, there is a bit of a local bias. Six were in Europe and the rest were scattered around the globe.

  “To date, I have located ten keys and a few diaries, in addition to the diaries that I had packed for my last jump. Many of the keys were passed along by family members as an odd heirloom, a strange piece of jewelry. Most people were eager to get rid of the things, which they believed to be haunted—either they or someone else said it glowed or moved, or it just gave them a bad feeling. One of the researchers who was investigating Nazi Germany—he actually destroyed his CHRONOS key and the diaries he had with him. I spoke with him briefly, just before he died, and he said he had not wanted to take any chances that they might be reverse-engineered by the Nazis, as highly unlikely as that might have been.

  “In retrospect, he made a wise choice. Had I not known that Saul, wherever and whenever he was, would have no scruples about misusing the technology, I would have destroyed every single one I found. I’m glad I didn’t destroy them, however, because about three years after the accident, I noticed the first change.”

  Katherine turned toward the computer and clicked a folder, and a file, and then an image opened. It was a scanned replica of a yellowed document with a list of names, separated into columns labeled Ladies and Gentlemen. Printed at the top were the words Woman’s Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, New York, 1848.

  “A framed copy of this document was on the wall of my office at the university from the time Prudence and Deborah were two or three years old, so they had both seen it many times. One hundred people—sixty-eight women and thirty-two men—signed the Declaration of Sentiments from that convention. But if you look carefully, you’ll see there are now one hundred and one names. There’s another name here, near the bottom of the middle column—Prudence K. Rand. And that name began to show up in other documents as well.”

  “But… why Prudence Rand? Mom’s last name is Pierce.”

  “I can only assume that Prudence decided to sign this document after she met her father—Saul Rand. She was clearly trying to send me a message, but I’m still not sure what she intended to say. Did she want me to rescue her or was she just… telling me that she knew my secret? What hurt most was not knowing… Did she know I couldn’t reach her? Did she know I was trying?”

  Katherine and I went back to the main floor, leaving Connor in the library with the computers, where he was investigating to see whether there was anything going on outside of the ordinary that might have prompted Kiernan’s warning. Something had been nagging me all through the previous conversation, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It finally hit me when we were seated in the kitchen, a few minutes later.

  “Wait, wait, wait… before, earlier this morning, you suggested that all three of them had this recessive version of the CHRONOS gene—Connor, Mom, and… Dad?”

  Katherine nodded. “It’s stronger in your father, I believe, than in Deborah. One of the nastiest arguments I ever saw between the two of them happened just after your second birthday party. I was visiting and I wore the medallion. Deborah never much cared for it—but I wanted to see your reaction. As Harry said yesterday, you were fascinated and kept calling it a ‘blue light.’ Harry casually remarked that the medallion seemed to have more of a pinkish glow. Deborah was furious. She thought I’d told him about her argument so many years ago with Prudence, and I guess she thought that we were having a good laugh at her expense. Poor Harry. He didn’t have a clue what she was going on about and couldn’t understand why she kept insisting that it was a plain bronze pendant, not pink, not green, not blue.”

  Katherine sighed heavily. “As much as Harry loved—and perhaps still loves—your mother, I’ve always wondered whether he’d have been better off if I’d never pointed him in her direction. Deborah has her good points and I love her dearly, but I think she inherited a touch of her father’s temper and—”

  “Wait,” I interjected. “Mom and Dad met at some sort of historical thing. A Renaissance fair or something like that. He was selling jewelry. He took the place of a friend because she was sick.”

  “Close,” she said with a little smile. “Harry took the place of a young lady who was quite happy to accept one hundred dollars and have someone else spend eight hours in the heat and humidity—although I don’t think Harry ever knew I paid her. He was doing it as a favor to me. And I told him that if he met Deborah, it would be unwise for him to let her know we were acquainted. He had seen her picture and said she was pretty—and I explained he’d be starting out with two strikes against him if she thought I knew him or that there was the slightest possibility that I might approve of him.”

  I stared at my grandmother for a long moment, then got up and walked to the window, watching as two squirrels chased each other up and then down the large willow in the backyard.

  “Katherine… is there anything else that I think I know about my own life and my parents that is totally incorrect? The way I heard it, Mom didn’t even introduce you to Dad until they were married.”

  “Well, that’s actually true—it’s just not the whole story. Your mother didn’t introduce us; I first met Harry when he was about eighteen. His adoptive parents had always told him that they would help him find out about his biological parents if he had questions. I was the most logical person to point him toward. His biological parents, Evelyn and Timothy, were also CHRONOS historians and were stranded in 1963—they were studying events surrounding the Kennedy assassination. I contacted them after my arrival in 1969. They were living in Delaware. They had a friend who put in a good word to help me get the research job in New York, where I met Jimmy.

  “We exchanged Christmas cards a few times. I remember them once including a picture of a small boy who would have been your father. And then I heard nothing from them. People lose touch—and that happened even more often before your Facebook and email, and…”

  Katherine refilled her coffee cup, stirring in a bit of cream from a small porcelain pitcher on the table. “After Jim’s death, I started looking for CHRONOS keys, as I told you before. In looking for Evelyn and Timothy’s keys, I learned of their deaths, and eventually found out that Harry had been adopted by a couple outside of Milford. I introduced myself to the Kellers as a friend of Harry’s mother who had just heard about her death, which was true. I said the keys were keepsakes from a sorority Evelyn and I had belonged to in college. The Kellers hadn’t seen them, but I left a card with them in case they remembered anything.

  “Later, when Harry began college here in DC, they suggested that he look me up. He had started wondering more about his biological parents and what they were like. His memories of them had faded and… well, I’d known them, so I met with him and we talked. I couldn’t give him the full truth, obviously, but what he really wanted to know was what his parents were like as individuals. I had worked with them for several years and I could give him that—anecdotes, little descriptions of things they had done.”

  Katherine sat in the window seat, adjusting the cushion a bit. “We hit it off quite ni
cely and… well, I noticed that he was drawn to the medallion when I wore it. It isn’t vivid for him—the light is faint, not neon and glaring like it is for us. But it was enough that I started to think that maybe he and Deborah might—if they were to get together and…”

  She trailed off and I just stared at her, unsure what to think. “You set my parents up hoping they would have a kid—me—so that I could… what? Go on a quest to find my long-lost aunt?” At one level, I could understand, but I was also beginning to feel a bit angry, even used. “Did you not understand what an unbelievable long shot that was?”

  Katherine stood and put her hands on my shoulders, staring directly into my eyes. “Of course it was a long shot, Kate. But it was one that I had to take—can’t you see that? And the inescapable fact is that it worked—you’re here and you… well, I’ve never seen someone who was able to lock on to CHRONOS equipment instantly, like you did yesterday. It was nearly three months before I could see anything other than a blurry vision, and you… from what you’ve said, you were practically there—wherever there was—five seconds after you grabbed the medallion.”

  I shook off Katherine’s hands. I couldn’t help but feel that Mom had been right to warn me. She’s manipulative and selfish. “Don’t you think they had a right to decide for themselves—to let fate take its course? My parents clearly weren’t meant to be together or they still would be. Maybe they’d be happier if you hadn’t interfered. They weren’t chess pieces or puppets!”

  “Perhaps they would have been happier, Kate. But their feelings, as important as they might be to you, and yes, to me as well, really aren’t the issue here.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Prudence. I know—this is about Prudence. But she’s been gone for a very, very long time. I’m sorry for your loss and for my mom’s loss, but I don’t really know what it is that you expect me to do to fix things—and I’m not sure that I’m willing to help. Maybe I’m being a bit selfish here, but someone held a freaking gun to my ribs on the Metro… and I would think you’d be a bit more worried about what is happening in the here and now than—”

  Katherine banged her hand against the counter. “You’re missing the entire point, Kate! Yes, I would love to learn what happened to Prudence. I would love for her to know that I tried with all my heart to find her, to get her back. But that is not why I tried to get your parents together and it is not why I brought you here. The fact that Prudence could change that document you saw—not just my copy, but every copy and half a dozen other bits of history as well—that is the reason we have to worry. The temporal shifts—you felt them, you knew something was wrong, and everyone around you went about their lives as though nothing had changed. Like the problem was with you, right?”

  I nodded once, still angry.

  “But the problem was not with you. Changes have been happening for the past twenty years—the two that you felt were just rather… major.” Katherine took several deep breaths, making an effort to calm down. “Despite having the chosen gift, despite the best intentions of the trainers at CHRONOS, Saul was very good at hiding his real views. He and a group of friends, two of whom were connected to CHRONOS, all believed that the technology was not being used as it should be… that it was in the hands of weak individuals who lacked vision. Why simply study history? they asked. Why not make history—remake history?

  “I don’t know where Saul ended up, but he figured out the same thing that I did, Kate—that parents with the CHRONOS gene can produce children able to bypass the safeguards. Like Prudence did. Like you nearly did yesterday morning. And based on what we are seeing, he has managed to create himself a small army of people who can move through time at his command. All I have to combat that, Kate, is you.”

  Katherine had clearly hoped that this statement would make me understand, and to some extent, it did. But the enormity of what she was saying—that she seemed to be on the verge of asking me to single-handedly take on an individual she had just described as insane—scared me. “I want Dad in on this. You talk to him, we make these decisions together. Or I walk out of here and you’re on your own.”

  “Agreed. We’ll call him when school is out and—”

  The clock on the microwave showed that it was 12:22 P.M. “No,” I said. “I have class with him in about ten minutes. He’ll worry if I’m not there anyway, and if I leave now, I can make it.” There was a small voice in my head insisting that I should stay put, but I shut it out. All I knew at that moment was that I had to get away, to get out of the house so that I could clear my head.

  I headed for the front door, grabbing my shoes from beneath the table and tugging them onto my feet. Katherine followed behind me, still talking, but I was no longer listening. I looked around for my backpack before remembering that it—and my books—had all disappeared into the past or future or some weird alternate version of the present.

  “I’ll see you after I talk to Dad.” I closed the door behind me and was halfway to the gate when I heard Katherine running up behind me.

  “Kate, come back!”

  I turned just in time to see her stop, a few yards away from the house, pulling back suddenly like a dog wearing one of those radio collars when it detects the signal and is afraid of being zapped.

  She was holding out the medallion. “Take this. I have another one. I just didn’t have a chance to grab it because you left so suddenly… and I almost forgot about the boundary. The signal fluctuates a bit, but it’s never farther out than the maple.” She nodded toward a tree a few feet to her left.

  “Don’t remove the key for any reason,” Katherine said. “Keep it on your person. And be careful. I don’t know what the scene on the train was about and I have no idea what Kiernan’s motives are, but I won’t feel comfortable until you’re back here.”

  Katherine looked pale and anxious. I could tell that the emotional morning had taken a toll on her. I took the medallion, putting the chain around my neck and slipping it inside my blouse. I was still angry, but I forced a smile for her sake. “Relax, okay? I’ll be back this afternoon. With Dad,” I added, as I headed for the gate. “If you’re right, and it really is me against an army, then we’re going to need all the help we can get.”

  6

  I walked at a brisk pace, nearly jogging. I would have to check in at the front desk and make some excuse about missing morning classes, which meant I would probably be late getting to Dad’s class anyway. My toes still hurt, but the exertion felt good otherwise and some of the tension I had been carrying began to melt away.

  The morning had been a bit cool for mid-April, but the day was warming up and my hair was hot on my neck as I headed into the building. That reminded me of the fact that my hair was down, in violation of the Briar Hill dress code, and that reminded me of Kiernan. I could see my dark green hair band, vivid against the skin of his wrist as he vanished, looking like a knight carrying his lady’s favor—a scarf or ribbon—into battle. I wiped that ridiculous image from my head and pushed open the door to the main office.

  “Kate Pierce-Keller. I’m checking in late,” I told the rather stern-looking middle-aged woman who was one of three who worked the main office at Briar Hill. The two who usually handled the front desk were much more personable, but they were probably at lunch. I waited while the woman pulled up the attendance log on the computer. “I don’t have a note. There was an emergency this morning and I forgot to get my mom to write one before I left the house. I’ll bring it tomorrow. And… I forgot to put my hair up. Do you have a spare rubber band?”

  The woman raised her eyebrows and then rummaged around in one of the desk drawers. After a moment she found a large manila-colored band, which she held out silently toward me, along with a pink hall pass.

  “Thanks.”

  I pulled my hair back into a loose knot as I walked down the hallway. I reached the classroom several minutes late and peeked in through the small window on the door, hoping to enter when Dad was between sentences and get to my desk with minimal
disruption of the class and with as few people as possible staring at me. Dad was standing near the Smart Board, pointing at an equation… and then I felt the same gut-wrenching sensation that had hit me twice before.

  I leaned forward, my arm inadvertently pushing down the door handle as I did. The door swung inward. If not for the fact that I have a decent sense of balance, I would have landed in a heap on the desk in front of me, but I caught myself and looked upward toward the spot where my father had been standing.

  Dad was no longer there. He was no longer anywhere in the classroom. A plump, middle-aged woman was at his desk. The woman wasn’t anyone I knew. Another stranger, a good-looking guy with dark blond hair, was in the desk where I usually sat, with a trigonometry textbook open in front of him. I was pretty sure he was new as well. The other faces in the class were familiar. They were, however, all looking at me strangely. I caught the eye of Carleigh Devins, a girl with whom I was friendly although not quite friends, and tried a weak smile—only to receive a quizzical look in return.

  I couldn’t breathe. I looked at the woman behind the desk, who was not Dad, and back at the guy who was sitting in what was usually my desk. I opened my mouth to say “Wrong class…,” but it came out as a hoarse whisper. Then the classroom began to spin and I slid to the floor.

  As I came to, the first thing I noticed was a chubby, pale hand with a faded pink lotus tattoo patting my arm. After a moment, my eyes began to focus and I followed the hand up to the face of its owner, who was apparently the teacher. She and the tall blond guy who had been occupying my desk hovered over me anxiously. I looked around the room again. This was definitely Dad’s classroom, and with the exception of the blond guy, this was my trig class.