by Cathy Peper
Bryce thanked the woman, turned to leave and then hesitated. “Do you know where I could find inexpensive lodging?” he asked.
“Try Sikeston.”
Another unfamiliar town, Bryce guessed. Well, he had his pack and was used to sleeping rough. He would get a hot meal and then find someplace to hole up for the night.
The woman must have noticed his disappointment. “You could try Airbnb. There might be someone in town renting out a room.”
“I just might do that,” Bryce said with a smile, although he had no idea what the woman was talking about. He spoke English, French and a bit of Spanish, but apparently, he would need to learn a whole new language if he stayed in the twenty-first century.
* * *
When Bryce awoke the next morning, the air was cool and crisp. The small fire he had built, not wanting to draw attention to himself, had gone out and he was cold. After leaving the antique shop, he’d splurged on a delicious meal and then left town. Avoiding the roads, he’d turned towards the river. The vast swathes of wilderness he was accustomed to were gone, but he’d found a patch of scrub far enough away from signs of civilization to risk a small blaze.
He’d saved a few biscuits from his dinner and he pulled them out of his pack to eat for breakfast. He washed them down with water from his skin, which he had also filled at the restaurant. After his first glimpse of the Mississippi, he was no longer sure he should drink straight from the river. The water at the restaurant had tasted a bit odd, but it’d been clear and free of mud. They must have a well to draw water from.
Within minutes he was ready to go. He needed to cross the river so he could find the location where he had buried his stash of gold and jewelry. Even in the short time he had been here, he’d realized that life in the twenty-first-century took money—lots of money. It was also more confusing than he had expected. He admired Victoria for blending in as well as she did, although he had spotted her as a fraud almost immediately. He wished he had someone to help him, as Sebastien had helped her. Jim Hitchcock appeared willing to assist him, but he would ask questions Bryce couldn’t answer.
It didn’t take him long to walk back to town, but he quickly realized that most businesses were not yet open. Fortunately, the place where he’d had dinner the night before served breakfast. Bryce ducked inside, eager to try more twenty-first-century food and get out of the cold.
He ordered a sausage biscuit with egg and a coffee. The food was ready within minutes and he took his tray over to a table where he could observe the people coming and going. Most seemed in a hurry, probably grabbing a bite to eat before heading off to work. A table to his right, however, held a group of older men talking and flipping through newspapers as they ate. Bryce listened to their conversation, but heard nothing of interest. They spoke of people he didn’t know and mentioned many of the same sports teams Jim Hitchcock had spoken of so fondly. Irritated, Bryce stopped eavesdropping, though he did pick up a copy of the paper they were reading.
The date was startling, although he already knew from his experiences that the magic of the blue crystal had catapulted him into the future. He read about politics, local and national, skimmed through the business section where he didn’t even recognize most of the products, and marveled that there was an area devoted specifically to travel and entertainment. There were no maps in the paper, however, so he decided he would have to ask the garrulous, elderly crowd.
“Excuse me, but can you tell me how to get across the river?”
“Take the highway south, then merge onto 155. There’s a bridge to Tennessee there.”
“How far is that?”
The man who had answered him shrugged and looked at his companions. “Twenty or thirty miles to reach the bridge.” His friends nodded and seemed to agree with his assessment.
Bryce’s spirits fell. Twenty or thirty miles to reach the bridge and then maybe half that distance again to reach the place where he had buried his fortune. He could cover it in an hour or so if he had a car, and could drive it, but it would take him all day on foot. Fortunately, he was used to walking long distances. “Is there no way across here?”
“There’s that ferry that goes to Kentucky,” one of the men said.
“Yes, but that’s a ways off, too, and you never know for sure if they’ll be running. Much quicker to take the bridge unless you’re looking for the nostalgic experience.”
Bryce smiled. Nostalgic? Not for him, unless the ferry was no more than a large raft poled across the river. He was familiar with simple ferries like that, but he couldn’t really picture cars traveling on them. He thanked the men and left the restaurant. There was still another possibility. He could steal or purchase a boat. The four hundred dollars was going fast, however.
Leaving the restaurant, he walked towards the river. A pier jutted into the river and he walked out on it. The river appeared placid, still wide and powerful, but tamed in a way that chilled him. He glanced along the river, but couldn’t see any boats. A scenic walkway led to a park and he walked along it, reading the placards telling about the earthquakes of 1811 and 1812. The words did little to convey the sense of terror experienced by those who had lived through them. He discovered that a third quake occurred just a few weeks after he left. It was estimated to be the worst of all and Bryce found himself glad to have missed it.
If he was going to be walking forty miles are so, he needed to get going, but hoping to avoid that, he left the paved visitor area and walked along the river. Gradually the well maintained area gave way to brush and weeds, making the going hard, but the growth thinner than in his day. He was headed in the right direction and he just might get lucky.
An hour or so later, his persistence paid off. A small boat, probably used for fishing, bobbed in the water at the end of a rope. Bryce looked around, saw no one, and quickly cut the rope with his knife. Wading into the river, he hopped aboard and took up the oars. He sent the boat into the center of the river and allowed the current to catch it. It would be much quicker than walking and it would be easier to spot familiar landmarks from the river.
It didn’t take long, however, before he realized that the Mississippi river was so changed that it was going to be difficult to find his reference point. He’d chosen a particular bend in the river with a distinctive pattern in the overhanging cliffs. As he drifted along he saw very little that was familiar, although New Madrid had been once again been built on a major turn. He gauged the speed of the current so he could estimate how fast he was going and how long it should take to reach the cliffs.
He almost missed it, but at last he caught a glimpse of the unusual cliff formation. He paddled over to the far shore and tied up the boat. Grabbing his compass, he headed east. His eyes grew dry from strain as he walked. His stomach grew queasy when he found himself on the edge of a huge lake very near his coordinates. He checked his compass. Had he started at the wrong location? The river was far different than it had been in his time and he could have mistaken the cliffs. But whether he had or not, this lake had not existed in 1812, or at least not when he buried his valuables. He thought back to the signs he had read along the river walk about the quakes, particularly the third quake. He hadn’t been paying too much attention to that one, more interested in the ones he had lived through, but in addition to saying the river had run backwards, something he would have found hard to believe had he not seen the destruction of the first two quakes first-hand, he recalled mention of a new lake forming. Could this be that lake? Would it still be here two hundred years later? And could he possibly be so unlucky that a freak act of nature wiped out his preparations for the future?
Chapter 2
Since it was her day off, Anne Rush slept in, not awakening until Hannah, her four-year-old, barreled into the room and jumped on the bed.
“Mommy, wake up! Chuck E Cheese day.”
Anne yawned, stretched and drew Hannah under the covers with her. “I haven’t forgotten.” She had promised Hannah yesterday that they would go
to the pizza and play area today. Hannah loved the arcade games made for young kids, the climbing tubes and the noise and bright lights. Anne could have done without the commotion, but she always took a book with her and enjoyed the rare luxury of time for herself while Hannah was occupied.
Sometimes they went with one of Hannah’s friends from daycare, but today it would be just the two of them. Anne sighed. Much as she loved Hannah, lately she’d been feeling lonely. Hannah would be starting school in the fall and their life together would change.
Her feelings of dissatisfaction had intensified since Tori’s disappearance. Although she and Tori had not seen each other regularly, living about an hour apart and both having busy lives, her friendship with the younger woman had been important to her. She considered Tori the sister she had never had. They were now sisters-in-law, although separated by the gulf of time.
Anne had been worried, but not overly concerned, when Tori failed to come home from her violin performance. Some strange intuition had encouraged her to give the necklace to Tori that night. The necklace that had carried Anne from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first. Anne would have died, and Hannah with her, if the necklace hadn’t brought her to the future where modern medicine had saved her life. Even then, it had been close. Hannah’s birth had been difficult. Anne had already lost a lot of blood by the time she arrived at the hospital. Mother and child had almost died even with the miracles of anesthesia, antibiotics and highly trained doctors.
The details of that night were fuzzy. She labored for hours, the pain growing worse with each contraction. Sebastien had been worried. He had wanted to go for help earlier, but she’d begged him to stay with her and he had until he could no longer delay. Once he was gone, she had somehow stumbled from the cave although she was nearly delirious with pain and exhaustion. She remembered stopping every few steps as the vicious contractions tore through her. Finally, she made it to the river. She fell on the bank, rain plastering her hair to her head, but not falling hard enough to wash away all the blood.
The blood scared her, along with the brilliant flash of lightning, followed by a nearly simultaneous crash of thunder, telling her the strike had been close. A hint of smoke lingered in the air as if the lightning had struck a tree and lit it on fire. She felt dizzy, nauseous, and confused.
A pair of motorists had found her minutes later, blood-soaked and barely conscious on the side of the road, but she still had not realized the enormity of what had happened to her. The strangeness of the people’s clothes and the wonder of cars had barely broken through her haze of pain. They had whisked her to the hospital, a terrifying place of bright lights and people dressed mostly in white. But they had prepped her for surgery immediately, plunging her into blessed oblivion.
She awoke in a strange world. The nurses apparently considered her confusion just another symptom of her near-death experience. She kept quiet and watchful, eventually realizing she had somehow traveled to the future.
Everyone at the hospital had been kind, but Tori’s mother had taken Anne under her wing, even going so far as to offering her a place to stay when she and Hannah were released. That was how Anne had met Tori. She had been too afraid to confide in either of them, though, fearing they would think she was crazy. She exaggerated the holes in her memory, eventually claiming she had escaped from an abusive relationship. That was her subtle, if ineffective, revenge on the man who had seduced and abandoned her.
More importantly, she had made a new life for herself and her daughter. She had a house, a job, and friends, including Tori.
On the night Tori disappeared, Anne drank cup after cup of hot chocolate, waiting as the storm raged around her. Snow fell, covering the world with a thick blanket. She finally fell asleep on the couch, waking the next morning cold and stiff. Tori never made it home.
The blue crystal necklace had whisked Tori away. Anne knew it even when she dutifully filed a missing person’s report at the police station. She wondered whether the necklace had taken Tori back to Anne’s time or further into the future. Or another time altogether. She didn’t understand how the necklace worked.
At first, the police had taken little notice of Tori’s disappearance. They told her they had to wait forty-eight hours before they could file the report. But as the days passed with no sign of her, they grew concerned. Tori had not used any of her credit cards or made any withdrawals from the bank. Her phone showed no activity. The investigation ramped up and Anne and the musicians Tori had played with that night were questioned. No one had seen her since the close of the performance.
Anne guessed she was the primary suspect, although she didn’t think the police seriously considered her. They had no other leads, however, so she was brought to the station and thoroughly grilled. She hesitated to say anything about Ned, since she didn’t think he was behind Tori’s disappearance, but answered the cops questions honestly, telling them that Tori had arrived at her house early because she’d been evicted from her apartment and had an altercation with a neighbor. Ned deserved a spot of trouble for trying to force himself on her friend, but she didn’t want him to get arrested for a crime he didn’t commit.
With no motive for Anne, and a motive, but no real evidence, against Ned, the police widened their search, questioning all the guests at the event. When Mr. Henderson’s name had come up, Anne’s conviction that Tori was safely in the past wavered. Henderson had already gotten her fired from her teaching position and might have wanted to cause trouble for her at the historical home where she was providing music for the Christmas season. After initial denials, Henderson had admitted to speaking to Tori that night but denied any involvement in her disappearance. Anne wanted the police to press harder, but again there had been no evidence. No body, no witnesses. Tori had vanished without a trace.
“Mommy, come on. I want pancakes for breakfast.”
Anne tickled Hannah under her chin. Most mornings, breakfast consisted of cereal, but she often cooked something more time consuming on the weekends. “Very well, pancakes it is.” Hannah would be in seventh heaven. Pancakes and pizza in the same day.
She got up, took a quick shower and got both herself and her daughter dressed for the day. Hannah watched cartoons while Anne made breakfast. They ate, Hannah somehow managing to smear most of the syrup on her face. It took a while to clean both her daughter and the dishes. Hannah was nearly out of patience by the time Anne put her coat on.
“We have to run a few errands before going to the Chuck E’s.”
“Aw, Mom. I don’t want to run errands.”
“It won’t take long. Besides, you just had pancakes. You’ll have to work up an appetite for pizza.”
Hannah huffed but knew better than to put up too big a fuss. She didn’t want to lose out on her promised treat. She waited while Anne, unsettled by her thoughts of Tori, went to check one thing. She’d had the photocopy framed, in spite of its poor quality, but kept it hidden in her drawer to avoid any awkward questions. She pushed her sweaters aside and gazed down at the spidery handwriting. It was a certificate of marriage, dated 1812, stating that Sebastien La Roche had married Victoria Foster. Anne ran her finger along the glass. It was good to know her brother and her friend had found happiness together.
* * *
Bryce walked along the perimeter of the lake, trying to tamp down panic. The body of water appeared huge, sending tendrils out here and there, its shape irregular. If this was where he’d buried his stash, the money was lost. He was on his own in a century he knew nothing about. A century filled with terrifying wonders. Had he made a mistake by using the time travel device? It had seemed like a good idea at the time and he had thought himself clever for burying his valuables in a place where he assumed he would be able to recover them in the future. He had considered the possibility the land would be owned by someone and planned to sneak in and out before anyone noticed him, but he had never suspected it would be underwater.
It was a major blow, but despite the setback, th
is time still held great possibilities. Cars were a marvel he yearned to explore and the strange device the woman in the antique store had used also intrigued him. But he was overwhelmed by how much things had changed in two hundred years. There were so many people here. Where had they all come from? Everywhere he’d been was clean, warm and comfortable. People appeared genuinely friendly. Jim Hitchcock had given him a ride and wanted to help him. The old men at breakfast had answered his questions. But he’d counted on his nest egg sustaining him until he learned how to navigate this new world and make his place in it.
Well, there was nothing he could do about it. He was stuck here, at least until the next thunderstorm. Even then he wasn’t sure the stone would send him home. It might send him farther into the future or it might fail to work at all. In the meantime, he would do his best to learn to fit in. First on his list, would be finding some kind of employment. He had seen enough to know he would be ill-equipped for many twenty-first century occupations, at least not without further training, but surely they still needed laborers. Or he could work at a restaurant. He could take people’s orders and bring them their food. Neither of these occupations appealed to him, but they would only be temporary.
Satisfied, he set out to find the nearest town and grab something to eat. He would probably have to camp out again to conserve his funds. He found it somewhat ironic that after complaining about the lack of natural, wild areas he now stood in the thick of one searching for civilization. He hadn’t been in the twenty-first century more than twenty-four hours and already he was growing soft. Amused, he headed away from the lake, secure in the knowledge he could always shoot a duck or rabbit for dinner and cook if over his fire. He’d seen several of the smaller animals, although he had yet to spot a deer.
A couple of miles later, he began to see signs of human activity. He stumbled upon a marked trail and took it, assuming it would lead somewhere. A piece of brightly colored paper caught his eye and he picked it up off the ground. He read the text, realizing it was some sort of food wrapping even though many of the words were incomprehensible to him. He wished it wasn’t empty. He’d had nothing to eat since breakfast and his stomach growled. He loved everything he’d eaten so far in the future; the flavors were so much more intense than the food he was used to.