by Ray Hudson
“A what?”
“A chief,” I said and went on without explaining that this was a Russian word and not ours. “—a rich man, by name Kat-háya-Koochák.”
“Bless you,” he said, and I gave him a punch.
“He was a very small man, but very active and enterprising, and hence much respected, and even feared by the natives of the adjacent region. He had a son 13 or 14 years old, whom he fondly loved. He built him a little bidarka (or skin canoe) and painted it handsomely.”
“Have you seen one of those?”
“In the museum. But I’ve done some kayaking, only mostly on the lake.”
“When the bidarka was done the son begged earnestly to be allowed to try the boat on the sea. After much urging the father permitted him to go with the injunction not to go far from the shore.”
“Look,” he interrupted. “I think I know how we can get out of here.”
He didn’t even let me go on reading. He took a paperback out of his backpack.
“It’s not a boat, but I’ve got this bookmark.”
I started to ask if the mental facility knew he was missing. Suddenly, the door flew open.
“We have a problem,” Hennig said as his bulk filled the doorway. “A little problem, more or less.” He talked as though kidnapping was just a mild rash. “One that can be solved pretty easily.”
“You, to be more precise,” Mrs. Skagit pushed past him, “are the problem.”
Now it sounded like an outbreak of scabies.
“You probably know more than you should,” Hennig said. He went to the shelf of books and smothered each spine as he ran his thick fingers across the titles. “It might be good for you in the long run.”
“You and the girlie here,” Mrs. Skagit nodded at Booker. He glared out from under his curly canopy.
“I see you like history.” He nodded at the old book I had jammed between Booker and me. “Too much history disappears. Especially out here. People forget what the past was like.”
Like the bulldozer at the Old Priest’s House, I thought.
“That’s even more true of Aleuts,” he said. “They were amazing artists.”
I had to agree.
He kept on about how archaeologists just took stuff away, and if they wrote reports, nobody could read them. And how to them everything was just about the same to them: a chipped arrowhead or a carved sea otter. He wanted to get things into the hands of people who would appreciate them for the beautiful objects they were. I don’t know how much the kid understood what he eventually offered. A partnership, of sorts. If I kept quiet, if I didn’t make a fuss, from whatever they sold they’d share the profits with me.
“You’d be helping preserve your own history,” he said.
“You could buy yourself a three-wheeler,” Mrs. Skagit added.
“Buy yourself a nose job, lady,” I said.
Hennig restrained Mrs. Skagit by touching her elbow. “You put the kibosh on my birding charter,” he said to me. “So we’re headed out to the Four Mountains. And you two are coming along.”
“Hennig’s going,” Mrs. Skagit contradicted him. “I have business here.”
Hennig looked a little too satisfied with himself. “How does it sound?” he asked. “It seems like a fair offer.”
“Your family is good at keeping secrets, Sophie.”
I glared at her.
“We’re just asking you to keep a few more.”
“I don’t keep secrets,” I said.
“Maybe not,” Mrs. Skagit said, “But your gram has kept a few. There are things she wouldn’t like getting out around town.”
I wasn’t about to dignify her pathetic attempt at blackmail with an answer.
“She’s a respectable elder, Sophie. At least to those who matter, those who don’t know her. She’s on the school board and everything.”
Mrs. Skagit pursed her lips like she was expecting a kiss. Repugnant.
Hennig could tell things were not going his way.
“Coming back depends on you,” he said.
Mrs. Skagit was like a dog with a bone.
“It might be news to you, Sophie, but when your mom was pregnant with you, your gram gave her a horrible time.”
“Liar,” I said under my breath.
“Drunk or in the slammer. Mostly drunk.”
“Fat-assed liar,” I said. Louder now and looking at her.
“I was there. You ever ask your mom why she left? Why she won’t have nothin’ to do with your gram?”
“Lot of deep water out there,” Hennig steered the conversation back to himself.
Of course I had never asked her. Until a short time ago I had never even seen her. I didn’t know her. I don’t want to know her.
“Accidents are happening out there all the time.”
That less-than-subtle threat finally did it for Booker. He jolted off the bunk.
I grabbed the old book and whacked the captain across the forehead as Booker lunged for the door and threw it open.
And there was Torgey, right outside, holding a length of steel rebar in his hands.
We sat back down.
“Better tie ’em up a bit, Torgey.” The captain rubbed his head. “Not too tight. They’re just kids.”
The mate took a length of soft rope out of his back pocket.
“We’ll see what they have to say when we get to Kagamil.”
Torgey pulled Booker up, twirled him around, and had him put his arms behind his back.
“Take the bookmark,” Booker whispered. He glanced down at his shirt pocket. “Turn it upside down and put it back in and hold on to my arm.”
Why not join him in the loony bin? I asked myself and reached out.
Mrs. Skagit’s eyes bulged with suspicion, and the moment I took it, she snatched it away. Booker threw himself out of the rope and onto her like a certified maniac. Hennig swore. Mrs. Skagit jumped to the side as Booker pulled the bookmark from her hand, and Torgey grabbed him by the waist. I lifted the old book and started swinging. I accidentally walloped Booker’s hand and the bookmark sailed into the air. Mrs. Skagit lunged after it, shoving him and Torgey aside. She collided into me, sending the old book flying—its pages flapping every which way. I caught the book the same time I caught the bookmark. Mrs. Skagit was quick and latched onto the other end of the narrow paper. Booker charged into her midriff as I tore it out of her fingers. I had both the book and the bookmark. The bookmark seared my palm as I shoved it between two pages.
And then three things happened simultaneously: Booker grabbed my arm and shouted, Mrs. Skagit screamed, and we vanished.
Maybe that was four things.
TWO
BLUEBERRIES AND THE PAGAN RAVEN
6. Anna
Mrs. Skagit’s scream echoed through my ears and disappeared in the dark room. My voice flickered like a candle in a draft.
“Where are we?”
My eyes adjusted to the dim light filtering through a porthole high on the wall. I looked at my wrists. They were sticking out from frayed cuffs embroidered with yellow flowers. My sweatshirt and jeans had become a brown cotton dress over which I had on a dark-blue sweater. There were more disgusting yellow flowers along the hem of the dress.
“Booker!” I felt like the floor was slipping out from under me. “What’s happened?”
“We escaped,” he said in a mousy whisper. “It’s the bookmark.”
“And where have my pockets gone?” I asked indignantly as I jammed a fist into what was little more than a decoration. Booker examined his jacket and pants. The lucky stiff had pockets everywhere. We were dressed like a couple of refugees from the History Channel.
“It’s the bookmark,” he repeated and pulled it from his shirt pocket. He handed it to me.
“I thought it was in the book.”
“It has a habit of coming back to me,” he said. “It’s complicated.” Then he grabbed it out of my hand.
“It’s ripped! You tore the bottom off!”
“I didn’t tear anything.”
“You did! You and that maniac gorilla!”
“Don’t blame me,” I hurled back. “You’re the one who tackled her.” I gestured around the cabin. “Where are we? And what about this?” I shoved my arms covered in that ridiculous dress at him. That’s when I saw the discoloration on my right palm. It didn’t hurt, but it was like I’d been scorched by something.
He collapsed onto a nearby bunk. “I was told it could happen,” he said. “I’m trying to remember what it’s called.”
“What what is called?”
“When you travel back in time.”
I sprinted for the door.
I flung it open and saw an old-fashioned iron staircase at the end of the hall, I turned back inside. No light bulb hung from the ceiling. No carpet covered the floor. No bookshelf was on the wall. There was an absolute absence of engine noise.
He looked up from the bunk. “Do you have that book about the mummies?”
I shrugged, closed the door, and turned up my empty hands.
“Okay. Try this.”
“What?”
He walked over, hesitantly took my hand, upended the bookmark, and slipped it back into his pocket.
I don’t know what he expected. We just stood there. Holding hands. Yuck.
“It worked before,” he insisted as I shook myself loose. He sat down and took it out again.
“What language is that?” I pointed at it.
“Russian,” he said.
“I thought so. It looks like something from church.”
Then he told me how he had found it, and how he had used it.
“But nothing like this ever happened to me before,” he said.
“Your parents don’t work for a cannery?”
“They write books,” he said, “murder mysteries.”
He said something about a trip to Bulgaria. He was a total nut case.
“Do you have anything in there?” I nodded at his backpack, hoping to get the conversation returned to something like normal.
“Nothing but a pocketknife, a compass, and a candy bar, I think.” He put the bookmark between his teeth, rummaged around inside the pack, and took out the candy bar. He broke it in two. Instead of taking the half he held out, I gave myself a good slap on the chest. He jumped, but I wiggled a finger under the collar and pulled out the small pouch.
“This is still here,” I said. I slipped it off and tilted the carved fox onto my palm. I took my half of the candy bar. He took the bookmark out of his mouth. So there we were. He held the torn bookmark and I held the carved fox. Ivory and paper. Totally weird.
I looked around again. Wooden crates and boxes were stacked against one wall. A couple of wooden barrels stood in the middle of the floor. There was a second bunk with wooden crates stacked on it.
“Anyway,” he said, “I used the bookmark to get to Ireland, only it wasn’t Ireland. It was here, on that other boat. And when you put it in that book of mummies, it got us here.”
He gave me a startled look.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“The bookmark is just a bookmark for most people.”
“That should tell you a thing or two,” I said.
He was about to object, but somebody knocked. It was faint, and it came from outside. I was off the bunk and through the door and climbing that old iron staircase to the deck before Booker followed. What I had thought was darkness was simply fog as thick as milk. It suffused a soft yellow glow around an open door.
We heard somebody ask, “My father wonders if you have finished with the book he loaned you and if he could have its use for a short time?”
“Absolutely, Vasilii,” a deeper voice answered. “It’s not the sort of volume I’m likely to read straight through.”
I stuck out my arm when Booker tried to slip past.
“Tell your father I thank him. I may ask to borrow it again if he would be so kind. My copy is in San Francisco.”
“Of course, Captain. Father sends his regards.”
“And I send mine to him, Vasilii, and to your mother.”
The light shifted around the door as somebody stepped out of the room. I flattened Booker against the wall with another swing of my arm.
“Have you given any thought to what we talked about?” It was the deeper voice again.
“I have, Captain,” the figure in the doorway said. “It’s a generous offer. I would enjoy the trip, but my parents are discussing it.”
He turned from the door. He was about my age. We both saw what he held in his hand.
“It’s the book,” I whispered as he walked up the ramp to the wharf.
I led the way past the now closed door. Booker hesitated. The water below us was gray and cold, and the dock pushed in and out against the hull.
I extended a hand and pulled him up the gangplank.
We followed the boy with the book along a narrow boardwalk through the thick fog. We passed two single-storied, steep-roofed buildings. A third clearly held valuables because the door was padlocked and the whole windowless structure was sheathed in metal. Up ahead, a gray mass darkened before becoming two and a half stories of white clapboard crowned with a steep roof. It was like a ghost ship riding at its ghostly anchor. A few windows glowed with candles behind their curtains. The next building was single-storied with a wide overhanging porch. In front of it, a half-dozen cannons brooded around a tall flagpole. Something wasn’t right. I pressed my face and cupped my hands to the wavy glass on the door. The shelves inside were stocked with cans and small boxes. Fur pelts hung from pegs along one wall. A woman lifted a samovar from a shelf that held two or three of those egg-shaped Russian containers used for heating water and making tea. I’d seen one in the museum. She turned, placed it on a counter, and glanced up. With a shot of recognition I shoved away and rushed into the fog.
It isn’t possible, I said to myself. But I knew those piggy eyes. I knew that hatchet face.
The boardwalk ended, and we started down a well-packed trail. On my left, I heard the gentle push and pull as the sea scraped against a rocky beach. We passed three or four small houses on the right before I saw a large church at the top of a gentle rise. Through the fog I saw the outline of a familiar onion dome on the roof.
“Anna,” Booker said, but I had taken root.
“Move it,” he said and gave me a push. A wave of dense fog had drifted in. “We’re liable to lose him.”
I just stood there. Fog drained the color out of everything and left the world washed-out.
“It’s like we’re in an old photograph. A really old photo.”
“He’s gone,” Booker said.
“We’re right where we started.”
“What’s the matter with you?” He actually kicked a few rocks on the path.
As if to show him, the fog did what fog sometimes does. It slowly evaporated into the air. We were on a wide trail above a familiar beach. I saw the shrouded silhouette of a familiar mountain straight ahead. I looked back at the cannons clustered around the flag pole. The limp flag was definitely an American flag.
“He’s not likely to leave the island,” I said.
“What island?”
“Here,” I said. “Right where we started from.” Then I took in a deep breath and said, “Okay.” Usually when I say that, something follows. Like whatever comes next. The next thing to do. Or not do. Only this time, it didn’t.
“Okay,” I repeated. “Vasilii is a pretty common name.”
I saw a house past the church and just beyond that there was a row of small red cottages and then three or four more wooden houses in the distance. I started for the first red cottage.
“You mean,” Booker asked as he caught up, “you want to knock on every door?”
7. Anna
The first cottage was a small place, and after I had rapped loud enough and nobody had answered, I stepped away from the door. Booker pulled my sleeve and pointed toward the larger
house that sat back a bit from the church. A man had just stepped out. We hurried toward him. He turned to an older man dressed in simple black clerical robes and standing in the doorway.
“Thank you, Reverend. It has been a pleasure as always.”
I surprised myself by making the sign of the cross. I mean, I did that in church and older Unanga sometimes did it when they came to visit Gram and saw the icons in the corner.
“Come again,” said the priest.
“You can be assured that I will,” the younger man said. He smiled at us. “You have guests. Probably here to see the young deacon.”
The priest nodded and gestured for us to come inside.
“Please,” he said.
We entered a small sitting room as the priest went to a doorway and raised his voice, “Vasilii, haqada! You have visitors.”
He picked up a small leather valise. “He should be here in a minute. I’ll leave you, if you don’t mind.”
And he stepped outside, closing the door behind him.
“That was easy,” Booker said.
We had the beautiful room to ourselves. My eyes were taken by a graceful couch, upholstered in blue silk and placed at the edge of a dark blue carpet. Booker walked over to a bookcase stocked with books. Books also competed for space on a corner table that held a vase filled with familiar deep-blue violets. On the wall above the couch was a framed colored engraving of the peaks of Yosemite.
“Abraham Lincoln gave Yosemite to the people of California,” he said, turning away from the table. “Yellowstone was the first national park, but Yosemite paved the way.”
“You know the oddest things,” I said. “So, who’s this?”
I pointed to an ornately framed image of a thin man sporting a mustache that flowed across his cheeks into robust sideburns. His military uniform was festooned with medals and ribbons.
“It’s the czar,” said a voice behind us. “Alexander II. Who are you?”
I turned around and met the eyes of the kid we’d seen on the boat. I realized he was older than me, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, but he was not much taller. He smiled and gestured at two chairs as he seated himself on the couch. And waited.
Booker looked at me.
“We saw you with a book,” I jumped right in, “coming off a ship at the dock.”