More importantly, the glasses did not belong to me. They belonged to Edgar, even though he technically stole them from Valcas when he replaced them with the ordinary glasses. They were just a borrowed means of escape to me. I wondered whether Edgar would want me to give them back.
Edgar sat back down at the lab table, motioning for me to do the same. He looked through his round spectacles into my eyes, his brows furrowed, searching for something. I looked back at him expectantly. The inventor momentarily glanced at the glasses propped on my head and then studied my eyes again.
“Young Miss Calla, now that I’ve inspected you more closely, I recognize something familiar in your eyes—their shape and intensity in particular—familiar yet unfamiliar. What did you say was your last name?”
“Winston,” I replied. “Mom’s last name.”
Edgar sat back in his chair, his drooping eyes looking thoughtful for a brief moment. “Winston,” he repeated.
I waited in anxious anticipation. Just when I thought Edgar was about to tell me something shocking, like that he knew Mom or had some sort of relationship with the Winston family, he changed the subject with an odd question.
“What color are your eyes?”
The question dumbfounded me. Was the inventor color-blind? “They’re a very dark brown,” I answered. “Almost black.”
Edgar rose from his chair again and hobbled across the floor into an adjacent room. I heard him rummaging through shelves and boxes as I sat waiting in what I concluded to be his laboratory, kitchen and dining room. I looked out of a wide rectangular window that sat above the sink. I couldn’t see anything outside other than flecks of sunlight twinkling through densely packed trees. Edgar returned with an antique mirror.
“Take a look,” he said as he handed me the mirror.
My dark curls were frizzy and windblown from traveling earlier that day. My face was slightly more pale than usual, but that did not bother me. Unfamiliar. Edgar’s description of my eyes echoed in my ears. Rich green-brown eyes peered back at me, surprised and suspicious. My mouth gaped in response. Still dark but noticeably different, my eyes were forever changed.
Edgar nodded as he assessed my reaction. “I suspected as much,” he said. “The travel glasses very strongly affect the traveler’s eyes. I have not been able to develop an antidote.”
I thought back to Valcas’ pale illusory orbs and his own description of what had sapped their color. Was there a way for him to find me without the travel glasses? Could he be on his way here now to try to get them back?
“I know the travel glasses don’t belong to me, but can I keep them for now?” I blurted out. “At least until I know that I’m safe from Valcas?”
“Yes, of course, although it would be wise not to wear them unless it becomes absolutely necessary.”
I thought of the effects the travel glasses had already had on my eyes and nodded in agreement. I couldn’t imagine any other reason why Edgar would ask me not to wear them. If what Edgar said was true, then the workshop wouldn’t be in danger of any impact by Valcas’ arrival. In fact, I didn’t remember there being any impact at the lake either time Valcas appeared. He’d said that something else was there—the something that knocked me to the ground. Was he lying about that?
“Edgar, do you know what could have knocked me to the ground at the lake? Valcas said that it wasn’t the impact of his arrival, and that something else out there was after me. Later, after I got back to my uncle’s cottage, I felt the impact of my arrival. The windows exploded and everything—I don’t understand.”
The brows above Edgar’s droopy eyes squeezed together as he thought about my question. “I really don’t know. Valcas said that he was at the lake because he wanted to protect you?”
“Yes, and that’s how he got me to leave the lake.”
Edgar shook his head. “I am not sure that I believe him.”
I WAS too afraid to ask Edgar the more embarrassing questions on my mind. Where I was going to go? Where I would live in the meantime? I could stay and learn more from Edgar, but it was possible that Valcas would figure out that I’d traveled to the source of the invention. It sickened me to think that Valcas could be on his way to the workshop now and that Edgar could be in danger because of me. I couldn’t imagine that Edgar would want me to stay much longer.
He must have noticed my unease.
“You must be very tired after what has happened to you and with nowhere else to go. You are welcome to rest here as long as you need.”
I smiled. “Thank you. Do you spend the nights here to be near your laboratory?”
Edgar nodded and led me on a brief tour of the cramped workshop. The room where he’d found the mirror was a washroom that functioned as a library, storage room and bathroom. I wrinkled my nose, but otherwise tried to hide my disapproval at his practice of storing books and paperwork in the damp multipurpose room. Edgar waited while I washed my face and hands before he showed me the third and final room on the other side of his laboratory-kitchen, a small living space that doubled as a bedroom. There, he kept an easy chair, a small love seat, a couple of end tables and a plain wooden chest of drawers.
Small lamps, both battery and gas powered, littered the walls at varying heights. Electric bulbs mimicked the gas lamps, flickering as if they housed tongues of flame. A window identical to the one in the laboratory-kitchen framed a grove of trees circling the other side of the workshop. Sunlight glimmered through the trees and into the room. I sat down on the love seat and watched the different sources of light dance and intermingle.
My eyes grew heavy even though it was daytime. Before long, the lamps lulled me to sleep.
Hours later I woke up on the love seat covered in a thick blanket. When Edgar noticed that I was awake he brought in a fresh pot of tea and a tureen of vegetable soup. I sipped and ate gratefully, using one of the end tables instead of going into the laboratory-kitchen. We dined quietly until I broke the silence.
“Edgar, where is your family?” None of the rooms contained a single picture. I’d told him about my family and was curious about his and how he ended up in a secluded workshop in the middle of the woods.
He froze mid-sip. Judging from his reaction, I expected Edgar to evade this question. After composing himself, he set down his teacup and lowered his eyes. “They’re all gone now. I used to have a wife and a daughter. I came here to fulfill my life’s work. I suppose I’ve been here for a very long time.” A shadow of confusion and sorrow settled across his face when he looked up again. His droopy eyes focused on something far away. He stayed that way for a few minutes.
I cleared my throat. “This is really good soup.”
Edgar blinked. “I’m sorry, what was that you said?”
“This soup that you made—it’s really good.”
“Oh, thank you, Calla. I made it from the vegetables in my garden. Over the years I have cultivated a large variety of plants in an attempt to make them not only more nutritive, but more palatable.”
“Where is the garden? Can I see it?”
“I’ll show you outside tomorrow after you’ve had a good night’s sleep. We will also need to develop a plan.”
“A plan?”
“Yes,” he said. “You have the travel glasses and there is the matter of your future. We will need to decide where to go from here.”
“Ah, okay.” I wasn’t sure where to even start with such a plan, but his eagerness helped put me at ease. He was on my side and wasn’t going to turn me out.
“I hope you don’t mind, Calla, but I need to attend to some of my projects in the laboratory.”
“No problem,” I said as I collected our dishes. “I can wash these and then maybe I can help you with your experiments.”
“Please don’t bother,” Edgar replied. He took the dishes from my hands. “I’m sure that you have things to unpack and that you would like to get settled in.” He chuckled and headed back to the laboratory. The chuckle sounded a bit forced.
&n
bsp; I shrugged and lifted my backpack off of the floor where I’d left it next to the love seat. I didn’t have much to unpack. I pulled out a hairbrush and ran it through my hair. Then I sat there, bored.
“Edgar?” I called into the other room.
He didn’t answer. I sighed and walked over to the laboratory where I found Edgar sipping a bright orange liquid from one of his glass vials. I waited until he set the vial back down so that I wouldn’t startle him and cause something else to be broken.
“Are you sure I can’t help with something?”
Edgar jumped. “Oh. No, no. That is very kind of you.”
“But I don’t have much to unpack and I really don’t have anything else to do.”
“Perhaps you would like something to read to pass the time?”
“That would be good.”
“Feel free to peruse anything on the shelves in the washroom.”
“Thank you. I’ll go check that out.”
The washroom was so damp that I was surprised the books stored there weren’t moldy or rotting. Thick textbooks lined the shelves. I was not in the mood for that type of reading. But there wasn’t a single novel or storybook. I shuffled through a shelf filled with notebooks and journals. A couple of the journals looked like personal diaries. I looked at the insides of the covers and first couple of pages of each one until I found a few that looked like they’d be interesting.
I returned to the living room love seat and read until Edgar returned to turn off the lamps. I jumped up off of the love seat.
“Sorry, this is probably where you sleep. I can sleep in the chair.”
“Absolutely not,” he answered as he pulled a couple of pillows and another blanket out of the chest of drawers. “You are a guest here. I will take the easy chair.”
After Edgar extinguished the last of the wall lamps, I fell asleep to the bubbling sounds of boiling liquids brewing in the next room.
I WOKE to find Edgar working in his laboratory with a pot of tea at his side.
“Good morning, Calla,” he said. “Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“You must be hungry. Would you like some fruit for your breakfast?”
“That sounds great.”
Edgar left the lab table and loudly rummaged around in the washroom. He returned with an empty basket.
“The fruit tastes a lot better when it is freshly gathered from the garden,” he explained. “Please follow me outside.”
Edgar opened the laboratory door, the only way out of the workshop. We walked outside to a clearing surrounded by the dense woods that I’d only seen through the workshop windows. A dirt path extended from the door to a square garden full of plants that I’d never seen before. Shrubs, leafy greens and oddly shaped vegetables shared the space with spring flowers and haphazardly placed trees. I guessed that the trees were fruit trees when Edgar started picking round eggplant-colored balls the size of oranges and placing them in the basket.
“These are delightful,” he said. “They taste like Italian plums, but have the texture of Honeycrisp apples. I call them plumples.”
I raised an eyebrow.
Edgar smiled proudly. “They’re also good for maintaining youthful skin and repairing damaged hair.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. The idea of something called a plumple taming my frizzy curls was just too funny. The thin wisps of white hair that Edgar had left on his head did look pretty shiny, though.
After Edgar and I filled the basket, I turned to go back to the workshop to have breakfast. I stopped at the door when I noticed he wasn’t following me.
“Are you coming back inside?” I asked, my stomach grumbling.
He shook his head and motioned for me to follow him. We walked into the woods, passing through a layer of tightly packed trees. My stomach stopped grumbling when I saw what was on the other side. A brook of clear silver water twisted through a glade with far fewer trees. Rays of sunlight glimmered through the treetops and reflected off of the brook. Winston Lake suddenly became a murky memory of a muddy swamp.
Edgar sat down in front of the brook and began washing the fruit. I sat next to him and dipped my hands in the water. An icy smoothness glazed my fingers. The brook had the same silver sheen up close that it did from farther away. Instead of rolling, the water stayed completely still. The brook amazed me. I wanted to know all about it.
“How did you build your workshop in the middle of a place like this?” I asked.
Edgar dropped the plumple he’d been washing. There was no splash. The fruit sank into the brook for the slightest fraction of a second before it broke the water’s surface. Silvery drops of water clung to the dark floating plumple.
Edgar stared at his empty hands.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. I fetched the plumple out of the water and took a bite. It was crunchy like an apple and sweet like a plum, just like Edgar said it would be.
“Mmm,” I exaggerated, trying to wake him up. “This is amazing.”
Changing the subject didn’t work the way it had last time—when Edgar froze after telling me he had a wife and daughter. Edgar sat there, staring.
I passed my hand in front of his face to see if he’d snap out of it. “Edgar?”
At first I thought he had taken a stroke or something. I kneeled at the edge of the brook and reached for his hands.
“Edgar,” I whispered. “What’s happening? What are you looking at?”
He frowned and blinked. Then he looked around him. He sighed when his eyes met mine.
“Shirlyn?”
I squeezed his hands. “No, it’s me, Calla.”
His cheeks grew red when he recognized me. I let go of his hands and stood up.
Edgar eyed the basket of plumples on the ground. “I—I’m sorry. I’m very sorry, Calla,” he said as he got up from the ground. Then he turned and walked away.
So much for breakfast.
I NEVER again asked Edgar direct questions about his family or how he got to the workshop in the woods. Occasionally, though, when our conversations got too close to these topics, he withdrew by either staring into space or grumbling in agitated confusion.
Despite his odd behavior, Edgar didn’t prevent me from exploring the grounds surrounding the workshop on my own. In fact, he encouraged it. I kept up with my daily jogs. At first I didn’t stray too far from the workshop. I wasn’t sure what I’d find out there. I wanted to stay in shape, though. Since meeting Valcas, I’d learned that the ability to run from something or someone was a huge advantage. And, each day I got braver.
One morning I left the workshop and Edgar’s tonic fumes to get some fresh air. I ran past the garden and through the thick layer of trees that led to the brook. Needles from overgrown branches stuck out from the trees and scratched me as I burst through. The heavy scent of pine burned the insides of my chest. I had an easier time once I neared the brook. I ran alongside its twists and bends, curious to see where it ended. I passed by more trees and plants. The farther I ran the wilder and larger the plant life seemed to get.
I ran faster as if I were trying to race the brook. The water reached and stretched, pulling out ahead of me every step of the way. The finish line never came. Heaving, I stopped to catch my breath. I looked up around me. The pine trees were fringed in magenta and gold. Some of the plants were as large as the workshop, which would have been weird enough if the entire plant hadn’t been a single leaf growing out of the ground. I rubbed my eyes. Sweat stung my eyes. I winced. What was this place?
I turned around and walked back toward the workshop. As my breathing slowed, I realized that my footsteps and breath were the only sounds that I could hear. There was no rustling of leaves or buzzing of insects. Like the brook, everything maintained an eerie stillness. There was no life aside from me, Edgar and the trees and plants.
EDGAR HAD lunch ready by the time I returned to the workshop. It was one of his usual meatless meals—vegeta
ble soup, tea and salad. I washed up and sat down to lunch.
“Did you have a nice run?” he asked.
“Yes.” I wanted to tell him about everything I’d seen that morning—the weird plants, the never-ending brook. I doubted that he’d ever ventured out as far as I had. But I knew that asking questions about these things would only cause him to withdraw, and that was painful to watch. So instead, I asked, “Are you going to lecture today?”
Edgar’s droopy eyes lit up. “You are a true student,” he said. “Today we’ll be discussing the bright white light that envelops the traveler while he is in transit.”
I raised my eyebrows. This sounded like it would be one of Edgar’s more interesting lectures. Usually he tutored me on the basics of time travel theory. Those lectures were typically very dry and involved complicated concepts that didn’t explain how to make any better use of the travel glasses.
After lunch, Edgar and I moved into the living room. He handed me a sheet of paper that outlined the topic of the day. At the top of the page he’d written: Lecture 18: The Blanching Effect. I kept track of how many days I stayed at the workshop by saving his outlines. I glanced over at the end table where I’d stacked the papers I’d collected. I couldn’t believe that it had already been more than two weeks.
I plopped down on the love seat and looked up at Edgar. He stood there, his frail frame accentuated by the backdrop of flickering lamps. He clasped his hands behind his back and cleared his throat.
“The earliest known travelers experienced the same blinding white light that the more modern travelers still experience today. Up until the invention of sunspecs, travelers either closed their eyes or covered them with their hands to alleviate the painful brilliance of what has become known as the Blanching Effect.
“The great time travel scientist and theorist, Dr. Robert Porter, studied the Blanching Effect for most of his working life. After many years of intense experimentation he concluded that the bright white light is not just an effect of time travel, but a place in and of itself.
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