“I suppose I could try running through the hallway.” I shuddered, remembering what had happened the last time I’d traveled that way. Then I thought of something even more concerning. “What if I make it to Edgar’s workshop and can’t find the recipe for the elixir?”
“That is an unfortunate possibility. If it becomes necessary, call me and I’ll try to help you while you’re searching.”
“What do I do with Shirlyn and Romaso while I’m gone?”
“You can leave them there. There’s no need to worry about them.”
“Okay, thanks. I’ll see what I can do about getting out of here and finding that recipe.”
I sighed after removing the travel glasses from my eyes and placing them back in my backpack. I collapsed onto the pillow bed where it was warm and comfortable. What Enta said about Edgar worried me, but finally contacting someone with the travel glasses relaxed me a little. Soon afterward, I began to doze.
I woke later to the sounds of Shirlyn and Romaso whispering to each other. Even through my sleepy haze, I could feel that someone else was in the room.
“Are you feeling better, Calla?” Valcas sounded amused, but his eyes were filled with concern.
“Yes, much better now,” I answered.
“Well then get out of bed. I can’t have you sulking all evening.”
I sat up. “What should I be doing?”
“We should be enjoying our youth, spending time with our friends, living.”
Stunned, I gave Valcas a questioning look which made him laugh. I wondered what brought on his sudden burst of enthusiasm.
“It’s still warm outside,” he continued. “I wanted to see if you would like to go for a ride in an Estrel-Flyer. Shirlyn and Romaso are coming too.”
“You want to take us flying? Outside the tower?”
“Yes. A driver will accompany Shirlyn and Romaso.” In a lower voice he added, “I don’t know how much more of their flirting I can stand.”
He looked at me repentantly. The emotion looked so strange on Valcas’ face, especially when accompanied by his smile. “I was wondering if you would fly with me.”
“Yes, I will. Let me just grab my backpack.”
SHIRLYN WAS all smiles as we each took our places in the pair of yellow and black Estrel-Flyers. “Look, Calla!” she called out over the engines as they warmed up. “Valcas let me borrow a portable camera so that we can take colored photographs. Father would just love this!”
I looked over to see the camera that Shirlyn held out. It was a dinosaur of a thing that looked a lot like a bulky old Polaroid camera from the 1980s. Shirlyn was really excited about it, though, so I nodded and smiled. She sat there wedged into a seat behind a driver and in front of Romaso, whose arms were wrapped protectively around her. The driver who sat in front of Shirlyn was the security guard who’d interrogated me. He waved my way and smiled. I awkwardly waved back to him from behind my driver, Valcas.
“Now both of you look toward me,” Shirlyn demanded. “I want to take your photograph first. Calla, you are supposed to be smiling. Much better. There!”
I sighed through my usual fixed camera-face smile. I didn’t like anyone to have pictures of me, especially digital photos that could be distorted. At least Shirlyn’s camera wasn’t built into a Smartphone. It looked big enough to be holding a giant roll of film, which made me feel a little less worried about the photo getting into the wrong hands.
I sat there patiently as Shirlyn brought the camera over to Valcas so that he could take a picture of her, Romaso and their driver. I thought about how easily green-eyed Valcas had forgiven me. His reaction was a lot different than creepy-eyed Valcas’ would have been. I remembered his words of warning, that I would not be safe. Those words had traveled with me from Edgar’s workshop to Enta’s homestead, Romaso’s Venice, Shirlyn’s Folkestone and to Sable and Jim’s made-up world. I would be leaving again soon, during this very flight if I could manage it.
“Put your arms around me, Calla.”
“Huh?”
“We’re about to take off. Please hold on to me.”
“Oh.” I tentatively reached around Valcas and lightly placed my hands somewhere between his sides and the middle of his stomach.
Valcas chuckled lightly. “I suppose that would be fine if we stayed here on the ground instead of flying.” He took both of my hands in his and pulled them together until my arms were tightly fastened around him. “I don’t want you falling out.”
Instead of blushing I winced. Falling out of the Estrel-Flyer was exactly what I intended to do. Once we were high enough I would be able to slip on the travel glasses and kick myself off of the flyer into a freefall. But now I didn’t know whether I would be able to let go. I already wanted to stay and spend more time with Valcas, and he had to go and make everything worse by pulling me up close to him where I couldn’t ignore how good he smelled in his leather riding jacket.
I stretched out my neck to look over his shoulder and watched as he handled the accelerator to lift off of the ground. He smoothly cut the acceleration with the hand brake to steadily cruise around the bottom half of the tower. Then we began our ascent along the wall, flying upward into the black sky. The rush of wind and fresh air instantly refreshed me.
“How can you tell it’s nighttime when your sky is always black?”
“The moons are out.”
“Got it. How many moons should I be seeing?”
“We have four, always crescent-shaped during the warm season.”
I searched the sky, locating four distinct wedges of moonlight, each facing a different direction.
“Calla, may I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Do you have any idea how much I missed your presence at dinner? Your conversation? Your questions?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s more than one question,” I pointed out.
“It was more of a list, actually—one that I could certainly add to if it would help you to answer the question.”
I felt my cheeks redden. “That’s okay. I don’t know the answer to any of them. I’m not sure why you would miss me at all, you know, after my intrusion into something so personal.”
“Please, let’s just forget it. I’d prefer to move on, to leave all of that unpleasantness in the past, if that’s all right with you.”
“Sounds good.”
“Good, now hold on.”
Free from the awkward conversation, from the walls of the tower and from the clutches of my own embarrassment, I watched the onyx sky as it sailed past us. Valcas and I soared upward until we reached a point high above the tower. Then we plunged downward toward the other side of the wall. The wind swept across my face and my stomach flip-flopped as if we were rushing down a steep drop on a roller coaster. I heard a yelp and a whoop off in the distance, which Valcas returned with a whoop of his own. He was competing with the guard driving Shirlyn and Romaso’s Estrel-Flyer to see who could reach the ground first without stopping. Just as I thought we would be absorbed by the sea of purple and red terrain, Valcas decelerated and shifted the Estrel-Flyer to the side, creating a wave of glinting particles of what looked like tinted playground sand, only softer and more feather-like.
“That was amazing! Better than amazing. How did you learn to fly like that?”
“I took a class.” He shrugged. Then he turned and gave me a sideways glance. His eyes were narrowed and he was grinning at me. “You must not be afraid of heights.”
“Not so much.” The flight was nothing compared to some of the freefalls I’d experienced since Valcas had entered my life. “Why do you ask?”
Valcas laughed. “During the dive, I heard Shirlyn’s squeal over the motor from fifty yards away. You didn’t make a sound.” He steadied the Estrel-Flyer and accelerated back up to a cruising speed. “So, tell me, Calla. How long do I get to keep you?”
I considered this. After all that had happened, the idea of staying for a while longer was still very tempting. But I’d made a pr
omise to help Edgar. “Valcas, I need to be very honest with you.”
“I haven’t expected otherwise. Go on.”
“I just found out that a friend of mine is very sick.” I felt my voice crack on the word sick. “He needs me right now. I have to leave tonight.”
Valcas placed a hand over mine. “I’m very sorry. Had I known—Is there anything I could do? I could come with you.”
“No. Thanks, though. All I really need is transportation. Could you take me to the Estrel-Flyer—the white and tan one—that we used to get here?”
“Absolutely, but you will need to time travel in order to leave here.”
“That’s not a problem. I was going to do that anyway.”
Valcas slowed the Estrel-Flyer and parked near the entrance of the tower. After we both dismounted, he looked at me intently. “Your Estrel-Flyer is not a licensed TSTA vehicle. My guards inspected it thoroughly. How did you get here with two silhouettes and without a TSTA vehicle?”
“Let’s just say that your theory about the glasses is not so far off.” The words came out of my mouth before I realized what I was revealing. I shrugged it off, figuring that none of this would matter anyway. He would forget all about me the next day.
Valcas’ eyes widened, a spectacle that I’d never seen before. I’d surprised him. “You are a traveler, and a very advanced one, so it seems. Do you plan to return—to come back here to see me again?”
“Yes, I will be back as soon as everything with my friend gets figured out.”
Valcas walked with me to the white and tan Estrel-Flyer that used to be the Pipette. “Are you certain that you don’t want me to go with you?”
“I don’t think that would be such a good idea. I’m sorry, Valcas, but this is something I need to do alone. Please say good-bye to Shirlyn and Romaso for me.”
Valcas’ lips quivered as he began to say something. He stopped himself and furrowed his brow as if he’d changed his mind. He glanced down at my hands before clasping them with his and then leaned in toward me, locking his jeweled eyes onto mine.
“Be safe, Calla,” he whispered. “I’ll look forward to your return.”
VALCAS GAVE me a few pointers on how to fly the Estrel-Flyer. I could feel him watching me as I lifted up off of the ground and slipped on the travel glasses. I wondered what it would look like from Valcas’ point of view when I disappeared from his world. Reluctantly and very carefully, I pushed all thoughts of Valcas aside and focused on Edgar’s workshop in the woods. Then I pressed the accelerator as hard as I could until I was surrounded by bright white light.
The Estrel-Flyer and I landed near Edgar’s garden, now twisted and overgrown. Stillness and calm enveloped the workshop and the brook. I breathed in the warm woodsy air as I adjusted to the tart glow of the sun. It was daytime.
“That’s odd,” I said to myself as I dismounted and looked around. “I thought the Estrel-Flyer would have changed into something else once I got here.”
Leaves, cypress needles and grass crinkled under my feet as I made my way toward the workshop. The doorknob turned easily. I wondered whether Edgar had also left his workshop in Folkestone unlocked. There was so much life back at the Halls’ estate, so many people, the noisy harbor, the dragonflies. Here, his home felt empty and abandoned. Yet, I placed trust in the workshop in the woods. I hoped that somewhere inside of it I could find the recipe for the youth elixir and the ingredients needed to make it. Edgar kept handwritten notes of pretty much everything in his notebooks and papers. My goal was to find the recipe as quickly as possible. It was a grim task since everything was in hardcopy with no known index.
I began by sorting through papers that I’d already read, mostly Edgar’s own outdated essays about time travel and experimental vegetable hybrids. Next were the diaries and travel journals. I browsed through them quickly, looking specifically for any loose sheets of paper or handwritten notes in the margins. Finding nothing, I searched the shelves in the washroom for textbooks. Edgar had books on a wide variety of topics including mathematics, optics, logic, sociology, modern galaxies and medicine. I carefully checked the margins and insides of each cover for notes about elixirs or potions. Hours passed as the light that entered the workshop through the windows grew dim. Still, there was no sign of the recipe.
I gathered up an armful of additional books and moved out of the washroom into the living room. I yawned as I lit the lamps that hung on the walls. Even though I had taken a short nap earlier, I felt the effects of having been awake for an afternoon at the workshop after most of an entire day with Valcas. My thoughts wandered back to the tower. Was he already asleep, wrapped in a slumber of forgetfulness that would delete all of his memories of me? I bit my lip, remembering the lonely sadness in his eyes as he said good-bye. Whatever he felt for me in that moment would be completely lost.
I understood why Shirlyn chose to leave a lasting impression of herself on Romaso. But I knew I could go back—I had to. There was so much more to Valcas’ story and I had an overwhelming feeling that the more I learned about him, the more it would help to explain everything that happened at the dock. Until then, I needed to focus on the urgency of my present task, to help heal his uncle and my friend, Edgar.
I sat down on the love seat and opened another book: Grower’s Ingredients for Life. This one had an index that listed ingredients for herbal remedies, the way a cookbook lists ingredients that appear in recipes. I began reading at the beginning of the index with ingredients starting with the letter “A,” hoping that the name of an herb or vegetable from Edgar’s garden would jump out at me and provide some type of clue. I sighed, figuring that I may end up needing to call Enta after all. I’d already spent so much time searching with no results.
Partway through reading the index, I rested my head on the back cushion of the love seat and closed my eyes for a short break. Bad idea. The dimness of the light flickering in the workshop lamps and my exhaustion got to me. I fell asleep.
When I opened my eyes again, rays of sunlight danced playfully through the trees and into the workshop windows. They seemed to be laughing at me for having done something foolish. My back felt stiff and my stomach grumbled with hunger. I squinted in the direction of the window. I knew exactly where I was, but wasn’t sure why I was there. Groggily, I looked down at the book on my lap until the words on its pages came into focus.
Nutmeg. Nutmeg? No, not nutmeg. For some reason I knew that nutmeg was too dark.
Cinnamon!
I jumped off of the love seat and ran into the laboratory. Rows of brightly colored tonics sat cold over burners with no flame. Edgar! I’d slept through the night when I was supposed to be finding the recipe for his elixir. Time was slipping by and I was doing a terrible job of keeping track of it.
As I grew more agitated at myself over what I’d done, it occurred to me just how important the elixir was to Edgar. It was his life’s work, the most important thing to him in the world. It had to be. He’d left everything else to pursue his work in seclusion, away from the estate and away from Shirlyn and Elizabeth. He must have also known the significance of such an invention, especially if it were to be used in combination with time travel. He wouldn’t have written down his secret formula for that. I was searching for something that he probably never wrote. Calling Enta for help finding it would be pointless.
I quickly ran to the washroom where I furiously washed my face and brushed my teeth. I knew exactly what I had to do. I needed to travel to Edgar’s more recent past, during a time when he already knew and trusted me. My plan was far from flawless. There were two major risks, one more worrisome than the other. First, I was absolutely certain that what I was about to do would break TSTA rules, and I had no idea what the consequences of that would be. Second, there was a chance that I never meant as much to Edgar as he meant to me. I would soon find out, and that concerned me more than any penalty or fine the TSTA could throw at me.
These thoughts raced feverishly through my mind as I walke
d out to the garden for a quick breakfast of ripened fruit. Even if I were to accurately travel to when Edgar had already promised to help me, there was no way that I could ask him for the recipe upfront. Old Edgar had never told me about his youth elixir and would have no memory of Young Edgar doing so at the Halls’ estate. I didn’t want to raise suspicion or, worse yet, have him space out.
While I chewed on the interior flesh of a fruit resembling a cross between a grapefruit and persimmon, I walked beyond the garden and through the thicket of trees. I took a long, careful look at the brook. I’d always loved the silver brook, but something about it made me uneasy. It twisted and turned in the same way as the brook at the Halls’ estate, but there were no nearby oak trees for Shirlyn’s swing. The most striking difference was that this brook did not move. It was a well-preserved fossil, lifeless and dead.
I sadly shook my head and returned to the workshop. It wasn’t just the brook that bothered me. There had been two messages from an undisclosed source asking me to call about something very important. Someone had known that I was at the Halls’ estate and had tried to get in touch with me by sending two messages, a telegram and a letter. Both were writings on physical objects, but since I existed in the present it likely didn’t break the TSTA rule about changing the past. The writing that I planned to introduce into Edgar’s past would break the rule, however, and it was a risk I was willing to take. If it worked, then not only would I discover the secret recipe needed for Edgar’s revival, but Edgar would gather all of the ingredients for me.
After finding a few loose-leaf pages and a pencil, I sat at the lab table and began to write:
Dear Edgar,
I have no idea how long I’ve been gone, but I’ve run into some trouble and I need your help. Remember that afternoon when you told me that I should take a more offensive approach to dealing with Valcas? Well, that’s what I’ve done. I mean, at least I tried. I’m not sure whether it feels to you like I just left moments ago, like you just saw me. This is all still new to me, but I suppose that since you have more experience with time travel, you won’t find this as strange.
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