Travel Glasses

by Chess Desalls

  Valcas has promised me my freedom in turn for the recipe for your youth elixir. I told him that I have no idea what he’s talking about, but he’s forcing me to write this letter anyway. If the ingredients and a written copy of the recipe are not packaged and set by the brook within the next two hours, he’s going to lock me away—forever! Valcas doesn’t want you to stay anywhere near the brook either. You should stay inside for the rest of the day—his orders.

  Edgar, I’m so sorry to get you involved in all of this. But, once again, you are my only hope.

  Your friend,

  Calla W.

  Satisfied, I folded the letter, put on the travel glasses and set off again on the Estrel-Flyer. I wouldn’t be going far. My destination would be the same exact place, only roughly one week earlier. I was traveling back to the day that Edgar graciously offered me mint leaf cakes and tea under the cypress tree. We hadn’t seen each other the rest of that day.

  I PARKED the Estrel-Flyer near the western end of the woods, the nearest distance from the workshop where I could hide out. For my plan to work, everything needed to be exactly the same as it was when Edgar let me stay with him—everything except the letter that Edgar was about to read and the reaction I was hoping to get. I peeked out of the woods and found my past self sitting under a tree with a cup of tea, frowning bitterly at a basket of mint cakes. Good, I thought, suppressing a shiver. Edgar had already gone back into the workshop. I remembered that after finishing my tea that day, I’d tramped through the southern area of the woods until dark.

  I carefully tiptoed around the side of the workshop, outside the range of view of my past self, and peeked into the window above Edgar’s lab sink. Edgar sat at the lab table, muttering to himself over a sketchbook of faded brown ink pressed onto yellowed pages. Nearby glass bottles filled with liquids of varying viscosities bubbled evenly over open tongues of flame. I waited, hoping that something would prompt Edgar to leave the laboratory so that I could deliver my letter.

  As I waited, I tried to measure the amount of time that passed by slowly counting numbers. I felt the weight of the passing seconds increase as Edgar persisted in his work. He was so old, yet he worked so tirelessly. I reached the number 4478, nearly one hour and fifteen minutes’ worth of seconds, before movement from within the workshop caught my attention.

  Edgar, in an exhalation of disgust, threw up his hands and hobbled into the washroom. I took advantage of this opportunity, not knowing how long it would last or when I would have another chance. I snuck into the workshop and placed the letter face up on top of the sketchbook. I took a deep breath when I made it back outside, exhaling slowly as I closed the door. I watched from the window as Edgar returned.

  Edgar was slightly startled to see a piece of paper blocking the drawings he’d been analyzing. He adjusted his glasses and looked around warily before stooping over to read, muttering some of the words aloud as he tried to process them. I bit my nails as I watched Edgar read my letter. It was filled with lies, believable lies that would test just how much he ever really meant to help me. Suddenly I wished that I could take the letter back, that I’d never written it. The lies were unfair and I had no right to put him through this. But I stayed planted where I was and let it happen because I didn’t know of any other way to help him.

  Edgar’s reaction was worse that I’d expected. First he clutched at his chest several times and gasped miserably. I worried that he was going to withdraw and stare into space like he did whenever I asked about his family. But he didn’t. Instead, he openly mourned. The words that escaped his lips flowed out like arrows, piercing the deepest corners of my heart.

  “She went to him upon my recommendation,” he cried, pulling at wisps of thinning white hair. “This is my entire fault—the travel glasses and now this! It all should have ended with my own wife and daughter. And now the life of an innocent young girl…” He shook his head. “I cannot bear this.”

  Edgar clutched at his chest again and teetered. He steadied himself on the lab table, his knuckles turning white with his efforts to remain upright. I wanted so badly to end his pain, to tell him that the letter was all a lie, that I was right here and that I was just fine. After looking around again, Edgar opened the workshop door and looked out toward the cypress tree where he’d last seen my past self. Tears fell down his cheeks when he saw that I was no longer there. I sniffled and wiped away the tears filling my own eyes. I’d meant something to him.

  “The blasted elixir!” wailed Edgar. “I should have abandoned the vile life-sapping substance long ago. But I can’t give it up—it’s all I’ve got left. It is all that is left of me. It is my life…”

  A strange look settled on Edgar’s face. His droopy eyes were sunken in and full of fear, but his jaw and lips were firmly set. “But I am an old man—a very foolish and thoughtless old man. A man who gave up his family, gave up his home, gave up his life for a life that was longer and less fulfilling. Calla’s life has just begun. Whatever purpose Valcas may have with the elixir is no business of mine. If revealing the recipe will save her—if it will preserve her young life—then I must do it.”

  Edgar decidedly closed the door and hurried into the washroom where I couldn’t see him. I heard a noisy performance of clanging, falling objects and slamming drawers before he returned to the table with his arms full of round bowls, vials and cork stoppers. I watched him measure assorted powders and carefully pour them into vials. He left the workshop momentarily to dip one of the bowls in the brook and to collect orange-red clusters that had fallen from the cypress tree.

  After he’d gathered all of the ingredients, he placed them together in a wooden box and sat back down at the lab table. For a long moment, I watched as he held his head in his hands. A shaky deep breath later, Edgar tore an empty sheet of paper from the back of the sketchbook and wrote a list of instructions. He rolled the paper into a tube which he then tenderly added to the box. I sighed as Edgar rose from his chair. With labored breath he carried the box full of ingredients outside and set them down next to the brook. It took all the resolve I had left in me not to jump out of my hiding place and help him carry that box. Then, hunched over, he slowly walked back to the workshop. His eyes were tired and his face was gaunt. He’d revealed his best-kept secret, and for whatever reason, he’d done that for me. I felt absolutely horrible for having lied to him.

  I watched Edgar as he retreated into the living room. Satisfied that he wasn’t going to leave the workshop again, I picked up the box of ingredients next to the brook and walked over to where I’d parked the Estrel-Flyer. After briefly checking in with Enta with the travel glasses, I focused my attention on Enta’s homestead and the presently existing Edgar, whom Enta said was still in really bad shape. I held the box full of Edgar’s life’s work on my lap as I jerked the Estrel-Flyer upward.

  THE SKY changed from blue to white before the pastel horizon of Enta’s homestead appeared. I landed with a thump, followed by another thump, and then another. I held on to the box of ingredients more tightly. The thumping was being generated by a lively pony, its short muscles laboring beneath a coat of vanilla spotted with milk-chocolate.

  That’s weird, I thought as the pony walked toward Enta’s barn. The flyer hadn’t changed into something else at Edgar’s home, but it changed here. I also noticed that there was no impact of my arrival here, or at Edgar’s home, or at the made-up world where Valcas grew up. None of this made sense to me.

  I dismounted and walked the pony over to a stall next to Enta’s elderly pig that was nestled on its side with closed eyes. Half expecting a spontaneous arrival from Enta, I balanced the box atop the pony while I smoothed out the animal’s thick brown mane with my free hand. Enta’s milking cow turned to look at me over its shoulder. I wondered whether the cow or the pig had ever been a car, boat or Estrel-Flyer.

  I shrugged and stepped out of the barn and into the raspberry-peach evening light. Tall grasses bent with deference to a soft wind. The green carriage was still
parked outside, but was missing its black horse which, as far as I knew, was a stray cruise liner last seen off the coast of England. A feeling of sullenness washed over me as I realized that Edgar’s prized 1929 Ford Model A pickup would never be made whole again. I hoped the same wouldn’t be true for Edgar.

  Enta’s plain house came into view against the fruity backdrop. I knocked. Enta answered the door and gave me a weary smile. Her eyes and cheeks were hollowed from lack of rest.

  “Calla. I’m glad you made it here safely.”

  “Can I see him?”

  “Yes. Please come in.” A tremor ran from Enta’s lower lip down her chin before she hurriedly looked away.

  “Follow me,” she continued. “I set up a bed on the first floor near a window overlooking the backyard. Edgar’s too weak to go upstairs.”

  I nearly had trouble keeping up with Enta while following her to where Edgar was. And I was wholly unprepared for what was waiting for me there.

  Edgar rested on a child’s twin bed covered in a faded maroon quilt. Even so, the bed looked much too large for him. His round eyeglasses sat upon a pile of books next to him. I wondered when he’d last read. His thin eyelids were loosely closed and lined with prominent purple veins. His breathing was a shallow rattle. An IV line dripped a clear liquid into his veins. I placed the box of ingredients on the planked wooden floor.

  “How were you able to get this type of hospital equipment?” I asked.

  “I worked as a nurse for some time and was able to access some old equipment that I had stored in my shop. He’s been taking very little food or water by mouth.”

  I gingerly approached Edgar. The odors of sickliness and of old age pervaded the room, only there was no hospital smell of disinfectant.

  “Edgar?”

  He didn’t respond. I touched him lightly on the shoulder and reached for his hand. Weak eyes opened halfway.

  “Edgar.”

  Unfocused eyes sluggishly moved around to locate the sound of my voice before they closed again.

  Enta frowned. A flicker of hope lit her eyes when she peered inside the box of ingredients. “Let’s go to my workshop, Calla. I may need some help getting things set up.”

  ENTA’S DUSTY workshop proved to be a much easier place to breathe. I placed the box of ingredients on one of the lab tables and perched atop an empty stool while Enta prepared her equipment. Silently and methodically, Enta set out the ingredients in a row on a lab table.

  “I am very impressed,” she said, sounding more hopeful. “Everything is measured and the instructions are in Edgar’s own handwriting.”

  Not wanting to disturb Enta as she bustled about her work, I sat quietly for a while and studied the rows of travel glasses that she kept on pegs on the wall. A strange thought occurred to me. I had to ask.

  “What would happen if an existing person tried to contact someone from the past who also happened to have a pair of travel glasses? Would they be able to communicate?”

  “Won’t work,” murmured Enta, her voice competing with the bubbling and popping sounds of the elixir as it boiled. “Both communicants must be existing as their own present selves.”

  “Oh.” That was too bad. I’d wondered whether I could just try to call a past version of Valcas to ask why he was chasing me. Was he still protecting me, or was something else going on? It would have been a really good shortcut into his thoughts. “What exactly happened the day I ran away from here when Valcas showed up?”

  “Valcas was understandably very angry. He was intent on finding you, and ‘bringing you back’ was how he said it. I just remember Edgar’s face fading, so pale, like he’d seen a ghost.” Enta shook her head in disapproval. “No longer a man, but a ghost.”

  “Did he say how he knew to find me here?”

  “No,” she sighed. “He just said that eventually you would need to stop moving. He’s probably right.”

  “What?” I shot Enta a look of disbelief. “So then you agree with Valcas? But why?”

  With pursed lips, Enta became keenly absorbed in her work for several minutes, long enough that I felt I’d offended her in some way. Eventually she looked up. “I have kept in mind what you told me and Edgar about Valcas’ recent selfish stunts. For that reason I demanded that he remove himself from my property before I had to get the authorities involved. Afterward, I became much more occupied with Edgar’s illness. I don’t know how long it has been since Edgar has taken his youth elixir.” Enta looked at me warmly. “Thank you for gathering all of this and bringing it here. If Edgar could speak he would be thanking you too.”

  Enta taste tested a bright orange liquid from a three-sided vial that was still steaming. “I believe it’s ready,” she said. “We should administer this as soon as possible.”

  Back inside the house, I watched Enta as she carefully poured several medicine droppers’ worth of the elixir into Edgar’s mouth. He sputtered and sighed with each mouthful. Then he fell asleep.

  “There now,” soothed his nurse. “We’ll see how you’re doing in the morning and try to take some more.”

  ENTA AND I dined halfheartedly, moving our food around on our plates. The few bites I managed to swallow were dry and tasteless, but that had nothing to do with Enta’s cooking.

  “How is your research of Valcas’ past life going?” she asked, her eyes glazed over from lack of sleep.

  “There’s a lot to learn.”

  Enta nodded.

  I stared at my plate, keeping quiet about certain nagging feelings that had been building since before I left the white tower. I missed Valcas’ green eyes and self-assured grin. I wished that I’d been able to have breakfast with him this morning while overlooking the sea. I wanted to talk more about time travel with him. And, even though I knew that he would forget about all the time we’d recently spent together in his past, I knew that I would never forget the closeness I’d felt while riding with him in the Estrel-Flyer.

  I shifted in my seat. “Enta?”

  “Yes?”

  “When I visited the white tower in Valcas’ past, the Halls’ motorboat turned into an Estrel-Flyer, but when I traveled to Edgar’s workshop, the vehicle stayed the same instead of changing into something else. Isn’t that weird?”

  “That’s very interesting. Although, not entirely uncommon. Edgar told me a little about his most recent dwelling, but I didn’t know it had come to that.”

  “What do you mean? What has the workshop in the woods become?”

  “I need more information to be certain. Did you notice any bodies of water on the grounds? For example, a source of water that usually flows yet stays perfectly still?”

  “Yes,” I answered, my eyes now wide awake. “The silver brook—it looks like the brook at the Halls’ estate, only there aren’t any trees around its edges and it doesn’t move.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “Why? It’s beautiful.”

  “I’m sure it is. Putting together what Edgar and now you have described to me, the workshop in the woods began as a made-up place, something that never existed in and of itself. As I understand it, certain elements were brought in from a real place, much like I have done here—”

  “Well, yeah, the brook and Edgar’s workshop. Aren’t those real?”

  “Unfortunately, no. Those things are only real where they actually existed. The workshop where you found Edgar had already transitioned into a nowhere. All that is represented there is what is left of Edgar—his memories, his writings, a lifetime of invention.”

  A nowhere. My head ached with the new information. “But how can you tell?”

  “Still waters. If the workshop in the woods were a real place, that brook would have been moving.”

  I blinked, remembering another nowhere, the still pool of water on top of which Romaso, Shirlyn and I sat in the Pipette. The motorboat had not changed. And there was no impact from our arrival.

  Edgar’s voice sounded in my head as clear as if he’d been standing next to
me. “That will not be necessary here,” he’d said when I tried to get him to duck for cover after arriving at his workshop, worried that there would be an explosion of glass vials and jars.

  Enta gathered up our half-empty plates—flat discs of ceramic, delicate dishware that would crack and shatter if dropped, incapable of surviving the impact of arrival. There hadn’t been any impact here at the homestead either time I arrived near the barn. Or at the white tower. Or the sod hut…

  “How come there isn’t always an impact of arrival?” I asked.

  Enta turned to look at me over her shoulder. “There could be multiple reasons.”

  “Like what?”

  She sat back down at the table and rubbed her eyes. “The impact of arrival does not affect made up places or nowheres.”

  “Why not?”

  “There’s no real place to tear open.”

  “But the vehicles still change, right? Like how Edgar’s pickup changed into a horse and buggy here and how the horse turned into a gondola in Venice.”

  “Yes. The vehicle of transport remains unchanged only when arriving at a nowhere.”

  “Okay, so vehicles change everywhere but nowheres. Impacts happen only in real places. That would mean that a vehicle change with no impact is a made-up place.”

  I frowned. A tingle rose underneath the skin of my lower back and trickled up my spine.

  “Calla, what’s wrong?”

  “There was no impact either time Valcas showed up on the Jet Ski at the lake. There may have been one in Venice, but Romaso and I didn’t stay near the canal long enough to find out.”

  Enta raised an eyebrow.

  “The gondola looked fine when we came back. Nothing was broken. There were other gondoliers nearby and no one said anything about an explosion or anything.” I shuddered. “Could Venice and Lake Winston be made-up places?”