by Ryan Dalton
Silence fell and again Malcolm felt the weight of responsibility. They were responsible for an entire town now? He pressed down on his mounting fear. No fear, he repeated. Fear is a killer.
“No way,” Winter broke the silence. “Sorry to be the skeptic again, but I write for the newspaper. I know town history, and I’ve never heard of this. Why wouldn’t there be records? Why doesn’t anyone talk about it?”
The adults bristled.
“Perhaps, young lady, you are not as clever as you think,” Miss Marcus lashed out. “For your information, there was no newspaper here when it happened.”
Winter snorted. “The paper goes back to the thirties. You want us to believe they forgot to mention it?”
“That’s enough disrespect, girl.” Walter’s voice cracked like a whip.
Walter’s words washed over Malcolm unheard. A dozen memories clicked together in his head as if they’d been waiting for one unifying question. He fell back in his chair, feeling struck to the core as the question streaked through his mind like a meteor.
“Oma,” he said. “How old are you?”
Oma Grace stared at the table, uneasy. Could he have been right?
“Oma,” he repeated.
Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to sit up straight and meet his eyes. “I was born July 28, in the year 1905.”
Chapter 21
Winter fell back in her chair, wide-eyed.
Fred pointed at her and grinned. “You got told.”
Despite the heavy mood, everyone chuckled and some of the tension broke. Clive looked at Malcolm and jabbed his thumb toward Walter.
“Told you he’s the oldest man in town.”
“You’re going senile,” Walter retorted.
“Dear,” Oma Grace caught Winter’s eye. “It happened October 7, 1918. No one talks about it because everyone who saw it is long dead. Everyone but us. Okay?”
Winter glanced down at the table, seeming embarrassed, and gave a nod.
“How?” Valentine cut in. “What happened to you?”
Walter cleared his throat. “We had a plan. Well, Albert had a plan and we followed. He always was the smartest.”
“Albert?” Fred asked.
Walter studied his hands. “We all grew up together, went to school together. We were the same age. But it wasn’t always just four of us. Once, there was another, and he figured out how we might beat them.”
“That’s why we went in the house that first time,” Clive said. “Al figured there’d be plenty o’ things we could use against ‘em, and he was right. We got away with this book and any li’l gadgets we could grab. Then we used what we stole, plus one we built, and attacked before they could make the jump.”
Valentine sat forward. “Wait, you built something? How?”
He hesitated. Walter gave a nod, and Clive reached into his coat. From the inner pocket he withdrew silver spectacles and set them on the table.
Malcolm sat bolt upright. “There’s another pair like those in the house, except black!”
“Didn’t think I was born a master mechanic, did you?” Clive flashed a mischievous grin.
“The lenses show you holograms,” Malcolm explained to his friends. “Put them on and look at tech or machinery, they break it down into components and show you how to use it.”
Clive nodded. “They got a massive database. Most of it we ain’t even invented parts for. But with some, you can use a little trickery and build something that works.”
“So, you could build your own time machine?” Winter asked.
“I said master mechanic, not genius. Or miracle worker.” Clive scoffed. “Even with these, I could only make simpler stuff.” His expression grew dark. “But that house—I looked at it through these once, looked real close. There’s tiny lenses over the whole thing, and with these I figured out why.”
“I’ve been dying to figure that out,” Malcolm said.
“Half of ‘em pull in energy—heat, magnetic energy, that kind o’ stuff. The other half.” He shook his head. “Now, here’s where it gets crazy. The other half project a field that plays with your head, makes you wanna stay away and ignore the house.” He waved his hands in a circle. “Plays with air an’ light somehow so people wanna forget about it.”
Malcolm thought back to the beginning, when they only noticed the house after weeks of living across from it. That whole time, they were being manipulated. Anger sparked inside him. He didn’t like being controlled.
Valentine fidgeted, then snatched up the glasses and put them on.
“Blink twice,” Malcolm told her.
Looking down at her ring, she blinked twice and her eyes went wide. With a gasp she held out her hand, no doubt reading every detail the glasses showed her about the ring. A smile crept onto her face, and she leaned toward Clive with a hungry expression.
“What else do you have?”
Malcolm smiled inwardly. Even in the face of destruction, his sister was a scientist at heart.
“Managed to steal one o’ those,” Clive said, pointing at her finger. “Built the others after studying it. We call ‘em accelerator rings. Kicks up your strength and healing tenfold, but there’s a price. You can’t wear one for too long or it’ll drain you, and you’re exhausted after using it a lot.”
“That’s why you all look so old and tired now,” Winter quipped. The adults shot her icy stares. “What? You know it’s true.”
Oma Grace shuffled in her chair. “I suppose it’s my turn now.”
She pulled up her right ankle and slid a linked silver anklet into view. Unsnapping it, she set it on the table and gave it a push toward the middle. Malcolm noticed a honeycomb pattern etched into the shiny material.
“Watch and listen.”
She snapped once, twice, three times, each time moving her hand closer to the bracelet. Four snaps, then five, then—nothing. She was still snapping, but as her fingers approached the metal, Malcolm heard only silence.
Valentine shook her head and smiled. “We always said you move like a ninja. The glasses say it’s some kind of silencing field?”
Oma Grace grinned. “You’d be surprised how it comes in handy.”
“You did somethin’ to us in the woods.” Fred poked an accusing finger at Miss Marcus. “So I know you got one, too.”
“Do I, now?” she returned. “Are you certain, boy?”
“Come on, Blue,” Clive chided. “They’ve earned it.”
Miss Marcus gave an exaggerated shrug and slid her hand next to Oma Grace’s anklet on the table. She rested the hand there for a moment, then drew it away with a satisfied smirk. In its place was a small silver pin.
“The caduceus,” Malcolm said. “Thought so.”
“Oh, wow,” Valentine muttered and touched her temple. “The glasses are going crazy.”
“Yes, Old Ironsides, the symbol of Hermes,” Miss Marcus announced with dramatic flair. “You’ve heard how the shadowed man speaks? Voices yelling into your mind, and for some reason you just have to obey? This is the same, except less potent.”
“And you made us dance with it,” Winter said, an edge to her voice.
“After tonight, you deserved to be humbled.”
“The glasses call it a time prism,” Valentine said. “Whatever that is.”
“When you hold the pin, it channels your voice through that prism,” Clive explained. “Somehow it slices up your words and broadcasts them through multiple points in time. Somethin’ ‘bout that breaks through the mind’s defenses, makes anyone more likely to obey.” He looked pointedly at the twins. “Well, except for you two, which sure is a puzzle.”
Malcolm exchanged a glance with his sister. It was true that he’d felt the pin—and the shadowed man—trying to break into his mind. Yet, he’d been able to resist, and apparently so had she. What could
that possibly mean?
“Anyway, never built one o’ those myself. Too complex.”
“So, what did you build?” Malcolm asked. “You said it was part of your plan before.”
Walter reached for the book and flipped to the back cover. Resting between the last pages was a folded slip of paper, yellowed with age. Unfolding it, he revealed a hand-drawn schematic resembling an oval blob of metal segments—similar to what comprised the black accelerator rings.
“Albert used the glasses to build this. No idea how he figured it out, but we called it the Spike.” Walter stared at the paper as if remembering, then lifted his head. “We couldn’t beat them, but we couldn’t let them destroy the town. And if we broke their time machine, they’d just rebuild it. So, Albert thought, why not trick them? Make them think we’re trying to stop them, when really we’re forcing them to jump away. So we attacked to force them into action and to distract them so Albert could attach this to their machine.”
“Wait, how’d he know where to attach it?” Valentine asked.
Walter flipped pages to another set of diagrams—four curved panels arrayed around a circular opening. Malcolm’s jaw dropped. That thing they’d seen was the time machine!
“He studied these,” Walter said. “They gather energy and channel it into this opening until it forms a vortex. When there’s enough power, it pierces through time and space. Ends up looking like a funnel cloud, or water spinning down a drain. Albert figured out how to intercept that power.”
“Smarter than all of us combined,” Miss Marcus muttered.
“Why would you want them to jump?” Winter challenged. “I thought that would destroy everything.”
“The Spike forced the machine to draw more and more power,” Clive explained. “So they had to jump or the machine would overload and vaporize itself. We knew that’s where we’d get ‘em, because the Spike had a second stage. When the machine created a portal, the Spike was built to release most of that energy. Vent it away.”
“By that point, they’d already be in mid-jump,” Walter said. “Nothing they’d be able to do about it. Losing power meant they’d fall short of the shield. We thought, let them jump ten or twenty years ahead, and we’ll use that time to figure out how to stop them for real. But—”
His voice cracked and he cut off. He tried to speak again but no words came. Malcolm noticed Miss Marcus dabbing at the corners of her eyes.
Oma Grace patted Walter’s hand and took over. “They had surprises we hadn’t anticipated, and we were losing badly. But Albert . . .” She paused, pulling herself together. “He fought past them and increased the intensity of the Spike. It forced them to retreat and jump through the portal before their machine destroyed itself. He saved our lives. But then . . .”
“Drawing extra power had a price,” Clive said slowly. “I ‘member the ground shakin’. Size o’ the vortex doubled in a blink. Spike got overwhelmed, vented too early, and all that raw power just exploded.” He exhaled sharply. “One second, Al’s standing next to that machine. The next, he’s just . . . gone in a flash o’ light. Never got to say goodbye. Never got to thank him.”
A tear ran down his cheek. Miss Marcus cried in earnest, covering her face with her hands. Malcolm noticed Walter and Oma had joined hands, offering each other comfort.
All this time, the four of them had seemed like such an enigma, as if they each hid a shameful secret. Now Malcolm knew why—they still carried the guilt and the grief. They held it close, kept it fresh and raw as if it were a penance for their mistakes. His heart reached out to them for all they had sacrificed. If the time came, would he be strong enough to do the same?
Clive wiped the tears away. “It was over. Enemy was gettin’ away and our friend was dead. So we ran. Went down through one o’ the tunnels, hopin’ it’d lead us out before they finished the jump. But then, this wave hit us.”
“Because the Spike failed, we knew they jumped more than twenty years,” Walter said. “We’d kept them from breaking the shield, but a time disturbance that big still caused an equal reaction here.”
Oma Grace spoke up. “Which, we think, is what has kept us young all these years. Instead of perishing from the shockwave of a broken shield, we bathed in the pure energy of Time itself. It touched us, left something behind, and has sustained us for all this time.”
Malcolm’s mind reeled. “Wow,” he managed to say. “That’s . . .”
“I know, my boy,” Oma Grace said. “I know.”
Clive squeezed Miss Marcus’s shoulder. “Miranda, tell ‘em the next part, will ya?”
She nodded and forced herself to sit up, attempting a regal, authoritative demeanor.
“The next day, children, we made a vow to each other never to abandon this town. To protect the people and deliver justice for Albert.” Her eyes turned inward, her expression twisting. “If I couldn’t be with him, I would live to avenge him.”
“So, we’ve watched and prepared,” Walter finished. “Waiting for the day when the lightning would come again.”
With their story told, the adults sat back, faces drawn and shoulders slumped as if they’d run a marathon. It had obviously hurt a great deal to remember.
Winter was the first to break the silence. Her elbows clanged onto the table and she leaned forward. “So, how are we going to do this?”
Malcolm couldn’t hide a grin.
Clive tapped on his watch and pursed his lips. “Six in the mornin’ now. Feds and the National Guard’ll descend on this town any minute. They’ll study the tunnels, but they won’t get far. Shadowed man’s sealed the openings with force fields by now, and they won’t think to look for the epicenter until too late.”
“So they’ll be around but won’t be a factor,” Walter added. “We’ll find a place outside town, dig down and intersect with a tunnel farther underground. From there, we’ll get inside and attack.”
“With what?” Malcolm asked.
“We built a new Spike based on Albert’s design and managed to figure out some improvements. It’ll work exactly how we want.”
Miss Marcus sighed. “Even with machines, digging will take time. This would be so much easier if we still had the watch.”
A jolt raced through Malcolm. He locked eyes with Valentine, who looked as shocked as he felt. Fred and Winter gaped.
“What watch?” Malcolm demanded.
“Albert claimed the most powerful object we stole—an antique pocket watch with unimaginable powers.” Miss Marcus shook her head. “During our battle, they took it back. If we still had it, getting into that house would be as easy as, well, you wouldn’t believe what it could—”
Standing, Malcolm dug the watch from his pocket and placed it on the table. The adults stared at it in wide-eyed silence, as if looking at a ghost.
“Is that it?” he asked.
Still, they said nothing. Finally, Miss Marcus reached out and grasped the watch with trembling fingertips. The touch was soft, almost tender. Drawing it closer, she clutched it to her heart.
“Oh my god,” she whispered. “Albert . . .”
Chapter 22
Emmett’s Bluff was broken.
The morning sun exposed every detail of the carnage. Valentine stared through the car window and thought about John for the thousandth time, praying that he was okay.
Malcolm’s revelation that he’d fought the shadowed man before, and that Walter had been involved, had sent shockwaves through the group. Oma Grace had taken it worse than anyone. A dark cloud hung over her in the front passenger seat, and she shot Walter a series of fiery glares.
Walter stole furtive glances at Oma Grace. “We’ve got the watch back,” he finally said. “That’s the important thing.”
Oma Grace shifted to face away from him.
Walter’s shoulders fell in defeat. “It wasn’t my story to tell, Grace. I didn’t t
hink he’d understand what was happening anyway.”
Valentine’s gaze rested on Malcolm, who had fallen asleep with his temple pressed against the frosty window. How close had he come to dying? The thought of losing him pierced her through. What would she do without her other half?
“We’ll have words later,” Oma Grace said. “In the meantime, this does give us an advantage. A welcome one, since we used up the shockwaves rescuing the children.”
That must be what they used in the house. Apparently, they were gloves that generated thunderclaps and force waves, but they only held limited charges before burning out.
Walter nodded. “With the watch, we can slip inside and plant the Spike before we attack. They’ll never know until it’s finished.”
Valentine’s face scrunched in confusion. The adults had explained broad strokes of their plan, but she still didn’t grasp how this Spike was different. Apparently, it was designed to send the time travelers somewhere specific, but no one had said where or when.
She rubbed her temples. Maybe it was just the fatigue, and a few hours’ sleep would clear things up. The Jeep turned a corner and flashing lights filled the windshield.
“The Guard’s here,” Walter said. “They move faster these days.”
Soldiers waved flares and directed them through a series of blockades and detours. They must have expected heavier traffic, but hardly a soul stirred. Valentine felt like she was seeing a live news feed from a war-torn country, only this time it was her home. Even knowing they had a plan, it was difficult not to feel bleak.
Malcolm startled awake. “What’s going on?”
“National Guard.”
Malcolm grunted, then caught sight of something out his window. “Val, look,” he said, pointing. “The library was right there. Remember?”
Valentine followed his line of sight a hundred yards to their left. A raised circle of earth—the ring around a crater—sat where the town square had once been.
“Yeah, and the cafe next to it. They made those nice little sandwiches. Fresh-baked cookies.” She swallowed, awash in a sense of loss.