by Rodney Jones
“What I mean is, there may not be McKinnons in Wallingford at the moment, but there will be.”
“Will be? Were we talking about ‘will be’ last night when this here young lady told us she’s from Wallingford?”
“Sir, Tess didn’t exactly lie, though I reckon maybe I did. Given all the particulars, it seemed like the right thing. You see, Tess really is from Wallingford, just not yet.”
“What in the devil has gotten into you, John? You’re barking like a hound after a whistle pig, just a noisy hullabaloo. Tess didn’t exactly lie? Well, I’d certainly call it a lie. She might’ve said any—”
“I can explain if you’ll—”
“Don’t interrupt me, boy.” His eyes were full of fire. “I have a good mind to show you what for.”
Aunt Lil took a step toward the table. “Ed?”
“What!”
“Maybe we ought to hear him out some before showing him anything. Don’t you think that’d be fair?”
“Lil, you heard what he said. He lied to us ’cause he thought it was the right thing. What do you make of that? I can conclude only one thing from it.”
“Sir?” Tess’s voice was low and timid. “May I please speak?”
My uncle turned his eyes on her. “No, you may not.”
She gave me a quick glance, bit down on her lip, then turned her head and lowered her eyes to the floor.
My uncle looked at me. “I am sorely disappointed in you, John.”
“I know, sir. I just want you to know the truth of it… all of it. May we please sit, sir?”
He gave me the same hard look he’d given Tess, then glanced over my shoulder toward her and back at me. “Grab a chair.” He nodded toward the dining room, then looked at Tess. “Sit down.” He jabbed a finger toward the empty chair at the side of the table. “I’m curious to know how it is that wrong can be right.”
I moved a chair from the dining room to the kitchen and scooted in alongside Tess. The table was pushed against the window, the same one providing the light outside for the outhouse. I could see Tess’s reflection in the glass and regretted more than ever having shown her that place up the mountain.
“Oh, your knapsack.” I started to stand.
“I’ll get it.” She got up, quickly ducked into the dining room, and came back with it looped over her shoulder. My aunt and uncle both squinted for a better look as she set it on the floor, leaning it against her chair, and then took her seat.
I cleared my throat. “Sir, that ribbon I found in the woods? I know what it is. It’s made of plastic. You’ll never find anything like it anywhere because it ain’t been invented yet.”
“It ain’t what?”
I took a deep breath and offered a quick prayer. “It’s from the future, sir.”
I feared that would be the extent of it and expected my uncle to cut me off, but he didn’t. Perhaps he was thrown off kilter by my claim. I took the advantage and plowed ahead. “I was there, sir. I went to the future, the year 2009.”
As though someone had just poked him in the chest, my uncle’s head twitched, and his brow twisted.
“And that’s where I met Tess. There’s a place up the mountain.” I pointed up over my shoulder. “It takes you from our time and puts you in hers. I just happened to stumble upon it by accident while taking the wagon into Rutland.”
My uncle pinched his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger. He peered into a dazed distance as though he’d found some place he’d rather be. I went on, telling him and my aunt about the roads, the electric everywhere, and the cars. I could hardly believe I was allowed this much leeway before being abruptly cut off by the slap of a palm—SMACK!—on the tabletop.
“What in the devil is…? What’s gotten into you?” Uncle Edwin glanced from Tess to me, then Tess again and back to me. “What is this?”
“Sir—”
“Have you completely given up your senses?” His eyes shifted to Tess again. The whites were more pink than white. “Who are you? What’d you do to him?”
Her eyes dropped down alongside her chair.
He stared hard at her. “I asked you something.”
I leaned forward. “Sir…”
He raised a hand and shook a finger at me. “I’ve heard all I wanna hear from you. I’m asking her.” He turned his sharp glare back on Tess.
Tess reached down, unzipped the side pocket of her sack, and pulled out the camera. With a shaking hand, she cautiously extended it toward my uncle.
My uncle, squinting at the object, hesitated, but then took hold of it and turned the thing over in his hands a couple times, eyeing it with distrust. “What… what is this?”
Tess whispered, “Can I show you how it works, sir?”
“I didn’t ask how it works! I asked what it is.”
“Ed…” my aunt quietly interjected.
“A camera, sir.”
“Uh?” He examined it more intently, turned it one way and then another, then looked up at Tess. “This ain’t no camera.”
She held out her hand. “May I show you?”
He looked it over again before handing it back to her. She pressed a button, and a tiny light came on. I heard a faint buzz. The thing appeared to be changing shape with a cylinder popping out of it. Tess held the camera in her left hand and touched it with her right index finger. A small flap sprang up from the top.
My aunt’s head shifted back on her shoulders as her eyes widened. It seemed my uncle’s eyes were trapped by the thing.
Tess stood, backed away from the table, and held the camera out in front of her.
“What are you doing?” Uncle Edwin asked.
“It’ll make a bright flash,” Tess warned.
A blinding flash! Chairs scraped the floor as my aunt and uncle jumped. A large purple spot floated in front of my eyes. I blinked several times trying to dislodge it.
Uncle Edwin’s eyes were wide with fear. “What in blazes?”
“I’m sorry… sorry. I thought I had the—”
“What was that?” he asked.
She fiddled with it. “Oh, I had it on manual.” Tess held the camera out to my uncle.
He held up a hand and leaned back in his chair.
“It won’t do anything.” He still made no move for it, so Tess instead turned to my aunt, who had a dazed expression on her face. “Do you want to see the picture I just took?”
Aunt Lil didn’t reply, but instead turned to me, her eyes riddled with confusion.
I cleared my throat. “I’d like to see it, Tess.”
She handed me the camera. I peered at the glowing image of three curious faces staring up at me.
“She made our picture,” I said.
I held the camera out toward my uncle. He timidly took hold of it, his eyes drawn to the glowing image. For several long moments, he stared, not saying a thing.
“May I show you something?” Tess asked, holding out her hand.
My uncle lifted his eyes.
“Can I show you something, sir?” she repeated.
His gaze dropped back down to the camera. His lips parted, but he said nothing.
“Sir?” she said.
Again, he looked up at Tess.
“May I?” Her hand was still out, waiting.
“What?”
“The camera.”
He set it gently in her outstretched hand.
“What is that thing?” my aunt whispered to me.
“It’s a camera. A digit all camera.”
“Digital. Here.” Tess handed it back to my uncle.
“That’s a picture I took earlier today.” She gave him a few moments before asking, “May I show it to Mrs. Paulson?”
Moments passed with my uncle not saying anything. He finally asked, “That you, John? On the brown?”
“Yes, sir.”
“My Lord, it is.” His eyes had not left the camera. “My Lord.” The astonishment on my uncle’s face grew even more intense. He handed the camera to Tess, who
then handed it to my aunt.
“My Lord,” Aunt Lil said.
“You want to see the one I just took?” Tess leaned in and pressed a button next to the glowing image of me on the horse. The picture changed back to the one of the three of us looking mystified.
“My…” Aunt Lil’s voice was so soft I could barely hear her.
“Where’d you get that?” my uncle asked.
“My mom gave it to me for Christmas last year.”
“For Christmas?”
“Yeah. Most everyone has one, sir.”
“What?”
“In my time, 2009, sir.”
“The year 2009?” He shook his head. “You’re saying… what are you saying?”
Tess turned to my aunt. “May I?” She took the camera, fiddled with it, and again handed it to my uncle.
“What’s it…?” He stared.
I heard the sound of cars rushing up and down paved roads. I leaned toward the camera my uncle was gazing down into—a moving picture with cars.
“Hello, anybody there?” Tess’s voice asked with an exaggerated accent. “It’s Tess McKinnon, from Wallingford, Vermont.” Her face appeared in the picture, a sober look in her eyes. “I know how you folks back in 1875 like machines and all.” I prayed my uncle didn’t recognize the mocking tone. “I thought you might like these. Bye-bye.” The little screen went blank. I looked at Tess.
She rolled her eyes; her cheeks had turned raw pink. “I made that two days ago. It’s stupid, I know. I was just… anyway… the date stamp. The camera puts a date stamp on the pictures and videos. I can show you, if you want, sir. It should say, August 16, 2009.”
Uncle Edwin just sat there, staring down at the device.
I spoke up. “Sir, those things in the moving pictures, that’s what I was talking about. I saw them. They’re real. I rode in them… I did. Tess has one. But there’re hundreds of them.”
My uncle looked me square in the eye. “When?”
“Sir?”
“When did you… I mean, how could…?”
“Back in July. It’s a long story, sir.”
“Let’s hear it.”
I gave him an account of the whole thing—my losing the wagon and walking into Wallingford in search of it. I told how I’d met Tess, apologizing for the story I’d given him before. I told how Tess had driven me to Greendale, what I’d found there, and how two days later, I’d returned there and found the wagon where I’d left it.
“John, you never struck me as an idiot, or a liar, not until now, anyhow. I don’t know what to make of this.” He shook his head. “I just can’t figure it.”
“It’s the God’s honest truth, sir.”
“And what about this morning? You assured me you were seeing this young lady home. I recall a certain other promise, as well. You didn’t keep the first, and you came in pretty late, considering. What exactly was it keeping you two the whole day?”
Tess jumped in. “John is not an idiot or a liar. He is the kindest, the most honest… and the bravest person I’ve ever met. He risked his life to get me home. We tried all day to get there, but couldn’t. It just wouldn’t work. If he lied to you, it was to protect me. I know how crazy this sounds. I’m not stupid. I knew it would. That’s why I couldn’t tell you why I was here yesterday… sir.”
“So, why was it you were here?”
“Sir, she came to warn us about a fire. The whole town is going to burn down.”
“A fire?”
“I saw it. I saw what was left here, sir.”
“Sir,” Tess said, “tomorrow a hurricane will hit North Carolina.”
“What in the…? A hurricane? You…” His eyes burned into hers. “Are you crazy?”
She brought a hand up to her chin, her eyes shifted in thought. “Sir, you know that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated?”
“Lincoln?” He gave Tess a bewildered stare. “Lincoln? Lincoln?”
“You know, because it’s history, it happened in the past. You can look it up in a book and read about it. That’s what I did. I looked up the hurricane and the fire. For me, where I live, it’s history. Eighteen seventy-five is history.”
“You are… you believe this, John?”
“I do, sir. It’s true. I saw it. Greendale was just weeds and grass. I sat here, near the backdoor, on the foundation wall of this house. There was nothing but a hole in the ground with trees coming up in it. I don’t know as I’d believe it myself had I not seen it with my own eyes. But I did. I’d swear on the Bible we’re telling you the truth.”
“Don’t you ever swear anything on the Bible less you’re ready to answer to the Lord with your soul,” Aunt Lil said.
“But that’s just it. I am. It’s the truth, ma’am.” I turned from my aunt to my uncle. His eyes met mine for a brief moment, then searched the air in front of him. Whatever it was he was thinking, he kept to himself.
My aunt made use of the pause. “Well, whatever the truth is, this poor gal’s ma must be worried ill about now. I don’t care where it is you’re from, we need to get you home. And you must be hungry.”
“Oh, I’m fine, ma’am,” Tess said. “But thank you.”
“Well, I’m bushed.” My uncle let go of a long, exhausted sigh. “I suspect maybe we all are.”
A little while later, I blew out the lamp and lay my head back on a cushion propped against the arm of the settee. The soft murmur of voices trickled down from overhead. I couldn’t make out a word being said, but I was certain of the topic. Were we believed? If not, then that pretty much left us in a fix—meaning that getting Tess back up the mountain, as I’d promised, would be a whole different story than it otherwise would. I’d find a way, though. I had no choice. It wasn’t over, no, but at least everything was said and done.
chapter seventeen
I AWOKE AS THE FIRST HINT of light appeared in the windows. I lay there in the dark, picturing Tess asleep in my bed, her long, beautiful red hair spilling across my pillow, her breath brushing the hem of my blanket. I couldn’t imagine myself ever again sleeping in that bed without thinking of her.
I heard feet shuffling above and, minutes later, the stairs creaked from the weight of my aunt. I put the parlor in order, went into the kitchen, and took a seat at the table while Aunt Lil put on a pot of coffee. My uncle came down the stairs and took his usual seat at the end of the table. Our eyes met, but it didn’t feel right saying anything, not even “good morning.”
He raised a hand to his chin, rubbed it, and nodded slightly. “Those cars you say you saw…”
“Yes, sir?”
“You say you rode on one?”
“Three, countin’ the big one, the bus. Sir, they can cover a hundred miles in an hour. And they’d go up the mountains just as fast as they came down.” I nodded like a kid describing the fish that got away. Judging from the look on my uncle’s face, I couldn’t be sure he understood what I was saying, much less believed it. Was I volunteering more than I should?
“You weren’t going to tell us?”
“I was afraid you’d think I was crazy.”
“Well, yeah, I reckon it ain’t an easy story to swallow. The thing what has me and Lil puzzled is the year you said it was, 2009. I don’t know how that can be, unless everyone else is wrong. Mr. Stewart has assured us on more than one occasion that the rapture is coming at the turn of the century. I don’t know of a fellow closer to the Lord than Allan Stewart, and he’s likely the most educated man in these parts.”
“I don’t mean any disrespect, sir, but I reckon all them folk in 2009 would disagree with him on that particular point.”
Tess came down the stairs wearing my trousers over her China dress. She stopped in the doorway. “I need to go… out.”
“You can come through here, hon.” My aunt pointed toward the back door. As Tess stepped outside, Aunt Lil took down four cups from the cabinet, filled two with coffee, and set them in front of my uncle and me. “Tess takes hers with a little sugar, if I reme
mber right.”
I nodded. “I believe so, ma’am.”
My uncle picked up his cup. “It just ain’t settlin’ right, this whole business.”
“Ed, I thought we were done with that.”
He took a sip from his cup and said, “You were just walking along… up there on the ridge?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What were you doing there?”
“I heard a noise, kind of like thunder, but like I said, it seemed it was coming from somewhere in the woods.”
“And you walked right into the future, just like that? Just walking along?”
“Well, sir, at the time, I didn’t know it was anything. All I knew was, the wagon was gone, and all the trees were changed.”
“The trees?”
“Yes, sir, they were smaller… and a lot more of them. They’d just all of a sudden changed.”
“The place you found the ribbon.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Same place you took Tess yesterday.”
“Yes, sir.”
He quieted, tapped his fingernails to the side of his cup, and twisted his jaw. Tess stepped in through the back door.
My aunt set the sugar bowl on the table. “Would you like some coffee, hon? I wasn’t sure how much sugar. Just help yourself there.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Tess walked over to the table.
“That sack you got there.” My uncle lifted a finger. “What is that?”
She slipped the knapsack from her left shoulder and handed it to him. “Mostly nylon.”
My uncle pinched it and gave the straps little tugs. “Nylon?”
“It’s a type of plastic.” Tess took a seat, then dropped a heaping spoonful of sugar into her coffee.
He lifted it by one of the straps. “These, too?”
“All of it, except for the zippers.”
“That what this is?”
“Yes. Pull it to the right.”
He did. “Hmm…” He tugged the zipper-pull back and forth a few times. “Lil, look at this.”
My aunt came around for a demonstration. “Now, ain’t that something. Let me see that.”
He handed her the knapsack. She lifted it onto the tabletop, tried the zipper, examined the straps and stitching, then noticed the tag sewn to the back and looked more closely. “Why, this says it’s made in China.”