“Yes, and in the process, you ended everything for Martha. I was thinking that perhaps you should finish what she started, and try to right the scales a little.”
“But now?”
“Now I think you should just drop the whole thing.”
“Because of what you read in that book?”
The elevator came to a stop. They stepped out of the greenhouse and into the back yard. Aceveda took off for the house, and Eliza followed her.
“Look, I don’t like talking about this subject, so I’ll say it once and you’ll just need to listen and absorb it. There are some places in the River that are, as I indicated, verboten. The Eye Shrine that Horace used is located in such a place. Neither you nor I can go there, because it’s extremely dangerous for people like us — people with the gift. That’s why it’s considered off limits.”
“That’s like telling a teenager they can’t do something,” Eliza replied. “It just makes them want to do it.”
Aceveda wheeled around. “But you’re not a teenager, are you? You’re not a naïve, stupid little girl who does the opposite of what someone who knows better advises, are you? Because if you ever do, if you ever go to that place, our arrangement will be permanently off, do you understand me?”
Eliza looked at her. Aceveda was prone to dramatic displays, but this seemed different. She seemed scared.
“Why is it verboten?” Eliza asked. “Just tell me that.”
“The Eye Shrine is located in a place called the Dark River,” Aceveda replied. “It makes me nauseous to even mention it. The place generates pure evil. Much of the horrors you see in this world today, and ones that have been perpetrated upon the world in the past, were generated there. It’s a breeding ground of vile sickness. It takes normal gifted people and turns them into degenerates, twisting them like Horace. That’s why it’s forbidden, that’s why it’s verboten. Capiche? Do you understand now?”
“I understand,” Eliza replied.
Aceveda began walking once again and they reached the house. “We’ll never speak of it again. Give me your word.”
“I promise,” Eliza replied.
They walked into the house, Aceveda leading the way back to the library. “I think that’s going to be all for today. When you come back in two weeks, we’ll try with the rod again. In the meantime, drop your interest in Horace and that kaleidoscope.”
“I came here only worried about Robert,” Eliza replied, “but now you’ve made me think I’ve done wrong by Martha. It feels like I should do something.”
“I utterly regret doing so,” Aceveda replied. “I have a tea that will help you forget, if that would be useful.”
“No,” Eliza replied, remembering the sad look on Martha’s face as the ghost came to terms with Horace’s victory, moments before she gave up, releasing herself to the next life. “No, I don’t want to forget. Some things are important to remember.”
“That is true,” Aceveda replied. “Just remember your promises to me. I’m not investing in you just to have you lost to a place like the Dark River. I expect you to keep your word.”
Eliza nodded in response, acknowledging how important it was to Aceveda, and acknowledging that she had made a commitment. She wasn’t sure if she’d be able to keep it, but for now, it felt like the right thing to do.
Chapter Nineteen
Eliza waited by the microwave. It was lunchtime, and the breakroom was half-filled with maintenance workers. Her boss in the gift shop, Lois, always staged their lunches, so it was rare that she took her lunch with the people she normally worked with; somehow the maintenance guys always seemed to have lunch at the same time. She knew in about five minutes they’d all empty out, and the breakroom would become nice and quiet.
Nice and quiet was fine with her. It had been a hectic morning with any number of things going wrong. The biggest crisis was fudge; they were running low and the company that made the stuff screwed up a fresh delivery. Lois was apoplectic at the idea of there being sparse fudge options inside the display, feeling that it made things look bad, so she instructed them to remove all the fudge and restock the display with t-shirts and mugs. The entire time Eliza was arranging the shirts, she knew she’d have to pull them all out again as soon as the fresh fudge arrived.
Then the school had called; Shane was missing from a class that morning. It was the second time it had happened recently, and it felt as if things were going backward with him. She was rehearsing what she was going to say to her younger brother the next time she saw him, when the timer on the microwave dinged.
She pulled the leftover chicken casserole from the device. Behind her, people were getting up to leave the breakroom, just as she’d known they would. By the time she cleaned out some spillage in the microwave, things were settled down. She turned around, dish in hand, to walk to her routine eating spot.
It was occupied by a tall, thin, lanky kind of guy she’d never seen before. Irritated that she’d have to break her routine, she sat a few spots away.
She poked at her food, testing it — it was way too hot to eat. She waited, and glanced over at the man sitting in her spot. He had a half-eaten plate of food, with a fork in his right hand, and some type of electronic device in his left. He was studying a readout and a meter, and moving his thumb over a series of buttons, watching the meter react.
She glanced back down, not wanting to be caught staring. He wasn’t classically handsome, but something about the shape of his face was pleasant. He had a wispy moustache and beard, the kind often grown by younger guys who really couldn’t produce full, proper beards. She assumed he was a new hire, although he wasn’t dressed like the other maintenance workers.
She tried her food again. Steam rose from the casserole as she broke it into smaller pieces, and she decided to wait a little more.
When she looked up again, she caught him looking at her. Before she could look away, she saw his thumb moving on the device in his hand, causing a red light to flash. Everything seemed to pause; they were looking at each other, and although she wanted to look away, she couldn’t. For a moment she wondered if her neck was paralyzed, but then realized she wasn’t breathing, either. She wasn’t moving at all. She tried to lift her hand, and couldn’t.
Then, after a split second passed, everything freed up and she glanced down, relieved that she had control over muscles again.
“You felt that, didn’t you?” he asked.
She looked up. “Felt what?”
“Everything stopped, for just a second,” he said. “Most people can’t feel it, but you did, didn’t you?”
She smiled at him. “That’s a great pick up line, one of the best I’ve ever heard. No, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh,” he said. She could hear the genuine disappointment in his voice. “Pardon me.”
“No problem,” she replied, looking at her food and trying a bite. It was still hot, so she followed it quickly with water.
“I’m Daniel,” he said. “I guess that’s a better way to introduce myself than, ‘you felt that’, right?”
“I’m Eliza,” she replied, “and yes, that’s a much better introduction. What are you holding?”
She noticed that he’d been staring at her, lost in some kind of thought, and it took him a moment to snap free and realize what she was asking. “Oh, this. I call it a CAD.”
“Oh, like drafting?” Eliza asked. “Like, an AutoCAD kind of thing?”
“No, nothing like that,” he said dismissively. She wasn’t sure she liked his tone. “CAD stands for Chronologic Anomaly Detector, but I’ve made some modifications to it that seem to have screwed it up. Like this.”
She saw him move his thumb again, and the same red light flashed. She had just placed another forkful of food in her mouth, and wanted to add more water to cool it down, but she couldn’t move her arm to reach for the glass. The heat in her mouth was beginning to hurt, and reflexes made her want to spit it out, but she couldn’t do that either.<
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Then, a second later, her hand was released and she quickly reached for the water.
“You did feel it, didn’t you?” he asked. “I saw you pause. It doesn’t make anyone else pause, but it does to you.”
She didn’t reply. Instead, she picked up her plate of food and the glass of water. “Excuse me,” she said as politely as she could, and made for the door. There were benches outside where she could sit and eat in peace. It was a little cold out, but it offered the combined benefit of lowering her food temperature and getting away from this guy.
She settled on the wooden bench and placed her glass on the ground, positioning it so it wouldn’t spill. Just as she took her first bite, she heard the door open. He was following her.
Damn, she thought, chewing.
He sat next to her on the bench. “I won’t do it again,” he said. “Sorry.”
She swallowed. “Hi. Daniel, right?”
He nodded.
“I just want to eat and go back to work,” she replied.
“Of course,” he said. “I just wanted to apologize. I mean, I feel it, but I’ve never run into anyone else who does, so I was a little stunned.”
She looked at the device in his hand. “What the hell is that thing?”
“It’s a CAD…” he started, but she cut him off.
“You told me that already. What’s it for?”
“Oh, I use it to measure time discrepancies.”
She stopped eating and turned to look at him. “What are you doing here?”
“Here?”
“Yes, here at House on the Rock?”
“Oh,” he replied. “Well, they’re having some sync issues with a couple of the automatons, and they contracted me to sort it out.”
“Sync issues?”
“You know, the way the instruments sync up with the music, so that it looks like they’re really playing.”
“Oh,” she replied. She knew that most of the elaborate scenes on display at The House on the Rock weren’t really live instruments, just automated to look live, moving along to a musical track that activated whenever anyone dropped a token into a machine. She hadn’t ever really considered sync an issue. “Which ones?”
“Which ones?” he asked.
He’s a little dense, she thought. “Which scenes? Which automatons?”
“Oh, the Blue Room and the Mikado, primarily,” he replied.
“Those are the big guns,” Eliza replied. “The complex ones.”
“I’ve fixed a few of the smaller ones like individual banjos and guitars, but yes, the Blue Room is very complex. Lots of tracks. Plenty to break down.”
“And the Mikado, too,” she said, remembering how her younger brother had suffered some kind of attack while in that room, months ago.
“You don’t like the Mikado, do you?” he asked.
She paused, feeling uncomfortable. “How would you know that?”
“The same way I know you felt this,” he said, raising the device with the meter. “You’re gifted, aren’t you?”
She felt a small thrill run through her body. The River was something most people knew nothing about, something she’d shared with only a handful of people in her life — relationships that all went bad for one reason or another, with the exception of Aceveda. She quickly tempered the excitement she felt at being outed with a desire to not become embroiled in another potentially damaging relationship.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied.
He smiled. “It’s OK. I’m being too forward, aren’t I? People tell me my social skills suck.”
“Yes, they do.”
He rose from the bench. “I’ll let you eat in peace. Sorry I bothered you.”
He walked away, headed for the door. For a split second she thought she might stop him and apologize; it quickly hit her that she had nothing to apologize for. His social skills were, as he said, poor. She’d been polite but honest. She let him walk.
Once she heard the door close, she began to feel bad, wanting to get up and go back into the breakroom. She resisted the idea, thinking back to Robert and Granger. It had been over a month since she’d last seen Robert, and it still hurt. If there had been some kind of memorial service for Granger, she and Arnie hadn’t been able to find out about it. She had called Milton a few days ago, letting him know her lack of success in that regard. Milton had been surprised and sympathetic, reiterating his invitation and asking her to stay in touch. Right now, she didn’t want to do anything River-related, and she certainly didn’t want to meet someone new who knew about it.
He’s a problem I don’t need, she thought, thinking of Daniel sitting alone in the break room.
●
“We have a dining room, but it’s a fuss to use it,” Eliza said, setting the plates of spaghetti at the kitchen table. Daniel nodded and waited for her to sit; then he took a spot across from her.
“I’m grateful to have food cooked at home,” he said. “They’re paying for my room at the inn, but it’s just like a hotel room. No way to cook anything. I’ve been eating out for weeks now.”
“Well, it’s not much, just spaghetti,” she replied.
“It looks amazing.”
Shane breezed into the kitchen. “I’m staying at Lonnie’s tonight.” He walked to the refrigerator without looking at either of them, and opened it.
“Shane, this is Daniel,” Eliza said. “He’s having dinner.”
“I can see that,” Shane replied, removing a soda from the fridge and closing the door. “Yo,” he nodded at Daniel, and disappeared out of the kitchen.
“Nice kid,” Daniel said.
“He’s almost fifteen,” Eliza replied. “Since my dad died, I’ve tried my best with him, but he thinks he’s an adult and can do what he wants. I’ve found limited success in arguing with him about it.”
“I can’t imagine being in that situation,” Daniel replied. “I’m sure it’s tough.”
Eliza urged Daniel to dig in, and watched as he spiraled up a fork of pasta and began to eat. He’d been a complete social bozo when she first met him, but in the last few weeks he seemed to slowly smooth out and say less awkward things. Now he was downright polite.
“It’s tough, but here in the Midwest we pretend it isn’t and we soldier though,” she replied. “What were we talking about before Shane came in? Oh, that’s right, time…have you always had a fascination with time?”
“Ever since I was a kid,” he replied. “Watches were my favorite toys. When I started to experience the gift in my teens, I seemed naturally drawn to things time-related. I knew I wanted to specialize in it.”
“I’ve met a few others who work in the River,” Eliza said. “No one who really specialized in anything. I didn’t realize you could.” She thought of Aceveda, but considered her a generalist who simply knew much more than most gifteds.
“Many people specialize,” Daniel replied. “Most of the gifteds I’ve met don’t, but it’s not uncommon. I’ve made a few connections with others who are into time and chrono-manipulation, and we meet up occasionally to swap stories.” He paused. “I’m geeking out, sorry. And worse, I feel like I’ve done all the talking. I’d like to hear more about you.”
“I’ve done plenty of talking,” Eliza replied.
“No, you haven’t. You have this trick whenever I ask about something, you give a quick reply and then ask more questions about me. It’s very unbalanced.”
“Well, OK,” she replied, knowing it was true. “But I want to hear about that place you were talking about, the reason why you screwed up your doctorate. It sounds fascinating.”
“I’ve told very few people about it,” Daniel said. “I’ll tell you, but I want a story from you in return. And I get to choose the story.”
“OK,” Eliza said, hoping he wouldn’t ask about Robert.
“You tell me all about Milton,” he said, “and I’ll tell you about Slaughterid.”
“Slaughterid?”
; “That’s what it’s called, the town.”
“The town that isn’t there?”
“Right,” Daniel replied, eating another fork of pasta. “I’m eating way too fast, aren’t I? It’s damn good. Look, you haven’t touched yours yet, and I’m halfway done. Forgive me.”
“Take a break and tell me about Slaughterid,” she replied. “I’ll eat.”
“You promise if I do, you’ll tell me about Milton?”
She suspected he thought Milton was an ex-boyfriend. He’d heard her mention him a few times, and knew she’d called him. He’s going to be surprised when he finds out who Milton really is, she thought. Am I ready to tell this story?
She looked at him. He had an expectant gaze that she’d seen several times since meeting him. It was both silly and disarming, and it made her smile a little. OK, she thought, I guess I’m ready.
“I promise,” she said.
“Alright,” he replied, placing his fork down and taking a swallow of beer. “Slaughter, Idaho — the town that isn’t there. The residents call it Slaughterid, since they lost track long ago that the ‘Id’ part meant ‘Idaho’. I moved to Spokane to study it, because a mentor of mine suggested it might exist, and I thought it would make an excellent dissertation. I was doing a lot of drugs back then, which is the only way I can explain why I thought it could even be dissertation material; of course the town, if it existed, would never be accepted by my dissertation committee; waaaay too paranormal. I think I just really wanted to see if I could find it, and I used the dissertation as an excuse.”
“Did you find it?”
“I did. It took two years, but I found it.”
“How? If it’s not really there?”
“It’s there,” Daniel replied. “It just slipped a little, just enough, to lose its hold on our timeline. Caused it to disappear completely.”
“An entire town?”
“Yes, the whole town,” Daniel replied.
“So it’s in a different timeline?”
“No, it never made it that far. It’s between timelines. It exists entirely independent from any other timelines. It’s like a floater, drifting freely on its own.”
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