The Map of Time

by Félix J Palma

  If he traveled back in time, stole one of his favorite author’s manuscripts before he published it, and then killed the writer, he would be able to build up a unique library of works no one else knew even existed. Murdering a handful of writers in order to add a private literary archive to his library did not bother him in the slightest, for Marcus had always thought of his favorite novels as originating out of nowhere, independently of their authors, who were human beings, and like all human beings, pretty despicable. Besides, it was too late for him to start having scruples, especially since he had amassed his fortune in a way conventional morality would doubtless have deemed criminal. Happily, he no longer need judge himself by others” moral codes, for he had long ago elaborated his own morality. He had been obliged to do so to be able to get rid of his stepfather in the way that he had. Still, even though he poisoned him the moment he included Marcus’s mother in his will, this did not stop him from going to put flowers on his grave every Sunday. After all, he had him to thank for who he was. Although the vast fortune he had inherited from this brutal, uncouth man was nothing compared to the legacy from his real father: the precious gene that enabled him to travel in time, placing the past at his feet.

  He began dreaming of his unique library, on whose shelves Treasure Island, The Iliad, and Frankenstein, or his three favorite novels by Melvyn Aaron Frost, would sit secretly side by side. He picked up a copy of Dracula by Frost and studied his photograph carefully. Yes, the sickly little man with eyes that oozed corruption, showing he was as riddled with vices and weaknesses as any other, and only worthy of admiration when he had a pen in his hand, would be the first of a long list of writers who would meet their end in a series of freak accidents that would help Marcus amass his phantom library.

  With this in mind, he traveled to our time accompanied by two of his men, arriving a few months before Frost’s rise to fame. He needed to find him, make sure he had not delivered his manuscripts to his editor, and force him at gunpoint to hand over the only thing that differentiated him from all the other wretches who gave the world a bad name.

  Then he would end Frost’s ridiculous life by staging some sort of accident. But to his surprise, he could find no trace of Melvyn Frost. No one seemed to have heard of him. It was as though he had never existed. How could he possibly have guessed that Frost was also a time traveler and would only reveal his identity once he was in possession of your works? But Marcus had no intention of leaving empty-handed. This was the writer he had chosen in order to start his literary bloodbath, and he would find him come hell or high water.

  His plan was not notable for its subtlety: the only thing he could think of to force Frost out into the open was to kill three innocent bystanders and write the opening sentence of each of his three novels at the scene of each crime, lifting them from the published copies he had brought with him.

  This could not fail to arouse Frost’s curiosity. As Marcus had predicted, it was not long before the passages appeared in the newspapers. But still Frost did not come forward, seemingly not taking the hint.

  By turns desperate and infuriated, Marcus lay in wait day and night with his men at the scenes of the crimes, but to no avail, until a man in the crowd caught his eye. It was not Frost, and yet his presence gave Marcus a similar frisson of excitement. He had been staring like any other spectator at Mrs. Ellis’s slender corpse, which hours before he himself had propped up against the wall, and at the inspector from Scotland Yard standing next to the dead woman, a young man who appeared to be trying not to vomit, when he noticed the middle-aged man on his right. He was wearing all the typical accoutrements of the period: an elegant blue suit, a top hat, a monocle, and a pipe hanging out of his mouth, all of which revealed themselves to Marcus to be part of a deliberate disguise. Then he noticed the book the man was carrying. It was Melvyn Frost’s hitherto unpublished novel The Turn of the Screw. How could this man possess a copy of it? Clearly, he was a fellow time traveler.

  Scarcely able to contain his excitement, Marcus discreetly watched as the man compared the beginning of the novel with the passage Marcus had scribbled on the wall, and then frowned, surprised to find they were identical.

  When he slipped the book into his pocket and began to walk away, Marcus decided to follow him. Unawares, the stranger guided him to a deserted-looking house in Berkeley Square, which he entered after making sure no one was watching. Seconds later, Marcus and his men forced their way inside. In no time they overpowered the stranger. It took only a few blows for him to confess how he came to be in possession of a book that did not yet exist. This was when Marcus found out about the Library of Truth and everything else. He had traveled there in order to murder his favorite author and become his only reader, but had ended up discovering much more than he had bargained for.

  The name of the fellow in front of him with the bloody nose and two black eyes was August Draper, the real librarian responsible for guarding the nineteenth century. He had gone there in order to repair changes made to the fabric of time when a traveler named Frost murdered the authors Bram Stoker, Henry James, and H. G. Wells and published their novels in his own name. Marcus was astonished to find that Melvyn Frost was not the real author of his favorite novels, that they were the works of the three writers his hostage had mentioned, who although in Marcus’s reality had died just as they were becoming famous, in the original universe had gone on to write many more novels. Almost as astonished as he was to learn that Jack the Ripper had never been caught. He felt an almost metaphysical revulsion when he realized he had been simply traveling between parallel universes created at will by other travelers like him, but who, unlike him, had not been content merely to fornicate with Egyptian slave girls. However, he tried to put it out of his mind and concentrate on Draper’s explanations. The stranger planned to rectify the damage, warning the three authors what was about to happen by leaving a copy of their respective novels published under the name Melvyn Frost in each of their letter boxes, together with a map showing them where they could meet him. He was about to set his plan in motion when news of Marcus’s mysterious murders began appearing in the papers, and this led him to go to the scene of one of the crimes. You can imagine what happened next: Marcus killed him in cold blood and decided to step into his shoes and pass himself off to you as the real guardian of time.

  These are the facts, and if you study them carefully, certain things become clearer. For example, did it not strike you as odd that Marcus chose such an indiscreet way of contacting you: reports in the press and alerting every policeman in the city by brutally murdering three innocent people, who, by the way I doubt very much were going to die anyway in a few days” time. But what you think now is irrelevant, actually: you should have thought of it then, and you did not. You cannot imagine how much it pains me to tell you this, Bertie, but you are not as intelligent as you think you are.

  Where was I? Oh yes. You will listen to Marcus’s explanation, eyes fixed on his henchman’s weapon pointing at you as your heart begins to beat faster and faster, the sweat starts to pour down your back, and you even begin to feel overcome with a strange dizziness. I imagine if you had been shot as promptly as James and Stoker were, nothing would have happened. But Marcus’s lengthy explanation had enabled you to “prepare yourself” so to speak, and when he had finished his little talk, and his henchman took a step forward and aimed at your chest, all of your built-up tension exploded, and a flood of light enveloped the world.

  For a split second, you became weightless, released from your own body that felt more than ever like an unnecessary shell, a focus for pain and futile distractions, and you had the impression of being a creature of the air. But a moment later the weight of your body returned, like an anchor securing you to the world, and although you were relieved to feel solid again, it also left you with a vague sense of nostalgia for the fleeting experience of being out of your body. You found yourself once more trapped inside the organic casing that contained you while blinkering your vision
of the universe.

  A sudden surge of vomit filled your throat, and you released it with violent retching. When your stomach stopped heaving, you dared look up, unsure if Marcus’s henchman had already fired or was relishing drawing out the moment.

  But there was no weapon aimed at you. In fact, there was no one around you, no trace of Marcus, or his henchmen, or Stoker, or James. You were alone in the darkened hallway, for even the candelabra had disappeared. It was as if you had dreamed the whole thing. But how could such a thing have happened? I’ll tell you, Bertie: simply because you were no longer you. You had become me.

  So now, if you have no objection, I shall carry on narrating events in the first person. To begin with, I did not understand what had happened. I waited for a few moments in the by now pitch-black hallway, trembling with fear and alert to the slightest sound, but all around me was silence. The house was apparently empty. Presently, as nothing happened, I ventured out into the street, which was equally deserted. I was utterly confused, although one thing was clear: the sensations I had experienced were too real to have been a dream.

  What had happened to me? Then I had an intuition. With trepidation, I plucked a discarded newspaper out of a refuse bin and after verifying the date with amazement, realized my suspicions were true: the unpleasant effects I had felt were none other than those of spontaneous time travel.

  Incredible though it may seem, I had traveled eight years back in time to November 7, 1888! I stood in the middle of the square for a few moments, stunned, trying to take in what had happened, but I did not have much time, for it suddenly remembered why that date seemed so familiar: it was the day Jack the Ripper had murdered young Harrington’s beloved in Whitechapel and was subsequently captured by the Vigilance Committee who had gone to Miller’s court after being alerted by a time traveler who … was it me? I wasn’t sure, but there seemed to be every indication it was. Who else could have known what was going to happen that night? I glanced at my watch.

  In less than half, an hour the Ripper would commit his crime. I had to hurry. I ran in search of a cab, and when at last I found one I told the driver to take me to Whitechapel as fast as he could. As we crossed London towards the East End, I could not help wondering whether it was me who had changed history, who had made the whole universe abandon the path it was on, and take this unexpected detour represented by the blue string, moving further and further away from the white cord, as Marcus had explained to us; and if so, had I done so by my own free will or simply because it was preordained, because it was something I had already done? As you will imagine, I arrived in Whitechapel in a state of extreme agitation, and once there I did not know what to do: naturally, I had no intention of going to Dorset Street alone to confront the bloodthirsty monster; my altruism had its limits. I burst into a busy tavern crying out that I had seen Jack the Ripper at the Miller’s Court flats. It was the first thing that came into my head, but I suspect whatever I had done would have been the right thing to do. This was confirmed to me when a stocky fellow with a shock of blond hair named George Lusk sprang out from among the throng of customers gathered round me, and, twisting my arm behind my back and pressing my face against the bar, said he would go and take a look, but that if I was lying I would live to regret it. After this display of strength, he released me, gathered his men together, and headed towards Dorset Street in no particular haste. I went as far as the door, rubbing my arm and cursing the brute who was about to take all the credit. Then amongst the crowd out in the street, I glimpsed young Harrington. Pale as a ghost, he was stumbling through the crowd, a dazed expression on his face, burbling incoherently and every now and then shaking his head. I understood that he must have just discovered the disemboweled corpse of his beloved. He was the image of despair. I wanted to comfort him; I even took a few steps towards him, but I stopped when I realized I had no memory of having performed this kindly gesture in the past, and so I confined myself to watching him until he disappeared down the end of the street. My hands were tied: I had to follow the script, any improvisation on my part could have had an incalculable effect on the fabric of time.

  Then I heard a familiar voice behind me, a silky voice that could belong to only one person: “Seeing is believing, Mr. Wells.” Marcus was leaning against the wall, clutching his rifle. I looked at him as though he had stepped out a dream. “This is the only place I could think of to look for you, and I was right to follow my instinct: you are the traveler who alerted the Vigilance Committee which then captured Jack the Ripper, changing everything. Who would have thought it, Mr. Wells? Although I imagine that’s not your real name. I expect the real Wells is lying dead somewhere. Still, I’m beginning to grow accustomed to the masked ball time travelers” actions have transformed the past into. And the fact is I couldn’t care less who you are, I’m going to kill you anyway.” With that, he smiled and aimed his gun very slowly at me, as though he were in no hurry to finish me off, or wanted to savor the moment.

  But I was not just going to stand there and wait for him to blast me with his heat ray. I wheeled round and ran as fast as I could, zigzagging down the street, playing the role of quarry to the best of my ability in that game of cat and mouse. Almost at once, a ray of lava shot over my head, singeing my hair, and I could hear Marcus’s laughter.

  Apparently, he meant to have some fun before murdering me. I continued running for my life, although as the seconds passed, this felt like an ever more ambitious endeavor. My heart was knocking against my chest, and I could sense Marcus advancing casually behind me, like a predator intent on enjoying the hunt. Luckily, the street I had run down was empty, so no innocent bystanders would suffer the deadly consequences of our game. Then another heat ray passed me on the right, shattering part of a wall; after that, I felt another one cleave the air on my left, blowing away a streetlamp in its path. At that moment, I saw a horse and cart emerge from one of the side streets, and, not wanting to stop I speeded up as fast as I could, just managing to pass in front of it. Almost at once, I heard a loud explosion of splintering wood behind me, and I realized Marcus had not hesitated to fire at the cart blocking his way. This was confirmed to me when I saw the flaming horse fly over my head and crash to the ground a few yards ahead of me. I dodged the burnt carcass as best I could, and leapt into another street, aware of a wave of destruction being unleashed behind me. Then, after turning down another side street, I caught sight of Marcus’s elongated shadow thrown onto the wall in front of me by a streetlamp. Horrified, I watched him stop and take aim, and I realized he was tired of playing with me. In less than two seconds I would be dead, I told myself.

  It was then that I felt a familiar dizziness coming over me. The ground beneath my feet vanished for a moment, only to reappear a second later with a different consistency, as daylight blinded me. I stopped running and clenched my teeth to prevent myself from vomiting, blinking comically as I tried to focus. I succeeded just in time to see a huge metal machine bearing down on me. I hurled myself to one side, rolling several times on the ground. From there, I looked up and saw the fiendish machine continue down the street while some men who were apparently traveling inside shouted at me that I was drunk. But that noisy vehicle was not the only one of its kind. The whole street thronged with the machines, hurtling along like a stampede of metal bison.

  I picked myself up off the ground and glanced about me, astonished but relieved to see no sign of Marcus anywhere. I grabbed a newspaper from a nearby bench to see where my new journey in time had brought me, and discovered I was in 1938. Apparently, I was becoming quite skilled at it: I had traveled forty years into the future this time.

  I left Whitechapel and began wandering in a daze through that strange London. Number 50 Berkeley Square had become an antique bookshop. Everything had changed, and yet happily it still seemed familiar. I spent several hours wandering aimlessly, watching the monstrous machines crisscrossing the streets; vehicles that were neither drawn by horses nor driven by steam—whose reign, contrary to
what people in your time imagined, would end up being relatively brief. No time had passed for me, and yet the world had lived through forty years. Yes, I was surrounded by hundreds of new inventions, machines testifying to man’s indefatigable imagination, despite the fact that the director of the New York patent office had called for its closure at the end of your century, because, he claimed, there was nothing left to invent.

  Finally, weary of all these marvels, I sat down on a park bench and reflected about my newly discovered condition of time traveler. Was I in Marcus’s future, where there would be a Department of Time I could turn to for help? I did not think so. After all, I had only traveled forty years into the future. If I was not the only time traveler there, the others must have been as lost as I was. Then I wondered whether if I activated my mind again, I could travel back to the past, to your time, to warn you about what was going to happen.