“Yeah, that’s her exactly,” I said. “Have you seen her?”
“Yes,” Anna said. She hesitated for a moment, looking almost guilty, like it was her fault Rachel wasn’t with us now. “But as I said, they took her away,” she repeated.
“Who took her?” Eric demanded.
“I do not know who they are.” Anna looked nervously toward the west. “But we must hide. Please. They will come for you both soon. Your arrival through the stones made a lot of noise.”
She was making me feel very edgy now. I scanned the forest around us for signs of danger. There didn’t seem to be anything alarming, but Anna’s fear was contagious.
“Okay,” I said, picking up a backpack. “Show us where to go.”
Eric snatched up the other bag and we followed Anna on our still-rubbery legs toward the east. It should have been an easy hike through open forest, but my chest felt unbearably tight. I suppose travelling through time can be hard on the body.
Anna stopped every few hundred feet so that Eric and I could catch our breath. I took the time to look around. Something niggled at the back of my mind—this place seemed so familiar, like I had been here before. I shook my head. Maybe time-travelling was hard on the brain too.
After about fifteen minutes, we came to a river and took a longer break. I opened one of the backpacks and distributed some granola bars. We watched as Anna eagerly devoured hers. Since Eric and I were still feeling woozy, we passed her our ration.
And since I’m on the subject of feeling woozy, I think my brain really wasn’t working properly. Something Anna was telling me did not compute with what I was experiencing. But I couldn’t quite put my finger on it … yet.
“Thank you,” she said.
I gave her a water bottle and waited for her to wash down the heavy bars. Eric walked over to the river bank and splashed his face.
I turned to Anna and introduced myself—in all the rush, we hadn’t had a chance. “I’m Cody Lint, and that’s my best friend, Eric Summers. The girl you saw—Rachel—is Eric’s sister.”
“I’m so sorry. I tried to save her … but—”
Eric returned from the river. “It’s okay,” he said. “Just tell us what the heck’s going on around here.”
Anna explained in detail what had happened to her since she vanished from the cemetery. Fighting to control her emotions, she ended her story by describing how she had tried to wake Rachel, but couldn’t before they took her.
“You did the right thing,” I said. “There’s no point in you both being captured.”
“Yeah,” Eric agreed. “If you weren’t there at the stones today, we’d have no idea what happened to you and Rachel. We wouldn’t even know if we were in the same time.”
“What did these guys look like—the people who grabbed Rachel?” I really wanted to know if we were dealing with cavemen, or cowboys, or can—
“Did they look like cannibals?” Eric asked. I guess we were both thinking the same thing.
Anna raised her eyebrows at Eric. “No, no,” she said. “They were nothing like that. They appeared to be North American Natives. In German we still say ‘Indians.’”
“Are you sure?” I asked, though I was relieved to know we wouldn’t be clubbed by cavemen.
“Yes, I am certain. My father is an archaeologist—as you know by now—and every summer I travel with him to explore petroform sites. Anyway, we have many books at home on Native North Americans.”
“And that’s what the people who took Rachel looked like?” I asked.
“Yes,” Anna nodded. “They look just like the pictures in the textbooks.”
Eric smacked a horsefly trying to bite the damp skin on the back of his neck. “What were they wearing?” he asked.
“They had straight black hair,” she said. “All their clothing looked like it was made of animal hides and furs. I did not see any type of cloth. And they wore moccasins on their feet.”
“Did they have huge headdresses on their heads?” Eric asked, rubbing the welt from the horsefly bite. “And were their faces painted with war paint?”
Anna looked back and forth between Eric and me. Maybe she thought Eric was teasing her. “I think that is only in Hollywood movies. They seemed … peaceful.”
“Good,” Eric said, “because we’ve got enough problems already.”
Anna tried to swat some black flies that were biting her already chewed-up ankles, but they were too fast.
I rummaged through my pack for insect repellent and passed it to her. “Thank you,” she said. She squirted a big white blob on her hand and rubbed it all over her legs, arms, and face.
Meanwhile, I found Bruno’s cell phone and confirmed what I suspected. The message on the screen flashed, NO SIGNAL FOUND. And how could it? There wouldn’t be cell towers for who-knew-how-long.
“That’s too bad,” I said, returning the phone to the backpack. “It would have been nice to call Anna’s dad to tell him we’re just down the road.”
“That’s for sure,” Eric said. “But at least we know we’re in North America—in a boreal forest. And we have a river right here, just like in—”
“That’s it!” I cried.
“Huh?” Eric said.
I had been looking up and down the river, wondering why the walk from the stones seemed familiar. And then it hit me. “Guys—I know exactly where we are.”
“What is it?” Anna said.
“This has to be Sultana—from five or six or seven hundred years ago, but still the place where our future Sultana will be. We could have ended up at any of the other petroform sites on earth, but we didn’t. We got lucky and landed at the same spot, only in the past.”
Eric didn’t look convinced. “Just because there’s a river down there doesn’t mean this is Sultana.”
“No,” I said, “look around, Eric. Think about it. In our time, it takes about ten minutes to walk from the graveyard to the river. Right?”
Eric nodded. “Yeah …”
“Well, that distance is exactly the same as what we walked from the pillars here, to the river. That can’t be a coincidence. I think we’re looking at the Kilmeny River—our Kilmeny River.”
“I don’t know …” Eric said, sounding doubtful. “Wouldn’t all the glaciers during the ice age have changed everything?”
“Well, yeah,” I said, “but that’s way before now. Remember what Miss Kelly told us in school? Geologically speaking, five hundred years, or even a thousand years, is like the blink of an eye. It’s no time at all in the Canadian boreal forest.”
Eric waved his arms through the air. “But what about the trees? They don’t look the same.”
“Sure, the trees look different—there will probably be a hundred forest fires here in the future—but the rock outcrops, and the shape of the river, and the features of the land are the same.”
Eric stood up and re-examined our surroundings. I watched as he took everything in, and then slowly began nodding. “Holy smokes! I think you’re right. I think that granite outcrop way back there is where they’ll put the west end of the bridge years from now.”
“I can’t be a hundred percent sure,” I said, looking at Anna, “but if that’s the Kilmeny River, the Red River will be just around the corner. And if we walk west for a day or two, we should find the start of the prairie—the Great Plains. We’re probably here long before any Europeans, but I think this is the forest around Sultana, Manitoba.”
Anna nodded. “I was only in your Sultana for a few hours, but I believe you are right.”
“This could also help us find Rachel,” Eric said. “All the houses and streets are missing, but we know this area like the back of our hands.”
“Well, we used to, anyway,” I said. “I’m sure all our favourite trails and shortcuts are gone, but yeah, the area is the same.”
“So far,” Eric said, “Anna’s dad was right about all the time-travel stuff. And if our luck holds, we shouldn’t have trouble getting back.”
Anna’
s eyes widened. “What did Papa tell you?”
I remembered that Anna had no idea what had happened to her, so I filled her in. “Your dad figured out that the pillars mark the spots where wormholes are located on earth. And ancient people used astronomical events to record when those wormholes opened so they could travel back and forth in time—along the timeline.”
Anna was quick. Right away, she asked, “Then why did Papa not come and get me?”
“For some reason,” Eric said, “only young people can time-travel, and only during certain gastronomical events—”
Anna blinked. “You mean astronomical?”
“Huh? Yeah, whatever,” Eric continued. “Anyway, the meteor shower taking place right now back home marks the opening of the wormhole portal.”
“Let us hope,” Anna said, “that same meteor shower is still occurring here.”
“Your dad was telling us what happened to you,” I said to Anna, “when Rachel accidentally fell into the wormhole too. We didn’t really believe him until we saw her disappear.”
“I am sorry,” Anna said, “that you had to come here and rescue me—rescue us.”
“No problem,” Eric said.
“If your dad is right,” I said, “the wormhole will stay open for another two days. That means we have forty-eight hours to find Rachel and get back to the stones where you found us.”
“They will be searching for us too,” Anna said, nervously looking at the dark forest. She explained that when someone comes through the wormhole, it makes an unbelievably loud noise. “They know that I am here somewhere, and now they know you are here. For two days I have been hiding and trying to avoid the scouting parties that move through the area.”
“Wait a minute!” I shook my head and tried to focus. “Did you just say you’ve been hiding for two days?”
“Whoa!” Eric said. “That can’t be right.”
“I knew something didn’t make sense,” I said. “All your bug bites, the way you look, how hungry you are—”
Anna’s lip began to quiver. “You … you would be hungry too if …”
“No,” I said quickly, “that’s not what I meant. We followed you through the stones—through the wormhole—two hours after you disappeared.”
“And one hour after Rachel vanished,” Eric added.
She blinked away some tears. “But I’ve been here for days.”
“We believe you,” Eric said.
“You obviously landed at an earlier point on the timeline,” I said.
“Papa always says that the quantum world is unbelievably strange.”
“But how did you survive for so long?” Eric asked, looking at the forest behind us. Like me, he was probably wondering how she could’ve survived on her own without any trouble. “Weren’t you terrified?”
“Many of the archaeological sites I go to with my father are in remote locations. We often stay in tents and spend weeks outside—like camping. I was frightened because of how I got here, but I am not frightened by a forest.”
“Where did you hide?” I asked.
“And what did you eat?” Eric said. I rolled my eyes at him (of course, he would ask that) and he shrugged.
“During the day—when I felt it was safe—I ate only wild strawberries. They are small but there are many of them. And at night I made a bed of branches from the cedar tree and covered myself with even more branches. The Natives have not found me—but I think they know I am here.”
“I wonder what they want from you,” I asked. “Or with any of us, for that matter.”
“I do not think they mean any harm,” Anna said. “Maybe they only want to protect us from danger—from the wild animals. But we cannot be sure. I just want to go home.”
You’ve got that right, I thought.
“Have you seen any wildlife?” Eric asked.
Anna nodded. “Oh, yes. I have seen many deer already—they are everywhere. And early this morning, when I climbed a tree to see the area better, I saw a family of foxes.”
“But no bears?” Eric asked, trying hard to sound casual. “Or wolves?”
She shook her head.
“So if they heard us land here,” I said, getting back to our task, “then their village, or camp, or whatever, can’t be too far away. That may work to our advantage, as long as we don’t get caught first.”
“Yeah,” Eric said, smearing insect repellent on his own legs, “but we’re from the twenty-first century and we’ve watched thousands of hours of TV. We can outsmart them.”
I wasn’t entirely sure about Eric’s logic, but he did have a point. The local Natives were familiar with the area, but so were we. They would be trying to catch us, but we were on to them. Sure, they were adults and professional hunters, and we were just kids—but we were kids from the future.
“I think they will be behind us soon,” Anna said. “We should move away from here.”
Since she had spent two days successfully avoiding capture, we trusted her instincts and lifted our packs.
“Let’s do what they do in the movies,” Eric suggested. “We’ll stomp down into the river, like we’re crossing it and continuing north. But as soon as we’re in the water, we’ll turn right and head south. They can’t track us in water.”
Anna nodded.
“That may not fool them forever,” I said, “but it should buy us enough time to figure something out.”
Twenty minutes later we were still on the same side of the Kilmeny River and about half a mile south. We slogged our way into the pine trees above the bank and rested. We all drank from our water bottles and shared cookies from the box we’d taken from Eric’s kitchen. Anna lost the look of fear and nervousness that had been on her face back at the stones. She told us about her father’s obsession with the pillars, and how every time he had the chance, they would fly to one of the sites to examine and re-examine the curious stones.
“And that’s why you were in Sultana?” I asked. “At the cemetery?”
“Yes.” Anna took a sip from her water bottle and nodded.
Eric found a comfortable-looking place on the ground and sat down. “That is so cool,” he said. “Flying around the world and having all sorts of adventures.”
I craned my neck and snuck a peek down the river to make sure we weren’t being tailed. “Yeah,” I agreed. “Sure we travelled here to the past, but that doesn’t even really count, because we’re still in Sultana.”
Anna smiled, as if sympathizing.
“What about school?” Eric asked. “Don’t you have to go to school in Germany?”
“Not anymore. My mother used to be a teacher and now I am home-schooled.”
“Are you kidding me?” Eric said. “You mean you never have to go to any boring classes?”
“I do not go to classes,” Anna said, “but I still do all my lessons and assignments and tests.”
“Come on,” Eric teased, “really?” He wedged a cookie into his mouth and chewed.
“Yes, really. The only difference is that my home is my classroom.”
“That’s still pretty cool,” I said, though I didn’t think I’d be able to concentrate on my boring geometry homework, sitting in my bedroom, looking out the window.
Eric peeked around some willow shrubs to get a better view of the river downstream. Suddenly he froze. “There! There they are!” He pointed to where we had pretended to cross the river.
I dug out Eric’s binoculars and crawled over to him. I zoomed in on the search party. “Five guys,” I said, “no, make that six. And, Anna, I think you’re right. Native North Americans.” Anna joined us and I passed her the field glasses.
Anna sighed, looking at her pursuers. “Yes, that is them. They are the ones who took Rachel away.”
“Where could they have taken her?” I said to Eric. “If you had to set up a camp in Sultana—in our Sultana—where would you put it?”
“Maybe by Bruce and Marg’s house …” Eric stopped and shook his head. “I mean, where the
Kilmeny River joins the Red River. The fishing there is good, and the bugs aren’t too bad because of the constant breeze.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “There really isn’t a better place than that. And it would be close enough for them to hear whatever they heard when we arrived.” I took a final glance downriver and watched with satisfaction as the group moved north, trying to pick up our tracks.
“Where is this place?” Anna asked. “Where the rivers connect?”
Eric strapped on his backpack and pointed northwest. Anna and I looked at the blue sky through a break in the forest above us. When I squinted, I saw fingers of light grey smoke drifting into the air, a mile from where we were standing.
Eric grinned. “That’s a sure sign of a camp. We need to get there and take a look around.”
I nodded. “But I don’t think we should all go.”
“You mean we should split up?” Anna looked stricken.
“Yeah,” I said. “If the three of us go anywhere together, our movements will scream our presence to these guys. Remember, they’re expert trackers and hunters. They’ll see us, they’ll hear us, and heck, they’ll probably even smell us before we get within a hundred feet of their camp.”
We sat quietly in the afternoon sun, contemplating our next move.
“I think I should go alone and check out their camp,” I said. “See if Rachel’s there.”
Eric opened his mouth to protest, but I cut him off. “My skin is way darker than yours. You almost glow in the night.”
Anna looked at Eric’s blond hair and pale skin, and then laughed. “It is true,” she said. “And it is almost a full moon too. They might think you are an evil spirit and kill you if they see you tonight.”
Eric didn’t like the idea of being left out. “But if I come,” he said, “I could create a massive diversion while you rescue Rachel and—”
“We’re not rescuing her, not until we know what’s going on,” I reminded him. “And if two of us go, it only doubles the risk of us getting caught.”
“He is right,” Anna said. “Two people will make twice as much noise in the night. And the night here is very quiet—no wind, no birds, no other sounds. I could go, but you know this area, and it is dark. I would likely become lost.”
Stones of Time Page 4