Stones of Time

by Andreas Oertel

  A second later, Anna yelled, “BONJOUR! HELLO!”

  We had everyone’s attention now. People came running from all directions. Tent flaps opened, and Natives poured out and surrounded us. Some of the men grabbed spears and formed a sloppy circle around Anna and me. Kids who had been playing in the water came running to see the pale-skinned strangers, but hid behind their mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers.

  “Cody!” Rachel bullied her way through the crowd and ran up to me, her face full of relief. “I knew you would come for me! I knew it!” She gave me such a tight hug, I thought I felt my ribs creak.

  I whispered, “Eric’s with me too, but don’t look around for him—he’s hiding in the forest.”

  Rachel released me and stared for a second at Anna with a confused look. But then her eyes brightened. She gave Anna a quick hug too and said, “I’m glad you’re safe.”

  A grumpy-looking guy—probably the chief—pulled Rachel back and barked something at us in Cree.

  Anna ignored him and yelled again. “BONJOUR!”

  Red Hat pushed his way forward and glared down at us.

  Anna asked him something in French, but the expression on his grumpy face didn’t change.

  “I don’t think he’s French,” Anna said to me.

  Oh no!

  The chief started getting twitchy and yelled at us for a second time in Cree. I don’t think he liked not knowing what was going on. A thin smile spread across Red Hat’s face. It looked a little sinister, but then again, some people smiled that way.

  The plan was falling apart, and I knew I had to do something fast. “We have come for the girl!” I yelled, pointing at Rachel. Even if they couldn’t understand English, I reasoned, they might still understand the message, if you know what I mean.

  I think the chief got the gist of that, because he nodded. But then he said something to his people and laughed. In fact, he laughed so hard it became contagious, and soon everyone was creased up and laughing at us. The only people who weren’t laughing were Anna, Rachel, Red Hat, and me.

  The situation was going from bad to worse.

  When the laughter subsided, I spun around and pointed at the old tree. As loud as I could, I yelled, “Okay, Eric, start saying something. And you better make it good!”

  The walkie-talkie I’d hidden in the tree the night before came to life. “Hi, Rachel,” the tree said. “Don’t worry about anything. I know this looks like a goofy plan, but it should work.”

  A collective murmur rose around us. Rachel looked at me dubiously and then at the tree. Clearly, she had little faith in our escape scheme.

  When the tree—I mean, Eric—stopped talking, I yelled, “The tree spirit wants Rachel to leave with us.”

  The chief gave a lengthy lecture to his people, turned to face us again and shook his giant head.

  Some of the kids grew bored with all the talking and drifted back to the water for a swim.

  I turned to the tree and yelled. “They don’t believe us, Eric! Say something else and try to sound like you’re mad!”

  The tree spoke again, angrily. “Listen up, you bozos! I want my sister back now. I like her—sometimes I even love her, but not very often—and I want her back!”

  Rachel let out a soft moan and covered her eyes. One of the older women standing next to her rubbed her back to comfort her.

  The chief glared at the tree until an old man whispered something in his ear. The chief nodded, cupped his hands together and blew into the space between his thumbs. The eerie call of a loon sounded from his hands. He then yelled across the river in Cree.

  WHOOO-OOO-HOOOOOO. The distinct cry of a loon echoed across the water.

  That’s great. That’s just great, I thought.

  The chief, of course, looked pretty smug. He said something to his people, and murmurs of agreement rose around him.

  I suspect he said something like, “This kid can talk to the tree spirits, but I can talk to the animal spirits.”

  That was when the tree decided to speak again. “Okay, Cody, from where I’m hiding, it doesn’t look like this is working. Let’s go to Plan B.”

  The warrior-types in the band had already realized we weren’t a threat and put down their spears and bows. Sure, we were strange—and probably a huge nuisance—but it was obvious we couldn’t hurt them.

  I pulled Rachel’s digital camera from my pocket and turned it on. The tribesmen who were still hanging around leaned in to look when the lens opened up and expanded outward. I scrolled back through the pictures and found a selfie she had taken. I zoomed in so that her head filled the small LCD display.

  “LOOK!” I screamed, holding up the camera so that everyone could see Rachel on the monitor. “Her spirit remains in another world. She is not complete with your people. We must take her back!”

  The chief rubbed his chin thoughtfully and then picked his teeth with one of the many claws strung around his neck. I held my breath while he considered this latest development.

  After several excruciating minutes, the chief stuck out his hand. I passed him the camera and let him look at Rachel’s “trapped” spirit. He felt the weight of the camera and turned it over and over in his leathery palm.

  Without warning, he placed it on a rock and smashed it with another stone. CRUNCH!

  “HEY!” I screamed. “That was her birthday present!” I know that was an irrelevant comment, but it made me mad to see him destroy Rachel’s camera.

  “Well,” said the tree, “I guess Rachel’s spirit is now free.” But the talking tree didn’t impress anyone anymore, and no one even looked at it. In fact, everyone except Red Hat left to continue with whatever camp chores they were working on. And, speaking of Red Hat, it was almost like he was assigned to shadow Rachel, always staying within arm’s reach, ready to grab her if she tried to make a run for it. It was kind of annoying, to tell you the truth.

  Eric jogged into the camp a minute later and joined the four of us. Red Hat seemed slightly alarmed by the arrival of yet another kid, but he didn’t run off to fetch the chief. I noticed a few people in the camp look up and point, but they weren’t intrigued enough to walk back to check Eric out. I guess the novelty of strange children showing up had already worn off.

  After giving his sister a quick hug, Eric said, “I thought of something while I was watching you guys.”

  “What’s that?” I said, sneaking suspicious glances at the voyageur, or time traveller, or whatever he was.

  “I still think this guy,” Eric pointed at Red Hat with his thumb, “is a voyageur. And I think he speaks English or French, or both. He must.”

  “But he has not said a word,” Anna said.

  Rachel squinted at her brother. “Are you saying he’s pretending he doesn’t understand us?”

  We all looked over at the tall man, standing three feet behind Rachel. He continued to stare at us blankly, not saying a word.

  “No,” Eric whispered. “I think he doesn’t understand our English or Anna’s French, because it’s different.”

  Anna slowly began to nod. “You could be right.”

  “You lost me,” I said. “What’s different?”

  “The language,” Eric said. “Think of how different English must have sounded three hundred years ago. If we time-travelled to London back then, no one would understand what the heck we were saying either.”

  I scratched my head. “You really think English and French have evolved that much?”

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Eric said. He turned and looked up at Red Hat.

  Rachel shrugged.

  Eric cleared his throat and yelled, “’Ello, gov’na, cannest thou understand me?”

  “What the heck are you doing?” Rachel said.

  Eric held up his hand for Rachel to be patient. “Kind sir,” Eric babbled on, “what be your name, pray tell?”

  Anna giggled.

  “Oh, brother,” I said.

  But Eric continued, determined t
o communicate with the voyageur. “’Tis most splendid if you would speakest. What say you, My Lord?”

  “Forget it, Eric,” Rachel said. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “You’re right,” he admitted. “I don’t think he understands English. Anna will have to talk like that in French now. ”

  “ENOUGH!” Red Hat bellowed suddenly. “I can not take zis … zis nonsense any more.” He spoke broken English with a thick French accent, but we could definitely understand him. And he could obviously understand us without us having to talk like Robin Hood or King Arthur.

  “You speak English?” Rachel said, shocked.

  He ignored that and said, “You will all stay’ere. And no one is to go to zee stones.”

  He walked up to the tree, stared at it for a minute and then reached into the hole and pulled out my walkie-talkie. After studying the gadget for a while, he passed it back to me. “Stupeed parlour tricks,” he added.

  “Actually, it’s a walkie-talkie,” Eric mumbled.

  “Why are you all’ere?” he demanded.

  “You speak English?” Rachel said again. “Why didn’t you say something to me earlier?”

  “I … I am sorry,” he stammered. “I was not sure of your purpose.”

  “Purpose?” Rachel said in disbelief. “There is no purpose. We just want to go back—back to our time. Anna and I accidentally fell into the wormhole, and Cody and Eric came to bring us back.”

  I helpfully pointed at the three of us as Rachel said each of our names.

  “Worm … hole?” he said slowly. “Is zat what brought me to zis time?”

  Anna nodded. “Yes, and you can come back with us if you want.”

  I was about to point out that he couldn’t, on account of his age, but then he said, “I ’ave no desire to return. My life before was nozing but toil. I am ’appy ’ere. The Cree respect me, and I respect zem.”

  “What is your name?” Anna asked.

  “I was called Léon Leblanc. But now I am known as Gift-From-Zee-Stones.”

  “Okay, Léon,” Eric said, seeming to get more impatient with each minute. “If you want to stay here, we won’t stop you. But we need to get out of here. So if you could convince the chief to let us go, you’d be doing us a huge favour.”

  Léon (a.k.a. Gift-From-The-Stones, a.k.a. Red Hat) didn’t say anything, so we just stood there waiting and worrying. The only noise that reached us was the kids swimming and laughing in the river, around the bend.

  “We only want to go home,” Anna reminded him. “But if the chief won’t let us go, we’ll miss our chance to go back. Will you help us?”

  Eric shifted from foot to foot, like he had to pee. “I’ll back in a sec,” he said. “I gotta pee.” (Told you.) He jogged around the bend and disappeared.

  Léon looked down his nose at each of us. “I will go and speak with zee chief. Stay near zee camp or … or zee chief will not be ’appy.” He turned around and left us to go search for the chief, who must have returned to his tent, because I couldn’t see him anywhere.

  When he was gone, Rachel said, “I don’t trust that guy.”

  “Yeah,” I admitted “but at least he’s offered to help us now.”

  Rachel didn’t look convinced. “He spent a long time pretending he couldn’t speak English or French—enough time to learn everything he could. And we have no idea what he really told the chief when he was talking to him.”

  I considered that as I watched Léon disappear inside a teepee. “We just have to be careful. For now, we better pretend we trust him, and hope he can help us.” I looked over the camp, which had returned to its usual rhythm. “We can’t make a run to the stones right now anyway, not with everyone watching.”

  Rachel nodded. “We need to be patient, but we also need to be ready.”

  CHAPTER

  7

  I LEFT ANNA and Rachel by the dead tree, and headed off to find Eric. He’d been gone a long time, and we were starting to think he was lost. I could have used the walkie-talkie to call him, but after seeing what the chief had done to Rachel’s camera, I didn’t want to risk losing that too. Plus, we should save the batteries.

  I left the camp and walked west, where I’d seen Eric disappear. I expected to see him around every bend in the trail—only I didn’t. So I headed away from the camp, moving closer and closer to the Red River. I climbed a small rise and turned around to get my bearings. I could see the whole camp, and even without the binoculars, I could see Rachel and Anna standing by the tree.

  Come on, Eric, where are you?

  I had started to take my walkie-talkie from my pants pocket when I heard a muffled noise coming from down by the river.

  Eric?

  I fought my way through the scratchy shrubs to get down to the bank.

  “Thank God!” Eric cried. “What took you so long?”

  It took me a few seconds to understand what I was seeing. Eric was on his knees next to an unconscious girl and was desperately trying to revive her. A boy and another girl stood by nervously, whimpering and mumbling in Cree. All three kids looked like they were about six or seven years old.

  “They were swimming,” Eric said, performing quick compressions on her little chest with one hand. “Something must have happened … They started screaming …” He gave me a desperate look. “I had to help her. She’s not breathing … and … I can’t feel a pulse!”

  “No pulse?” I mumbled.

  Eric nodded and switched hands. “But check yourself,” he said. “Maybe I just couldn’t find it.”

  I dropped to my knees across from Eric, on the other side of the girl. I checked all the heartbeat pulse points we had learned about in our school CPR class—neck, wrist, and ankle—but I couldn’t feel the thump of blood pushing through her body. Nothing.

  Eric was soaked with sweat. “Here,” I said, “let me take over. Take a break.” I gently pinched her tiny nose like we were taught in Health class and blew twice into her mouth. Her lips were cold too, and I wondered how long she had been underwater.

  Oh no! Was she already dead?

  I shook my head and took a deep breath. We couldn’t panic now—her life depended on us staying calm. I pushed down on her small chest with another thirty quick compressions. Push hard, push fast. Push hard, push fast. Our instructor’s chant kept going through my head. I also remembered his warning that it wasn’t uncommon to crack ribs while performing CPR. That didn’t make me feel any better. Push hard, push fast.

  I paused to see if her chest was rising on its own. No response.

  “I tried calling you on the walkie-talkie,” Eric said, huffing and puffing to catch his breath, “but … ”

  “Yeah,” I mumbled, “it was turned off. ” I repeated the resuscitation steps over and over and over—until I was exhausted too—but she still wasn’t breathing.

  Eric nudged me aside and took over again.

  The girl was turning blue, and I was getting frantic. I had never seen anyone die before, and I realized now how awful it would be to watch her life drift away, especially because she was young and helpless. We had to save her.

  As soon as Eric finished his compressions, I leaned over and blew into her mouth. Looking at her chest, I waited. And then—was I seeing things?—it rose and fell again, by itself.

  She was alive!

  Eric rolled her over onto her side. “Oh man. It worked. She’s actually breathing.” Our patient coughed and gagged, trying to clear her water-logged lungs.

  The two kids waiting next to us stared in wonder. Then, they jumped up and down, hugging each other and laughing.

  We watched, fascinated, as the girl who had been so close to death regained her colour and warmed up quickly under the sun. She continued coughing for a while, but she seemed to be out of danger now.

  We all sat and waited for her to recover fully. And after twenty minutes, she sat up and began speaking to her companions.

  “Hopefully,” Eric said, “they’ll run back and tell thei
r parents about this awesome miracle we performed. Then they’ll let us leave for sure.”

  I shook my head and studied the kids. “In the movies that sometimes backfires.”

  “It can’t,” Eric said. “We saved her life with some twenty-first-century CPR. It was a textbook rescue.”

  “It sure was,” I agreed. “But they may see it differently. What if they think she almost died because we brought bad luck to the band? Or what if they think we were trying to suck the life out of her and failed?”

  “Hmmm,” Eric grumbled.

  “I say we try to keep this quiet. We’ve got enough to worry about without having to try to explain how CPR works.”

  “Okay,” Eric said. “It’s just a shame that we won’t be showered with gifts and rewards for our good deed.”

  With that settled, I turned to the three children, put my finger up to my lips and went “Shhh.” I wasn’t sure if that was a timeless indicator to keep quiet, but it was worth a try.

  The kids looked at each other and then back at us. One of them shrugged.

  Eric tried next. He pointed to the camp and then used his hand to mimic a talking gesture—a mouth opening and closing. He shook his head with a stern look on his face, emphasizing that this would be a bad thing to do.

  The boy pointed toward the camp, nodded and then repeated my “Shhh” gesture. I suppose even kids in the past know how to keep secrets from parents and adults. Our victim coughed up some more water, smiled and held her finger to her lips. I think the only thing that kept her from saying “Shhh” was her tired throat.

  Anyway, we were all on the same page now.

  •

  Eric and I followed the children back to camp. The girl we revived stopped every twenty feet for a good fit of coughing, but she seemed to be in good spirits. Eric had tried to carry her—thinking she might be too weak to stand—but she squirmed away, eager to walk with her friends. I guess she had had enough attention for one morning. The slow trip back allowed plenty of time for me to fill Eric in on what had happened at the tree.

  “And now,” I concluded, “he’s talking to the chief to see if we can leave.”

  “I guess that’s progress,” Eric said.