Inherit the Past

by Susan Finlay

  “No, not really,” Monika said, trying to address his obvious distress. “Technically, she’s your second-cousin twice removed, not incest, and the genes are not an issue. They will not be very similar because of the time difference. At least that’s my take on it.”

  Sofie said, “I would agree.”

  Everyone sat in silence for a few moments. Max struggled with all of the new information coming to light. When he recovered enough, he said, “Getting back to the time travel portals, how do they work? Gramps and Grandma made one of them work, then Gramps and Mom used it and Vikktor makes at least two of them work whenever he wants.”

  “It’s not that easy,” Monika said. “Gramps and Grandma and I traveled by accident, the same way you and Sofie did. Like you, we don’t know how.”

  “Well, I can understand traveling by accident from the house, but from this end there isn’t a house or a tunnel, only a cave. How did that work?” Max fidgeted in his seat, feeling confused and frustrated. “I mean, we went from the cellar inside the house into the tunnel or whatever the hell it is, but then we came out in a cave and the rest vanished. Then a bright swirling circle of light appeared minutes later and dropped Sofie and Lotte into the cave, too.”

  Tobias said, “That’s right. We got dumped on the ground in the smelly cave, and then when we looked back, there was nothing there except rocks and dirt and water dripping down the walls like blood. Maybe bats, too, but we didn’t see any.”

  Max tried to hide his smile so he wouldn’t embarrass Tobias, but he appreciated the boy’s charming way with words.

  “Ja, it was the same for us,” Karl said. “We could not find our way back through the cave. But when I returned to the cave four months later, it just happened.”

  “What exactly happened?” Max asked.

  “Well, Ja, let me see. It has been too many years, but I remember I searched the cave, loosening stones and turning over stones, and pushing on walls. I touch rock wall, and suddenly . . . poof! I hear horrible noise and then I see I am inside tunnel or swirling circle as you described.”

  Max and Sofie looked at each other. “Well, that’s a good start,” Max said, arching and then straightening his aching back as he sat on the hard wooden bench. “You said ‘I’. What about Grandma? Wasn’t she with you?”

  Karl shrugged and shook his head. “I thought I was alone. But suddenly someone screamed, and I found out Margrit had come with. I didn’t know she had followed me into cave.”

  “Ah,” Max said. “But you were involved with her?”

  “Ja, like I said before I know her and her family. She was pretty and she was—how you say?—infatuated with me. I think that is the word. She followed me sometimes like a puppy.”

  “So you ended up marrying her because she got stuck in your time.” Karl acceded.

  Max, deciding to drop that for now, said, “Maybe a certain spot along the cave’s wall is the ‘key’ or the ‘catalyst’ or whatever you want to call it.”

  “This is what we think, too,” Karl said, “but it does not work when your mom and me try to go through. We repeat everything as I did it before. Then nothing.”

  Silence filled the room as everyone considered his words.

  Finally, Sofie said, “Did you try right away, as soon as you traveled to this period? Maybe the delay when you were here the first time was part of the key. You were here for a few months, right?”

  “Yes,” Max said. “Maybe you have to wait for a certain length of time. Four months you said? Could it be that it has to be that exact waiting period or maybe the portal has to recharge?”

  “Did Vikktor tell you anything about his time here?” Sofie asked. “Did he give you any information at all?”

  “He say very little. Difficult man. Lotte calls me old curmudgeon. Hah.”

  Karl was quiet after that, and Max thought he looked a little nervous. Last night, shortly before bedtime, Max had seen his mother and Karl huddled together, whispering, and now, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Karl and Monika were hiding something.

  Deciding to confront them, Max asked “What are you two not telling us? I know you’re hiding something.”

  Monika glanced over at her father, looking pensive, then said, “Gramps and I had tried for years to figure out how the portal worked. Whenever I visited from America, we spent time in the tunnel, researching. It was during one of these research efforts that we were accidentally transported. The baffling thing is that we had done the same thing many times before with nothing happening.”

  Max and Sofie looked at each other, and then Sofie asked, “Do you remember anything different that last time?”

  Everyone was quiet until Monika said, “I have not been able to think of anything different.”

  Monika and Karl exchanged a look, and Max pounced on it. “Come on. What are you not telling us?”

  They looked at each other again and Karl cleared his throat. “It’s not really about making the portal work. That last time, we . . . we were trying to figure out how to make it work so I could take your grandma back.”

  Max rubbed his eyes. “Why? You mean you meant to come back here?”

  Karl’s face reddened. “Your grandma never really fit in. She wanted to stay in the future, but she was considered very odd.”

  Now it was Max and Sofie who exchanged glances. “You mean to tell us you wanted to bring her back here against her wishes? That you wanted to get rid of her because she didn’t fit in?”

  “Nein. I plan to come back with her. I was going to stay here with Margrit. But I think she thought we were going to dump her here all alone.”

  Max was stunned. He looked at Sofie and saw his shock mirrored in her face.

  “Margrit could not make adjustment to modern ways. She had hard time.”

  “Then why didn’t she want to come back?”

  Karl looked around the table and waved his hands. “She liked the future. At least some things. She was just superstitious and always rebellious. She did things her own way.”

  “While exploring the tunnel that afternoon,” Monika said, “we heard a rustling noise. We looked toward the propped-open door and saw Mom and Lotte standing there, looking at us oddly. Then, without a word, Mom slammed the door, trapping us inside the tunnel.”

  Max opened his mouth in shock, unable to speak. He looked at Sofie and Tobias and saw they were as horrified. Max was starting to feel numb. How much more could they take?

  “We shouted for hours and finally fell asleep on the cold floor. When we woke up, we screamed and pounded again, but she or they ignored us. We’d brought flashlights with us but once the door closed, the flashlights worked for only a short time and then we were left in the dark.”

  “How long were you and Gramps in the tunnel, Mom?”

  “At least a full day, maybe more. We explored the tunnel walls on our hands and knees, touching the walls, searching for something, but we knew not what.”

  “Then—poof, we were thrown into the cave,” Karl said.

  “Wow!” Max said. “Why didn’t you tell us any of this earlier?”

  “We did not want you to think poorly of your grandmother, Lotte, or of us,” Monika said, hanging her head.

  Max shook his head, deciding it was time to move on and finish this. There would be time later to go into more detail, if need be. “I don’t really understand why any of you did what you did, but I guess it is all water under the bridge anyway. All we can do now is put our heads together and figure out how the time portal works.”

  Monika nodded, giving him a tentative smile. “I was no expert on physics and time travel even before getting stranded here. Do either of you know anything? Has there been some breakthrough since I left?”

  Max grinned. “I think I’ll pass that one on to Sofie. She’s our scientist.”

  “Well, my area of expertise was geology, although I studied a bit of physics theory in college. I don’t know of any particular breakthroughs, though, but there is some specula
tion and some scientists seem to be more open to the possibility of time travel. Most current time travel theories involve anomalies, wormholes, black holes, rotating Tipler cylinders, or cosmic strings combined with the building of some kind of time machine, which, as far as I know, no one has done. Other than us, time travel remains the domain of television shows, movies, and fiction books.”

  Monika sighed. “Well, I certainly didn’t see anything resembling a time-machine in that tunnel. That, I guess, says that even scientists still have much to learn.”

  “Oh, I agree,” Sofie said.

  “Could the tunnel be some kind of natural occurring time-machine?” Monika asked. “You mentioned wormholes and cylinders. Could something like that be able to transport people through time without technological manipulation?”

  “At this point, I’m not sure we should dismiss anything,” Sofie said. “I’m afraid we are all out of our depths here. If I were to guess, given that we have indeed traveled through time in what appears to be a natural tunnel or cave, I would have to speculate that some anomaly, wormhole or cylinder, whatever you want to call it, seems to have occurred here naturally, but who knows, maybe some mechanism is buried behind the wall of the tunnel. The problem is that wormholes are believed to be unstable and a cylinder would require density exceeding the magnitude of nuclear matter. The fact that there may be another portal, the one that Vikktor”—she apparently was refusing to call him grandfather, not knowing who he really was to her, Max thought—“said he uses makes me wonder.”

  “But that’s just scientific speculation, right? It could be wrong,” Max said.

  Sofie shrugged. “Something interesting geologically about the region is its meteoric history. The impact of a large meteorite centuries ago created high concentrations of coesite, a form of silicon dioxide that’s formed when very high pressure and moderately high temperature are applied to quartz. Also, millions of tiny diamonds, all less than 0.20 millimeters across, were formed when the meteorite impacted a local graphite deposit.” She paused, tilting her head as she thought. “There are an awful lot of moldavite tektites, too.”

  “What’s that?” Max asked. “Sounds like moldy technician.” His inane description made both women laugh, halting their serious demeanor. His joke apparently went over the heads of the rest at the table, as they just looked puzzled.

  Calming down, Sofie replied, “No, Max, they are small, dark, glassy stones. Some are translucent and dark green.”

  “Like kryptonite in Superman comics,” Max said, smiling again.

  “Well, I doubt they’re from another planet, but who am I to say. Try to be serious here, Max.”

  Max decided he had been put in his place and sobered.

  Karl, who had been listening quietly, suddenly let out a small groan and shook his head. When everyone turned their attention on him, his face turned pink and he gave a sheepish grin. “I been thinking about something else, different from what you are talking about. I maybe do a mistake. I was afraid the land would fall into someone else’s hands and we might not have a way to get to the tunnel again. That is why I manage to get the land in my name.”

  Max creased his brows. “How did you do that?”

  “Is not important. What might be, though, is maybe I changed history by what I did? Did I do an error? Did I make things worse?”

  Max wasn’t sure if he understood correctly. “Are you saying you own the property?”

  “Yes,” Karl said. “Is this problem?”

  “I don’t know.” Max looked at Sofie and then at Monika. “Any thoughts?”

  “How long ago did you get it?” Sofie asked.

  “Maybe ten years ago.”

  “I would think that if you changed history,” Sofie said, “then the house would have ceased to exist in our time at that time. Since it didn’t, perhaps everything is fine.”

  “I tend to agree,” Monika said. “Our history seems intact.”

  “Does anyone know when the house was built, and who built it?” Sofie asked. “And, how long has it been in your family?”

  Karl scratched his head. “Well, I know it be in our family generations. I think it be about one hundred-sixty-years-old give or take a couple of years when I inherit it.”

  “And when was that,” Max asked.

  “In 1949.”

  “That would mean the house was built around now,” Max said.

  He looked at Sofie who was biting her lip. “Shouldn’t the house already be built—or be in progress?” he asked, tapping his fingers on the table while contemplating the ramifications.

  Karl pursed his lips, making Max sigh in frustration.

  Before Max had a chance to comment, Monika said, “Now we may have a problem. I may be wrong but I think that house must be built soon. The house may or may not be a part of the time tunnel; however, it is most certainly a part of our family history.”

  “You’re probably right,” Max said. “I’m not a scientist, but from a historical standpoint, the house is significant.” He paused, sighing once more. “Heck, if it isn’t built, it could change something major in our family’s history. It may affect our timeline, don’t you think?”

  “I make a mistake then?” Karl asked. He was shaking, slightly red-faced.

  Monika said, “Not necessarily.” She rested her chin on her hand and sat quietly, slumping a bit as though deep in thought. Suddenly, she straightened up and everyone stared. “No, perhaps everything is falling into place.” She looked at Max and Sofie, and smiled. “Maybe time was waiting for these two to arrive and build the house.”

  Max nearly choked on his ale. “I’m an architect, not a builder. I don’t know how to build a house even with good tools. How could I build a house—here, with ancient tools? Besides that, we’re trying to go home. Building that house, a house that we barely got a chance to see, by the way, could take years if not decades.”

  “You do not expect your grandfather to build it at his age, do you?” Monika asked.

  “Of course not.” Max stood up and began pacing.

  “Well, then it is up to you,” Monika said. “We cannot, we have a farm to tend.”

  “You have a husband and two sons living right here,” Max said, his face growing hot as coals. “You,” he said, waving his arms around in a gesture indicating the whole family, “could all live together in that big house. And you could farm right there.”

  Monika frowned and pursed her lips in the stubborn way that Max had almost forgotten.

  He stared into the golden-brown liquid in his mug, speechless. Damn, he thought. He’d already been laid-off from his job in America. That left him free to live with Sofie in Germany if that’s what Sofie wanted. Hell, he could even, maybe, live here in this century. He was willing to turn his life upside-down. But now they expected him to build a two-story house, a house of stone with a winding staircase and a cellar. A house that led into a time tunnel, no less.

  How the hell did they know if the time portal would even work if he built the house? Maybe someone else, someone who knew what they were doing, was supposed to build it.

  “Look,” Monika said in her firm mother voice, “all I am saying is that maybe you are the person who originally built the house. As an architect you’re at least ahead of most people in this century. We can help you with some of the details of the design. I still remember the house. I grew up there, after all.”

  He stared at her, disbelievingly. “An architect is not the same as a builder. But even if it were, the tools and technology from this century and my century are totally different.”

  Monika shook her head. “It is kind of odd that you appeared here just at the right time, is it not?”

  Max suddenly felt like a prisoner on trial, with the potential of a life sentence of manual labor. Then he remembered that the Feld gendarmes were looking for him. “Well, whether or not I stay, I may not get a chance to build it. I may rot in prison for a murder I didn’t commit, or I may be put to death. Did you think of that?
”

  The kitchen was suddenly so quiet that Max could hear a mouse scuttling around in a cupboard.

  “We will work it out,” Karl said, slapping his hands on the table, breaking the silence. “You do not worry.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  WHAT HAPPENS IF the Feld gendarmes show up to arrest me and Ryan? Have you forgotten?”

  “They don’t know anything about you?” Karl said. “We told them practically nothing. We will change your identities to be safe. After you marry Sofie and move to Riesen area, you will be a respectable family building your home. No one will come looking for you near Riesen.”

  Max threw his hands up, disgusted. It was no use trying to talk to Gramps.

  Karl added, “After you, Ryan, Sofie, and I build the house, maybe the time portal will again work. Then you decide whether to stay or go back. If you stay, house and land is yours. I stay in Riesen, above the clock shop, and I will be near for family events. If you go, house and land there is still yours. I stay here.”

  “Well, since you bought the property to make sure no one changed it, doesn’t that mean you planned to use the time portal again, that you want to go back?” Max asked. “I mean, why else would you buy it? You meant to go back, didn’t you?”

  Karl sighed. “I think house and time portal be a part of us, somehow. I wanted to go back before, but my home is here now. You come here. Maybe Diana comes, too.”

  Max sighed, and then looked at Sofie who smiled and raised her eyebrows. “I think Sofie, Tobias, Ryan, and I need to talk. We have some major decisions to make and it’s not going to be easy.”

  Sofie nodded.

  Monika said, “We want the choice to by yours, certainly, though I have to admit I would love to have you stay here. If you decide to try and go back now, we will do what we can to help.” She smiled and passed around the plate of biscuits, and even though Max seemed edgy, he didn’t hesitate to grab another and spread butter on it with gusto. “Of course, this place and time is not easy, but it can be very rewarding,” she said. “You could make a life here, and with the knowledge and education you have, you could be very innovative. I think you would have a lot to offer. It is not as bad as you might think.”