Waking in Time

by Angie Stanton

  “Why not? I’ve been to Abbi’s room plenty of times.”

  My head jerks up in surprise. I turn to him for explanation.

  A sheepish expression covers his face. “I told you we’re close.” He grins again.

  The professor shakes his head and stands, not wanting to hear more. “I’m raising enough red flags by asking for an inspection of a coed’s room. The housing department would frown heavily on a male student coming along as well.”

  “Ah, Smitty, you weren’t a prude when I last saw you. If that’s what happens with age, I don’t want to grow up,” Will jokes.

  “Sorry, my friend. It’s the rules.”

  Will rises. “Very well, then. I’ll go hang out at the boathouse for a while.”

  Suddenly I feel a pang of anxiety—Will can’t leave! Now that I know I’m not alone in this, I need him. I grab his hand and try to keep the panic from my voice. “Do you have to?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be waiting. In fact, why don’t we meet outside my dorm, Tripp Hall, in an hour? There’s something I want to show you.” He gives my hand a quick squeeze. His eyes promise he won’t let me down.

  “Fine.” But I’m still reluctant to see him go.

  Will takes the steps down from the patio to the lakeside path and disappears. I reluctantly follow the professor back inside to the parlor, hoping Will keeps his word.

  A heavyset, red-haired woman wearing a thin set of pearls and a cloud of cheap perfume approaches. “Hello, Professor Smith, I’m Mrs. Chaplin. I understand you wish to do an inspection of room 4418.”

  The professor stands to his full height, shifting his expression from casual to professional. “Thank you, Mrs. Chaplin. I appreciate your accommodating my request with such expedience.”

  “Of course.” She leads the way out of the parlor and down the corridor toward my room as I tag behind.

  “Professor, may I inquire as to the nature of your inspection? It is quite unusual for a faculty member to request a tour of a ladies’ dormitory room.”

  Girls step out of the way and stare at Professor Smith as we pass. He doesn’t seem to notice.

  “Yes, of course, Mrs. Chaplin. I’m doing a study on atmospheric pressures, their effect on sound waves, and residual ambient effects. I believe I can gather valuable data from Miss Thorp’s corner room. It is in precise adverse symmetry to the Carillon Tower, the lake, and the hilltop.”

  I’m not sure what he just said, but it sounds like a load of bull to me.

  Mrs. Chaplin pauses at the end of the hall. “That certainly sounds intriguing. We are honored to assist you however we can here at Elizabeth Waters.” Her pearls roll in and out of the folds of her neck as she speaks.

  I pinch my lips to keep from laughing.

  He notices my restrained laughter and winks. “Your cooperation is greatly appreciated.”

  At my dorm room, sappy pop music blasts from the other side of the door. Mrs. Chaplin frowns and stands aside as I unlock the door and enter. I’d forgotten the room was a disaster of epic proportions. Janice is on her unmade bed, snapping gum and paging through a LIFE magazine as the radio blares “Teen Angel.” She startles at our invasion, jumps up, and stumbles over a discarded bath towel in her efforts to turn off the radio.

  From the doorway Professor Smith’s eyes travel to the array of ladies’ undergarments dangling from the curtain rods and bookshelves. He struggles to keep a straight face.

  Mrs. Chaplin, on the other hand, is horrified. “Ladies! The state of this room!”

  “Sorry, we forgot to tidy up.” I shove dirty clothes to the side with my foot and rush forward, snatching down the oversize granny panties and atrocious-looking bras as quickly as possible. Janice’s face turns beet red as she helps, stuffing the items under her pillow.

  With most of the personal items now out of sight, we face Mrs. Chaplin, who is burning hot with irritation. She clears her throat. “Janice, Professor Smith needs to perform an inspection of your room.”

  “What for?” Janice asks, her eye bouncing to each of us in confusion.

  “It’s all extremely scientific, so if you would excuse us for a few minutes while he completes his research.” She shoos Janice away like a bothersome gnat.

  “All right.” She collects her cardigan and heads to the door, glancing back at me as she goes. “Doesn’t Abigail need to come too?”

  “Abigail is a student in my advanced physics course and will be assisting on this project.” Professor Smith steps aside, allowing her to pass.

  Janice looks at me quizzically, as if trying to figure out this new side of me. I shrug.

  The head resident and the professor file in. The room is small and with all three of us, plus the professor’s bulky case, it doesn’t leave much room. Mrs. Chaplin’s toxic perfume threatens to suffocate me.

  Professor Smith ignores the mess and peers out the window toward the bell tower. “You have a perfect view of the Carillon Tower.”

  “I do now,” I say, hoping he gets my hint that there is a building blocking the view in the future.

  “This is my bed, by the window. I can hear the bells perfectly.” My unmade bed sits right up next to the window, giving me a perfect view of the treetops and nearby tower.

  “May I set my case on it?” he asks.

  “Sure. Excuse my clutter.” I quickly pull up the covers and smooth the bed. “I like to keep things that are important to me nearby,” I say, pointing meaningfully to the items on my bed, not the disaster of the room. “My quilt was given to me by my grandmother. She lived in Liz Waters too.”

  “The professor is here on official business. He doesn’t need to hear about your grandmother’s gift.” Mrs. Chaplin’s stale breath overpowers her perfume.

  As Professor Smith unlatches the black case and pulls out instruments, I notice he’s actually looking at the patchwork quilt and aged hatbox. “That’s quite all right. It’s nice to know you’re following the family tradition by coming to the university. What was she like?”

  He holds up a tuning fork and strikes it with a mallet, then slowly moves it through the room, but his eyes are studying everything on my side of the room, not his bogus instruments.

  I stand at the head of the bed, running my hand over the wooden headboard. “Grandma was awesome.” Mrs. Chaplin’s brow furrows at my strange use of the word. I ignore her. “When I was younger, she would jump on our trampoline with me. And she loved to travel. She took me white-water rafting.”

  Behind me, Mrs. Chaplin snorts her disapproval, the old hag. Clearly not many women white-water raft or jump on trampolines in 1961. I don’t know what the professor hopes to learn by hearing stories about Grandma. I look at him in question and tilt my head. He smiles and proceeds to perform imaginary tests while Mrs. Chaplin watches his every move.

  “Miss Thorp, do you perhaps have an older sister who lived here at Liz Waters?” Mrs. Chaplin suddenly asks, studying me as closely as the professor is studying the room.

  “No, I don’t have any siblings. Why?”

  “You remind me of another girl. That’s all.”

  The professor removes a large black box and plugs it into the wall outlet.

  “What’s that?” I ask, looking at the odd machine.

  “It’s a tape recorder. Have you never seen one before?”

  “Not like that,” I say.

  He presses some buttons and waves a microphone attached to a long coiled cord around the room. “Your grandmother sounds like a wonderful lady.”

  “She was.” I run my hand over a swatch of blue floral fabric. It seems maybe it was an old dress once. “I wish I knew what room she lived in. I can almost picture her walking down these halls and going to the dining room with friends.”

  “Mrs. Chaplin!” A girl from down the hall suddenly appears in the doorway. “The faucet in the bathroom
broke, and water is spraying everywhere!”

  “Oh my.” Mrs. Chaplin looks toward the professor, then back to the panicked girl.

  “I’m fine here. Only a few more minutes and I’ll be ready to pack up. Feel free to investigate,” he says with authority.

  “Thank you, Professor. I’ll return shortly.” The flustered Mrs. Chaplin hustles after the girl, moving with surprising speed.

  The professor tosses the microphone into his case, ending his fake pretense of testing the room. “I thought she’d never leave. Quickly, tell me anything you can think of in regard to this room and your time traveling.”

  I close the door and speak quickly. “Each time I travel, everything on my bed comes with me. The bed frame, the bedspread, and whatever’s lying on top of it. The hatbox was on the bed the day I first traveled.” And then I add sheepishly, “I was kind of drunk when I fell into bed that night, and I forgot to move it.”

  The professor chuckles, then catches himself and nods. “What’s the significance of the hatbox?” He snaps a picture of it with a boxy camera on a long, thick strap.

  “It belonged to my grandmother. She put my name on it, so when my mother found it after Grandma died, she sent it to me. Do you think that’s why I’m traveling through time? I first traveled the day I received it…”

  “It’s certainly an interesting piece of evidence that I’ve been wanting to look into.”

  I’m taken aback by this comment. I must have mentioned the hatbox to him some other place in time, which is so strange to think about.

  He takes a picture of the view from the window to the tower and then my bed, the headboard, and the furniture near it. “Does anything else in the room travel with you?”

  I examine the room more closely, from the curtains, to the closet, to the desk. “Other than the purse I hook at the end of the bed at night, no. And each time I wake up, the room is different. Not everything. The furniture is always in the same place, but everything about it and around it is different, as if it all belongs to a different person. And see this calendar?” I step over to it. “There’s always a Wisconsin Badgers calendar in this exact spot, like older versions of the one Grandma gave me the Christmas before she died.”

  “Let me get your picture next to it.”

  “Okay…” It seems like an odd request, and then it dawns on me why and I laugh. “You only want my picture because you want to be able to prove I’m real.”

  The professor laughs. “You’ve caught me.” He holds up the camera, so I give him my best beaming grin and he snaps a shot, the bright, crackling flash momentarily blinding me. He continues poking around the room.

  “I really hope you can figure this out.” I run my hand over the quilt again. “And help me find a way back.”

  He smiles sadly. “I hope so too.”

  “But you’re more likely to get to know Will in the future. I’ve only gone backward and Will only goes forward, so you have him to look forward to.” Which is wonderful for Will and the professor, but it leaves me feeling more alone than ever.

  “I suppose you’re right,” he says. “But I see you, as well, don’t I?”

  “Yes, of course. But for me, it already happened.”

  I sit on the edge of the bed, my safety zone, and stare out the window into the distance. “Professor? What if it never stops? What if I keep going back until the beginning of time?” Panic inches along my skin like a heat rash.

  “I don’t think that’s likely. Liz Waters was built in the twenties, maybe thirties. So if this room has something to do with it, I imagine it will stop there.”

  “Great! I’ll live out the rest of my life in 1930?”

  The professor pats my shoulder. “Try not to fret. I’ll do everything in my power to help.”

  The door springs open and Mrs. Chaplin reappears. The front of her dress is soaked and her red hair is limp from her battle with the faucet. She looks at the professor’s hand on my shoulder and frowns. He immediately pulls his hand away.

  “Just comforting Miss Thorp. All this reminiscing of her grandmother has made her melancholy.”

  Mrs. Chaplin glares at me. Geez. Does she seriously think I’d go for some old guy?

  “Have you completed your examination of the room?” she asks with icy judgment.

  “Yes, I’ve seen enough. Thank you.” He returns his camera and the rest of the fake instruments to the case.

  Within minutes we’re back at the lobby. I walk him outside.

  “Abbi, I’d like to go through the items in the hatbox. I don’t know that it means anything, but it’s worth checking. I find it intriguing that your grandmother keeps coming up. It’s her quilt on your bed, her hatbox you were sent the day you traveled back in time, and she even stayed in the same building.”

  “Do you think her… ghost could be here?” I ask, kind of hoping it is.

  He looks thoughtful. “I don’t know about that, but perhaps the hatbox is a talisman or something.”

  “A talisman?”

  “An object that holds some sort of power or energy.”

  “Like it’s a horcrux, something enchanted like the effigy mounds?”

  “Exactly,” he says, though he looks a bit puzzled at my choice of words. “We shouldn’t underestimate the existence and potential relevance of the effigy mounds. There’s one at the top of Observatory Hill.”

  “Great, so now I’m traveling through time because this campus is cursed?”

  “It’s one of many theories. No reason to jump to conclusions.”

  “Easy for you to say. You’re not speeding through time like pages in a flip-book.”

  “True,” he says, sobering at my reality.

  “Do you want me to show you the hatbox now?”

  “No, let’s meet at my office later, say seven o’clock? Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten already?” He raises an eyebrow.

  “What?”

  “There’s a smitten young man waiting for you.”

  I roll my eyes. “What am I supposed to do about him?”

  Professor Smith considers me. “What do you want to do?”

  “It’s so weird. I mean, I hope we can help each other, but apparently we have a history, and I just don’t know it yet.”

  “Why don’t you ask him about it?”

  “God, no!”

  “Ah, young love. I remember it well,” he says with a wistful smile.

  “We are not in love, so don’t encourage him.” I’m not sure why I’m making such a big deal of insisting that I don’t like Will, but the fact that he knows things I don’t drives me crazy.

  “Very well.” Professor Smith shakes his head. “Now, I need to get back to my office and compile my notes. Seven o’clock.”

  * * *

  Good to his word, Will waits patiently, leaning against a maple tree with brilliant gold leaves, a long blade of grass in his mouth. As soon as he spots me, a smile spreads across his face, and I’m struck again by how ridiculously handsome he is.

  He pushes off the tree. “You sure are a sight for sore eyes.”

  I can’t help but feel flattered. He adjusts his long stride to match mine.

  Will guides me onto the lakefront path toward Picnic Point. The light breeze off the water cools us. We walk in silence for a bit, our steps quiet on the packed earth. The blade of grass dangles from his lips.

  “Why are you always chewing on grass?” I ask.

  “I gave up smoking cigarettes, and it helps keep me from reaching for another.”

  “But why grass? Did you get that idea from watching the cows on your farm?” I tease.

  He cocks his head and amusement glitters in his eyes. “A friend suggested I try it to help me quit.”

  “Smart friend.”

  As we follow the path along the lake, I almost feel like time hasn’t
changed at all. The trees arch over us on both sides, creating a tunnel of privacy. The waves wash ashore with a calm steady swish against the bank, but then a car roars by on the road running parallel to us, reminding me of the behemoth vehicles of yesteryear.

  “I can’t get over the cars. My mom could have driven half the neighborhood kids in that monstrosity.”

  “They’re large compared to my time too. So cars go from being small, to big, and then back to small again?”

  “They aren’t all small. There are still SUVs, trucks, and even these giant things called Hummers, but most people drive smaller cars that are more fuel efficient.”

  Will just shakes his head at all of it. We pass a white wooden sign marking the entrance to Picnic Point. It’s more secluded than the other times I’ve been here. Those times kids were on their way to a bonfire, or joggers and bikers were flying by on their daily workout. But in 1961, people don’t seem all that interested in fitness.

  He pulls the blade of grass from his mouth. “We should do something special tonight. I could take you to dinner and maybe later we could watch the stars from Observatory Hill.”

  “Um, okay.” I’m not sure about encouraging him with a romantic date, but I also want to learn as much as I can from him. “I’m meeting the professor at seven. You should come with.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it.” Will smiles and returns to gnawing on his grass.

  After following the main trail for a few minutes, Will turns onto a smaller trail to the left. A squirrel darts up a tree to spy on us as we pass.

  “Where are we going?”

  “There’s something I want to show you,” he says mysteriously, twirling his blade of grass in his fingers.

  We follow a new path along the west shoreline to a narrower trail leading off deeper into the woods. The light dims under the canopy of oaks, maples, and poplar trees, creating a mysterious mood.

  “Rumor has it there’s buried treasure out here,” I say.

  He smirks and looks sideways at me.

  We follow the trail farther, Will occasionally choosing a fork in the path. The trees grow denser and there’s a fresh woody smell in the air. I can’t imagine anyone finding their way back here in this maze, but Will knows exactly where he’s going.