Jessie Stern and the Time Shifters

by Kim Merrill

The worst thing about going to a new school is that as soon as you walk through the doors you become invisible. No one sees you, no one hears you, and no one seems like they even want to see or hear you. It isn’t so bad for Daniel. He can usually find other gamers fairly quickly, and he’s more or less set. It always takes me longer to fit in. And once I finally do make friends it’s time to move again. My Dad moves around a lot for work so we go to new schools all the time. We’ve only been at this school for about a month so things are not so great yet. But today, I thought, would be different. Today would be a good day, a day when I could leave strange dreams and ominous feeling behind. Today we were going to the Natural History Museum for a field trip. It’s museum where my favorite Aunt, Aunt Molly, works. No such luck on the good day though. Instead it all turned out to be very weird.

  First they gave me Breeze as my partner (her real name is Barbara but she calls herself Breeze). She is the most popular girl in the school (or at least that’s what she always says). She walks with her head held high, her blond hair bouncing to the rhythm of her steps. When she says hello it sounds like she’s singing – that is if she deems you worthy of a hello. She didn’t speak to me on the bus ride over but as soon as we got off and saw our teacher chaperon, Mrs. Welden, she acted all chummy. Mrs. Weldon was talking to one of the parent chaperones but Breeze busted right in. After dragging Daniel and me over to them she tried to introduce us to the parent. All the adults think that Breeze is a one kid welcoming committee when actually she has a way of making people feel most unwelcome.

  “This is Jessie and Daniel…..” she stopped and looked puzzled as she tried to remember our last names. “Well, they’re cousins!” she smiled a broad smile and seemed delighted with herself for remembering that much.

  The parent (we never learned her name) and Mrs. Welden seemed very proud of her too. “Well, take good care of them,” the parent said, “and make sure they don’t get lost in the museum.”

  I was about to tell them it was unlikely I would get lost since my Aunt Molly worked there and I had been to the museum more times than everyone on the entire field trip put together, but before I could we were all called over to the entrance. Daniel could tell I was steamed by the way Breeze used us to try and look like the helpful kid. He grabbed my arm and whispered in my ear. I figured he was going to say something nice, but instead he asked, “Do you think they have that really tasty chocolate peanut butter pudding in the cafeteria today?”

  Our Aunt Molly was waiting at the entrance to the museum and gave a warm smile to Daniel and me. She is the Curator of History but she often gives tours. Like most of my family she is tall with glasses but unlike most of us she has blond hair. It always looked a little wind blown and you can never be sure if it’s a fashion statement of if she just forgot to brush it. She is a favorite among many of the schools because of the great stories she tells. What people don’t realize is that she thinks the stories are real.

  The story she never shares with tours but often tells the family is that she’s married to a Time Shifter. She met him on an expedition to Egypt.

  The first time she told us the story was years ago. It was a balmy summer day on a sail boat traveling along the west coast. The breeze and the waves carried us away in her tale.

  “His name is Lavay,” she said wistfully, “and when we met he was in hiding. You see, the other Time Shifters liked the way he piloted a ship and they liked the way he handled the time portals. In fact the only thing they didn’t like about him was the fact that he didn’t like to kill. And since that was mostly what the Time Shifters do, it was a real problem.”

  It was all very romantic but not very logical. I liked hearing the story, it was a good yarn. However, it was Daniel that begged her to go on.

  “We fell in love,” she continued, “by the lights of the Egyptian pyramids on a warm star filled night. He told me his story and how he was in hiding so he couldn’t stay with me. But I told him a few hours with him is better than no time at all.

  She went on to tell how he took her with him for nearly a month. They traveled through portals – doorways in time -doorways that could take them anyplace or anywhere. In 1876 they were married by a preacher in Deadwood, South Dakota and they honeymooned in Renaissance Europe. Their last day together they watched Magellan set sail for his trip around the world in 1519. On that day the other Time Shifters found Lavey and he was afraid to take her with him again. But he vowed to come back to see her, which he does once or twice a month. They spend a few days in some exotic time and place but then he has to leave again.

  Or at least that’s the story she told us on that distant summer day - the story she always tells the family.

  Aunt Molly met the class like she was greeting royalty and then lead us into the dim holographic theater. “This hologram is based on my last trip to the past when I ran into a Neanderthal,” she said as we took our seats. The lights dimmed to pure blackness as images on the stage began to take shape. Aunt Molly’s voice was low and clear, it seemed to be carried on the darkness as she narrated the story that was unfolding before us.

  “We saw him climbing over the hill. He was covered in hair and his cloths were covered in hair. In fact it was hard to tell where he left off and his cloths started. He held a spear and had a large bunch of berries in his hand. He stuffed the berries in his mouth then lifted his spear. He shook it fiercely above his head and stomped his feet in an menacing dance. Then, quite suddenly he gave a great, grand and thunderous, burp. He looked at us for a few seconds more then leaped to the other side of the mountain – out of sight.”

  The hologram was followed by a brief lecture on prehistoric man. After the presentation we were invited to see the museum.

  The rest of the group moved on but as I started to leave a diorama exhibit of a wooly mammoth caught my attention. The mammoth was fending off a group of early humans carrying spears. No one but me seemed to notice that the mammoth was shimmering. Then I thought I saw it move. As I looked again, I know I saw it move. It charged towards me and I began to run. My legs didn’t seem to be carrying me fast enough and I could hear it barreling towards me.

  I think at this point it would be good to tell anyone seeing this - I remember most of what I read - I actually see the words in my mind. As I ran I remember that wooly mammoths were ancestors of elephants and that elephants are strong, intelligent and can run up to 25 miles per hour; which made it kind of pointless for me to try to run away from it. Thankfully one more thing came to mind. Elephants can swim well, but are not able to trot, jump, or gallop. (Read More About It #2)

  Hoping a woolly mammoth couldn’t jump either I scrambled onto a display of a saber-toothed that stood several feet off the ground; wishing, as I pulled myself up, that the mammoth couldn’t climb that high. It reached it’s trunk up towards me and I could feel its warm breath. I closed my eyes and heard-----nothing. I opened one eye then the other. The mammoth wasn’t there, but most of my class was.

  Daniel was in front, he must have heard the commotion and got there first. He looked concerned. The rest of the class was staring at me blanked faced-then as the shear silliness of the situation started to sink in (the new kid standing next to a saber-tooth on a museum display looking freighted) they started to snicker. The snicker turned to a laugh and my face, I’m sure, turned red.

  Mrs. Weldon clapped her hands to regain order then stomped towards me, her face looking like she just swallowed a nasty tasting bug. I didn’t need a Time Shifter speeding up time for me to know she would ask what I was doing.

  But before she could ask Mr. Alset, the museums chief tech guy appeared from behind an exhibit of some particularly menacing looking prehistoric sharks.

  “Are you all right? Did it look real? Could you hear the sound effects – footsteps and what not? Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked again even though I never answered the first time.

  “I’m afraid it got away from me,” all eyes turned to Mr. Alset. I was
very relieved of that because it gave me a chance to get off the platform with out them all noticing that I fell off more than climbed off.

  “Yes, it really did get away from me. My new interactive hologram that is” he continued. “Would you like to see?”

  There were cries of “YES!” from both kids and adults. Excitedly, he nodded his head and then fiddled with some buttons on what looked like a TV remote. A swirl of shapeless light formed into a wooly mammoth. It stomped around and made some sounds similar to the one chasing me. “Oos” and “Ahhs” could be heard over the clamor of the mammoth. Mr. Alset pushed some more buttons and the creature disappeared in another swirl of light. After the cheers and applause Mrs. Weldon turned to me and said reluctantly, “Well, I can see why that my have given you a little start.”

  Aunt Molly, who appear out of nowhere, made here way through the crowd and said, “Yes, in fact I think I should take her to my office to give Jessie a chance to collect her thoughts. I am her Aunt and I feel she needs family now.” She whisked me away before Mrs. Weldon or any of the chaperones could say anything. As we left she whispered something to Daniel. She must have been telling him something about the mammoth that chased me because he gave her a look that wavered somewhere between terror and awe.

  As she led me away she murmured to me, “He’s deceptive and not to be trusted. I suspected for some time he was working with them, now I know.”

  “Them?” I asked still al little shaken. We entered her office and she closed the door behind us.

  Aunt Molly’s office didn’t have the usual computers and electronic files. Instead it had the look of an old fashion library with the same comforting smell of books and papers. Her desk was made of dark red wood and behind it sat a dark red overstuffed chair. The room was dark too except for glimmering images of holograms all around. There were large holo’s and small holo’s and one that practically filled the room when it came on every few minutes. The holos would take the shape of some ancient creature, people, or object. It would glitter for an instant then disappear into the darkness again. But my mind was not on the holos, it was on what my Aunt had said.

  “Them?” I asked again.

  “The Time Shifters. It was the Time Shifters that told Mr. Alset to send that creature. He brought it through a portal to kill you,” she said leading me over to the couch.

  “Why would Mr. Alset want to hurt me? He’s always been nice to me before and he’s always showing Daniel his new computer stuff.”

  “He’s changed,” Aunt Molly said. She seemed lost in thought for a moment then spoke again. “For sometime now he has appeared to be drawn to the idea of time travel, the mystery of it, the power of it. But I didn’t think he would ever hurt anyone to get it.” She turned her attention back to me. “But now he has…changed; now, it is evident he’ll do anything for the powers of the Time Shifters.”

  “Yes,” she nodded to herself, “he is definitely working with them.”

  I wasn’t completely back to reality but managed to get out the words, “I don’t believe in Time Shifters,” I started to stand but reconsidered as the room began to spin forcing me to sit down again.

  Aunt Molly sat next to me, put her arm around my shoulder and asked simply “Why?”

  It was a good question. She must have told me her story about Time Shifters dozens of times, but I never told her I didn’t believe in them. It must have been the heat of the moment that made me finally say it.

  “Everyone says they don’t really exist,” I explained.

  “Everyone use to say that the Sun orbited around the Earth, but they were wrong.”

  She helped me stand and continued on, “Everyone is not always the best source of information.” It sounded like something my mom would say.

  “If there are Time Shifters and Mr. Alset is working with them why didn’t he just turn me to dust?” not that I wanted to be turned to dust, but I felt it was a fair question.

  ‘I suspect it’s the necklace,” she said softly touching it where it rested on my neck. I believe it has some power that protects you, at least from the smaller time fields.” That was as good an explanation as any given the circumstances.

  She motioned for me to sit which I was happy to do, still a little dizzy from my close encounter with the fake mammoth.

  As she settled in her chair I noticed a new addition to her office - a poster of Albert Einstein sticking his tongue out. Below him were the words “If at first an idea does not sound absurd, then there is no hope for it.” – Albert Einstein

  She settled back in her chair and drew a deep breath. “The story I must tell you begins like many stories, it begins in the past. It begins before time even started here on Earth – when Earth wasn’t even a molten swirling mass, it was just tiny bits of dust and rocks floating in the universe. It begins…. in an obscure lab with an even more obscure scientist. This scientist found by accident or by luck the essence. The essence is what makes all time in the Universe. He found a way to control the essence, to shape it to his will… how to control time to his will. This discovery changed his life and the life of his people. His people were once starving and dying. There were only a few hundred of them then; a few hundred from a race that use to number in the billions. They were desperately poor, the poorest of planets in what was then the know Universe. But they suddenly became rich when they found a market for controlling time.”

  “And these are the Time Shifters,” I said skeptically.

  She nodded – “Lavay and I found this information when we were searching the history of his people. We found the story told in musty books of the musty past. ”

  I think I rolled my eyes, I didn’t mean too. She gave me a stern look that said without words “Pay attention!” and went on.

  “The other thing that we found in the musty books was there are people throughout time and space that have a talent to stop the Time Shifters. They have the knowledge and intuitive natures needed to halt their every attempt.” She looked directly at me. “You and Daniel have that talent – as did his parents and your mother. It’s a talent you will soon be called on to use. The old books say it is so.”

  The largest of the holograms filled the room with a knight and ogre wheeling swords and clubs at each other making soundless clashes when their weapons met. I wondered if it was just a coincidence or if she made it happen to emphasize her point.

  “How could they even know about Daniel or me if all this happened so long ago,” I asked. “Are they fortune tellers too?”

  “Events in the future can affect events in the past.”

  It sounded cryptic, but the concern in her voice worried me. I love my Aunt Molly. She is so much different than my Aunt Mini that it’s hard to believe they’re sisters. Aunt Molly is carefree, inquisitive, and adventurous. And even if she’s a little crazy she wasn’t the type to frighten easily or to give needless warnings about imagined dangers she saw in her fantasies.

 

  “Factions or forming,” she continued on leaning in close. “The Time Shifters are enlisting others to help them, others like Alset who will do anything for them. They offer them their hearts greatest desire in payment for doing their bidding.” She looked around to be sure no one else was listening. “There are 9128 of the Time Shifters race that are paid killers. But Lavay has joined with members of his race that do not agree the mercenary ways of their brethren. They are gathering evidence to convince others to join against the Time Shifters. People are beginning to believe, even though they may not be admitting it. People are beginning to resist, like you and Daniel must do.”

  Just when I was getting ready to ask what she meant or how Daniel and I -just kids –could battle beings as strong as the Time Shifters, we were interrupted. Mrs. Weldon poked her head in the door.

  “The bus is leaving – feeling better?” She didn’t give me a chance to respond. Instead she just thanked my Aunt and led me away.

 

  “Remember what I said and t
ake care,” Aunt Molly said as we left. “Age is not as important as knowledge,” she cried out, as if she could read my mind and knew the question I wasn’t able to ask. Again there was that concern. It gave me chill, like an unexplained noise on a lonely night. A chill I feel even as I write this now.

  The ride back was just as awful as the visit to the museum.

  First:

  Breeze strutted over to Mrs. Weldon and said with false sincerity, “I’ll sit next to her to make sure she’s OK.”

  Of course Mrs. Weldon bought it and beamed at Breeze saying, “Thanks you Breeze, you’re such a ray of sunshine.”

  She didn’t sit next to me, I was glad of that. Daniel did sit next to me and I had a notion he was going to talk about the pudding again. But instead he said, “Yes, Breeze is a ray of sunshine alright, she’ll burn you every chance she gets.” That was a little mean but made me smile. Daniel really can be nice sometimes. I should try to tell him more often.

  Then:

  I kept thinking about what Aunt Molly had said and thinking about the mammoth that chased me. There was something strange about the mammoth Mr. Alset had shown the class. It looked like mine (if you can call something that chases you yours) and it walked like mine. Then it hit me, there was no warm breath coming from it!

  Before I had a chance to figure out why that might be:

  I heard some kids laughing and snickering – the second time that day I heard snickering meant for me. “She wants to be an astronomer and makes entries in her journal.” Another muffled voice sneered, “Like a kid could see something a scientists who studies for years couldn’t.”

  I turned to them and said:

  “In 1930, a young Indian graduate student took a steamer from London. During that long voyage he developed ideas that changed the way we look at the universe. In fact it influenced the way we view the life cycle of a star. (Read More About It # 3)

  Actually, I had been thinking about that quote as I remembered what my Aunt said about how age is not as important as knowledge.

  “She’s soooo weird,” Breeze said. “Like a walking book.”

  “Jessie knows lots of cool stuff,” Daniel said defensively. He turned to me and asked, “Who made the first video game.

  “Tennis for Two was the first and it came out in October 18, 1958. Someone speculated that exhibits might be more fun if they included a game that people could play,” I replied. (Read More About It #4) -

 

  A soft “wow” came from Daniel’s crowd and my cousin seemed very proud of me for knowing the answer.

  Then Daniel said something very strange. He came in so close his whispered question made my ear tickle. He asked me how I could think that the mammoth that chased me was just a hologram when it didn’t even make the same sound as the one Mr. Alset showed the class. I hadn’t noticed that. The sounds were different. And like the warm breath (or lack of warm breath) I remembered of earlier - I couldn’t explain it. It wasn’t logical. Had Mr. Alset really sent something after me like Aunt Molly said? Would they be sending something after me as we went on our expedition to Shilona tomorrow?

 

  3rd Entry

  “He’s the best pilot in the fleet and I’ve known him for years,” Dad said.

  “All pilots think they’re the best pilot in the fleet and knowing him for years doesn’t make him safe,” Aunt Mini said. Today she wore purple shoes with white polka dots and, of course, hair to match.

  “And you know how fanciful the child is,” she was talking about the time I asked my dad to drive me until we were standing under the North Star. He drove and drove until I finally figured out you couldn’t drive far enough to stand under the star in one night. My dad is good at letting you figure things out for yourself. But I did figure it out. So I’m not fanciful, I’m analytical. Besides I was just little then. I was glad when he reminded her of that.