by MK Alexander
“Well?” he asked with no uncertain pride, as he presented the scene with an outstretch palm.
I didn’t know quite what to say. “Impressive…”
“Einstein’s Dice,” he announced. “A little project of mine.”
“God does not play dice with the universe,” I said, recalling the famous quote.
“Exactly, and I aim to prove him wrong.” The brigadier laughed and hurried over to the boulders. He began unpacking the knapsack and handed me a hammer, a chisel and a pair of goggles, not unlike the kind Edmund was last seen wearing. He held the frying pan up to the face of the boulder and traced a circle in chalk. “Ah, the perfect size. That Cook, she’s a genius.”
Little more was said as we began chipping away at the rock. I was responsible for three, the number, and made some progress on at least one of the diagonal dots.
“How was all this built in the first place, the library, I mean?”
“How? I suppose you mean who or why?” the brigadier returned.
“I’ll accept either answer.”
“Some anomalies were found using a magnetometer, some chap named Lamont or LaGrange, oh, maybe it was Gauss? I forget the fellow’s name…”
“So this is sitting on a giant hunk of metal?”
“Pardon?”
“Underneath us… there’s some sort of metal underground?”
“No, I don’t believe so. Why would you ever say such a thing?” The brigadier didn’t seem to expect a reply and went back to his chiseling.
“I thought that’s what magnetometers were for, like metal detectors.”
“I think it’s something different. Science is not my strong suit, but I’ve been told it has to do with some sort of vortex… goes directly to Dante’s thirteenth level, if I remember.”
“And this was in the early eighteen hundreds?” I asked.
“No, no, a good deal later than that, I’d imagine. But once it was discovered, someone went back to build the place, and my sister and I were pressed into service.”
“Who built it?” I asked.
“The same people who built the temple, I suppose.”
“But who?” I persisted.
“Can’t say really.”
“Can’t or won’t?” I countered.
“Hmm? Oh, I see… Haven’t the foggiest, I should say.”
“What’s it like, living in the library?”
“Living in fast time, you mean. It’s funny, you don’t feel any movement, there’s no noise, certainly no army of cabinet makers appearing, yet every year there’s a new set of shelves.”
“How do you explain this?”
“I can’t really— very mysterious, don’t you think?”
I imagined some weird part of the building spewing out rooms like so much play dough.
“Of course, the entire library rotates very slowly,” the brigadier continued. “Every year or so, it completes a full circle around the driveway.” He put down his hammer and raised his goggles. “When you’re in the middle of it, everything seems quite normal. If you were able to see the house from afar, say from across the river… you might notice that it’s rotating ever so slowly. I suppose you’d need a good pair of binoculars though.”
“What about the driveway?”
“No, the driveway doesn’t move at all.”
“It’s all pretty incredible.”
“There are other places like this. Vortices, do you call them? Several locations have been mapped along the fortieth parallel in the northern hemisphere, and a few in the south. Some seem to be in the middle of the ocean, so, I think that rules out a man-made occurrence… though, I believe they all function a bit differently.”
“How’s that?”
“Here of course, space is constrained. With any jump you remain fixed to this location. Elsewhere, time is constrained, which amounts to jumping to any location, though the present is fixed.”
“And the others?”
“There is a place where one can supposedly jump to the future… though, I must say, no one has ever returned. Quite inexplicable.” Brigadier Thomas paused. “In the other location I know of, one jumps and nothing at all happens.”
“What good is that?”
“Exactly,” he agreed. “Of course my sister has other ideas… She calls them leave-behinds, though I don’t put any stock in it.”
“Leave-behinds?”
“Presumably, one jumps and leaves behind a copy of oneself. Of course there’s no self awareness involved… I think she’s rather daft in this regard.”
***
The brigadier and I decided to break for lunch after many hours of hammering. My hands were starting to blister. We walked back beside the stream that fed a small but beautiful waterfall. The path split here. To the left, it branched up to the library; to the right, a steep set of rough stairs led down to the river. And just next to us, the falls roared and splashed unceasingly along the high ledges.
Below, I could see a stone enclosure, not exactly elegantly constructed, but it created a small, natural pool. More stone steps led to the river and just beyond, a circular temple replete with a dozen columns stood at the river’s edge. There was a woman sitting nearby on a stone bench. She was wearing a silky gown and a large straw hat. I couldn’t quite see her face, but I could see she was beside a picnic basket. The brigadier called out from the top of the cliff: “Ah, there you are, my dear. I was becoming quite worried. Glad you’re back safe and sound.”
The woman said nothing but turned and waved, then beckoned us down. Brigadier Thomas took his leave though, and headed back towards the library. I descended on my own.
“Lovely view, don’t you think, Patrick?” the woman said as I approached. Then she turned to face me. It was Madeline… yet it was not. To see her as a young woman in her twenties was something of a shock. She seemed to be wearing the same clothes as last night but filled them differently now, with womanly curves. Her hair was no longer white and wispy, but thick and completely blonde. Her face had lost all signs of age… Her waddle was no longer comic, but pure seduction. All her flirtations now made perfect sense. She was young, sensual and breathtakingly beautiful.
Madeline rose and gave me a big hug. “Well, if Fynn had told me you were coming on Friday, I would have returned before you arrived. I imagine it’s disconcerting to see me at different ages.”
“Um, a little, yeah.” Unnerving was a better word. Madeline was undeniably beautiful this afternoon. She was barefoot and I couldn’t help but stare at her. She wore a short silky skirt with a slit in the side. Her legs were perfect, as was the rest of her.
“It’s useless to try to seduce Fynn of course. He’s too much in love… You, on the other hand, I wonder? Have you found the love of your life?”
“It’s hard to be sure.”
“Well, that’s an understatement if I ever heard one.” She smiled. “No matter… today, it’s just an innocent picnic and perhaps a nice stroll.”
“Sounds great.”
She laughed. “First the picnic,” Madeline said, took off her hat and browsed through the wicker basket. She started pulling out neatly wrapped sandwiches.
“What’s on the other side of the river?” I asked.
“Some town, Yonkers, or Hastings, I believe.” Madeline pointed north. “Up that way is Sleepy Hollow, Kip’s house as well, and Sing Sing Prison.”
“Doesn’t Rip Van Winkle live around here?”
“I don’t think he’s ever visited the library,” Madeline replied, though I wasn’t sure if she was serious. “Kip and I used to go ice sailing here— in the winter, of course.”
I strode over to take a closer look at the temple. It was about fifteen feet in diameter, perfectly circular and built with twelve columns. These, some eight feet high, were set on a wall at least three feet above a mosaic floor, and connected by a delicate lintel which enclosed the whole structure. The floor was most interesting though, with a black circle at its center. Around it was
a set of concentric rings, widening towards me. The first, I took to be decades. Closer, was a ring marked in years with Roman numerals. Next to that, an area divided by twelve lines and marked by a single letter, which I took to be months. And finally, nearest the wall, a set of seven areas, marked with days.
“Is this a time machine? I asked as Madeline approached and put her arm around my waist.
“Fynn will tell you more about it, I’m sure. When he’s ready.”
“I thought it only lets you jump to the past.”
“That is correct. I’ve just come from my future.”
“How did you manage that?’
“Oh, well my nexus self lives there and jumps back one Saturday a month, or, when I remember to leave myself a memorandum.”
“A what?”
“A note to my future self.” Madeline skipped around the edge of the temple to swing with one arm along the columns. “You must understand, every year we spend in the library is ten years in proper time… and if we spend any of it in the stacks at all, well, things go by rather quickly.”
For a brief moment my mind slipped and I was not seeing things properly. The temple was in ruins, the columns had fallen and there was trash scattered along the shoreline. I looked to the north and saw a large suspension bridge that had not been there a second ago.
“Patrick, are you alright? Didn’t you hear me calling your name?” Madeline asked and came close.
“Oh, sorry, I was spacing out.”
She giggled. “That’s rather funny, considering…”
“No, I was just standing here and the temple suddenly looked like a ruin.”
“It sounds like you slipped into the future.”
“Traveled, you mean?” I asked, alarmed.
“No. Just a memory of the future, I would say. Sounds dreadful though… when was this?”
“No idea, sorry.”
“A deja vu, that’s all.”
“Deja vu… that’s the hardest thing for me. No one ever warned me this feeling would constantly linger. It’s bad enough when it’s just a fleeting thing. How do you live with it constantly tugging on you?”
“A stiff drink or an aspirin,” Madeline said.
“No, seriously,” I persisted.
“Well, it’s when I don’t feel deja vu that I worry…”
“What?”
“It usually means something unknown is about to happen, and usually not to my liking.”
She took my hand and led me back to the picnic basket, then doled out sandwiches and cold lemonade from a thermos. “Perhaps I’m able to answer some of your questions,” she said while nibbling and then smiled sympathetically.
“Questions?”
“Surely you have many questions, Patrick… about traveling.”
“Oh, well yeah… I’m just not sure where to start.”
“Anywhere you like.”
“Tell me more about the temple.”
“I should leave that to Tractus.”
“It seems like you have different ideas about it. I’d love to hear yours.”
“Mine? Well… what needs to be said?”
“Does it hurt? Is it painful when you jump?”
“No, not at all.”
“Your brother was describing how this temple works… a little. Replacing yourself with a younger version… Is that why people come to your library?”
“Some enjoy books, I like to think.” Madeline gave me a coy smile. “But yes, many of them are here for the treatment.”
“It’s unspeakable.”
“And who are you to judge, Patrick? No harm comes to anyone. It’s no different than Tractus soft jumping back to his compass-maker, his nexus self, cloistered away in that Swiss asylum.”
“But sending yourself down into the stacks… to die?”
“It’s quite painless… And of course that’s only one option.”
“What are the others?” I took a bite from the sandwich. The crusts had been cut off. I think it was cucumber, though tinged with a slight bitterness.
“Most commonly, a doppelgänger is created— though not in the strict sense of the word. Usually one is quite old and the other is quite young. The latter tends to the former until the inevitable occurs.”
“You mean until the old version dies.”
“Yes.”
“How is that a good thing?”
“Plenty of wisdom can be imparted from the former to the latter. It’s often a very tender moment.”
“And you’ve done this?”
“On occasion… I prefer to replace myself entirely.”
“I’m still not sure I get it.”
“If a version of yourself is in the present and in close proximity, one replaces the other. It’s as simple as that. If, however, your present self is residing in the library, one is not in proper time, not exactly in the present… and that invariably results in a doppelgänger.”
“Is that what happened to Drummond?”
“No, he’s rather an exception.”
“Why?”
“He’s a doubler. He jumps back to a time before he was born and waits…”
“Waits for what?”
“To be born again… so, there are two of him at least, and probably a good many more than that.”
“What about the children? Why are they here?”
“To come of age, generally speaking.”
“You mean grow up in a hurry?” I tried to think what that might mean but it seemed too horrible to contemplate.
“That’s the whole point.”
“Not sure I like the sound of that.”
“It’s all very benign… Mostly, the children in my charge live in the carriage house.” Madeline paused. “Besides, if they do employ the temple, they are always the jumpers, not the other way around.”
“Who exactly travels when they use the temple?”
“What do you mean to say, dear boy?”
“Who arrives in the present?”
Madeline looked a bit surprised by my question and took a moment to think about it. “Oh, well, from experience, I would say it’s a kind of melding between the two. A future me arrives physically, but my awareness remains in the present.”
“Your memories, you mean?”
“It might be different for others, but for me, there is no sweeter moment when two sets of memories coincide. A most satisfying feeling.” Madeline took a sip of lemonade. “Soft jumps are always a bit difficult to describe— wouldn’t you say, Patrick?”
“That would be an understatement.” I laughed.
“When I use the temple, I hardly recall anything from where I’ve jumped… the present always seems to take precedence.”
“The present?”
“The person arriving recalls less than the person already here.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Hmm, I’m usually asleep,” she sighed a bit. “Of course, it might be rather different for other travelers.”
“Other travelers? You mean different kinds?”
“Yes, I suppose.”
“Like doppelgängers and doublers?”
“To name a few. I’m no expert of course,” she cautioned.
“Who is?” I reached for another sandwich, this one was watercress, I think.
“Oh, you mean who is the expert? The Inquisitor, I would say. He knows the most about everything.”
“Can anyone be a traveler, or are there just a few?”
“Well, there’s no real consensus… In some people’s view everyone is a traveler, but since they lack awareness, can we call them that at all? Others say not. They contend only a small percentage of people can travel.” Madeline paused. “Some say they are chosen.”
“Chosen by whom?”
“That is the question.” Madeline laughed. “Most people I know live only in the present. They seem to be stuck here.”
“Maybe it’s genetic?”
“Genetic? I hardly think so— what would Mendel have
to do with it?” Madeline finished her sandwich and unwrapped another. “I once met a man who thought he could only travel to the future. Not much of a life for him. A terrible existence…”
“Was that true?”
“True? Oh, I see what you’re saying. No, it was a matter of awareness. He didn’t know he could just as easily travel to the past.”
“Didn’t you tell him?”
“Well no... should I?”
“Maybe as a courtesy?”
Madeline laughed again. “Perhaps you’re right, Patrick. If I see him again ever, I may well mention it.”
“How many different kinds of travelers are there?”
“Hard to say, it’s all a matter of awareness. Tractus never mentioned any of this to you?”
“No.”
“I can’t say I’m surprised… Fynn likes to deny the very existence of such travelers. He can be quite single-minded sometimes.”
“Where did you meet him?”
“Where? Perhaps when is a better question.” She smiled. “Oh, it was ages ago… in some unpronounceable city in the Anatolia.” Madeline started to pack up the basket. I had barely made it through my second sandwich and then gulped down my lemonade. “Ready?” she asked then stood up and stretched.
“Where are we going?”
“Just a pleasant stroll… there are some piers to the south, and a boat basin, if we get that far.”
I followed her down the path.
“I hope you were not too upset when my brother dismissed you as a new traveler. He can be like Fynn, completely intractable. From your perspective at least, all this must be terribly confusing.”
“There’s a lot I don’t understand.”
“What’s most difficult for you? Perhaps I can help?”
“I have been seeing ghosts…”
“At the library?”
“No— well, yes, but you explained that pretty well. I mean everywhere else.”
“Oh, I would guess you are glimpsing other travelers or other Patricks in different timelines,” Madeline explained. “Fynn has already mentioned your special talents.”
“My memory?”
“Not many have the ability to recall different timelines. It’s a rare gift.” She smiled.
“You mean most people aren’t aware that the timeline has shifted?”