Middle Falls Time Travel Series (Book 12): The Many Short Lives of Charles Waters

by Inmon, Shawn

  By the time they were done and the shopping cart was full, Charles estimated that they had covered approximately ten times as much ground as he did on one of his normal trips. They also had about ten times as many groceries as he normally did.

  Once they got the bags stored in the Civic’s surprisingly roomy trunk, Moondog said, “Do you mind if we make one more stop on the way home?”

  Charles agreed and Moondog directed him to a small shop that Charles never knew existed. It was on a rarely traveled back street that ran parallel to the railroad tracks. It was past dark, but warm light streamed out of the big window. Stenciled in maroon letters were the words “Herb ‘n Legend.”

  “Is this a cooking store?”

  “Nope. It’s a head shop.”

  “Do I want to know what that is?”

  “Probably not. Everything this shop sells is one-hundred percent legal, although what people do with what they sell may not be. If they stepped out of line at all, I guarantee the old guard of Middle Falls would have put them out of business long ago. As you can see, though, they are open for business.”

  “What’s the worst that could happen? That I get arrested and spend the last few weeks of my life in jail?”

  “You’re a brave soul, Charles. Come on, I’ll introduce you to Dana. He’s the owner.”

  They pushed the door to Herb ‘n Legend open and a bell overhead announced their arrival. The strong smell of different types of incense greeted them.

  A man in his early-thirties with long, straight hair popped up from an easy chair behind the counter. “Moondog,” he said casually, with a slight nod. It was as though he was expecting them to walk in at that moment. He set a magazine on the glass counter in front of him and Charles read the title upside down: The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.

  “This is my friend Charles,” Moondog said. “He’s cool.”

  Charles looked at Dana and said, “First time anyone’s ever said that about me.”

  Dana looked Charles up and down, from his tasseled loafers to his gray slacks, white shirt and blue tie. “I dig it. If Moondog says so, it must be true. He’s an excellent judge of who people are.” He turned his attention back to Moondog. “Need anything special? Just got a new shipment of bongs in.”

  Moondog looked tempted, but shook his head. “Nah. I set fire to my place last night. Damage isn’t too bad, but I’m going to have to replace a lot of stuff. Thought I’d start with some new décor.”

  “You know where everything is, then. Help yourself.” Dana turned away and dropped the needle on an album behind him. The notes of a sitar weaved their way out of the speakers overhead. Dana nodded in time, picked up his magazine and sat back in his easy chair.

  There was a display rack of posters in the back corner of the store and Moondog began flipping through them.

  “Not looking for anything in particular, but I’ll know it when I see it.”

  Charles wandered through the shop, not touching anything and not knowing the purpose of most things.

  The walls were covered with a wide variety of posters, artwork, and handbills.

  In a place of honor, surrounded by the only section of the wall that wasn’t filled, was a painting. It was an intricate, interweaved pattern of shapes and colors. Something about it drew Charles to it and he stood for ten minutes staring at it.

  Suddenly, he jumped back slightly and said, “Oh. Oh, I see it. It’s mathematical. It’s an equation, an algorithm, a formula, all rolled into one.”

  Moondog stood beside him and stared at it with him. “You’ve got good taste, Charles.” Over his shoulder, Moondog said, “Charles is eyeing your Goodson, Dana. I told you he was cool.”

  “It’s called Ephemerata, and it’s not for sale,” Dana said.

  Charles’ shoulders slumped slightly. He so rarely wanted anything, but he found himself wanting that painting. Moondog looked at him, smiled slightly, and said, “Don’t give up.”

  “It was painted by Duncan Goodson. He’s dead now, so there’s no more of his artwork coming,” Dana said. “The world hasn’t discovered him yet, but I’m sure they will.”

  “What’s a crazy price for it?” Moondog asked. “Five hundred dollars?”

  “There is no crazy price. It’s not for sale.”

  “A thousand?”

  “Not for sale.”

  “Two thousand?”

  “Sold. Let me wrap it up for you.”

  Back at Charles’ Condo, Moondog drove a nail into a pristine wall.

  Charles came into the room carrying a level. He lifted the painting onto the nail, then held the level against it until it was plumb.

  Charles and Moondog stepped back and looked at it.

  “We need to find you some more pieces.”

  “No. Nothing will ever compare to it. It hangs alone.”

  Chapter Forty

  THE NEXT MORNING, CHARLES got up, packed up his rockhounding bag and left for Netarts just as Moondog was going to bed. That solved their opposite sleeping schedule for at least one day.

  He parked where he always did and started the short hike to Netarts bay. The sky was clouded over and threatened rain, but since Charles had been here on this day quite a few times before, he knew that precipitation wouldn’t come.

  Events that involved people—say Moondog setting his kitchen on fire—changed from life to life, but things like the weather remained the same. He had memorized which days he needed to take a jacket or carry an umbrella many lifetimes before.

  He also knew exactly what time Sarah would be along and made sure he was there fifteen minutes ahead of her.

  Charles was rarely nervous. When you don’t expect anything, you’re never nervous about how an event will turn out. Today, though, he felt a little uncertain. He was planning on talking to Sarah more than he had in the past.

  He had thought of stopping at a store on the way and buying a Seahawk hat of his own, so they would have an instant rapport, but he was afraid she would assume he knew more about the team than he did. If she asked the simplest of questions—what do you think our chances are this year, or even how about those Hawks?—Charles knew he would reveal himself clueless.

  Instead, he decided to rely on his conversational skills. Somewhat improved after being friends with Moondog, but still, far below average.

  If you had asked Charles what his intentions were in striking up a conversation with Sarah, he wouldn’t have been able to tell you. He certainly didn’t have romance on his mind. He simply liked her and appreciated what she had done for him in one of the darkest hours of his first life.

  Nothing had approached the communication and connection they’d shared in that first life since then, and Charles hoped to change that.

  He couldn’t see the parking lot from where he sat on the log waiting, but he saw her immediately as she started on the path toward the beach.

  When she got close enough to him that he didn’t need to shout, he said, “Hello.”

  Sarah smiled, nodded, and said, “Hello, fellow traveler.” She didn’t slow her pace much, though and it was obvious she was going to go right past him.

  “Would you like to hear an odd story?”

  That brought her up short. She obviously hadn’t given Charles much thought when she approached him, but this request required her full attention. She looked him up and down. Apparently, she found him harmless, because she took a few steps toward him and leaned against the log. Leaned—not sat.

  “I’m a pragmatic woman, not much given to odd stories, but you asked politely, so if the story isn’t too long, or too far out, I’ll lend you my ear.”

  “I don’t have it planned out, so I don’t know how long it will be. If it bores you, though, I think you should go on about your rockhounding.”

  “Is it that obvious I’m here for that, then?”

  “That’s part of the oddity. I’ve met you before—a number of times—although you won’t remember it.”

  Sarah shifted her weight.
She was standing more than she was leaning now, but she didn’t say anything.

  “I am stuck living my life over and over again. It’s not exactly time travel or reincarnation. I don’t know what to call it. A do-over, I suppose. The very first time I lived this day, I came to this spot. I was very sick that day. Dying. I’d been diagnosed with late-stage pancreatic cancer. I was trying to ignore that, though, and carry on with life. I think you could see I wasn’t doing well, though. You sat here on this very log and talked to me for a few minutes before we went to the river and separated. I pushed myself too far that day and ended up lapsing into unconsciousness. I don’t know how long I was out before you came along and found me there, face down in the dirt.”

  “That’s quite a story all right,” Sarah said, standing completely upright. “Are you a science fiction writer of some sort? You look like you might be the type. I prefer more straight-forward fiction.”

  “I asked you if you were a doctor, but you told me you weren’t, but that you were a nurse. I think you said, ‘I’m not a doctor, I work for a living,’ or some such. You also told me your name was Sarah, as in Sarah, Plain and Tall. I’d never heard of that book then, but since then I’ve read it. Then, you asked me some questions, told me to call my doctor when I got home, and helped me to my car. I’ve been trying to think of a way to say thank you, but it’s obviously difficult.”

  Charles looked at Sarah’s face to see if she might believe his story. He was not good at understanding people’s expressions.

  “I have another friend named Moondog—”

  “—Moondog?”

  “Yes, Moondog,” Charles said, as if it was a completely normal name. “I have to tell this whole story to him each life I want to be friends with him again. He always believes me, though. I thought maybe you would be able to believe me, too.”

  Sarah took two steps back. “I don’t know who you are, or what you think you might gain with this incredible story. I also don’t know how you know these things about me. I don’t know if you’re following me or not, but I don’t like it. If I see you again, I will call the police.”

  Sarah turned the way she had come, back straight, walking quickly. Within a few minutes, she had disappeared up the hill and was gone.

  Charles sat on the log a few minutes more, adding this data to what he already had. He watched the seagulls fly, the waves roll in with their quiet melody.

  Finally, he judged that he had given Sarah enough time to make her getaway complete. He walked back to his car and returned home.

  Chapter Forty-One

  THE TRIP TO HERB ‘N Legend on Thursday evening was certainly outside the range of places in Middle Falls that Charles might visit. Even living there for an accumulated hundred and fifty years, Charles had been unaware of its existence.

  And yet, he had found Ephemerata, which had immediately become his most-prized possession. For the first time in all his lives, Charles felt a twinge of regret each time he looked at it, knowing he would soon be leaving it behind.

  On Sunday evening, after Moondog had made them a dinner of lemon-chicken soup, tossed salad with homemade Italian dressing and thick slabs of French bread, the two of them sat in Charles’ living room.

  Moondog had agreed to not bring any more of his items over from his damaged condo than he had to, but he had asked Charles if he could bring his stereo and at least a small percentage of his record collection. The turntable and speakers were mostly hard-surface, and so didn’t absorb the smoke smell. The albums sat on the ground and smoke rises, so they had likewise been left untouched.

  Charles hadn’t turned his television on since Moondog had become his long-term guest. Instead, Moondog selected one album after another to play. They talked, played chess—although Charles was vastly superior to Moondog—read, and of course, drank tea.

  On this Sunday evening, they were listening to Blind Faith’s self-titled album. Can’t Find My Way Home was playing. Charles was leisurely thumbing through one of his mathematic textbooks and Moondog was reading the liner notes from the album.

  “Are there places here in Middle Falls as interesting and different as Herb ‘n Legend?”

  “There are several answers to that question,” Moondog pondered. “First, Middle Falls is a pretty conservative small town. If you’re looking for alternative cultures and the like, you’d probably have to go to San Francisco. Portland, at least. Their motto is Keep Portland Weird, so that tells you a lot right there. Did you ever use the bathroom at my condo?”

  “No. That always felt like an intrusion.”

  “Says the man who is letting me live with him. Well, if you had, you would have seen a black and white poster of a man in a trench coat exposing himself to a statue. The poster is called Expose Yourself to Art. What a lot of people don’t know is that the flasher is a man named Bud Clark. He is currently the mayor of Portland. That should tell you something right there.”

  “Wait.” Charles leaned forward. “It’s a double-entendre, right? Because he is literally exposing himself to art?”

  “Who says you don’t have a sense of humor?”

  “Mostly you, actually.”

  “I was obviously wrong.”

  “I don’t want to travel to Portland, though. It’s too far away. I’m wondering if there might be other interesting things here in Middle Falls.”

  “Right, right. I got sidetracked. That was my other point. You have basically gone to Graystone Insurance, Safeway, and Rite Aid, but not much else, right?”

  “That’s something of an overstatement. I have a library card, too.”

  “I think my point holds, though. There’s a lot of stuff here in Middle Falls that you haven’t explored. Have you even been out to the falls?”

  Charles hung his head a little. “No, I haven’t. My mother moved here while I was in college in California. I took the job at Graystone right out of school and I’ve been there since. It’s always felt like Middle Falls was just a place to work in. I’ve never explored it at all.”

  “There you go. Perfect example. Gimme a minute and I’ll come up with a list of cool and semi-cool places in Middle Falls.”

  CHARLES HAD PLANNED on going to work every day in this life, but the idea of sightseeing in his own town interested him enough that he changed his mind.

  The next day, he went to work, met with Vic Stander, and handed in his resignation, effective immediately. Alice Harkins was on top of things, catching him before he got to the front doors and asking about the party. Charles declined, but did thank her for her kindness.

  Moondog made a change, too. He committed to going to sleep around 2:00 a.m., which was normally around lunch time for him. That would allow the two of them to be on a more similar schedule and gave them more daylight hours to explore Middle Falls.

  They started their exploration the next day at Middle Falls itself. The name is a slight misnomer. There is a modest waterfall there, but if there is an upper or lower falls, no one knew where they were. How the town got its name is a mystery lost in the mists of time.

  Charles and Moondog parked the Civic in the parking lot the city provided. To get a good view of the falls, you had to leave the car and walk to an observation area. The view from the observation platform was pleasant, if not particularly memorable. Middle Falls was three times as broad across as it dropped to the pool below. Somehow, that muted the impact.

  The most awe-inspiring aspect was the drop-off from the observation deck down the cliff to the water. It was a sheer drop and there were rocks and trees to serve as dangers to anyone foolish enough to step off the edge.

  “When I was in school, this is the place kids came to make out or get drunk. One kid got so drunk he tumbled right over the fence here. Don’t know if he was dead when he hit the bottom, but he sure was by the time they found him. The city came out and reinforced the fencing and raised it up to where it is now. Too late for that kid. I was in prison when that happened, but word reached me anyway. Big excitement in a
small town. Sometimes, they hold weddings out here, too.”

  Charles looked at the falls, the drop off from the observation post, and said, “I think I’m ready to go. What’s our next stop?”

  “It’s not the most exciting thing, but there’s a used book store I’d like to hit on the way. It’s called The Prints and the Pauper. Not that I don’t love all your Ludlum and Tom Clancy books, but I’d like to grab a few of the books I really like to read.”

  Again, the book store was off the beaten path that Charles normally adhered to. It was almost like Moondog was making stores appear magically, not as if they had been there all along and Charles had simply never bothered to look for them.

  Like Herb ‘n Legend, The Prints and The Pauper was on a block where all the other businesses seemed to have closed down, if there were ever any around in the first place. Again, that made the warm golden glow from the window seem even more beckoning in the October dusk.

  Inside was a tall woman with glasses perched on her head. She was attractive, in her early twenties, and greeted them warmly.

  “Moondog. How nice to see you. I think I have something for you. It came in a few weeks back and I’ve been stashing it just for you.” She disappeared through a beaded curtain.

  Moondog didn’t wait for her, but headed straight for a series of tall shelves. There was a hand-printed cardboard sign that read, “Sci-Fi.”

  Over his shoulder, Moondog said, “Look around! You never know what you’re going to find in a store like this. It’s like Mary Poppins’ magical bag. Sometimes things just appear.”

  Charles wandered through the dusty stacks, poking here and there at a book, then returning it to its place.

  He saw a box of books sitting at the end of an aisle, as though waiting to be shelved. The book on top glowed as though it had a spotlight on it. Charles picked it up and read the cover: Replay by Ken Grimwood.