Inertia

by A.R. Rivera

The little green Jetta rolls to a stop in front of Elijah’s house, only a few blocks from the University in a cul-de-sac on a small street. Somber, he shuts off the engine and sighs.

  “Something is bothering me.”

  I shrug. “Shoot.”

  “I need to know what type of problems I may be facing, should I choose to help you.”

  I cling tighter to my box. “You haven’t decided?”

  “I am trying to remain objective. I have a career to think about and goals that require a great deal of time and focus; things I can’t simply walk away from.”

  “I would never ask you to—”

  “Please.” Eli waves a hand at me. “I want to believe you, G.” His eyes widen. “Believe me, it’s every nerd’s dream to realize the premise he’s been chasing might actually be provable. I want to study the equations and I want to help you figure out what happened.”

  He sighs again. “I deserve to know how much trouble you are in—the implications I might be drawn into if everything is as you say.”

  “It is,” I assert.

  Eli nods, as if this is acceptable, but his face blank expression says it’s not enough. “Then someone else has to know.”

  “I haven’t told anyone.”

  “You conned me into helping you dump your vehicle. That repair shop wasn’t even open and the car keys are still in your pocket.”

  Eli looks out the windshield as his palms trace the curve of the steering wheel. “G, Scientists work their entire lives never encountering the kind of possibilities which seem to have fallen into your lap. You must be aware of the danger that puts you in. I don’t know whether it has occurred to you or not, but secrets of this magnitude only stay that way because the people who find out about them end up dead.”

  When I try to respond, he shakes his head and continues. “Do you understand the amount of energy it takes to open a wormhole? The radiation they emit? It would raise the Terror Threat Level.”

  He’s almost panting, turning in his seat to face me head on. “If I am going to stick my neck out for you, I need to know what I am up against. I deserve to know that what you’re telling me the absolute and complete truth so that I may, in turn, make an informed decision.”

  My hand rakes through my hair, mindlessly mindful of the still healing wound on the back. “I was hoping to get indoors before . . .” My explanation trails off, realizing as I hear myself, how stupid it sounds.

  Gritting my teeth, I know I have to say it. So I do. “The day I left the hospital, Homeland Security came looking for me. They were searching my girlfriend’s house when I went to drop her off.”

  He nods, quietly mumbling, “That makes sense. Does she know you came to see me?”

  “No. I didn’t know where I was going when I left her. I have no idea what the Feds were looking for or why they’re suddenly interested in me but I swear I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Then why are you running?” He asks matter-of- factly. “If you don’t know anything and haven’t done anything, you have nothing to hide.”

  I take a deep breath, hoping to loosen the knot in my throat. It only gets tighter. I can’t believe I am going to say it out loud. “My dad didn’t die in his sleep.”

  “What?”

  “The man who shot me . . . he left me by the road. He must have known where to find my dad, too, because he killed him.” His eyes grow wide and I can see the obvious question forming. “My dad knew he was coming. He recorded the whole thing and left me the disc to prove it.”

  His face crumples. “But—what? Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know Eli, but if I stick around to talk to DHS, they aren’t going to believe anything I say and it’s going to cost me time I can’t afford to lose. I have to find Daemon before he goes somewhere I can’t follow.”

  “How do you know he hasn’t already?”

  “He asked me and my dad about some diamonds or something. If he wants to find them, he isn’t going to leave right away.” Actually, the idea never occurred to me until I said it just now, but it makes perfect sense.

  Eli’s quiet, thinking again.

  “Does that answer your question?”

  “I won’t help you get revenge.”

  “That’s not what this is about.”

  He looks at me sideways.

  “Alright, maybe that’s part of it, but it’s not the only reason. My dad told me I have to stop him and I don’t know if I can do it alone.”

  “It’s a big ask, Gerry.”

  “Just give me twenty-four hours. One day for you to look at everything,” I say, nudging the box in my lap, “and if you’re not convinced, you don’t have to do anything. I’ll disappear. You can live with that, can’t you?”

  He answers by opening the car door. “Let’s go in before someone sees you.”

  The established neighborhood where Eli lives holds an assortment of houses: large and small, one and two stories, split-level, Spanish, Contemporary and Dutch styles. Eli’s looks like it was built in the fifties, well-kept and nestled between two similar looking box-type homes. The front yards are small and green, surrounded by white picket fences. Long, twisting tree branches interwoven with broad leafed vines form an arch over his driveway, which stretches all the way to the backyard, ending in a detached garage. The house is yellow with little white, folding shudders over each window. It’s a page from a storybook.

  “Nice place,” I say, admiring the smooth, wooden floor of the living room.

  The late afternoon sun streams through the sheer curtains, casting its relaxing glow about the room. The walls are sprinkled with framed satellite images of outer space and Egyptian hieroglyphs.

  “Thanks,” he walks into the hall with my box.

  The peaceful atmosphere seeps in. I can relax with a few walls between me and the outside.

  When he reappears, I ask, “How much does a place like this cost?”

  His arms are empty now. He’s closing the shudders on the way to the kitchen. “Your things are in my office. And I have no idea.” His hands move excitedly as he talks, waving for me to follow. “I was on the housing program waiting list for two years before I got in here. Most of the people in this neighborhood are Grad students like me, who work at the University through an Assistantship.” He takes a pitcher from the counter and starts filling it with ice. “I spend most of my time buried in research and schoolwork.”

  “Where is your constipated cat?”

  He smirks. “I hate cats.”

  I nod. It figures. “What did I eat?”

  “Liver flavored gag gum.” The chuckle that follows this revelation reinforces my earlier suspicion.

  “You couldn’t get anyone else to eat it, could you?”

  “No. You were the first. You know, I wanted to ask you about that Daemon character. How does he fit into this equation?”

  “Wish I knew . . . I never saw him before that day on the bus.”

  He responds with more questions but the point of his interrogation escapes me. My energy and focus have dwindled and it is a struggle to stay awake. Suddenly, I’m so tired I can barely stay on my feet.

  “When was the last time you slept? You’re pale.”

  I nod.

  “There’s a DVD player in the living room. I’ll bring you an iced coffee.”

  “Make it a double.”

  I take the first spot on the couch, telling myself, I’m just going to rest my eyes for a second.

  

  Pressure . . . almost a nudge—no, it’s a rattle.

  The rattling sensation creeps into my consciousness, interrupting my nap and I’m immediately irritated. But when my eyes open, they find the room is very dim. Only a nightlight in the hallway carries into the living room where I am sprawled across the couch.

  A dark figure near me whispers. “G, wake up. We’re leaving now. The car’s already loaded.” It’s Eli, leaning over me and shaking my shoulder.
/>   Stretching, I feel a little stiff. “Where we going?”

  “A town called Ivanhoe.” He answers sounding further away. The front door swings open. All is black outside, save a few streetlights.

  “What time is it?”

  “Two-thirty-seven,” he answers, shoving two cups at me. “Hold these.”

  “In the morning?” I slept through the entire afternoon and most of the night?

  He takes up a bag from the floor and sets it across his shoulder. “I took the liberty of looking at that disc you wanted to watch. It was directions.”

  I stop at the doorway. “Directions to what?”

  He passes by, looking cautiously out into the night. “To Ivanhoe, well to a farm up there.” While on the steps he pauses to whisper. “Are you familiar with the area?”

  “I’ve never heard of it before.”

  Eli resumes walking and I follow, listening. “It’s about four hours north. The directions seem . . . intentionally vague and I want to be up there by first light to maximize our search time. I cleared my calendar today, but I can’t miss anymore than a day or two or I’ll never catch up.”

  “Who are we searching for?”

  “Not a ‘who’ Gerry,” he slides into the driver’s seat and unlocks the passenger door.

  The car purrs to life and the second my door closes, we take off.

  “What made you decide to help?”

  “I think it’s worth the risk. Oh, and I watched the other DVD you mentioned.”

  “Which ‘other’ DVD?”

  “The one with your dad and Daemon.” At least he has the courtesy to look ashamed.

  “Why would you do that?” I snap.

  “You said I should look through everything. Believe me, I did not want to watch, but it was the only way I could get a look at him and hear Daemons’ voice, see if I could pinpoint his language. Sorry if I overstepped.”

  “No skin off my nose.” I mumble sourly, “I didn’t know you were into snuff.”

  Ignoring the jab, he hands me several sheets of paper. “There’s a flashlight in the glove box. You can use it to read the directions. His inflections sounded familiar, but weren’t pronounced enough for me to make out the origins.”

  “I don’t want to talk about him.”

  The flashlight is compact and powerful. There’s no map in the short, nondescript type. The thin lines at the borders of the page are crooked and shaded. It looks like a printed picture of a typed sheet of paper. A copy of a copy?

  “Where did you get this?”

  “I told you, from the disc marked with the number four. That’s the one you wanted to watch wasn’t it? It had these directions so I printed them.”

  “There wasn’t a video?”

  “There were only three picture files. Why?”

  “I assumed they would all be the same.” I mutter.

  “What?” He rolls his window up and repeats, “I didn’t hear you, what did you say?”

  “Where do you think he got these?”

  “The pictures look like he used a typewriter to type out the directions, and then took a picture of the page and burned it to a disc. The directions are precise, to a certain point.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to paste the directions into a word document?” Dad wasn’t the most coordinated person ‘because of the rheumatism,’ as he would say, but if he could figure out how to work the webcam on Jeanine’s computer, I’m sure he knew how to copy and paste documents. “Why do it this way?”

  “He was being smart. Everything on a computer that’s connected to the internet; emails, texting, tweets, all of it is read by the browser and search engines. The DHS might have monitored the IP addresses he had access to.”

  “No, they wouldn’t.”

  “How do you know?” He looks away from the road just long enough to give me a stern look. One that says, confess or else.

  I’m in no position to compromise. “Because they never entered the picture until after I came back and even then, they were slow to respond, like whatever they’re after led them to me.”

  “So . . . not something you did. Are you sure the information your dad left you wasn’t compromised?”

  “Pretty sure. The box was sealed and set inside the closet in my room. No one touched it.”

  “What else would they want, though? It isn’t conceivable that your dad could be in possession of information this significant and have it go unnoticed.”

  “He called it my ‘legacy.’ He said that I’m ‘in the middle of everything’ and that, if he explained anything to me, it would ‘defeat the purpose.’”

  “What’s ‘the purpose’?”

  “I don’t know. Why are those equations so significant?”

  “Because they appear to explain a theory I’ve been developing since I was in eighth grade.”

  Confusion seems inevitable, just as ‘why’ always leads to ‘because’. The reasons repeat, twisting my mind in circles.

  After a fixed moment of silence, Eli bursts. “He was a maintenance man for crying out loud!” I give him a hard look and he apologizes.

  From then on, the ride is quiet. The only sound is air rushing through the half open windows. The freeway slips between the high hills as we travel north out of Los Angeles. I sip my coffee and when that’s gone, I turn on the radio. Eli keeps his eyes focused on the road and thinks a lot. I can tell, because he doesn’t hear when I ask to take the next exit for a bathroom break.

  “I’ll hold it,” I say, as we pass the off-ramp.

  Despite his superior judgmentalism, I’m glad my dad sent me to Eli. Already, his involvement has proved advantageous; I never could have risked this trip inside my car. He’s smart, too. With his brain and my determination Daemon can’t get away.

  When the sun begins to light the horizon, we’re well past Bakersfield. The land is flat in both directions, sprinkled with patches of green among the dry brown of late summer. The space between the towns grows wider and each municipality smaller. By sunrise, we’re off the main highways, sticking to numbered roads. Eagerness grows as the roads shrink, curving up and around groups of farms. Four lanes become two. The yellow dividing line that marks the separation between us and oncoming traffic is worn away on the overused, crumbling pavement.

  As we pass a particularly attractive orchard speckled with the deep red fruits, I roll my window all the way down to take in the fresh country air.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Eli finally breaks his silence.

  Ignoring him, I stick my head out the window wanting the cool morning air wake me up. Midway through my first gulp of air, I’m gagging at the rank taste in my mouth. Eli’s laughing as I take a surprised look around us. On my side of the car, there’s a pomegranate grove—on his side, a dairy.

  Retching, I hit the switch to close the window.

  “Don’t!” Eli squeaks through a laugh and overrides my controls with the ones drivers’ side. “You’ll trap the stink inside.” We’re both consumed with disgust as he rolls down both windows all the way down.

  A minute later, the stench is gone, the lesson is learned, and we’re focused on the task before us.

  “We’re looking for road number three-oh-eight.”

  We’re very close to a line of hills that stretch out behind the innumerable groves, growing to long-standing mountains in the distance. The patches of clouds overheard cast a shadow on some of them, making the more distant colors seem black and gray against the glowing blue sky.

  “There it is!” I point up to the bent road, straightening before us.

  Up ahead, off to one side, a peninsula stretches between the seas of tree groves. In between the branches are fading numbers on a bright green sign identifying it as the road we need. We turn into the lane and Eli tosses the stapled pages back to me.

  “Read the directions.”

  I peruse the type print and start reading verbatim. “. . . Road th
ree-oh-eight, okay. ‘Drive a block or two, when the road forks, stay right. After about three miles you will come upon an unmarked, private road to the left. Take it. Go down another half mile and park the car. You walk from there.’”

  I look at the region we’re in. There doesn’t appear to be any rough areas or ravines, only rolling hills filled with trees and vineyards.

  “Where is he taking us?” I shake my head.

  “What’s next? Keep reading.” He’s glancing between the road and the odometer.

  I look back down at the paper and find the line I left off. “‘Walk in a straight north-easterly direction over the lowest end of the nearest hill past the tree line. At the summit, you’ll see where you are going. When you get there, in the middle you’ll see a fire-pit. Remove the stone bottom and dig until you hit a metal plate. Beneath the plate is my final contribution to your ruin. If you want to turn back, do it now—if you don’t, then you must promise to guard them with your life.’”

  “This just keeps getting better.” Eli says.

  “What the hell does that mean? The middle of what?”

  The car slows.

  Eli asks, “Does this look like a private road to you?” He’s staring at the only roadway we’ve passed by since we took this turn.

  A white painted sign with the word ‘private’ staked near the mouth of the small dirt path labeling the road. In the distance that’s visible between the patches of trees, a palatial home is nestled between two low hillsides.

  “That has to be it.” I tell him. “There’s no other road to take.”

  There are a lot of bumps and though we’re going slowly the tires kick up the dry, loose dirt leaving puffs of brown in our wake. We roll up the windows and keep going.

  Eli keeps his eyes shifting from the odometer to the road.

  “Half a mile?” I ask, noting the sparkle of concealed excitement in his face.

  “Yes,” he parks in a shaded spot between two rows of short bulky orange trees. The boughs are a bit taller than the rest but still low enough to scrape the roof. “Now we walk.”

  “North-east,” I recite, hopping out.

  Eli grabs the shoulder bag. “I’ve got a shovel and a compass.” Pausing to think, he taps his forehead. “The hats!”

  He pops the trunk and disappears under the lid only to reappear wearing a faded baseball cap. “Here,” he says, handing me an old cowboy hat with sweat stains around the brim. “You’ll need this to keep the sun off your scalp.”

  “Thanks.” I say.

  We start through the trees on a precise course, cutting in a diagonal through the rows. My eyes are straight ahead; focused on the low, green hill looming in the distance, scarcely discernible from the bright green leaves of the orchard. After a while, I notice Eli’s not beside me. I glance back to find my trekking companion playing on his smart phone.

  “What are you doing?”

  “It’s a compass.” He says, moving to let me see the computer generated scope as he catches up.

  “Didn’t know there was an app for that. Pick up the pace, it’s getting hot.”

  The closer we get to the edge of the trees, the warmer it feels. The high humidity makes the temperature feel all the more suffocating. We’ve only gone about a quarter mile and my shirt is already sticking to me. Eli’s fanning himself.

  “You should put your hat on, G. This is a Mediterranean climate. It’s only going to get warmer.”

  “I will,” I say, keeping it tight in my hand.

  We reach the bottom of the low hill, scale a short wire fence and start climbing the next. The slope is steep but the grass is spongy. As we ascend, the hot air becomes stifling. A few feet from us, in nearly every direction cows are grazing.

  “Good beef cattle,” Eli remarks.

  “How do you know?”

  “They’re all black. Dairy cows are spotted.”

  “They teach you that in Quantum farming?”

  He chuckles, “Remember, my mom used to make me visit my uncle in Montana every summer? I had to help him on his ranch. Oh, I hated it.”

  “Yeah, you came back to school with a mean farmers-tan every fall.” I smile.

  He shakes his head. “We should probably try to keep it down.”

  I agree, a restrained tone is appropriate considering our mission is supposed to stealthy and we’re trespassing.

  My legs are long past burning when we reach the plateau on the low end of the mound. For miles and miles, stretching out on every side, there’s more hills lined with grapes and citrus groves seeming to extend all the way to the feet of the high mountain range in the distance. Only a few small houses and zigzagging dirt roads are visible in between.

  “I think Death Valley is on the other side of those mountains.” I say, taking in the glorious vista.

  “That has to be it.” Eli nudging my arm with his elbow. “Look.”

  My gaze drops to the hill nearest ours and immediately locks on a lifeless piece of pasture. It’s out of place, covered in dead grass and standing like a lonely lump amid the surrounding green.

  I check the directions again and remark, “Hard to say, since he neglected to mention what we’re looking for. Do you see a fire pit in the middle?”

  “Look at the base.” Eli notes, his voice sounding a little too breathy. He’s captivated, pointing towards the bottom of the small hill. “It’s green around the bottom, but as the elevation increases so does the discoloration.”

  The hillside has been painted in varying shades of sunburned hay. The center appears to be nothing but black dirt which spreads out to patches of brown, dead grass and weeds, which fade into yellow in the lowland. The circular shades of damage are odd, like Mother Nature made a dartboard.

  “It could have caught on fire.” It’s a terrible guess, but considering the round pile of rocks right in the center of the dead spot, easily visible amongst the decomposed plant life, it’s still a possibility.

  “No,” he disagrees, “fire turns everything black. I have seen fungus that creates circular patterns in the soil, though. However, I’ve never seen one grow with such precision. The circles are perfect.”

  We continue downhill, tramping on towards the goal while Eli carries on.

  “Look how defined the shapes are.”

  “What?” I ask, reluctantly placing the soiled hat on my head.

  “The pattern is almost like crop circles.” Eli throws his arm out in front of me.

  I stop and ask in a whisper when I see and hear nothing. “What? What is it?”

  “Do you feel that?” He asks with a puzzled look.

  I’m starting to get irritated. “Feel what?”

  “The air is cooler.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Don’t you find that unusual?”

  I shake my head. “No, we’re going downhill.” I start walking again and I do notice a slight change in temperature, but I’m not excited like he is.

  “We are in full sun, moving towards dry vegetation. There’s no marked breeze, so the temperature should be slightly increasing.”

  “Or decreasing because the elevation is lower,” I reason.

  “Do you know anything about the planet you live on?” He shakes his head, chuckling.

  The brown grass crunches as we make our way toward a pile of rocks marking the middle. The weeds are small and stubborn, offering little resistance as we trudge over the only green left inside this lifeless area. Soon, that is behind us, leaving only a patch of dirt. At the center, the dirt is like sand, sprinkled with broken bits of straw that were once grass. Further inspection reveals the stones of the fire pit are already loosened from the mortar. Any concern I had about digging through the bottom is gone. I ask Eli for the shovel and he gives me a garden trowel. I have to laugh at the dumb luck.

  “If this mortar wasn’t crumbling, we’d be screwed.”

  Eli doesn’t notice, still lost in his observations. “Y
ou notice how there aren’t any cattle grazing over here? The soil has probably been polluted. Animals can sense those things.”

  “I thought cows were stupid.” I say, testing the strength of the trowel with my hands.

  “I don’t know anything concerning the intelligence of cattle or lack thereof.” He kneels next to me. “Should we take turns?”

  “Nope. You drove, I’ll dig.”

  This response seems to satisfy him. He stands up. “That’s probably a good idea. One of us should keep an eye out. I notice there are no birds over this way, either. I wonder if it’s coincidence.”

  “There aren’t any trees over here, either.” I grunt, thrusting the trowel past the last bit of broken rock and into the dirt below. The next shovel full breaks up a large sandy clod. I remove the rest with my hands then take up the trowel. Another shovel full, then another and another; the end of the tool strikes against something.

  “The metal plate.” I announce.

  Eli bends down again. “I don’t see anyone, but we’re set low on the hillside. If someone comes, they’ll be on top of us before we see them.”

  I dig faster, tracing the edges of the metal plate with the tool. Eli uses his hands. Gripping clumps of dirt to remove them, he deduces the density of the soil is the reason for the lack of growth. In a few minutes, the dirt is cleared. As we start to lift the heavy plate, it breaks into several pieces. Eli is fascinated, once again, and I jab at the pieces, breaking them apart with the tapered end of the hand shovel. Directly beneath the pieces, I find a dirty, rectangular box. The shards might cut me if I try to pull them out by hand so I keep scraping. When the hole is cleared of sharp debris, I reach inside. The metal box is rusted, covered with dozens of small cracks that crumble when I lift it.

  “How long as this been here?”

  “A really long time?” Eli shrugs.

  “You think so, Sherlock?”

  Beneath the fragments is a bulky, black shape. After clearing away more brittle metal shards, I reach down and touch it.

  “Its rubber,” I say, lifting the mass from the ground. The material is thick and stretched tightly around lumpy contents. Right away, I notice how light it is for its size.

  “Here,” I hold the bundle up for him to take. “I’ll cover the hole.”

  Eli takes the pack, making the same observation. “If it weren’t for the distended shape, I’d think the bag was empty.”

  The loose dirt plumes in a low cloud as I quickly work the shrapnel and stone back into a semblance of what it was before. I pack it down; stomping a few times, then kick a few more rocks back in place.

  “Good enough.” The moment I speak, my voice is not the only one to be heard.

  Eli, whose been bent over the rubber bag, trying to work the zipper open, suddenly straightens. He’s heard it, too. “Let’s go.”

  On the low ground, in between the mounds, we scurry away like rats in a sinking ship. I follow Eli’s lead to the next lowest peak in the opposite direction of the approaching voices. Once we’re over the small hillock, we should be able to make a bee line for the car. Out of breath and sweating, we make it to the bottom of the next low mound and start hiking up the side. At the top, we have to stop and look around. Most of the moving figures are cattle and the ones that aren’t, are too far away to see our faces.

  “Damn.” The wooded area where the car is parked is within sight, but still very far off.

  It looks as though the road we came in on was a midpoint between two enormous orchards. The green paint makes Eli’s car nearly impossible to spot. If not for a small beam of light reflecting off a window, it would take hours to locate.

  In the long distance between us and our getaway are broad pastures sprinkled with cows, a couple of transformers, and part of a citrus grove full of low broad trees shaped like giant shrubs. The spaces between the rows are narrow but passable. The obstructed views inside might make it tricky to stay on the right path towards the car.

  “We’ve come farther than I thought,” Eli huffs, resting his palms on his knees.

  “You should have used your compass.” I say as we start down the hillside which is much faster and easier than going up.

  “I lost reception.”

  “How far would you say the car is?” I pant, wiping the sweat from my face with my shirt.

  “From the bottom of the hill; no more than a mile.” He takes the pouch from his bag again and resumes his fight with the zipper.

  “Here, let me try.” I hold my hand out.

  “The dirt’s clumped between the tines.” He complains.

  Rubber bag in hand, I start by blowing at the dirt in strong bursts. Once I’m nice and light-headed, the zipper launches back but catches on another dirt clod. I clean it off and try again, inching the tiny teeth open.

  “Look at that,” Eli directs, yanking my arm with disruptive enthusiasm.

  When I look, there’s nothing unusual except that we’re nearly half way across the open field. “Half way, already.” I mutter, wanting to pacify his curiosity.

  “No, G, look at the cows.”

  “The cows are walking, big deal.” A quick glance up to mollify him, then it’s back to work finding out what my dad has left for me. The zipper opens halfway then suddenly snaps backwards.

  “G, they’re running.”

  Reaching inside the bag, my fingers touch something cold. It’s a deep, red rock; a perfectly smooth oval. It feels solid, but is feather-light. I turn it over in my hand and notice a tracing of three circles connected by three lines to form a triangle.

  “What has them spooked?”

  “Would you stop it with the cows, already? Look at this.” I thrust the red stone into his hand and take out the next. It’s the same as the first, smooth and oval, and extremely lightweight, but it’s black like polished volcanic rock.

  “It looks almost like red jasper but with crystalline qualities. It’s so smooth, like someone shaped and polished it.” Eli mumbles about the first. “It’s really beautiful.”

  I hand him the second obsidian stone and reach inside the rubber pouch for the last one. It, too, is lightweight and shaped in a perfect oval and the exact same size as the others, only this one’s flawlessly white.

  “The markings are different.” Eli comments, pointing. “See, the red has the triangle. The black has a sort of a spiral shape, look.” He sets the rock into the light and moves it slightly to accentuate the fine lines carved into the surface. “What does that one have?” He gestures towards my hand.

  I look over the white rock and see the light catch on a rounded shape carved into the center. “It’s a lazy eight.” I answer, feeling stupid because I recognize the symbol and can’t remember what it’s called.

  He squints, leaning in. “Ah, the figure for infinity. In science, it’s known as the singularity. A term which, loosely translated means, ‘I don’t know.’”

  As we take our time examining the strange rocks, I can’t help but recall Daemon’s words, asking for ‘his three stones.’ I thought he meant jewels or something of value. This is just three rocks—nice ones that are neat to look at—but they’re essentially paper weights.

  “What am I supposed to do with these?” I ask, fisting the white rock and squeezing.

  Eli is still inspecting. “They don’t have a speck of dirt on them.”

  “It’s cold.”

  “You’re right. Body heat should warm them somewhat.” He holds the black rock tighter in his grasp. “It feels like sticking your hand in a snow bank.”

  “Weird,” I say. Okay, so they’re weird, neat paperweights. “What are they used for?”

  “The black and white remind me of Urim and Thummim, the stones in the Breastplate of Judgment in the Old Testament.” His brow furrows as he sinks deep into thought.

  At some point, we must’ve stopped walking because we’re still very near the middle of the field. “We’ve been here too long.”


  We start walking, again, double quick.

  “We should put them away, in case someone sees us in the trees.”

  “Guard them with my life.” I say, repeating my fathers’ ominous directive and to shake open the bag with my free hand.

  When I was younger, I went to see this movie about people who chased tornadoes. The special effects were mesmerizing. I thought that the horrible crashing sounds the twisters made must have been an exaggeration to make people feel like they were inside the storm when they watched. Then, one of the characters in the film said that the sound of a tornado was one of the most terrifying sounds they’d ever heard. I have to disagree. There’s a sound worse than that right now in this field: the sound of heavy hooves crashing against the ground, slowly dissipating as the remaining cows run away from us at full speed. It’s the sound of a crushing sense of helplessness as I realize the cows do know something I don’t. And even worse, I’m about to find out what it is.

  The hard way.

  The rocks in our hands start to spark with light from the inside. The white and red grow bright, glowing like flames. The light turns to heat in my palm and I drop them to the ground. Eli tosses the third like it’s a hot potato.

  I don’t know if it’s the anxiety of the moment or my head injury, or my eyes simply seeing things that aren’t there, but the rocks don’t fall. They float together, swaying slowly down like feathers in a gentle breeze. In the green grass, they land in a petal configuration, each one touching the other two.

  In the same instant, a nearby transformer that’s been steadily buzzing with electricity makes a terrible cracking sound as an arm of lightening thrashes out into the open space and disappears into the glowing stones at our feet.

  A breath later, everything changes.

  The air in front of us . . . breaks apart. It sounds weird, but there’s no other way to describe a break. Maybe . . . a fracture? I’ve never thought of the air as something that was capable of breaking, but it does. The air fractures.

  A breach that was not there a second ago opens up before us like a doorway as a line appears beyond it. Like a hallway, it begins where we stand and stretches up into the clouds. It’s a whirlwind-like form, only longer and higher, building from the ground up.

  On the outside this passage is a fierce cyclone of blue smoke and cloud. The azure haze angrily bends up into the sky, peeling away the layers of time and space in a blur. Fiery and fierce, it scorches the air and the tops of the trees. Branches wither like blades of grass and fly into the whirlwind. Outside, the heat shrivels everything, but for some reason we are safe, enclosed within a bubble that emanates from the stones themselves. I see the wind and the heat, but don’t feel it. Everything outside our protected area is blown back, burned up, but not us. In here all is peaceful. In here, a rainbow wheel of unknown colors swirls inside the cyclone, marking the passage away from here into another time.

  Our world shrinks in the presence of this magnificent power. Three stones. A tunnel calling my name.

  I answer the beckoning with a single step. Suction will do the rest, I know it will. I feel the pull.

  I hope the landing isn’t as rough this time.

  The azure fog swirls. The interior colors blend together.

  Leaning forward, I think of Daemon; where he is, how I’m going to find him, and what I’m going to do in that glorious moment.

  Time Travel 101