Point of No Return

by Paul McCusker

  “Don’t you know?” the girl asked, bewildered.

  They weren’t given time to answer, as another group of men burst through the double-doored entrance to the church. “Get them!” one of the men shouted.

  Instinctively, Matt, Jack, and the girl ran in the opposite direction toward the altar. There they found a door that led to a small room filled with books, chairs, and choir robes. It looked to Jack like a small Sunday school room. Slamming the door behind them, the three fugitives looked around wildly. There weren’t any other doors out.

  “We’re trapped,” Jack gasped.

  Matt fumbled with the door handle, hoping to find a lock. It didn’t have one. “Oh, great.”

  More shouts and the sound of pounding feet on the hard church floor approached.

  “What are we going to do?” Jack asked in a shrill voice.

  “We didn’t do anything wrong, did we? Let’s talk to them!” Matt suggested.

  “I don’t think they’re the listening types,” Jack replied.

  “This way,” the girl suddenly said and climbed on a chair. A small window peeked out at them from above a tall wardrobe. By the time Jack and Matt reached her, the girl already had the window open and was squirming out like a rabbit from a hole. Matt was next. Jack took up the rear, just getting his head and shoulders through when their pursuers exploded into the room.

  “Stop!” one of them shouted. Another man knocked over a chair and scrambled after Jack. His hands reached out and caught the edge of Jack’s jeans. Jack kicked out at him. The rubber sole of his sneaker grazed the man’s chin. With a curse, the man fell backward into his friends. It gave Jack the time he needed. Like a rocket, he shot out of the window, falling to the ground with a heavy thud. Matt helped him to his feet and half dragged him away from the church.

  A meadow stretched out before them to a thick patch of woods about 20 yards away. Near it sat a burned-out shell of a house. All was quiet. Jack was surprised that, in spite of the commotion inside the church, no one seemed to be waiting to catch them outside. The girl was halfway across the meadow and beckoned them to follow.

  “Well, Matt—where to?” Jack asked, blinking against the afternoon sun.

  “Wherever she’s going, I guess,” was Matt’s reply.

  The two boys ran after her.

  Jack felt like a frightened deer as they ran through the forest, scattering fallen leaves, tripping on branches, and leaping over giant logs. A breeze caught the tops of the trees in steady crashes that reminded Jack of waves on a beach. They slowed down only when they were sure they weren’t being followed. Jack collapsed against a log and clutched his aching side as Matt fell into a pile a leaves.

  “No,” the girl said, “not yet. We have to go on. It’s not far.”

  “What’s not far?” Jack groaned. The girl hardly seemed winded. Where did she get the energy?

  “Come on,” she said and jogged onward.

  Matt rolled his eyes and struggled to his feet. “Guess we’d better go,” he said as he stumbled after her.

  Jack pushed off the tree and dutifully followed.

  They crossed a large field that was autumn brown and baking in the sun. It felt soothingly warm after the coolness of the woods. Jack wanted nothing more than to lie down right there and bask in it. But the girl continued on relentlessly. They soon came upon another thicket that was abruptly scarred by a dirt road. Crossing it with careful looks in both directions, they entered a small grove, and finally the girl stopped in a clearing within sight of the road.

  “Here?” Matt puffed.

  “You’re kidding,” Jack panted, his dark hair matted against his skull.

  “My daddy and me said we’d meet here if we got split up. We passed it on the way to the reverend,” she said simply.

  Jack and Matt looked warily at each other. They were standing in the middle of a small assembly of wooden crosses, small grave markers, and gray tombstones.

  “A graveyard?” they asked together.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “A GRAVEYARD,” THE GIRL said with a nod as she sat under a tree. “Daddy said I’d remember it—and I did,” she added proudly.

  Jack looked around for a church, a house, or anything else that might explain why there was a cemetery in the middle of nowhere. “This is weird. Why are these people buried way out here?”

  “I asked my daddy, and he said these folks were probably buried out here because they died of some kind of disease.”

  “Oh, great,” Matt said as he moved away from the solemn gathering of the dead.

  “Forget about that,” Jack said as he stooped next to the girl. “I want to know what’s going on here. What happened back at the church? Why were those men chasing you?”

  “Us. They were chasing us, too,” Matt amended.

  “Yeah.”

  The girl looked from Matt to Jack and back again. Her expression made them feel as if they’d just stepped off a spaceship from another galaxy. She suddenly frowned. “How do I know I can trust you?”

  “You mean, besides the fact that we’ve been running together for the last three miles?” Jack asked sarcastically.

  The girl pondered the idea and seemed to agree with it. “My daddy and me ran away from Alabama. Those men wanted to take us back, I guess.”

  “Why did you have to run away from Alabama?” Matt asked. “Did you escape from jail or something?”

  She smiled for the first time, her teeth yellow and crooked. “Heavens no. We ran away from our master.”

  “Your master?” Jack asked.

  “Yes, sir,” the girl replied. “He was really mad because my Mama ran off to Canada, and he swore he’d make me and Daddy pay for it. He was going to sell me down the river. So we ran away first chance we got. Been using the Underground Railroad the whole way here. We’re going to Canada to meet Mama.”

  Jack scrubbed a hand over his face. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

  The girl looked earnestly at Matt. “You don’t act or talk like any slave boy I ever met before. Are you a runaway or are you free?”

  “I’m free,” Matt said as though the girl was crazy.

  Jack stood with his hands on his hips, his brow furrowed. “What happened to us?” he asked Matt. “One minute we’re in a tunnel, then we’re in Whit’s workroom, then we’re in the Imagination Station, then we’re in the tunnel again, then we’re running for our lives. What happened to us? ” His voice bounced from the trees to the cemetery and sounded unusually loud.

  Matt’s eyes suddenly grew wide. “I have an idea,” he said. He spun on his heel and raced over to the grave markers. He seemed to be looking for something in particular as he went from one to another. He finally stopped and gazed down at a tombstone.

  “What are you doing?” Jack asked impatiently.

  Matt waved him over. “Here. This one looks new.”

  Jack joined him. “What?”

  He pointed to the tombstone. Safe in the arms of Jesus, it said in carved letters that curled at the ends. Underneath was the name Josiah Slade, followed by the birthday: June 4, 1824. Under that, it said: Parted this life the 10th of October, 1858.

  “New?” Jack said. “It’s over a hundred years old.”

  Matt slowly shook his head.

  The truth hit Jack so suddenly that he whipped around to the girl. “What’s the date?” he called out.

  The girl had been sitting with her eyes closed. She opened them wearily. “Date?”

  “You know, like, on a calendar? The date?”

  The girl looked perplexed. “I don’t know the date. The leaves fell, we had a full moon the other night…”

  “What year is this?” Matt asked more gently.

  “Oh, that.” She frowned for a moment, then said, “It’s 1858, my Daddy said in the summer. I guess it still is.”

  Jack paced nervously. “I don’t believe it. You’re saying you think that somehow we went back in time to 1858? No way. Not a chance.”

 
“Do you have a better explanation for everything that’s happened?” Matt countered. “The Imagination Station, Jack. It’s some kind of time machine. We’re back in 1858, probably Odyssey.”

  The girl agreed. “This is Odyssey. I saw the signs when we walked in. I can read, you know.”

  “No way, no way, no way,” Jack said as he paced nervously between the graves.

  Matt wandered back to the girl. “That’s what happened. The reverend is part of the Underground Railroad—”

  “Everybody keeps talking about a railroad, and I don’t know what they’re talking about,” Jack said.

  “You never paid attention in history class,” Matt rebuked him. “Don’t you remember the stories about Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass? The Underground Railroad was the secret way that runaway slaves got out of the South. There was a whole network of people and houses where the slaves could stop to get food or a place to sleep. It stretched from the South all the way to Canada.” He nodded to the girl. “That’s how you got away, right?”

  “Uh-huh,” she replied.

  Matt went on, “So the reverend is part of the Underground Railroad and those guys that suddenly showed up were like slave hunters who catch slaves and take them back south.”

  “How can they do that? I thought once the slaves got to the North, they were safe,” Jack said urgently. He seemed to hope that by proving Matt wrong on that one point, it would prove his whole crazy theory wrong.

  Matt opened his mouth to answer, but he closed it again. He was clearly stumped.

  “The law,” the girl interjected. “I don’t know the name of it but, when I was a little girl, they made a law so the slave hunters could go north and take the slaves back to their masters.”

  “See?” Matt spread his hands. Case closed.

  The girl frowned and stood up to look around. “Where’s my daddy?”

  “I’m sure he’s okay,” Matt said. “I’ll bet he got away and is running here right now.” His voice betrayed him, though. He didn’t believe it.

  Jack shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and turned away. It was still too much for him to believe. How could Whit create a machine that sent them back in time? But the evidence—and his own senses— told him it must be true.

  Matt was at his side before he realized it. “Let’s go into Odyssey to see if we can find her father. And maybe we can figure out how to get back to Whit’s End.”

  It sure beats waiting around a graveyard, Jack thought. “Yeah, sure,” he answered.

  “You can’t,” the girl said to Matt.

  “Why not?”

  “You’re a Negro,” she said, as if that answered the question in full.

  “So?”

  “Do you have any papers that say you’re free?” she asked.

  Matt was indignant. “No! Why should I carry around papers to say that?”

  “Because the slave hunters will think you’re somebody’s slave and if you can’t tell them whose slave you are or show them papers that prove you’re free, then they might take you.”

  “They’d better not!” Matt snapped. “I don’t have to prove anything to anybody!”

  “Yes, you do,” the girl said softly. And it was in the soft resignation of her voice that Matt knew she was absolutely right.

  “Better not take the chance,” Jack affirmed. “I’ll go into town. Maybe I’ll find the reverend and he can tell me what’s going on.”

  “Okay,” Matt said unhappily.

  There was a silent moment as an expression passed between them like a shadow. It wasn’t as if Jack were running to the store to buy them a couple of sodas. There was unknown danger ahead and they both knew it.

  “It’s only Odyssey,” Jack offered.

  “Yeah. Only Odyssey,” Matt agreed.

  Jack strode away, lifting his shoulders and picking up his pace just to show them he wasn’t afraid. When he reached the edge of the trees that led to the road, he paused and turned back to them.

  He shrugged with embarrassment and called out, “Which way is Odyssey?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  SOMETHING NAGGED AT Jack during the three-mile walk to Odyssey.

  Apart from getting lost because he couldn’t find anything he recognized to guide him, he kept thinking something was different about the world he was now in. Eventually, the ringing in his ears solved the mystery.

  It was the silence.

  In a world without cars, trucks, buses, or passing jets, the silence was deep and seemed to go on forever. The forest whispered its life through birds singing, leaves rustling, and branches rubbing dryly against each other. The air carried the soft sound of wind, waving grass in the meadows, the yawning moo of a cow, and the occasional snort of a roaming horse. The crunch and scrape of Jack’s sneakers against the dirt road seemed out of place, and it felt as if all living creatures for miles around must be wondering what the awful racket was.

  Jack was eventually relieved to hear the teapot whistle of a distant train. Then he came upon houses scattered distantly on both sides of the road, some no more than large single-storied cabins with plank-floored porches. Most had wooden sheds and outhouses in the back, bordering modest fields and farmland. One woman, wearing a long dress and apron, her hair up in a bun, smiled and waved at Jack as she pinned flapping sheets to a clothesline.

  Soon the number of houses increased, along with their sizes and sophistication of design. Simple square boxes evolved into more elaborate styles with rounded turrets, arrowlike eaves, circular porches, ornamental windows, and chimneys that jutted up from the rooftops. Brick, stone, and nicely painted siding replaced plain wood. Fences sectioned off each property. The houses are bigger, but the land is smaller, Jack thought. Crudely painted signs offered rooms for rent, cheap rates at boardinghouses, piano lessons, and an attorney-at-law.

  “Welcome To Odyssey,” a large, wooden sign said. Jack couldn’t believe his eyes as he got closer and closer. He followed the road—signposted as Main Street—which broadened out from a ruddy dirt path to a thoroughfare smoothed over with paving stones. The clip-clop of horses’ hooves and the rattle of wagons and carriages came and went. Residential houses yielded to tall, square buildings and businesses. Jack strolled down a wooden walkway, passing the displays for barbers, dentists, blacksmiths, shoe and boot repairs, tin shops, saloons, a general store, and dozens of other shops and offices long-since removed from Jack’s Odyssey.

  From Jack’s point of view, Odyssey—even the world—of 1858 was like visiting another planet. There were no fast-food restaurants or convenience stores on this street; the store windows contained no microwaves, appliances, CD players, televisions, movies, computers, or even calculators; he saw no telephones or booths to put them in; no electric lights hung above the doors or on the lampposts. He suddenly realized that almost all the things he would take for granted hadn’t been invented yet.

  A group of boys suddenly rounded a corner and nearly ran straight into Jack. “Watch it,” he said.

  “Sorry, mister,” a freckle-faced boy said, then stopped to look at Jack long and hard. Adults might not notice a strange boy walking in town, but kids noticed when someone their age was around whom they didn’t know. “You’re a stranger here,” the boy said.

  Jack sized him up, just in case the boy wanted to fight. He was a couple of years younger than Jack. “I’m just visiting,” he answered.

  The boy eyed Jack up and down. His gaze rested on Jack’s jeans and white sneakers. The other boys also noticed them, and whispered among themselves. Jack thought he heard them say something about “strange shoes.”

  The freckle-faced kid looked at Jack curiously. “Where’d you get those clothes? I don’t know anybody who has clothes like that. Are you from out West?”

  “San Francisco?” a sandy-haired boy asked. “I heard they dress funny in San Francisco.”

  “No, I’m from…” Jack’s voice trailed off. Where was he from, if not from Odyssey? “Near here,” he finally said. He
glanced away self-consciously and decided to change the subject. “Maybe you can help me. I’m looking for anyone who knows the pastor of the church that’s—” Again, he had to stop himself. He didn’t know the name of the church or where it was.

  “Must be Reverend Andrew you’re talking about,” the sandy-haired boy said helpfully. “He’s rector of that church yonder.” The boy pointed through a gap between the buildings to a church sitting about a hundred yards away in the middle of a parklike area. It looked peaceful in the afternoon sunlight.

  Jack was astounded. It was the church all right. “We must’ve climbed out of the back and run away from town,” he muttered.

  “Pardon?” the freckle-faced boy asked.

  Jack shook his head. “Nothing. I just need to talk to someone about the church.”

  The sandy-haired boy asked, “Why don’t you go over and talk to the reverend himself at the church?”

  Obviously whatever had happened in the church wasn’t common knowledge around the town. “I’m not sure anyone’s there,” Jack said honestly.

  “Then you better check the hotel,” the freckle-faced boy said. “The reverend stays there when he isn’t at the church.”

  “At a hotel?”

  “Yep. He’s been living there ever since his house got burned down,” the boy said.

  “That’s what he gets for fighting with the slave hunters,” another boy interjected.

  “Quiet, Jeb,” the freckle-faced boy snapped, then pointed down the street. “Now, just go across the street there and the hotel is on the end— at the corner.”

  “Thanks, guys.”

  “Guys?”

  “Er, friends.” With a quick nod to them, Jack dodged the horses and wagons that seemed to come from every direction on the street and made it to the other side. He looked back at the group of boys who talked animatedly between themselves while they watched him. He waved and headed down the sidewalk.

  The Odyssey Hotel sat at the corner of Main Street and McAlister. It looked familiar to Jack with its large, frosted windows embedded in richly carved doors. Then he remembered that he’d only seen pictures of it while he was on a school field trip to Odyssey’s historical museum. Jack’s feeling of being out of place was intensified when he also remembered that the hotel burned down in 1904 during Odyssey’s great fire. It was like seeing the Titanic before it sailed.