“I’m going to give you a very short story about how all this came about,” Bonnie said. “You will not believe me, remember that. But after the short story, we would ask that you trust us just long enough to allow us to show you one more thing.”
Belle nodded.
Beside her Zane made no movement at all.
“Back in the 1870s, Duster’s family had a gold mine that ran out of gold fairly quickly,” Bonnie said. “The mine was closed and handed down through the years until Duster’s father showed it to the two of us.”
Bonnie took a sip of water and sat the bottle on the end table beside her chair.
“At one point,” Bonnie said, “Duster’s grandfather had decided to try to work the mine and had opened it back up and broke into a massive room of crystals. A cavern that is almost impossible to imagine even when you see it. The discovery scared him and he closed it up, showed it to Duster’s dad, who only maintained the mine and never told anyone. When he showed it to us, we both had the idea of what the giant cavern was. But it took us three years of intense research and calculations to prove our theory correct.”
Belle just kept listening.
“You know that Duster and I have advanced degrees in theoretical mathematics?” Bonnie asked.
“Dawn had us do a search for your names on the way back here,” Belle said.
Bonnie nodded thanks to Dawn.
“In simple terms, a major theory of physics now is that matter, energy, and time are all connected in fashions we do not yet understand,” Bonnie said. “Our calculations always came to the conclusion that there was a physical location where all three needed to manifest in a physical form. Until the big cavern in the mine, we assumed that was only in theory.”
“Are you saying that physical location exists in a mine?” Belle asked. She was following, but barely.
“I am,” Bonnie said, “but let me finish.”
Zane nodded and Belle sat back.
Belle wanted to reach over and put her hand on his, but didn’t. They both needed to concentrate right now, but holding his hand would most certainly calm her some.
Bonnie went on. “When any person makes any decision at all, math proves that timelines split from that decision. For example, you decided to hear us out and are sitting here in billions of timelines. There are billions of timelines in which you decided to walk away in the cemetery.”
Belle shook her head. “You mean a timeline splits because of what I picked for lunch? That seems ludicrous.”
“Math proves it without a doubt,” Bonnie said. “But most split timelines merge back into one another if the changes don’t have any impact. Time and energy and matter are fluid. But using your example, for lunch you picked one food and were fine, but in billions of other timelines you picked another food that was tainted and you got sick and by being sick, missed something important and the timelines stayed apart.”
“That would mean there are almost an infinite number of timelines,” Zane said.
“That is correct,” Bonnie said. “The cavern we found merges with untold numbers of other caverns with billions of crystals on the walls in every cavern. We believe the crystals in the first cavern are the ones that are closest to this timeline we sit in.”
“It must be one damn big cavern,” Zane said.
“The Superdome in New Orleans would fit inside just the first cavern without touching the walls or the ceiling,” Bonnie said flatly. “And every inch of it is covered by crystals of various sizes and every crystal represents a timeline almost identical in all aspects to this timeline we sit in now.”
Zane sat back hard, clearly stunned at the idea of a cavern that large.
Belle just shook her head. “I’m not imagining something that big, so go on and explain how this concerns us.”
Bonnie nodded. “After Duster and I had all the math together, we figured out a way to step into other timelines from this timeline, into the past of other timelines. Effectively, time traveling into the past.”
Belle shook her head and was about to get up and ask for the closest exit.
“I think it’s time we show them a few of the crystals from the cavern,” Duster said, standing. “Then give them time to come up with questions over some afternoon snacks, or have them head for the door.”
Bonnie nodded and looked directly at Belle. “Just give us fifteen more minutes of your time. Please?”
“Yes, please,” Director Parks said.
Belle glanced at Zane who nodded and then said, “Why not?”
He stood.
“Fifteen minutes,” Belle said, standing beside him as everyone stood. “Then I’m booking a plane back to San Francisco.”
“And I’m going with her,” Zane said.
Duster nodded and turned and started off toward a door off to one side of the large kitchen area.
Bonnie and Madison followed.
Dawn looked at Belle and Zane. “I told you that you would not believe us, but let us at least show you one more thing before you rightfully walk away.”
“I’ll be honest,” Belle said, looking at Dawn. “If I didn’t respect you and Madison’s work so much, I would have already been gone.”
“Thank you,” Dawn said, nodding slightly in appreciation. She then turned and followed the others leaving Belle and Zane to follow behind.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
June 9th, 2020
Boise, Idaho
ZANE HAD BEEN surprised that Belle was willing to give these people any more time, let alone trust them to take them deeper underground. She had some real courage, he had to give her that.
He just wasn’t sure how to play all this. He needed to remain in part, as if from this time. But he honestly hated to lie to anyone, especially Belle.
He and Belle followed the five down even deeper into the underground cavern under the old institute building. The deeper they went, the more concerned he could tell that Belle was getting. And he honestly didn’t blame her in the slightest.
Plus, this area they were headed was an area he hadn’t been in before.
On the third level down, Duster led the group through another door and into a large storage area full of massive amounts of supplies, vintage clothing hanging on racks, and older model guns and ammunition behind locked doors.
It was like a Walmart of old western clothes and supplies.
There had to be fifty long wooden tables in the large cavern, all with lights hanging from the ceiling down over the tables.
Zane found this really impressive. The supply area for his travel time was for this time and forward. This supply area was for 1880 forward. Wow, what a difference.
He knew that the institute worked like a giant train station with master stop areas. From one hundred years in the future, he had come back as far as he could, to what everyone called the First Step. He lived in the time of the Second Step and there were areas of the institute that he knew were Third Step and maybe even Fourth Step. No one in Step Two talked of them.
The private step areas in the institute kept the time travelers from different centuries from going back too far at once. Like a train station, you had to change areas to keep stepping back into the past.
Duster and the rest just walked through the warehouse without a word of explanation to Belle.
Zane glanced at Belle who, for the first time, was looking a little panicked. She clearly was thinking that there was no reason for this vast warehouse of vintage clothing and supplies if what they were saying about time travel wasn’t actually true.
On the other side of the storage cavern was a wall of about thirty doors spaced evenly along the carved-stone wall like hotel room doors. Duster went through the door closest to the right wall of the supply area and into a long room.
The room wasn’t more than a normal living room wide, but it must have been the length of a football field long, if not longer, carved out of the solid rock.
Wooden tables stretched along the length of the center of t
he room with a simple wooden box on each table.
A wire fence that went from floor to ceiling ran along both walls on both sides of the room, making the room look like it had a fenced in hallway down the middle.
And through the fence Zane could see thousands and thousands of slots carved into the rock. Each slot held a glowing pink crystal.
Zane knew that each crystal had been brought to the institute from the original cavern and basically represented a timeline.
Wires ran from each box on each table and through the fence. All the wires were on the ground.
Each crystal was clearly marked on the wall under its slot with a lined ledger. Some ledgers had notations on them, others were blank.
“Oh, shit,” Belle said softly.
Zane said nothing. He was feeling stunned being in this area. From here, he could go all the way back to the start of the institute in 1880 if he wanted. The very idea of that scared him more than he wanted to admit.
“We want to show you what exactly we are talking about,” Bonnie said to Belle.
Duster moved over and opened up a gate in the fence near the closest machine, then he put on thick leather gloves and hooked up two wires to one of the crystals.
“Never touch a crystal with your bare hands,” Duster said to Belle as he came back out of the fence-protected area and shut the gate. “Extreme energy. More than we’ve been able to calculate so far at least.”
Zane could only nod. Even in his time the scientists working at the institute had not been able to calculate the energy coming from a crystal.
Duster turned to Director Parks. “Jesse, you mind staying behind for the two minutes as an example?”
“Glad to,” Director Parks said, smiling.
With the leather gloves still on, Duster adjusted a fairly plain looking dial on one side of the wooden box, then hooked up both wires and took off the gloves.
Zane was amazed that even a hundred years into the future, this was still exactly the same system every traveler used.
“Move in close to the wooden box,” Bonnie said as Dawn and Madison and Duster did.
“Trust me,” Dawn said to Belle, “this will not hurt and if you want to really understand what is happening here, this is the easiest way.”
Zane was totally numb at this point. He couldn’t believe he was making a second step jump, but he moved to the box with Belle.
The two of them were now between Dawn and Bonnie.
“On the count of three, just touch the wooden box at the same time,” Bonnie said.
Director Parks moved around so that he was standing just across the table from Zane and Belle.
“One, two, three,” Bonnie said.
Zane touched the wooden box at the same time as the rest of them.
Nothing happened at all, or at least that was what it always felt like.
Except that Director Parks just vanished without a trace.
Or a sound.
“Where did Director Parks go?” Belle asked, her voice sounding almost panicked as all six of them stepped back from the box.
“He didn’t go anywhere,” Dawn said. “We did. We are now in the timeline that is represented by that crystal there on the wall. In December of 1885.”
She pointed to the crystal and Zane just shook his head. He had made a second step jump. How fantastic!
“Some illusion,” Belle said.
Duster turned to Bonnie. “You want to wait here and pull the plug in twenty minutes, save us the walk back down here?”
“Glad to,” Bonnie said, smiling.
“If you think that was an illusion,” Duster said, glancing at Belle before turning and heading back the way they had come, “let me show you a real doozy.”
“I can only wait,” Belle said.
Zane was having trouble not jumping up and down with excitement and blowing his cover. He had done what few travelers in his time had ever done. He had made a Second Step jump back in time. He was now over two hundred and thirty-five years back in history from his own time.
Wow, just wow.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
June 9th, 2020
Boise, Idaho
BELLE STAYED BESIDE Zane as they followed Duster and Dawn and Madison out of the fenced crystal room and through the warehouse of old clothes and supplies. The room did not look as full as when they had gone through a few minutes ago.
That fact alone bothered her more than she wanted to think about. And Director Parks just vanishing right in front of her eyes seemed flat impossible.
Zane seemed to be handling this a lot better than she was. He seemed almost excited, but was containing it. But she could feel it from him.
She wasn’t letting herself believe they had actually traveled in time. But at the moment she had no idea at all what was happening.
They all got into the elevator that looked like an antique.
“This isn’t as old as it looks,” Dawn said, indicating the elevator. “We just had to camouflage it in case someone who wasn’t supposed to be in here got in.”
The ride up three floors was quick and the elevator emptied them into a wide room with no furnishings at all. Just polished pine floors, painted walls, and two doors.
“That goes into the back part of the institute,” Dawn said, pointing to one door. “This one goes into the main room.”
“There’s no door into that main room,” Belle said.
“Lots of secrets around here,” Dawn said, laughing.
Duster looked through what seemed to be some sort of viewfinder, then turned to them. “This will tell you if anyone who doesn’t belong is in the main room. As expected, no one at all is there.”
He pushed the door open slowly and led the way into the main room of the institute, the one where just this morning she had met Zane.
His big desk was there, only with no computers on it. A fire was crackling softly in the fireplace, and the same furniture sat in front of the fireplace. Even the drapes on the windows were the same and were pulled.
The room had a slight chill to it as well.
Belle glanced around as she stepped into the big room and the door slid closed with a click.
It now looked exactly like a wall with a large framed picture on it. No way to ever tell there was a door there.
“Now that’s impressive,” Belle said. “You would never know there was a door there.”
“Good,” Duster said. “Latch to open it is built into the trim on the column there beside the door.”
He pointed to it and Belle nodded.
Zane had known it was there, but he played along as if he hadn’t.
“Now let’s take a look outside,” Duster said, turning toward the front door.
“I’m staying right here,” Dawn said.
“Wimp,” Madison said, laughing.
Duster opened the big front door and stepped outside into the gray light beyond the door.
Belle felt the incredible cold hit her almost instantly as she and Zane moved toward the front door.
Duster and Madison both moved out onto the front porch and Zane and Belle followed. Behind them Dawn pushed the big front door closed.
Belle was having a very hard time grasping what she was seeing and feeling.
A light snow was blowing through the trees in front of the mansion. The leaves were long gone from the big trees, and it had to be twenty degrees, if that.
The cold cut through her thin shirt like it wasn’t there. Now she wished she had kept on her sweatshirt, but she doubted it would have helped that much.
Through the snow she could see the stone wall along the front of the mansion, but it had no hedge growing on it.
And the Warm Springs Avenue she could see beyond the wall wasn’t anything more than a wagon trail.
“Welcome to December 17th, 1885,” Duster said. “It’s about two in the afternoon.”
“Amazing” Zane asked, moving toward the front of the porch.
“How is this possible?”
Belle asked.
“We stepped into another timeline,” Duster said. “One that is for every intent and purpose identical to our timeline.”
“So you were telling us the truth?” Belle asked.
“We were,” Duster said. “Every word. And we have a lot more to explain, but you would not have stood for it without seeing and experiencing this first.”
Belle was starting to shake from the cold, but she turned to Madison. “So you really are my great, great, grandfather?”
“Actually, the me from another timeline,” Madison said. “We can’t travel back in our own timeline. But yes, I am and genetics will prove it to you as well.”
“Mind of I walk out to the road?” Zane asked.
Duster laughed. “Be my guest.”
Zane stepped carefully down the snow-covered front steps of the mansion and started out toward the front gate.
“I need to see this as well,” Belle said.
“We’ll be inside,” Duster said.
“Zane, wait,” Belle shouted through the light snow.
Zane turned around as she carefully went down the snow-covered front stairs and followed him. She was so cold, she could barely feel her arms and feet, but that didn’t matter at the moment. She needed to prove to herself as well this was actually happening.
He took her hand as she got closer and she wished she could feel it.
Then the two of them walked toward the front gate of the institute together, not saying a word.
Zane managed to get the wrought iron gate open and they walked into the middle of the wagon road that went past the mansion.
Belle flat could not believe what she was seeing and feeling.
Clearly she was in the past.
And at a different time of the year as well.
The two mansions on either side of the main institute building were all that was here. No sign at all of anything else being built along this wagon road.
“They were telling us the truth,” Zane said simply. “We are standing in 1885.”
“They are offering us this so we can research our books better,” Belle said. “No wonder Dawn and Madison’s books have such crisp details.”
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