“Lucas,” I asked, running my finger along the side of the heavy blue glass, “what year is it?”
“My goodness Jacqueline, have you been out of civilization this whole time? But of course you have.” He patted me on my knee, as if I were the child. “It’s 1926.”
I racked my brain for any knowledge of that year. Flappers and secret drinking parlors—speakeasies, that was what they were called. I nodded my head without realizing it.
“So okay, it’s been a long time. What are you not telling me?”
Lucas sighed and stared at his hands nestled in his lap, his wooden crutches leaning against the sofa next to him.
“Mr. Rushman is missing. Along with a few other town leaders. He let us stay here when father shut the tavern, but he disappeared from the field one day two months ago, and we haven’t seen him since.”
“But why? He’s just a farmer.”
“He had a vote on the city council. And he resisted going along with changes to our town’s civil and criminal code.”
“Civil and criminal code?” I had no idea what he was talking about.
Lucas listed the new laws, counting on his fingers.
“No dancing, no businesses allowed to be open on Sundays, no gambling, no smoking, oh there are a bunch of others but those were the notable ones.”
“Sounds like someone wants to make the most boring, uptight town ever, sure, but why should he disappear because of that?”
“Well, it’s more complicated than that.” He looked me up and down, like he was checking if I was real. None of this is real, my friend. “You have been gone a while, I reckon.”
I wondered about that. Where did everyone think I’d gone?
“David Rushman, Earl Wise, who owned the general store, and Maurice Johnson, the attorney in town, were all members of the city council.”
“And they’re all missing?”
He nodded.
“Because why, they like dancing?”
Lucas frowned. “You may not want to take this seriously, but some of us don’t have that luxury.”
“I’m sorry. You’re right, I’ve been gone a while.” I mean, apparently. “Please tell me what’s been happening.”
He inhaled, looking at me out of the corner of his eyes, sizing up if I was worth his words or something.
“They were the majority of the city council, and there was this group of people who were really rather insistent about making changes to the local laws, who wanted to require everyone to sign an oath of religion and agree not to drink or smoke and such, and well, Mr. Rushman, Wise, and Johnson wouldn’t go on with that.
“And now of course alcohol is illegal everywhere, but this group, led by Dr. Traver, has gotten lots of other things stopped in town.”
“Wait, Dr. Traver?” I asked. “The town drunk?”
“He’s made an amazing transformation,” said Lucas. “Now he’s ‘The Prophet.’”
“Get out of here,” I said, and Lucas looked at the front door.
“It’s just an expression.”
“You are such an odd girl.”
“That’s why you like me,” I said. Good grief I was awkward no matter what time or body I was in. At least I was consistent.
“So, ‘Prophet’ Traver somehow became more popular? Because I don’t remember anybody thinking he had the answer to anything.”
“Well, Dr. Traver did have a way of capitalizing on people’s fear. He would stand in the town square on a soap box with the holy book held up to the sky, and preach about how we were all going to hell.”
“An actual soap box?”
Lucas leaned in again, looking me straight in the eye. “Yes, Jacqueline. An actual soap box. I think you don’t actually want to know what’s gone on in your absence.”
My heart quickened up in my chest; I noticed he was touching my knee again.
“No no, I want to hear it. It’s just, people say soap box and mean it as a … oh, never mind. So somehow people cared about this ranting guy in the street?”
“There weren’t many followers at first, but over the years he’s built quite a church for him in Marion. Once he got the Sheriff on his side, many other community leaders joined him, some out of fear, some because he makes them feel important.”
Marion—the little town in my hallucination had a name. I tucked it away in my memory.
“Then Mr. Johnson, who mostly handled wills and helped people with land sales, didn’t show up at his office one day.”
“Okay,” I said.
“His secretary, Miss Marker, a dour woman, traveled to his house at the top of the hill, certain that he’d keeled over from a heart attack or a stroke. She found flies collecting on dried-out scrambled eggs and some toast, and a mostly evaporated cup of tea sitting on his kitchen table. A streak of blood led out the back door and disappeared in the dirt. Shaken, she went to your mother’s house.”
My mother? I tried not to make any expression as he continued, but little switches started flipping on in my brain. The top of the hill overlooking the town. And older woman who lived there. I’d seen my mother in that flowery house dress. Or rather, Jacqueline’s mother.
“Your mother was in the backyard, but Miss Marker asked if she had seen Mr. Johnson, she responded that the world worked best when people minded their own business. And the week after he disappeared, an unsigned note showed up at the tavern, shoved under the front door after closing. All I know about that is that after Father read the note, he closed the saloon. And a year after that Congress put an end to alcohol in the whole country.”
“What did it say?” I asked.
Lucas looked at the buttons on my shirt instead of my eyes. Or maybe he was staring at my chest. I stifled a gasp. Look at my eyes, mister!
“He wouldn’t tell me. Mr. Wise and Mr. Rushman vanished last Tuesday,” said Lucas.
“Whoa, so he’s still grabbing people?”
“He’s never going to be satisfied with his level of control. He wants impossible things, extreme obedience. We’re trying to find David and Earl, but we suspect we won’t ever track them down. Traver may have some hideout on Black Mountain. We’re looking into it.”
“Who’s ‘we?’” I asked.
“We call ourselves The Underground,” said Lucas.
“Like the people who smuggled slaves out of the South?”
“Yes, just like them. As you know, Marion was part of the original Underground Railroad.”
I didn’t know. But I nodded.
Wait a minute. I didn’t know that. We hadn’t covered the Civil War in our US History course, not yet. I’d heard of the Underground, but had I ever learned about a town named Marion, or Black Mountain? I racked my brain, searching for some scrap of memory.
Nothing.
Oh my god, this is real, I thought. I don’t know how it’s happening but it’s really happening. I mean, maybe it’s like dreaming you’re speaking French in your dream even if you don’t know French in real life, and really you’re just saying le le la le blasé chauffeur, but you wake thinking you were speaking full French. What I really needed was to wake up in my own reality and then check this shit like Marion and Black Mountain and Underground Railroad groups. But right now I was sitting on a couch talking to someone who was either completely made up or completely real. It was nuts.
“So he got what he wanted,” I said.
“Trouble is, once a man has power, he always wants more,” said Mr. Van Doren, walking into the living room. His boots and jeans were soaked up to his knees.
“Hello, Father.”
“Hello you two,” said Mr. Van Doren, who headed to the front door and pulled off his boots, leaving them and a small puddle on the entry floor. “I see it’s story time. Catching Jac up with our latest developments?”
Lucas nodded.
“Although she keeps interrupting me with nonsense.”
“Well,” said Lucas’s father, scratching his chin, “I can assure you it’s not nonsense. I
have just returned from checking the creek behind Mr. Wise’s property, to see what may be there.”
“What did you think would be there?” I asked.
“My dear, I was looking for Earl Wise. But I fear he may be far away, if he isn’t to be found here in town.”
“You mean like on Black Mountain?”
He nodded, and he looked sad. This was heavy. If I was traveling through time, I’d landed in a really crappy spot. What did it mean? What was I supposed to do?
“I think we should explore Black Mountain, father,” said Lucas. “If only our automobile were in working operation.”
“You have a car? Where?”
“It’s in a safe place,” said Lucas.
I tried to be casual, but I was excited. “What…what about it doesn’t work?”
“I would need to know anything about mechanics to answer you, Jac.”
“Just take me there and I’ll fix it.”
The two men looked at each other. Whoever Jacqueline was, the notion that she could repair a car wasn’t impossible for them. Jacqueline was apparently a badass.
And I had found a purpose.
“We can take you to the automobile, but we don’t have any tools,” said Mr. Van Doren.
“We can probably find what she needs,” said Lucas. I was missing something.
“See, Jock Edwards, the mechanic in town, is in league with Dr. Traver.”
“Oh. Of course he is. So let’s steal them.”
“You can see why I enjoy her so,” said Lucas. Enjoy me? What am I, a bottle of Coke?
“I can indeed. Jacqueline, that is a whole other matter. I’m sure we can figure something out.”
“I could just walk in there and grab at least some of what I need. I know what to look for.”
“We can’t let anyone see you, Jac,” said Lucas, touching my leg again. He was warm.
“What? Why can’t they see me? If I haven’t been here for years, Dr. Traver can’t have anything against me.”
Lucas took my hand. “Well now, of course he could. But more importantly, Jacqueline, everyone thinks you’re dead.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“WHAT?” I ASKED, “Why do people think I’m dead?”
Outside, a rumbling motor cut into my shock, and Lucas scrambled to stand up. “Come quickly.” He crutched toward the hallway, back where I’d bathed. I bounded up after him.
“Where are we going? Who is that?”
Mr. Van Doren stood up and peered out the front window.
“Traver’s men. Go.” He waved at us.
“Jac,” said Lucas, turning around to face me. The engines at the front of the house cut out; we heard car doors clanging shut. “No time like the present; let’s go see about those tools.” He opened a door in the hall and I saw a staircase leading down to the basement.
“But your father?”
“He will hold them off. Come along now!”
Loud knocking on the front door of the farm house made the windows on either side of the door shake in their frames. Good grief have you builders ever heard of energy efficiency?
“Hurry!” He pointed to the staircase.
I pounded down the stairs as Lucas shut the door and set a lock from our side of the door. Whoever heard of a basement you could lock from the inside?
First I only heard our breathing, but quickly enough the shouting began. I found a grimy small window at the top of the stone foundation. Pushing a few old fruit boxes to the wall I climbed up and held onto the sill, peering out in case I could see anything.
Mr. Van Doren had managed to get three men down from the porch to the front lawn, back to their cars. That they all had on gray suits and black fedora hats made them look like they were in some kind of uniform. All of them were still yelling, and then Mr. Van Doren walked down the porch stairs and pointed at the far end of the field. One man, the oldest of the three, got in his face and said something to him, but Mr. Van Doren kept his composure. And then they returned to their cars, speeding off as fast as they’d arrived.
A slam from the front door, and pounding on the floor sounded above us.
“That’s the all clear,” said Lucas, who unlocked the door.
Mr. Van Doren opened it, and he and Lucas had some whispered quick conversation. Then Lucas turned around. Picking up his braces he slid down the railings on his arms and landed hard on the floor. Instead of complaining he scrambled back to his feet before slipping again. This time he giggled in response.
“Come on,” I said as I pulled him to his feet.
“You always make life more interesting, don’t you?” he asked.
“Oh no, I’m boring. It’s you two who are the barrel of laughs. What did those guys want?”
“They wanted to know if Father had been looking around Earl Wise’s house, and they were asking questions about who came riding to this house last night.”
“They saw me?” I’d slept for much of the ride, not bothering to take stock of who was around me.
“Probably not them, or they’d have intercepted you. My bet is it was old lady Heinrich, that busybody on the corner. Let’s go.”
“What did he say to them?”
“That the rider slept in the stable without our knowledge, and when we spotted her at sunrise she fled on horseback into the Wannaker Woods down yonder. I don’t know what he said about his trip to Mr. Wise’s house.”
He waved me over to a coal pile in the corner of the basement. His fingers ran along the mortar line of heavy, large, soot-stained bricks, and I gasped as they slid into the wall. A quiet click, and a section of the wall pulled out toward us to make an opening just a couple of feet wide. We slipped inside and Lucas pulled a handle to shut the door. What clever little Prohibition and abolitionist people.
“There’s a lantern by your feet,” he said. I fumbled in the dark and felt around until I hit on lacy metal. A brief flash of light as Lucas struck a match on the wall, and then lit the wick. The dank passageway stretched out ahead of us, sloping downward and curling around until I couldn’t see any further. It was barely wide enough to allow our shoulders through. He handed the light to me and I gripped it, leading us into the retreating darkness. I was even beginning to appreciate the soapy cologne from my bath as competition to root rot and mold.
“So, can we talk now?” I asked, knowing I sounded frantic. Behind me, Lucas kept up a quick pace. “Because I have something to tell you.”
“Yes, this clearly is an appropriate moment to converse,” he said. We’d arrived at the bend in the tunnel, and I could see that it had started to climb upward again toward the surface. “You can relay your tale to me soon. But we have a rendezvous with a certain piece of machinery. And then we need to meet up with someone.”
“Who?”
“Your mother,” he said, giving me an exasperated sigh.
I manually displaced the image of my mother in Ohio with this woman I’d “seen” in one freak dream. If I’d somehow literally jumped into another person, if all of this was real, then I needed to learn quickly what this whole world was about. If this place was real, could I get hurt here? Die? I quit rushing up the slope and put my free hand against the wall to steady myself. Lucas stopped short behind me, not expecting my sudden deceleration.
“What is it, Jacqueline?”
I had started crying.
***
Lucas’s arms were around me, squeezing me in a way that felt at once comforting and a little strained, as if my burst of emotion had frightened him. In return, I put my arms around his, clinging onto both of us at once. It was weird but I didn’t care so much right at that moment.
“Now, now, this too shall pass.” He reached up and smoothed my hair, and I nuzzled into the crook of his neck, which smelled of lye and coffee. And then I pulled back, hard, remembering that none of this was right. The sensations of warmth and fear in my body ceased and I was left realizing I was really a boy myself, supposedly attracted to girls my age, or at least, Jeannine.
I wasn’t this person. I pushed at him and dropped the lantern, spilling the oil out on the dirt floor and extinguishing the light. We stood in darkness, neither of us able to see anything.
“We must be careful about what we pretend to be,” I said. Sanjay was a big Vonnegut fan and had made me read Mother Night.
“You continue to confound me,” he said. Of course he’d never heard of Kurt Vonnegut. Although if Lucas was a figment of my imagination maybe he could have. Instead of saying anything else he just dug in his pocket for another match.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“If that is so, then please, for the love of God, just walk with me so we can get somewhere safe. People are waiting for us. Honestly Jacqueline you didn’t used to be this weepy and existential.”
I frowned into the pop of light and tried to flatten my expression before he caught me. He looked at me, frowning.
“What ‘people’ are those?”
“The people who are trying to get rid of Dr. Traver and his band of thugs,” said Lucas, handing me the lantern. “Try to keep a grip on it this time.”
We carried on, and the tunnel took another turn. Now we’d come upon a locked door. This time Lucas pulled out a small skeleton key and unlocked a large iron shackle. The key struggled with the tumblers inside the lock. He grunted as he wiggled it and turned the key at the same time, and then the lock sprang open. “Okay.”
I reached out and touched his muscular upper arm. “Lucas, I don’t want to get you in any trouble.”
He smiled a little and wiped his bangs out of his eyes. “We are well past that point, Jac, but don’t fret. None of this is your fault.”
At least there’s that, I thought.
We were through the door next and Lucas closed it firmly; I could see from this side that it didn’t look like a door at all but rather part of a rough-hewn wall. We stood at the cross bar of a T intersection, water running through the lowest point of the tunnels. It stunk like old garbage cans. Lucas blew out the lantern because there were electric lights here running the length of the corridors.
The Unintentional Time Traveler (Time Guardians Book 1) Page 7