Family of the Fox, #1

by F. M. Isaacs

  “I can give you some bread, honey. Sit yourself down and I'll be right back.”

  I settled into a rickety chair, nervous to leave my father alone. But I had to eat, and I had to get help. I just hoped this Doc Vervain wasn't a quack.

  The woman returned with a cup of water and a chunk of leftover cornbread in a piece of yellowed cloth. I took the bread and chomped at it hungrily. It wasn't half bad, even though it was very stale.

  “I made that one last weekend,” she boasted. “It's one of my best.”

  “Delicious,” I mumbled between bites. Hopefully I wouldn't get food poisoning from it.

  DOC VERVAIN'S HOUSE was only a mile or two from where I was, but once I got off the main road, there was a long, overgrown path to traverse. Fighting my way through the tall prairie grass in the sweltering sun weakened me. My dress seemed to be getting heavier and it smelled moldy. With each step I grew more parched, and my head was throbbing. I wondered if I'd get ticks, and if they had Lyme disease back in the 1860s, and then I cried.

  But I kept going. For Dad. For me. I wanted my own room, my own bed, and my own century. Time travel would never be as exciting-sounding and rosy as it had always seemed in literature. Now that I'd experienced it, I understood what Dad had been saying. Life was life, wherever you lived it, and being in a different time didn't change anything. In fact, it was becoming evident that surviving in the past was far harder than living where you belonged.

  A small cottage came into view, with “DOCTOR” painted over the porch. When I finally pushed open the front gate, my knees gave out from under me, and I collapsed to the dirt. Lying on my stomach, the sun beating mercilessly at my back, I began to dry-heave. Then I tried to sob, but it seemed like I couldn't because my tears had all dried up.

  Just when I thought I would pass out, someone cried out, “My dear, you're going to burn up out here!”

  Strong hands hoisted me up, and I was vaguely aware of being taken inside and placed on something soft. “Get her water, Marie,” I heard. The words, spoken in a male voice, bobbed above me. Then everything went dark.

  WHEN I CAME TO, THE coolness of night was setting in, and a breeze wafted from the window above my head. It smelled sweet, unlike the stinky smell in the town. I lay on a cot in a small, neat room. A stack of towels and a basin of water sat beside me on a table.

  For a blessed few seconds, all was calm and well. Then I remembered what happened to Dad.

  I had to help him! I jumped out of the bed to find I was only wearing a shapeless, scratchy nightgown. “Oh, God! They took off my clothes?” I squeaked.

  Needless to say, I was mortified.

  “Miss, you're up?” a pasty-looking woman of perhaps sixty poked her head in the door.

  “Um, yes?” I answered confusedly.

  “Sam, she's awake!”

  “Coming.”

  The woman entered the room slowly, as if not to startle me. Approaching carefully, she encouraged me to sit back down. “Take it easy, you're still recovering. The sun did a number on you.”

  “No, no,” I pushed her away. “My father needs help.”

  “Shh, it's okay. Take some water.” She offered me a pewter cup of tepid liquid, and I worried at how clean the water was. But I had to drink it. My throat felt like it was made of sandpaper.

  The water made me feel immediately better, and I drank another whole cup. When I was offered more, I shook my head. “Please, you have to help my dad. He was attacked over by the bank, and he's hurt. I have no money, so if there's any way I can repay you...”

  The man that was apparently Doc Vervain came into the room. “Your father is the rich man that was attacked?”

  “Yes?” I said, although it was more like a question.

  “Then we'll get him better. I'll be wanting payment for my services.”

  I didn't know whether to laugh at this or not, because his weather-worn face did not display the least amount of mirth. He didn't laugh, so I didn't either.

  He grabbed a medicine bag and roughly aided me outside. I climbed into his wagon as he hitched it up. Having never been in a horse-drawn vehicle before, I felt extremely awkward. For a moment, I found myself looking for a seat belt.

  Even though I had no idea what to say to him on the ride back, I was thankful I didn't have to walk through all that grass – especially in the dark. I'd have to check myself for ticks later.

  THE DOCTOR STOOD OVER my father in the candlelight, clicking his tongue. He didn't bother to look under the bandages. “Bad concussion,” he simply said. And for a moment, I had hope. There had to be some good doctors. They couldn't all be quacks. Maybe he could really help.

  He placed his hand on an area slightly below the bandage on Dad's forehead, and I cringed. The man's skin was dirty from holding the reins of the carriage. I wasn't expecting him to wear gloves, but surely he could wash before touching a patient?

  As he fished through his bag, I knew I couldn't remain silent about the dirt. I took a moment to muster up my courage and finally asked, “Could you please wash your hands?”

  He held them up and rubbed them together, which resulted in a puff of dust. “If you say so.” He dipped only his fingers into the basin on the dresser, which turned the water brown. Then he set back to his tools.

  Well, that was a little bit better...maybe...

  “So, can you help him?” I queried, curious as to what he was looking for in the bag.

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  He pulled a clumsy scalpel from the satchel. “With this.”

  “What are you going to do with that? Surgery?” I cried.

  “Oh, no,” he chortled, fishing a porcelain canister out and setting it down near Dad's arm. “We're just going to take some blood.” He pushed up Dad’s sleeve and poked around his skin.

  A blood test? Well, maybe they had chemicals they could mix with the blood for some kind of rudimentary diagnosis... I was hardly an expert in post-Civil War medicine.

  When he sank the scalpel into Dad's arm and the blood issued forth, it dawned on me what the man was doing. He was planning to drain some of Dad's blood, which people used to believe was a cure for many illnesses...

  A bloodletting.

  “No!” I screamed, yanking Dad's arm away from him. I grabbed up the nightgown I’d worn and twisted it around Dad’s wound while applying pressure. How could I be so stupid not to understand? “You can't do this! It'll make him worse! I didn't know people still did this now! It's like...medieval!”

  Doc Vervain recoiled, sizing me up. “Miss, if you deny treatment, I can't very well help him.”

  “I deny treatment! Go! I can't have you kill him!”

  “As you wish.” He gathered up his belongings, tossing Dad's collected blood into the dirty basin. Then he placed the unwashed canister back into his satchel.

  The blood must have gotten all over everything in that bag. And, for that matter, how clean had that scalpel been?

  “Miss, I–”

  “Go! Go! Go!” I started sobbing, and, delivering me a doubtful glance, he left.

  I DON'T KNOW WHAT TIME it was when I got up. I had obviously wept myself to sleep again, which I was getting to be quite good at. The moon was low in the sky, and the new candle the desk lady had put in my room was about to go out. Luckily it hadn't fallen over and set the place on fire.

  Past crying, I examined the scalpel cut on Dad's arm. It had clotted up, but it hadn't been cleansed. And the basin was full of dirty, bloody water.

  “Oh, Dad,” I choked out. “I can't even...clean your cut... I'll have to go out and get new water at the pump...”

  The anger rose in me once more, but it was now aimed at myself. Why did I have to ask my father to do this? Why couldn't I have let things be?

  “Dad, Dad...please, I want to go home. Please wake up and get us out of here! Please, damn it, please!”

  I gripped Dad so hard that I created welts in his skin. All I wanted was to be safe in my own room
, in my own house, and my dapper time traveling father healed...

  My room, with its soft carpet, my bed with its ruffles and smooth sheets that smelled of Mom's laundry detergent...

  I...need...home...

  Something lurched. The ground gave way underneath me. The light of the room changed; for a moment, daylight blinded me.

  The sheets Dad lay on were smooth, and the floor under my feet was soft...

  “I'm home,” I gasped, my eyes focusing on my own room. “Oh, my God, I'm so...home...” I crumpled to the floor.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  My head was spinning with all kinds of questions. Did Dad help us subconsciously? Did I do it myself?

  Yet I couldn't dwell on these concerns now. I had to help my father. I ran to the phone and dialed Mom at work. She didn't pick up her cell, so I called her office next.

  “Dr. Blaine and Dr. Greene's office. Lavinia speaking. How can I help you?”

  Lavinia had worked with my mother since before I was born. She had been the receptionist in Mom's old office, and then, when my mother partnered with Dr. Blaine, she came to work for them. “Lavinia, it's Corinne. Can you get my mom?”

  “Oh, hello, Corinne. Is everything okay? She's with a patient.”

  “No, everything's not okay. This is a really big emergency. It's my dad.”

  “I'll get her.”

  The few seconds that ticked by as I waited seemed to stretch on forever. When Mom came to the line, I almost vomited from the immense relief I felt. “Mom! Dad's hurt badly! Please, come here now!”

  I wasn’t even jarred by my mother's appearance beside me the very next moment. I shuffled over to my bed where Dad lay breathing shallowly.

  Mom drew in a gulp of air and advanced on him. “Oh, Julian! What happened?”

  “He was in a fight. See, he took me back in time to sleep. We were on the frontier, he got beat up and robbed... Mom, he's so hurt...”

  I don't know how much of my garbled speech made sense to her. She swept away his bangs, and a strange, wistful look came over her face. “It's just like when I saved him...”

  Why wasn't she doing anything? “Mom?”

  Shaking herself out of her daze, she set to examining him. Removing the bandages, she uttered, “Uh, Corinne? Where was he hurt?”

  “Here!” I pointed at his forehead, but there was nothing there but some blood caked into his hairline. “Well, here on his chest...” But when Mom took off that bandage, there weren't any wounds either. Dried blood stained his white shirt, so he had been injured, but there wasn't a single cut or bruise.

  “And what’s this?” Mom pulled the nightgown off Dad’s arm, and the skin was only slightly pink where the scalpel had pierced him.

  My eyes opened wide, I couldn't quite comprehend... “Mom, I swear...he was...I don't...”

  “You healed him, Corinne.”

  “No, I...”

  She removed his suit jacket and unbuttoned his waistcoat and shirt. My father's chest did not have a scratch on it. “You healed him,” she repeated in a more upbeat tone. “You're a healer too. Not that I'm shocked, of course.”

  I almost laughed. Being able to heal wounds wasn't shocking? And then again, if I could do this, then why wasn't Dad waking up?

  Mom ran her hand down his face, her mind somewhere else again. “Come back, Julian,” she whispered. Leaving her finger on his cheek, she closed her eyes tightly. “He's...I don't know...I can see pictures, memories... But he's just... It's like he's sleeping a dreamless sleep.”

  “Can't you heal him?”

  “I tried. You did too. My guess is it's just taking longer for him to come out of it. I could call his father...”

  “Grandpa Ron does this?”

  “Why do you think he's such a good surgeon?” She made a half-grin.

  “Call him!”

  “I'll tell you what he's going to say. 'If Patricia can't do it, no one can.'” She attempted to sound calm and reassuring, but I could sense her underlying worry.

  She dialed Grandpa Ron nonetheless, and implored him to stop by. He was with a patient, but he would come as soon as possible.

  Mom sat down on the bed beside my father, grasping his hand tight. I reclined in my desk chair, observing in silence.

  “You'll be fine, Julian,” she told him lovingly. “Or you know I'll save you again.”

  Save him? What was this all about? Yet another secret? “You saved him?”

  She sighed, turning toward me. “So many stories, all before your time...”

  “Tell me.”

  “I don't even know where to begin.”

  “The beginning?”

  She looked out the window, then took a deep breath. “Just like Jonas, your father was once murdered.”

  “What?”

  She gazed back outside for another moment and then turned to me. “Not everyone likes time travelers fooling around with history. And some people,” she did not seem like she wished to elaborate here, “wanted him stopped. They eventually did. Permanently.”

  “Oh...Mom...” Dad had been murdered? The words sounded silly and unreal. How could anyone want to kill my father? He was fun and smart and... my father!

  “I was still married to Jack when I heard. In fact, Jack was the one who found Julian's obituary in the paper. Then Grandma Robin, knowing my parents for years, came to me in my office and convinced me that I could save Julian.”

  “And you did?”

  “Well, you could say I was a very late bloomer. I had only just started to have weird things happening to me that turned out to be my abilities kicking in. But, like you, I didn't know that such things existed – and I was in my thirties already! My parents had never told me about what they could do.

  “So I was skeptical, to say the least. After a lot of convincing from Robin, I finally forced myself to try it. And she had been right; I could time travel.” She smiled, holding her hand out to me. “And apparently so can you.”

  “Mom, how do you know Dad didn't take us back?” I asked, but deep inside me I think I knew the answer.

  “You think Dad is in any position to time travel?”

  “Uh...”

  She squeezed my hand. “I'm pretty sure it's you, and again, I'm not surprised. We'll check it out later. But if you are, you need to be careful, which is what I always warn you, but it’s truer now than ever. I'm sure there are still people out there who will not be happy if they knew more travelers are running around. Daniel better keep his mouth shut about it, too.”

  Growing concerned and impatient with the wait, I blurted out, “So where is Grandpa Ron?”

  “Here.”

  I jumped at my grandfather's sudden arrival, and my mother started to laugh. “Your grandfather has always had perfect timing with that.”

  Grandpa Ron grinned. The sunlight coming from the window gave him the effect of having an aura, which made me burst out, “I wasn't expecting Grandpa Ron to do any of this!”

  “What, appear? That's just one little thing from my bag of tricks!” He winked at us. “So, what's my son got into now?” He walked over to my father and removed the sheet that covered him. “He looks okay to me, except of course for being unconscious.”

  “Corinne saved him.”

  Cocking his head to the side, Grandpa Ron raised an eyebrow.

  “I think she's also a traveler, Ron.”

  My grandfather's face creased into an awed smile. “You're sure?”

  “Unless Dad did it in his sleep,” I mumbled uncomfortably. “It's possible, right?”

  “Oh, please. Julian?” he swatted at his son. “You can't focus if you're unconscious. You'll end up who-knows-where. Julian went places in his sleep a couple of times when he first started traveling. He ended up in the Tower of London wearing his pajamas once.”

  I giggled, and my mother drew a long face. “Is he okay?”

  Grandpa Ron put his hand to Dad’s head, listening. “Well, yes. He's...there. Did you try to heal him?”
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br />   “Corinne healed his wounds.”

  His jaw fell open. “She's a healer too?”

  “Doesn't matter,” I said, and I meant it. “I couldn't wake him up. Neither could Mom.”

  “Well, if Patricia can't, I can't.”

  So Mom won that bet – he said exactly what she had predicted he'd say.

  Grandpa Ron didn't seem terribly concerned about his son, so I had to assume emergencies such as this had cropped up before in my family's history. I did notice that my grandfather was valiantly fighting the urge to beam at me in pride, but he quickly pulled himself together. “Let's put all our energy into Julian, and then I'll try to get further into his head.”

  We joined hands, and it felt stupid, like we were having some phony séance. But when my grandfather touched his fingertips to my father's head, I suddenly experienced a rush of emotion accompanied by unfamiliar pictures...

  Such weird, disjointed images...soldiers, a ballroom full of dancers, castles, concentration camps... Grandpa Brian with a deadly grin on his face...an angry old man...

  And the words... Names, places... “Anna”, “Wilhelm”, “Aldous”, “Hans”...

  Dad was here, among the pictures... Don't look, Corinne, his voice emanated from the depths. I didn't understand how we were com-municating, but it didn't matter. He was alive, and he was in there.

  Don't look at what? I asked.

  My memories. The memories of a time traveler are even worse than those of a soldier who's been at war.

  I would have thought they'd be amazing, Dad.

  The horrors far outdo the wonders. What I've seen, what's been done...

  Who are the names I heard?

  My father's mind-voice was heavy with sorrow. People I saved, people I lost, people who hurt us...

  This was getting too much for me. Dad, come back to us...

  I'm coming, Corinne. I'm pushing through. I'm almost there.

  Images... Soldiers getting shot in a battlefield, one lone red-headed nurse trying to help until she was shot down too...the blood...