“Wrong, Ray. I need you,” Mike said. “Besides the ISS will kill you if you stay here.”
“Didn’t think about that,” Ray said.
Sarah read a passage from the book, smiled, and looked up. “If we can do this, we will have a chance to make all things whole again.” With that astonishing announcement, Sarah seemingly surprised everyone.
Jenny’s ears perked up. “All things whole again?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Sarah said.
“Help me understand.” Jenny moved closer and talked directly to Sarah. “If I’m following the logic here, we travel back in time and fix the timeline. Gordy’s not dead?”
“Yes, that’s the idea,” Sarah said.
“You’re serious!” Jenny said. She was overwhelmed by this stupidity coming from what seemed intelligent people and walked away.
“How about my leg?” Ray asked.
“If things go right, that should be fixed, too,” Sarah said.
“Okay, I’m in,” Ray said.
“I thought you were out,” Mike teased.
“If I can have my leg back, I’m in.”
“I can’t wait to see where this is going,” Jenny said.
“Wait, you don’t have to come,” Mike said.
“Why?”
“The government is not out to kill you.”
“You don’t want me coming because I’m a pain in the ass,” Jenny said point blank.
“That too,” Mike admitted.
Sarah spoke, “We must all go back. The government agents will kill anyone of us—her too—if we stay here.”
Mike thought a moment. “Okay, you’re right.”
Suddenly, from underneath their feet came the sounds of men talking on radios along with the heavy footfalls of boots. It sounded like things were being broken in the old storage area below.
“They’re coming,” Mike said.
Mike turned the lights out, and the general store got dark. Sarah opened the book and flipped through the pages until she found the page she needed. Then the trap door exploded off its hinges.
In the dark, three black-suited agents came through the hole in the floor. The men wore BDU’s and had NVG’s. Mike ran over, kicking two agents in the face, and knocking them back down the ladder. A third agent, who brandished an M4 carbine was grabbed by the lapel. “What do you think you’re going to do?” Mike hoisted him up and threw him back down on the others who were coming up the ladder. As they fell to the floor below, he toppled a shelf to cover the hole. He turned and shouted, “Hurry, Sarah!”
Mike, Ray, and Jenny stood there, waiting on Sarah. The agents were pushing on the obstruction as Sarah turned the hourglass over and started to read.
Suddenly, shots came up through the floor. Ray and Jenny scattered around the room.
“Huddle around me,” Sarah called to them. “Hold each other’s hands. Make a circle.”
They huddled around in a circle and held hands.
“Don’t break the circle.” Sarah said, and she started to read again.
“You are about to enter a new journey of enlightenment. He who petitions thane inheritance, he who would quarry knowledge, let it be known to them that their sorrows will be multiplied, for there is always a price that must be fulfilled. The ungodly will perish. The righteous shall prevail, awake, and be enlightened.”
Sarah went into a trance. The sands of time sparkled as they ran through the narrow neck of the hourglass and then the sand stopped.
The only thing that happened was that the noise stopped. No sparks, no booms, nothing. Sarah looked up from the book.
“Are we back in time?” Mike asked.
Sarah said, “Yes.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
They looked around the darken room.
Jenny spoke first. “Nothing changed.”
Mike saw that the shelves were full of books. There was an oak desk in the middle of the room. The windows were draped in white curtains with purple lace trim.
“Oh, I think it has,” Mike said.
“How do you know?” Jenny snapped.
“I know one thing.”
“What?”
“No one is trying to shoot at us.”
“That doesn’t prove a thing,” Jenny argued. “They may have given up.”
Sarah dropped her head and said, “She is truly, unbelievable.”
“Let me see if this will convince you,” Mike told Jenny. He got off the floor, went to a window and looked out. He was on the second floor. “I see gas streetlights.”
Jenny followed Mike to the window. Mike pulled the curtains back and they all tried to get a look. It was dark, but Jenny saw the gas streetlights, then a horse and carriage went by with two people sitting in it.
“See that?” Mike said.
“That’s just a carriage ride for tourists,” Jenny replied.
Mike got frustrated. “Now I know why you married Gordy. He was skeptical, too.”
“I need more than just peering out a window and seeing a carriage,” Jenny explained.
“Ray, find me some matches,” Mike said.
“Why?”
“To light this lantern.”
Ray found some strike-anywhere matches in the desk and Mike lit the lantern. The warm filled the room. They were in the library of what appeared to be a church.
“Proof enough for you?” Mike asked Jenny.
Jenny stuck to her guns. “Must be a trick.”
“Do you hear government agents coming through the floor? No.” Mike said. “Do we have electricity? No.”
“That isn’t proof of time travel,” Jenny fired back.
“Look around—do you see any outlets, light fixtures? Where’s the trap door? There isn’t one, because it’s no longer a general store. It’s an office. Isn’t that proof enough?”
Jenny tried to hold onto her denial. “I must admit, this is very strange.”
Sarah was tired of the bickering. “Mike, it’s no use.”
Then Ray chimed in. “How about I go out and see if anyone has any information about the war? Maybe get something to eat, stuff like that.”
“Bad idea, Ray. We don’t want to bring attention to ourselves,” Mike said.
“Well, I can’t stay here,” Ray said. “I’ll go crazy. At least let me go downstairs and have a look around.”
“I think we should all go outside and take a look around,” Jenny said. “Just to prove what you say is true.”
Mike gave in. “I don’t like it, but okay. But let me take the lead.”
Mike slowly opened the room’s only door. The stairway was there prior to the trap door and wooden steps. Mike went down to the first floor. The others followed. When they got downstairs, they stumbled around in the dark until Ray lit another lantern.
The room lit up and they saw pews lined up in neat rows, with an altar at the far end. They were in the church.
Mike went to the main entrance and cracked open the door. He looked out and started to exit the church then suddenly stopped, making Ray bump into him.
“What’s wrong?” Ray asked.
“Someone’s coming up the steps.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Is it the ISS?” Ray said.
“Nope, not the police.” Mike stepped back inside the church, and to everyone’s surprise, in walked a white man followed by a black man. Behind them was a black woman with a child tagging along.
Ray was stunned. “What is this?”
“Who are you people? Who let you in here?” the tall white man demanded. He wore a 19th century black suit with a top hat and was clean shaven. There was concern in his brown eyes. He removed his hat, revealing dark brown hair with a touch of gray peppered throughout. It looked like it had been combed with firecrackers.
The black man stayed behind him, as if protecting his family. They all stood there, scared to death of each other, neither group knowing the other group’s secrets.
“Don’t be afraid. My name is Mike H
ill. This is Sarah, my wife.”
The tall white man stood there, looking at the condition they were in and the strange clothes – shorts and sandals and flowered shirts - they were wearing. From crawling though that tunnel, their clothes were filthy and torn, their knees bruised and bleeding.
“You look like refugees,” he said. “What manner of garments are you wearing?”
“Yeah, I know. Sorry for the way we look. Who might you be?” Mike asked.
“My name is David Wood. I’m the preacher in this church.”
“You go by Dave?” Mike asked.
“Just Preacher,” he said.
“Okay, Preacher, this is Jenny Smart, and this is Ray Hensley.”
“Why did you give him my name?” Jenny scolded. “I don’t know these people.”
“I don’t think it matters anymore,” Sarah told her.
“Who cares what you think?”
Preacher felt the tension between them. “How do you do?” Preacher held his hand out to Jenny. He seemed pleased with her youthful good looks. And she was the only one wearing a loose summer dress that was too short. She cautiously placed her hand in his.
“This is George and his wife, Anita, and this is Valerie, their daughter.
George appeared to be in his thirties and had a husky build from working the fields. Anita was an attractive, fair-skinned woman in her late twenties. Valerie was a pretty twelve-year-old.
Jenny acknowledged them with a nod.
Mike knew right off that they were runaway slaves, but he didn’t want to say that. He was standing where the Underground Railroad started in Atlanta. He was trying to figure out what he could say to ease their minds that he and his party were friends and didn’t mean them any harm. Furthermore, he needed their help.
“We’re in trouble,” Mike said, sensing that Preacher was a good man.
“What kind of trouble?” Preacher asked.
“The authorities are after us.”
“What on earth for?”
“Mike, what are you doing?” Sarah said.
“We need their help and I want them to trust us,” Mike whispered to her.
Jenny overheard him. “How about us trusting them?”
“It works both ways,” Mike cautioned.
Mike needed a good reason for why they were in trouble. The only thing that he could think of was the Winan’s steam gun that Gordon had told them about back at the house. “We need to stop a gun from reaching the battlefield.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” Preacher asked, totally confused.
“The gun is a top secret weapon,” Mike said.
“You mean you’re spies?” Preacher seemed appalled, then added, “Which side?”
“The North?” Mike said, keeping his fingers crossed that Preacher was good with that.
Preacher gave a sigh of relief. “Thank God,”
“What’s the date?” Mike asked.
“What on earth?” Preacher said, not knowing what to make of his question.
“Please, just tell us the date.”
“Why it’s Wednesday, June Tenth, in the year of our Lord, Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-Three.”
“We left Thursday, July Third. Why are we here now on June Tenth?” Mike asked Sarah.
“I don’t really know,” Sarah said. “I think my powers are weak and I can’t control them.”
“Something happened at Gettysburg,” Mike said.
“Could there be a connection between Gettysburg and our new Independence Day?” Ray asked.
“July Fifth... It might,” Mike said.
Sarah calculated quickly. “That would give us twenty days to get to Gettysburg by July First.”
“Twenty days to go six hundred miles,” Mike whispered.
“What in the world are you talking about?” Preacher asked.
“Inside information. Can’t talk about it,” Mike told him.
“How do we do that, walk?” Ray asked.
Mike turned to Preacher. “How were you going to get north?”
“By wagon,” Preacher said.
“A horse is three times faster than walking,” Ray said.
“Where did you learn that?” Mike asked.
“I watch the History Channel,” Ray said.
“Pardon?” Preacher asked confused.
“Pulling a wagon would be slower than a horse, but if we traveled with you, we could provide protection in numbers,” Mike said.
Preacher gave the proposal some thought. “Lord knows we had our share of troubles already.”
“How’s that?” Mike asked.
“I’m supposed to take two families north, not one. Ben and Sally didn’t show up at the designated meeting place. I fear they have been caught.”
“Caught by whom?” Sarah asked.
“Slave hunters,” Preacher said.
“I’m very sorry,” Sarah said.
Preacher looked over the two beautiful women. Jenny’s small dress was torn and filthy. Sarah’s capri blue jeans were ripped and her halter top showed the top of her bosom. Their faces were scratched and dirty. Pinching his top hat with his thumb and two fingers, Preacher rubbed the back of his head and said, “You’re going to need a change of clothes.” He gave them a big smile.
Sarah and Jenny exchanged looks.
“Thank you,” Sarah said.
“There are shoes in a box in the back,” Preacher said.
Jenny’s skepticism of time travel still lingered. “Is this actually happening?”
“What time is it?” Mike asked.
Preacher looked at his pocket watch. “Three quarters past ten.”
“We need to go,” Mike said.
“I have arranged for our passage to Pennsylvania. But we don’t leave until midnight.”
“What do we do until then?”
“First things first, I need to go and find out what happened to Ben and Sally,” Preacher said.
“That could be dangerous, let me go with you,” Mike said.
“No, my son, you stay here and protect them until I get back.”
“What about food and water?” Mike asked.
“I’ll take care of that.”
“Okay. We’ll wait here until you get back,” Mike told him.
Preacher was glad to get the help and looked at the ceiling. “Thank you, Lord.” Then he turned to George. “Wait here with these good people while I go and see what happened and collect some provisions. I’ll be back in a few hours for our journey.”
George questioned, “Excuse me sir, I don’t know these people. Can we trust them around my family? How do I know they ain’t slave hunters?”
“If they were slave hunters, I’d be dead and you would be taken. We can trust them. We have a mutual goal. They need us as much as we need them. Relax. I’ll be back shortly.” With that, Preacher left the building.
Mike turned to Sarah, Jenny, and Ray.
“You guys good with this?”
“I’m good,” Sarah said.
“Me, too,” Ray babbled.
Jenny muttered, “I’m out of my mind right now, you’ll have to leave a message.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Mike said.
“That’s okay, you’re starting to sound reasonable, must be time to up my medication.” Jenny smiled and looked around the room. “If we are back in time—it’s because of some accident—not because she’s a witch. That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of.”
Jenny noticed that the black woman seemed distressed. To everyone’s surprise, she walked over to the woman and sat down in the pew beside her. Jenny took the woman’s hand and held it. It seemed to comfort both of them.
“Unbelievable,” Mike uttered.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Wednesday, June 10, 1863
For the second time, General Robert E. Lee had decided to take the fight to the North. Lee’s plan would give war-torn Virginia some much-needed respite and allow the Army of Northern Virginia to supply itself fr
om its enemy’s resources. Lee reasoned that if he could find ground to his advantage he could defeat the Army of the Potomac on its own soil, and by doing so, restore the confidence of his soldiers.
Additionally, he hoped the war-weary North would negotiate for peace. This would be the military stroke of genius needed to demonstrate to Great Britain and France the strength of the South’s will for independence and gain their support.
The second invasion of the North had begun.
***
Jenny took Anita’s hand, just like she did at the hospital when a patient was in distress. This also alleviated her own pain from losing Gordon. “How are you two doing?” Jenny said, including Anita’s daughter in the question. The woman’s anxiety level dropped, comforting both.
“Our masters sent men to bring us back. So when we got here, and y’all were not the people we were supposed to meet, I was afraid you might be the slave hunters,” Anita said.
“Don’t be afraid. You’re with friends,” Jenny said.
Mike was talking to George, hoping for information, when George overheard his wife’s conversation with Jenny. “Be quiet now, woman, we don’t want to say too much.”
“Preacher will tell us what we need to know when he gets back,” Sarah said.
Anita walked over to her husband and leaned her head on his chest.
“It’ll be all right, woman,” George said.
***
Time seemed to go by slowly within the walls of the old church. The moon provided enough light to make out the silhouettes of those waiting. Apprehension rose with the heat and humidity. As the minutes passed and the clock got closer to midnight, everyone was on edge.
Mike checked the back room for the shoes Preacher talked about. While back there, he looked for food and water. What he found was shoes.
Ray tried on the shoes Mike gave him and, to his delight, they fit. He wiped the sweat from his brow and paced around the room in his cut-off jeans and almost new brogans. Mike smiled at the sight. “You should see yourself.”
Mike’s shoes fit, too, as he walked around the room in shorts.
“Don’t you talk,” Ray said.
Another hour passed. Anita and George were kneeling in the pew and praying. Mike joined Sarah, who sat two rows away from Jenny. Ray sat in the same pew with Jenny, but on the far end.
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