by Leslie Rule
“How?”
Dr. Grady leaned back in his chair and forced a smile as if he were trying to look patient. “If you were to visit the past, you might do something that seems insignificant to you that could affect the future as it was meant to be,” he said slowly. “A minor thing could set off a long chain of events. For instance, let’s say on your trip to the past, you went into a restaurant and ordered a glass of orange juice. Suppose that orange juice was the last glass left. The next customer comes in, orders a glass of orange juice but is disappointed to learn it’s all gone. He leaves and as a result never meets the woman who arrives five minutes later. If he’d met her, he would have married her and fathered her child. That child would have become the president of the United States.”
“Maybe their child would have been a psychopathic killer,” I said. “Then the trip to the past would have been a good thing.”
He shook his head. “It’s dangerous, Jenna. Don’t even entertain the idea. My belief is that future generations have vowed to never travel back into our time—although they probably have the means to do it. They know coming here would be a threat to their current existence. You must never even think about upsetting the natural order of things.”
Upsetting the natural order of things? I thought angrily. That’s what the scientists did to me when they yanked me from my rightful century!
Despite Dr. Grady’s warnings, I made a decision. I would try to go back in time, and if I could, I knew exactly what I would do. I would stop my sister’s murderer.
15
Dear Diary,
A moment ago, the phone rang. I ran out to the hallway to answer it. I knew somebody was on the line, because I heard them breathing, but they didn’t say anything. I got that icy feeling again, as if something bad was going to happen! I slammed down the phone, came back in here, and huddled up on my window seat to write in you.
Maybe it was just a crank call, Diary, but my hands are shaking so bad that my words are spilling from my pen in squiggly lines. Now my favorite song just came on the radio, “Crystal Blue Persuasion” by Tommy James and the Shondells. It is calming me as I sing along and you’11 notice that my handwriting is getting easier to read. The song is lifting me! I will write some of the words here, perhaps they hold an answer for me. “The sun is arising, most definitely...
“.. . LOVE IS THE ANSWER.”
Yes, Diary! I do believe that. Love IS the answer. But what is the question???
It was Sunday afternoon, and once again my sister’s diary held me riveted. I leaned back in my window seat and answered the question she’d punctuated with triple question marks.
“The question,” I said, “is how can I save you? How can I get the visor to work so I can go back and help you?”
“LOVE IS THE ANSWER.”
I stared at the purple capital letters she’d underlined several times as she reiterated a line in the song. It was as if she was answering my question. Love was the answer to the question of how I would save her!
If I could truly love my sister, it would immerse me in thoughts of her. And once those thoughts were sharp and clear, I would have the concentration necessary to transport myself back to her.
Clear sharp thoughts! That was the key to moving myself against the impossible walls of time.
I asked my computer to play, “Crystal Blue Persuasion.”
It was a clean melody with a light background of drums and the sweet strumming of guitar strings that sliced to my soul. Rife with messages about peace and brotherhood, “Crystal Blue Persuasion” also seemed to have a special message just for me.
I closed my eyes and let the music carry me. “Love. Love is the answer And that’s alright. So don’t you give up now…”
Was the song talking to me? Urging me not to give up on saving my sister? I shivered.
“... Look to your soul and open your mind.”
Open my mind? That was exactly what I needed to do to get the visor to work.
As I read Rita’s thoughts, I vowed to concentrate so intensely on her that she would become crystal clear in my mind—so clear I could transport myself to her side.
Diary, my favorite song is over now and an obnoxious disc jockey is telling stupid jokes so I’m going to turn off the radio.
I’m back. Now it is quiet—TOO QUIET! It frightens me. Last night I had a nightmare. Cruel hands closed around my throat and I couldn’t breathe. What does it mean? Perhaps it is only symbolic and I am feeling suffocated by school, my mother’s restrictions, and all the other walls in my life.
Diary, I wish I could believe that is all it is. But there’s a shadow over me. I tried to talk to April about it when my parents wouldn’t listen. She said she gets depressed too and not to worry because it will pass. She does not understand! I have a premonition something awful will happen soon but I don’t know what! No one will listen! Why won’t anybody help me?
“I will, Rita,” I said. “I’ll do everything in my power to help you!”
In the next weeks, I threw myself into the PK experiments with an intensity that left me exhausted.
And I became increasingly proficient at using the visor.
Dr. Grady assisted me in more short time journeys. They began calling these time trips “mind projections,” because my body never moved.
The scientists would ask me to visualize a later time—never more than a few days into the future, and I’d slip into a sort of trance and project my mind to a destination. Afterward, they would record my observations.
The more fuel in the visor, the stronger my capabilities. We also discovered it was easiest for me to project myself to the same location I started from. For instance, if I was in Dr. Grady’s office, I’d project myself to a later time in his office, rather than to one of the labs.
I let the scientists believe I cared about the experiments for the experiments themselves. But I was biding my time, learning all I could. Foremost in my mind was the thought of saving my sister—and of going back to the time where I belonged. Where I was meant to be, before Twin-Star Labs had interfered.
Without Dr. Grady’s knowledge, I began changing the experiments. Before going a day into the future, I’d project my mind into the past. I’d go to yesterday, but before returning, I’d make a quick trip to tomorrow so I’d have something to tell Dr. Grady.
Though encouraged by my progress, I was also frustrated. I wanted to do more than simply project my mind. Even if my mind could project back to 1970, what good would it do Rita if all I could do was observe her murder?
To stop my sister’s killer, it was necessary to physically transport myself back to her time. But the scientists were moving painstakingly slow on the project. Satisfied with the mind projections, Dr. Grady seemed in no hurry for me to transport my body through time.
So far, all I’d done was project my mind a few days into the past or a few days into the future. I wasn’t even sure if it was possible to do any full-fledged time traveling. Yet, I needed to try.
But throughout the experiments, the scientists were always hovering around, scrutinizing and recording everything. I was afraid to attempt to time travel with them watching me. What if I failed? They might discover my plan and prevent me from ever trying it again.
One blustery November afternoon, an unexpected opportunity presented itself. The visor had just been filled, my mind was clear, and Dr. Grady had left me and Kyle alone in his office while he went to confer with another scientist.
I did not want to betray Kyle. Yet my sister needed me, and there might not be another chance to help her.
“I’m thirsty,” I said, fingering the visor on Dr. Grady’s desk. “I can’t concentrate when I’m thirsty.”
“I’ll get you some water,” Kyle offered, crossing the room to the beverage dispenser. “Or would you rather have juice?”
“I’d really like a Purple Fizzy,” I said. “With lots of ice!”
Dr. Grady’s dispenser had not been stocked with Fizzies. The Fizz
y machine was down a long hallway and two floors up. But Kyle grinned obligingly—as I knew he would—and headed out the door toward the Fizzy machine.
I felt a sudden sharp tug of regret as he jovially called over his shoulder, “One Purple Fizzy, extra ice, coming right up!”
I would not be there when he returned. I would not see the surprise in his trusting green eyes, followed by shock when he realized he’d been deceived.
When Kyle’s tall frame disappeared through the doorway, I counted to ten, tucked the visor under my jacket, and hurried into the hallway. Nervously, I glanced down the long, stark hall that led to the receptionist’s desk.
“Hi, Jenna,” a cheerful voice said. “Are you done already?”
I spun around to see Tarynn emerging from the ladies room.
“I was just going to get a Fizzy,” I stammered. A hot flush crawled up my neck as Tarynn’s eyes slid to the bulge under my jacket.
“The machine’s the other way,” she said suspiciously.
“I know. I was just going to see something in the lobby first.”
She nodded as if she understood, but her eyes burned into my back as I hurried down the hall.
By the time I reached the receptionist’s desk, I was running. The alarm began shrieking just as I flew through the front door. Perhaps it was Tarynn who alerted security, or maybe they’d seen me on their hidden cameras. It didn’t matter. They were on to me.
I’d counted on a full five-minute head start—just enough time to catch the solar-bus around the corner and make my escape.
But with the alarm blaring, I knew security would burst out the door at any moment. There was nothing to do but flee. I dashed across the parking lot, a cold, wet wind scalding my face. I dropped to my knees behind a row of shiny solar-mobiles and crawled along the rough pavement. From this vantage point, I saw several pairs of legs, clad in the bright orange of the security uniforms.
“She couldn’t have gotten far,” a strident female voice exclaimed. “Jane, you go that way! Maurice, you take the east lot, and I’ll cover the front.”
The three pairs of legs raced off in opposite directions while I crouched behind a car, my heartbeat thundering in my ears. For a moment, it seemed they were all moving away from me, but then footsteps approached.
I inched beneath a car, silently praying they wouldn’t find me. Nausea swept through me as the sharp scent of oil and asphalt rolled up from the pavement and filled my lungs.
The footsteps slowed as they neared, finally stopping directly in front of my hiding place. A hand reached down and closed around my wrist and a familiar voice hissed, “Hurry, Jenna!”
I looked up at Suki, her eyes wide and frightened.
“I’ve got the keys to my uncle’s car,” she said. “Hurry before they see you!”
A moment later, I was hunched on the floor on Dr. Grady’s solar-mobile as Suki drove from the parking lot, tires squealing.
“I know what you’re planning,” she said. “If it works for you, I want to go back too. I want to meet my mother!”
“How did you know?” I asked.
“I’m a little psychic like my mother was. I could see in your eyes you were planning something. I’ve been helping Uncle Terry at the lab and overheard him talking about the time travel experiments. I knew what I’d do if I were in your shoes—if I had as much PK ability as you.”
She was the only one who understood.
“I was looking out the window and saw you leave,” she said. “I followed the security guards outside.”
Suki agreed to take me home. It was the one place I could be certain existed in 1970. “It will be easiest to transport from there,” I said.
She nodded. “Go to the attic. That way you won’t startle the Mills family by suddenly appearing in their living room. No one’s likely to be in the attic when you arrive.”
“Good idea. I don’t know how to thank—”
“Promise me one thing!” Suki begged. “Find my mother. Tell her I forgive her. Her name was Trudy Calacort and she was a professional tarot card reader.”
Suki had made it sound so easy. But I knew the chances of success were slim. There was no way to gauge just how far the visor’s fuel would carry me. A year? Ten years? Thirty years? None of those destinations would do me a bit of good. Wherever I ended up, it was possible I’d deplete the visor’s fuel, preventing me from ever returning.
If I pondered the consequences, my courage would dissolve. So I slipped on the visor and visualized my sister. Rita, you are my flesh and blood! The thought was so intense it seemed to squeeze my mind.
“Love is the answer.” Blue rays darted from the visor, vibrating my skull as they circled back through my brain.
March, 1970. A party on the beach. My sister laughing. The words crystallized into pictures and I embraced them, imagining myself by Rita’s side.
Back where I belong…
My head began to ache and I welcomed the pain. The pain was a sort of energy and I seized it, focusing it through the visor. Rita!
My thoughts were screaming and my mind turned inside out. Suddenly, my body felt numb. Ferocious, churning clouds scuttled past the attic window. In the next instant the sun burst through and then bright snowflakes glided past the glass. The weather changed rapidly and dramatically, a process that repeated itself in an endless succession as I experienced the sensation of being sucked into a vacuum.
Voices filled the attic—laughing, crying, shouting, whispering, reminiscing—they passed over me in jumbled layers, like the voices of ghosts from the past.
Snatches of garbled attic conversation floated over me: “…old prom dress still fits…” “…No one’s up here, so it must have been mice…” “…can’t believe moths ate Eddie’s baby blanket…”
The eerie voices finally melted into silence and everything grew still. Except for my throbbing headache, I felt no different. Nothing had changed. I had failed.
I lay looking up at the slanted ceiling of the attic. How long until Dr. Grady found me? What would he do to me when he did?
Maybe I should just turn myself in. I picked myself up from the wooden floor and dusted off my pants.
“Meow.”
Startled, I turned to see a fat yellow cat curled in a box of papers under the window.
“Where did you come from?” I asked. Turning slowly, I appraised the unfamiliar items that now cluttered the attic: an array of women’s wigs perched atop a row of styrofoam heads, a dusty wooden chair with a missing leg, a tall, amateurish painting of a girl in a long dress. None of these had been there before.
The rusty bicycle was gone, replaced by a cardboard box overflowing with shiny red Christmas balls.
I darted to the window, my heart skipping. I craned my neck, turning my head to the south. Ruby’s home was gone! A square white house squatted in its place. A young mother sat on the porch. Dressed in old-fashioned denim shorts and halter top, she bounced a plump baby on her knee. As I watched, she gently placed the baby in a playpen, picked up a paintbrush, and began painting the house’s shutters a sunshiny yellow. It was like watching an old movie of a time gone by. For a moment, I forgot to breathe as my eyes followed the careful strokes of the paintbrush. Eventually, I came out of my daze and took in the whole picture—the old-fashioned stop sign, the unfamiliar patch of scraggly vegetable garden, and the car resembling a museum relic parked in the driveway.
I’d done it! I’d actually traveled back in time!
Had I traveled to the right time? I pressed my forehead to the glass, scanning the yard. The maple tree barely reached the attic window. Only moments before, its gnarly branches had stretched past the rooftop.
Suddenly shouts and laughter sliced the silence as several teenage boys raced across the grassy backyard, headed toward the beach path. With cold dread, I recognized the one with shaggy black hair and stocky frame. Ben!
Were they headed to one of those beer parties on the beach? “Keggers,” Rita had called them.
Was this the night Ben would hurt my sister?
As I stared out the window, every muscle taut with terror, something horrible occurred to me. In my rush to escape, I’d forgotten something so incredibly important I wanted to cry.
I’d neglected to check the date of Rita’s murder. If I remembered correctly, she’d died in March but I could not recall the day.
Without such vital information, how could I save my sister?
16
For a fleeting instant, I considered returning to 2070 where I could get organized and come back to 1970 fully prepared. But there was no guarantee the visor held enough fuel for a hundred-year round-trip. In fact, I might not be able to return to 2070. I could end up halfway home, in some obscure place like the year 2020 where I couldn’t relate to anybody. Stuck there forever!
Even if I had enough fuel, it didn’t mean I’d be capable of traveling through time again. This trip might have been a fluke. I wasn’t even sure how I’d accomplished it.
This could very well be my only chance to help Rita.
How could I stop Ben from hurting her? As my eyes wandered over the collection of wigs, an idea came to me. What if I broke them up?
According to my sister’s diary, a blonde had enticed Ben away from her once before. Why not again? Obviously, he liked blondes. I could wear the blond wig and lure him away from Rita. If I could keep them apart for that night, it would give me time to think of a long-term plan.
I chose a wig with straight, lemony locks that fell to my shoulders. It fit tightly, smelled musty, and made my neck itch. After adding a pair of round, orange-tinted sunglasses, I was somewhat disguised.
I surveyed myself in the tall mirror that was propped in the attic corner. From the neck up, I looked okay. But my puff-suit would not do!
A search of the attic for more appropriate clothes turned up only a yellowing wedding gown and a box of baby clothes.
The sun had slipped low in the sky, its rays filtering weakly through the dusty window. Banbury Bay’s waves glittered and winked in the soft, gold light. Soon it would be dusk. Night would follow, slithering in to coat the beach in darkness and hide a killer’s crimes.