by P. T. McHugh
Paul nodded, then glanced down at our sleeping bags and backpacks. Reis followed his eyes to the stack of stuff. He sighed.
“Hold up, let’s see what you guys brought.” He ducked down and started rifling through my bag, tossing t-shirts and a pair of jeans to the side. Within seconds he’d zipped up my bag and moved on to Paul’s. I noticed that he was taking more out of Paul’s backpack than mine, and smiled to myself as Paul’s clothing went flying across the room.
“What are you doing?” Paul shrieked. “I need those, and we don’t have time for you to play fashion advisor!” He stepped forward, presumably to salvage his wardrobe, and Reis held up a finger.
“Boys, we’re going to be on foot and in quite a bit of danger. We’ll need to move fast. That means traveling light.” He held up a shaving kit, looking daggers at Paul.
Paul opened his mouth to argue, then thought better of it and shut it with a snap.
“And what is this?” Reis asked sharply, pulling out a purple marble bag.
“Chocolate coins,” Paul replied. “Energy source. Just in case.”
Reis shook his head, stuffed the chocolates back into Paul’s pack, and glanced back down at the bags. “That’ll have to do for now, I don’t have time for a more thorough job.” He zipped Paul’s bag and stood up, glancing quickly at me and then his watch.
“Seven minutes … It’s time to get down there,” he said, his voice clipped. “If anyone wants to change their mind, now is the time to speak up.”
Paul and I glanced at each other again, then nodded as one.
“We’re ready, Reis,” I answered quietly. “We don’t have time to back out.” I turned toward the door and strengthened my voice. “Let’s go find my grandfather.”
I rushed out the back door and turned left toward the back yard and garden shed, with Reis hot on my heels. We both stopped short at Paul’s exclamation.
“What the hell is she doing here?!”
I turned, annoyed at the delay, and almost choked.
She looked as though she’d stepped right out of a Jeep ad tucked into the glossy pages of a Maxim magazine. I wouldn’t have recognized her face at all, but the way she stood gave her away. Tatiana Fleming had appeared in my driveway uninvited, and now leaned casually back against a green SUV, her arms folded across her chest. She wore black hiking boots, baggy khaki-colored cargo pants, and a tight grey wool sweater. Her hair was pulled back into a bun and reflective sunglasses bridged the end of her nose to complete the picture. She lowered her chin to look at me over the rims of the glasses, then squared her shoulders. Beneath the glasses, her mouth firmed from a relaxed pout to a firm line.
“What are you doing here, kid?” Reis asked sharply. “We don’t have time to chat.”
Tatiana kicked at the black duffel and sleeping bag at her feet. “I’m coming with you,” she answered, matching Reis’ dry tone.
Reis shook his head. “Go home! This is no place for girls.”
Tatiana shoved herself off the Jeep and took a quick step toward us. “You’re going back, and I want to come with you,” she said firmly.
Reis shook his head again and turned away from her. “I really don’t care what you want to do. This isn’t summer camp and I’m not a camp counselor.” He began to move toward the garden shed, snapping my name as he went.
I jumped to follow him, but Tatiana moved before I could, sprinting forward to grab Reis’ arm and stop him.
“At least hear me out,” she said, her voice low and tense.
“We’ve got to go!” Paul protested, looking at his watch in panic. I nodded and started to move forward again, but Tatiana threw out a hand to stop me. She pinned Reis with her gaze and stood a bit taller.
“You’re going after my father, who’s going after Doc, and you’re going to need to get to him quickly if you’re going to stop him. No one knows more about my father than I do. Certainly not either of you two, or you, Mr. Slayton,” she muttered. She’d obviously expected a refusal, and prepared her argument. She was speaking quicker now, driving her point home. “I know what my father is up to. His tendencies, his habits … you need me Mr. Slayton, if you’re going to succeed.”
“Like a hole in the head,” Reis replied. He turned away and Tatiana’s hand snaked out to stop him again.
“I’m fluent in French and I’ve done extensive studies in European history, specifically as it relates to the Middle Ages.” Reis, Paul, and I shook our heads and turned toward the shed, walking away from the girl.
She ran after us, breathing loudly.
“It’s bad enough I’m chaperoning the boys!” Reis shouted at her. “I don’t have time to look out for a girl!”
Tatiana sputtered in anger. “Girl?! I’m a fourth-degree black belt in Tai Kwon Do, I speak four languages fluently, and I’ve traveled the world since I was a kid! Don’t judge me by my age or gender, Mr. Slayton!”
She ran ahead of us and threw her backpack against the shed’s door, then stepped in front of it. “I’m coming with or without your blessing, and you don’t have time to argue.” Her voice dropped to a dangerous level with the next line. “You’re running out of time, after all.”
“The answer is still no,” Reis said. He placed his hands on her arms and lifted her out of the way like a ragdoll.
For the first time, Tatiana became upset. Her expression – previously confident – grew hard and cold. “Is that so?” she asked quietly. The corner of her mouth turned up and she shrugged. “You might want to rethink that. I mean I’d hate for anything to happen to the stone while you were gone, or something. How exactly would you … get back?”
Paul and I had been rushing past her, anxious to get to the stone. We were already halfway through the door when her words hit me. I came to a skidding halt and turned slowly back to the yard. For a moment, silence reigned. Without the stone, we’d have no way back. And she knew it.
“Are you threatening us?” Reis asked, his voice ragged with tightly held anger.
Tatiana shook her head slowly. “No, not at all. But I do know where the stone is…” She paused for a moment before she spoke again. “And there are a lot of people who would do whatever they had to for that kind of information. I haven’t exactly been trained to keep my mouth shut under intense interrogation. Can you take the chance that I won’t talk, Mr. Slayton?”
I watched, my mouth hanging open. What was she saying? Surely she wouldn’t–
Beside me, Paul hissed, interrupting my thoughts. He was jumping up and down and pointing at his watch. “Four minutes!” he mouthed, his eyes taking up half of his face.
I turned back to Reis and reached out to nudge him. “Reis, we have to go,” I muttered anxiously.
He nodded and threw one last glance at Tatiana. “Looks like you’re in, girl. But I don’t like it, and I won’t be watching out for you.”
She smiled brilliantly in victory. “You don’t have too. I’ve been on my own longer then I can remember.” Tatiana grabbed her backpack and sleeping bag and brushed quickly past us, moving into the shed. “From what I’ve seen, it looks like I’ll have to take care of you, rather than the other way around.” She stopped and glanced over her shoulder. “Are you boys coming? I was under the impression that we were in a hurry.”
We fell over ourselves rushing after her.
Once we were all in the shed, Paul slammed the door shut behind us. The trap door was already open–we hadn’t closed it after we saw Doc leave. I moved toward it and peered into the dimness below, breathless.
“Here we go,” I whispered to myself.
Reis appeared next to me, glancing at his watch. “We have less than three minutes, people!” he barked. “Quit staring and get your butts down the ladder!”
I scrambled down first, followed closely by Tatiana. We got out of the way just in time to avoid Paul, who missed the last several rungs in his hurry and landed belly-first on the ground.
I heard a soft roar behind me and turned from my fallen friend
to the stone. The last time I’d seen it, it had been glowing brightly, its symbols dancing their ageless dance in the air above it. And it had held the fading form of my grandfather. Now it sat stark black and foreboding, waiting for us. The black of the stone pulled the light from the air around it, sucking energy and warmth to itself. It wasn’t open–not yet–but it was readying itself. And it was speaking to me, whispering quietly of its power and the window it was about to open. I couldn’t take my eyes off it, and my feet moved toward the stone of their own accord.
Tatiana, who hadn’t seen the stone yet, walked toward it in a trance. She knelt down before it, sighing, and reached her hand toward its surface. As her fingers neared the stone, though, her hand jerked back like she’d been burned.
“Can I touch it?” she whispered.
“You won’t have much choice if you want to come with us,” I replied. I put my backpack quickly on the far end of the stone, wondering if it would make the jump, and turned back to the group.
“What do we do?” Paul asked quietly.
“Put your bags on the far end of the stone next to mine and get on the stone,” I replied. I heard my voice–low and intense–and realized that I sounded like my father. He had always been steady and calm in emergency situations. I could only pray that I was as capable now.
I glanced down at the stone for help and breathed out slowly. The window wasn’t open yet, but it wouldn’t be long now; the stone was starting to glow as it had before, and the symbols were aligning themselves and taking on a distinct form.
“We’re right on time,” I said quietly. “The window hasn’t opened, but I think the stone’s ready for us. Doc was lying on the stone when he jumped. Everybody get to it.”
As they moved toward the stone, my mind raced through the practical questions, casting shadows of doubt. Would we all fit? Would our stuff fit with us? Did we have to be touching the stone to travel? What would happen if someone’s foot was hanging off? Would they arrive in the past without it?
And then suddenly I thought of the biggest question of all–would they be able to come with me at all? Would my friends come through safely? Or would I land on the other side of history, scared, facing enemies and a mission I didn’t understand, and completely alone?
None of this occurred to Paul. “Well I say I lay next to Tatiana,” he quipped, grinning at her.
“Oh my God,” she muttered, shaking her head.
Reis pushed Paul to the side, growling impatiently. “We don’t have time for antics, Paul,” he snapped. He turned quickly to meet my eyes. “Jason, we’re following your lead here. Move.”
I nodded wordlessly, turning to the stone and holding my hands out over its face, palms down. A rush of energy shot up from the stone, hit my hands, and coursed through my body, and my senses grew unbelievably acute, until I could hear, see, smell, and even feel things that I hadn’t a moment ago. Reis’ pulse, the smell of the detergent left on Paul’s shirt, and the brush of Tatiana’s dusky skin against my arm. The scent of blood and deep, dank earth from the other side. The pull of the stone itself.
“It’s time,” I mumbled. “Everyone on. Quickly.”
Paul took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and crawled onto the stone next to his bag. Tatiana took a tentative step onto the stone, and folded into position next to him. Reis turned and sat, watching me closely as I joined them.
Beneath us, the stone’s hum took on a deeper tone, as if it sensed our presence and approved. The roaring in my head grew louder and began to drown out the conversation around me. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the hum and roar, to guide the vibrations through my bones and into the jump.
“So how do we do this?” I heard Paul ask.
“Shut it, smarty,” Tatiana snapped. “Can’t you see he’s trying to concentrate? What do you want to do, screw him up and put us all in danger?”
“Hey, I’m just trying to figure out what to expect here,” he mumbled, abashed.
At his tone, Tatiana relented. “I heard Jason’s grandfather talking to John once,” she said quietly. “At first, you’ll feel something in your stomach, like you’re falling. Then confusion, lots of noise and scenery.” She paused. “I don’t think it’s pleasant.”
Paul blew his breath out with a whooshing sound. “Sounds terrific. So glad I signed on for this.”
I heard a scuffling, and Reis’ guttural reply. “Paul, if you’d rather stay here, this is your chance. Otherwise, shut it. The time for jokes is long past.”
A deafening silence descended over the group then, and I opened my eyes. The air around us was glowing a bright, shining gold, and the symbols, finally free of the stone, danced before my face. Beyond them, and through what I assumed to be the ‘mists’ of time, I saw a dark room, unlit, with moss and ivy growing from the walls. That was our destination, then. Now the stone’s roar became overwhelming, and everything else disappeared. My mind went absolutely blank.
“Here it comes,” I breathed. I put my cheek down against the stone, closed my eyes, and braced myself. “Keep your hands and feet inside the ride. Breathe.”
“What in the hell are we–”
I didn’t know who was speaking, but they didn’t get to finish. The world dropped out from under us and we fell sharply into a sphere of bright light and color. Images and memories of my life washed over me, one after another; the death of my parents, the loss of my first tooth, my first steps …. my birth. Mingled with my memories were snapshots of the past–knights in armor, bloody, terrible battles, a man with white blond hair and the eyes of a murderer. The images flashed and flickered, appearing and then disappearing in nanoseconds, with the exception of one. A girl, no older than myself, with long blonde hair and penetrating green eyes, stood out from the chaos behind her. I’d never seen her before, and yet I felt as if I’d known her my entire life. While the other images danced around me, jumbling together as one, hers remained steady. I looked past her at everything else, trying to take it all in, remember what I was seeing. The images began to whirl around in a tornado of sight and sound, pushing us farther and farther into the void. Then everything stopped.
18
DONCASTER, ENGLAND
AUGUST 18, 1485
I felt like I’d been on the worst roller coaster ride of my life. I didn’t know how long the ride had lasted–two seconds, two minutes, two hours?–but I knew when it ended. It stopped suddenly, as though whatever cart we were in had hit a brick wall. That feeling was reinforced when I opened my eyes and found myself staring at a large expanse of rock. Dark rock, in fact, that looked distinctly … solid.
“What the…” I mumbled softly. The concrete walls of the garden shed had changed to gray, pitted stone cut in rough blocks. Ivy and moss grew haphazardly across the wall in front of my face, and a rivulet of water ran slowly down a section of wall to my right. I took a deep, gasping breath and almost choked on the thick, dank air. I didn’t know what the room smelled like, exactly, but it was awful.
There was a muffled cough to my left. “Dude, I feel like we just went through a blender,” Paul said, sitting up.
I gasped in relief at his voice and turned to him. “How do you feel? Is everyone okay? Are we all here?” Beside him, Tatiana was pushing herself to a sitting position and scraping the hair out of her face. Her eyes widened as she took in the room, and I turned to look at what she saw.
If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought we’d stepped out of our garden shed and directly onto the set of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The room was enormous–at least as big as a basketball court, and as cavernous as an empty stadium. Gothic beams crossed the ceiling and supported arches in the walls. At least a dozen large white candles sat in ornate iron candlestick holders, spread haphazardly around the room. There were no windows, though I spotted a row of manacles and chains along the far wall. The only furnishing in the room was a large straight-backed chair, sitting right next to the stone.
Reis was already off the stone, moving s
teadily along the wall toward the corner. He had his rifle propped firmly against his shoulder, and a flashlight attached to the side to light the way. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my own flashlight, and stepped off the stone to follow him. Paul moved next to me, brushing some of the dust from his pants.
“Right, so we have your basic creepy room, here,” he noted. Then he glanced at the far wall and gulped. “Complete with chains and manacles. Holy crap, we really did it, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I replied, stunned.
Reis strode suddenly out of the gloom to our left and laid a hand on Paul’s shoulder, making him jump. “Everyone try to relax and get your bearings,” he said quietly. “I think we’re alone in here, so we’re safe to look around. I’m going to find the borders of the room, and look for the way out.”
The three of us nodded, then moved together to follow him across the room. He’d said we were alone, but that didn’t mean we wanted to leave the man with the gun. I cast my narrow beam of light across the stone floor ahead of us, moving it all the way to the massive rafters that stretched overhead. The light wavered across the beams of wood, and I glanced at my hand. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how badly I was shaking. I clamped my other hand down over the flashlight to keep it still. Paul made a strangled noise to my left, seemingly in response, and my flashlight shot in his direction.
“Are you guys okay?” I asked.
Tatiana nodded her head and bit her lower lip. “Fine!” she breathed. She gave me a quick grin, showing a confidence that surprised me, and I worked to grin back.
Paul looked at Tatiana and back to me, blinked twice, and nodded slowly. “Yeah, I guess so. I just … this is pretty heavy, you know what I mean?”
“I know, it’s nuts,” I replied. I took a deep breath and glanced around the large room. Something about it caught my attention, and I cocked my head and looked again, with the distinct feeling that I’d been here before. Yes, I was sure of it. I couldn’t have said why, or how, but something about this room was familiar, as if I’d seen it in a dream, or a movie. If I thought about it, I realized I’d already known what this room would look like. And what it would hold. In fact, if this intuition was right … I moved the beam of light to the far corner of the room and smiled. The stairwell was there, just as I’d thought it would be.