Joe spoke for Harriet and himself. “Luke was drunk and if he’d wanted to kill one of us, he could have. As one of the top archers in the school, he doesn’t miss what he’s aiming for, drunk or sober. It was intimidating, but neither Harriet nor I believed he was trying to kill us.” Joe’s own instincts were at play, weighing the facts. His dad appreciated that while his son was still young, he was one day going to be a damned good lawyer.
Harriet nodded in agreement. “I think it will be a lot harder on him, looking over his shoulder all the time.”
“Trying to prosecute him will only keep the spotlight on these two, and I’m hoping it’ll just blow over. The less attention we draw to them the better.” Bill was speaking as a father, not as a lawyer.
Mike nodded, “You’re right, but if that little shit comes near them, he’ll have a lot more to contend with than the police.”
Joe and Harriet heaved a sigh.
Bill used the phone in the kitchen to call his friend, Peter Palmer, at RCMP headquarters, to let him know that their kids were home and okay. He mentioned nothing about Luke or the terrors of the hike and what happened as Joe and Harriet had relayed it to them.
Instead, he fed him the elopement story they’d concocted. “Yes, we’re very disappointed in them, but happy they came home to do this right.”
Peter, one of the first to say they’d most likely eloped, seemed happy to be right even though they hadn’t got married.
Back in the living room, Bill said, “I think we’ve covered all the bases for now. I hope people will buy the story, but there’s not much we can do to stop the gossip. If there’s something you’re not telling us, then you must have a good reason. But no matter, just know we love you both and we trust you.”
All four parents nodded in agreement. Joe and Harriet had to swallow their guilt and smile.
***
2023
Do you think they believe us? Harriet looked at Joe, but he looked away with a slight shrug of his shoulders. Her heart pounded.
They didn’t believe us, no one believed us, we can’t tell anyone, Joe. We can’t tell anyone—ever—she reached out, but Joe was fading from sight.
What’s happening? Oh God, where are you, Joe? Where are you? She screamed, “Joe! Help me!”
“Harriet, Harriet, wake up! You’re having a nightmare. Are you okay?” He shook her and took her into his arms as she sat up, confused.
It took her five minutes to calm down while Joe held her tight against his chest and stroked her hair.
“I’m okay. I was dreaming about when we came back that first night and couldn’t tell our parents the whole truth. They never believed us, did they?”
“That was three years ago. It doesn’t matter anymore… nobody seems to care any longer.”
“I care. They were so nice to us after the pile of crap we unloaded on them. Then they had to concoct a story to tell people because they thought no one would believe our version of the truth. Tonight must have triggered the dream… I don’t have it that often.”
She put her head back on the pillow and leaned against Joe’s chest. He pulled her close and they went back to sleep.
Chapter 5
The Promise
2020
Luke Holmes landed hard, flat on his back. When things stopped spinning, he sat up, shaken, but unhurt. He retrieved his flashlight from his backpack. Fuck! I never want to do that again. What a nightmare. He shook his head trying to clear it. The fall through time left him shocked and confused for a few minutes. The last thing he remembered was leaping through the door then falling or at least he thought he was falling. It was a vacuum, no sensation… no sound… no pain… no anything. Then it just stopped.
The yellow light from his flashlight revealed that he was sitting way too close to the edge of the staircase. One wrong move and there was nothing behind him but a twenty-foot drop to the tunnel floor. Inching forward he grabbed the side railing and pulled himself up, holding on with both hands.
After his heart stopped pounding and his knees stopped shaking, he worked his way down. Not looking back, he beelined it through the tunnel.
The cave entrance, as he remembered it, was at the top of a long fissure on the side of the canyon wall. When he saw daylight, Luke looked down and realized that it wasn’t the drop he had thought it was when he came the other way. There was a gigantic boulder only about four feet below the ledge that would break any fall. Buoyed by that knowledge he inched his way back along the narrowest part of the ridge. The rockfall posed its own problems. All he could do was to slip and slide his way down, grabbing on to whatever growth and rocks that were handy. Success rewarded him with a Technicolor array of scrapes and bruises. Once on solid ground on the canyon floor, he retrieved his bow from the crevice he’d hidden it in for safe keeping two months earlier.
Scraped and sore, he made his way to the ski lift wondering if his car was still in the parking lot. It was, and that surprised him, after his three-week absence. He didn’t bother checking back into the office on his way out. Instead, he threw his backpack into the trunk and hopped into the car hoping it would start after sitting idle for so long—it did. It was his mom’s car that his dad had kept after she died three years ago. Dick Holmes didn’t need it… he had his company truck, so now Luke used it most of the time. Anything to get the kid out of the house made his dad happy.
On the drive back to the city, he thought about how he’d explain his absence, not that his dad gave a shit. He also knew now he couldn’t mention Joe and Harriet’s whereabouts. Who’d believe him, anyway? They’d lock me up as a loony tune. His hopes of coming back a hero when he pointed authorities to Joe and Harriet’s bodies, or at least their whereabouts, had backfired. If they never came back, that was fine with him. Let them stay there and rot. His face flushed with humiliation when he thought of how they’d outwitted him twice, once in this century, and once in the next.
He’d deluded himself into believing she would fall for him once he’d showed her what a real man could do but his attempt to rape her got him a sore dick and a headache. Her loss, but if they ever show up here again, I’ll make their life a living hell, he vowed. This wasn’t over.
The hour drive seemed endless and, when he entered the house, his dad greeted him, “Where you been?”
“Do you care, old man?”
“You got a call from the university. If you want to get registered for the fall, you gotta go there and fill out some papers.”
“What papers?”
“How the hell should I know? I left the phone number by the phone. Some broad named Jones or Smith or somethin’ like that. Call her.”
That was the entire extent of Luke’s homecoming. When he called the number, the woman told him to go to the registrar’s office and bring his birth certificate and his health card to fill out a form. This information was missing from his original registration. So if he wanted to start on time next week, he’d need this done. Luke promised to go tomorrow. That was fine.
On Friday, Luke felt rested after his eventful trip through time and was ready to face the registrar at the university. He liked school, but, easily distracted, he was never anything but an average student. By doing a bare minimum of work, he kept his marks at B and B plus, excelling in nothing except archery and expressing no goals career-wise. All of his subjects in the BA program were easy for him to handle. Later he would think about something where he could earn some real money. His dad figured he was wasting time and his money.
“All you gotta do is get a trade. Yur costin’ me all this dough and you don’t even know what you wanna do with your life. Plummin’, that’s where the real bucks are—with the hourly rate we charge and travel time, plus the markup on the parts we supply, I’m makin’ a damned good living! I ain’t gonna live forever, this could all be yours someday and I could use another worker.”
“I don’t want to be a goddamned plumber, dirty nails, wallowing in shit all day and you stink most of the time.
No thanks, I want something where I don’t carry a lunch box or wear overalls with the crack of my ass showing.” He sneered at his dad. “You should be proud of me. I’m the only one in the family who’s got a decent education.” Luke happily drifted through life, never realizing his full potential.
“That don’t put groceries on the table, kid!” his dad called out after him as Luke slammed out of the house.
He drove to the registrar’s office where it didn’t take him long to fill out the paperwork. While he was there, he got all the info on his courses and the required textbooks. The office pointed him to the book exchange in the library where he could find some of his textbooks, used, at a reasonable price. Saving a few bucks appealed to him.
At the library, he ran smack into Joe and Harriet. They were coming out as he was going in. There was no way to duck, so he walked right on past, looking away.
How the hell did they get back so quick? The last time he’d seen Joe and Harriet, they’d left him tied up and naked for the cops to find and he’d spent a miserable night answering questions. But lucky for him, these two didn’t stick around to press charges, so it was his word against an anonymous phone tip and with no witnesses—they had to let him go.
I wonder when they got here. It was a question that didn’t take long to get answered. Luke’s friends filled him in with all the local gossip. He heard how Joe and Harriet had run off to get married but changed their minds. Instead, they took a long vacation in Montreal, then came home and announced their engagement.
There were lots of theories about why they’d left their car behind. And why they didn’t get in touch with their folks when they found out there was a massive manhunt for them.
Some figured they didn’t know that there was a manhunt. Others said they had to know. The gossip would go on for many weeks before it died down. Luke drank it all in, saying nothing.
All he needed to know was that they got home the same day as him. But what was more important, they hadn’t implicated him. He also knew they’d lied about where they were. He could see why. Who’d believe their story? He was glad he didn’t have to explain his whereabouts to anyone. No one he knew cared or had even missed him. All he had to do was to figure out how he could use this knowledge to his advantage.
And that was something he vowed he would do. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll get even with that blond bastard and his dark-haired bitch.
Chapter 6
Settling In
Life soon got back to normal in the Blaney and Flemming households, with no one mentioning the past two months. The media tried to make a bigger story than was there but soon tired of getting the same answers. Neighbors and friends quit staring and pointing. However, the gossip continued.
Joe and Harriet were oblivious to everything but school and each other. Their second year at university was coming up fast.
Harriet had changed her degree to biomedical engineering, a complex five-year program, at the last minute the previous year. She’d dropped her original plans for a BA degree that would have led to teaching Art History or Literature, realizing she needed something more challenging if she was to keep up with Joe academically. He was the love of her life, but she had always been competitive since they were kids.
During their time in the future, any doubts she’d had about completing the complex courses had faded. With the gift of artificial intelligence given to them by the evil head of the SPA she was now equipped to breeze through the courses.
Since this had been a last-minute change, the university accepted her into her new program with the caveat that if she failed even one course, she would have to readjust her classes to something less ambitious. The first year had taken her full attention and dedication, but she knew now they needn’t worry.
The couple used the week before school started to shop for books and supplies and landed at the library the same day as Luke. It was unsettling, but they knew it was inevitable. Luke ignoring them, made everything seem back to normal. They looked forward to the coming year, promising to ignore Harriet’s stalker, as a bad memory. The less they saw of Luke, the better.
Harriet would spend as much time as she could spare with her best friend Maggie McEwan. Maggie reminded her of Millie, her friend from the future. They each had outgoing personalities and both were short, compared to Harriet and they loved outrageous clothes and makeup. She had been home a week when Maggie contacted her.
“So, when were you going to call me?” Maggie used a tone which put Harriet on the defensive.
“It’s been kinda hectic since we got back, Mugs. Well-wishers, the media, and the curious have swamped us with phone calls. You were high on my list, honest. I would have called you soon.”
“I know, Harri, it’s been tough, and I can only imagine what people are putting you through. You and Joe are okay, right?” There was a note of worry in her question.
“Yes, we’re fine. But it was a wild two months.” She hoped Maggie had heard and believed the false stories they’d created. She still wasn’t sure how much she wanted to share with anyone, but Maggie had a way of getting things out of her.
“Do you want to hang out for a while? I can come over there, or you can come over here? Mom’s out playing cards tonight. I‘d like to catch up on the real story from you, I’m hearing too many versions of where you’ve been.”
Harriet figured she’d better get it over with. “I’ll come over—be there in five minutes.”
She hollered at no one in particular as she went out the door, “Back in an hour or two, going over to Maggie’s. Tell Joe that’s where I am if he calls. See you later!” She knew if she called him, he’d want to talk, and her focus was on Mugs right now, who lived only a few doors away.
“Okay, so what’ve you heard?” She got right down to it as soon as they were comfortable in the family room, each with a soda.
“The popular rumor is that you and Joe ran off to Montreal to get married, then changed your mind and came home. I don’t believe it! What really happened?” Harriet squirmed under Maggie’s squint. This would be dicey.
Harriet recited the tale she and Joe and their parents had concocted in her living room the night they got back. “So, it was all because Joe’s car wouldn’t start and our own guilty consciences.” She could see Maggie wasn’t buying it.
“Bullshit! I don’t believe you would ever do that to your folks. Tell me the truth, what are you trying to hide? You know I’ll bug you until I get the truth, or at least, until you come up with a better lie!”
“Okay, okay.” Harriet had known she would tell her some version of the truth. They’d been friends too long, and Maggie could sniff out a bald-faced lie real fast.
“You’ll find this hard to believe.” Harriet, looking at the floor, cleared her throat, stalling. “This is the truth, and after I tell you, you’ll know why we didn’t release it to the public.”
Harriet recited the tale she and Joe had spun for their parents. It was closest to reality. Again, Harriet left out any reference to the future. “So, now you can see our problem.”
“Holy mackerel, that’s some story. You’re right, it’s unbelievable. Are you sure those people weren’t from another planet?” She stared hard at Harriet, looking for evidence of a lie. But she’d didn’t see it in her friends sapphire eyes.
“So are your folks going to look for this place or check it out somehow? That’s some kind of advanced technology. I’ve never heard of it anywhere—a shield that makes them invisible! That’s damned hard to swallow.”
“No, they’ll leave it alone. Our parents want to avoid publicity. And who knows what these people can do to anyone who exposes them? This is a government-backed, classified research center. As it is, Joe and I don’t feel all that secure walking around with that information.” She needed to cut this off right now. Maggie was like a hound on the hunt when she got on the trail of a good story.
“Ya, I see your point. Do you think any of the SPA people might come after yo
u?” Her focus had changed. Her friend’s safety trumped finding the truth of the story.
“There’s always a risk, but no, I don’t think they see us as a threat. I’m hoping that everyone else will look at us as two kids out on an adventure who made up a story to cover our trail. At least we hope that’s what they’ll think.” Harriet, eager to change the subject, knew Maggie would only let it go when she was ready to.
“Make sure you keep looking over your shoulder and stay safe. I was so damned worried about you after you disappeared. You’re my best friend and I don’t know how I’d make it without you in my life.” Her eyes were glistening with unshed tears. She was having a tough time holding them back.
“Aww, Mugs, I missed you so much. But we’re back, and I’m hoping to put it out of my head. Did you know Joe and I are engaged now?” Maggie perked up, searching her friend’s hand for a ring.
“We don’t have a ring yet, we’ll get one when there’s some spare cash, but he got me this bracelet,” she said, shaking her wrist in front of Maggie’s face. The simple engraved silver bracelet Joe had given her at the SPA diverted her friend’s attention.
Pulling Harriet’s wrist closer she read the inscription out loud… “I Love You Today, Tomorrow and Forever!”
“Oh my God, that is beautiful. Joe’s such a romantic and so dreamy. I love his blond curls and blue eyes. And he’s so tall and athletic. You’re one lucky woman!” Maggie batted her eyes, trying to get a rise out of Harriet. She was a little envious.
“I can’t argue with that.” Ignoring the subtle jibe, she threw in her own. “Who’re you dating this week?”
“No one, the guys around here are such little boys. I need to find someone like Joe, a guy who stands out in a crowd. Maybe I’ll find him on campus. There’s so much to choose from there. It may take me a while though,” she grinned.
The pair of them talked about Harriet’s engagement, the guys on campus, and their hopes for the future.
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