“Jenna—no, we’re not married.”
“There are things about this house and its property that you do not know.”
Was she asking or telling him? He couldn’t be sure. “Yes, I’m sure an old house like this has many mysteries.”
“Occurrences,” she corrected. “There have been occurrences, and there will be more of them unless . . .”
Her hesitation confused him. It was as though she had second thoughts about saying more. “Unless what?”
“The future has happened beyond these walls on the long field near the bridge.”
“Again, I’m sorry to say that I don’t understand.”
The smell of jasmine became stronger. The sweet scent filled the foyer, and he inhaled it deeply. When he dropped his gaze to look behind him, it happened. Anna Atwood left him standing alone in the foyer, without so much as saying good-bye.
Chapter 30
During the 30-minute drive to Franklin Street on Evansville’s West Side, Ben could think of nothing but beautiful Anna Atwood, who minutes before had stood in front of him in a striking blue taffeta gown. He’d been thoroughly enchanted by a woman from another century, a sensational young woman whose age could not have been more than thirty. To deny that it had happened, was no longer possible. He’d touched her, and that was the moment he knew it hadn’t been a dream or some crazy hallucination or out-of-body experience. He had seen and spoken with Anna Atwood at length and was admittedly distressed by her sudden disappearance. Unthinkable before, but now very much in his thoughts, was this ardent wish to see her again. He realized only Anna could make that happen.
In orange neon, in a lower window of a two-story brick building that still had intact the original plaster moldings and cornices, the words Rogers’s Rocks & Minerals was prominently displayed. Ben had driven to Roger’s after his meeting with Anna had ended abruptly. About a week earlier, he’d purchased a chunk of galena quartz that Roger had cut to specific dimensions. Though it had set Ben back nearly a hundred dollars, following Bob Bergman’s suggestion had seemed a good idea at the time. If it worked, as Bergman expected, then it would certainly be worth the money. Otherwise, it was nothing more than expensive ornamentation for an occasional table or bookshelf in Atwood House.
His brown hair slicked back with gel, dressed in jeans and a tee shirt, Roger was one of those past middle-age men who loved classic rock ‘n roll. His voice was deep enough to be heard over Elvis Presley’s song, Jailhouse Rock, that was playing on a vintage Rock-Ola jukebox located in one corner of the store. He wanted to explain what he referred to as the articulation of the cuts he’d made to the quartz, which Ben thought informative but unnecessary. Still, he listened to Roger’s concise explanation.
“It’s not the best quartz crystal, but it has good clarity, good cleavage, and the point termination should be good enough. Might be a rough edge or two, but you said that didn’t matter much.”
“Thanks, it’ll be fine.”
“I get collectors in here all the time, but they want clusters with great presentation. Don’t get much request for galena, though.”
“Well, it’s just something for a friend,” Ben lied.
“Best of the holidays,” Roger offered graciously as Ben went out the door with a slight wave over his shoulder, which he hoped Roger saw.
It was cold in Indiana. A super cold front had moved south out of Canada. Weather forecasters were already calling for snow, quite possibly heavy snow. There had been other Christmases not so long ago when snow piled into high drifts along the roads, and covered the roofs of houses in Newburgh and Evansville. Already, several residents from farther north had moved to Florida, just to escape cold weather, and although many were older, there seemed to be a recent exodus of Millennials to warmer climates. With winter a couple weeks away, Ben Manning was eagerly looking forward to the colder weather.
Although Christmas was not just a come-and-go holiday for Manning, it had lost some of its magic. He remembered days when his younger sister and he would sit with their parents in front of an early morning fire. His father had loved the sharp crackling sounds of logs burning in the stone fireplace. Those days were long gone. His mother and father were happy eating Christmas dinner with friends, who like them, had retired to the Florida Panhandle. His sister Beth, who taught English at a high school in Hokkaido, Japan, returned to Florida only briefly during the summer.
He already knew that Jenna would spend Christmas with her family. She had relatives coming from out of town, and said she was “really anxious” to see them again. Already thinking ahead to Christmas Eve, Ben Manning had Mrs. Anna Atwood indelibly on his mind. Never in his life had he met such an enigmatic woman. Her looks were devastating, and the emotion of seeing her so near to him, in a foyer filled with yellow sunlight, had taken hold of him like nothing else in his life.
Ben entered the jewelry store and found Bob Bergman sitting behind a counter of expensive jewels. An ocular in his right eye, he examined a piece of jewelry, which Ben immediately recognized. With no one else in the shop but the two of them, Ben was not sure if the man in the tailored suit even knew he was there. “Hey, Bob, how are you?”
“Ben.” When he looked up, the ocular fell to the end of the neck string. “Didn’t hear you come in . . . been studying this brooch a little more and found something I can’t explain.”
“What’s that?”
Reaching into a desk drawer, Bob took out another ocular and handed it to Manning. “Ever use one of these?”
“Not that I can remember,” Ben smiled.
“It’s essentially a magnifying glass with high resolution.” He handed the brooch across the counter to Ben. “I want you to look closely at the back of this.”
Awkwardly at first, Ben managed to get the ocular fitted in his right eye. “Am I looking for something special?”
“You’ll know it when you see it.”
Seconds passed before several striations came into focus. They hadn’t been incised into the metal but seemed to be raised seams with what looked like several tiny bubbles. “Glue lines?” Ben asked, still not sure what he was seeing through the lens.
“That’s right. Why glue, for what possible reason?”
“I have no idea,” admitted Manning.
“You said Jenna found this near the fireplace?”
“Yes, that’s what she said.”
“Well it beats me, but I’d bet that’s crystallized glue, and that somewhere around the fireplace you’ll find other traces of glue. I can’t imagine why though.” He shook his head as he spoke.
Ben immediately recalled the space in the fireplace, which Jenna had earlier discovered. Because it seemed such an impractical place to put an expensive brooch, he didn’t say anything to Bob about it. Its purpose, if it had one at all, was another of those weird and unexplained things that made Atwood House both unique and mysterious.
“Oh, by the way, Bob, I had a piece of galena quartz cut to size. Just picked it up at Roger’s.”
“That old boy loves rocks and knows them better than anyone I’ve ever met.”
“He seems anxious to tell you what he knows, doesn’t he?” Ben laughed as he reached into his jacket pocket for the quartz, which he handed to Bergman. “I thought you could buff it up, put a shine on it.”
“Sure, I’ll do it later—don’t know if it’ll make any difference though. This idea, it’s just a hunch, Ben.”
“Like you said, it’s worth a try. Maybe you could run it out to the house when you get a chance. I’d feel better if you were there.”
“I have a couple from Evansville stopping by later this afternoon. They’re good clients who usually spend big. They’re very particular about what they buy, so I’m sure I’ll be tied up with them until late.”
“Okay, Bob, whenever you got time. It can certainly wait until after Christmas,”
Ben was
in a hurry to get to Atwood House. One thought persisted. Anna was living in his head, a resolute image that could not be shaken loose. Each time he closed his eyes, she was there. He had to see her again and was already praying the brooch held the magic to make that happen.
Removing the brooch from the case, he held it out in front of him. His breathing was sharp and uneven, his entire body tense, and his hands shook as he placed the brooch into the space near the fireplace. To his surprise, it didn’t fit. So, Jenna had been wrong. Instantly, another thought struck him. Turning the brooch different ways, attempting to make it fit, he was still unsuccessful and nearly convinced that it had been a crazy thought from the beginning. What if it fit the other way—in reverse? When he turned it around with the gems inside the space, the brooch fit perfectly, and suddenly, Ben Manning was undeniably afraid.
Chapter 31
Five minutes he waited, then ten. Standing in one corner of the room, he felt his body begin to relax. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, the room began to dim, everything around him starting to fade. For a minute or longer, nothing seemed real. It was an image seen through a convex lens . . . through a gossamer veil. An image coming to life behind a stage scrim. Atwood House was changing, transforming into another time. Standing motionless, his heart began to beat rapidly. Every muscle in his body tightened as he watched in disbelief the transformation that was slowly occurring.
The heavy mahogany desk was gone. Other furniture seemed to melt into the large oriental rug. The drapes were not the ones he and Jenna had hung. The kind of furniture he’d seen at auctions and in antique shops began to appear, while familiar furniture and everything he remembered about the library was sucked into an invisible vortex. The walls were covered in green wallpaper with a distinct pastoral theme. Afraid he would succumb to the vortex, sink into it and be lost forever, he closed his eyes and held firmly to one of the plaster columns. The world he knew continued to spin insanely out of control.
At last, when he opened his eyes again, he saw at once the fire in the fireplace. The room was hot and smelled of jasmine. It was a room from another century, and still unable to move, he remained as rigid as a black marble statue that stood near the front windows. His entire body continued to shake. No matter how hard he tried, he could not stop the awful shaking. He felt like screaming but managed to put one hand over his mouth.
“Oh, my God,” he muttered under his breath. “This is too impossible.”
But the impossible soon lost credibility. The impossible was all around him. His memory of the library was quietly vanishing the same way early morning dew evaporates at sunrise. On a table near him was an extraordinary bouquet of flowers, neatly arranged in a beautiful porcelain vase decorated in a motif of pink cherry blossoms. Beside the vase, was a small Japanese dish with coins in it. Hurriedly, he slipped a coin into his pocket, thinking if he made it back the coin would be the proof he needed.
Above the fireplace mantel was a painting of Anna. She was dressed in a black gown with a low neckline. Against her skin was a string of white pearls. Once more their eyes met, and finally he realized that he’d stepped uninvited into Anna Atwood’s parlor.
Almost coincidentally, he spotted what he thought was the brooch in the weak light cast by the small fire. He had to recover it. But to his regret, the room began to expand. To retrieve the brooch, he would have to cross this enormous space and walk directly to the fireplace, which seemed dimmer and decidedly farther away from where he stood, hesitating. The first step was nearly impossible. He was even unsure that his legs were still under him—until he felt the edge of a thick rug through the soles of his shoes. Why had walking become so impossibly difficult? He took another step. Floorboards creaked.
Knowing he was being watched every step of the way, he kept his eyes on the fireplace. The eyes in the portrait moved when he moved. After a few more steps, he felt compelled to look at the painting and was shocked when he realized her eyes were missing. The eyes he had admired only moments before were morphing into one enormous eye protruding from her forehead, and where a pupil should have been, was a white light pulsating like a heartbeat. Fear caused him to immediately look for the brooch. The excitement he had felt earlier was gone. He didn’t want to be there, no longer wanted to know where there was, even though he knew Anna Atwood might walk in at any moment. He had to get the brooch.
But something was wrong. The brooch was not there, only the indention into which he had placed it, which now resembled a large gaping hole in the side of the fireplace. He was sinking into a hole large enough to swallow the entire room. Knees too unsteady, his legs were going out from under him at any moment. Panic set in, causing him to bump against a chair. Without the brooch, he was trapped there for sure.
A small glint of white light appeared. A reflection coming from a niche below the space where he had inserted the brooch. He decided it must be the same place where Jenna had found it. Dropping to his knees, he recovered the brooch, and after brushing it against his jacket, as if to clean it, he pushed it into the hole. It seemed strange that he had to use both hands to do it. He felt a sharp pulse in his fingertips, like electrical current passing from the brooch to his fingers. At the same instant, the room grew hazy, increasingly indistinct, causing him to draw back, as though he knew what was happening.
Moving as cautiously as possible across the room to the same corner of the library, where he had stood only minutes before . . . he waited. Piano music, someone was playing the piano in an adjoining room. Could it be Anna?
Voices! Soft at first, then louder, as though those speaking were coming nearer. Then, footsteps on creaky floorboards. He knew his discovery was now inevitable and was already searching for words to explain his presence in this early 20th century parlor or drawing room.
Another thought, Anna would recognize him. She was his salvation. She would realize that he had discovered the secret of the brooch. But recognizing him was no guarantee of his safety there. After all, he was an intruder from the future. Then, almost instantly, the thought that Anna Atwood had been several times into his future, the one he had left behind, the future he had sacrificed for a chance to be with a woman who could be two places at once. This thought confused him even more, causing him to realize, despite the impossibility of existing in one place, which was also another place, that Anna had never left Atwood House. It didn’t matter if yesterday was today, or even if tomorrow belonged to yesterday. They were somehow connected, and Anna was alive in all three times.
A pulsating shaft of greenish light appeared instantaneously in front of him, causing him to close his eyes. Instinctively, he put up his hands to prevent it from striking him. Then came blackness, deep, silent—sticking to his skin like wet clothes. Easier to get there than it was to get back, and searching for an exit when he’d had enough, was exactly what he was doing now. No exit. This was it—the end to it all. He would never see Jenna again.
But good luck prevailed.
When he finally forced himself to squint through eyes reluctant to open, he expected to see Anna Atwood staring him down. Instead, he was standing in a room filled with vanilla sunlight that hurt his eyes. Unable to focus for almost a minute, he was surprised to see with enough clarity, where he was standing.
Rising out of the floor and barely distinguishable in the haze that was gradually evaporating, familiar furniture gradually took shape. He’d done it. He had traveled in time, despite all those lead–head scientists who said it wasn’t possible, that time travel was science fiction, and that anyone who thought it possible was severely uninformed and pathetically disillusioned. These were the great scientific minds, the gatekeepers of all that was sane—the executioners of freethinkers. He’d done what none of them would ever do. Another more disturbing thought quickly took hold of him—a disparaging thought that tempered the euphoria that comes with momentary achievement. Who would believe him, when he said that he’d traveled years . . . deca
des, more than a century into the past?
As each piece of furniture emerged from the dissipating mist, he continued to think about failure. He was sure Jenna wouldn’t believe it. For a few seconds, he drew back, deciding he wouldn’t mention it to her, just keep it all to himself, until he could make some real sense of what had happened. Though he was nearly convinced he had traveled to Anna Atwood’s parlor, he could not shake loose the possibility of hallucination. Real as it had been, illusion could not be dismissed. The mind was capable of extreme imagination. He recalled how easily he’d found pareidolic images in water stains, and clouds, and how quickly abstraction was converted to specific shapes and forms. Deep inside, he was sure the experience had been real, and now his mind needed time to sort it all out . . . if sorting out the impossible was even possible.
And what about Adrian White and Liz Raymond? Wasn’t this the discovery they expected? Wasn’t that why they had come to Atwood House, to learn its secrets? What secrets? Ben still wasn’t sure what happened, or for that matter, if it had happened at all. Consequences of revealing such an extraordinary event would be devastating. Others would accuse him of lying, think him crazy for telling such a story. There were no gateways or portals. Such thinking was the provenance of science fiction writers. No, he’d stay silent, at least until he had the chance to consider the experience in the light of more practical thinking.
He didn’t hear Jenna come in through the front door and was slightly startled when he saw her standing in the doorway to the library. The collar of her long winter coat was turned up, and she unwound a scarf as she looked at him across the room.
“What is it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
He fabricated a small laugh that probably sounded phony. His thoughts still captivated by what had happened to him only minutes before her arrival, Ben became conscious of the darkness that seemed to have come in with Jenna. Sunlight had vanished. In its place were the early shadows of late afternoon. The grandfather clock in the foyer was just striking six o’clock.
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