by D. L. Koontz
Distant sounds of a band reached her ears through the darkness, carried on the slightest of breezes. She looked that direction and saw a startling variety of muted lights in the sky.
Andrew tracked her gaze. “Bedford Springs Resort. You didn’t want to see what it looks like now, so this is as close as we dare go. The mineral springs are over that incline.” He pointed left into the shadows, then reached for her hand. The sensation of his cool touch against her clammy skin in the cavernous darkness brought her back to the moment with a shiver. He didn’t notice, instead lifting her hand to his lips, and kissing it. “You ready for this?” His voice cracked on the question.
Libby pressed her lips together, uncertain of what to say. Ready? Did she have a choice? She had a thousand questions, but why bother voicing them? He could shed no more light on what she might experience. If she survived and went to another time, where she would end up was as much a mystery to him as it was to her. Wasn’t it?
Andrew continued. “Did you tell Colette you were leaving on a long-term assignment?”
Libby looked away. “Something like that. Look, I don’t want to talk about her in our last few minutes together.”
She hadn’t said a word to her roommate. It would have involved too many questions raised, concerns expressed, doubts debated. She also had left no note. She’d been too angry about Colette’s lie. Besides, to leave a note would raise questions if she did return.
“We better get on with it,” he said, squeezing her hand. “Midnight is approaching.”
He opened the door to the back seat, and pulled out a flashlight and a small plastic bag. With the aid of the dim light, he led her a short distance from the road into the edges of a steep wooded hill, following it parallel about a hundred feet until they came to a small clearing, near a grove of assorted maples and oaks. Between the illumination from the moon and the flashlight, she could see that the trees stretched into the sky, surrounding them like church pillars. But it was the sound of trickling water that captured and held her attention. Just in front of them, water cascaded from between two rocks, about twelve feet off the ground. The water fell into a ground cavity about ten feet in diameter around which a low-slung manmade rock wall had been added to form a pond. In the dim light, it looked to be only about three feet deep.
Andrew had explained the immediate area sported seven mineral springs for hundreds of years, but that an eighth one was discovered in the twenty-first century when the hotel was refurbished into a resort and changed its name from the Springs Hotel to the Bedford Springs Resort. Among the eight were the popular Iron Spring, the Magnesia Spring, the Limestone Spring and the Sulfur Spring. However, the most popular and medicinal of all, the Crystal Spring, was purported to be made up of elements of all the others put together—limestone, iron, magnesium, sulfur, among a host of other healing elements.
He knelt down by the Crystal Spring, placed the flashlight on the ground, and began to pull what looked like fabric from the bag.
As Libby watched, an unexpected thrum of anxiety began to move along the base of her brain. “What is that?”
“A linen shift.”
The low thrum turned into a roar. “How old is it?”
“A hundred and fifty years, plus or minus. Oldest I could find. Linen doesn’t age well.”
Sweat broke out on the back of her neck as a daunting sense of destiny gripped her by the throat. She stared at it, her thoughts clouded and vague. Before she even touched the garment, she could feel its weight across her shoulders, the pull of something uncontrollable. Her dream of him—that mysterious man from her dreams—and his voice saying, “Come back to me,” skittered through her mind, disappearing as fast as it surfaced.
Andrew’s expectant stare suggested he was waiting for her to put it on, so she stripped to her underwear, refusing to remove that. A huge fissure of existential dread opened inside her as she dropped her clothes beside the flashlight on the ground.
Libby reached slowly to take the shift from him, and emitted a sudden exhalation of breath as its age came to life beneath her fingertips. She donned the baggy garment and a sense of familiarity enveloped her.
She looked at Andrew, no longer able to voice her concerns, her despair. It had all been said. Andrew likewise appeared at a loss for words.
They stood like actors who had forgotten their next lines, both frozen, rigid, mute. The scene about to be executed would be—had to be—unyielding and unscripted anyway.
And most daunting of all, performed solo.
With the limited beam of light coming from the ground, she watched him reach for her hands and, in a gentle voice said, “Love is patient, love is kind. It always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
She smiled at the sentimentality, but was bereft at the blossoming of this strange awkwardness between them, and confused by his decision to quote written words rather than speak what dwelled in his heart.
He continued, gripping stronger as though to emphasize his next words. “Love keeps no record of wrongs.”
Startled, Libby’s head jerked back before she could stop herself. “What?” she asked, meaning, what was with his demeanor and his choice of rewriting the verse? She remembered that Bible passage differently. Why had he selected a portion of it? His answer revealed he thought she was asking about the origin of the quote.
“First Corinthians, I think.”
The moment struck Libby as odd, but she said nothing, afraid she might spoil their goodbye by questioning it. She looked at their clinched hands and focused on the inevitable, that she’d need to let go. Truly let go. His hand was not a lifeline. It wasn’t protection.
“I...I love you.” Libby choked the words, and they sounded mundane, inconsequential, when they ought to have been delivered with passion against a backdrop of heart-stirring music like that featured in romantic films. Moisture flooded her eyes. Ahh, yes. That must be why he resorted to a quote.
He drew in a breath and stood straighter, like a man who was about to step into battle, then released it and closed his eyes. With a whimper he removed the arm length between them, pulling Libby into his arms as if he’d determined to hold on forever.
But he didn’t. He couldn’t. He pulled back, and bent over enough to catch the light on his watch. “It’s time.”
He held her hand again as she climbed over the low-slung stone wall like she was stepping into her own coffin. The water was cold, but the heat of the night made it bearable. She cringed as she sat down in the water and the darkness, and stretched out until she was covered to her neck. She leaned against the inside well, her gaze flicking to Andrew and back. Without further fanfare, she squeezed his hand. The feeling of panic threatened to overwhelm again, so she took a deep breath and fully submerged into the dark water.
For seconds—five, ten, thirty?—Libby focused on the words ‘heal me,’ as Andrew earlier had suggested. He’d said it might help to draw her consciousness away from the current period in time. That it was her consciousness of the present that kept her rooted there and in poor health.
A mounting disorientation set in as the mineral water claimed her, and she suddenly realized she no longer cared about air. Her pulse stopped sounding in her ears, and her lungs quit trying to exhale. With that realization, an unexpected thrill of seemingly unconnected elements came together. Her body quivered and the sensation was like floating on nothing. She sensed a void around her.
As she had submerged, she’d lost hold of Andrew’s hand. She began to panic. Where was he? She opened her eyes against the water but could see nothing. She reached out her hand to grope for him, and saw, to her astonishment, that her hand had lost substance.
She’d lost the anchor holding her to 2016.
She didn’t remember much about the next few moments. Flashes of light. Visions of herself screaming and tears streaming down her face, despite being in the water. If she surfaced for air, she would ensure her death. But, if she stayed, would she do the same?
; An odd sensation settled in her stomach. Something like the feeling of being inside a vehicle that’s moving, but watching the scenes around pass by rapidly. Inside, her body recognized it was stationary, yet visually she raced at high speed, rushing past the physical world outside. Was that movement time? Was it her identity being stripped away?
In the next instant, the moving stopped, but she sensed a rhythmic vibration, a steady thumping in her ears growing louder, beating an affirmation of acceptance and healing to her. The heartbeat of the earth.
Then: Come back to me. That voice again! His voice.
Next, she saw white light. Calming. Beckoning her. Time to choose. Succumb to the light and its tempting pull, filled with release. Peace. Completion. Or, fight her way to a new unknown life, living until she experienced this gateway again. Choose. Was that God speaking? Giving her that choice? Life and how she lived it was up to her?
She chose life. She saw herself scream into the nothingness: “Heal me!” The words became a litany, spiraling over and over as she persevered. Soon she was beyond exhaustion.
Visions swirled. Of her, with strangers. She was younger. Frail. A child? Dressed in unfamiliar clothing. An unfamiliar landscape behind her. Then, an adult placing her in water. Was she bathing? Swimming? Was this simply symbolic of rebirth? She saw a dark face. Africa? The Australian Outback? No, she couldn’t go there again. Different hands pulled her out. Drenched. Naked. Crying. Then, peace, as strong arms gripped her, rejoicing in her presence.
The placidity of the visions morphed into pain. Immense pain, as though she were being punished for having experienced the visions.
The agony grew stronger. Unbearably stronger.
Every part of her body felt as if spears were being plunged cruelly, mercilessly into it. In and out. Repeatedly, relentlessly.
“No! I was wrong. Let me die!” she yelled into the nothingness.
She felt strong arms—different arms—lifting her body from the water.
Andrew! She’d failed him.
She’d failed herself.
Chapter Nine
2016
Andrew knelt by the edge of the Crystal Spring until Libby disappeared. A tear moistened his cheek and he brushed it away.
Beautiful, vibrant, gentle Libby. His wife. Gone. He was alone again.
He should feel euphoric, as he had with the others he’d aided. But this was different. She was part of his destiny, and he’d sent her back with reluctance. He needed her. It was both comforting and disturbing that she was lost, somewhere in time. He didn’t have assurance, but he did have an inkling, of when she landed, given what he’d learned of the water, her, and the Matryoshka investigation. It might take him a while to find her, but eventually he would.
He took a deep breath, rubbed his face with both hands, then got to his feet. Picking up the flashlight, he checked the time. After midnight. He tried to concentrate. With her gone, he needed to rethink things.
He removed his glasses and folded them neatly into the pocket of his shirt. His eyesight was excellent, perfected each time he took the water. The eyeglasses were simply a veil, a prop. People saw them instead of the eyes. In the years since going forward in time he had found the small charade useful. For some odd reason people tended to discount the possibility that a man wearing spectacles might prove duplicitous, particularly harboring another life. He should have suggested such a disguise to Libby to facilitate her in her new life. Another regret.
Memories surfaced of their time together this past month. The outings. Her laughter. Her trust. The sweet, hot ache of glee that gripped him the first time she walked into the lecture hall had shaken him to his core. He had seen wariness and deliberation on her face, and had told himself he should take things slowly and cautiously.
But, quoting the Bible at her departure? What had he been thinking? So much for originality.
He turned and walked back to his car, listening to the unnerving voices in his head. They were always there. Waiting. There, since long before he began the journey. How unfortunate, and yet delightful, that Libby had interrupted the carefully designed and perfectly balanced order of his world. She made him want more. And desire was the most delectable force of all.
How he would miss her!
But, he had to do what was necessary.
As he walked to his car, he breathed in the fresh, mountain air and reminded himself of what so few people ever learn: the future lies in the past.
Chapter Ten
1926
Libby’s eyes remained closed as other senses activated. Crackling. Snapping. Fire crackers? No, something sizzling and burning. Cold and dampness beneath her. Heat washed across the upper half of her body.
A fire? Yes, she smelled burning wood, the essence of smoke, mixed with an earthen mustiness, mildew. She’d been camping often enough to know the smells, the feel of it.
Yet, something was different. Not just her surroundings, but something more encompassing had changed. Perhaps lost, and she ought to be looking for it. But, her brain was listless and she couldn’t grasp the answer.
She forced her eyes open, then clenched them closed again, recoiling from an onslaught of blinding light. No, not blinding. It was muted and flickering, wasn’t it?
The movement prompted a spastic pain in her head, consuming the frontal portion of her brain. Her stomach churned, threatening upheaval as a rancid taste surfaced in her mouth.
She cracked one eyelid halfway open and surveyed her surroundings. She was on her side on a flannel blanket on the earthen floor, back-dropped by unequal, unordered, knobby rock walls. A cavity etched into the earth. A cave. Positioning her hands beneath her, she slowly pulled herself into a semi-upright position. The spike of pain in her brain lanced stronger.
A voice spoke. Someone talked to her from some space-less, timeless zone, urging her to do something. Wasn’t it? She registered no words but was sure there was a voice. She inched her head toward it, fighting against the pain.
A form huddled by a fire. A man. His face sat in shadow on wide shoulders. Slowly, Libby’s eyes adjusted and she could see him better. His mouth moved and she suspected words were being shared but she couldn’t catch them, not in any way that made sense. She couldn’t hear anything above the roaring in her ears. She didn’t know him, did she? She should be concerned, perhaps scared for her life. But she wasn’t. The pain made her not care and she voiced what she felt with every fiber of her being. “Please, I want to die. I can’t stand this pain.”
She dropped back to the ground, her mind emptying to blessed oblivion.
She swam out of her fog enough to discover she was crying. But, from what? Loss? Fear? No, perhaps the pain. The intense, unbearable, pounding and throbbing and certainty that knives—razor-sharp and penetrating—were being jabbed repeatedly into her body.
She screamed again, heard it echoing and returning to her, mocking and denying. Make it stop, she begged.
Arms encircled her. She heard a voice murmur as though she were a child afraid of the dark. She clung to the figure that offered the voice, sobbing and begging for release, not caring what she said or how desperate she was. She felt a cloth dabbing at her face as she alternately shivered and perspired. Over and over the voice whispered for her to “hold on,” and “fight it” because “the pain will stop in a while.”
Her whimpers subsided, her breath slowed, and everything went black again.
When Libby next awoke, she pushed up on an elbow before thinking about the repercussions of the action. Her surroundings swirled into darkness and she braced her hands to keep from falling back. Her head pounded with pain as though it were rolling around on her shoulders, and her arms ached, startling her with their weakness. Still, she pushed until she sat upright. Her pulse raced as she struggled for reason.
The man was gone. The fire, a low glow of embers. She stared into the shadowy corners of the cave for a minute or two, or ten. She had no sense of time. Or place. Or why she was here. Frogs called
out from somewhere outside.
With a push, she tried to stand too quickly and, again, the spinning darkness engulfed her, but she refused to slump back and, instead, hovered on hands and knees. She drew in shaking breaths until the spike of vertigo lessened.
After a few moments, she tried again, and had to reach out for the firmness of the dank, earthen wall. She felt the fuzziness of lichen and moss.
Taking a deep breath and gritting her teeth, she willed herself to take a step, fighting the urge to drop to the ground. She managed to stay erect, wobbling like a surprised infant attempting her first steps.
Memories of the man by the fire surfaced, and fear set in. Who was he? And, what did he want? Why was he here? Where was her husband? She had one...didn’t she?
That’s when it hit her with certainty, there was no longer a husband. Somehow—she didn’t know how—but somehow she also discerned it wasn’t 2016 anymore.
This was absurd. If she knew that date, she should know more. Of course she grasped who she was...didn’t she? But the harder she tried to seize the information, the more it scampered out of reach.
That realization, combined with fear of the man in the cave earlier, buoyed her to action. With tears clouding her eyes, she turned and exited the cave, her heart thundering with desperation to get away and go...where? She didn’t know, didn’t care. What was she trying to escape, or outrun?
It was dark, but moonlight grazed the tops of the forest, casting a dim beam between the canopy of trees to the ground. In the unlit pockets of the terrain, the woods gaped like black open mouths. With a spike of adrenaline, she stumble-ran, hurrying as much as her bare feet and weak legs would allow. She tore through a screen of brambles and nettles, stubbed her feet on stones and fallen logs, but still, kept moving. The desire to fall to the ground was intense, but she managed to keep going by clinging onto a branch here, an outcropping of rocks there.