Hamelton (Dr. Paul) (10 page)

I enjoyed the day with my friends. We all mingled around and had a good time. Some locals explained the game to us as it went along. I did not know what a sociable event a ball game could be.

Near the end of the game I did what I knew I had to eventually, analyze what Maggie needs. She seemed to have proof that we were supposed to have done something in the past that plainly we did not do. What if we did not go back? Maggie's family tree would be broken and she may never live. She will never leave those sandwiches in the library for me. Therefore, I would most likely never go back in time the first time and history that seemed not to have changed before and after that trip will change. I thought that maybe I had missed the window by not having done something, and then I thought that if so then Maggie would not have been alive to be mad at me. So therefore it seemed written that we will indeed make a second trip.

After I came to that conclusion I felt relief in a way. I think that soldiers felt less tense on their way to battle, than waiting to hear if they were going or not. I continued to enjoy the ball game. Hamelton won by one goal. Hanna said good-bye to her friends and we all went to a wishing well at the far end of the park. I eventually brought the subject around to William Hamelton. "We may have to return to William's time," I told them, then waited to see how they reacted. Handy seemed excited. Jeff said he had other things he wanted to do, as if time travel is just one more activity to do on vacation? The girls wanted more information before they would make a judgment. After I explained the need, which I did not fully understand myself at the time, they all agreed we would, or have already gone back again. We decided to go tomorrow at noon. Cindy had the idea that we should shop for some clothes that looked presentable in both times. We went shopping for everyone. I bought myself a tan shirt and pants with a brown vest. Cindy got a blue print dress. Hanna said she had something for herself in her room. Handy and Jeff bought green clothes that reminded me of Robin Hood‟s merry men. Shoes that were simple were needed by all of us. We all retired early that night so we would be refreshed for the trip the next day.

X

The next morning we all awoke early and met in Handy's room as agreed the day before. It was a fun feeling of importance that we had a strategy meeting. We planned the trip as much as we could. Of course we were planning to wear our new clothes. We decided to talk William into taking us into town so we could meet Maggie's ancestor in the town stable. We further agreed to stay together no matter what happened.

Not knowing what exactly we were going back for, we found we had less to discuss than we had thought. Soon we were all just sitting there with little to say. We eventually decided we might as well go now that there was no reason to wait. We made our way back to my room where the gate had already been opened. We started the experiment very easily this time; after all, this marked the fifth time for my friends and the sixth for me. Once in the limbo stage, I immediately became aware of the warmth of my friend's souls. As the light of the area became noticeable I realized that we were moving at a slower speed this time. I felt Cindy seemed to be aware of the ability to read each other‟s emotional state during this part because I felt her probing into everyone. Myself, able to comprehend more each time, could actually see parts of the gaseous mass that I knew to be her extending into each one of us. I was more interested in the mission that we were on to probe anyone myself or to care if I was being probed. The reason I was preoccupied was because the trip did not seem to be going as smooth this time. Entering the stage of limbo went as normal as before, however, after the thrust of being thrown into the limbo stage, the sucking from the opposite tunnel should have become evident. This time, however, the same tunnels could be seen; I felt that I had to fight to get to it. My mass, which I refer to as my body, was moving in a swimming type fashion. The movement seemed to do little. The desire to get to the tunnel seemed to keep us moving. Once we got to the tip of the tunnel I could feel the end of the tunnel. I made my body enter it. The pulling from the tunnel took over.

I lay there still. My eyes opened slowly. The room was dark. Jeff started to say something but I reached over and grabbed his arm. He too seemed to take notice of the snoring noise emanating from the bed. We all stayed quiet, being scared to death. Even though I knew that John the Friar was a member of the church, the sight of his big body and that long sword which seemed to fit him stayed in my mind. Handy took the lead because of my frozen terror. He, on all fours, started to crawl to the door. We all fell in line behind him. He opened the door for us as we went past him, and then closed the door once we were all in the hallway. The flickering candle light in the hallway was eerie. We silently made it back to the stairs and went to the kitchen.

This was the first time I had seen the kitchen in William's time. The walls were made of rough stone which continued up to a hole in the ceiling that must have acted as a vent for cooking. The area that I am so familiar with Maggie cooking in then contained a large open cooking pit. The area that would be the breakfast room was used to store crates and baskets of food. The walls leading up had a large assortment of cooking instruments lining it. A long table was against one wall, where several servants were sitting preparing food.

The servants didn't take any special notice of us. We asked the cook for breakfast. She obeyed without seeming that anything was unusual. I asked her about how William was doing. She seemed to want to keep the classes separate by referring to us with dignity and replying in a polite non committing manner. We went into the dining room and waited for our food. We sat there for a rather long time as the day changed from dawn to daylight. A man that I remember from the dinner table several days before walked into the room then left soon afterwards without saying a word. About ten minutes later, William appeared uncombed in the doorway as he hurried into the room. He looked more than slightly amazed to see us.

After looking each one of us in the face to reassure himself that it was true, he said, "We must talk, can we go somewhere more private?" With very little conversation we followed him into the library. The room was arranged in its usual manner, absent the seating area from before. At his directions, we moved a few chairs around. "Why did you come back?" He asked as soon as we sat.

I said "We found out that we had some unfinished business in this time after all. William, my friend, you seem to be troubled. Has something happened?"

"Do you know how long you have been gone? Do you know it's been half a year?"

Handy and I looked at each other for a moment. Handy took over. "No we did not. To us it has been days."
William said slowly in the voice of a beaten man, shaking his head from side to side, "The last several months have been hard on me. The king, being upset that I missed that appointment with him, has reduced funding to the nearby town. I have realized that my family has always invested our capital so I cannot help the people until I sell some property. The experiments to the Garden of Eden have also gone bad. One of my pupils, on his own and without proper training, went to the Garden of Eden and has not come back yet. I have made several attempts to find him however, because time freezes at the moment we arrive there, he is stuck at the time he left. When we go there it is the present time and he cannot be found. And to add to the problem, starting a few weeks before you arrived the first time, the tunnel has been getting smaller each time. Now I can barely see through the tunnel. And to top everything off, most of my students, disenchanted with what is happening, have left. How can you help me? I need your help."

Handy said slowly and thoughtfully, "We have less control of going back in time and stopping your man from making his mistake than you do. As far as helping you out with your money problems, one gold piece from this time would be a worth a fortune in our time. I'm afraid that the only way we can help you seems to be moral support, unless you know of a way we can help?"

"If moral support is all you can offer, than I shall take it with my deepest gratitude. Now how can I help you in your unfinished business matter?"

Hanna said, "We need to go to town. If you can supply horses, I know the way."

"Granted. Anything else?" Handy told him that was all for now. William said that due to the vacancies of recent, he would prepare rooms for us in case we needed to stay a few days. I asked if we could have the same two rooms that we had before on the third floor. William nodded and gave us some spending money. We left him still sitting in his library looking at his stained glass window.

Hanna led the horses we borrowed from the stables toward town. The ride seemed to take forever. We took a break at the church to relax. The fence around the surrounding cemetery seemed wrong. It was too confined. Then as I felt like kicking myself for overlooking the obvious, I realized that not as many people were dead now as will be dead when I see it in the twentieth century. So at some time the fence must be moved. Or several times perhaps.

The original part of town was of course all that could be seen. The streets were full of people coming, going, and just standing around talking. This brought to mind something that has always bothered me about old western movies. Why is it that in the movies we can see that the town only has 10 stores, two small hotels and a dozen houses, yet there would always be a hundred men standing around the gunfighters? This was not as ridiculous as that, the original town of Hamelton had over a hundred dwellings; however the people of this time seemed to prefer the outside life.

Hanna, of course, was the most familiar with the town and how to get around so we naturally allowed her to lead in the investigation of the town. She seemed constantly amazed time after time, seeing everything in the town she grew up in 300 years before her birth. The town stable had always been in the same place so Hanna led us right there. The stable was on the western most outside edge of town. There wasn't a sign in front but the fact that it was a stable was obvious. There was a long post in front to tie up horses. Stacks of hay were off to one side. A small corral was at the furthest part of the property from town. A teenage boy was in the corral with a rope tied to a horse leading him in circles. As we approached, I could see two lazy dogs lying in front and a kitten, not intimidated by the dogs, playing in the hay.

Handy stopped short and the rest of us stopped our animals to see what he was doing. Handy asked, "What are we going to say when we find this ancestor of Maggie's? What are we going to do for him? And what is his name?"

I must admit those were some good questions. We had not really researched this thing before we jumped into it. As far as his name, I could not remember Maggie's last name for the life of me. Luckily my temporary lapse of memory also did not affect another source of information that I had forgotten about.

Hanna recalled, "Mulligan. Her family name is Mulligan. ...and perhaps we could ask him to watch the animals as we are in town. And I think I should do the talking since you yanks are hard for me to understand, I know the town's people will think you unusual." No one had any idea let alone a better one, so we went along with Hanna's simple plan.

After tying up the horses, we went in the open large front door that had no handle or lock and seemed to always stay open. We found ourselves walking through a pathway that seemed familiar to Hanna. After walking past an office and a tack room we entered the area of the stalls. A man was kneeling by a horse examining its ankle.
He looked up and asked, "Excuse me; I did not see you there. What can I do for you?" The man stood up and greeted us.

Hanna replied in an exaggerated accent, "We are staying at the Hamelton Mansion. We are giving ourselves a tour of the town. We felt that it would be safe to leave the horses at the stables."

Finding this amusing, the man started to pack tobacco in his pipe as he said, "I don't know where you came from, but in this town, there has never been a theft. You can feel safe taking your rides with you wherever you go." He stopped awaiting a response.

The man wasn't what I expected from Maggie's family. He was about twenty-five, slim and nearly six feet tall. His face was round and his red hair was short. His mustache was bushy and by far the major land mark on him. He kept looking over Hanna and lifting his eyebrows. His responses were slow and to the point.

Hanna asked him several questions starting with his name which was Edmund Mulligan. The other questions were directions that she probably already knew but she was keeping him talking. When we had run out of conversation, Hanna excused us and we left out the door.

We mounted the horses and Hanna suggested that she wanted to see some parts of town starting with the Knights Edge. Entering the tavern was much like the last time I was there. The door was the same and inside was just as dark as before. We went straight to the counter and Hanna ordered us beers. There were some men off to the side that had several candles lined up. They were playing some version of darts in which the men were throwing shortened arrows at a piece of wood for money. My eyes did not adjust to the dark for a long time. We let Hanna do what little talking was needed to the town's people. We stayed longer than we planned and we all got a little more tipsy than expected. As I sat there at that bar I thought about all the dents and cuts that I saw there a week ago. There was some damage already done. A man that sat next to me for a short time had thrown his darts on the bar in anger due to his financial losses. That act alone made scratches that would be there for hundreds of years.

With the harsh beer going down I wondered, "If I scratched the bar, now will it show up when I look at it 300 hundred years from now? Did I put my hands on a scratch a week ago that I will make today? Last week if I had known that I was going to go back in time, and I looked at an area that had no scratches, decided to scratch it, then when I went back in time, would a scratch appear? Or would I have not picked that spot because I could see the scratch that I was going to make so the spot was not clear of scratches?" I realized that the real question my mind wanted to know was. "Am I making history, or just playing out what has already happened?" The thick beer did not agree with Jeff's stomach, and we decided that not much more could be done for Edmund Mulligan that today. We could continue to explore the town the following day. We paid the bill with some spare coins of William's and headed home.