Reaching Through Time (15 page)

D
rake sat staring at the back side of the destroyed house and at the gardens, holding the letter detailing answers to questions he could never share. Time travel. Who would believe him? He thought about his case of the flu, and of Gina’s. Of how sick she’d been and how she’d probably suffered. He lived in a time when the science of medicine had been far enough advanced to help him. She had not. Her flu had morphed into his variety, and he had been saved. His leg cramped from being curled under him and his back ached from leaning against the hard rock. Yet he couldn’t leave. He picked up the sewing basket, held it in his lap, feeling the weight of it, the reality of it. Gina had touched it.

He lifted the lid, saw two envelopes, one holding money, the other a neatly folded handkerchief. The material had yellowed with age, but a nosegay of purple lilacs
graced one corner. A note was fastened to the cloth with a straight pin. In Gina’s hand, he read:

Drake buried his face in the handkerchief, and although it was very old he could still inhale the rosewater scent of her. “I love you,” he whispered.

Drake staggered upright, shook out his bad leg, waited for the cramping to ease. He tucked Dennison’s letter into the basket, kept the handkerchief in his hand. Having known and loved Gina meant that his life would never be the same; he was already old beyond his years. Love could do that. The thought made him smile.

He thought about the mountain, the ground where he stood, about the people who’d lived here so long ago. He’d touched their artifacts, the tangible proof of their existence. They were all travelers through time, each of them bound to it, like it or not. In the city below he had a life waiting for him. He would finish high school and college and become an architect. And he would build a
great house like the one in front of him had once been. Then and there he swore an oath to do it. Gina had made him understand his own worth.

Cradling the basket, Drake started the long, difficult trek to his car. A hawk’s cry forced him to look skyward. The bird swooped and soared, sunlight sifting through its feathered wings as they caught a draft of wind, lifting it ever higher into the sky.

S
he materialized in broad daylight onto a green lawn in front of a brick house on a residential street. She could have handled the mistake easily if the teenage boy across the street hadn’t glanced up from washing his car at that very moment. Staring, he dropped the hose. She panicked. This should have never happened. She shouldn’t have been seen. The laws governing time travel forbade it.

She crouched, as if making herself smaller would make a difference. It didn’t. The boy walked to the end of his driveway, his gaze razoring in on her. He jogged across the street. Maura did the only thing her fifteen-year-old brain could think of—she pretended to pass out.

He leaned over her, blocking the sun and creating a shadow. “Hey, you all right?”

She willed the ground to swallow her.

He dropped to his knees beside her. “You okay?”

She continued her charade.

She heard the alarm in his voice. “I’ll call nine-one-one.

She didn’t know what 911 was, but what if it drew a crowd? Maura’s eyes blinked open. She groaned.

“You came out of nowhere and passed out cold. I should call an ambulance.”

Thinking fast, she offered him her hand. She spoke seven languages, was glad he had spoken to her in English, her first. His cadence and dialect sounded odd to her, but she thought she could approximate it if she tried. “Help up,” she said.

He tugged her into a sitting position. “Where the heck did you come from? I looked over and the lawn was empty, then
poof!
there you were. Out of thin air.”

She rubbed the back of her head, as if she’d struck it when she fell. “Exercising,” she said lamely. “You were … busy. I came around the corner. I tripped and fell. You looked up when it happened … saw me.”

“I know what I saw. Empty lawn. Girl on lawn. No trip.”

She shrugged, tried to look clueless.

“What’s this?” He picked up the handheld device she’d used to transport herself, the forbidden device she’d taken. She wasn’t an authorized time traveler. She’d gone into the university’s science lab seeking one of her professors, and the device had been sitting on an empty desk. Careless of someone. Time-travel devices were supposed to be kept under lock and key. Hers was a crime of
chance. She had picked up the instrument, played with it, figured out its workings; then she had pushed a red button and it had discharged. And she’d landed—where? She had no idea. She only knew that she was in the past. Would the time police believe her when they came for her?

She eased the device from the boy’s hand. “Keeps track of my medical stats.” She made up the explanation on the spot.

“Are you sick?”

She needed to get away; needed time to think. “Medical testing.”

“You don’t look sick. Who are you?” She pressed her lips together, edged away. If the police materialized, if they discovered where she’d landed, if they knew she’d made contact, they would bind the boy, maybe even wipe his mind. “Maura. That’s my name.”

“Dylan Sorenson,” he said.

“I need to go.” She stood.

He steadied her. “Where’re you going? Did you bump your head?”

“I’m fine.” She inched backward.

“Hey, don’t run off.” He made a grab for her arm. “Someone should check you out. My mom’s just across the street. Come let her take a look at you.”

“Not now. I’m late.” A choke hold of panic tightened her throat. She evaded his grasp, turned and took off. “Catch you later.” Maura knew she could outrun him. She
was in her prime, and no one born in the past was as physically advanced as people from her era.

Once she rounded the corner, she looked over her shoulder to see if he was following. He wasn’t. She slowed, caught her breath. The sun shone brilliantly. Green grass spread in front of every house as far down the sidewalk as she could see. Water, thrown by a spinning wand, sparkled on blades of several grassy patches.

She thought the time period beautiful, and as long as she was here, she figured she’d check it out until the time cops picked her up. If she didn’t disturb anything, what could it hurt?

Even if she returned instantly, she’d be in serious trouble. But she didn’t want to go back. Not yet. She was eager to explore this society. Until she was ready to leave, where could she hide?

She walked, attempting to get an idea of where and
when
she’d landed. In Maura’s world, scientists knew that time was a stream, fluid and ever moving. Time travel plopped a person into the stream at random if the traveler hadn’t specified time and place. And Maura hadn’t planned this trip.

The neighborhood lawns gave way to streets with buildings. Traffic began to pass her, cars that rode on noisy tires instead of a quiet whoosh of compressed air. No parking on the fringes of a town or city and coming into the main commercial area on foot or on transport
vehicles. People passed her too, seeming not to notice her, although she was dressed in a body-hugging jumpsuit, a single piece, the high-tech material cool in warm weather, warm in cold weather. By the looks of the trees and flower beds, she figured it was late spring or early summer. She’d heard that the past had been ugly and toxic, but this place didn’t seem too bad in spite of the exhaust fumes that made her feel nauseated.

Maura stopped suddenly in front of a building. A sign read
CLARKSVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY, EAST BRANCH
. A library. She’d read about such places. They had been storehouses of knowledge at one time. Not like in her day, when anyone could plug into the Intercontinental Information Airstream, or IIA, anytime, anyplace. Maura was relieved by her good fortune. Here was a building that housed present and past, a place where she could learn what was necessary to help her blend in. She bounded up the steps, eager to get started.

By the time night came, Maura was again outside, looking for food and a place to sleep. She wandered back down the streets where she’d first emerged from the time stream. The little houses looked homey and the lawns well kept in this Tennessee city one hundred seventeen years in the past. She wasn’t nearly as afraid of discovery by time cops as she had been before her afternoon in the library. The current culture ran on electrically generated energy, so the electromagnetic fields shielded her with
static, which acted as a safety net. In Maura’s world energy was gathered and sustained much differently, so it would take the police a while to locate her—but they would. Only a few scientists with top clearance were allowed to time-travel, and then only as observers. No one was allowed to wander in the time stream illegally … too dangerous. The cops always caught illegal time swimmers and prosecuted them.

She pushed the recorder button on her watch, and as she walked, she made a private recording to cope with her sense of isolation. Plus, it gave her an opportunity to practice speaking in the odd cadence of the area. “All right … I’ve gotten myself into a situation,” she confessed to her recorder. She went on to detail her day and her surroundings. “Maybe I shouldn’t have fiddled with the device, but it was just lying there. Who wouldn’t have messed with it?”

Guilt struck. She was a thief, which went against her moral grain. But she was also a first-year university student, on track to become a Mind Doctor, and a member of the two percent of her population born with the DNA of a Sensitive. The competition was fierce for the coveted degree and life’s work as a Mind Healer. Travel into the past would give her a leg up on her first research paper. And if she did no harm while in the past, maybe the authorities would be lenient with her.

Maura walked to the house where she’d first materialized and hunkered in the bushes, grateful for the
clothing that kept her comfortable. Her stomach growled. “Forget it!” she told her hunger. “Nothing I can do about food right now.” She tucked the time-travel device into a pouch in her bodysuit, crossed her arms and waited for sleep and for the long night to end, facing the only house where she might go and the only person who knew she was here.

M
aura watched two cars leave Dylan’s driveway, one with a man driving, the other with a woman driving and two young girls in the back. Her heart leapt, hoping that the boy, Dylan, was still in the house. She rang the doorbell, heard someone banging around inside, felt her heart hammering. The door was flung open.