The Secret of Sentinel Rock (2 page)

Clutching at a jagged edge, she began scaling the rock, clearing the crevices of soil as she climbed. Although it was rough going, Emily finally grasped the last ledge and heaved herself over the top. She scrambled to her feet, turned – and ­screamed.

Gasping in disbelief, Emily found herself facing another girl about the same age. She was so astounded she didn’t say anything for several seconds, just stood with her hands over her mouth. Staring back at her was a girl dressed in an ­ankle-­length blue print dress speckled with tiny rosebuds. Over it she wore a white apron with ruffles at the shoulder. Her ­sandy-­coloured hair was in long ­braids.

“Yikes, you scared me.” Emily’s heart was pumping against her rib cage. “I didn’t know anyone was up here.” She lowered her hands to her chest as if to slow the pounding inside. “Who are you?”

“I’m Emma.” The girl smiled timidly at ­Emily.

Emily liked the lilting sound of the girl’s voice and smiled back, but wondered why she hadn’t seen anyone on top of the rock as she approached. Maybe Emma had been somewhere else among the other rocks? “I never saw
you
.”

“No, you were too busy climbing to notice me, lass.”

“Oh.” Emily was still unsure of how she’d missed seeing Emma earlier. And why did the girl talk so strangely, with the rolling r’s? Why did she call her lass? Then suddenly remembering her manners, Emily introduced ­herself.

Emma reached for Emily’s hand. “How do you do?”

Emily gave Emma’s hand a limp shake in return, then drew back, wondering at the other girl’s formality. And why was her hand so rough? Emily found herself staring shyly at Emma’s odd ­appearance.

It wasn’t just her long dress. The girl wore ­high-­buttoned shoes too. She looked like one of those people who dressed up for heritage days or rodeos and exhibitions in the summer. Maybe she’s just a little weird, Emily thought. Or maybe Emma isn’t from around ­here.

“Do you live…?” Emily froze, crying out in shock as she stared over Emma’s shoulder. The house and the summerfallowed field had vanished. In their place were willows and scrubby bush, thick over the open grasslands, except for the occasional stand of aspens. A creek meandered through the landscape and a huge slough lay in the distance. There were no fences. No stone piles. No elevators. Not even a gravel road – only a winding dirt trail that crawled across the ­plains.

“Where’s my grandmother’s house?” Emily felt a shudder of fear. She turned to look at Emma when the girl didn’t answer right away. “Where are we?” Emily gave her head a quick shake and took another frantic ­look.

With a puzzled expression, Emma answered, “On top of some rocks – in the middle of the prairies. And there are no houses here. Not yet anyway.”

“But my grandmother’s stone house – it was right over there a few moments ago,” Emily pointed at the empty knoll. “I just came from it.”

Emma turned to look. “There’s no house anywhere that I can see.” Doubt crossed the girl’s face. “We’re building a sod one, but we’ve only started. And it’s the other direction.” Emma motioned behind them. “Just over there on the other side of that bluff.”

Emily looked in disbelief at a ridge of trees that she’d never seen ­before.

“We’re camping until our new house is built,” Emma ­explained.

“When did…?”

“We’ve just moved to the area,” said the girl, looking warily at Emily. “Where do
you
come from? I thought we were the only family in this area.”

That was impossible, Emily thought. She looked wildly about her, fighting to control the panic that was making her mouth go dry. Maybe she was in the middle of a dream. Yet she could feel the wind billowing her hair, and smell the fragrance of sage and wild grass. Dreams could be vivid, but not like ­this.

Emma broke into her thoughts. “What’s wrong, Emily? Are you lost, lass?” She touched Emily’s shoulder, concern flickering in her ­eyes.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure about anything.” Emily’s voice quavered, then she looked squarely into Emma’s face. “I mean, one minute I’m on a rock where I’ve gone dozens of times with my grandmother, and I can see her house. And the next, you’re here and everything I know is gone. Where are all the fences and fields?”

Looking worried, Emma suggested, “Did you maybe fall out of the back of a wagon and hit your head, lass? Maybe you’ve been left behind by mistake while your family has travelled on?”

“There’s some kind of mistake all right, but I don’t know what,” Emily replied, clenching and unclenching her fists. “I’ve never ridden in a wagon with my family in my life. I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Well, you must be from some place, but I’ve never seen anyone dressed like you. Why are you wearing such a short skirt, and with no stockings? Aren’t your legs cold?”

Baffled, Emily looked at her hemline just above her knees. This encounter was getting weirder by the minute. “Well, I usually wear pants. But my mom makes me dress up for some things. It was my grandmother’s funeral today.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear about your grandmother,” said Emma. Then her eyes grew wide with interest. “But you wear trousers? Only men wear trousers.”

This time it was Emily’s turn to look confused. “Of course I wear pants. Why are
you
dressed the way you are?” Maybe Emma was from some different kind of religious community. But that didn’t explain why the landscape had ­changed.

“I always dress this way,” Emma replied, swishing the ­ankle-­length skirt around her legs. “This is all I have. Except my best dress for Sunday, of course.”

“Of course? What do you mean – Sunday best?” Emily scraped her feet along the edge of the rock, thinking hard. She’d heard something about that kind of thing from Grandmother Renfrew. “Well…I do remember my grandmother telling me stories about when she was young,” she admitted to Emma. “Something about her having only two dresses. One for everyday and one for special occasions. But that was a long time ago when the pioneers first came and….” Emily shivered ­again.

Suddenly she gasped and stared at the girl. Could it be ­possible?

At the same moment Emma tilted her head, watching Emily intently. Emily took a step backwards near the edge of the rock and nearly lost her balance. What on earth was going ­on?

Chapter Two

Emily lurched forward and grabbed Emma’s arm
to keep herself from toppling off the rock. Stumbling ahead, she cried out in a voice shrill with panic, “I’m scared, Emma. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I don’t know where I am.”

Emma gave Emily a soothing smile. “Calm yourself, lass.” She patted Emily’s shoulder reassuringly. “We’re in the middle of the Canadian prairies, about twenty miles south of Wolseley – at least, I think that’s how far away Father said.”

Emily could feel herself turn cold and clammy even though the sun was warm. The screeching of a magpie in the distance competed with her clashing thoughts. She spun around, looking at the unfamiliar landscape again, and then back at ­Emma.

“This can’t be south
o
f
Wolseley. I mean, not the way I know it. And you – you’re dressed like an early settler. But you can’t be…” Emily sputtered, her thoughts tumbling about wildly. “There’s got to be an explanation.”

“Well, we
are
settling here in this wilderness. And this is a new country to us,” said Emma, smoothing her hands down her apron. “So I suppose that makes us settlers.”

“New country? Wilderness? What do you mean?” Emily looked at the panorama of willows, water, and grasslands where tilled fields should have been. She turned again to Emma. “Where did you come from?”

“I came with my family from Scotland. First we travelled by ship across the ocean.” Emma stretched out her arms. “It was so vast, and the trip….”

Emily hardly heard the last part of Emma’s sentence. Her thoughts were whirring around in snippets here and there. If Emma really was from long ago and Emily had somehow slipped into the past with her…. But normal people didn’t just flip into another time the way they did in some television space show, did they? She had to find an ­explanation.

“Okay, so you came from Scotland.” Emily startled the other girl by her abrupt interruption. “But
when
did you come?”

“Well, we’ve been camped in this area about a month now. But it took us a long time to get here,” said Emma, looking ­puzzled.

Emily decided to let Emma explain her situation. Maybe there’d be some clues to help them piece these strange occurrences together. She shuffled uneasily on her side of the ledge, glancing anxiously from time to time towards the spot where her grandmother’s house ought to ­be.

In her musical voice Emma spoke of how she’d journeyed with her family from the highlands of Scotland. They’d crossed the Atlantic Ocean on a huge ship with hundreds of people squashed on board like cattle in small compartments. Allowed only a few possessions each, they’d taken the barest of necessities, a few blankets and pots and clothes in a trunk. They planned to buy whatever else they needed when they ­arrived.

“We were on the boat for almost two weeks. I was the only one of my family that wasn’t seasick.” Emma stood a little taller and tossed her braids behind her ­shoulders.

By now Emily was almost totally convinced Emma really was from the past, or at least that Emma herself sincerely believed she was, because of the particular way she was dressed and because she seemed so confident in relating the details of her life. And something told Emily that Emma was telling her story truthfully. Some of the details of her travels across the ocean seemed too vivid and real to be made ­up.

Emily listened hard as Emma explained about being on a crowded train for three days, before stopping in Winnipeg. There they’d camped for several more days in a huge tented area of the city while her father chose a homestead site from a map, and bought tools, some cows, oxen, and wagons. They’d also purchased large quantities of nonperishable food supplies. They knew they wouldn’t be near a store for quite a long time, especially while they ­travelled.

“It took us another two weeks to get here. The weather was bad, so much snow and rain. Travelling over those rutty trails by oxcart was hard and slow.”

“Oxen? Wagon?” Emily felt her knees go weak. In a barely audible voice, she asked. “What year is it according to you?”

“1899, of course.”

“Wow. That’s when lots of settlers started coming to Saskatchewan,” said Emily, recalling her grade six studies about ­pioneers.

­“Sask-­at-­chew-­on?” said Emma. “What’s that word? What are you saying?” She scrunched up her face. “We’re in the ­North-­West Territories.”

“That proves it. This is the province of Saskatchewan.
It has been since 1905.” Emily stared hard at Emma. “This is just too weird. I mean, here you are back in 1899, and somehow I’m with you.”

“I don’t know what you mean, ‘since 1905.’” Emma truly looked alarmed. “What year is it for you?”

Emily sighed shakily. “Well, just a short while ago I was at my grandmother’s house after her funeral and it was 1996. Now you say it’s 1899, and by the looks of everything I think you must be right. But how could that have happened?”

Emma stood silently. She seemed to be digesting what Emily had just said. Emily shifted her weight to her other foot, unconsciously twining her fingers through her hair as she gazed about the countryside. She found it incredibly hard to believe. But she was still surrounded by the same untamed prairie scene which had greeted her when she’d first met Emma on the ­rock.

The willow bushes along the banks of a meandering stream were more plentiful than she’d ever seen before, and there was no sign of cultivation or habitation anywhere. Prairie grass blew unhindered on an empty rise where her grandmother’s house had stood, and there was a single long ­two-­track trail that stretched across the landscape instead of the crisscross of gravel ­roads.

“It is peculiar,” said Emma, breaking the silence. “You do not seem to belong anywhere that I know of. And your clothing and speech are very different. Are you sure you have not had some accident, lass?”

“I’m positive.” Emily felt more confident now that she’d begun to figure things out. The thought of trying to explain this incident to her mother even brought the briefest of smiles to her face. What would she think when Emily told her she’d gone back into the past? Emily’s smile vanished as she considered her situation. How
had
she come here? Even more important, how would she get back to her own time? Would she ever see her mother or father ­again?