The Devil’s Arse
“The Devil’s Arse, wow. Such a charming name,” Randy said.
“Not my decision, ask the local yokels. Spend a few days here, go ahead. Devil’s Arse is a compliment compared to what you’ll be calling it.”
I saw what Cosmos meant. Most caves are damp, cold, and dreary, and the Devil’s Arse took no exception. To make it creepier, it snaked down into the earth. Distant sounds of running water echoed through hidden chambers.
“Good hiding place. Not even outlaws have the balls to come here.” Cosmos lifted his glowing magic staff, projecting an eerie blue light on the rocky walls.
“Around the first corner are my living quarters and lab. There’s plenty of room for all of you. Whatever you do, don’t go any further back than this.”
I gripped Brad’s hand, held Darcy a little closer, and nervously peered into the vast darkness beyond Cosmos’ cozy corner.
“Why? What’s back there?” I asked with trepidation. “Meow,” Darcy seconded it.
He only shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows? I sure as hell am not going to find out. Neither should you. Gather around, pull up a rock.”
He leveled his staff at a pile of stones, firing a stream of orange light until they burst into a flaming campfire. “Now, where were we?”
“About a mile from the manor house,” Jessica replied.
“I agree. Might have been further, but a mile sounds close,” I added.
“No, Einstein and Edison! I meant, what were we talking about before we came here?”
“You were going to tell us how you knew I was coming to the king’s court and more about time travel,” Brad replied.
Cosmos smacked Brad’s head, exclaiming, “Ah! So there is a little bit of brains left among you.”
He leaned on his staff as he told us of his own time travel experience. “I have arrived at this time and place the same way all of you did. Since we fell through the time travel portal at different times, we arrived here at different times. And it wasn’t in order. In my case, I’d been here for months, then you all showed up.”
“I get it, you were here before us, even though you left the future after us,” I said.
“Exactly, here’s where things might get confusing for you imbeciles. The events you experienced earlier tonight happened once before. The only difference between then and now is that you all were captured and imprisoned for being witches the first time around. I had to think of a way to save you. God only knows why.” Cosmos shook his head.
“Because you’re a good wizard, despite what Randy says about you,” I replied.
“Humph! Anyway, while you were awaiting trial and your certain execution, I went to work. I scavenged through every scrap of paper in every alchemist’s lab I could find. I came up with some time travel magic of my own. Unfortunately, it didn’t send us all back to the future. It only sent me backwards in time one year. Backwards! Ach!”
Cosmos tapped his crinkled old wizard’s hat. “But I’m a genius. So what did I do? I took advantage of the situation. I figured I would simply put a plan in place! A plan to supply the escape potion to you. Good thinking, because when the time came again, you two rescued yourselves. Now here we all are, together.”
“Still, we’re on the run, we can’t let our guard down,” I added. “Do you have any idea what’s wrong with Ezzy?”
“How about we talk about what’s right with her, it’ll be a much shorter conversation.”
“I’m serious, Cosmos. I don’t know if she’s suffering from a head injury or if it’s a side effect of time travel.”
“I know what you mean, Gertie. I looked her right in the eye and she had no idea who I was. She’s not herself.”
Randy paced in front of the fire, stroking his chin. “You know what I think? That this is all just another one of her pranks gone wild. Maybe this is finally the one that went wrong. I told you, she’s completely crossed the line already with her little jokes. Maybe she’s even gone off her rocker.”
Brad interrupted Randy’s complaints, “If that’s the case, then this is her masterpiece. But I have a hard time believing she’d go as far as dumping us all in a different century, on the run from a jealous witch hunting bitch that happens to be herself. No, it can’t be a joke.”
Cosmos rubbed his hands together in front of the fire, thinking about what they said. “Hmm. I’ve never heard of time travel causing something like that. A complete cleaning out of her memories? No. Not even insanity.”
“Don’t tell me we’ve lost her forever. She’s already started over, becoming a complete stranger.”
Cosmos put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, Gertie. We’ll just have to dig deeper as we solve this time travel problem. I’m sure we’ll find out what happened and get her back to the lovable wicked witch we’ve all gotten used to.”
Even if Cosmos was faking his optimism for my sake, I appreciated it. It made me feel better.
Jessica came closer to the fire. “I hope I’m not butting in, but I just remembered something she told me and Gertie earlier today. She said she had no memory of who she was, so she had to create her life somehow. I believe she actually said she had to paint her life. Create a painting to fill in her whole life. She said something like that anyway.”
“That’s right! I remember her saying that. And something about how Duke Charles took her in and basically cared for her from the beginning of her memories.”
Cosmos nodded. “Good information. Who knows? It might be important later on.”
Brad sat down on a chair Cosmos had fashioned from sticks and lashings. He pulled me onto his lap and kept me warm. “If you get tired, just lean back and close your eyes. I’ll hang on to you,” he whispered.
“Cosmos, tell us everything you know about time travel,” Randy said, somewhat demandingly.
“Hmph. Time. What about time? An abstract concept, it is. It doesn’t exist in nature. One species, homo-sapiens, think of time. Snakes, hedgehogs, rabbits, do they know what year it is? No! Of course not. Year after year, after hundreds of thousands of years, they live exactly as they’ve always done. Ha! Humans? We are always changing things. Every generation decides it must improve and it must build on what the last generation accomplished, and so on and so on. Progress we call it. In order to do this, a measuring stick is needed. How can you measure the history of humans? You know it as time. Yes, this is why we worry about time.”
Jessica was brave enough to question our ancient wizard. “I get what you’re saying, but what does that have to do with time travel?”
Randy held up his hand, like a teacher about to correct his pupil. “No, Jess, you have to communicate with Cosmos like you’re Yoda with a Yiddish accent. Ask your question like this: To do with time travel, what does that have, hmm? Yeesssssss.”
“Quiet, dummkopfs. Why did I explain time? You can’t travel through time if you don’t know what it is! Ach! Remember when I told you about the universal time sheath? You, the big hunk of beef, you asked me what that was. Now, I’ll tell you. Imagine each year is a playing card, and they are stacked together in a row. Without something to hold them together, they will fall down, get mixed up. The universal time sheath is a thin membrane made of cosmic material. This material is created by the collective energy of all human beings over the years. It covers these years, these cards if you will, and it keeps them organized. Gertie’s magic paint trick poked two holes in it. We fell out of the hole in the end of the sheath and came back in another hole, which put us in the wrong year.”
“Huh. So it’s like a giant condom covering the years, Gertie busted it and we all leaked out?” Randy asked.
“If you want to be vulgar and put it that way, yes.”
“Cosmos, you said you found a way to time travel. You went far enough back to give the king the potion. So, can’t we go back with the same method?”
“Sorry, Gertie. I only found a way to move backward a short distance. As if I stayed on the same card. I haven’t figured out a way to return to the time we came from. And the place we all fell through to get here has been healed over already. Understand?”
“No. I’m not sure I understand any of it, but I’m willing to take your word for it. I trust you’ll find a way.”
“Even better!”
“Sorry I busted the cosmic condom, or whatever it’s called.”
“Don’t worry about it. We wizards have a saying for times like these. Shit happens. And condoms break! We’ll figure it out.”