Four by four by four.
Kenia focused on her breathing, shutting out the growing sense of urgency to act, to do something. Action without thought would only make things worse, she told herself. Go slow now, to go fast later.
My friends are in danger. They are going to be killed.
But she only had what was right here in front of her. And who knew when here was.
After a few more deep breaths, she took in her surroundings. She could feel frost melting from around her nose and mouth as she took in the forest clearing she had jumped to. The air was warm and close, in line with the season she had been materializing in with previous jumps. Was this perhaps the very night of the accident—which was clearly no accident at all. She thought it likely, but even if she could guess the when, she did not know her where.
The trees were red maple, white oak, with a number of slash and scrub pine, consistent with what she had seen throughout the region around Selah Station, but that did little to help. When she listened for it, she heard no traffic. A dog barked in a distant hollow. All that was left for her to do was walk, but which direction? She was on a slope and figured it was best to head downward, since the town itself was at the bottom of a valley. After walking a little ways, she was encouraged to see the outline of a building, its rectilinear sides standing out against the natural shapes of the forest. She made out a clearing in front of it with a road, even a turnabout in it.
Slowly, the place took on a familiar shape: it was the icehouse and driveway at the Bridgewater Estate. She felt a rush of relief, as she knew now with certainty where she was in relationship to the town, and continued down, out of the woods, into the clearing. It was empty of cars or people. She moved to the doors of the icehouse and peered through the gap between them. In this era, it was nothing more than an icehouse, the extensive renovations not yet constructed. She felt a sick sense of powerlessness, so close to where her friends would be, but so distant in time. She shook and kicked at the doors, for no other purpose than to vent her frustration. They remained locked fast.
Focus, Kenia.
She would have to help them later. If she had been drawn back to this period, she knew it was for a reason. She had decided that reason centered on the disaster. What else could it have been? But this meant she had to get to Selah Island and that started with getting off the Bridgewater Estate and back to town. She knew traffic was sparse on the main road in the twenty-first century and bound to be even more so in the twentieth, so hitchhiking was likely not an option. But neither was walking.
She ran down the road to the main driveway of the estate and decided to turn uphill, towards the mansion. The distance was much longer on foot, as opposed to how easily they had covered it in the Jeep. But finally she reached the edge of the acreage and the long swales of grassy, well-manicured lawn. Even in the nineteen-fifties, it felt as short and well-tended as a golf course underfoot.
The mansion itself was dark, except for a single square of light on the third floor of the southern wing. The ostentatious floodlights had yet to be installed, so too the English-style streetlamps with their gas flames. Only porchlights lit the exterior, in yellow cones to either side of the front doors.
Kenia remembered a garage next to the parking area that they had passed in the Jeep. She ran in its direction, hoping it would have been built already. It was, even if it was invisible in the darkness until she was right upon it. She found her way to the door and tried the knob. It made a complete turn and swung open, without even the slightest chirp of a security system or the blare of an alarm.
So people really didn’t lock their doors in the 1950s.
Inside was complete darkness, and she was reluctant to turn on any lights. But her phone and its flashlight were gone, and realizing that time was short, she took the chance, feeling along the wall until she found a switch and flicked it. A single iridescent bulb came on in a socket hanging from the ceiling. It was dim, but it was all she needed to see her salvation. Apparently old Crowley Bridgewater was a motorcycle enthusiast. These were not the motocross motorcycles she had recently learned to ride, but their mid-century predecessors. It didn’t take her long to realize they were all “Indian” brand, a dozen of them arranged in what appeared to be chronological order: First were the older, military models painted in olive green with white stars on the gas tanks and copious boxes for ammunition storage on either side. These gave way to models painted in reds, black, grays, even one in auburn-and-coffee tones that seemed to be the most recent, judging by the addition of chrome features.
The Indians had fenders over most of the tires and a profile of an Indian chief on the gas tanks, frames, and motor casings. The chief looked out with a noble visage, as if unbothered by notions of cultural appropriation or the nature of white men riding polluting, fossil-fuel-powered machines across his lands, stolen through deception, murder, and genocide, under the contrived pretext of Manifest Destiny.
The keys were hanging on the wall. Kenia grabbed them all, along with a helmet which she shoved down on her head. She straddled the first bike, what she believed was the newest model and hopefully in working order. The model name on the side was “Scout.” It was smaller than some of the more intimidating “Chief” models, and so better suited for her size. She tried the series of keys one after another—more appropriated Indian chief profiles stamped on each one. Finally, one key slid in with a jump of her heart. She pumped her fist and looked for the switch to open the garage door before laughing at herself—automatic openers had yet to be invented. She scrambled to the base of one of the doors, pulled it up, and allowed the spring to do the rest of the work, sending the door folding upwards into the track overhead.
If the noise of the door opening did not bring unwanted attention, she knew the motorcycle would. She secured her chinstrap and took a moment to study the bike’s workings. She knew she would only get one chance. She primed the engine, checked the choke, and put her fingers on the key, the chief’s head conspicuous next to her hand.
“All right, Chief, let’s get ahead together.”
She turned the key, gunned the engine and kicked the bike forward. The front fork wobbled as she rolled forward and careened into the frame of the garage door. The engine nearly stalled, but she kept it alive, even though it filled the garage with thick exhaust. She could hear dogs barking now. It took all her strength to stabilize the bike again. There was no longer any room for discretion, so she revved the engine again, felt the pistons fall into a steady rhythm beneath her and kicked forward once more.
“One more try . . . .”
She thanked the universe that the mansion was built on a mountainside, the slope giving her added momentum to settle the bike and test her balance. She clicked on the headlight, illuminating the tunnel of the woods, before she gave the engine another shot of gas and accelerated towards the main road.
If she was noticed, or followed, she had a good lead on her pursuers. Her mirrors remained empty as she continued down from the mountainside estate, the road gradually becoming familiar despite the passage of years. Just as she reached the T-junction where she could turn left towards downtown and the island or right onto state road 521 and on to the Pennel place, she stopped. The Scout idled beneath her. Through the trees she could make out the river gorges, those fissures of darkness separating the clusters of light and life on the opposite banks. The Selah Branch Bridge was nothing more than intervals of light suspended over a river of unknown depth. She thought of all the lives at risk, those on the campus, in the neighborhoods, and at the plant—so many people, so much to lose. The lights of the campus twinkled, like the pinpricks of fragile, distant stars, their light nearly swallowed in the menacing glow of the coal plant, burning in its aura of smoky haze.
It was too much to take on alone. She needed help. She leaned the bike northward and sped up the state road towards the Pennels’.
The porch light came on first, a silent beacon that a handful of moths discovered promptly and began to circle. They were soon joined by other flying insects that buzzed in direct flights into the glass sides, pinging with graceless little pops and taps before falling and trying once more. The knob jiggled while the lock clicked and the door opened. At first Kenia could not see through the screen for the way it caught the glare of the light. So she stood exposed, conspicuous, hoping the right person had come in answer to her knocking, her body trembling, from anxiety as much as from the violent vibrations of the motorcycle.
A hand popped the hook and eye latch, leaving the hook to dangle. The screen door opened with a long creak, the light reflecting silver off the screen until the door stopped wide enough for the young man she had seen before to step out onto the porch. He was in denim jeans and a T-shirt that hung loosely around his flat stomach but was snug around his chest. His hair was standing up on the side of his head as if he had just woken from where he had fallen asleep on a couch. His eyes were the same blue blazes she remembered. What a sight she must have been to him, bandaged, bruised, bloody, her clothes ripped in places, her hair a mess from her motorcycle helmet.
Her heart was pounding and she was short of breath. She could see Austin, Hailey, Shane, and Stan—all four of them—in his face, as if he were just another sibling and not their uncle. Yet there was an odd presence to him, perhaps it was born out of the surprise of her appearance, or maybe it was the ease and confidence with which he moved within his own space. But it did nothing to overshadow the kindness and compassion in his eyes, for she had no doubt that he saw her. Not as black, not as a woman, but as a person. It was a rare, intangible quality she had encountered but rarely, once in a rabbi, once in a Buddhist monk, and once in a grammar school teacher from Trinidad-Tobago. But she knew it when she saw it.
“Listen, what I’m going to tell you may sound crazy, but you have to believe me.”
“All right. You have my attention, since the last time I saw you, I think you disappeared right in front of my face. Who are you?”
“My name is Keniabarido Dezy. You can call me Kenia.”
“Is this a dream?”
“No. You are Mike Pennel, right?”
“Yes.”
“Your family is in danger and I need your help.”