By Louise MacBeath Barbour
“I dare you!”
Sara barely considered her brother Kelsey’s challenge. “I double dare you!” she shot back.
Their father’s car had just turned out of the driveway onto the paved road.
“This is our chance. Unless you’re scared.”
“Not!” Sara stared down her brother from across the round maple table. But he crossed his eyes, and she broke eye contact, laughing. “Not fair. You always win like that.”
“If you focused you might win. Shall we do this—finally?”
Sara looked out her great-grandmother’s front windows at the pouring rain and dark clouds. The only colorful things visible in the soft light were the antique blue, green, and brown bottles standing on sills below the windows. Outside, wind lashed the trees, and rain drummed on the windows, running down the glass in rivulets.
Their parents and great-grandmother had just left for Halifax and wouldn’t be back until the evening. Now that she was eleven and Kelsey twelve, their parents felt comfortable leaving them alone for the day—with stern warnings to behave, of course. Besides, plenty of relatives lived nearby in the Cove.
“We haven’t anything better to do,” she said.
“Then let’s go!”
He pounded up the steep stairs to the landing and wide hallway. Sara ran up after him before she lost her nerve. Kelsey pushed aside a table and lamp, and they both dragged out a trunk blocking a door.
“Better take that flashlight,” Sara said.
Kelsey grabbed it from beside the lamp and stuck it behind his waistband.
Sara had no idea what to expect behind the forbidden door. If you didn’t know it was there, you might miss it. The door and hinges were painted the same white as the rest of the hallway, the forged-iron handle usually hidden by the trunk.
“I’m glad there’s no lock,” Kelsey said. He pushed the thumb latch down and pulled on the handle. “Dude, this is stuck. It must be warped.”
“I wonder how long it’s been since anyone opened it,” Sara said, watching him tug on the handle.
“A while, I bet. This house is over two hundred years old.” Kelsey braced his foot against the baseboard, gave the handle a yank, and the door flew open. “Boy, is it dark in there!”
“We’re in big trouble if we get caught.”
“No one’s going to catch us. Mom, Dad, and Great-Grammie are gone all day. You’re not chickening out, are you?”
“You’re not exactly rushing in.”
Kelsey pulled out the flashlight, turned it on, and swept its light around the dark space. They spotted a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling just inside the door. He tugged its pull-chain up and down several times.
“No such luck,” he said with disgust. He stepped into the dark room and beckoned for Sara to follow.
They walked around the room examining the walls and floors. Kelsey probed the corners with the light. Dust and dead flies littered the plank floor.
“There’s nothing here,” Kelsey said.
“What about that weird thing around the chimney?”
“I think it’s a smoker closet. Great-Grammie said they used to smoke hams up here when she was little.”
“Let’s check it out.”
They stepped inside the small enclosure, and Kelsey ran the light over the ceiling. “Look at those big hooks. That must be where they hung the hams.”
“There has to be something here. Why else would Great-Grammie forbid everyone from going in this room?” Sara began pounding on the walls.
“What are you doing?”
“Listening for hollow spots. You check the floor.” The two banged and stomped around the smoker closet.
“I think I’ve got something, Sara! There’s a small handle bolted to the floor. See? Close to the wall. I bet it’s a trapdoor.” He got down on his hands and knees and ran his right hand over the floor. “It must have hidden hinges.”
“No way!” Sara said. She knelt beside him in a nook between the chimney and the wall. “Can you open it?”
Kelsey pulled up on the handle, and the trapdoor yielded slightly. “Not another warped door,” he groaned. “Can you get your fingers under the edge?”
Sara squeezed her fingers into the crack and tugged while Kelsey pulled on the handle. Together they forced the trapdoor open. He shone the light down the hole, illuminating a ladder that descended below the stone foundation of the house.
“You’re not going down there,” Sara said.
“Yup. Shine the light for me.”
Kelsey handed the flashlight to Sara and swung his legs into the narrow space. He placed his feet on the second rung of the ladder and braced himself with his arms in the trapdoor opening, slowly putting his weight on the third rung.
“So far, so good,” he said.
Kelsey caught the top rung with one hand and stepped down farther. Then he scrambled down.
“Drop the flashlight and climb down. I’ll light your way.”
Sara followed and landed on a dirt floor. She stood in a pitch-dark space, except for the narrow cone of light emitted by the flashlight.
“Now what?” she said.
“We look. Like you said, there must be something here.’’ He turned around in the empty space.
“It’s about ten foot square,” Kelsey said as he moved the light around.
“Give me the flashlight for once. Just because you’re older doesn’t mean you get to hold it all the time.”
“I let you hold it up there.”
“Give. Me. The. Light!” Sara stepped toward Kelsey and felt something under her right foot. “Give it here. There’s something in the floor.”
Moving her foot, she shone the light on a small disk half-buried in the dirt. She tucked the flashlight under her left arm and squatted. She pried the disk out, spit on it, and rubbed it on her jeans to remove the dirt. Then she held it in the light.
“It looks like an old coin!” she exclaimed. “I think it’s silver. I can make out ‘1600’ and three fleurs-de-lis. This must be an old French coin.”
“1600? That’s way older than this house.”
“I wonder how it got here. Maybe Dad can tell us more about it.” Sara pushed the coin into the front pocket of her jeans and swept the light along the lower walls.
“There!” Kelsey said.
He knelt and inspected a grate across an opening in the wall opposite the ladder while Sara bathed it with light. He yanked the grate out of the way and peered into the opening.
“Give it here,” he said.
Sara grimaced and handed over the flashlight.
He shone the light into the opening. “There’s a tunnel and some light up ahead, maybe forty feet.”
Sara crowded close to look. “It’s like a secret passage.”
“Someone went to a lot of work to brace it with wood.” Kelsey took a deep breath. “There must be an opening where that light is, because the air seems okay. I’m going to see if I can reach it.” He crawled through the hole and into the tunnel.
“If you think I’m going to stay here by myself, you are so wrong.”
“Watch out for creepy-crawlies.”
“Oh, yuck!” She crawled after him toward the faint light. “Where do you think this comes out?”
“Maybe by Uncle Charlie’s workshop.”
They continued on their hands and knees through the narrow passage. Kelsey barged ahead with the light and Sara followed, batting the odd root out of her face.
“Here’s another grate,” he said. “And this one is locked on the inside.”
“Great! I don’t want to back up all the way to the ladder. I just want out of this creepy place!”
“No worries,” Kelsey said. “There’s a key.” He lifted it from a hook screwed into a timber above the grate and turned it in the lock. “And, it works!”
He pushed the grate out and wriggled through the opening.
“Have you got the key?” Sara called after him.
“In my pocket.”
Sara crawled out, replaced the grate, and stood up. She brushed the dirt off her clothes and looked around. A brook gurgled past the small hillside they had emerged from. “Where are we?”
“Nowhere near Uncle Charlie’s workshop,” Kelsey said.
“The rain stopped,” Sara said. “It’s not even wet and look at the trees. They’re really big and really old. There are no trees like these around Great-Grammie’s.”
“Or around Nova Scotia that I know of,” Kelsey added.
“I think I see water beyond the trees over there. Let’s go that way.”
A few minutes later, after pushing through some underbrush toward the glint of water, they walked into a clearing that sloped to the shore a few hundred feet away. A wide basin of water opened up to their right, and a river flowed into the basin on their left. An island stood not far offshore in front of them. The water glittered in the bright sunlight, and green wooded hills lined the blue basin.
“I know it’s not possible,” Sara said in an awed whisper, “but this looks like the Annapolis Basin from the North Mountain side.”
“That’s miles from Great-Grammie’s house. On the opposite side of the basin. Where are the fields and houses? All I see are trees.”
“I swear that’s Goat Island,” Sara said. “So that’s got to be the Annapolis River. Which means Annapolis Royal is that way.” She pointed upriver toward the northeast.
“Let’s walk down to the shore and see if we can get our bearings,” Kelsey suggested.
They crossed the clearing, dodging stumps and deep piles of branches. When they reached the water’s edge, they looked up and down the shoreline.
“See!” Sara said. “I’m right! That’s Bear Island down there.” She pointed southwest down the basin.
“If that’s Bear Island, where are the people?”
Sara scanned the basin and the hills. Unbroken forest covered the land. Nothing was on the water.
“Something is very wrong,” she said, looking at Kelsey as fear unfurled inside her and her hands began to sweat. “There is no sign of people anywhere.”
“No kidding. But it’s getting late in the afternoon, and we need to figure something out quickly.”
“Afternoon? Mom, Dad, and Great-Grammie just left a while ago. In the morning.”
“Look at the sun. It’s not morning anymore.” Kelsey sank down on a large rock like someone had sucker-punched him in the stomach.
“It’s useless to stay here,” Sara said. “Let’s walk toward Annapolis. There must be houses around that point. We can call home from one of them.”
She started walking along the rocky beach toward a bend in the shore where the trees came down to the water. Kelsey caught up with her. The sun beat down on them, and Sara longed for a drink of water.
As they neared the trees, an older girl burst out of the woods running toward them, waving her arms and shouting gibberish. She came to an abrupt stop when she got close, then started backing away from them. Her dark eyes darted between Sara and Kelsey. They stared at her speechless.
Sara recovered first. She took in the girl’s brown skin and flowing dark hair, her loose tunic and long skirt made of soft skins, her moccasins, and the shell necklace around her neck.
“Mi’kmaq?” she asked tentatively.
“E’e,” the girl answered. She was breathing hard from running. “Jacques,” she said more forcefully and pointed to the woods. She gestured for them to follow and ran back into the trees.
They plunged into the forest after her. The sudden gloom after the dazzling sunlight was disorienting, and Sara hoped she wouldn’t trip and go sprawling before her eyes adjusted. The Mi’kmaw girl ran deeper into the woods, angling back in the direction they had come from.
Kelsey passed Sara and gained on the girl. “Keep up,” he yelled. “We can’t lose her.”
“I am,” Sara yelled back, running faster.
Without warning, Kelsey and the girl stopped. Sara almost slammed into her brother.
Directly in front of them was a large black bear, and behind her, two cubs. One of the cubs reared up on its hind legs and looked at them while the other froze on four paws. The mother bear shuffled her feet and moved her great head back and forth. Her black nose at the tip of her brown snout sniffed the air repeatedly.
Kelsey lifted his arms high and wide and stepped forward.
The girl turned toward him and raised her right palm. “Arrêtez!”
“Don’t move,” whispered Sara, her gaze glued on the bear.
The mother bear lunged forward and suddenly stomped, slamming her feet on the ground and blowing air out explosively. Everyone stopped breathing.
The bear drew her upper lip down making her muzzle look longer and laid her ears back. She charged at them blowing loudly. Then she stopped abruptly and clacked her jaws several times before backing off a few steps.
“I think she’s bluffing,” Kelsey said. He stomped the ground, raised his arms, and roared at the bear.
The cubs darted up a nearby tree, and their mother chased after them. She turned at the base of the tree, stood her ground, and clacked her jaws several times again.
“You idiot!” Sara hissed. “Don’t you know a mother bear is dangerous when you threaten her cubs?”
The bear charged and retreated several times. The strange blowing noise she made as she rushed at them grated on Sara’s ears, and the jaw clacking was downright freaky.
The Mi’kmaw girl began speaking firmly to the bear. Never once looking the bear in the eyes, she backed away sideways. The bear remained on the ground by the tree with her cubs and watched them.
Sara mimicked the girl, sidling in the same direction. “Back off, Kelsey,” she said quietly.
The three of them backed away slowly. When they had retreated a ways, the Mi’kmaw girl said, “Jacques,” turned, and started walking in haste. When the bears disappeared behind enough trees, she broke into a run. Kelsey and Sara chased her again.
“There’s a guy lying by a tree,” Kelsey shouted as the Mi’kmaw girl dropped beside a still form.
“He’s unconscious,” he said when he reached them. “Jacques?” he asked the girl.
“E’e.”
“He’s not Mi’kmaq,” Kelsey said. “He’s a little older than the girl.”
“His arm is bleeding,” Sara said as she knelt opposite the girl. “What happened?”
“Il est tombé.” Fighting tears, she pointed up at the tree and let her hand fall to the ground.
Sara looked up. “He fell? Out of the tree?”
The girl reached up, tapped the tree, and dropped her hand again. Then she jumped up and dashed off.
“Oh, great!” said Sara. “She dumped him on us and took off.”
“Forget about her. This guy needs our help.”
“Okay. Um—”
“Is he breathing?” Kelsey asked as he crouched by Sara.
“I’m not sure. See if you can feel his breath.” Sara relaxed a little, remembering what their parents had taught them.
Kelsey placed his cheek close to the lad’s mouth. After several seconds he said, “Yup.”
“Pulse?”
“Yup.”
“Anything broken?”
Looking down and up Jacques’ body, Kelsey said, “I don’t think so.”
“Try shaking him.”
“Hey!” Kelsey gently shook Jacques’ shoulders. “Are you all right?” He smacked Jacques’ cheeks lightly. “Wake up!”
Sara cradled Jacques’ arm and eased his bloody sleeve up to check his wound. Dark red blood welled up along a gaping, jagged gash. “Give me a strip of your T-shirt. Quick!”
As Kelsey slashed around the bottom of his T-shirt with a Swiss knife, the girl returned wringing handfuls of sphagnum moss. She pressed it against the gash. Sara bound his wound with the strip and lifted the bandaged arm above the level of Jacques’ heart.
“Go, Doc!” Kelsey teased, grinning at her.
“Don’t look at me like that!” Sara said to Kelsey. “I read it in a book, okay?”
After an anxious few minutes, Jacques stirred, and Kelsey said, “I think that’s working.” He signaled to the girl to help him prop Jacques against the tree trunk while Sara kept his arm above his heart.
“Aimée?” Jacques gasped. She answered rapidly with words that neither Sara nor Kelsey understood.
“Easy, Dude,” Kelsey said to him. Jacques looked from him to Sara and pushed back against the tree. He spoke to Aimée, gasping for breath between short bursts of words.
“I think I heard ‘Habitation,’ ” Kelsey whispered.
“They must be historical interpreters from Port-Royal, dressed like the era of the Habitation. That explains his woolen breeches, those knit stockings, that baggy shirt.”
“Then why is he lying here in the woods with no help?”
“Are you from the Habitation?” Sara said.
“Anglais? Vous-êtes anglais?” Jacques said.
“Yes. Oui.”
“Vous parlez français?”
Sara shook her head. “Très peu.”
“Je parle…un peu d’anglais. A little English.”
“Is the Habitation far?” Kelsey said. “Can we get you out to a road? Flag down a car?”
“Help me,” Jacques said. “Aidez-moi au bord de la forêt.”
He struggled to rise, and Aimée and Kelsey helped him to his feet.
“Edge of the forest? Dude, we’ll get you to the Habitation.”
“Non! You aren’t from here. They won’t understand.”
He turned to Aimée and spoke a mishmash of words. She nodded and took off running.
“When I tell you to hide: cacher,” Jacques said. “Cachez-vous! Promettez-moi ça!”
“We promise,” Sara said, slipping under his injured arm and supporting his shoulder. “Let’s get him moving, Kelsey.”
The three hobbled along, pausing frequently to let Jacques catch his breath. Woody debris covered the ground. Pits, formed where trees had fallen over exposing their roots, and mounds of decaying trunks blocked their way. But Jacques knew where to go.
Sara watched as the sun descended and worried about the approaching twilight. At last they stumbled onto a path of sorts.
“Let me stop here,” Jacques said. “Aimée…arriver…soon. Avec others.”
They helped him sit on a log that had fallen against a large rock.
“Écoutez attentivement! Listen. Over there.” He pointed to a huge boulder dropped by a melting glacier. “Big rock. Shelter. You hide there. Cachez-vous! Do not let them see you!”
“He’s serious, Kelsey.”
“If no one comes soon, we’re coming back,” Kelsey said to Jacques. “Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
“Oui.” Jacques closed his eyes and leaned against the rock. “Allez.”
They raced for the huge boulder.
“Oh, wow,” Sara said when they scrambled around it. “Someone’s built a lean-to.”
They looked at the heap of spruce boughs draped over a branch supported by two Y-topped stakes. The boughs overlapped the branch onto a ledge in the glacial erratic.
“Don’t get comfortable,” Kelsey said. “We’re going to follow them and figure out what’s going on.”
“Shhh! Someone’s coming.”
They peered into the shadowy distance from around the boulder. Aimée led four men along the faint path to where Jacques rested: two Mi’kmaq men wearing leather breechcloths and leggings and two men dressed like Jacques. They lifted him up by his shoulders and knees and hurried back along the path.
“Come on,” Kelsey said. They followed the group as quickly and as silently as possible.
About twenty minutes later they reached the edge of the forest. The Habitation stood in a clearing studded with stumps. Well-tended vegetable gardens grew between the fort and the shore. The air carried the smell of woodsmoke and roasting meat across the clearing. All at once, they were ravenous.
Sara and Kelsey watched the men carry Jacques around a palisade of tree trunks stuck in the ground. They scurried after them, running low along the bottom of the palisade. Peeking around a corner, they saw the men lugging Jacques through an open gate.
They snuck through the gate and slipped behind several large casks by some stairs leading to an upper level—just in time to see Aimée enter a building of rough-sawn boards across a dirt courtyard. A commotion broke out as the men carried Jacques in.
“We need a better spot to hide,” Kelsey whispered.
“Quick! Up these stairs!”
Sara ran up to the landing, flattened herself against a wall of bark-covered upright logs, and glanced around an open door. She motioned for Kelsey to come and disappeared inside.
Seconds later Kelsey reached her, and they looked around a dim room. Stacks of casks, baskets, and furs stood on the floor, a birchbark canoe rested on a table, and furs and skins hung on the walls.
“Where’s the flashlight?” Sara said.
Kelsey patted himself down. “I must have dropped it.”
“Oh, great!” Sara hissed.
“This looks like a storeroom.”
“No one’s here. If we’re careful, we might be able to see what’s happening.”
Sara tiptoed to one side of the door and Kelsey to the other. They ventured a peek outside. The building Aimée and the others had entered sat adjacent to the storeroom building.
Kelsey belly-crawled to the rails of the landing and looked toward the lamplit room Jacques was in.
“I can’t see anything but legs of people and legs of furniture,” he whispered. “I’m hearing French and possibly Mi’kmaq.”
Sara slid beside him, surveying the courtyard and the other buildings. Lower and smaller than the building next to them, their walls were constructed with upright tree trunks. Bark and some roughly-hewn planks formed the roofs.
They backed up into the storeroom and leaned against the upright logs of the wall. Kelsey closed his eyes briefly, rubbed his face, and looked at Sara.
“We’re so screwed,” he said.
“This is no reconstruction, and those people aren’t interpreters imitating Habitation life for tourists,” Sara replied.
“No, they aren’t. This is like 1605 or 1606.”
“Now what?”
“Let’s get away from this door. Hide better. Think.” He pointed to furs piled behind the casks and baskets. “Over there.”
Just as they were about to flop onto the soft furs, someone grabbed them around their necks and clamped hefty hands over their mouths. As they flailed and kicked, they were forced to the floor. The calloused hands and strong arms pinned their heads to the thick planks.
Sara looked sideways at Kelsey, at his wild eyes. She thrashed harder, but the relentless arm and hand held her down.
Kelsey stopped moving, stared at Sara, and widened his eyes. She ceased struggling. After several moments their assailant removed his hands, and they sat up and faced the man squatting on the floor.
Like the other Mi’kmaq, he wore a breechcloth, leggings, and moccasins. A few feathers adorned his headband. But that’s as far as the similarity went. He was a big, strong man with long arms and legs; and unlike the Mi’kmaq men, he sported a dark beard like the Frenchmen. His piercing eyes gazed at them from a stern, grave face.
“Shhh!” he said, laying an index finger against his lips.
“Membertou,” Kelsey gasped.
“Membertou? The Mi’kmaw chief who befriended the French at the Habitation?” Sara said.
“Silence!” Membertou ordered.
He jumped up and hauled Kelsey to his feet. Pinning him with one arm, he searched Kelsey’s pockets with his opposite hand and found the heavy brass key.
Sara lunged at Membertou and caught his free arm. She gripped an end of the key with one hand and tried to jerk it out of Membertou’s fist.
“You and your darn dare,” she yelled at Kelsey. “I should never have listened to you. I wish I were back in Great-Grammie’s front room right now. I—”
Sara’s stomach lurched, and nausea washed over her. Dizzy and disoriented, she hung on to Membertou’s arm and the key. She watched in shock as something fell in slow motion and shattered on a floor. Her great-grandmother rose from the table by her windows lined with the familiar bottles. Membertou still grasped Kelsey to his side, and Sara still clutched his other arm and the key in his fist. They abruptly let go of one another, and the key fell to the floor.
Moving faster than Sara thought possible, their great-grandmother rushed into her bedroom off the front room and returned holding an old Mi’kmaw pipe. She approached Membertou, pressed the pipe into his hands, and wrapped his fingers around its stone bowl and long wooden stem.
Then she stepped back and commanded in clear, deliberate French, “Pensez à l'habitation!” She tapped her forehead and repeated, “Pensez!”
Membertou nodded, smiled slightly, and vanished.
Astounded, Sara gaped at the spot where the chief had stood. Only the key and the shattered teacup remained. She looked around at her great-grandmother’s front room. They were home.
Their great-grandmother pointed at the table and said, “Sit. We need to talk.”
“Where are Mom and Dad?” Sara asked, hesitating.
“Home. They were dead tired after driving up to Halifax in bad weather and chauffeuring me around to appointments. They left a little while ago, figuring you must have gone home to raid the refrigerator.”
“We should—”
“Don’t interrupt me, Sara.” She pointed to a chair, and this time Sara sat down. “I’ve only had time to go up and see if the window screens were closed to keep the mosquitoes out. As soon as I saw the trunk, I realized what might have happened and came back down. Why couldn’t you obey me and not go into that room?”
The phone rang shrilly, and their great-grandmother picked up the receiver. She listened briefly and said, “Don’t worry. They’re here. They had quite a day.” Great-Grammie glared at Sara and Kelsey. She listened to the voice at the other end and added, “Let them spend the night, Maggie. They’re really tired.” She paused a moment, then continued, “I’ll heat up some leftover beans for supper. It’s no problem, dear.”
Kelsey laid his head on his arms at the table and closed his eyes.
Sara rested her chin in her hands and her elbows on the table. “Beans sound so good,” she said.
Their great-grandmother hung up the phone, swept up the teacup, and sopped up the tea. She retrieved the key and hung it on a hook in the kitchen. Then she rummaged in the fridge for supper fixings and put the beans on the stove to heat. She filled the kettle and plugged it in. Fetching three teacups and a tea cozy, she placed them on a tray with milk, ground ginger, and a teapot.
Sara listened to the soothing sounds of her great-grandmother in the kitchen. When she placed the tray on the table, Sara said, “May I help, Grammie?”
“Be a good girl and get some silverware and glasses of water.”
Sara set the table, kicking Kelsey’s foot when she plunked his silverware on a placemat in front of him. “You could help, you know. Just because Great-Grammie treats boys like princes and girls like servants doesn’t mean—”
“She thinks boys are extra special,” Kelsey said, kicking her back.
“She thinks you’re stupid,” Sara jeered into his upturned ear. “She thinks boys and men should be catered to. Then she runs her household and them.”
“You’re just jealous. I get leftover pie. You get leftover bread.” He sat up, folded his arms against his chest, and grinned.
“Are you two at it again?” their great-grandmother asked as she put down two bowls of beans. The delicious smell of molasses and bacon rose with the steam.
“No,” they said.
“I hope not.” She lifted the teapot, snug in its tea cozy, and poured two cups of tea. She stirred in some ginger and a generous amount of milk and handed them the teacups.
“Not ginger tea,” Kelsey groaned.
“Drink it. It’s good for what ails you.”
“Nothing ails me!”
“You and your sister have just traveled four hundred years back and forth in time. That would unsettle anyone. Drink, eat, and then we’ll talk.”
“How—”
“Eat.”
They devoured their food, helping themselves to extra beans and homemade bread. Three big slices of raspberry pie also disappeared and more of the dreaded ginger tea.
“Now, tell me what happened. Don’t skip anything.”
When Sara described finding the old coin, her great-grandmother interrupted, “Do you still have it?”
Sara took it out of her pocket and placed it on the glossy tabletop in front of her great-grandmother.
Night had fallen and their great grandmother switched on the lamp centered on the table in front of the windows. She picked up the coin and turned it over in her fingers. Her blue eyes sparkled in the lamplight, and for a moment, Sara could see the young woman she had once been.
“This is what took you back there,” she said. “In the right hands, an object like this can be a powerful talisman.”
“What do you mean?” Kelsey said.
“Show me your foot.”
Kelsey balked. Then he shrugged and removed his sneaker and sock, setting his bare foot on the floor in front of her.
“You see your two toes on the outside of your foot? How they curve inward against your other toes instead of being straight?”
“So? Sara has the same toes.”
“So?” his great-grandmother snapped. “Listen, young man. Having toes like that is a trait that passes from generation to generation in our family. Sometimes it skips one. Sometimes it doesn’t. You’re the only ones in your generation who have curved outer toes.”
“Mom has them,” Sara said.
“Yes, she does. She’s the only other one of my descendants who has this trait.”
“Why is that important?” Kelsey asked, more politely this time.
“Those of us who have this trait also have the ability to move through time—”
“That’s crazy!” Kelsey interrupted.
“Were you not just here with Membertou? At the real Habitation?”
“How could you know that?”
“Because I have the same toes, and I’ve been there too.”
Kelsey sank back in his chair.
Sara stared at her great-grandmother, that proper fire-and-brimstone Baptist lady who never missed a sermon on Sunday morning, calmly discussing time travel.
“My husband, Kelsey, your great-grandfather, was the real traveler in the family. He could travel at will. The few times I went back, I had to concentrate on an object like this coin. Or,” she added, “I could hold on tight to Kelsey and travel with him.”
“You could travel in time, and you only went back a few times?” Sara said.
“It’s dangerous. You never know what you’ll step into. I quite like my own place and time. It’s where I belong. But Kelsey,” she paused as tears flooded her eyes, “Kelsey was a traveler. I think you two are also. You managed to go and return without knowing what you were doing.”
“Oh no,” Sara said, jumping up and running into the parlor. She knelt by a black fur rug that had lain on the floor forever. She picked up its large head with a brown snout and glass eyes.
“It was you in the woods. With your cubs.” She forced back tears and returned to the front room. “This is a dream. I’m dreaming I saw that bear in the woods.”
“Your great-grandfather returned with that bearskin one time. He would never tell me how he came to have it.”
“Do you think we can go back?” Sara asked her great-grandmother.
She nodded.
“Can we find out what happened to Jacques and Aimée?” Kelsey butted in.
“You don’t have to go back in time to find that out. They’re your many times great-grandparents.”
“And the tunnel under the house that comes out on North Mountain?” Sara said, remembering the eerie passage.
“It doesn’t always come out there, and once you get better at moving in time, you won’t need it.”
Kelsey looked at the old French coin with an expression of awe and respect on his face. Then he met Sara’s eyes and said, “I think we have some interesting times ahead of us.”
The End
Born in Nova Scotia and raised throughout eastern Canada, Louise is a writer and blogger who lives with her supportive husband in Colorado. She writes fiction and nonfiction. Her love of reading, photography, geology, and travel rounds out her enthusiastic embrace of life."
https://selkiegrey4.blogspot.com
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