One thing at a time. Fix the time warp first.
Eric rubbed the back of his neck, his other hand absentmindedly rubbing Storey’s back as he thought about what the stylus had written. Like it made something so hard to even contemplate – easy.
“I’m so tired. Do we rest first?” She stared at his face, so close to hers, for answers.
“Or do we do this next jump so that you are at least back in the house that you actually live in – at the right time.”
She rolled her eyes. Oh right. “Yes, that makes sense. It would be wonderful if walking through that portal takes us right back into this room. Then we could sleep for a few hours.”
On cue, they both looked over at the sleeping Tammy.
Storey frowned. “I hate to disturb her.”
“If we’re just going to end up back in this room, then I can pick her up, walk through and lay her back down again.
“Why is it I don’t think it’s going to be that simple?”
He grinned. “Because it never has been?” he suggested, straightening. He glanced around the room at the food still lying out in disarray. “I guess we should tidy this mess first.”
“Definitely. It would be better to not leave any sign that we’ve been here.”
“And I’m getting hungry again.”
Storey groaned. “You’re as bad as she is.” She hopped to her feet and began cleaning up the food, absentmindedly making him another sandwich while she was at it. Bagging their food and garbage, she added the computer paper to their collection and put on her jacket. Finally, she laid the portal drawing on the floor. Glancing over at him, she watched as he carefully bent over Tammy and her pet, scooped them up like they hardly weighed anything. The skorl glared at him for disturbing his sleep but never cried out or tried to run off.
Straightening, Eric walked to where she stood. “Ready?”
Taking a deep breath, she said, “Yes.” She stepped back as he hopped through, Tammy still asleep in his arms. He disappeared from sight.
“Please let this work.”
She grabbed the corner and fell once more into the portal, taking the paper with her.
*
Eric opened his eyes and studied his new location. It wasn’t Storey’s bedroom. Unfortunately. Tammy still slept in his arms and he’d have loved to have been able to lay her right back down. He waited for Storey to show up. And waited.
“Anytime Storey. I don’t want to be lost in time without you and your portals, thank you very much.”
The words had barely left his mouth when she arrived behind him.
She flopped back onto the pathway. In a hoarse whisper, she said, “I’d really like to be in bed right now.”
“So would I.” He waited a beat. “Any idea where we are?”
She groaned but staggered to her feet. “Not a clue.” She brushed her pants off and straightened to look around her. “In theory, we should be closer to the house than last time.”
“And we need to be because I won’t be able to carry Tammy very far.”
He shifted the load in his arms impatiently.
Determinedly, she spun around as if trying to orient herself. “Right then.”
Eric watched the emotions flash across her face. Her face showed everything. She was so honest in her expression. There was no deceit. No subterfuge. You saw exactly what she was thinking. It also meant she couldn’t lie to him.
A refreshing change. He didn’t know many eligible women in his world and as a ranger, and worse, as the Councilman’s son, he wasn’t treated the same as the other guys. The women were more formal with him; more on the lookout for a long-term relationship instead of just a fun evening. In his world, he was considered a catch. He suspected Storey would laugh at that.
“Well,” he prompted, hating to show he was tiring, but Tammy was a heavyweight. “I need to put Tammy down soon.”
Storey spun around, a huge smile on her face. “I think I have it. Let’s go.” She took off ahead of him. He followed at a much slower pace. So much for believing he could do anything. The longer he carried Tammy, the more he realized he was going to need to bulk up his muscles if trips like this were to continue. As much as he hated the thought of not being invincible…
Then he saw it.
“Is that your house?” He looked around. “We came in from the other side.” He brightened. “That’s the path to the school where we first met, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.” She almost raced to the house, a lively bounce to her step.
“Storey, wait.” He hated to blow her joy but someone needed to be the voice of reason here.
She spun around. “I’m sorry, what? I’m just so hoping this is it. That I’m home.”
“I know that. But did you ever wonder if there might be another Storey in this house? In this dimension or this time?”
The smile fell off her face. Horror filled her gaze. “There couldn’t be, could there?”
“I have no idea. It’s just we’re back at the same house, your house, supposedly in the time frame that you were living here back then…so where are you?”
She tilted her head back to stare up at the sky. “I’m getting a headache.”
“And what’s the chance the house is empty? Do we even know what day it is anymore? Are you in school today? Does your mother work? Did you consider any of that?”
“Of course, I didn’t,” she snapped. “I can’t think straight anymore. But inside is a bed, my bed, where you can lay her down.”
He considered that – for a heartbeat. “Right. Lead the way.”
Again, she walked to the back kitchen door. He wondered why she never used the front door.
At the back, she found the kitchen door unlocked. “That’s more like it.”
“You aren’t worried about intruders here?”
“No. Small town and all that.” She pushed it open wide enough for him and Tammy to enter.
“Small town, two women who live a distance away from any neighbors?”
“Let’s just say that up to now, it hasn’t been much of an issue.”
He nodded, but doubted it would stay that way after life returned to normal. She’d changed. Become more self-confident. More secure. But with the confidence came more awareness of all the things that could go wrong. A loss of innocence, in a way.
It was both good and bad, and it was a sign of maturity.
Inside the kitchen, he stopped and watched her assess her surroundings. Her gaze narrowed on the calendar on the wall. It said May, a relief. From where he stood he couldn’t see the year. He could only hope they’d arrived on time. “Storey.”
When she didn’t respond, he repeated it, “Storey.”
“What?” She spun around when he didn’t answer right away.
“I need to put her down.”
Her gaze widened. “Oh geez. I’m so sorry. Come on, let’s go up.”
By now he knew the way, but suspected she wanted to see what her room looked like this time. He didn’t care. His muscles were screaming and fatigue had taken over. He needed rest, too. At this rate, Tammy would wake and they wouldn’t be able to sleep themselves because they’d need to look after her. His back was killing him, but there was no way he’d let Storey know. He was a ranger. They had an image to uphold. So how come there’d been no mention of rescuing damsels and children in distress anywhere in their manual?
Oh wait, what manual?
Storey opened the door and stepped inside. And stopped.
He groaned silently. Now what?
*
“So?” Eric’s stressed voice prodded her forward.
“It looks the same.” Thank God. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see that.”
“But?”
She turned back toward him, confused. “But what?”
“You haven’t entered fully,” he snapped. “If everything is all right, let me in.”
Finally, the impatience, fatigue and frustration in his voice hit her. She stepped aside quickly. He had to be exhausted. “Sorry, I’m tired too.”
“And that’s going to have to be something we address immediately.” At the bed he leaned over to lay Tammy down. Storey rushed over. “Hang on.” She pulled the covers back. “Now, lay her down. Maybe we’ll be lucky and she’ll sleep long enough for us to rest as well.”
“I doubt it, but I need to crash regardless. I think the time travel stuff finished my system.” Straightening, his gaze fell to the open floor. “I’m going to lie on the floor with that blanket if you don’t mind?” He pointed at the one half falling off the end of her bed. Storey snatched it up and held it out to him.
“I’m thinking to lie down beside Tammy, actually.”
Eric didn’t even look at where she pointed. He’d stretched out on the floor, pulling her blanket over him. “Go ahead. I won’t sleep long. A couple of hours should recharge me.”
“Good for you. I doubt that little bit will do me,” she muttered. Storey locked her bedroom door, turned out the light and curled up behind Tammy. The rodent opened his eyes, glared at her, realized she wasn’t moving and returned to his spot in the crook of Tammy’s arms.
She was so tired. Yet the thought of another Storey walking in on them was enough to keep her mind buzzing. She needed rest. She needed solutions. She’d needed this to all go back to normal.
Somehow.
While her mind pondered and fussed, Eric slept deeply on the floor beside her. His snores wafted gently through the room, making her smile. Then she was jealous. He could rest so easily. As if there weren’t a million problems pressing in on them. She desperately needed rest, too. And a shower and a change of clothes and…she fell asleep.
*
“Storey.” Her shoulder was jostled. She frowned and tried to burrow deeper into her pillow.
The insistent voice wouldn’t let up. “Storey, wake up.”
She grumbled, “Too tired.”
“I know you’re tired, but there’s a problem.”
Storey’s eyes slowly opened as that information filtered in. They were safe. They were home. So what was the big deal? Her mind flooded with memories. She sat up slowly, hating the screaming going on in her head, and felt tempted to ignore everything and go back to sleep. Her brain screamed for more sleep. “Eric? How long did we sleep?”
“I don’t know. A couple of hours, maybe.”
A dull daylight shone through the window. She stared out the window. The sky had turned black and clouds had gathered. “I think time travel must be harder on us than normal portal travel. I still feel like I have lead inside my bones.” She yawned. “I just hope we’re in the right time frame.”
“Yes.” His voice was grim. “But we have a bigger problem.”
“What’s the matter?” She studied his face.
“Tammy’s missing.”
She blinked. Once. Twice. Then panic hit. “Oh my God. Are you serious? I locked the door. I know I did.”
“And she unlocked it.”
Storey made it to her feet, swaying only slightly. She looked around and pointed out signs of Tammy’s activities. A block of cheese sat on the desk, a large chunk ripped off, and an open package of pepperoni was almost gone. “She’s found food at least.”
Eric stared hungrily at the items. Storey rolled her eyes. “Grab it then. I’m going to go outside and see if she’s there.”
She stood up, searching for Tammy. “How long has she been gone?”
“I only woke up a few minutes ago. So I can’t say.”
“We have to find her,” she said urgently. She stumbled to the door.
“I know.” He said, explaining patiently. “That’s why I came and woke you.”
She checked her mother’s bedroom. Empty. Downstairs, she checked out the various rooms and couldn’t see any sign of Tammy. Out on the front deck, she searched the front of the house. Thankfully it appeared her parents hadn’t returned. At least there were no vehicles at home.
At the outside chairs she found a stub of pepperoni. “At least we know she came this way.”
Eric walked up behind her. “Great. So where’d she go from here?”
“I wish I knew how long she’d been gone. That would give me an idea of how far she could have traveled.” Storey glanced out into the dark cloudy skies and ran her fingers through her hair. “I feel like I haven’t slept in days.”
“We haven’t really. Portal travel, stress and even panic as we run for our lives, none of that is exactly easy on us, you know.”
“I hear you.” And she really didn’t want to hear the details right now. Hadn’t he mentioned brain damage in an earlier conversation? Nasty. She so didn’t want to go there right now. She turned back to the real issue. “I really wish Tammy hadn’t gone missing. I so don’t need this.”
“Actually…I’m not sure she has.” He placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her gently. “Is that her? It looks almost like she’s swinging on something like a suspended tire?”
Sure enough Tammy sat facing the other way on an old tire swing at the back of the neighbor’s property. “Well thank heavens for that. One thing solved. Let’s bring her back.”
She started walking forward, Eric at her side, a chunk of cheese in one of his hands and a stick of pepperoni in the other. “You really love protein, don’t you?”
“Protein?” He looked at the food in his hands.
“Meat. You could have grabbed an apple you know. Round out your food choices a little.”
He grinned taking a big bite of cheese. “I’m good.”
Males. She called out, “Tammy?”
Tammy spun around, saw them and a big grin lit her face. She opened her mouth and for the first time, a normal, or almost normal sounding voice came out. “Toey.”
Storey grinned. “Almost. It’s Storey with an Ssss sound.”
Tammy tried again, her round face wrinkling with concentration. “Storrey.”
“Close enough.” Storey held out her hand. “Come on kiddo, back to the house.”
Tammy hopped off, whistled sharply – at least her lips pursed the right motion, but it sounded more like air rushed out instead. But didn’t the dratted rodent come running. He looked livelier too. He was dragging his leash behind. Tammy bent and grabbed the leash in one hand and her pet in the other.
The rest had done them all good. Storey had to admit she’d prefer to rest here for a day or two. Just sleep, shower, eat and repeat.
“I’m going to turn on the computer and check the dates.”
“Will that tell you for sure?”
She frowned. “I can check the news and see what’s happening. Computers are very exact nowadays.”
“Hmmm.”
“What are you thinking?” she asked curiously.
He glanced her and then away quickly. “I’m wondering about going back into time before the Louers crossed to their new dimension and make sure she’s there for that crossing.”
Storey’s steps slowed as she considered the idea. “What would happen if we did something like that? Would we be messing with their future?”
“With Tammy’s future maybe, in that she wouldn’t remember any of this as it wouldn’t have happened yet – in theory at least. If we returned in time to a point before Skorky ran away…and somehow stopped her from leaving the group…then she wouldn’t have been there for you to find when you did.”
“And I would have woken up still with my stylus and backpack and made a quick exit home. None of these last days would have happened.” Her voice rose in excitement.
“In theory.”
“And…would we remember it all? Or would we just not have those memories because we wouldn’t have had these days?”
Eric shook his head. “I have no idea.”
“It’s a scary thought. It might be the best way to deal with Tammy’s situation but is that the way to deal with anything else?”
“I don’t think we can use it for much else though, at least not without messing with a lot of stuff.”
It was her turn to say “Hmmm, I suppose.” But her mind wouldn’t let go of the concept. If it would return her world to normal that would be huge. But how could she do that without messing up the Louers’ dimension?
Back at the house, Storey took everyone back to her room and turned on her laptop. It sat under a pile of clothes. She’d forgotten about it in their last few crazy trips. Once up, with Eric and Tammy crowding around, both of them eating apples this time, Storey checked the date. May 17th. Close enough. Checking out the news, as far as she could see, they were back where they belonged.
“Thank heavens for that,” she murmured, relief slipping off her shoulders.
He wrapped one arm around her shoulder and squeezed. She smiled. Behind her, a telephone rang. She turned, a frown forming. Should she answer it or not?
“Aren’t you going to answer it?” He dropped his arm and took a step back.
“It won’t be for me. I have a cell phone.”
But her feet walked in that direction. Slowly, she picked it up. “Hello.”
“Storey? Where the hell have you been?”
Storey didn’t recognize the irate voice. “Who is this?”
“Your father, of course. Who do you think?” Sarcasm dripped through the phone line. “Where have you been?”
“Um, doing homework?” she wrinkled her face at Eric, whispering the identity of the caller. He frowned at her.
She shrugged and spoke into the phone. “When are you coming home?”
“I’ll be there in three hours, maybe four. I want you there when I get back, do you hear me? You mother and I have been worried sick. There’s been a mess of weird storms going on, communications have been down all over the place. I know our phone hasn’t been working but that’s no reason for making us worry.”
Storey didn’t know what to say. Thankfully she didn’t appear to need to say anything as his irate voice rolled right over her. “Stay home. We’ll get there as soon as we’re done working. I’m going to phone your mother right now and let her know you’re okay.”
Storey made what she thought might have been the appropriate response as he hung up a few seconds later. She shook her head. “What the heck. He said they’ve been having weird storms, communications down? That’s not because of us, is it?”
Eric waved as if to brush off the idea, then paused, his hand in the air. His face twisted with concentration. “I’d have said no, until I remembered the time travel.” He stood with his hands on his hips contemplating the flooring. “With that, it is very possible. Think about it. We can’t just move through time-space without a reaction of some kind. Energy has to shift and change, atmospheres have to adapt, the time–space continuum has an order and we’ve disturbed it.” He shrugged as if expecting her to understand all that he’d spouted off. “Weather anomalies could easily be experienced with those changes.”
She winced. “Great. So we’re screwing with the weather patterns, too. Is nothing going our way?” she muttered the last bit under her breath, but Eric still heard her.
“We’re doing fine. We’re back to the time period we belong in, now the stylus can help us to get Tammy home.”
She brightened. “Let’s ask. My parents are going to be home in three hours, four maximum. Possibly earlier. We need to be gone, and hopefully back again before they get home.”
Eric motioned toward the bedroom where Tammy stood in the doorway a worried look on her face. Storey rushed forward, a reassuring smile on her face. “It’s okay honey. Everything is fine.” At least her tone of voice had to help even if Tammy didn’t understand the words.
Coming up behind both of them, Eric ushered them into the bedroom, closing and locking the door behind them. “Let’s get this done.”
Storey pulled out her largest sketchbook from the closet. Seeing an older backpack stuffed in the back, she grabbed it too. Then she sat cross-legged with her stylus. “Stylus, we need to get Tammy back to her family. Not just any Louers but to her mother and father. How do we do that?”
The stylus jerked in her hand, Storey slapped the tip on the paper. She read the answer out to Eric. “Going back in time is dangerous. Going to her family in their new dimension right now is also dangerous.”
Eric shook his head. “Staying here isn’t an option. Tammy needs her family and because of you, she trusts us to take her home.”
“Which option do you want to choose?” She studied Eric’s face looking for an answer.
“Which is the least dangerous?” Eric countered.
Going to her family now. You won’t have to factor in all the dimension shifts from a time change.
“Fine. Let’s do that then. Give us the coordinates for her people, preferably her parents, so that we can land, give her to them, and get out again. This time in and out. No landing us in weird spots or other time frames. Clean and simple.”
Storey took note of the determination in his jaw as he spoke. She wished it could be so easy.
The humming filled the air, this time louder, more intense as if the stylus was trying to actually transport them there himself. Storey looked over at Eric, one eyebrow raised. He shrugged. They both waited.
Tammy sidled closer, slipping her hand into Storey’s hand. The two girls leaned against each other as they waited. She figured the stylus had to be communicating with the other styluses. Or it was recharging. Shrugging it off, she concentrated on the problems at hand. Time was running out.
“We’ll need to change clothes,” she said abruptly.
“Why? I haven’t.”
“You can’t,” she said wryly. “There aren’t any other clothes here that will fit you.”
An odd light flashed in his eyes and it matched the grin flashing across his face. Standing, he pulled a flat object out of a weird side pocket just below his knee of his ranger pants. “I forgot. They missed this when they emptied my pockets. Not that they’d have known its value anyway.” At her frown, he laughed. “Exactly. You have no idea what this is, do you?”
She studied it for a moment. As it was too small to be anything but a plastic business card or credit card, she couldn’t see any other purpose to it. Especially being as thin as it was. “Nope.”
With a huge grin, he said, “Watch, you’re gonna love this.” He pulled a clip off the outside of his pants pocket. It was the size of a small cell phone. She’d thought it had been a decoration. Typical. He connected the clip to his small envelope looking thing, then tapped the small flat surface several times. Musical notes sounded, almost in a melody she recognized. Even Tammy came rushing over at the tune.
Then Eric held the small package slightly away from his body. The package, apparently unlocked by the music, swelled and reshaped into a large rectangle as if folded under pressure. By the time it stopped moving, the package was now several feet long and a good foot wide.
The process had taken less than a minute.
Her astonishment made him laugh. “If you tell me that there is a full change of clothes in there, I’m so going to get me one of those.”
Eric laughed as he opened the package to pull out pants, a shirt and what looked like socks. “I’ve got several spares on me all the time.”
She gasped. “And you didn’t offer me the same thing?”
He said apologetically, “I never considered it. I wondered why you were putting all that stuff into your bag. But it’s your dimension, your house, your system. I’ve been trying to learn how you do things here.”
“I did that because I didn’t have another choice,” she snapped, exasperated. She stopped, a cool idea coming into her mind. “Does that only work with material?”
He frowned, not understanding.
“Could you do that to my sketchbooks, papers, food, anything?
“Everyone in my dimension carries things this way. And yes, we could carry blankets, clothing, sketchbooks. I don’t know about food as I’ve never tried.”
Storey bent and upended her bag of collected goodies. The mess rolled everywhere. “Go for it.”
Eric gave her a shuttered look but bent obediently and separated the items into perishable and nonperishable. The nonperishable items he converted to a small bagful almost immediately. Once he had things sorted, he took the same cell phone thingy, clipped it to a corner of the bag, tapped several different spots, producing a different musical tune and the magic happened in reverse. While Storey watched in amazement, a long brown film stretched over the end of the stack and within seconds it had compressed and shrunken to a small envelope size.
Eric stood and held it out to her.
She studied it, turning it over and over, all the while shaking her head. “Wow. I don’t know how much you can put into a package like this but my world needs this technology.”
“It’s tied to our codex technology. This way people can carry what they need to travel.”
“Right.” Her frown deepened. “So we can’t have it. How can I open it without that little musical thingy? What’s it called anyway?” She couldn’t believe how fascinating and practical this system was. She so wanted one of those tools.
“It’s a codin.” He laughed lightly. “We all have them. Several in some cases.”
“Is there a way to open it if we get separated?”
His grin flashed again. “I suspect the stylus would be able to open it for you if I’m not around.”
“Except I need the sketchbook in here to communicate,” she said in exasperation.
“Not quite. You seem to do fine even without paper. I wonder if there’s a way for you to become telepathic with it?”
“Yes. I just don’t know how yet.” Unfortunately. “Can you do another of those little packages up? To hold spares of everything and another for food?”
Eric pulled another clip from his knee pocket and attached it to his codin.
Boy did she want to have that technology for herself. “Do you know how much easier it would be to travel if I could do that with all my stuff?”
“It has limits, but for the most part, it’s a wonderful convenience.”
She snorted. “Ya think? What’s the limit for this type of thing?”
Eric assessed the food stacked in front of him. “I’ve only used it for packing clothing and personal items.” He grinned sheepishly. “That spare has been in these pants for awhile now. We could have done this so much earlier, but honestly, your system worked so well, I never considered looking for an alternative.”
What could she say to that? Nothing. With time marching against them, she quickly drew a portal to Paxton’s lab while Eric packed clothing and food in separate parcels in case they were separated or captured again. In the packets Storey included two portals that they could use. The one they’d use to bring them home and the one to Paxton’s lab.
Now, prepared with these, Storey had to admit the concept of going back with Tammy wasn’t so daunting.
The deck was stacked in her favor for once.