The clouds had lifted and a large moon hung low in the sky, lighting up the town almost as if it were daylight. Elizabeth had no difficulty finding her way back to the main street and along it, to the graveyard trail. She met no one. Barkerville slept, silent and lonely under the full moon. She talked to herself as she walked. “He did seem a bit stronger. He’ll be all right, he will! He’ll be fine by next Sunday and we’ll meet in the graveyard, somehow, and everything will be the way it should be.”
Still talking reassuringly to herself, she finished the steep climb and entered the cemetery.
Elizabeth had never been here at night before, and, although she thought she had lost all fear of the place, it made her nervous tonight. The bright moon lit up the snow and the tombstones cast strange, deep shadows. The chickadees had long since gone to sleep, and the silence was total. She shivered, and made her way quickly to the spot where the ring would pull her back to her own time. The sooner she got out of here, away from the ancient shadows and the silence, and back to her own time, the happier she would be. Even if it did mean facing an angry and upset mother. She turned the ring.
“Bess!” The voice spoke from behind her, and she jumped, as frightened as she’d been the first time Steve had spoken to her. “Bess! I’ve been waiting for you.” The Judge stood behind the grave.
“Oh, Judge!” Elizabeth ran to him and he put his arms around her. “Oh, Judge, he’s so sick . . ..” Then she began to cry, letting out all the tears and the tension that had been building up in her over the long night.
“Easy, Bess, easy.” The Judge held her firmly, letting her cry against his shoulder. “I know it’s been hard on you. I knew that something must have happened to your Steve or you wouldn’t have been gone so long. Take it easy and tell me about it.”
She raised her tear streaked face. “Judge? You sound as if you do believe me, about the time change and Steve?”
“I’ve been waiting for you right here, Bess, for three hours. One minute I saw nothing, and the next minute you stood in front of me. An experience like that tends to make a believer out of one. I know that you were somewhere where I couldn’t see you. And now you have come back, and we must go and face your mother.”
“Is she . . . ?” began Elizabeth.
“Very much so,” answered the Judge. “When you didn’t come to the restaurant for dinner she phoned Janice’s house and found out you weren’t there. We all knew where you had gone.”
“I had to go, Judge. He was sick, and then when he didn’t come to the graveyard I knew he was worse. I tried to take him some medicine, but–”
“Yes, I know. I found your mother’s prescription bottle on the trail, Bess. The others went into Barkerville to look for you, after we checked the highway from Wells. I knew you would return to the graveyard if you could, and I came here to wait.”
“The others? What others?”
“Your mother is here, looking for you, and so is Mr. MacDonald and two men who are staying at the hotel. It’s after three, Bess. You’ve been missing for over twelve hours! Everyone has been worried. We were afraid that you had fallen while you were skiing and were lying alone in the snow, hurt and unable to move. People die from exposure after only a few hours in this temperature, you know.”
Suddenly, Elizabeth noticed the cold. She could feel the tears on her cheeks beginning to freeze, and was conscious that her toes and fingers were cold.
“Come, Bess. I have a thermos of coffee in the car. Let’s get down to the parking lot so I can tell the others that you’re safe. Then we can call off the search.”
The Judge picked up Elizabeth’s skis and they started down the trail. As they walked, she told him everything: of how she had lied to her mother, her worries about Steve, her journey through 1870 Barkerville, and sitting ghost-like by Steve’s bed, waiting and hoping. The Judge laughed when she said that she had seen the real Judge Begbie and that the two of them really did look alike.
“Why, then, I’m flattered. I’ve always thought that the real Judge Begbie was a striking figure of a man.”
In the parking lot, the Judge started the car, handed Elizabeth a thermos of coffee, and began to honk the horn. Three long blasts followed by silence, then three long blasts again. “That’s the signal if you’re found and you’re well,” he said. “Sound carries a long way in this cold air, and the others will be coming out of Barkerville any time now.”
Soon Elizabeth could hear voices and recognized the loudest and angriest among them as her mother’s. “Margaret Elizabeth Connell! Where have you been?”
Elizabeth took a deep breath and shivered. Her mother sounded furious. It’s a good thing I’m too old to he spanked, she thought. Or am II Maybe a good, honest spanking would be better than what is going to happen to me now.