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STREAMS OF light glittered into the workshop windows through the surrounding trees before Edgar felt satisfied with the thoroughness of his experiments. He refused to answer any of my questions with anything other than yawns and promises that he would explain everything tomorrow. Exhausted from the impromptu all-nighter, I eventually had to admit that Edgar was right. I slept through most of the day.
After waking up I wandered outside where I found Edgar in the garden tending to reddish-purple celery stalks.
“What’s the verdict?” I asked.
“Someone certainly tampered with my invention,” replied Edgar. His thinning white hair stood on end. “After many attempts, I was able to contact the acquaintance of mine who I’d hoped dabbled in similar work.”
I nodded. That sounded encouraging. “Did your friend know anything that could help us?”
“We had some discussion and compared notes. She—Enta’s her name—built her set of glasses much later than I did and added the communication feature as an afterthought. I learned a great deal from her. For instance, the communication feature seems to work by one particular method requiring that the communicants wear compatible lenses.”
I blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Person A must know who he or she wants to contact much like when time traveling to a specific person. Person B, the object of Person A’s contact, must be wearing the glasses at the same time.”
“Okay, I think I understand. Valcas tried to contact me when I was wearing the glasses. He probably tried that many times when I wasn’t wearing them. So then how could Valcas and I see each other, but not anything else around us?”
“Here’s where it gets very dangerous, Calla. The technology has a flaw, the fix for which has not yet been fully developed. You see, Enta has learned through unfortunate circumstances that if one person tries to travel to someone else who is also wearing travel glasses, one set consumes the other which leads to the death of both persons A and B. Enta made identical pairs of glasses for her young twin daughters. She still regrets that decision very much.”
“You mean they died?”
Edgar frowned as he cut through a stalk of celery.
“Now I’m even more worried about using the glasses to return to my family.” I doubted that Mom or Uncle Al would have a pair. I couldn’t speak for my father. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. “So then Valcas couldn’t travel to me when he spoke to me because it would be suicide?”
“Exactly. He must have had some knowledge of what would happen. I’m not surprised. He is very intelligent and well-traveled, pardon the expression. He may have been testing whether it was safe to travel to you by first trying to communicate with you. He needed to know whether or not you were still using the glasses and therefore likely arranged the contact in the form of a warning. Valcas also correctly assumed that you would not attempt to travel to him, such that it was safe for him to wear the pair he is now using.”
“I’ll give him well-travelled, but he’s an idiot if he thinks I’m going to sit here and wait around for him.”
I shuddered. Valcas knew much more about the travel glasses than he’d told me. He also knew an awful lot about me. I still had no idea how he’d known my name or how to find me at Winston Lake. Fine, so he was a knowledgeable idiot. That didn’t make me feel any less exposed.
Edgar placed the celery stalk in a basket along with the rest of the produce he’d collected. I lifted the basket off of the ground and followed him into the workshop.
“I’m sure he has greater plans, Calla. I wish I knew whether it was safer for you to wear the travel glasses or avoid them altogether.”
“You said something about a fix not being fully developed. So what has been done?”
“Enta said there’s a way of avoiding certain communications, a type of call block. I studied your glasses and cannot find any such device. We tried to see if I could block her incoming contacts. Unfortunately, I was not successful.
“Enta has a theory that if the wearer were actually traveling somewhere, then other incoming contacts would be blocked. Calla, she would like to help by taking a look at the glasses. She feels that helping you may in some way make up for her own past dealings with the travel glasses.”
“You could draw me a picture of Enta or describe her to me so that I can travel to her. There aren’t any large hills or mountains nearby. I suppose I could try running—”
“No, no, Calla. I think it is far too dangerous for you to wear the glasses until they’ve been more thoroughly inspected. I will personally take you to Enta.”
***
“YOU’RE JOKING, RIGHT, Edgar?”
After washing up and repacking my backpack for our visit to Enta, I’d stepped outside to find Edgar standing next to a boxy green truck that he’d unearthed from who knows where. Its dull black trim was tinged with rust. A spare tire hung off of the driver’s side. The truck looked ancient.
I examined Edgar more closely. His wispy white hair was parted in the middle and smoothed down. He wore a fresh white lab coat. Gray eyes shined with pride as he looked at me over his glasses.
“This is a 1929 Ford Model A pickup,” he said as he patted the spare tire. “It used to be really something back in my day.”
“I’ll bet.”
“All right, Calla, go on inside. There should be enough clearing to get us going.”
I sat down in the passenger’s side of the vehicle. “Can this thing go any faster than thirty miles per hour?”
Edgar squinted at me through his window. “I’ve gotten it up to about fifty-four miles per hour.”
I bit my lip for three full seconds before I laughed.
“That’ll be enough of your pluck, young miss,” he said as he got in the driver’s seat. “Did you ask Valcas to estimate for you how fast he was able to row the small boat?”
We both laughed. I handed Edgar the travel glasses which he placed on his nose in front of his round spectacles.
“You may want to keep your eyes closed,” he warned.
The truck puttered forward through the grassy clearing. I closed my eyes just as we entered the dazzling white light.