Chapter 6

“Gran! You scared me.” He steadied himself against the opposite wall with his left hand, then held up the bag in his right like an accusation. “Why do you have this? Tell me. Now!”

He expected his tone to shock her. Instead she gently nodded and said, “We need to talk. Let’s go to the living room.”

She sat on the overstuffed sofa and patted the cushion next to her. It was more of an order than an invite. He took a seat. It was still dark, due to both the early hour and the cloud cover from last night’s storm. Finn went to turn on the lamp on the side table. She grabbed his arm in mid-reach and shook her head no.

“I know you’re angry. But you need to listen now.” She was staring at him. Taking him in like she had never seen him before. It was very disconcerting. “I have something I need to tell you.”

“Yes, you do! Why do you have Mom’s things?”

She grasped both his hands and leaned in with an intensity that completely unnerved him. Finn saw flecks of gold in the blue of her eyes and wondered why he never noticed them before.

“I’ve planned this conversation over and over in my mind since the day you were born. I imagined it would be Liz and me talking to you together and—” She shook her head sadly and Finn heard the wind whistle through the cold fireplace behind him.

“Where is she?” Finn’s entire nervous system froze with hope and fear. Everything hinged on Gran’s answer.

“It’s a bit more complicated than where.”

“Is she—okay?”

Gran pulled him in for a fierce hug. Her arms were strong, like they felt after he fell off his bike when he was little. She pushed him away to arm’s length while still holding firmly onto his shoulders.

“She loves you. We both do. More than you can imagine.”

“You’re scaring me.” Finn surprised himself with how small his voice sounded.

“Oh, I don’t want to scare you!” She wrung her hands together nervously. Finn had never seen her like this. “I’m not supposed to scare you. Well, maybe I am. I don’t know! She didn’t really give me much to go on. Let’s say for expediency’s sake that it’s okay to be scared.” She eyed the clock on the cable box over the TV and frowned.

“The message I have for you is not from your mother. It’s from—well—me. The future me, to be exact. I am the Gran you knew several years ago. How old are you now? No—wait!” She pushed her palm up toward his face so quickly she nearly hit him in the nose. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. Sorry about that.” She patted his cheek as if that would somehow realign his features. “Well, your Gran and I, we are sort of working together on this.” She shot a sad, worried glance down the hallway before she focused back on his face once more. “The Gran you know, she asked me to come forward and do this.”

It took him a moment to register each word. There was no logic he could follow. She wasn’t joking. Her voice had a seriousness in it he had never heard before, and it made his body respond with a small involuntary shudder.

“That doesn’t make any sense. Are you feeling okay, Gran?”

“I know this is hard to comprehend. Try and think of me as one of your equations. Yes, that will do! Let’s see, now don’t tell me your exact age. Please. I’m going to guess it’s only about five years, though. Think of me as Gran Minus Five. That’s good, isn’t it?” She placed a hand over his—and that’s when Finn saw the watch.

She was wearing the slim blue watch!

“How did you find that?” He pointed at her wrist and then immediately shoved his hand into his pocket. It was empty! It was like a magic trick. “You said you lost it! I just found it downstairs on Grandpa’s table—”

“Oh, well, now that you’ve told me, I haven’t lost it, have I? Now listen carefully and promise not to interrupt till I’m done.”

She was staring straight into his eyes and waiting for him to agree before she continued. Finn forced his head into a quick nod.

She took a deep breath. “I have died. Last night, I passed away in my sleep.”

“That’s not funny, Gran!” He involuntarily looked down the hallway toward her bedroom, then back at her. Whatever game she was playing, he didn’t like it one bit.

“I’m not trying to be funny and now you’re interrupting.”

Her short-cropped hair had too many shades of silver and gray to count, and she smelled like peppermint. Everything about her was the way Gran always was, but something was off. Something besides the watch trick. Finn could not deny that she didn’t seem to be the same Gran as last night.

Gran was getting older and perhaps this was the beginning of a decline. Dementia. It was entirely possible that he and Dad had missed the signs.

“Did you ever wonder why your mother loves history so much?” asked Gran.

“I don’t know, because she married a history professor?” This came out ruder than he expected.

She let out a disappointed sigh, but it was directed at herself, not him. She admonished herself with a whispered, “The beginning, Beth.” Then she inhaled sharply, closed her eyes, and said, “Your mother is what we call a Traveler. She can cross the folds of time. She can travel to the past and the future.”

Finn instantly felt all alone. Gran had lost her mind. His face must have registered his horror.

“Now don’t look at me like that! I’m perfectly sane. Your mother is a Traveler. I am a Traveler and so are your aunts. It runs on the female side of the bloodline.”

She looked at the clock again, then the watch.

It was outrageous. He’d have to call Doc, tell him Gran wasn’t lucid. “You’re saying that all the women in my family can time travel?”

“Well, don’t be ridiculous.” She lifted her chin and straightened her shoulders. “Only on your mother’s side.” She said it as if Dad’s side were somehow deficient.

“Gran, please.” He took a last desperate shot at appealing to whatever reason she had left. “Why would our family be the only one in the world that could do that?”

“Who said anything about being the only ones? There have been many signs we’re not alone. We just happen to be the only ones in Dorset. And that’s why it’s up to us to find your mother.”

He remembered the bag. In his shock he had let it drop to the floor. He picked it up and brandished it at her. “How—why?!”

“They packed that up the day she disappeared. It had to look as if she’d moved out. Your Gran and your dad, they didn’t want you—or the police—to think she had come to any harm.”

“Gran! You told me she was okay!” The words rushed out all at once and it felt as if his last breath went with them.

“Your Gran told me they needed everyone to think she left of her own accord.” Her eyes were wet. She hadn’t answered his question.

“Gran—! She—she’s not . . .”

She turned her head away. “We are all alive or dead at some point.” She looked back at him and put her hand resassuringly on his knee. “But she didn’t leave you, Finn. They’re trying to figure out when she is. Your father is tirelessly searching for clues.”

He had tried to grasp what she was getting at. “She’s lost?”

“We think so. We knew it would be risky. We didn’t want her to go. They—I mean we, that is, the me from your time, and your father—have been trying to talk her out of the last jump for over a year. She wouldn’t listen. She said she knew what was best. And she is the best Traveler in our family. Each generation surpasses the previous one.”

Almost all respected physicists still considered time travel an impossibility. This he knew. Still, his heart asked the next question without his brain’s permission. “So then can I”—he fidgeted in the chair—“um, time travel?” It was an absurd question and he couldn’t believe he was asking it.

“No. No man in our family has ever been able to Travel,” she said gently. She was still monitoring both the clock over the television and her wristwatch as if something big was about to happen. “But there is another possibility. Your mother built a portal, a way to reach her in case of this kind of emergency.”

Portal. That was a word Gabi loved. It was the kind of word one of her favorite fantasy books would use. Finn’s science books talked about wormholes, not portals.

“It’s in a tree,” Gran went on. “A tree rooted to more than the earth. It stands outside the laws of time, an anchor of sorts, letting people travel from node to node—point to point along the timeline. She made it in case of this kind of emergency.”

“A tree? She built a tree?”

“No, the tree grew as trees normally do! Listen! She turned it into a portal. It’s amazing—none of us have managed anything like that before. She’s certainly the most talented Traveler we’ve ever had.” She was beaming, proud of her daughter. “The tree is a secret. No one knows about it but your mother and me, not even your father.”

“So—she made it for me?”

Gran shifted uncomfortably for a moment and looked away. “It was a fail-safe she made back years ago. In case she got lost. A shortcut, so to speak, a line directly to her.”

“So, she made it for you?”

“No. Not for me.” She looked out the window up toward Dorset Peak.

“Well, who did she make it— ”

Finn stopped himself in midsentence. She made it for Faith. For her only daughter, the next time traveler.

Gran’s voice took on the brightness of someone who was hiding a darker truth. “We still think it might work for you. It’s an outside chance, but it’s all we have.”

“Work for me? You mean let me get to Mom wherever she is?”

“Whenever.”

“Why me, though? Why haven’t you tried to use it?”

“I may have tried. I mean, maybe I do try. I don’t know. I only know that whatever your mother and Future Me attempt, it doesn’t work. Now, this is your task.”

He should call Doc and have him take her to the hospital in Rutland. That would be the responsible thing to do. Only the idea that he, the useless remainder, could possibly help bring back Mom made him keep asking her questions.

“What happens if it doesn’t work for me? What then?”

“We don’t need to go into that.”

“Yes, we do. Tell me.”

“Well, maybe nothing. It would just be a regular old tree to you.”

“Or? There’s more. You’re hiding something. I can always tell when you’re hiding something.”

She began to examine the arm of the sofa. “You could get stuck somewhere, or lost entirely.”

Finn brought her gaze back to him by placing his hand over hers. “What does that mean, ‘lost entirely?’ ”

“You could be obliterated—sliced clear through on a cellular level. You could die.”

“That’s insane! Why would you want me to even try?” He caught himself, reminded himself that this was all ridiculous, impossible.

“You’re all we have now, Finn. It may not have been made with you in mind, but still, we have to try. You are a twin. There’s never been a set of twins in our family before. Maybe—just maybe something rubbed off on you in the womb.”

Finn was tempted to remind her that he and Faith were fraternal twins—no more genetically similar than any other pair of siblings. But he immediately saw the absurdity of bringing science into this conversation.

Gran pointed toward the window. “The portal is on top of Dorset Peak. It might help you find her.”

Find her. The words made something inside him stir. Wasn’t that what he’d been wanting? Someone to find her. He had screamed the same words in anger at his father only a few weeks ago: “Go, find her!” Now, he could do it himself. Sure, the idea of a portal was pure fantasy, but maybe there was a real clue there, a note or something. He had to keep Gran talking, even if it meant entertaining an idea that was wholly unscientific.

“Is there a map?”

“She said you wouldn’t need one. You’ll find it.”

“How am I supposed to find one particular tree on an entire mountain?”

“I don’t know, but I know Future Me thinks you can.”

Finn remembered how much Mom loved hiking. How Dorset Peak was her favorite trail because the leaf peepers mostly left it alone. She knew that trail better than anyone.

He was trying to fit all the pieces together in his brain, but his rational side kept whispering, Gran is sick. You need to get her help.

Gran leaned in like they were conspirators. “This is what is going to happen next. Doc Lovell is on his way over to check on me. He’s a good man. You do as he says, you can trust him.”

Finn wondered for a moment if she knew that she was dating him, that he had become her boyfriend. Of course she knew! This was insane; she wasn’t from the past. But she had just called him Doc Lovell. She never called him anything but Will anymore.

“Go meet him in the driveway and act as if you’re just arriving. Tell him your father waited till the storm let up a bit before he left town. That he just dropped you off. You haven’t spoken with me at all today, do you understand?” She jumped up from the sofa, clearly expecting him to follow her.

“No. I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this!”

“I’ll explain more later. It must seem like I won’t have the time, but I will, you’ll see.” She ducked down the hallway and brought back his sneakers and backpack from the guest room, thrusting them at him. She waited impatiently for him to get his shoes on and pulled him by the wrist to the top of the staircase while he was still hopping on one foot.

“Go back to the driveway and wait. Don’t come back inside unless you’re with Doc Lovell, okay?” He numbly followed her down the stairs to the door. With her hand on the knob, she stopped and looked up at him. Finn watched her lips form a small, sad smile. She rested the palm of her free hand against his cheek. Her eyes were brighter than usual. Were there fewer crinkles? That couldn’t be possible.

“You’re so grown up already. You’ll have to grow up even faster from here on out, I imagine.”

“I don’t want to be a grown-up,” he said. Right now, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to be Finn. It was good that Doc was coming. He would help. He’d fix this. He’d get her medications switched, and everything would be okay. They’d laugh about this in a few days.

“None of us ever want to grow up, but the alternative isn’t any prettier.” Gran’s eyes were brimming with tears. “I want you to know I don’t regret anything. I love you, Finn.”

“I—I love you too, Gran.” He had no idea what she meant about regret.

This was impossible; she was hopelessly confused. He’d use the scientific method to set her straight. A hypothesis was already constructed for him: The women in his family could time travel. It was up to him to disprove it. He never defied her, but she wasn’t herself.

He darted by her as fast as he could, bounding up the stairs two by two, bolting down the hallway.

“Finn! No!”

It was the smell that hit him first. Pungent and sour, as though someone had been ill. Lying in the bed was Gran. Only it couldn’t be, because she was coming up behind him as well, breathing fast after chasing him down the hall. He looked at the bed and back to her. Same person, one alive and one dead.

“I—I didn’t want you to see me like this,” she stammered.

Finn staggered back from her and held on to the dresser for support. He realized that brought him closer to the body in the bed so he jumped forward.

It was Gran all right. She was lying on her back and her eyes were open, only they were seeing nothing. Everything else in the room was horribly, frustratingly normal. Her stack of paperbacks on the nightstand. Her pill organizer. Her pink slippers neatly placed next to the bed. This room wasn’t supposed to contain a lifeless Gran. You could almost be fooled. Almost.

He tried to make his mouth say something. Nothing came out. Then came the sound of tires on gravel, and Gran, the one who was alive, looked down the hallway and back at him.

“We’ll have to leave through the back door now. Oh Finn, I tried to spare you this!”

She forcefully led him down the hall. Too stunned to do anything but go along, he stumbled after her. Gran opened the door and went out first, pulling him behind her with that strength she hadn’t displayed in years.

“You’ll see me again. You will. Don’t be sad. I love you so.”

He stumbled a few feet in the wet mud before his knees gave out completely. Sliding to the grass, he rested his head against the siding of the house. He opened his eyes and found his voice. “How, Gran? How can this be real?”

Finn waited for a response, but he would have to keep waiting. Because Gran was gone. He was all alone.

He heard Doc Lovell’s voice calling her name cheerfully as he came inside. “Beth? I hope you made biscuits!”

Finn couldn’t see him from outside. He only heard him move through the house, but he could picture him clearly. Doc always looked exactly the same. His white hair was perfectly combed. He always wore the same kind of starched, plaid, button-up shirt, neatly tucked into baggy, wrinkled pants, with mud-covered sneakers. Gran teased Doc all the time, saying people were only supposed to look at his second floor because his foundation was a mess.

Finn heard Doc say her name again, sounding as confused as Finn had been earlier. Then it echoed much more cautiously: “Beth?” and finally, an anguished yell. Finn heard it with his heart.

He tried to get up, but he stumbled. The smell was still with him; it was in his mouth. Death had a taste. He threw up in the bushes, stood shakily, and wiped his hands on his jeans. He felt a crinkle in his pocket and stuck his hand inside—Gran’s list. An hour ago it was only a shopping list, but now it was another relic.

He opened it up. It looked different, smudged through with a dark ink that had bled from the other side. The handwriting was scrawled as if done quickly, but it was definitely Gran’s. He turned it over and read:

I was wrong. Don’t trust anyone.