Time Drifters
Chapter Five: Letter of the Law

Grandpa Trinder told me that there was a difference between the Spirit of the Law and the Letter of the Law. If I were to follow my curfew from Dad according to the Spirit of the Law, then I would be grounded during all weekday hours that I wasn’t in school. But I liked the second option. I’d listen to exactly what he said to do, so I could still obey and find a way around it.

I figured that out the following day after school when Miss Prankle caught up with me. Harris wasn’t around – no surprise there, he was still fuming – and Miss Prankle said that both she and Mr. Danby felt very badly, and that he wanted me to come by the house when I could in the next couple of days.

“Why?” I asked.

“To be quite direct, he told me that he thinks he has an explanation for why you felt the earth shaking,” she said, looking a bit quizzical. “Does that make any sense to you?”

“Maybe,” I said, inwardly excited, but feeling foiled. “I could see him sometime, sure.”

“It needs to be by Monday, absolutely,” she said. “Something about going out of town for a long trip.”

I’d kept walking quickly, not giving her much consideration for the fast pace. I told her I was on a timer for my call in the afternoons. And timers made me think of the clock face and the hands spinning around the entire dial, through all twenty-four hours, and then I had the answer.

“When is he leaving on Monday?” I asked. “What about before school?”

#

Mr. Danby’s kitchen was tall, just like the rest of the house. There were cupboards that went all the way to the ceiling. It made the little table where he had food spread out for us look quite small in the middle of the floor.

There were fancy Danish pastries—which he said he bought from the bakery that morning—and what he called Coddled eggs—basically hard-boiled with extra stuff added, all cooked inside of a porcelain cup. There was coffee for him and also hot chocolate for me. I felt quite important, having a kind of business meeting with good catering – something my parents always talked about when they’d been impressed.

I was thankful for the food since I’d taken off from home the second after Dad was gone. It was cold riding all the way over by myself even though the sun was bright this morning. Also, it was mostly uphill—pedaling up steep mini mountains—but the advantage being that later I could almost coast down to school. I figured I had just less than an hour before I’d have to head back, and I wanted to eat quickly so Mr. Danby had time to deliver on his promise.

He’d been very welcoming, repeating apologies for the fact that I’d gotten in trouble while he ushered me directly into the kitchen. I noticed that the box of rocks was gone from the front hallway.

“So you did feel that earthquake before?” I had asked him soon after getting my boots off.

“I have an explanation, but I think we should eat first, while it’s hot,” he said.

I was into my hot chocolate while he was still working on his eggs. I thought it was strange that he seemed nervous and I told him so.

“Our mutual friend was not pleased with how I handled myself last time,” he said. “I just don’t know how to begin, really.” He paused and used the napkin to wipe his lips. I did the same so I’d be quite ready.

“Why don’t you ask me a question?” he suggested.

“Why did the room shake?”

“Um… let’s work up to that one,” he said, grabbing my plate and taking it to the sink.

“Is this your house?”

“No,” he said, “But I can live here as long as I wish to.”

“Whose house is it?”

“That’s kind of hard to explain,” he said, screwing up his face.

“My Mom is an actress but my Dad is an engineer who builds bridges,” I said. “My one grandpa is a lawyer and I’ve been told that smarts run in my family. Grandma Van Kier says that I’m twelve going on twenty, which I think means that I’m smarter than some people might think. So maybe you could answer the question and then I’ll tell you if there’s something that I don’t get. Okay?”

Mr. Danby laughed, and looked at me for a long moment. I smiled.

The brown cat rubbed up against his leg and I heard the white one meowing from the door.

“You know how cats and dogs can hear things that humans can’t?” he said, bending down to pet his friend. “Like Bangers and Mash here… that’s their names. Bangers is this brown one. Anyway, some humans are also tuned into vibrations of sound or magnetic force. Some, like you, are more sympathetic… whether you know it or not.”

“What do you mean, sympathetic?” I asked.

He crossed the room and opened a metal toolbox, and then removed something, carefully gripping it in his palm. He looked cautiously at me.

“The rattling box of stones in the trunk of Miss Prankle’s car, and in the foyer here, last week,” he said.

“You knew about that?”

“And the stone that was at the Science Fair?” I asked, getting nervous, realizing there had been a lot more going on than I knew.

He opened his palm and I could see that there was a cut crystal, with curved sides that looked almost heart-shaped. It was close to the one I’d gripped at the Fair, having mostly clear stone with a bit of rose in the center, but this one had a shaft of deep emerald green at the top instead of the spiked metallic ridges. Mr. Danby started to walk towards me, lowering his hand.

“What are you doing?” I said, straightening back in my chair, not afraid of the crystal but of the way he was approaching me like he was going to swat a fly.

“Don’t be afraid, I just have to know if this is the one,” he said, padding towards me, now only two feet from my chair. Right away, the stone began to vibrate in his hand and he looked alarmed, even though he kept on getting closer.

“How are you doing that?” I demanded.

“Not me… it knows you,” he said. “Like a magnet that knows its match.”

“Is it alive?” I asked, even though that sounded stupid.

His feet stopped but he reached out. The vibration was getting faster, more intense.

“Take it,” he said. “Go on and take it.”

“No!” I yelled, shoving my chair back and running for the front hallway.

“Liam, wait!” he shouted. “It’s okay.”

“I’m not passing out again,” I yelled.

“You won’t! I’m almost positive,” he said, following me.

“Almost?”

“Please,” Mr. Danby pleaded, rushing towards me.

“Get that thing away from me,” I said shoving my feet into my boots.

We both heard the rumble at the same time. It was coming from the Great Room.

“Oh, no!” he said. “Please, please, Liam. Take the stone.”

The shaking was getting worse. The lamps in the living room were jiggling around on their bases and the floor boards began to creak and groan like they were being woken from the sleep of giants.

Mr. Danby began to go into the living room but turned back to me.

“Take it!”

I remember the tip of it pointing towards me like an arrow. Mr. Danby’s wild expression, his arm reaching out and shaking as though he was on the edge of a cliff and he couldn’t hang on for many more seconds.

I thought the house was about to come apart and fall down around us both.

And then I touched it.

I don’t know if it actually jumped into my fingers or not. I just know that it clicked with me. It fit in some weird way. And the world became still.

I noticed Mr. Danby’s breath; a long, audible sigh of relief that droned on as I stared at the crystal in my hand.

“It knows me,” I repeated.

“And you know it,” he said. “Oh Thank God,” he added looking upward as he sank down into an armchair. “And that’s not even the hardest part.”

He was squinting his eyes tightly shut when I went past him towards the Great Room.

“So why did the floor shake? And why did it stop?” I asked. I’d barely gotten a peek through the portal when I saw that the furniture and the rugs and even the floor boards where gone from the center of the room, and there was a huge slab of pink rock exposed on the ground. It was only a glimpse because the pieces of dark lumber in the room began to shake all over again and I was physically tackled by a very large man, taking me to the carpet.

“No!” Mr. Danby screamed in my ear.

“Get off!” I shrieked. But before I could get to my feet, he’d picked me up and was carrying me back across the room.

“Lemme go!” I shouted, even as I noticed that the rumbling was slowing.

“The room… and the crystal… and You,” he said very deliberately as he set me down and held my shoulders in place. “You all know each other. Do you get it?”

I shook my head.

“Tomorrow morning at exactly 8:31 am, it will be the Vernal Equinox,” he said. “At that time, and not a moment before and not a moment afterwards, you need to be in that room, on that rock and with that crystal in your hand.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Aaaach!” he growled, clenching his fists and growling at the ceiling. “I don’t know how to do this!”

“Then just do it!” I shouted back.

“Fine!” he said, somehow angry. “You need to be here tomorrow, Liam Trinder of Tarrytown, New York, because if you aren’t, reality as we all know it will begin to unravel. And I didn’t believe it when I first heard about it anymore than you probably do now. But unlike you, I didn’t have the advantage of being the one to hold the stone in my hand and know that something happened when I did.”

“What?” I laughed.

It was a crazy joke. He was nuts.

“How can reality unravel?” I asked, sneering at him.

“Everyone starts to forget how they’re connected, until nothing is and no one remembers,” he barked, before squeezing his eyes shut like he wished he hadn’t just said that. He took a breath and continued, quietly, saying, “I realize that’s a lot to swallow before you’ve even made it to your first class on a Monday morning, but it’s the God-honest truth of it.”

I could hear my father, sitting behind his desk, and his words, The things you don’t know about yet, come flashing into my mind. I wondered if this was something he already knew about and was trying to protect me from. I’d come willingly to this house without telling a single soul. And I knew that it was a big mistake. But would it be a fatal one?

“It’s close enough and yet too soon. Do not let that crystal out of your hand, and do not go near that Great Room with the crystal,” he said firmly, “Do you understand?”

I nodded, but as he marched through the living room, I began to test the planks in the hallway for creaks, making my way slowly towards the front door.

My bike was just outside and I didn’t think he could catch me once I was on it. There was the Land Rover, but he’d have to get his keys and I could probably make it to the main road to call for help before he nabbed me.

Teabag had toddled out to see me, like some kindly old butler that wanted to wish me a Good Day as I headed out. I clicked the latch on the door and it only creaked for a second as I opened it. I had to use my foot to keep the dog inside but I had my hand on the screen door before Mr. Danby came back in sight.

“Where are you going?” he yelped, alarmed.

I bolted for the bike and I had it up off the ground before the man’s hand snagged the back of my jacket.

“Is this your handwriting?” he demanded, shoving a piece of paper in my line of sight. “Look at it!” he ordered.

It was like parchment paper. Yellowed and crisp. With a tear in the bottom left corner. But as I read it, I got a shiver that went straight up my spine.

“Yes,” I said. Because it was true. It was my handwriting.

It’s me, Liam Trinder. And it works!

That was how the note began.

“But… I’ve never written this,” I said.

“Look at the date,” he said. My eyes bugged out. September 22, 1780.

“I wasn’t alive in 1780,” I said.

“Not yet,” he responded. “Because you don’t go there until tomorrow.”

“But I have school!” I said.

“Yes, yes, of course,” Mr. Danby said, finally brightening with encouragement. “And you can still go to school, afterwards. If you aren’t too tired. When you Drift, when you time Drift, you come back within minutes of the moment you left.”

“But…”

“I didn’t want to have to show you this paper unless it was absolutely necessary,” he said. “But I didn’t know how else to convince you that you could do this. Plus, I was told in a letter that you would need to see it to believe. And it’s amazing… phenomenal even, that you can do this.”

“I’m… I’m... this can’t be real,” I stammered, totally shocked. “Can I see that again?”

I took the paper as Mr. Danby lead me back to the house.

“Give it a chance to sink in. We’ll put your bike in the back of the jeep,” he said, closing the door once we were inside. “That’ll give us a few more minutes for me to tell you what I can.”

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