The Lemoncholy Life of Annie Aster Page 12

  My divining rod will flush out these “hot spots.” I’ll shape it as a door. The image of stepping through one to another time and place satisfies my taste for showmanship.

  The pages were pruned and much of the writing muddied, but Annie worried through the entries as best she could, trying to capture the spirit of her father’s life.

  She read on to learn how he had stumbled upon the possibility of time travel. He had been researching Indian lore, especially that of Cherokee shamans, looking for a link between it and Mayan astrology, when he came across a compendium on the hidden power of Celtic runes. He was certain that there was a link between the three and began experimenting in a shed he built in the backyard.

  The diary “sketched out” the steps he used in the making of the door, along with vague references to a collaborator. Annie was mesmerized. Even the paint was integral to the door’s function. The ingredients that went into its making were numerous and bewildering, not the least being David’s own blood.

  March 9, 1893

  I am done. The door is made—as well as its codex. But I am tired. I will dare it tomorrow.

  Her father tested his “divining rod” the next day and found himself in San Francisco, of all places, uncertain how he came to be there. He described his panic, the rolling waves of vertigo that left him retching before he composed himself enough to explore, all the while describing sights of a future place that he could barely comprehend. These visits were repeated, his handwriting scrawling manically across the page as he rushed to describe a sight or sound before his attention was diverted. He scribbled pages and pages of notes, for the first time sounding almost incoherent— that is until he talked about the girl.

  Her name was Florence. He’d met her at a lecture by Mark Twain a month prior.

  Annie couldn’t help but giggle at the outrageous language that followed—“tawny-haired sylph” being a start—that is until it seeped into her brain that he was talking about her mother. The romance was whirlwind, and a date was set for the wedding.

  July 16, 1893

  Mother is here for the nuptials. Today I swore both her and Florence to secrecy and showed them the door. Florence came back through the door trembling but bubbling over with excitement. Mother had a go. For some reason, the door did not work. I was beside myself with fear that the magic had been undone until I stepped through it. Still, it will not operate for Mother. She said that she felt as though the door was rejecting her. I must think on this. It appears that bloodline is at issue. One thing is clear, however. A strange alchemy is at work. This magic is strong, but blood, I think, is stronger still.

  Annie repeated the last sentence, wondering what it meant before reading on.

  January 21, 1894

  I have mastered the door’s cipher. It now delivers me where I command. Also, I can make the door slumber so that it does not operate at all. Mother roused it, though she could not make it work. Curious.

  Even though her father delighted in the door, he began to have reservations, suspecting that his actions had consequences altering outcomes within the stream of time. And then he met a Mr. Ambrosius Culler, who made an offer he couldn’t refuse. From the outset, it was clear that her father was leery of the man’s reputation and disliked his reclusive lackey intensely, but their financing drove the success of his magic show.

  Ambrosius Culler. It was the name from the article Annie had found at the Antiquarian, the man suspected of killing her father. Her first thought was that her father should have chosen his friends more wisely, but it was soon replaced by a slow-to-boil hatred. This man, if he did kill her father, had completely altered the course of her life. She tabled her anger and read on.

  February 11, 1894

  I have made a most unusual discovery. I calibrated the door to send me to a particular place and time. It performed perfectly. However, upon returning and checking my calculations, I was alarmed to note that I’d made an error. I should not have ended up at the preset destination. It’s strange, but I have always felt a rapport between my door and me. I have decried it as the hubris of invention, a Geppetto syndrome, with the door as my Pinocchio. Now, I’m not so certain. It’s almost as though the door has a life of its own and responds to my wishes. Clearly, something marvelous is at work here.

  May 30, 1894

  I have solved the problem of bloodline and more. So much more! The answer eluded me due to its simplicity. It was within my grasp all this time. I must keep this secret safe. But where?

  The first of the two comments suggested that “intent” had as much to do with operating the door as the mechanical process of setting time and place, which her father described in great detail over the next several pages. The second, discussing the perils of his bloodline, merely left her feeling uneasy.

  The next several pages of entries focused on her parents’ life together but were barely legible. Annie could only make out that her mother was expecting in late June.

  June 23, 1894

  Florence is dead. The doctor said it was the result of complications from an amniotic fluid embolism. But only a few hours ago, she was alive and well, cradling the baby in her arms as we argued over names. The doctor explained that fetal cells breached the placenta, entering her bloodstream and causing a cardiac arrest. This is torture. I know it’s insane, but I can’t shake the irrational thought that this child, my daughter, killed my wife.

  June 25, 1894

  I am smitten all over again, but it’s so bittersweet. I held little Annabelle yesterday, walking around the nursery as I bounced her in my arms, telling her stories of her mother. Since that moment, I can hardly bear to be without her. Somehow, she has reached inside and taken hold of my heart. That she will be beautiful is obvious. But I have plans. She will also be a great lady, for I intend for her to be educated, and I will show her…the future.

  The entries were beginning to wear at Annie’s composure. She flipped through the remaining pages, but there was only one more legible entry, and only partially so.

  I can no longer pretend otherwise. Something is trapped—

  She strained her eyes, trying to make out the remainder of the sentence but couldn’t. Giving up, she rubbed her itchy eyes and closed the diary, overcome.

  Too much. It was all too much, and she knew that sleep wouldn’t come. Sitting on the side of the bed, she slid into her slippers and made her way downstairs with the diary in hand.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  The Chosen One

  There was nothing but void, and Edmond wondered if he was dead. In the time it took for him to form the thought, though, the emptiness he occupied was filled with tiny soothing lights. Twinkling ruby stars. Thousands of them. Millions. Like bioluminescent shrimp in a deep, dark ocean, they drifted gently around him before condensing into a single image.

  Confused at first by what he was seeing, Edmond realized the image was that of a door, red as raw liver. As could only happen in dreams, he felt that it was scrutinizing him, evaluating options.

  A clattering sound interrupted the dream, and he woke with a start to watch his soda can rolling across the linoleum floor of the library— leaving an effervescent trickle of cola in its wake. Edmond stared at the book in his lap, curious. A possibility tickled his brain, and he deliberately picked it up and continued reading.

  Only the spiritually enlightened are initiated and taught the rituals and formulas for spirit travel. And while they are held in great esteem, even more prized are those very rare individuals who are gifted with the talent to take others on a journey with them. The name attributed to these gifted souls roughly translates to “the key” or “chosen one.”

  Edmond’s eyes fluttered and eventually shut. Again, he found himself staring at the door. Only this time, he was standing in a kitchen. Something was wrong with his vision, however. It was grainy, pixilated, almost as though he were standing within a two dimensional construct or, perhaps, a memory. The kitchen was large and a little too warm
for comfort, with granite countertops and redwood flooring.

  Feeling flushed, Edmond took off his sweater and tied it around his waist, taking in a cozy, little breakfast nook. He was curious why the dream would add this detail. The door itself throbbed with a deep red glow, and Edmond noticed for the first time that it was covered in strange carvings that appeared to be astrological symbols and arcane script.

  This was a purpose-driven dream, and Edmond opened the door. On the other side was a bleak, achromatic landscape—a stark contrast to the warmth and color of the kitchen. There was no vegetation on the ground. The earth was lined with a montage of cracks, and enormous clouds boiled across the darkened sky. At random intervals, all motion froze as though the memory bank providing the image had been interrupted. Then, after a stutter, the frenzy was renewed.

  Edmond’s eyes were drawn to the brilliant yellow of a flame— the only color in this freakish world. A circle of men sat cross-legged around the fire. Like the landscape, they looked as though all the color of life had been bled from them. There was something else, however. Edmond’s depth perception was out of whack.The faculty of near and far had been erased. Only the fact that they appeared to be the size of toy army men suggested that the men were distant. To confirm his impression, Edmond stretched out his arm in an attempt to touch them as if they might be on a TV screen.

  One of the men from the circle stood to stare in Edmond’s direction, then blinked in and out of his vision with three alarming flashes. The man multiplied in size with each reappearance until he blocked almost all of Edmond’s view of the landscape. It took Edmond a moment to realize that the man hadn’t simply enlarged but was standing not more than a few feet away. He squawked in surprise and stumbled backward into the kitchen, but the man was not threatening aggression. He radiated calm and stood still as a stone, inviting Edmond’s inspection.

  He was dark-skinned with long, straight black hair, but almost all his exposed skin was coated in white chalk, with black and white stripes covering his torso. He wore leather breeches—his only adornment being a large piece of carved stone hanging from his neck by a strip of hide—and exuded energy as potent as the flashes of lightning in the churning atmosphere.

  Extending his arm, the man pointed to Edmond and barked something clear yet throaty that seared into Edmond’s brain. “Nay he ooo ha he ha es dee ee es dee!” Having spoken, the man became still once again. More than still. He froze. Edmond saw no indication of breath, not even a subtle pulse from his neck. The man’s skin became slick. At first, Edmond thought it was the sheen of sweat, but there was a shine to it, almost as if a glaze had seeped through the man’s pores.

  Edmond dared a single step through the door into the barren dreamscape, and, without warning, the man exploded into countless shards and pinpricks of light. Its brilliance left Edmond’s eyes watering as he shaded them and tried to adjust to the roseate brightness.

  Little by little, he was able to focus and found himself staring down the point of his nose at a red rose stirring in a gentle breeze. He looked around, blinking. The desolate wasteland was gone and he found himself standing in a garden full of roses. Behind him, the door rested quietly on the back wall of a large, purple Victorian house.

  Edmond walked warily down the garden path between vines and bushes rampant with blooms and stopped before a brass mailbox on a picket fence. He reached out to touch it, and the mailbox oscillated into a blur as if it was losing signal reception. The closer his hand, the more distorted the image. He retreated, and the image of the mailbox stabilized.

  He looked up and over a wheat field. Across a gentle curve in the landscape, he spied a wisp of smoke trailing up into the sky.

  Edmond grabbed the bookshelf and hoisted himself to his feet, staring at the book in his hand. He’d been circling a small cabin— its mailbox sitting off a dirt road had the name Grundy written on it—and had come across an old wooden road sign when a piercing noise cut across the wheat field, sucking him back through the void and into the applied sciences section of the library.

  The sound still rang in his ear—a lone police car, its siren blaring as it raced down Church Street to some unknown destination. While its siren faded into the rumble and hum of the city, the memory of his experience did not.

  Edmond made a dash to the languages section of the library. The book mentioned Cherokee culture, so he decided to start there, combing through shelves of reference materials until he found a Cherokee-to-English dictionary that, not surprisingly, seemed to have been little used. Grabbing a pen and scratch paper, he parked himself at a counter and flipped through page after page, jotting down words as he did so. It was a tricky exercise, because the discrete phonetic sounds didn’t match up word for word with English counterparts. Eventually, though, he had what he was looking for. You are the key. The specter had said, “You are the key.” Edmond recalled from the text that gifted travelers were called “the key,” and his spine began to tingle.

  Looking around to make sure the coast was clear, he took both books and headed downstairs to quickly shelve the rest of the inventory, his game long forgotten. Then he grabbed his backpack from the employee lounge, shoved the books inside, and ducked out the employee entrance.

  It was a little chilly outside, so he unwrapped the sweater from his waist and—froze. Didn’t I take the sweater off in my dream? Uncertain, Edmond lifted the receiver on the library’s pay phone, dropping in a quarter when prompted. He needed some help sorting this out, and he could only think of one person to call. Unfortunately, he was rolled to voice mail because Christian had yet again forgotten to turn on his cell phone.

  Even so, it was bouncing around in Christian’s pocket as he walked the familiar route home. He had been uneasy since leaving Annie’s house, uncertain how she was holding up under the weight of the recent discoveries—not the least of which was that she was born in 1894.

  He turned on his phone to check in with her and was surprised by the stutter tone indicating he had a message.

  “What’s the point in having a cell phone if you never turn it on?” Edmond asked.

  Ignoring the comment, one in the litany of jibes he had so far received during his brief association with Edmond, Christian said, “I got the potting soil.”

  “There’s been a slight change of plans,” Edmond responded.

  The comment took Christian off guard. While he was processing the information and trying to determine the precise reason why the comment felt like a body blow, Edmond chuckled, breaking the silence. “I’ll pick you up in front of your place at a quarter to seven. Bring a coat.”

  “Quarter to seven, out front, coat. Got it. Anything else?”

  “Just the usual. Cure the common cold. Save the planet.”

  “Adopt a highway?”

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  The Thinking Spot

  Edmond pulled around the corner to find Christian sitting on the front doorstep of his house with a coat in his lap, staring at nothing in particular. Seeing him there, looking so withdrawn, struck a chord, and Edmond idled his truck at the end of the block, trying to understand why he found it so touching. After a moment of reflection, he thought he had it figured out. Unlike himself, Christian was content with solitude. Suddenly feeling like a Peeping Tom, Edmond threw the truck into gear and pulled up to the curb. “Step on it,” he said from the open window.

  Christian worked his way into his coat and hurried over. “Where are we going?”

  “Across the bridge. We’re chasing the sunset.”

  The truck groaned in distress as Christian hopped in. He glanced at Edmond who shrugged indifferently. “Can’t afford new shocks,” he said as he shifted to first gear.

  Christian pulled a Polaroid from the visor over his head as the truck worried its way down the block. He studied it before tapping the image of a clean- cut man who looked to be in his midtwenties. “Is this you?”

  Edmond shook his head. “That’s my brother.” He snick
ered as Christian furrowed his brow while scrutinizing the remaining figure. The lopsided grin was there, but it was overshadowed by a horseshoe mustache— Edmond informed him that it didn’t last the summer— and a siege of shoulder- length hair.

  Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, Edmond took the last exit before the tunnel leading to Sausalito and circled back to a road that wound along the edge of a cliff wall above the bay. The air was cooling rapidly, and the aroma of sap and sea got under their skin like a shot of espresso. Christian, who’d said nothing since inquiring about the photo, shook off whatever seemed to be bothering him and joined the conversation. His stuttering had vastly improved, Edmond noticed, though he still tripped over a word here and there, and peppered his sentences with odd breaks.

  Also gone were the elegant hand movements Christian had employed to help him move words along—the air scribblings, index finger raised as if offering divine sanction.

  Traveling up an incline, the truck rounded a corner to come face-to-face with the top half of one of the bridge’s towers peeking over the hill. The bay was hidden from this angle, and the tower looked as if it had burst from the landscape. Christian was captivated, pointing it out to Edmond, who responded by hitting the gas, a nasty grin plastered on his face.

  Careening along the cliff wall, the truck lost contact with the road as it passed over a rise, offering a perilously breathtaking view of the rocks below. Once the wheels found asphalt, Edmond glanced sideways at the passenger seat to find Christian pressed against the backrest, eyes tightly shut and murmuring under his breath. Edmond floored it for good measure, laughing when Christian slugged his shoulder as the truck ground around another curve, spraying loose rocks over the rise.