Time Drifters

“Here’s your apple juice, and tea,” Miss Prankle said, setting the glass and the mug on the picnic table.

“I didn’t want any tea,” I said, looking suspiciously at the cloudy, amber liquid she was calling juice.

“It’s cider, with natural pulp,” she said, sitting down opposite me, placing the tray in front of her. “And no, it’s not the alcoholic kind, in case you were wondering.”

I leaned over the rim and sniffed it.

“Smells good,” I said, taking a sip. She stirred honey into her own cup and I watched steam curling from it. For early April, it was a warm day and so nice to be outside, although I had kept my jacket on just the same.

I’d passed her house so many times since the first Drift, wanting desperately to talk with her but knowing that I had to be careful about my curfew. When I was finally clear, her car had been gone. This Saturday morning I knew I had at least three hours where I could roam around, unsupervised and, fortunately, she acted delighted to see me.

I’d told her all about the Drift while she was fixing us drinks. Not just about what happened but about how amazing it was to make the trip. I really wanted to find out what she could tell me about it. I was almost disappointed that she seemed to act surprised and intrigued when I was describing what it looked like and how it felt, because it likely meant she’d never done it herself—it had been a hunch that didn’t pay out. And yet she’d been so casual that morning when she came to see me off.

So I began to hit her with the questions that had been burning in me: How does it work? How did you know I could Drift? Is it true I could die? And with each of them she quietly batted the questions back as though she were playing badminton and I didn’t have a bat. She said she either didn’t know herself, or I was still a First Year and it would “become clear,” and then finally she told me to focus on the mission of each Drift just as I do when walking to school, making sure I don’t get hit by a random car. That made me think about the time I’d first met her and my questions started up all over again.

“I’ll have to figure out what to do with this yard,” she said, looking around. It was a long open space and narrowed a bit towards the back where two oak trees towered over a tall, brown fence, shading the beds.

“Vegetables,” she scoffed. “Not a flower in the bunch. My predecessor, he was evidently a very self-sufficient man.”

“He was weird,” I muttered, taking another sip of the cider and swishing it back through my front teeth to see if I could strain the pulp out of it.

“Weird like me?” She asked. I froze, hiding my mouth behind my glass.

“Or weird like you, Mr. Time-Traveling Drifter?”

“I’m not weird,” I said, a bit annoyed. She raised her eyebrows and pinched her lips. “I’m not, I’m so normal it’s painful,” I demanded.

“Who sees things, or,” she corrected herself, “who senses things that are right in front of him even when others don’t notice. Not even when you try to point them out.”

“But…” I tried to protest but she was right.

“Weird isn’t bad, Liam,” she said. “But it’s most definitely different. And as I recall, different can be a dangerous thing when you’re growing up. Am I right?”

I got very quiet and watched while she used her fingertip to swipe a drop of honey that had fallen onto the tray. The tip of her tongue rubbed her lips as she savored the sweetness. A breeze ruffled the needles of the pine boughs overhead and when the shadows played on her face I noticed the scar again; a line of lighter skin, rimmed by a smooth dark edge.

“I know it’s tough to imagine adults as ever having been children themselves, once upon a time,” she said. “Often hard to recall for adults, too. So much changes. You face different challenges and the way you see the world can shift. Unless you really work to keep your eyes and your heart open to what you feel. What you sense.

“You want to ask me about Drifting?” she continued, shifting in place and leaning her head to catch my gaze. I was watching the branches of the oaks tapping each other like two fencers warming up with their pointed swords, pondering a fight.

“Yes, I do, for sure,” I said, hesitating, “But everybody is different.”

“True,” she responded thoughtfully. “But we all work so hard not to show it. Because if we’re too different we fall into the dark zone of being weird. Do you know how some people become friends? Because they share common interests and common experiences. Like you and me and Mr. Danby. You could say we’re friends of sorts, now. Couldn’t you?”

I nodded.

“We have Drifting in common, at least for the moment,” she said. “Some friends fall away in our lives because our interests change. That happens with adults too. Couples that liked each other and then began to do other things. Work and life. It’s hard for all of us to stay in touch. Because it’s natural to change.”

“You’re trying to tell me I’m certifiably weird now that I’m a Drifter?” I asked.

She laughed. “Well, congratulations if you are,” she said. “I can think of no better reason, frankly. But think about what you saw in just one Drift. And now multiply that by four drifts in one year, and then again by seven.”

“I can’t even imagine being sixteen, let alone eighteen years old,” I said. “I don’t know that I want to become that person.”

“What person?”

“Me… at eighteen,” I said, surprising myself with what I was saying. “It’s hard enough being twelve.”

“Hmmm,” Miss Prankle said, taking a long and thoughtful sip of tea as she nodded. “A very good point. Something to remember, actually. Something to set in your mind at this moment so you can return to it. I see too many people set aside the pure wisdom we have in being twelve.”

“What does that mean?”

“If I were to ask you if an industrial company should pollute a river with waste instead of paying more to clean it before they returned the water to the Earth, what would you say?”

“I’d say they shouldn’t do it,” I answered. “It’s just wrong. Obviously.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because it’s their responsibility to do the right thing,” I said. It made sense.

“And at eighteen, or twenty-three, or forty years old… what do you think you’d say then?”

“I don’t know,” I said, a bit worried that she was going to tell me the answer.

“Fair enough,” she said. “I don’t know what you’ll say either. But I know that people change the factors and definitions they use to make decisions. They have to feed their families, fend for themselves. They want a better existence and sometimes that alters their perception. They feel that the company has done ‘enough’ to clean up the waste. They will benefit from being quiet about the problem. Or, they look at a study that says it really isn’t doing harm that won’t be repaired, with time. Only an example, of course. But the older people get, the more they seem to see the world from their own perspective… and how the longer they live the more short term they see. Fascinating that you’re conscious and worried about losing your current point of view.”

“Doing the right thing seems obvious,” I said. “I don’t know that I want to get older. Older people seem to screw things up. It seems hard.”

“Hard, yes,” she said, leaning forward. “Not impossible. Particularly when you know that you aren’t completely alone. And you do know that for a fact. Think of all of the Drifters that you just told me about.”

“But they lived years ago,” I said.

“Some of them,” she responded. “Some of them are alive today.”

“Can I see them?” I asked, suddenly inspired.

“No,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Maintain the timestream,” she said. “That is the highest directive.”

I shook my head, not understanding.

“Some day, after you’ve aged out of the system… then you might meet them,” she said.

“But why?”

“Maintain the timestream,” she repeated. “Think about this, Liam. If you met someone now who was finished Drifting, they would be changed, not just by their Drifts but also by their own life experiences. They’d have different opinions about things, perhaps. Imagine if you were to talk about what happened in a Drift that they had experienced but you hadn’t yet?”

“Whoa,” I said, getting it suddenly. And just as quickly, I could see advantages. “That could be cool, though. We could… buy a lottery ticket, or something.”

“Precisely,” she said, leaning back.

“That’s not a good thing?” I asked, a bit put out.

I got the eyebrow again.

“Okay,” I said, laughing, even though I still thought it would be a cool bonus. “But why shouldn’t we be able to do that? Mr. Danby says that I can’t just pick the time I want to go back to. So where is the benefit?”

“Travel is its own benefit,” Miss Prankle said quietly, looking intently at me. “Having the experiences that only a precious few are granted the opportunity to know… that is an extraordinary gift. It enriches you. It changes you.”

“And it makes you… weird,” I said.

“Thank you!” she exclaimed, looking very relieved. “Because that is what I hope you will embrace whole-heartedly.”

“But I don’t want to stand out,” I said. “You get picked on. And it looks really lonely. It is lonely.”

“I’m sure,” she said compassionately.

“There’s this boy in Eighth Grade, and he’s from India or something,” I said. “He wears a head piece turban. That would not be good.”

“Did you like Drifting?”

“Yes!” I said, “Definitely!”

“And you’d like to do it again?”

“Yes, for sure,” I said, nodding.

“Then I’m afraid it’s already too late,” she said. “It’s not a matter of whether you’re weird or different, because, honestly my dear, everyone is in their own way, as you said. It’s a matter of whether you’ll be able to own it and be yourself. Be who you are after your first Drift and your second and your tenth. The world will seem to change around you, even though you and the other Drifters are the ones who are helping it to be, as it is agreed to be.”

I wondered about the last part of what she said, but my head was swimming.

“From what I know,” she continued, “You don’t Drift until you’re twelve because it’s physically demanding and you need to be strong. And you don’t Drift after the age of eighteen because every Drifter needs to be able to make decisions that are selfless and for the good of our common timestream.”

I heard the swish of pine boughs first, and then a swirling wind raced down around our spot at the table. Miss Prankle shuddered and pulled her scarf around her narrow shoulders, looking up to the sky. She appeared lost in thought.

“I think that’s probably enough for one day,” she said. She put her cup back on the tray and reached over for my glass.

“Do I need to learn how to drink tea?” I asked.

She smiled.

“Why would you say that?”

I told her about Thomas taunting me about how good I am with horses, and how it occurred to me that if I was going to have to wait for three months between Drifts, that maybe I should be learning a few things that could help me when I went back.

“Try some, if you wish,” she said, sitting back and waiting. The tea was barely warm so it wasn’t hard to drink.

“Mint,” I said, happily. “Kind of like gum, only liquid.”

“You see?” she said, smiling, “Not really weird at all.”