Time Drifters

Mr. Danby wouldn’t allow me to keep the crystal or the parchment. He said that both of them had to stay at the house, the place that he called the Drift Station.

He explained that I wouldn’t be alone. When I travelled there would be other Drifters—kids like me who did the same thing. He said he knew this because he had a list of who was going to go back to the same time.

He wouldn’t let me see the list, or tell me how it all got started, but he said that there had been Drifters for as long as there were records of human history.

My mind was swimming all day long and I found it almost impossible to concentrate in any of my classes, except for a moment in English. Mrs. Wales read us a quote from Joseph Campbell, a professor from Boston who wrote a lot about mythology.

It said, “We do not even need to worry, for the heroes of all time have come before us.” She lead us to get Campbell’s point that we were not walking a path in our lives for the first time, that every experience, big and small, hard and easy, had also been faced by our ancestors.

“And by time Drifters, I guess,” I said under my breath.

Still, I found my heart beating wildly throughout the day. I wanted to jump up and talk about it with everyone, or anyone. But I couldn’t. I was excited and then afraid that it might happen… and afraid that it might not.

My mind kept coming back to the idea that this might all be a hoax, until I remembered the crystal vibrating in my hand and the way that the Great Room settled down immediately when I did what Mr. Danby had told me. It was as though he knew how to tame a massive beast, merely by following a few simple steps.

Mr. Danby said I’d return to my own time and only moments after I’d left, but that it could be a few hours or even days that I spent where I was time traveling.

I asked about taking food along, but he said that I must only take my crystal and what I’d be wearing; clothes that were from the time period.

“That’s part of why the house is so big,” he had said. “There are lots of old things tucked away, just in case.”

I left school and wondered if I’d ever see it again. That was partly a hopeful thought, and partly a lonely one. I thought that I should leave a note for my parents to tell them where I went, particularly after the thoughts I had in the morning, back when I thought Mr. Danby had gone insane. But how would I word it?

“Gone to 1780… Home for dinner.”

It was a giggle to me, but I knew it was impossible to pull off.

Mom had returned from the City and there was a very nice meal of beef stroganoff waiting for me and Dad that night. I got kind of sad, thinking what they might do if I disappeared all of a sudden without any explanation, and yet I knew they talked about that very thing less than a week ago… what life would be like without me around. Maybe it wouldn’t be as hard for them as I wanted to imagine.

This was a major secret, but I’d had too many times of being told I was just making things up so I knew it’d be better to test it all out before I decided to say anything. If the letter to myself had been faked, then it was worth following through to learn how to do the trick. That might be my consolation if all else went weird.

I slept like a rock but woke up early, even before the two alarms I’d set for myself. Mr. Danby had said to eat a good breakfast and I had planned it the night before.

Dad left smack on the dot of 6:35 and Mom had left sandwiches for lunch and a note that she was going to be sleeping in.

For the second day in a row, I was pedaling to Mr. Danby’s house. He said that the Drifters only traveled four times a year; on Summer and Winter Solstices and on the Vernal and Autumnal Equinox. So this pattern wouldn’t be a regular profession. That was just as well, because having to sneak around was tough. I felt like I was already pushing my luck.

Miss Prankle’s car was there when I arrived and she was the first to greet me at the door.

“I’m not staying long,” she said, giving me a kiss on the top of my head, which seemed unusually familiar and yet nice that she seemed to care so much. “I wanted to come to say that I’m very, very, very proud of you for being a brave young man. And I think this is all wonderful! And I know you’ll be fine.”

“You aren’t going to be here?” I asked.

“No, dear,” she said, pulling on her coat. “This is something between you and the stones and your Postmaster. That’s Colin, here,” she noted in answer to my quizzical look.

“When you can, you come to see me and we can talk about it,” she said, waving goodbye to the two of us.

The clock began striking eight just as she closed the door, and Mr. Danby was ready with a set of clothes for me.

“You need to put these on, please… and pronto,” he said holding the stack of them out towards me. “There’s a large bathroom on the right, just before the kitchen.”

“Can I keep my underwear on?” I yelled just after I’d closed the door.

“Nope,” he shouted. “Only wear the things I’ve given you, including the under garments. If you don’t know how to do up anything, left me know and I can help.”

He kept checking his watch and smiling nervously. I got him to let me look at the parchment again, but he wouldn’t let me take it with me. It’s me, Liam Trinder. And it works! It said at the top.

“Can I do this again?” I asked, sitting with him in the kitchen.

“You haven’t even done it once,” he said, chuckling.

“No, I mean, can I pick a place and go back there?” I asked. “Like, Plymouth Rock when the Pilgrims landed.”

“Oh, I don’t think you’d have wanted to be there,” Mr. Danby said. “A sour bunch, from what I’ve read. They would’ve known who was on the ship with them. And if you’d been with the natives you likely wouldn’t have lived to make it back.”

He saw me turn a bit green at that thought and quickly carried on.

“Um, from what I know, you can only go back about 250 years,” he said. “Anything more than that would be too far… to difficult to fit in. And, no, you can’t choose the place you go to. The stones send you to the place you need to be.”

“How?” I asked.

“I have my theories,” he said, scratching his forehead and checking his watch again. “But it’s a better thing to let it happen and then talk about it. Oh, and I will tell you that Drifters can only travel from the age of twelve to eighteen.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

But he didn’t answer. The most recent look at his watch had sent him scuttling towards the living room, calling back for me to follow.

“Wait,” he said, passing me on his way back to the kitchen. “I just forgot the owl.”

Bangers and Mash looked completely nonplussed at the excitement. They were both languishing in the living room, although Teabag decided that I needed company as I wandered towards the Great Room. Since yesterday, Mr. Danby had removed all of the furniture and all the floor planks that had stood up loosely against the walls. This was smart, I figured, because I felt the place begin to shake a bit as I got closer to it; that same underground rumbling sound. The exposed rock surface was jagged and morning light from the north windows glinted off of some of the shiny surfaces.

“Step back for a moment,” he said, running to put down the statue of an owl on the front credenza while he motioned me back from the steps.

“I’m going to go in and show you where you kneel,” he noted, descending the three steps of the Great Room to the open rock.

“Like this,” he said, demonstrating. “You’ll have your crystal around your neck. And then, when I tell you, you grab it in your hand and hold it to your chest… right where the breastbone is. Got it?”

“I think so,” I said, wondering where my breastbone started in the midst of all of my ribs.

“It’s very important to remember where I am… and where you’ll be,” he reiterated. “Can you kneel like this?”

“Sure,” I said, doing it where I was, practicing.

The clocks struck the half hour.

“Oh,” Mr. Danby yowled. “One minute. Just sixty seconds. Come on.”

I followed him to the front hallway and the owl began to rattle as we got close. He turned it over and opened the back panel. Inside was my crystal, with a simple silver band completely encasing it. The silver was attached to a leather strap.

“Cool!” I said, admiring it while my hand instinctively reached towards. I pulled back when it began to whir in its case. Mr. Danby dipped his head to indicate I take it and the instant my fingers lifted it the buzzing stopped but the floor jolted like the house had hiccupped.

“It’s okay,” he said. “That’s just a recognition that you’re here. We’re too close to the event so the rumbling in the ground is not going to go away until you’re gone and have come back. But by being here at the optimum time, the second of the Equinox, everything is in sync and it shouldn’t feel like the hinges are coming off the house either. Yesterday was close to the date but too soon.”

He slipped the strap around my neck.

“Don’t touch it with your hand again until I tell you,” he cautioned, seeing my fingers move towards my chest.

“Right,” I said.

He waved for me to follow towards the Great Room, but I started shaking and I felt my lip puffing out, realizing that something big was coming.

“Mr. Danby?”

“Yes lad,” he said, wheeling and looking at me with wide eyes.

I couldn’t speak but he seemed to understand. He put both hands on my shoulders and gave them a squeeze, and his eyes even looked a bit misty.

“Oh, I know lad,” he said quietly, his voice cracking. “But it’s a gloriously good thing.” His Irish lilt got very strong on those words and I thought for a second that he seemed like a cheerful, white-haired leprechaun. There was certainly magic happening and I knew because the rumble was different and deeper than before.

I stepped down the planks and Mr. Danby stood at the top, his hands clasped together.

“Go on now, just as I showed you,” he said.

My foot touched the rock and I swore it looked as though it started to spin like water in a whirlpool.

“It’s moving,” I said.

“You just think it is,” he said, staring at his watch. “That’s the quartz field. Know that it is solid. You’re doing fine. Now kneel down right away.”

I did that, but the ground wasn’t the only thing shaking. My arms and legs and my whole being were shaking and trembling from the inside out.

“Now, Liam!” He shouted. His voice was choppy, as though there were fan blades cutting up the words.

“Grab… crystal … your chest,” he repeated.

I had to fight to get my hand up to it, but I snatched the crystal and lifted it up, pressing it against me.

There was a jerking motion, almost as though I was in a car that had stopped suddenly. The rumbling noise continued, but it had shifted to somewhere outside of the realm that I was in. I looked up and Mr. Danby and Teabag and the whole appearance of the room were distorted like I was watching them through a heat mirage, only with sparks mixed in. Thin veins of lightning began to curl around me in a kind of sphere that was now encircling me.

Mr. Danby was yelling something else, but he had slowed down and begun to look more distant as the brilliance of the light increased all around me.

Then the noise from outside of my sphere snapped into overdrive and I wanted to cover my ears. It felt like the sound would crush me.

And suddenly, it stopped.

I opened my eyes and there was silence. White mist was surrounding the sphere and it felt like I was floating for a moment. I pressed down and swore I could still feel the firmness of the rock, but there was nothing there. I was… nowhere.

In an instant that same noise returned. The roar increased, only this time it came from somewhere far away as if I were standing at the foot of a huge pipe, listening to the approach of rushing water. The white mist became clouded with green and blue light and beneath me there was something brown.

A rushing wind around me took my breath away and made me close my eyes. There was a sucking sound and it felt like all the air around me was being pulled away. Something big was coming and it was happening now.