The Keepers Book Two of the Holding Kate Series (29 page)

Donnie and Eunavae frowned at each other and continued the investigation. Eunavae pawed through the books and Donnie followed Dirk down the empty halls and peered into each room. After climbing a staircase, they found a large attic full of furniture and clothing, trunks and broken toys.

“What do you think is going on here, Dirk?” Donnie asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Should we leave?”

“And go where? Mama Ty probably sent us here for a reason. Let’s stay and see if anyone shows up.”

They stayed. Eunavae cleaned, and Dirk and Donnie repaired shutters on the house, and the roof on the barn. They expected the owner to show up at any time. No one came. Donnie found several of their jump crates scattered across the property and brought them into the house. Dirk found a stray mule wandering around and brought him back to the barn.

Weeks passed and no one came. Rations running low, Dirk hitched the mule to the wagon one day for a trip into town to try to barter for some grain, oil, and supplies.

They followed the trail of wagon wheels down the road that seemed to have the most traffic, maybe three travelers per day, and found a small town. Eunavae had been studying the translation book and had a rudimentary understanding of the language.

“Orphanage.” She pointed to a building deconstructed to rubble. Children picked and shuffled, clearing away the debris and climbing on stone pillars that had once supported some structure. The town wrecked, tenuously struggled for civilization. The jumpers rolled the wagon to stop in front of a general store. Dirk jumped from the driver seat and secured the reins. Eunavae and Donnie huddled around him.

Eunavae looked funny in the clothes they had borrowed from the homeowner. They were about three sizes too big for her. Donnie couldn’t really make fun, though. His borrowed trousers were three inches too short. Dirk pulled the short straw, nothing fit his massive frame. He wore his jump pants and a T-shirt strained across his chest.

“Donnie, walk the board and see if you can find out where we are. Eunavae, come with me and get the things you think we will need, and I will see if he will trade for the gold watch.” Dirk had found the watch in a highboy at the farmhouse.

They nodded and Donnie ambled down the boardwalk until he found a shop front with a printing press in the window. He eased into the shop at the ring of a bell. A small man with thick wire rimmed glasses perched on the end of his nose fidgeted with tiny tiles.

“Excuse me.”

He looked up.

“Do you speak English?” Donnie asked.

“Tak.” He tipped his glasses off of his face. “I spek pachniec…small English.”

“Can you tell me the name of this town?”

His shocked expression faded into suspicion. “Garwolin, Poland,” he said, a shrewd eye swept over Donnie. “Niedaleko. Not far. Warsaw.”

“Where are all the people? The population?” Donnie waved his arms around to include the whole town.

“War.” The man’s face grew long with sorrow.

War?
Donnie wracked his brain, trying to remember seeing newscasts of a skirmish in Poland
.
Pensive, he nodded and started putting together facts. No cars, no electricity in the farmhouse. Not only were they in a very real place in the manifest world, but they were in an alternate time.

He shifted awkwardly and then asked a question he expected to send the little man scampering off to find the local law enforcement. “What year is it?”

Donnie could see the wheels in his head turning. Evidently the journalist in him won out over the skeptic. “1948.”

Now Donnie took a turn at shocked. He studied his feet to hide his dismay and choked out a thank you. Leaving the shop without looking back, he hurried away. He waited with the mule, mind frenetic with all the possible implications.

Eunavae and Dirk exited the store a few minutes later loaded down with supplies. They piled them in the wagon, climbed aboard, and headed back out of town before Donnie broke the news to them.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to go back in time. Paradoxes and all.” Dirk fidgeted with the reins.

“Yeah, well, there are a lot of things that aren’t supposed to happen, right? It’s the whole reason we are investigating,” Donnie said.

“Are we stuck here, then?” Eunavae whispered.

Donnie shrugged his shoulders and turned his face to take in the war ravaged landscape.

“I wish I had paid more attention in world history.” Dirk slapped the reins.

They settled in for the long haul. Not knowing how long they would have to sustain themselves, Eunavae got a job at the orphanage helping with the Tuberculin outbreak, and Dirk and Donnie found work clearing post war rubble. They learned that 70 percent of the city had been destroyed during WWII. About a thousand people were murdered, several thousand were shipped off to concentration camps and as slave labor in Nazi Germany. Many families fled during the occupation. Only a slight percentage of the population remained or had returned.

The farm they inhabited had belonged to an elderly Jewish couple who had adopted a boy. They disappeared one day and no one knew where. Or they weren’t saying, not unusual for neighbors to be taken away to concentration camps, suddenly. Several abandoned farms lay vacated, and the villagers were apathetic about them living in one. Mostly, they just wanted to be left alone to heal. A great mistrust toward foreigners reigned, understandably.

They laid low and tended the farm. Donnie seeded a garden. Eunavae bought some chickens for eggs and they all hunted for meat. After they had spent four months on the abandoned farm, one day they had visitors.

They fell out of the sky.

QUANTUM PERSPECTIVE SOURCE (QPS): COREY CHASTAIN

I woke up with my cheek pressed into foul smelling mud. A light drizzle whispered across the ground around me. I gasped for air and felt pinpricks run along the tips of my fingers and toes. Stabbing pains in my chest and lungs forced me over to my side and I yelped when pain lanced through my leg.

I looked down and saw a shiv of debris sticking through my calf. I tried to sit up but the world lurched and spun wildly around me. Blood mingled in the mud puddle by my head and schooled me on the pounding sensation in my skull.

The wet world faded in and out of darkness and dimness. Blurred images struck me, a house with a thatched roof, smoke curling from the chimney.

Black.

A horse drawn cart in the distance splashing through a heavy downpour.

Black. Gray. Black.

A raven circling overhead, its feathery spiral echoed a distant memory.

Black.

Warm hands on my face, a familiar smile.

Gray. Excruciating pain and a floating sensation.

Black.

I woke to the smell of my grandmother’s beef stew. Though the smell conjured up warm memories, it also made me retch then black out again.

“…needs a doctor…”

“Not these quacks. They will kill him for sure.”

“Kate.” I struggled to lift myself from this oppressive lethargy.

“No, Corey, it’s just us, Mel and Eunavae.”

“Eunavae?”
Why was I so happy to hear her name?
“Eunavae.”

“Yes Corey, I’m here.” Her hand squeezed mine. “I’m watching over you.”

Good. Eunavae. She’ll take good care of me.

Black.

I opened my eyes, but the blackness remained.
Was I blind?
My heart squeezed until I saw a faint glow at my feet. Moonlight reflected on the bed sheets. I struggled up on my elbows and the room spiraled around me. I slurped in air then tried again. My limbs, aching and stiff, resisted as I swung them off the bed. Pain shot up my right leg and I had a vague memory of a metal spike lodged in it. Nausea coursed through me and I gagged, but nothing came up. My head pounded, and I reached up to touch a bandage across my forehead.

“Corey?” A whisper in the darkness.

“Augh,” I moaned.

Scratching sounds and a flash, then a small hand lit a lantern. The wick caught, and Eunavae’s face peered into mine.

“Hey.” She smiled.

“Hey,” I scratched out.

“How do you feel?”

“Like I was eaten by a tornado.” I stuck my tongue out a few times and tried to moisten it. My mouth felt like cotton. “Eunavae! You’re alive!”

“Yeah,” she giggled. “Here, take small sips.” She proffered a tin cup to my mouth and I sipped on the stale water. “Lie back down, rest.”

She settled me back onto the pillows and gently lifted my legs into place, arranging a heavy scratchy blanket over me.

“Where are we?” I asked, but I passed out before I heard her answer.

“Come on, sit up,” Eunavae demanded.

I wrenched one eyelid open and saw Dirk and Trip bent over my bed grinning at me.
What a sight to wake up to! Gah!
A pang laced through me at the thought of one of Kate’s favorite expressions. I guessed I picked it up from her.

“Your doctor,” Dirk hooked a thumb to Eunavae, “says you have to walk today.”

“What?” I complained, baffled.

Trip and Dirk lifted me between them and dragged me across the floor. I don’t even think my feet touched the ground. The pain in my head and leg stole my concentration. I broke out into a sweat and begged them to put me back.