“She's come back, Amos!” Mrs. Crackerby was saying. “She's come back to haunt us because she knows what we did!”
Where was Lila? Jay poked his head out through the side of the desk to look around.
Oh no! There was her head on the sofa, her chin resting on the cushion and her eyes on the Crackerbys. Jay could see through the murky sofa just enough to know the rest of her body was still attached, hiding inside.
Lila saw Jay's head sticking out of the desk and mouthed the words, “I'm okay.” She could still feel gravity tipping a little.
It seemed Mrs. Crackerby was feeling the same thing. “Ohhh . . .” the big woman said with her hand to her forehead. “I still feel dizzy.”
She turned from the window. Lila pulled her head inside the sofa like a turtle pulling into its shell.
“Well it's no surprise, the way you've been carrying on,” said the judge, sitting down at his desk and sliding his feet under it. His feet just about clipped Jay's nose. “It's high time you got control of yourself before you ruin everything!”
Mrs. Crackerby settled onto the sofa. The cushions compressed under her weight, squishing down and exposing Lila's head, which poked up right beside Mrs. Crackerby's more-than-adequate posterior. Lila squirmed and struggled, trying to submerge herself again.
“She was looking across the street, Amos!” said Mrs. Crackerby. “She was looking at the roof of the mercantile. She was figuring it out!”
The judge shuffled through the papers on his desk. “She isn't going to figure out anything! I'm going to find her first!”
“But what could you do even if you did find her?”
He muttered and stammered and then growled, “You ask too many questions.”
Then Lila spotted Jay's foot sticking out through the side of the judge's desk.
Jay, Jay, pull your foot
in!
she thought.
“Well, at least you know I'm not crazy! You saw the ghosts of those two children yourself!”
The judge looked up from his papers just as Lila finally managed to get her head down. “They were not ghosts, Beulah! They were tricksters and deceivers, and when Deputy Hatch rounds them up, they're going to explain how they pulled off that clever little illusion!”
Mrs. Crackerby's voice took on an eerie tone. “Maybe Eloise is right. Maybe the spirits are seeking justice.”
The judge slammed his papers down. “Beulah, you have no idea how foolish you sound, nor do you realize how far this hysteria of yours is going! John and Irma just came byâ”
“They did?”
“I told them you were in no condition to have visitors.”
“Amos!”
“But they've already heard the ghost talk around town, and now they're blaming ghosts for the rocks falling off the cliffs near their home. Hmmph! A rock slide blamed on ghosts, of all things!”
“But what about the Billings? They sawâ”
“They
think
they saw something, that's all!”
“Amos, they saw Annie and Cyrus looking right at them from the cliffs above where the Murphys were building their cabin.”
“Balderdash!”
“It's her way of warning us that she's watching! She's watching and listening to everything we say!” Mrs. Crackerby's voice fell to a hush. “There could be ghosts in this room right now, listening to our every word!”
You're not too far off
, Lila thought.
“I am not about to be intimidated,” said the judge. “The auction's tonight at eight, and we are going to participate, ghosts or no ghosts, Sheriff Potter or no Sheriff Potter.”
Lila gasped. Something had grabbed her.
“What was that?” Mrs. Crackerby whispered.
“What was what?” asked the judge.
Lila saw she'd been grabbed by her brother. She mouthed, “How did youâ”
He motioned to her to follow him. They slipped through the wall behind the sofa and into the hallway outside.
“How did you do that without them seeing you?” Lila asked him in a hushed whisper.
“I crawled outdoors first and circled around,” he answered. “Come on before we turn solid again and get trapped in here.”
They got out of the boardinghouse, being careful to stay out of sight. The town of Bodine didn't need any more ghost sightings for today.
“Right now we can see both the present and the past,” Jay said as they hurried through back alleys and behind fences. “Maybe we'll be able to see Dad and let him know what's going on.”
They didn't know exactly where to look but decided they would find their father if they had to search the whole canyon.
In the present, it was getting close to dawn. Dr. Cooper, Richard MacPherson, and Sheriff Dustin Potter had just returned from a fruitless search of the canyon. They sat in the jeep near the south end of the ruins trying to figure out what to do next. Cooper and Mac were nearly exhausted. Sheriff Potter was still suffering from shock and confusion.
“No sign of them,” said Dr. Cooper, upset. “So maybe they
are
in the past.”
“We don't know for sure,” said Mac. “I'm only guessing about a possible time vortex, and so far I can't tell you how it works, or what triggers it, or where to find it. Apparently the sheriff and the kids encountered it back in that cliff, but it's no longer there.”
“But you figure the kids could have fallen into it.”
“It's starting to look that way. The kids may have encountered the vortex the same time the sheriff did, and they all fell into it at the same time andâ” He froze, staring toward the ruins. He grabbed Dr.
Cooper's arm. “Heads up, Jake!”
Dr. Cooper looked in the same direction.
Two vague shapes were coming their way, floating and drifting through the ruins like wisps of smoke.
Dr. Cooper stood in the jeep. “It's them!” He waved, then leaped from the jeep and waved some more. “Jay, Lila, can you see us?”
“If we can see them, they should be able to see us,” Mac advised him.
The two ghostly shapes waved back excitedly and began running toward them.
Dr. Cooper started to run, but Mac held him back. “Don't, Jake!”
Dr. Cooper almost jerked his arm away. “Why? What's wrong?”
“If you try to touch them, you could interrupt the timeâdimensional interphase and lose them for goodâor be sucked into the time vortex yourself.”
Dr. Cooper was desperate to touch his kids, to hold them again. “You can't mean that.”
“We don't know how it all works!” Mac insisted.
Dr. Cooper stood still and let the kids approach. It was eerie. They seemed to be moving in slow motion, then fast motion, then slow again; they were fading in and out, first almost solid, then so transparent they almost disappeared.
“The town!” cried the sheriff, his voice strangely distant. “I can see the town again!” And then he cried out as if falling.
Mac looked back over his shoulder and saw the sheriff sitting in the roadâwaist-deep in the road, as if the gravel and dirt were liquid around his body. He was transparent just like the kids, and looking very perplexed about it as he twisted his head around, gawking in every direction.
“Bodine!” he was saying. “Bodine! It's back!”
Mac looked toward the kids again. They had come within ten feet of their father, but Dr. Cooper had gestured for them not to come any closer.
Dr. Cooper could see their lips moving, but their voices were so faint and garbled that he couldn't understand them. He quickly responded with the OK hand signal and mouthed the words, “Are you okay?”
Their images wavered and fluctuated, but he could tell they were nodding yes. Jay began to signal back in Morse code, making dot and dash motions with his finger.
We are in the past. June 8, 1885.
How did you get there?
Dr. Cooper signaled.
Jay answered,
We were following Annie Murphy.
Lila pointed toward the cliff to the west.
Dr. Cooper nodded. He understood.
Tracked you
that far. Found camera.
Jay nodded excitedly.
Took pictures of Annie.
What happened?
The kids looked beyond their father, seeing something behind him. Their faces registered shock.
They were gone. Instantly. There was nothing to see now but the empty canyon and the ruins in the early gray light of morning.
“Jay! Lila!” Dr. Cooper cried out, his heart breaking. “Are you there? Can you hear me?”
“Who were those kids?” came a voice behind him.
Cooper turned. It was the sheriff. He was solid again, staring at the spot where the kids had stood.
“They were my children,” Dr. Cooper replied.
“For a minute, they were the only thing that still looked solid,” said the sheriff.
Mac stepped forward. “You saw them . . . complete? Solid?”
The sheriff nodded glumly. “Saw them just fine. Saw Bodine, too, only the town was quivery again, and so were you.” He grabbed Mac's shoulder in desperation. “Professor, if you know what's happening here, would you mind explaining it to me?”
Jay was so desperate to see his father again that Lila had to grab his arm and pull him toward the shelter of a nearby barn.
“Let me signal him!” Jay cried. “Maybe he can still see us!”
“Jay, quick, we have to hide,” Lila reminded him, getting him through the barn door. “We're solid again!”
Jay flopped against the barn wall, about to weep from frustration. “We saw him . . . if we could have just grabbed him or something . . .” He wilted, sliding down the wall until he sat in the hay. “He's gone . . .”
Lila sat down and put her arms around him, her eyes filling with tears. “No, he's not gone. He's still there. He's just not there
now.
”
“Did you see that other man?”
“It was the sheriff, wasn't it? Nobody can find him because he's in the future with Dad and Professor MacPherson.”
“We've traded places with Sheriff Potter!” Jay's voice was weak with despair. “What are we going to do?”
Lila just held him as she prayed, “Dear Lord, you know all about time and space and little people like us. Help us, Lord. Help us get back home again.”
S
leep did not come easily, but Mac and Dr. Cooper had to get some rest after being up all night. They sacked out in Mac's tent on the cemetery hill while Sheriff Potter kept watch outside. They didn't wake up until nine in the morning.
Munching on a quick breakfast of dried fruit and granola barsâthe sheriff didn't care for anyâthey questioned the sheriff further.
“Annie Murphy shot her husband in cold blood, three shots with a .40 caliber revolver, right up in their room in the Crackerbys' boardinghouse,” the sheriff explained. “Near as we can figure, she married Cyrus Murphy just so she could inherit the mine after she killed him.”
“And so she was sentenced to be hanged . . .” Dr. Cooper prompted.
“But she escaped from the jail the night before and didn't show up again until two days later, up in the same room in the boardinghouse where she shot her husband. That's when I chased her to the cliffs. And then you know what happened: I tried to grab her, but
POW!
She disappeared and there I was, in the dark and . . . wherever I am.”
Dr. Cooper asked Mac, “When did those boys see Annie?”
“Two and a half days ago, which means she was wandering up on this hill,” he looked at the sheriff, “the night she escaped from your jail.”
The sheriff nodded. “Except she escaped early in the morning.”
“Which means there's about an eight-hour difference. When it's morning in the past, it's evening in the present.”
Dr. Cooper asked, “You said she looked like a ghost.”
Sheriff Potter nodded. “Just like you look sometimesâ and I guess like I look to you.” Then he added, “Except she looks flat, like a picture.”
“Two-dimensional . . .” Mac mused. “She has height and width, but no depth.”
“Just like a picture hanging on the wall.” The sheriff stretched sleepily. “And now that you guys are having your morning, I'm ready to call it a night. If you're done using that tent, I could use a few winks.”
“Sure,” said Mac. “We can talk some more later.”
The sheriff started for the tent. “It's not all that complicated as far as I'm concerned. You want your kids back, and I've got an escaped killer to catch and take back to Bodine for hanging. That's the long and the short of it. I'll leave you gentlemen to sort out the hows and the whys.”
The sheriff ducked inside the tent and was soon snoring peacefully.
Dr. Cooper sat close to Mac so they could talk quietly. “I can tell you're having a brainstorm.”
“I've had theories about this place for a long time,” Mac answered. “When I heard about those boys seeing the image of the weeping woman in the cliff and then sighting a ghost, I wondered if a vortex could have developed.”
“A vortex?”
“A tunnel-like whirlpool in the space/time fabric.” Mac's eyes glowed with the thrill of discovery. “You see, Jake, gravity, time, and space are all physical properties, linked together. If gravity is disrupted, as we see happening in this canyon, time and space will be disrupted as well.” He took a scrap of paper from his shirt pocket, folded it once to make a crease, then unfolded it and stretched it out flat on his knee. “Imagine that this piece of paper is time and space. Let's pretend the past is over here near the left edge of the paper and the present is over near the right edge. Now if we were microbes on this piece of paper, the past would be a long way from the present: We'd have to crawl a long distance to get there, and it would take a long time. In the same way, we're separated from the Bodine of the past by roughly a century. But now here's what's happened.” He folded the edges of the paper upward like a book closing until the two sides nearly touched. “Gravity has folded time and space and now the past and present are almost folded against each other. They've actually touched in one place: the vortex.”