Come Down In Time (A Time Travel Romance) (24 page)

Tommy slowed the truck down to a
crawl. “I’m going five miles an hour,” he said. They inched by
the spot and away from any cliffs before Tommy started going faster.
Jamie’s parents’ house, her childhood home, came into view just
around the bend. Tommy pulled into the driveway and they got out of
his truck. They walked around back and went in the kitchen door. How
many times had Jamie gone out of that door in the past several
months? She didn’t know.

Her mother walked in the kitchen
as they came in the door. “I’m running late, y’all,” she
said. “I’m supposed to be at the church early today. Your dad’s
already left with Bobby.”

“
It’s okay, Mom,” Jamie
said. Had she ever realized how beautiful her mother was, with her
beautiful Native features? She didn’t think she had ever realized
it, in any timeline. Her mother gave them each a hug, then grabbed
her purse from the kitchen table and went out the door.

“
I guess it’s time to go to
the Moon Cave and get the stuff,” Jamie said. She opened a drawer
in the kitchen and pulled out a pad and pen. She took another pen for
good measure. She opened another drawer and got a flashlight. She
turned it on, and shined its light across the kitchen. She went into
the pantry and got two large jelly jars her mother had saved.

“
I think we’re ready,” she
said. Jamie and Tommy walked out the kitchen door and headed across
the pasture. The woods were ablaze with the colors of deep crimson,
orange, and yellow. They walked to the opening and went in.

At the overhang, Jamie and Tommy
pushed back the willow branches, which still had a few yellow leaves
clinging to its branches.

“
Let’s get the writing
first,” Jamie said. She lay on her back and Tommy guided her into
the opening in the back of the cave. “Hand me the flashlight,”
she said.

Tommy handed her the flashlight
and she shined it on the ceiling. The letters were there, as they had
been for hundreds of years. Tommy handed her the pad and pen. Jamie
put the pad on her chest and held the flashlight in her left hand.
She carefully wrote down the symbols she saw on the ceiling. As she
had before, she shined the flashlight around the cramped space to
make sure she wasn’t missing any words. When she was satisfied she
had gotten everything, she called for Tommy to pull her out.

“
No sex this time,” she said
laughing.

“
Okay, sugar,” Tommy said,
laughing too.

Tommy pulled his pocketknife from
his pants and began to scrape the dirt from the floor of the cave.
Jamie scooped it up into the jelly jar until the jar was full. Tommy
moved over to the willow branches and chose a medium-sized branch.

“
Wait,” Jamie said. “I’m
going to help you with that. I don’t want to do anything wrong.”
She moved over and put her hand on top of Tommy’s as he cut the
branch.

“
Got it,” he said.

When they crawled out of the
overhang, she and Tommy together walked down to the lake and filled
the other jelly jar with lake water. They walked up from the lake and
back onto the path and headed toward Jamie’s house.

“
Do you have the map?” Jamie
asked in a panicked voice.

“
It’s right here in my
jacket,” Tommy said. “We’ll make sure when we get back to your
house. The walk through the woods seemed like an eternity to Jamie,
but they finally emerged through the opening and looked out on the
pasture. Tommy held the jar of water and the branch and Jamie held
the jar of dirt and the writings from the cave ceiling. They walked
carefully back to Tommy’s truck and got in. Before he started the
truck, Tommy pulled the map from the inside of his jacket and handed
it to Jamie. She unfolded the paper and looked at it.

“
Okay,” she said. “Let’s
go.”

They drove up the highway that
would take them to the North Carolina line. Jamie carefully guarded
the jars of dirt and water with her hands the whole way. They had
lids, but she didn’t want any jostle in the road to turn them over.
Tommy turned on the radio. All they could get was a country station,
and they sang every song they knew all the way to the state line.
When they crossed over, Tommy slowed down so he could pay close
attention.

Jamie called out the roads and
mileage to Tommy as he took one turn, then the next. They drove by
Chancy’s mother’s house before Jamie even realized it.

“
That was Chancy’s house,”
she said looking back. “I guess he’s in there right now, or at
school, I suppose. But that’s where he’s living right now because
he’s only twelve years old.”

“
I hope we don’t need him,”
Tommy said. “If we get lost, we’re going to have to go to his
house and have a damn good story for why we’re there.”

“
I hope we don’t have to do
that,” Jamie said.

Tommy was driving fifteen miles
an hour now so he wouldn’t miss the very precise spot in the road
where the path to Blackbird’s cabin started. He drove exactly as
far as the map said and stopped. They got out and surveyed the woods.

“
Does this look familiar to
you?” Tommy asked her.

“
I’m trying to get my
bearings. It really hasn’t been that long since I’ve been
here—just a few days ago—but that was in 2013. Things might be
different in 2001.”

She looked all around the side of
the road. Then she spotted a large oak tree behind them. They had
stopped just slightly too far up the road.

“
There it is,” she said
pointing at the tree. They got their jars and branch and pad with the
writings out of the truck and started walking toward the tree. Jamie
looked down into the woods and saw a faint path. She hadn’t noticed
any path before because she was depending on Chancy to get her where
she needed to go. But now, she could faintly see it. She walked in
and Tommy followed her.

“
I don’t know how you can
tell where you’re going,” Tommy said behind her.

“
I can see it,” she said.
“Besides, Chancy said to watch for the oak trees. They are only by
the path.”

“
I hope they haven’t dropped
their leaves yet,” Tommy said. “Probably not. They drop later
than the others.”

Jamie looked to her left and to
her right. She saw an oak tree on both sides, so she moved ahead. As
they walked, she kept scanning the woods for the oaks. “Watch for
the oaks,” Darma said in her head, even though she had not even
been born yet. She followed the oaks and Tommy followed her. After
walking for about fifteen minutes, the amount of time it had taken
her and Chancy to walk through, they came to something of a clearing.
Jamie stopped. She looked to her right and saw Blackbird’s cabin
nestled in the woods like it grew there.

“
It’s right over there,”
she whispered, pointing.

Tommy looked in the direction
Jamie was pointing and barely made out a structure. “I think I see
it,” he whispered back.

Jamie and Tommy walked up to the
door, which looked just as worn as it did twelve years in the future.
She knocked. Unlike the time with Chancy, the door opened right away.

“
I’ve been waiting for you,”
Blackbird said, even though he had met Jamie in 2013 and not in 2001.
He looked as old as he had the last time she had seen him, though he
should have been younger. Blackbird turned and Jamie and Tommy
followed him inside. A fire crackled in the small fireplace.
Blackbird took the jar of water from Jamie and poured most of it into
the cast iron pot hanging over the fire. He took the pouch from the
brick wall and put his hand in. He pulled it out in a fist and threw
the contents of his hand into the water.

“
The willow branch,” he said,
holding out his hand. Tommy handed it to him and Blackbird put the
cut end into the pot.

“
Sit,” he said to them,
motioning to the floor. It was the same zigzag rug, looking just as
worn as the last time Jamie had seen it. She and Tommy sat on the
floor. Blackbird took a wooden bowl from the mantle and poured the
dirt into it. He took the jar of water and poured the remaining lake
water into the bowl. He stirred it around with his fingers until it
formed a brown paste.

He leaned over to them from his
sitting position on the floor and stroked the paste onto their
foreheads and their cheeks. He wiped the paste that stuck to his
fingers on his shirt. The fire crackled. Blackbird got up from the
floor and went to the pot and stirred it with the willow branch. This
time, he took three ceramic cups from the mantle, and one by one,
filled them with the liquid in the pot.

He brought cups to Jamie and
Tommy. Then he took a cup for himself. When he sat back down, he put
his cup to his lips. Jamie and Tommy looked at each other and began
to drink from their cups. It was the same warm, bitter tea Blackbird
had given her before. When they were finished, they put the cups
beside them. Tommy took her hand.

Blackbird looked at them and they
looked back. Jamie felt herself entering a dream state again. She
didn’t have to look at Tommy to know that he was entering the same
world. She closed her eyes and felt her body sway slightly.

After a while, Jamie couldn’t
say how long because time had lost all meaning, Blackbird spoke. “You
have brought the writings,” he said.

Jamie still held the pad with the
cave writings. She handed it to Blackbird. He looked at the paper.
“Yes,” he said.

“
What does it say?” Jamie
asked.

“
It is a prophecy,” Blackbird
said. “’Sister Moon travels through time. When she is round, two
travel with her.’” He looked at Jamie and Tommy. “You are the
two.”

Blackbird threw the pad into the
fire and the flames licked up around it. A fiery blue ball floated up
from the burning paper and went up the chimney. Jamie pressed Tommy’s
hand, though very lightly because she was still feeling dreamy. He
squeezed her hand back, just barely.

“
The Moon Cave is a sacred
place for our people,” Blackbird said. “It has been many ages
since the cave has been used for its spiritual purposes. It may have
stayed as it was forever, unused, but you stumbled on it, as you were
meant to do. Sister Moon, guided by your ancestors, took you places.
She showed you that time is not a line. But now, you have stabilized
your journey and Sister Moon has gone back in the sky, away from the
cave. Your ancestors are satisfied. They wish you well being.”

Jamie and Tommy opened their eyes
and looked at Blackbird. He looked back with a small smile. They
smiled at him as they stood up. Blackbird stood and faced them.

“
Thank you,” Jamie said.

“
You’ve made our life
together possible,” Tommy said to the old man.

“
You have made that happen,”
he said. He smiled again.

They walked to the door and
Blackbird followed them. They turned to look at him when they stepped
onto the porch. As he was closing the door, Blackbird said, “Your
new journey begins now.”

Epilogue

Jamie set the gravy boat on
Granny’s harvest table. “I think we’re ready,” she said.
Granny called everyone in from the den—Jamie’s parents and Bobby,
Tommy’s parents and Sara and Jason, Tommy and Grandpa. All
together, eleven of them, sat around the long table with one empty
chair. “Maybe we’ll have a little one in that chair next
Thanksgiving,” Granny said.

They held each other’s hands as
Grandpa said a Thanksgiving blessing. “We are grateful to have all
of our family with us today, and we give thanks,” he said.

The table was full with a huge
turkey, dressing, gravy, squash, mashed potatoes, green beans, rolls,
and cranberry sauce. Granny filled everyone’s glasses with
Grandpa’s blackberry wine. Jamie looked across the table at Tommy
and smiled. He smiled back. It was a secret smile for the two of them
alone. Only they knew that they were living their lives over.

They discussed it often. “We’ve
come from two different timelines,” Tommy said. “But we’re
still together. I think that says it all.”

“
I’m still a doctor in my
head,” Jamie said, “and I will use that knowledge whenever
necessary. But I’m not ever leaving here again. I don’t know how
I could have done it. Ever.”

“
We’ve got to forgive each
other for things we did in other timelines,” Tommy said. “Things
we don’t even know about in our minds as we live this life.” They
had each suffered in their own timelines with the loss of the other.
They didn’t take anything for granted anymore.

After Thanksgiving dinner was
over and the food was put up and everyone had left, Tommy said, “I
want to show you something. Get your jacket.”

Jamie kissed Grandpa and Granny
goodbye. “See you tomorrow,” she said as they closed the door.
Tommy took her hand and they walked through his garden, now covered
in straw waiting for vegetables to be planted when the new season
began. They walked around the corner of the field, fallow until the
spring when it would be plowed under and the cycle of corn and
soybeans would begin again.

They walked with the woods to
their left. The hardwoods were bare, but the pines stood tall and
green. Tommy jumped up the little hill at the opening and put his
hand out to pull Jamie up.