Brook - Gen 6 Ch 8

Home once more, I convinced Brann to watch while I fired up the time machine. I want to show him it's perfectly safe, but so far he's not buying it.

"Just wait here. I'll be back before you know it."

Brann winced and glanced away.

"I can't watch."

Oof. That landing was harder than I expected. Hmm. It was also later than I expected, but Brann was still there waiting.

He looked so worried. I tried to reassure him.

"Hey, it's okay. I'm back safe and sound. See? It's perfectly safe."

"You're not gonna give up until I agree to go with you, are you?"

'Probably not."

 He sighed in resignation.

"One time. If I go with you one time, will you stop asking me?"

I was so excited I could barely contain myself. We were actually going to try and find Heather's friend somewhere in the past.

"I'm glad your having so much fun. Aren't you the least bit worried about the danger?"

Brann was not nearly as excited as I was.

Everything was set. Cindy was intently chatting with Maurice. That should keep her busy for hours. And Bennie would keep an eye on things from this end.

I set the keypad for the past and watched as the heavy metal door slid silently open.

"Ready? Here we go!"

But Brann was staring transfixed at the swirling chaotic time stream. 

"Are.. are you sure that's safe?"

"Positive. Believe me, I wouldn't take you if it wasn't."

He still appeared rooted to the ground, so I firmly took his hand, and pulled him through the doorway with me.

As my initial disorientation upon landing wore off, the first thing I noticed was that this place seemed familiar, but I couldn't quite place it. Suddenly the realization hit me. This was my frog pond, behind the house in Champs Les Sims. Only the pond covered much more ground than it does in the present.

In fact, the murky water seemed to stretch all the way around the center rocky hill.

And of course the house had not been build yet, but we could see the roof of an ancient pavilion just visible amongst the trees.

"Look, Brann! There's someone up there! Maybe it's Hyacinth. Let's go see."

"Are you sure about this, Brook? What if they're hostile?"

"There's only one way to find out.."

The woman on the hill was wearing a much newer version of the dress Heather had dug out of the old chest in the nectary barn and claimed for herself. She motioned us over to her fire pit with an impatient gesture.

As we moved closer, I was amazed to see a sprig of leaf-green hair poking out from beneath her modest headdress. Was is possible this woman was an ancient ancestor of mine? The slight olive tint of her skin only added to the surreal effect.

Suddenly I realized that I was standing there staring with my mouth agape. Before I could say a word, she began to speak. I had to strain to understand, as her accent was barely recognizable as French, with a sprinkling of completely foreign words.

"Come, I've been expecting you. You are late. Or perhaps early. It is difficult to determine. I have sent the others away in preparation for your arrival. We will begin at sundown. Meanwhile, it would please me if you would hunt a few fish top replenish our stores."

Fishing is one thing I do well. Besides building odd contraptions, that is. Brann watched while I pulled some of the biggest trout I'd ever seen out of the surrounding water.

"You see, Brann? Just like home, only the fish are huge."

Brann granted me a small half smile, and I was overjoyed.

"You're right, it's even better in some ways. It's so peaceful and quiet. No paparazzi. No one anywhere around except the strange green woman."

I smiled to myself when I heard him sigh contentedly as he settled onto the hillside with his book, while I continued to pull up giant frogs and record rainbow trout.

Later we enjoyed the fruits of my efforts as we waited for sundown. I tried to pry more information out of Hyacinth, but she was either unable or unwilling to tell me more.

"How did you learn of the anomaly?"

"Such a thing is not learnt, it is felt."

"How will it be repaired?"

"If one does not know, it cannot be explained."

As darkness fell, she added more logs to the dying fire, causing it flare up once again. I suddenly thought of one more question that had been eating at me ever since I had heard of the anomaly.

"How did the anomaly come to be? Did I cause it with my time travels?"

"I do not think it was you. The first inklings emanate from a time before your birth. My visions reveal that there was someone else who traveled with your machine long before you."
"My grandmother??"

"Perhaps. Now. It is time to begin."

She began by peering intently into the flames, as if searching for guidance.

At long last, she muttered approval under her breath. Running her fingers through the dancing flames one more time, she rose to face the darkness.

Brann and I exchanged puzzled glances across the fire as we watched the exotic woman sway and call out to the darkness in a language we could not understand.

I don't claim to know everything about temporal anomalies, but I am quite sure quaint shamanistic rituals don't fix them. More likely just our presence here at this place and time is the catalyst. Only time will tell..

"It is done. Sleep now," she commanded as her ritual ended, pointing to the closest pavilion. "The rift will close, the line will continue. You will be drawn back to your own time when the repair is complete."

I was sure neither one of us would be able to sleep, but to our surprise we both drifted off immediately. Sometime in the night, we awoke to a strange floating sensation, and the next thing we knew, we were hurtling through the time stream once more. 

I would like to say that we arrived home without incident, and Brann enjoyed the trip enough to travel with me again. But alas, that was not the case. We made an unscheduled stop right in the middle of an ancient battlefield, and barely made it out with our lives, stone-tipped arrows following us all the way home.

 After that, Brann was convinced that the time machine was a death trap, and made me promise I would never use it again. While he went to check on Cindy, I decided to pound out my frustrations at my workbench.

It was only a few minutes later, but my mind was a million miles away, dreaming of the time travels I would not be going on again. Suddenly I was jolted back to the present by the sound of the time machine crackling to life of its own accord behind me.