Shall Not Sleep [bxb]

Chapter Nine

Mom and I ate pizza and watched TV. I floated on clouds all night, but when I finally closed my bedroom door, I could only sit on my bed and blink. Now that I was alone, my shoulders felt like they bore a lot more weight.

I watched my chest inflate and deflate for a while. What was I supposed to do now? Lie there and think about my dad? I could barely remember him. It wasn't like he was a super involved father. He was either asleep when he was at home, or out with his friends. I knew him from telling me to shut up and from the stories I heard from this stupid goddamn town. Jordan Callan was such a nice boy. Such a handsome boy. Such a good football player. Yeah, well, I didn't remember that. The only thing I knew for sure about him was that he had the same hair colour as me. The same colour as the snippet of hair on its way to Alastair.

I closed my eyes and told myself to go to sleep. Everything would be better in the morning. Close your eyes. Close your eyes.

But I didn't fall asleep.

I slid sideways until I was standing.

Nausea hit, like I was suddenly flipped upside down. My eyes snapped open. I was in the dark. No, no, I left my lamp on. Why so dark? Where were my blankets?

My socks glided against smooth, hard wood. The opposite of my carpeted bedroom floor.

I was in some kind of... tunnel. There was light ahead of me, an arched doorway into a room that looked golden and warm, and behind me, where a lamp on the wall lit up a hallway that joined my tunnel. It was cold. My feet were chunks of ice.

I didn't think I was in Kansas anymore.

The sharp tapping of footsteps came up the hallway behind me. I sank into an alcove in the stone wall just as a man passed. He wore a tuxedo, with a super high, stiff collar, and carries a tray. He swept down the tunnel and into the bright, warm room up ahead.

"My Lord, this just arrived in the post," he said once he got there.

"Thank you, Wilson."

The tuxedoed man exited the room and came back down my tunnel. A girl in a long, black dress met him there.

"Mr. Wilson!" she hissed. "Was that a letter from the front?"

"Yes, Kitty, from Lord Alastair."

Alastair.

Oh my God.

I had to clasp my hand over my mouth to stay silent. Wilson ushered the whispering Kitty back down the hall, and soon there was no more noise. Only the clink of silverware from the other room. The one Wilson took the letter to.

Alastair's letter.

I was in Alastair's home. The home of an earl in 1916.

My Lord... Alastair's father was in that room.

My whole body tingling, like Spiderman sensing danger, I snuck out of my alcove and slipped down the hall. I peeked inside, trying to stay hidden.

The room was full of morning light and the smell of breakfast. A long, polished table took up most of the space, set for five people. Only two sat there eating, though. A man at the head of the table, a woman on his left. The man was balding and rather large, but his long, protruding nose and deep-set eyes were striking enough to make you respect him. The woman was his opposite. Lots of dark, rich hair. Small to the point of impossible. Her eyes darted between her food and the letter the man read.

These were Alastair's parents.

"So?" she said, her accent as jarringly American as bald eagles and guns. "What does he say, Henry?"

"No more than he usually does. The poor boy..."

The lady snatched the letter out of his hand. Her quick little eyes scanned it.

"Poor boy," she repeated sarcastically, tossing the letter back onto the table. "It is a poor letter. The Countess of Trent's son writes her multi-page epics. Our Alastair graces us with a paragraph a month."

His father picked up the letter and folded it carefully. "He has more important things to do than sit around composing letters home."

His wife snorted—daintily, of course.

"Anna, writing a letter from a battlefield is no easy feat," he said, louder now. "I would rather have him working hard at doing his job."

"He has no other job than to survive," she snapped. "Henry, what are we going to do if he dies there? Without an heir—"

"Do not lecture me," Henry said. "I know, Anna. Believe me, I know."

Footsteps came up the hall behind me again. I pressed myself into the wall, hoping, praying that the shadows hid me. It was a girl in a swishing purple dress, a jeweled brooch shining in her hair, which is was dark and glossy as Alastair's mother's. She swept past me and was about to take a seat when she froze.

"Is that a letter from Alastair?" She gripped the back of her chair. "Father?"

"Yes, Margaret."

He handed it to her. Her head moved back and forth as she read it.

"So short," she said, her breath caught in her throat.

"You mustn't begrudge him, darling," Henry said.

His wife rolled her eyes.

"I know, Father." Margaret lowered herself into her seat. "I just worry about him."

"We all do."

The family fell into silence as they continued their breakfast. Margaret didn't touch her food. She kept reading the letter, over and over. She looked up at her father and asked a question, but I couldn't hear her properly. I tried to lean forward and listen harder but their voices were blurs. Then I started to see blurs. I rubbed my eyes to clear them but everything faded further, and with another lurch of being flipped upside down, I was lying back on my bed. At home.

It took a few minutes of breathing and thinking I'm here, I'm here, I'm here before I could stand to open my eyes. When everything was finally steady again... whoa. Everything hit me.

That was Alastair's house.

That was Alastair's family.

That was Alastair's period of history.

Part of me was electric. On fire. Kind of wondering if I was crazy, but at the same time, completely sure I wasn't. That was too real. Too real to not be real. The other part of me was stupid and ungrateful and wishing I could have been transported to a time and place where Alastair actually was.

But still. I saw a part of his world.

I grabbed my notebook and pen and feverishly wrote to Alastair.

Dear Alastair,

OH. MY. GOD.

The thing that happened to you, that landed you here? It just happened to me. Oh my God. I was at your house, in a long hallway leading down to a room where your mother and father and sister were eating breakfast. A letter came from you and they read it and talked about you and jeez, your mother is kind of mean but your dad seems really nice and your sister really loves you, I could tell.

Sorry for this letter but I'm kind of freaked out right now. And amazed. And just... God. Wrong place, wrong time for us. You came here and I wasn't there, and I came there and you weren't there. Maybe, soon, we can cross paths. I never thought it would be possible but now that it's a definite maybe, I'm shaking all over. I want to meet you so bad. So bad. You have no idea. No idea at all.

xoxoxo,

Your friendly neighbourhood time traveler,

Max