The first time it happened, I was only nine. I came to, flat on my back in the fresh cut grass, blinking into bright sunlight as Heather’s face swam into view; her hand patting my cheek. “Ellie? Ellie? Oh thank God - you’re alive!” Tears streamed down her cheeks.
Funny, I thought. She doesn’t look hurt.
“You’re okay,” I said. I was crying too I realized, as tears wound their way down my cheeks. Despite the blistering heat, I shivered as one trickled into my left ear.
“Yes, of course. I’m fine,” she replied, puzzlement creasing her freckled forehead. Pulling my elbows back, I struggled to sit up and was rewarded with a lightning bolt of white hot pain in my right leg. “Please Ellie - don’t move!” Heather cried, pressing my shoulders back down onto the grass.
Fine? How can she be fine? I wondered, then sucked in a deep breath as a bolt of pain drove up from my leg and exploded behind my eyes in a shower of blinding white fireworks. Exhaling, I sobbed. “Oh Heather - it hurts - it really hurts bad…” She peered into my eyes from close range, our noses nearly touching. Her tears dripped onto my cheek, mixing with mine. I got a close up view of two lines of clear snot running down from her nose onto her top lip. Oh gross - please don’t let that drip on me, too, I thought, just as she snuffed the whole disgusting mess back up into her nose. My stomach did a little flip flop to that, revulsion dominating relief. Swiping her arm across her eyes, Heather rocked back onto her heels, moving out my line of view.
“Stay there! I’ll get your Mom!” she said. “I’ll be right back!” I felt the quick rush of air as she sprang up, and then her sneakers were slapping on the driveway asphalt as she raced over to the back door. “Mrs. Ward! Mrs. Ward! Help! Ellie’s hurt - hurry! Mrs. Ward!” She pounded on our back door.
Where does she think I would be going? I wondered, easing my eyes closed and sucking in another deep breath as I braced for the next wave of pain. As I waited what seemed like a lifetime, my senses heightened. The fresh cut grass felt like a million tiny stabbing knives. Even though its pungent fragrance enveloped me, I could also smell a hint of chlorine from my little brother’s wading pool, more than 30 feet away. And somewhere behind it all, I could smell a barbecue cooking, even though our nearest neighbors were a good two or three hundred yards away. I could hear the crickets chirping in the grass around me; and bees, no - flies, buzzing near me somewhere. In fact, a lot of flies by the sound of it.
With no alternative but to look straight up, I squinted at the sun streaming through the branches of the huge cedar tree towering over me. My mind clouded as I tried to figure out exactly what had just happened. None of it made sense really. Heather was fine - absolutely, completely, totally, fine. ‘Fighting fit’ you might even say. Not a scratch on her. Definitely weird, I thought and shivered again. I must be dreaming. At the time, it was the only explanation that made any sense.
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It was summer vacation, 1966, and we were living near Rothesay, New Brunswick - in Kingshurst to be exact. Rich folks’ country residential - Kingshurst was at that time a collection of grand old manorial houses lining both sides of the Rothesay Road along the Kennebecasis River. The houses on the river side ran down in deep, narrow lots to the river shore. Ours was on the opposite side of the road, a 23 room, three-story house set in a stately lot with majestic trees and sprawling lawns.
Like most of the other houses in the area, ours was about 90 years old. My parents had rescued it in a pretty dilapidated state the previous October, but Dad had already painted the outside a deep charcoal gray, and a gray ‘W’ now also adorned each and every one of the 86 white shutters flanking the windows. Inside, he and Mom had worked feverishly all winter, restoring oak hardwood floors and mahogany ceiling beams, steaming off 11 layers of gummy wallpaper in every room - I’d hated helping with that. In the end, they had decorated each room to perfection.
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Defining Moments
Adventure'Defining Moments’ is the story of Ellie Ward, a professor with a knack for making bad decisions at life’s crossroads, often with tragic consequences. At the age of nine, Ellie accidentally discovers a time portal near her childhood home, one that o...
