Travel Glasses (The Call to Search Everywhen, #1)

Chapter 5 The Free Fall

I WAITED until Valcas left the shelter before layering strips of gauze over my tights where my bloody knees poked through. Even if I were to reach the rowboat, there was no way I’d be able to find my way back home. Maybe some other living being was camping either outside or in another sod hut. I taped down the strips of gauze. Maybe the bright white light was out there too.

I pulled back the canvas sheet that covered the doorway. My eyes adjusted to darkness broken by stars and moonlight. If Valcas thought I was going to quietly stay inside the sod hut all night, he was not only wrong but crazy. I held my breath as I stepped outside. Valcas would be well camouflaged in the dark. Tripping over him was the last thing I needed. I didn’t step on any arms or faces, so I picked up my pace.

I felt along the hillside as I walked, hoping that someone else had thought to carve out a shelter like the one I’d escaped. There wasn’t a single tree above or around me. I was partially grateful for this because I needed all of the light of the open sky to see where I was going. After nearly a quarter of an hour of wandering, I found that the terrain was rocky with sloping hillsides and sandy beaches.

Nobody was there to fill in the nothingness. I had no idea where I was or how to reach out to anyone who could help me. The irony of my situation crushed me like a frozen grape. I covered my face with my hands as I sank to the ground. I was finally away from anyone—disconnected from everyone—who could hurt me. I was finally alone. And I needed help.

Valcas didn’t bother me, even if he was lurking nearby wearing sunglasses in the dark. I didn’t think he would really hurt me. He was still a stranger, though, so I had no sure way of knowing whether he really meant to protect me. He could also turn a lake into an ocean and a Jet Ski into a rowboat. And, if he wasn’t lying about it, he was able to turn back time. These abilities amazed more than terrified me. It was this reaction of excitement that I naturally felt in situations where others would be scared. This trait, I often fantasized, was something I’d inherited from my father.

Approaching footsteps interrupted my thoughts. I listened, trying to make out their direction and distance from me. Soft crunching sounds came from the direction of the sod hut. A figure jogged toward me. I sprang to my feet and ran in the opposite direction.

“Calla, it’s just me.” His voice was breathy, pleading.

“I figured as much,” I called back, running harder.

“Let’s go back, please. I’ll inform you of as much as I can.”

I stopped running before I heard him stop. The shore dead-ended into a rocky embankment. There was nowhere else to go. When Valcas caught up to me he offered me his arm.

“Fine,” I said. “Is time travel really possible?”

He brought a finger to his lips. “When we get back to the hut,” he whispered.

I rolled my eyes, but felt myself smiling as we walked back.

THE FIREPLACE glowed and crackled behind me as the light of the flames reflected off of Valcas’ lenses. I sipped tea while sitting cross-legged on a sleeping bag.

“Time travel is possible and has been in operation for a long time,” he began. “There are at least two known methods of travel. This,” he said as he removed his glasses and handed them to me. “Is my way.”

Valcas’ sunglasses did not look extraordinary. They were large enough to block light from the front and sides. Both the frames and lenses were of a similar black opaque material, light and smooth like plastic. The tops and sides of each rounded rectangular lens were shuttered. I turned the glasses in my hands, looking them over, expecting to see a power switch and control buttons. There weren’t any. Still holding the glasses in my hands, I looked up at Valcas—I was finally going to see his eyes. When I did, I froze.

“Calla?”

Transfixed, my eyes locked onto his. I couldn’t move them away no matter how hard I tried. Green and brown were both wrong. Valcas’ eyes were of the palest blue I’d ever seen, a milky silver-blue, with an iridescent shimmer. Too eerie to be beautiful, they appeared fake, unnatural, like holographic images fixed onto his face.

Valcas grabbed the glasses out of my hands and covered his eyes. “I’m sorry. I should have warned you first.”

For some reason it bothered me when he sounded pained.

“How am I supposed to help you?” I asked.

His brows furrowed. “I’m not sure how to explain it, but I need someone to pose as my betrothed. It would be purely ceremonial. I’m in a tight situation.”

I frowned. “And that thing that was after me?”

“It means that you can never go back home to the lake. It could find you there again. If you come with me, I can make sure you’re protected from it.”

At this point my eyes burned and head ached. It was getting late, and I had a lot to think about. “I…well, I need some sleep.”

“Of course,” Valcas replied as if he’d decided the matter. “There will be plenty of time to discuss the specifics tomorrow morning.”

Exhaustion set in quickly once I got settled in the sleeping bag. I didn’t dream that night, but before I fell asleep, my thoughts wandered back to the dark glasses and those eyes.

THE NEXT morning was warm, humid and quiet. I brooded as I watched Valcas untie the rowboat. My limbs were still sore from sleeping in a bag on top of a dirt floor.

“Good morning. Are you ready to go?” he called to me from the rowboat.

He didn’t ask how I slept, probably figuring that I’d managed pretty awfully from the look of me. I sat in the boat behind Valcas and waited while he rowed us back out to sea. I intended to keep my eyes open this time, curious about how time travel worked. Valcas began rowing faster—too fast. Blindingly fast. I reluctantly screened my eyes from the bright blur, eventually closing them when I could no longer tolerate the painful, brilliant glow.

When I opened my eyes again, Valcas and I were approaching another shore, a thin beach that merged into a vast meadow of forget-me-nots, violets and yellow buttercups. The dock, way more impressive the one we’d left at Lake Winston, extended far along the shoreline and out into the water. I looked down at it from a place high above the water. Valcas was no longer rowing. He stood at the far front side of the ship calling out in the direction of the dock, giving orders in a strange language.

If I was trembling I didn’t know it. I was too much in awe of the ship, a luminous goldenrod. I counted fourteen black sails from where I sat on the topmost deck. Not long after I counted them all, Valcas called for me to disembark. He assisted me onto the dock, all the while gauging my reactions as carefully as I gauged his.

“Welcome to my home, Calla. The palace is a short distance to the east, beyond the meadow. We can travel there together.”

The sky was as clear and open as the field, but I didn’t see any castles. I followed a few paces behind, pretending to be interested in the foliage and taking in the scent of the grass and flowers. I glanced back at the ship until it was no longer in sight.

Valcas led me to the edge of the meadow, stopping near the steep ridge of a cliff.

“Now what?” I asked. “I still don’t see a palace.”

I’d barely finished speaking when Valcas grasped my left arm with both hands and jumped off of the cliff, taking me along with him. Screaming, I flailed my free arm in an attempt to grab onto something, anything, but the air and wind slipped through my fingers. A rush of shapes in blurry greens and browns streamed upward as we fell, eventually turning into a white so bright, so painful, that once again I was forced to close my eyes.