Come Down In Time (A Time Travel Romance) (23 page)

“
We need two jars,” Jamie
said. “Do you have any jars in here?”

Tommy opened the pantry door and
pulled out two Mason jars with lids on them.

“
Get the paper and pen,”
Tommy said before they walked out the door. Jamie grabbed the notepad
and pen from her purse. “Don’t forget the map,” Tommy said.

Together, they walked to the
opening in the woods and went in to the cool shade. They walked to
the midpoint and stooped to enter the Moon Cave. Tommy got on his
back and put his head through the opening. He shined his iPhone on
the ceiling and took another photo for good measure.

“
Sugar, it’s too tight in
here for me to write anything down. You need to get it.”

He pushed himself out of the
opening and Jamie got on her back and Tommy guided her head and
shoulders into the hole. She put her iPhone on her chest and shined
the light on the ceiling. She could see distinct lettering, but it
looked like hieroglyphics.

“
Hand me the pad and pen,”
she said.

Tommy pushed them through the
opening and Jamie grabbed them. She carefully wrote down every symbol
she saw. When she was finished, she shined the flashlight all around
the tiny area to make sure there was nothing else there that she was
missing. She didn’t see anything else.

“
I’m ready to come out now,”
she said. Tommy pulled her by her hips, then her arms, then her
shoulders, and she was out of the hole.

“
I have no idea what this
means, but here it is,” Jamie said, handing the notepad to Tommy.
“I guess this is the writing Blackbird talked about.”

Tommy took the notepad from her
hand and looked at it. He compared it to the photo he had taken with
his iPhone the day before. “I wish I could read what it says,” he
said.

Jamie sat on the floor of the
overhang. She drew her knees up and leaned her head down and put her
head in her hands. She was already exhausted.

“
Let’s take a break for a
minute before we get the rest of the stuff,” Tommy said. He pulled
the blanket out from under the rock and spread it behind them. Jamie
sat down and he sat beside her. He put his arm around her. She turned
to him and kissed him. Before either one knew what was happening or
could stop it, they were making love. The loss they had felt in their
lives was too much for them. They comforted each other for those
losses.

When they were finished, Jamie
lay in the crook of Tommy’s arm. And then they both fell asleep.

Chapter
Seventeen

Jamie sat straight up when she
woke up. It was dark, but the full moon shone down on the lake and
illuminated the overhang. She looked down and Tommy lay there
sleeping. She jostled him.

“
Tommy! We fell asleep.”

Tommy opened his eyes. “Is it
too late for us to go to Blackbird?” he said.

Jamie started to cry. “Yes,
it’s too late tonight. We never even got everything we needed.”
Sobs wracked her body as she wept.

“
Sugar, it’s okay,” Tommy
said putting his arms around her. “We’ll just get the stuff
tomorrow and go. Blackbird said to get it in the time you wanted to
stay. It’s still that time.”

Jamie looked down and saw her
long hair shining against her arms.

“
No, Tommy. You don’t
understand. We’ve gone back in time. We fell asleep here during the
full moon. Look at my hair.”

Tommy picked up Jamie’s hair
where it lay on her arm because that’s how long it was.

“
I can’t believe this,” he
said. “We’ve got to get back.”

“
We can’t get back,” Jamie
said. “Every time I went back to 2013, it was different. I don’t
think we can get to where we were before we fell asleep.”

“
Then where are we now?”
Tommy said. He sounded frightened. Jamie understood that. She had
been very frightened when her time journey began. She was more used
to the changes now.

“
I hope we’re in 2001, maybe
at the point I last left. I don’t know. I do know one thing. We’ve
got to get out of here and figure out where we are.”

“
I’ll turn on the
flashlight,” Tommy said, reaching for his pants.

“
You won’t have one,” she
said. “There are no iPhones in 2001, if that’s where we are.”

Tommy felt in the pocket of his
jeans and pulled out a small cell phone with an antenna on it.

“
Let’s get dressed,” he
said. They fumbled with their clothes in the shadowy light and got
dressed.

They could see the lake clearly
through the willow branches because it had no leaves. Jamie shivered.
It was no longer a hot summer day. It was cold. Tommy grabbed the
blanket and put it around Jamie’s shoulders.

“
Hold onto me,” Tommy said as
he left the cave. Jamie held onto the blanket at her neck and held
onto Tommy’s shirt with her other hand as they climbed up to the
path. The moon was shining on the lake, but not on the path. Jamie
held onto Tommy’s shirt as he carefully walked down the path. The
moon on the water to the left of them kept them going in a straight
line.

“
I’m scared, Tommy,” Jamie
said.

“
I can walk this path with my
eyes closed,” Tommy said. “Don’t worry.”

Very slowly, they made their way
and finally emerged at the end. Jamie could see the full moon above
then, and it gave her comfort. Tommy took her hand and they walked
beside the field that was tilled over. No tall summer corn reached
for the sky. They walked beside the farmhouse where Grandpa and
Granny were asleep inside—she hoped—and turned down the road to
the right and found their cottage a hundred feet down on the right.

Tommy opened the door and they
went inside. It looked exactly as it had the last time Jamie left it
when she was still married to Tommy.

“
Tommy, you need to write the
map down before you forget it,” Jamie said. “We’re going to
need it.”

Tommy pulled a piece of paper out
of the printer that was on a desk near the kitchen. He sat at the
kitchen table and began to draw. He didn’t speak as he drew the
lines and wrote down the numbers. When he was finished, he handed the
paper to Jamie. She looked at it and it was the same as her memory of
the map.

“
I don’t mind telling you,
that I’m pretty freaked out right now,” Tommy said. “You look
just like you used to look.”

“
So do you,” Jamie said
looking at Tommy’s teenaged face. “So do you.”

“
What do we do now?” Tommy
asked. “You’ve been through this time thing before. I don’t
know what to do.”

“
This time we went back
together,” Jamie said. “We were together in the overhang,
touching each other when we fell asleep and the full moon came. Every
time I went back, I always picked up where I had left off. The last
time I left, it was November and Granny and I were canning things and
planning for Thanksgiving. I think we’ve gone back to that time
because the willow tree had no leaves and it’s cold. I guess we’ll
find out in the morning.”

Tommy got up from the table and
walked to the fridge. “I sure hope there’s beer in here,” he
said as he opened the door. “Hallelujah,” he said. “We’ve got
a whole six pack!” He took two beers out and opened them. Jamie
took the beer from his hands and drank down the biggest swig of beer
she had ever drunk in any lifetime.

Tommy looked across the table at
Jamie. He took her hand.

“
I’m freaked out, but I sure
am glad to see you, sugar,” he said. “I love you.”

“
I love you, too, Tommy,” she
said.

“
So, what do we do?” Tommy
asked.

“
Tomorrow, we visit everyone
and make sure exactly where we are. If we decide we don’t like this
time, we can go back to the cave on the next full moon and try to
move forward, but I really don’t trust that. And we might get moved
to a 2013 we aren’t familiar with, whether we like it or not. I
think we see where we are, and then we gather the stuff if we want to
stay. We’ll have to get the writings from the cave again because
all of that is gone.”

They sat at the table drinking
beer until the six-pack was finished. By the end of the evening, they
were laughing together. Jamie giggled so hard at one point she
thought she might wet her pants. Luckily, she made it to the bathroom
before that happened.

Tommy and Jamie fell into their
bed together, on the sheets that Granny had picked out for them
before they got married, and immediately fell asleep.

Jamie woke up and looked over to
the other side of the bed. Tommy slept peacefully beside her. She was
thankful for that. She looked at the clock. It was seven fifteen. She
felt her hair and it was long.

“
Tommy,” she said softly.
When he didn’t stir, she touched his shoulder. “Tommy,” she
said loudly. He woke up and looked at her.

“
What year is it?” he asked.

“
I think it’s 2001,” she
said.

“
I guess I should have known by
your hair,” he said. “And your high school face looking at me.”
He laughed then. She laughed with him.

“
We need to get going and see
what’s out there,” she said.

“
I need some coffee,” Tommy
said.

“
We’ll get some at your
grandparents,” she said. “We aren’t waiting around on anything
today. And no falling asleep!”

She pulled on her jeans and a
sweater she found hanging in the closet. She remembered the soft blue
knit sweater from long ago. She washed her face and brushed her
teeth. She put her hair up in a comb she found beside the sink.

Tommy got ready after her, and
emerged from the bathroom with a smile.

“
Let’s go,” he said.

Outside, it was chilly. They
walked down the road to Granny and Grandpa’s farmhouse. Granny was
inside making breakfast.

“
Hey, Tommy boy and Jamie
girl,” Granny said, using her pet names for them. “Breakfast is
almost ready.”

Jamie poured cups of coffee for
herself and Tommy. She handed him his cup, then poured cream from the
pitcher into her cup.

“
Grandpa’s in the shower,”
Granny said. Jamie and Tommy looked at each other, relieved that
Grandpa was still alive in this world.

Granny set plates of eggs and
bacon and biscuits in front of Jamie and Tommy. It had been a long
time since they had eaten, and they ate the food without talking.
Jamie got a warm biscuit from the basket and broke it open. She
slathered it with butter and strawberry preserves. She closed her
eyes with pleasure when she took a bite of the biscuit.

“
Y’all look like you haven’t
eaten in a month,” Granny said, laughing.

“
It feels like it,” Tommy
said. “We’re just extra hungry today, I guess,” he added.

“
It’s okay,” Granny said.
“It does my heart good to see y’all eating and enjoying it so
much.”

Grandpa walked in then, fresh
from his shower. Granny handed him a cup of black coffee and he sat
down at the table.

“
Grandpa, we’ve got to take
care of something today,” Tommy told his grandfather. “I’m
afraid I’m not going to be able to work.”

Grandpa looked from Tommy to
Jamie, then at Granny.

“
That’s fine, son,” he
said. “The fields are done anyway. We’ve got plenty of time to
plant the cover crop.”

When they finished eating, Jamie
went to the sink to start washing dishes. Granny shooed her away.
“Y’all go on now,” she said. “You need to take care of your
business. I can get this.”

“
Okay, Granny,” Jamie said.
“We’ll be back tonight or maybe in the morning. We can work on
our Thanksgiving plans tomorrow.”

Granny kissed them both on the
cheek before they walked out into the chilly air. They walked back
down to the cottage, where Tommy’s green truck was parked in front.

“
I hope I’ve still got the
keys for the truck,” Tommy said. He pulled his key ring out of his
pocket and opened the truck door for Jamie. She got in and sat beside
her high school boyfriend, her husband, in his green truck. Tommy put
the key in and started the engine.

“
I haven’t had this thing for
years,” he said backing away from the cottage and onto the road. He
drove up to his parents’ house and stopped. They got out and walked
in the back door. Tommy’s mother was washing breakfast dishes in
the sink.

“
Hey, son,” she said smiling.
“Hey, Jamie.”

“
Hey,” they said in unison.

“
Dad just left to take Sara and
Jason to school. He’ll be sorry he missed you.”

“
We’ll see him later,”
Tommy said. “We were just stopping by on our way out of town.”

“
Oh?” Tommy’s mother said.

“
Yeah, we need to go to
Knoxville to check out some equipment,” he said. He hugged his
mother, then Jamie hugged her, and they were out the door.

“
So far, so good,” Tommy said
as they got back in the truck. He headed his car down the road to
Jamie’s parents’ house. When they got to the spot where Tommy had
been killed, Jamie gasped. “Be careful right here, Tommy. This is
where it happened.”