Timewatch (4 page)

Pandemonium broke out. People were running out into the streets, where the invaders thrust these people back into their burning homes. J.J. could see their faces distorted in screams of agony as they kicked and fought their attackers. Then everything went blank.

“Jason, lad, come sit down over here. You're white as one of my Pop-Tarts. What happened?”

For a moment he couldn't speak; it was all too real.

Then Mr. S. was guiding him to a chair and thrusting into his hands a cup of coffee. “You've had a shock. Here—drink this.”

But he didn't want one of those awful-tasting imports that gave you a jolt worse than a cola drink.

“Would you like to tell me what you saw?”

“There was this woman throwing the pin into a pool and then this burning town …”

When he'd finished, his insides were all knotted up and his shirt was stuck to his back with sweat. J.J. shuddered as the memory of the burning town washed over him again.

Mr. S. was looking reverentially at the pin. “The provenance of this pin—where it came from—was Roman Britain. You must have had a look into that era, Jason.”

He was waving his hands around in the way he did when he got excited, saying, “I think you may have had a glimpse of the eastern tribes, led by Boudica, queen of the Iceni tribe, wreaking revenge on her Roman overlords by setting fire to Londinium in
A.D.
60 or 61.”

“Why would Boudica kill everyone—even kids—in the town?”

Mr. S. crossed his legs and took a long sip of coffee. “Probably because she was angry with the Romans, who had treated her family so badly that she wanted revenge on anyone who had cooperated with the enemy.”

“What did the Romans do to her?”

“Well you see, after her husband King Prasutagus died, the Romans stole his estate. When Boudica objected, they whipped her and raped her two daughters.”

“But what connection does the pin have with that?”

“The pin might have been manufactured in Londinium or belonged to someone living there.” Mr. S. peered at him and then said, “Why don't you go home a little early, Jason? Your mother's invited me to dinner. I'll see you then.”

Glad to escape his visions of the past, J.J. wheeled his bike out of the storeroom and into the sunshine. He needed to spend some time in his favorite place near the lake.

CHAPTER 5

Pedaling furiously on his bike, J.J. barely slowed at the curve where the dirt road ran past the dump. While watching the boats on the lake, he had lost track of time, his mind a jumble of images: Celts hacking away at each other; houses burning; the girl Crystal bending over to look at the catalog, each move of hers sharp and clear.

He powered past the low-growing bushes that would later be heavy with blueberries. They had been cut way back so that it was easier to spot any bears that might be scrounging for scraps of food, although most cottagers were pretty careful about putting their garbage in the bear-proof bins. The black bears in the area were pretty harmless—unless you interrupted their feeding or they thought you were a threat to their cubs.

J.J. turned off the road onto his driveway. Even though his family's cottage was only a few yards away, you couldn't see much of it because of the tangle of saskatoon and chokecherry bushes and skinny poplars. Grandpa had said that he was darned if he was going to spend his summer mowing two lawns, the one in Winnipeg and the one here.

Years earlier, his grandparents had sold their house and bought a condo in Arizona, where they went to escape the icy Winnipeg winters. Then six months ago after sinking a hole in one on a golf course, Grandpa had died of a heart attack. Grandma was still in Arizona. She said she was almost ready to come back to Kenora for a visit in the summer. In the meantime, she had told J.J.'s parents to feel free to use the cottage whenever they wanted to.

J.J. leaned his bike against the side of the toolshed. Painting the shed was one of the jobs he had to take care of this summer. His dad believed that just because you were at the lake didn't mean you could slack off. Already Dad was talking about clearing out all the brush and making a lawn, but Mom wanted to leave it the way it was.

Running up the wooden steps to the porch, J.J. could already smell cooking. “Hi, Dad. What's for dinner?”

His dad, wearing shorts and his favorite John Lennon T-shirt, was putting a package wrapped in foil onto the barbecue. He looked up with a big grin as he said, “Hi, Jason. Guess what we're having for supper?”

“Fish?” You could count on eating fish almost every day as long as his dad could catch them.

“Good guess, Jason. How do walleye and roasted veggies sound?”

“Great. Is Mr. Stevens here yet?”

“Not yet. You might see if your mother needs any help in the kitchen.”

“Okay.” He opened the screen door and breezed through the living room, with its rows of shelves lined with books, old issues of
National Geographic,
and games like
Monopoly
and
Snakes and Ladders
that Grandpa used to play with him. Everywhere were reminders of Grandma: a patchwork quilt she'd made from Grandpa's old ties, thrown over the sagging couch; her paintings—mostly of trees and the rocky shores surrounding the lake—which covered every available wall space; and year-old women's magazines, lying in a heap on the big wooden table surrounded by six mismatched chairs.

He noticed that there were only a few sticks of wood left on the hearth. Dad would be after him to clean out the ashes from the fireplace and saw some more logs. In the spring, nights could be pretty chilly at the lake.

The old wooden floor squeaked under his new Nike sneakers as he walked into the kitchen. His mom, dressed in green capris and a flowery top, was just taking a pie out of the oven. She laid it down on an oven mitt lying on the beige counter and brushed back a few strands of hair, almost as red as his—she called it auburn—that had escaped from her ponytail. As she turned around, he noticed that a dab of flour lay on one pale cheek.

“Rhubarb. Your favorite,” she said, smiling at him as she held out her arms.

J.J. felt tears prickle his eyes. She was going in for an operation soon—some female thing, not fatal, his dad had said in his usual blunt way—but the recovery time would take some months.

Awkwardly—he still wasn't used to being a few inches taller than his mom, although she was almost as tall as his six-foot dad—he hugged her harder than he had intended and felt her flinch. “Sorry,” he muttered, stricken by the thought that he might have hurt her.

His mother laughed and ruffled his hair. “Don't be silly. I'm fine. How did things go today?”

“Okay.”

“Just ‘okay'?”

When Mom looked at him that way with her hazel eyes that seemed to bore into him, it meant that she really wanted to know
.

“Well, Mr. Stevens asked me to hold this pin and well …”

“You saw something?”

“I guess.”

“You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, Jason.”

He'd talked to his mom about most things, but this was different. “It was so weird!” he blurted out.

“Why don't you tell me all about it.”

J.J. sat down heavily at the pine table. Then the words came out in a rush until he had told her everything.

His mother took a deep breath and sat down beside him. “We'll talk more about this later, Jason, but you're not weird—unless Grandma and I are, too. When I was a little girl, Grandma used to take me into Mr. Stevens's shop. She would tell me not to touch anything, but one time I saw this meerschaum pipe with an amber stem. The bowl of the pipe was carved in the shape of a horse's head. I still remember how real the yellow mane looked and how the nostrils flared.

“When I picked it up, I saw a man with a bushy moustache dressed in what looked like leather shorts—lederhosen, I think they're called—smoking that pipe as he sat on a rocky hillside. I was so scared I almost dropped the pipe. Grandma was not amused, but Mr. Stevens couldn't have been nicer. He came over to us and asked if I was all right and then offered me a cookie.”

Out on the porch J.J. could hear voices. His dad was talking to someone.

His mom stood up. “I think Mr. Stevens is here. Don't worry about this ability of yours. Like your red hair, it runs in the Morgan family—you, me, and Grandma,” she said with a grin. “Now how about setting the table? I think the plates with the sunflowers on them would look pretty.”

At dinner, his mom seemed in the mood to reminisce. She and Mr. S. talked about how a number of the older people who had built cottages in the neighborhood were dying and new people moving in. His dad didn't say much; he seemed okay with letting those two do most of the talking.

Mr. S. leaned back in his chair and wiped his mouth with his paper napkin. “I'm going on a buying trip to San Francisco in the middle of June sometime, so I won't be needing Jason that week,” he said.

Mom gave him a quick look. “That's interesting, Nicholas. A letter came to me the other day from Caleb Morgan, a cousin of mine in San Francisco. He's invited Jason and me to visit him at his home there. I gather he's pretty well off since he's inviting other members of our family to stay with him, too. Let me go get the letter and read it to you and see what you think.”

While she was gone, his dad asked Mr. S., “You ever hear of this Caleb Morgan?”

“I have, Kevin—if he's the same man who is a well-known developer in San Francisco. Whenever I'm in town, I like to poke around in an antique store owned by a friend of mine whose shop is located in the Morgan Office Tower. Might be the same Morgan who is Diana's cousin.”

“Here it is,” said his mom, walking into the room and waving a letter in her hand.

“I would be interested in hearing it, Diana,” said Mr. S.

Dear Diana,

Let me introduce myself. I am Caleb Morgan, your mother's cousin. I would like to invite you and your son, Jason, to visit me at my residence in San Francisco. Your mother as well as cousins of yours will, I hope, be visiting also. Since my home is fairly large, there will be no trouble in accommodating all of you.

You must be wondering why I am extending this invitation to you and others of the Morgan family. It has come to my attention that there is an urgent family matter that I wish to discuss with all of you. I will be happy to explain everything after you arrive.

San Francisco is particularly lovely at this time of year and offers many interesting pursuits. In the meantime, I am enclosing two airplane tickets for you and your son.

Yours sincerely,

Caleb Morgan

She folded up the letter and placed it beside her plate. “What do you think, Nicholas?”

“It sounds like a good opportunity to visit San Francisco.”

“There's just one problem—I can't go.”

“And I can't go, either,” put in his dad quickly. “Diana's having an operation, and I'm staying with her in Winnipeg. We'll return to Kenora afterward for the summer.”

Mr. S. looked at J.J.'s parents and said, “If you would allow it, I'd be happy to accompany Jason to San Francisco.”

“I'd really like that, Mr. Stevens!”

His dad frowned and held up a hand. “Hold on, Jason. We haven't said yet if you can go. I'm not sure I want you going off to stay with some man we've never met—even if he says he is a cousin.”

“But …”

Diana smiled and tapped the letter as she said, “I think it would be okay, Kevin. I phoned my mother, who said she had met Caleb once before when she worked briefly in San Francisco.”

“And what did she think of Caleb?”

“She thought he was rather conceited, talked a lot about himself, his plans. He wasn't rich then, but very ambitious. Not a bad guy, though. He showed her around San Francisco a few times; then she never heard from him again until she received the same invitation.”

“I suppose,” his father said in that way that meant he had made up his mind about something, “that Jason might go if Nicholas is willing to accompany him to San Francisco.”

J.J. found he was holding his breath. Mr. S. smiled at him and said, “It would be my pleasure.”

“That's settled then,” said his mother with satisfaction. “Who wants pie?”

CHAPTER 6

It was the kind of Cornish morning that she loved. In her garden overlooking the bay, Marjory lingered over a cup of tea. The damp mist softened the harsh outline of the flat-topped cliffs by the sea so that they looked soft and insubstantial. The cries of seabirds as well as the slap of waves against the cliffs had a soothing quality that made her love this place.

“You're up early, Aunt Marjory.”

Dear Geraldine. How pretty she looked in her jeans and heavy red sweater, although her niece did look a little peaked with dark shadows under her green eyes this morning and the freckles on her nose standing out starkly against her pale skin. It would be enjoyable to have her spend a few days here. After their little tour of some megaliths, Charles, Geraldine's fiancé, who had traveled with them, had left—rather suddenly—to return to work.

“Would you care for some tea?”

“Please,” said Geraldine. She sat down in a wicker chair and said awkwardly, “I wanted to say that I hope we didn't offend you when you told us about your vision of the woman you saw. Please don't think that I didn't believe you. You've never yet lied to me, and you're just about the smartest person I know.”

“Smarter than Charles?” asked Marjory playfully.

Geraldine frowned and said stiffly, “Charles is a pompous twit.”