Einstein's Secret (16 page)

“Among other things.”

She flashed a sympathetic smile.

I didn’t want to get into an extended conversation, so I didn’t say anything more. I was worried that I’d contradict something the “other” me had said to her when he’d come to Charlottesville.

She made some attempts at small talk, but my reticence eventually won the day and she stopped. About thirty minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot at the base of Jackson Hill.

“We’re going up to Gray’s Cabin,” she said.

I wasn’t surprised.

As we hiked up, I racked my brains trying to figure out how Gray’s Cabin could be connected to Eddie, to time travel, or to Einstein’s secret.

Could it be another time-travel portal?

Laura’s pace up the trail was fast. Much faster than on our last hike. She was focused on her destination, which was fine by me.

When we reached the cabin, she marched right in without saying a word. But just before I followed her inside, I thought I saw movement in the woods. I told myself it was either my growing paranoia or an animal shuffling by. I should’ve known better.

Laura flicked on the light, and I took in the cot, the metal plates, the pot, the iron skillet, the wood-burning stove, and the display case. Everything looked exactly as it had before.

“I don’t know how or when it changed,” she said.

I scanned the place more carefully, but still didn’t see any changes. Of course, I didn’t know the place as well as she did.

She headed over to the display case. “Take a look in here.”

I walked over and did just that. My eyes ticked over Corbin’s books. Thoreau, Emerson, Fuller, and Whitman. Plus the magazine with a write-up on Corbin’s adventure—

And that’s where I saw the change.

There was a glossy magazine in there, all right, but it was no longer the
Life
magazine with Dwight D. Eisenhower on the cover. It was a
Fame
magazine, the one with a photo of Einstein on the cover, the one I knew so well. And it still teased a story on Einstein, but that story was no longer about his death and how he’d been just a regular Joe. It was about his disappearance.

I have to read this, right now
, I thought.
That’s why I’m here.
Just as my quest in the old history had been fueled by a clue buried in a
Fame
magazine, I was sure that this
Fame
magazine contained a clue in
this
history.

But why was this magazine here in Gray’s Cabin? The
Life
magazine had been here because it contained an article on Corbin Gray.

I examined the
Fame
cover more closely and found my answer. One of the three articles teased on the cover was titled “Meet the Mountain Man.”

“Do you remember what was there before?” Laura asked.

“It was a
Life
magazine.”

“I don’t know when it changed, but it had to be over the last month. I didn’t drop in for most of August because I was busy preparing for classes. But when I hiked up this week, I saw it.”

I could’ve told her exactly when it’d changed. In the last few days of August, when Eddie and I had traveled through the wormhole, and whatever Alex had started went from bad to worse.

“Do you think Eddie changed it?” she said.

It wasn’t Eddie who had changed it. History had changed it. To “fit in.”

The real question was: why had
she
noticed it?

She shouldn’t have noticed the changes. The trails that a new history blazed into the old history should’ve been invisible to her. And even if she did notice them, she should’ve blamed the changes on her faulty memory and dismissed them. That’s how this works.

But she didn’t dismiss it. Why?

It took me just another second to come up with the reason. It was the same reason that Eddie had noticed the changes. She’d been sucked into the vortex. Had Eddie sucked her in? Had Alex?

Had I?

She’d said that I’d spoken to her about my Einstein research during the memorial service. Not the “me” that was standing here now, but me nonetheless.

“Did you tell anyone else about this?” I asked.

“I was going to tell Mila, and take her up here this weekend, but now I don’t have to. You’re the person who needed to see this.” She looked at the magazine, took a breath, and turned to me. “So what does it mean?”

I couldn’t tell her what it meant without telling her the entire story, and that meant sucking her into the vortex even more. Van Doran would kill her just as surely as he’d killed Alex. So telling her the truth was handing her a death sentence.

And that led to a worse possibility. Was she already in danger? Had she already crossed over into knowing too much?

Dread coursed through me. “I don’t know what it means,” I said.

“You don’t know? Or you won’t tell me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know who changed the magazine?”

“Let’s go.” I wanted to get her out of here and as far away from the vortex as possible. There was always the hope that her memories would change and Van Doran wouldn’t have to go after her. She’d forget the old history and live in the new one.

At the same time, I also had a very selfish motive for getting her out. I wanted to come back here, alone, break into that case, and read that article. The clue to resurrecting Einstein’s secret was in there.

I headed out of the cabin, hoping she’d follow.

She did. “Who changed the magazine?” she asked, again.

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t believe you, and I think you know a lot more than you’re saying.”

The vortex was getting stronger.

I started down the trail. “This isn’t that big of a deal.” I was hoping I sounded calm enough to cover up my blatant lie. “I’m sure it’s just some kind of prank.”

“Why on earth would someone pull a prank like that? And why does it involve Einstein? Which means it involves you somehow.”

We were out of the sight of the cabin. “I have to go to the bathroom. Go ahead and keep hiking and I’ll catch up.”

“Sounds like you’re avoiding my interrogation,” she said, and moved past me. “I’ll go slow.”

Not
too
slow
, I thought, and not because I was avoiding her interrogation, but because I was planning to haul ass back to the cabin and get that magazine.

As I headed into the woods, I watched her move down the trail. When she was out of sight, I raced through the woods, back to the cabin.

I stepped inside and went straight for the iron skillet, but it wouldn’t come off the counter. It was glued down, as it would be in any exhibit. Of course; I hadn’t thought of that. I tugged hard at the handle, but the skillet wouldn’t budge. There wasn’t any time to mess around, so I jumped up on the counter and kicked the skillet hard.

It budged.

I kicked it again, and it flew off the counter and onto the floor.

I jumped off the counter, scooped it up, raced over to the display case, and smashed the glass with the skillet—shattering it into big chunks on the first hit.

In one swift motion, I reached inside, grabbed the magazine, and tucked it into the back of my pants, under my shirt. But that made way too big of a bulge. Laura would surely spot that I had something back there.

So I pulled it out and tucked it into the front of my pants, down around my thigh, and started toward the door. But my gait was awkward, and she’d pick up on that, too.

I pulled the magazine out again, and considered ripping the Einstein article out. But what if the clue wasn’t in that article? What if it was in the article on Corbin?

There was no time to weigh all the possibilities. Laura was probably already wondering what was taking me so long. I opened the magazine, found the article, and ripped those five pages out.

I folded them, slipped them into my pocket, started toward the door and—

Stopped cold.

Laura was in the doorway. “What the hell are you doing?”

I didn’t have a ready answer.

She stepped inside. “What’s so critical about that magazine that you snuck back in here and destroyed my display to get to it?”

“I can’t tell you.”
Because the vortex will kill you.

“Why not?”

“It has nothing to do with you.”

She motioned to the case. “It does now.”

“I was stupid to do that.”

“No, you
had
to do it. Why?”

“Let’s just go.” I moved toward the door.

She slammed it shut. “I know you didn’t come back to Charlottesville for a job interview. There isn’t a job opening at the Ed School.”

“I can’t talk about this now
.”

“When I saw you in the Caves, you said you were visiting Eddie. Well, I checked on that, too. Eddie wasn’t down there.”

“Let’s just go.” Again I made a move toward the door, but she stood in front of it.

“Tell me what’s going on.” This time, there was a hint of desperation in her voice, and that’s what tipped me off. She was pressing me because she was frightened. Frightened of something more than the magazine.

And in that moment, we both looked down to the floor, where liquid was flooding into the cabin from under the door. The smell was unmistakable. It was gasoline.

Laura tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t move.

I raced over and pushed on it. It was sealed shut. My heart sank as I realized I
had
seen someone out there, but had fallen into his trap anyway. And there was no doubt whose trap this was.

The gasoline was pouring into the cabin, soaking our shoes. “Move to the dry part of the floor,” I said, as I lowered my shoulder and rammed the door. It didn’t give an inch.

I moved over to Laura, and we both took our shoes off and tossed them back to the wet side of the cabin. But the gasoline was quickly making its way toward us, spreading smoothly in all directions.

We jumped onto the cot. I reached out to the wall to keep my balance, and felt heat emanating from the other side.

“The entire place is on fire,” I said, and saw that flames were now rolling inside from underneath the door.

Laura jumped off the cot and ran to the counter, splashing through the gasoline in her bare feet.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to save us,” she said. “Get over here.” She jumped onto the counter.

The flames were sweeping across the floor, and I wondered why taking refuge over there was any better than it was over here. But she knew this cabin better than anyone, so I jumped off the cot, barely outran the tide of flames sweeping across the floor, and jumped onto the counter. “What’s over here?”

She moved across the counter and stepped onto the wood stove. “The stove originally had a pipe going up through the ceiling. I took it out because animals climbed in during the winter. “

In the beamed ceiling I saw a small area, about a foot and a half square, which had been patched from the outside with a board. Laura smacked the board hard, but it didn’t give way. “I nailed it down pretty well and sealed it with epoxy,” she said.

The cot suddenly caught fire and the old mattress instantly burst into flames. A thick, gray smoke began to fill the room.

I stepped on the stove and pounded on the board with Laura. But it was epoxied solidly into place.

I jumped back onto the countertop, bent down, and pulled at the knife that was glued to the counter. Laura was now coughing, and the cabin’s wooden floor itself had caught fire, not just the gasoline.

The knife wouldn’t come loose, so finally I stood up and kicked down on it, hard. That loosened it enough to wrench it free. I handed it to Laura and motioned at the board. “Pry it off.”

While she tried to jam the knife into the space between the board and the ceiling, I kicked at one of the metal plates until it loosened. Then I grabbed it and joined her on the stove.

Coughing and sweating, I tried to squeeze the plate under another side of the board, but the plate was too thick to fit.

Then, as the dark smoke thickened around us, her side creaked and the board rose the tiniest fraction of an inch. I wheeled around and jammed the plate in there, and the board creaked up a little more.

We were now both coughing in spasms, but pressed on. She jammed the knife under another part of the board while I toggled the plate up and down. The board moved up a little farther, exposing the nails that ran down that side.

I started pounding on the board, and she joined in.

As the flames rose up to our feet, two more sides of the board started to give way. Desperate, and choking on the thick smoke, we pounded on the board as if we’d been buried alive—

It suddenly popped free of the nails.

Outside, I could see flames rising up from the sides of the cabin.

We were headed from the frying pan into the fire—literally—but the fire was our best hope.

I cupped my hands. “Go ahead.”

She stepped up into my hands, grabbed my shoulders, and popped her head up through the opening. Then she quickly seized the edges of the opening and struggled to haul herself up. I gave her a boost and, though it was a tight fit—her arms, shoulders and hips all scraped against the edges of the opening—she made it out.

She reached down to help me.

“Go on,” I said, ignoring her outstretched hands. I grabbed the edge of the opening and started to haul myself up, but the opening was so small I couldn’t get any leverage. I did get high enough to see the huge flames licking up from the sides of the cabin. “Go, please!” I said.

Laura moved back, but didn’t take off.

I was straining to pull the rest of my body out when she reached down into the cabin, grabbed me under my shoulders, and pulled hard, scraping more skin off her arms—

That was just enough lift to give me the leverage I needed, and I pushed off the edges and twisted myself up and out.

We both raced across the roof to the side of the cabin. Every side had flames spiking three or four feet high above the roof. Jumping through them to the ground below—about a twelve-foot drop—was the last hurdle.

“You ready?” I said.