Unhappenings (7 page)

“Penelope?”

She laughed with delight. “Penelope! Wow, that takes me back!” She smiled, and allowed that smile to stretch right to the edge of an awkward moment. “Are you going to let me in?”

I stood aside, and she floated into the room, planting herself in my desk chair. Another pause blossomed awkwardly.

“Are you going to put some pants on?”

Crap. It was more or less clear what was happening here, especially after my experience with my older self the very day before, but it came at me so quickly I had no idea how to form the questions I had to ask. In light of that, the fact that I was still in my underwear had escaped me as insignificant. I nearly tripped getting to my dresser, and nearly fell over pulling on a pair of slacks.

“Relax,” she said. “We’re not in a hurry.”

Zip. “Not in a hurry for what?”

I turned around to see her rearranging the supplies on my desk into neat, but functionless, rows. “The usual. We have to run a fix.”

“What’s a fix?”

She looked up at me as I fumbled into a shirt, a curious smile on her face. Then the smile faded to something less amused, between surprise and trepidation.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh. No way.” She stood slowly, then reached for my left hand. Turning it over she traced a line from my wrist to the crook of my elbow, with noticeable pressure. She stared at the invisible line she had drawn, and her jaw dropped, just a bit. “No way,” she whispered.

She pulled something the size of a coin from her pocket, which promptly snapped out to an object that looked like a pen. As she waved this object over my forearm to no apparent result, her entire demeanor became more reserved.

“It’s not here,” she said calmly. The pen object collapsed back into a coin, and went back in her pocket. “We need to talk,” she said. “You may want to sit down.”

I pulled the covers taut on my bed, and sat down. This was more for her benefit than mine. She pulled up my desk chair and sat facing me with deep concern in her eyes.

“Nigel,” she began formally, “this may be difficult for you to accept at first, but…” She paused, evidently collecting her thoughts. “I’ve come here from your future.”

“That part is kind of obvious.”

She pulled back. “Oh,” she said, with some combination of confusion and disappointment. “Well then, how much do you know?”

I shrugged. “That’s pretty much it, I think. A younger version of you is a recent friend of mine. I recognized you right away. No offense, but you don’t look her age anymore.”

“None taken. The time travel doesn’t surprise you?”

I shook my head. “My life keeps unhappening. You know that, right? I’ve known some version of this was coming for years. And…” I stopped, unsure how to describe the evening before. “You’re not my first visitor.”

Her eyebrows rose at this. “Who?”

“Me, I think.”

“Oh.” She sat for a moment in a silence I could not read. “What did he say?”

“I’m not sure. It was raining, and he wasn’t exactly coherent.” Describing a moment from my life that was disturbing, and likely inevitable, was not easy. “He said I was too young. A boy.”

She nodded, as something seemed to fall into place. “Well, he’s not wrong on that count. That was his first trip. You won’t see him again for a few years, unless something changes before then.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry he got to you before I did.”

“Tell me everything.” The words were out before I could find a better way to ask.

She screwed her mouth to the side. “No,” she said flatly. She took my hand again and traced my forearm. “I’ve gotten so used to not having to explain anything, I forgot there would eventually come a time when you didn’t know.” She reached into her jacket, and unzipped an inner pocket. “And I’ve been carrying this for so long, I forgot that someday I would have to give it to you.” She opened her palm. In it sat an oblong silver bead, about a centimeter long. There were lines etched into it, so fine they might have been drawn with a pin. She looked into her hand at this object, and for a moment she appeared frozen by it. Then she closed her hand around it. “Are you sure?” she asked quietly.

“Sure about what?” I asked.

Still looking at her closed hand, she put a finger to her lips and said, “Shhh.” I gave her a moment of silence, after which she said, “Okay. I know.”

That was when I realized she was having some sort of discussion with herself. It was impossible to tell if that should make me uncomfortable. Then she looked at me and her entire demeanor changed. She gently pulled my arm forward, and pressed the silver bead into a spot on the invisible line she had drawn twice. Instead of looking there, she stared straight into my eyes. That was when I noticed how firm her grip had become.

There was a pinch, then a burn. Then, with a searing stab, the bead disappeared into a centimeter long incision in my arm.

“Ow!” I cried as she planted her other arm on my shoulder and threw her weight into it. I could feel the bead tunneling into my muscle. The agony was intense, but oddly brief. The spot surrounding the wound was already starting to numb. I looked at the hole in my arm, and saw a thin trail of clear liquid ooze out of it, pushing away the blood. The liquid hardened, and the edges of the incision pulled themselves tightly together. Deep inside my arm, I felt a dull, painless scratching. “What is it doing?” I managed to gasp.

Still staring me in the eyes, she said, “Bonding itself to your ulna.” There was another stab of pain, and I cried out. At that she let me go, and I clamped my hand over the already sealed opening.

“It’s well into the bone now,” she said. “The anesthetic will wear off in about thirty minutes. I’m sorry, but you’re going to be pretty sore for a few days.”

“What did you just do to me?” I felt a tear escape my left eye and tried to ignore it.

She covered her mouth with her hand and looked away for a moment. When she met my gaze again, she did so with a look of profound sadness.

“I just made you a time traveler.”

e were suddenly in an alley, standing in snow, well after dark. Penelope had given me just enough time to finish getting dressed before grabbing my arm without warning and turning the world inside out.

“What…?” This was all I had time to say before the dry heaves began.

“The nausea will pass,” she said. “After a few more trips, your body will adjust and you won’t feel it anymore.”

This was little comfort as my stomach tried to empty itself of food I had not yet eaten. That’s how I thought of it at the time, mourning my lost opportunity for breakfast. I later learned that the nausea in early trips was literally that very thing; my body somehow understood that there was a significant chronological gap between my last meal and my current position in time, even though that gap was, in this case, well in reverse. It was reacting the only way it knew how, by assuming anything I hadn’t been able to digest in that span must be toxic. It would be quite a while before I learned all the nuanced physiological consequences of time travel.

“Here,” said Penelope, handing me a hip flask. “Rinse and spit.”

I took a swig without thinking, instantly replacing the taste of bile with that of whiskey. I spat. “Gah! That’s not helping!”

“It isn’t meant to.” She took the flask and sipped from it. After swishing the alcohol in her mouth for a few seconds, she sprayed my shirt with it.

I held my arms out, and looked down at myself, soaking wet and reeking.

“Oh,” I said. “Fantastic.”

I looked at Penelope. She tucked the flask into a pocket without making eye contact. I scanned my surroundings. Nothing was familiar. The absence of sunlight at what was—only seconds before—ten in the morning, could only mean we had jumped in time. Of course I knew it was possible, and of course I knew it would happen to me sooner or later. The only aspect of this event I found in any way shocking was the sheer anti-climactic nature of it.

“Where are we?” I asked. “When are we?”

Penelope looked, as if to get her bearings.

“Still in Boston,” she said. “I hope. The spatial displacement component is rarely as precise as it should be. And about ten months prior to our point of departure.”

So. My first step through time was backward, by a trivial amount. No jaunt through history, no extraordinary visit to the future. Back one year and around the block.

Penelope pulled out a small tablet and drew her finger across it. “This is good. We’re within two clicks of the target, and thirty-five minutes early.” She pocketed the device, and met my eyes for the first time since the jump. “Listen, I know this a lot for you to take in. I will explain what I can as we go, but for now I need you to trust me and follow directions. Don’t ask a lot of questions. I promise I will bring you up to speed on the big picture, but I… I’m just not ready, okay?”

I looked around myself, and considered my options. For the first time since meeting her younger version, I found myself questioning if I should trust her, and wondering why that hadn’t occurred to me before. Her demeanor had been so jaunty and carefree when she strolled into my room, and now her face was etched with a trouble I could not fathom. She had been caught off guard. That was all. She missed the detail of which moment in my life she was traveling to, and she wasn’t prepared for me not knowing the ropes. This was easy enough to accept, and yes, there was just something about her that made me want to believe her.

“Okay,” I said.

She nodded. It was humorless and businesslike. “There’s a mini-mart a short walk from here. We are going to go there, behave very conspicuously for about ten minutes, and leave. With me so far?”

“I think so.”

“Good. I need you to act like you’ve been drinking. That’s why you smell like scotch. Sorry about that, by the way.” There was no sorrow in her voice.

“No problem.”

“When we get there, follow my lead. I’m your date, someone you just met, and a little bit too wild for you. You’re tipsy, and I’m flat out drunk.” She looked over her shoulder, then turned and started walking down the alley toward the street, gesturing me to follow. I did.

“You’ll want to act a little bit impatient with me, and embarrassed by me. I’ll try to make that easy.”

I nodded. “Are we? Dating?”

I meant it partly as a joke, and partly as a probe. Younger Penelope still hadn’t told me any solid details about who she was. Maybe Older Penelope would. It didn’t seem likely we were a couple in any time, but I needed to start somewhere. I expected a reaction either way. A coy hint, perhaps, or a revolted denial? Instead, she didn’t even look at me.

“No,” she said. “And please don’t go there again.”

That left me with even less information than if I simply hadn’t asked at all, and I felt some level of indefinable awkwardness with no clue how to correct for it.

“Sorry,” I said, in no way sure what I was sorry for.

“Leave it alone,” she said.

A few minutes later we arrived at a Cumberland Farms.

“Follow my lead,” Penelope reiterated, then threw the door open, giggling maniacally. It was in no way clear what kind of lead that was, or how it should be appropriately followed. By the time I got inside, Penelope was already running up and down the tiny aisles, shouting, “Wheeeeeeee!”