Now Ben and Mary were even more stunned and unbelieving, than when Mr. Carlyle announced that he was Noah.
“I wasn’t going to say that, Mary”, said Mr. Carlyle, “but when you addressed me as Noah, I guess I was surprised and it just came out. I have not heard my name like that since my dear, dear Naama let my name slip from her lips as she died. … died almost eight thousand years ago in my arms after I returned from a travel”.
And with that Mr. Carlyle slumped and once again appeared frail and weak, remembering Naama, her love and their life.
“Naama was my wife”, said Mr. Carlyle with tears flowing freely down his cheeks. “We lived in a small village that today is under the waters of what is called the
Mr. Carlyle could see that he was overwhelming Mary and Ben with his tales and he could also see that they were far from believing him. Ben seemed to try to sink ever deeper into Mr. Carlyle’s plaid couch and Mary was shuffling nervously from foot to foot near the open window in the salon.
“I must do this now”, whispered Mr. Carlyle to himself. Walking toward the basement stairs, he seemed to regain his vigor and health. To him the decision he had just made to share his secret with these two children had lifted a burden from his shoulders, relief from deciding to share his millennium long burden, the secret of his being and life.
“Wait here guys and don’t move”, said Carlyle, “I and going to get the greatest secret ever. Then you shall believe”.
Mr. Carlyle opened the basement door, stepped in and disappeared into the dim lights below. Ben squirmed as each old wooden stair creaked. Mary just listened.
# # #
“Mary”, whispered Ben, “do you think we should get out of here? After all, Noah, er Mr. Carlyle is scaring me”.
“Shhhhh Ben”, said Mary, “I’m trying to listen and besides I still believe that Mr. Carlyle is just a nice old man, a bit eccentric but nothing for us to worry about”. Mary walked from the window, across the room and pressed her ear against the basement door.
“I just hear some boxes being pushed around”, she said.
“Mary the more I think about this the more I think we should scram”, said Ben”.
“Quiet, he’s coming back” and Mary practically leapt from her spot at the door to the couch where Ben still sat.
The basement door definitely needed oil on its hinges and made an eerie nose as it swung open to reveal Mr. Carlyle holding a small box wrapped in seemingly ancient paper.
“Jewelry”, asked a nervous Mary?
“Oh much more precious than jewelry, my dear child”, said a very happy Mr. Carlyle. “This is the secret, the greatest secret ever and I have kept it, maybe selfishly to myself for thousands of years”.
Placing the box on the table in front of the couch, Mr. Carlyle slowly untied the strings holding the yellowed paper wrapping in place. Mary and Ben lean forward, their curiosity overcoming any worries they had about Mr. Carlyle.
Mr. Carlyle took from the small box a small, oval stone.
Almost instinctively, Ben reached he hand forward and said, “Can I hold that Mr. Carlyle?”
With a start Mr. Carlyle quickly pulled back from the children, “Don’t touch it, at least not yet. And when you do, do not utter a word. Not a sound. Not a peep for this stone is the secret of secrets. It is time travel”.
Mary would have laughed if Mr. Carlyle had not been so serious. Ben was again scanning the room for any possible exit since the graveness of Mr. Carlyle’s tone of voice was now certainly scaring him.
Mr. Carlyle continued, “I will hold it, turn it for you to examine but be extremely careful for in ones hands saying the wrong thing could make you disappear for ever or even send you to a time where you life would be in grave peril”.
“Trial and error, over the many years, taught me the secrets of the stone. I’m still not sure I know all the secrets”.
“I have never understood the writings etched into it but I have learned how to travel time and even control my length of stay before returning to the present”.
Placing the stone on the table, Mr. Carlyle again walked and peered out the window. “Don’t touch”, he said sternly.
“Using the power of this stone I have lived far longer that any man, far longer that I ever should have. I have seen wonderful and terrible things. I have learned more secrets that I must forever keep hidden than any before”.
“Did you know that Jesus had quite a sense of humor and loved to pull practical jokes on Peter, James and the rest? We met sometime around 30AD or perhaps a few years after.”
“And Alexander, well I joined him in
“I see my stories are just the stories of an old man and not convincing. Right Mary? Right Ben”, said a smiling Mr. Carlyle. “I think I must show you to convince you”.
Walking from the window to the table, Mr. Carlyle picked up the stone, rolled it several times in his hands as if thinking. Then he said clearly and firmly, “5 minutes ahead, 5 seconds”.
Mr. Carlyle was gone.
Ben jumped in surprise from the couch. Mary gaped wordless and the empty spot where Mr. Carlyle had stood. And then before either could move or utter a word, Mr. Carlyle reappeared on the exact spot where eh had stood.
“How?” yelled Ben. And Mary rising from the couch was still silent. Mr. Carlyle with a slight smile at the proof he was presenting moved toward the open window and said “Just wait and don’t move”.
No one in the room could have moved, they were all glued in amazement and some fear to their spots. There was just some slight rustling from the open window. “The wind blowing through”, thought Mr. Carlyle and the breeze felt good.
Then after what seemed a lifetime, there appeared in the room Mr. Carlyle on the exact spot he was standing just five minutes before. “Hello children”, the second Mr. Carlyle said and turning to the other Mr. Carlyle in the room continued “And good day to you or me as it may be”. Then the second Mr. Carlyle disappeared and the remaining Mr. Carlyle laughed, “Is that proof enough”?
# # #
“Children, you can speak”, said a grinning Mr. Carlyle to the two silent children, stunned by the disappearance and reappearance of the several Mr. Carlyles.
Placing the stone on the table, he said with an obvious glee, “Never quite figured how it does it but I’ve never had any problems bumping into myself, somewhere in time and I’ve never appeared in the middle of a stone, table, wall or anything. Somehow the stone knows and keeps the traveler safe”.
Rising and inching slowly toward Mr. Carlyle, Mary said sheepishly, “Can I try it”?
Ben, startled at Mary’s request yelled, “No Mary, don’t”.
“There’s a first time for everything Mary”, said a calm Mr. Carlyle, “sure you can, but only do and say what I tell you too. Nothing more. Nothing less”.
Ben now sat quietly on the couch as Mary rose and approached Mr. Carlyle.
No more seriously, Mr. Carlyle said, “I understand you are studying the history of Owens Farm in school, true?”
A nervous Mary quietly replied, “True”.
“Perhaps you would like to visit a time before the
A quite Mary muttered, “OK”.
Mr. Carlyle picked the stone up from the table, placed it softly in Mary’s hand. “Don’t utter a sound, roll the stone a few times in your hand to warm it and get the feel of its surface.
Mary, not moving a muscle anywhere in her body except the hand holding the stone rolled it slowly, afraid of what might happen if she dropped it.
“Now repeat this exactly”, continued Mr. Carlyle, “Eighty-Eight years back, five minutes”.
Mary puzzled, “Why eight-eight years Mr. Carlyle? Why not ninety or one hundred? May be the first trip should be…”
Cutting her off with a slight wave of his hand, Mr Carlyle. Said, “Mary, trust me. I think you’ll enjoy it”.
“Oh and whatever you do, please do not drop the stone. It must return with you. Only once before did it not return with its owner and I am not sure what happened”.
Now with the building excitement of an adventure that perhaps few in history had ever done before, Mary clutched the stone with all her strength and loudly and bravely proclaimed, “Eighty-eight years back, five minutes”. And she was gone from the room.
Mr. Carlyle smiled. Ben tried to sink even lower into the protection of the couch.
The only noise in the room was the rusting sounds filtering in through the open window.
“And now we wait”.
# # #
88 Years Ago
For just the briefest of time, things went completely black for Mary. The there she was standing in a recently plowed field, surrounded by gentle rolling hills, some farmed, some left with their forested slopes intact and growing.
Disoriented, Mary stood silently, slowly turning and looking at the foreign, yet somewhat familiar landscape around her. The ground on which she stood had just a few sprouts pushing up ever so slightly through the loose soil.
Then panic engulfed her. “The Stone. Mr. Carlyle said not to drop it. Could I get back? Mr. Carlyle never told me”, she though. Reassuring herself that she still had a firm grip on the stone, Mary took a few tentative steps then several more.
“Five minutes”, she silently thought, “I’ve only got five minutes”.
Again panic set in. “How will I know when the five minutes are up? Do I have to be on the exact spot that I left from? Where is that spot?” and immediately, she tried to retrace her steps.
Suddenly, Mary sensed someone or something behind her. She instinctively started to run and ran for several yards. Then she spun quickly around to confront whatever was behind her, tripped over a stone and fell to the ground.
Rising again, she now saw the figure just a few feet from her. “This can’t be”, she gasped and dropped to her knees, stunned.
Looking up, the figure was closer now, quietly she said, “Mr. Carlyle”?
Raising his hand to his chin and stroking his beard, the figure calmly said, “I must be getting soft in the future, letting other people use the stone. You are using the stone, aren’t you, the way you just appeared in my field and all?”
Mary tried standing, but in the soft soil and with a badly scrapped knee, she instantly sat back down on the ground. “Yes”, she softly replied observing the small trickle of blood now flowing slowly down her leg.
“Well, around here I’m Tink Owens. I kind of wanted a name nobody else had. Wonder how I ever came up with Carlyle”, the figure said again stoking his beard, apparently getting lost deep in thought. “How much you got”?
Mary didn’t know how to answer. How much what she thought. Money maybe? Food?
Sensing her puzzlement, Tink continued, “The instructions to the stone. How much time you got?”
“Five minutes… er no… maybe two now. Mr. Carlyle, I mean Mr. Owens”, said Mary.
‘I guess this is your first trip, eh? Well you and the Stone should be back in your own time soon, ready for your next adventure. If I let you”, said Tink Owens laughing out loud in a booming voice. “If I let you”.
Mary relaxed just a bit. Mr. Owens had the same friendly personality as Mr. Carlyle. “Duh”, she immediately thought, “they should after all they are the same person”.
“Mr. Owens“, Mary said, “will you remember me when I get back? Will you remember this little conversation?”
Puzzled, Mr. Owens took a few steps, always seeming to stroke his beard. “I don’t know”, he said, “I never met another time traveler. Hey, I never even met myself anywhere. I don’t know”.
Then with a gasp, Mary panicked again, the stone was no longer in her hand. First searching her pockets and then the ground immediately around her, she realized that she must have dropped it as she ran across the field trying to get away from Tink Owens.
“Mr. Carlyle, I dropped the stone somewhere running away from you”, she cried out, “The fall in the field, where did I fall”?
Mary began to run as fast as her scrapped knee would let her to the place she though she might have dropped the stone. Tink Owens followed close behind. Over and over in her mind, she tried to calculate, “How many minutes do I have left”.
Tink Owens, glancing quickly around knew that the stone must be found, otherwise Mary would return to her time and he would be left with two time traveling stones. Sweating from the running in the field and worry, Tink Owens wondered, ”What will this do? What will this do”?
There about five yards ahead of Mary was a rock obviously foreign to the rich dark dirt of the corn field, sitting on top of the soil and glinting slightly off white in the sun light.
Time was short, Mary had no choice but to lunge for the stone whether it was the correct one or not. Letting out a little yell from the pain of her scrapes and bruises, she dove for the rock, closed her fingers around it and then everything went dark and silent.
# # #
The Present
“Ow”, screamed Mary as a branch from a bush slapped against her face. Pushing the branch away, a calm fell over the bruised, bleeding Mary. She was back and in the bushes just outside of Mr. Carlyle’s house. “Thank God”, she said.
But she was not alone and staring back at her, a few feet away, was Luke Nelson, who was shocked at sudden arrival of another person.
Not being bright enough to really question where Mary had come from so quickly or how he never heard her coming, Luke jumped to the spot in the bushes where Mary was struggling to untangle herself.
Then with a ferocity Luke had never exhibited before, he kicked her and said, “Don’t tell ‘em I was lis’nin at the window”. Kicking her once again, Luke disappeared around the corner of the house. Mary slumped weakly in the tangle of bushes.
“Mary”, cried Mr. Carlyle leaning out of the salon window, “I hear you out there. Welcome back and how was your little trip”?
“Who did you meet”, said Mr. Carlyle with a slight, knowing smile. “Some handsome guy, perhaps” and he started laughing.
Still doubled over from the pain of Luke’s kicks and out of breath Mary couldn’t speak. She squeezed her hand reassuringly, the stone was still there. It had returned with her.
Now Mr. Carlyle was concerned. He saw the bruised and bleeding Mary lying exhausted in the bushes outside his salon window. “Wait up Mary, we’re coming”, said a worried Mr. Carlyle”.
“I never should have let her go”, Mr. Carlyle said over and over with a cry in his voice, as he and Ben charged out of the house to the bushes holding Mary. “She just wasn’t ready, too young, too young”.
Mr. Carlyle and Ben reached the bushes which still held the battered Mary.
“He…….. Knows………”, panted Mary in a voice to silent to be heard by Mr. Carlyle who was now gently picking her up to carry her into the house.
“She’s trying to say something”, said Ben.
“Mary, don’t talk. I’ll take you inside. Ben get a doctor”, said Mr. Carlyle.
“No”, whispered Mary in a voice they finally heard.
“OK, no doctor, yet”, emphasized Mr. Carlyle realizing that Mary was probably going to be alright, “but here, rest a bit before you try to speak and tell us your story”.
Mr. Carlyle laid Mary on the couch in his salon, removed the stone from her hand and placed it on the table.
“He….. Kno….”, Mary tried to say again but she was cut short by Mr. Carlyle giving her a glass of water brought by Ben from the Kitchen.
“I’m so sorry Mary”, said Mr. Carlyle, “I never should have let you go back so far. Far too dangerous. Far too dangerous”.
Regaining her strength, Mary screamed, “Everyone stop. He knows. He knows. He knows”. Panicking, Mary grabbed the collar of Mr. Carlyle’s brightly colored jacket. “He knows”, she said firmly and definitively.
“Mary, I don’t understand”, said a confused Mr. Carlyle. “Ben does this mean anything to you”?
Before Ben could answer, a figure emerged from the darkness of the next room.
“I know”, the dark figure said as it smashed a chair to pieces one swing of a baseball bat it was carrying menacingly in it right had.
Silence and fear filled the room. Then Luke Nelson smashed another chair. Mr. Carlyle threw himself on Mary, who lay recuperating on the couch in an attempt to protect her from flying bits of wood and nails from the broken chairs. Ben dove under the table in the corner of the salon.
“I know and I’m taking this little stone of yours”, snarled Luke as he paced around the room. “I’m gonna change everything. I’m gonna rule the world. Maybe you should bow to me now for soon I’m gonna be your king”.
Hovering over the three crouching figures, Luke raised the bat again and sent it crashing down on the table protecting Ben. Then with growing ferocity, he swung the bat over and over again in the air above Mr. Carlyle, who was still protecting Mary with his body.
Pictures shook on the walls. Vases and other items crashed to the floor in a rising din. The Luke stopped and reached for the stone lying on the table and said, “I am in charge”.
Realizing the damage and terror that would arise from a mad man or in this case boy controlling the stone, Mr. Carlyle dove from the couch to the table and grasped for the stone.
Luke swung the bat again. Wham smashing it into Mr. Carlyle’s out reached hand with vengeance. Cringing in pain from his shattered hand, Mr. Carlyle pulled back. Luke’s attention, moved momentarily from the crumpled shape of Mr. Carlyle to the stone laying on the table. He reached out and lifted the stone and held it aloft as if looking for a diamond-like glimmer or a window into the world he was going to create.
Apparently for emphasis since he was in no danger from the three cowering figures, Luke spun with a wild vengeance, smashing the club with ever growing rage over and over again into the walls of the salon.
Mary, Ben and Mr. Carlyle, now huddled together for safety, cringed with each blow of the bat. Mr. Carlyle was bleeding but still trying to shield the two children from the madman destroying everything in the room.
Finally rising and holding his broken bleeding hand to his chest, Mr. Carlyle said calmly, “Luke is it? I don’t believe that we’ve ever met but I need you to trust me. Please. I want to warn you that what you hold is perhaps the most dangerous item every found on this earth. Look what it almost did to Mary.”
“Mary’s nothing. I wish it would have finished her”, snarled Luke caressing the stone more and more in his fingers. “Maybe for my first trip, before I make myself king, I’ll go back and do her in myself. Or perhaps beat her parents so silly that so she’ll never be born”.
Gathering courage, Ben spoke. “Luke calm down”, said Ben, “I know we haven’t been friends but you’ve got to believe us, this is bad, really bad”.
“Hey Ben…. Ben Dover…. Beating you up for all these years has been the minor leagues. Now with this, “and he held the stone aloft again, “I am King Luke. No maybe god-Luke”. And he laughed, a laugh more evil than even Mr. Carlyle with all his time travels had ever heard. “Watch and learn…”, Luke said.
With that Luke smashed the table shielding the crippled Mr. Carlyle, Ben and Mary. Then they heard Luke muttering to himself, “Where to go? Where to go first?”
Ben realized that someone had to do something and that Mary and Mr. Carlyle were in no condition help. But then again, Luke was almost twice his size.
“I know”, said Luke with an evil certainty that brought a chill to the room. “Where there is one stone like this, there must be more, more to start an army of time travelers loyal to me and only me. An army to worship me.”
Rolling the Stone over in his hand, Luke could feel a growing power. Confused at first, soon it was part of him, willing to take him where he commanded.
“The beginning it is. I’ll find the fools who made this little beauty and get more and more”, he said looking at the stone.
“Let me see if I remember how this little beauty works, Mr. Carlyle”, said Luke turning toward Mary, Luke and Mr. Carlyle. “Just say how far to travel and how long to stay.”
“I seem to have her’erd somewhere”, said Luke, “that rocks is old, really old. Two billion or so ought to do it. No, no, no better be safe. Two and one half billion”.
Almost in unison, Ben and Mr. Carlyle cried out “No”, but it was too late. Luke raising the bat to a menacing attack position forced them to stop. Holding the rock in his right hand and said loudly and clearly, “Two billion five hundred million years back, ten minutes”.
And Luke disappeared.
Mr. Carlyle dropped to his knees and with his head in his hands, started sobbing. “He’s dead”.
“No Mr. Carlyle”, yelled Ben, “He’ll be back in just ten minutes. We must get help to stop him”.
Dropping to his knees, Mr. Carlyle said, “No Ben. He’s already dead. The earth of two billion years ago has already removed any threat he was to us”.
# # #
2.5 Billion Years Ago
The creatures that Luke had landed among looked on in puzzled amazement at the thing that appeared out of nowhere in their midst.
Thrashing about violently and struggling to breath in their methane atmosphere, the strange creature died quickly and in great agony.
After a brief examination, these creatures noticed that a long strange cylindrical object and an almost familiar looking stone that had arrived with their strange visitor.
It looked remarkably like their own time traveling stone, the one lost by the priest many years before. Gathering around the lifeless body, one started reaching for the stone still clutched in the creature’s lifeless hand.
But the lifeless creature and the stone vanished as quickly as it had arrived.
Looking at one another, they nodded knowingly, “Time travel. The Stone was not lost”. Summoning their scientists, an investigation was begun but no answers were ever found.
_____________________
Next week:
Chapter 10: We Have Changed The World And Not In A Good Way
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