Gently, I reminded myself.
I figured it would be best to go back to a weekday morning, maybe three months ago. I would be at school then and my dad would most likely be in his shop. I could tell him that I had come home from school earlier and he wouldn’t get suspicious, especially if I came in through the main front door. I pushed the pedal down again, this time a little harder. The days became a week, then two and three. I slowed down again, applied only minimal pressure until I came to September 14th. I stopped at 10:52AM. For a moment, I wasn’t sure whether to turn the machine off or not. I decided to leave it on. Other than someone actually stepping into the shed, nobody from the outside would notice it was there.
I moved the cabin top to the side and climbed out. I tried to look at the centrifugal rotor but the light was too intense. I would need a welding mask to be able to see it. I left through the back door and was hit by a breeze of warm air. The snow was gone. The trees had not even started to yellow. My mittens. I’d completely forgotten to take off my winter clothes. I decided to leave my gloves, wool cap, and jacket next to the door of the shed. I still felt a bit overdressed.
My heart was pounding as I walked around the barn to the front door. I felt like I had sawdust in my mouth. I heard the metallic banging sound of a hammer on steel before I reached the door. I couldn’t remember having ever heard something that made me happier. I opened the door and stepped inside.
He stood next to the forge, a large hammer in his hand, wearing his leather apron and a short-sleeve shirt. He saw me and without stopping, he said, "What are you doing here so early?"
I couldn’t answer. I tried to smile but my face muscles didn’t follow my order. They began to twitch suddenly.
"Oh, Dad," was all I could whisper before I ran to him and held him in my arms. I couldn’t stop the tears from coming. I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want to make him suspicious that this was anything other than an early dismissal from school and me being happy to see him.
"There, there," he said. "What’s the matter?"
He placed the hammer on the side of the forge.
"You okay?"
For a long time I couldn’t say anything.
"Yes," I said eventually. "I’m okay. I just wanted to say hi and see how you’re doing."
"I’m doing fine. But I need to get different coal. This one burns too dirty. Can you smell it?"
"Yeah," I said, suddenly happy over the sulfury smell in the shop.
"Is everything all right? You seem upset."
"I’m okay. Just missed you, that’s all."
"Okay. Then let me get this formed before it cools down too much."
"Okay," I said. "Sounds good."
He picked up the hammer again and pushed the metal piece he was working on back into the embers.
"See you later," I said.
"Yep. See you later."
I left the barn with the sound of the hammer ringing in my ears. As I walked around back, I felt lighter, as if a burden had been lifted from me. When I looked through the dirt-smudged window, I saw my father stop hammering for a moment. As if he’d just thought of something. Then he shook his head and continued.
I stood behind the storage shed for a few minutes and let the sun warm my face. Then I entered, picked up my gloves, jacket, and wool cap and climbed into the machine. I closed the cabin top and began to push the right pedal down. The days on the display passed by. When it moved into December, I slowed down. I don’t know what had changed, but I wasn’t sad anymore. Maybe it was knowing that I could visit him whenever I wanted. Or maybe it was good enough to see him doing something he had loved so much.
My eyes were fixed on the display. I felt the pedal beneath my right foot, the pressure of the forward motion against my leg. When December 22nd approached, something in me clicked. The Traveler must exercise the greatest caution to not set off a chain of events she cannot foresee. I realized that he must have known, that he must have thought this encounter to be too strange to have been a normal occurrence. Did my visit, as brief as it was, change his outlook in any way?
And while I pondered the ever paradoxical nature of travelling through time, I knew, suddenly and unmistakably, what he had said back in the hospital room. He didn’t say, "Draw." Nor did he say, "Drawer." It sounded like it because those were the only words I could think of at that moment. No. It wasn’t druh, it was trah. It was the way he pronounced the ‘a’ differently. More like an uh. He must have known that I had built the machine and came back to him.
It wasn’t drawer. It was traveler.
David Bruns
The Water Finder’s Shadow
Originally published in Tails of the Apocalypse
A Finder without the Gift is nothing—less than nothing. A freeloading, water-consuming drain on their clan.
I lost my Gift a long time ago. But no one knows that because a friend entered my life at exactly the moment I needed him the most.
He whined softly on the floor next to me. I knelt down and stroked those long, velvety ears. How many times had I petted that heavy head, held that jowly face, pulled on those wonderful ears? Eighteen years was a long time for man or dog these days, and we both showed our age. His muzzle, once jet black, was snowy with the passing of time. My shaggy hair was mostly gray now and much thinner than when he found me.
“What is it, boy?” I whispered to him. “Do you need to go out?”
Shadow thumped his tail.
I gathered him in my arms. In his prime, Shadow had weighed more than fifty pounds; he was barely half that now, a collection of bones and flaccid muscles under a bag of loose hide. He let out a little wheeze when I hoisted him up and I felt a warm wetness run down my arm. Shadow closed his eyes with shame.
“It’s okay, buddy.” I kissed him softy on the side of his face.
The chill of the desert air invaded my robe as I squatted down to let Shadow toddle around the yard. His back bowed in the middle, and he walked with stiff legs on a slow circuit around the perimeter of our small enclosure. I bit my lip in joyful sadness when I saw my friend lower his nose to the ground and start sniffing. Always searching for the next Find. His tail wagged slowly as he breathed in the scents of the morning earth.
As long as he could still sniff like that, I wasn’t going anywhere. My escape plan was set, but I was staying right here until my friend passed on to the next life, or wherever we go when we die. Yes, I was risking everything by staying, but after a lifetime of faithful service—a lifetime of keeping me from being sold to the slavers—I owed him that much.
“You should put a collar on that dog.” Dimah’s voice was husky with sleep. She pressed herself against my back and slipped a hand into my robe. Her fingers were cold against my skin and I shivered.
“Never. Collars are for animals.”
I could feel her face pouting against my shoulder blade. “He’s a dog,” she said.
“He’s my friend.” I pulled her hand out of my robe, and tightened the tie around my waist. Maybe I was a bit short with her, but this was not the first time we’d had this conversation.
“I don’t understand, Polluk.”