Lost in time

Chapter 10

Only one option remains after seeing their mom so distraught the night before. They have to tell her about the machine.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.” Mystery pours cereal into a bowl looking at her mom’s closed bedroom door.

They haven’t seen her come out of her room all morning.

“Well, I can’t hang around here all day. I need to get to the shop.” Magenta announces.

“Whether we tell her or not, we still have a job to do that we are getting paid for, remember?” She stuffs her hands in her hoodie pockets and steps out of the apartment, leaving her sisters to look after their mom.

She thought long and hard about it last night and decided to go back and find uncle Jack’s military medal for him. It’s a way to test the machine while they try to trace where their father disappeared to.

She starts the machine the moment she arrives, and he takes up a spot behind one of the workstations.

“Magenta, I really don’t think you should do this without your sisters. I don’t know how to run all this equipment.”

“Oh, pish, posh! You started the machine without all of us being here. I’m just going for a walk to test the waters. All you need to do is keep an eye on the readings.” She grabs the backpack with everything she might need and doesn’t look back before stepping through.

Unlike her first time, she came prepared, and her first stop is a clothing store. As soon as she is dressed properly, she finds the piece of paper with his old address on it and makes her way there. Today is the day he will be returning home after the war. From what he told them, he showed his mom and brother his medals today, and it’s the last day he can remember seeing it.

Magenta suspects that his brother might have taken it after he missed out on having to join the army. Uncle Jack told them how jealous his brother was that he wasn’t given the chance to be a hero.

She watches uncle Jack arrive and greet his mom and his brother, then goes inside the house. She doesn’t really have a plan to get the medal from his brother, but she thought that she would just take it from wherever his brother hid it. Moving closer to the house, she watches his mom gush over him as his brother’s jealousy is unmissable.

They move from the kitchen after having lunch to the living room where he takes out the medals to show his mother. This time, however, he doesn’t look proud when he shows her, as he did when he was telling them the stories of how he earned them.

He actually looks very sad. His mother rushes around the coffee table to sit beside him and comfort him, and at that moment, his brother takes the medal, putting it in his pants pocket.

He gets up and moves to a desk that is standing in the corner of the room, pulling out the wooden box that she remembers, coming to sit back down with uncle Jack and their mom. Quickly putting the medals in the wooden box, he hands it to uncle Jack.

“I think your special memories need a special place to be kept safe.”

“Your father’s medal box.” Their mother looks at her other son in surprise and smiles.

“I agree.” She smiles at uncle Jack, and he rubs his hand over the box.

Magenta watches them talk, and then his brother excuses himself with the excuse that he has an early morning.

She knows her family will be worried because she has been gone for a while, but she has to get that medal, and she watches the house to see where his brother switches on his bedroom light before finding a way to spy on him.

All she needs to know is where he hid the medal.

***

The girls walk into the shop and Uncle Jack hears the bell ring. Relieved that they are finally here, he rushes to the front only to be greeted by their mother.

“Oh, uhm, hello. I’m Jack.” He holds out his hand and she shakes it, softly smiling.

“I’m sorry to just barge in like this. My daughters insisted that I come along.” She blushes.

“Uhm, girls. You need to get to the warehouse right away. Magenta needs your help.” He smiles trying his best not to give away what is happening.

He knows that they are hiding their antics from their mother, and he wasn’t planning on having to hide it from her while she is in the shop.

“Why?” Mystery asks.

“We wanted to show mom the shop first.” Mayhem almost pouts.

“No, no. I will give her a tour. I think you three had better get back there.” He says through gritted teeth and their mom tilts her head looking at him.

“What is going on back there?” She looks at him suspiciously, and without warning she sidesteps him, walking to the back of the shop.

When she walks into his house, she looks around and her reaction tells the four of them she isn’t happy with what she’s seeing. Then she notices the only closed door and steps through it.

The girls gasp and hold their breaths, Mystery even closing her eyes with her hands, waiting for the atomic bomb that is their mother to explode. Mischief notices the light shining through from behind the door and looks at uncle Jack.

“What? I told you your sister needed your help.” He shrugs.

“You all know how headstrong she can be!”

All of them rush through the door and the girls take their places behind the workstations while he pulls their mom to one side.

“How long has she been gone?” Mayhem shouts.

“About half an hour.”

They check their systems and give each other information while their mother looks at them in confusion.

“They did it… They really got that damned machine working.” The words flow out of her mouth as she watches the swirl of blue and pink flow in the middle of the circle.

“Where is Magenta?” She looks at the old man holding her arms.

“Where is my daughter?!” Her voice sounding slightly squeaky.

“Mom! Not now!” Mayhem shouts from her table and their mother frowns.

“Don’t tell me your sister stepped through that thing!!”

All three of them looked at her without a word.

“Answer me!”

“You said not to tell you.” Mystery shrugs.

“Besides, it’s not the first time she’s gone through it, mom. Please relax.” Mischief grins at their mom, but quickly swallows her grin when she sees the anger in her mother’s eyes.

“Can I bring you some tea?” Uncle Jack tries to distract her.

“It may take a while for her to come back. I will bring you a chair.” He rushes back into his house, not sure quite what to say at this moment.

***

The moment the light goes out, Magenta softly opens the front window where she found a spot that is large enough for her to climb through. Leaving her bag outside, she takes her flashlight and tries her best to move through the house to the bedroom where she knows the medal has been hidden.

Uncle Jack’s brother luckily didn’t hide it in his room. He put it in a book in a room that looks like it’s meant to be his office. She finds the book and opens it, finding the medal in it.

The next moment she heard footsteps coming down the passage, and she freezes.

“Please don’t let it be him.” She sends up a quick prayer, hearing the light being switched on in the kitchen.

She holds her breath, trying to listen to every movement of whoever it is that’s in the kitchen. She looks around the room to see if there is any way she can escape through here without being noticed. Trying to move softly over the thick carpet to check the windows, the handle of the window creaks the moment she moves it.

Silence falls in the kitchen, and she ducks underneath the desk. Great! She’s going to be caught in this time as a thief and have to go to prison, and she will never see her family again, all because she was over eager!

Hearing the footsteps, I rushed to the office… She pulls her legs up tighter against her chest when the light goes on and the footsteps walk over to the window. All she can see are feet, pants, and the edge of a gown. She hears the window being closed and the footsteps leaving the office.

She sits in the corner underneath the desk, her heart racing as she tries to listen to whoever it was has gone back to bed. After it’s silent for a little while, she peeks out from underneath the desk. It’s now or never… She can’t stay here until morning! It sounds quite…

She sneaks out of the office, noticing that all the lights in the house are off again, slipping through the same window she came in, and makes her way back to the portal.

Her mother is going to be furious that she is late for dinner, but she jumps through the portal, happy that she actually found what she came for! No matter how angry her mom is… She did it.

“MOM!”

“Magenta!!”

She didn’t expect the first thing she was going to see to be her mom. The portal closes behind her, and she almost wishes that she could just jump back there.

“What are you doing here?” She feels all the color drain from her face.

“I don’t know, but I’m just so happy you are safe!” She grabs Magenta in a tight hug, surprising her daughter.

“I’m fine, mom. I’m safe.”

Her sisters come running out from behind their stations and Uncle Jack stands to one side smiling.

They have a million questions about where she went and what she saw, but then she remembers and fishes around her pocket, walking over to uncle Jack.

“I found something that you lost.” She holds out the medal and he looks at it, then at her.

“Where did you find it?” He almost whispers.

If she tells him the truth, it might hurt more than a lie, and she tells him that she picked it up after he climbed out of the car when he arrived home on the first day.

“You must have dropped it before you showed your mom.” She grins, and he grabs her into a bear hug.

They all walk into the house and she tells them what she saw and what it felt like.

“There is one thing I don’t understand.” Uncle Jack pipes up.

“You’ve only been gone for just over an hour, but you talk as if you’ve been gone for hours. Why did you stay until dark and why did we experience time differently from you?”

All of them look at Mayhem.

“I don’t know!”

“Then I guess you have some research to do.”

Their mom hasn’t let go of Magenta’s hand once, as if she’s scared she will disappear.

“Mom, I’m going to find him.” Magenta puts her hand over her mother’s

“What? You aren’t seriously thinking about going through that thing again?!” Her mom looks furious.

“Mom…”

***

Max types in the last bit of the calculation and take a deep breath before telling everyone to clear the area. He has tried so many different calculations and power sources that he is on the verge of pulling his hair out of his head. At this rate, he is never going to find his sister!

Taking another deep breath, he presses enter on the computer and watches the energy points on the circle turn on, one by one. Keeping a close eye on the power measurements on his screen, he notices the swirl of the energy field in the middle and sends up a quick prayer that it’s not another black hole.

Soon the swirl opens bigger and bigger, and just as it reaches the sides, the power blows, leaving them in darkness before the backup generators kick in.

“DAMMIT!!” The power source was close but was still not strong enough to carry the kind of energy field they needed.