Lost in time

Chapter 2

Magenta loves her mother dearly, but the fact that she won’t admit to the danger of the actual situation they are in baffles her mind. They were lucky to only be attacked once on the road and got off easy! It could have been so much worse. But then she has always been closer to her father, and then he disappeared, it seems the rift between her and her mother just seemed to grow bigger.

Before they left their home, her mother still opened the bank every morning. There was a hand full of people left in town, and nobody had used the bank in years, but she believed in opening every day. She just had a work ethic like that.

“What if someone wants to withdraw their money before they leave?” She would defend herself each time she and Magenta fought it.

She hears her mother walk into the spare bedroom and check in with her sisters, then stop for a moment on her way to her room.

They had made it to the coast…

“Dad… I got them here as I promised.” Magenta says, a tear rolling down the side of her face before she falls asleep.

***

Finding a job is Magenta’s first priority, but she doesn’t really have any experience. She grabs a cup of coffee and goes through the list of jobs they were supplied with, marking the ones her mother will be interested in.

When her mom steps out of her room, she is dressed and ready for whatever possible interview she might be able to get. Her mother is a believer of the law of attraction, yet she still has to prove to Magenta that it works.

“I guess I will see you later?”

“I marked the ones you might be interested in. I will go to the ones I’m interested in. Hopefully, one of us will have a job when we return tonight.” Magenta empties her cup of coffee, leaving it in the basin.

“Do you have to do that?!”

“Mom, you are going to be late.”

“Please tell me you aren’t going out dressed like that?”

“Mom.”

Her mom purses her lips together, grabs her handbag, the list, and walks out of the apartment. She checks in on her sisters who are still sleeping. The day before was very taxing on them, and she left them to sleep, leaving a note that they should help themselves to lunch, and she and their mom will be back later in the afternoon.

She also tells them to make dinner if she and their mom are late.

Pulling her hoodie over her head, she leaves the apartment.

Everything looks completely different outside in the daylight. It must be such a culture shock for her mom, not being what she remembers. Running down the stairs, she watches her mom cross the street to the first address. The job she is interested in is two blocks away from the first and second addresses, and they only open in an hour, so she has time to keep an eye out for her mom.

They are new to the colony, and she doesn’t trust anyone. Keeping her distance, she follows her mom, looking at the shops that are still open after all this time. The shops her mom told them about are no longer there. Some remnants of their decorations can be seen here and there, but mostly you find either empty stores or water and grocery stores and pawn shops.

The one thing that survived the weather… Pawnshops! She shakes her head watching her mom walk into the first building. She is interested in a job in an antique store, hoping her knowledge of history will get her the job and waits for her mom to come out of the first building. The moment she walks into the second one, Magenta ducks into the antique store to find out if she can get an interview.

Her mother was right… She should have dressed up for the interview, but at least the old lady was impressed with her knowledge. She follows her mom for the rest of the day, not just making sure that she is safe, but also getting to know the lay of the land.

Dropping off her CV at the second place, she is interested, she realizes that she might need the job, but she doesn’t want to work with someone that looks at her as if she is his next meal!

In the late afternoon, her mom finally turns to go home. Magenta heads to the truck when she sees her mom safely in the lift on her way upstairs. Checking on her truck and the machine her father built, she notices the dust that got in places that shouldn’t have dust.

Deciding to start removing it before it causes damage, she whistles and sees three heads pop out a window from one of the apartments. She waves for them to come down, and when they get there, they help her to take the machine off the truck and into the lift.

Unfortunately, when it doesn’t fit, they have to carry the huge circle up the stairs and, to their mom’s utter surprise, inside their small apartment.

“What is that thing doing inside the apartment?”

“I want to clean the dust out before it damages the circuits.”

“Magenta! That thing is never going to work. It never did! That is the reason your father left us!”

“Mom, it’s not going anywhere.” She says before going downstairs to grab the box with her father’s notes on the machine.

When she walks back into the apartment, everyone is sitting around the table, quietly eating. Her mom must have been shouting when she left. She sits down on the couch, opening the lid.

A faded note on the top is in her father’s handwriting.

“I had to go back and fix things. I love you.”

She looks at it in shock, sitting with her mouth open and her food hanging halfway on its way to her mouth.

“Close your mouth. You never know what might fly in.” Her mom is still angry at her, but she never stayed angry for long.

Walking up to Magenta to look at what has her attention so captured, she reads the note.

“Fix what?”

“That’s what I would like to know.” Magenta looks at the machine.

“No.” Her mom laughs. “He couldn’t have. He would have at least told me that the machine worked, surely.”

“Not if his time was limited. Mom, don’t you see.”

“No, Magenta, don’t you see! You have to make peace with the fact that your father left us. He is never coming back. That damned machine took all his time, and when it didn’t work, he ran away from his responsibilities. He nearly killed us; you know? If we stayed there any longer, we would have been dead. Now, I don’t want to hear any more about this.” She grabs the note, crumbling it into a little ball, and throws it into the recycling bin.

Magenta sighs. She understands why her mom feels the way she feels. Her father didn’t just leave her mom, but she doesn’t think he left for the same reasons that her mom thinks. She suspects he got his machine to work, and if she could just get it to work again, she could perhaps go and find him.

***

The girls wake her up, and she hears the door close.

“What? Where’s mom?”

“She’s gone to work; are we going to try to find a power source today?”

Rubbing her eyes, she sits up and holds out her hand. Mystery puts a mug of coffee in her hand, and she swallows the bitter black liquid. She stopped drinking sugar and milk, wanting to leave it for her siblings, especially now that she hasn’t found a job yet.

“No, I spent most of the night trying to figure out dad’s notes, and there is more to it than just plugging it in. Get ready, I will take you out for the day.”

They squeal at the thought and run to their room to get ready. Her head pounds at the sound, and she finishes off her coffee. She should really just stop drinking the stuff. She’s been keeping her eyes on the job list since they arrived, but it’s been two months, and she hasn’t been able to find anything.

Her sisters on the other hand have become a handful full and trying to keep them in the apartment the entire time is unreasonable, so she agreed with her mom that she would help look after them until she finds a job. She was starting to think that her mom didn’t want her to find something.

The girls bound down the stairs running into the sunlight early in the morning. Magenta has started a game with them to try and see what they could find that might help them replace parts the machine needs where parts were damaged in the move here.

The attack on the road didn’t leave it untouched.

She watches them run ahead and greet the people in the street that they’ve made friends with since they arrived. That’s about the only thing she has in common with her mom. They don’t make friends as easily as her sisters do. Her father was also one who easily struck up a conversation with a stranger. Magenta and her mom preferred their own company.

The girls had found out that some of the things they brought from home carried value here because it was from the inlands and they could trade it for what they needed.

“You know at some point you are going to run out of stuff.” Magenta tells them when they bring her parts for the machine, and they just grin and run off again.

If her mom knows what they are up to, she would be in serious trouble. She takes them to the ocean in the afternoon, watching them play in the waves for a little while before it’s high tide, and they have to return home to make dinner.

After dinner, they all start fiddling with the machine and her mom retires to her room, wanting nothing to do with it. Magenta follows her father’s notes carefully. The living room has been changed into a workshop of sorts, and they’ve even been able to trade some of their things for the tools they don’t have and had to leave behind.

Life at the coast slowly settles into a routine.

On one of their very few shopping trips with their mom, she stops at the antique store window and mentions how beautiful a broach is. That it reminds her of one her mother owned, but she walks on, and they go home for dinner.

Magenta works on ideas for the power source in the evening and doesn’t realize her sisters disappearing into their bedroom.

***

“We have to get mom that broach!” Mystery paces their room.

“How we don’t have money, and we’ve traded everything we own.” Mischief throws her hands in the air, being ever the optimist.

“What if we scavenge stuff. I’ve seen people do that. Many shops are left open. The shop's people don’t use anymore. I’ve seen others go in and take things and sell them or trade them.” Mayhem cleans the gun she is hiding from her mom.

“Wouldn’t that be stealing?”

“I don’t think so, not if it doesn’t belong to anyone anymore.”

“What do we do about that one.” Mayhem nods towards the door.

“Leave it to me.” Mystery starts to smile, walking to the living room.

***

“Hey, big sis. Whatcha doin?”

“Whatever you aren’t. What are you three up to?”

“Nothing much. Hey, listen, do you think we can go out alone tomorrow. I promise I will keep the other two safe, and we have our guns. Then you can work on the machine.”

Magenta sighs, looking up.

“Really? I’m going to let you three out of my sight and then have to explain to mom why you aren’t home when she comes back from work.”

“Magenta, really, do you think we will be that stupid? We know what to do. You trained us well. Pleaaaase?”