The travelers’ footsteps echoed in the empty German church. Saints stared down at them from stained glass windows. Wooden pews stood in sentinel rows as they filed up the aisle to the altar, where the time machine waited. The cathedral was as cold as the stone it was built from. Mackenzie pulled her mission blanket close as Nik stifled a coughing fit.
“I want you to have this,” Herr Bonhoeffer said, putting the heavy History of the World book in her hands. “If you fail to restore history, you will need to know what the world is like where you are going. And this…” He put a smaller book on top of it. The title was in German. “This is my most recent book. It’s my parting gift to the world in case you do restore history.”
Mackenzie felt tears forming again. “Can I get a photograph with you, Pastor? Here, Sean, put the books under the time machine.” She pulled out her phone. The altar and organ pipes made a beautiful background for the selfie, in spite of the goofy grins of Nik and Sean behind them.
“Will wonders never cease?” Herr Bonhoeffer shook his head. “I have never seen a camera so small. It was my pleasure to meet you, but I will take my leave now. If you are successful and these are my final moments, I want to spend them in prayer.” He went into a little room behind the altar and shut the door.
Mackenzie felt a tear escape the corner of her eye and slide down her nose.
“I thought he’d never leave,” Nik complained, clapping a hand on her shoulder.
She was relieved that he ignored the Pastor’s last comment. How was she going to explain her sudden desire to undo everything they had accomplished?
“I feel better now,” Nik continued. “But if I get sick again, I want you to know how to work this. I think we can get home in two jumps, so I built presets. I’ll use this one now.”
He pointed to a blue button on the screen marked, ‘New York, Y2K.’ Then he swiped right to a green button marked ‘Home, 2020.’ A red button above it was labeled, ‘Lock.’
“Once you push the Lock button,” he said, “there’s no other place the machine can go. So don’t use it unless I’m too sick to work the controls. Got it?”
Sean nodded, and Nik swiped backward. He went too far, and Mackenzie caught a glimpse of the page that displayed all the places they’d been. Then he swiped ahead to the blue button.
“Mount up, you two.”
* * *
Dateline: Sunday, May 7, 2000, New York City, British America
The wooded area where they landed overlooked a marshy spot that buzzed with mosquitoes. They pulled the time machine under a low culvert made of rough-cut boulders. A gravel road ran over the top of the gully. Mackenzie stashed her blanket under the time machine and slapped her arm.
“Wish I had more of the padre’s salve for the itchy welts I’m going to sprout tomorrow. These bloodsuckers are thirsty.”
The travelers walked up the hill and paused under a tree, at the edge of a street.
“I’m so confused,” Nik said. “This is Central Park, but it’s supposed to extend four more blocks to the north!”
The street before them was lined with neglected, dingy apartments. Primitive carts and odd-shaped horseless carriages were parked along the road. Not a person was visible in either direction. The silence was eerie.
“This place is a mere shell of what it’s supposed to be,” she whispered, hardly daring to break the spell.
“Yeah. Instead of the Big Apple, it’s just an apple core,” Sean joked. “Where are the skyscrapers?”
“The buildings should be taller on the south side of the park.” Nik braced himself against a tree as he coughed.
“I’ll go look.” Mackenzie swung herself up on a low branch, but her skirt tangled with her knees. Hoping she wouldn’t need it in the 21st century, she left the skirt draped over a branch and clambered higher.
From the uppermost branches, she could see the New York skyline, but it lacked the skyscrapers that she expected. No Empire State Building. No World Trade Center. She frowned. The Twin Towers didn’t fall until September 2001, when she was one year old.
“What year did you say this is?” she called.
Nik said something and coughed again.
“Two-thousand,” Sean shouted back.
The Towers should still be there. Mackenzie snapped a couple photos and started to descend, but she stopped when she heard another voice below her.
“You there, what are you doing?” He had a clipped, British accent. Mackenzie peered through the branches. Two men in dark uniforms and helmets were talking to her friends. They looked like the famed London Bobbies and carried short wooden sticks. She couldn’t hear what Nik replied.
“Tourist, my foot,” the first cop intoned. “Where’s your day pass?”
“Like as not, they don’t have one,” the second said. “Just what I’d expect of Sabbath violators. You’re under arrest!”
Sean took off running, but Nik took two steps and toppled into the first cop. The second one threw his nightstick at Sean’s feet, tripping him. As Sean fell headlong on the street, the man captured his wrists in a pair of handcuffs.
“This one’s drunk in public, another offence.” The first cop trapped Nik’s arm behind his back. “Move along, both of you.”
Mackenzie watched in dismay as her friends were prodded down the street and around the corner. Sabbath violations, drinking laws, and day-pass requirements? All they had tried to do was fix history, not ruin the present.
* * *
It was a long time before Mackenzie dared to climb out of the tree, but the stillness gave her time to think. Freedom seemed to have been the mass casualty of canceling the Declaration. Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, even the ability to move about one’s country freely had been canceled worldwide. Without those freedoms, would her Latina, Catholic mother ever have met her European, Protestant father? If she went home, would home still be there?
Somehow, she had to carry out the mission Herr Bonhoeffer had given her, to restore history. What’s more, it now seemed to be the only way to save her friends. She couldn’t just walk into the local jail and release them! She had to fix it so that they were never there. Pulling her skirt off the bottom branch, she slung it over her shoulder and walked toward the culvert where the time machine waited.
A group of boys surrounded the rocky opening, chattering among themselves. Their knickers and shirts were torn; their faces were dirty. They looked like a scene out of Oliver Twist. The tallest kid was leaning over the time machine.
“Hey, leave that alone,” Mackenzie called.
The big boy straightened and came toward her, trying to make himself taller. “Make us. We saw it first.”
He brandished a knife. Dropping the skirt, she waited until he got close enough and then grabbed his wrist with both hands. In one swift motion, she twisted his arm behind his back, immobilized the hand, and took possession of the knife. Then she shoved his elbow higher against his back and marched him toward the boys, who were watching with their mouths open.
“Are you all hungry? I have snacks to share.”
They shouted happily. All of a sudden, she was their friend.
“Truce?” she asked the leader. When he nodded, she let him go, keeping the knife by her side. The snack bags were still under the sleigh’s chair, and she doled out kale chips and applesauce. At first, the boys were mystified by the plastic packaging, but not for long. While they busied themselves with food, Mackenzie eased into Nik’s chair.
“Hey, you’re not cheating us out of that,” the big boy said. “It’s worth a day’s wages!”
“Don’t you want to know how it works?”
He nodded and stood beside her.
“You have to swipe the screen left and right,” she said, pushing the tablet’s power button.
A chorus of happy shouts came from the boys outside. The older boy walked to the entrance of the culvert.
“That bunch of ninny lobcocks – they’re going to attract the Bobbies and get us all arrested,” he complained.
“What are they excited about?” she asked. The tablet wouldn’t power on, and she had to fight down a surge of panic. Getting out of the machine, she rummaged in the storage basket for Nik’s last battery pack, hoping it held enough for two final jumps.
“It’s that Baptist minister,” he spat. “You’d think the doddypoll would know better than come to the park before church gets out.”[1]
“Maybe his church already finished.” She plugged in the charger, and was relieved when the green bar showed it had power.
The boy shot her a withering glance. “That’s just it – he’s not supposed to have a church. The Church of England is the only one allowed.”
“So why does he come to the park?” Mackenzie tapped her fingers on the lifeless tablet, waiting for it to charge enough to power on.
“He brings treats for the little ones and tells them Bible stories. ‘Jesus loves you, and so do I,’ is what he says.”
“It doesn’t sound like you believe him.”
“Oh, I believe he cares. He’s told me a dozen times that he’d adopt me if I wanted.”
An orphan who didn’t want to be adopted? “Why wouldn’t you take him up on that?”
“And lose what little liberty I have?” The boy turned and spat on the grass outside. “Why would I want to be told where to work and what to wear? Much less be in constant fear of arrest for living with a Baptist preacher. I’m better off out here. And with a world like that, you can’t convince me that God cares about us.”
Something Pastor Bonhoeffer said nudged her memory.
“Jesus said he came to free the oppressed,” she said quietly. The tablet finally powered on, and she swiped the screen, looking for the page that listed all their prior destinations. “I wonder if America was part of his plan after all.”
“Psst, Sammy,” the big boy whispered to a boy outside. “Grab me one of them apples the preacher brought.” Seconds later, a fruit came arcing through the air, and the boy caught it one-handed. Then he laughed. “Fred is trying on your skirt now. It’s too long, and he just ripped a tear in it.”
“No matter. He can have it for all I care.” Mackenzie found the list page and tapped the second location, the one right after Nik’s garage. It was marked, ‘Kennywood Park, Pennsylvania.’ The display changed to show just that location, with a map and a big green button marked, ‘Go.’
She advanced the time setting by ten minutes, hoping she would arrive after she and her friends had hiked down the hill to the George Washington’s battle, but before they returned to the time machine.
A series of police whistles blasted outside the culvert, followed by shouts.
“Shh. It’s the Bobbies!” the boy whispered, shrinking back inside the culvert. “They’ve done and caught the doddypoll now. Hope the boys scatter like I taught them. Gimme my knife back. I might need it.”
This was just the diversion she needed. She chucked the knife to the side of the culvert, where it bounced harmlessly on the ground. As the boy dove to retrieve it, she pushed the ‘Go’ button. The crystal rods under the dash glowed, and the culvert dissolved in a sea of sparkles.
* * *
Dateline: July 9, 1755, Braddock, Pennsylvania
The time machine came to rest beside a less-battered copy of itself, in the clearing where their adventure had started. War whoops drifted uphill from the battle at the river. Mackenzie had only a couple minutes to enact her plan, because she and her friends would be clambering back up that hill shortly.
First, she traded tablets with the other machine. She wasn’t going to risk giving her friends the damaged time machine, in case it couldn’t make it home at all. But she did pull up Nik’s final program and press the ‘Lock’ button, so the only place they could go would be home. She didn’t know if she’d make it home herself, and if she did, whether there would be two of her. If she wanted to see Nik and Sean again, though, she had to do it.
Then she found a pen and a receipt in one of the grocery bags. She scrawled a quick message on the back: “Mission failed. Press home button. Hurry. Love, Mac.” With any luck, they would escape the clearing before the tomahawk damaged the time machine again.
Finally, she stepped into the other unit. Opening the tablet, she found Nik’s address and pressed ‘Go.’
What if this didn’t work? It would be awful to arrive in the garage alone. A pang of self-doubt formed in her stomach, but it was too late to change course. The air began to sparkle around her.
[1]In old British dialects, a ninny is a simpleton, a lobcock is a stupid person, and a doddypoll is blockhead.
Disclaimer for social media: This is historical fiction for entertainment only. Any resemblance to living persons is accidental. Resemblance to current events is pure imagination. Interaction with actual history is sheer conjecture. (The rest of us already knew this, right?)
Footnotes for chapter 10 can be found here.
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Copyright © 2020 by Carolyn Van Gorkom
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author, except as provided by USA copyright law.
Cover illustration: cropped flag from a larger oil painting by Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome, Artist. Betsy Ross,/ J.L.G. Ferris. , ca. 1932. Cleveland, Ohio: The Foundation Press, Inc., July 28. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2002719536/. Public domain. No known restrictions on publication. No renewal in Copyright office, 11/91.
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