Well, I'm Back... But When?

When I came to, I jumped, expecting to see dragon-fire speeding toward my face. But, no, I was lying on the ground, face in the dirt. Not incinerated. For a moment, I wasn’t sure of anything that had happened—a dragon in the 1800s? No, it must’ve been a dream, I thought.

Then I noticed the smell of smoke. There was a scream that I vaguely recognized, but it wasn’t mine. I looked up, and found I was lying next to Daddy’s time machine. The door was standing open in front of me. I pulled myself up by the handle. That was when I saw the hood was on fire.

A dim panic setting in, I scanned the area for some kind of hose, or a water bucket. Something to put out the— Suddenly, the hood was engulfed in rapid white spray. I shielded my face.

When I looked back, I saw a teenage girl, about two years younger than me, standing with a fire extinguisher in her hands. She breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s out! Are you okay?”

“Y-yeah, I think so. Thanks.” I put a hand to my head. “What year is it?”

“1988. July second. Why?”

“Just needed to get grounded.” Even with that, everything was muddled. Why was I in 1988? Who was this girl? And why was Daddy’s time machine on fire?

Suddenly, it all came back to me. The dragon. The knight. Adan. My eyes widened and I gasped. “Adan!” I looked around—he was nowhere in sight. “Oh no, oh no, oh no. I’ve got to go back!” I jumped in and started the time machine. Except it didn’t respond. “Oh, not now. Not now!”

The girl had a confused look on her face. “Adan? A-and go back where?”

“How long have I been here?”

“Huh? Oh, I don’t know. I just saw this weird flash outside, and I looked, and this thing was here—and you fell out on the ground, and—and then I saw the fire!”

“He’s not here. He might be back there, with that thing, and—”

“Hey, what’s going on here anyway?”

“I don’t have time to explain!” I rolled my eyes. “Ohh, isn’t that a paradox?” I turned the key again and again, but it didn’t work. I tapped the instruments, which stayed stubbornly still. I was completely in the dark.

The anomalies. It suddenly occurred to me. One had brought me here—I had seen the rift open out of the corner of my eye—maybe one could bring me back. I checked the little Portable Anomaly Detector, or PAD, which thankfully ran on its own power. Sure enough, there were the beginnings of an anomaly. But the detector wasn’t able to calculate when or where it would hit, not at this stage.

The girl groaned in exasperation. “Why doesn’t anybody ever tell me anything?” She shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe I should ask Whit.”

I stopped. Whit? Suddenly, I recognized the girl’s voice, knew why she’d sounded so familiar. And if I was actually here— “Maybe you should.” I got out of the time machine, taking the PAD with me. “Take me to him, please.”

Still confused, she took me through the back door into the kitchen, then out into the shop. I saw two older men sitting by the counter. They were watching as a young boy with blond hair dashed off, and laughing.

One of the men wore a pair of overalls, and spoke with a bit of Southern twang. “Look at him go! You’d think he was lookin’ fer buried treasure or something!”

The other had a deeper voice, and sported a white mustache. He chuckled again. “Well, what makes you think he isn’t?”

I smiled. I really was in Odyssey. “Whit!”

“What—Grace! Well, it’s nice to see you again!”

“It’s great to see you too. But right now, I really need some help.”

“Friend of yours, Whit?” asked the first man.

“Yes, I’m sort of a friend of the family.” Whit introduced us (though I knew all about Tom Riley already). “Now then,” and Whit turned to me, “you said you need help?”

“Um…” I hesitated. “Can we talk somewhere else? Privately?”

“Oh, sure. Connie, do you mind watching the counter for a bit?”

“Sure, Whit. That’s what I’m here for.” The girl—Connie—grabbed an apron off a hook behind her, as Whit rose from his seat. “But I still wanna know what’s going on!” she added loudly as the two of us went off.

“Okay!” Whit called back. Then he lowered his voice a little, and addressed me. “Well, what seems to be the trouble? Usually, whenever you want to talk privately, it has something to do with your father’s, er, machine?”

Everything spilled out of me at once. “The machine’s not working, Adan’s gone, there’s a bunch of weird anomalies, and I can’t get home!”

“Oh, oh, oh, slow down now! Slow down! Now, you say the machine’s not working. I suppose that’s why you can’t get home?”

I sighed. “Yes. It wasn’t working even before I got here. When I woke up and found myself here, the hood was on fire, which probably didn’t make anything better.”

“Mind if I take a look?”

“Sure, that’s—” I was interrupted by a beeping noise. “Uh-oh.”

“What’s that?”

“Portable Anomaly Detector. My little brother whipped it up. And it says there’s a time anomaly going to happen in about…” I checked the readout again, “four minutes!”

“Well, does it say where?”

“Yeah, just a sec.” I overlaid the location on the readout with a map of Whit’s End I’d downloaded some time back. “It looks like it’s gonna happen in the… library.”

“The library? That’s where Irwin went! Come on.”

We started to run. I kept thinking of what might happen when we found the rift. Would it be closed by the time we got there? Would something get pulled through, and end up who knows where else? Would something from another time be waiting for us?

We reached the Whit’s End library (which was almost empty) with less than a minute to spare. I quickly followed the directions displayed on the PAD. Its beeping grew rapider as the time ticked down. Then I rounded a corner and saw a sight I now know I won’t forget.

I saw the blond boy—the one I’d glimpsed rushing off when I first came up—standing atop a wheeled chair. He stretched to get a large book on the top shelf. “Got it!” Suddenly, his chair slipped out from under him. With a cry, he was sent on a direct collision course with the floor.

Well, not quite direct. Just then, a thin, long line of light—indicated by the PAD as the rift—opened beneath him. The boy fell though it, and promptly vanished. The rift also disappeared. The book landed alone onto the floor with a heavy, resounding thud. The PAD fell silent.

“Where did that rift take him?” Whit asked momentarily.

“I don’t know. The PAD doesn’t say where the rift leads. If it had been open longer, we might’ve been able to, but—” I sighed. “As it is, there’s no way to tell.”

“Then we’d better get that machine of yours fixed, so you can get home and solve all these anomalies.”

“Good thinking, Whit. That is probably the only way to get him back.” We started heading back.

Whit groaned, clearly worried. “Wherever he is, if anything happens to Irwin, I’ll never forgive myself.”

I stopped. “Wait, Irwin? Not Irwin Springer.”

“Yes. Why?”

My mouth fell open. “Oh, wow.”

Whit gave me an odd look. “What’s that for?”

I shook my head. “Sorry. But…” A thought entered my head, and I grinned. “Ooh. Unless I miss my guess, which I might, Irwin Springer is having the time of his life right about now.” Another strange look. “I’m not really sure. But he just might be in 1776—July, to be precise.”

“Sevente—” His eyebrows rose. “Well, if you’re right, he probably is having quite a time! But how do you know?”

My grin disappeared. “Oh. Um…” Despite having known Whit for a long time (technically even longer), I’d never considered what I’d do when something like this happened.

This was the one thing I never told him, or anyone in Odyssey—how I knew what I knew. What could I do, now it came to it? Should I tell the truth? Make something up? Perhaps Irwin could leave some kind of 'document' that I’d seen in the future, detailing his adventures there… But no, I couldn’t lie. Not to Whit.

He seemed to sense my indecision, and backed off. “All right. We’re all allowed a few secrets. I’m sure you have your reasons.” He gave me an odd smile, and I wondered if he guessed more than he said. He is John Avery Whittaker, after all.

“Come on,” he continued. “We’d better see if we can get that time machine working, so we can get both of our friends back. You did say your friend was gone—Aiden, was it?”

“Adan! Oh, in all the excitement, I almost forgot. He might still be back with the dragon!”

“Dragon?”

“I’ll tell you the story when we get into the workshop.” Once again, we headed back to the kitchen door, and Daddy’s time machine beyond it. There, we rolled it into Whit’s workshop. Hopefully, he’d be able to fix it. But all throughout, one thought kept worrying my mind:

What had happened to Adan?

---

Well, what do you think? Was it worth the wait? I know it’s not quite as action-packed as the first part. Then again, the first part had a dragon. Can’t really top that. But hey, at least it had the mysterious John Avery Whittaker.

If you don’t know him, you definitely need to check out Adventures in Odyssey. It’s a Christian radio show, and it can have quite a bit of wonder, adventure, and excitement. And in case you’re not sure where to start—they do have thirty years’ worth of episodes—I would suggest starting with the earlier ones, and especially going through the Blackgaard Saga. That’s where you’ll find the Whit I meet here.

(One small note: if you want to know what happened to Irwin Springer, take a listen at 'The Day Independence Came'. It’s one of my absolute favourite episodes. Which was why I knew. Which was also why I wasn’t sure how to explain why I knew. You get the idea.)

And yes, I am back! I’ve figured out a way around the internet issues, and will hopefully be back to normal posting schedule soon. These continuations of my Time Traveller’s Daughter story will also be coming a little more regularly.

This month will include at least two more special posts. No, they’re not going to be part of this story, but they will be different from simply Mid-Week Music posts. Look for one around the 21^st.

And that is it for this post! See you very soon!