Page 13 of Killing Time

Come to think of it, I hadn’t dreamed at all the night before, at least nothing that I could remember. Was that because the dreams had come to give me a specific vision of what was going to happen to Ruby and now they were no longer necessary, or simply because I hadn’t slept alone last night, had fallen into deep slumber with Seth’s arms around me?

I had no way of knowing, so I thought it best to put those thoughts aside to focus on something more immediate.

The only hitch in my plan was the way Jeremiah Wilcox had supposedly detected my father’s presence in Flagstaff all those years ago, even though my father had his talent-hiding gift active the whole time. Was that something all the Wilcoxprimuseshad been able to do, or was that a particular power that belonged to Jeremiah alone?

Difficult to say. Then again, my father hadn’t possessed an amulet to boost his gift the way I would, so I had to believe its presence would help keep us hidden from Jasper during our time in Flagstaff.

Once we were done, Seth laid a dollar bill and a couple of quarters down on the counter, and we got up to go. Maybe someday I’d get used to how cheap everything was in the past, but for now, I’d just have to allow myself to boggle a little at the thought of getting two substantial breakfasts for only a buck and some change for the tip.

“I thought we’d stop by the gas station first,” he said as he opened the car door for me. “We need a fill-up anyway, and we’ll have a better chance of getting a map there than we would at the general store.”

“Sounds good,” I said, then waited as he came around to climb in the driver’s seat.

The gas station was only a few blocks away, and I remained in the car while Seth filled up the tank and then went inside to pay and, with any luck, get us the map we needed.

He was successful, since he came back with a folded map in one hand, one he gave me before getting behind the wheel once more. “I hope this is what we needed. The attendant says it covers the whole northern half of the state.”

I unfolded the map. I could already tell it was going to be a nightmare to fold back up again, and, not for the first time, mourned the loss of my cell phone and all those lovely built-in map applications. It had probably gotten dropped when I stumbled and fell in the mine shaft, and I told myself I shouldn’t cry over it anyway. Even if it had come into the past with me, it wouldn’t have been good for much, not with all the satellites that powered its data not due to come along for decades and decades.

“This looks pretty much like what I’m used to,” I told Seth as I ran my finger along the line that indicated Highway 89-A.“See how it goes through Cottonwood and then crosses the open land between Sedona and here? Then it keeps going up into Oak Creek Canyon and winds its way to west of downtown Flagstaff. It won’t be as fast as taking I-17, but it’ll get us there.”

Seth scanned the map for a moment, as though doing his best to commit it all to memory. “What’s I-17?”

“A freeway,” I said, then added as he continued to look blank, “A freeway is like a highway, only bigger and faster. Sometime in the twentieth century, the government built a big network of freeways that crisscross the country. I’ve heard you can jump on I-10 in Santa Monica in California and take it all the way to Florida.”

“That’s incredible,” he said.

I supposed it was. The freeways that allowed us to get around Arizona had always been a part of our lives, so it was hard to imagine what it would be like to have to use the blue highways and backroads to get to your destination.

Speaking of destinations, the general store was just a few blocks from the gas station, so we got there only a minute after we’d pulled onto Main Street. We purchased some odds and ends — some dish towels for the kitchen, a container of cocoa, a jar of honey — but it was at the butcher and the bakery and the greengrocer that we did the real damage, buying thick-cut bacon for our breakfast the next day, along with blueberry muffins and dinner rolls and a gorgeous pork roast.

Just as we were putting our purchases in the trunk, an incredulous voice said, “Seth? Seth McAllister?”

We both straightened. Standing on the curb a few feet away was a man who looked as if he might be in his middle forties, with fair hair starting to show a few threads of silver and gray eyes behind a pair of thick horn-rimmed glasses.

“Oh, hi, Freddie,” Seth said, obviously doing his best to sound casual and failing miserably. “Didn’t the elders call you?”

The other man swallowed. “Yes, we got a phone call last night saying you’d come back, but I wasn’t sure I could believe what Helen was telling me. It’s like something out of all those science fiction books we used to read.”

Seth managed a smile. “Yes, I suppose you could call it that, but it was really magic involved, not science.”

Freddie cast a worried glance up and down the sidewalk, but luckily, no shoppers were anywhere near us. “Your magic?” he asked me — probably because he must have known his cousin’s talent didn’t have anything to do with time travel.

“Yes,” I said. “It was all an accident, though…and it took both our powers to get us back here.”

“Twenty-one years later,” the man said, and I gave him a helpless look.

“That part definitely wasn’t intentional.”

Seth stepped in there, saying, “It was really good to see you, Freddie, but Devynn and I need to get back up to Jerome. The elders are waiting for us.”

That was a flat-out lie, of course, but I wasn’t about to contradict him, not when I knew the longer we stood there chatting on the sidewalk, the greater the chance that someone else would come along and realize the man Freddie was talking to was none other than Seth McAllister, mysteriously vanished all those years ago and yet not looking a day older.

“Oh, of course,” Freddie said at once. “It was good to see you, too. I’m glad you’re back in the Verde Valley safe and sound.”

Seth offered his cousin a smile, and then the two of us got in the car and slowly drove away from the curb. Neither of us said anything, and I guessed he was still processing the encounter, once again coming to terms with his new reality of being a man out of time.

And as for the safe and sound part?

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