Time Tangled

Rosalind Shea was in the middle of doing some calculus homework when the entire house began to shake. The lights flickered and the music that was playing on her smart speaker automatically shut off too.

There was only one explanation. Her father had a lab accident again.

Julian Shea was one of the world's most brilliant minds but he had also gone more than slightly mad with grief when her mother was killed in a mugging two years ago. He largely abandoned his company and shut himself up in his home lab after the funeral, convinced he could find a way to bring her back.

That left then ten-year-old Rosalind, her six-year-old brother Edison, and her three-year-old sister Nora in the care of nannies as they mourned the loss of their mother. They primarily focused on Nora, who didn't understand why Mommy wasn't coming home, and the others were largely left to fend for themselves.

Edison threw himself into martial arts, convinced that if he was stronger, he would be able to protect what remained of his family. Rosalind turned to her studies. She wanted to finish high school and begin college before she was fourteen the way her father had.

He used to joke that they were two peas in a pod and his wife would roll her eyes and say she would never understand how either of them could be so smart. Rosalind had loved getting that sort of praise.

Her mother had been such a warm person whose eyes and nose would crinkle when she smiled as if her whole face wanted to get in on the fun. When she died, she took all the warmth in the house with her. No one had done any healing at all since their father led by bad example.

He had been a good parent before losing his wife but after it happened, he seemed to forget he even had children. There was no real reason Rosalind should bother checking on him but she should find out what happened in case Nora got worried. She spooked easily.

The lights went out for real this time and she sighed and turned on her phone's flashlight as she made her way toward the lab in the dark. She bumped into her siblings on the way.

"Roz? Where are you going?" Edison asked, a note of relief in his voice since he found her.

He was holding Nora's hand as she clung to her stuffed unicorn with tears in her eyes. "I don't like the dark."

Rosalind patted her little sister on the head and answered the question. "To the lab. I think Dad did this so he should be able to fix it. I'm sure it's just a minor technical issue and the lights will come back on soon."

Edison scowled at the mention of their father. "He better be. He freaked Nora out."

"Just follow me. We'll get this taken care of."

They obediently crept behind her since she had the light source. It seemed that all of the lights in the house were off except for an eerie bluish light coming from under the lab door. This didn't bode well.

Rosalind defiantly pushed the door open. "Dad! What do you think you're doing? Why did the lights go out?"

The bluish light was emitting from a small device that had fallen to the floor and was now crackling with electricity. Various other pieces of lab equipment had fallen over or shattered from the force of the house shaking earlier as well and Julian stood in the midst of it pressing a torn off part of his shirt to a bloody wound on his arm with a mad light in his eyes.

"I did it, Roz! This will fix everything!" he whispered gleefully.

The strange light glinted off of his glasses that had gone askew added to the overall affect. He was beginning to scare her and few things were capable of that.

"Did what?" Rosalind asked uneasily.

Julian grinned in the semi-darkness. "Created a time machine! All I have to do now is program it to the date and time right before your mother was killed and prevent it from ever happening. None of us will even remember it afterward because the timeline will have righted itself!"

"Are you crazy?! There's no way that thing is a time machine."

Now that she had a closer look at it, the sparking device on the floor looked like a smartwatch. A cracked one. It didn't look at all stable.

Edison peered around her. "…isn't that a watch?"

"I told you; it's a time machine. I finally figured it out so now all I have to do is go back and warn her. Then everything will be okay," Julian mumbled to himself as he approached it. He let go of his wound and the lack of pressure made the blood flow anew as he used slippery fingers to try and pick it up.

"Dad!" Rosalind protested. "I don't know what you're playing at but you have to get away from that thing and get your wound treated. It looks dangerous. I know you need Mom but she isn't here anymore! We still are and we need you more so please stop this!"

He didn't even seem to hear her. He began tapping on the cracked screen ignoring the electricity continuing to crackle from the device that was making his hair stand on end.

More of that blue light began swirling around him and Edison protectively stepped in front of both of his sisters. "He's completely lost it. We need to go."

"We can't leave Daddy; he has a booboo," Nora whispered.

Rosalind wasn't sure what she was supposed to do. She couldn't leave their father there when he was so badly wounded but it wasn't safe for them to be there either. Maybe she could convince her siblings to go and she could try and wrestle the thing away from him so he could get medical treatment.

"You two go. I'll catch up," she said urgently as she shoved her brother aside and sprinted around him.

"Roz! I'm not going to leave you here!"

"GO!"

Rosalind rushed forward and tried snatching the watch out of Julian's hands but he fought her for it. A grown man fighting his twelve-year-old daughter over a broken trinket! He really had lost his mind. He needed serious help but that couldn't happen until after he was taken of physically.

"You can't do this," he said desperately. "I have to bring your mother back!"

"You can't bring people back from the dead," she replied harshly as she tugged at the stupid thing yet again.

It sparked and shocked her with static but for much longer than those sorts of shocks typically tended to last. This one was continuous and incredibly unpleasant. She was willing to bet her hair was standing up every bit as much as his was at this point. Like when you placed your hand on a Van de Graff generator.

"Yes. I. Can," Julian grunted as he managed to get it away from her.

He was about to put it on his wrist when the sparking got much worse to the point that Rosalind's teeth felt like they might be shocked right out of her mouth. She dove for him and managed to knock him to the ground where they both ended up landing on broken glass.

It hurt but no more than the electrocution did. She couldn't really distinguish between the two types of pain at the moment.

Her father's grip was slick because of the blood on his hands and she finally managed to get the thing away from him and skitter a few feet away as he was groaning on the floor trying to get his bearings.

Edison chose that moment to ignore her direction and came running over with Nora on his heels. He placed a worried hand on her arm to drag her away. "Roz! You're hurt and that thing is getting worse. We have to get out of here before—"

He didn't get to finish what he was about to say because the entire room with engulfed in a blinding ray of that blue light coming from the watch. Julian recovered his wits enough to roar "NOOOOO!" as the light intensified.