Time Pilgrims

Dedication

To my mom, who I lost before she could finish the last in this series. She also, in part, influenced my widely popular book, Pennies From Across the Veil. To my dear wife, Trina. To my kids, Jess (Jon & Henry), Matt, and Aaron. To God who makes all things possible.

Prologue

From: Parallel Roads (Lost on Route 66) ISBN: 1523691794

The year was 1939, and an offering of fruit is how John Callahan met his future wife at a backyard party in Evanston, Illinois. She couldn't resist his charms. Her name was Katherine Mary O'Sullivan, but she would always be referred to by future ancestors as Grandma Kate Callahan.

Soon after John and Kate's son, Sean was born, she spiraled into a deep melancholy temperament. This was brought on by a severe case of post-partum depression along with the surprise return of her long-lost lover, whom she'd believed was killed in the Great War. Not being able to be the wife and mother she wanted to be, she jumped in her husband's old Buick and headed down Route 66 to visit her sister, Karen in Burbank, California, leaving John with their new-born son. She was never seen again.

In 2012, Grandma Kate's grandson, Kevin Callahan, along with his best friend from childhood, Detective Cheryl Bachman, became determined to discover what happened to her. They uncovered a handful of postcards Kate had sent from various locations along the route. Kevin also had a powerful dream, connecting him and his grandmother in an almost paranormal manner. That connection had been sensed over the sixty-six years separating them.

They followed the decommissioned road through Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma, but it was when they reached the halfway point in Adrian, Texas, that things became interesting. The connection between Kate and Kevin was so strong that during a horrific storm, he and Cheryl found themselves literally back in 1946, as they continued to follow Kate and her companion, June, down the road through New Mexico and Arizona.

In the original timeline, Kate and June had taken up with the wrong sort of men, and things had taken a turn for the worse. But following Kevin and Cheryl's arrival, events turned out differently, and Kevin was able to spend time with his younger grandparents.

Cheryl always loved Kevin, and he soon discovered he was in love with her as well. Together they had to decipher how to return to their own time. The answer was discovered in the water. The water from the storms and the water contained in the human body is the same water that had existed on Earth from the beginning of time. Concentration, water, and the electrical impulses which surrounded them were the secrets to time travel. Kevin and Cheryl were able to return to 2012, marry and have twin babies who they named, Cyrus and Cathy.

Beginning of: Katya and Cyrus Time Pilgrims

Katya pointed out the logo on the wall to her new partner, Eli. It was the familiar triple-diamond-shaped globes suspended above the letters WTC. She took note of a nearby clock. During what should have been a routine time pilgrimage, the two pilgrims had inadvertently found themselves in the North Tower of the famous skyscraper overlooking Manhattan.

"World Trade Center," she began. "It's September 11, 2001, at 8:44 in the morning." As she noted this, she gazed out the window, gasping as their predicament became apparent. A Boeing 767 was heading straight for them. Katya knew from history that the aircraft was the hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 coming out of Boston.

"Oh my God, these poor people," Katya said. "How can we help them, Eli? What can we do?" She looked at Eli and saw that he had turned white as a bleached sheet.

"Katya, we have to go. Oh my God, we have to go now-I don't want to die like this. Please, we have to make the jump!" Eli had become hysterical and clawed at her as a drowning person clutches desperately to his rescuer. Katya worried about getting him out in time. She knew if he couldn't focus, he'd be stuck. She pushed him back and slapped him across the face as hard as she could.

* * * *

Katya Sevnik was unique among her fellow time pilgrims in that she was time displaced and had a condition known as "temporal amnesia." Whereas people with normal amnesia can't remember where they are from, Katya had no memory as to when she was from. Everyone who met her noticed an unusual accent and speech pattern, but even though her name was of Russian descent, Katya Sevnik was all American. She had come to the National Time Research Center-NTRC-of Waltham, Massachusetts nearly three years before. While most time travel had to be done in pairs, Katya was the only pilgrim to come to the Center who could easily travel solo.

It was a well-known fact that Katya marched to the beat of her own drum and often had to be reprimanded by the Center's founders, the Callahans. Such was the case the day she was sent with her partner, Eli Ingraham, on a routine fact-finding pilgrimage to investigate America's major storms and hurricanes. It was discovered that in nearly every case, water and electrical activities in the air during these storms caused active and often unpredictable temporal phenomena. One example of this occurred back in 2011, nearly twenty-five years previously, when the horrific Japanese earthquake and resulting tsunami caused temporal glitches that were felt worldwide.

On this particular trip, Eli and Katya were supposed to be headed to Cape Cod to take air and soil samples along with special temporal readings from a tropical storm and hurricane from the year 2001. They were scheduled to investigate Tropical Storm Dean and Hurricane Humberto, but they had strict orders to skip Hurricanes Erin and Felix that took place between the two targets. But as she often did, Katya ignored those warnings. At the last minute, she decided to skip Tropical Storm Dean and go right for the major hurricane of Erin. Erin would have caused more damage than the historic Hurricane Katrina had it not dissipated before reaching land up toward Nova Scotia.

As they prepared to travel, she grabbed hold of Eli's hand and reminded him of the date and details to concentrate on as he'd been trained. Eli was a new pilgrim but had proven to be a good time traveler as long as he had a strong partner connection.

They felt the familiar tingling as the cape and ocean faded from their sight, transporting them in time. Hurricanes were usually easy to travel to because of their destructive nature, as devastation had powerful effects on time travel. Eli wasn't able to pinpoint his travels as well as Katya, and what neither of them had realized was that another disaster along that time period severely trumped Hurricane Erin. So instead of transporting to the same spot in 2001, Katya and Eli found themselves in an unoccupied office overlooking Manhattan Island. Immediately, Katya realized something was very wrong, as only in rare cases did time travel move you in space as well as time. It was a beautiful sunny day, and Katya quickly assessed that it was morning. She looked at the clock on the wall and confirmed that it was 8:44 a.m.

"Radical chill" were the only words Eli muttered when he saw the Manhattan skyline and began looking around the office.

"Not so cool," said Katya. "Look!"

She pointed to the logo on the wall, and Eli followed her gaze back out the window where he saw the Boeing aircraft heading straight for them.

When Eli became hysterical, Katya worried about getting him out in time. She knew that if he couldn't focus, he'd be stuck. She also was concerned that they would be transported to the next disaster, which as history recorded, would commence eighteen minutes later at the South Tower. She pushed him back and slapped him across the face.

Turning him away from the window and the approaching aircraft, she made deep eye contact with him and held his face so he couldn't look away. "We have to focus on going farther into the past." He stared at her with eyes wide as saucers as she continued, "We have to go backward, or we'll transport ninety floors up in midair. After this day, there will be no building here for many years to come. And Freedom Tower doesn't occupy the exact same space. Now, Eli, concentrate on the year 1970."

She grabbed both his hands as she watched the jetliner approach close enough that she could make out scratches on its nose. She could see the hijacker in the pilot's seat; his eyes were shut tightly. Her thoughts raced in those few moments. Right now, in this one second in time, the people of New York were calm and happy. In the following hours, there would be nothing but chaos, tragedy, and grief. She felt a wave of sadness as the familiar tingling came.

In an instant, they were standing in the same office space but now with blank walls around them and no furniture. They could smell fresh paint and new carpeting. Eli wiped tears from his face as they walked toward the thankfully operational elevator. A couple of union workers on ladders looked at them strangely as their radio blared out the song "Hey There Lonely Girl" by Eddie Holman with much too much distortion.