“So, you took in another kid?” Greg asked me, hanging over the fence and staring up at the horizon.
It was a bright Tuesday afternoon, just two days since Gwenllian had arrived on the farm. We’d taken in Felix too, but I really hadn’t talked much with either of them. They both did a lot of sleeping, and talked together a good bit, but I’d been working with Grandpa and hadn’t gotten the chance to ask them some questions.
“Yeah,” I said, pulling up tufts of grass with my hand.
“You know they’re gonna have to leave at some point,” he remarked snidely.
“Hey,” I said, feeling a tingle of frustration at him. “I know that. Don’t rub in the obvious. What’s gotten into you this past week?” Over that period of time, he’d acted as if I didn’t exist, purposely ignoring me when I tried to introduce him to my new-found friends.
“Nothing.” He kicked up some dirt on the side of the road. “My Dad is doing some experiments, is all, and I haven’t had much free time.”
“What kind of an experiment?” I questioned, genuinely wanting to know more.
Greg swelled up with pride. “It’s big scientific stuff, you probably wouldn’t understand. But I’ll simplify it as much as I can for your brain, Jen.”
Well, that stung me, but I tried to restrain myself from giving my usual retorts. I just wanted him to get to the point.
“We’ve been working on something called time collecting.” He said that in a very grand sort of way, with a sweep of his arm.
“Like time travel?” I asked.
“No, not like it at all.” He shook his head. “Time collecting means bringing individuals from the past into the present, not putting people from the present into the past. By doing this, we can recollect information that was lost over the centuries.”
I blinked. That all sounded too fantastical to me, but the tiny seed of his words began to sprout in the back corner of my mind where I’d dismissed them to. What if Felix and Gwenllian were products of this so-called experiment?
“So, what happens to the people when they get here?” I asked.
“They would appear when the special reaction occurs,” he made an exploding motion with his hands. “It could be anywhere close by. My house, near the creek, in the woods.”
A tiny voice inside me cried in the cow pasture!
“And they appear in whatever form they want to, they could be older, more beautiful, or a different shape than they used to be, for example,” he concluded with triumph.
“And what would happen if the experiment didn’t work correctly?” I pondered.
“Well, that would be catastrophic,” he nodded gravely. “Once they finally got through to this age, they would begin to fade. They would die soon after that process began.”
“Fade? Like, disappear from history completely?”
“Yeah,” he replied, looking out over the blue tinted sky.
“That’s wrong!” I exclaimed, stamping my foot. “Those people should stay at rest, Greg! You’re not supposed to try and change God’s plan! You can’t!”
“Jen!” My friend did a facepalm. “It isn’t like that!”
“Oh really?”
“That’s why we’re starting with people who aren’t very important. You know, people from the past who didn’t impact the world very much.”
“How can you say whether they impacted the world or not?” I couldn’t believe the things he was saying. It was like he’d been brainwashed.
“Jen, it’s completely safe! Nothing’s happened so far.”
We sat across from each other beside the dirt road, looking in opposite directions and not speaking for several minutes. Then a thought struck me.
“Greg, would it be possible to bring something, I don’t know, bad, out of the past?” I arched an eyebrow.
“Like a monster?” He laughed, when he saw me nod in affirmation. “You are so silly, Jen. Monsters aren’t real.”
“What if the wrong person comes through the experiment?”
“I don’t know what would—”
“What if the person that comes through hates it here and wants to go back? What would you do if—”
“Jen, be quiet!” he snapped.
“So, why does your father want to recollect lost knowledge?” I asked him.
“It’s to leave a legacy for the future generations,” he replied. “So that in time, humanity can know everything. We won’t need a god, Jen.”
“How can you say that?” I breathed, feeling as though I’d just swallowed a plum pit. “The whole reason we need God is because we’re finite! Grandad says we have to rely on Him to give us the knowledge we need to know.”
“Your Grandad doesn’t know what he’s talking about!” Greg stood up.
“Yeah? He’s lived a lot longer than you, Greg.”
“You’re hopeless Jenny.” He turned his back and started walking down the dusty road to his house.
“Why would you want to know everything?” I called after him. “Greg!”
“I’ve got to go feed the cats,” he replied, stalking off.
I flew in the kitchen door like a hurricane. Gwenllian was sitting on the floor rubbing Finlay’s stomach, looking contentedly about her. Felix was perched on the counter, the way I liked to do, leaning against the cupboards and swinging his legs in a carefree fashion.
Both of them looked up at me with wide, nervous eyes.
“How did you get here?” I pressed in the one language we could all understand.
They stared at me, frightened. I tried to be gentler, so I lowered my voice. “Could you tell me how you came to my farm?”
“I’m not sure,” Felix looked at me with a dazed expression. “I was coming home from the forums to my mother, and she was right there…” He bit his lip. “And then I was on the road where you found me.”
“I don’t know either!” Gwenllian rose, shaking, and clutching her plaster cast arm. “I was spinning in the convent…and I’m not sure what happened to me! I went into this—this dark place. And then I woke up with G-Gram there.”
“It’s going to be okay,” I assured them. Awkwardly, I reached out slowly and patted Gwenllian’s shoulder. “We’ll get you back.” Inside, I felt more confused than ever and I had no idea how I could get them back.
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