CHAPTER 34

We hit the end of the time tunnel, and this time, it felt like we’d hit a brick wall, running at full speed. We rammed forward and then fell back on the floor, on top of Mom, all three of us gasping and groaning.

“Shh, shh,” Mom tried, remembering before we did the new danger at hand.

Dr. Manero.

How long had we been gone? Five, six minutes?

She crawled forward, peered around for a moment and then backed into the tomb again and stood.

“All right, so now we touch our handprints—just for a few seconds—and we’ll be back a year, maybe two, and we can find Dad,” Lia said.

“A few seconds? Wouldn’t that take us back to, like, before we’re born?”

“Let’s think about it. How long do you think the whole journey takes?” Mom said.

I shook my head. “It’s hard to tell. We get into that warpy-stretchy place and it feels like I’m not breathing, like time is standing still, not whipping by a century-a-second.”

“I think it’s about twenty seconds,” Mom said, eyes narrowed. She had her Science Voice on. All analytical, all of a sudden.

It comforted me. Because I couldn’t figure it out. It was like a nightmare of a story problem. With life-and-death, love-or-loss kind of stakes.

“If it takes twenty seconds to cascade through six centuries…”

“Six hundred and seventy years, give or take,” Lia corrected.

“Then ten seconds to go through three hundred and thirty-five…five seconds to go through a hundred and sixteen…two seconds to go through fifty-odd years.” She looked up at me and Lia. “We’re a hair’s breath away from your dad,” she whispered.

I shivered. Could we really be that close?

“It’ll take but a touch to send us back five years.”

“Can we even match the prints and get back off that fast?” I asked.

“We have to try,” Lia said.

“Where were you five years ago, Mom?”

Her face fell. “Capua.”

I frowned too. That far south…the other side of Rome. It’d take us a day to get there, find him—if we could find him—and return. I shook my head. “I can’t. Mom, I can’t! That would take too long. Marcello will have waited years before I get back. Maybe he’ll have given up on me, married someone else.”

“You’ll get back before that happens,” Lia cut in.

“Maybe not, Lia.” I covered my aching eyes and leaned my head against the wall. It was too much to figure out, too hard…

Mom paced, chin in hand, thinking. She looked over at us. “Two years ago, we were in the next valley. Remember? We thought this place might be there.”

“We won’t have a car to get there,” Lia said slowly.

Mom looked at me with an expression that said Don’t Lose Hope.

“Mom,” I said. “We’ll have to climb out of this valley—without that old guy who brought us here guiding us—and hitchhike over there. We’ll have to find Dad, if he’s there at all, explain it to him and bring him back…”

“Your dad will have the Jeep, Gabi.”

“But it’ll take hours. Do you know what that means for Marcello? For Luca?”

“Years,” Lia whispered.

I put my hand on my head. “And it was 1342 when we left. Do you know where years puts us?”

“In the middle of the Black Plague when we return.”

“We just have to pull off before then. He’ll leave us a sign. You asked him to do so, right?” I said to Lia. “In the note?”

“Yes,” she said with a nod. “It’ll be there, Gabi. We’ll know. Even easier than before.”

“You think.”

“No, Gabs, I know. He’ll be ten times more anxious than you to get back together. Because he’s living without you, right now. Days going by for him while it’s just minutes for us. It’ll be there.”

“Remember why we came back at all, Gabi? For your dad.” Mom moved toward me, touched my arm, and then ran her hand down to mine. “Gabriella, please. Please.”

It was a horrible decision. Was I taking a course that would save one man I loved but cost me the other?

But we were here, now. And Dad’s death impacted all three of us. Marcello could figure out why we’d left. Would he think that the portal had somehow ceased to work? Or worse, that I had simply decided not to return to him?

I gasped around the lump in my throat. The decision weighed upon my chest like an anchor in deep seas, dragging me backward, down. Each word, each step was an agony of effort. I put my fist to my mouth and looked at Mom. “Okay. But we have to move fast, Mom. Really fast.”

Lia pulled a scroll from a pocket in her gown. “I’ve written it out. So we remember. We might forget everything when we go. Two years ago, we didn’t know about this place. We didn’t know what would happen to Dad.”

“We didn’t know Marcello. Or Luca.” I swallowed hard. Would I forget all that had happened? Forget what I felt for the man? This everything-in-me pull back to him? If I forgot him, would I go at all?

“You won’t forget,” Mom said, resting her hand on my shoulder. She shook her head. “This,” she said, gesturing toward the handprints, “is some sort of time-space continuum. If we remember Marcello and Luca and all now, we’ll remember it when we stop two years back.”

“You’re sure.”

“I’m sure. Trust me, Gabriella.”

Trust her. Trust Marcello. Trust God. Everyone demanded I trust them! I kinda liked it better when I just had to trust myself.

We heard voices outside. “All right,” I whispered. “Let’s do this.” I looked at Lia. “The fastest touch possible.”

We practiced a few times, counting, on and off, a tap that had to be perfectly timed.

“One, two, three.”

We staggered backward, and Mom steadied us. The only light came in from above, through the tomb raider’s hole.

We’d done it. Gone back. But how far?

“Quick,” I said, bending to give a foothold to Mom. She reached the top and, with her legs swinging wildly, curved up and over. It was then that I thought about us all in medieval gear and groaned. How much harder would it be to snag a ride in these getups? “Come on, Lia,” I snapped, reaching down for her foot.

She ignored my irritation and held on to my shoulders before reaching for Mom’s hands. Soon, she was turned around and reaching down for me, with Mom holding on to her. I backed up, ran and jumped, just barely connecting to her hands.

As I swung, Lia grinned down at me and began to giggle. “We’re like a circus act,” she said, laughing so hard her grip began to loosen.

“Don’t laugh!” I said. “You’ll drop me! Pull, Mom, pull!”

Lia edged upward, pulling me with her. At the top, ten feet from the ground, I struggled to get over the edge, but then Lia and Mom both grabbed my belt and dragged me up and over.

Outside the curve of the tomb, we looked around. There was nothing but the sounds of nature. No people in sight.

“It’s summer,” Mom said with a smile of satisfaction.

“The question is, which summer?” Lia asked.

“Last year. Maybe the one before. You girls were on and off those handprints lightning fast. It was perfect.”

“You remember the way,” I said to her, ignoring her praise.

“I remember everything. Don’t you?”

I thought about it a sec. She was right, I decided with relief. It was all still with me. Every memory from past and future.

“Come on,” she said, offering me a hand. “I’ll lead the way.”

We pushed through the forest and picked our way down the face of those boulders as fast as we could. “See?” she said, showing me the ancient paving stones that our guide had once pointed out to us. “This is the right way.”

“Got it. Go,” I said, not wanting to waste a second.

We pressed on and eventually hit the old gravel road where we’d originally met the landowner. It was a good two miles back to the highway, but we set off, jogging as fast as we could. It was then that I realized that neither my thigh nor ribs hurt any longer.

“It heals for sure, that tunnel,” I said to Mom in a pant. “My injuries…they’re gone. Just like last time with the poison.”

“It’s good to know,” she said, eyeing me. “If we’re going back to the era of the Black Plague.”

She did not need to say more. But as we ran, I wondered what we’d do if one or more of us contracted the awful disease. I thought of bringing Marcello back here, to the present, and how there was something timeless about him.

Yeah, he was pretty much a stud in any year. Wait for me, Marcello, I thought, hoping that somehow, some way, he might know my thoughts. Tell him, God. Tell him to wait for me.

When we spotted Castello Forelli we came to a dead stop, hands on knees, panting. Because it was no longer in ruins. A good number of the walls were intact. All five towers still stood.

Which was good, of course. But the first two words in my head were oh no.

Because we’d changed history. Castello Forelli, no longer in ruins as we’d seen it in at the very beginning. Someone—Marcello? Paratore?—had rebuilt the tumbled wall. It had been inhabited for centuries, judging from the good condition.

And because of that, it was now a tourist draw. There was a parking lot to our right, where there had once been nothing but road and woods. A ticket booth had been erected at the front, just outside the massive gates, gates that had been rebuilt recently but looked like they’d been carefully redone to historical specifications. I ran forward, compelled, drawn.

Mom stopped at the ticket booth.

“Siete qui oggi per lavorare?” the young man asked idly, looking us up and down. You are here to work today? Lia and I shared a glance. Maybe their volunteers dressed in medieval costumes.

“Indeed,” Mom said, readily picking up on the excuse. “But we have an emergency. Our car has broken down in the next valley. Is there anyone who can drive us and haul it back?”

I looked inside, to where grass now grew across the courtyard. The keep and Great Hall were still in place, but the doors leading to each corridor were new. Perhaps they’d rotted away too much for the historians to figure out what they once looked like. Or maybe at some point, they’d just been replaced with the more durable steel that graced each doorframe now.

I looked back in agitation at Mom, who was still talking with the ticket dude. Precious minutes were passing. Weeks.

I bent over and cried out. “My…my stomach!”

Mom stared at me a moment, then leaped on it. She came over to me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Appendicitis?” she asked.

I nodded. “I think so.”

She’d caught on—the nearest medical care was in the next valley. The guy might be able to ignore a request to pick up a broken-down car, but an ailing girl? Nah. He’d have to act.

Ticket Dude, frowning, picked up the phone and called someone, speaking in quick, hushed tones. Lia came over to me and held my arm. I groaned and bent over again.

“Careful,” Lia whispered. “You’re supposed to have appendicitis; you’re not about to have a baby.”

I grimaced and turned away so the guy wouldn’t see my smile. She was right. Appendicitis would create a steadier, building kind of pain. I modified my act.

“I can take you. I just need to wait for my replacement.”

I groaned and bent over again.

He frowned, then came out the side door and shifted his weight, back and forth, anxiously looking toward the castello, to where his help must be coming from.

“Please,” I said, reaching out to him. “Can we not go now? Please.”

He gave the castello one last look and then gestured over to a tiny vehicle, barely larger than a Smart Car. Lia and I climbed in the back, our knees practically at our ears, and Mom and he climbed into the front. As he started the car, I cried out again, “Sbrigati!” Hurry.

Much to my satisfaction he sped out of the parking lot. Climbing the road and turning onto the highway within fifteen minutes.

“Gabriella, stay with us,” Mom said in Italian. She looked at Lia. “Is she thinking straight?” Then to me again, “What year is it?”

Man, she was smart, my mom. “Uh,” I said, gritting my teeth against the pretend pain. I guessed a year, five back.

Our driver snorted. “Is she simpleminded or feverish? You can see right now the year.…” He pointed to his cell phone on the dash. It had the date as his screensaver.

I leaned back with a sigh of relief as Lia squeezed my hand in excitement. We’d done it. Or God had. We’d gone back two years. And it was summer.

Come on, Dad. Be there. Be where you’re supposed to be. Not filing paperwork in Firenze or Siena or Roma. Be there, be there, be there, please…be there.

In another fifteen minutes, we reached the next valley. “Turn here!” Mom said, gesturing toward an upcoming dirt road to the left with a Societa Archeologico dell’ Italia sign on a tree. “I think this site has a doctor on campus.”

“There is a doctor at the clinic, just ahead.”

“Turn here!” all three of us yelled, just as it was becoming too late.

The guy slammed on his brakes and barely made the turn, frowning at us like we were crazy. With agonizingly slow speed, he found a spot in the dirt parking lot. “Can you wait here a moment?” Mom asked the driver.

He rolled his eyes and complained that he needed to get back, but she gave him a pleading look that no man, regardless of age, could deny.

Mom ran along, ignoring the calls and greetings of others around her, recognizing her, wondering about her strange gown. People we knew well—scientists, university students, volunteers—looked at us as if they wanted to greet us but were afraid to say something. Because, of course, we’d grown into young women since they’d seen us, the day before for most of them. Talk about growing up overnight.…

I stopped abruptly. Could it be that we’d come face-to-face with ourselves? Our younger selves? I glanced around warily. That’d seriously creep me out.

“Have you seen Dr. Betarrini?” Mom asked one.

“He’s around here someplace…”

“Phoebe, have you seen my husband around?” she asked the next, her anxious movements betraying her casual tone.

Phoebe shook her head and looked my mom over.

“He’s over here!” called Jack, another colleague of my parents. He gave my mom a curious look too and hooked his thumb over his shoulder.

It was then that a man straightened behind him and looked over at us, his eyes slowly focusing on us, recognizing us. Sort of. Mom, anyway. But he was looking at me and Lia, as if he was trying to decide if he was in the middle of a crazy daydream or if two young women who looked just like his daughters, but older and dressed weird, were really standing fifteen paces from him.

We, of course, were totally stuck. Overwhelmed. Tongue-tied. And scared as all get-out.

“Oh. My. Gosh,” Lia said. “Is it real?” she asked, tears already in her eyes.

But I was moving, along with Mom, toward him.

Running now.

Dad.

Dad. Dad! Dad!

We flew into his arms, and he stepped back, laughing, surprised, wondering what the heck was going on. Lia came then and wrapped her arms around all of us, laughing, crying too.

He leaned back, his face a mask of confusion. “Whoa, whoa, what’s going on here?” He took my face in his hands, then Lia’s. He glanced at Mom and down at her gown. “What’s with the medieval wench getup?”

Mom smiled through her tears and pulled him closer, reached up and touched his face, as if she were trying to memorize every wrinkle and pore. “Oh, Ben…You have no idea how good it is to see you.”

Tears were streaming down my face and Lia’s. We reached in to hug him with Mom again.

“All right, all right,” he said, half exasperated with us, half bewildered. “Who is going to tell me what’s going on here?”

“Come with us,” Mom said, pulling him along. I stayed glued to his side, under his arm, trying to believe this was really happening.

I helped Mom propel him forward. “We’ll explain on the way, Dad. Please.”

“N-now?” he sputtered. “We’re about to—”

“Right now,” Mom said, accepting no argument. “Do you have a car?”

“We have a car,” he said slowly, speaking to her as if she was losing it. “Remember?”

So Mom had been right about the vehicle. The Jeep we’d had that year. It barely ran. Hopefully it was a good day. Because on bad days it had left us stranded, over and over again. We’d had to steer while Mom and Dad pushed it to get it started, then we’d move aside so they could jump in and take the wheel.

“Come on,” she said, pulling at his hand. She looked apologetically to their colleagues. “Wrap camp for the day,” she said. “This might take a while.”

We ran back to the parking lot. The Ticket Dude lifted his hands as if to say, “What’s the deal?” when we ran past him and got into the Jeep. He made an angry gesture and peeled out of the parking lot.

“It running okay today?” I asked, anxiously looking after Ticket Dude.

“Uh…yeah. You were in it this morning, remember?” Dad said.

“Not quite. Get in and start driving,” Mom said, sliding into the passenger seat as Lia and I swung into the back.

“There’s something weird going on here,” he said, glancing back at us. “I know I haven’t really been paying attention to the girls this summer, Adri, but when did they grow up? Overnight? Is it the clothes? What’s with the costumes?” He stared at us, trying to sort out what had to be the most confusing day of his whole life. He shook his head and frowned, looking from me to Lia and back again. “Nah, it’s more than that. I mean look at you!”

I was torn between wanting him to just keep talking, unable to keep my eyes from him, and wanting to scream at him to drive.

“I’ll tell you what’s happened, Ben,” Mom said. “But please, drive while we talk.”

“Okay,” he said, turning the key. But the engine wouldn’t start, of course. Lia and I glanced at each other, hopped out and began pushing the vehicle down the hill. In a few seconds, the engine caught and we hopped into the back.

“That’s new,” he said, gesturing back at us and looking to Mom. “Last I remember, that was our job.”

“There are quite a few new things I need to tell you about,” Mom said as we bumped over the dirt road, following behind the kid from the ticket booth.

“Please pass him, Dad,” I said.

“Are we in a hurry?”

“Yes!” we all cried together.

He clamped his lips shut. And passed the ticket guy on the highway.

“How long you figure we’ve been here?” I asked Lia.

“Counting the minutes at the very end, bouncing back here, I’m thinking it’s been a good hour, maybe an hour and a half.”

Mom told Dad what she could as he drove, finally reaching the road that ran past Castello Forelli and to the edge of the tomb field. We noticed she didn’t tell him the biggest thing. That he’d died. That we’d come back to save him. Was she afraid it would change that outcome somehow?

To his credit, Dad didn’t stop or demand that he take us all to see a psychiatrist. In his place, I might’ve done that. We passed Castello Forelli, and Dad didn’t pause. Apparently, in his world, it had been there all along.

But he seemed reluctant as we ducked through the trees and climbed the boulders, as if he might be dreaming, that his dream-wife and dream-daughters were taking him on a journey he wasn’t really ready to take.

“Come on, Ben,” Mom said, gesturing back to him. “This is where I found it.”

He climbed up the last boulder. “That’s what I don’t get, Adri. Where was I?” But his attention was then on the tumuli before them. He reached up and ran his hands through his thick brown, curly hair, so like mine. And his face broke out in excitement. “Adri! Adri! We found it!” He hooted and shook his head in disbelief as Lia and I dragged him forward. “It was so close, all along! We were so close!”

“Yes,” she said, smiling at him tenderly, staring at him in wonder. “How I longed for you, for this moment.”

“Can you talk about it on the other side?” I muttered, pushing them toward Tomb Two.

“Other side?” he asked. “You intend…we are going back? In time?”

“Yes,” I said. “I have to, Dad.”

“First we’ll go to the future, by two years. Then back. That’s how it works,” Lia said. “We have to kinda bounce from one end to the other. I think.”

Mom gestured behind her. “If you think this is the archaeological discovery of our lives,” she said, “wait until you see Italia in all her medieval glory.”

“You realize this makes no sense, whatsoever, Adri. This is totally unlike you. Maybe you three stumbled into some bad mushrooms when you were collecting herbs or something?”

Mom took his hands in hers and looked into his eyes. “Believe me, Ben. I know what you’re thinking, feeling. How crazy this all sounds…But it’s important you come with us. Can you trust me?” She glanced back at us and then to him again. “Trust us?”

He hesitated a moment longer. “I’m willing to suspend disbelief for a bit. Test a theory.” He squinted at her. “We can make this leap? All of us? Safely?”

Lia and I looked at each other. We’d hardly been safe, considering all the battles and escapes we’d endured. But this was life. Life, more full and vital and exciting than we’d ever known. And we wanted more of it.

Mom was still trying to figure out how to promise him that it was safe. That was a laugh.

“All I can tell you is that the girls have made the journey twice already,” she said at last. “And that we must go too. In a way, Ben, we travel not to the past, but to our future.” She looked over at us. “We’ll be together, come what may. And that, I’ve found, is the best thing of all.”

Lia and I stepped closer. I held out my hand. “I like that, Mom. ‘Together, come what may.’”

“Together,” Lia said, putting her long fingers on mine.

“Together,” Mom added, placing hers on top of Lia’s.

We looked to Dad, waiting. He smiled at us, each one of us, and then gently put a big, warm hand beneath my own, and his other on top of Mom’s. The gesture made a lump form in my throat. I couldn’t look at Mom or Lia, knowing that I’d cry if I did.

“I don’t know exactly what’s happening here, or why,” he said. “But I know this…if my three girls are going somewhere, so am I.”