"Ex Memoria"

29. All In

Lima, Ohio – in the year 2002

In the three days since her family had taken her to see the circus, Tina had carried the little pouch with her everywhere. It had originally held a shiny whistle on a string, which she'd won after playing a game, but already their old dog had gotten hold of it and chewed on it until Tina didn't even want to play with it anymore. But she still had the pouch, and by its still pristine condition, it might have been that she cared about this more than the prize inside. She had turned it into something to keep treasures in.

She'd so far gathered three pebbles with interesting shapes, and just now she was plucking a flower so she might put it inside and take with her wherever she went. So, naturally, there had come a gust of wind, and the flower had tugged its way out of her hand.

"No!" she'd gasped, running after it. The flower had spun in the air, once, twice, and then… a flash… and a woman was standing there, just managing to reach out her hand and get the flower before it could get away. Tina stopped, startled and relieved at the same time. She approached the woman with at least some caution, as she was a stranger and her parents had taught her better than that. "That's mine," she declared, pointing to the flower.

"So it is," the woman smiled, and she handed the flower over to the small girl.

"How did you do that?" she asked, dazzled. "Are you magic?"

"Not exactly," the woman replied, still smiling as she crouched before Tina. "But I can do special things, and because those things are special, I can only do them for important reasons, do you understand?" Tina nodded. "I can prove it to you, too."

"How?" Tina asked. The woman looked at her for a moment, then she nodded to the pouch dangling from her wrist.

"Can I see that?" the woman asked, and after a moment of hesitation, Tina handed it over. "This might be difficult for you, but I promise one day it will be worth it. First, why don't you put the flower inside?" Tina had been planning to do that anyway, so she did it, before watching the woman as she pulled the strings to close the pouch and then tied the strings into a neat bow. "I am going to take this with me when I go," she told Tina, and the girl gasped, suddenly uncertain. "I'll take good care of it, so good that it will look exactly the same when you see it again, alright?"

"Okay," Tina said, though it sounded almost like a question.

"One day," the woman started, and Tina got the impression that what she was saying was serious, so she listened carefully, "Someone will give it back to you, and when they do, they will have something very important to tell you. When they tell you, you have to know that they're telling the truth. Can you remember that for me?" Tina looked at the pouch, wondering how long it would be before she saw it again. What if she was really, really old by then? But the magic lady said it was important, and she kind of believed her, so…

"I will," she nodded.

X

May 2012 – Lima, Ohio

"And then she just disappeared. Maybe I'm just making it that way because of what they said, but I don't think so. I think it really was her… it was Miss Harrison," Tina finished telling Mike. "I mean… Gemma," she recalled what the others had told her.

"I think I remember you telling me about this thing once," he picked up the striped pouch, as much in awe as she'd been. He'd been to that circus, too, when he was little, he remembered the prize pouches, they looked just like this one, that appeared brand new even though the circus had been gone for years.

"The flower is still alive, like I just picked it. I didn't get that it could be anything else at the time, but if it had been ten years, then it would have died by now. That means it's real… she travelled in time, everything they said about this Doctor guy… Right?" It would have been hard for him to do anything but nod in agreement at this point, seeing the evidence before him.

"Hard to believe all that stuff can be real… Aliens, time travel…" he shook his head in amazement. 'But it is' was the unspoken conclusion to that sentence for both of them.

"So now what do we do?" Tina asked. Mike looked around, then nodded his head to the left. Tina looked where he'd pointed, and she saw them, the rest of the group, most of them at least, standing at a distance, pretending to be doing anything else but what they'd been doing before Mike had looked at them, which was to spy on the two of them, waiting to know how it would go.

"I guess we're supposed to help them now," he spoke with a half shrug.

"Yeah, but help them with what? They haven't really said…"

"I don't think they even know," Mike pointed out. Tina had gotten that impression, too. "I kind of want to find out," he then admitted, and Tina smirked.

"Yeah, me too." It was supposed to be important, that was what the magic woman… the one she now knew to be Miss Harrison, or Gemma, had said. It was hard for them to put into perspective exactly why it was important, but they wouldn't find out unless they cooperated, would they?

So, as the students were being directed to return to their buses, both Mike and Tina had rejoined their friends and, in whatever way they knew how, they told them that they were on board.

TO BE CONTINUED (TODAY)