Chapter 102
Now that they had electric power again, Kol wanted to try out the radio reception. He asked Elijah to help him walk to the living room where the radio sat. It was part of a console which included a more modern record player than the Victrola. As Elijah steadier his brother and moved to the next room, the rest of the group followed. Kol was still a bit wobbly, but he was slowly feeling stronger and stronger. He took a seat on the sofa and asked Wayne to turn on the radio. He also warned Barbara that once again voices would be coming from the device.
Wayne knew his radio well. After a brief time needed to warm up the inside electric tubes, music came on, emanating from the front speaker. The song quickly ended and a man's voice came forth.
"The quality of sound leaves something to be desired," Kol said with a grin, "but it's good to finally hear a radio."
"Where is the person who is talking?" Barbara asked.
"This is our local station," Wayne told her. "It's located just outside town. About three miles from here."
"And it's coming here on the wire?"
"No. It's coming here as air waves," Kol explained. "Like my voice to you right now is sound waves from my mouth to your ears. But we can't hear the radio's sound without the radio itself. Am I making any sense here?"
"Close enough," Freya said with a chuckle.
"If you all are from the past, how come you know so much about the radio?" Wayne asked. He was aware that they seemed to know other things even he did not understand.
"We are also from the future," Rebekah said. "Don't ask us to go into detail. Just understand that we have been in the past and in the future. I guess you could call it time travel."
"Like in the book 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'?" Wayne asked.
"Yes. Somewhat like that," Rebekah said with a nod. "We have seen the past turn into the present and also into the future. We've seen a lot of things."
"Like the watch Elijah keeps strapped to his wrist?"
Elijah looked at his watch. He kept it on ninety percent of the time just in case he was suddenly sent forward to New Orleans. "It is still not running."
"Why don't you just wind it and get it going again?" the farmer asked.
"It is from the future and does not work that way."
A country song was coming from the radio. The voice was that of a popular singer with a somewhat "hillbilly" nasal tone. Kol knew that song (along with thousands of others) and he began to sing with the singer. Freya and Rebekah joined in. Wayne, surprised, joined them. Barbara, equally surprised, stared at her companions happily singing a sad song of a cheating wife.
Elijah, who liked music and had a good voice, was not a fan of this kind of music, and he did not add his voice to the group. Instead, he went to the room across the front hall and found Claudette there, surrounded by a treasure of various pieces of cloth and spools of thread. She grinned at him.
"What do you want to make?" he asked her.
She was, at present, wearing a dress belonging to Wayne's mother. She ran her hands down the front and over her hips to indicate she wanted to sew a new dress.
"Freya or Barbara can help you with that," Elijah told her with a nod. He carried on a brief conversation with the dark-skinned woman, and then he left to go out into the hall. He was going to join the family, but he stopped at the tall floor clock. It was the same one that had stood there a hundred years before when it was new. Now it was silent and covered with dust. It was just an antique piece that was part of the house. And a challenge for Elijah.
Many old clocks had a key and were kept locked. This was especially true of the big "grandfather" clocks. Children were attracted to the weights on chains and the swinging pendulum. In the four years that Elijah had kept the clock running and keeping proper time, he had never locked it with the key kept up on the flat top of the case. He used a finger to try to open the door, but it didn't budge. Reaching up to the top, his fingers found the key behind one of the finials. The key and his fingers came away with dirt on them. He felt sorry for the old clock, once expensive and cared-for, as it stood there, silent and neglected.
After opening the large glass door, he gave the pendulum a small nudge. It moved back and forth reluctantly and then stopped. Elijah knew this was both because the weights that powered it were all the way down and because the mechanism was really dirty. It called out to him for help.
"It doesn't run," said Wayne, coming from the other room. He was used to listening to the radio, but at the moment he had other things on his mind. He left the others to enjoy the music and the radio host's banter.
"I can see that. I am surprised it is still here after all these years."
"I guess it's a permanent fixture. My grandmother liked it, but I don't think it was running back then. I have never seen it working. My dad says it would cost too much to have it fixed and we have other clocks."
"How many generations of your family have lived here?" Elijah asked.
"Quite a few. I know I heard my grandmother was born in this house. So that means her parents lived here. Did you know there's always been a rumor that a couple of ghosts once haunted this property? There were supposedly murders here, way back."
"I have heard that too," Elijah said, nodding. He did not add any details.
A thought occurred to Wayne and he frowned. "Did you live here back then? There was also a tale of a magic wall around the place for a while. Like now!"
"Yes." Again, Elijah didn't explain. He let Wayne come to his own conclusions.
"So, I guess the magic wall was really there. Here. You go where it goes. Or it goes where you and your family go, huh?"
"Or so it seems. Yes. Wayne, would you mind if I tried to fix this old clock? I am rather fond of it."
"Be my guest. If you can fix it, fine." Wayne could see that Elijah didn't want to discuss the other matter further.
"Do you have small tools?"
"A few. I don't know if they're what you need. There's a workshop in the cellar."
Kol's laughter came from the other room, prompting Wayne to mutter, "Your brother reminds me of my cousin Barney. Laughed easy. Goofy sometimes."
"There is another side to Kol. Do not underestimate him," Elijah warned.
"I won't." To which he added, "My cousin Barney has a bad side too. He's in prison now. The family doesn't talk about him."
Elijah did not mention that Kol had killed thousands in his long lifetime, sometimes for the blood, but sometimes just for the excitement of the kill.
Claudette came from the room behind him and cautiously went to the door to the parlor. Although she was afraid of the loud machine with the singing man inside, she was curious.
"It is safe," Elijah told her.
To Wayne, he said, "Let us go and look at the tractor situation. I am sure we can figure a method to set it upright."
A/N I apologize for the long delay in posting this chapter. I've been ill (not COVID-19), but I'm recovering now. I noticed that someone is still reading my other stories. Thank you, loyal readers.
A.
