Kevin's boss got in his truck and drove off. But as the police started to walk toward Kevin's truck, two more vehicles appeared, one coming from each direction. These were marked with seemingly meaningless combinations of letters and numbers. They pulled up on the other side of the road, and each of them disgorged two people hauling bulky equipment. Three of the police--one from each of their vehicles--headed over to talk to the new arrivals.
"What's going on?" Lucius asked.
"Those guys are with, uh, news organizations," Kevin said unhappily. "You know about--no, I suppose you don't. The thing is, people here are curious about unusual goings-on. So these news organizations try to find out what's happening and tell them."
"How did they learn about this so quickly?" Lucius pressed him, even as the confused Ivy was asking, "What 'guys'? How many?"
"Four of them, Ivy," Kevin filled her in. "They just got here, and some of the cops have gone across the road to talk to them. They're from two stations--organizations. But there's likely to be more.
"Sometimes they follow police cars," he explained, "when they think they may be headed somewhere interesting. But these cops didn't have sirens blaring. So the news guys must have heard them talking to their dispatchers on police-band radios." Before he could be asked to explain that, he translated. "Talking to the cops at headquarters who sent them here. Using something like a phone, except that it can be overheard."
Two more news crews arrived on the scene, just as the three remaining police officers came up to Kevin. The tallest said politely, "Mr. Lupinski? We'd like you to tell us what's going on." Glancing into the truck, he added, "You folks can stay in there for now."
Turning back to Kevin, he continued, "I'm Trooper Calhoun, Pennsylvania State Police. My friends are deputies from Chester and Delaware Counties. We won't know who has jurisdiction till we're clearer about the problem--the Feds may show up, too. But for now, tell us your story. Ignore the reporters!" This, as raised voices across the way caused Kevin's head to swivel in that direction, and one of the deputies muttered, "They're like mosquitoes."
While Lucius gave Ivy a whispered description of the officers ("One is a woman wearing trousers!"), Kevin repeated the information he'd given the nine-one-one operator. He added, "I guess I should also tell you I met Ivy, that is, Ms. Walker"--Lucius heard the title as "Miz"--"last November, when she came out of the woods looking for medicine. She was wearing old-fashioned clothes then too, but we didn't discuss what year it was, or anything like that."
"Tell us about the medicine," prompted Calhoun. "What did she want? Did you get it for her?"
"She had a note explaining what was needed. Some kind of antibiotic. It was like a prescription, only the writing was clearer than any prescription I've ever seen. I remember it was signed by two people, Edward Walker and Victor Ashline, with an M.D. after Ashline's name." He shuffled uncomfortably. "I got the stuff from a cabinet in the nearest guard shack. Ms. Walker gave me a gold watch in payment. I know I shouldn't have kept the watch. I gave it back to her today. But when I said the year is 2005, she was so shook up that she dropped it. It's still on the ground over there." He pointed.
Calhoun didn't turn to look. "Someone will retrieve it later. You've said Ms. Walker is blind. Yet you're saying she came out of the woods alone last November? Was she blind at that time?"
"Yes, sir, she was."
Frowning, Calhoun asked, "How long was she outside the Preserve on that occasion?"
"Only about an hour, sir. I got a ladder and helped her back over the wall."
"And you didn't tell anyone?"
"No, sir. On the one hand, I knew no one was supposed to be living in there. But on the other, she said her name was Walker. I didn't know if I'd be in more danger of losing my job if I did or didn't help her.
"What I did know was that I liked her. So I helped her and kept my mouth shut about it."
The trooper and the two deputies conferred for a minute or so. Then Calhoun said, "All right, Mr. Lupinski. We'd like your friends to get out of the truck and answer some questions now."
Lucius and Ivy got out, and stood hand in hand. To Lucius's relief, Calhoun didn't insist on separating them. He and the other officers looked them over briefly; Lucius heard some murmured comments, which included the woman's awed reaction to the seeming authenticity of--of all things--Ivy's shoes.
At the same time, Lucius was studying the police. He realized, with a chill, that all three wore guns.
The questions the officers asked were probing but courteous. The young couple answered truthfully: Their village was unnamed ("Covington" being the name of the forest and a long-ago settlement near it). The village had about 100 people. They were Christians, but they had no clergy, and religion was relatively casual. The community was governed by a council of elders, its founders. And no, it had no stockpile of weapons!
They'd been taught that the village was founded in 1874. Lucius had been born a year before that--where, he didn't know. Ivy, four years younger than he, had been born in the village. She was the second child of Edward and Tabitha Walker, and had gone blind at age eight. She and Lucius were engaged to be married.
One of the deputies--the one who wasn't a trouser-clad woman--cleared his throat and said, "Maybe we should consider the possibility that this village really does exist in another century. That there's some kind of time warp."
His colleagues turned to stare at him. He flushed up to the roots of his hair, but kept expounding on the idea. "Remember that old episode of Twilight Zone? There was a guy living in the 19th century, who had a sick kid. He went over the crest of a hill and there was a time warp. All of a sudden he was in--the show's present, whatever year that was.
"He was scared by a truck, and he dropped his rifle and accidentally shot himself. A doctor patched him up and gave him penicillin. He learned from an encyclopedia that his sick kid was destined to survive and become a famous physician. So he went back to the past, and took the penicillin with him so he could save the kid's life."
His colleagues continued to stare.
A confused Ivy said, "Excuse me. I didn't understand the part about twilight. Or the peni--something. But were you saying people really can travel through time? You know it's been done?"
"No," Calhoun said in a strangled voice. "Deputy Prentiss was talking about a work of fiction."
"Oh." Ivy sounded relieved. "I was going to say that even if it is possible, I couldn't accept that it happened here. I would have had to pass through a 'time warp' twice, and arrive in the same future era. How likely is that?
"Besides, Lucius and I know our elders have lied to us about other things. Lying about the century may seem outrageous. But by now, I can believe almost anything of them."
The female deputy muttered, "You sound more sensible than Prentiss."
Calhoun scowled at both deputies. "I think we can assume the village exists in our time," he said dryly. "And so do those skeletons. Tell us about them, Mr. Hunt."
Lucius described his finds. "May I ask," he ventured, "whether your people consider any color evil? Not to be worn?"
"A color? Evil? No, we don't."
"We've been taught that"--Lucius gulped and made himself say the word--"red is an evil color. That may be an idea the elders invented, with no tradition behind it. Whatever its origin, we never wear red.
"Some of the clothing fragments I found with the skeletons include that color. But if no one but us considers it evil, that doesn't tell us anything about who the dead may be. They couldn't have been villagers in any case, because no one has ever gone missing."
"Could you find the sites with the skeletons again?" Calhoun asked.
He nodded. "Yes, I'm sure I could."
"And the buried skull?"
"No problem at all. In daylight, that is." The light was fading rapidly.
Calhoun got the point. "All right. We need more planning before police enter the Preserve, but there's nothing stopping us from retrieving that skull. Let's go." He scooped up the watch and pressed it into Ivy's hands. "I think this is your property, Ms. Walker," he said gallantly. "Now, are you two willing to ride in my patrol car? I think, Mr. Hunt, you'll be able to see the roadside better from it than from Mr. Lupinski's truck."
The deputies looked irritated; so did Kevin. But two minutes later Lucius and Ivy were settled in the troopers' car. Everyone else was in one vehicle or another, and the little caravan--news crews and all--was about to pull out.
It was delayed by the arrival of a dozen more State Police cars.
"Not to worry," Calhoun told his passengers. "Since the story's gotten out, we're providing better security for the Preserve. No way are we letting reporters and photographers in there! This still isn't enough, but it will do till the Governor can call out the National Guard."
Lucius didn't understand those terms, but they sent another chill through him. What have we done?
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Once they set out, it took him only five minutes to locate the spot where he'd buried the skull. They retrieved it quickly.
But as the officers were agreeing that Chester County (whatever that was) should handle the analysis, Lucius, standing by the side of the road with Ivy, heard the strangest sound of that long, incredible day. A beating noise that grew louder and louder, till it seemed his eardrums must surely burst...it came, not from any sane direction, but from overhead!
Ivy shrieked. Lucius held her and tried to shield her, even as he let out a despairing shriek of his own.
Finding himself still alive a few seconds later, he dared to look up--and saw a monstrous machine suspended in the air, with a whirling vortex above it. The thing dropped straight down, slowly, and settled in the road like a giant bird. As the vortex slowed its spin, he realized it was made up of separate, rotating blades.
No one but he and Ivy seemed alarmed. Kevin elbowed his way past several gaping officers to reach them. "It's all right!" he assured them. "Don't be scared. It's just another kind of vehicle."
"A...vehicle?" Lucius echoed, stunned.
Staring at the thing, he realized there was lettering on its side. But it made no sense, it didn't spell a word...
Puzzled, he read aloud, "FBI?"
Trooper Calhoun sighed. "Just like I expected. The Feds."
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The "Fed" who climbed out of the machine was a woman with short, spiky blond hair. She wore a black jacket and trousers and a bright red blouse. Lucius almost choked as he tried to describe her appearance to the trembling Ivy.
The woman looked around, searching for something or someone. When she spotted Lucius and Ivy--recognizable as much by their shaken state as by their clothing--she came straight to them. "Ms. Walker, Mr. Hunt? I'm so sorry I frightened you! That was stupid of me--I should have had the pilot set the chopper down farther away, and walked here." She gripped Lucius's cold hand in her warm one, and the sincerity in her eyes warmed his heart. "I'm Stacey McGill," she explained. "Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation. That just means I'm a cop with the national government, not one of the local ones."
Lucius had only the vaguest idea of what she meant, but he managed to say politely, "Pleased to meet you."
Ivy pulled herself together and asked, "What's a 'chopper'?"
"The formal name for it is a helicopter," the FBI agent said kindly. "It's a small flying machine. We have larger ones, called airplanes. But choppers are useful because they can ascend straight up and descend straight down--airplanes can't do that. Choppers can land on a highway or a rooftop, and take off just as easily."
"Flying machines," Ivy whispered. "That's amazing!"
McGill squeezed her hand as well before turning to the other police officers to discuss what they should do. Lucius heard Calhoun ask, "Are you ATF? Out of Philly?" (He heard that as "filly," which made no sense at all.)
"Um, yes," McGill acknowledged.
"I don't think this is a case for ATF," the trooper told her. "Doesn't sound like there's an armed cult holed up in there." (Cult was another of those mystery words Lucius had never heard before.)
"I hope there isn't," she replied. "But we still have to explain the skeletons I've heard about. I think I'm going to be teamed with an IC agent who's flying in from Minneapolis."
By then Lucius had heard so many incomprehensible references that he stopped even trying to listen in.
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After the police had conferred for a half hour, Agent McGill approached Lucius and Ivy with a proposition. "First," she said, "I want to be sure you understand that you're not prisoners, not under arrest. No one imagines you've done anything wrong. If you want to go back to your village--or anywhere else--no one will stop you. But we will have to investigate the Preserve, and at some point, go into the village ourselves.
"We hope you'll decide to cooperate with us. I can take you to Philadelphia, a city not far from here. My agency will provide you with a place to stay, in a safehouse--a house where we usually board trial witnesses. You'll have privacy, your meals will be provided, and you should be very comfortable. We'll bring in experts to help you adjust to this new world you're in."
Lucius had regained his composure. He said, "I want to know more about the investigation you're planning."
"You will," McGill assured him. "Both of you, at every step of the way. I don't know much myself yet. But we won't let reporters or curiosity-seekers violate the Preserve. Even if we assume there were a dozen non-natural deaths in that forest, they took place years ago--no lives are in danger now. So there's no need to rush. I think we can investigate what happened in the forest without attracting the attention of the villagers.
"As I said, there are reasons why we'll eventually have to go into the village. But ideally, we won't need to do it for several months. By then you'll be able to go in first, to tell your friends about the outside world and prepare them."
Ivy asked the practical question, "Suppose we've discovered we hate the outside world?"
"Then you can tell them that," McGill said quietly. "It's a chance we're willing to take. It would still be better for them to be prepared by friends who've lived in both cultures than for us simply to barge in."
As they hesitated, she smiled and said, "You must be starving. Why don't you come with me, have a good meal and get settled for the night? You won't be committing yourselves. You can decide to leave at any time, and we'll take you anywhere you want to go."
For the first time, Lucius realized he was starving.
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Five minutes later they were inside the helicopter--strapped tight in their seats, but still holding hands as they yelled goodbyes to a grinning Kevin. They'd all been assured that even if Kevin lost his job, he wouldn't suffer financially in the long run.
McGill, sitting up front with the pilot, turned to say, "I'm going to phone ahead about dinner. Is steak okay?"
She had to clarify the meaning of "steak." When she did, they were shocked. As one, they replied, "We don't eat meat!"
"That's fine," McGill said amiably. "We'll arrange something else. Do you eat other products that come from animals? Butter, cheese, eggs?"
"Yes." It had never occurred to Lucius that anyone wouldn't.
He was still thinking about food as the chopper lifted off the ground. He let out a startled yelp. If I'd had dinner, I'd be losing it!
But the sounds Ivy was making were squeals of delight.
What? She's enjoying it? Then it must be all right. Just relax...
He did.
And soon he was flying high, reveling in the wildest thrill ride of his life.