Anna looked past David's surprised form standing in the doorway, and surveyed the cabin. It hadn't changed at all. It was as though no time had gone by.
"Anna--" said David, " I thought you were going to call from Philly. I'd have picked you up--"
"Can I come in?" she said, fighting a smile at his nonplussed expression.
He stepped aside and waved her in.
Same red plaid throws on the same chairs. Same everything... but...an added photo in a frame on the mantelpiece. She crossed to it and looked at the blonde young woman in the picture. She was taken aback by the eyes. They were David's-- or Leora's.
"Is this..."
"That's Babe. Her real name is Arabella."
"Mmm." Anna set the frame down. "I had some more calls to make, and a few things to pick up, so I thought it would be easier to rent a car and drive myself around". She sat down at the computer. "Show me what you've got."
David stood a moment longer, looking at her. It had been 543 long days since she'd walked out that door. Sometimes it seemed longer. After the first few months, he didn't expect ever again to see her walk back in.
"Ah-- here..." he clicked open a file. "I have the conflicting information I gave you when we spoke on the phone. I did check
Kendall and Bianca's birth certificates after I spoke with you-- and that made things even more strange."
"Tell me about it," said Anna emphatically. "I looked up that information as well. I found stats of a Birth Certificate for
Kendall from 1969--"
"Yeah, I got that too. It surprised me. I thought she was only in her mid to late twenties."
"--but," Anna went on. "When I tried to find current records, it showed her birth as 1976. And the ink looked blurry, as though it was fading. In fact, it looked as if the number might have been 78 instead of 76. It was quite unclear."
"So-- Could Erica be messing with this stuff-- to throw us off? Seems like an awful lot of trouble for her to go through for a
little revenge. And quite frankly, I didn't think she had the brains or ability to do this sort of thing."
"It doesn't make any sense, David... and when I looked into Erica's wedding records--"
"-- that would be some heavy reading--"
"Very funny." Anna said dryly. "At any rate, the wedding records were even more confusing. Assuming a reasonable age, It's simply not possible for her to have been married as long as she was to each person, and as many times as she was, without being married to more than one person at the same time."
The door opened and Babe walked in, Jamie in tow.
"David-" said Babe anxiously "Do you have her age yet?"
"Not yet-- but -- " David began.
Babe's face fell. "We have less than a day left... I ... ," tears fell down her face and she sat heavily on a chair. "I should never
have signed that contract-- it just seemed... all our problems would be solved so easily... it's all my fault." David and Jamie both went over to her.
"I said I'd figure this out, and I will," said David softly. Jamie put his arm around her. Anna watched intently, fascinated and
curious.
David turned to her, 'Babe, this is Anna. She's can get information few other people can get. she's come to help us." He met Anna's gaze. "She's the best at this-- really."
Babe rose, and extended her had, smile returning to her face. She slid fingers across her eyes to wipe the tears aside. "Oh Anna-- I've heard about you. You came all the way over here to help us. Erica is trying to take my beautiful little boy away from me." The tears leaked out of her eyes again. "He's with Momma at the park right now-- Ace is the sweetest little thing, with the chubbiest cheeks and the brightest blue eyes you ever saw!" She dug in her purse. "Here's his picture. We renamed him James, but sometimes I still call him Ace. Its' such a cute little name. And having a real name AND a cute name is sort of a family tradition!" She tucked the picture back into her purse. "And I could think of no one better to name him after than Jamie," she turned and grabbed Jamie's arm, beaming up at him. "I still so wish YOU were his father!"
Anna stood watching the two, trying to process all the information just given her. Was that big silent guy... Jamie?
"And you are-- " she started, although she already knew the nearly impossible answer.
The big guy looked a little surprised. "It's me, Anna. Jamie Martin."
"Jamie... wow.. you got big."
"Oh, I've been working out. I'm on the football team at PVU"
Anna thought a moment-- Jamie was in college?
"Anna, are you going to be able to figure out Erica's age?" asked Babe hopefully.
"We're working on it" said David.
"Yeah... we.. we are almost there, I think..." said Anna thoughtfully. "David, may I speak with you?" She took David by the
arm and led him back to the computer.
"How long have I been gone?" she asked him quietly.
He knit his brow at the odd question. He knew the answer-- 543 days... he glanced surreptitiously at his watch... six hours... ten minutes. "About a year and a half" he said. "Seems longer, though."
Anna's eyes narrowed. "It just might. Seems shorter to me." David's face darkened, but his reply was cut short as she put her hand on his arm. "David... how old... is JR Chandler?"
"Why? What is that impor--"
"Just humor me."
"He's ... I don't know... " David turned to Babe. "Babe, how old is JR?"
"He's 22."
"No, he's 21" said Jamie.
"No-- I think he's 22." said Babe. "Maybe 23"
"But I'm only twenty," said Jamie.
"I think you're twenty one," said Babe. "You never get carded."
"David," said Anna in a low voice. "Think-- it was just a year and a half ago I left-- Jamie was in high school--"
"Yeah, kids do grow up, Anna" said David sardonically. He didn't understand what she was getting at, and not understanding irritated him.
Anna sat down quickly at the computer and began typing rapidly. David looked over her shoulder. "Look. Look here, David. Look at the fluctuation in ages over the same time period-- here's Kendall, here's Bianca, here's Jamie, here's JR... look at this graph."
"Anna, I don't see your poin--"
"There's something weird going on here, David. In Pine Valley. Something to do with changes in Time."
"Oh yeah. Right. Next you'll be telling me Aliens visited you and gave you this info."
She opened her mouth to reply, and thought better of it. There were some things David would never understand.
"David, I'm serious. Look at this graph-- there are the years-- here are the events, and here are the ages of four PV kids. Well, young adults now."
David stared at her a long time. She watched his expression change from regular David to Doctor David. He studied her eyes and reached for her wrist to take a pulse...
"Stop it, David." she said shortly, yanking her wrist from his grasp. "I'm not sick. It's all here... look at the graph... the
blue one is Jamie, the green one Kendall, and so on. Look at this data... I just can't figure out what to do with it..." she began
speaking in a lower voice, as though to herself.
"You're really serious."
"I am."
He looked at her a moment longer, and the Doctor faded from his eyes, replaced by skepticism and a little anger. Jamie pulled up a chair behind her and began looking at the graph. "Wow... that's really weird," he said. "And..." Jamie slid his arm in and took the computer mouse. "If you layer this over the timeline of an event that unfolded... " Jamie looked perplexed. "That's not possible."
"Hey, that looks pretty," said Babe cheerfully, coming up behind them. "Can you make one of those bars pink?"
"But it is possible. It has to be," said Anna emphatically. "According to my time, I've been gone about a year and
a half. But you were younger when I left - I mean more than a year and a half younger. There's some sort of temporal anomaly here in Pine Valley. And it's messing with people's ages. And I'm willing to bet... Erica knows what it is."
