The Secrets of Ordinary Farm

Chapter 30

“Dude,” whispered Steve. “Tell me again-why are we giving water to a ghost?”

“Because he’s not really a ghost.” Tyler watched Octavio Tinker empty the canteen, then wipe his mouth with a wrinkled hand-a hand of flesh and bone. “I think he came out of the Fault Line… from the past.”

“No way,” said Steve. “Really? I mean, dude, that’s awesome.”

“What’s that?” The old man looked up, staring at him with bright, sharp eyes. “What did you say?”

“The Fault Line, Mr. Tinker. We know about it.”

“Hmmm. And you seem to know my name, too.” Octavio handed back the empty Cub Scout canteen. “Thank you for the drink. How do you know me, boy?” The old man looked to be eighty if he was a day, but his wits seemed sharp. Tyler didn’t want to lie to him and didn’t even know how to do it if he tried to.

“I know you because… because you’re from the past. Our past. You’re in the future-your future, that is. At least I think so.” He looked from the inventor to Steve Carrillo, who was watching events with total absorption. “That’s the only way I can make sense of it. I’m guessing you’ve been experimenting with the Fault Line and you’ve come out in the future.”

The old man raised a bushy eyebrow. “Truly? That wasn’t my intention. What year is it?” When Tyler told him he raised the other eyebrow, too. “Hmmm. You’re right-this is some twenty years and more ahead of when I entered the Breach.” He smiled, looking like a child with a secret. “So it opens both to the past and the future! My theory was correct! But you said ‘Fault Line.’ Is that what it’s called these days?”

Tyler shrugged. “I guess. It’s still a secret. You used both names in your… notes. Your granddaughter’s husband calls it the Fault Line… ”

“Gideon?” The old man shook his head. “Hah! I should have known he’d manage to hang onto the place somehow. I hope Grace is keeping him in line… ” He trailed off and suddenly a stricken look came over him. “Oh, Lord, I forgot! Have you seen her? That’s who I’m here hunting for-my granddaughter Grace!”

Tyler felt pretty sure he had, but not in the way Octavio Tinker meant. “No, sir. Not here. Not today… ”

“Damn.” The old man seemed ready to wander off again, but hesitated. “Can you tell me if I’m going to find her…?” he began, then suddenly stopped and then waved his hands. “No! No, forget I asked. Don’t want to know about the future. Too many chances for paradox. Don’t tell me anything more about what’s in front of me, boys. Nothing!”

Tyler, who had already been worrying about what he should or shouldn’t say to the inventor of the Continuascope, felt a wash of relief. What could he tell him, anyway? He didn’t know what day it was in the old man’s time-Gideon’s father-in-law might have five years left to live or five days. All Tyler knew for sure was that he would wind up dead beside his car in the Ordinary Farm driveway on the night Grace disappeared… Whoa, Tyler suddenly thought. He said he’s looking for Grace. What if… what if that’s the night he came from? The night his granddaughter, Gideon’s wife, vanished forever? The night she somehow wound up in the mirror-world where Tyler had met her? “You’re looking for your granddaughter, you said. What happened to her?”

“That’s just it,” said the old man unhappily. “I don’t know! I came back from an errand into town and she was gone! She was here by herself when I left but there’s no note to say where she’s gone, and the Contin… ” He abruptly stopped, looking from Tyler to Steve with sudden suspicion.

“I swear I don’t know anything, sir!” said Steve quickly, holding up his hands, backing off. “I’ll go sit right over here and you don’t have to touch me with your Time Hands or anything.”

Tyler couldn’t help rolling his eyes. “You were going to say ‘the Continuascope,’ ” he told Octavio. “We know about it already. I live on the farm during the summers and… and I know a lot about you and the Fault Line, Mr. Tinker. Don’t worry-your secrets are still safe.”

Octavio looked him over for a moment, then nodded. “Good. But I didn’t realize I’d actually crossed over into the Fault Line. Must have been caught in a fluctuation.” He pointed to Tyler’s flashlight. “I’ve been lost in the dark for a long time, son. Help me look for Grace and I’ll tell you what I know. Maybe between us we can make some sense out of this.”

Tyler couldn’t quite figure out Octavio Tinker. Half the time he seemed as sharp as anybody, but at other moments, as when he stood at the intersection of two mine tunnels calling brokenly for his lost granddaughter, he seemed to be what Tyler’s mother would have called pretty much loopy. Was the old man in shock-had he suffered a trauma? Or was he just getting senile, someone whose grasp on the outer world was slowly growing dark?

They walked for a long while. Sometimes, when Tyler was leading, he could sense something strange, a faint pressure or resistance down some of the passages. Other directions felt almost welcoming, as though instead of having a cold, strong wind in his face he suddenly had a balmy breeze at his back. Caught up in these observations, it was some time before he noticed that he and Octavio Tinker were taking turns at the front, and that both seemed to understand without speaking when it was the other person’s turn to lead.

“You seem to have the knack, young man,” old Octavio said as if he had been thinking the same things. “Do you know what I’m talking about?”

“You mean… finding my way around down here?”

“The knack for the traveling the Fault Line, yes. I have it too, as you’ve probably noticed, although it’s a fuzzy sort of science at best. But for most people, their first trip through here would be their last. It’s all much easier with the Continuascope, of course-or at least much more precise-but I can make my way around a little bit without it. You can feel the Fault Line in front of us, can’t you? That’s wha you’re heading toward.”

“I… I guess.”

Octavio Tinker turned to study his face. “Are we related, son? Or are you someone Gideon’s brought in to experiment with?”

He didn’t want to lie to this fierce, clever old man, especially not if Octavio Tinker might be doomed to die soon. Twenty years or more ago, he reminded himself. But for him, soon… “Yes. I am related to you.”

The old man seemed very pleased by this. He clapped Tyler on the shoulder with a hand like a bundle of fragile sticks. “Good! Ah, that’s good news. So I’ve left behind some kind of a legacy, after all!”

“Oh, you’ve left a lot, sir.” He wondered if there was some way to bring the old fellow back to the present day Ordinary Farm. Even Mrs. Needle wouldn’t be able to dispute with Octavio himself! But of course something like that would probably create even worse problems in the long run-problems that could affect a lot more than just who controlled an obscure farm in foothills of the Sierra.

Reluctantly, Tyler put the idea aside. Thinking about all of the science-fiction angles to traveling in time, though, had made him wonder about something else.

“Why don’t you have the Continuascope?” he asked.

The old man looked a little startled. “Eh?”

“The Continuascope. You said it makes finding your way much more precise. Why did you go into the Fault Line without it?”

“Because Grace took it-she must have, it’s gone from the place I keep it. That’s why I had to come in here after her.”

“Really?” That didn’t jibe with what Tyler knew. Hadn’t Gideon told them last summer that the Continuascope had been found lying beside the Fault Line entrance on the night his wife disappeared? “Are you certain?”

“Why do you ask? Do you know something I don’t…?” Octavio, who had been leaning forward, suddenly and violently waved a hand in Tyler’s face. “Wait! No, don’t tell me! I don’t want to know!” A moment later he smiled, almost embarrassed. “Sometimes feel as if I negotiate with the Creator every day for the wonders that He allows me to see. I don’t want to ask too much and have Him take His business somewhere else.”

Tyler was still waiting for Steve, who had slowed to a sluglike pace. “Okay, Mr. Tinker, sir, here’s another question. There’s only two places to get into the Fault Line, right?”

Octavio paused also. “That’s my working hypothesis. But since one of them’s at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, I’ll likely never have a chance to test it.”

“Indian Ocean?” Tyler had no idea what he meant.

“Yes, south of Madagascar. It’s the opposite side of the earth from this Fault Line opening here-the other pole, as it were. The fifth-dimensional energy, you see, is drawn in there and erupts here. Of course, over the eons there may have been polar shifts… ” Octavio broke off to take a pad and ballpoint pen from his pocket and scribble some notes. Tyler held his flashlight close to make it easier, but could make no sense out of the old man’s strange symbols. “See? Polar shifts,” Octavio said with satisfaction, closing his notebook.

Somewhere behind them Steve Carrillo groaned for water.

“That wasn’t quite what I meant,” said Tyler. “I mean, the two places to get into the Fault Line from here. There’s the Fault Line itself, of course, but also that washstand mirror in the library.” He wondered how much he could get away with. “Maybe Grace went in through that instead.”

Octavio gave him a baffled look. “The what?”

“In the library-the big library on the farm. There’s a little room with a bed in it, and a sink.”

The old man nodded. “A retiring room, we’d call it. I sometimes have a bit of a nap there if I’m in the middle of some research. But there’s no washstand mirror in there, just a little low table with a bowl on it.” He frowned, thinking. “No, no mirror. No mirror at all.” He looked at Tyler quizzically. “What makes you think there’s an entrance to the Breach in the library’s retiring room? No offense, young fellow, but I’m sure I would have noticed… ”

“Can you please slow down?” called Steve Carrillo from a dozen or so yards behind.

Tyler was stunned-how could Octavio not know about the washstand mirror?-but before he could ask any more questions the old man suddenly stopped in the middle of the low tunnel and raised a bony hand.

“Ah! There-can you feel it?”

Tyler felt a strange tingle on his skin, the softest impression of fresh air on his face. “I think so.”

“Feel what?” said Steve, trudging up behind them. “Can we take a break? Are we… are we nearly at the Fault Line?”

“It feels like it,” Tyler said.

“I’m glad you think so, because I can’t feel anything,” said Steve, fumbling out his canteen. “Except pain. And hunger.”

Gideon clapped Tyler on the shoulder. “Oh, yes, that’s it. You’re Tinker bone and blood, lad, there’s no doubt about it!”

“Me, I’m regular-person bone and blood,” said Steve, wiping his mouth. “And I’m glad you guys are having a good time with your Tinkerpalooza thing, but me, I’d like to get out of here.”

“And I suddenly realize that you must be Ignacio’s grandson or great-grandson-my neighbor from next door,” Octavio said with a whiskery smile. “You have his eyes. His mouth, too. A friendly fellow, if a little too fond of talking when other people are trying to concentrate… ” He pointed. “It’s close by now. Follow me, lads.”

He plunged forward, walking like a younger man, as if the nearness of the Fault Line gave him energy. He led them into a larger space, a natural cavern where the tunnel they had been following became a sort of T, but instead of turning down one of the new directions Octavio Tinker only pointed at the featureless stone wall. “Do you feel it?”

Tyler nodded. In fact the new sensation was making him feel a bit dizzy-as though he stood swaying on the edge of a very high cliff with nothing beneath him but air. “I feel… something.”

“Umm, no offense,” Steve began, “but what the heck are you two talking about? Because that’s, like, solid stone.”

“Here.” Octavio pointed. “Touch it.”

Steve took a few steps forward and extended his hand. It passed through the stone as though nothing real was there. “Dude! That’s amazing!” He plunged his hand in and pulled it back over and over. “That’s so spooky!”

“Precisely!” Octavio Tinker laughed, sounding far younger than his age, and Tyler wished he could have got to know the old man in real life instead of in this timeless netherworld. How different from Gideon, with his moping and his suspicions! “But I’m afraid it’s time now for us to go our separate ways… or rather, our separate whens.”

“Maybe we could… go with you,” Tyler said. “Help you find Grace.”

“No way!” Steve sounded horrified. “My folks are already going to be seriously pissed at me. How are they going to take it if they find out I went into the past? Not good, that’s how.”

The old man shook his white head. “No, no, no. Your friend is right-it’s not a good idea at all, lad. You have your future and I have mine-even if it is your past. I feel sure it’s only in places like this that we can even dare to mix them for a short while.”

“Really?” He was disappointed, although he wasn’t certain why.

“Yes, really. And one of these days, if we meet again in some not-place, I’ll explain it to you. But for now I have a granddaughter to find, and you have whatever lies before you… ” He extended his hand. “By the way-what is your name, young man?”

“Tyler.” He reached out and allowed the old man to take his hand. He couldn’t have imagined this moment in a million years.

Octavio gave it a firm shake. “A pleasure,” he said. “I wish you well, whatever your future endeavors may be.” For a moment a puzzled look crept onto his face. “I never asked you what you were doing down here, did I? Ah, probably just as well, just as well… ” The old man made a stiff little bow, then stepped back toward the stone and vanished.

“Dude, we did not see that,” Steve said. “He really was a ghost. He really was!”

“No, he just went back into the Fault Line.” Tyler felt strange and empty. He missed the old man already. “And now we have to do it, too.”

“But we’re not going to the past! He told you not to!”

“No, and we’re not going to,” Tyler said. “But we’re not really in our time either right now. I can just tell.” And he could. As Octavio Tinker had said, they were in some kind of when that didn’t belong to any of them-a not-place in not-time. “So if you want to get back to where we were, we’re going to have to step through too.” He reached out his hand. Steve looked at it with mistrust. “It’s nothing weird. You have to be touching me.” Again, he didn’t know how he knew it, he just knew it.

“It’s not that, man,” said Steve. “It’s just… you promise, no raggedy ghost things?”

“I’m not promising anything. I hardly know what’s going on myself. You should know that by now.”

Steve swallowed, then stretched out his hand and squeezed Tyler’s in his damp fingers. “If you get us killed, Jenkins, I’ll totally kill you back… ”

And then Tyler took a step toward the stone and darkness swallowed them, and they fell out of the damp tunnels into a hot, crackling void.