Time Drifters

What I love about mixing watercolor paints is watching how one drop swirls into the tiny pool on the palette, curling around like a river crossing a landscape before it floods its banks and begins to mix with everything around it.

Coming out of the Drift that time was just like that. It was as though I was floating in a drop of green paint, with dark hues swirling into the sphere around me and then solidifying into shapes of tree trunks and earth. The world where I was landing was lush and moist. And I would have expected it to be as peaceful as my moment in the Drift, except for the odd droning noise that was repeating over and over.

It was almost like a human voice but rounded off at the edges.

My hands were in moss and dirt and the air smelled damp and fresh. I breathed in and had that same seizing feeling in my throat that I’d experienced the first time I Drifted. And I coughed.

“Fi-boa!”

I heard a whooping sort of laugh as I looked up and saw a boney boy with wild blond hair jumping around in great excitement.

“Figh-bou!” he repeated, laughing again as his hands came together, miming the crash of musical cymbals. Beside him was a little African girl in a simple green dress and brown leather shoes very similar to mine.

“Hello,” I squeaked through another cough, my voice rasping. I struggled to stand and that’s when I saw another girl coming through a clump of bushes.

“Figh-bou, Fi-bo,” the boy shouted at her excitedly pointing back towards me. He took off and just before she ran after him I realized that the girl with black hair tucked into a bonnet was like an older version of…

“Capucine?” I called out. She glanced over her shoulder but was already hot on the trail of the wild boy.

“Is he retarded? Or… slow, I mean? Challenged?” I asked, running through the words in my head before I realized that I was speaking out loud. The Black girl just stared at me as though I was some kind of museum animal that she was observing for the first time in her life.

“Um, Hi!” I said, holding out my hand. “My name’s Liam.”

You’d have thought that my hand was marked as poisonous, the way that girl suddenly jumped back from me, her eyes as wide as the sockets in her skull.

“It’s OK,” I said. “Is this your first Drift? I know, it can be pretty disorienting. I don’t even know where we are.”

“Plantation de Boré,” she said hastily, as though giving me this information would send me on my way.

“Beg your pardon?” I said, trying to figure out what just came out of her mouth. Was that English? If not, I was going to be in trouble between whatever that wild boy was saying and this girl. Was my hearing messed up?

“Plantation de Boré,” she repeated. “Is named after Master Jean Etienne Boré. Ev’one knows, he dead.”

“Oh, right,” I said. “I’m sorry.’

“Why. Did you kill ‘im?” She asked.

“N-no,” I said, cautiously. “I just meant that…”

The girl’s eyes darted to the bushes and I turned to see a big redheaded teen swiping his way past the branches.

“Trinder’s here,” he said with a Scottish burr rolling over the “r’s” in my name.

“Caelen,” I said, instantly happy to see him. He was smaller but not much shorter than I’d remembered, with a clean-shaven chin that made him look even younger in his face. I stepped towards him with my hand outstretched in greeting, but he tensed and looked at me oddly, only holding up his finger, giving me the sign to wait.

Before I could reach him, he’d jumped back through the bushes. I looked down at my clothes to make certain I wasn’t covered in something—or uncovered—in any way that would make me undesirable to be around. Between the girl and the one I thought was Capucine and the one I knew was Caelen, it seemed like everyone was wanting to get away from me.

“Leoncio!”

I heard that booming, deep pronouncement bellowing through the trees.

“Leoncio! Where are you?”

I looked back at the girl, still standing stalk still at the enormous trunk of a sprawling tree. The leaves above covered so much of the sky and it was such a cloudy day that the clearing where we were seemed dull. I was looking for a way out, some kind of exit to clear fields; that was my idea of what a plantation would be made of, and not a dark, sparse forest. I decided that the bushes were the only option, but that was exactly where the voice—and now operatic singing—was coming from.

This couldn’t be a Drifter because the sound was so mature. I recognized the tune as something classical and really famous but it also sounded like some kind of preparation for attack, almost menacing. Whoever Leoncio was, I didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire.

“Quick, where can we hide?” I whispered hoarsely to the girl.

She stared blankly at me and then started walking past me, over to the same bluff of bushes where the singing was coming from… and getting louder.

“No, no,” I said, lunging for her and grabbing her arm, just as the bushes parted. A teenager with shiny black hair, intense eyes and elegant clothing stood there staring at me, his smile broadening.

“Leoncio!” he exclaimed reaching forward and grabbing me. Before I could object he pulled me towards him and kissed my cheek, my other cheek and then the first one again. I was utterly stunned. Stupefied, I think. I’d had a girl kiss my cheek, but never a boy.

“Finally, you meet me, my brother!” he said, giving me another hug and then throwing his arm over my shoulder and faking a punch to my stomach, pulling it back and doing it again.

“Who are you?” I asked desperately.

“Leoncio,” he said, sounding disappointed. “That is you. That is what I’ve always called you. And did you like the Carmen? I know! Bizet doesn’t write it until 1875, but The Toreador Song. It was too perfect, yes? I couldn’t resist. And I’d thought of it for so long. What would I do when I finally met your youngest self?”

“Who are you?” I repeated, bewildered.

“Ah!” he said, hitting the side of his forehead and squinting. I noticed his eyebrows were thin, pointed and so dark compared to his skin. His face was especially long in the middle and his mouth was framed above by a sparse growth of hairs that looked like they had aspirations of being a moustache.

“Foolish me,” he said, stepping back and drawing in a deep breath as he withdrew his hat. “Aureliano Ermenegildo Baldomero of Madrid, via New York and Tarrytown, at your service.”

He had swept his hat upwards with a great flourish as he announced himself and ended the introduction with a deep bow. I had no idea how I was supposed to respond, and the perpetually wide-eyed expression of the little girl beside me wasn’t giving any clues either.

“Liam Trinder… of… Tarrytown,” I said. It wasn’t much, but it was the truth. “Nice to meet you, Aurel…”

“Au-rel-ia-no,” he said, slowly.

“Aurie-yano,” I said.

“Yes, that!” he said, a mischievous smile curling his cheek into a deep dimple.

“What?” I asked.

“Say it again,” he urged.

“Aur….oh! Aurie!” I said. “But that’s what the twins had said.”

“Perfection!” he said, laughing. “Ah, Leoncio! How enticing an idea to think of beginning it all again. And hopefully to continuing, yes?”

“Sure,” I said.

“You are the eleventh,” he said. “Unusual for us to have a full cadre. No doubt, a fitful situation to have dispensed as many of us as it takes. So… Swords or duels? What have we to fight with?”

He looked to my side.

“And who is your friend?” he asked, his bright expression dimming for the first time.

“I don’t know your name,” I said, suddenly swallowing as I realized what Aureliano was implying.

“Imogene Smith,” she responded, quietly, jerking slightly towards Aureliano as though she knew a curtsy was in order.

“My dear mistress, Imogene,” Aureliano said, with an impossibly deep voice for someone as young as him. “Where are you from?”

Imogene pointed back through the trees.

“So you’re not a Driff…” I paused, once again interrupted by people coming through the bushes following the crashing arrival of the wild boy.

“Figh-er,” he laughed, clapping and pointing at me.

“Isaac, stop it. Come here,” said the girl I’d seen earlier. She reached out and took Isaac’s arm, more or less calming him from his dance, although not stopping him from looking at me.

“Capucine?” I asked again. I wasn’t completely certain.

“Hello Liam,” she said, smiling shyly and curtsying. “It is nice to see you again,” she added, although her expression and feelings belied her.

She’d grown taller and her face had elongated and thinned considerably.

“Are you alright?” I asked. “Have you been hurt?”

“No, I am sufficiently well, thank you,” she responded.

“Mademoiselle Capucine Marmiche,” Aureliano said, taking her hand and bowing quickly. “Of course, it is a great pleasure to see you once again, if I may presume you remember our past collaboration?”

“Indeed, Aureliano,” she said, blushing. “You are a most memorable companion.”

Aureliano smiled, and yet, I could tell that he wasn’t entirely being truthful.

“This is Isaac and Imogene,” Capucine said, even as Isaac began to mouth the same thing he’d been repeating since I first saw him.

“He is almost deaf and entirely excitable, but otherwise quite fine,” Capucine said.

“What was he saying?” I asked.

Capucine looked at Imogene and then pulled me away from her, while Aureliano leaned in to listen.

“He was calling you a ‘fire boy,’” she said. “Because…”

“He saw me Drift,” I said, wincing.

“As well as did Imogene,” Capucine said.

“And neither of them are Drifters,” I said, my stomach getting very cold.

“Nor, I’m afraid, is our dearest friend, Capucine,” said Aureliano.

“Of course she is,” I said, sneering at Aureliano.

“No,” Capucine said, in a consoling way. “This is May of 1857. You are here in Carrolltown, just beside la belle Nouvelle Orleans. We are very close to my Drifting Stone, but I am not supposed to travel until one month more… at Solstice. And so, I am not a Drifter with you. No. You can only imagine how I am surprised to be seeing you all here. My great worry.”

“And ours as well, Capucine,” said Caelen, appearing behind us. None of us had heard him, but as we turned we saw a steady progression of others following him out into the clearing.

I kept my eyes on Imogene. Capucine was still holding Isaac’s hand, but no one was securing the little girl and I could tell by her jumping eyebrows that she was equating each new person she saw with me and the fantastical way I had appeared out of a sphere of arcing light.

“Liam! It’s Cali!” said a girl who wasn’t quite my height, while she gave me a light punch to my shoulder.

“Have you met me yet?” she asked, as though it was a dare.

“Yes, I have,” I said, smiling. I found the physical difference quite funny. Her face was rounder and her eyes looked somehow puffier, but she bore her determination and spunk quite openly, almost as if she were ready to take on a fight at any moment.

“Hello, I’m Gwendolyn Whitehall,” said another young woman, holding her hand forward quite formally.

“Yes, Hi Gwen,” I said, shaking her hand.

“You have me at a disadvantage,” she said, seeming a bit put off. “Very few save those in my family call me Gwen.”

“I can say Gwendolyn,” I added. I was distracted by the appearance of two other girls I didn’t know, and by the taller shape of Thomas.

“Trinder,” he said, jovially.

I tensed, not knowing if it was a ruse of friendliness. But as he got closer I realized that he wasn’t that much bigger than me and that the greeting was genuine. He shook my hand and nodded, turning back to his discussion with one of the other girls.

“Fifteen and what Drift?” Thomas asked. “I’m fifteen and one,” he said.

“Fifteen and second Drift,” said the sturdy girl with golden blond hair, her authoritative voice clipped with some kind of accent.

“Damn!” said Thomas, snapping his fingers in disappointment.

“And Senor Baldomero,” she said, turning to Aureliano. “Your age and Drift, please?”

“Fünfzehn und erster, meine Art junge dame,” Aureliano said graciously.

Calico guffawed and Gwendolyn bit her lip.

“Meaning?” Thomas said, intently.

“Translating that you and Aureliano share a common irreverence, and Drift age,” the sturdy girl said.

“On the contrary, Fraulein Renatta,” Aureliano said, looking injured. “I was being as respectful as possible in speaking your own native tongue, in honor of the fact that you are the eldest amongst us, both in Drifts and in Time… if I’m not mistaken. No injury taken by our dear Capucine, I trust,” he said, bowing to her.

Capucine shook her head.

“My apologies,” Renatta said, not seeming very sincere. “I take you at your word. Although I feel obliged to state that I am an American, no matter where I come from. And no matter where I live.”

“Meaning what?” asked Thomas looking as bewildered as I felt.

There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment.

“Perhaps the Future Ones, not being as aware of any differences in geography is a good hint to the rest of us to let it remain an issue outside of our Drifts,” Caelen said, tersely.

“I don’t get it,” I said, feeling very disconnected from everything. Even the Drift to 1780 hadn’t felt as foreign. The language and the feelings were not making sense to me. Everyone was touchy and I was already sensing that something bad had happened.

“What I meant was…” Caelen began, until Renatta interrupted him.

“I wanted it known that even though I am from Carolina, that I will look after the needs of each Drifter equally, whether they are from the South or from the North,” Renatta stated defensively.

Caelen made a kind of growling noise in his throat while he shifted in place.

“She makes a good point,” said Gwendolyn.

“Says the girl from Carolina,” Caelen retorted.

“Observed the Oaf from Yankee land,” Gwendolyn added.

“Oh, man!” said Thomas, smiling. “I had no idea we were going there.”

“And yet this is New Orleans, and there are differences,” Renatta said, speaking rationally. “Whether we need to let them become our own problem or not, the issue remains for people here, of this time.”

“Saved by the bell,” Calico said, being the first to see someone else joining us. It was a dark haired girl with slightly slanted eyes that made her appear cat-like.

“Francesca,” Aureliano said, stepping forward and kissing her three times, just as he had with me. “So nice to see you again.”

This was obviously not a first meeting for either of them.

“I saved little Marijka from the twins,” Francesca said, indicating that they were somewhere in tow. “They’d found her first and had her convinced that she’d somehow landed in a Two-Niverse. They had her desperately searching around the forest for the other lost half of herself.”

With that announcement, Rufus and Barkley stepped forward from the shadows of the bushes, flanking a little blond girl. The boys didn’t look much smaller than when I’d seen them, but I was stunned at the appearance of Marijka, who was indeed very little. Her wide eyes were rivaling those of Imogene, and she stepped so timidly as she went, as though any of us might jump forward and bite her at any moment.

“You only get one chance to meet someone,” Barkley said.

“Oh!” Rufus exclaimed, swatting his brother and biting his lip when he saw me.

“No!” Barkley said, equally upset that they’d missed their chance to pull a prank on me.

“It’s not the first time,” I said. “You’re Rufus and you’re Barkley,” I added pointing to each of them, hoping I’d gotten it right.

“But you’re so… little,” Rufus said, surprised.

“Boys!” Francesca chided, moving over to Marijka and sheltering her with an arm. Marijka scanned the group but her eyes landed on me. She slowly smiled.

“I know you,” she said. “You’re Liam. And you are much littler.”

“You know me, too,” said Thomas, stepping to my side and straightening up. I could have sworn he was doing it just to show the difference in our height, until he patted my back.

“Hey, bud!” he said, smiling at me.

Isaac jumped free from Capucine, wildly gesturing and shouting, “Sna-ay! Sna-ay!”

All eyes wheeled to see a large green form dangling down from a tree branch, right over Marijka’s head. She froze in alarm and then turned her head slowly.

“Dinna move, wee one,” Caelen said, striding towards her, his hand dipping to the ground to snatch up a thin branch.

It was too, late. Marijka caught the movement and shrieked.

We all jumped and the snake recoiled as well. Caelen scooped up Marijka by the waist while jousting the snake with the stick, which, unfortunately, made it try to attach to the stick and then fall to the ground as Caelen released his hold.

A snake in the tree is creepy, but one on the ground is definitely not a crowd-pleaser.

I can’t say who screamed next because I might have even done it. All I remember is seeing everyone scatter and Imogene bolt.

“No”” I yelled, taking off after her.

“Stoppen-Zie! Warten! Wait!”

I heard Renatta’s warnings from behind amongst the other yelling, but I had no time to explain. The pale flash of Imogene’s dress was barely visible as she ran flat out, dodging around tree trunks and past thick bushes.

“Liam!” said one of the twins pounding close behind. “Where’re we going?”

“The girl!” I shouted, not bothering to turn around. “She’s getting away.”

Running past another bluff of brush, I saw the trees had parted up ahead and there was the field I’d been looking for earlier. But no sign of Imogene.

“Hold up,” I said, stopping. Rufus grunted as his chest ran into my outstretched arm.

“Sorry,” I said, still scanning.

“Shh,” Rufus said, turning to warn Barkley to be quiet just as he was catching up to us.

We all strained to listen. The wind picked up, rustling the green stalks poking up from the field. Barkley turned first, seeing a man with ebony arms and a face shielded by a broad straw hat wading through the low growth. Rufus and I caught it too, and saw a small company of other workers farther back in the field, working their way forward. But Imogene had vanished.

“Like as not, that’s probably cane for sugar,” Barkley said.

“Where is she?” I asked looking around.

“Gonna rain soon,” the man said. “Boys bess’ not be messin’ out here when it comes beatin’ down on you’s.”

“Don’t say nothin’,” Rufus said beneath his breath, waving his hand at the man in the distance. “Better just get back to the others.”

I went to wave but Barkley swatted down my hand.

“Hey!” I protested.

“Hay, yourself,” Barkley said. “No need to get friendly with the slaves, unless you know that’s what you want to do.”

I turned around, shocked at the recognition that the man we’d just seen might have been a slave. It was one thing to know about them, and another to look at a man and imagine that he might be ordered around and owned by somebody. I physically shuddered.

“Come on,” Rufus said, leading the way back into the woods.

It seemed even darker this time. The man was right about the clouds. They were getting lower and turning a deep blue-grey.

Rufus paused and held up his hands to his mouth, making a really cool birdcall. We all stopped and heard a distant noise like an owl.

“Caelen,” one of them said, repeating his call once more and then rushing forward towards the sound as it answered back.

“I want to learn that,” I said.

“Ask Caelen,” said Barkley. “If there’s time. I thought he got it from Walker, Sr., but he says he knew it from when he was a kid in Scotland.”

We caught up with everyone else at the edge of the trees, looking towards the back end of a kind of barnyard. There were wooden fences with four donkeys penned up along with a horse. The pen was attached to a long wooden work shed that had a chimney at the far end.

“Why did you run away when I was calling to you?” Renatta asked, clearly ticked off.

“The girl, Imogene,” I said. “She’d seen me Drift.”

Isaac was smiling again, shyly looking up at me and then back to something in the air around him, as though he were conversing with invisible beings standing to each side of him.

“Isaac and I were there when Caelen and Gwendolyn arrived as well,” Capucine said. “There was a flash in the trees when the twins arrived, and that’s when he took off. But I don’t know what else Imogene saw.”

“Doesn’t make any difference now, does it?” Thomas asked.

“It might,” Renatta said. “But we haven’t even done the Post, and before anything happens to any of us,” she said, giving me a pointed stare, “I want to know that we have our Drift dates in record.”

“What’re y’all doin’ out there?” yelled a stern woman in a kerchief, wielding a long crowbar as she emerged from a door in the shed. I saw Imogene, too. She was lagging behind in the doorway, holding a broom in just the same way as the older woman.

“It’s alright, Madame Dalcour, they’re friends of mine,” Capucine said, stepping forward. She turned to Renatta and whispered, “Her mother.”

“May be friends to you, but just lookin’ like a pack ‘a trouble I don’t be needin’,” Mrs. Dalcour hissed as she reached the boundary of her penned yard.

“We were concerned your daughter might have been hurt when she fell in the forest,” Francesca said, stepping forward. “A blow to the head like that, it can make people see stars and all sorts of things.”

Mrs. Dalcour turned sharply to glare at Imogene, but the little girl shook her head frantically.

“Madame Dalcour,” Aureliano crooned as he stepped forward from the group with a gracious bow. “We are only travelers, caught at the disadvantage of inclement weather and seeking a temporary respite from what you can clearly see is going to be a deluge. If not for we gentlemen, could you offer shelter for our young ladies?”

“Somethin’ about you reminds me of the parable of Aesop,” Mrs. Dalcour answered cautiously, “The one about the fox and the raven and the piece of cheese.”

“But in my case, Madame, the fox can sing,” he responded quickly, “And we will take no cheese… unless it is offered. You have our word.”

We all nodded in agreement.

Imogene had been inching her way closer and had finally tugged on her mother’s skirt. Mrs. Dalcour bent down to hear the whispered message, and it was not short. The woman’s eyes darted up at me once and then back to the ground, she looked almost afraid.

“Je vous en prie, Madame Dalcour,” Capucine said.

“You let that boy out of your sight for one minute on my property,” Mrs. Dalcour said wagging her crowbar at Isaac, “And you will never darken my doorstep again without seein’ the business end of a hot poker starin’ you down, d’ye hear me?”

Isaac began to giggle as we all looked at him, but Capucine just gripped his hand tightly until he settled and then nodded at our new hostess.