Malachi 4:6 (Ch20)

"He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.” -Malachi 4:6.

New to Theda’s Time Machine? Start from Chapter 1:

Flamethrower, Interrupted

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“Get in! Quick!” Jackson growled, one hand pulling the passenger door open and the other covering his nose and mouth. Tears watered out of his narrowed eyes in small rivers.

The last thing Theda expected on this bizarre day was to be thrilled to see Private Asa Jackson, but when she caught site of Jackson’s car framed in between the aeroplane’s propellers, not hitching a ride with him and away from that insane Mr. Conlin wasn’t even a consideration. She hurried to the edge of the field, one hand holding her cloche hat firmly down as her hair whipped from its pins. The stench of rancid burning tainted the violent wind. The massive black cloud that had appeared on the horizon while Conlin spun his absurd time travel tale had expanded to engulf half the sky and it was fast on its way to claiming the other half.

Jackson held the door for her and she jumped in, pulling a lemon verbena scented handkerchief from where it was balled in her coat pocket and held it over her nose while he sat down hard in the driver’s seat, slamming the door. “What in God’s name is that?” She rasped through the fabric.

He wiped at his eyes. “They’re burning the animal manure. Horses and donkeys. Pigs. There’s so much dung they don’t know what to do with it, so they burn it.”

“Whatever happened to digging a hole?” She coughed, trying to clear her sinuses of the stench.

“You ever try to dig a pit big enough to hold the dung of five-thousand horses and seven thousand pigs? When the ground’s frozen?”

“There must be a better way other than asphyxiation for everyone.”

“When you come up with it, tell Major Whittaker. I’m certain he’d love to hear your suggestions.”

She glanced at him. Again, he seemed different. That country boy manner was all but gone. “Ah, yes. Major Whittaker. The last time I saw him, he was sitting in my parlor and the next thing I knew, my father was off to Kansas.”

“He has a way of convincing people to do what he wants.” He squinted closer to the windshield. “Dust storm is brewing. Makes the smoke smell even better when it’s mixed with dirt.”

“Wonderful,” she pulled her hat off and her hair tumbled over her shoulders.

Jackson side-eyed her. “Welcome to Kansas.” He drove the car along the rest of the field, avoiding people dispersing into the streets covering their faces with hands or scarves. She was about to ask him to take her back to the theater so she could meet up with Violet, but the flash of a yellow car on the opposite side of the field stayed her words and she turned her head to watch the dust storm unfold.

“Your father asked me to bring you to the General Building,” Jackson slowed to allow a group of soldiers with their heads down hurry across the street. He turned on the headlamps. “He heard that you were out wandering around by the planes and wanted me to find you.”

“Wonderful. Thank you.” She gathered her hair but it was no use. Half her pins were gone and suddenly a rare surge of self-consciousness came over her. I must look like Medusa.

“Who were you talking to there?” Jackson blurted. “I thought I saw someone else by the planes.”

She waved her hand and said airily, “Oh, some soldier who was boring me with details of the engines.”

“Girls usually don’t care about mechanics. He should’ve known that.”

She could tell he was baiting her and refused to bite, keeping her eyes forward. I have to think! Her mind wouldn’t accept such nonsense as time travel. A time traveling doctor named Thrax who was actually creating the flu? What utter rubbish! Taking me for an idiot!

She and Dr. Evora, during one of their many lengthy nightly conversations, spoke about such men and women who pretended to be mystical or in possession of a supernatural power. During her father’s youth as the Victorians made way for the Edwardians, the craze for seances was at the height of its popularity. It infuriated her father how these fakers for their own financial gain would take advantage of people longing for one last conversation with a lost loved one. Like those Fox Sisters in New York who moaned and capered while speaking to ghosts, the desperation of family members pulsing around the table, all the while picking their pockets empty of cash. You need to keep your ears open when people talk, Theda, he said. And hear the things they don’t say as just as important as the things they do say. This after an excited Violet burst home with news of a photograph she’d seen at her girlfriend’s house of a phantasm swirling from the man’s mouth. Don’t believe everything you hear and half of what you see. And less than half especially if it involves an obviously faked photograph.

Fake photograph. Yes, of course. That was Maxim in the picture. There was no doubt about that. Maxim had had an entire life before her and for all she knew could have been arrested countless times. It had to be an old arrest photograph with the dates changed. Easy. It was obviously a bogus date.

But a slight uncertainty pulled at her. The facts weren’t adding up properly, something her father always told her not to ignore. It’s easy to accept your first conclusion about anything, but always remember that there was never a scientist who was right all the time, and especially not right on the first try. She allowed her mind to go there. That wasn’t a young Maxim in that photograph. The face there was older, rougher than the one she knew only a week ago. Even the expression in his eyes was furious, as if the anger in him had been dialed up ten notches.

But those other documents? Garbage. Even that strange one with the slick substance coating it. Another parlor trick in Conlin’s hat. She snorted.

“Something funny?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“What’s going on now?” He muttered. The front of the General Building was littered with cars and large military Packard trucks, all parked haphazardly. “I’ll park in the back lot.” Jackson maneuvered the vehicle in a wide circle and turned the car around.

Far down the road, a yellow car sped toward them. Theda’s breath quickened.

Jackson drove carefully through the parked cars and trucks and they entered the fenced in back lot.

“Listen,” he pulled the car close to the building by the back entrance. “You wait here and I’ll go in and…”

Theda had the car door opened before he even shifted into park. “Hey,” he started, but she threw the balled up handkerchief in his face, startling him.

Her hand was on the doorknob when he caught her by the upper arm. “What the hell are you doing?” He turned her to face him.

“Let me go,” she bit off each word. “I’m going in to see my father.”

“Not in there, you’re not.”

The door burst open, causing him to drop her arm as they separated. A soldier strode past, but stopped. “Private Jackson, what are you doing?”

It was that nasty Peterson from the night of the dance. His left eye had an array of blues, purples and yellows circling it, the signs of a bruise going through the brutally ugly first phase of healing. He stood directly in front of Jackson who straightened up and began to salute. His eyes flickered toward her, but she slipped through the door.

It was the kitchens. Her eyes adjusted to the bright overhead lights that gleamed off the white porcelain and chrome fixtures. It reeked of bleach so strong it was as if it were cleaned just moments before. Another odor, a sour one, hung just above the bleach, like a dirty room with a weeks-old dead mouse.

In front of her was a closed door and from somewhere on the other side of that door, voices raised in anger.

“Your answers are insufficient!”

“Mr. Van Horn,” a familiar voice said. “I’ve told you all that I am able. I’ve presented the facts to you with the utmost accuracy. It is the truth.”

“Do not speak to me of truth! Your entire operation here reeks of untruth. Do you think you can fool everyone? Never speak to me of truth. You know not the meaning of that word.”

“Mr. Van Horn,” the voice continued and she placed it. Dr. Harris from the Infirmary.

“I want to see my son. You cannot deny me that right. I’m his father. It’s my right.” The sound of a fist hitting something hard.

“Mr. Van Horn, please understand our circumstances,” Dr. Harris went on. “He had to be buried, and fast. If we allow you to take the diseased body, you could put your whole community at risk of infection. I know you might not understand just what that means…”

Van Horn. The man they brought in. The one half frozen. He’s dead?

“I’m no fool. You act as if we just walked out of the countryside and never breathed the air of modernity.”

“Then you should have no trouble at all understanding why we had to bury your son’s body as soon as he passed away,” Dr. Harris said. “Consumption is highly contagious, and an outbreak on a military base will guarantee more deaths. You have to understand why the precaution was taken.” His voice took on a musical cadence.

“I just want to see my son,” his voice lowered in anguish. “That’s all. I just want to see him.”

The door opened behind her and Jackson marched in and from the look on his face, the meeting with Peterson came up short. “Let’s go. Now. If you don’t move I’ll pick you up and haul you out of here.”

She crossed her arms. “Not before I see my father.”

“Peterson just ordered me to get you out of here. And I’m not going to be courtmartialed over your stupidity. Got it?” From behind the door, the voices rose again and this time another baritone joined in the fray. Father!

“Peterson was on his way to get me to keep you out of here. By orders of your father. So let’s go. Now.”

She hesitated, drawn to her father’s voice. Jackson, gently this time, took her upper arm. “Let’s go,” he said again. “Please.”

She allowed herself to be led back to the car. When they were both in, she asked, “who was that?”

He started the car and for a moment she thought he wouldn’t answer. “It was the father of that man you saw brought into the Infirmary yesterday.

So she had been right. “He died?”

“Yeah, he’s dead.”

“What did he die of?”

“Apparently something catching. They planted him right away. Father’s angry as hell. I would be, too, if they didn’t let me take my boy home to be buried.” He shifted the car into reverse and arced away from the building, shifted into drive and hit the gas so hard she was thrown back into the seat. But that was just fine. Although her father was in that building, she wanted to get as far away from it and the elder Van Horn. No sign of the yellow Martin Wasp, but there were other signs.

While she was arguing with Jackson in that kitchen, she saw two things.

The first was a gas mask, hanging from a peg on an interior cellar door. Its hollow eyes fathomless in the white and silver room.

And, on that same doorway, white feathers stuck to the door frame.