Once Beyond a Time (9 page)

Mom finishes by saying, “I know it sounds pretty unbelievable but …” And then we sit there in silence, hardly even looking at each other.

Finally, the old woman swallows hard, draws a tissue out of the pocket of her miniskirt and uses it to wipe the beads of perspiration off her forehead. She seems to be trying to collect herself before she finally leans forward and says, “You must not ever tell anyone else what you just told me.”

Mom looks shocked. “Why not?”

“You do, Mrs. Crane, and that’s the end of Black Mountain.”

“What do you mean?”

“People hear a story like this, and we got reporters and news cameras all over the place. We got hippies hiking over the hills and setting up communes in the mountains. We got religious freaks coming to see if there might be statues in the woods that shed real tears or bleed at the palms.”

I have no idea what she’s talking about. I can tell Mom’s trying to stay calm when she says, “Well, we don’t want anything like that going on, Mrs. Ponder. We just want to know what happened in our home last night.”

The old woman looks at the roach again. I know she’s dying to light it, and I wish she would but she doesn’t. “The legend is true then,” she says
slowly. “I’ve always wondered.”

“What legend?”

Vernita Ponder moistens her lips with her tongue and kneads together her silver-studded hands. “These hills are full of stories,” she begins. She’s talking quietly like she wants to make sure her words can’t be heard out on the floor of the shop. “One of the legends has it there’s a place in these mountains where all of time is happening at once.”

She looks at each one of us like she’s wondering whether we understand. Our blank stares tell her that we don’t.

“What do you mean, Vernita?” Aunt Donna is the only one brave enough to ask.

“Just what I said. For centuries, people have believed there’s a place in this chain of mountains where all of time is going on at once, so that sometimes, something happens such that you can see the goings-on of another time. Not only see it, but, talk to it, I guess you’d say. Can’t become a part of it, can’t enter the time, but you can talk to the people there.”

“Oh right,” I blurt out, leaning back heavily in the folding chair. I can’t help shaking my head and rolling my eyes. Either this lady’s nuts or she’s been hitting on something a whole lot stronger than weed this morning.

She looks at me, and I close my mouth. “You don’t believe me, missy?”

“Like, how am I supposed to believe that?” I say.

“Linda,” Mom starts, but the old lady raises her hand.

“It’s all right, Mrs. Crane.” She turns back to me and says, “What’s your answer, then, for what happened last night? You were there. You saw it yourself. How do you explain it?”

I think a minute, then shake my head. She’s got me there. What happened is just as unbelievable as Vernita Ponder’s explanation for it.

“So what you’re saying, Vernita,” Aunt Donna says, “is that what they saw last night were people who used to live in the house?”

“Or will live in the house. Time goes both ways.”

I sit up straight then, remembering something. “Did a family by the name of Buchanan ever live there?”

Vernita’s beady old eyes shift back to me. “Yes. Back to the turn of the century, or a bit later.”

“That was them! They were the ones that tried to shoot Dad!”

“And was there a fire in the town?” Mom asks. “A fire that destroyed much of Sutton Avenue?”

Another slow turn of the old woman’s head as she looks back at Mom. “1916,” she says.

I think I’m going to faint. Or throw up. Or both. I mean, even when I was on some of my best trips, high on a good batch of speed, I never came up with anything like this. Seeing into another time! Jumping Jehoshaphat!

None of us knows what to say. I mean, what
can
you say? It’s not like we’re talking about summer fashions here, or a new shade of hair dye. We’re talking about something we’ve never talked about before, something most people will never talk about in their whole entire lives.

Finally, Vernita Ponder says, “I remember that fire like it was yesterday.”

“You were here?” I ask.

“Of course. Where else would I be?”

“Then you knew the Buchanans?”

“Not all that good, but I knew who they were. I’d see them around town, of course. Seems Mr. Buchanan come down here for the cure.”

“The cure?”

“He had tuberculosis. Back then, folks’d come to these mountains from all over the place, thinking the air would cure them. And it did, too.”

Mom asks, “So the Buchanans weren’t native to the mountains?”

“Hardly,” Vernita Ponder says. “They come down from Chicago and were only here long enough for Palmer Buchanan to take the cure. That was a year, maybe. After that, they went back to Chicago. They did come back summers, though, and stay in one of the inns around here like the other tourists. I heard tell that after they died they sent themselves back
down here to be buried. I believe they’re in the cemetery over at the Valley View Baptist Church … but I don’t know for sure about that. They weren’t folks I cared for much.” She pauses, then adds, “Except for the youngest boy. He wasn’t a bad kid. He made himself useful by running errands for me and some of the other young mothers in town. He was young, but he was always responsible, that Mac.”

Mom and I look at each other. “Digger’s imaginary friend,” I say.

Mom nods. “Maybe not so imaginary.”

“Then Digger already knows.”

“Knows, but probably doesn’t understand. We’ll have to tell him—even though I hardly understand myself.” She pauses and looks at Vernita Ponder. “So you think the Buchanans were the people we saw in the house last night?”

The old lady nods. “Sounds like, anyway. I wouldn’t put it past Palmer Buchanan to pull a gun first and ask questions later. He loved the mountains, but he didn’t think much of the hill people.”

Mom frowns and her eyebrows scrunch up. “Mrs. Ponder, it’s a little hard to … well, accept all this. I mean, you’ve never actually encountered someone from another time yourself, have you?”

When Vernita Ponder shakes her head, the chandelier earrings send her earlobes flapping. “No,” she said. “Always thought I’d like to have that privilege, but never have.”

“So, you’ve always believed the legend might be true?”

“Of course I believed it. And now after hearing you talk, I know it’s true. In fact, I’ve had my suspicions that house was the place, but I just never knew for sure.”

“Do many people know about this legend, Mrs. Ponder?”

The old lady shrugs. “Folks don’t talk so much about legends anymore. But when I was a girl, plenty of people hoped to find this place where all of time was happening at once. They’d wander the mountains for days, weeks, hoping to come across the place where you can see into time, but no one ever did. Not that I knew of anyway. And now here it is, right
here in the town of Black Mountain. Been here all along. Imagine that.” She pauses again and looks like she’s thinking real hard. “I can only figure it must be like a volcano or something. It lies dormant for a while, years maybe, waiting for the right people. I never heard tell the Ciscos saw into another time when they was there.”

“Why do you suppose that is?” Aunt Donna asks.

Vernita Ponder shrugs. “It’s like the Brown Mountain lights, I reckon. You heard of them?”

Mom and I both shake our heads.

“Well, over to Brown Mountain strange lights have appeared, going on for centuries now. No one can explain them. Many people have tried, but no one can say for sure what the lights are. But the thing is, not many people have seen them. Only a handful. Some people go back again and again, waiting and hoping just to catch a glimpse, only to be disappointed. Some others might go one time, twice, and there’s the lights, dancing over the ridge of Brown Mountain, sure as the stars. Who knows why one person sees them and another don’t. Only way I can explain it is to say, it’s a gift.”

“A gift?” Mom asks.

“A gift,” Vernita Ponder repeats.

Mom looks worried. “But is it evil? Is the house evil?”

The wrinkled old face softens for the first time. “Of course not,” she says. “That part of the legend is sure. That place is good. It’s a good gift.”

Then she pushes back her chair and rises. “One more thing,” she says, her stoniness returning as she looks from Aunt Donna to Mom to me. “I’m glad to have met you today, and I’m glad to finally know that the legend is true, that there really is a place …” Her words trail off then, and she starts staring into space like she’s the one who’s suddenly seeing people from another time or something. But in the next minute she snaps back and says, “But as far as the rest of the town goes, this conversation never happened.” And then she clickity-clacks her way back into the shop on her stilettos, letting us know that this discussion we never had is now over.

Thursday, July 18, 1968

E
VERY GOOD GIFT
and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights … but never have I heard of a gift like this. It’s outside the realm not only of my own experience, but of all that I know about God and Scripture.

“Can it really be possible?” I say. I lift a fork laden with roast beef to my lips, lower it without eating. “Who is this Velveta Ponder anyway?”

“Vernita,” Meg quietly corrects me. “It’s Vernita Ponder. And I already told you. She’s an elderly woman who has lived in these mountains all her life. That’s why Donna thought we should talk with her.”

“She’s pretty weird, Dad,” Linda throws in. “But you’ve got to admit, what happened last night was pretty weird too. I mean, how many times do people just appear in your house, shoot at you, and then disappear?”

“And I missed the whole thing!” Digger cries, throwing his elbows onto the table and pushing his fists against his cheeks. “Why didn’t you call me? Next time call me. I always miss the good stuff.”

“Yeah, well, not really, Digger,” Linda says. “You’ve seen that kid Mac, haven’t you? Remember, we told you he’s one of those people from that other time.”

“Yeah.” He’s still pouting, but he nods.

“So, where he is it isn’t 1968. It’s 1916.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Digger sits up suddenly, his face full of excitement. “Cool!”

“Now listen,” I say, “we don’t know that for sure.”

“But Sheldon,” Meg protests, “what other explanation can there be?”

“I don’t know, but I know there must be one. This all-of-time-happening-at-once legend—it’s … it’s, well, I’m trying to reconcile it with what I know about God.”

“But Dad!” Digger says. “You don’t know every single little thing about God, do you?”

“Well—”

“Yeah, Dad,” Linda interrupts. “And like you’re always saying anyway, all things are possible with God. Remember that one?”

I open my mouth to respond, but Meg jumps in first. “I seem to remember you preaching on God being—what was it?—the Alpha and the Omega, right? The beginning and the end. I distinctly remember you saying he sees the end from the beginning. Maybe it has something to do with that.”

I am silenced.

No, Digger, I do not know everything about God.

And yes, Linda, with God all things are possible.

And yes again, Meg, God is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.

But a place in this finite world where all of time is happening at once?

Can it really be possible?

Friday, July 19, 1968

“Y
OUR DAD TRIED
to shoot my dad,” I say.

“Yeah, I know,” Austin says. “So, what happened?”

“He missed by about fifty years.”

Austin and I are staring at each other, and I’m waiting for him to say something. Instead, he’s just standing there completely still, and his face is bunched up like his stomach hurts. “I don’t understand what you mean,” he finally says. He’s speaking slowly like he thinks I have to read his lips or something. “What’s going on here? Do you know?”

I nod. “Sit down,” I say, pointing with my thumb toward a spot on the porch steps beside me. I have to admit, I’ve kind of been sitting here hoping he’d show up. You know, like I’d catch him coming home from work again because I’ve been wanting to talk with him about what’s going on around here.

He hardly takes his eyes off me while he climbs the steps. He’s acting like if he takes his eyes off me, I’ll start swinging at him for his dad trying to shoot my dad. He settles himself on the top step and retrieves a pack of cigarettes from the front pocket of his overalls.

“Hey, can I have one of those?” I ask.

I don’t like the way his eyes pop open in surprise. “You smoke?” he asks.

“Whenever I can get my hands on a cigarette, I do.”

“I don’t know many girls who smoke.”

“That’s because your generation was full of prudes.”