The widow Thompson took her first step onto her porch and could feel something had changed. It was as though the electricity's been returned after a long winter in the dark. Unexpectedly losing her husband and oldest son had ripped her life apart. But every step closer to the front door, the feeling became more unmistakable.
After four years lost, Peter's heartbeat slammed in his chest when the rattle of the front door announced his mother's arrival. He shouted her name as he all but knocked her to the floor. He gripped her tight until she pulled him away to look at his face.
"You haven't aged a day," she said through sobs of joy.
"I'm afraid that will be the least confusing change," Peter said, closing the front door and leading her inside. "You need to meet someone. Mom, this is Curt."
Sitting on the couch next to Greg was a second blond boy, a mirror image of her youngest son. Maria Thompson fell to her knees. She didn't even try to stop the tears that flowed from her eyes as her boys supported her on both sides.
Greg nodded to his twin. Curt ran to join the trio on the floor in the middle of the room.
Greg saw the sincerity on his twin's face. It was a look he knew well.
Curt joined the group not only in the emotional embrace, but in the tears and hitched breathing of the rest of his family. He watched his new brother squeeze his eyes shut as his mother held his face and kissed his forehead.
"I brought Peter back, Mom. I had to do it! You will never believe how far I went to do it, and that's why Curt is here now. Without him, Peter would have been lost forever..."
"Oh Greg-ers! What has happened to my boy! I left you this morning, a boy content to waste his summer at the river and playing with that stupid old truck! I come back to find a responsible young man! It is as if you had aged five years in one afternoon! Where did all this drive and maturity come from? I'm more bewildered by the person you have suddenly become than anything..."
"Tell me! Tell me it all! I have to know!" She said through her tears. "Where did my boy come back from with a twin and his lost brother? You all look the same age..."
The stun did not fade for days. Greg heard his mother step out of the room, speaking on the phone with work, explaining away the missed days. But his family was happy. All the concerns of the outside world seemed like nothing more than a gust of wind through the kitchen window, causing the houseplants to sway.
The time together, telling tales of adventure and years misplaced, seemed to have no end, until the outside world abruptly came seeping in.
Greg realized that there would have to be changes. In a small town, hard questions would be asked.
As a reunited family, the decision was made. In the middle of the night on their third night home, the Thompsons packed their belongings and left for a desert town to the south.
Although Greg could no longer travel instantaneously by flipping a coin, he never stopped taking long drives in his truck. He was always accompanied by his middle name when visiting the college town of a particular girl that he knew from Grass Valley.
Curt did not talk much on the trips, but was recognized by everyone he met as a quick learner and far more intelligent than he first appeared.
Greg Thompson and his two brothers lived everyday of the remainder of their lives looking over their shoulder. Not a day went by that Greg didn't expect towering lizard-man to appear; the Time Tourists having had changed their minds on the conditions of his release. He was always extra observant for groups of people, slightly out of place, standing on a rooftops, watching his movements with detached curiosity.
Andrea went back to San Francisco after dropping the boys in Grass Valley. She kept the coin tucked down her shirt, preferring to take the Amtrak across the valley to the bay. She sat with her head pressed to the tinted glass as she passed through the agricultural towns. This type of travel suited her, she decided. It gave her appreciation for the distances that she crossed. She got off the train and took another into the city, reaching her home.
Her homecoming felt unimportant; a drop of lemon juice in a swimming pool of life experiences. The part that stuck with her the strongest, through the montage of feelings associated with her return, was the quickness her mother got over her lost daughter's homecoming. A bed had to be made up in her old room in their apartment. Her mother had a new boyfriend and soon she was left alone, looking up at the ceiling of a familiar, yet dull place.
She decided to give it a few days. She felt so out of place, a former Intern walking around stained and cracked city streets that she once knew. She wanted to scream at everyone she passed, "In a couple hundred years, this neighborhood will be forgotten! It will be a stinking industrial ghost town!" But she knew she had to keep her knowledge to herself... And it was burning her up inside.
Before long, it became too much. Andrea Turner returned home after an afternoon of walking and spun the coin as soon as she got into her room. She departed without a word, taking nothing along with her. The white spherical bubble created by the coin was comforting and calming, putting out the fire in her chest.
"You have activated this travel device. Please state where in time or space you would like to go."
"Take me back to the present," she said, the ironic words sending a shiver up her spine.
It did not take long to find the Mistress in her favorite department: timeline preservation.
"What are you doing back here," Zala Jibboom asked in a dismissive tone.
"What happened to Fenton?" Andrea probed.
"I let him return to his retirement," the Mistress answered. "It seems he betrayed us both, but at least I was able to recover those coins..."
"You took pity on him, just as you did the Enforcers."
"The Garlon were my first mistake," the Mistress said. "I couldn't exterminate them. You see, I do have a heart, despite what some may think of me and my other failings."
"Would you ever take exception to me? I only ran to save myself. Much like you..."
"What do you want young lady? I have already let you keep that last coin."
"The present is my life now," Andrea said. "Regardless of the way I feel about certain practices, this is all I know. I don't want to become jaded like Fenton did, but if I go back to my own time, I will."
"You may have your job back," the Mistress said without any deliberation. "Put on a Supervisors blue and check in with the tourism department. I'm sure a lighter side of this work will suit you for awhile."
"Thank you, Mistress," Andrea said and bowed. She began to take off the chain that held the fourth time coin, but Zala stopped her.
"Keep it. One day I may make you my replacement. But until that time comes, you keep that old bronze coin as a reminder. Now, go. The Keepers duties are never done."
CHAPTER 30