The Time Tower (the first visit)

Chapter 10

Pima felt the figure behind her, seething with rage, but she didn't have the energy to
care anymore. She turned, moving in slow motion, to face the guardian, and registered with
shock that it still wore Neeman's face.

She had finally broken free of her memories of Neeman, escaped into the past. Akish
and her mother and that suffering stranger...they were the ghosts that should be greeting her.

As if it heard her thoughts, the figure's face began to change. Its features shifted and
softened and rearranged themselves until Akish stood there staring back at her. Its anger
disappeared as well, replaced by a mask of sorrow and curiosity which now seemed halfway
genuine.

Pima's heart ached to see his face; she flinched under its gaze. As she watched, it
swept a hand down its front, like it was brushing away dust, and the bloodstains on its shirt were
washed away.

Its eyes slid past her and fixed on a point further up the stairs. The hairs on the back of
Pima's neck stood on end as she glanced behind her and up, up - to the door that stood two
flights above them.

How many steps? How many years? Darkness lurked in the space behind the door. She
couldn't see anything beyond it, but it couldn't be the top of the Tower. Not yet.

That's too easy, Pima thought with a grim smile.

One step. Two. She flung a hand out to catch the wall. Her vision swam. The stairway
seemed to spin before her, and out of the walls sprang memories unbidden. A wave of emotions
overcame her at this new assault. Fear, hope, joy, guilt, sadness, love, hate. Whatever she had
felt at the time.

Memories she didn't even remember were pulled to the front of her mind and played out
before her eyes, which burned with tears. Even with her eyes squeezed shut, they found her,
and each step felt heavier than the last.
Voices echoed from wall to wall, from one side of her head to another, but one voice
rose above the din along with an image of her standing in front of her mother, face downturned.
She was covered from head to toe in mud, and a broken bowl lay at her feet.

Her mother reached down and lifted her chin, silencing her mumbled apology. "I know. I
know. Thank you for being honest. Thank you for saying that you would go back and choose to
do something different. But, love"---she knelt, still holding onto Pima's face, making sure the
little girl heard her---"you can't change the past. You can only move forward and try to do better.
Do better, okay?"

The irony wasn't lost on Pima. All her life, she had been chasing the future while those
she loved had been trying to escape the past. But now it was she who was chasing the past.

The scene dissolved as her mother drew her close for a hug, and Pima halted, her
fingers now clutching the edge of a doorframe. Leaning against the wall and breathing heavily,
she willed the world around her to stop spinning before opening her eyes. The silent presence
that had followed her all this way stood behind her, peering over her shoulder at the memory. ---
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They were moving again - Mom, Akish, and her. She knew that, but she didn't know why. She
clutched her pillow to her chest. She'd stuffed her treasure into it - her pink bead necklace, the smooth
river stone Akish had found her, the shiny silver thimble she had borrowed from her mother's sewing kit,
a crayon drawing of her family, and the pretty yellow flowers she'd picked from the patch that grew
outside her window.

She stood in front of her brother, pressing back against his legs, as she gawked up at the horse.
Her mother had gotten it from...someone...to help them move their things...somewhere.

The older Pima squinted her eyes and shook her head. Why couldn't she remember?

She must be very young. Younger than in the other memories. Her mother came out of their
house with one more load for the horse.

"Mom, where are we going?" Akish asked. When she didn't answer him, his voice rose, whiny and
fearful. "We can't leave! How will Dad find us?"

"Akish! I told you. Your father---" She pressed her white knuckles against her mouth and took in a
lungful of air through her nose. In and out and in. She considered Pima and Akish for a moment before
dropping her hands and offering them a weak smile.

"Come. We have to get going. I promise everything we need will be waiting for us." She gathered
the ends of the horse's leash in one hand and held out her other hand for Pima's. Pima turned and fixed
her big brown eyes on her brother.

Akish sighed and hoisted her up onto his back. It was a bit awkward with his pack and the pillow.
He reached back and took the pillow from her. "It'll be fine," he said when she protested. He worked it
carefully beneath one of the ropes that held their luggage on the horse's back.

"I've got her," he told their mother.

"Well....Well then, I...We have a little ways to go today. How about a story? Do you remember
what I told you about the Tower of Time?"

Pima rested her head on top of Akish's and listened to the calming tone of her mother's voice.

"A long, long time ago - four years - a group of people got together to find a solution to the
question of Time. The world wasn't how it is now. The pollution was appalling. No one was taking care of
the land, or their neighbors, the way that we should. It was a dirty time. But we might have been able to do
something about it then. I believed that, so I..." Her voice trailed off as her eyes took on a faraway look.

"I supported the group of scientists and engineers - thinkers, builders, problem solvers - who
thought they had discovered the only solution.

"They thought they'd discovered magic."

She shot a rueful smile at her two rapt listeners.

"But we know that magic doesn't exist, not in the way that most people wish it would."

Akish nodded, and Pima lifted her head to copy him, trying to appear wise.

"You can't turn back time," Mother continued. "But, oh, they tried. Brave, smart men and women,
your father among them. They...we thought if we could use the Tower to turn back the clock, return Pavta
and the world to an earlier time, we could fix our mistakes. It wasn't supposed to poison the land or the
people. It wasn't supposed to be able to go in the opposite direction.

"But when the Tower was activated, it didn't move time backward. It moved forward. Forward in
time instead of into the past, and its effects continued to spread. Your father, I know...I know regretted
building the Tower. Even before it was activated. If I had just gotten the others to listen to him, things
might have been different."
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