Crystal Line

Chapter 6

Pirelee, 2017

Catherine pads over the lawn gazing up to the treehouse, thoughts and memories rushing through her. She struggles up the ladder as the steps are now too close together for her longer legs, but she gets there and tumbles into her treehouse.

It is exactly as she left it twenty-five years ago when she let go of her childish ways. When she became the woman of the house when Dad needed more help. No time to play when the dishes needed doing. Her gadgets still line the wall on the bench, all powered up. Her Father wasn't joking when he said he'd been looking after it, it is in perfect condition, albeit a little small for the now fully grown Catherine. It's amazing how smell can spark memories, and the smell of the wood and the damp air floods into her nose and straight into her brain. She explores the small space, memories flooding back to her from the good times she had in here for that wonderful week back in 1992. It's such a shame that she only used the treehouse for a week. After that day, she never used it again, not wanting any part of the life she had before. Burying those feelings of loss.

Catherine spots the old TV set tucked under the bench and slides it out into the middle of the room. She blows a cloud of dust from the inner workings, coughing a little. Inside are the bracket, the light bulb, even the microphone is still attached, but the crystal isn't there.

OF COURSE!

Catherine scurries around under the bench, moving boxes, checking the contents until she finds it, nestled at the back of the treehouse behind another box. It hasn't moved in twenty-five years. She holds it up the light and sees the ever fluxing clouds inside the crystal, then moves to the door to dangle her feet out as she did as a child.

From here, Catherine can see the Phoenix Mall she drove past on the way in, but she's more interested in the markings on the metal rings around the crystal. A few Internet image searches with her smartphone later and boom! "What the hell is Akkadian?", but the rune like language does look the same as on the crystal. She starts to decode the markings one by one, "Past", "Present", "Journey", "Return" she whispers. On the inner ring are more symbols, decoded as "1, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100". None of this makes sense to Catherine, but it's something. She's a step closer to understanding what this thing is.

She guesses, rotates and dials the outer ring so that the symbol for Present sits at the top. The flux in the crystal seems to slow, but no images can be made out clearly. Catherine dials the inner ring so that the '25' symbol rests in line with the Present symbol at the top. This time the clouds in the crystal slow even more, forming clear shapes. Still hard to see in the dim stormy light, Catherine fits the crystal back into the TV set and powers up the bulb.

An image can be clearly seen in the magnifying glass screen. But what is it? It looks like ... like a bag? Behind the bag, a wooden bench, but this bag looks familiar to Catherine, some memory evades her as she tries to remember. It's a backpack by the looks of it. A green backpack, with tin badges pinned to it! Why does that look so familiar? Shadows move in the room, someone is there, wherever 'there' is!

A girl walks into view and works on a radio set on the bench, she has her back turned to Catherine, who stares fascinated at the image. She can only just be a teenager, if that, but those clothes look a bit dated to Catherine. She notices that she can also hear what's happening on the other side of the crystal, the sound of movement, steps on the floor, things being moved about. 'Wait, that radio set...?' Catherine thinks to herself.

She chances it, "Hello?"

The girl stops dead in her tracks, "Hello?" she replies. The girl turns to face the crystal. "Who's there?"

"I can't really see you, the bag's in the way" Catherine remarks. The girl moves her backpack and stares directly into her crystal. It's at this point when Catherine's world is turned upside down. The reason? Well, she has come face to face with herself, but twenty-five years ago. That is Cat! That is her!