Time

Only three days had passed since my father’s funeral. His passing had not been a surprise. He had weathered many battles in his life, but in the end, it was a battle with cancer he could not overcome. I had moved home three months ago to help my mother prepare for the inevitable, but it was her strength I found myself relying upon as she held my father’s hand, and he took his last breath. I watched her smile and lean forward to kiss him one last time, knowing in her heart that he would feel no more pain. Now here we sat, clock ticking in the background. She held a shoebox in her slightly trembling hands. I recognized it as the box my father gave my mother on Christmas 15 years ago. The heels she always looked at in the window of the department store. The ones she had replaced of late with slippers and comfy socks. “Your Father didn’t want you to have this,” she said. I took the box and nervously opened it. Inside was a soft leather pouch sealed with a golden clasp. My heart began to race. I had seen this before.

On my tenth birthday my family travelled, for a summer, to visit my Uncle at his estate in Northern Italy. The huge mansion was nestled in the hills surrounding Lake Como and was unlike anything I had ever seen before. Our family lived in the old steel country of Ohio in a town that had seen better days. I can still remember canoeing on the lake and spending hours in the giant library. Day after day I climbed ladders attached to bookshelves reaching the ceiling. Every book I took off the shelf, from The Time Machine, to Journey to the Center of the Earth, was a first edition as mint as the day they came off the press. It was in this place I first saw the leather pouch I now held in my hands. I was under a desk, trying to coax my Uncle’s cat out from behind a stack of books, when my parents and Uncle burst through the door. They were speaking in hushed tones. My father, who was a gentle man, had a look of fury in his eyes I had never seen before or after that day. He shoved the pouch into my Uncle’s chest. “Stay away from my Son,” he said. “How can you keep this from him?” My Uncle retorted. “It drove father mad and I fear it is doing the same to you,” Father said. Suddenly, the cat darted from its hiding spot, knocking a book to the floor in its haste. My mother turned and ushered them both back through the doorway. We were on a plane the next day and It was the last day I saw my Uncle.

I opened the pouch. Inside was a faded envelope filled with $20,000, a golden pin shaped like an infinity symbol and note that read: If you are reading this, it must mean your father has passed. I am truly sorry that your father and I could not resolve our differences before his death. I only hope that you will give me the chance to make things right. Here is a small token of my sincerity. Use this money to settle your affairs and return to Italy to claim what is rightfully yours. P.s. the pin was your grandfathers. Never let it out of your sight. The cryptic note made even more confusing by the series of strange symbols scrawled across the bottom of the page, β Ħ f Ω Ŏ ∞.

“Your father always wanted to live a simple life and he wanted you to be your own man and make your own way. He never wanted you to be burdened by the trappings of his family’s past,” Mother said. I felt a lump beginning to form in my throat. Something about the symbols sent shivers up my spine. They seemed familiar, although, I had never laid my eyes on them before. “I can say no more.” Mother said as she stood to leave. “You are a good man. You will make your father proud and do what your Uncle never could.” She kissed me on the cheek and made her exit.”

The next day I was paying off the debt incurred from my father’s funeral and purchasing a first-class ticket to Italy. I had never held this much money in my hand before and I had also never spent so much money in just two days. At the very least I will get my chance to travel abroad in style I thought to myself, hoping that the strange dread I was feeling in the pit of my stomach was only pre-flight jitters and not an indication of things to come.

Italy was everything that I remembered and more. The architecture and lush landscape meant so much more to me now that I appreciated the value of the rustic nature of history and culture. It was springtime and the blossoms accentuated the sweet, albeit alien, scent of the countryside. My mind wandered to playing, in the garden of my Uncle’s estate. It’s funny how smells tend to transport us through time to another place entirely.

The house looked as though it had been plucked from time. It was a perfect mixture of old-world style and modern chic. As I stepped out of the taxi, I made a mental note to begin learning some useful Italian phrases. Luckily, the generous tip I gave the driver was a universal thank you. I stood staring up at a large gate and pressed the intercom, but before I released the button the gate began to swing open accompanied by an unmistakable buzz. The estate was immaculate. The grounds were perfectly curated, but nothing could dampen the sense of lonely emptiness nagging my every step.

The woman who opened the door was tall with perfect posture and an all-business countenance. She would have been intimidating if her smile didn’t diffuse the tension. “Welcome to your new home,” she said. “May I take your things to the bedroom?” I fumbled with my luggage. “No worries, I can manage,” I tried to sound firm. “I insist,” she replied. She reached for my bags and began to make her way up a grand staircase. She paused. “If you’re not too tired, the answers you seek are waiting in the library.” She turned and continued on her way. I was tired, but also intrigued. The profound mystery of the previous weeks had been in stark contrast to the entirety of my life.

I made my way to the library. The large doors creaked open, pouring midday sun into the dimly lit hall. It was nothing like I remembered. The stacks of one of a kind first-editions were gone. What decorations deemed of great importance, once occupying space on the shelves, were now replaced by hundreds, maybe thousands of well-worn notebooks and journals. Not a single book remained. I reached for a notebook with frayed edges and began to flip through the pages. Page after page was filled with the same strange symbols from my Uncle’s message, the handwriting an undoubted match. Every book I grabbed was the same. I began to make my way up the winding cast iron staircase leading to a prominent desk and a terrace overlooking the lake. The desk was a dark wood covered in ornate carvings. The elegant drapes lining the opening to the terrace slowly swayed in the breeze, yet despite the grandiosity of the room, my eyes were immediately drawn to the black leather notebook sitting on the desk.

The distinct crack of the leather spine filled the room. It read:

Dear Nephew, the true history of our family might seem outlandish. I beg you to keep an open mind. You come from a long line of scientists, although, at one time we were called alchemists and madmen. Despite the judgement of those who did not understand our science, we persevered in our singular goal; to control time itself.

The symbols I have provided to you in this notebook are the fruits of those labors, but of their exact origin I can only speculate. These symbols, when arranged in the proper order, open a gateway through time and the key is the pin you now have in your possession. When one holds tight to the small trinket and completes the necessary equation they will be transported to the time of their choosing. How far back is only limited by the strength of your will.

Your grandfather used this tool to amass the great wealth I have left in your name. As for myself, I first focused on frivolity and then in my later years, on the collection of knowledge, but heed my words. Dabbling in the art of time manipulation comes at a cost. With every journey into the bowels of time a single ripple was created and upon return, that ripple was felt as a wave. The man I was becoming, with every book I brought back, was unnatural. Memories re-written, one by one, into something unrecognizable. I began to live every moment trying to remember a thought just out of my grasp. So, I resigned myself to returning the books and trinkets I had stolen from the past. Unfortunately, I found that with every book I returned another piece of my mind would slip away. The man I was, ceased to exist, but the man I had become was disappearing as piece by piece. I pressed on.

My mind began to slip, and I was forced to put safeguards into place to protect my estate and ensure your birthright. Even now the power of time still draws me in despite the destruction of my own life. I hold hope that you will do what I could not and wield this power for good.

I have but a handful of books left to return, and I fear it will be my undoing. It has been days since I remembered to eat, and I have been reduced to dictating this letter in pieces to my nurse. At times I find myself standing in the lawn for hours with no recollection of how I got there.

The message abruptly ended, punctuated by a series of unintelligible scribbles trailing off the side of the page. My heart was racing. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement on the lawn. It was my Uncle, his hair a stark white and his posture sunken into a high-backed wheelchair. The nurse attending him faced him towards the water.

I stood and ran to his side. “Uncle!” I cried. His eyes barely moved as if he was breathing, yet not alive. I began to sob. The horror of this man, who through his own lust for knowledge erased his own existence, gripped me to my core. I began to feel dizzy at the thought of succumbing to my own lusts for power. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the accursed trinket. Without another thought, I threw the pin, as far as I could, into the lake. I turned to face my uncle. His eyes were focused on the spot where the pin had sunken into the lake and tears were streaming down his face. He began to moan and grunt wildly until his nurse returned to bring him back into the house, leaving me to stand alone shaken and confused.

Had I done the right thing? I sat on the grass for an hour pondering what I had done, until as if under a spell, I began to remove my shoes and moved towards the water. I waded in until the water was just below my chin. Resolving myself unto what I had to do, I took a deep breath and began to dive, deeper into the water searching for what was rightfully mine.