The Power Station

It was a long ride to nowhere, but there was no place they’d rather be. The city and suburbs gave way to fields of seven-foot cornstalks and then dense, late-summer forest. In the back seat the girls went from “I Spy” to adventure songs that started with “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” and lingered on “We Are the Dinosaurs.” Royce hadn’t seen his daughters so excited since before the divorce, and they somehow found more energy when the thrum of pavement yielded to the crunch of gravel.

Tabitha gave voice to the hope in both girls’ hearts. “Wow! Can we unbuckle?”

“Sure,” Royce said, eliciting the click and swish of seatbelts. “The only thing we’ll find here might be a stray deer.”

“Or a mommy deer with her babies,” Claire said.

Claire’s innocent corrections never failed to bring Royce a good-natured laugh, a fact that usually rankled her more serious older sister. Today Tabbie just smiled and scanned the passing trees. Claire, who still rode a booster, crouched and craned her neck for any sign of birds or deer or—

“Squirrels!” Tabbie cheered.

“Where?” Claire asked, and they were both behind the driver’s seat, foreheads pressed against the glass, fingers and jumbled phrases indicating branches. Normally, this would lead to quarreling. Tabbie was six years older, a card-carrying tween who valued personal space above all else. Again, not today. Today they giggled and laughed and jockeyed playfully for a better view.

Royce spotted the cemetery instants before his girls. Maybe a hundred worn headstones in a meadow encircled by a decayed rock wall, at its heart stood a ten-foot statue of Mary, palms outward, head inclined. Over the entrance hung ornate characters in wrought iron: WANDERER’S REST.

The girls stared as they passed by. After the forest enclosed them again, Tabbie asked, “Who gets buried way out here?”

Royce hadn’t seen a house or side road in over twenty minutes. Eager to regain some excitement, he offered a casual, “Wanderers, I guess,” and then started chanting, “We are the dinosaurs!”

***

They found the pavilion first, a half-dozen picnic tables beneath worn rafters. A thin line of birch and hackberries separated it from a river they may have been following for miles without glimpsing. Ahead, the forest receded from an immense clearing. Royce saw only one other structure, an odd concrete building jutting from the center of the field, an odd place for a tool shed.

Parking for maybe three cars could be had next to the pavilion, which was also where a cracked concrete boat launch angled to the water’s edge. Another car occupied the spot nearest the water, and Royce frowned. Even here, he couldn’t get time alone with his girls.

Before he could turn the key, Tabbie had her door open, and both children tumbled out. Tabbie gasped and asked, “Wow! Do you want to run?”

Royce exhaled for what felt like the first time in months. Joe hadn’t steered them wrong with this place. He may be the bastard who stole Royce’s wife, but he was also Royce’s brother, and Joe wanted Tabbie and Claire to enjoy their weekends with Dad.

Claire squealed, and Royce watched them run, laughing and circling each other, all the weight of life shed in this wondrous new place. He leaned against the side of the Impala, hearing its cooling ticks and hisses, and considered the other car. Another Chevy, but a Malibu, and the exact shade of blue. Cars had so little variety of color these days. It had made short work of the color game when they used to take the girls on trips.

Whoever had brought the Malibu was nowhere to be seen. Royce saw no boat trailer, so he guessed they had gone hiking.

Enough distractions, he thought. He pushed off the side of the Impala and walked towards the girls, glancing at a sign bolted to a steel stake: TRUMAN PARK. Beneath, in smaller font: COUNTY OF ASHLAND.

He joined Tabbie and Claire, and they ran to a cluster of saplings at the far side of the clearing. The girls spotted the birdhouses at the same time, and they raced for the nearest. There were nine, all told, planted among the little trees, each a miniature rural cottage with porch and pitched roof.

Royce lifted the girls onto his shoulders in turns, helping each to peer through the small round openings. They found no baby birds, but after looking in one Claire shrieked, “Eggs!”

“Let me see!” Tabbie screamed, and the years dissolved between them. She clambered onto his shoulders, and for a moment he had two little girls again.

Then Claire started yelling. “You have to see, Daddy! You have to see!”

Royce rose to tiptoe, careful not to shake the house. Just as he glimpsed a rounded edge, a shadow fell across him. He ducked instinctively and then they all were running. His eyes swept the sky, the clouds, the trees.

I felt it pass by, he thought.

“It was the mommy bird,” Claire said. She scolded him. “You got too close to her babies, Daddy. She didn’t like that.”

Royce rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess she didn’t,” he said, but he was smiling. He glanced at Tabbie and suppressed a wince as irritation flashed across her face.

Tabbie didn’t want the day spoiled, though. She chose to divert. “Let’s go to the water.”

At the boat launch, tadpoles darted in the shallows. Tabbie made a heroic effort at teaching Claire the art of rock skipping. After, they passed the time in silence, watching the river drift along.

“Why didn’t Mommy and Uncle Joe ever bring us here?” Claire asked.

“They probably never got the chance,” Royce said. “We’re pretty far out.”

Tabbie’s eyes tightened, but she kept her thoughts to herself. She was still too young to understand all the particulars, but she knew that Mommy staying with Daddy’s brother was more than an offer of hospitality. Within a couple months middle school would clarify matters, and Royce didn’t want to rush the conversations they would have then.

“Let’s get some dinner,” he said.

They ate from brown bags Royce had prepared the night before. Tabbie had her favorite cheese from the deli and Claire started with the honey-flavored Teddy Grahams she loved. There were fruit-punch juice pouches. It was a hit, and suddenly it was later than any of them had realized. They needed to get moving.

“Already?” Tabbie pleaded.

“It’s almost fall. It’s going to get cold as the sun goes down.”

“Fall is also autumn,” Claire said, and Royce laughed solely for her pleasure. Today was ending. The girls would spend another week with their new family, and the magic they had shared would retreat into memory.

He stopped halfway to the car, keys in hand, staring across the field. Partly to put off going home but also because it had piqued his curiosity the moment they arrived, he said, “Let’s check out that funny building.”

***

Two stories tall but narrow on each face, it rose from the grass like a concrete tower. Cartoon figures, faded by time until they were only visible up close, adorned three sides. A train with a toothy smile and headlight eyes arched its cars as if preparing to gambol towards the saplings. Three singing pirates played mandolin and accordion in silent serenade of pavilion guests. A medieval squire in a striped shirt glanced over his shoulder, an assortment of swords and axes jutting from a barrel at his side.

Royce led the girls in a circuit, following a waist-high line of covered electric sockets connected by thick cabling that fed from a steel box near the squire, who seemed to be studying it. Near the box was a meter with a steadily spinning needle.

Claire approached first. She tried to open the cover of one of the sockets and frowned to find it stuck.

Intrigued, Royce checked several others. There were three outlets on each side they had passed, and all were welded shut.

“How do you get in?” Tabbie asked.

“Let’s find out,” Royce said, and he walked to the last face. There were no images, just a door set at the level of the second story, with only a worn plank affixed to the concrete to mark where steps had once been anchored.

“How high is that?” Tabbie asked.

“How tall are you?” Royce asked in return. “Four feet?”

“Over four and a half.”

“So that’s, maybe, six feet above the ground.”

“But how does anyone get up there?”

Royce opened his mouth to say that probably no one did, which made very little sense considering the circling needle on the squire’s meter, but Claire spoke first.

“It’s open.”

Royce stared at the thin line of open space between the edge of the door and the wall. He thought, Joe saw this coming, and smiled despite himself. Royce’s hunger to explore had gotten them both into no end of trouble when they were boys, until it became a joke between them. He would never forgive Joe for ending his marriage, but part of him understood that his brother would also never stop trying to make amends for the crimes of his heart.

“Come here, Tabbie,” Royce said.

He crouched, and Tabbie climbed atop his shoulders just as she had done when they investigated the birdhouses. He carried her to the door, and she swung it open on silent hinges.

Not even a squeak, Royce noted.

“It’s dark,” Tabbie said.

From the ground Royce couldn’t see anything. His curiosity flared from a spark to a heat that warmed his cheeks. He needed to see more. There was no longer any doubt whether Joe had suggested the park as much for this puzzle in the field as he did for its remote splendor. This was a gift, one more peace offering.

Royce returned Tabbie safely to the ground. Then he hopped up, planting a foot on an electrical box—eliciting a squeak from Claire—and pushing till his arms came down inside the doorway. He swept his right elbow to the side for leverage and quickly scrambled up the rough concrete, not stopping till he flopped onto his side in the dank, musty interior.

He rolled onto his stomach and thrust out an arm for Tabbie, who leapt to grab hold and walked up the wall as he pulled. When he extended his hand to Claire, though, she stepped back.

“We’ll be right out, Sweetie,” Royce said.

She nodded but frowned.

The building proved disappointing for more reasons than trapped moisture and cobwebs. Tabbie crossed her arms and sighed.

“Just some shovels.”

Royce nodded. Years of impulsive decisions had taught him to temper expectations. What seemed like a treasure chest on the outside was usually an empty box after it opened. He shrugged. “Life’s about the journey.”

There was writing on each shovel haft. He squinted to study it while Tabbie, still hugging her elbows, walked a lap. Character by character, Royce read what had been stenciled onto the wood, “Property of Wanderer’s Rest.” A chill raced along his back.

“Hey, Tabbie,” he said, not sure why it had become so difficult to keep his voice casual, “Let’s get going.”

***

“Where’d she go?” Tabbie asked.

Royce didn’t respond. All around them spread the expansive green field under a fiery afternoon sky, and no sign of Claire. Even if she’d started running the moment we went inside, he thought. He started for the car, and then he was running. Tabbie, smaller but younger, kept up easily. She was also motivated, because she saw it, too. Both cars were gone.

They halted, gasping, where the Impala and the Malibu should have sat side by side.

“Daddy, is that right?”

Tabitha indicated the sign that had proclaimed this TRUMAN PARK. In the same font and colors, it now read, GADSDEN PARK. The smaller characters beneath spelled out, MIDDLE ATLANTIC CENTRAL.

She spoke again as he stared at the sign, her voice quavering. “The birdhouses.”

Royce braced himself before looking, but he almost barked an incredulous laugh anyway. Atop each stake rested a smooth, egg-shaped house made of what might have been ceramic. Each sported a round opening for birds to come and go, complete with incongruous pitched roof. He hesitated, realizing that he had not laughed for just one reason: part of his mind didn’t see anything wrong with them.

He thought, They’re just birdhouses, like any other.

The alien sensation—a distinct thought in his mind that was not his own—set his heart racing. He took Tabbie’s hand, wanting to run but with no direction to go. Then, motion near the pavilion. His flight instinct carried them both into the trees next to the boat launch.

Two men in glistening, rubbery suits emerged from the hackberries and birch. Each wore a diving mask and carried a black baton. Frogmen, Royce thought, and he knew the word came from the part of his mind that so readily accepted the egg-shaped birdhouses.

The men (frogmen) dragged an unmoving third, each with a hand under one shoulder, letting his feet trail through the grass. The prisoner’s clothes could have come from WalMart or Target, but the rebellious part of Royce’s mind labeled them strange and wrong.

Royce and Tabbie watched them disappear behind the concrete building. Royce experienced no foreign thought explaining what was happening back there. His mind was his own again, but he didn’t care for the only idea that seemed to make sense of it all.

“I think we have to go back inside that building, Tabbie, but if we go in right away, the frogmen might see us. We have to wait a few minutes.”

“Frogmen,” she repeated, and he almost overlooked the glint of understanding in her eye.

Royce thought, They need to get those shovels and set out for Wanderer’s Rest. To his horror, he found that his whole mind agreed on this point. He felt equally sure that the man in the WalMart clothes was already dead, and also that he had arrived in a field similar to this one driving a blue Chevy Malibu.

Somewhere in the forest, past the pavilion, a new sound arose. It sounded like a motor winding down, warbling and whining as it died. It was coming closer.

Royce shut his eyes, thinking just one thing: Claire!

“We’ll get back to her soon,” he told himself, not realizing he had spoken aloud until Tabbie looked up.

“Back to who, Uncle Royce?”

Tabbie blinked, seeming to hear what she had said. “Why did I say that?”

“I don’t know. Focus on your little sister. Focus on getting back to her.”

They needed to move. Whatever was happening to them was working fast, and Royce thought his curiosity had reached its limit after all these years.

Tabbie hummed Claire’s favorite song. Royce concentrated to place the tune to “We Are the Dinosaurs,” which now felt a little too close to home.

“We need to go,” he said, but this time she took his hand.

“No. A car is coming.”

He hesitated, realizing that he heard the gravel crunching under that strange, unwinding sound.

We waited too long, he thought.

***

The icon on the grill of the car belonged to no company Royce knew. A woman sat behind the wheel with a boy about Tabbie’s age riding shotgun. She steered onto the boat launch just a couple yards from where Royce and Tabbie crouched and killed the engine, which faded into merciful silence.

“Hold still,” Royce whispered.

They watched mother and child get out of the car and open the trunk. Mom withdrew a sturdy, black electrical cord and gave one end to the boy, who ran to the tall shed, letting out cord as he went.

There used to be a lot more traffic, Royce thought, and he realized his mind had answered the question he asked when they first arrived: Why is that tool shed way out there? He pictured lines of cars and also flying vehicles similar to helicopters, all filling the space his family had mistaken for a park.

The boy reached the building and flipped open one of the metal coverings that Royce had confirmed sealed a few minutes earlier.

Mom affixed the opposite end of the cord to what would have been the gas tank on the Impala. Then she leaned through the driver’s window and pressed something. Royce’s breath caught as pontoons emerged from the underside of the vehicle, steadily inflating as the air came alive with vibrations he felt as much as heard. The license plate rose automatically to allow egress for an outboard motor that extended from inside the trunk and dropped into position.

Royce put the heel of his hand to his head. It was pounding from the convergence of shock and the pervading sense that all of this was normal. Just how cars work.

Claire, he thought, anchoring himself on his little girl. If he was right—and how could he be?—she was waiting in a field just like this one, on the other side of the tool shed in a way that made no sense. Very close but also alone. He reminded himself that he had left his phone in the car. She knew to use it to call her Uncle Joe or her mother. But that was only if she managed to hide from the frogmen. Could she have gotten around the side of the building without being spotted? And stayed quiet until they were gone?

“Hello, little wanderer,” the woman said. “What’s your name?”

Royce realized that he had been aware of Tabbie walking towards the car for several seconds, but the part of his mind that recognized everything around him saw nothing wrong with his daughter greeting a stranger. After all, he was right here. What could happen?

“Tabina,” Tabitha replied. She bit her lip, as if she knew that wasn’t quite right. Her brow furrowed the way it did when she worked a math problem for kids a grade older.

Royce hurried to Tabbie’s side and placed a reassuring arm around her shoulders. The woman studied them. She glanced back at her boy.

“The frogmen must not be here,” she said in a near whisper. “I’m going to help you, but you have to be careful. I don’t support the occupation, but if my son realizes what you are, he’ll report you.” She glanced back again. “Walk to the pavilion and wait for us to leave. Then go quickly. You have to get back before the imprint takes hold.”

“Imprint?” Royce asked.

Her jaw clenched. The pontoons were full, and the hum had grown into the desperate whine of a blower attached to a full air mattress. At the concrete building, the boy craned his neck to see them. She said, “Whatever memories you’re getting aren’t your own. Only a few can make the journey.”

***

The amphibious car floated downriver. They watched from the pavilion just as she had instructed. Royce tried not to consider that the frogmen had emerged from these same hackberries, or that she may have betrayed them and purposely put them in harm’s way.

“I think the electricity here comes from our world,” Tabbie said. “They don’t have much for some reason. Like, they used it all up.”

Not “like,” Royce thought. He knew the answers were there if he bent his mind towards them. He could allow another man’s—maybe another Royce’s?—memories to further overwrite his own. It was all there, ready to imprint. The thought made his head pound.

He understood already that the other man had no children, a fact that made it difficult to remember the name of the little girl he had left behind. Defiantly, he said it aloud.

“Claire?” Tabbie said, but it was mostly a question.

“Claire,” Royce repeated.

He took his daughter’s (niece’s) hand and ran with her to the concrete building. The three singing pirates stood out boldly in the dwindling sunlight. The squire’s weapons glinted with flecks of real metal in the paint. Around the far side, Royce hesitated before the sight of a half-dozen black steps climbing to the door. Tabbie did not slow, and he leapt to keep up. At the top, he tugged the door open and they ducked inside, whirled, and, in a dizzying impossibility, almost charged back into empty space. The steps were gone.

A little girl cried from below, “Daddy! Tabbie!”

Chest heaving, Tabbie stared at her little sister.

“Claire!” Royce shouted. He sat, then dropped to the grass. She hugged his leg, but he had to turn away one more time. He raised his hands toward Tabbie, and she dropped into them, letting him guide her down.

Tabbie bit her lip.

“What’s wrong?” Claire asked.

“Tabbie?” Royce said. He put a gentle hand on her shoulder. Hoping to jog a memory with her sister’s name, he asked, “Did you hear Claire?”

“What’s wrong, Tabbie?” Claire pressed.

“Remember running through the birdhouses?” Royce asked.

Claire laughed. “And the mommy bird tried to dive in Daddy’s hair.”

Royce forced himself to laugh along, but Tabbie didn’t react.

“And we were singing, right?” He sang a few bars of “We Are the Dinosaurs.” Crinkles appeared in the corners of her eyes but nothing more. She met Claire’s desperate gaze and her expression did not change.

“Tabbie?” When Claire again didn’t get a response, tears welled. She lunged forward, throwing her arms around her big sister, crying, “Did you forget me?”

Tabbie blinked. Tentatively, she patted Claire once on the back and spoke her name as if asking a question. That was enough for Claire, who cheered and hugged tighter, laughing as if the whole thing had just been a joke and Tabbie had delivered the punchline.

“It’ll be okay,” Royce said softly, peering into Tabbie’s eyes.

“Why are the birdhouses shaped funny?”

“They’re not,” Royce assured her. “Birdhouses are supposed to be square.”

“Actually, they’re rectangles,” Claire said. She wiped her tears, and then she produced Royce’s phone.

He slipped it into his pocket. “Did you call someone?”

“Uncle Joe. He said he would come get me.”

“Good girl.”

At least their mother wouldn’t be directly involved. Joe would tell her, but that wouldn’t be as bad as hearing the fresh panic. They started back to the Impala, which sat where they had left it, and Royce noticed that the Malibu was gone. He thought, Frogmen. It hit him so powerfully that he whispered it.

“That’s what Uncle Joe said,” Claire announced and giggled.

“What?”

“He told me, ‘Don’t bother the frogmen, and I’ll be there as soon as I can.’ I told him there’s no such thing as frogmen!”

Royce knelt in front of Claire. “Sweetie, he said frogmen?”

“Yes. And he knew about the building with the happy train painting. He asked if you went inside.”

He knew I couldn’t resist, Royce thought, and something else, the woman with the amphibious car saying, Only a few can make the journey.

“We have to go,” Royce said, but he could hear new tires crunching gravel. He stood, putting himself between his girls and his brother’s van, which carried not just Joe but two other men in rubbery black suits. Royce’s eyes met Joe’s and, in a sudden rush of conflicting memories, he knew that he hadn’t had a brother until just a few months ago.

“Focus on each other, girls,” Royce said. “Always each other.”

Tabbie shifted behind him, then asked, “Uncle Royce? Why is my dad here?”