The Property of Emit

I could hear the train faintly humming closer as I scrambled to find my subway card for the ticket turnstiles. The shrill voice of the announcer increasing my level of anxiety. I shove my card into the machine and hurl my body propelling forward through the silver metal bars that squish my sandwich lunch. "Excuse me!" I mumble, dodging people walking the opposite way, leaping five stairs at a time, only to look up and see the subway doors starting to close as the conductor blows his whistle and a polite, yet very defeating operator voice says "Please stand clear, the doors are now closing." I lunge, eyes wide with desperation as they slam in my face... and everyone inside gives me THAT smirk. Because, well, they’ve been me too.

I huffed my sweaty brown hair out of my eyes. Another morning, late, as usual. I’m the late girl. Aubrey Bragg. Who isn’t charmed by the classically, comically, “late girl”? Whilst I paced the subway station jibber-jabbering in my head, but making the motions of having a heated debate with my hands, I felt a tap on my shoulder to which I leaped around and let out an echoing “ARGHHHH” and clutched my opened handbag close to me in fear the man before me was surely about to rob me of my squished sandwich and ever so valuable coffee rewards card.

"I'm sorry to startle you." He says charmingly, his brown eyes smiling at my disheveled state, "but, you dropped your book back there." He hands me a black notepad that I've never seen before and I stare down at his scratched thumb knuckle gripping the edge. I notice the tattooed letters "RA-" on the inside of his wrist, protruding from underneath his beige coat cuffs. He follows my gaze and turns his wrist so his cuff falls lower as he gestures to me to grab the book from him. I take it and turn it over looking at the back for any indication of who it belongs to. I run my fingers over the ribbed texture as I murmur "I'm sorry, this isn't mine." I explain, turning it back over and handing it to him, but he isn't there. "Hey!" I yell out, spinning around. "Hey, mister!" I try again, running around the wall of the subway to the other section searching for any flashes of a beige coat. But I'm alone. The subway is totally empty other than a homeless woman laying on a pile of blankets at the end of the platform.

I slowly walk back to the section at the bottom of the subway stairs, turning the book over once more. I open to the first page, it reads "Property of Emit" with a tiny sketch of some stairs directly under the writing. I notice a small etched arrow on the bottom right corner in black ink pointing diagonally down. I flip the page over and there is nothing there. It's blank. I flip to the next page. Nothing. I rapidly flip through the whole book searching for anything else.

"The Property of Emit" I read aloud to myself. Staring at the arrow and the faint sketch on the front page. Why did he think it was mine? I think to myself. I look up and notice the stairs directly in front of me where I met the elusive man, look exactly like the sketch. Holding the book in front of me, I place my finger on the diagonal arrow and spin half backwards to my right following it's direction. It points to a pillar.

I walk up to it and directly at shoulder height is half a gold coin welded into the wall. I've never seen one like it. I crouch slightly at the knees to get eye level with it. One side has half an insignia of an arrow with a circle disappearing into the wall. I turn around to the other side of the coin, pressing my face against the cold pillar wall to try and get as close to it as possible. I see half an A next to an R inscribed in the center. Thinking back to the man's half visible wrist tattoo. I try to yank the coin to see the hidden A and what may follow it, but it doesn't budge.

I take a deep breath as I scan the left of the coin. As I stare at the grooved edging I see it's not edging at all, but extremely microscopic writing. I whisper as I read it out loud "If you want to turn back time, you must go four steps yonder." I furrowed my brow at the riddle. I hear the train whirring down the tunnel and the announcer startles me "The train approaching on platform 7 is a city train, running directly to Central stopping only at Yonda St Station, please stand clear of the yellow lines" her voice trails off. My eyes widened. Yonda. Yonder! I pushed myself away from the pillar and took a flying leap onto the train as the conductors whistle blew and the doors shut behind me.

The lady sitting directly opposite the doors clutched her purse closer as I gave her a half smile and pushed past to an empty four block of seats. I began repeating in my head "If you want to turn back time, you must go four steps yonder". I racked my brain deciphering all clue possibilities.

The red light above the doors flash as they open. I stare up at the brown wood sign with white lettering reading "Yonda St Station" as I take my first step out of the carriage and onto the maroon tiled platform lined with white brick edging. I search around for any sign and see people heading up the stairs to the street above. I wait until the last person and follow them, stopping at step four and scouring it for clues.

The foot traffic above was bustling. "Sorry!" I exclaimed. Stopping in my tracks and feeling someone immediately walk into the back of me. The frumpy, balding man shot me a glare and pushed his glasses back up his long nose. I watched him saunter off into the distance and I chewed the inside of my bottom lip in thought, unsure if I was going the right way. I turn to move and in front of me, directly in line with the Station is a black door reading "Four Steps Antiquities".

There was a musky smell and almost everything had a thick layer of dust on it. My nose immediately began to itch and I tried to stifle in my sneezes. An elderly lady wearing purple glasses stood up from behind the counter at the sound of the entry bell, particles of dust washing over the edges, visible by the only light ray in the room, shining in from the wood-rimmed glass windows.

"Happy browsing, Possum?" she cooed at me in a soft croaky voice. "Umm, yeah, I guess so." I replied, shuffling around the store with no sense of direction. Suddenly, I saw it. An old jewelry box with the same insignia that was on the coin, except this one was complete. An arrow pointed left, a sword center and a shotgun pointing right with the circle forming around the center. There was no riddle but instead a gold coin slot locking the box shut. "Excuse me, but, how much is this jewelry box?" I ask bringing it over and placing it between us on the counter. She clicks her tongue, "We don't have a key. For all we know, it may not even be a jewelry box." She gestures to the corners where the wood is braided together and gold staples envelop the corners. I nod, as if I'm completely aware of this telltale sign.

I reach into my bag and find my bank card. "How much?" I ask her, presenting my card.

She looks at me in disbelief that I'd be interested and scoffs as she grabs a worn binder from behind the till, flipping from page to page muttering to herself, hunched over, her glasses an inch away from each picture as she scans for the box. "Ah. Here we are." her finger placeholds the photo of the jewelry box as she reads. "$225.00" She looks up at me through her glasses, waiting for me to look shocked.

"No problem." I say ushering her my card. She scribbled out a reciept and tried to lift the box to hand to me as I quickly took it from her with an appreciative smile. "You take care now, Possum!" she croaked after me as I quickly hurried to the station.

"Now arriving, Willow Station". The familiar robotic phrase sends tingles down my neck as we stop at my home station. I exit the train and head around the station wall to the pillar. There stands my gold coin, half protruding out. I carefully lift the box up to it and begin to twist it anti-clockwise. I hear the latch creak and as the box sits completely vertical the lock springs free. I carefully slide it off the welded coin and place it on the ground of the train station.

This is it. My fingers tremble as I grab each edge and slowly lift the box. Red and gold material line the insides and at the bottom sit 19 full gold coins like the half coin welded to the wall. I pick up the first one and turn it over in my hand 'RAW' it reads. I flip it over to it's other side and the lettering changes to WAR with "15BC Battle of Pontes Longi" underneath in carved lettering. I stare at the words and place the coin back in its slot. The 15th coin looks the same except the date reads "1508 League of Cambrai"

I hear footsteps approaching and I quickly close the box and look up.

"You." I say, slowly standing to my feet and staring at the charming man who disappeared this morning. He smiles at me. Before I can demand answers he begins, "Each coin is worth $1,000. But only if together. Apart, they are worthless." He stares at me. "And what? No welder was free today to get the 20th coin out?" I retort. He lets out a stifled laugh and his brown eyes gleam. "What is all this?" I shrug at him.

He gestures to my handbag to retrieve the black book. "This. This has all the answers." he says waving the book. "But it's blank!" I butt in. "No. It's not." He bends down and opens the box to pick up the 19th coin, holding it between his thumb and forefinger he flicks open the black book to a random page and uses the coin like a light to shine over the invisible gold ink words, the coins glow illuminating facts of the 19th century war. He closes the book and hands it to me.

"Who are you?" I ask, trying to salivate my dry mouth as my tongue hangs out on baited breath. "RAW." He continues, "We reverse wars. You've had all morning, The Property of Emit." He opens the book and slides his finger backwards over Emit - T...I...M...E.

"The Property of Time." I say barely under my breath. "Exactly." He confirms. "We're time travelers and these coins allow us to travel back to mend history. But I need help with the 20th coin." He says, reaching out his hand to me.

I hear a whirr of a train whistle. The subway lights above us begin to wildly flicker and the pages of the black book start to flick back and forth in a gust of wind. "I'm Sam by the way!" He shouts over the wind. The pillar begins to open and I grab his hand, jumping into darkness, the last thing I see, is the flashing of a golden train light.