Time Parallel: A Time Travel Novel by Elyse Douglas

Author:Elyse Douglas [Douglas, Elyse]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Broadback
Published: 2024-06-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 28

The next morning, Monday, June 26, I ate a late morning breakfast at the Wellsboro Diner. Although the diner had partially recovered from the tornado with no major structural damage, the back party room was closed due to water damage, and part of the dining area was roped off.

I was on my second cup of coffee when Sheriff Boggs called. “All settled in at the B&B?” he asked.

“Yes…”

“Feeling better?”

“Yes, thank you. It was the best sleep I’ve had in a while.”

“Good. Sorry I missed you when you picked up your car yesterday. I have something for you.”

The breakfast crowd had thinned out, and I was seated alone at a table for two, near where Ben Croft and his father had sat in Parallel Two.

“What is it, Sheriff?”

“I found a phone in your car, under the driver’s seat. My deputy missed it the first time he looked, and I forgot to put it with your other possessions.”

I was about to reach for my coffee cup. I stopped. “A cellphone? But I have my cellphone.”

“It looks like a prepaid phone, a ‘burner’ phone.”

I dabbed at my mouth with a napkin, confusion rising. “That doesn’t make sense. I mean...” My voice trailed off as I thought, The burner phone had been purchased in Parallel Two, so how could it have journeyed back to Parallel One with me? How was it possible?

“Harper? Are you still with me?” the sheriff asked.

I stared ahead, thinking. What are the rules of these parallel worlds? Are there any rules? “Yes, Sheriff, I’m here. I’m at the Wellsboro Diner. I’ll swing by and pick it up.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll come over and have coffee with you. You still haven’t told me what happened to you.”

What could I say? Don’t come? “All right… fine.”

“See you in ten, Harper,” the sheriff said.

I went back to eating my eggs, my mind consumed by various actions I could or should take in this bizarre world of parallel realities, where I was a tennis ball in a match, being whacked back and forth across a time-net.

I longed to reunite with my family and save their lives. They were alive in that alternate world; I had seen them, and they had seen me.

As I was taking my last sip of coffee, Sheriff Boggs arrived. He threw a wave to the waitress and nodded at two men who sat in a booth to my right, calling them both by their first names.

He sat opposite me with a heavy sigh, setting his hat aside, gratefully accepting a cup of coffee from the stout waitress, not the younger waitress who had flirted with Ben Croft in parallel two. While she gathered up my empty plate, she and the sheriff exchanged pleasantries, and then she was off, refilling cups.

The sheriff took a drink of the coffee and sighed with pleasure. “I love the coffee here. It’s not the usual diner slop you get. Fred buys fresh from some cooperative in Columbus.”

“It was good. I’m pretty buzzed from it.”

“You look rested.

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