I
The salt was back in the air, a happy consequence of his recent visit to his sister in Concord, during which he had de-acclimated to the touch of the North Atlantic mist, and Arnold Mather breathed in deeply and with much satisfaction as he strolled along the cobblestone path back to his shop in Richmond Hill, his stomach redolent of bacon and toast.
He nodded dutifully at passersby as he made his way, pulling out his key on arrival and flipping the door sign to OPEN on his way in. The bell jingled a welcome, and he turned on the lights, but it was hardly necessary; on this glorious morning, the northeastern sun lit up his shop floor like a plantation parlor, illuminating its diverse prizes.
Buyers came from all over the region to see Mather’s antiques, which he’d gathered over the years from up and down the coast, from Pennsylvania, from Atlanta, from as far west as St. Louis. As often as he could, he left his shop in the hands of his nephew and his wife and traveled wherever he needed to, in search of the finest and most historically significant treasures.
Over there was a perfectly preserved rocking chair, made with pegs instead of nails, verifiably owned by Dorie Main herself. In the middle of the floor, the seventy-two-inch iron bathtub of that evil old goat Ben Franklin; and there, against the far wall, the cherry wardrobe once owned by John Edmund Paxton.
Within half an hour, the shop had received half a dozen visitors, all of them eager to peruse its impressive trove. More people came in to admire than to buy, but such were the quality of his offerings that Arnold Mather did just fine.
As lunch approached, he was down to a single customer – old Mrs. Windham, who liked to sit in the Dorie Main rocking chair. Normally Arnold refused to allow customers to sit in it, but he had a soft spot for the frail little lady.
“Beautiful morning, Mrs. Windham!”
“Oh, it is! It is!”
“And how are you this beautiful morning, Mrs. Windham?”
“Oh, I’m fine! I’m fine!”
The ritual went on a bit, as usual, and she soon wandered off. Replacing the OPEN sign with OUT TO LUNCH, Arnold locked the door and set out for the nearby library, lunch pail in hand.
He waved across the library floor at Greta behind the check-out counter, who nodded to one of her assistants to take charge. Retrieving her own sack lunch from under the counter, she followed Arnold – who knew better than to speak on the floor! - into the Employees Only lounge, where he was considered an exception.
“I’ve been reading the most wonderful new biography of your bathtub man,” Greta was saying as she wiped a bit of egg salad from the corner of Arnold’s mouth, “Ben Franklin, and there’s a quote I just loved - ‘We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately!’ Had you ever heard that one?”
Arnold had, of course, but he chortled all the same. Put simply, he had been smitten with Greta for some time (though, of course, he would never let on); she reminded him of his beloved Maize, now twenty-one years departed, with her good humor and chattiness and curious mind. He sought Greta out frequently, and missed her on his antiquing expeditions. He enjoyed her company, basking in her presence.
“They don’t come any more seditious than old Ben, and let me tell you, this new book dishes it up! His more incendiary writings were published anonymously or under a pseudonym, of course, but it’s easy to tell it’s him, once you know what to look for. That tub of yours is so big because he used to share it with his consort. Did you know he had 15 illegitimate children?” She paused to eat a bite of fruit salad.
“Pray, continue,” he said when she finished the bite.
She continued. He basked some more, and at a quarter of the hour, politely took his leave.
II
Arnold’s apartment above his shop was sparse, in sharp contrast to the teeming shop floor below, and it suited him. His extravagances were few, and his one indulgence was, frankly, his profession; he loved history, and that of his country in particular, and trading in its wares fulfilled him immensely.
He ate a modest dinner of beef stew from a can, then settled in with his LP records and old magazines. When he nodded off in his easy chair – a common occurrence - he was thinking of Ben Franklin.
Though rats were not unknown in the cellar below the shop floor, they generally were unobtrusive. It was with startling exception that a big one knocked a glass jar of nuts and bolts from Arnold’s repair bench at ten past midnight, causing a clatter that managed to stir him to wakefulness, two floors above.
He fumbled in the nightstand for his flashlight, put on his robe and slippers, and descended into his shop.
He rapidly checked the front door to ensure its integrity, then surveyed the room with his beam. The stillness was palpable; the shadows swinging around the many dark wood pieces gave them the feel of dignified tombstones. Arnold was not put at ease; he was certain that the crashing sound had come from within his own citadel.
A scurrying behind him was his answer; it had come from the cellar.
He toggled the light at the top of the stairs, causing a dim yellow to creep into the stairwell as he slowly descended. He could feel his heart thumping and hear his ragged breathing.
“Who’s there?” he barked abruptly.
He turned the corner at the bottom of the stairwell and thrust the beam ahead of him, though he no longer needed it. The skeletons of old pieces cannibalized for parts populated the claustrophobic little room, the footprint of which amounted to about half the shop floor. A solid oak beam positioned in the cellar’s center held the floor in place; a workbench filled one wall.
Arnold saw the shattered jar and the spill of metal particles and immediately divined the nature of his intruder. Cursing, he looked about for the broom and dustpan.
There was the thud of footsteps above him, coming through the ceiling. He froze, once again feeling his pounding heart.
And not just footsteps... muffled voices. And the scrape of chair on wooden floor.
Many voices!
How could that be? The door was locked, he’d checked it only moments ago – and he’d have heard people entering through it. Where could they have come from?
He was almost trembling as he cast about for a weapon. He settled on an axe above the workbench, holding it in his right hand as he shifted the flashlight to his left and crept, as cat-like as possible, back up the stairs.
Summoning his courage, he leapt out of the stairwell with all the threat he could muster, his feet landing heavily on the thick wooden floor.
The room was as dark and empty as before.
He slowly prowled the floor, assuring himself there was no one hiding behind any of the hulking chests and dressers and grandfather clocks. He began to calm down, then realized he still had the glass and metal mess to clean up. Relieved, he went back down to the cellar.
Thud... thud, thud...
And the voices.
They’d returned as soon as he’d re-entered the cellar. He listened more closely this time; he couldn’t make out any words, but he estimated he was hearing at least a dozen voices, maybe more. There was occasional laughter, more footsteps, punctuating clinks that sounded like pewter mugs.
The banging of the door!
Loud cries of greeting!
This time Arnold charged up the stairs, axe at the ready, sweat on his brow.
Again, the shop floor was empty and quiet and dark.
He descended into the cellar yet again – and again, the footsteps and the voices returned.
Arnold needed to prove to himself that he wasn’t going mad. Pulling a crate from under the workbench, he dragged it to a corner of the cellar, then stepped up onto it. This put him an inch or two from the ceiling.
He heard several voices, clearly a handful of people in conversation. These voices were less boisterous than most of the others; but they were secluded, there in the corner – farther away from the noisier ones.
Arnold strained to hear what they were saying.
...would be Tom Hickey...
...Mayor Mathews, too...
He looked around frantically. Spotting a dirty notepad and the stub of a pencil on the workbench, he scrambled down to get them, then back up to his perch.
...it’s the governor’s notion that...
...Tryon? Yes, I’m sure he did...
...will be right here in residence, he said...
...an end to the general!
He wrote down each fragment, then strained to hear more.
There was the sound of several chairs scraping the wooden floor, then – nothing in the corner, just the general cacophony from the rest of the ceiling.
He replaced the axe and tore the page he’d scribbled from the pad, stuffing it in his wallet. He walked up the stairs calmly, into darkness and quiet. This time, he didn’t bother looking around.
He checked the door one last time, then ascended to his apartment above.
He sat in his easy chair, surrounded by shadow. There was total silence below, on the shop floor. He didn’t fall asleep until almost dawn.
III
The blast of a horn from the street below caused Arnold to wake with a start in his easy chair. The blinds were drawn, but morning light strayed in around the window’s edges, enough for him to see he’d overslept. He hurriedly washed and changed clothes, then rushed out of the shop, locking it behind him and leaving it closed. It was already past 10 a.m.
He went straight to the library, calling Greta’s name while still on the library floor – an inexcusable infraction! - and rushing her into the Employees Only lounge before she could scold him.
He breathlessly recounted the previous night’s events as she stared, wide-eyed, taking it all in. When he’d finally gotten through the whole story, she just sat quietly.
“Arnold Mather,” she finally said, “are you suggesting there are... spirits in your cellar?”
“No, no! Not in the cellar! Whatever the voices are, they’re above, on the main floor!”
“But you think they are spirits?”
“Greta, I don’t believe in such things! Spirits are not real! These voices were real, as real as yours and mine are this minute!”
“But you say you couldn’t really make out what they were saying...”
He suddenly remembered the notes he’d scribbled. He pulled out his wallet and retrieved the paper, unfolding it for her. Her eyes widened again as she read it.
would be Tom Hickey
Mayor Mathews, too
it’s the governor’s notion that
Tryon? Yes, I’m sure he did
will be right here in residence, he said
an end to the general!
She frowned.
“Arnold,” she said slowly, “these names are familiar to me. I can’t quite place them, but they ring familiar.”
“Eh?”
He took the paper from her and re-read what he’d written. Were they names he knew? He couldn’t be sure.
Greta rose from her chair and took pen and paper from a drawer in the lounge counter. She carefully copied everything Arnold had written down.
“Now, I am going to look into these names, Arnold,” she said calmly, “and if you hear these voices again, you write down what they say and you come and tell me right away. Do you understand?”
He mutely nodded.
IV
Arnold sat in an old, largely-disassembled chair in the cellar, notepad and pencil stub at the ready. The naked lightbulb over the workbench burned a dull yellow as the silence went on and on.
No footsteps. No voices.
Earlier, he had wondered if perhaps he had been hearing voices from the far side of the building through the ventilation duct that fed the vents in the shop floor. He’d have to wait until the voices returned to try to localize them there.
As 11 p.m. approached, he began to feel silly.
As midnight approached, he began to wonder if he’d imagined the whole thing.
He laid the notepad and pencil on the workbench and headed for the stairs.
Thud...thud, scrape...
Loud, jolly voices...
They erupted suddenly, like a radio turning on. Arnold scrambled back to the bench and grabbed the pad and pencil. The clock on the bench said midnight exactly.
He climbed onto the crate and strained to hear quiet voices in the corner.
...he’ll be arriving with his officers...
...dining at the estate, but their meals will be ...
…plan to slip it into their food with...
...everything will be in...
Frustrated that he couldn’t hear more, Arnold stood on his toes, his hand against the ceiling. As footsteps closed in on the corner, the voices went quiet.
Minutes passed.
The voices resumed.
...then we are agreed...
...to learn his schedule...
...back here tomorrow night to...
...must intervene!
It sounded like a plot!
Arnold was waiting on the library steps when Greta arrived. She seemed as anxious to talk to him as he was to talk to her.
“A plot it certainly was,” she told him as she poured them both some coffee. “Your Tom Hickey was Private Thomas Hickey of General George Washington’s personal guard. He and a number of other soldiers in the Continental army were secretly loyal to the crown, along with the royal governor of New York, William Tryon, and David Mathews, the mayor of New York.
“The point of assassinating General Washington and his officers was to fortify New York, which was in danger after Washington took Boston,” she continued. “It was quite insidious; the conspirators poisoned a bowl of peas to be served to the general and his men.”
“Yes, yes!” Arnold nodded excitedly. “- ‘slip it into their food!’- that’s what they said, exactly!”
“Now here is where it all becomes very strange,” Greta said, looking at him very seriously. “You understand that all of these events took place more than two centuries ago.”
It began dawning on him.
“But... the voices spoke as if all of these things are taking place right now!”
“These things took place in 1776,” Greta said, “and here’s the strange part: they took place right here in Richmond Hill. Washington and his men were staying at the old estate. And Arnold,” she paused and took a breath, “the poisoned meal was prepared in a local tavern – a tavern that is, today, an antique shop.”
Arnold Mather was stunned. Antique shop? His shop? The tavern where the killing of George Washington was plotted?
“Arnold, don’t you understand?” Greta’s voice grew quieter, yet more urgent. “I’m at a loss to explain it, but somehow you are hearing the voices of the past. You’re eavesdropping through time itself!”
V
He knew the voices in the corner would return tonight; he had heard them planning to do so the night before. And he knew they were preparing to act.
I can’t allow that, he said to himself. If those men change the natural order of things, if they alter the course of events, why – everything could change!
He himself would take action.
He hadn’t opened his shop all day. Instead, he had taken a saw and cut a large notch in the center beam of the cellar, the one holding up the shop floor.
He waited. He waited.
The ceiling above him was quiet as he sat in the cellar, waiting. The big hand of the clock crept toward 12.
Midnight.
On cue, the ceiling came alive with the merry voices of men at drink, laughing and conversing. Arnold scampered up onto the crate to listen to the tavern corner. Sure enough, his men were there.
...now’s the time...
“Now is not the time!” Arnold Mather muttered to himself. He listened no further. It didn’t matter what else they might say.
They had to be stopped!
He climbed down to the cellar floor and crossed to the workbench, where a newly-purchased sledgehammer awaited. He lifted the hammer unsteadily, winding up to swing it. So slight of build was he that he could wield the sledgehammer without falling over. He marshaled all his energies, then swung with all his might.
Crack!
Again...
Crack!
Again...
Crash...
VI
Grayish light crept toward his bl
oody face, and the stillness was broken by sounds from the street. Arnold Mather stirred, inviting waves of soreness and pain; he tried to sit up and found himself pinned by a heavy board. He struggled, slowly contorting his way out from under the ancient plank as new torrents of misery swept through him. His head was a pinball machine, the aches and throbs bouncing from here to there as he battled the disorientation.
Finally he stood, a wobbling stick figure on the cellar floor, surrounded by broken furniture and glass and weighty lumber. Slowly it all came back to him – the after-midnight, the tavern, the plotters – and he realized he’d done it. He’d done it! He had stopped the plotters! But it was a wonder he hadn’t been killed.
Half the shop floor was more or less intact, but sagging into the basement in a grotesque pose, its contents piled not far from where he’d fallen; some boards remained in place, the ribbing beneath them wrenched away, giving them the appearance of intermittent teeth in a gummy mouth. Ruddy morning sunbeams sparkled too brightly in the storefront window. A passerby peaked into the horrid mess, astonished, then moved on.
A portion of the center beam lay there a few feet away, pointing his direction as if to congratulate him. A thin smile arrived on his dusty, splattered face as he gingerly made his way to the stairs.
He stepped over the splintered remnants of the Dorie Maine rocking chair. He had to climb his way past the still-intact Paxton wardrobe, and he noted with relief that Ben Franklin’s bathtub had given him a wide berth (it certainly would have squashed him to jelly). He made it to the stairs, ascending into the alcove off the shop floor.
He gasped.
The devastation looked far worse from above than it did from below. It was as if a tornado had sauntered in and spun all his prizes to shreds, leaving not a single one intact. Taking in the sight, Arnold was astounded that he had survived.
Enough of the floor remained between the alcove and the front door that he was able to make his way there, flipping the lock and lifting the latch. He stepped onto the sidewalk as the sounds of city morning renewed the throbbing in his head.
He gasped again. The buildings on the edge of the Manhattan skyline were taller and more numerous, and the electric carriages that normally populated the street had been replaced by larger, sleeker ones that rumbled, rather than hummed. Alarmed, he ran to the corner, drawing stares from pedestrians, looking this way and that as it dawned on him that something was terribly wrong.
Setting the muscle aches aside, he broke into a limping jog as he crossed the street and headed for the library. It wasn’t there, of course; a much larger building, clearly the offices or lawyers or financiers or speculators or something, stood in its place. Knowing she could not possibly be there, he burst into the lobby, scanning it in vain for some sign of Greta.
The post office...
There is stood, the same but not the same; the words on the wall froze his heart solid, but that wasn’t the worst of it.
The truth of what he’d done raged at him like an angry schoolmaster, whipping him without restraint.
He hadn’t prevented that traitor Washington’s escape; he’d prevented the assassination itself.
George Washington had lived!
The testament to his failure fluttered above him in the dawn breeze, taunting him. It was red, white and blue, to be sure, but there was no trace of His Majesty’s beloved union jack; in its place was a perversion, a hideous icon of whatever twisted reality had replaced his own - a gaudy amalgam of stars and stripes.
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