Chapter 2 Passages in Time #5
“Not much. I just said that I had by chance met someone who was as interested in the possibility of time travel as she was, and not in a TARDIS or ‘Beam me up, Scotty’ kind of way.”
“A what?”
“Science fiction – did you have that in the early 1850s?”
“You mean stories of fiction that have a scientific element?”
“Yes, but the science is fantastical.”
“Yes, we had that.” He glanced around. “However, it seems our science fiction may have become science fact.”
“I suppose it must seem that way.” She squeezed his hand reassuringly.
“I thought things in my time moved fast, in terms of science and invention – what we were achieving and what we believed could be achieved in the future. I never in my wildest dreams imagined this.” He gestured with his arm at the streets of Milton.
MJ looked about at the normality of what he was pointing out and tried but failed to imagine what it must seem like to him.
“I suppose nobody could imagine all of this. Here we are. This is the main physics building. My friend’s office is on the fourth floor.
There is a lift, but your breathing seems all right so I think we will be okay using the stairs. ”
The lift, Mr. Thornton assumed, was the refinement of an invention he had been following the development of in his own time that enabled goods – and now it seemed people – to move between the different stories of a building.
Maybe they could use it coming back down.
It couldn’t be any more terrifying than the vehicle Miss Hale travelled about in.
The office they headed towards was just along a corridor that led off from the stairs. Although they were expected, he still liked the fact that Miss Hale knocked and waited to be called in – some manners, he realised, still existed.
The voice that answered them was female, which was a surprise to Mr. Thornton, as was the broad Lancashire accent. Miss Hale’s accent was not from these parts – hers was undoubtedly from the south, but which part he couldn’t be sure.
The office was small. Seated at a desk was a fair-haired woman with her head buried in some papers she was studying.
“Morning, Doc. Allow me to introduce the friend I spoke to you about on the telephone, John Thornton.”
At his name, the woman’s head flew up.
“Mr. Thornton, Doctor…” MJ stopped as Mr. Thornton interrupted her.
“Bessy Higgins,” he said in a hoarse whisper.
“John Thornton – Master of Marlborough Mills. My data must be correct; the door must have opened again. But why would you choose to step through it?” she said, her tone incredulous.
“Hold on a minute, do you two know each other?” MJ asked.
“I certainly know Mr. Thornton. I used to work for him at Marlborough Mills, but I am surprised that you know me,” Bessy Higgins said, looking at him questioningly.
“Of course, I know you. I employed you. Your father asked me to take you on when I had the wheel installed in the mill. Your chest was bad. Conditions in my mill were better. You disappeared a year ago – your father came to me asking if I’d seen you.
You left a note saying that you had gone to a place that could cure your lung problems, but you didn’t say where. ”
“No. Well, it would be hard to explain that the place was almost 200 years in the future.”
“You mean there is a cure here for consumption?”
“It is called tuberculosis now, and yes, it is a curable condition here.”
“Are you telling me that you are also from the nineteenth century as well?” MJ was incredulous.
“Yes, I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. Even if I could have, I doubt you’d have believed me.”
MJ’s knees weakened and she sank to a chair. “You’d have been right.”
“You wonder why I chose to walk through the door, but I didn’t choose to do anything. There was no door,” Mr. Thornton said.
“It is not really a door; it is more like a passage in time. Interesting, you must have fallen against the passage as it opened. Do you remember falling?”
“Yes, the heat and smoke from the fire were overwhelming. A beam exploded; I must have rolled out of the way when it fell.
“You’re saying this happened at the time of the fire at Marlborough Mills?”
“Yes, is that not how it was for you?”
“No. A man who became my mentor and teacher came through it and offered to take me where I could be cured. I was dying and even though I didn’t really believe him, I followed him. What did I have to lose? I arrived here, and he organised treatment for my tuberculosis, and I was cured.”
“Matthew Hemmingway travelled through time?” MJ was astonished, recalling the scientist who had died recently. She knew that Bess Higgins had been considered his protégé.
“Yes, he did.”
“Why did he not publish his findings?”
“He only travelled through it once, so he felt he needed more proof of what he had experienced. He became the father I left behind. Like any father, he taught me – but not how to walk, talk, read, or write. I knew how to do those things. He taught me physics and all he knew about time travel. He was sure that the passage would re-open, and spent the rest of his life trying to prove when it would. He died last year, but I continued his work – not just on time travel, but teaching physics to a new generation. Working from his data, I thought we must be close to the date the passage would re-open, but truthfully I thought it would occur next week. I don’t understand why this has happened earlier than he predicted.
Matthew believed the passage is on a loop.
He calculated how long it would take for it to return to this point in time. ”
“Well almost, he was only out by a week,” MJ said.
“I don’t understand why he was; it doesn’t make sense. The maths should work perfectly, unless time in the loop was moving faster than he thought.”
“Is that possible?” MJ asked.
“No, I don’t see how, not if the loop is elliptical.”
“Elliptical--what is that?” Mr. Thornton asked.
“It means oval like an egg, not circular like a ball.”
“What if the loop were like a ball, would that make a difference?” Mr. Thornton asked.
As soon as he spoke, a small smiled appeared on Bessy Higgins’ face. “Yes, you are on to something there, Mr. Thornton. The loop must not be an elliptical one.” She reached for a pad and pencil and began jotting down various complex equations.
“I see you have brains, but I don’t see how you learned all of this physics in a year,” Mr. Thornton said.
Bessy paused. “I have been here ten years, not one year.”
“I don’t understand. Your father came to me a year ago. In fact, he remarked only a few days ago that it was the anniversary of your disappearance.”
“Is he well?”
“Yes, I believe so. He has formed a union to improve workers’ rights – it’s not popular with some mill owners, though.”
“Are you talking about Nicholas Higgins?” MJ asked.
“Yes. How do you know his name, Miss Hale?”
“He was one of the first union leaders here in Milton. I’ve come across him in my research. How is it I never linked your name with his, Bessy?”
“Why should you? I think I have worked out why you have fallen through the passage earlier than expected, Mr. Thornton. I think it is on a Mobius loop and the speed inside that would be different from an elliptical loop.”
“A what loop?” MJ asked, her head in a daze at all the revelations she was witnessing.
“Think of it as a loop that is twisted, like a figure eight.”
“You said you had been here ten years,” Mr. Thornton said. “Is that how long I will have to wait to go back?”
“That’s what I thought, but if I am correct in my calculations, the passage will reappear seven days from when it first opened because of how a Mobius loop twists. It must have done this last time, but Matthew was unaware of it.”
“So I can get back again – is that what you are saying?” Mr. Thornton asked.
“I’m saying that if my calculations are correct, then the passage will open again. I’m not sure whether you can go back through it.”
Chapter Five
Another five days; that was all he had to wait.
He just had to be patient. The so-called passage in time would reappear one week from the time it first opened, and he had already been here two days.
He had to believe that what Miss Higgins said was correct.
It was hard to imagine that his mill worker, Bessy Higgins, was now a Doctor of Physics and Astronomy, but believe and imagine he must, for she was the key to his returning home.
“Mr. Thornton, did you hear what Dr. Higgins said? That although she believes the passage will reopen, she is not sure you can pass through it or that you will end up back at the mill. You may end up back in the fire,” MJ said.
“I heard what she said, Miss Hale, but I must believe that all will be well when I return.”
“I will spend the next few days doing what I can to check my calculations,” Bessy said.
“We have five days, Mr. Thornton. I suppose I should show you around Milton.”
“No, MJ, that cannot be allowed. Mr. Thornton must not learn anything more about the twenty-first century than he has already. No physicist is truly aware of how time travellers might alter the future,” she said.
“I don’t understand. How might his going back alter the future?”
“The things that are happening around us are following a timeline. It stands to reason that if Mr. Thornton takes back something he has learned here and uses it, then the timeline will be altered. What we don’t know is how, but you can be sure there would be both positive and negative outcomes.”
“Does that mean when the passage opens you will not return with me?” Mr. Thornton asked Bessy.