48 #2
He crossed to the far corner of the workshop, where a small chest sat beneath a length of oilcloth.
Finn hadn’t noticed it before. At first glance, it looked like nothing more than a carpenter’s box, tucked behind a stack of timber offcuts.
Anton lifted the oilcloth, turned a key he wore on a cord at his wrist, and opened the lid.
Inside were more more rolls of parchment, bound tight with cord.
Beneath them, nestled in a fold of dark cloth, was a device roughly the size and shape of a large fist. It was metal—iron and brass, from the look of it—with a small cluster of dials on its face and a single lens at its center, no larger than a coin, that caught the candlelight and held it.
“What is that?” Cecily asked.
“I told you the machine you used was not my design,” Anton began. “I only repaired it. But in doing so, I began to wonder if the machine itself was truly the essential part of time travel.”
“What else could it be?” Cecily asked.
“You,” Anton said, tapping the parchment.
“I’ve discovered that the journey changes the traveler.
It leaves a mark, not on the skin, but deeper.
A… a code, written into your very being.
” He saw their confusion. “Think of it as a key. The machine forges it, and once you carry it inside you, you may no longer need the lock to the same door.”
He looked at them both. Their expressions were blank. “Let me explain it even more simply. I believe time travel writes something new into that code within you. Once written, it cannot be unwritten. And I believe it can be read, and used, without the machine when you travel again.”
“So this thing can read that code?” Cecily gestured at the small device.
Anton picked up the device and turned it over in his hands.
“The lens, here, sends a focused pulse through skin and bone. It reads the altered code inside the body of a traveler. Once it has read the code, it can use it. The pulse needs to be directed at a place where the body’s deepest signals run close to the surface.
In other words, where the blood flows.” He touched his own wrist. “Here. Or the temple.” He tapped the side of his head. “The device does the rest.”
“And then we just… travel?” asked Finn.
“In principle. The same way the machine would carry you. But without the machine.” Anton looked at them both. “But it would not work for a first journey. The traveler must already carry the altered code. It only works for someone who has already traveled. For someone like you two. And myself.”
The workshop door opened without a knock.
Beja came in carrying a wooden tray laden with bread, a wedge of hard cheese, a small jug of ale, and a fresh candle.
She set it on the end of the workbench without a word, looked at the three of them with the expression she reserved for situations she had decided not to ask about, and went back out.
The door closed behind her. The new candle flickered and steadied.
In the silence that followed, Finn looked at Cecily. She was staring at the device.
“So if we wanted to bring someone with us—”
“You could not,” Anton said. “Unless they had traveled in the machine first. Once they traveled, their bodies would carry the code. Then the device could carry them again. The code doesn’t affect how you look, how you think, how you live.
You would never know the change has happened without this.
” He touched the device briefly. “But it is there. And it will remain.”
“But the machine is gone.”
“Yes. Right now, time travel with this new device is a closed system, available only to those who have traveled before.”
Cecily was quiet for a moment. Then she asked, “Does it pass to children? This code?” Her eyes found Finn’s, and in her look he saw the question echo. A future he had barely dared to imagine—a life with her—was suddenly marked by this strange, invisible inheritance.
“I don’t know,” Anton said. “I haven’t been able to test that. It’s possible. It’s also possible the alteration only occurs through direct travel, and that children would need to travel first to acquire it.”
Finn had been turning something over in his mind since Anton first mentioned the code. He set down the piece of bread he’d picked up from the tray and looked at Anton directly.
“Benedict and Julian,” he said. “They’ve traveled. More than we have, probably. That means they carry the same code.”
“Yes,” Anton said.
“Then without the machine, they could still travel. If they ever understood what they carry.”
“Yes,” Anton said again. “The same principle applies to any traveler. But they would need this device with them to travel without the machine. Which is why…” He gestured at the locked chest. “I keep this locked up. I have told no one, until now.”
The three of them sat with that for a moment. The candle Beja had brought burned steadily between them.
“Come,” Anton said, standing. “I want some air. And I think better when I’m moving.”
∞∞∞
They went out through the kitchen. Beja looked up from her mending and said nothing. They walked into the kitchen garden. The night was warm, the sky clear, the stars sharp above the roofline. The sounds of the house faded behind them. Somewhere across the village, a dog barked once and went quiet.
Anton walked slowly along the garden wall. Finn and Cecily followed.
“The question you’re both not asking,” Anton said, without turning, “is whether you should go back.”
Cecily stopped walking. “Yes. To 1301. To the other Cecily.”
Anton turned to face them. “As far as we know, she may still be there. Still suffering. And now you know, in principle, that you might be able to reach her without the machine. With just the small device I showed you.”
“Could we?” Cecily asked. Her voice was careful, controlled, but Finn knew what was beneath it.
“This device is untested with people,” Anton said.
“The risks are unknown. And going back before Finn’s succession is secured, before your father dies, Finn, and you inherit, could unravel everything.
The other Cecily needs you here, doing what you came back to do, more than she needs you to return. ”
“But if we wait,” Cecily pressed. “After the succession is settled. After everything is changed. Couldn’t we go back then? With your new device? To make sure she’s free? Or… gone?”
Finn looked at her, the memory of that other Cecily’s cold hand a ghost against his own. The promise, “Live. For both of us.” It was a brand on his heart. He felt the pull of it, but a colder logic prevailed, a sharp knot of fear tightening in his gut.
“Cecily,” Finn said quietly. “If we change the succession, if Julian is never born into that title, the 1301 we came from may not exist anymore. The other Cecily’s timeline may already be resolving. She may not be there at all. We can’t know.”
“Or it may not be resolved,” she said. “We can’t know that either.”
He had no answer for that. Neither did Anton.
They stood in the garden for a moment, the three of them, looking up at the same stars that would sparkle in the year 1301 if they ever found their way back. The same stars, yet a different world.
“It’s a question for another time,” Anton said at last. “Literally.” He turned back toward the house. “For now, you have two years to wait and a great deal to do. Don’t borrow trouble from the future. You’ve had enough of that already.”
Cecily looked at Finn. He looked back at her and saw the conflict in her eyes give way to a weary acceptance. For tonight, at least, the discussion was over. She gave a small nod.
They followed Anton inside. Back in the workshop, Anton wrapped the device in its cloth and locked the chest. He set his hand briefly on Finn’s shoulder, then on Cecily’s. He picked up the fresh candle Beja had brought and moved toward the door.
“Now,” he said. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow, you must go home and tell your stories. Let time do what time does.”
He paused at the door and looked back at them.
“You threw the stone,” he said. “Wait for the bend in the river.”