Chapter 18

Wednesday, June 5, 3089, 10:40 a.m. Pacing away from the platform, Gudrun missed the gate’s arrival--also, Rebecca carefully stepping through on her crutches. Reaching the far end of her circuit, she turned back, cried out and tripped over her feet. She stared at Rebecca wide-eyed, angry and flustered. Rebecca laughed softly.

“I brought you a gift.” In her left hand, the brooch translated her words into Birdsong. To Rebecca’s surprise, Gudrun made a quick sign of the cross and backed away two steps.

“It won’t hurt you,” Rebecca said. “I won’t either. You understand my words, don’t you?”

Gudrun nodded guardedly; arms clamped over her chest.

“Say something then, and the brooch will translate your words into English.”

Gudrun’s eyes flitted from the brooch and back to Rebecca. She spoke rapidly in Birdsong: “High Ones do not venture outside the trimmed grass.”

Rebecca laughed again. “High Ones go wherever we please, Gudrun.” She smiled to soften the rebuke. “We administer the village, correct?”

Gudrun nodded reluctantly.

“We administer the entire world, Gudrun.”

Gudrun blinked, perplexed. Rebecca made an all-inclusive sweep of her left hand. “The land is much greater than you imagine, extending far over the horizon in all directions. Do you know where the ocean lies?”

Puzzled, Gudrun furrowed her brow. Rebecca motioned her forward. Pinning the brooch to Gudrun’s shirtfront above her left breast, she removed her cell phone and activated Google Maps. A blue dot pinpointed their location on the satellite view.

She had done this earlier, inside The Hall of The Gate. Standing beside the raised dais had placed her in her bedroom on the map. The High Palace of Norkaal occupied land once the home of Huntington, West Virginia.

During the party last weekend, where she and Gunther had unexpectedly hooked up, he’d demonstrated the use of Google’s off-line map function to both she and Amy. He’d downloaded the Huntington area map as an example, and then Rebecca and Amy experimented with New York City, Washington, DC, and then the entire satellite map of the world, successfully downloading it all before losing interest. Amy deleted her maps later that night; Rebecca forgot and continued forgetting until Siri reminded her that they resided on her iPhone this morning. Procurement had them stored in permanent memory along with everything else from her phone.

Siri overlaid a mile-diameter white circle on the satellite map to outline the palace in the present day.

“This is Huntington, West Virginia.” Siri outlined the city limits in orange. “My home was here,” she said, indicating the roof of her house on the map, two blocks shy of the northern-most point of the circle. “You and I are here,” she said, tapping the blue dot with her fingernail. The map placed her and Gudrun half-a-block west of Spring Hill Cemetery and a mile and a half-mile south of the Ohio River--where the cemetery and river were in Rebecca’s time, at least—standing in the intersection of McVeigh Avenue, and Lynn Street.

Before positioning the gate at the verge, Rebecca had sent it a thousand feet in the air, positioning it to face down. No sign of the river existed in the resulting view. Now, she traced the path of the Ohio River with her fingernail. “Your village lies here now, Siri says. Do you know of a river nearby?”

Gudrun shook her head, confused.

Placing her forefinger and thumb on the map, Rebecca slowly pinched inward, expanding the 2014 map. Gudrun’s eyes grew wide as the map expanded to display the continental US, Canada, and Mexico. Unnerved at the apparent magic, she stepped back in distress.

“Please don’t be alarmed,” Rebecca said. “I use magic every day, and it doesn’t hurt me a bit.”

Gudrun’s eyes flicked to the black brace extending halfway to Rebecca’s left knee. Rebecca laughed.

“I did that to myself. Kicked something I shouldn’t have kicked when I was angry. Even High Ones get angry.” She indicated the screen. “This is North America. Siri, can you outline the US in red for me?” She traced the red line with her fingernail. “This is the United States of America. It is made up of 48 individual states that Siri will outline for you in white. This is West Virginia right here.” She paused to see how Gudrun was weathering the tour. Apprehensive and confused, Gudrun stared at the small screen attentively. Not for the first time, Rebecca wished her iPhone was a 6-Plus.

“I want to show you something, Gudrun. Don’t be alarmed.”

Earlier, she’d cautioned Siri against depicting Earth as a globe. If the villagers believed the earth to be flat, then proving its roundness could result in a Middle-Ages revolt similar to what Galileo experienced by claiming that Earth circled the sun, instead of the other way around. However, flipping her iPhone to landscape mode, she pinched her fingertips together to show the entire world. Gudrun gasped and staggered backward.

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Convincing Gudrun that Earth possessed 7 continents wasn’t half as difficult as getting her to believe that Earth’s surface was three-quarter’s water. With Siri’s help, she named the 7 continents, and the 5 encircling oceans. Gudrun looked expectedly overwhelmed.

“Why do you tell me these things?” she demanded.

Rebecca chose her words carefully. “I come from the past (she wasn’t certain that Gudrun understood the concept of past-present-future yet), but I arrived here from the future, via that.” She indicated the hovering gate. “While in 3109—” She paused, unsure how to frame this. “I met a young woman named Frieda. She was beautiful, a young woman between your age and mine (she guessed Gudrun to be around 30). She and I conversed through one of these.” She indicated the cameo on Gudrun’s shirt. “It was Frieda that I first met when I arrived here, in 3089. Do you understand the meaning of years?”

Gudrun nodded uncertainly. “This is our year, 177.” Her eyes flared as she comprehended the meaning of Rebecca’s words. “My Frieda? You met my Frieda in 3109?”

“I fled 3109 in order to escape another High One,” she said, “intent on enslaving your people again. Frieda was her maidservant. She had many other servants and none of them servants by choice. I intend to make sure that never happens. That’s why I’m here, Gudrun.”