At nine that night we were standing on the stone porch in front of the house—me, Rachel, and Jake Fischer. He pressed the doorbell. A moment later his son Ronald answered.
Ronald was taller than his father, slender, with deep blue eyes that sparkled when she smiled. Short blond hair, like I’d seen last night, and a thin pale beard. “Dad! Hi!” They shook hands, and he turned to us. “You guys are—”
“Tom Jurgen. And my associate, Rachel.” We shook hands, and then Rachel shook hands as Ronald checked her out.
Rachel is slender, with red hair and hazelnut eyes. She was wearing jeans, her boots, and a denim jacket. I’m mostly used to men checking her out. Mostly. She shot me an amused glance as Ronald turned, and then we followed him into the house.
He led us into a large living room crammed with bookshelves holding a wide collection of old and newer artifacts: ceramic pots, ornate telephones, a silver flute, a wooden bowl, a a child’s toy drum, and other stuff I couldn’t immediately identify. Heavy curtains were drawn over the windows.
On a table in the corner sat a large clock, three feet tall, carved from dark wood, with a silver base and gems for the numbers on the face. A pendulum swung slowly in its middle.
Ronald offered us drinks, coffee, tea, and other beverages. We sat down.
Fischer cleared his throat, uncomfortable. “Ron, I hired Tom here to watch the house last night. I was—concerned. That you might be having parties, or using it like an AirBnB or something.”
Ronald snorted. “I told you I’d have friends over. But it’s not like anyone’s getting a keg and trashing the place. Most of the time I’m just working on my art. The third floor makes a great studio—”
Fischer held up a hand. “That’s not what this is about. Last night Tom was watching the house, and he saw—he saw . . .” Fischer hesitated.
“The house disappeared,” I said.
Ronald looked at me as if he’d forgotten I was there. His eyes flickered toward Rachel, and he smiled. “Yeah. I wondered if anyone was going to notice. That’s why I set it for midnight.”
Fischer sat back in his chair, startled and confused. “What? Set what?”
“I’ll show you.” He stood up. “But you’ll have to wait for midnight. Changing the setting is tricky.”
He walked over to the clock. “I got this at an estate sale. I was looking for it for years. It belonged to some rich guy in Skokie, but it was built by an Italian clockmaker in the 16th century. His name was Volpano, Guiseppe Volpano, and he was famous for his clocks. And also being a wizard.”
“A wizard.” Fischer stared at him.
“Yeah!” Ronald ignored his father. He was looking at us. Mostly Rachel. “There were all kinds of legends about what he could do—read minds, travel through space, through time—stop time. I don’t know how much of it’s true, but when I found the clock I had to buy it. Don’t worry,” he said to Fischer. “The family didn’t know how much it was worth, they had no idea. I only paid $200.”
“What family?” I asked.
“The, uh, Rosenbergers, I think. Alan. He died a few months ago, the family needed to get rid of stuff.” He shook his head, bored with the question. “Anyway, this is the clock! It’s got his name engraved inside. It needs a special sort of crystal, and that took me a few weeks to find online, but now I can do it. Every night.”
“Do what?” Fischer looked impatient.
“We can—” Ronald frowned. “Look, can you guys stay until midnight? It’s easier to show you. You’ll believe it then.”
Fischer looked at me. I looked at Rachel. “Is he crazy?”
She rolled her eyes. “Not as far as I can tell. I’m psychic,” she told Ronald. “Sort of. I can sometimes tell if people are lying, or possessed, or magical. I can’t read minds. I mean, I can a little. You seem like you’re telling the truth. Or you believe it, anyway.”
He smiled. “You’ll see. Just wait.”
We waited.
I didn’t mind much because I was getting paid, although I decided not to remind Fioscher that I was on his clock. Still, I was behind on my sleep, and there was nothing to do. Ronald didn’t even have a TV.
Aside from that, Ronald was doing his best to flirt with Rachel, and she wasn’t trying too hard to ignore him. He offered her drinks, suggested a tour of the house, tried to show off his collection of antiques and artifacts, and although she laughed and rolled her eyes at me when he wasn’t looking, she didn’t shut him down.
I got it. Rachel is hot. And I could see that Ronald was good-looking—young, enthusiastic, with a cocky smile and a quick laugh, that close-shaved scalp and hipster beard. He’d have no trouble attracting girlfriends or hookups.
I didn’t seriously think Rachel was interested in him, but I couldn’t shake off my irritation. And I couldn’t forget that a long time ago, when we were having some problems, Rachel had slept with a few other men. The problems were partly or mostly my fault—the stress and trauma of a job that all too often threw us into life-or-death struggles with the supernatural—and we’d worked through them.
But I can be hard to live with even on good days sometimes, and my job could be pretty tough sometimes. Ronald was a likable young guy. I couldn’t help feeling a little insecure when she laughed at one of his jokes.
Time crawled forward. At 11:30 Ronald opened the back of the clock to check its gears. He fetched more water for me and poured Rachel another glass of wine that she hadn’t asked for. Fisher checked his watch every few minutes, yawning each time. I walked around the living room in circles, stretching my legs and arms..
At 11:55 Ronald stood up. “Just a few more minutes. You might feel a sort of shifting around the house. It’s not an earthquake, don’t worry. We’ll be fine.” He smiled at Rachel.
Fischer rubbed his forehead. “I had to reschedule an important tomorrow morning. I can’t be out all night like you kids.”
“It’ll be an hour,” Ronald assured him. “You’ll see, and then you can go home.”
We waited. The clock’s pendulum swung. At 11:59 Rachel stood next to me and held my hand. She whispered into my ear: “I can feel it. Outside, underneath. All around. Something’s moving.”
I nodded. I expected a gong or bell to ring from the clock, but its second hand crossed the Roman numeral XII and stayed silent.
Then, like Ronald had predicted, the floor shuddered beneath my feet. The walls seemed to warp around us. For a moment a cold breeze blew across the room. The lights flickered. Then everything was quiet and normal again.
Smiling, Ronald ran to the front door. “Take a look!”
He pulled the door. Sunlight streamed into the house.
I double-checked the clock. Still midnight. But when I got to the door with Rachel and Fischer, the sun was bright outside, high in the sky over a forest of green and gold. No streets, no cars, no other buildings. The grass was high and wild, with red and gold flowers stretching up as if peering at the sun’s blinding light. Butterflies with wide colorful wings circled their petals. Round gentle hills rose in the near distance.
Ronald stepped onto the porch, motioning Rachel to join him. We all came out and went down the stone steps, looking around.
Birds flew overhead—big birds, like golden eagles from The Lord of The Rings. Clouds drifted in the breeze.
Rachel pointed. “Is that a unicorn?”
It was. Tall and cream colored, a unicorn with a long white horn jutting from its forehead stood 20 yards away, munching happily on the tall grass.
“Where—what—is this place?” Fischer looked up into the sky, then down to peer at his son.
“It’s always a different place.” Ronald walked across the grass, then turned to look at us. “Usually. I’ve been here before, or a place just like it. There was a lake just over the hill for swimming. And the fruits on the trees are delicious. Come on!” He waved an arm.
We followed him across the grass. The unicorn watched us, keeping its distance, then turned and galloped away when we got too close. The air smelled of honey and wildflowers and the sky was deep blue, like an ocean wave in the South Pacific. The sun was burnt orange, and I could see a small moon next to it, like a pearl floating in space.
Over the nearest hill we found the lake Ronald had promised. Red animals with tall, angular antlers drank from it on the far side, and they stayed calm as he ran down the slope, pulling his shirt off. “Come on! The water’s great!”
Rachel crossed her arms and shook her head. He was pulling at his belt buckle, then decided not to strip down and skinny-dip if no one was going to join him. Instead he crouched, cupped his hands, and drank from the lake with a loud sigh.
Something rustled in the trees. I turned and watched as something on two legs stepped into view. Its legs, covered in fur, bent in the wrong direction, with hooves instead of feet. Bare chested, the thing had two horns curling from its head, and a thick black beard over its chin.
“A faun,” Rachel said. “Mythological ancient Greek creature. Symbol of peace. And fertility.”
Ronald stood up and approached the creature. They spoke quietly, and the faun nodded. He stepped to the lake, knelt, and buried his face in the water to drink.
Ronald came back to us, pulling his shirt on. “His name’s Silenus. They’re peaceful.”
“I want to go back,” Fischer grunted.
Ronald looked disappointed, but he nodded and led the way back up the hill. I looked over my shoulder to see Silenus stand up and march into the water up to his waist, then dive down into the lake, leaving just a trail of bubbles as his hooves kicked the surface.
Back in the house Fischer slumped in a chair. Ronald poured him a glass of whiskey. He drained it and held the glass out for another.
We sat. I looked at the clock. 12:30. “How long are we here?”
“Just an hour. Like in the real world.” He drank some wine and started to pour more for Rachel, but she put her hand over the glass. Then he looked at his father. “You okay, dad?”
He set his glass down. “This is what you’ve been doing?”
Ronald sighed. “I figured out how to do it, and for a couple of days I just did it on my own, exploring all the new places. Then I invited a couple of friends. Lately I’ve been charging people—”
“How much?” That seemed to perk Fischer up.
“Two hundred. This last week I made—”
“You could charge more.” Fischer sat forward. “Five hundred—a thousand. You’d have to be careful, I guess. You don’t want the wrong people here.”
Ronald frowned. “It’s not like that. Maybe I could get more money, but I just want to have fun, and explore.”
“Explore?” Fischer looked out the door. “How far does it go?”
“As far as you can go in an hour.” Ronald grinned. “But like I said, we don’t a;ways go the same place every time. And some places are—bad.”
“Bad how?” I asked.
His grin disappeared. “One had dinosaurs. Or big lizards. Dragons, maybe. Fighting and eating each other. We didn’t go out. Another one was lava and falling rocks, screaming from the sky. Like Hell. And there was one that was an ocean, freezing cold and filled with monsters. You never know what you’re going to get.”
“Like a box of chocolates.” Rachel smirked.
He laughed. “Yeah. Just like that.” Then he pointed down a hallway. “If it gets too crazy for anyone, the back door connects to the real world. Like an escape hatch. I don’t know why it does that, but it’s there.”
“Are there people in these other worlds?” I asked. “Like the faun?”
“Not usually.” He blinked, thinking. “One time there were people riding horses, but far away. And there was a mermaid out on a rock in the middle of the sea. She waved to me.” He smiled.
“How many trips have you made?” Rachel.
He looked up at the ceiling, counting. “Twenty or 25. I should probably write them all down.” He sipped his wine. “I find all sorts of things for my found art. Rocks, plants, bones. I’m working on an installation for a gallery in River North. You should come see it once it’s up,” he said to Rachel.
“Maybe I will.” She smiled.
“So now we know what’s going on here . . .” I looked at Fischer. “Am I done? Once we get back to the real world, I mean?”
He shrugged. “I suppose. Send me your invoice in the morning.”
We stood up. “You’re all welcome to come back,” Ronald said quickly. Meaning Rachel. “No charge.”
Rachel smiled and looked at me. “Maybe I will.”
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