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Kara stared down at it for several long seconds. Then she pushed back from the table…
… and walked straight out of the room.
Thirty-Five
There were certain indicators Kara had learned to look for whenever she was about to experience a retrocognitive episode. One of them was the tingle. Another, a distinct sour taste in her mouth.
Right now it felt like she’d squeezed the juice of an entire lemon directly onto her tongue. And the numbing tingle? It was more of a paralysis than anything else.
Kara put her hand to her forehead. She couldn’t even feel her fingers. It was like touching another person, and she recoiled quickly from the strangeness of the experience.
The entire time though, she still hadn’t stopped looking at the old photograph.
The photo…
Her eyes were drawn to Rudolph Northrop’s table. More specifically, to the bell. It was small and plain. Flared tight at the end. The handle was longer than the the bell itself.
Kara’s legs still moved, even though her eyes remained locked on the picture. Someone bumped into her and apologized. Another few people moved out of her way. It was all happening in the background, really. It might as well have been happening to someone else. Kara was only barely there. Just barely—
The ‘whoosh’ came, and suddenly she was someplace else. She was still standing in the Averoigne’s lobby, but so many things were different. The lighting, for one. The noise, the heat… the people too. Kara saw men and women walk by, almost transparent to the eye. They left trails as they moved, and they moved either too slowly or too quickly to be real. Almost like a piece of film reel stuck in a projector, stuttering, skipping. Jammed and then released and then jammed again.
A man stood out to her, tall and wizened. He had a rounded, rimmed hat. A beard that went down to his chest. He was standing in front of the massive fireplace at the back end of the lobby, and with another ‘whoosh’ of sound and wind, Kara was standing there too.
The man looked over his shoulder. Then he reached out, grabbed hold of something near the fireplace mantle, and pulled. Kara heard the grinding of stone on stone. She saw the shift of something heavy. A swirl of powder, or dust.
As she watched, the man reached into his pocket and pulled out a small silver bell. The bell. He secreted it someplace with his hands, and Kara had to lean in to see what it was:
A keystone?
No, that wasn’t right.
A dedication stone?
Whatever it was, the stone was deeply carved. Either that, or something was written across its face.
The man pushed hard, and the stone slid back into place. He glanced backward one last time before shuffling away, leaving Kara staring down at a fireplace that flickered strangely, moving impossibly fast.
WHOOSH!
It ended just as abruptly as it started. Kara was back. Fully in control. She stood now in the exact spot she stood in her vision, one hundred or so years prior. All she had to do was lift her chin… and there it was. A rectangular stone, set into the fireplace amongst the others. Faded with age, stained with time. It was carved with a single date:
1902
Kara reached out and grabbed hold of the stone. She pulled hard, but it didn’t budge.
Come on…
The failure made her angry, so she pulled harder. The stone shifted this time, just a fraction of an inch. Her heart caught in her throat.
“Miss?”
She began rocking the stone right and left. It shifted some more. Kara put her back into it, grabbing it tight with both hands and pulling hard one last time.
“Excuse me! Miss?”
It popped free! She stumbled backwards for two whole steps, then regained her balance and set the stone down on the floor. Her entire arm shook as she reached into the cavity she’d just created and came out with her prize:
A small, dusty silver bell.
