The Portal At The End Of The Storm

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2Ashley

NOVEMBER 27, 2016

Jane said that I'd been hard on Linda. I was, and on her mother, Emily, for not telling us everything before this mess got completely out of hand. I told Jane that both her life and mine had been upside down for the past six months because of them.

“You know that's not fair, Ash,” Jane said.

“Maybe not entirely. But a lot. Jane, I love you. And I love Fritz and Linda like family. More. I can't believe I can't find him. Yesterday, I randomly followed each of the nine books to where he'd paperclipped. Today, only the ones I think he would have chosen. Tomorrow night, I want to go in the exact order he left the books on the desk.” Now that I can open the portal, the real weirdness of paperclips in a book on a desktop keeps running through my head. Although I knew it, it was one of those things that you don't really think about. Until you have to do it yourself.

“Do you think you know where he went?”

“My brain says he went to find Robert E. Lee. But inside the portal, that doesn't feel right. Like the portal is trying to tell me to look somewhere else. Classes are going to be relaxing compared to this.”

That's how I felt. At first, I sensed Fritz's pain. I know what damage the months without Linda and TJ have done. He'd begun smoking again, up to a pack a day, and he had bought a whole case of Jack to just get through the long nights. I tried to reason with him, then bully him. He's one stubborn cuss when he makes up his mind to be. Kind of like me.

But right now, with Jane watching me, I'm angry, really angry, at Fritz. He took off into the portal. He had to know that I'd come after him, but if he wanted me to find him, he wouldn't have made it so hard. I'm angry because he took the easy way. And left me to sort out the chaos.

“I'm going to try to talk to General Lee tomorrow. Maybe he can give me some advice like he gave Fritz way back when. Or maybe he's seen him. Jane, I hope I can find him soon. I want to marry you. I've waited for years and I'm tired of waiting.”

She grinned at me. “Ash, we've only known each other a little more than a year.” Her dark eyes sparkled, like in a fairytale movie.

“I've wanted to marry you for my whole life,” I said. “I just had to find you first.” I took her hand and squeezed. She did what came so naturally. She reached to the leather satchel hanging on the chair, and took out a yellow pad and pen. “So you're going to record all my romantic sayings?”

“No.” She scowled, intending to make me laugh. “Those are recorded. You know I have the house bugged.” Then I did laugh. “Ash, I think we should have a record of as much detail as possible in case this takes longer than you think.”

“Let me write it. As I go through, you can ask questions to get to the least important, most miniscule factoid you can conjure. You know, government at its best.”

She jerked toward me and I sat back, dodging what I expected to be a right cross that never came. Shaking her head, she said, “While you're writing, I'll make dinner. But before you start, would you do my back? It's itching like the devil, enough that scratching it would feel good even if I opened the cuts. I could get bloody.” More than a month after her abduction and rescue from the barn, the wounds hadn't healed completely. A recurring image, finding her in the barn with those knife slices down her back, remained as palpable to me as I'm sure they were to her.

“Sure,” I said, and followed her to the bedroom.

By the time I started writing, I desperately needed a shower and food. But the shower could wait. While Jane reheated whatever we had in the fridge, I took the stack of books and made a list of titles in the order I visited Fritz's clipped selections.

The first stop had been Kitty Hawk. McCullough's book. It had been a f******d, but stepping inside its pages enlightened me about how to proceed.

“Here's another one, Wilbur.” The younger dark-haired man pointed at me as I walked into their work shed.

“What do you want?” I answered him as abruptly as he had asked.

“I'm looking for someone. And he's been here. Have you seen him?”

“Would I be correct if I said the name Russell?” Wilbur asked, nodding to his brother.

“I think you already know the answer is yes.” I asked when he'd been there.

“Who are you?” Orville asked.

“My name is Ashley Gilbert. Fritz is my friend and he's lost.”

“He acted fairly certain of his location when he came here,” Wilbur said. “He had a lot to say this time.”

“This time?”

“I met him a few years ago in Dayton. When he left, he walked into a glowing rectangle. When he showed up here, we three spent a few hours talking about what he said would be accomplished here.”

Orville said, “It's out there, Will.”

Orville had tried to look busy, but he stood in the shed opening looking at the fluorescent rectangle, the portal. I told them that Fritz and I had found a way to travel through time and space. They both laughed, not at my statement but at the idea that they were about to change the world through flight. I understood the irony.

“How could he be lost, Mr. Gilbert? He came here, just as you have. And he left through your portal. As I presume will you.”

I asked again when Fritz had visited.

“What's it been now, Will? Nine, no ten days?” Wilbur nodded. “Why is finding him so important to you?”

I'd never put it into words before. Fritz and I had just meshed right from the start, my first day teaching English at Riverboro High. We'd just talked between classes, like we'd known each other forever.

“I'm the butter to his bread. He's the salt to my pepper.” I looked at the workshop. “I'm his propeller, and he's my wings. Alone we work fine. Together we soar.” I glanced at the brothers. “I'm his Wilbur, and he's my Orville.” I hesitated at their grins, and asked, “Which of you has the best sense of humor?”

Wilbur stiffened, his lips forming a thin, taut line. Orville shrugged. I waited. They answered at the same time.

“Orville,” said Wilbur.

“I do,” said his brother, and they both laughed.

“In that case, I'm his Orville and he's my Wilbur.”

“Mr. Gilbert?” Wilbur asked. “The moon. Does man reach the moon? Mr. Russell said we did.”

I asked him if he'd read Jules Verne. He shook his head.

“Not too far in the future from now,” I told him. “On July 20th in the year 1969, a man named Neil Armstrong was the first, will be the first, to set foot on the moon's surface. But, what's as exciting is that we had the communication technology to be able to watch it right here on earth. The future, gentlemen, is astounding,” I said, “and you are an important part of the foundation we will build on. Now, I have to go. Having met you is a great honor. I have given you a gift, a glimpse of the future. Use the knowledge judiciously.”

When I finished the first story, I checked the time. Already nine o'clock. Tomorrow school would begin again, with the final push to Christmas vacation. Jane asked me where I'd been.

“Chatting with Orville and Wilbur. No wonder Fritz wants to use the portal.” I pushed the pad across the table. “Here.” She pushed it back.

“Ash, you have to find him. The portal may be fun, but it's destroying our friends' lives. So keep writing. Where did you go next?”

“Germany. Of all the places Fritz could go, he went to see Hitler in prison in 1924. That's when he wrote Mein Kampf. Fritz paperclipped the one picture of Hitler in his cell.”

Jane asked me why Fritz would pick Hitler. Curiosity more than anything, I told her. For a brief moment, I could visualize Fritz with a gun, one step inside the portal, a quick shot. Hitler would be dead, and he would be gone. A shiver ran down my back.

“What's wrong?” Jane asked.

“I wonder if Fritz considered shooting him?”

“He would know he'd create cataclysmic changes. He wouldn't take that chance.”

“I'm not so sure. I honestly don't know what he would do. His state of mind is nothing like anything I've ever seen. Just leaving, giving up. It's not like him at all.”

“Did Hitler see you?”

“No. I looked and left in less than five seconds.”

“You should write that as part of your description. In case things change, it'll be a place to look and see if he's the reason.”

When she asked me to describe Hitler, I said I only saw his back, but from the photos, his anger lived on the surface. Dead eyes. No joy beneath. I expected his cell would be like we see in American prison documentaries. Instead, I had seen a fairly large room with a large window, which swung open to the inside.

“Why was he in prison?” she asked.

“In 1923, the Nazis tried to overthrow the government. History books call the attack the Beer Hall Putsch. I need to read more about it, but Fritz said that besides writing the book, Hitler learned a strategic lesson, which he used effectively. From that point, he used the political system to bring the Nazis to power. They became a force the government couldn't ignore. So the German president appointed Hitler as chancellor. He rose to power preying on the fears of the people.”

“Write that all down. If nothing else, it's a good start on a book. Then get a shower. You're pretty ripe.” Her eyes beamed at me and I finished recording my notes quickly.

Monday morning came too soon. Jane had a meeting with Colonel Mitchell about closing down the secret airport now that the elections were over. I suggested that they might want to delay closing it until the president left office. “He may still be a target. Richter, I mean Koppler, hasn't been put away.”

“I agree, Ash, but the president is beginning to wind down everything, so he's ready to hand over the keys on January 20.”

“If you talk to him, tell him I still have a bet I expect to win.” She chuckled and kissed my cheek on her way out the door. I had only a few minutes to gather my thoughts and my lessons. The stack of books called to me, so I took the remaining seven to the car, along with my game plan for the day.

After homeroom ended, the day should have been busy, but I pulled the plug. For each class, I assigned different writing projects, long enough that they couldn't finish it in class, so it would carry over as their homework. While each class wrote, so did I.

I paid close attention to the next book, General Longstreet's memoir, the one Lee had told Fritz he had asked Longstreet to write. I had stepped through no more than three feet from the general. I had barely enough time to look around. His binoculars were aimed at a wide field covered in smoke, and he didn't hear me come through. Loud, repetitious cannon fire didn't distract the two soldiers running toward me. As I took a step toward the portal, General Lee stepped through the door onto the porch. I didn't wait to make contact. With all the smoke, and so little wind, I don't know how anyone could see anything, but the woods teemed with men preparing. Pickett's Charge would soon follow.

By the end of the first period, I had completed my description of five seconds at Gettysburg, and had started making notes on the next book, Professor Guelzo's history of the battle. Fritz pursuing Lee made sense to me because Fritz said that book read like a novel, one of the best he had ever read. I found out right away I wasn't prepared for my next visit to the past.

Fritz had clipped the pages where the Confederates had retreated from Gettysburg, and camped at the banks of the Potomac in a downpour. If Fritz had been here, I think he would have left quickly. On the heights, the Union army formed up, with the chance to put an end to the Army of Northern Virginia, with its back to the swollen river. Lee's army had escaped, so I had no reason to get any wetter.