River: Ghosts Of Our Fathers Part 17

"Roy is a smart man," she said, "and he's had many years of experience, whereas you've had less than one. I don't know the whole story, but I do know Roy, and if he thought it was best to leave Michael alone, there had to be good reasons for it. Either reasons you're not telling me or that you don't know."

"Arrrrghhhh!" Steven said in frustration, raising his hands over his head and leaving the room to walk into his bedroom.

"Steven, come here," Eliza said. He stopped and returned to the guest bedroom.

"What?" he asked.

"Look at these," she said, holding the objects Daniel had been examining earlier in the day.

"He got those from Sam," Steven said. "Wasn't sure what they'd do."

"Yes, he told me. But he also figured them out, this morning. He told me what they were."

"Really?" Steven asked.

"He said this one was a chronosphere, and this one held a demon. A minor demon."

"Oh?" Steven said, approaching her to look more closely at the objects.

"He said the demon was a time demon."

"What's that?"

"I don't know, but I would like to find out. I remember a section on demons in Roy's book, when we were looking through it while you were in Oregon. I'd like to see if it has more information on this."

"I need to apologize to him," Steven said. "How about we go over there first thing in the morning?"

"Deal."

"I think I'm going to turn in. Are you going to be all right?"

"Yes," she said, "I just want to finish packing up these things of his, and I'll be turning in as well."

She turned to look at him, and he saw the pain in her eyes. He extended his arms and she gave him a long hug. She started to cry again.

"I really am sorry," Steven said. "So sorry."

The next morning Steven called Roy to tell him they were coming over. Roy didn't pick up, so Steven left him a message.

"Look, I know you're p.i.s.sed at me and that's why you're not answering your phone. But Eliza and I are coming over, so try to look respectable." He hung up.

"Nice," she said. "That'll start things on the right foot."

"He's much worse than me," Steven said. "You should see him sometimes."

Eliza smiled. "Let's go."

When they arrived at Roy's, they knocked but didn't get a response at the door.

"Listen, Roy, I know you're in there. Open up. Eliza's out here in the cold."

The door finally opened and a grumpy Roy turned without greeting them and walked back into the house. Steven and Eliza went inside.

"Here to berate me some more?" Roy said.

"No," Steven said. "The opposite. I'm here to apologize."

"You can shove your apology up your a.s.s," Roy said, sitting at the kitchen table. "Eliza, would you like some coffee?"

"Thank you, Roy, that'd be nice."

He poured her a mug and handed it to her, then replaced the pot in the coffee maker.

"None for me, that's my penalty for being mean to you last night?" Steven said.

"Eliza, do you hear a buzzing sound? Like the sound of a buzzing ungrateful p.i.s.s-ant?"

"I'm staying out of this," she said.

"She urged me to come over and apologize," Steven said. "And I mean to. I'm sorry, Dad, I shouldn't have said those things to you, especially in front of Jason."

"You needn't have urged him to," Roy said to Eliza. "He was bound to come over sooner or later, as soon as he needed something. I'll bet he needs something now, am I right?"

"Actually I'm the one who needs something," Eliza said, taking some of the heat away from Steven. "These objects Sam gave Daniel. Daniel knew what they were yesterday, after he woke up. One of them holds a time demon. I was hoping you'd help me look through your book for information on it." She smiled.

"I'd be delighted to help you," he said. "You're a kind person who is always respectful and grateful, unlike others. Let me get the book." He rose and walked into the back bedroom, and returned with the book, which he sat between himself and Eliza where they could both see it as he turned the pages.

Steven sighed and let Roy help Eliza without his involvement. He'd apologized, and he knew that he just needed to let it sink in with Roy, and he'd accept it. But not right at first Roy would make him pay first.

Steven walked over to the chairs in the living room and sat in one of them.

"He often sulked as a child," Roy said to Eliza as they scanned the pages. "A very bad habit, hard to grow out of."

Steven bit his lip and stayed seated in the chair. He pulled out his phone to check his messages and kill some time while Eliza and Roy worked their way through the book.

"I know I saw a section on demons when we were looking through it the other day," Eliza said.

"That would be back in the Thomas pages," Roy said, flipping to the earlier sections of the book.

"Yes, here it is," Eliza said. "Wow, he has quite a catalog here. Dozens of them."

"Here's the info on how to release demons from objects," Roy said.

Eliza kept scanning the list, looking for something related to time.

"Found it!" she said, delighted. Steven got up out of his chair and joined them.

She read the paragraphs under the entry she'd marked with her finger. "It's simple," she said.

"What?" Steven asked. "How does it work?"

"Well," she said, turning to look at Roy and Steven, "the steps Roy found will release it from the object. The demon can traverse time and will take you where you want to go and back, but for a price."

"Let me guess," Steven said. "A soul."

"It's always souls with demons," Roy said.

"Yes," Eliza said, "which is why they're not often used. If you don't have a soul to offer up to the demon, it'll take you instead. So it's a dangerous move. But it's what I suspected."

"Well, hold onto it, and it can be part of the collection you save for Troy," Steven said.

"Oh, no," Eliza said. "I was thinking something else."

"Such as?" Roy asked.

"I was hoping you'd be willing to use it."

"Use it?" Steven asked. "How?"

"Roy," she said, "I was hoping you'd convince David to use this demon to go back to 1933 and kill Frank. Outright."

Roy was taken back, and Steven was stunned.

"Kill him, instead of cage him?" Roy asked once he had regained himself.

"Yes," she said. "With Frank dead, he can't come back to cause the trouble eighty years later."

"Oh, yes he can," Steven said. "He'll just be a ghost, but he can come back. They always can."

"Not if the demon takes his soul right after David kills him."

They both sat stunned again. Eliza saw the slightly confused look on their faces.

"You contact David," she said. "You explain to him the deal to cut with the demon, which is, if he will take him back to 1933 so he can kill Frank, the demon can have Frank's soul as payment for the trip. David can correct the mistake of caging Frank, and we'll get Daniel back, because none of this would have happened."

"But," Steven said, "if this never happened, there would have been no object for David to use to go back and correct anything. Doesn't that cause our timeline to...implode or something?"

"Exactly," she said. "Look, time has more continuity than people think. It was Daniel's belief that there are an infinite number of simultaneous timelines playing out. We're in all of them, but we're only aware of one of them because that's all our mind can handle. If this timeline ends, we'll instantly become aware of another that's at the same point in time. We won't even be aware of the s.h.i.+ft. They're all essentially the same, with just minor differences. I'm fine with this timeline we're in imploding. I want to go to the one that has Frank dead and Daniel alive."

"How do you know so much about this?" Roy asked.

"I lived with a time freak for several years, Roy," she said. "You pick up things."

"What do you think, Dad?" Steven asked Roy.

"As much as the idea of a timeline blipping out unnerves me," Roy said, looking at them, "I'll try. I'll ask David if he'll do it."

"Thank you," Eliza said.

"Will he be hard to reach?" Steven asked. "When's the last time you talked to him?"

"No, he'll be easy to reach," Roy said. "I talk to him every morning."

Although things between Roy and Steven were thawing a little, Roy didn't want Steven to sit in on his seance to contact David, saying he was still too p.i.s.sed at him for it to work. Roy and Eliza conducted the seance alone, and Steven waited in the guest bedroom at Roy's, where he'd slept months back when he and Roy were fighting the ghosts that used to haunt Steven's house. The room used to be Steven and his brother Bernard's room when they were kids. He'd had too much coffee to drift off to sleep, so he busied himself with his phone, reading the news, playing mindless finger games. After a half an hour of solitude Eliza came to his door.

"We're done," she said as she opened it. It felt to Steven like he was being let out of his room after being grounded.

Probably how Roy wanted it to feel, he thought. Well I've apologized and I've paid my penance, things better be balanced out now.

"And?" Steven asked, walking back into the living room where Roy sat.

"I don't know what I was thinking," Roy said. "He's fine with the plan, but it doesn't matter what he thinks."

Steven looked confused.

"We realized as we were working it out with him," Eliza said, "that he can't go back with the demon because he's not physical."

"So one of us has to go back," Steven said.

"Yes," Eliza said, "and convince David in 1933 to handle things differently."

"How about I go back," Steven said, "and shoot him myself?"

"You can go back," Roy said, "but you won't be able to kill anybody. When you traverse time like this you can't actually do anything yourself. You can observe, you can communicate with others, but you can't change anything directly. We've got to talk to David and convince him to not help the boys cage Frank."

"And don't forget you have to convince him to kill Frank as well," Steven said, "or have you lost your concern for the welfare of the boys?"

Roy shot Steven a dirty look. "I'm trying to be civil here, p.i.s.s-ant, it'd be nice if you'd meet me halfway."

"Stop, both of you," Eliza said. "You both love each other and need each other's help. And G.o.d knows I need you both right now. So please, for me, stop."

Steven and Roy both looked at Eliza, then looked away, embarra.s.sed at their behavior.

"Who can convince David of what needs to be done?" Eliza said. "Who do you think he will listen to?"

"Probably me," Roy said. "I can blow his mind with a few facts from the future and then tell him what needs to happen."

"And just so we're clear," Steven said, "what needs to happen is exactly what?"

"He needs to stop the boys from caging Frank," Roy said, "and he needs to find a way to kill Frank instead."

"It's a tall order for a ten-year-old boy," Eliza said. "Do you think you can do it?"

"I'll try," Roy said. "That's the best I can do."