The silence in the kitchen stretched, thick and uncomfortable. Eleanor's wariness was now a palpable thing, a third presence in the room beside the ticking of a grandfather clock Robert hadn't even noticed before. Its slow, heavy tock… tock… tock measured out seconds in a world where time itself had become his prison.
"Mr. Vale," Eleanor began, her tone carefully neutral. "You're clearly in some sort of trouble. Are you in trouble with the law?"
The question was so mundane, so rooted in the concerns of this time, that it almost made him laugh. A hysterical bubble rose in his throat. No, ma'am, just the laws of physics. He choked it down.
"No. Nothing like that," he said, running a hand through his hair. It was a gesture of exhaustion he'd carried from his old life, and it felt strangely reassuring. "I'm… I'm an inventor. An engineer. I was working on an experiment last night. There was an… accident. An explosion of sorts. I must have been disoriented, wandered here." The lie was flimsy, but it was the best he could muster. It explained his strange clothing, his confusion, his desperation to see the basement.
Eleanor's eyes narrowed slightly. "An inventor? You don't look like any inventor I've ever seen. You look like you're dressed for a baseball game." She gestured to his jeans. "And that material… I've never seen the like."
Before Robert could formulate a response, the back door swung open and a man stepped inside. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a weathered, honest face and hands that spoke of physical labor. He wore simple trousers and a work shirt, and he carried with him the scent of fresh-cut wood and sunshine. This was Arthur.
"Ellie, the Henderson's fence is—" He stopped short, his eyes landing on Robert. A flicker of surprise, then a guarded calm settled on his features. "Ah. You're awake. Feeling better, son?"
"This is Arthur, my husband," Eleanor said, her voice regaining some of its warmth. "Arthur, this is Mr. Vale. He says he's an inventor, had an accident last night."
Arthur set a small toolbox down by the door and gave Robert a long, appraising look. It wasn't hostile, but it was deeply assessing, the look of a practical man sizing up a problem. "An inventor, eh? What kind of contraption were you building that left you in such a state on our porch? And where's your workshop?"
The questions came like hammer falls, each one exposing another flaw in his hastily constructed story. Robert's mind, trained for complex problem-solving, scrambled. He was in over his head. These people weren't fools. His 21st-century cynicism and digital-age social skills were useless here. He needed to be simple. He needed to be pathetic.
He let his shoulders slump, pouring every ounce of his genuine, soul-crushing disorientation into his posture. "I… I don't rightly know, sir," he mumbled, looking at the floor. "The accident… it's all a blur. My head… I can't remember much. I remember the flash, the noise, and then… walking. I don't know how I ended up here. I have nowhere to go." The last part, at least, was the absolute, terrifying truth.
The confession of weakness seemed to be the right tactic. Arthur's stern expression softened a fraction. He exchanged a glance with his wife, a silent conversation passing between them. Eleanor gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod.
"Amnesia," Arthur muttered, scratching his chin. "Seen it before, after the Great War. Shell-shock. Men's minds just… break sometimes." He looked back at Robert, a new, pitying understanding in his eyes. "You fight in the war, son?"
Robert, who was born nearly seventy years after World War I ended, could only shake his head. "No, sir. Too young." Another truth, technically.
Arthur nodded, seeming to accept this. "Well. You can't be on the streets. It's not Christian, and it's not decent." He sighed. "We've got the spare room. You can stay there for a few days. Get your strength back, your bearings. But you'll earn your keep. I'm a carpenter. I can always use an extra pair of hands, even if they're soft ones." He eyed Robert's hands, which, while calloused from tool work, were not the hardened, rough hands of a 1930s laborer.
Relief, so potent it made him dizzy, washed over Robert. He had a roof. A temporary one, but a roof. "Thank you," he said, the words thick with emotion. "Thank you. I'll work hard. I promise."
"See that you do," Arthur said with a firm nod. "Ellie, see if you can't find him some of my old clothes. Can't have him walking around looking like he's from a picture show."
An hour later, Robert stood in the spare room, staring at his reflection in the small, wavy glass of the dresser mirror. He was wearing a pair of Arthur's old trousers, held up by suspenders, and a simple collared shirt of a coarse, thick cotton. He looked like a character from one of his grandfather's old photographs. The familiar weight of his jeans and t-shirt was gone, folded neatly on the bed—a tiny, pathetic pile of evidence from a future that was now a lifetime away.
He sat on the edge of the bed, the straw mattress rustling beneath him. The initial shock was receding, leaving behind a cold, leaden dread. He was stuck. The machine was gone. He was living on the charity of strangers in his own house, in the year 1935.
His eyes fell on his t-shirt. Sticking out from under the folded denim was a small, hard rectangle. He pulled it out. It was his smartphone. He'd forgotten it was in his pocket.
A jolt of wild, impossible hope shot through him. He pressed the power button. Nothing. The screen remained black, a sleek, dark slab of useless future-tech. It was dead. A paperweight. A tombstone for his old life. There were no charging ports in this world. No cellular networks. No Wi-Fi. It was as useful as a shiny rock.
He was about to toss it aside in despair when he stopped. He pried off the protective case. Tucked behind the phone was his student ID card and a single, folded twenty-dollar bill from his time.
He stared at the money. The portrait of Andrew Jackson was the same, but the design was all wrong—colors, seals, the text "Series 2021." It was obviously counterfeit by this era's standards. But his ID… his name, his photograph, the university logo. It was proof. Proof of who he was, of when he was from. In this world, it was either meaningless or damning.
A soft knock came at the door. "Mr. Vale? Supper's ready."
He hastily shoved the phone, the ID, and the strange-looking bill deep under the mattress, his heart pounding as if he'd just hidden a murder weapon. He had to be careful. He was an imposter, a collection of anachronisms in a world that demanded conformity.
He joined Arthur and Eleanor at the small kitchen table. The meal was a simple stew with thick, heavy bread. The food was plain but hearty. As they ate, Arthur talked about his work, about the Hendersons' fence, about the price of lumber. Eleanor spoke of a neighbor's new baby. They were building a life, brick by mundane brick, completely unaware of the cataclysmic war that loomed on the horizon, a war Robert knew in intimate, historical detail.
He listened, nodding occasionally, but his mind was a world away. He was a historian who had fallen into the pages of his own book. He knew the outcomes, the tragedies, the triumphs. He knew that the puttering Model A outside would soon be replaced by assembly lines churning out tanks and bombers. The peaceful, small-town street was living on borrowed time.
And he knew, with a chilling certainty, that he was utterly powerless. He was not a hero. He was a refugee. His knowledge was a curse, not a tool. To speak of what he knew would see him branded a lunatic or a subversive.
He was just Robert Vale, a disoriented inventor with a fuzzy memory, earning his keep as a carpenter's assistant. The mechatronics master student, the pilot of virtual warplanes, was gone. He had to bury him, deep, if he wanted to survive in this strange, quiet, and terrifying past. The weight of yesterday was gone, replaced by the unbearable, invisible weight of tomorrow.