J. Mitchell - The Severed Tower

She dodged out of the way of the table saw, but raked the side of it as she ran by. The impact sent her reeling and crashing to the floor. Mira tried to push up—then cried out as a shelf of books became a shelf of screws, nails, and bolts that poured down and flattened her.

“Mira!” It was Ben’s voice. In a daze, she felt him lift her off the floor and drag her toward the exit, barely dodging a welding station as it formed out of nothing, its blowtorch flaming and sparking.

Somehow they reached the door, burst through it and out into the street. The small town was dark, with an ominous sky full of swirling black clouds and colored lightning. Mira could hear the air crackling around them. The Shift was about to solidify, and they ran as hard and as fast as they could.

The rumbling silenced. The air returned to its normal shade of dark. Mira and Ben spun around, staring back behind them at the antique store. It was surrounded in a sphere of flickering light, the edge of which was just a few feet in front of them.

The perimeter of the Anomaly. They’d made it out. Barely.

Streaks of lightning-like fingers flashed all over the building, and where they touched it the structure transformed. The signage and framing and paint of McKelvey’s Lost Treasures antique store shifted into the equivalent version of Miller and Sons Machine Works.

Mira watched it morph into its new form, watched it all being wiped away. Tears glistened in her eyes. Slowly, pointedly, Mira began to count. “One, two, three…” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ben studying her, but she didn’t look back. “Four, five, six…”

“Mira?”

“Seven, eight, nine…”

“What are you doing?”

“Counting how many extra seconds we had before the Time Shift finished.” When she spoke, the bitterness and anger in her voice surprised even her. “Seconds we could have used to get my Lexicon.”

“Calculating the time it takes a Time Shift’s energy to expend is even more difficult than calculating how long between the events,” he told her, and his dispassionate voice only made her angrier. “You saw how off we were in there.”

“How off you were,” she said, still not looking at him. “I would have taken the chance, Ben. I would—”

The shimmering and the flickering lightning all vanished in a heartbeat, sucked away into the air. The Time Shift was gone. So was the antique shop, and so was her Lexicon and all it contained. Everything was still and quiet.

The tears that had been threatening to form now fell from Mira’s eyes.

Ben seemed confused. “A Lexicon can be replaced, Mira.”

“It wasn’t just a Lexicon, Ben, it’s…” Mira shook her head, feeling the anger rising. “Never mind. You wouldn’t understand. You don’t feel anything.”

“Mira…”

“Nothing means anything to you, except the Tower and your Points, though I’m not sure you feel anything for them, either. But, hey, I’m glad you got your artifact. That’s what matters, right?”

Ben stared down at her. His face was blank, but there was a slight impression of sadness there. Mira had hurt him. Or at least as much as someone could hurt Ben. It was irrational of her, she knew. Feeling the anger toward him. It was selfish and silly, but what was in that Lexicon meant everything to her. It was all she had left, and now it was gone.

Ben looked down at the tarnished chronograph in his hand, its silver chain dripping through his fingers. He stared at it for a long moment in silence.

Then he clicked the button at its top.

Mira could just hear the second hand began ticking clockwise around the colored dial inside the glass, moving from one number to the next, counting up. As it did, the chronograph began to glow. A slight hum formed around Ben, growing louder as the artifact powered up and its second hand kept ticking to higher and higher numbers.

Mira’s eyes widened. She knew, just as well as Ben, that a major artifact of that orientation could only be used once. It was what made it so valuable.

“Ben…”

“I do feel things,” he said quietly. The hum kept building. “Not anywhere near as much as you, but I do.”

“Ben, what are you doing?” she asked nervously. She could feel her heartbeat quicken.

“Showing you that I understand.” He let the second hand move a few more clicks, then clicked the button once more.

Mira gasped as a violent sound ripped the air. The world flashed blindingly.

When her eyes adjusted, Ben was gone, and everything in front of her was moving.

Reversing was a better word, actually. It was as if someone had hit REWIND on a VCR, and Mira watched as time somehow rolled itself backward in front of her. The glowing perimeter of the Time Shift flashed back to life. The machine shop began to painstakingly undo its former transformation, shifting back, piece by piece, into the old antique store.

As it did, the sound of roaring static filled everything. Mira covered her ears with her hands, trying to drown out the building wall of—

The sound and the light vanished. Time advanced forward—just like it had before. Whatever Ben’s chronograph had done, it was spent now.

The streaks of lightning-like fingers arced against the building again, transforming it back to the machine shop. As it did, a frightening realization occurred to Mira. The chronograph could rewind time, just as Ben thought. Which meant that Ben was now inside the shop again. He must be.

“Ben!” Mira shouted starting to move for the Anomaly.

But he exploded out the door just then, running hard toward her. Her heart skipped at the sight of him. Tucked under his arm was her Lexicon, undamaged and whole.

The light gleamed everywhere. The Time Shift was almost done. Ben had seconds only.

He lunged past the Time Shift’s perimeter…

…just as it flashed and faded, plunging everything back to darkness.

Mira stared at him as he stopped in front of her, breathing hard, sweating. There were two new cuts on his arm, where he’d hit something sharp this time. His eyes found hers, and then he looked down at her Lexicon and opened the red leather cover. She watched him flip the pages over and reveal the inside binding. Tucked into a fold was a picture.

Ben lifted it out.

It was a black-and-white photograph of a man, leaning against an old station wagon, holding a tiny girl on his shoulders. Behind them the ocean stretched to the horizon. The girl was Mira, years ago, and the man was her father. It had been taken by her mother during one of their summer visits to Portland. It was the one thing still left from that time, the thing she’d had the longest of any of her possessions. The relief she felt at the sight of it was overwhelming.

“I know what this means to you,” Ben said softly.

The chronograph in his hand was no longer silver. Now it was blackened and crumbling. It fell to pieces through his fingers like burnt paper, and then the full realization of what Ben had done hit her. He’d used the chronograph, sacrificed his chance to get what he what he wanted most in the world. He’d risked his life, and he’d done it for her.

Mira’s eyes glistened again.

“You’re right, I don’t feel much,” he said, staring at her with more emotion than she had ever seen. “There’s logical and illogical choices, that’s how I see things, but… it’s always been different with you. Logic goes out the door.” His hand gently stroked her cheek. “I do feel things, Mira. For whatever reason, I just… only really feel them for you. ”

Mira stared back at him a moment longer. She didn’t care anymore what made sense and what didn’t in the world now. She grabbed his shirt and pulled him to her. Their lips found each other, their bodies pressed tight, and they didn’t need any artifact to make it feel like time had frozen.