Kate Hoffmann - The Pirate

"They weren't frantic," Meredith said. "I simply needed some information about… something… something you might know about. Would you like something to drink?"

Kelsey frowned, ignoring her question. "What is this mysterious something?"

Meredith sighed. "I-I was hoping you might be able to tell me about… about time travel." The last came out in a rush.

"Time travel?" Kelsey asked, her eyebrow arching in question.

"Yes, time travel. I-I've been thinking about writing a book, a novel, actually, and the whole premise of the book revolves around the possibility of time travel. So," she said, "is it?"

"Is it what?"

"Is it possible? Can someone travel in time?"

Kelsey grabbed the box of cereal from Meredith's hand and stuffed it back into the grocery bag. "Get your things," she ordered. "I'm taking you home. I don't know what's happened here, but I'm not letting you stay on this island an instant longer. You've got the Sullivan Fellowship riding on this next scholarly work of yours and you're thinking of writing a science fiction novel? The sooner you're back in an academic atmosphere, the better."

"I'm not crazy and I'm not leaving," Meredith said stubbornly. "Just tell me what I want to know. Please."

Kelsey looked into Meredith's eyes and sighed. "Only if you tell me what this is really about, because I know damn well it's not about writing a novel."

"I want to tell you," Meredith said, wincing, "but I'm not really sure I even know what it's about yet. I promise, I'll tell you as soon as I do."

An image of Griffin flashed in her mind and she felt a flood of desire wash over her. How she wanted to tell her best friend about the most incredible man she'd ever met- how blue his eyes were and how black his hair was. How she trembled when he touched her and how she dreamed of his kiss. But she couldn't.

Instead, she grabbed Kelsey's hand and pulled her over to the couch, then sat down beside her. "Explain what you know, in terms a history dweeb like me can understand."

Kelsey's expression was lined with concern and she shook her head in confusion.

"Please," Meredith begged, giving her friend's hand a squeeze.

Kelsey sighed, then tucked a curly strand of red hair behind her ear. "Well, theoretically, time travel is possible. In fact, all humans time-travel. We just do it at the same rate and in one direction-forward. But Einstein's theory of relativity opens the possibility that if we could travel faster than light, we could potentially travel into the future."

"So to jump into the future, a person would have to go really, really fast, like on the Concorde."

Kelsey rolled her eyes. "Didn't you ever take a physics class in your pursuit of higher education? That's the speed of sound. The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second," she explained. "That's a whole lot faster than the Concorde."

"And what about going backward in time?" She sent up a silent prayer for Griffin, hoping that Kelsey's next words would prove to be the key to sending him back.

Kelsey shook her head. "It's not possible. There's no theoretical basis for it."

"But there has to be!" Meredith cried, jumping up from the couch. She paced the length of the room, gnawing on her thumbnail as she tried to accept Kelsey's pronouncement. "There just has to be."

"Well, there is the wormhole theory," Kelsey offered.

Meredith stopped and stared at her. "The what?"

"Wormhole. Black holes in space. If you go in one and come out the other side, you could travel in both time and space."

Meredith's spirits rose and she smiled in encouragement. "So let's say I went into one of these wormholes. Could I go back in time to the 1700s, and could I end up in, let's say… Bath, North Carolina?"

"I suppose," Kelsey replied. "But why would you want to go to Bath, North Carolina? Does this have something to do with your Blackbeard research?"

Meredith ignored her question, trying to logically sort through all the information she had been given, knowing how important it was to Griffin's future…and to hers. "So, could I have a wormhole in my backyard?"

"What is this all about?" Kelsey cried, jumping to her feet and throwing her arms up in frustration.

Meredith closed her eyes and let a vision of her pirate drift through her thoughts. "Just answer the question, Dr. Porterfield," she said, tipping her head back and sighing.

"Sure. You've probably got hundreds of wormholes in your backyard, maybe even thousands, but they all have worms living in them. As far as we know, wormholes only exist in space and that's only a theory, because no one's really ever seen one."

"I don't care if no one's ever seen a wormhole. Tell me about the theory."

"You really want me to explain? Meredith, you can't tell a gluon from a meson. And don't forget our little luncheon conversation about quarks a few months back. You said it gave you a migraine. How do you expect to understand wormholes?"

"I don't need to understand them completely. I just need to know if there could be a wormhole outside my back door."

Kelsey rubbed her forehead as if she'd suddenly developed a nagging headache of her own. "It's possible. I suppose we really can't rule it out."

"And going through a wormhole could send a person forward or back."

"The physics of the black-hole theory would support that."

Meredith drew in a deep breath and let it out in one big whoosh, then smiled. "I'm not crazy then. You don't know how much I needed to hear that."

Kelsey grabbed Meredith's hands and stared at her. "You've been working too hard, haven't you? Alone in this cottage for hours on end. Your mind is starting to… wander."

"That's not it," she said.

"Then what is it?" Kelsey cried. "What is going on in that head of yours?" She stared at Meredith long and hard. Slowly, realization seeped into her expression and she sucked in a sharp breath. "Don't tell me you've had a close encounter."

Meredith felt a flush creep up her cheeks. Was it that evident? Could Kelsey tell that she'd spent the night with a pirate in her bed. That he'd held her as if they were lovers and that she'd imagined they were. "A close encounter? You-you mean, like, with a man?"

"No, silly, with an alien."

This time, Meredith had cause to look at Kelsey as if she were going crazy . She shook her head and laughed. "Don't be silly, Kels. I can assure you, I haven't had a close encounter with any little green men."

"Well, that's a relief," she said. "You were starting to worry me." She gave Meredith a sideways glance. "Wait a minute. Are you saying you've had a close encounter with a real man?"

"No!" Meredith cried, knowing that if she answered any other way, Kelsey would launch into a full-scale interrogation. She decided it would be wise to steer the conversation back to physics. "So, let's say someone came through this wormhole and he wanted to go back. If you can't see these wormholes, how would one go about figuring out where they are?"

"Forget what I just said. I'm still worried. Is there a man behind all this?"

"Tell me how I find the wormholes!"

"I don't know," Kelsey said. "Maybe you just call a really big robin and tell it to go fetch itself a little snack."

"Very funny," Meredith said. "Now give me a straight answer."

"I'll admit, lam the most brilliant physicist I know, but there are some things that are beyond me."

"Hypothesize. That's what you physicists are good at, aren't you?"

Kelsey flopped back down on the couch and tipped her head back. She stared at the ceiling for a long time before she spoke. "Well, I suppose it would help to duplicate the conditions that were present when the original time-travel incident occurred. Go back to the same place, at the same time of the day. Maybe do the same things, wear the same clothes…? I really don't know, Meredith. I'm just guessing."