Up, Back, and Away Read online

  UP, BACK, AND AWAY

  K. VELK

  Copyright © 2013 K.S. Velk

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN:9781481873475

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. All rights reserved, Kim S. Velk.

  Cover illustration by Juan Wijngaard.

  Cover designed by Scarlett Rugers Design. www.scarlettrugers.com

  Author photo by Sarah Velk.

  For Tom

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to Aidan MacFarlane and Ros Dunkley who read the first draft and gave kind and continuing words of encouragement, and to Julie Pickett for her valuable reading time and useful critique. Thanks to Brenda Lamb, Jennifer Myka, and Max Makarov: great friends and helpful readers, and to Susan Kalia and Chris Byrom, who found mistakes where mistakes oughtn’t to have been.

  Thanks also to Colin and his online old bike museum, (oldbike.wordpress.com) who has been so generous to the world with his knowledge of vintage bicycles, and to my long-standing blogging penpals, particularly the creative genius, Hilary Prosser and good Nan of “Letters from a Hill Farm.” Thank you very much Juan Wijngaard for lending your amazing talent to the cover of this book and to Scarlett Rugers for a beautiful book design.

  Special thanks to the English faculty of Niskayuna High School in Schenectady, New York in the early 1980s. You put up with a lot and never failed to be kind and encouraging.

  Of course, the last here are really first, thanks to all my Velks of Vermont.

  All errors and deficiencies are mine alone.

  I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not.

  - W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence

  Part I

  1. Uphill

  “No offense man, but I hope you aren’t planning on riding that thing down from the peak,” said Carl, as his truck banged over two sets of railroad tracks. Miles bumped on the passenger seat and heard the bike in the bed of the pickup take a metallic bounce. “I mean, it obviously ain’t a mountain bike.”

  “No,” Miles agreed. “It’s a roadster.”

  “Is it? Looks like it came out of a museum or something. You can ride it back to the Inn from the base lodge no problem. It’s downhill all the way, and on paved roads. Even an old bike like yours should be OK for that – should be fun, really, at least if the brakes are good.”

  “Oh it’s in perfect shape,” Miles said, drumming his fingers nervously on the helmet in his lap. “But it’s not really my bike. It belongs to my friend, Professor Davies. He’s a great mechanic, and this bike once belonged to his father, so he takes really good care of it.” This was actually true.

  Carl looked worried. He was obviously beginning to wonder if he had made a mistake by offering Miles a lift up to Ashburton Mountain. Miles noticed the deepening furrow in Carl’s brow and thought he might be on the verge of turning around. That would be a disaster. This was Miles’ one chance to get to the Mountain on his own, and though he dreaded his errand there, he had to go.

  “Professor Davies is retired from teaching,” Miles said brightly, hoping to take Carl’s mind off the “kid-breaks-neck” scenario he seemed to be pondering. “He runs this cool bike shop, in Austin, where he fixes and sells vintage English bikes. I worked for him there last summer He’s a great guy.”

  Miles hoped that mention of previous employment would make him seem more grown up. He knew it was a faint hope. (He was fifteen, but waiters still often handed him a children’s menu).

  “I mean, I’m not even sure they let people bring bikes on the tram anymore,” Carl said, warily eyeing the mountain that now loomed on the right side of the truck. “Some dude broke his neck last year, trying to ride down from the tram house. It’s really steep and rocky at the top. Dude was crazy to try.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll mostly be hiking today, and only on the lower trails.” This was also true, or at least partly so. “Your mother packed me a picnic, and I have a book.” Miles patted the messenger bag that Mrs. Davies had called a “haversack.” It actually did contain sandwiches made by the nice lady innkeeper, and a copy of Shakespeare’s Comedies. He had no intention of eating the sandwiches or even opening the book today, but no need to bring that up.

  “Hiking. OK. That’s good,” Carl said, looking and sounding relieved. “They don’t mind hikers on the ski trails in the off-season. But if you don’t mind my asking, what’s the point of dragging that rattletrap thing all the way up here?”

  “Well, Professor Davies rode it himself up on Ashburton once, a long time ago. It was a big deal for him, I guess. When he heard that my parents and I were going up to Vermont, he asked me to take his bike along and get some pictures.” Miles held up his iPhone like a kind of theater prop, hoping it made the odd story seem a little more plausible.

  “OK,” said Carl doubtfully.

  “I know it sounds weird, but just a few days before we left, Professor Davies had this massive heart attack. I saw him at the hospital and he asked me to bring the bike up here. I mean, what else could I do?” This was also true, at least superficially.

  “Wow. That’s rough. It’s just that with those narrow tires and everything, you better be really careful if you take it on any of the trails. How old is that thing anyway?”

  “A hundred years, but it’s solid as it can be.” Again, true. The “Royal Sunbeam” was all steel and tough as a tank.

  A pair of whip-thin, lycra-clad cyclists came into view as Carl rounded another curve on the winding road. The riders were straining against the steep slope and their posture reminded Miles of shrimp on the edge of a cocktail glass. Both wore wraparound sunglasses against the bright October sun and agonized expressions. Carl moved to the opposite lane to give them plenty of road.

  “Your parents know what you’re doing today, right?” he asked, rather belatedly.

  “Oh yeah. We talked all about it before they left. They’re riding to Darby Green, to see some art gallery. I didn’t want to go.” Miles had dodged that outing by saying he had a headache and needed a nap. He had not, of course, told his parents his real plans for the day. Luckily, they hadn’t mentioned to the innkeeper that Miles was sick, or Carl certainly would not have given him this lift.

  “Well, you can see why I offered you a ride.” Carl swung wide again for another knot of struggling cyclists. “You wouldn’t have had a lot of energy left for hiking if you’d tried to pedal that beast of yours all the way up to the resort.”

  “Oh yeah. It would’ve killed me. Thanks a lot.”

  “No problem. I was going this way anyway. I can give you a ride back too, if you change your mind about riding down to the Inn. I’ll be coming through here again around three, just give me a call. Why don’t you put my number in your phone?”

  As Miles entered Carl’s number into his contacts, his ears popped, just as they had the day before on the flight into Burlington. It surprised him, and he mentioned it to Carl, who laughed.

  “I guess in Texas you don’t get a lot of changes in elevation while you’re out driving around.”

  “No. It’s flat as a pancake around Dallas where I live. They have some hills around Austin, but nothing like this.

  “I heard once that if Vermont were ironed out, you know, flattened, it would be as big as Texas,” Carl said.

  “Wow. No kidding.”

  “I dunno if that’s true. Kind of a fun fact though, or whatever. Do you ski?”

  “No. Not really. We went to Switzerland once, when I was little, and I’ve been to Colorado a couple of times. I took some lessons, but I couldn�
�t get the hang of it.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s a totally different scene in those places,” Carl said, flipping on his radio. Bangarang by Skrillex came blasting out of the truck’s big speakers. “They look down on our little old East Coast mountains, but I’m a tree skier and Ashburton’s the best for that!” Carl yelled over the music and bobbed his head along with the beat. “You guys should come back in the winter! They usually get a couple of trails open by Thanksgiving! Ya’ll should come check it out!”

  Miles smiled at Carl’s attempt at Texan. He was glad his driver had relaxed and that the loud music made further conversation almost impossible. “Good idea!” He shouted back. “Maybe we will!”

  In fact, Miles had no real idea of where he might be in November, or even the next day, or even in the next few hours. The answer to that question was waiting for him, somewhere on the flanks of Ashburton Mountain.

  2. The Starting Gate

  There was no mistaking the place once he reached it, puffing and in a sweat from pushing the heavy bike uphill. The trees were just as Professor Davies had described them – very tall and paper white, one on either side of the trail, like sentinels. “The Birch Gate,” Miles breathed, startled at the sound of his own voice.

  Miles’ anxiety had been building for the past three days, ever since his talk in the hospital with Professor Davies. It had been getting worse by the hour, and had grown almost unbearable since Carl had pulled off with a friendly wave, leaving him alone in the massive, empty ski lodge parking lot.

  The hiking had helped channel his nervous energy, but now, at the end of his climb, and faced with the actual trees, panic broke over Miles like a wave. For the first time since hearing about the Gate and the rest of the plan – this insane, impossible plan – Miles really believed. In fact, he was seized with a dread certainty that something very strange was about to happen.

  He felt something inside himself lurch and go wrong, as if a bony finger had raked his straining nerves and set them snapping free. He braced himself against the bike and fought to stay upright.

  How had all this happened? And why had it happened to him? His flailing nerves demanded an answer. He was just a kid. He’d never even been to visit relatives all on his own. He hated roller coasters. A mistake, an unspeakably terrible mistake, had been made somewhere. He couldn’t handle this!

  Then an answer came, and it was so clear it was as if someone had said it out loud.

  “You don’t have to do it, you know. No one could prove anything against you.”

  Miles froze, managing only after a long, paralyzed interval to look back over his shoulder. There was no one there, only the trees tossing in the stiff autumn wind.

  Of course!

  Why hadn’t he thought of that sooner? He didn’t have to go. For the last three days he had been propelled forward, helpless as a twig in a torrent. The whole thing had been so urgent and the pieces for this crazy journey had fallen into place so smoothly, as the Professor had said they would, that it had all seemed inevitable, inescapable. He saw now how he had been swept away – but here was a stopping point.

  No one could make him go, and no one could check on his story if he lied. He was all alone up here.

  The gusting wind cut through his sweat-damp undershirt and made him shiver, but his sense of relief was so powerful that the shivering felt like joy. It had taken two hours of uphill hiking to get to where he now stood; facing the narrow “English Boy” trail with the malevolent birches dead ahead.

  The English Boy veered off at a right angle from the broad main trail, called the Queen’s Highway, which Miles had followed up from the parking lot. All he had to do was turn the bike around and have a seat. He could roll right back down to where he had started. Despite Carl’s warnings, the Queens Highway, wasn’t particularly dangerous. There was a wide dirt track up its middle, a kind of crude road, apparently for service vehicles. Miles could eat his picnic down by the base lodge, and then decide whether to continue to roll back to the Inn or call Carl for a ride.

  He reached into the haversack and dug out his iPhone. It wasn’t yet noon! He could be back at the Inn before his parents even found out he had left. He could call Mrs. Davies and tell her he had gone up the Mountain but … what? That he couldn’t find the trees! Perfect. In fact, he could call her right now.

  But, he realized with his glee evaporating in a whoosh, like water on a hot frying pan, he didn’t want to call her. He couldn’t call her. The sick feeling came back.

  The Gypsy, or whatever she was, had ordained that Miles was to go up Ashburton Mountain in northern Vermont. Once there, he was to find the English Boy trail and its Birch Gate. He was to put the little stone that the Professor had given him into the cylinder-shaped handlebar bag. Then he was to ride the Sunbeam down through the Gate.

  Miles would in this way go “back to the place” from which Professor Davies had come. There, he was to find “a girl with a gift, a girl born out of her time” and “uncover a secret that was not meant to be.” After he had collected them both, he was to return home with them through another Gate on “the other side.”

  Just four days ago, the mysterious lady had delivered this message to Professor Davies, with near fatal consequences for him.

  “I was out on my morning ride as usual, when she stopped me,” the Professor had explained in a breathy whisper at the hospital, with a heart monitor beeping just above his head. “I had never seen her myself, but of course my father had told me about her in his last letter. Somehow, I knew instantly who she was – even before she spoke. She told me not to be afraid, and then she gave me the message I have just given you. I stammered something back at her, about you being too young and your parents not allowing any such thing, then I felt my chest go all tight. Next thing I knew, I was here, flat on my back and desperate for an interview with you, Miles.”

  With sinking spirits, Miles turned again and faced the white trees. Maybe something bad would happen to Professor Davies if he stopped now. He couldn’t bear the thought of that. The Professor was his friend, his mentor, and guide.

  He then realized, with his spirits sinking still lower, that even if there wasn’t any link between the Professor’s recovery and Miles’ success on this horrible mission, Professor Davies would know the truth. The Professor would know because he was a wise man, and because his faith in the Gypsy was absolute. At her direction, he had gone time traveling himself, once upon a time. He had gone through the same portal, on the same bike, carrying the same stone – albeit in the opposite direction. He would know that Miles had come up to the task, and shrunk away from it.

  The Professor would forgive him, but his forgiveness would be based on pity, and pity kills respect. Worse, Miles understood, in a sudden, dismal moment of clarity, that his self respect also hung in the balance. It would be one thing to try and fail, but he knew that to fail even to try now would be the end of him in some essential way. He was trapped after all. He cursed his dutiful heart and began final preparations.

  He dropped the bike on the trailside ferns and lowered the haversack to the ground. With shaking hands he pulled out the plastic bag containing the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches supplied by Carl’s mother. He put his trail map and iPhone inside the bag. If he didn’t come back, they could use the phone’s GPS function to find it, although he knew it wouldn’t be much comfort to them without him attached to it. He took the brushed aluminum water bottle out of the haversack. Nothing obviously modern was to go through the Gate, Professor Davies had been clear about that. He put the shiny black bike helmet on the top of the little heap

  Now, where was the Stone? Miles dug through the old-fashioned clothes that Mrs. Davies had bought for him in a brief, mad shopping spree at an Army Navy store in Austin. He found the wallet with twelve one-pound notes, all still crisp and new looking, despite the fact they had been printed a hundred years earlier. He shoved aside the leather-bound volume of Shakespeare, which, like the bank notes, had once come through
the Gate with Professor Davies. He dug beneath a bundle of cotton handkerchiefs (Miles couldn’t imagine he would ever use these), a flat sort of cap that he associated with Scottish people, and a Swiss Army knife. Mrs. Davies had thrown these last items into the basket at the Army Navy cash register saying that no boy would be without a cap, kerchiefs, and a knife where he was going.

  He put the cap on his head now and pulled it down as far as he could. It made him feel slightly less exposed. He took out the blue work shirt that he had stripped off at the start of his hike and buttoned it clumsily with shaking fingers, leaving his wool jacket wadded in the bottom of the bag. All this rummaging failed to turn up the Stone. For a moment Miles hoped it had vanished. It was some kind of magic thing, wasn’t it? Maybe this was all a test. Maybe he had already passed! But as soon as the thought occurred, he felt the Stone lurking underneath the little bundle of socks.

  When he fished it up, he was shocked at the change in its appearance. It was, or had been until that moment, a flat, gray stone, the size and shape of a silver dollar, with a pair of white lines running through its middle.

  Now, the lines were very bright, as though the Stone were lit from within, and the light seemed to pulse here, then there. As he regarded it, the lines flashed and the Stone got instantly hot. Miles dropped it as though it had bit him.

  Wasn’t there someone else who could do this? He thought miserably. No. There was no one. There was only him.

  He picked up the Stone gingerly, though it was now cool to the touch, and dropped it into the handlebar bag. He swung the haversack onto his shoulder and positioned it at the small of his back. The trembling, which had begun in his legs, was now general. He managed to throw his leg over the top tube and to plant his feet on the pedals. As soon as he did so, he sensed a change in the air. It grew still around him and there was a strange, low hum.