Once Journey was close enough to see the readout, she stared at it for a moment as if she couldn’t discern what she was seeing. Finally, the words came… “It’s negative. I’m not pregnant.”
Reno felt a rush of air escape his lungs. “Oh.” He didn’t know what he felt.
Relieved. No. Disappointed. Yes.
Considering the uncertainty of their situation – was this for the best? Maybe.
“I’m so sorry, baby.” He stood to take her in his arms. “This isn’t our only chance, you know. Once we get settled, we’ll toss those little rubbers in the trash.
“I know.” She laid her head on his broad, warm chest. “I’m okay.” She wasn’t. Journey felt devastated.
“Well, come on. I smell coffee.”
He led her back to the living room where they found Lou sitting all alone. “Where’s Aunt Myra?” Journey asked, looking all around the room and into the living area.
“She told me to tell you that she was driving into Fredericksburg to buy groceries. She’s been eaten out of house and home.”
“Where are the dogs?” Reno asked, noting the house was unusually quiet.
Lou thumped her fingers on the table in a rhythmic, nervous gesture. “Myra took them to the groomers. She said they needed a bath.”
“Okay.” Journey went to the coffee pot. “Do you want a cup, Reno?”
“Oh, yea. I need one.” He came up behind her and started putting sugar into a mug. “How about you, Lou?”
“I’m good. Could we talk now?”
Reno sensed something was wrong. “You weren’t gone as long as we expected. Was everything all right?”
“Yes and no.” She pulled her phone and a notepad from her purse. “I learned a lot. I had a good conversation with Dr. Sculler. The research they’re doing is incredible. They’ve had a lot of success, several major breakthroughs. We exchanged a lot of ideas, shared some stories.” Her voice grew weaker as she spoke.
Journey stirred her coffee and glared at her friend. “You just talked and talked – but you didn’t say a damn thing. What aren’t you saying?”
Lou rubbed her forehead, wearily. “I gave him a vague idea of what we’re doing and I’m afraid he believed my commitment, but he doubted your story.”
This made Reno bristle, but he said nothing.
Journey was a bit more vocal, however. “How could he say that? He doesn’t know us.”
Reno couldn’t help but smile at the ‘us’ reference. “No, he doesn’t know us, Journey. But even I have to admit this is a fantastic tale. I’m not sure I would’ve believed it myself if I hadn’t lived through it.”
“To be honest, I expected him to be more open-minded,” Lou confessed. “I fear he’s too used to dealing in the abstract to comprehend your situation.”
Reno thought some more, standing up to walk across the room and back. “But – you do know there are others. All those stories you told me. And there’s more. Right? You’ve been researching this for a while. People go missing. They vanish all the time you said.”
Lou chose her words carefully. “Yes, they do. Just take Alaska, for example. Since 1988, 60000 people have gone missing. There are only 730,000 residents in the whole state, and yet, they lost 60,000 people in just decades. Two thousand people a year, on average, vanish there. That’s not to say that some don’t meet up with the wrong bear or step on a thin sheet of ice – but a percentage of those are never found and no one knows what happened to them.”
“Alaska is a mountainous state and the light show put on by the aurora borealis plays a huge role there. Surely, some of those missing went through a portal like Reno,” Journey said, her face drawn with worry.
“I think they did,” Lou agreed. “Then there’s the account of the man who was hunting elk at 10000 feet in Colorado. He was walking through the woods when he heard something that sounded like a loud hum. He kept walking, then realized the space in front of him began to look blurry, like looking through a pair of glasses that didn’t belong to him. He lifted his foot to take a step and was shocked when he stepped into nothing. Part of his leg just disappeared. He pulled it back out as quickly as he could and ran the other way.”
Reno was hanging on her every word, so Lou continued, “Here’s another. A well-documented case that dates back to 1873. James Worson, a shoemaker from England made a bet with several of his friends that he could run non-stop from his home to Coventry, a distance of sixteen miles. His friends took the bet and James began jogging at a moderate pace while his friends followed him in a horse-drawn carriage. He did okay for the first few miles, then his friends saw him trip on something, stumble, and fall forward – but he never hit the ground. He just disappeared right in front of their eyes. The police investigated but no trace of him was ever found.”
She barely paused to take a breath before launching into the next example. “In 1878, a sixteen-year old boy named Charles Ashmore was sent out to fetch a bucket of water from the well at his home in Quincy, Illinois. The weather was cold, and snow blanketed the ground. After he was gone longer than his family expected, they went to check on him. They saw his footprints in the fresh snow leading halfway to the well – then the footprints just stopped. He’d walked into oblivion, never to be seen again.”
She held up her hand. “One more. On September 23, 1880, a farmer named David Lang
