slush. The air was cold, but the sun was bright. “There it is,” the man said, pointing. “See, I told you they wouldn’t bother to fence off the back. Think you can climb over that junk?”
The boy had already begun, scrambling over an abandoned stove and dodging through the gutted body of a wrecked car. The man was still clambering after him when he halted on the porch.
“Can we go in?” the boy asked. “There’s a sign.”
The man nodded, half to himself. The sign, crudely hand-lettered in black paint, read FREE LIVE FREE. It was a trifle weatherworn now.
Through a broken window he saw the looted kitchen and the ruined parlor beyond it, a doll’s room laid open.
The knob turned, and taking the boy by the hand, he stepped over the sill.
Coffee was perking on the stove. A taller Stubb and a slimmer Candy stood beside it, she dressed in some shimmering material he had never seen, a gown of silver light.
In a wall, the ragged man thought. The old fox. Free told me he’d hidden it in a wall. He thrilled with fear, with discovery and joy, an unnamed emotion.
“Glinda!” Candy called. “Look who’s here—it’s Popeye!”
The sorceress’s familiar voice floated in from the parlor. “Ah, Mr. Barnes!” she said. “The quadrumvirate is complete.”
Chronology
1803—“Ben Free” joins the Lewis & Clark Expedition during its descent of the Ohio River. Physiologically Whitten is sixty, though he appears younger.
1807-1818—“Free” makes periodic visits to the house at 808 South 38th Street, using the portable gizmo he brought with him to leave the frontier and the gizmo built into the rear door of 808 South 38th Street to return.
1819—“Free” leaves the frontier for good, bringing with him certain valuable furs, his rifle, and other memorabilia. Recovering the portable gizmo from a cave in central Kentucky, he conceals it in the wall of 808 South 38th Street behind plaster and wallpaper.
1889—Samuel Benjamin Whitten born, Buffalo, New York, the only son of John B. Whitten, founder of Whitten Crystal Works, and Mary Standbridge Whitten.
1917—Whitten, already a member of the New York National Guard, enters the U.S. Army. Commissioned, he volunteers for pilot training.
March 1918—Lt. S. B. Whitten lands in France with the United States Army Air Service.
November 11, 1918, 11:00 A.M.—Hostilities on the Western Front cease. Capt. S. B. Whitten of the 135th Aero Squadron is the pilot of a DH-4 day bomber.
1924—Standbridge “Kip” Whitten born, Manila, Philippine Islands.
1937—Brig. Gen. S. B. “Buck” Whitten retires, aged forty-eight, his career damaged by his support of Brig. Gen. William “Billy” Mitchell’s theories of high-altitude bombing.
May 30, 1942—Whitten vanishes from his office at the Whitten Crystal Corp. and returns to
June 2, 1942—Whitten returns to Buffalo from Langley Field, Virginia.
July 1942—Whitten joins the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) at the invitation of William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan.
August 18, 1942—Whitten flown to
August 20, 1942—Whitten reenters the space-time singularity induction coil, accompanied by Robin Valor, his daughter (Kip), and others. He carries with him the disassembled gizmo.
September 17, 1942—All U.S. atomic research is placed under the direction of Brig. Gen. Leslie R. Groves and code-named “Manhattan Project.”
December 2, 1942—A self-sustaining nuclear reaction is achieved at the University of Chicago.
July 16, 1945—An atomic bomb is exploded on a steel tower at Alamagordo, New Mexico.
August 6, 1945—The B-29 bomber
November 5, 1982—On the Five O‘clock News, anchorman Bryan O’Flynn reports sightings of a B-17 and speculates that it may be on its way to an air show. (Newspapers later point out that air shows are not normally scheduled for the winter months.)
November 9, 1982—Buck Whitten buys the Flying Carpet.
Friday, January 14, 1983—“Free” returns to 808 South 38th Street and discovers the house has been condemned. Whitten vanishes from his living quarters at the airport.
Sunday, January 16, 1983—“Free’s” ad appears. He agrees to allow the witch to live in his house.
Monday January 17, 1983—The witch, Osgood M. Barnes, Jim Stubb, and Candy Garth move into the house.
