The Time Box

The Time Box

By Heather Ann Martinez

Round were the snowflakes that fell on Sue’s eyelashes as she climbed the front steps of her uncle's stone mansion nestled far into the forest. Sue and her brother Timothy were to stay with their Uncle Stan until their father returned from the war. Uncle Stan had a butler and a housekeeper that were asked to look after Sue and Timothy. Sue was almost fourteen and Timothy had just turned seven. Their mother had recently passed away from a strain of influenza no one was familiar with.

(Sue’s diary entry.)

Dear Diary,

Well, we made it to Uncle Stan’s stone castle in the middle of the woods. Dad said I should keep a journal of our time here. He knows I have not had good marks in spelling. Dad said Uncle Stan introduced him to our mother.

(Timothy’s letter to dad.)

Dear Dad,

When can we come home? There is nothing to do here. I’m bored. If you let me come home, I will eat my spinach. I will help Sue wash dishes and mop the floors. I miss my friends. I even miss school.

Timothy did not receive a reply from their father. Sue continued to be annoyed with Timothy’s moaning. They often walked through the woods that surrounded Uncle Stan’s home. Jenna, the housekeeper, also did not like to listen to Timothy’s complaints. Sue did not like the bland food and would give anything for a pinch of salt and pepper. It was 1944. There was a war going on. Sue and Timothy had been sent to live with their Uncle Stan in northern England. They had met Uncle Stan before but they did not recall exactly when or where.

Every three hours, the clocks chimed throughout the mansion. Sue called it a stone castle. It was built near the site of a stone castle centuries before. The mansion had many bedrooms and had been used as a hospital at some point. No one knew how long Uncle Stan lived there. Dad said Uncle Stan was an older brother but never told them by how many years.

Sue and Timothy were watching the snow falling in the library when they heard the clicking of shoes hitting the marble staircase. Timothy ran out of the library toward the sound. He saw a dark haired woman in an evening gown and high-heeled shoes chasing after a man wearing a trench coat and carrying an umbrella. Sue was not a few inches when she saw what Timothy was looking at. Across from them running up the marble staircase was someone they had not expected to see.

“Mother?” Sue could hardly say the word.

The woman looked back at them and looked toward the man she was chasing. Sue and Timothy started running after them but then they disappeared down a hallway. Sue and Timothy began opening all of the bedroom doors. They didn’t hear the clicking of shoes hitting the marble. They could no longer see anyone but they did find the umbrella the man was carrying. It was wet. Sue said it smelled like a rainy day in Chicago. She then opened the long black umbrella and there was a tag in the middle of the handle that read:

Property of Stanley Hansen

If found, please return to...

Sue paused. She read the address. It was her address back in Chicago. Sue knew her dad and Stan grew up in the house before her father married her mother. Timothy started crying. Sue held him and pushed back his hair out of his green eyes. He kept muttering the word mom. Was the man their mother chasing Uncle Stan? They could only assume so since no one seemed to know where exactly Uncle Stan was. The butler Joseph said it wasn’t uncommon for Uncle Stan to go to London on business. He’d often forget to tell the staff where he was going and when he would be returning. Sue and Timothy did not tell Joseph or Jenna that they saw their mother chasing whom they suspect was their Uncle Stan up the staircase to the bedrooms on the east side of the mansion. Sue and Timothy had bedrooms on the west side of the mansion.

Three days passed. Sue and Timothy had been asked to stay on the west side of the mansion. The kitchen was directly below Timothy’s bedroom and Jenna wanted them close enough so she didn’t have to travel very far to check on them. Of course, Sue and Timothy continued to check each room on the east side of the mansion. The day after seeing their mother, they found a purse with their mother’s photograph sitting on one of the beds. On the back of the photograph, it read Caroline Susan Mitchell, 1928.

In the bedroom next to that one, they found several ball gowns hanging in the closet and on the bed. They saw their mother’s favorite perfume on the vanity with a hairbrush that had captured several locks of her hair. Sue closed the door behind them. They started going through the ball gowns. Their mother was wearing a ball gown similar to one of these when they saw her chasing a man in the trench coat.

Suddenly, the door flew open. In the doorway stood their mother. She didn’t recognize them.

“Who are you? What are you doing here in my room?” She asked grabbing the hairbrush. She started brushing her hair and sat at the vanity.

“Don’t you know us?” Timothy asked her now sitting cross-legged on the bed.

“Should I? Look, Stanley is waiting for me. We are going out dancing tonight with one of his friends Gable, Gamble.” Caroline stumbled over the words.

“Gavil.” Susan said.

“Yes, Gavil. That’s right! How did you know that?” Caroline asked her.

“Gavil Hansen is our father’s name.” Susan said.

They heard what sounded like thunder and then another figure stood in the doorway. Their mother had disappeared.

“There you two are. I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I thought I told you not to come to this side of the house. I can’t keep running after you and take care of running the place. Come on. Dinner is served in the kitchen.” Jenna said completely out of breath. Sue and Timothy made their way to the kitchen. Timothy began to slouch into the kitchen table seat when he saw his mother again. This time, she waved and blew kisses. She was a bit older than the woman they saw in the bedroom. Timothy jumped out of his chair. He ran towards his mother in the hallway. He called after her.

“Hello, my darling. My brave boy. I can’t stay here for long Timothy. I need you to be strong for me. I miss you so much.” Caroline started.

“Mother?” Sue came walking up behind Timothy. “Mother, what’s going on?”

“Hello, Sue. Oh, it is so good to see you again. I can’t stay here for long Sue. You are going to have to find it. You and your brother are going to have to find the time box. That’s the only way your father and I will meet and the only way we can keep you safe.” Caroline said.

“What’s a time box? Where is it?” Sue started asking as tears filled her eyes.

“It’s a box that pauses time, changes time, puts events out of order. Your uncle found it in Egypt on one of his archeological digs. I had no idea he would go to all this trouble to keep me away from your father. Look, your Uncle Stan and I dated before Stan introduced me to your father.  He didn’t see your father and I more than a handful of times after we got married. When I got sick, your Uncle Stan came to see your dad and I. He brought this strange looking box with him and told us it could change everything so I wouldn’t be sick anymore. He said all I had to do was touch the box. Stan touched the box too. Now, we are trapped in some kind of loop. Stan knows how to get us out of the loop, but he said I will die if I do. So, Stan and I are reliving the day Stan introduced me to your father in Chicago. Only, we are trapped in this house going through everything we did that day over and over. I’m given a handful of minutes every day right about now when I am aged to the present. In a few minutes, I will go back to doing everything I did that day in 1928. Stan is trying to stop your father and I from meeting. He didn’t think I would fall in love with his younger brother. Your father managed to get the box out of Stan’s hands briefly and that is why you are. Your father is trying to find a way to get Stan and I out of the loop. He went back to the archaeological dig and managed to contain the loop to this house. I was chasing Stan all over England in the time loop before your father got the time box. Time is different once you have touched the box. I can only be seen every three hours and only for a few minutes. I managed to knock the box out of Stan’s hands yesterday. It’s somewhere in the house. Find it before Stan does.” Caroline said and then disappeared.

(Sue’s diary entry.)

Dear Diary,

Mom is alive! She’s trapped and she needs our help. We have to find the box. We have to help her but I do not know what will happen when we get her out of the loop. I do know if Uncle Stan stops dad from meeting mom, Timothy and I won’t be here!

(Timothy’s letter to dad.)

Dear Dad,

We saw mom today. I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to go to school. I don’t miss my friends all that much. I’m not going to help Sue with washing dishes or mopping floors.

After dinner, Sue and Timothy continued their search for the time box. They didn’t know what it looked like, but figured once they found it; they would guard it from their uncle until their father returned. Sue and Timothy saw their mother brushing her hair in different bedrooms. Each day, she was wearing a different ball gown. Sue remembered that her mother often went out dancing before the time and after she met her father. Stan was changing the events using the time box. Caroline was repeating everything that happened before meeting Sue and Timothy’s father. Stan wasn’t letting the sun set in the loop so that Caroline wouldn’t meet Gavil.

Throughout the week, Sue and Timothy would catch a glimpse of Uncle Stan. Some days, he was older. Other days, he was a teenager. They only recognized him by the trench coat and the fact that he would appear and disappear. Sometimes, he carried a box. Other times, he had his umbrella on his arm. Sue put every sighting in her diary. Timothy talked with Sue after lunch a week later.

“Sue, it is getting easier to predict when we will see them again.” Timothy had been keeping track of the events by the large grandfather clock in the main hallway. By this point, he knew what time his mother came home from work. What time she put on her ball gown and brushed her hair. He even figured out when she was going to meet Stan. Caroline was chasing Stan in the rain to meet him. Stan had planned on meeting Caroline an hour later but she got the time mixed up. Timothy suspected that Stan kept the time box in the east wing of the mansion so he could have access to it. Caroline would not know where to look nor could she do so being stuck in a loop with the exception of a few minutes a day.

“The east side of the mansion is so big. I don’t know how we are going to find a time box. We don’t even know what it looks like. Uncle Stan can easily move it as he is also repeating everything he did the day our parents met. We know it was raining in Chicago and that is why he had his umbrella. He got his umbrella wet when the loop was contained to the mansion and the immediate grounds. It’s been raining and snowing for weeks and this is the same umbrella he had in 1928. But why did Dad tell us Mom died? We now know she is stuck in a time loop. We have to get her out of there!” Sue said.

“But wait! If she gets out of the loop, doesn’t that mean she will die?” Timothy asked.

“We don’t know that for sure. We just need to find the time box and then we will contact Dad. Hopefully, he is coming here soon.” Sue said.

With that, Sue and Timothy searched every room of the mansion and found the time box in the attic. It was a small box with pictures of pyramids on it. Three of the sides were pulled out and the box balanced on the fourth. They took the box with them to Sue’s room and contacted their father.

“Dad is already on his way here. We just have to keep the time box away from Uncle Stan until Dad can help us.” Sue told Timothy.

Hours passed. Then days. Sue and Timothy took turns watching the time box sleeping in shifts every three hours each evening until one day they heard a familiar voice in the kitchen. Their father was talking with Jenna. They rushed downstairs to meet him nearly tripping on the last stair. Their father greeted them with open arms. He apologized for not coming sooner and the three of them walked into the library where Sue had been guarding the time box.

Gavil asked them how they managed to hide it from his brother. They told him they took turns guarding it and moved it very carefully with them since they were not certain how exactly it worked. Their father told him he found out how it worked. Their Uncle Stan had an assistant on the archeological dig wrote copious notes on how the time box worked. Originally, their Uncle Stan was going to sell the time box to Hitler. Stan realized that the time box had the power to change events in time as well as pause time. He decided he wanted that power for himself and he wanted Caroline. He knew at that time the only way to keep her away from Gavil would be to trap her before they ever met. Gavil explained that with each day they are repeating that day in1928, their uncle is changing something during the course of the day. He said that is why there are so many ball gowns and bedrooms for their mother to get ready for that evening. Stan is hoping the time box will make Caroline forget that she was to meet Gavil that day and somehow fall madly in love with him. What Stan didn’t know was the time box was not designed to operate twenty-four hours a day seven days a week. Time wasn’t measured the same way when the time box was created. No one knew where the time box came from. It was a mystery the people on the archeological dig were still trying to unravel.

“Sue. Timothy. I know how to get your mother and Uncle Stan out of the loop. I just want you to be prepared. I told you she died because I wasn’t sure she would ever come out of the time loop. Your mother was very ill when Stan came to visit us with the time box. There is a possibility she will die once she is released from the loop.” Gavil told them and reminded them to be strong. He then pushed in all the sides of the box. Stan appeared first. He was drenched and was the same age as the present 1944. Then Caroline appeared. She was the same age she was in 1928. She looked at Gavil and introduced herself. She recognized him from a photograph Stan had showed her. She knew she was going to meet him that evening still believing it was 1928. Caroline did not recognize her children, but she knew in her heart they were hers. They never used the time box again. Caroline was given a second chance at life.