Patience

“Pace is an unusual name for a woman, isn’t it?” Izak patted his heaving pony’s neck.

Pace ran her hand through her short, windswept hair. “It’s short for Patience, but I don’t think it suits me.”

“I could tell that by how you ride.” He had a handsome, wolfish smile.

Pace looked down at her sweat-soaked chestnut mare. They had galloped ahead of the others and were now waiting for them to catch up. In the distance, four ponies and riders slowly came into view: three researchers and Jenny, Izak’s wife and Pace’s old friend.

“You shall be the rose among the thorns this evening, Miss Pace,” He looked at the three researchers, all men.

She tried to sound confident and flirty when she replied, “There is only one person here that I have any interest in, and alas, they are already married.” She then glanced guiltily at Jenny, who was drawing closer. 

When the party had re-gathered, they set off in twos through the bushveld, their ponies' tails swishing away the flies. Now and then, a small antelope would dart into the thick brush, causing the ponies to spook.

“Have you ever seen an arch before?” Izak asked Pace.

She nodded, “I grew up in the Valley of Arches until I was ten.” 

“Oh,” Izak sounded disappointed. 

“But I’ve heard that your arch is particularly interesting,” she offered.

“Oh yes,” he brightened. “Most arches only show a different place. Mine shows another time, but it's on a loop. Only five other arches like it.” He puffed his chest as if he had built the arch, not the First People three thousand years ago.

Izak spoke more about his time-loop arch, and Pace nodded dutifully, pretending she hadn’t read up on it beforehand. She wanted him to like her. She needed him to like her. If Jenny was a dainty springbok, Pace was a lumbering buffalo with little or no feminine grace. She was surprised when Izak first made advances towards her. She had heard the rumors about his wandering eye, of course, but hadn’t thought it would extend to her. And she had surprised herself when she decided to take advantage of his affections. 

Jenny and Pace were close friends as teenagers. They both dreamed of living in the country and being free of the city smog. Jenny got that wish when she attracted the eye of Izak, a wealthy farmer. Pace, who never attracted anyone’s eye until recently, stayed with her family in the city's suburbs. An eternal spinster, or so everyone thought.

From behind them, Jenny nudged her mount forward so the three ponies could walk side by side. 

“Pacey, I’m so glad you could come visit us! It’s such a long trek from the city.”

“It is only two trains away,” Pace smiled at Jenny, nervous.

“Of course, you should come more often. The house is so big, it shouldn’t just be the two of us!” Izak said. Jenny’s lips pinched. He often said things like that: little digs at his childless wife. You wouldn’t notice it at first, but it added up.

Izak nudged his pony ahead so the two women could ride alongside each other. They had been so close when they were teenagers, but now there was an awkwardness in their conversation. They avoided discussing their shared past and settled for talking about other people.

In the distance, they could see the low hill, their destination. It looked like any other hill out in the bushveld. Brown rocks and short yellow shrubs.

The party pegged their ponies to the red ground when the path became too dangerous for them to continue. On foot, the red dust and sharp bushes stained and tore the bottoms of the ladies' dresses. As they walked higher up the rise, they started to hear the pounding of hoof beats.

The grey stone arch stood three meters tall at the top of the hill. But it wasn’t the arch that sent a thrill through Pace’s heart, but the view through it. 

It was a stampede of gazelle and wildebeest charging north for the winter. Where the herd started or ended was out of view, with thousands… perhaps millions of animals charging, pounding the earth in a chorus of hoofbeats. One gazelle stumbled and was lost forever under the herd’s hooves. A wildebeest nipped its calf on the rump to encourage it on. 

The six of them stood side by side in wonder, looking through the window into another time. Only Izak, who had seen the spectacle multiple times since birth, seemed bored. Or maybe, he only wanted to appear bored.

“4:17 pm, we’re just in time,” he called over the noise, tapping the face of his platinum pocket watch. He pointed below their vantage point to an outcropping of long brown grass. Pace could see a sand-colored shape move slightly. And then it leaped forward, taking down a gazelle. The lioness walked out of view, dragging the tiny body with her.

The researchers cheered. Pace shivered.

As the evening wore on, the rest of the party had grown bored and slowly trickled down the hill. Only Pace and Izak remained. She approached the arch, touching the cooling stone and invisible glassy barrier. Izak stood beside her, placing a hand on her lower back.

“Careful,” he whispered in her ear, “or you might fall through.”

Pace laughed nervously. Izak smiled at her.

Only the long-dead and disappeared First People understood how to move between portals - if such things were to be believed. 

“Why don’t we see migrations like this anymore?” Pace spoke loudly over the hoof beats, waving her hand at the animals.

“Barbed wire,” he replied. “Since the land has been divided and separated into farms, animals can’t migrate. And all the best land goes to our sheep and cows.” He spoke as if it was a matter of fact and not a significant loss to the natural world. “This portal looks into a day about five thousand years ago. Before the First People had even come to this valley.” 

He led Pace away from the portal and back down the hill, his hand still on her lower back.

“I read that the loop starts at midnight,” she commented.

“It does,” he confirmed. “One moment, they are running, and then there is a flicker, and it starts again.”

As they approached the campsite, Izak’s hand left her back.

“Maybe you could show me tonight? Just the two of us?” Pace looked up at him. She smiled, nervous, half hoping he would refuse.

“It’s really not that interesting.” 

“I heard there is a cave up there…” 

Izak looked at Pace, surprised. His grin broadened. “I’ll come get you before midnight.”

*

Pace had stayed awake, dressed in her day clothes, waiting. She didn’t have her own pocket watch, so she had to wait patiently without a candle or book. Eventually, she heard Izak outside.

As she crawled out of the tent, she saw that he was holding a gaslamp.

When they had walked far enough away, Izak's hand glided to her lower back again.

“I’ve been thinking about this all evening,” he whispered in her ear. 

Pace still giggled. They started walking up the hill.

“The cave is around the back,” he said.

“Okay, but I want to see the start of the new loop first.”

Izak seemed a bit grumpy about the alteration to his plans, but his only response was to drop his hand onto her rump and squeeze it. Pace squeaked despite herself.

When they reached the top, they stood looking through the arch again.

Pace mimed a pocket watch, and Izak unhooked his and showed her the time by gaslamp: 11:30 pm. She had 30 minutes.

“I want to try something,” she whispered in his ear. He nodded, squeezing her bottom again. She brushed him away.

“I heard that the First People, the ones who built these, used… um…” she giggles, suddenly shy. “They use the power of love to power the arch.”

Izak lunged for her, kissing her mouth, pushing her up against the cold, glassy barrier. She had never experienced this kind of passion from a man. A thrill ran up her spine, adrenaline taking over. His hands clawed at her body, and his mouth moved to her neck. She needed to do this now.

She whispered into his ear, “Let’s swap sides.”

He pulled away from her, intrigued.

He spun her around in a mock dance, but before he could kiss her again, she pushed him hard, harder than she had ever pushed anyone, and he fell through the archway. He hadn’t even noticed that the barrier had disappeared. Then, in an instant, Pace brought up the invisible wall again, breathing heavily.

Izak stumbled to his feet, terrified and confused. He slammed against the barrier.

“Call the others for help!” he yelled over the noise of the stampede.

Pace said nothing and just watched him.

“Why won’t you call the others?” he pleaded. Then, understanding washed over him, his skin paled and his mouth stretched into a silent scream.

His panic intensified, and he started begging and crying, repeatedly slamming into the barrier. Pace just stood watching him, shifting slightly on her feet. In their last moments together, Izak slumped to the ground, resting against the arch. 

“You’re not a bad man,” Pace yelled over the hoof beats. Izak turned to watch her, eyes wide. “You just aren’t right for Jenny.”

He begged and pleaded for her to explain more, but Pace stood silent as a grave, waiting. 

The view behind the barrier flickered black at midnight, and the scene changed. No more terrified-looking farmer slumped against the arch: just darkness and the sound of the stampede below.

Pace walked back down the hill by moonlight and went to her tent. She sometimes wondered if she was prettier, and if people looked at her longer than they did, if they would notice that she was a descendant of the First People. Or maybe it was impossible to tell. 

*

“Would you like some more?” Jenny’s hand rested on Pace’s knee. They were drinking tea on the porch overlooking the farm.

Pace nodded, smiling at the woman she loved. 

The two had rekindled their teenage romance a year after Izak’s disappearance. Pace, had hoped it would be sooner but had underestimated how much Jenny had loved her unfaithful husband. It probably also hadn’t helped that Jenny had discovered that she was pregnant soon after he vanished.

Most people believed that an animal had taken him. A few had floated the idea that he could have fallen through the arch, but most agreed that it was impossible.

But the incident was four years ago, and the women lived a happy, peaceful life. A beautiful widow, her three-year-old son, and her ‘old friend,' or so the neighbors thought. Jenny ran the household and vegetable garden while Pace herded the sheep and cattle. Perfection.

Izak’s portrait was still hung in the dining room, and Jenny would always say to little Izak Jr., “That’s your pappa.” Pace tried to pretend that it didn’t hurt her. 

In the distance, the two women could see a red dust cloud approaching them. Jenny put down her tea cup.

“They better not be asking for more meat,” she sighed. She had given a group of researchers permanent access to the arch but now was regretting the near-constant requests and updates from them.

The young man slowed his horse down and dismounted when he got closer. He took off his hat and ambled towards them.

“Excuse me, Mrs., we’ve found something in the cave near the arch. We think that it could be…” The man avoided all eye contact. “It’s old, but new.” He took out a brown envelope from his jacket and handed it to the lady of the house.

Jenny opened the seal and poured the contents onto her hand. She held up a worn platinum pocket watch. Izak’s worn platinum pocket watch.

“There is something written on the inside,” the young man offered.

With trembling hands, Jenny unfastened the tiny door. As soon as it was open, she screamed, stumbling back over her chair. 

The pocket watch lay broken on the floor. Pace picked it up. The clock face and glass were long gone, and on the inside of the door, crudely scratched on the surface, was the word: “PATIENCE.”