Chapter 35

 

We were playing with the kids a couple days later when my phone rang. Seeing it was from Bella, I left the room before answering it.

“Joan,” she said, “can you and Raven meet me down the street?” I could tell by her voice that this wasn’t a call to tell us some good news. Bella sounded urgent, and I could tell something was wrong.

“Sure we can,” I told her. “What for?”

“Kalena Dale wants to talk to you about something important.” This couldn’t be good. I couldn’t think of a reason why Kalena would want to see us, especially two days before the trial.

“When should we meet you?” I asked.

“As soon as you can,” Bella told me. “I‘m waiting for you right now.”

“We‘ll be there right away.”

Bella drove us to the court house, where Kalena had a temporary office. We went up a few floors, and then Bella led us through the hall and into a reception room. There were people everywhere we went, and they were all dressed in suits, dresses, and other business attire. It made me feel out of place walking around in a tank top, jean skirt and flip-flops.

The receptionist nodded at Bella, who went on to open the door at the far end of the room. Inside a woman with brown, curly shoulder length was working behind a desk. When she saw us, she immediately stood up.

“I‘m Kalena Dale,” she said. We introduced ourselves and shook her hand. “Why don‘t you take a seat. There‘s something I‘d like to talk to you about.”

Raven and I sat down in the two chairs that faced her desk. Once we were settled, Bella joined Mortimer in the reception area and closed the door.

“I‘ve been told that you’re superheroes who‘ve traveled here from another world,” Kalena said. I almost jumped out of my seat.

“I tell three people and all of a sudden the whole town knows!” I said. As soon as that came out of my mouth I felt like banging my head against a wall. Kalena’s face, which had been blank until now, regarded me with a look somewhere between disapproving and disgust. I hadn’t even seen her for two minutes, and I’d already given Kalena a reason to dislike me. I had to redeem myself, fast. “I‘m sorry, you were saying?”

“I was saying I understand that the two of you have experience in apprehending the most dangerous criminals,” Kalena said.

“That‘s right,” Raven told her.

“Then I suppose it‘s safe to assume that you know a significant amount about how they commit their crimes,” Kalena continued.

“Yeah,” I said, “the more you know about what they‘re doing, the easier it is to stop them.”

“Well, that knowledge is about to came in handy,” Kalena said, sitting down behind her desk.

“Why?” I asked. “What happened?”

“It‘s about the case,” Kalena said. “It was going great until this morning, when I came to the courthouse and found that all the evidence we had collected is gone.”

“Are you sure you didn‘t just misplace it?” Raven asked. I wanted to ask her how in the world you would misplace evidence for the town’s most prominent court case, but I kept my mouth shut.

“Positive,” Kalena answered. “I’ve looked everywhere for it.”

“And you have no idea how it could have disappeared?” I asked her.

“Unfortunately, none,” Kalena said. “My only guess is that it must have been stolen, although I have no idea who would take it.”

“That must be the case. It couldn‘t have gotten up and walked away,” Raven said.

“Obviously not,” Kalena agreed. “And what‘s worse is that there‘s simply no time for me to go looking for it. The trial‘s in two days and I have to prepare the testimonies that I have left. They might add to the case, but without the evidence, it‘s highly unlikely that we will win.”

“So, what can we do to help?” I asked.

“You‘re the only two people in town who have any experience with a crime of this magnitude,” Kalena told us. “Therefore, you‘re the only ones aside from myself who can find a way to prove that Dina‘s guilty.”

“So what you‘re saying is,” Raven said, “you want us to find evidence against Dina.”

“Exactly,” Kalena said.

“But couldn‘t we just find the evidence that was lost?” I asked.

“Figuring out what happened to it would take more than two days,” Kalena informed me. “By the time that evidence is found, we will have already lost the case.”

“But we don‘t know the first thing about how to prove someone guilty,” I protested.

“But you do have the knowledge as to how those crimes are committed,” Kalena said. “If you use that, then proving someone guilty will be easy.”

Kalena was right. Raven and I had stopped so many criminals that we knew nearly everything there was to know about how they committed their crimes. We used that knowledge all the time to help us fight evil, so proving that someone had done something evil couldn’t be that hard.

“We‘ll get the evidence for you,” I told Kalena. “You can count on us.”

“Good,” she said. “Once you find something, bring it to me, all right?” We nodded. Kalena got up and led us out of her office. She spoke to Bella and Mortimer for a few minutes and went back to her work.

We left the building in silence. Mortimer and Bella walked beside me arm in arm until we reached Mortimer’s white car.

It hit me after we had been driving for a minute. The evidence. The two extra days we spent in Pleasantview. The reason we were here. It all made sense now.

I turned to Raven as the worst feeling ever sank in.

“We failed, Raven,” I told her.

Bella turned around to see what was going on. I closed my eyes and felt Raven place her arm around my shoulder as tears started to slide down my face.

 

Chapter 36

 

“We blew it, Raven,” I said as I sat down on the bathtub rim. We had retreated to the master bathroom when we had gotten back to Bella’s house to discuss the matter privately.

“Joan, I still think you‘re overreacting,” Raven said.

“How am I overreacting? We messed this up. Bella‘s gonna lose the case and it‘s all our fault.”

“I‘m pretty sure there’s something we can do about it,” Raven told me.

“No there‘s not,” I explained. “You know how we were in Pleasantview for three days after leaving San Francisco? Well, I‘m pretty sure that we were supposed to spend that time getting evidence. Why else would we have been there so long?”

“You might be right,” Raven told me.

“That is so not what I wanted to hear right now.” I hid my head in my hands and I could feel my tears coming back.

“If it makes you feel better,” Raven said, taking a seat beside me, “I agree with you about one thing. This is why we‘re here.”

“Yeah, and we failed,” I said. I was crying again. “Dina‘s going to win. She did something horrible and now she‘s going to get away with it. And the worst thing is our friends are counting on us and we‘re going to let them down. It’s all our fault.”

My best friend put her arm around me and let rest her head on my shoulder. Immediately I began to feel a little better. I’m really the only person Raven can console. She’s not comfortable making close physical contact, but she does it for me because she knows that it will make me feel better.

“We‘ll find some way to help them,” Raven told me. “We might be able to find the missing evidence.”

“If Kalena can‘t find it, there‘s no way we can,” I told her, “but it‘s better than doing nothing about it.”

“What‘s wrong?” I heard Bella ask.

“You probably don‘t want to know,” I told her.

“I know it has something to do with what Kalena told you,” she said.

“Yeah, but…”

“You don‘t have to worry about how I feel,” she told me. “We‘ve gotten a lot of bad news lately. I‘ll be able to handle some more.”

I lifted my head off of Raven’s shoulder and told her everything that I had just figured out. Bella didn’t cry or even look disappointed. She just listened to what I had to say.

“I‘m sorry, Bella,” I said.

“Joan, I know how you‘re feeling,” she said, taking a seat beside me on the bathtub rim. “I‘m feeling the same way. I would feel horrible if Dina was found innocent. It just feels so wrong that she could do something that bad to both me and my family and get away with it. And I know that feeling must be worse for you because it‘s your job to make sure that criminals are brought to justice. But if it makes you feel better, I want you to know that even if Dina‘s not convicted, no matter how wrong that feels, inside I know that I‘ll be all right. I have my family and friends now, and as long as I do, I‘ll be happy.”

“So, you‘re not disappointed that we might not be able to do anything?” I asked her.

“I am, but I‘m not disappointed in you,” Bella told me. “I know that there was no way you could have known about this. Don‘t worry about it. Just trying to help would mean so much to me. And I know if anyone can do this, you can.”

“Thanks, Bella,” I said.

Then she surprised me by pulling me into a hug. She must have known I wasn’t expecting it because then she said, “You looked like you needed one.”

I took Bella up on her offer to take a nice hot bubble bath in her bathroom. It was wonderful. The built-in jets gave me a massage, and I could finally relax for the first time since we visited Kalena’s office.

“Are you feeling better?” Bella asked me through the closed door.

“Much,” I told her. “I‘m still feeling kinda sad, but I don‘t think I‘m going to be in tears any more.”

“That‘s good to hear. Feel free to stay in there for as long as you need. You won‘t be able to help out much until you feel confident about it.”

After a few more minutes I heard the bedroom door open.

“I am so sick of her!” came Mortimer’s voice. He sounded furious. I hadn’t heard him this mad since Dina tired to show off their “romantic” relationship. “She doesn‘t just have to get her way, she has to harm others in order to do it!”

“Honey,” Bella said, “I know you‘re in a bad mood right now, but could you please try to calm down a little?”

“I can try,” he told her, a large amount of tension in his voice, “but I feel that if I hold in in any longer, I might release it in the wrong place, like in front of the kids.”

“Then just take a deep breath and let it all out.”

“I know you‘ve heard this before, but the whole time I was married to her I felt more like her personal servant than her husband. When she was pregnant it was ‘Mortimer, can you rub my back, its killing me.’ When she got sick it was ‘Mortimer, drop what you’re doing and take care of me’ even though she never treated me the same way. And she would always insist that I get her something expensive for her birthday or for our anniversary while she was running around on me spending my money who knows where on who knows what!” His voice was becoming agitated again, but Bella let him continue to vent, probably because he would be able to regain his composure once he let everything out. “And the missing evidence makes me feel like she‘s rubbing it in my face! I‘m just sick and tired of it!”

“Mortimer, honey, just relax, okay?” Bella said. “Take some deep breathes and calm down.”

“Bella, I‘m worried about what will happen if she‘s not convicted,” he said. Bella must have done something to calm him down because his voice was more relaxed.

“We‘ll be fine,” Bella told him. “We‘ve been through so much already, and we‘ll get though this too.”

There was silence after that, so I thought they had left the room. I got out of the tub, dried off, put my clothes back on and left the bathroom only to find out how wrong I was.

Bella and Mortimer were still in the room, sitting on the bed. She was in his lap kissing him, How embarrassing! I quickly ran back in the bathroom before I could see them do anything more intimate.

“Why didn‘t you tell me she was in there?” I heard Mortimer say. Shoot! He’d seen me.

“Honey, we should probably talk about that when she can‘t overhear us,” Bella told him. “Joan, you can come out now.” That was so not going to happen. I stayed where I was until I heard Bella say “are you all right in there?”

I opened the door to find Bella and Mortimer standing arm and arm. Bella smiled at me, like I hadn’t walked in on a private moment between her and her husband.

She asked me to play with Alice while Raven tried to figure out a way we could help. Raven needed sometime to herself so she could think clearly, so Bella and I played with the baby on the roof.

“Storm‘s coming,” Bella said, her attention on her granddaughter.

“How can you tell?” I asked her.

“The wind,” she said. For the first time I noticed that the wind was blowing, a slight breeze, but more than I had ever felt recently.

“How often do they come here?” I asked.

“Every few years or so,” Bella said. Alice had taken an interest in the straps of Bella’s dress, and she stuck the one she was holding in her mouth. “No, sweetie, it‘s not a good idea to chew Grandma‘s dress.”

As she readjusted Alice so the baby couldn’t chew her dress, my phone went off. I saw the call was from Kelly Curious, and answered it.

“Hey, Joan,” she said. “My dad has some new developments concerning you and Raven, and he wants to know when he can talk to you.”

“Whenever‘s good,” I told her. “In fact, we‘ll head over there right away.”

 

Chapter 37

 

“Please tell me you have good news,” I told Kelly when she answered the door.

“Why?” she asked. “Do you have bad news?”

“Actually,” I said, “we have a little bit of both.”

“So, what‘s the good news?” Kelly asked as she let us in her house.

“We know why we were sent to Pleasantview and Strangetown,” Raven told her.

“That‘s great!” Kelly said. “What‘s the reason?”

“Yeah, that‘s part of the bad news,” I told her.

“So, how‘s the trial going?” Kelly asked, maybe hoping for some more good news.

“That‘s the other part of the bad news,” I told her.

“Oh, boy,” she said, taking a seat in a chair. “I guess you‘d better tell me what‘s going on.”

So we told her about everything. Pascal Curious showed up in the middle of our story, listening to what we had to say.

“I do have some good news for you,” he said after Raven had finished talking. “In fact, I have something that may help you out.”

Pascal led us to another room in the house. The room was dominated by a giant metal circle that looked like something from a science fiction show.

“Every time I look at this thing I feel like I‘m staring at the Stargate,” Kelly whispered in my ear.

“Your dad watches that too?” I asked her. As Kelly nodded, Raven got my attention back to the matter at hand.

“The first thing I want to say is welcome back,” Pascal told us. “While you were gone, I was able to study your displacement a little more. I discovered that with the right technology, I could actually manipulate the force regulating your displacement, therefore sending the object surrounded by that aura to a previous place in the displacement programming.” Raven and I nodded, even though it took me a few seconds to understand exactly what he was saying. “So I decided to experiment to see if I could manipulate the displacement on larger objects, and with a little alteration to some devices from the lab, I came up with this - a machine that could be used to rewind the displacement programming in the aura surrounding a large object, like a person.”

“So that machine…” I said.

“… can take you to any time and place you visited during your displacement,” Kelly finished. “It‘s pretty cool, really.”

“So, we could go back to Pleasantview before Bella was abducted,” Raven speculated.

“Yes, you could,” Pascal told us. “I didn‘t have any intention of using this on you at all. I just wanted to see if I could manipulate the aura surrounding larger objects so I could study it, but after hearing what you said about the lost evidence, I would like to extend an invitation for you to use it. If you want, I could send you back to Pleasantview in 1994.”

That was the best news I’d had all day. We would have a chance to go back and find incriminating evidence so that Dina would be brought to justice. We could help Bella and Mortimer win the trial. We wouldn’t have to let them down after all. I was feeling so overjoyed, until Pascal spoke again.

“However,” he continued, “manipulating your displacement by any means, including going back to Pleasantview, will disrupt its natural flow. You will not be able to automatically go to any other destination, even your final one.”

“What he means is,” Kelly told us, “is that if you decide to go back to Pleasantview, you’ll come back here, but you won‘t be automatically going home to San Francisco.”

That hit me hard. To tell the truth, things had been so busy that I hadn’t given that much thought to going home, but the thought of never going back - that was something I couldn’t even imagine.

“It‘s up to you,” Pascal said. “I could give you some time to decide. You could come see me tomorrow and tell me your decision.”

“No, we can‘t,” Raven told him. “The trial‘s in two days. We need to decide now.”

“That‘s fine,” Pascal said. “We‘ll leave you alone to talk about it.” He and Kelly walked out the door, leaving Raven and me alone in the room.

“What do you think we should do?” Raven asked.

The choice was hard, but at the same time, an easy one to make. On the one hand, we could make sure we got back home, and it would seem like none of this would ever matter. But that wasn’t right. This place was just as real as any other, and it would matter if we failed here. I couldn’t go on knowing that I let Dina get away with something so horrible when I’d had the chance to bring her to justice. I couldn’t let her win, not just as a superhero, not just because it was the right thing to do, but also as a friend. Bella was counting us, and we couldn’t let her down. We might find another way for us to get home, but this was the only chance we’d have to see Dina get what she deserved, and we had to take it. We couldn’t let her win.

“Well, we could either go home, let evil win and let our friends down, or we could go back to Pleasantview, get the evidence, make sure Dina’s found guilty, and be possibility stuck here forever,” I said. “I think the choice is clear. We need to go back to Pleasantview. We can‘t let Dina win, and we can‘t let our friends down.”

“You‘re right,” Raven said. “We need to do this. Besides, I might be able to figure out a way to navigate through the dimensions and get us home that way.”

We called Pascal and Kelly back in the room.

“We‘ve made our choice,” I told him. “We‘re going back to Pleasantview.”

“All right,” he said. “You’re brave girls. When you walk through the machine, you will arrive in the exact same place and time in Pleasantview as you did on your first visit. You will stay for the same amount of time and when that’s over you will find yourself in the exact same place and time in which you departed, which is here. While you‘re there, you can feel free to interact with anyone - the space-time continuum will right itself after you leave, and on one will remember you.”

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” Raven asked.

“Yes,” Pascal said. “You will arrive in Pleasantview at about nine in the morning, so I suggest that you leave at about the same time.”

“Otherwise, you could get a serious case of jet lag,” Kelly added.

“And anything that is in your possession at the end of your stay will also be transported back here, so be sure you have everything you need with you when it‘s time to leave.”

“You should go home and get some rest,” Kelly told us. “You have a big day ahead.”

 

***

The next morning we showed up at Kelly’s house at 8:45, with everything we needed for the three days we would spend in Pleasantview. I had traded my denim miniskirt for capris and once we got inside the air-conditioned house, I put on a hoodie over a short sleeved shirt. Raven did the same. We weren’t dressed for a scorching hot day in the desert, but we knew we were going to a temperate area in early April, so we couldn’t be dressed for the summer.

We told Bella about what we were going to do and she wished us luck and even made us sandwiches to take with us. She told us to meet her and Mortimer at Kalena’s office when we got back. I could tell she was glad something might work out.

Pascal fired up the machine as we made our last preparations.

“The destination date is April 2nd, 1994. Is that correct?” he asked.

“That‘s it,” Raven said.

“You‘re ready to go,” Pascal said once he entered the date into the machine. “All you need to do is step into the circle and you‘ll find yourself in Pleasantview. I wish I could see you off, but something happened at the science center where I work, and I must be there as soon as I can.”

“Wait, you‘re leaving?” I asked.

“I have to,” Pascal explained. “A teleporter was stolen from the lab last night and everyone is needed to find out what happened to it. Besides, my job is done. Everything is ready to go and Kelly knows how to shut the machine off so you don‘t have to worry. I wish you luck.”

Once Pascal left, Raven and I waited with Kelly for the clock to reach nine. We looked at the machine that was going to send us back to Pleasantview. We could no longer see through the space inside the circle - it was now occupied by a bright, light blue light that shimmered as though it was the only light source in the room.

“Are you nervous?” Kelly asked.

“Not really,” I told her.

“I guess you do this kind of thing a lot, huh?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “We don‘t really do anything like this much.”

The clock struck nine and Raven and I took each other’s hands. We heard Kelly tell us good luck and then we stepped into the portal.