Part 1: Quill Hewes

Quill Hewes stood in front of the candy display in Hebb’s Store trying to decide which candy bar to buy when he saw his friend Mel hide three cans of Schlitz under his jacket.

Quill walked over to Mel and said, “Hey man, what are you doing?”

Mel replied, “What’s it look like I’m doing? I’m getting some beer for the bonfire tonight.”

Mel’s answer didn’t sit right with Quill, who quickly responded, “Put them back. Why do you want to steal from Hebb anyways? He’s always been good to all of us.”

It was true. Hebb had always been good to Quill and his friends. He never bothered them about hanging out in his store after school, and he even made sure to stock marbles and baseball cards for them when they were younger. He’d also let Quill’s mother buy food on credit on numerous occasions when money was tight, which it was often in the Hewes household.

Mel tried to walk around Quill, saying “Get out of the way. I’m getting out of here before Hebb sees us.”

Quill reached his arm out and stopped Mel in his tracks. “I said put them back.”

Mel knew better than to mess with Quill. Even at 15 years old, Quill was the toughest kid in school. On the first day of school, a couple seniors jumped him, and they learned the hard way that Quill didn’t back down from anyone, and he had the muscle to back it up.

Mel moved away from Quill and muttered, “I don’t know what the big deal is. It’s just a few beers.” He slid one of the cans out from under his jacket to put it back, but it dropped and hit the floor.

Hebb was standing by the cash register when he heard the noise. “Hey, what are you kids doing … stealing beer?”

Mel pulled the other two cans from under his jacket and they hit the floor as he ran to the door. Quill was a step ahead of him and they both ran out into the road.

Quill shouted, “Split up” as he ran towards the bridge. Mel turned and ran down Main Street, towards the high school, with Hebb following right behind him.

As Quill approached the bridge that spanned the Connecticut River between Orford, New Hampshire and Fairlee, Vermont, he saw that Fairlee constable Lee Flanders was parked on the Fairlee side of the bridge. Flanders looked right at Quill and shouted, “Hey, what are you doing, Hewes, what are you running away from?”

Quill had many run-ins with Flanders, and he didn’t want another one, so he climbed along the steep arch of the bridge to the very top to hide. His plan didn’t work. Flanders saw him, got out of his car, and yelled up to Quill to come down. Quill ignored Flanders as he sat on the top of the bridge and looked at the river below.

Swollen with spring ice melt and rain, the water looked cold, brown and dangerous as it flowed swiftly under the bridge. Quill thought about the old covered bridge that sat here until it was so damaged by a flood back in 1927 they replaced it with the arch bridge he sat on.

Quill knew all this because he paid attention in history class, especially when it was local history. That was the only class he paid attention to. For some reason the past seemed to call out to Quill. It always had. He felt connected to the past in a way most people don’t. He began thinking about the path his life had taken and that led to thoughts about his father.

Quill was born into one of the oldest families in Fairlee, Vermont. His father married his high school sweetheart as soon as they graduated. Quill was born a year later.

His father was sent to Vietnam when Quill was just 5 years old. He never returned. It was his father who insisted Quill be named with an old family name. For as long as he could remember, Quill hated his own name and he resented his father for making him grow up with it. He also resented his father for making him grow up without a father. But Quill also loved his father and cherished what little memories of him he had. And he dreamt about his father frequently, in wild, troubled dreams.

Quill looked again at the swirling river and decided his only escape was to jump from the bridge and swim down river. A soft wind began to blow from the south and Quill wondered what it would feel like to hit the water from such a height. He figured it would probably hurt, but the pain wouldn’t last long. Not like the pain he felt deep inside. The sun reflected off the water, making strange, otherworldly shapes and swirls. Quill stared at them and in a swift, smooth motion slid off the bridge.

Quill felt the wind rush across his closed eyelids as he fell through the air. He thought of a story he read in school, where a Civil War soldier was hung on a bridge and the rope broke. He remembered how bullets hit the water and the soldier swam and escaped to his home. But in the end, it was only a dream and the soldier ended up hanging from the bridge.

Quill always wondered how that whole story could take place so quickly. Now he knew why. Time slows down just before you die. In his mind he saw his mother’s face, and his father stood with his arms folded, shaking his head. Quill was suddenly lost in the world, waiting for the unknown.

He heard it first. A slow sound that began like a trickle of water and turned into a torrent. It was like being in a cloud during a thunderstorm. Thunder boomed through his ears and when he opened his eyes there were bubbles all around him that looked like raindrops falling upwards.

It was all happening so slow.

He waited for his feet to hit something, and he reached with them to push off but there was nothing there. He was turning a slow sommersault and couldn’t tell which way was up. His lungs were screaming for him to breathe, and he gave in to them. He felt the water’s icy tentacles deep in his chest, and he was unsure if he was alive or dead.

The bubbles grew smaller and smaller as they swarmed all around his body. Each bubble became a tiny world with spinning dots circling a point of light.

Quill focused on one bubble and saw something at the center of the light, something calling out to him. It drew him nearer and nearer. Quill felt a strange peace. He began to have the sensation of floating in a big oblong world, surrounded by stars, when he felt two huge hands grab him under his armpits.

Then everything went black.

Part 2: Captain Morey and the Time Loop

Quill opened one eye and saw a big, black crow flying across the sky.

As the crow’s silhouette crossed the sun, its shadow stretched out and turned wispy, growing fainter until it was almost gray. The wispy crow shadow turned into a trail of smoke and Quill became aware of a small hissing sound to his left.

He was sure he was dead.

Quill opened his other eye and saw that he was on a pile of wood and he wasn’t alone. He felt a sudden, overwhelming need to cough or throw up. Quill did both as he expelled water from his lungs all over the bottom of the boat.

“There you are. Can you hear me now? Can you see me?” asked a deep voice that sounded like it came from another world.

Quill tried to focus on the direction the voice came from, but he was overcome by another coughing spell. When it was over, he spoke. “Who are you? Where am I?”

The voice answered, “My name is Samuel Morey and you’re in my little steamboat on the Connecticut River. It’s March 20^th in the year 1798.”

Quill let these words sink in before he responded, “1798? What are you talking about?

What kind of joke is this?”

“It’s no joke. This is 1798. I can’t explain everything to you now, but this is what I know. Two weeks ago, it was March 20, 1798 and I was on the river in my little steamboat. I saw you in the water at exactly noon. I pulled you from the river and sent you on a journey to New York to speak on my behalf. Two weeks later you returned. The next day was March 20 all over again and I pulled you from the river at exactly noon. This has happened four times now. You don’t seem to remember anything about this, but I remember every detail. I’ve come to believe you and I are stuck in a time loop, and I haven’t been able to figure out how to get us out of it.”

Morey looked at the sky. This was always the hard part, convincing the boy this was real.

Quill took a closer look at the man in the boat. He was a large man dressed in clothes from another time. He looked like one of the colonial patriots Quill had seen in the history books.

He thought it must be some kind of joke. But there was something about this man that didn’t seem fake. He looked real. And the boat was something that someone went to a lot of trouble to make look like something from another place in time.

It was a small flat-bottomed boat with what looked like a teakettle boiling water and turning two small paddlewheels at the midpoint of the boat. The man was burning wood in a little stove in the bottom of the boat to heat the water. It was an elaborate setup.

Quill wondered why this man would have gone to so much trouble to build this boat and why he would be out here on the river.

Morey spoke again, “I am the true inventor of the steamboat. As I told you, you’re in one of my boats now. I have another steamboat that’s much bigger, but it’s down in New York at the present time. Everyone around here calls me Captain Morey and you may do the same.”

“Look Captain,” Quill answered. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing here but I think you’d better bring me to shore.”

“This is no game and I’ll gladly bring you to shore. I want you to do something first. You think this isn’t real, so I’m going to show you something. It’ll make you dizzy but try to stay with me. Can you do that?”

Quill answered, “Sure.”

“I want you to sit up and look in that direction,” Morey said, pointing toward the cliffs that rose over the village. “What you’ll see is the familiar cliffs as they probably still are in your time. You’re also going to see Fairlee as it is in 1798. Now I don’t know what things look like in the time you came from, but I do know that this is going to be a mite bit unsettling. It’s going to make you dizzy so be ready.”

Quill sat up in the boat thinking, “What is going on and what is this guy saying to me? A time loop? Is he suggesting I just travelled in time? This Samuel Morey fellow must be out of his mind. He’s the one who’s dizzy, not me.”

He looked toward the cliffs and they looked more or less the same as they always did. But when Quill looked under the cliffs nothing was the same. Where Saladino’s Garage should have been was an old house. Where the Fairlee Diner and the group of houses across the street should have been was nothing. It was just a field.

The interstate didn’t even exist. Quill scanned Fairlee’s Main Street and nothing was the same. There were a few buildings, none of which should have been there. Quill saw an ox pulling a plow.

A faint buzzing started in his ears and began spinning in his head until it spread across his shoulders and tingled down his spine. His head felt light and he bent over the side of the boat and threw up into the river.

The boat began to spin and everything started to go black again. Quill fought against the blackness by staring at the clouds in the sky. As he watched them form shapes, fall apart, and reform new shapes all over again, he sensed that the clouds spanned the distance between his world in 1974 and this world of 1798.

The clouds were a bridge. Looking at the clouds and listening to the sounds of the hissing boiler and the paddlewheels slicing through the water soothed Quill.

His eyelids grew heavy and he fell into a deep sleep.

Part 3: Quill’s Journey

Quill woke to a farm smell. Looking around he saw that he was lying on a bed of hay in a barn. He could hear horses moving in the stalls around him. Someone was whistling.

Suddenly, Captain Morey appeared with a sandwich and a tin cup of milk. “I thought you might be hungry,” Morey said.

Quill eagerly reached for the sandwich and devoured it. In between gulps of milk he said, “So let me ask you this, Captain Morey. If what you say is true, and I have gone back in time, how am I going to get back home?”

“Well … it gets complicated. I’m a scientist and I’ve studied a good many things. I seem to have a knack for finding out one thing while I’m searching for another. I have a hypothesis that this time loop you and I are stuck in is like a riddle, and until we solve that riddle we’re stuck here. Let’s just leave it at that. But right now, I’m hoping you can help me. I need you to travel to New York to speak on my behalf to the legislature about my steamboat.”

Quill finished drinking the cup of milk. It was thick and sweet. The thought crossed his mind that the air was that way too. Just breathing the air made him feel different. He couldn’t tell why. “If I help you, does that mean you’ll help me?”

Morey answered, “That’s exactly what I’m proposing. While you’re gone, I’ll figure out a way to get you back where you belong. I’ve got a change of clothes, some food, and some money for your journey. It will take you about two weeks to go down and back. That should leave me enough time to figure things out.”

Quill thought for a moment and realized he had few options.

“I’ll do this but I still have some questions. How will I get there? What will I say?”

“First…you’ll walk. A boy your age wouldn’t be likely to be alone with a carriage and horse traveling to New York. When you get there, you’ll give an oratory concerning my dealings with steamboats, which will be detailed in a letter I’ll give to you before you leave. So far, I’ve been unable to convince them that I am the true inventor of the steamboat, and you have returned from New York with bad news. I’m hoping with the changes I’ve made in the letter; it will work this time. Your change of clothes is in the stall to our left. There is money in the vest pocket. When you’re ready I’ll send you on your way.”

Quill went to the stall and changed into the clothing Morey had provided. There were brown cotton pants that tied at the waist. The uncollared shirt was made of some kind of rough cotton and it buttoned up the front. A tan vest and black jacket completed the outfit.

Quill was ready to go.

Morey had placed several gold and copper coins in one of the vest pockets. He had also provided a small packet that contained bread and cheese. There was also a detailed map and matches to light a fire.

When Quill was dressed and ready to go, Morey gave him some final instructions.

“Stay on the east side of the river until you get below the Massachusetts border. All you have to do is follow the river down through Connecticut to the ocean. When you get there, follow the coast west until you get to the ferry that crosses over to New York. When you get off the ferry, walk directly across the road and you’ll find where the legislature meets. It’s all drawn out on the map. The steamboat bill is being discussed exactly a week from today. Show this sealed document and you can speak for me. All the information you need is in this letter. You can read that along the way.”

At this, Morey handed Quill a letter and a document with a wax seal. Morey then told Quill, “Be careful who you talk to on your way there and back. You’re better off keeping to yourself. You have enough money to buy food and pay for your ferry trip to and from New York. Remember to stay away from the Vermont side of the river. It can be very dangerous over there. You never know what types of people you may run into. And under no circumstances are you to tell anyone your real name. This is very important. You must make one up. Do you understand?”

“Yes, but I don’t understand how a teenage boy like me will be able to help you. No one has ever listened to me. Why would they start now?”

Morey answered, “You must leave now. You will understand things in time.”

Quill began the journey by walking down the main street of Orford, New Hampshire. As he walked he looked over at the cliffs across the river in Fairlee and wondered if he’d ever see them again. The trip to New York was uneventful. Quill followed Captain Morey’s advice and kept to himself. He slept in barns when he could and completed the journey in six days.

Once in New York, Quill followed Morey’s instructions and spoke before the state legislature by reading directly from the letter. Quill was taken aback at the eloquent manner in which the legislators spoke. He felt uncomfortable using his 20^th century English.

It appeared the whole meeting was a sham anyways.

Quill sensed that the decision had already been made and this was just staged theater. In the end, Samuel Morey was shut out of the steamboat business altogether when they awarded a monopoly on the use of steam navigation in the waters around New York to Robert Fulton and his partner Robert Livingston.

Quill felt like a failure as he began the long trip back to Orford. As he walked, he muttered to himself that he didn’t do any better in the 18^th century than he had in the 20^th century.

 Thoughts of all his former failures flooded his mind. He’d let his mother down many times and now he had let Captain Morey down too. He walked along the river with his shoulders slumped, his body language casting the shadow of failure on the dusty road he walked upon.

He couldn’t know he would soon have the chance to redeem himself.

Part 4: Autumn and the Catamount of the Cave

Quill had stayed on the New Hampshire side of the Connecticut River on the journey down and he didn’t cross the river until he reached Long Island Sound. On the way back, however, he stayed on the west side of the river and was soon in Vermont.

For the first time, Quill ignored the advice of Captain Morey. The towns along this side of the river were much the same as in New Hampshire and Quill found it easy to find food and shelter, until his money ran out.

When Quill reached Bellows Falls it began to rain. He found a large cave that wasn’t much more than two large slabs of shale that had fallen to form an inverted V on a side hill overlooking the Connecticut River.

It was chilly and he was wet. Quill gathered wood and built a fire in the cave. He warmed himself as he watched lightning strike the hills on the other side of the river. He listened to the thunder as it rolled up the valley.

This was something that hadn’t changed through the years.

He remembered sitting in a tree fort during thunderstorms when he was younger. This storm was bringing out feelings Quill had forgotten. Sitting in his tree fort, he pretended to be trapped in enemy territory and his father was on his way to save him.

Eventually the storm ended and he was alone.

Sitting in the cave as night fell, tears welled up in Quill’s eyes. He missed his father and couldn’t understand why. He had so few memories of him. Though he tried hard to remember his father, there was almost nothing to recall. Quill lay down next to the fire and fell into a troubled sleep.

That night, Quill dreamt that he was on a boat in the river with thunder and lightning all around him. Captain Morey was on the shore calling to him, but Quill could not steer the boat. No matter how hard he paddled, he drifted farther away.

Then his father appeared at the bow of the boat. He pulled Quill from the boat and they glided across the water to shore. As Quill reached land, he turned to tell his father how much he missed him but his father was already sinking in the river. His expressionless face slowly slipped below the surface. Quill looked into his eyes just before they disappeared. They seemed to be trying to tell him something.

Quill suddenly woke and felt another presence in the cave.

The fire had grown large again and he saw shadows on the walls of the cave. Then he heard a faint voice speak.

“We hope you don’t mind sharing your shelter with us, but we are cold, wet, and tired from our journey.”

Quill sat up and looked across the fire at a young girl with dark brown hair. Her eyes looked black. An old woman with white hair sat next to her. Quill thought of Morey’s advice to stay away from people. How could he  even speak to them since they were from a time over 200 years before his own? As he thought of what to say he noticed a gray dawn over the hills to the east.

The young girl continued, “We noticed your fire from below. We have food if you are hungry. We are willing to share food with you in exchange for you sharing your shelter with us.”

Quill was indeed hungry. It had been two days since he had eaten. Morey’s money had run out in Connecticut and Quill hadn’t been able to find any food along the way. He thought of getting up and walking out into the storm to get away from these people, but he didn’t.

Instead, he spoke.

“You’re welcome to stay here. And I will take you up on your offer of food.”

Quill moved toward the fire and took a closer look at the girl. He guessed that she was about his age. She was very beautiful in an exotic way. She had a dark complexion and her hair was long and thick. She wore a pony tail tied in several places. Her eyes were black and they hypnotized Quill. There was something about her that he found strangely comforting. She reached over the fire and handed him a chunk of bread. Quill quickly ate the bread and some small roots she gave him. They were sweet and damp.

“Where are you going?” the young girl asked.

Quill answered, “My name is….Quill ….um… Quill James… and I’m going to Orford.”

Quill felt foolish. He’d forgotten Captain Morey’s instruction not to use his real name. He thought, “Well, at least I didn’t use my whole name.”

“My name is Autumn Wheelock. My grandmother’s English name is Alice. We are Abenaki. Her name in our language is Phanem Wassobamit. We’re traveling to a town called Fairlee. I have been betrothed to a young man there and we are to be married when I arrive. His name is Remembrance —”

A boom of thunder rattled the cave and drowned out her voice. Bolts of lightning lit up the gray sky as they hit trees near the river. Then Quill heard an unearthly sound. It sounded like a baby screaming. The young girl and old woman were instantly on their feet.

Autumn said, “We must leave here at once.”

Quill looked out at the sheets of rain falling. “Why would we leave now, Autumn? It’s pouring out there.”

The strange sound came again on the heels of a crack of thunder.

She answered, “Spirits … they follow me. We must leave.”

The girl and the old woman ran into the storm. Quill followed to the mouth of the cave and stopped. Once again he heard the screeching sound and turning towards it he saw a large catamount. It was the biggest cat he had ever seen.

Quill didn’t know it, but the big cat had been slowly sneaking up on them in the cave. In one smooth motion the cat was there and gone, in the direction of the girl and her grandmother.

The cat never seemed to touch the ground. Its feet glided along as it seemingly flew through the air. Without thinking, Quill followed. He ran through the rain, feeling the drops of water slam into his face. All he could hear was distant thunder, the sound of the rain on the leaves, and his own breathing.

The trail was leading towards the river. His eyes remained on the path below his feet so when he came upon the cat again, he didn’t see it until he tripped and fell right at its feet.

The cat snarled and Quill saw its huge paw coming right at his face.

Part 5: Quill’s Escape

Quill rolled away from the catamount’s paw and its claws tore through the dirt, coming up empty. In the meantime, Quill sprang up to find Autumn and her grandmother hiding behind a huge pine.

He grabbed Autumn by the waist and pulled her down the trail towards the river. The old woman followed close behind and Quill reached back to grab her hand. They heard the cat growling behind them.

The river was swollen with rain, but Quill knew they had no choice. He threw Autumn over the bank into the river and went back after her grandmother.

The cat was about to pounce on her. Quill picked up and threw a rock at the cat, catching it in the left shoulder. Distracted, the cat turned to grab the rock with its mouth. This was enough time for the old woman to run to Quill. He held her and jumped into the river. The cat followed close behind.

Quill fought the current while holding on to the old woman. The cat was taken downstream and eventually turned back to shore.

Quill reached the other side of the river with Autumn’s grandmother and they both collapsed on the riverbank. The cat sat on ledge and looked across the river at the pair.

Distant thunder boomed as the rain subsided. The old woman cried for her granddaughter. Autumn was nowhere to be seen. Quill tried to comfort her, but she wouldn’t speak to him.

He stood and looked around. Off in the distance, Quill saw a shape along the banks of the river. Quill ran to the shape. It was Autumn. She sat on the riverbank staring at the swirling water.

Quill shouted, “Are you alright?”

Autumn answered, “I’m fine. You saved my life.”

“What are you talking about? Quill asked. “I almost drowned you when I threw you into the river.”

“If it wasn’t for you that mountain lion would have killed me. I am forever indebted to you.” Autumn looked around for her grandmother.

Quill pointed down the shore.

“Your grandmother is down there a bit. I helped her across the river and the cat gave up on us

and swam back to the other shore.”

Quill and Autumn walked along the river. The rain had all but stopped. A fine mist fell and thunder rumbled far, far away. Quill watched the way Autumn walked and it seemed strangely familiar. Up ahead, her grandmother lay on the shore.

As Autumn approached, the old woman raised her head and spoke to her with words Quill could not understand. Autumn knelt down and took her grandmother’s head on her lap. She spoke softly in the same language her grandmother spoke. She gently stroked the old woman’s hair.

While they spoke, Quill looked into the river. It occurred to him that water was constantly moving. It flowed from brooks to rivers and down to the ocean. Then it evaporated into the air and became clouds that dropped rain back into the mountain streams where it flowed into the rivers and back to the sea. It was a never-ending loop, and along the way all living things drew life from that water.

Suddenly, Quill felt like a very small part of a big world. He thought of the bridge and his mother. He thought of his father.

It must have been hard to  leave a child to go fight in a war. Stories Quill’s mother told him about his father flooded into his mind. She said he was a good husband and father, but the war took him away from his family.

Quill closed his eyes and tried to remember what it felt like the first time he looked into his father’s eyes. He was a tiny baby and his father was so happy then. Was his life just like the water in the river? Quill felt the presence of something overwhelming but could not figure out what it was.

With the memories of the cave and their encounter with the catamount fresh in her mind, Autumn sat with her grandmother’s head in her lap and began to sing softly in her native language. Quill could not understand the words, but the melody was familiar to him. It was a melody that came back like a distant memory from his childhood, but he could not quite place it..

Autumn’s voice was very soothing and Quill sat next to her. The grandmother’s breathing grew shallow and erratic. She was dying.

Quill had never seen anyone die before. He reached out and took her hand while Autumn continued to stroke her grandmother’s hair and sing softly. The old woman stopped breathing once, but started breathing again a few seconds later. After a few minutes her breathing stopped again and this time she had drawn her last breath.

Autumn wept softly as Quill took her grandmother’s body  away from the river. They dug a shallow grave with sticks and after laying the body to rest they covered the grave with rocks.

After they finished, the two of them lay on the ground together. Autumn wept softly until she fell asleep. Quill lay there wishing he could cry, but he found himself unable to find tears. He listened to the flowing river until he drifted into a troubled sleep.

Quill dreamt his father was standing on a rock in the middle of the river pointing at something lying on the ground and then north to the other side of the river. He was telling Quill which way to go.

Quill looked at the thing his father was pointing at and saw it was Autumn. He looked at his father and his father again pointed at Autumn and then north to the other side of the river.

He told Quill to take Autumn to the other side of the river. Quill walked towards his father but as he neared, his father slid from the rock and slipped into the water. Quill stood on the shore and watched as his father’s body dropped slowly from sight.

It was the same dream Quill had through the years. His father always slid into the water and slowly out of sight.

The sound of the river moving came into Quill’s ears and he closed his eyes. The water flowed through his mind and he was aware of his heart beating. It occurred to him his blood was a river that flowed throughout his body.

As he felt his blood moving to the tips of his fingers and toes, his eyes opened. He was alone. Autumn was nowhere to be seen.

Quill got up and stretched under the midday sun. He had slept for hours.

Quill thought about his life. Something had changed inside him with the death of Autumn’s grandmother. He had felt the change coming even before she died.

When he had seen the old woman with her head on Autumn’s lap and heard Autumn’s voice singing to her, he knew his life would never be the same. Quill felt like he buried a part of himself when he buried the grandmother.

He couldn’t explain why, but he needed to stay with Autumn now to protect her. And his father had told him the same thing in a dream.

Suddenly, Quill heard a noise in the woods nearby and he went to see what it was.

Part 6: Autumn’s Rescue

Autumn woke while Quill was still sleeping. She watched his face as he drew breath after breath.

He was a nice-looking boy, but he seemed troubled. His dreams haunted him and Autumn saw it in his restless sleep.

She had the gift of seeing beneath the exterior of people. It was as much a sense for her as seeing and hearing. There was something about Quill that she found familiar and comforting. She thought of the strange thing her grandmother had said while she lay dying. The old woman had told Autumn the boy was sent by spirits to protect her on this journey. She said not to leave his side until they reached their destination. The grandmother said she knew she would die on the journey and that Autumn would have to carry on without her. She said spirits had told her.

Tears welled up in Autumn’s eyes as she thought of her grandmother. She had raised Autumn after her parents died. Autumn had few memories of her parents but frequently dreamt of her mother.

In these dreams, Autumn’s mother offered advice and explained things. In many ways, her mother raised Autumn from another world where she was still alive.

Autumn didn’t know that Quill saw his father in his dreams. If she had known, she might have understood why Quill was with her. Thinking of her lost parents made Autumn feel sad.  She lowered her head and cried.

All she had left was the man she would marry. Everyone else was gone. She had met her fiancé just once and fell in love with him instantly. Her mother told her in a dream that marrying him was the right thing to do, and now Autumn was going to meet him in Fairlee.

She knew they would need to cross the river. There was probably a ferry to the north, but she had no money to pay. She went to the woods and began to chop down small trees to make a raft.

Quill followed the noise he heard and found Autumn cutting down saplings with a large knife.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

Autumn replied, “We must cross the river, so I am building a raft.”

Quill said, “I can cut the trees down if you’d like. Have you built rafts before? How will you connect the logs together? Why don’t we just swim across?”

Autumn stopped whacking at the tree for a moment.

“I have things that can’t get wet again. I suppose we could build a small raft to put my things on and swim across. Then I could just drag the raft behind me while I swim. That would be much easier. I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll cut vines to hold the raft together. I may have enough saplings cut for a small raft. If you cut the pieces shorter, I will gather the vines. I have a smaller knife I can use to cut them”

Quill took the large knife from Autumn and chopped the saplings in half. Autumn went into the woods to get vines.

Quill fell into a rhythm as he cut the saplings into pieces about three feet long. He laid them side by side as he cut them. He thought of how strange it was to have met this girl and how quickly they had become friends. She placed a lot of trust in him even though she hardly knew him.

Quill cut the last sapling and lined them up. There were definitely enough to make a raft big enough to carry her pack. Autumn brought some vines and lashed the pieces together.

It was amazing to see her hands work. As Quill watched, she lashed the wood together neatly and tightly.

Autumn didn’t have enough vines to finish the raft, so she went back into the woods to find more while Quill went down to scout for a good spot to cross the river, a place where the water did not move too fast.

Just above where they built the raft, he found a good spot, so he went back to bring the partially completed raft and the rest of the wood there.

After he moved everything, he stood by the river and watched it flow. Clouds had covered the sun, giving the river an eerie feel. A distant memory came to him. It was déjà vu. Quill felt like he had been on this riverbank before.

He probed the depths of his mind to bring the memory to the surface. He could see the trees swaying in the wind and hear the river running downstream. Then the memory grew stronger and more foreboding. He knew something was wrong. Autumn was taking too much time and something inside told him to find her.

Quill walked into the woods and immediately heard Autumn. He ran towards her voice. She stood with her back to a tree, a knife in her hand, trying to fend off the three men who surrounded her.

Quill sized the men up. One man was big. He had a full, brown beard. He must have been over 6 feet tall and weighed at least 200 pounds. The other two looked like twins with blond hair and scraggly beards. They were wiry and mean looking.

They taunted Autumn as they tried to get to her, but she was quick with her knife and she kept them at bay for the time being.

The memory in Quill’s mind grew stronger. He had been here before, more than once. He could feel it. He had watched this happen from a distance, unable to move, and he knew what happened next. He felt a sudden and overwhelming need to act.

Quill yelled, “Get away from her!”

The big man turned and said, “Well … looky here. We got us a little boy come to protect his little girlfriend. Ain’t that cute. You best turn around boy, and git on back where you come from before I cut your heart out and let you watch it stop beating.”

He flashed a sickly smile at Quill and stood there looking as big as a mountain.

A chill ran down Quill’s spine. He had fought other boys his whole life, and he had always come out on top, but these were men, and there were three of them. He was scared and he knew it.

Quill sensed what these men planned to do to Autumn and he knew without hesitation that he would protect her or die trying.

Then suddenly, deep down inside of him, in a place he didn’t know existed, fury and desperation rose to the surface. His blood pushed his feelings from the depths of his soul to the ends of his fingertips.

He went at the big man and reached him just as the big man grabbed Autumn’s arm.

The man was surprised at how fast Quill got to him and even more surprised when he felt Quill’s fist crash into his left temple. The punch dazed him and Quill’s next jab caught his front teeth and nose. Blood immediately flowed from his nose and he spit out a few teeth as he reeled backwards.

Quill stayed on him and the next punch hit in the same spot as the first, even harder. The big man looked at Quill and saw his own death in Quill’s eyes before he fell to the ground.

Part 7: Starry Sky Dreams

Quill’s attack on the big man took place so quickly the other two men hardly had time to react.

When Quill turned toward them, they ran away. Quill chased them and he caught one. With his left hand, Quill lifted him from the ground and pinned him against a tree. His right hand formed a fist that he held in the air, ready to strike.

The man began to stammer, “Please boy, let us go. We won’t bother you and your miss any more … I promise. It was all big Jack’s idea anyways. We didn’t want no part of it.”

Quill saw fear in the man’s eyes and dropped him. Within seconds the two men were gone.

Quill turned to look for Autumn, but she was nowhere to be seen. He walked back to the river and found her there holding an armload of vines. They walked silently to where he had left the raft. Without speaking a word, Autumn finished lashing the small raft together. Then she paused and spoke.

“Thank you for saving me again, but I must say you took an awful risk. I can’t understand why you would risk your life to save me when you hardly know me. I am having a hard time understanding you, Quill.”

This was the first time she had spoken Quill’s name and it made him feel dizzy.

He answered, “I can’t explain what just happened. I saw you there and knew I couldn’t let them get to you. I don’t understand how I know this, but I know they would have hurt you, and maybe even killed you.”

These words brought a fleeting glimpse of a memory to Autumn. She felt it in her heart more than she saw it in her mind. It was a memory that came to her with a sense of dread. It sent a chill up her spine but then disappeared before she could understand what it was.

Quill continued, “What I do know is that something made me risk my life for you and I know in my heart I would do it again if I need to. I wish I could explain it, but I don’t know how. But right now we need to get across the river. The day is wasting away and we haven’t moved north at all. We need to move on and put all of this behind us”

Autumn tied her pack to the raft and the two of them swam across the river. Quill had chosen an excellent place to cross and it took them just five minutes to get across to the Vermont side of the river.

They ditched the raft and Autumn changed into some dry clothes from her pack. Quill wore his wet clothes because he had nothing else to wear. They began to walk north along the path.

After they had walked for a few miles, they came upon a small cabin. A woman was mending clothes and she stood when she saw Quill and Autumn. She was a tall woman who appeared to be in her late 20s or early 30s.

She called out to Quill and Autumn, “Well hello there you two. You must be famished from your journey. And let’s get you out of those wet clothes, young man.”

Quill thought it was odd, because it almost seemed the woman was waiting for them, that she was expecting them. He answered, “We just came from across the river and these are the only clothes I have. I am hungry for sure.”

The woman said, “Well, you can wear some of my husband’s clothes while we dry yours. If you’d like, why don’t you two stop for a while and I will fix you something to eat. By the way, my name is Abby …  Abby Smith.

Quill and Autumn were happy to stop and get something to eat as neither had eaten since their small meal in the cave. Quill put on the clothes Abby gave him to wear and hung his clothes on a line in the sun.

“We don’t get too many visitors here,” Abby said. My husband John is down in Boston or thereabouts. He went down there on business last week, and should be returning any day now.”

Abby put out some cornbread and salted meat. A strange feeling of déjà vu came over her as she laid the food on the table. Abby felt like she had met Quill before. There was something just beneath the surface that she couldn’t put her finger on. There was something strangely familiar about him.

“This is all I have to offer you right now” she said. “What brings you two up to these parts anyways?”

Autumn spoke first, “I am going to a town called Fairlee to get married. My grandmother and I began this journey, but she passed away just this morning. I met Quill just before my grandmother passed away and he’s been kind enough to travel with me now.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear about your grandmother. I know some people in Fairlee. Who is it you are marrying? Perhaps I know his family. “

Autumn answered, “I met him down in Boston last fall. He was there selling geese he had raised and I was there with my grandmother taking care of some family business. We fell in love and I told him I would come to Fairlee this summer to marry him. My grandmother and I had some things to take care of first. His name is Remembrance …”

Autumn stopped in mid-sentence as a loud cry came from the other room. Abby got up and picked up her baby daughter. She held her finger to her lips as she brought the baby into the room.

Abby whispered, “She was up all morning and really needs to sleep. Hopefully she will fall right back to sleep.” Turning to Autumn she added, “One day you will have babies. Then you’ll understand.”

Abby then took a necklace that hung around her neck and handed it to Autumn. It was a small, smooth stone that had been drilled to accept a small silver loop. The stone hung from a piece of string. It was gray with black streaks and speckles that looked like stars. Autumn thought it looked like the nighttime sky.

Abby said, “This is a river stone I made into a necklace. I was going to find a nice chain for it, but I want you to have it. Perhaps one day you can find a silver chain to hang it on.

Abby sat in a rocking chair and fed her baby while Quill and Autumn finished eating. Autumn thought about what Abby had said, and the gift she’d given her. When Abby told her she would have babies, Autumn felt it in her soul. There was some kind of magic in Abby’s words and Autumn wondered if Abby was some kind of mystic.

By the time they were finished eating, Quill’s clothes had dried in the hot sun, so he changed and got ready to leave. Abby wrapped some cornbread and dried vegetables in a piece of cloth and gave it to them for their journey. Her baby was almost asleep so Quill and Autumn left quietly.

They walked until it began to get dark and then sought shelter in a grove of pine trees. Quill cut down boughs and made a crude lean-to. The two of them lay down and fell asleep.

Quill dreamt of his father again. He was trying to tell Quill something but Quill couldn’t understand what it was. His father kept pointing at Quill, and Quill kept telling him he needn’t worry about him anymore because he would be all right now. Then he woke to a star-filled sky.

Quill got up, walked to a small clearing, then laid on his back and stared at the vast sky. He felt like a small thing in a big world. As he stood there, he began to plan his life.

This was something new to him. He had always taken things as they came and been happy enough with that. Over the past two days he had come to realize if he wanted to be something in this world, he had to take control of his life. He could not rely on anyone but himself.

He had always been quick to help his friends and sometimes that had gotten him into trouble. Now it was time to help himself. Quill pondered all this as he stared at the stars and fell into a deep sleep.

Autumn dreamt of her mother, who said her daughter’s journey was almost over. She kept asking Autumn what she had done to repay the boy who was protecting her, but Autumn could not speak.

She looked at her daughter and took Autumn’s face in her hands. She rarely touched Autumn in the dreams. In her mother’s eyes, Autumn saw all of her babies. She saw their smiles and their sparkling eyes. She saw their chubby fingers and toes and she heard them laugh. She could smell their hair and feel their soft skin. Her mother took her hands from Autumn’s face and the images of the babies slipped into Autumn’s heart.

Autumn’s mother drifted away into the dream and Autumn knew how she would repay the boy who had saved her life. She would name her first-born son after him.

When Autumn woke, Quill was standing a short distance from the lean-to, staring up at the star-filled sky. She thought of his troubled sleep and wondered if he ever slept through the night. She watched him as he lay down, and then Autumn stared at the starry sky as she drifted back to sleep.

Part 8: The Road Home

By the time the morning sun shone through the tall pines, Quill and Autumn were on the road home. They woke in the dark and left their makeshift shelter to begin the final leg of their journey.

The road wasn’t much more than a path at times, but they made good time. They passed several people and greeted them, but did not stop to talk. At midday, they ate the food Abby had given them the previous day. They talked very little because they were both wrapped up in their dreams from the night before.

Quill vividly dreamt about his father both nights since he met Autumn and he wondered if she was the reason for those dreams. He had so many different feelings about her, they were hard to sort out.

He was attracted to her, but not like the way he was usually attracted to pretty girls. He felt compelled to protect her, but did not understand why, other than the dream where his father told him to protect her.

She seemed to accept everything that happened to her during this journey with no complaints. Nothing fazed her. It gave him confidence to know someone like Autumn placed her trust in him.

Meanwhile, Autumn was trying to sort through her feelings too. She remembered when she first saw Quill in the cave during the thunderstorm. He was sleeping and she could sense his sleep was troubled. Her grandmother said spirits told her this boy would help the two of them.

Autumn’s grandmother had a way of knowing things and the explanation was always that spirits told her. Thoughts of her grandmother filled her mind and tears welled up. She walked behind Quill, so he would not see.

The path seemed to just go on and on and Autumn wondered if they would ever reach their destination. They did not know it, but the road they traveled followed a trail that had been there for centuries.

Many of Autumn’s ancestors had traveled this trail because they came from the Coos area just north of Fairlee. They had planted corn in the meadows along the river and pulled fish from its murky depths. As she walked along the road that day, Autumn was coming home.

Farms dotted the landscape as they neared their destination. Makeshift bridges over brooks told them they were getting closer to a town. They walked over such a bridge made of logs with the tops hewed flat, then turned a corner around a piece of ledge. There in front of them lay Fairlee.

Fairlee wasn’t much of a town in 1798. There were a few stores and shops along the river and a lot of farms spread out.

As they approached, Autumn stopped. Quill turned towards her and began to say something, but Autumn couldn’t make out what he was saying. Her eyes were drawn to the clouds in the sky and she watched as they formed strange patterns over the river.

She was mesmerized and couldn’t take her eyes off the cloud shapes as they swept toward the town. They formed wispy columns that changed into flat plains and whirlpools. The clouds moved lower in the sky and she felt she would be swallowed by them. She took a step back and the clouds became a fog that blanketed Fairlee.

Autumn instinctively reached for the river stone Abby had given her. As she grasped it in her hand, she felt a sense of peace and calm. Then, as quickly as the clouds shrouded the town, they vanished and the sun broke through. Quill was nowhere to be seen. He had left her.

Autumn walked into town as the clouds reformed over the river. Samuel Morey watched her walk up the road into town. Quill was nowhere to be seen.

This was different. All the other times, Quill arrived alone.

Morey sensed the time loop had been broken, and he realized that his part in all of this was just to find the boy and send him on his journey. There was no riddle for him to solve.

Quill’s journey itself was the reason for the time loop, and whatever Quill needed to solve must have been solved. He knew he would never see the boy again. Morey looked at the clouds as they swirled over the river and he hoped Quill was all right.

Quill walked ahead of Autumn, deep in his thoughts, when he saw the town ahead. He turned to tell her they had arrived at their destination, but she stared at the sky. Quill looked up and saw a huge bank of clouds swirling above him.

He became lost in them. He could not take his eyes off the clouds as they formed whirlpools in the heavy air. The clouds dropped and soon all of Fairlee was fogged in by the swirling mass.

The fog made Quill light-headed and dizzy. Then he heard it again — a soft, slow sound that began like a trickle of water and turned into a torrent. Quill had the sensation that he was floating in a cloud during a thunderstorm.

Thunder boomed and when he opened his eyes there were swirls all around him with raindrops falling upwards. It all happened so slow. He turned a slow summersault and couldn’t tell which way was up.

Through the fog, he saw his father’s face and heard his voice. He motioned and told Quill to find him. Quill tried to swim through the fog to get nearer, but his father appeared to move further and further away. Just as his father faded into the mist, someone grabbed Quill’s arm and the fog suddenly disappeared without a trace.

Town constable Lee Flanders stood next to him and released Quill’s arm.

“Where have you been? We’ve been looking for you for all day since you jumped from the bridge.”

Quill stood there trying to make sense of things. In his mind, he had spent two full weeks in 1798, but Constable Flanders was telling him he had been gone for just a few hours. It made no sense.

“I … I ran away, but I came back,” was all he could come up with. “Am I in trouble?”

The constable answered, “You’re not in trouble like you may have thought you were. We know you didn’t steal anything. Your friend told us the whole story, including how you made him put the beer back. But I’ll bet you’re in deep trouble with your mom. She’s been frantic thinking you jumped off the bridge and drowned.”

Flanders paused as he looked at the clothes Quill wore.

“What kind of clothes are those … did you run away and join the circus?”

Quill looked down and realized he was still wearing Captain Morey’s clothes. He said, “Trust me, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Then he added, “If I’m not in trouble, can I leave now? I’d better get home and see my mom. Like you said, she must be worried”

The constable nodded and Quill walked away towards the familiar town of Fairlee as it was in 1974. As he walked towards his house, Quill passed the old cemetery on the hill. He remembered that during the thunderstorm, his father told him to go see him, so he climbed the road to the cemetery to visit his grave.

Quill had not been to the cemetery since he was a little boy. There was a big family plot where his father was buried and it was easy to find because there was a big Hewes stone right in the middle. It was the biggest stone in the cemetery. He walked along the plot reading the names of his relatives from years and centuries past. Joseph, Jonathan, Ezekiel, and then his father Samuel Hewes.

Quill felt great sorrow when he saw his father’s grave marker. He wondered why had he not come here in such a long time. Quill sat down on the ground and thought about that. He knew he needed to come here to visit his father more.

In fact, he would bring flowers and an American flag on Memorial Day. He would become acquainted with more of his relatives. He would find the grave of the ancestor he was named after.

Everything was different now. He would become the kind of man who made his mother proud. He was a man now and it was time to take control of his destiny and bring positive things into his life.

Quill rose and began to walk across the Hewes plot when a name on an old gravestone caught his eye.

“Remembrance Hewes – Born Oct. 12, 1778 – Died Jan. 1, 1858.”

Quill’s eyes moved to the right and he read the words on the next stone. Those words made him sit down on his ancestor’s grave and cry for the first time in a very long time. Tears flowed down his cheeks and fell on the grass above the grave.

Carved into the stone: “Autumn Hewes – Born October 25, 1782 – Died Jan. 16, 1858 – Loving Wife of Remembrance and Loving Mother of Quill, Breanne, and Jacob. Rest In Peace Mother.”

Lance Mills is a writer, musician, and retired teacher who lives in Fairlee with his wife Bernice, three dogs, and a cat. He is the author of the biography “Samuel Morey: A Life of Invention,” published by Palmetto Publishing in 2024. This novella, for young adults and adolescents, was originally published in the Journal Opinion as a serial for May and June 2025.