The Magic Factory

Slowly, he picked himself up to sitting. As he wiped the dust from his overalls, he glanced around. He wasn’t anywhere familiar at all. He hadn’t been thrown out into the same world he knew, but somewhere else entirely.

Not somewhere, Oliver corrected himself. But somewhen.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Oliver stared mournfully back at the factory he was now barred from. It had been his home for such a short amount of time but it meant more to him than any home he’d ever lived in. He didn’t know what he would do without it.

From the outside, its differences from his version—the one that existed more than seventy years in the future—were even more startling. The faded red bricks were bright. The rainwater stains and splatters of bird poop were completely absent. Where before there had been caved in roof tiles and smashed up windows, now everything was exactly as it should be. The ivy that had overtaken the factory’s facade in Oliver’s era was little more than a manageable shrub, and the nettles that had stung him as he’d first explored the perimeter were nonexistent. There was even a factory sign, Illstrom’s Inventions, in the same retro typography style of old World War Two posters. And over the road, the rusted bus stop sign from where he’d first alighted the bus was brand new and gleaming.

“Now what?” Oliver said aloud.

He cast his mind back to the moment he’d jumped into the vortex. It hadn’t been his intention to go back in time, he’d not planned it, but in the heat of the moment and under the pursuit of Lucas and his guards, something had compelled him to run to the secret room, to jump into the swirling purple vortex. Could it be a part of his destiny? Some kind of force beyond his control guiding him? And if this was where he was supposed to be, then why? What happened next?

At a loss, Oliver wandered the streets. The previously dilapidated neighborhood looked brand new. Houses that in the present day were graffitied and falling into disrepair, were clean and well cared for. The overgrown gardens filled with trash in Oliver’s modern memory were neatly trimmed and full of flowers.

The other warehouses, dotted between the houses, were also alive with activity. Oliver read their signs as he passed, and noted how each one was constructing something for the war effort; everything from thermoplastic glass to pistols, boots to bullets. It was astonishing to see the whole neighborhood alive with people, buzzing with activity.

But Oliver had no idea what to do now. Where to turn. In trying to save Armando, he had accidentally gone back in time. And yes, Armando was alive in this era, as a fresh-faced young man, but that was hardly a solution to the problem! What was Oliver to do now? He couldn’t just live his entire life in the 1940s.

Just as his racing mind began to panic, Oliver noticed someone partially concealed by shadows, leaning against the wall watching him. Oliver was startled by the sudden appearance of a stranger, and watched cautiously as the figure kicked off the wall and emerged into the daylight.

He was a tall, gangly boy, who looked older than Oliver. Thirteen, he guessed. There seemed to be a kindness about him. He had warm green eyes and a splatter of freckles on a crooked nose. Curly dark hair and dimples only added to his friendly demeanor.

“You look lost,” he said as he idled over to Oliver. “Can I help you?”

Oliver wanted to tell the boy that he was indeed lost, but in actual fact that wasn’t the truth. He knew exactly where he was. The problem was when he was.

Tongue-tied, Oliver looked up into his face. The boy frowned. He seemed perplexed by Oliver’s hesitation.

“How about we tell each other our names first?” the boy said, kindly. He held out a hand to Oliver. “I’m Ralph Black.”

Oliver looked at the hand, the extension of friendship. Though somewhat wary of this stranger who’d appeared out of nowhere, Oliver had never needed a friend so much in his life as he did right now. And Ralph certainly seemed trustworthy.

After some deliberation, Oliver took the boy’s bony-fingered hand in his own and shook.

“I’m Oliver,” he said. “Oliver Blue.”

Ralph’s expression suddenly changed, from one of open friendliness to one of complete shock. His green eyes widened.

“You’re Oliver?” he exclaimed. “Are you really? What a stroke of luck! I thought you’d be older! Taller, too.”

The news seemed to be very welcome to Ralph but Oliver had no idea why. Ralph started circling him, suddenly enthused, commenting aloud on how Oliver just wasn’t what he’d been expecting. Oliver wanted to know exactly how Ralph had been expecting anything in the first place! How could there be a boy in 1944 who was waiting to meet him?

“I really thought I was going to have to be waiting much longer to find you,” Ralph said.

He pulled Oliver in for a hug, then let go and held Oliver by the shoulders at arm’s length.

“What’s with the outfit?” he asked, frowning curiously. “You trying to go incognito? Good thing I spoke to you because I’d never have realized it was you in that garb. Could’ve completely missed you. I was expecting you to be in jeans and a shirt. That’s what kids from the third millennium wear, isn’t it?”

Oliver looked down at his 1940s overalls. It was true that he blended right in with the era.

“It’s a long story,” Oliver said, not really sure what was going on. “Wait. The third millennium? What do you mean by that?”

The whole exchange was utterly baffling to Oliver. But at the same time he couldn’t help but get caught up in Ralph’s excitement. Even though he didn’t understand how or why, it was very evident to him now that he was supposed to be here. He was supposed to be in 1944, standing outside Illstrom’s Inventions with this boy, Ralph Black. It made him feel a lot less lost to know he was no longer floundering around helplessly in the past on his own.

“Come on then,” Ralph said brightly, ignoring his question. “No point hanging around here. We’d better go.”

“Go?” Oliver asked. “Go where?”

Ralph stopped and looked at him, frowning. “School,” he stated. “Obviously.” When all Oliver did was raise his eyebrows in confusion, Ralph added, “I mean, that’s why you came here, isn’t it? Why you came back to 1944?”

Oliver shook his head. “I… no, not really. I didn’t mean to come back in time. It was sort of an accident.”

Ralph looked puzzled. But it lasted only briefly before he gave a nonchalant shrug. “Well, it’s not like history is fixed. And I guess I wouldn’t have been sent here to wait for you if there was no chance of you turning up early. This must be a timeline where you come back in time accidentally rather than after being told that you’re supposed to.” He shrugged again. “Anyway, we’d better go. We don’t want to miss dinner.”

He went to walk away but Oliver wasn’t about to just follow. He stood his ground.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand,” he said to Ralph’s back.

Ralph stopped and turned to face him, blinking as if perplexed. “Don’t understand what?”

“That I came back in time to go to school,” Oliver stammered. “It doesn’t make any sense!”

“Of course it does,” Ralph said, pacing back to where Oliver was standing. “How else are you supposed to learn?”

“How about at one of the million schools that exist in the third millennium!” Oliver told him, repeating his strange phraseology from earlier and throwing his arms wide with exasperation.

Ralph looked even more confused. “What are you talking about? There’s only one school in the entirety of the universe that teaches Seers!”

Oliver froze. Seers. He thought about Armando, about how he’d started to tell him about how he was a Seer before abruptly ending the conversation.

“You mean to say…” Oliver began, his voice a stunned whisper.

Ralph interrupted. “Yes. I’m taking you to the School for Seers. You are a Seer, aren’t you? Untrained and in need of study?”

Oliver paced away, shaking his head with disbelief. This was what Armando had been keeping from him! This school in the past that he was supposed to attend!

But then he remembered how Armando had told him he was the only living Seer in the world. Confused, he turned back to Ralph.

“Are you a Seer too?”

Ralph grinned. “Yup.”

“But how?” Oliver asked. “I was told I was the only one in the world.”

Ralph began to chuckle. “A trick of semantics,” he said. “Whoever told you that had a bit of a sense of humor.”

Oliver frowned. There wasn’t anything funny about any of this as far as he was concerned.