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  Insubstantial to everything but the ground,

  including the residents’ gaze.”

  Hansum opened his eyes, expecting to be standing in the street, but his first surprise was to find himself inside the house, not outside.

  The interior of the della Cappa home was as it had been before being cleaned and aired — dull and dirty. It was also empty of people, except for the time travelers. The front door was ajar and a leaden light shone in through the crack. Yes, it had been a cloudy day when they first arrived. As Hansum’s eyes adjusted to the dark, he could see the dust-covered table and the gray and black straw moldering on the ground. Looking up, he was surprised to see the ceiling lower than he remembered. He heard some chatter outside and then a shout from the second floor. The voices sounded familiar, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  “Press your Italian implant node,” Arimus reminded.

  As soon as he understood what was being said, Hansum knew exactly when they had arrived. It was Ugilino speaking.

  “I had to swallow the coins you gave us, to hide them. I tell you, Father, if he did not have me, the devil would have him now.”

  The “he” Ugilino was referring to came stomping down the steps from the second floor. Hansum turned and there was the Master, alive and as irascible as ever. Agistino bounded right through the five “out-of-phase” travelers, grabbed a piece of firewood from the hearth and shoved the front door open.

  “Hey, you tell stories of your benefactor?” Agistino bellowed. Thwack!

  “Come, let’s to the outside,” Arimus said.

  The elder ushered everyone toward the door but, instead of opening it, they all just walked through the wall and into the street, one of the benefits of being suspended out of phase.

  They were all now standing on the cobblestones, watching Agistino beat Ugilino on the head with the piece of wood. Ugilino was already down on all fours, bleeding profusely from his scalp.

  “It’s the Ug-miester!” Lincoln shouted joyfully. “Yikers, that was a lot of blood.”

  “Poor Ugi,” Shamira said. She took a step right next to the Master, looking up at him and trying to touch his arm. Her hand went through. “I’ve missed my second father so.”

  “You three look different,” Kingsley observed. “Younger, yes, and more . . . naïve. But you did go through a lot.”

  “You’ve no idea,” Lincoln said.

  “Actually, I do,” Kingsley went on. “I watched your adventures on the Mists of Time Chronicles as a kid in school. It’s still required viewing.” The three 24th-century teens were surprised. “I had such a crush on Shamira as a ten-year-old.”

  “You stupido! You idiot!” Agistino was still shouting and beating Ugilino.

  The Arimus from the past, in the guise of Father Aaron, grabbed the Master’s arm. “Peace, my son. Peace. He is only answering what . . .”

  The older teens listened and watched their younger selves experiencing their first taste of the 14th-century. The bleeding Ugilino crawled a safe distance and then got to his feet, a sheepish smile on his face. The Master was embarrassed and afraid the neighbors would learn how he had brought his family to such lowered circumstances. And then he exploded at Ugilino again when he suggested he was to become Agistino’s son-in-law. Finally, to defuse the situation, Father Aaron sent Ugi to town to have his wound tended by the herbalist, Signora Baroni.

  As their younger selves were being led into the house for the first time, Lincoln made an observation.

  “Wow, I hadn’t realized how sad the Master must have been to be so violent.”

  “Your new maturity has taken you out of yourself.

  Now you can feel for others and

  put your childhood on the shelf.”

  “Oh, Kingsley, I’m so excited,” Shamira said. “We’re going to see the Signora and Guil . . .” Shamira stopped and looked at Hansum. He looked apprehensive and hadn’t said a word since they arrived. She took his hand. “Come on, Hansum. We’ll do this together.”

  As they re-entered the house through the walls, the Master was speaking.

  “See how the mighty master has fallen,” he said to the man he knew as Father Aaron. “Behold what I have brought my family to.”

  ‘. . . again,’ Hansum thought.

  “Fallen, only to rise again,” Arimus, as Father Aaron, answered. “How can one appreciate joy if he does not know misery?”

  “Then I shall be a connoisseur of joy when God . . .”

  Hansum and the others continued to watch as the familiar scene played out, Agistino finally trudging upstairs to fetch the Signora and Guilietta. Their younger selves then started the familiar conversation of why Ugilino stayed when the Master beat him all the time and how he expected to marry the Master’s daughter. Hansum watched his younger self snicker, while replying, “This daughter must be a real dog too.” It was all ironic now.

  Then, the expected shouting and arguing started upstairs. The Signora screamed and cried about how she rued the day she married the Master, the Master shouted back, there was the crashing of something hitting the floor . . . and then Hansum heard it. Even though he knew it was coming, it pierced his heart and surprised him. It was Guilietta’s gentle voice. “Hush mother, I beg you.” He strained to hear what she whispered and found himself stepping closer to the steps. He was still holding hands with Shamira and looked over to see her smiling.

  The bed creaked and there were heavy footsteps. Everybody downstairs, both in and out of phase, looked up. As before, the Signora’s fat, slippered foot appeared, followed by the rest of her lumbering bulk. The stairs shook and the pudgy, grimacing face that challenged the world came into view. But this time, the older Hansum no longer saw an anonymous crazy woman. This was his loving and fragile mother-in-law, a woman who had the misfortune to be born in a time when science couldn’t help her. The Master followed, frustrated by having to wait for his wife to slowly navigate the steps, just like Hansum had to wait . . . wait. He involuntarily caught his breath and squeezed Shamira’s hand.

  And then it appeared . . . Guilietta’s slipper, and then her skirt, moving over light, lithe legs, her steps graceful and delicate. Then that hand appeared on the banister. The hand that had held his, wiped his tears, embraced him. And then, that face, shyly looking down to take each step, Guilietta looked only briefly at the others in the room. Her gaze passed right over to where her future husband stood out of phase. It was as if, momentarily, her warm brown eyes looked right at him. The older Hansum felt his free hand rise over his heart, to keep it from pounding out of his chest.

  As the dialogue of greeting and then the talk of the Signora’s hallucinatory illness began, Hansum finally pulled his gaze away to steal a look at the older Lincoln and Shamira. They too were now equally enthralled at seeing their former family. The older Lincoln’s joking attitude had disappeared and his eyes were darting about, trying to drink it all in. He took a step toward the Signora and reached out his hand to touch her sleeve, but his hand moved right through her. He then turned and stared with surprise and disappointment at the sour look on his younger self’s face.

  Shamira was wide-eyed and held a hand to her mouth. There was a glistening in her eyes and, each time she blinked, a long tear ran down her face. Kingsley reached out a large hand and wiped one away with his thumb. Shamira turned to him, smiled, and then looked back at the tableau.

  Hansum had learned during his grief counseling that once you’ve allowed your initial emotions to run their course, you have to decide what to do with them for the rest of your life. He had decided to smile when he wanted to, laugh when it just happened and cry when he needed. But now they all happened at once.

  “Yes, they are alive!” he laughed, happy tears streaming down his face. He looked at Shamira and Lincoln, both in a similar state. “And we have a chance to keep them that way.”

  That’s when Guilietta’s soft pink lips moved to speak. Hansum watched his younger self staring at her, his mout
h gaping, a ready home for flies. He smiled again, wiping away his now copious and joyful tears.

  “Holy Father,” Guilietta was saying, “my mother thinks she speaks with the Archangel Michael.”

  ‘That blessed voice,’ Hansum thought, falling back into 14th-century mind think.

  “Don’t be daft!” the mother began to retort, and then Arimus, the one not dressed as a priest, held up a finger. He spun it in a circle and a ring of the Sands of Time appeared up from the floor. Then the floor itself disappeared and the time travelers were falling again. The first reunion with their family was over.

  Chapter 4

  Hansum and the others now found themselves gently landing in the middle of an almost empty Piazza Bra square. It was morning and the market was just being set up, men and women of all trades putting out their wares. A large cart, pulled by a behemoth of an ox, trudged straight toward them. Everyone but Arimus reflexively jumped out of its way. It walked right through him, as if he were a ghost.

  “Why did you take us away from the della Cappas?” Hansum asked. “And why here?”

  “Oh, I’d seen enough,” Arimus said.

  You passed the first test.”

  “Even though I cried?”

  “Tears do not mean weakness.

  You responded properly to an emotional scene.

  The question is, when you are in a situation

  that some cruel fate will allow,

  will you act properly then, and hence,

  that is why I have brought you to now.”

  “What market situation is that?” Hansum asked, peering about.

  “Not where but when is your question, and why,

  We’re a month and a bit from when you arrived

  to a situation that happened on the morning we’ve roamed.

  So the others must leave us, we continue alone.”

  “I’ve spent a lot of time in this market,” Shamira said to Kingsley. “Oh look, it’s Master Spagnolli, the butcher,” she said as their old neighbor passed by. Lincoln snarled.

  “The last time I saw Master Spagnolli,” Lincoln said smoldering, “he was chasing Hansum and me for a reward. Dead or alive.”

  “Young Lincoln,

  view the people you find without judgment.

  That is the way to learn,

  if a delver’s role is what you wish to earn.”

  Lincoln’s face had an uncharacteristically serious grimace on it as he watched the butcher walk down the market. He turned and focused on the blank air.

  “Yeah, I know he’s right, Medeea,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll be cool.”

  “This place is amazing,” Kingsley said. “It’s so different standing in the middle of something than watching it over a Mists of Time viewer. Oh, what spire does that church belong to?”

  “That’s Saint Fermo. Wait till you seen the wooden ceiling and all the statues in the cloisters.”

  “I just realized something,” Lincoln chimed in. “A bit more than a month after we got here . . .”

  “Oh, that’s when . . .” Shamira began, when Arimus cut her off.

  “Tut! I’ll introduce it to Hansum in the manner I planned.

  You others keep busy with your own business at hand.

  But whether it’s delving or art that gives you delight

  Remember to follow protocol and keep out of sight.”

  “Ya know, I really do want to delve Ugilino,” Lincoln said. “Arimus, can you tell us where to find him?”

  Arimus put two fingers to his temple, tapping twice with two fingers and once with one.

  “Ugilino’s location?” he enquired. Then he chuckled.

  “You’ll find our old friend at the

  Pesci Di Fetore tavern this morning.”

  “The Stinking Fish Tavern?” Lincoln laughed. “That hole in the wall?”

  “Be non-judgmental and learn,” Arimus repeated.

  “Hansum, touch my cloak, please.

  We shall not be moving through time,

  But merely site transport.”

  Hansum, his face showing an almost successful imitation of confidence, reached out and grasped the fabric of Arimus’s A.I. cloak.

  “Everything will be fine,” Shamira said supportively.

  “Ciao, Brother,” Lincoln said, pointing a finger at Hansum and winking. “Catch ya on the flip side.”

  “Where the heck do you get all these sayings?” Kingsley laughed.

  “An elective I’m taking at school. Twentieth-century slang. I don’t have a clue what ‘flip side’ refers to. It’s just sounds funny.”

  “Great,” said Shamira, playfully. “I can’t wait to hear what else comes out of your mouth.”

  But Hansum wasn’t in the frame of mind to laugh at this jest. To what situation was Arimus about to take him? He felt his mentor’s hand on his arm. Since they were site transporting, there would be no vortex or Sands of Time. Hansum smiled weakly at his friends and then just winked out of sight.

  Everything turned dark and Hansum’s feet suddenly found themselves on an uneven surface. And it was quiet. The quiet of the dead. Then, in the distance, he heard the echoing clicks of footsteps on stone.

  “Where are we?” Hansum asked. “Why is it so dark?”

  “Take three steps forward and turn left,” Arimus instructed.

  Hansum did so and, as he turned, he saw the dim, flickering of torch lights approaching. As the lights brightened, he finally saw the walls on either side of him. He gasped. It was the honor guard of San Zeno’s crypt, the skulls of hundreds of priests and monks, their hollow eye sockets staring out from their places of repose. He saw row upon row of them, all neatly worked into a wall of thigh and leg bones, stacked almost to shoulder height.

  As the torches came closer he saw the bishop of San Zeno. In his vestments and holding his shepherd’s crook, he led a double phalanx of priests who carried a stone ossuary. Behind them Hansum could see the mourners.

  “This is your funeral,” Hansum whispered to Arimus. “Father Aaron’s funeral. There’s me and the others at the end.”

  “Quite correct,” Arimus said.

  They stood watching as the procession came towards them.

  “There’s nothing from this event that will stress me,” Hansum said, as his younger self went by. “I look really freaked . . .” Guilietta passed him and he paused. “. . . really freaked out. But that’s because I was confused at the time. We thought you were dead and that we were stuck here for the rest of our lives.”

  “Patience,” Arimus advised.

  When the ceremony came to an end, they followed the procession out of the catacombs. As before, they came up to a cloudy day and, when Shamira started weeping, Hansum watched the other teens gather around to support her. Lincoln took her hand and the younger Hansum and Guilietta put their arms around her. The older Hansum could almost feel Guilietta’s hand as it fell on top of his counterpart’s.

  As they walked along the side of the cathedral, on their way to the plaza at the front of the building, Hansum broke his silence.

  “Arimus, if this situation is supposed to test whether I can control my emotions when I am back with Guilietta, I think I’ve passed that test twice now. Like you said before, it’s all about self-knowledge. We were upset because we thought you dead, leaving us marooned. But now there’s nothing here that . . .” Hansum stopped speaking as the procession came around to the front of San Zeno. He caught his breath and stared wide-eyed. Anger shot through his brain.

  “What’s that you’re saying?”

  Arimus enquired nonchalantly.

  Hansum felt his ire rise and his eyes narrow. “Feltrino!” he growled.

  Chapter 5

  Shamira and Kingsley laughed as they watched Lincoln walk away through the market. He was sauntering, swaggering, as he chatted with his unseen companion.

  “Young Lincoln seems to have a crush on his new friend,” Kingsley said.

  “Ya think?” Shamira answered. “
Too bad it’s all in his head.”

  “Really? How provincial. My mother warned me about 24th-century girls,” he teased.

  “I suppose it’s common for humans and A.I.s to have relations in the 26th-century?”

  “Well, it’s not uncom . . . actually, I can’t tell you about that right now.”

  Shamira knew there were things people from the future couldn’t reveal and the rule was, when they said as much, you weren’t supposed to ask further. “But as far as Lincoln is concerned, do you really think he’s smitten?”

  “He’s got all the signs of young love.”

  “And you’re an expert?” Shamira asked.

  “Oh, I’m the doctor on that subject,” he said good-naturedly.

  Shamira stared at him, deciding how to respond. She chose to turn her nose up and began to stroll into the market. Kingsley smiled and stepped quickly to catch up to her. After a dozen steps, he finally brought Shamira’s haughty charade to an end by sweeping her off her feet and kissing her hard. She kissed him back and, as they stood invisible to everyone in the market, three laughing ragamuffins ran right through them.

  The two young lovers looked surprised, and then Kingsley’s laugh boomed. “I like 24th-century girls, no matter what my mother says,” he said, eye to eye with Shamira.

  “I could be your great, great, great, great . . .” she paused, counting in her head. “Well, you know. Your grandmother.”

  “Wow. Another provincial attitude to put up with.” Still smiling, he put her down. “Hey, do you mind if we go to Signori Square? I’d like to see the Scalari Tombs when there was only the one for Can Grande. I took a virtual 14th-century tour through there on my family’s Mists of Time viewer, but you can’t get the feeling of the actual size unless you stand right by it.”

  “Sure. It’s this way,” Shamira said. “So, you like the 14th-century so far?”

  “Absolutely. I mean, look at all this,” he said spreading his arms. Just then, the three rambunctious urchins screamed back past them again. “Look at all the joy and energy everybody has. It’s so colorful and inspiring.”

  The three children then ran right into a man and knocked him to the ground. They fell on him, laughing and wiggling around.