Stones of Time Read online

  Praise for Stones of Time

  “Oertel’s dialogue is clever, his characters are attractive and convincing, and there is a good combination of historical information and fantasy.”

  Winnipeg Free Press

  “Besides enjoying a fast-paced adventure story, young readers will learn about the solstice, time travel, and ancient Cree culture in this volume that easily stands on its own.”

  Kirkus Reviews

  Praise for the Shenanigans Series

  “A fun, engaging series for adventure and history buffs.”

  Quill & Quire

  “A fabulously fun series that … will appeal to boys and girls alike.”

  The Literary Word

  Stones of Time

  The Shenanigans Series—Book Two

  Andreas Oertel

  Writing a story is a solitary task, but turning a story into a great book requires a team. And I have an awesome team. My sincere thanks to everyone at Heritage House Publishing and Wandering Fox Books, especially Lynn Duncan, Kilmeny Jane Denny, Leslie Kenny, Lara Kordic, and Jacqui Thomas.

  For H. and W.

  For everything.

  “Once confined to fantasy and science fiction, time travel is now simply an engineering problem.”

  Michio Kaku, Theoritical Physicist

  Prologue

  ANNA WAS COLD, and she was terrified.

  A whole day had gone by since it had happened, though she still didn’t know what had happened. She had been exploring a graveyard in Canada with her father when … when something went wrong. But what had gone wrong?

  “Come on, Anna, think,” she said to herself. She crouched into a ball under the forest canopy and tried to warm her bare legs by rubbing them.

  Concentrate, Anna.

  She recalled driving to the small town. What had the sign said? Welcome to Santana? Something like that anyway. Her father parked the rental car in a gravel lot adjacent to a sprawling cemetery. She remembered how excited her father had been as they left the car, heading off into the forested graveyard.

  And then … then what?

  She tried again to focus. Her last memory was of locating the “special” stones. Father was able to find them quickly because he’d been there before. He’d stumbled upon the ancient pillars weeks earlier, he explained, when he flew to Canada to investigate an ancient Egyptian tablet.

  As the minutes passed, the fog lifted from Anna’s brain and snippets of memory returned. She suddenly remembered helping her father measure the centre of the three-stone formation when …

  A raven screamed somewhere in the distance, causing the goosebumps already growing on her arms to swell into little anthills. Anna bit her lip to fight back the tears.

  Where am I?

  She knew her father, the renowned German archaeologist, Dr. Bruno Wassler, had studied man-made rock formations for years. But she had never really listened to his theories about those petroforms. She just enjoyed being with her father, the famous—some said “crazy”—scientist.

  Anna looked to the clearing where the three stones stood like sentinels. They certainly appeared to be similar to the ones she’d seen with her father in Canada, Egypt, and elsewhere, but she was definitely not in any of those countries now. She was somewhere else.

  The stones were roughly chiselled to approximately four feet high, with a two-foot diameter base that tapered to a narrower top. These rocks were covered with moss and lichen too, but a lot less than the ones in the cemetery. Anna knew that if she examined their surfaces closely, she’d find hundreds of symbols and glyphs. The rocks, each ten paces from its neighbour, formed a triangle, and Anna had woken up in the middle of that triangle.

  But why? And how?

  The sun was beginning to climb above the treeline now, and she groaned with pleasure as it warmed her skin. It had been a long, cool night. This place felt like—and even smelled like—a normal summer morning in the Schwarzwald, the Black Forest, where she had grown up in Germany. But in her heart she knew she was someplace very different. How could she have been in a cemetery in Canada one minute, and then here in the next?

  Anna now wished she had been more attentive to her father and his lectures about these stones. What was it he was always telling Mama about? Cosmic markers? Solar calendars? Timelines touching? Quantum something? It had made no sense when he told her these things, and it still made no sense. But now she realized that perhaps she should have listened.

  She felt guilty, because only yesterday on the drive from the airport to the cemetery, her father had seemed extra enthusiastic. “I have a new theory,” he said, “that the symbols on the pillars are the key.” But Anna was so excited to be on another adventure with her father, she never even bothered asking, “The key to what?”

  How can I go home, if I don’t even know where I am?

  Feeling thirsty, Anna decided to walk back down to the river for a drink. She had discovered the river by accident when she first woke up and began wandering around, dazed and confused. The river was a five-minute walk to the east, and moving about seemed to help her think. Anna knew the turbid water would probably make her sick, but her mouth was so dry she didn’t care.

  Suddenly, something strange began to happen.

  She looked around the clearing quickly, searching for whatever had alarmed her. The sun was now high overhead, and the pillars cast no shadow on the grassy ground. Everything seemed normal. But the hairs on the back of Anna’s neck stood up, and she shuddered with trepidation. A low vibration began in the air above the stones and rapidly grew into a deafening thumping. She pressed her hands over her ears so hard, she thought she would crush her own head.

  THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

  She squinted through the pain toward the petroforms in the distance. Anna desperately wanted to run away from the unbearable noise and those stupid stones—this had to have something to do with them. But she knew that whatever was going on now might be a clue to help her get back home.

  So she stayed put.

  The air over the stones continued to thump violently until it all ended with a final screech that sounded like the scrape of giant fingernails against a chalkboard. The abrupt silence and the relief from the painful pounding made a tear slide down Anna’s cheek. She wiped it away with a shoulder and got up.

  Wait!

  There was a body lying in the clearing.

  Anna hadn’t seen the small shape in the centre of the pillars until she stood, but she was sure she wasn’t imagining it. To be certain, she rubbed her eyes vigorously and focused again. Yes, there was someone there. That’s exactly where I was when I landed here, Anna thought.

  Her heart beat a mad rhythm as she approached the still form. Who could it be? Doesn’t matter, she quickly told herself. At least she wouldn’t be alone anymore. Perhaps, between the two of them, they could figure out a way back to the cemetery.

  A raven—maybe the same one she had heard earlier—emitted a harsh shriek.

  Anna froze twenty feet from the body. Was that a warning cry? She closed her eyes, alert to the sounds of the forest around her. She heard nothing, but then again, her ears were still ringing from all the thumping. But why was the raven screaming?

  Anna moved forward cautiously. The body was that of a girl—a girl her age, perhaps twelve or thirteen. She was lying on her side with one arm under her blond ponytail.

  Please don’t be dead, Anna prayed.

  The girl groaned and rolled onto her stomach.

  KA-KAWWW! The raven shrieked again—louder this time.

  Anna sensed someone might be approaching and felt a powerful urge to hide.

  She knelt next to the girl’s head. “Please wake up,” she whispered urgently. She shook her gently and repeated the same th
ing in German. “Bitte wach auf.”

  The stranger groaned, but her eyes stayed shut.

  KA-KAWWW!

  Panic rose in Anna. “We have to hide!” she warned.

  She shook the girl again, and at the same time searched for cover. The girl opened her eyes. She smiled weakly and went back to sleep.

  KA-KAWWW!

  Anna hooked her elbows under the girl’s arms and tried to drag her to the treeline. She made it five steps and collapsed, gasping for air. The girl’s limp form was far too heavy for Anna to move alone.

  The voice in her head implored her to run. Go! Now!

  If she had more time, Anna could get them both to safety, but she didn’t have a second to spare.

  She had to hide now.

  Anna left the girl amidst the stone markers and sprinted for a cluster of uprooted trees. Diving over a fallen spruce, she curled into a ball and rolled to a stop. She was in the mossy depression of a giant root pad left behind when wind had knocked over the entire tree. Anna was safe for now, though her feeling of security couldn’t mask the regret she felt at having to leave the girl behind. She grabbed a fistful of damp moss and squeezed it tight, frustrated that she was too weak to save her.

  Shouts reached her from the far side of the clearing.

  Anna pressed her face into the damp earth and tried to still her breathing. She didn’t think they had seen her, but she couldn’t be sure.

  She didn’t dare look up.

  Waves of broken speech reached her from the area near the pillars. The dialect and tone were unfamiliar to Anna. She was good at languages and fluent in German, English, and French, but she had heard nothing like this before.

  Curiosity finally compelled her to chance a peek. A small gap between the fallen tree and the ground allowed Anna to see some of the area.

  Eight men nervously formed a perimeter around the stones, while a ninth man examined the girl. A tree limb obscured most of his face, and he vanished from her sight quickly, but she saw that he had long hair and was at least a foot taller than his companions. The other men were clad in leathers and skins—they resembled the images of Native North Americans that she had seen in books.

  Her heart raced impossibly fast. She had been so worried about where she was, she had never even considered when she was. These were definitely not people from her time. Had she somehow travelled to the past?

  Anna had failed to listen to everything her father tried to pass on to her, but she wouldn’t make that mistake again. She concentrated on every detail, searching for clues that might help her rescue the girl and get them both home again.

  Five of the men held short bows and carried quivers on their backs with arrows. The other three were armed with fierce-looking spears. She examined the group and noticed they varied in age from older teenagers to senior citizens. The way the Natives were looking around and shifting about from foot to foot made Anna think they feared the stone formation.

  Anna still couldn’t see the tall man’s face, but she saw him lift the unconscious girl and move her away from the petroform. Anna thought, from the way the man was holding the girl, he wouldn’t hurt her. But she couldn’t take that chance, so she remained hidden. And even though she longed for the company of humans, she knew the answer to returning home—to her own time—was here at the stones. She couldn’t leave.

  The pillars are the key. Her father had said so. If another girl from her time could find her way here, her father could too. I have to stay put—someone will find me. She had to believe that.

  Anna’s thoughts were interrupted when one of the shorter Natives began arguing with the tall man carrying the girl. Now what? She noticed that the shorter man wore a necklace with a peculiar assortment of teeth, claws, and bones dangling from it. He must be a band chief or tribal leader. The chief barked at the man holding the girl. Some of the others became impatient and gathered around the tall man, as if in support.

  It looked like the chief wanted to leave the girl behind, but the taller man disagreed.

  Finally, the tall man lowered the girl onto the grass and a stretcher was hastily rigged up using two of the longer spears and some pieces of leather.

  As the party left the clearing, Anna whispered a quiet promise to the girl. “I won’t abandon you a second time. I’ll get you home too.”

  And there she waited, alone, as another cool evening replaced the warmth of the sun …

  CHAPTER

  1

  “YOU’D THINK,” ERIC griped, “the town would have a riding mower for a graveyard this big.” He followed Rachel deeper into the wooded cemetery, dragging a push mower carelessly behind him.

  “Maybe they do,” I said, hauling a second mower after my friend. “But doing it this way is more like punishment. You know, the hard work of having to push a lawnmower and not just drive one around. That sort of thing.”

  Eric’s mower snagged on a low gravestone. He stopped. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right, Cody, because it would actually be fun cruising on a riding mower. Some even have drink holders for Slurpees—”

  “Shhh!” I said, cutting him off. “Listen!”

  “What is it?”

  I held up my hand, signalling him to be quiet. “I thought I heard a noise,” I said ten seconds later. “Like … like … ”

  “Like what?” Eric asked.

  “I was going to say lightning, but I guess that’s kind of dumb.” I pointed up at the cloudless sky.

  Eric laughed. “Maybe it was Rach starting up the trimmer.”

  I shrugged and looked around for Rachel, Eric’s sister. She had been pushing a wheelbarrow with extra gas and other gear, and I thought we were following her, but now I realized she was nowhere in sight.

  Eric disrespectfully climbed onto a fallen headstone and surveyed the sprawling graveyard. “Where the heck did she go?”

  “Well, yesterday,” I said, “we stopped cutting grass when we got to The Funny Guy. So she’s probably waiting for us around there.”

  Eric nodded and jumped to the ground. He jerked the lawn mower over the tombstone and worked his way west.

  I followed him around the old headstones, heading deeper into the cemetery that had been our workplace for … for fifty-six hours. Or were we up to fifty-nine hours now?

  It was hard to believe that only a few weeks ago we had fooled the world by planting a phony Egyptian artifact next to the river in our hometown, Sultana. Our goal had been a noble one. That is, if playing a hoax on the world so you won’t have to move away can be considered noble. But our plan worked too well, and when the media frenzy grew out of our control, we began to feel guilty about what we’d done. So before anyone could arrest us and toss us in the Crowbar Hilton, we confessed to everything.

  That’s the reason we were now cutting the grass in the town graveyard. You see, you can’t break the law, and confess to breaking the law, without consequences. That’s the way a civilized society works. So our punishment for the crime of public mischief was performing one hundred hours of community service. And we spent most of those hours mowing the grass in the Sultana Cemetery.

  It took almost two weeks before we stopped getting heebie-jeebies from all the tombstones. But now we were cool with the place. And we even had names for the different sections. We stored the extra gas cans near The Alphabet Guy, whose name seemed to use up all twenty-six letters. We took our breaks in The French Quarter, where all the French-sounding graves were clustered together under four towering oak trees. And we usually had lunch on The Funny Guy, because his grave was elevated and made a nice picnic table. I’m sure that’s a bit morbid, but we didn’t think the dead guy would mind. We were keeping him company, after all, and trying to keep the place looking nice for him and his neighbours.

  Anyway, after five minutes of walking, we found Rachel, and sure enough, she was waiting for us where we predicted. Eric sat down on the headstone and read the inscription out loud.

  CHESTER BASSANI

  1899–1963
>
  “I TOLD YOU I WAS SICK.”

  “That really is kind of funny,” I said. “I mean, for a grave.”

  “Basically,” Eric said, “what he was saying was, he died because no one believed him when he said he was sick.”

  “I’m pretty sure we get that,” Rachel said.

  Eric laughed. “I’ll have to think of something funny to put on my grave too.”

  Rachel hoisted a gas can from the wheelbarrow and began topping up my mower. “How about something like this?” she said. “‘My sister killed me, because I drove her crazy.’”

  I nodded. “Hey, that’s pretty good.”

  “Or,” Eric said, “how about, ‘Being dead is better than living with my sister.’”

  Rachel can take a lot of teasing, but I decided to change the subject just to be safe. “Did you hear a weird ZAP noise?” I asked her. “A few minutes ago?”

  Rachel twisted her mouth in thought. “No. But maybe it was that little car we saw in the parking lot. Maybe the motor backfired or something.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “That was a rental car,” Eric added. “It had rental licence plates.”

  “I noticed that too,” I said. “I wonder what it’s doing out here. In Sultana.”

  “Could be stolen,” Eric said. “Or used in a heist and then dumped.”

  “Jeepers!” Rachel said. “Why are you two so suspicious about everything?”

  “We’re not,” Eric said defensively. “We’re just mulling over logical possibilities.”

  “Well then, why not start with the most obvious?” she said. “It’s probably someone who rented a car at the airport, and then drove out here to visit a relative’s grave.”

  “I guess we were letting our imaginations run away,” I admitted.

  “More like sprint away,” Rachel said.

  “Then why,” Eric asked, “didn’t we see a single person on the walk in?”

  “Maybe they’re still in the car,” Rachel said, “eating sandwiches, or looking at a road map, or—”