If you have only recently started reading the Time Travelers storyline, this is a good post to catch, so I’m Collabbing Emma and Hannah on it.
If you know pretty much everything from the beginning, don’t skip the last few paragraphs. There are a couple of details about the end of the meeting that tell a lot.
Beyond what I say here, there are some relationship dynamics that are better left to the individuals to explain and post.
With that said, I’ll add that we three have agreed not to read each other’s posts unless we are tagged or collaborated. That started at different times for us, but we all adhere to it now.
Today comes after a whirlwind weekend where a lot of things happened resulting in us needing to talk to Tom, owner of the theater where Emma Works. Hannah and I got in touch with Will Robertson, our boss and he understood, telling us to take 4 hours of PTO.
We went with Emma to the theater to talk to Tom so that we could eventually ask him for help. Addison, the show’s director came into the meeting, too.
“Tom,” Emma said, “somthin’s come up an’ we hope you can help us out. Merritt will ‘splain it all an’ get to the question.”
I’ll sum up what I told Tom.
Everything started in 1997 for a woman named @timetravelerjenn1997 Jenn when she skipped through time and ended up in 2023. A year passed and she decided she was stuck in 2024. Shortly after that, I shifted from 1984 to 2024.
Something that I can only describe as metaphysical drew me to a place and compelled me to meet Jenn. We both felt a connection that we attributed to being time shifted. As we were heading to Atlanta, on July 4, we encountered Emma. The same feeling compelled us to meet each other. As it turned out, she had skipped from 1880 where she was a sharecropper's daughter to 1984.
After that, it has been a matter of adjusting and figuring out how to live in 2024. Naturally, Emma has faced the biggest changes.
We felt like we had been compelled together for a reason so we wanted to see if things worked better if we stayed together. I had a job waiting for me in New York, so Emma and Jenn went there with me. We had no idea what the time-sift was about, but we pushed on as well as we could.
At the end of July, we encountered a strange figure that said, “There is a reason you were brought to this time and place. But now is not the time to reveal what it is. The threads of time weave through the nether, so it was… convenient… to assemble you here and now. They will twine back together again, and when they do, your purpose here will be revealed.”
That wasn’t very helpful and Jenn was frustrated, so she decided to retreat into solitude for a while to get her head sorted out.
At the end of July, Emma got a job at the theater “acting” like she was from a Mississippi sharecropper farm in 1880. She wasn’t acting. She was just being herself.
It wasn’t long before she and I felt like we needed to let our bosses (Addison Magee and Will Robetson) know that we time shifted. As it turned out, Will and I had been in college together and had taken classes. He was easiest to convince about the time travel, then he helped us convince Addison.
For a few weeks, Emma and I did the best we could to go through daily life. I became friends with Hannah (who also worked for Will) as Emma became friends with Addison.
A week ago, Hannah was assigned to do some work at the theater where Emma works, and the two of them meet a guy named Devon who was down on his luck.
They were kind to him and he was grateful. Then I decided I’d try to help him get back on his feet and ended up letting him move in (yesterday) with me.
Meanwhile, Hannah found out about the time traveling. Though skeptical, she fell asleep wondering if Emma and I came into 2024 versions of ourselves, what happened to the 2024 versions.
That night she, Emma, and I dreamed the same dream: we were all back in 1880, we all knew each other, and we all knew we were time travelers.
Something happened in that dream—even though we don’t know if the dream represented something actual or not, we all awoke mutually feeling that metaphysical connection to each other. Particularly Emma and Hannah felt compelled to hang out on Sunday, yesterday.
On her way to visit, Hannah encountered what we believe to be the same, strange figure that had been encountered earlier. Its message this time was more specific, though equally unexplainable: “Tell Emma and Merritt not to quit their day jobs. Same for you…”
Hannah delivered the message and we attempted to carry on with our day (yesterday).
It was then that we discovered unexplainable deposits in our bank accounts from something called Pay It Forward Society. We could connect each of the three deposits to a time we had done something nice for Devon. We tried to figure out what the Pay It Forward Society is, which brought us to see Tom hoping his business experience could help.
Having shared all of that, Tom was far more accepting than I would have guessed. He had asked questions throughout my discourse, so when it came to an end he seemed to understand.
“Okay, so you want help finding out about this organization. I’ll see what I can do.”
We chatted then it was time for everyone to move on. I’ll share one more detail, something new that happened then. I think it will give you some insight into the relationship scene I brought up at the beginning. Since everyone was there, no one will be surprised.
As we were about to leave, Addison, who I have met a few times said, “Hey, Merritt… When you get your bearings and feel settled, I’m still hoping you’ll give me a call.”
Both Hannah and Emma’s expressions revealed their disapproval.
“What did I say?” Addison asked.
Hannah shot out a quick reply. “Not a good time. You just heard all that… things are more up in the air than ever.”
I nodded. “I appreciate your interest. But… yeah, my whole life is a mess right now.”
That must have been, based on both Hannah and Emma’s expressions, the wrong thing to say.
Addison smiled and shrugged. “Time changes things. And time just keeps going. Sorry if I was out of line.”
No one had anything else to say about that.
Thing is, time does change things and time does just keep going. Just sometimes, some of us skip around in it.
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