2024-10-19 “Tuesday In Memphis” by Hannah (born 2002)

It is Tuesday, 10/19 1880 in Memphis, TN and Shay-2001 and I have shifted back from 2024.The version of me born in 1962 and the version of Shay born in 1857 took our places. That’s how this… works.

Shay and I shifted last night. We aren’t sure, but we think we have completed our… task.

When we arrived, I made sure the Merritt and Emma knew about the shift. Not long afterwards, Shay and Kent showed up at Merritt’s house.

Quick roster: Kent-1958, Merritt-2000, Emma 1965, Shay 2001, and me-2002 all gathered in 1880.

About an hour later, Will came with a telegram saying that Shay and Hannah should be in front of the Goldsmith’s department store at noon on Tuesday… that was earlier today.

Before we went there, we followed Merritt to where he and Hannah are working with Will on some houses. There were a few carpenters and a lot of windows needing shutters, so Merritt and the other Hannah had worked out something of an assembly line process. They set up cutting stations, drilling stations… etc.

Merritt and I were moving slats from where they had been cut to where they would be assembled when a man called out from behind us. “Say there… What’s going on here?”

We explained the process, and he caught on. “Something like at Winchester!”

He told us what he knew about the rifle manufacturer in New Haven—which is where Addison was born (we think coincidentally)—then asked, “Say… do you suppose this would work for making buggies? I’m on my way to Michigan to help a man named Ransom Olds with some manufacturing ideas he has.”

We assured him it would work in almost any manufacturing situation. He seemed pleased and walked away nodding.

By noon, Shay, Nick, and I were at the Goldsmiths standing there trying to decide what to do.

We’d been there about 10 minutes when a woman came out of the store, a package wrapped in paper and tied with strings under her arm. She was barely three steps out the door when she shrieked. She dropped her parcel and spun around, arms flailing.

“Somthin’s on me!” She was trying to brush something off her neck, walking, by then, backwards away from the store.

She stumbled right into Kent, who stopped her fall, but had to, himself, take a step into the street. Just then, a wagon rushed by. It was a close call. 

The horses missed him. The wagon was so close that it grazed his arm as he dodged back out of the way.

By then Shay had steadied the woman and was helping search the nape of her neck.

“What’s on me! Is it a spider?”

Shay answered, “Ma’am it's just a ladybug”

Shay managed to get it off the woman’s neck and into her hand. “Look… here it is … Look!”

The woman quickly calmed down. She apologized and thanked us. I handed her the dropped package and she thanked me again.

Just then, a little yellow butterfly lit on Nick’s shoulder, and the woman noticed. “Poor thing… It’s near cold enough for a frost… Been hot ‘til Sunday, though. Poor thing must be confused…”

She thanked us again and we parted ways.

Shay looked at me. “Butterfly… Is that supposed to mean something… Like Jacob was saying… Stopping her from falling…”

Nick interrupted. “…She’d have been trampled by the horses…”

Shay shook her head. “We should have asked her name, but I bet stopping her fall was the stone in the pond, and we’d never find the ripples on the shore.”

We waited an hour and nothing else happened at the store. So, we think we finished our… task… mission… whatever these shifts are.

We’re just sitting around at Merritt’s house, now, no idea if we actually did what we were supposed to do. And no idea when we’ll shift back. Or if we will.