Emma Knox, born in 2005 looked across Glady Fork in the direction the Blue Water trainees had been sent to set up camp. She could just barely hear them settling down for the night.
Orientation had gone well. They should be set for the week’s program.
She looked back toward the camp she shared with Hannah, Kent, and Merritt. Merritt had gone to get another Nalgene bottle of water. They were making hot chocolate over the fire.
As she waited, her thoughts drifted. “I’m a long way from Vicksburg…”
On 2024-07-04, she had boarded a bus for Walls, MS and hitched a ride in a semi to get to Memphis. She fell asleep and woke up on a bus at the Memphis terminal. 40 years earlier.
Unsettled to say the least, she walked through downtown until she neared the Orpheum theater. It was being remodeled and she stopped to look at it.
She saw a man in his forties looking at her intently. He approached and introduced himself. He was Tom Jenkins, a man in the theater business from New York City who had come to Memphis to see the remodel himself. He had a strange letter.
“This was waiting for me at the hotel when I checked in.”
The letter told him he would see a girl and know her when he saw her. Her name would be Emma Knox and he was to let her know she had shifted in time from the future.
“You’re supposed to go to Brooklyn. There’s a company there called Blue Water Private Security. A woman named Addison Magee is expecting you. She’ll give you a job. Does any of this make sense?”
Emma said it didn’t and that she didn’t have any money. She pulled her wallet from her purse to show him. In it was a stack of American Express Travelers Cheques; more than enough for bus fare to Brooklyn.
Merritt’s approach drew her thoughts back to the present. His smile was warmer than the campfire.
“My dear, you seemed lost in thought.”
“I was thinkin’ about how I got to Brooklyn.”
“Ah… As amazin’ as was my own journey.” Merritt handed her the Nalgene and instant cocoa. “To think, all that happened to land us here together.”
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