Excerpt from Spinning Time by
D. F. Jones releases May 09, 2017
1948,
Burkett Falls, North Carolina
Standing
with Phillip and Sloane on the sandy beach next to the blue pools of Burkett
Falls, Julia said, “On the count of three, we’ll jump in together.”
Phillip yelled, “Three.”
Phillip,
Julia, and Sloane ran and jumped into the chilly water. Julia plunged head
first, taking long breaststrokes toward the Falls while Phillip and Sloane swam
behind her.
Once
the trio made it to the cliffs, next to the Falls, Sloane pulled herself up on
the flat rock and sat on the edge. She tilted her face to the sun and said, “I
don't think you need to climb behind the Falls. The current is too fast from
the storms last night.”
“Aw,
baby sis, let the good times roll. I want to stand under the Falls and wash my
hair.” Julia and Phillip climbed to the natural stone steps leading to the back
of the waterfall. She turned back to Sloane and yelled, “Come on, Sloane. It’ll
be fun!”
Sloane shook her head no.
Phillip held Julia’s hand and said, “Maybe, we should listen
to your sister.”
Julia
shook her hand loose from Phillip and giggled. “You chicken?” Right before she
stepped behind the Falls, Julia blew Phillip a kiss and said, “I love you.” The
water rushing over the cliffs felt harder and faster than she remembered.
Standing directly under the Falls, Julia stretched her arms out and up toward
the sky.
Then she slipped on a rock and fell.
Julia heard Phillip yell out, “Grab a rock, grab anything, I’m
coming, Julie.”
Julia
couldn’t hold on. The force of the rushing water cascading over the Falls made
her plunge deeper and deeper into the blackness of the pool. Julia tried with
all her might to swim to the surface, but it was no use, the Falls kept pushing
her further down.
Nearing death, her lungs threatening to explode, Julia
witnessed images from her past, present, and future seemingly paralyzed in what
appeared to be a timeless state of mind. Julia didn't realize that time, or the
essence of time manipulated around her. Julia fell forward into a prism of
colored particles in reds, pinks, blues, and greens wrapping and bending in a
spinning tunnel with no end.
Oddly,
Julia could breathe again, which was strange in and of itself, as the brightly
colored lights swirled around her. She thought of the tornado in The Wizard of Oz,
Then someone grabbed her hand, pulling her up—and into the
twenty-first century.
Chapter 4
Present Day, Burkett Falls
A
man tucked Julia under his arm while swimming sidestrokes to the sandy rock
beach. He picked her up by the waist and placed her on a flat rock and then
pulled himself up beside her. Julia stared at him in disbelief totally shocked
by her surroundings. She knew him, didn’t she?
Julia openly stared at the man beside her. She
couldn’t believe her eyes. The man looked exactly like Phillip except with
blond hair and blue eyes.
He
gently touched her shoulder and said, “You’re in shock. God knows how long you
were underwater. Are you able to talk?”
In a
split second, everything in Julia’s life changed. The only thing familiar was
the majestic Burkett Falls. Concrete picnic tables and wrought iron grills were
located around their property and filled with people she didn’t know. Phillip’s
look-a-like guided her to one of the maple trees and pointed to the patchwork
quilt. Tears flowed from her eyes because the quilt belonged to Phillip. He
said, “Please sit down. I have some bottled water.”
Julia
began to hyperventilate. Bottled water? Julia
watched him rummage through what appeared to be a large purse or satchel but
followed his request because her legs could give out any second. She trembled
with fear and felt numb, completely numb. Void of feeling and at a loss for
words. Her throat burned as he handed her the bottle of water. Not glass, hmmm. Her voice hoarse, she
said, “Do you have a bottle opener?”
He
reached over and twisted the top off with his hand and tilted his head. “What’s
your name? Are you here with someone?”
Julia
turned the bottle up and greedily drank the water. The thumping of loud drum
music made her glance over her left shoulder, and she saw a group of scantily
clad teenagers. A young man loudly recited a poem of sorts to the beats and
waved his hand up in the air. Wizard of
Oz….
Maybe I’m
dead and this is hell.
Julia looked back at the man and said, “What’s in the black
box?” He held it in his right
hand.
“It’s a phone? You know, a mobile. Maybe, I should call an
ambulance. You may have
hit your head.”
Julia shook her head no. No, no, no. This isn’t real. I’m dreaming.
I’ll wake up. “That’s a phone?” She closed her eyes and said, “Tell me, do
the Boatwrights still live in the plantation house?”
“Boatwrights?
Come on. You’re kidding me. What’s your name?” He took another bottle of water
out of the bag and handed it to her. Julia twisted the top like he’d done. It
worked, and the top screwed off. After finishing the bottle of water, she
handed the empty bottle back to him.
Julia
drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “I’m Julia
Boatwright.”
The
man choked on the water he drank, spewing it out on the ground. He began to
laugh. “Good one. Then you’re a legend around these parts.” Still chuckling, he
shook his head in apparent disbelief.
With
the tilt of her head, Julia said, “Do I look happy to you? Am I laughing? And
why in the Sam Hill would I be a legend?” Julia watched his fingers rapidly tap
on the bright light of the telephone. “What are you doing?”
“I’m googling you.” He rubbed his eyes with his fingers. “It’s
really you! Fuuuck!”
What the hell
is googling?
Julia
abruptly stood up and shouted, “Well, I’ve never in my whole life heard anyone
use that kind of crude language. You, sir, have no manners.”
He
stood, panting, and suddenly became very pale. “Wait, I’m sorry. Look, and read
this article. You’ll know why you’re a legend.”
Julia
frowned at him and grabbed the box out of his hand. There was a photo of her
senior high school picture. The headline read, Burkett Falls Annual Celebration of Julia Boatwright. Under her
photo, she read 1948-2017. Tears spilled as she read the rest of the article
describing her disappearance into thin air.
Her parents were dead.
The
annual celebration brought folks in from everywhere. Psychics and séances tried
annually to revive her spirit from the other side. Julia felt like she’d
swallowed a box of rocks. She said, “What’s your name?”
Julia
had known before he answered, “Phillip Andrew Clayborn, the third. My friends
call me, Andy.”
Julia
walked toward the cliffs with her arms wrapped around her waist. She couldn’t
believe it. Phillip must’ve married someone else and had a child. Andy walked
up behind her and reached for her hand. She turned around and wiped the tears
out of her eyes. “Sloane, is she still alive?”
“Yes. Sloane is still alive. She lives in Sunnyside Meadows, a
place for the elderly.
Please sit back down.” Andy led her back to the quilt.
She
ran her fingers through her hair in frustration. “Who did Phillip marry? Is he
still alive?” Julia began to sob, and he rubbed her back.
“Phillip
married Amelia Grierson, and sadly, he’s no longer with us. It’s okay. We’ll
figure something out. You got here. Surely there’s a way to get back.” Andy
gently turned her shoulders around to face him tracing his fingers along her
jawline. “I can’t believe it’s you. My grandfather loved you until the day he
died.”
Julia
jerked away from Andy and interrupted with sarcasm, “I’m sure Amelia just loved
that. What did he do, wait a month? A year? How long did he wait before he got
married?” She became increasingly angry thinking about Phillip doing the same
things to her sorority sister that he did to her last night.
It
was last night, for crying out loud. She shouted, “Your grandfather asked me to
marry him last night. Not more than an hour ago, Phillip asked my father for my
hand.” She pointed to the pool of water. “We swam in there, minutes ago, and
now, you’re telling me, Phillip’s dead. That he married one of my friends, and
you’re his grandson. My parents are dead, and—and my baby sister is an old
woman. And you, you look just like him by the way.”
She
shook her left fist to the sky. “Is this some cosmic joke? Life cheated me.”
Julia began to ugly cry.
Andy picked her up in his arms and brought her to what she
assumed was his car. “Get in.
I’ll be right back.”
Julia
got in and watched as he ran back to the tree, snatched up the quilt and his
bag, and raced back to the car. He opened the driver side door and threw his
stuff in the back seat before sliding behind the wheel.
Gripping
the steering wheel, Andy turned toward her and said, “We can’t tell a single
soul who you are. Do you understand?” She shook her head no. “The discovery
that you traveled through time would create a fuuu—well, a freaking media
circus. Heck, the government would get involved. Mass hysteria and riots in the
streets. You’re living breathing proof of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.
Sorry, I’m totally whacked out. I need a beer. Do you drink?”
With
a slight upturn of her lips, Julia replied, “Shoot yeah, I drink. But don’t you
think I need some clothes? Or do people today walk around half-naked like those
people over there?”
Andy
burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, it’s not funny. But this is too crazy and
people today wear pretty much whatever they want. It’s nothing like your day.”
“My day? Oh, good lord.”
Andy
drove his spaceship-looking car through the farm, which looked the same as it
did this morning.
Then
Julia spotted her house, and she shouted, “Stop. Stop the car.” The entrance
sign read Boatwright Plantation House and Museum. “Pull into the driveway. I
need inside the house.”
Andy
said, “It’s closed. They only open the house on the weekends. It’s Monday, so
I’m pretty sure no one is up there.”
Julia
faced him with her chin quivering and begged, “Please pull up to the house. I
know how to get in.”
Andy parked his
fancy spaceship car in the circular drive. Julia looked at the door for a
second before pulling the lever. “You can sit here. I won’t be long.” She ran
barefoot to the house trying her best to rein in her emotions. She needed
inside the house and in her dad’s study.
Think, Julia.
Andy
ran up behind her. “You’re not going in there. It’s called breaking and
entering in today’s world.”
Julia looked at her home, but it wasn’t hers anymore. The
house seemed cold and empty.
Her home had always been so warm and
inviting. Julia stood at the bottom of the very steps she’d walked down this
morning. She thought of her argument with Bunny, and how Bunny relented and
accepted Phillip. All of it was gone.
Julia
went to the side of the house, got down on one knee, and felt for the spare key
under the first right pier. Ha! It
was still there. She walked to the side door of the house near the kitchen,
placed the key into the keyhole and turned the knob, then pushed the door open.
“I told you I knew where they hid the key. Are you coming with me or are you
going to stand there with your mouth hanging open?”
He
said unreservedly, “For a woman born in 1927, you’re very outspoken. Let’s pray
the museum doesn’t have security cameras or we’ll both get arrested.”
Julia
turned swiftly and stared him straight in the eye. “I said I would go in alone.
That’s my house, regardless of what the sign reads at the entrance.”
Julia’s
world turned upside down in a mere thirty minutes. Andy briefly explained that
Burkett Falls was a public park, and her home had been placed on the National
Historic Register. A museum for strangers and she was some mythical legend the
town of Burkett Falls celebrated once a year.
Anyone who’s read the ARC version of Broken Angel has met our new friend, Chief of Surgery Howard (Howie) Watt. What you don’t know is he’s very real (the Howie part, not the surgeon part), and a very dear friend of mine. So, I figure I’ll take this opportunity to introduce you all to my favourite Howie shaped human!Now he’s agreed to let me use my discretion in selecting a photo from his Facebook page to share in this blog posting – with a few restrictions: not the one where he’s wearing moose antlers, not the one where someone photoshopped a top hat and cane on him, and not the one with him photoshopped as Spiderman…but aside from that I had free license! Like his character in Broken Angel, Howie’s got that infectiously fun personality that draws people in. He’s always there for his friends (oftentimes going waaaay above and beyond for them), and is my go-to person for sharing dirty jokes. 
