Page 116 of Echoes
“It’s destroyed, at least. Now, it’s up to us to make it disappear,” Eliza said.
They’d decided to meet up in the middle of nowhere instead of at someone’s house, just to be extra cautious, and found a cabin in the woods that was well away from where they’d destroyed the device and cleaned up the evidence the following morning at sunrise.
Now, Felicity and Rosie sat on one side of the table while Violet and Rachel sat on the other, and Eliza was across from her wife. The three pieces of corroded metal were sitting in the middle, and they were all looking down at them.
“So, we each take a piece?” Rachel asked.
“And we hide it,” Lydia explained. “We don’t tell the others where we put it, either. It’s just an added precaution, but it’s an important one.”
“Make sure no one else can find it,” Eliza added.
“Why don’t we just beat it with a bat and break it into a million pieces and toss those into the ocean, but far away from where marine archaeologists might get curious?” Violet stared across the table.
“Hey, sorry. I was just doing my job,” Rosie said. “How was I supposed to know what this thing did?”
“So, are we breaking it up into more pieces?” Violet asked. “I don’t want all the pieces together, though.”
“The energy. We don’t know if there’s any left,” Felicity suggested. “It could be that if anyone finds all the pieces and magically puts them together, there’s still some left over.”
“How unlikely is that, though?” Violet asked.
“How unlikely is it that there’s a device that brings people back from the dead or that there’s one that can take you back and forth in time?” Eliza countered.
“True,” Violet replied.
“We’ll take our piece,” Rachel said.
“We will, too,” Rosie added. “And we will make sure it’s far away from all shipwrecks.”
“Maybe just avoid the water,” Violet suggested, and a few of them laughed.
“We could always toss it in the Mariana Trench,” Felicity offered back.
“No, don’t tell anyone here your plans.” Eliza held up her hand. “Just do whatever with it, but no one else knows. That’s the only way we can all be safe.”
Felicity nodded.
“So, this is it, huh?” Rachel asked. “It’s really over?”
“Do we ever see each other again, or is it safer that we don’t?” Violet asked, looking down at Rachel’s belly.
“I think we keep in touch as needed, but we avoid each other for a while, at least. If anything happens that you think is strange, like you think you’re being followed, you alert the group. But let’s keep our distance,” Eliza suggested.
“Agreed,” Violet said.
“Yeah,” Lydia spoke.
“Us too,” Rosie added.
Violet & Rachel
They thought about taking it to Greece since they took trips there every couple of years now, but people knew that about them, and it would be obvious. From there, someone would be able to easily trace their movements. They had favorite hotels and beaches when they traveled there, and anyone would be able to find the likely places the device could be. It could take decades or centuries, but Violet and Rachel didn’t want to take any risks, so they held on to the device for a long time after that day in the cabin while they tried to figure out where to take it.
When Dora and Daryn were born, they’d also gotten busier, so they often forgot they had one-third of the device stowed inside a hole in a tree in their backyard. They’d wrapped it up and tucked it away, but they needed to find somewhere to take it that wouldn’t be near their home and their children. When the twins were five, Violet finally found a place that could work. Rachel handled beating their section with a hammer until it was in at least a dozen pieces. They each took about half of them and put them into two locked cases that were much smaller than the one Violet had found buried under her pool.
One afternoon, they took their girls for a drive, listening to them talk about their favorite cartoons and songs in the back seat and smiling because ten minutes later, they were both asleep. Violet took her wife’s hand and kissed it, feeling like she had everything she’d ever wanted and more. When they arrived, the girls woke up and ran to their grandparents. They loved Rachel’s parents, and their grandparents loved spoiling them. Once the kids were deposited, they took off on a long road trip, deciding it was better to drive than fly because they could avoid security asking them questions about random metal pieces in their carry-on bag. They had a couple of nights in a hotel room where they made love and enjoyed one another without worrying about their kids running in or needing something. They’d been together for more than a decade now, and Violet knew she’d never want it any other way.
When they arrived at the Grand Canyon, they drove the road along it and stopped periodically to take in the view neither of themhad ever seen before. They talked about bringing the girls here when they got a bit older, took photos, and went on a few tours. Before they ended their brief trip to the South Rim, they parked and walked into the wilderness. With no one around, they dug a deep enough hole and buried half of the pieces there. After that, they drove to the North Rim and repeated their actions. They enjoyed their vacation, took their pictures and tours, pretending like everything was normal, and went into the wilderness to bury the other half of the pieces.