Jamestowne

16

Jamestowne: Tesla’s Time Travelers, Book 3

By Tim Black

Copyright 2018 by Tim Black

Cover Copyright 2018 by Untreed Reads Publishing

Cover Design by Ginny Glass

The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue and events in this book are wholly fictional, and any resemblance to companies and actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

In Memory of Taylor Kane Black 1983-2001

Beloved Daughter, Sister and Aunt

Note to the reader: The original name for the first successful English-speaking colony in North America was Jamestowne, Virginia. The colony’s name was later changed to Jamestown. For purposes of consistency and to maintain historical accuracy, the original spelling of Jamestowne is used throughout the novel.

Tim Black

Also by Tim Black and Untreed Reads Publishing

Daydreams & Diaries, with Taylor Black

Tesla’s Time Travelers (Vol. 1 of the series)

Gettysburg: The Crossroads Town (Tesla’s Time Travelers, Book 2)

www.untreedreads.com

Chapter 1

Victor Bridges was in the middle of his morning shower when the ghost of Mary Beard appeared in his bathroom. The dead historian giggled as she floated to the foggy glass shower door and shouted, Good morning, Victor!

Startled to see Mary Beard, Victor reflexively turned his washcloth into a fig leaf to protect his modesty from the voyeuristic eyes of the nosey specter. Mrs. Beard, what are you doing here…in my bathroom?

Mary giggled again and dismissed Victor’s gesture of modesty. Relax, Victor. I was a married woman after all. I have seen a man’s privates before. I only came here to wish you good luck on your history examination.

My European History A.P. test?

I believe that is what you call it, yes, Mrs. Beard replied.

Thanks… Mrs. Beard, would you please turn your head, so I can get out of the shower? Victor asked.

Mrs. Beard swiveled her head 180 degrees as her body remained stationary. I taught Linda Blair that trick, Victor.

Uh huh, Victor said, feeling a bit more comfortable with a towel wrapped around his waist, wondering, Who was Linda Blair? Victor had never seen the original movie, The Exorcist.

I’ve already been to see Bette and Minerva to wish them well. It was Bette that suggested I come visit you.

Bette Kromer, that imp, Victor thought. That sounded like Bette’s type of practical joke. He knew Minerva wouldn’t do that to him. Minerva Messinger was his best female friend, and although they had dated in their junior year, they agreed to put their romantic feelings on a back burner because of their friendship and membership in the History Channelers. Since the previous autumn’s adventure in 19th century Gettysburg, Victor, Minerva and Bette had spent free time learning Elizabethan English, with all its erratic spellings and pronunciations. Bette, the club’s most gifted linguist, was learning the language of the Powhatan Indians as best she could from the 17th century dictionary compiled by Jamestowne settler William Strachey. But she was uncertain as to the proper pronunciation of many of the words as Strachey had not provided any phonetic assistance. Minerva Messinger was already conversant in American sign language, but did not know if the Native Americans would understand her gestures. Still, her sign language might prove more useful than any attempt at Powhatan. Mr. Greene and Victor were mastering the use of the scabbard for the weekend trip back to Jamestowne, but Victor had no doubt that both Minerva and Bette could handle a sword as well as Mr. Greene, who was something of a stumblebum with the weapon.

Mrs. Beard, Victor addressed the ghost. You are a peeping Tom. He wasn’t angry with her. Frankly, he was glad to see her as he hadn’t seen her since before the trip to Gettysburg. The ghost council had forbidden Mrs. Beard from contacting the students for a semester as the demand of the dead historian Henry Adams, the spoil sport who had filed the complaint that required the History Channelers to return to Philadelphia and catch the butterflies they had let escape. It had proved a bit much for Mr. Adams when their visit to Philadelphia resulted in Benedict Arnold becoming the second president in lieu of John Adams. In fact, Mr. Greene had been placed on timeline probation as well, and the portable classroom’s Tesla time travel device had been deactivated for three months, forcing Mr. Greene to postpone the Gettysburg trip.

Victor! his mother called from the hallway. Who are you talking to?

Myself, mom, Victor lied. He whispered to Mrs. Beard, Please, Mrs. Beard, go away for a while. Don’t you have somewhere else to haunt?

Harrumph! Mrs. Beard replied in a fit of pique. She vanished.

I’m sorry, Mrs. Beard, Victor called after her. He didn’t mean to hurt her feelings. Why did she have feelings anyway? She was dead.

Victor?

I’m coming Mom.

Your breakfast will be ready in five minutes. You need a big breakfast for brain food for your test.

Zombies needed brains for food, Mom, Victor thought. His mother was just as weird as Mrs. Beard. He loved his mother, but she could be dense at times. Then, Victor remembered it was Friday, the day his mom went over to Melbourne for the gambling boat with her girlfriends. But that was only once a month. So, mom was sneaking another trip. My mom, the slot machine junkie, Victor thought. There could be worse things, he realized. She might be a day-trader in the stock market.

Victor assumed his mother was preoccupied and a bit disconcerted as well, for Victor’s dad John Bridges, Sr., and Victor’s brother John Junior were absent from the breakfast table, his father having flown to North Dakota Wesleyan to see John Junior participate in a spring football scrimmage at the Division III school. Poor Junior; one terrible loss the past fall to the Jensen Beach Falcons had dashed his hopes of a major college football scholarship to the University of Florida, although Junior had been offered a perfectly nice scholarship to play for the North Dakota Wesleyan Rabbits. Not exactly a Gator, Victor thought maliciously; Junior was a bunny. Victor smiled at the thought of Florida-born Junior freezing his buns off in the Tundra Town in Nowhere, North Dakota, in the winter. Of course, Dad had held out hopes that Junior could somehow become a walk-on for the Florida football team, but that was a pipe dream. Junior didn’t have the SAT scores to get in the door at the University of Florida, and would become a red shirt freshman in North Dakota, a recruit who was ineligible to play football his first season in college. ‘Pipe dream,’ Victor thought of his brother’s UF aspirations, as he poured a river of syrup over a stacked mountain of pancakes. That phrase pipe dream came from opium smokers who hallucinated when they smoked their pipes full of the narcotic. Watch for a question on the Opium War, he cautioned himself, thinking of possible questions about British imperialism on the European History exam.

So, Mom, what are you up to today? Victor asked.

Zelda Bridges smiled at her son. Don’t tell your father, Victor, when he gets back from seeing your brother. I’m going to play the slots with the girls.

I’ll be mum, mum, he replied. But he thought: today Mom is hitting the slots, and tomorrow I’m hitting the shores of the Powhatan River—or James River—as the English settlers renamed the waterway in honor of King James I.

You can borrow your father’s car, Dear, Zelda Bridges said. He won’t need it since he is in North Dakota, she added, in her usual imitation of Captain Obvious. He found it difficult to watch a commercial with Captain Obvious without thinking about his mother. Victor thought he should refer to his mother as Captain Osmium, in honor of the densest element found in nature. His mom was that dense sometimes.

Victor assumed the use of the car was a not-so-subtle bribe to keep him quiet about her gambling trip. He smiled. And she was also sufficiently distracted for him to get her to sign his permission form. Thanks, Mom, he said."

Without reading the form, Zelda Bridges signed her name. A weekend trip with his teacher and class was no big deal to her, and she didn’t peruse the form, let alone the tiny type at the bottom of the page about time travel. All the parents of his classmates were at the reading-glasses age and few thought tiny print was worth the squint, as Zelda Bridges often said. But it covered Mr. Greene’s liability issue, and Victor wanted to head to 1607 with his teacher unconcerned with a possible lawsuit. No, Victor thought, this spring they would have a field trip with the ghost of Mr. Tesla along as well. He did wonder though what talisman Mr. Greene would be using this time to initiate the return to the past. Nikolai Tesla had fixed most of the glitches in the time travel device, but he hadn’t figured a way around talismans for trips before 1800. At least not the last time Victor had talked to the ghost of the Serbian scientist.

Victor didn’t really like his dad’s black Honda Accord, but he was grateful for the wheels as he hated the Yellow Dog Express, as the school bus was nicknamed. And he had been banished to the school bus for months after his older brother Junior blamed him for snaking Minerva Messinger away from him. Not that Quarterback Junior Bridges didn’t complete a pass to a cute cheerleader the very day after Minerva dumped him for Victor; it was the idea that Junior’s little brother could steal a girl away from the biggest man on campus at Cassadaga Area High School. That annoyed the third string all-state quarterback and led to Victor’s exile to the Yellow Dog and its nerd herd for the balance of the school year. Victor remembered how he laughed when Junior called him Benjamin Armstrong instead of Benedict Arnold. Still, Victor had hoped when Junior went off to Nowhere, North Dakota in the fall that Junior’s car would remain behind. Aside from his older brother’s car, Victor already had plans for his sibling’s bedroom; he thought Junior’s bedroom would make a perfect place for his collection of history books. If the meek were to inherit the earth, he mused, perhaps they had to begin with taking over their brother’s bedroom. Unfortunately, the car returned with Junior to North Dakota after the prodigal progeny came home for Christmas. Typical, Victor thought, his Neanderthal brother was the favorite son. But his doofus sibling failed to check the antifreeze for the car and the harsh North Dakota winter did the rest; the engine block cracked. As a result, neither brother had a car.

Mrs. Beard was floating around in the Accord when Victor got in. It was a good thing Mary Beard could only be seen by whomever she chose to reveal herself. It was an odd characteristic of the Cassadaga Area High School ghosts, which Victor appreciated, as many of the spirits were polite enough not to bother the living. Mrs. Beard, on the other hand, had a bit of poltergeist in her, but Victor had missed her during her semester of exile and was in a tolerant mood.

She started clapping her hands when he turned the car over.

I know what the DBQ is Victor! Mary Beard said, referring to the document-based question on the morning’s European History Advanced Placement examination. I know, I know, I know! She acted positively giddy, like a child.

I’ll play along with her, Victor thought. What is the DBQ, Mrs. Beard? he asked.

The Great War, Mary Beard replied smugly.

Victor nearly swerved off the road. What?

And the importance of The Black Hand Society, Mary Beard went on.

How do you know about the Serbian secret society that killed the Archduke, Mrs. Beard?

Mr. Tesla told me. He was born in Serbia, you know.

I know. But how did he discover the question?

Well, he just did, Victor, she replied. I didn’t ask him how, that would have been impolite. But he seemed positively delighted that Serbia was a big part of the test this year. If you ask me, I think he was up in Princeton haunting the College Board test writers and came across the question. Of course, he won’t admit to his chicanery. You know how secretive the Slavs can be, she added with an inappropriate ethnic stereotype. What did Victor expect from an early 20th century American, but xenophobia?

Mary was a Nativist, Victor thought. Mary Beard was also a gossamer gossip, one ghost who couldn’t keep a secret. What did Franklin say? Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead. That certainly didn’t apply to Mrs. Beard. She was as dead as the Federalist Party, but she couldn’t keep a confidence. He realized Mrs. Beard was only trying to help, but Victor didn’t want or even need to know the subject of the document-based question. He can answer anything the Acornians (his nickname for the College Board folks because of the acorn icon) could throw at him. Thirty Years War? Bring it on! Holy Roman Emperor? Not Holy, not Roman and not much of an empire. The Glorious Revolution? He could bring forth a wealth of words on that one. The jocks might have their state championships, but the nerds had their A.P. exams, and twenty years in the future, Victor realized, it would be the nerds and not the jocks who called the plays. Victor was only sorry his father didn’t grasp that fact, and thought more highly of Victor’s Simeon-like sibling.

*

As Victor drove on campus, the students of Cassadaga Area High School were milling about, gathering in the quad, a central spot of the school that was open to the wind that entered the area by a series of breezeways. Like many Florida high schools, Cassadaga Area High was built out not up, its buildings spreading over several acres of real estate. The Phighting Phantom bronze statue of the school mascot stood like a silent sentry in the precise middle of the quad. The statue reminded Victor of one of those cheesy phantoms from the Scream movies, and he would have preferred a more Casper-like ghost, a friendly spirit such as Mary Beard. Why did a ghost have to be personified as scary, when in his experience they were not the least bit frightening once one got to know them? Why couldn’t a ghost nurture? It was in Mrs. Beard’s nature to nurture. Nikola Tesla was not a scary ghost either, although he was scary smart. Victor thought Tesla was probably the only human who could beat IBM’s Watson on Jeopardy! Unfortunately, Tesla’s status as a dead person, disqualified him from becoming a game show contestant.

Victor parked the Accord in his senior parking spot.

Oooh, Mrs. Beard said. Look, I’m a senior!

Victor blushed in embarrassment. Stop it, Mrs. Beard, he said, as he exited the car. A group of students eyed Victor curiously.

Who you talking to? one boy asked Victor.

Victor ignored him.

Weirdo, the boy said to his friends.

Victor was oblivious of the group. Sophomore twits, he realized. He grabbed his backpack and headed to the sanctity of Mr. Greene’s portable classroom in Trailer Park Nation, as the group of portable classrooms on the far end of campus was known. Mrs. Beard floated behind him. The rickety old portable classroom, which sat in a circular grove of oak trees draped with Spanish moss, was unoccupied. Mr. Greene had left a note on the door that instructed his students to report to the media center for the administration of the European History A.P. Exam. As a history teacher, Mr. Greene was forbidden from proctoring the test or even speaking to the students once the test began, but as Victor walked into the media center Mr. Greene was present and offered his small class a selection of donuts and fruit juices.

Good to see you, Victor, Mr. Greene addressed him. He handed Victor a folded piece of paper and whispered, coordinates. Then he said, in a normal voice, Pick a table. Hello, Mrs. Beard. Welcome back.

Good morning, Mr. Greene, Mary Beard politely replied. I trust the children are adequately prepared for this morning’s ‘festival of learning,’ she said, using Mr. Greene’s euphemistic expression for test.

I believe they will do well, Mrs. Beard. Mr. Greene replied.

On his way to a seat, Victor unfolded the paper and read 5/10/1607@37-12'30"N,076-46'27W. The note would mean nothing to the average student, but to a History Channeler like Victor it was a time and a place: May 10, 1607 at Jamestowne, Virginia. Obviously, the deceased Mr. Tesla had programmed the portable with the proper time and map coordinates of latitude and longitude, not only to the degrees, but to the minutes and seconds, giving a true, precise point on a map. Victor admired Tesla’s thoroughness. And like Apple, Mr. Tesla was constantly improving his product, in this case his time travel device, which he referred to as TT 3.0, for time travel device, third edition.

Victor and Bette Kromer sat at separate tables in the media center for the examination, but Minerva Messinger was late. Victor knew the Acornians were fussy about test security, but he wondered what the College Board people would think of the number of dead historians that were floating about the media center.

Why are dead historians here, Mrs. Beard? Victor asked.

We are worried about the test, Mary Beard replied. We want everyone to pass, and we feel you may need a little help.

Hello everyone, Bette Kromer shouted delightedly at the collection of real phantoms that were floating about the periodicals room.

Shhhhhh! Mrs. Algernon, the silver-haired, dowdy librarian warned.

Bette lowered her voice,

Victor realized that Mrs. Algernon, only a year or two away from retirement, couldn’t see the ghosts of Shelby Foote, Bruce Catton, Barbara Tuchman or Victor’s favorite, Howard Zinn. The students were going to have access to Mrs. Tuchman, the historian who wrote The Proud Tower, A Distant Mirror and The March of Folly. Tuchman was the woman historian who, in Victor’s opinion, wrote the best books on World War I, including The Zimmermann Telegram and The Guns of August, which JFK said was his favorite book. With Tuchman’s help, the three students would score a