THE EPOCH CHRONICLES | ✔

epilogue

Grayling, Michigan
2019
(six months later
but also twenty years before)

━━━━

"THAT'S ... QUITE a story." Russel Darby leant back in his chair, making it creak. His hands were interlocked over his belly, his tongue in his cheek as he appraised the woman in front of him.

He couldn't say that he wasn't still skeptical, of course -- kids these days would do anything to escape some parental punishment -- but something in Amelia's face made him take a pause. Maybe it was her eyes' hoodedness, something that reminded him of a victim of attempted homicide the year before. Nasty case, that'd been.

The fly that had been buzzing around his office had quieted. While the lieutenant moved backwards, Amelia moved forwards, her gaze earnest. It made him want to look away, and his gut churned nervously with sour caffeine. Gotta tell Teresa to lay off of 'em coffees again, before I get indigestion or cancer.

Russel didn't know which was worse; heartburn from his coffee or the jabbering of his secretary, and he hid his wince.

"So, you believe me?" This Doveare kid sounded so hopeful he almost didn't want to say "No". Almost. Weird how he was firmer with potential schizos and other nutcases in his office than he was with his own teens at home.

Their mother can deal with them, for now.

Russel sighed and scratched his chin with a sniff. "I'm just gonna say that your tale's convincing enough that I'm not gonna throw you into a cell." He tilted his head and met her eyes again as her brow creased with something like disappointment.

If Russel was being honest with himself, he didn't know what to think. He'd expected to go into work that day for yet another mind-numbing session of admin and parking tickets galore, and maybe a few coffee stains down his shirt and a few snaps at Teresa, and then go home to Kimberly and argue with Helen, their eldest, about another one of her crop-tops, and then settle beside the twins, Titantia (who even named their kid Titantia anymore? But she'd been Kimberly's great-great-something and he was honestly too tired with sitting at the hospital when they'd been born to fight with her, though it was ironic because that's all that they ever did lately), who'd wanna show her daddy something, and Casper, who would just keep quiet and let his twin sister run over him like the time she broke his nose in a game of tag - an eight-year-old breaking her brother's bloody nose - and then he'd go to bed and wake up and it would start all over again, for the next eight or so years of his life at the station until he retired.

God, so close already? Eight years. It felt like just yesterday that he'd joined the force, a fresh-faced rookie looking to support his young family.

But now that had all been spoiled. Amelia'd had gotten him thinking. Was it all worth it? Life? If he could time travel, would he start all over again?

But that's not how it worked, he reminded himself, with a quick glance at Amelia. You don't get to 'restart' ... Just ... Watch, I suppose. Watch it all happen again.

Russel cleared his throat, hating how his thoughts had scattered just 'cause this potential psycho was claiming she was a time traveler. And provided him with a decent story, but that was besides the point ... "Either way, how I am supposed to believe you if what you're telling me is true?" Words could only get so far in the court of law, and the fact that he could jail this girl for wasting a police officer's time was suddenly seeming appealing, like that would bring him peace of mind.