In the Time of Falling Water

By Simon Quellen Field

Alice is trying to work out a series of puzzles her father had left her, which promise to show how he met her mother, who died when Alice was a baby.

Alice's father is away in Africa, leaving her with her great-Aunt Hellen alone on the big farm.

Alice and her father built treehouses and zip lines together and collected goats, alpacas, and chickens, which Alice takes care of daily.

Jamie lives next door with his grandfather and helps Alice figure out the puzzles, as they search the farm for places her father hid the next puzzle piece.

But as each puzzle shows more of the picture of Alice's mother, Alice becomes more troubled by the revelations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: MicroScience Press
• Release date: Feb 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215050545

Book preview

Simon Quellen Field

This is a work of fiction.  All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

In the Time of Falling Water

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Quellen Field

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

Illustrations and cover art by Simon Quellen Field

Published by MicroScience Press

19395 Montevina Road

Los Gatos, California, 95033

www.scitoys.com

First edition: December 2011

Second edition: February 2023

To Alexa and Christian

The First Test

Jamie wasn’t used to the roosters yet. He rubbed his eyes and looked over at the clock. He still had time to sleep some more before Grandpa Morgan had to leave for the shop, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. The neighbors had five roosters, and while they were far enough away not to wake him up, their morning bombast was enough to prevent further peaceful slumber.

He smelled bacon. Grandpa Morgan had gotten better about making breakfast. Jamie had been here five days, and the old man was starting to get used to having someone else in the house. On his first day on the mountain, there had almost been no breakfast. Jamie had come into the empty kitchen, looked into the almost empty refrigerator, and was starting to look through cupboards for anything that looked like breakfast when Grandpa Morgan came in with the newspaper.

Oh, he said, putting the paper down. I guess we should get some eggs or something. Jamie realized that Grandpa Morgan didn’t normally eat breakfast. Things had worked out, though. The neighbors' chickens produced more eggs than they could use, and Grandpa Morgan was only gone ten minutes or so when he came back with ten of them in a paper bag.

Since then, breakfast had gradually gotten more elaborate, although Jamie usually ate alone after his grandfather had left for the shop. Jamie didn’t mind. He liked being alone. He liked not having to nurse his mother through another hangover.

This morning, in the kitchen, Grandpa Morgan had scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast keeping warm on a plate in the oven. Jamie walked outside, the breeze cool on his pajamas, and found the old man examining the garden. The garden was new too, like Jamie.

Don’t forget the trash, he said to Jamie, turning towards his neglected looking pick-up truck. I’ll be home late, maybe eight or so, gotta pick up some things.

I’ll be good, Jamie said.

His grandfather turned to him, a soft look on his face. He put his hand on Jamie’s shoulder.

"You be what you really want to be, he said. That will be good."

Jamie stood uncomfortably, looking at the man’s eyes, suddenly damp and bright. What had he said to make Grandpa Morgan get so sad?

I’ll be OK, Jamie said. Thanks for making breakfast.

Kids gotta eat a good breakfast, the old man said, standing up straight, all business again. That’s important. The door to the pick-up squealed as it shut between them, and the starter motor ground noisily until the engine finally coughed to life. Jamie watched it roll down the steep gravel driveway, turn the corner at the mailbox, and set off down the winding road towards the lake.

Jamie went back inside, and took the plate out of the oven. He didn’t want to tell the old man he didn’t like his toast buttered for him. In fact, he’d rather make his own breakfast, but he thought it was important that Grandpa Morgan felt he was doing a good job raising a kid all by himself for the summer. Jamie had been taking care of the adults in his life for so long it came natural to him to think of their feelings before his own.

He took the plate out to the rock wall overlooking the lake, and nibbled on the bacon. He broke the toast into little bits one by one and threw them towards the blue jay who had been watching him with a cocked head since he came out. The jay and the squirrel usually got most of Jamie’s breakfast. Grandpa Morgan must think Jamie ate like a football team. There was always way too much on the plate.

He washed the dishes when he was done eating, then showered and dressed, and went back to the kitchen to get the garbage pail. There were only a few egg shells and a bacon package in it, but Grandpa Morgan insisted that it be emptied every morning. Jamie suspected this was a make-work chore, but he sedulously performed the task every day, right after breakfast.

He carried the trash out to the bins at the side of the house, and stopped.

There was a light blue envelope taped to the lid of the trash bin. Jamie put down the trash and looked at the envelope. It said Intelligence Test on it, in neatly printed block letters. All of the letters looked perfectly formed. The ‘t’s had little tails on the end, and all the ‘e’s looked alike. The envelope was not sealed. The flap was simply tucked in.

Jamie carefully removed the tape and looked at the other side, which was blank. He opened the envelope. Inside was a white card, with the same neat hand-written block letters. It said Don’t turn on the water.

Jamie lifted the lid of the bin, and emptied the egg shells and bacon package into it. He looked at the card again. Don’t turn on the water.

He looked around. The woods came almost up to the house on this side. Here at the top of the ridge the oaks and smooth-barked madrones mixed with tall pines. Far below, the lake twinkled with reflected sun. At his feet, the gravel driveway faded into scattered oak leaves. A garden hose stretched across the gravel, until it was buried in the leaves. He walked over to where the hose left the gravel. Someone had deliberately buried the hose in the leaves. He could see where they had been disturbed.

He followed the trail of kicked-up leaves, feeling the shape of the hidden hose under his feet. It curved around into the bushes. At the end of the hose was a RainBird sprinkler head. It was aimed precisely at the middle of the wall of the house, where the faucet was. If someone had turned on the water, they would have gotten soaked.

Next to the sprinkler was another light blue envelope. It had no writing on it, and the flap had been simply tucked in like the one before. Inside the envelope was a brass key, and nothing else.

Jamie looked around. He was alone on the mountain. He could faintly hear the traffic on the highway far below, and the calls of the jays and the roosters next door. He looked around to see if he could catch anyone watching him. No one was there.

He was certain Grandpa Morgan wouldn’t have left the envelopes. He had seen the old man’s handwriting. And a game like this was just not something his grandfather would do. This was not the work of a simple machinist. But who else could it be?

He took the key back to the house. It did not fit in the lock on the front door. It did not fit the lock on any of the doors. There didn’t seem to be anything else in the house that had a lock. It didn’t take much time to look through the tiny house. Jamie went back outside.

This far up the mountain, the lots were huge, and the neighbors far away. The closest house was the one with the roosters, beyond a black chain link fence. Jamie walked past the gravel driveway, climbed up a small hill, and walked past the storage sheds until he finally got to the fence, half hidden in the woods. The weeds were tall, and he looked around carefully for poison oak as he pushed through the weeds along the fence. Just before the fence angled steeply down the hill, he came to a small gate. The gate had a padlock, and the brass key fit snugly into it. Jamie turned the key, and the lock fell open.

He looked through the fence before he opened the gate. He felt a tingle run up his back at the thought of trespassing into the neighboring yard. He started to put the lock back on the gate, then had a thought, and ran back to get the two envelopes and the white card. When he returned, he went through the gate, locking it behind him. He put the key carefully back into the second envelope, and held both of them in his hand as he walked down a narrow path between the tall weeds. He had his invitation. He was supposed to be here.

In the middle of the path a few strides farther on, there was another of the light blue envelopes. It had a small mirror inside, and a note. The note said Don’t put your hand in the pipe.

Jamie looked around, and saw several pipes, but none of them looked big enough to put his hand into. He examined every one of them, and found no further clues or envelopes. He went back to the narrow path, and continued on down the hill, keeping a lookout for anything unusual. He came to a half-buried box, with a dirty green plastic lid that looked like it had recently been lifted off the box and left askew. He looked into the box and saw a buried four-inch pipe.

He did not want to put his hand in and feel around, and he couldn’t quite get his head down into the buried box to look into the pipe. He thought for a moment, and pulled the mirror out of the third envelope. Holding the mirror down into the buried box, he could see into the pipe. There was a mousetrap there, sitting on top of another light blue envelope.

Jamie looked again for anyone watching. He saw no one. Even the roosters seemed to have quit boasting to one another. He looked at the mousetrap through the mirror again. It was definitely set. It seemed to be taped to the blue envelope. Jamie thought for a while about what to do. Then he stood up, and walked over to the tall weeds, and pulled one out of the ground. It was more difficult that he had expected, the roots went far down into the dry ground.

He went back to the buried box with his long weed, and pushed the root into the pipe until he heard the loud snap of the mousetrap. He pulled the weed from the pipe, and the mousetrap came with it, along with the blue envelope.

The envelope held a small toy compass, and a cardboard Santa Claus. He turned the items over in his hands. The little compass seemed to work, the needle pointing roughly in the same direction as he turned the case around. The cardboard Santa Claus was just a cardboard Santa Claus. It looked like it had been cut out of some larger piece of cardboard by hand.

Jamie had no idea what to do next. What could these items mean? You used a compass to find out where you were. Somehow. Jamie wasn’t exactly sure how people used compasses to find out where they were.

Santa Claus brings toys. The compass was a toy. A gift? Was the whole point of all this to give him a toy compass? There had to be something else.

He looked at the compass. The needle had a blue side and a silver side. The blue side was over the E, and the silver side was over the W. Jamie turned the compass around, until the blue side of the needle was over the N. North. Towards Santa Claus at the north pole.

He looked in the direction the needle pointed. Far away, pinned to a tree, was a blue envelope. He would have missed it completely if he hadn’t been staring directly at it. He stood up and walked down the hill, and across a paved driveway into a meadow. He wondered why Grandpa Morgan’s driveway was gravel when this one was black pavement.

There was a path, and some steps down a small hill, and then he was at the tree with the fourth envelope. He carefully pulled out the pin that held it to the tree, and opened the envelope. A neat white card read Move the box first.

He put the card back in the envelope, and followed it with the pin, since he didn’t think it would be right to just drop the pin on the ground. He looked around for a box, but didn’t see anything. There was a thin wire fence and a gate nearby, but nothing else. He went to the gate. It was latched, but not locked. He opened it and stepped onto a gravel path that led to a geodesic dome covered in chicken wire and brown tarps. He could see chickens inside the dome, scratching and pecking at the ground, making quiet scolding noises at one another.

The ground sloped steeply down into a small canyon, and at the bottom, near the trunk of a huge oak tree, he could see a large cardboard box, with a cardboard lid. It was the same light blue color as the envelopes.

Jamie found a path down to the box, and carefully walked down the steep slope.

The box was about fourteen inches on a side, a neat cube. The lid was not taped or fastened in any way. Jamie lifted the lid and looked inside.

Lookout! came a shout from somewhere above him, but it was too late. A large water balloon crashed down on his head. He was soaked.

He looked up and saw a toy Jeep taped to a branch in the big oak tree. Looking down into the box, he saw a radio control transmitter, with rubber bands holding the button down. A wire connected to the lid of the box led down to a battery, arranged so the battery would connect if the lid was opened.

There was a rustling sound, and a young girl slid down a rope from the big tree. She looked about Jamie’s age, maybe a little older. She wore short blue jeans and a cotton shirt, and had a harness around her like a belt with loops for her legs, holding her onto the rope.

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I’m awfully sorry that happened, she said. I tried to warn you.

Jamie didn’t know what to say. His hair and shirt were clinging damply to his skin. But he wasn’t thinking about that. All he could think of was that this girl was really pretty. He looked at her without saying a word. He just wanted to sit there and stare.

You read the card, right? she said.