Aramu Muru and he served in the Temple of the Seven Rays. To escape his imminent death, he placed a golden disc known as the Key of the Gods into that socket to open the solid door. The old stories say that an unearthly blue light lit up the stone as it transformed into a tunnel. The priest entered the tunnel and the door closed behind him. Aramu Muru walked through the door never to be seen again. It’s said he is now living in the Land of the Gods.” Lou let one or two heartbeats of silence go by before she added. “People who visit Hayu Marca say there are times when they feel an unusual energy, a pulsating energy emanating from the rock.”
“What was the golden disc?” Reno asked with an intense expression on his face.
“No one knows. You weren’t carrying a golden disc when you went through the stone, were you?” Lou asked in a low teasing tone.
“No.” Reno shook his head. “Some gold coins, but no golden disc.”
Journey was listening. Intently. She didn’t even realize she was speaking until the words came tumbling out. “What if there was something like that in Ela’s medicine bag?”
Reno and Lou looked at one another in amazement.
“But how can I know?” he yelled, sitting back hard against the chair.
Neither Lou nor Journey had an answer for him.
In a few moments, Lou started speaking again. “To continue my train of thought, I’ll tell you about the lost Sandringham’s.” Seeing their curious expressions, she smiled. “The British 5th Territorial Battalion of the Royal Norfolk Regiment all came from the same region of England, many of them worked at the vast Sandringham estate or lived in the nearby village. In August of 1915, this battalion marched up a cloud-shrouded hill in the Dardanelle region of Turkey and were never seen again.”
A hushed silence pervaded the room as she recounted tale after tale, incident after incident.
“In 1949, the Chicago police investigated the death of a 50-year old gentlemen who was struck and killed by a train. Witnesses said he was looking up, gawking at the buildings when he walked out on the tracks, completely ignoring the warning signs. In the pockets of his clothing was money that was no longer in circulation.”
“I have money like that. Remember the gold coins I just mentioned?” Reno spoke up in an excited tone.
Lou nodded, noting his comment. “And in his pocket, they found a bill from a livery stable, a letter postmarked in 1872, and a business card bearing the name of Ronald Foster with a Sixth Avenue, New York City address. Upon further investigation they found no current listing existed for a Ronald Foster at the New York address and his fingerprints matched none on file. Even more disconcerting, his apparel appeared to be from the previous century.”
Reno chuckled. “After seeing my apparel, a store clerk asked me if I worked for a movie company.”
“He thought you were in costume,” Lou observed with a smile. “There was also a tag in this man’s hat from a store that had been out of business for decades. Intrigued, the police kept searching until they located an old phone directory with a listing for a Ronald Foster, Jr. After trying to contact him, they discovered that this Mr. Foster, Jr. was a man in his seventies who’d passed some three years earlier. Upon tracking down his wife, who’d moved to Georgia, they learned her husband’s father, the original Ronald Foster, went missing when he took a walk one evening and never returned. When the officer located the missing person’s report from 1872, all of the details corresponded to the man who’d been killed by the train some seventy-seven years later.”
Reno blew out a ragged breath. “These stories are making me feel funny.”
Journey sat up. “Do you want to stop? Do you want to do something else?”
“No.” Reno shook his head. “I just feel like something’s about to happen.”
Lou grinned. “I feel like that too.”
“Tell me more,” Reno urged.
“Okay.”
Journey noticed Lou didn’t need much encouragement. She was happy to oblige.
“A more recent case happened in 2003. An Arnold Carlisle was arrested for SEC violations for making over a hundred high-risk stock trades, each one an unmitigated success. Carlisle turned eight hundred dollars into three-hundred and fifty million, thus drawing the unwanted attention of the SEC. When questioned, he confessed to be a time-traveler from two hundred years in the future. In exchange for his release and permission to return to