Molly screamed, “Oh crap.  Look at Luke.  We’ve gone farther into the future. If we can’t project backwards, how are we going to find the stairway?  This isn’t good.”

“Maybe we tried to go too far back in time too quickly.  Let us try to go back to when we fell in the pool.”

Molly looked at Luke.  “Okay, but not right this second.  I don’t think I’d be able to concentrate well enough to do it right now.”

Molly and Steed watched Luke with the woman of color who was taking care of him. He asked the maid to pour him some chocolate milk. The woman shook her head as though she was insulted, but still she opened the refrigerator to get the milk. She removed the regular milk while looking for the chocolate milk.

Luke screamed, “No, not the white milk.  The chocolate milk.”

Then the housekeeper pulled the chocolate milk from the refrigerator and poured him a glass.

Molly said, “Look, the chocolate milk is almost the color of her skin. And the little boy is almost the color of the other milk.”

Little Luke took the glass and then gave the housekeeper a hug.  “I love my chocolate milk and I love you.”

The maid screamed, “Watch it.  Don’t pour the milk out.”

“I’m sorry.”

Later, Molly and Steed saw Luke placing the glass of milk on the heater to watch it develop a solid film on the top. Then he ran outside to play.  He found his sister digging a hole. “What you doing?”

“I’m digging my way to China to get away from you.”

“Sure you are.  You’ll hit water first.”

“I’m not digging a well.  I’m digging my way to China.”

“Yeah, you aren’t doing a very good job at digging.  Let me help.”

“I didn’t say I’m not digging well.  I said I’m not digging a well.”

“Whatever.  Let me help.” Luke began helping his sister dig.  Then he noticed something silver on his sister’s ankle. “What you wearing on your ankle?”

“What does it look like?  It is an ankle bracelet.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Granny gave it to me the night of the fire.  I had forgotten about it until I saw the clerk at the store across from the pool wearing one.  To be honest, I hadn’t realized what it was until I saw her wearing one just like it.”

Luke asked, “Do you see things at night when you sleep?”

“You mean dreams.  Of course I have dreams.  Sometimes I have nightmares. What made you bring that subject up?”

Looking at the ankle bracelet Luke said, “I just started thinking about one of my nightmares.” Luke asked, “What kind of nightmares do you have?”

“I probably shouldn’t tell you this.  I don’t want to cause you to have my nightmare.  There was a teenager who used to sneak on our property to ride our horses when we lived out in the country. He threw some other teenagers down a well and killed all but one of them.  One managed to crawl out of the well, but the other’s drowned.  It was on some property not too far from where we lived.  After I heard about it, I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Even now, thinking about it scares me. I mean, there was a killer coming on our property.”  Mary looked at her brother and saw how wide his eyes had become while listening to her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.  Your talking about me digging a well, just made me think about it.”

“A silver bracelet suspended in like water begins one of my nightmares, but I’m not sure why.  Sometimes it looks more like a gold necklace.  Some of the nightmare contains a memory. Do you remember when I locked mother out of the house when we lived in the country?”

“How could you remember that? You were two.”

“And I was riding a bicycle when I was three.  What is your point?”

Molly said, “This kid is what, four.  Do you hear the way he is talking?  When we were being taught about earth, we were told what our general abilities would be at each age. Luke is one strange child.”

Steed said, “He has a sister who is a good bit older than him.  That is probably why he seems a little odd for his age?”  

Molly said, "Or he may be like us.  We remember some things that Saturn should have removed from our memories. The appearance of our young ages is misleading."

"I know the rebirth process on earth is similar to what Saturn does, but not exactly.  I don't think the process is meant to totally steal the memory of the soul, but rather blocks the memory to some degree while the person is in the physical," Steed said as he watched Luke and Mary.

Mary looked at her brother.  “I have no point.  What were you going to say?”

“I was in the living room.  I think it was the living room.  Mom left me there while she quickly took a basket of clothes around the house to the basement to do some washing.  I heard a strange sound and then I saw a man enter the house.  He scared me and I was scared for mom.  Aunt Ellen told me to lock the door so that mom wouldn’t walk in on the man. I did.  By the time mom was able to get back in to the house, the man had already slipped out a window in one of the bedrooms.”

“Aunt Ellen!  She died when mom was pregnant with you.  You mean Aunt Shirley who lived with us when we lived in the country.”

“No, I mean Aunt Ellen.”

“No way did you have a dream where Aunt Ellen told you to lock the door.”

“And there is no way that it was Aunt Shirley who wasn’t even home at the time.  If she had been, she would have been in as much danger as mom.  The man would have attacked her.  The nightmare is more than a dream.  It is a memory.”

“It was just a bad dream.  I guess you think the woman in the dream was Aunt Ellen because you’ve heard people mention her.” 

“I’m sure it was more than a nightmare.”

“If it really happened, then why didn’t the man attack you?”

“I don’t know.  But I saw the man again at the swimming pool.”

“You are making it up. No way did you see the man from your dream at any swimming pool.”

“I’m not making it up.  It was more than just a dream.  It contained a memory.”

Mary looked at her brother.  She had heard people talk.  He had been born with what their mother called sties affecting his eyes.  She had heard other people whispering, saying he was born with a velum covering his eyes. It was no great medical problem.  The doctor easily took care of the affliction.  Whether it was a velum that some whisperers called the wrapped gift of second sight or sties that some whisperers called the mark of their Aunt Ellen, it left no damage to the eyes. Though their Aunt Ellen more than once had been cursed with boils near her eyes as well as other places, Luke had not had any such recurring problems.

Luke demanded of his sister, “Stop staring at me!”

Luke had started to notice that he was treated differently from his two sisters.  He had commented to Mary that cute little girls get all the sweet attention.  And she first had guessed that was probably mostly why people who came around made a do over their baby sister and to a lesser degree her, but mainly kept sort of a distance from Luke.  He was a boy. Girls do tend to get more sweet attention as he called it.  He didn’t have dimples though few would have noticed if he had since he didn’t smile often.  He did have a rather devilish grin, but that was when he was up to something, and few people got to see that side of him.  Certainly, that side of him would have made people even wearier of him so that was probably just as well. And he had a look he would give people, like he knew something about them that they wouldn’t want anyone else to know.  She knew that made people uncomfortable.  It had even made her uncomfortable more than once.  While a lot of little boys cry when getting their haircuts at a young age, she had seen him make a barber cry; a former military marine cry.  She hadn’t heard what he told the barber.  She had only seen the former marine run into the back room screaming in tears.  Then when Luke got up from the chair she heard him mutter, “I bet you won't ever butcher my hair and nick my ear again.”  She had felt so embarrassed when she had to stand up to leave with her mother and Luke.  There were about 20 people in the barbershop and they were all staring at them, many with their mouth’s wide open in disbelief.  It was that day she had started listening carefully when people started talking about Luke.  She then realized that people did treat him differently, and it was not just because he was a boy. She guessed she understood why some people paid attention to Luke in conversation among themselves, but largely ignored him in person.  No one wanted to become like that barber and become the laughing stock of the town, so they tended to keep their distance from Luke.  Mary wished Luke could become a more likeable person. She wanted him to stop doing things and saying things that made people talk about him.  She didn’t want to hurt Luke, but she thought that if he understood some of what had been said about him he might be more careful what he said so as not to invite the town people’s tongues to wagging.

“Luke I don’t want to make you feel bad. I’m only saying this because I want to help you. You can’t go around telling people things like you just told me. Some people already think that mom marked you by being at Aunt Ellen’s deathbed.  You don’t want to keep encouraging people to gossip about you.”

“You say I was marked by mom seeing Aunt Ellen die? What does being marked mean?”

“You are missing my point.”

“I’m not.  I understand people can be mean.  Who cares? As a girl you can cry and bat your eyes and flirt and make them feel bad for hurting your feelings.  I can’t do that without really giving people something to gossip about, so I treat people the way they treat me.  Sweetness may stop vinegar when you are a girl, but that doesn’t work when you are a boy.”

Mary shook her head.  Mary often forgot how young her brother was.  Though at times he spoke as one might expect someone his age to speak, at other times his words made it easy to forget his age.  “But you don’t have to be so…”

“Yes, I do.” Luke added, “Now please tell me what you mean by marked, because I don’t understand what that means.”

“When mom was pregnant with me, she and dad were on a motorboat on Lake Sinclair.  They were near the bank of the lake and large tree limbs hung over the boat.  A snake fell out of the tree and into the boat.  Dad threw the snake into the lake and shot it.  With the sound of the gunshot, snakes started coming down out of the trees like it was raining snakes.  It was awful. Anyway, when I was born I had birthmark on my butt that looks just like snake.”

“Can I see it?”

“No, you can’t see it.”

“Well, I don’t have a birthmark of…”

“You know our little baby sister Jane.”

“Yeah, I think we’ve been introduced.”

  “Smart ass! When mom was carrying her, mom couldn’t eat enough strawberries.  Jane has a birthmark on her shoulder that looks just like a strawberry.”

“I don’t have a birthmark of Aunt Ellen.”

“No, but keep talking the way you were talking to me and everyone might think you were marked in a more serious way.  I’m trying to tell you to stop saying and doing things that makes some people in this town think you are a freak and so mean.  What you did to Steve was awful.”

“Who?”

“The barber you made cry. What did you say to him?”

“I just told him about something I saw.”

“What could have you seen that you could have mentioned that would have caused him to cry?”

“Do you really want to know?  I’ve seen you look at him like he was a rock star or something.  Do you really want to know something about him that will make you look at him totally differently?”

“Yeah? No.  Wait.  I don’t want to know. The point I was trying to make is that you don’t use things you know about people to hurt them.”

“Whatever,” Luke said as he saw his sister again staring strangely at him.  Then he laughed and reached out to lift his sister’s skirt up.  “Come on, let me see your birthmark.”

“Stop that!” Mary screamed as she slapped her brother’s hand away.  “I’ll show you a baby picture.”

“Okay.”

As Luke and Mary went inside their home, Mary looked down at her little brother and wondered,  “What did her little brother know about Steve.  And was it possible that there was man who sneaked in and out of their home when they lived in the country?  Was it possible the man was in fact the teenager who was a killer?”

Inside the house they found their father taking care of little Jane and becoming more and more frustrated with her crying.  Mary asked, “Where is Jackie.  She is supposed to be watching Jane while you sleep.”

Harley looked at his little girl. “She woke me up screaming that she’d had enough.  When I got out of bed to see what was going on, she showed me chocolate milk papered in a glass that had been left on the heater.  She threw her apron at me and then screamed that she quit as she stormed out the door.” Harley then looked at little Jane screaming in his arms.  “If you don’t stop this squalling I’m going to spank you.”  Then he rubbed his nose against hers and in a baby voice said, “Yes I am.”

Mary screamed, “No you aren’t.  Give her to me.”

“Don’t bark orders at me. I am not really going to spank a baby.”

“Please dad, give her to me.  You need your sleep.”

“I’m going to have to get up in an hour anyway and get ready to go to work.  I’ve called Byrdy and she is coming home from work early.”

Jane stopped her crying and Harley went to lay her down in her baby bed.  Then he walked in the kitchen and saw Luke putting the glass of milk in the sink.  Harley looked at Luke and shook his head.  “Why did you do that with the milk.”

“I don’t know.  I just think it is neat the way it turns solid.”

“You know you are the one I ought to spank.  You are responsible for Jackie quitting. I thought you liked Jackie.”

“She shouldn’t have been mean to me after I told her that I loved her.”

“So you did that with the milk intentionally to get her mad?”

“Yeah, she had scolded me before for putting milk on the heater.”

Harley went to check on Jane in her baby bed.  He began screaming, “Shit!  Shit smeared all over the place.”

Luke and Mary rushed to see what their father was screaming about.

Luke said, “He should have changed her diaper.”

Mary looked at her little brother. “No shit Sherlock.”

Harley added, “And Dr. Watson, are you not seeing what I’m seeing.”

“Funny.  Real funny.”

Harley asked, “Did either of you smell it?”

“No. Not really.”

Luke poked Mary. “I thought it was you.  I thought you farted.”

“Shut-up!”

Steed and Molly looked at little Jane. Steed said, “You recognize her.”

Molly smiled.  “That is Jill.”

Steed said, “But I don’t think I’ve ever met Luke or Mary before.”

Molly added, “Nor Harley or Byrdy.  But I like them.  I do wish they were going to have more children.”

Steed asked, “Are you ready to see if we can project back in near time to the pool.  We need to know if we are going to be able to find our way back to the staircase.”

“I guess.”