The Little Black Book.
Quinn was staring right at me when I felt my body collapse, almost as if it happened in slow motion like I was having an out-of-body experience and could see it happening to me. My eyes slowly opened as blackness tunneled out and light filtered in. I felt fatigued all over my body, it ached. A migraine was growing in the back of my skull slowing pulsating its way to my front left eye. I blinked hard to tried to shake it but it was only getting worse. Quinn was looking into my eyes, I saw relief and horror all at once.
What happened? I asked. “You’ve been out cold for 3 days… I didn’t know if you were ever going to-to…wake up.” Quinn said with a quivering lip and water building in his eyes. He cleared his throat, stood up, and told me the doc said I could go home tomorrow, but needed to stay one more day to be safe. Exhausted, I nodded, closed my eyes, and fell asleep.
Little did either of us know that this sleep was going to drift me away into another coma, one that would last an entire year.
March 2nd, 1931. I had been in New Zealand for 6 months. Before coming here I had recently graduated from college in Washington State, which was also home. The winters were wet and cold there. In desperate need of an adventure that involved a warm breeze and sun on my pale skin. New Zealand was in the midst of summer and seemed tempting being how we were in the midst of winter. I had read about a little town in New Zealand called Hawke’s Bay.
I remembered being intrigued, so I set out to do a little research on the area. After learning about Hawke’s Bay, it felt like something out of a magical storybook, no way around it — I was obsessed and had to go. There was a good amount of farms and wine country there. I love wine and wanted to learn more about it. I thought I might take 6 months or so, and work on one of the vineyards out there. Yes, this place was all the way across the world, but I mean, what the hell, right? What did I have to lose? An estate established in 1851 in the Taradale hills of New Zealand wine country? Yes, please.
Walking onto that estate felt like a dream, almost magical. Beautiful white flowers filled the air with sweet aromas and lined the walkway as I approached the estate doors. White bricks stacked up behind two large columns that lined the entryway. As I reached the top of the stairs, there was a young, tall gentleman standing there with light green eyes, kind eyes, and honey brown hair. “Hi, you must be Frances. I’m Quinnton Wells, please call me Quinn though. So lovely to meet you. I’ll be showing you around, if there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to ask.” He said with a warm and inviting smile. I smiled back, extended my hand, and replied with my own introduction. “Pleased to meet your acquaintance Quinn,” I said as my cheeks turned red.
Quinn showed me around the grounds, where meals were had, where I’d be working, and what I’d be doing. Finally, he took me to my living and sleeping quarters and told me to “Get some rest then aye. Work starts in the morning, and we don’t want you being knackered” I later learned that was “Kiwi” for exhaustion. He paused and looked at me intently. Like he knew something I didn’t. Something about his eyes, they were piercing and, well let’s be honest, absolutely gorgeous. “Right, well, goodnight then Frances. Truly a pleasure meeting and talking with you today. See you tomorrow.” I gave him a nod and smiled as he shut the door.
I let out a big sigh and fell backward on my small single bed. Not bad, not bad. Pretty comfy considering I was basically an intern. I looked over my shoulder to my nightstand. Curious, a mysterious little black book laid there next to the lantern. Was this parcel for me? Did someone accidentally leave it here? It didn’t have my name on it. I grabbed it off the table to take a closer look. When I touched it, it felt strange. I don’t know how to describe this but it felt like there was heat or no, I don’t know but it was giving off some sort of energy. Perplexed at this point, I opened the book.
There were instructions on the first page. The next two folded out to a map of the winery and the grounds. I thought this was a joke at first, but it seemed to be a map for some sort of quest. I continued to flip through the pages. Blank. They were all blank. I let a giant burst of laughter and pulled out the drawer to the nightstand for further inspection.
A key. A skeleton key. When I picked the key up, the book began to fill in the first couple of pages with writing. Seriously? Really guys? Am I supposed to believe this? Is this some sort of “new girl initiation” scheme? Okay Frances, think. What the hell is going on, and why does the book feel like it’s almost vibrating. It doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t feel real. Am I dreaming? I put the book and the key back in the nightstand drawer. I went to the washroom and splashed some cold water on my face. As I walked back to my bedroom, there stood a tall grandfather clock at the end of the hallway. You could tell there was history carved into its existence. I walked up to it, marveled at its beautiful lines and gold-plated hands.
I woke up in the morning not remembering walking back to my bedroom from the time I was standing in front of the clock. Wondering if what happened last night with this little black book was real. I leaned over and looked inside the nightstand door.
Book — still there, key — still there. Okay, I’ll deal with this later, I had to meet Quinn for my first day of work.
I got dressed and met Quinn for breakfast. We spent the day working together, traipsing up and down the isles of grapevines that lead down to the bay. The view was gorgeous and quickly fell in love with New Zealand and its enchanting beauty.
One extremely hot afternoon Quinn took me down to the river that lined the property after work was over for the day. This marvelous little hidden swimming hole nestled in this crevasse of the Tutaekuri River. He smiled at me coyly — stripped down to nothing and jumped in the water.
Gasping with girlish laughter I could barely speak, “Whaaaaat in the world are you doing!?”
“What? Don’t be bashful! Come join me! The water is perfect on this hot day Fran!”
He was right, I was being bashful. I had never just stripped down and jumped in a river before. I stood there for a moment contemplating the outcome of not jumping in with him, and I didn’t like the way that felt, so I decided to let him persuade me. Looking down at my chest, I unbuttoned my dress in slow motion. One little button at a time until I got to my belly, only raising my eyes to look at him, I gazed his way with a smirk. Layered Ripples of water floated off of his body with anticipation of meeting mine. I let my dress slip down off my waist. As it hit the ground, I leaped into the icy river water.
Darkness — a sense of release came over me I had never experienced before. My feet touched the cold slippery rocks on the bottom of the river floor. I pushed the tips of my toes to them and lunged back to the surface. I took a breath of air and opened my eyes. Quinn was waiting for me to reach the top and soon as I did a splash of water hit my face. Laughing as I returned the favor he came in closer to me.
The laughter stopped as his fingers grazed my back underneath the clear green water. His hands came up my side and around to my front and traced along the side of my breast (Goosebumps). He looked at me and within that moment it was all over. We kissed and I’m pretty sure I died. We spent the rest of the evening together in a trance.
I went to bed that night with butterflies in my guts and a foggy haze of love spells filling my mind. Or at least I tried to go to sleep. I couldn’t. I was laying there in silence trying to clear my mind when the drawer to my nightstand started to shake a little. Having been so enthralled with Quinn all week I hadn’t even thought about the strange book and key in my drawer. How was it even doing that? Magic can’t be real, I must be going crazy, I thought to myself as I sat up and swung my legs around to the floor. The drawer was still rattling.
As soon as I opened the drawer, the rattling stopped. I grabbed the key and opened the book. A picture of a grandfather clock appeared out of nowhere on the blank page of the notebook. It looked like the one at the end of the hallway outside my room. Key in hand, I went to investigate the clock. There was a keyhole on its side. I checked to see if it fit — of course, it did. Laughing to myself, I turned the key and the ground began to shake around me. It felt like an earthquake. Yep, definitely an earthquake. I turned around to run for cover and as I looked up Quinn was running through the door yelling my name.
I collapsed. Everything went dark.
I woke up 3 days later in the hospital. I was in pain. My mind was in pain. I could barely see as the light started to funnel back in. Quinn sitting by my side, looking terrified. He mumbled something but all I heard was a sharp ringing in my ears. Having trouble keeping my heavy eyelids open, I shut them and drifted back to sleep. This time, that sleep would be much longer than 3 days.
The earthquake was devastating to Hawke’s Bay. Over 200 people died that day and a lot of damage to the area. Luckily, the winery and the vineyard grounds didn’t have too much in way of repairs. Over the course of the year that I laid in a coma, they were able to put most of it back together.
I awoke from my sleep, in what seemed to be only a few hours. When I opened my eyes, I was no longer in the hospital. Instead, I was laying by the side of the river, the same place that Quinn had taken me the other day. It looked different somehow, the water level was much higher and it was colder than what I remembered. Quinn was not beside me this time, but instead a girl, patting me on the back as I was coughing up water. She was shaking me and asking frantically if I was okay over and over. She looked at me with terror in her eyes.
“Ruby, how are you alive? You were not breathing for at least 5 minutes.” Confused, and short of breath, I managed to get some words out. “Ruby? Who is Ruby? My name is Frances.” Still coughing, I asked, “Who are you? I’m so confused right now. Do we know each other?” She looked baffled and panicked. I knew at once something was wrong when I did not recognize my hands or body. I began to speak very softly and calmly to this woman.
“I’m sorry this is just as confusing to me as it must be for you. My name is Frances Roma Lee, and I’m not sure, but I believe that I just woke up in someone else’s body.” I cleared my throat. “May I ask what year this is?” Silence, between us, for about 2 minutes.
“Yea, Uh, it’s the year 2751”
“Okay. Where I just was before this happened, it was 1931 and a major earthquake had just happened.” She just had a blank look on her face, like she was looking at a ghost.
“What’s your name?” another long pause. Like she couldn’t believe I was asking her what her name was.
“Helena, Helena Sparks. Yea and you’re speaking with an American accent” Helena let out a giant sigh. “Yeah, nah, this isn’t quite a box of fluffy ducks now is it?”
“I’m sorry, did you just say… never mind. Look can we go somewhere more dry, and where there’s a change of clothes, I’m freezing”.
“Yeah sure thing, Frances is it?” I nodded and held onto Helena’s arm as I got up.
It was cold and rainy here now, reminding me of back home in Washington. It must have been sometime in July or August. Helena took me to her place. She got me all cleaned up and changed into clothing that was more similar to robes with a minimal design. Strangely comfortable, I must admit.
The area looked familiar on the walk over and I asked her if she knew of an old vineyard that used to be here. She said there was, and had been restored and turned into a historical landmark. My eyes lit up. I asked her to take me there in the morning if it wasn’t too much trouble. “Sure thing.” I was so tired from processing everything that happened, as soon as I sat on her couch I passed out. Although it didn’t really feel like I was sleeping, almost lucidly, at best.
In the morning she took me to Vineyard and the old manner that had been historically restored. We entered the building and I had a flashback. Walking back to the sleeping chambers I found my old room, I walked to where the nightstand would have been and thought about the book and key. Something started rattling under my feet. I looked at Helena.
“Do you feel that?”
“Yea, sure do.”
“I’m pretty sure I know what that is.” I stepped on the floorboard and it was loose, so I got down on my knees and pried it up. There it was. The notebook, the key. It was sitting there, in the floorboard 820 years later. I couldn’t believe it. I told Helena everything that had happened up until she pulled me out of the river. Reluctantly, she believed me. I mean, there was just too much going on.
We walked down the hall, and there to my disbelief was the Grandfather Clock. I went to open it with the key, just as I had before, and was mysteriously transported into the future. I slipped the key in, turned it slowly, and as I opened it, there laid a bag. I opened it. $20,000 American dollars. Helena looked at it, and muttered: “I haven’t seen money like that since I learned about it in history class.” I laughed and grabbed the money out of the clock. This must have been my quest. There was no other explanation.
We went back to Helena’s house and I laid the money out on the table. I must have counted it 7 times. I couldn’t believe it. Helena kept telling me that it didn’t really have any value in this time period. I didn’t care. I kept it safe and held it tight, dreaming of what I would do with it if I ever got back home. $20,000 was so much money! I had to figure out how to get back, back to Quinn.
I fell asleep that night and that was it. I woke up back in my time, but now it was 1932. I wasn’t in the hospital any longer though. This time, I was in a strange bedroom with a tube connected to my arm and a blanket over my body. I awoke the same way I did last time, with sharp sounds and blurry onset to my vision. Headache and nausea started to set in. I felt something next to me under the blanket.
A bag. I opened it. It was there, all $20,000 of it. I started crying and took a deep breath. I tucked the bag close to me. I yelled out to anyone. “Hellllooooo? Hello?!” I heard something break downstairs and footsteps running up the stairs.
“Quinn. Do I have a story for you.”
