His eyes lit upon his sister’s carved image of the flying dragon in the cornerstone of the chipped tile that lent a bit of support to the bottom of the pedestal. This has to be it, Charlie ran through his mental notes for the hundredth time already. This is the cracked marble pedestal that his sister described to him in such detail as she lay dying from her riding injury before she just up and disappeared from the hospital altogether. When their family were finally contacted by the American Embassy they commenced to “raising hell the MacLeod way” as his sister would always say, with the Crown who already had enough on their hands what with having to deal with the loss of the Queen’s own husband and the errant young prince, the son of the soon to be King, who had the misfortune of marrying a very unpopular American actress. At least unpopular there in the United Kingdom. From the looks of things, it seemed that she was starting to not look so favorable with some of the Americans either. His sister, who was a well known writer and painter in her own right, had moved to the borders of Scotland and England where she had found a beautifully restored castle that she moved into for the purposes of becoming a companion to an elderly Englishwoman, serving as the ground’s historian and records keeper. Her job was basically keeping her company while soaking up all the history the elderly owner could fill her ears with about the castle’s original owners who raised it from its very beginnings. From what Charlie could remember, his sister Lily was telling him and his wife Jessica that the old woman – a Lady Greystowe -- had said that the castle had been in the family for generations upon generations, just before the Norman Conquest. So he found the ancient marble pedestal with the little dragon on the bottom corner of it just as his sister had described it to be as she had painted it all those years ago ----- but now to find the proof of the many other things Lily said she had accomplished ---- travelling back in time ----- he had to find the room of carbon copies she talked about! In all the craziness what with the thought and feeling of the loss of losing his beloved sister not to mention best friend in the world, Charlie didn’t even think to ask what time period she ‘thought’ she was in so that he wouldn’t be forced to go on a wild goose chase and he would be better off knowing what to go looking for! So the first place he figured that the best place for them, meaning his wife, son and himself, to look would be at the old vaults of the castle Lily talked about. He was not quite the history buff that his sister was but Charlie at least had a pretty good idea as to where begin their big search now. It hadn’t occurred to him until that very moment that perhaps the old woman was actually waiting for him. It would be just like Lily to plan this entire thing out to the very last detail to ensure nothing went wrong. He chuckled to himself. But before he went to talk to her, he wanted to go deep into the bowels of this castle first to see if Lily might left something for him to find after all. Motioning for his wife and their oldest son Greg to follow behind him, he headed further down into the deep recesses of the old castle, holding up the mini spotlight he picked up at a camping shop on the way out there. His son was having the time of his life amongst the ruins they were exploring. He readily volunteered to leave his senior year of college to join the search for his favorite aunt who always had a good story to tell, to follow and take pictures and make copious notes as well as detailed sketches, careful to make exact details of any drawings that he that the three of them had come across which might be something of value in his paper that he was writing for his senior thesis. Lily would have been so proud of Greg. He was doing the thesis in her honor, he claimed, Greg knew that his aunt would have loved to have argued several of the points of things in his thesis with him and he would have been more than happy to have went over them with her, bit by bit into the wee hours of the night. Charlie smiled sadly as he brushed away at a mass of dirty cobwebs and dead leaves and twigs. He shared her love of history and both the love of the unexplained as well as the explainable. They both often would get into heated discussions over the possibility of time travel over family dinner at their mom and dad’s table around Thanksgiving and Christmas especially when Lily insisted on bringing in a Yule log to be burned as they did in the medieval times and celebrating as they did back then. To this day they still do it because their father got so much joy and fun having the entire family gather together and making a great ceremony of it all with the kids enjoying hot chocolate and the adults with a little bit of Irish coffee to get themselves warmed up as well. Often they would find Lily though, gazing up at the stars, as if she were talking to someone or perhaps looking for something. He secretly hoped she had found it. He secretly hoped that she had found it. Something told him she did. Once they finally made it past a massive array of cobwebs which was oddly enough void of spiders, something that Greg did not miss, and neither did his mother, the small group soon found themselves at the base of a set of wide set stairs. There wasn’t exactly anywhere else to go other than the way that they had just came from. “What do you think we should do now dad? I mean that this has to be the older set of vaults you talked about earlier right?” He took a step forward and spoke a bit louder thinking that his dad was just thinking something to himself and had just not heard him so he should get his attention. “Right, dad? This should be the place you and Auntie Lil were talking about, right?” It was Greg’s voice of uncertainty that spoke now. Charlie lay his hand on the cold chipped stone of the door and closed his eyes for a moment and said a quick prayer. “I have followed every hint, every clue – done everything your Aunt Lily told me about, so this has to be the place. It just has to be! The place where these - these so called ‘carbon copies’ she told me about that are so important to everyone involved were placed in a certain position to prove that she did indeed go back in time like she had indeed been dreaming about doing for a long time and sometimes hearing about things like that in the movies as well.” For a moment he found his mind drifting back to that movie titled Timeline that had starred Paul Walker and Billy Connolly. “I just hope that we have not lost her forever because of all of this, though. I mean – you know how the government works when it comes to all of their super-secret projects and things like that.” His wife’s hand was on his shoulder now as she spoke softly in his ear, “Charlie dear, you know she loves you and that she could always depend on you. She knew that too. That is why she came to you and not to Tom or David. You know her better than anyone else ever did. You and our son. It was to you and Greg that she came to, not any of the others and not just because of the love but because of the special bond that the three of you share. Look at where we are now because of that bond. Now you just keep remembering that just like I do. Just like I remember that she always loved to tease me about the times we gathered for all of those SCA gathering dressed in all the garb we made together and she would tease me because I would have put something on the wrong way!” She paused a moment to chuckle as she quickly dashed away a stray tear at the fondness of the memory before either of them saw it or so she thought. But her husband was not one to miss much. He saw it and he now knew that he and his son were really not the only ones hurting. Lily was like a baby sister to his wife. The two women were like the virtual saying goes – ‘two peas in a pod’. He looked down at her lovingly and watched at her straighten herself up before she continued speaking again. “Now let us open this door and find your sister’s hidden message that she wanted us to find and let us know that she is well and happy sweetheart and that we need not worry anymore.” She reached around and sweetly kissed her husband on the cheek. She secretly hoped that this was real for her husband, because when the news of her sister-in-law’s death and subsequent disappearance reached them, Charlie had been inconsolable and refused to believe that he had lost his beloved sister. She herself had been missing her periodic coffee chats with Lily when she would stop by on her way to the studio to work on one of her projects. An hour later, the trio wearily wrenched the heavy stone and iron door open and stepped inside a surprisingly stale room that appeared as if it had just been swept clean. But the surprise that drew their attention was what awaited them in the center of the seemingly damp room that brought a chill to the center of all their bones. Life size portraits of each and every one of them in their family as if they were alive and living back in the medieval era. In the center of it all the main one was Lily standing proud and tall next to the man that was obviously her husband in fine chainmail and armor gazing down at her with obvious love and adoration, his arm around her in strength and protection. He gazed out as if he was almost daring whoever was before them to try and harm the woman he had his arm around, declaring her under his very protection. “She did it after all.” Greg smiled proudly, who looked at his mother who at that very moment was crying silent tears of happiness mixed in with a few tears of sadness. So he moved over to give his mother a comforting hug.