Many amazing parties have been held in the enormous parlor of Essence House in it’s time.  The past century saw the most amazing annual Christmas balls. Roland Edmund was known for his holiday festivities.  The house was said to surpass capacity many a year. Neighbors never complained about the noise, nor their lack of invitation.  They were all friendly with Roland, and knew that family was the most important thing in his world, and only family was invited.

Tim stood there in the parlor with his cousin Tristan.  Suddenly he was overtaken by a memory of watching as his grandfather gave a speech on the steps that extended across from where he stood.  Gramps addressed the room every year. Some years he did so with a glass of whiskey, and some years he did so after several glasses of whiskey.  The incident that danced in Tim’s head just now was of a time that followed several whiskeys and Gramps opted for a short speech, after which he took a spill on the floor and was carried off to his office that sat parallel to the parlor.

“Tim?” spoke Tristan with his hand extended.

Tim shook it off.  He knew Tristan had been trying to get through to him for a good minute, but was so lost in thought that he couldn’t respond and hadn’t paid attention enough to do so even if he could.

“I’m sorry.  What was that, again?” Tim responded.

Tristan again extended his hand, “Turn off your phones light and wake up.  You’ve been in a daze ever since we got upstairs.”

“I’m sorry.  It’s just…” Tim started.

Tristan headed to the adjoining kitchen.

“Breaker box has to be around here somewhere.”

“Tristan, what is this?  How is this possible? It’s supposed to be gone.” Tim finally woke from his fog.

“How would I know?” Tristan retorted.

Tim shrugged. “Well, you knew it was here so it stands to reason you might know a bit about it.”

“Well I honestly don’t ‘know’ anything, just guesses really” Tristan said as he shone the light around.  “And I don’t know if you’re ready for those.”

“Try me.” Tim regarded him solidly, his features devoid of fear, or any real emotion. He had a million guesses, and yet none all at once. Tristan’s advantage was having had the time to digest the insanity of it all.

“Let me get the lights on, then we can talk,” Tristan said as he threw open a cupboard.

The sky lit up outside the house, enough to show that it was raining something fierce.  Lightning cracked overhead.

“That’s a strange storm for a January night.” Tim thought to himself, but so much was strange that he didn’t dare mention it out loud.

Tristan flipped some switches and after a few tries the lights flickered and lit up the kitchen. “There we go.”

The house lit up. Tim stepped back into the parlor to see if it matched his memory.  It did. The stone fireplace against the wall. The mantle that held pictures of family members and an ornate clock that looked as though it dated back well into the last century, if not longer. The upholstered bench that sat in front of the window, looking out onto the grounds. In the corner of the room was an old phonograph with the horn style speaker. Against the walls were shelves of books that didn’t look as though they had been touched in quite some time. Facing the fireplace were a pair of leather backed chairs that swiveled. Tim remembered Grandfather seated in his chair, and ancient tome in his lap as he read fairy tales to Tim and the other children. They didn’t get the modernized version, either. Spoiler alert,The little mermaid turned into sea foam and died. 

“I can’t involve you in this, Tim. Please go back,” declared Tristan.

“Are you serious? I’m not going anywhere without you. I told your father I’d keep tabs on you until he arrived.” Tim grabbed Tristan’s arm. “Let’s get back up to the shed and talk about this.  Being in here creeps me out.”

Tristan yanked his arm from Tim’s grip and gave Tim a shove.  “You won’t stop me, Tim! Get out of here!”

“Stop you?” said Tim, clearly confused. “Stop you from doing what, exactly?”

“Please. Just leave.” Tristan repeated his sentiment. Tim could hear the pleading tone in his voice, but he was having none of any of this. Something about this place, whatever this was, it was affecting Tristan. Was it a hallucination? A shared dream of some sort?

“This is all crazy. We are standing in a house that does not exist.  It’s been gone for about 25 years. I just stood on this spot yesterday.  It’s a parking lot!” Tim had to rationalize this somehow, because to believe, well to believe was to drag himself into a pit of unknown, where nothing made sense and he couldn’t possibly find the answers to be satisfied.

Tristan headed towards the main staircase, heading up with loud, clomping footsteps. Tim chased him, and grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Tim asked.

For the first time since they had reunited Tristan was the aggressor, his lower lip trembling as he shouted, spittle flying, as uncontained as his reaction. “What do you care? You won’t believe anyways, and you’ve seen where we are!” He pushed Tims hand off of his shoulder to emphasize his point with a frustrated grunt.

The two stared at each other for a long, uncomfortable silence. Tim wanted to say that he believed, but he didn’t even know what he would be admitting to.  None of this made any sense at all and he couldn’t find a single rope to cling to in this plunge from reality. 

No, that wasn’t entirely true. If he could calm his cousin down, there was Tristan. 

By this time Tristan had turned to face completely away from Tim, his shoulders rising and falling with his heavy breathing. “Ok, you aren’t wrong. Look, all I know is that, somehow I’m inside of Essence House, a home that was knocked down like twenty or so years ago. So yeah, I’m having a hard time believing anything, but I have no clue what is actually happening right now. So why don’t you try to explain to me as best as you possibly can what’s going on and maybe I won’t try to stop you from...whatever it is you’re talking about.”

Tristan nodded solemnly and waved back toward the parlour. Tim left Grandfather’s chair for Tristan, hoping the familiarity would calm him down some, but it also felt apropos since he was the one telling the story. 

Tristan breathed out a loud sigh. “So, yeah, this place was torn down in the late 90’s after my mom and your parents died. Dad had spiraled out of control. He was drinking a lot, you and Elise had moved, so by that time it was just he and I. I remember…” He paused to gather up the courage to continue.

“One night I heard dad arguing right here. I had gotten up because of a bad dream or something, but the sound of loud voices kept me from going back to sleep. So I crept down the stairs and I heard it much better, but here’s the weird thing, dad was yelling...at grandpa.”

Tim saw Tristan staring back at him, which quickly made him aware of his gaping mouth. He closed it sheepishly, but offered no reply. It was too soon for him to say anything, and if he did, it would be more doubting, which wouldn’t help at all. 

“Grandpa was sitting right here while dad railed on him. I couldn’t make out everything that he was saying, but basically he couldn’t believe that Grandpa wouldn’t help to bring mom back. Grandpa tried to assure him that there wasn’t a way, that it doesn’t work like that, but dad called him a coward. He said that was why Grandpa was dead and no one cared to bring him back.”

“Dad stormed out and when I peeked into the parlor, Grandpa was sitting there quietly with his hands in his lap, you know, the way he used to. He noticed me and waved me over.” Tristan was relating the story but he no longer seemed to notice Tims reactions. He was lost in the memories.

“Of course there was the obvious ‘you’ve gotten so big’ and all of that, but I had to ask him how he was still alive. Tim,” he said, finally regarding his cousin for the first time in what seemed like minutes, “he looked me straight in the eyes and said, ‘I’m not.’”

“He went on to tell me that the only people in the house that were alive were me and my dad. The house, he said, was magical. Yeah, okay, I see your face, but these are his words, not mine, alright? Just listen.” Tim tried to control his features, apologized, and beckoned for Tristan to continue.

“He said that the house both existed in the present and in the past all the way back to when it had been built on this spot. I laughed at him, but that’s when he told me the one thing that made me believe him.”

Tristan finally seemed as close to normal as possible. Of course the two of them were seated in a parlor that had been torn down decades before, so normal was a really relative term at this point. “Grandpa died in 1972. That’s like 15 years before I was even born and yet we hung out with him all the time when we were growing up. How do you explain that?”

Tim caught himself. The more things were drifting from any form of reality, the more they made sense. “Crap, Barnabus was right,” he muttered.

Tristan narrowed his eyes, but Tim waved him off. “Yeah, don’t worry about it. Compared to this, it’s literally nothing.” Tim sighed. “You’re now the second person today to tell me that Gramps had died that long ago, so I’m not even gonna argue the point.”

“So if I put aside my doubts and just accept the fact that this place now has more in common with a Delorean than a house, what would I be trying to stop you from doing?”

Tristan regarded Tim with every ounce of sincerity he had. He knew in his mind he had only one chance at this. If Tim didn’t go for it now, he wouldn’t at all.

“I just...knowing what we know about this place and what it can allow us to do I...well, I just can’t stop thinking about the plane crash.”

“Noooo.” Tims eyes widened and he caught himself shaking his head slowly. His mind whirled with so many thoughts that his body simply took over. The responses were instant. Even his mouth moved and words formed all while he tried to grasp at anything that could make sense. He was incredibly unsuccessful.

“That’s crazy! You can’t change anything. It happened already. Gramps even said so!” Tim’s autopilot had decided it was not letting this discussion go any further.

“That’s absolute crap, Tim! You didn’t even know such a thing was possibly ten minutes ago and now you’re telling me what you can and can’t do. You have no idea what’s possible and Grandpa was probably just worried that he would lose another son before his time. I could save my mom - your parents even - and everything could be better. My dad wouldn’t be certifiable, the house would still be standing. How can you possibly be against this? What kind of proof can you have that this won’t work?”

“Proof?! You want proof?” Tim spat, holding his hands out to begin the count. “All we have is stories that something like this exists and it never goes well. So the only proof I have is 3 Back to the Future Movies, anything with the name ‘Terminator’, one bad Star Trek movie, and every version of The Flash.”

Tristan snarled visibly. “No way! I refuse to listen to some stupid writers who have no clue that something like this could even exist. We have an opportunity to right wrongs. We get our parents back, my dad won’t have made so many mistakes. He’d be a better version of himself.”

Things were finally clicking for Tim. He was getting control of his brain and was thinking ahead. He pointed to the door they had come in. “No. We’ve got to leave now. Your dad is exactly why we can’t do this. He knows about what this place can do and still doesn’t want you here. He doesn’t want either of us knowing the potential and power Essence House has. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Rick knows better. If he doesn’t want us here, there’s a damned good reason for it.”

Tristan flexed his fists. He wanted to knock Tim off of his feet so bad, but what would that accomplish? And really, could he? Tim looked like Chicago had toughened him up, at least a little bit. With a bitter sigh he took the first steps towards the door. “I’ll go, but I am not going to promise you that I won’t find a way to bring them back.”

The two made a silent retreat back to the shed, Tim closing every door behind them. Tristan refused to speak to him from that moment on and while Tim was putting the mower and snow blower away and closing and locking the shed, Tristan exited quietly from the scene.

Tim, sadly, was no help. For some reason he was under his father’s thumb, but there was nothing that could be done about it now. No, what he needed to focus on was the how. He could break into the shed, no problem. A trip to the hardware store, some bolt cutters, and that problem was dealt with.

No, the real problem was how did they travel through time? From his limited experience and from what Grandpa had said, the house was in every instance of time from when it had been built to when it had been destroyed. So how could he go about making the house want to be in the end of 1994?

His first stop was the hardware store for bolt cutters. If he didn’t grab them while he was thinking about it he would find himself ready to time travel without being able to open a damned lock. His next step was to go to the local second hand store. He walked around scanning through clothes, games, toys and anything he could remember from his youth. Any time he found something that might work he checked the internet. Was it a ‘thing’ in 1994? He picked up an album and checked the date it was released. He couldn’t believe his luck. November 1994, shortly before the time of the fateful plane crash.

‘No,’ he told himself. ‘It wasn’t fate, and I’m going to prove that. Screw Dad, screw Tim, screw Fate. He didn’t need any of them for this.’

He found himself standing at a cash register with a bag full of ‘stuff’ that he wouldn’t have looked at twice on any other occasion. After this, the plan was to head home and get some rest. He needed to get to the shed when no one would be awake and he had to do it immediately before Tim could get the chance to get any real security on the building and before his dad returned to much everything up.

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