#TimeTravelingGhost EP 8: Post 84: 2025 Arkham

#Wss366 Shower #TimeTravelAuthors 03/25. brief/short

Professor Dubois looked confused and, perhaps to buy herself time to think, stroked the rat, and said, “Patroclus deserves a treat for his hard work,” and opened the bottom drawer, extracting both the bottle of brandy and a container of rat food.

“Patroclus, that's the first recorded individual… ghost to transcend time. You were quite clever naming him,” I said.

Emily snickered. “Show-off.”

There was a #short pause while Patroclus enjoyed his meal, and the professor and I sipped the inexpensive brandy she had offered me. I guessed it was what a professor could afford.

“So, why today’s visit?” Ms. Dubois asked, looking over the rim of her tumbler.

“Three reasons. First, tell us about time-travel. Why can we do it?” I answered.

The professor looked perplexed, so I added, “For reasons I can’t explain, I don’t remember anything. Professor Skully has explained to us about time-streams, particles, and pressure. But he didn’t know the details.”

“Good old Dana. I didn’t know he listened to me. Okay, so you want details. Time-travel has been my life's work. After I realized that my mother’s spirit had visited me and given me a time-travel book, I became convinced that magic was the key.”

“Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “Your ‘mother’ visited you and gave you a book?”

“Yeah,” Ms. Dubois said, as she opened the top drawer and took out a dog-eared copy of “The Time Machine.”

I glanced at Emily; we both recognized it. Not too long ago, by our time, I had given that book to a young girl waiting for her mother to recover from surgery.

The professor continued, “My mother used to #shower me with gifts, but this one was special.”

She sighed and put it back in the drawer. “Of course, it took a long time to pick up the trail. It wasn’t until I obtained a copy of ‘Faustus Pakt’ that I made any headway. He talked about what he’d seen, but the key was that the formulas had come from ‘Pompilius’ Spiegel.’”

“Who?” Emily interrupted.

“Faust, of course. He relied heavily on Pompilius’s book, which is also rare. That’s where I learned that you have to tear the soul from its moorings in the present to project yourself into the past. Let me show you the pentagram.”

“Be #brief,” Emily said. “The two of you can be so pedantic. We can already time-travel, so we don’t need any complicated rituals.”

Patroclus:

#TootFic #MicroFiction #NMFic #UrbanFantasy #Mythpunk #TimeTravel #HistoricalFantasy #Serial