Page 20 of The Marigold Trail

A s soon as I make it up the narrow wood-paneled stairwell, I enter the second-story atrium I’ve been wanting to visit since this morning, just not under this current set of circumstances. The atrium is just as charming as I imagined with a built-in hardwood desk underneath the paneled window and dark jasper green walls. The opposite wall holds an antique apothecary cabinet, custom built between dark floral wallpaper.

I pause. Suspended with a choice of which route to take—the closed door with an old knob or back down the stairs. I test the door, feeling the heat of the situation, and yank the knob with no luck. Locked. So I listen for the sound of Ben’s steps coming up the stairs and when they don’t appear, I make myself comfortable.

The apothecary unit is impressive, claiming nearly half of the wall and begging me to dig through its contents. I use the gaudy bronze knobs to pull out each tiny drawer, my curiosity overflowing with what these little cubbies contain. Ben hasn’t chased after me and Evan ran off with Tyler, so I take it that I have time to explore them.

There’s an entire row dedicated to small constellation books and constellation guides. I pull a royal blue book titled Sir Patrick Moore - Science Book Night Sky Constellations from the fourth drawer and flip through the tiny navy blocks within its pages that map out constellations. I pause on Puppis and try to find it in the night sky above me as I sit at the wall desk.

The outskirts of Golden, at the base of the mountain, give a much better view of the stars than Denver ever could with all its city lights. They must have built this house knowing the atrium would be the perfect spot for stargazing.

The sky between the trees wears a thousand tiny snowflakes. The stars dusted across the sky pulse above me as I save the Puppis constellation page with my index finger and bring the book over to the telescope which sits at the corner of the wall desk.

My lack of experience in astronomy is obvious and I find myself struggling to focus. Instead, my thoughts go from the perplexity of connecting dots in the night sky to thinking about how the tiniest percentage of stars actually shine bright enough for us to make them out. Stars bright enough to see from the earth are quite scarce, percentage-wise, so does that make the stars that shine for us special in some way?

Just like the mystery of me being here at this time. Time travel is just as scarce as the percentage of stars that shine, right? That had to be why no one deemed it possible, since most people have likely never known someone who’s experienced it. Since it was rare, did that make it special or more meaningful? Was my experience here by chance or was it fate—did it have any meaning? Was I plucked from the jar of destiny to be sent here to find something that would help me out with this unusual predicament—being threatened by a corrupt FBI department for knowledge that could get me killed was a rare occurrence, right?

I didn’t know if I believed in that sort of thing, but I believed in making the most of my circumstances. Part of me had wanted a vacation from the everyday routine of pleated dress pants, sliding my FBI badge into my camel-colored coat, and hopping into my orange Volkswagen bug with a protein bar in my mouth, to spend the day tagging along with partner agents.

And if I was honest, I didn’t mind the change of pace. At this point I hope being here is destiny and maybe I can solve the Marigold issue from this past. Maybe, then, I could do something about it all, back in Non-80s-Land.

If I ever got back.

The thought of Ben, Agent Brown—Ben, suffering alone without me, breaks me. But what if it’s my destiny to save our future selves using information from the eighties. Energy stirs within me at the possibility.

Shuffling through a few more tiny drawers in the wall I come across knickknacks that don’t have a home—buttons, coins, nails—and then, newspaper clippings. I flip through a few headlines to find that everything’s dated late 1986 and 1987, and pull a clipped set from the bunch. I drop the set on the desk and begin running my fingers through the thinness of the papers, the crunch of my fingers against paper becoming louder than the muffled chatter from the main room downstairs.

I hit a gap in between pages, where a small but thick manila envelope breaks the flow of papers. When I bust open the unsealed envelope, I find a picture of three men. All three wear identical red jackets with a symbol that draws my attention like an accident on the side of the road. The Marigold symbol with pointed crystal petals. The same symbol that was embroidered on the pockets of those same red jackets worn by every member passing around a knife in that horrifying USB video. The same symbol coincidentally tattooed on Officer Berrett’s kettlebell sculpted arm.

Back in Non-80s-Land, I had left the Marigold symbol glowing on Pops’ pixelated Windows 95 search screen, but it is ever so present in this timeline. It’s as if my life is a game of Clue and I’m being slapped in the face with cards that only lead me to one room, the Marigold room. Its persistent presence gives me concern but I’m also encouraged. I feel like I’ve been given a golden opportunity. I’ve seen enough Marigold clues that I should be able to start proving and disproving theories. As long as the cards keep coming I should be able to correctly guess the three cards in the enclosed envelope that represent the solution at the end of the game. Maybe the eighties has all the cards I need and someone within Tyler’s household is already showing me their hand through this set of newspaper clippings.

The first newspaper clipping is from this week.

I feel a little uneasy knowing I’m going through Tyler’s family’s drawers especially with such recent and relevant articles. I turn around and check once more to make sure I’m still the only one up here.

The headline reads “Sheriden Foundation Purchases Household Brand, Clean Wave, Under Pro Golfer Robert Schills’ New Management.” The name Robert Schills sounds familiar. I vaguely remember reading an article about his early retirement from golfing just a few days ago.

I plow through the article, which discusses Robert and his team’s direction and their hopes for the new company. My heart races as I read on, knowing this article confirms Sheriden’s connection to Clean Wave. And now I have a name. Robert Schills.

I get an even greater chill realizing someone in Tyler’s household has made the same connection I have. How would they know about this? What concern tipped them off in the first place? We’re thirty-some years before I would have any idea something was wrong in Non-80s-Land with this group. Taking a deep sigh to contain my excitement, I flip through a few more clippings that I can’t quite make connections with.

The stairs creak from the weight of someone’s feet making noisy progress up the stairs; each step’s squeak becomes a little bit noisier than the last. A soft yet creepy timbre of footsteps, like something from a scary movie cinematic soundtrack leaks into my mind as I turn my head toward the dim lit stairwell and I shove the newspapers in my drawstring bag with a sense of panic.