There was a promising glow hovering above the dark eastern horizon that morning as my brother Orville and I pushed our little skiff into the rippling current. We paddled upriver for an hour or more, in search of some cat-fishing. We dropped anchor near a stand of weeping willow trees and baited our hooks.
The sunrise splashed color across the sky as it broke the dawn with a passion. We had only been watching our bobbers float for a few minutes when Orville leaned his pole against the side of the boat. He pulled a little notebook from his trouser pocket. After flipping through a few pages, he found a clean spot and started sketching with a stubby pencil.
I leaned to look at his sketch. “What’re you drawing now, little bro?”
Orville scratched his head as he replied, “You remember that rubber-band spinner toy? The one dad brought back from his Columbus trip? Well, I’ve been thinking about a way to attach a seat to a big one and trying to ride it.”
I nodded, contemplative.
Orville asked, “Do you think it would fly?”
We fell into another discussion about flying. We’d had this dream of building a flying machine ever since we were little kids. We both had lots of different ideas, like tying ourselves to giant kites, or making feather-and-wax wings like that father and son from Greek mythology, Daedalus and Icarus. We never could seem to agree on which method would actually work; we were always arguing good-naturedly about our different flying ideas.
The morning lay bathed in full sunlight when the end of my pole bent over. My bright orange bobber disappeared beneath the water’s surface.
I whooped with excitement and leaped to my feet. The boat rocked wildly as I yanked backwards on my fishing pole; a little too forcefully as it so happened.
A huge, wildly flapping catfish came hurtling upwards out of the water. As I tipped my head up—eyes bulging and mouth open to watch it sail overhead–the force of the giant flying catfish snatched me off balance. I went tumbling backwards over the side of the boat with an enormous splash!
Just as I spluttered and coughed my way to the surface, I heard Orville yell out to me impudently, “Hey Wilbur? Is that monster fish still on your line?”
I hadn’t even realized I was still holding my fishing pole as I swam in place next to our skiff. I gave it a pull and darned if it didn’t pull back! I gave another whoop of excitement and started pulling my fishing pole with its still-struggling catfish toward the shore.
When the water was shallow enough I could walk, I fought to keep a grip on the thrashing pole as I heaved it toward dry land. This time, when that catfish sailed through the air, he landed on the shore. I grabbed him up before he could flop his way back into the water.
Orville beached the boat beside the willow trees. He climbed out to stand next to me and admire the huge fish that had caused my unexpected bath.
He said, “You know what I think, brother? I say we clean this monster right now, start a fire, and have us some roasted catfish for lunch!”
And that’s exactly what we did. I cleaned the good fish with my pocketknife while Orville started a small fire with twigs and his flint-striker. Sitting next to the fire it didn’t take long at all for my wet clothes to start drying out, but I was still damp when we’d finished gorging on fresh catfish and kicked dirt over our fire to put it out.
Orville pointed out a trail that led off past the stand of willow trees and into the dense forest. As we strolled over to examine the trailhead, we could see a glimpse of something huge off in the distance. It almost looked like a mountain, but we were miles from any mountains that I knew of.
“What do you think that is?” No sooner had Orville asked, “What do you think that is?” than he ran off shouting, “Let’s go check it out!”
I knew there was no point trying to dissuade him from taking off down an unknown trail. Besides, I was curious myself as to that giant mound.
We hurried along the faint trail, finally emerging at the foot of a massive, perfectly round, cone-shaped hill. Both of us stared up at the odd hill in amazement. I’d never seen anything like it but, as we started walking around the mound, it came to me that I’d heard about something like this before.
“Hey, Orville,” I said, “I think this is one of those Indian burial mounds. I read about them in school. There was this tribe called the Adena that lived here a thousand years ago. The book said the tribe built these kinds of mounds all over Ohio and then all suddenly disappeared. I bet this is one of their mounds.”
Orville is three and a half years younger than me, and has always been able to find some kind of mischief. Right then, I could see by the glint in his sparkling brown eyes that he was up to something.
He shouted gleefully, “First one to the top is king of the hill!”
Nothing could have stopped me from taking off after him, quickly gaining strides with my longer legs. We were both laughing and panting for breath as we started scrambling up the mound, grabbing hold of small trees and shrubs for support as we pulled our way upwards. Orville slid back a few feet before he could catch hold of a little sapling to stop his descent. He held still for a minute, catching his breath and laughing as I kept climbing upward as fast as I could.
Suddenly I heard a garbled shout from behind. When I whirled to look, I caught a glimpse of my brother’s upraised hand just before it disappeared into the mound!
I slid and scrambled down the hill toward where I’d last seen my brother. I fell to my knees next to a small, dark hole that had opened up in the earth. I heard his voice faintly calling, “Wilbur! Wil, help me!”
Then… total silence.
Nothing but my own voice echoed back at me as I kept calling and calling his name.
I felt my chest tighten as a realization took me: there wasn’t another person around for miles. No one to help my little brother except me.
Without a second’s hesitation, I hung my feet over the hole and slid in. And kept sliding!
I was in a narrow, round tunnel that slanted downward, propelling me further and further down into the darkness. It seemed an endless descent, terrifyingly swift. I frantically wondered when and how I was going to stop falling.
Then a blinding flash of light pierced the black void, quickly followed by more and more flashes in a dizzying array of rainbow colors.
Splash! For the second time that day, I found myself tossed into the water!
I clawed my way to the surface, sputtering and gasping. My head was barely above water when a hand grabbed my shoulder and dragged me onto a low wooden dock.
“Wilbur! You came after me!” My brother Orville shouted, gleefully shaking me by the shoulders.
“Of course I did, you knucklehead. Now quit shaking me all up and tell me where we landed.”
Orville gave me a hand up as we both looked around, confused by our odd surroundings. How was all of this beneath that old mound?
The little wooden dock we stood on was only a few feet wide. It attached to a low, rocky wall. Stone steps led upwards and disappeared into a dimly lit tunnel. We’d just climbed out of some kind of canal with both sides lined by tall stone houses nearly touching all along the dark waterway.
Completely dumbfounded, my brother and I were still standing there drenched and confused when a funny-looking boat–all long and skinny with curved prow–came gliding around a distant bend. The boy standing at the back could have been about Orville’s age. He was whistling and holding a long pole that he used to push the boat through the dank water.
When he caught sight of us, he pulled to a stop beside the dock.
He spoke with an odd accent and a quirky grin. “Ciao, my friends. So very nice to meet you! I am Leo, and my master wishes to see you. Please, come with me.”
With a grand flourish, Leo waved a welcoming hand towards his boat.
Orville and I shared a glance. Both of us shrugged our shoulders at the same time and stepped on board. As our new young friend, Leo, poled the boat along the canal, he chattered away in his funny foreigner’s accent.
He said his name was Leonardo di Vinci and he was fifteen-years-old. “I have only lived in Florence, Italy for a year,” Leo said, “since my father had arranged for me to be apprenticed to the famous painter, Andrea del Verrocchio!”
“Gosh,” Orville said. I didn’t know what to make of it, either.
Leo continued. “Signore Verrocchio told me that visitors were coming, and should be welcomed and given assistance. I am glad to have found you so easily! It won’t be long now. We’re almost to my home.”
Not far down the canal, Leo explained, was a vast stone casa beside an enormous cathedral.
We rounded another bend in the canal. Ahead, we saw a very tall man wearing a dark green cape and a feathered hat standing on a dock. As we neared, his arms opened wide and his booming voice called out a greeting.
“Ciao, Wilbur! Ciao, Orville! Welcome to mi casa! Come in. We will tell you a wonderful story!”
“Wil,” my brother whispered, “how’s he know our names?”
I shrugged.
I could tell that both our heads were spinning. We had a million questions each. But we followed Leo and the Signore.
Inside at last, Signore Verrocchio invited us into an enormous room with several easels set up displaying paintings in progress. He gestured for us to sit down on the rug beside his chair in front of the giant fireplace.
Leo was already there, sitting cross-legged on the floor with a sketchpad on his lap.
“Young men, this tale you are about to hear may seem unbelievable,” Signore Verrocchio began, “but I think your experiences will help you understand the truth of my story!”
“All right, sir,” I said. “I’d like to hear it.”
“I was not born in Italy,” he said, “but in the same place as you boys, Wilbur and Orville. My people were known as the Adena. We are the Mound People.”
Orville brightened up. He slapped my arm, grinning, saying I right about that burial mound after all.
The older man said, “The Adena are Travelers. We build portals that carry us to different worlds. Within our mounds are doorways between place and time. There are no longer any of our people living in your time, sadly. And all of our mounds in that place were long ago abandoned.”
Orville cut in, saying, “We found one by our fishing spot!”
“Sì! The mound that you entered today contains the portal that my family used to come here. To 14
th
century Florence!”
I rocked back. That sure explained some things!
“I still feel connected to your place and to that gate.” He said, “Last night, I dreamed that you would visit us today. Those portals only open with a purpose. You were drawn here to this place and time for a specific reason. I do not know what that may be, but you will understand eventually. I want you to spend the evening with Leo and I, then tomorrow I will show you how to return to your home.”
With that, Signore Verrocchio rose and left the room.
Orville and I looked at Leonardo, then at each other, then all three of us started speaking at once.
We were full of questions about the tale we’d just heard, even Leo! We were loudly discussing the situation when the sketchpad on Leo’s lap slid to the floor.
Orville pounced, grabbing the drawing. Excited, he waved it in Leo’s face saying something about mind reading.
When I could finally calm my brother enough to see for myself what had him so agitated, I could have started back up with the excitement: the drawings on Leo’s notepad were eerily similar to the ones Orville was working on that same morning!
We spent the rest of that strange night with papers scattered around us on the floor, charcoal pencils in hand, overflowing with ideas on how to build a flying machine. Apparently not only was Leo a fine artist-in-training, but he had the soul of an inventor. We had so much in common with the Italian teenager that he could have been a long-lost Wright brother.
By the time the sun started to rise–us barely even noticed his accent anymore–we had together drawn a hundred sketches of our wild ideas for a mechanical flying device.
After a breakfast of steaming hot chocolate served in thick mugs and some flaky pastry buns, Leo told us Signore Verrocchio was waiting for us down at the dock. We were still filled with excitement from our adventure, but exhausted. Orville and I both needed a good night’s sleep in our own beds.
We were a little embarrassed at how the Signore kissed us on both cheeks when he told us goodbye, but we shook it off and climbed into the gondola with Leo. As we drifted away, Signore Verrocchio called out to us.
He said, “There are many portals in that mound, young brothers! Beware that, if you enter another, you may not find yourselves somewhere so friendly!”
We waved our thanks until the Signore was a speck on the horizon.
Leo steered us back to the same dock where he’d found us the previous day. He pointed to the set of stone steps we’d seen before.
“I hope we can meet again,” Leo said, “if only in spirit!”
“Kindred spirits,” I said, folding his hand between my hand and Orville’s.
As we said goodbye to our new friend, Leo handed a folded sheet of paper to Orville, who stuffed it into his pocket. We then turned and started climbing the crumbling old steps.
We climbed for ages, until the steps smoothed away and became nothing more than a pathway leading ever upward. We came to a point where the tunnel’s ceiling arched lower. After ducking, bending, and crouching, we finally dropped to our knees and started crawling.
It wasn’t completely dark in the tunnel, but we were right glad to see a light up ahead. We pushed our way through a hole, partly covered with some bushes, and tumbled out into bright sunlight.
We sat the leaf-strewn ground at the bottom of the Adena Mound. Together, my brother and I slowly rose to our feet. We took in the sights around us.
“Wilbur,” Orville asked warily, “are we home again?”
“I think so, little bro.”
I saw him reach into his pocket and pull out the folded paper Leonardo had handed him before our trip home through the Adena portal. We looked at the drawing together.
It was one of the sketches for a flying machine we’d all worked on together. It was one of the best of all those crazy designs.
Orville smiled, folded the drawing, and tucked it back into his pocket.
He said, “I think I’ll keep this as a souvenir. It might come in handy someday.”
~*~
To Be Continued…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR – Cathy Jones lives on the Crystal Coast of North Carolina. She loves the beach, reading every type of book ever written, inventing delicious recipes, and making up tall tales.