Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience. Friday the 13th Part 3 Wisdom by be287m I open my eyes and look at the clock on the nightstand. 10 a.m. Again. I groan. I'm in another loop. The question is, why? The first loop is obvious in hindsight. The second loop? I remember Helen taking off her ring before we undressed and I wince. I remember once saying I would never sleep with a married woman without her husband's consent. And now I had. Actually, I hadn't. Not in the final rewind. So why this time? Randi stirs, interrupting my pondering. She opens her eyes halfway and looks at me. I smile and she smiles back, then looks confused as she realizes she doesn't remember me. "Hi Randi, how are you feeling?" "Like shit," she mumbles. She sees the water and aspirin on the nightstand and takes them. She looks over at me, still suspicious, and I just return a friendly smile and remain sitting calmly. Eventually her bladder wins any arguments over distrusting me and she heads for the bathroom. I use the time to straighten up a little. When Randi returns, we have the conversation about who I am and what happened last night. I don't change it from the conversation we had in the last rewind. "So let me get this straight," she says, holding her head which must still be pounding, "We met in a bar. Then we met again on the sidewalk. I was too drunk to drive. You brought me here. We didn't have sex." "That's right," I reply. "You're hiding something," she challenges. "No one goes to this much trouble for someone they barely know." "Why would I lie?" Randi just glares at me. "I want my purse," she says. Just like last time. I hand it to her and then back away, giving her a little space. She first counts her money and then checks her cell phone for messages. She glares at me while she hits a speed dial number. I nod and go around the corner into the hotel bathroom. This time, though, I leave the door open, allowing me to eavesdrop. "Carl," Randi says, "let me talk to Thea." A pause. "What do you mean she can't come to the phone?" Pause. "It's ten a.m., Carl, wake her up!" A longer pause. "No I won't tell you what's going on, I want to talk to Thea!" A much longer pause. "No Carl, I don't want your help. I just want to talk to Thea." Pause. "Fine. Goodbye." Interesting. I silently count to ten and then saunter back into the main room. Randi's pulling her shoes on and she gives me a haggard look. "Uh, Jake, I gotta go," she says. Like I did last time, I just smile and nod. "Can I call you?" I ask. Randi nods and writes her phone number on the notepad by the hotel phone. We exchange a few polite words and then I walk her to the lobby. "Thanks for taking care of me," she says, with a winsome smile. Then she's out the door and gone. And I'm stuck. Yesterday, well today, but in the last rewind, all I did was walk home. I had taken a shower and made myself an omelet and collapsed on the couch. I'd eventually picked up a Neil Gaiman graphic novel and read a little of it, though the story was too familiar since I'd read it before. Then I rewound. I suspect that whatever I had done, or not done, to cause the rewind had to have happened before I'd gotten home. I hadn't really done anything at home that could have triggered it. I go back up the hotel room. Might as well be thorough while I'm here. I check every drawer and under the bed. I remove the bed sheets and carefully paw through them. I find nothing that Randi would have left behind or that is obviously missing. I get paranoid for a moment and think of hidden cameras. I peer into the air vents and scan as much of the walls as I can closely. I find nothing. It's just a hotel room, which I chose at random the rewind before. I return to the lobby. I find an open chair and sit down, checking my watch a few times. I am not interested in the time, but in giving the appearance that I'm waiting. It gives me a good chance to scan the room. Nothing catches my eye. The desk clerks are mostly bored. A few people check out. A few people pass through returning from breakfast. No one but me spends any significant time in the lobby. No one, including the desk clerks, gives me more than a passing glance. I wait about an hour and then I give up. I wander through town. The bar where I started my first rewinds is closed and locked tight. So is the Mercury Café. Randi's car is gone from the lot where I know she had parked it those eons ago. I even manage to retrace my steps to where I left the lady and the boy. It's just a dirty alley in the day. I poke around in some blown trash but find nothing. I'm walking back toward the hotel when it happens. Things get fuzzy. I feel like I'm going to fall. I close my eyes. I open my eyes and look at the clock on the nightstand. 10 a.m. Again. I realize I'm no longer numb to the rewind. I know it can end. I know there's some logic behind it, even if I don't know what. It is a simple comfort, but comfort nonetheless. Randi stirs, interrupting my pondering. She opens her eyes halfway and looks at me. I smile and she smiles back, then looks confused as she realizes she doesn't remember me. "Hi Randi, how are you feeling?" "Like shit," she mumbles. She sees the water and aspirin on the nightstand and takes them. She looks over at me, still suspicious, and I just return a friendly smile and remain sitting calmly. Eventually her bladder wins any arguments over distrusting me and she heads for the bathroom. This time I don't straighten up. I just sit perfectly still. I need to notice everything. Randi returns from the bathroom and sits on the bed. She returns my stare. "You look like Mr. Spock," she says. That startles me. "What do you mean?" I ask. "There's no emotion on your face, or at least, there wasn't." I unconsciously touch my hand to my cheek. Then I give a sour grin. "I'm sorry," I say. "I was thinking pretty hard about something." "What?" she asks. I shake my head and response and Randi doesn't press. "So who are you?" she asks. "I wish you could remember," I say without thinking. "Remember what?" she asks. "What did we do?" "Everything and nothing," I reply. Randi glares at me. What the heck. The worst that can happen if I tell her is another rewind. "You remember the movie Groundhog Day, with Bill Murray?" I ask. Randi gives a slow nod. "Like the movie, I've been living the same day over and over again. Probably a thousand times by now." I can tell from her expression that she doesn't believe me. "From your point of view," I continue, "we met briefly in a bar last night when you spilled a drink on me. Do you remember spilling your drink?" Randi reluctantly nods. "Then much later in the evening, you ran into me on the sidewalk. You were too drunk to drive, so I brought you here. You probably don't remember that. You didn't believe me when I told you in the last rewind." "So why should I believe you this time?" Randi challenges. I sigh. "You agree that you didn't know me before yesterday?" I ask. She nods. "So it's unlikely I would know a lot about you. There would have only been a few hours to learn things from you," I say. She nods again. "So let me tell you what I know." I begin first with the basic details, but then with the stories from all our mellow conversational evenings past. Then I move into bigger details; the stories she only revealed post-coitally. Her fears, her desires, her fantasies. Randi becomes more attentive and more uncomfortable as I talk. Finally she stops me. "Okay, I believe you," she states. "Either you're living some Groundhog's Day on Valentine's Day, or you've been spying on me and stalking me for some time." I can tell that she thinks the latter is more likely. "If I was stalking you, why would I tell you this story?" I ask. "I could have just kept my mouth shut." Randi nods, but is unconvinced. "The only thing I don't understand," I say, "is who's Thea?" Randi's face turns white. "You were about to call her, once you got back from the bathroom," I say. "Or at least you called her last time. But that's the only time, in the thousands of evenings we've been together, that you have ever said anything about her." "Thea is . . . a very wise woman. She lives with my uncle Carl, a retired psychologist, at his mountain retreat. I met her a couple of summers ago when I first moved here. We became close--she's like the mother I never had. But Carl says she's withdrawn a lot, so I don't like to talk about her with other people. Carl says she talks to him more after one of my visits or calls, so I call often. Last week I was visiting and she told me that this would be a memorable Valentine's Day for me. When I woke up here . . ." She didn't finish. "Call her," I urged. "Carl won't let you talk to her. He'll say she's sleeping. At least he did in the last rewind." Randi slowly reaches for her phone. "I'll leave if you get ahold of her," I say. That convinces Randi. She hits a speed dial button. "Carl," Randi says, "let me talk to Thea." A pause. "What do you mean she can't come to the phone?" Pause. "It's ten a.m., Carl, wake her up!" A longer pause. "No I won't tell you what's going on, I want to talk to Thea!" A much longer pause. "No Carl, I don't want your help. I just want to talk to Thea." Pause. "Fine. Goodbye." Randi stares at me, mouth open, eyes wide. I shrug and look away. When I look back, she's pulling on her shoes. "Let me go with you," I ask. Randi nods vigorously and we head out together. She asks a handful of questions on our walk to her car and the long drive into the mountains. I answer as best I can. I describe the first woman and her boy. I decide to be brutally honest and so I tell her about Helen and her husband and his mother, June. Randi isn't too pleased to hear the tone in my voice when I describe Helen, but smiles when I tell her that meeting her was what broke that rewind. Eventually we wind our way down a bumpy dirt road that I never would have found even if I'd known what to look for. A large mountain lodge rises up at the end. There are three SUV's parked in front. Randi eases her car into a spot between them and the porch. The front door is not locked and Randi doesn't knock. There is no one in the main room. Randi ignores the voices coming from a far door and bounds up the stairs. I follow. Randi stopped in front of a door and tries the knob. It's locked. She begins pounding on the door. I hear raised voices from below and begin nervously watching the bottom of the stairs. Randi keeps pounding. There is a click as the door in front of her is unlocked, but I don't notice as it opens. Instead, I am frozen at the sight of the two men who have appeared at the bottom of the stairs. They are the men from the alley. The would-be rapists. I turn and push into Randi from behind, forcing her into the room and then quickly following her. I turn and lock the door behind her as feet pound up the stairs. The men begin pounding on the door and I lean against it until I am sure it won't give way. "Carl has a key," comes a voice from behind me. I turn and am struck by the deepness of her grey eyes. She seems to gaze into my soul with a single look. "Jake, this is Thea," Randi says. I nod. Then I notice Thea's necklace. A familiar solid gold cord, shiny in the daylight. I suspect it would glow after dark. I meet her eyes again, staring agape. "Yes, Jacob," she says. "It is what you think." "Then you are . . ." my words trail off. Thea smiles, but does not complete my sentence. The pounding has stopped. Someone else is coming up the stairs. "How do we get it off?" I ask. Randi looks confused, but doesn't interrupt. Thea's eyes just glance to one side. There is a loom set up in the room. A tapestry is being weaved. Before I can discern the pattern, the scissors lying nearby catch my eye. I dash over and grab them, then return to Thea. She nods. Very carefully, to avoid nicking her, I slide one blade between Thea's neck and the cord. Then I begin to cut. It's more like gnawing, but the threads begin to part. I get it cut just before the door is unlocked and opens. An older man stands in the doorway, one of the toughs behind him. His eyes go to Thea. She holds up the cut cord, which is now dull. His eyes flick to the scissors in my hand. He nods slowly. "Of course," he says. "I knew you couldn't use those yourself when I gave them to you, since Chorda Aurea cannot be cut by the wearer. I should have guessed you'd save them for when you had help." "We're done, Carl," Thea says. "You never should have kept me against my will." Carl looks rueful. "I'm truly sorry about that," he says. "I just couldn't bear the thought of you leaving." His voice is strained. He looks at her, eyes haunted, almost pleading. Surprisingly, there is a touch of mercy in her eyes. "You should have let me leave when we finished your last book," she says, quite calmly. "Look at how far you've sunk in the decades since. Hanging out with thugs too stupid to know not to mess with my kin." The thug behind Carl starts to get angry, but a casual wave of Carl's hand keeps him at bay. "You may be right," Carl says. "You gave me much, and I repaid you poorly." Thea just nods. Then she looks at me. "Thank you, Jacob," she says. "I know the journey was very long, but your service to Us will not go unrewarded. Though my reward will be better than my kin's poorly thought out one." I grimace at the memory. Thea reaches out and clasps my hand. "All you have to say is `no'," she says. "Many times, if necessary, though there is a limit." I nod dumbly. Thea turns to Carl. "You'll leave them alone," she says. Carl nods. Then Thea surprises me by stepping forward and kissing Carl lightly on the lips. He closes his eyes and collapses in her arms. She lowers him to the floor and then steps past the tough, who is now kneeling over Carl. Carl's skin has doubled the number of wrinkles and his hair is now completely white. He is also smiling as he lets out one last breath and all is silent. I realize that I have not heard Thea's footsteps on the stairs. The tough is trying to start CPR on Carl. I grab Randi's hand and pull her past him through the door. We dash down the stairs and out of the lodge. The other tough is leaning up against Randi's car. He has a gun in his hand. He sees us and lowers it and fires. "No!" I shout. Things get fuzzy. I feel like I'm going to fall, but I'm still clutching Randi's hand. It's a rewind. I close my eyes. I'm standing in the room, looking at Carl, lying on the floor. The tough is trying to start CPR on Carl. I grab Randi's hand and pull her past him through the door. We dash down the stairs. I stop us at the bottom. "The other one is out there with a gun," I say. "I know!" Randi replies. She pulls me toward the back. We head out another door and move into the woods and then begin circling around. By the time we arrive back at the front of the lodge, the thug has gone. He reappears on the porch, shouting, as we drive down the road, kicking up dust behind us. The adrenaline lasts until we're back on the pavement and the city is in our sight. Then Randi pulls over and stares at me. "Did that really happen?" she asks. "We ran down the stairs twice?" I nod. "That was a rewind," I reply. "Wow," she says, then falls silent for a minute. "You must have had some bad luck to go through that so many times," she muses. I shrug. "It was Friday the 13th. Of course it was unlucky. But now . . ." I reach over and squeeze her hand in mine. "Today is Valentine's Day," I say. "Today is only unlucky if you're alone." Randi smiles at me and squeezes my hand in return. "Then today must be your lucky day," she says. I slowly nod my head, smiling in return. "The Gods willing," I reply. Randi laughs in response. I also hear what sounds like distant laughter of a little boy. Randi seems to hear it too, for she pauses, listening. Then, shaking her head, she starts the car and we drive on. --fin- (C) 2005 All rights reserved. Posting, publishing, or electronic archival for other than personal use without permission of the author is explicitly prohibited.