Welcome to Blackwood
Introduction to Jette
Deep in the forests of Blackwood, where the trees grow thick enough to swallow the road and the paths stop making much sense, I found a cave. Or perhaps it found me. I’m not quite sure which.
It isn’t much to look at from the outside. Just an old wooden door set into the stone, surrounded by moss, roots, and enough trees to make most people think twice about knocking. That door is always open, and yet never seems to let the rain or snow cross its threshold.
Inside however, the cave is not empty stone. It is a home built into the earth, warm and lived-in, with rough stone walls, old timber beams, shelves filled with books, bottles, tools, herbs, curiosities, and things collected over years. Candles and lanterns provide most of the light, their small flames reflecting against brass, glass, worn leather, and polished wood.
There is a kitchen where herbs hang drying from the ceiling and old copper pots wait above the worktables. There is a living room warmed by a crackling fire, with battered leather chairs, deep purple rugs, books stacked within easy reach, and cats who have long since decided that every piece of furniture belongs to them. Some sleep in the warmest chairs. Some watch from shelves. Some appear in doorways without making a sound. They come and go as they please, because I’ve never believed that a cat should be expected to follow anyone’s rules.
There is a workshop too, because I enjoy making things with my hands, including my own prosthetic leg. My workshop is organized enough to be useful but never quite tidy enough to look unused. Tools hang from wooden walls. Half-finished carvings sit beside pieces of leather, brass fittings, thread, bottles, and other strange little projects that may eventually become something wonderful.
I make things from natural materials; wood, leather, precious metals and gems. Furniture, carvings, jewelry, little pieces of art; there is no rhyme or reason to my endeavors. Most of it finds its way to people through my online shop, with a few pieces making their way into the little art gallery in town, and every once in a blue moon, I receive a commission in person.
I keep mostly to myself; I revel in the serenity of my solitude.
Except for the cats.
Blackwood has an astonishing number of stray cats, and somebody has to make sure they’re fed. So if you’re wandering through town after midnight and happen to see a woman with purple and teal hair, carrying cat food through the shadows, the soft chink and whir of a prosthetic, steampunk leg announcing her arrival…
Well.
You probably found me.
People here in Blackwood don’t know much about me, and I’m perfectly happy keeping it that way. Still, every now and then, someone comes to my door with a problem they can’t solve on their own.
A missing keepsake.
Something they desperately need.
A favor with no obvious way to accomplish it.
I don’t always know why they come to me. I just know that, somehow, I usually manage to help.
And strangely enough, afterward, they never seem to remember exactly how. Isn’t that odd?
But that’s all anyone in Blackwood needs to know.
For now.
Welcome to my little corner of Blackwood.
Come in.
The door is always open.
Art Interrupted
Something is afoot with the labyrinthine cave systems of Blackwood!
I was in my workshop when I heard the cats making an absolute racket. Naturally, I went to investigate.
What I found was something that most definitely had not been there before. A cave entrance had appeared through the stone behind my fireplace.
Not a doorway. Not a collapsed wall. A cave.
And the deeper I looked, the less sense it made. The passage seemed to bend in a direction that simply could not exist within the space of my home. Distances stretched strangely, angles refused to behave, and somewhere far beyond the bend, something cast an eerie light across the stone.
I stood there for several moments, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
Then I noticed the cats.
Several were already gathered at the entrance. One ventured inside, then stopped and looked back at me. Another did the same. Then another.
It was almost as though they were waiting for me.
Or perhaps… urging me to follow.
The Mysterious Cave System
After having a new cave entrance suddenly appear in the middle of my living room, I decided to follow the group of stray cats who seemed determined to lead me somewhere. As I stepped past the entrance into the new cave, it suddenly sealed up behind me!
Well! This puts me in a bit of a predicament. I shrugged. Guess I’m exploring deeper now, huh?
The eerie glow from deep within the cave grew brighter as I approached. At first, I thought it was simply the entrance to another cavern with some sort of light inside. But as I came alongside it, I realized it was something else entirely: some kind of portal or window.
And it was looking directly into THE VELVET CLAW, where Beautifully Strange and Worlds By Java were mid-conversation while Beautifully Strange worked on Worlds by Java’s nails.
They didn’t appear to be able to see me, though I could hear and see them perfectly.
How very strange!
I noticed that the cats had already run ahead, so I continued down the corridor. Before the light from the last portal could completely fade and leave me in darkness, another glow began to appear farther ahead.
I really should have thought to bring a flashlight with me!
The next illuminated portal slowly came into view, and this time it was looking into “Stitches of Soul,” the boutique of Little Native Indian Blue Bully. She was fitting Donna Michelle for a new outfit.
I shook my head in wonder and confusion. What could possibly be the reason for these strange portals? And how could they possibly be looking into places scattered throughout Blackwood?
I continued following the path through the cave. There were several forks along the way, but somehow, I instinctively knew which direction to take. The next portal looked in on Beth Dial and Grays Playhouse Designs. They seemed to be tending to Gray’s adorable black cat.
I was still completely confused, and I was beginning to feel a little bit like a peeping Tom.
The caves seemed to follow absolutely no logic. I had only walked a short distance from my own home, which was deep in the woods outside the town of Blackwood. And yet, I was somehow seeing places located in the very heart of town, much farther away.
I’m no good at mysteries, I thought to myself.
And then, as if I had somehow manifested her myself, the next portal revealed 10K of Chaos, still hard at work in her office, of course!
I had heard that she was one hell of a detective. I wonder if she could help me figure out this mystery?
Before I could ponder the question any further, the ground beneath my feet began to rumble.
The stone around the portal cracked. Then it began to crumble and fall away.
10k looked up in shock.
The opening widened.
I carefully stepped across the threshold, navigating the jagged rubble with my bad leg. On the other side, 10k stared at me quizzically. There was no fear in her expression, only a mixture of confusion and curiosity.
I stopped just inside the office. For a moment, neither of us said a word. I took a deep breath.
“I think something led me to you…”
10k Joins Jette
(as written by 10k)
Jette told me the cave had been showing her places all over Blackwood.
The Velvet Claw.
Stitches of Soul.
Other homes. Other businesses.
Then it brought her here.
I listened, looked at the hole that had just opened through my filing cabinets, and turned the old municipal ledger around on the desk.
“I think I know why.”
There are tunnels beneath Blackwood.
At least, according to records that officially do not exist.
The strange part is that the tunnels are not drawn like roads or mines. They connect people.
Every marked passage ends beneath the home or workplace of someone in town.
Jette Set Design’s cave is one of them.
My office is another.
I pointed to a symbol beside her property.
It matched one I had found earlier beside several old names in the records.
People who were known for helping others.
Finding things.
Fixing problems nobody else could solve.
Then I looked back at her.
“I don’t think those portals were spying on Blackwood. I think they were showing you who you’re connected to.”
That was when one of the cats jumped onto the map and sat directly on another symbol.
Of course it did.
So now we have a new problem.
We need to figure out what these connections mean, why the cave chose her, and why Blackwood seems to be building a network underneath all of us.
Preferably before another section of my office wall becomes a hallway.
The Green Portal
10K of Chaos seemed to be game for investigating this mystery, so she climbed carefully over the rubble and joined me at the cave entrance. As we stepped over the threshold, the cave sealed shut behind us, just as it had done in my home.
I was a little less panicked about it this time. I knew there were other ways out, after all. 10k, however, didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. She simply turned toward me, raised one eyebrow, and waited for an explanation.
“Oh yeah. Forgot to mention that part,” I said. “It seems to close up neatly behind you, which is convenient, I guess!”
“Convenient,” she repeated, giving me a look that suggested she had a somewhat different definition of the word.
We continued deeper into the cave system, following another faintly glowing cyan light in the distance. The winding passages seemed to twist and turn without any discernible logic. Eventually, the glow ahead resolved into another shimmering portal. We have been walking in the complete opposite direction I had first come from, and I was positive this was NOT a portal I had been to before.
But when we stepped closer, I stopped dead.
It was Stitches of Soul.
Again.
The portal was showing us the inside of Little Native’s shop. Everything looked just as it had before, although the shop appeared to be empty. Perhaps Little Native was in the back room, or maybe she had simply stepped out.
“This is strange,” I said. “This isn’t even the direction the other portal was in. And we’ve definitely gone somewhere completely different. See, this is what I mean,” I said. “The directions down here make absolutely no sense.”
10k stepped closer to the portal, studying the image. “I wonder if they’re all connected somehow.”
“I have no idea. At this point, I’ve stopped pretending I understand anything happening down here.”
As 10k stood beside me, something changed. The cyan glow surrounding the portal began to pulse.
Once.
Twice.
Then the color slowly shifted, bleeding from cyan into a deep, unnatural green. The surface of the portal shimmered like disturbed water. The shop beyond it blurred. Then it changed.
I stared in confusion.
The general layout was still recognizable. The same walls. The same basic arrangement. The same sense that this was unmistakably Stitches of Soul. But everything else was different. The modern boutique was gone.
In its place stood a much older version of the shop, built for a small frontier town more than a century ago. Rough wooden walls replaced the more finished surfaces. Oil lamps cast warm pools of light. Bolts of simpler fabric filled the shelves, and period garments hung around the room. An old-fashioned sewing machine sat near the back.
And sitting at it was a familiar redheaded woman. Little Native. Only this wasn’t the Little Native we knew. She looked like she belonged here.
“Whoa,” 10k whispered. “What just happened?”
I barely heard her. I was staring at the woman in the portal. “I don’t know.” Then something occurred to me. “Wait. I’m curious. Were you just thinking something?”
10k looked at me.
“Earlier, I felt like the portal opened because I was thinking about you. I had the thought that maybe you could help me solve this mystery, and suddenly the portal appeared.” I pointed toward the strange green-lit scene. “Were you just thinking something similar?”
10k cocked her head, considering the question. “You know…” She looked back through the portal. “I was actually wondering if these portals could tell me anything about my past.”
Neither of us had time to say anything else. A tiny bell tinkled as the door to the old-fashioned shop opened.
A redheaded woman in dusty, practical riding clothes stepped inside. Her clothing looked completely out of place among the sewing tables and bolts of fine fabric, as though she’d just ridden into town from somewhere beyond the horizon.
Little Native immediately stood from her sewing machine. Her face lit up. The two women crossed the shop toward each other and embraced warmly. There was no hesitation. No surprise. No awkwardness.
They knew each other.
They were obviously old friends.
10k and I stared at the scene in stunned silence.
Then the newcomer turned slightly, giving us a better view of her face.
My stomach dropped.
10k went completely still beside me.
Because there was no mistaking her.
The woman who had just walked into Stitches of Soul wasn’t merely someone who looked like 10k.
It was 10k.
Only somehow…
150 years earlier.
Blackwood: The Revelation
The two women in the old-fashioned shop continued their conversation for another moment before something changed.
Historical 10K stopped. She looked toward the portal. Little Native followed her gaze. For several seconds, neither woman moved. Then historical 10K slowly turned her full body toward us.
My stomach tightened. She was looking directly at me. Not through me. At me.
10K beside me noticed it too. “Jette…”
“I know.”
Little Native stepped closer to her friend, and the two exchanged a look that seemed to contain an entire conversation without either of them saying a word. Then historical 10K looked back toward us. And smiled. That was somehow more unsettling than if she’d screamed.
“Why are they looking at us?” present-day 10K whispered.
“I have absolutely no idea.”
The answer came a moment later.
A deep rumble rolled through the cave beneath our feet. I instinctively reached for the wall, unsteady on my bad leg. “What the hell?”
The rumbling grew louder.
Across the portal, Little Native and historical 10K remained perfectly calm.
Then the stone surrounding the portal began to crack. Tiny pieces of rock broke loose first. Then larger chunks. Dust and debris spilled onto the cave floor as the edges of the glowing green portal began to tear through the surrounding stone.
I stared at 10K. “Are you doing that?”
She shook her head. “Are you?”
“No!”
Another section of rock crumbled away. The portal was changing. Not its color. Its shape. What had been a flat window into another place was becoming an actual opening. An opening between our cave and their shop.
When the last pieces of stone fell away, I could see directly into Stitches of Soul. And the strangest part? Neither woman on the other side looked surprised. Historical 10K stepped forward. She looked directly at present-day 10K. Then she said: “We’ve been expecting you.”
10K stared at her. “Expecting… me?”
Historical 10K smiled. “Not specifically you.”
She glanced at me. “We were expecting an exploratory team.”
I looked at 10K. “An exploratory what?”
Historical 10K gave a quiet laugh. “You’re going to have a lot of questions.”
“You have no idea.”
“Oh, I think we do.” She stepped aside, making room for us to enter. “Come in.”
I looked at 10K. She looked at me. Neither of us seemed particularly eager to walk through a hole in reality into a nineteenth-century version of a shop occupied by someone who appeared to be her. But we’d already come this far. So we crossed the threshold.
The moment my foot touched the wooden floor of Stitches of Soul, the temperature changed. The damp chill of the cave disappeared. Warm air surrounded us. The scent of fabric, wood smoke, and something faintly floral filled the room. I turned around. The cave entrance was still there behind us. But somehow, seeing it from this side made it feel even more impossible.
10K was staring at her other self. Historical 10K was staring right back. Finally, present-day 10K spoke. “Who are you?”
The other woman smiled. “You already know who I am.” She took another step closer. “I’m you.”
10K’s expression hardened. “That’s not possible.”
Historical 10K glanced toward Little Native. “Oh, it’s possible.” Then she looked back at us. “But that’s not the question you should be asking.”
She paused.
“The question is…”
Her eyes moved from 10K to me.
“…who are YOU yourself?“
Mission from the Future
Note: for the remainder of the story, the two versions of 10k will be “10k” and “10k v2.0”
Neither of us spoke.
Little Native seemed to understand exactly how ridiculous this all was. “We know how this must sound, and believe it or not, we know exactly what you’re thinking.”
“Do you?” present-day 10K asked.
10K v2.0 took over, ticking questions off on three fingers. “You’re wondering whether you’re dreaming. Nope.” She shook her head. “You’re wondering whether you’ve somehow stepped into an alternate reality.” Another shake of her head, and another finger. “And you are wondering…” She took the remaining finger and pointed it directly at 10K. “…if the answer to the first two questions is no, how else can I possibly be YOU when YOU’RE standing right here?”
10K folded her arms and took an expectant stance at this. “That would be one of my questions, yes.”
10k v2.0 smiled, as though perhaps she was having a bit of fun at the expense of our confusion, and her cryptic response did not help. She gestured toward herself. “I am 10K.” She gestured toward present-day 10K. “And so are you. But neither of us is actually standing here”
My 10K frowned, but did not look nearly as confused as I felt! I hope she was following this better than I was.
“Then why can I see you both, and why do you both look exactly alike?” I asked
“Because we’re supposed to look like this. When we look at each other, at least. But these are not the faces most people around us can see.”
Little Native joined again. “You need to understand something before any of this will make sense.” She looked at me. “None of you are who you believe yourselves to be.”
I felt a chill despite the warmth of the room.
“What does that mean?”
Little Native took a breath. “It means that the people you believe yourselves to be (at this moment, at least) are the people whose bodies you’re inhabiting.”
I stared at her, dumbfounded. “Excuse me?”
“You aren’t in Blackwood because you were born there. Any more than I was born in this era of Blackwood.” She paused. “We are all here because we were sent here.” She explained that in the future, humanity had developed a technology that could send consciousness backward through time.
Not bodies.
Not machines.
Not physical objects.
Consciousness.
A person’s consciousness could be transferred into the body of another person living in an earlier era. The technology was extraordinarily difficult and came with one enormous drawback.
Memory.
“Your memories don’t survive the transfer intact,” she explained. “Some disappear immediately. Others become buried so deeply that you don’t even know they exist.”
“Then how will we remember who we really are?” I asked.
“You don’t. Not yet.” She explained that the people currently living as residents of Blackwood had arrived here without conscious knowledge of their true identities. They believed they were ordinary members of the society of that era. They remembered childhoods, relationships, jobs, homes. But those memories belonged to the bodies they inhabited. Their actual memories were buried underneath them.
“Why on earth would anyone want to do this?” I asked.
10k v2.0 gave a stoic look that somehow managed to convey both honor and pride. “Because someone has to.”
The missions were designed to make small changes to the past. Not enormous changes. Not rewriting history overnight. Small interventions.
- A conversation.
- A decision.
- A lost item being discovered
- A person being helped at exactly the right moment.
- A relationship beginning that otherwise wouldn’t have.
- A disaster prevented.
- A life nudged onto a slightly different path.
The goal was to alter the future gradually.
“And Blackwood?” I asked.
“Blackwood is where the pieces come together.”
They explained that the people being influenced were gradually guided toward Blackwood through carefully designed subliminal signals, sent using the same technology that implanted the travelers’ consciousness into contemporary bodies.
That same functionality could be used on the travelers themselves once they arrived. The future could not send direct messages, but subliminal signals could send us on inexplicable journeys we felt compelled to complete, until eventually, we would solve our own mysteries.
That was why I had felt compelled to follow the cats.
Why 10K had been drawn toward the mystery I brought to her of the cave.
Why people all over town kept feeling that inexplicable sensation that they were supposed to be somewhere.
“We’ve been sending messages to ourselves,” 10K said slowly.
“Exactly.”
Then I remembered the municipal map. “The symbols,” I muttered to 10k
She nodded and immediately stepped forward. “The symbols on the map. You both know what they mean, then, right?”
“They mark the homes and workplaces of the travelers who came here,” her doppelganger said.
I looked at her. “The people from the future?”
“Yes.”
There Are others
Suddenly, all of those strange markings took on an entirely different meaning. 10K had thought the symbols represented people who were simply connected to one another. She’d been right; just not in the way she thought.
“The portals are part of the same network,” 10K v2.0 continued. “They connect the mission participants as well as mission locations across time in a complex, ever-changing labyrinth of a cave system.”
“And that’s why they keep showing us everyone’s homes and businesses?”
“Yes.”
The network was bringing the exploratory team together. Not necessarily in any particular order. Not necessarily even to the same historical period.
The tunnels could lead different explorers to different previous missions. The fact that we’d found Stitches of Soul in this era wasn’t necessarily because we were supposed to find this particular mission. We had simply found them first.
Then came the strangest part. “How many of you… err, us are there?” I asked.
10K v 2.0 smiled. “That’s complicated.”
The missions didn’t all occur at the same point in history. Each team was sent to a particular period. Some went only a few decades back. Others went much farther.
And each new mission was sent after the previous one had already been completed, but to an earlier point in history. Which meant that a team that departed the future later could already be living in the past when another team arrived there. She said it was a time paradox or something… it was all making my head spin.
“We aren’t traveling through time in order,” Little Native explained. “We’re scattered throughout it. And that is why the tunnels are so important. They allow team members from different missions to encounter one another, and learn from their predecessors.
“But if you finished your mission,” I asked, “why are you still here?”
10K v2.0 interrupted. “Because there was nowhere to go back to.”
Little Native gently placed a hand on 10K v2.0’s shoulder, giving her a tolerant smile and a subtle shake of her head in amusement.
“Excuse my friend’s bluntness,” she said, meeting my eyes. “I am sure you have noticed this one’s personality can be quite forceful, in any era!” she laughed with a quick jerk of her head toward her version of 10k.
I laughed… seemed pretty accurate of what I had seen so far from the powerhouse personality packed inside that petite package. Geez, try saying that 10 times fast.
Little Native continued, providing a bit more detail than her cohort. “The changes made by a successful mission alter the future. The future that had originally sent that team backward no longer exists in precisely the same form. So when they return to their time, the ‘US’ that exists here just sort of gets erased. They wake up in the new timeline with completely new memories, and no memory of their mission.”
“And that is important to understand; the volunteers understood the stakes before they ever left. They chose the period(s) in which they were willing to remain, and how many times they would go. Some wanted the adventure. Some wanted to experience history. Some considered it a patriotic duty. But everyone who came here volunteered. We knew the risks,” Little Native said quietly. “At the time of our mission, we wanted to be here.”
I looked around the old shop. “So you’re stuck here?”
Historical 10K smiled. “That’s a rather unpleasant way of putting it.” She looked toward Little Native. “We prefer to think of it as staying where we chose to be.”
The End of The Beginning
That somehow made it feel less frightening. And more extraordinary. Then I remembered something else. I looked toward the map in my mind.
“How are we supposed to know our mission, much less complete it?”
Historical 10K smiled. “That’s where the symbols come in.” Then she explained the final piece.
The people who had already completed their missions were not simply going about normal life in their era, and forgetting the future existed.They were part of a network. When a new exploratory team arrived, they could help that team understand what had happened. They could trigger the next stage.
Because once the truth was revealed, the memories would begin returning. Not all at once. Not neatly. Little fragments at first.
- A face.
- A place.
- A conversation.
- A name.
- A memory of why they volunteered.
- A memory of what they were sent to accomplish.
“For some of you, it will happen quickly,” 10K 2.0 said. “For others, it may take days.” She looked directly at present-day 10K. “But they will come back.”
10K swallowed. “All of them?” 10K 2.0 nodded. “Eventually.”
I looked at Little Native. “And once we remember?” Little Native smiled.
“Then your real mission begins.”
That was when I finally understood.
The caves weren’t the mission. The portals weren’t the mission. Even finding the people who came before us wasn’t the mission. Those things were the beginning.
The subliminal impulses had been designed to bring us here. To find the tunnels. To find someone who could tell us the truth. To wake up the memories that had been buried when we arrived. And now that we’d been told who we really were…
We had work to do.
I thought about the symbols on the map. There were so many. So many homes. So many businesses. So many people scattered throughout Blackwood.
People who didn’t know what they really were. People who had volunteered for this. People who might still be waiting for someone to find them.
I looked at 10K. She was already looking at me. “We’re going to have to find them,” she said.
10K 2.0 and Little Native smiled in unison. “Yes.”
I looked around the little shop one more time. “All of them?”
“All of them.”
And for the first time since the cave appeared in my home, I understood what Blackwood had been trying to tell us.
It wasn’t calling us here to solve a mystery. It was calling us to our new home.
