It was kinda a warm-ish day, so we decided to get some money from Grandma so we could go to the water park, where I stripped down to my boxers and Charlie, to her bra and jeans.

The lady was right; it was a pretty sweet thrill. There were a total of five water slides that were all curvy, fast, and crazy fun; we slid down those over and over again until we had to meet Grandma at six.

"Did you two have fun today?" She asked as we got in the car and began driving back to the cabin.

"Yup!" Charlie and I said in unison. We would not bring up Janie Tana Utwell; one, we'd probably imagined her; our minds had conjured up a ghost when we'd found there were no ghosts, and two, Grandma would undoubtedly think we were crazy and probably take us away to some other remote town; I didn't think I wanted that.

I laid awake late that night thinking, which believe me is unusual. I kept playing the encounter in the woods with the invisible girl in the old-fashioned clothes; her voice was still clear in my head. I thought back to the piece of wood; warped and mildewy; yet that little girl had been so eager to get her hands on it. She'd been looking for it for years- that's what she'd told us. She'd thrown it out the window when they were attacked. By what, though? I suddenly remembered the poster and the story we'd been told; about the children's home being shot up by terrorists. That'd happened in 1949, and, I'm not exactly a fashion guru, the dress Janie had been wearing looked like something a little girl might've worn back then. Maybe she was the ghost of one of the children. That thought sent a shiver up my spine. And it finally came to me; the little boy who'd looked strangely familiar; I knew where I'd seen his face before; but it was only this morning, which wasn't possible; he'd died in 1949. But his was the face I'd seen in the hole in the cliff face, I was sure of it.

Although my brain was going a million miles an hour, sleep managed to consume me.

I had a very weird dream. I was in what appeared to be a bedroom; it had a wire-framed bed, a nightstand with a lamp, bookshelves on one side, an open closet with tons of clothes in it, and a dark window looking out into a snowy forest. I was sitting in a chair in a corner. The room was lit up enough to see what was going on.

"Did it work?" A familiar little voice chirped from the bed; a tiny invisible girl wearing a forties-style dress.

The boy next to her had a look of deep concentration on his face. He looked about fifteen or sixteen, but he wore a formal brown suit with a red tie and matching pocket handkerchief. His blond hair was slicked back. He suddenly arched his eyebrows. "Yes!" He said in a British accent. "We have a good transmission." His face relaxed and he looked directly at me. "Richard, is it?"

"I-I go by Ricky." I was surprised I could answer. "What the hell is going on here?"

"Isn't it obvious? I'm sending you a dream." The boy said.

"Miss Cardinal told us there's new peculiars in the valley." Janie piped up. "She knows things."

The hairs on my neck stood up when she said "peculiar"; how had she known?

"Forgive me; I forgot to introduce myself. " the boy said. "The name's Raymond Somnusson; don't call me Ray."

"You and your sister should come to our loop!" Janie exclaimed. "It's very easy; you just go into the hole in the cliff face near where you come out onto the main road, go counterclockwise around the column in the middle, and you're in!"

"Yes we do hope you can come visit; it gets pretty boring here sometimes." Raymond added. "Just remember to wear warm clothes; it's always winter in here." He screwed up his face for a second and the room went a little staticky. "Sorry; I do wish we could make this last longer, but unfortunately I can't keep a connection with someone who's not in our loop for very long."

"Tomorrow works!" Jamie shouted from the fading room. "Or really any day; they're all the same!"

When I woke up, I had a massive headache and the bright light streaming in through the windows didn't help. I held my head in my hands for a few minutes until I wasn't dizzy anymore. I looked at the other bed and saw Charlie was still fast asleep, snoring away. As the pain subsided, my senses returned; I heard and smelled bacon and eggs sizzling in a pan. I looked toward the kitchen and saw Grandma deep in concentration as she hummed to herself, turning and seasoning the food until it was just right.  

I quickly got up, grabbed some clothes from my backpack, ducked into the bathroom, tended to my morning duties, and got dressed. When I got out, Charlie was sitting up on the bed, clearly groggy.

"Morning, sis." I mumbled as I walked by her to the table, where a plate of bacon and eggs sat in the middle, three plates were stacked right next to it, and Grandma was on her laptop wearing her reading glasses. "Sleep alright?" She asked.

"Yeah. Fine." I lied.

I grabbed a plate and scooped some breakfast onto it. I had eaten almost all of my bacon by the time Charlie finally sat down, her white-and-purple hair frizzy and shooting up in all directions.

I whispered to her, "hey, let's go on a walk after breakfast; there's something we need to talk about."

She just nodded slightly and served herself.

So after we both ate, and Charlie had gotten dressed and hair bushed, we left the cabin, promising Grandma we wouldn't be out too long. We didn't go into the woods; just along the road. As soon as we turned the corner and could no longer see the cabin, I told her about my dream.

She bit her lip. "That's weird. You think there's anything to it?"

I shrugged. "No, probably not."

"Hey, maybe we should go to the hole and check!" She joked, kicking s pile of leaves onto the road.

"Ha! But seriously; remember that poster and the story? And that invisible girl?"

"Yeah." She frowned. "What about it all?"

I shook my head; it all seemed kinda stupid when I said it out loud. "I dunno; probably nothing."

We continued along the road until we got to the main road; it was a nice morning; not too hot, but not too cool; just nice and crisp; something we rarely get down in Florida. There were no cars, or any movement for that matter.

Charlie spat on the ground, looked up at a really tall tree right next to us. "Bet ya I can climb higher than you."

"You are so on." I replied, jumping onto a low branch and starting to climb.

Charlie caught up real fast; that girl must've been adopted from monkeys.

We were about twenty or thirty feet up when a sudden gust of wind made the tree sway dangerously. We realized that if the tree fell over, it would send us both tumbling down the cliff that was beside us. We climbed down as fast as we possibly could.

"How 'bout hide-and-seek?" Charlie suggested.

"What are we, five?" I chuckled. "Besides, there's a million places you could hide!"

"Well then, only count to ten."

I sighed; how far could she get in five seconds? "Okay." I hid behind a tree, hiding my eyes with my hands, and started counting.

When I got to ten, I opened my eyes and saw her converse sneaker disappear into the hole in the cliff face- the very same one I'd seen the child's face in; and also the one Janie mentioned in my dream.

I followed Charlie in there, completely sure nothing would happen.

"Got ya!" I exclaimed when I crawled inside. My voice echoed off the stone walls, and Charlie wasn't there; she'd completely vanished.

There was a large column in the middle; just a funnel of rock dipping down to an inch off the bumpy floor. I put my head behind it and two things happened; my ears popped, and I felt a blast of freezing cold air; like less than zero degrees Fahrenheit.

"Charlie?" I calleded, pulling my entire body through into very wintery air.

I looked back out and noticed something incredibly strange; all the trees were bare, the sky was clear, and tons of snow covered everything on the ground except the road. The trail to the cabin was no longer there; there were trees right in the middle of where the path would be. Charlie was standing with her back to me, completely still, if not for the shivering; both of us were wearing short sleeves.

"What the hell is this?" I said.

Charlie turned around to face me, face bright pink from the cold and forming a very shocked expression.

"M-maybe someone in town 'll be able to tell us what's going on." I suggested.

She nodded and we began walking down the road.

Our feet and legs were soaked to the bone by the time we arrived at the hill between the town and the forest. When we got to the top, I didn't notice much of a difference in the town except the snow, the vintage cars that were now the only cars around, and there were no longer any neon signs of any kind; as if we'd stepped into the past.

"'Scuse me, sir," Charlie caught the attention of a man walking by. "What's today's date?"

"Why, it's New Year's Eve, of course!" He exclaimed, then he adjusted his glasses and gave us a closer look. "Say, I don't think I've ever seen you children before."

"We're new." I said. "Just came in with our Grandma."

"Really? Well welcome to our humble little town! And tell your granny the same goes to her!" The man said, patting me on the shoulder.

"What year is it?" Charlie looked around.

The man furrowed his brow. "1949. My, you must be from really outta town."

I gaped at him. "1949?"

He frowned. "Yes, 1949; same year it was yesterday. And it'll be 1950 tomorrow."

Charlie's eyes grew wide. "Thank you, sir, have a nice day."

The man walked away, muttering something I couldn't quite catch.

My sister looked at me with intense urgency. "Ricky! It's December 31st, 1949!"

"Yeah. I caught that." I rubbed my temples, not quite able to wrap my head around this.

"No! The children's home! It gets attack tonight! We have to go warn them!"

"Why?" I swear, sometimes my sister's moral compass really gets on my nerves. But something inside of me told me that going to the children's home would get me answers.

We began running in the direction of the giant house in the woods.

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