Chapter 29

"Is there such a place?...A place you can't go out once you enter?"Grams asks.

They are sitting under the tree Irye previously sits. Gerrard opens the map to check. He traces from the circled spot where Abigail and Sam were found dead past the spot Claude circled with his finger.

He traces to the location they are supposed to meet Irye but gets lost. Their current location doesn't seem to be on the map. He tries one more time, still getting the same result.

"This place doesn't seem to be on the map."Gerrard says, looking at his family.

"What?"Claude says, abruptly standing. "Let me check"he takes the map from Gerrard and traces the same path Gerrard passes.

"No it's not possible"Claude says unbelievably, causing his siblings to join him.

He traces the spot again, this time desperately praying that it'd be there. Once he verifies that Gerrard is speaking the truth, he sits on the ground hopelessly.

The others exchange looks and go back to where they were sitting. Irye switches on her phone and looks at the time.

"Guys, what says the time?"she asks, confused.

Evie brings up her wrist and position her watch well.

"It's twelve after seven"She says. "Doesn't your phone work?"she asks Irye.

"Mine says this."she shows the phone to Evie.

"17:34"she reads. "Are you living backwards?"she teases and Irye chuckles.

"I wonder why it hasn't...."Irye mumbles to herself but gets interrupted.

"What did you say the time is?"Mae asks.

"Well i think its changed though."Evie says looking at her watch. "Oh... it's still twelve minutes after seven. Why are you guys asking me? Don't you have phones?"

"That's not possible."Mae says in a daze.

"What's not possible? The time?"Gerrard asks trying to make a joke out of all that's happening the moment.

"Which age are you living in?"Gerrard amuses. "The time..."

"It's not moving"Mae whispers, interrupting.

"What?... It's not moving? What is?"Gerrard asks with a smile tugging at his lips.

"Don't you get it?"Mae yells in a serious tone. "Is this the time for you to joke around?"she asks, getting angry.

"Time to joke around... get it?"Gerrard jokes, moving his eyebrows up and down repeatedly.

"Just get to what you want to say already"Claude speaks finally, getting tired of their chit chat when he's thinking if a way to get them out of there.

"Before we came here, I checked the time because I was tired and we didn't seem to find Irye."Mae begins.

"Your point?"Evie asks, preparing to lash out at her sister if she criticises Irye.

"It was eight minutes after seven. Can you say with all the time that's passed, we only used four minutes?"Mae explains further.

"Huh?.. Even with Irye trying to warn us not to come any further can take that four minutes."Claude says.

"Yeah but just now Evie says it's twelve after seven. My phone says the same...."Mae pauses.

"So let's say we spent four minutes before going through the boundary. Where did the remaining time we spent go?"Gerrard asks.

"Thank you...You get it now?"Mae breathes in relief.

"We are not just stuck in here but also stuck in time?" Evie asks.

"I don't think so. It's just the phone not working here. It has no signal too. Let's say I came here like some few minutes before six because I didn't really check the time. The time on my phone says 17:34 PM."

"So you must have gotten in here minutes after five so the moment you entered, the time stopped for you."Claude concludes.

"Now that you say it, I think the second hand of my watch is not moving."Evie says looking at her watch. "And its made to move so it doesn't use Wi-Fi or anything internet like the phone for updates."

"Time also stops once you get past the boundary."Grams speaks at last.

"What is this place?" Evie asks, frustratingly.

"Now we will have to use the change in atmosphere to determine the time."Grams tells them.

"We will use the direction is the sun and also the moon to know the time."Mae adds.

"This is so frustrating. How did Uncle Sam and Abigail think of coming here in the first place."Evie says, passing her fingers through her hair.

"Let's figure everything out tomorrow."Claude says. "Am getting hungry".

"Yeah.. me too"Evie agrees, removing snacks from her bag.

She mainly packed snacks into her bag because she lives on them. As a complete snacker, she packs a lot to take her through their time there.

She passes some to her siblings and Grams.

"This should take us to tomorrow. Most of our stuffs are in the van."Evie says.

"And we can't go out"Gerrard concludes for her.

Gerrard bring out the folded tents he is carrying and sets it up. They manage to adjust themselves to the environment.

Evie and Irye share a tent, so do Gerrard and Claude. Mae brings her own her tent so she and Grams don't have to share.

They sleep the night, worrying about what will happen the next day.

The next day, they wake up and do all basic things they need to do.

The sky is bright and it seems a little cold.

They also live on snacks that day and sometime in the afternoon, they get to know that there is something wrong with the date.