It was a crystalline Halloween night, and the dance was going brilliantly. Fifty-five Time Travelers’ University students had put on their costumes and kicked off their shoes to swing dance barefoot in the biggest patch of grass their campus had to offer. Gods, goddesses, nymphs, superheroes, celebrities, pirates, and Jedi all mixed and mingled with varying levels of grace. Bouncing brassy jazz music wafted through the cool night air, alternating the rasping tones of Louis Armstrong with the crooning tangible souls of Sinatra and his followers.
Helena Greenleaf savored the way the music set the desire to dance alight within her, delighted that she finally knew how to move when the right kind of music moved her, at least a little, instead of standing in graceless frustration as the music called her name. She had taken her last name as inspiration for her costume and come as a woodland elf. For an hour at least, she swallowed her fear and her pride and asked the guys for dances. Her sparkling hopes for dreamy dance partners had been banished to the realm of fiction long ago.
The music ended, and she retreated from her last partner, Julius Caesar, with a mix of distaste and admiration. He’d dropped her during a dip, but she was impressed that he could swing dance at all in that toga. Leaning against the dessert table, she munched on a mini chocolate bar and admired the skilled moves of the swing dance instructors. Tonight, they were Gatsby and Daisy. She wondered if any real historical figures had been planted among the guests. Anything was possible at this crazy college.
“Hey, do you want to dance?”
Startled, Helena turned to the sound of the voice. A surprisingly kind and friendly-looking pirate had come up beside her. She stared at him in disbelief. No guy had ever asked her to dance before of his own free will. “Sure,” she said, following him back into the wet grass. “Do you know how?” Most of the swing dancers tonight were first timers.
“Yes I do,” he said, taking her hands in his. “Do you?”
“A little,” she said, counting off the beat in her head as they began the basic step. “I’ve been coming to the dances for a few weeks. I suck at teaching, though.”
She smiled at the feel of his hands--they were dry and pleasantly rough, not slimy with nervous sweat like the other guys’ hands.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Helena Greenleaf,” she replied. “What’s yours?”
“Asher Wellbourne, but I go by Ash.”
As he spoke, groups of college students who thought they weren’t too old to go trick-or-treating wandered past the dancing lawn. Some stopped to chat with friends. Others joined the dance. A few girls who had been waiting for dances too long drifted away, either following the other trick-or-treaters or retreating to the safety of their dorm rooms to sweeten the bitterness of disappointment with pilfered candy.
Helena was about to respond to Ash when he unexpectedly spun her twice, in and out in rapid succession. Spinning always made her a little giddy, and she found herself grinning as he brought her back into the basic step. “Ash Wellbourne. That’s a good name for a pirate.”
“I’m gonna assume that was a compliment,” he said, grinning in return. “You’re a freshman, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. Is it that obvious?”
“No, I was just guessing because I hadn’t seen you before,” he said. “I’m a sophomore. What other steps do you know, Helena?”
“Umm…” Helena attempted to remember, but the names of the steps escaped her as she grew more flustered. “I know a few…but I don’t really remember the names.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll go slow.”
Now this is more like it, she thought as he led her smoothly through the wild, twirling, twisting steps whose names she only half-remembered, with the exception of a few particularly apt names that came to her as they went on dancing. I can’t say I’ve ever imagined dancing with a pirate. Somehow I don’t think he’d be a very successful one. But he can lead, that’s the main thing.
“Very nice,” he said as they completed the alarmingly complicated “Pretzel” move without getting tangled. “Are you a dance major?”
His smile went all the way into his clear blue eyes and Helena completely lost the beat. Usually she didn’t make eye contact with her partners if she could help it, but she was not afraid of him as she was of the others. “No,” she said with a small smile as they began the basic again. “I’m in music and business--double major. You?”
“Ministry.”
Oh, Helena thought. Previous experience made her wary of anything that had to do with ministry. However, she had met some truly genuine and kind ministry majors here at TTU, so she hid her concern with an attempt at humor: “That’s a very popular choice here. Are you going to go minister to the other pirates to change their thieving ways?”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Let’s go with that.”
His laughter softened Helena's prejudice considerably. “Did you hear about the real pirates?” she asked, feeling the influence of his friendliness and good looks upon her judgment.
“Oh, yes,” he groaned. “I live in Wonderwood.”
Wonderwood was the newest dorm on campus, and the first dorm to be built next to the ocean.
“Oh gosh,” Helena said.
“Yeah, I was there when it happened,” Ash said. He had told the story at least a hundred times that week, and he thought that he was sick of telling it, but he suddenly felt eager to tell it to this girl. “So, I was in the common room writing an essay, minding my own business, and BANG! Gunshots started whizzing past my ears. I took cover behind the couch, and I look up and literally Blackbeard has blasted down the door to the common room and he and his pirates are swarming in!”
“Were you scared?”
“I was terrified. I thought ‘Well, this is a weird way to die, cowering behind a sofa while a couple of time-traveling pirates shoot up the common room.'”
Helena giggled in spite of herself. “I’m sorry. It shouldn’t be funny. So what did you do?”
“Don’t apologize -- the whole thing’s absurd. I didn’t know what to do,” Ash replied. “I didn’t have any weapons, and I had no idea what they wanted. If they were looking for treasure, they’d come to the wrong place -- a building full of broke college students.”
“Yeah,” Helena said, struggling to suppress a grin.
Ash switched into his best pirate voice. “I wish I could say that I drew me sword and sent the whole lot back to Davy Jones’ locker.” He switched back into his normal Texas twang. “Everyone else was either screaming or hiding. Then I saw this massive extension cord that someone had left out, and being the good Texan that I am, I snatched it up and made a lasso out of it.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Do you think I could make this stuff up? It was the only idea I could come up with at the time. I knelt down behind the sofa and blindly lassoed Blackbeard. Weirdly enough, it worked. I yanked it and he went down. The other pirates were so shocked that some of the Wonderwood guys were able to tackle them while they weren’t paying attention. Then Campus Safety came blasting through the door and took over. No one was killed, thank goodness.”
Helena shook her head. “That’s the craziest thing I ever heard. Is it true that someone let them out as a prank?’
“Unfortunately yes, someone was that dumb. Most people think it must have been an honors student, because only they would have that kind of access to the time machines.”
Helena grimaced. “That’s ironic. And embarrassing. Most of the honors students are fairly responsible.”
“You’re in honors?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Impressive.”
The color rose in Helena’s cheeks. “So is lassoing Blackbeard.”
He shrugged. “That was just luck. Wish I could have thought of something better. I also wish they’d let us carry weapons on campus so we don’t get slaughtered if something like that happens again.”
Helena nodded. “It does seem logical…but I guess it’s tricky--they don’t want us using them on each other. But they’re giving us weapons training for when we go into the Past…I don’t know. It probably comes down to insurance or something like that.”
“If the insurance people knew what we were doing on a regular basis, we’d be toast,” Ash said.
“True. I love this place! Impossible things happen every day.”
“Yes they do,” Ash agreed.
“So is that why you’re a pirate tonight?”
“Actually, it was the only costume I could come up with at the last minute,” he replied sheepishly. “Normally I’d go as a cowboy, but I left all my stuff in Texas.”
Helena smiled. “Looks good on you.”
“Thanks,” Ash said, torn between pride and embarrassment as he spun her out again in preparation for a small dip.
She spun in twice and put her arms around his shoulders for the dip. “Do you miss it?”
He didn’t answer until he’d brought her back up to firm ground. “Texas? Yeah, a little. I miss the wide open spaces. Pretty cheesy, huh?”
She smiled. “Not if you mean it. My dad says that clichés are clichés because they have a lot of truth in them.”
“Well, it is true,” he said. “I’m not a big city person. I don’t have much time to miss it, though, between school and fighting off pirates. Speaking of ships, shall we do the ‘Titanic?”
“Sure,” she said. The unfortunately-named ‘Titanic’ was one of the tamer trust-fall moves in swing. Helena faced away from him, still holding his hands, and fell forward.
Ash caught her, pulling her back up against him. “What about you? Are you homesick? I know the first year is hard.” He set her back on her feet and easily spun her out again, back into the basic step.
“Sometimes. I’m from Florida so it’s not too difficult in that respect. I love Florida--there’s so many different facets to it. And it’s always so busy and exciting here--”
“You can say that again,” Ash agreed.
“Yes, so I don’t have too much time to be homesick either. Sometimes though…I get tired of feeling like I could die every minute, and I get enough of all the insanity--when the adrenaline dies down, I guess. I’m not a big city person either. I miss my family. I miss the quiet, and seeing the sunrise over the marsh, the oak trees…”
“Spoken like a true elf,” Ash teased. “Your costume is fantastic, by the way.”
Helena’s face lit up. “Thanks. There’s a reason my last name is Greenleaf, although I don’t love being outside all the time. I’ll happily stay inside and read a book all day, but I do appreciate what’s around me. Creation is…staggering… Except mosquitoes. I don’t understand mosquitoes.”
Ash laughed. “No one understands mosquitoes.”
Someone brought in a hued strobe light, and it carelessly slung color on the windows of the girls’ dorm at the far end of the lawn. Curious, several girls opened their windows to see what was going on. A few faculty members walked by, trying to look casual as they made sure nothing too wild or pagan was happening at the dance. After telling a group of too-realistic zombies to go wash off their makeup, the “real adults” (as Helena thought of them) made off with a fair amount of the candy.
Ash and Helena paused for a moment to catch their breath as the song ended.
“You want to go get something to drink?” Ash asked.
“Sure,” Helena replied. “Provided the other Wonderwood boys haven’t spiked the punch again.”
“Oh, you heard about that?” Ash said, grimacing. “Good grief, we have a terrible reputation. I swear I wasn’t involved with that.”
“What, no rum for this pirate?” Helena joked as they walked over to the table. Her feet were aching, but she would gladly go on dancing if he wanted to later.
“Nah. I don’t know about you, but I need all the brain cells I can get if I’m going to survive this school.”
“Literally,” Helena agreed.
“Yep. It’s just gonna have to be ‘Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of Zephyrhills.”
Helena dissolved into giggles as Ash poured them both punch. A few other students were clustered around the table, swapping stories about their trick-or-treating escapades. A police car came tearing down the street that ran past the dancing lawn, the siren screaming like a lost soul.
“That’s what I really don’t like about this place,” she said, sipping her punch gratefully. “Nowhere is really safe. I miss being able to go places alone.” She stared across the lawn, watching the others dance, amazed at how different it felt to see the same scene with Ash standing beside her. Though dancing made her tired, the bitter ache in her soul had vanished.
Ash wiped his brow and gazed at her, seeing his opportunity and wondering if he should take it. Asking her to dance had been a risk worth taking. She was intriguing, Helena Greenleaf. What the heck, he thought. Might as well give it a shot.
“Well…” he said, “If you ever need somebody to go places with, I’d be more than happy to come with you.”
She stared up at him in complete surprise. “You would? Like…as… a date?”
“Yeah,” he said, suddenly feeling shy. “If you’d like.”
“That--that would be great,” Helena stammered, grinning helplessly. “Oh gosh…”
He grinned back at her, then fished his phone out of his pocket and handed it to her. “Here, give me your number, and I’ll text you so you’ll have mine. Just let me know when you want to go someplace.”
“Okay,” Helena said, taking the phone from him and putting in her number. “I’m not sure when--it’s so insanely busy here. Maybe next weekend.”
“Sounds good,” he said, as she handed the phone back to him. “Do you want to dance some more, or are you going to call it a night?” He offered her his hand.
She took it, grinning. “Let’s dance. This is a good song.”
Ash’s eyes sparkled as he led her back out into the grass. “So, what about you? What adventures have you had so far in the madness that is Time Traveler’s University?”
