Excerpts Time Travel Read an Excerpt From The Traveler by Joseph Eckert A reluctant time-traveler, his extraordinary son, and the bond between them that even millennia cannot break… By Joseph Eckert | Published on May 5, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from The Traveler by Joseph Eckert, a time travel adventure full of heartbreak, hope, and futures beyond imagination, publishing with Tor Books on June 9th. It’s a day like any other when Scott Treder first jumps forward through time. One moment, he’s on his way to work, fingers drumming the steering wheel. The next, he’s tumbling headlong down the road, his car gone, a dozen panicked voicemails from his wife waiting on his cell.7:51am. Monday, April 13th.A blink of an eye.7:52am. Tuesday, April 14th.An entire 24 hours, gone.This one moment—this first spontaneous slip—marks a change in the course not only of Scott’s future, but that of the world. From this point on, at precisely 7:52am every morning, Scott inexplicably travels forward in time in ever-doubling intervals. First one day lost in a blink, then two, then four, until weeks, even years, are passing him by in an instant.Meanwhile, his wife is left alone to pick up the pieces of the life they once shared together, and, before long, Lyle, Scott’s genius seven-year-old son, will surpass him in age.Because while his dad is rocketing forward in time, Lyle is growing up–graduating early, studying at Berkeley, becoming the foremost scholar of quantum physics, all in an attempt to bring his father back… CHAPTER 1 I was driving to work the first time it happened. It was a chilly April morning in Madison, Wisconsin, the sun peering over the rooftops in my neighborhood. I was running a little late, but not much more than usual. A sports podcast played in the background, although I wasn’t really listening. I was just driving. One more day, one more morning, like any other. I had a headache. It had pulsed behind my eyes since I’d gotten up, but it was getting steadily worse. Then, for less than a single heartbeat, the world slipped and my car disappeared. For a fraction of a moment, I was still moving forward, a little over the posted twenty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit, in a sitting position, one arm up, fingers of my right hand curled in a circle where the steering wheel had been. Knees bent; one foot extended to feather a gas pedal that was no longer there. Then I fell, gravity pulling my poised position apart. My feet hit the pavement first, then my rear end, then my knees as I cartwheeled forward. I tumbled across the rough asphalt, arms and legs flailing, my buttoned-up Oxford shirt and khaki pants tearing like paper. I didn’t even have time to cry out. One moment I was in my car, the next I was rolling across the roadway. I flung my arms up to cover my head as I curled in a ball. The ground hammered into my back, my sides, my thighs, my knees, my shoulders. I tumbled a dozen yards before I came to a stop, my cheek pressed against the road. The double yellow center line extended away from me, bright against the rough pattern of the asphalt. Before me was the rust-etched underside of a parked car. I couldn’t breathe, and I felt panic rise before a clear thought made it through the muddle in my head and I forced myself to breathe in. Cold air flooded into empty lungs. I coughed, sucked more air in, and groaned. “What—” A horn blared, tires screeched, and a black truck—therehadn’t been anyone behind me—swerved around my outstretched feet before roaring past. The driver shouted something at me as he went by, but I didn’t catch the words. I jerked up and crab-walked backward until my wrists hit the curb. I pulled myself onto the concrete sidewalk, moving on adrenaline, and fell to my back. I stared at drifting clouds in the bright morning sky. The wind had drawn them into a broad wing shape, framed by trees and powerlines on either side of the street. I raised trembling hands, my heart hammering in my chest. The heels of my palms were bloody patches dotted with rocks and bits of asphalt. Everything hurt. Blood trickled down my calves from my knees. “What the hell?” I croaked. I heard the scrape of someone’s shoes on the concrete to my left. I turned my head and felt a spike of pain as the muscles in my neck seized up. Two young girls wearing identical backpacks stared wide-eyed down at me. They turned, looked at one another, then pelted down the sidewalk away from me. “Mom! Mom!” one of them screamed. I opened my mouth to call out and ask them what they’d seen, if they knew where my car was, but my phone started buzzing in my pants pocket. I fumbled with shaking hands and pulled it out. The screen was cracked in three new places. I held it against the backdrop of the sky and squinted. I had dozens of missed texts and several voicemails. I checked the texts, my thumb going to them by reflex. The first was from my officemate, Andy. “Dude. You coming in today or what?” I could only frown at the phone and shake my head, the concrete rough beneath my hair. I swiped to the next. This was from my supervisor, Melissa. “Scott. It had better be an emergency. You can’t just not show up for work. You have to call in.” I flipped through the rest, all variations on the same theme. I shifted to the voicemails. All were from Amy, my wife. I listened to the first while reading the automatically generated transcript, the little bubble moving across the screen to mark the passage of time as she spoke. “Scott, where are you?” Amy asked. “The police called me. They said you hit a parked car, and you left the Honda there, with the keys still in it and the engine running? Jesus, Scott. I mean, what did you do, just—just walk away or something? Call me when you get this. This is so bizarre.” The next one was from her, too. “Scott. I had to leave school and drive to Winslet to deal with the police. The Honda’s a wreck. It cost two hundred dollars to get it towed, and I had to give our insurance information to that lady whose car you hit. Her parked car you hit. I called your office, and your boss said you didn’t show up for work. Where are you?” Amy again. “Scott? Just—just give me a call, okay? I’m not mad, I just want to know what happened, and if you’re okay. Call me.” The last one was from her, too, and she sounded like she’d been crying. “Scott. Jesus. It’s half past nine at night. Where are you? Lyle’s beside himself. I’m—I’m worried. Call me. Or come home.” I pulled myself up until I sat on the curb. I gazed at my torn pants and dirty, bloody shirt. I held the phone up again. The time read 7:52 AM, which was fine. The smaller letters beneath those read Tuesday, April 14. That was not fine. It was April 13. It was Monday, April 13. I knew it. I knew it was April 13. But those little glowing white letters, plastered over the photo of Amy and my son, Lyle, hugging in front of a carousel, said otherwise. “What the hell?” I said again. I glanced around, but apart from the occasional passing car and an elderly woman walking a dog a couple blocks down, there was no one around. I thumbed through the contacts and speed-dialed my wife’s phone. She picked up on the first ring. “Scott?” “Amy, I—” “Scott, what the hell? Where have you been?” Her voice rose several octaves in the few seconds it took her to rush through the words. “Amy, I don’t know what’s going on, one second I’m driving to work, the next I’m—” “Where are you?” I rubbed my head and frowned as I pulled a sharp pebble from the skin above my eyebrow. “I’m on Winslet. I don’t know, midway down?” “I’m coming to get you. Stay there.” “Aren’t you at work?” “I took the day off. Lyle, he—Jesus, Scott.” She paused. “Where have you been?” “Amy, honestly, I was driving and then the car, it was gone…” “The car was gone? What does that mean?” “Exactly like it sounds. One second, I’m driving, then I’m…” “Then you were what, Scott?” “Just—just come get me.” I heard her breathing. In the background, I heard my son’s voice asking if she was talking to Dad. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.” “Thanks, honey. I love—” She hung up before I could get the words out. I sighed and slipped the phone into my pocket and, stifling a groan, began the slow process of picking myself off the sidewalk. I managed to stand without doing any more damage to my skin or my clothes. I tried to brush off my pants and shirt without letting my fingers touch the raw scrapes. “Hey, you okay, mister?” I turned and winced as the muscles in my neck protested. A teenage boy had pulled up on a bike. He had a backpack slung over one shoulder. His jaw worked as he chewed gum. “Yeah, I’m all right.” “Shit, dude, you don’t look all right.” He blew a bubble of gum, popped it, and kept chewing. “In fact, you look like shit. You need an ambulance or something?” “No, I’m fine. My wife’s coming to pick me up.” He cocked his head. “This neighborhood gets weirder every day.” I rubbed at the muscles in my neck. They were knots of rope, tightening under my fingers. “Why do you say that?” The teenager jerked a thumb down the road. “Yesterday, I seen this car, right around here, nobody in the driver’s seat, just cruisin’ down the road. I watched it go maybe a half a block before—” He raised his hands, made one into a fist, and slammed it into the palm of the other. “Wham, you know? Hits this parked car.” “Yesterday, huh?” “Yeah, right around this time, too.” He looked at his watch. “Shit, I gotta get to school. You sure you’re all right?” “I’m all right.” “Okay. You keep tellin’ yourself that, man. Maybe it’ll come true.” He rode away before I could think of a reply. I stood there, picking rocks out of my skin, until Amy rolled up in the minivan. She stepped out of the driver’s side. My son was in the back seat, his nose pressed against the window. The thick lenses of his glasses made his eyes look tiny and far away. His mouth was open. “God, Scott.” Amy came around the front of the minivan. Her dark eyes, identical to Lyle’s, were bloodshot. She’d tied her hair in a bun behind her head, and she wore sweatpants and one of my T-shirts. “Um, hey,” I said, and felt stupid. “How are you?” She stopped a pace before me and looked me up and down. I could tell from her expression how terrible I must look. “What… what happened?” I raised my arms a little, thinking to hug her. Fresh pain pulsed from the scrapes at the movement, cloth sliding across torn skin, and I winced. Something in the set of her shoulders made me stop and lower my hands. She didn’t want me to hug her, not at that moment. “I don’t know, honey. I really don’t. One second, I was driving to work, the next, the car’s gone, and I’m rolling down the street.” She bit her lip, furrows creasing her forehead. “Did you get thrown out of the car or something?” “I—Can we just go home? Please?” She chewed on her lip and glanced back at the minivan and Lyle. He watched us with his intense eyes, unblinking. She looked back at me and took me by the shoulder. She guided me off the sidewalk like I was an old man. Or a crazy person. “Daddy?” Lyle asked as I clambered into the passenger seat. It had been a long time since he’d called me “Daddy.” “Hey, bud,” I said, turning carefully in the seat to meet my son’s eyes. “How ya doing?” “Dad, where’d you go? You didn’t come home last night.” Amy opened the driver’s side door and got in. She started the engine, glancing sideways at me. “I’m not sure, buddy,” I said, keeping one eye on Amy. “I’m trying to figure that one out myself.” “Are you really okay, Dad?” Amy looked into the rearview mirror, frowning at the change in Lyle’s tone. He did this, sometimes, catching us off guard. One minute he was a normal, albeit quiet and bookish, seven-year-old kid. Then he’d say something so adult it threw us. His affect changed. Even the way he looked at us changed. I once asked my own father about it, if he’d ever experienced anything like that with me, during one of the rare occasions we had something approaching a civilized conversation. He just shrugged, distracted as always, and said kids were weird. “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, bud, I’m okay.” Lyle sat back in his seat. I gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile and not a frightening grimace and turned around in my seat, stifling a groan. We drove for the next few blocks, Amy glancing over at me or up in the mirror at Lyle every few seconds. I tried not to move, tried not to let out any sound as we went over bumps. I looked sideways at Amy, catching glimpses of her in the corner of my eye. I was usually pretty good at reading her. Better than most people, her sister included. But I couldn’t read her now. Buy the Book The Traveler Joseph Eckert Buy Book The Traveler Joseph Eckert Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget I took a breath. Steeled myself. “Amy.” She held the steering wheel so tight the tendons in her hands stood out. “Yes.” “Is it—is it the fourteenth? It’s Tuesday?” Her lips drew into a line. She met my gaze for a second, her eyes wide. “Yes, Scott. It’s the fourteenth.” I nodded and put my head back against the seat. We didn’t speak the rest of the way to the duplex. My Honda was in my half of the driveway. It didn’t look too bad, considering. The passenger-side front was a little mangled, but it looked drivable. I wasn’t looking forward to the repair bill. It was obvious to everyone, including my insurance, that I was at fault. Amy walked before me up the steps and let Lyle into the house. He disappeared into his room before I’d closed the front door. “Shouldn’t he be at school?” I asked. “I took the day off, so I let him take the day off, too.” She took a breath. “Come on.” She walked toward our bedroom. I followed her, grimacing at each step. In our room, Amy rounded the bed, heading for the master bathroom. She knelt and got cotton pads and a bar of soap from under the sink. When she stood, her brow remained furrowed as she looked at me. She stepped back to give me space. There was a battered version of myself in the mirror. I looked, if it was possible, even worse than I felt. I started to unbutton my shirt, peeling sticky fabric from the bloody splotches across my skin. “We need to talk about this,” she said. “Yeah.” I got my shirt halfway off. I took a long look at myself. I’d torn a ragged strip of skin from my chin, revealing raw, exposed flesh beneath. There was a deeper gash on my forehead, just above my eyebrow. The top of my left ear oozed blood. The rest of my body was worse. I was lucky I hadn’t broken anything. I’d been going, what, twenty-seven, twenty-eight miles per hour when the car vanished? And I was lucky the truck hadn’t hit me. The truck that hadn’t been behind me a second earlier. I stopped. I leaned against the sink, staring into my own bloodshot eyes. I took in a breath, the air cool on my lips and tongue, and let it back out in a shuddering wave that shook my whole body. What was going on? Was I going crazy? “Scott.” Amy’s voice cut through my thoughts. She sounded like she’d said it more than once. “Yes,” I said, my voice distant to my own ears. I tried to take the shirt the rest of the way off. I grimaced as a large patch of cloth clung to the pinkish meat under the scraped-off skin. The torn fabric had pressed into the wound. Pulling it out felt like dragging needles through exposed nerve endings. “God,” Amy said. “Here.” She took the shirt and worked the edges when the fabric stuck to my bloodied skin. She was firm but gentle, and she did a better job than I’d been doing. When the shirt was clear she stood back and watched as I pulled my khakis off one leg at a time. “Scott, you need to talk to me. I mean—what happened? You disappear for a day and show up like this, looking like you got in a fight with a mountain lion. A fight you clearly lost, you—” I glanced at her in the mirror, hearing the shift in her tone. She trembled. I turned and grasped her shoulders. She went rigid in my hands, then allowed me to pull her close. Her hair felt soft against my chest, one of the few places on my upper body that wasn’t covered in cuts and scrapes. “Honey. Honey, I wasn’t in a fight. No mountain lions were involved. None were in the vicinity, I swear. Not even a big house cat.” The tiniest hint of a smile quirked at the edges of her mouth. “I don’t know what happened,” I said. “I’ll tell you what I do know, okay? But it… it’s going to sound crazy.” She pushed back. “Tell me.” I let my arms fall. I turned back to the sink and started washing the scrapes and cuts with a washcloth as I spoke. The water in the sink turned a brackish pink from blood and bits of gravel. Talking distracted me from the sting. A little. “I was driving to work like every other morning.” I struggled to keep my tone even. Felt around the edges of what I was saying and what Amy needed to hear. Prodded at the truth even as I spoke. “Everything was normal. I was running late, but nothing too bad.” “And this was yesterday?” I hesitated, glancing at myself in the mirror again, as if my reflection would have the answer. It didn’t feel like it had been yesterday. It felt like it’d been half an hour ago. “Yes. Anyway. I was driving down Winslet.” I winced as I rubbed some pebbles and dirt out of a raw patch on my shoulder. They rattled down the curved porcelain of the sink. “Then the car disappeared.” “What does that even mean, Scott? You said that before. It doesn’t make sense.” “I know. I know it doesn’t make sense. But that’s what happened. One second, I’m driving, the next I’m in midair, a foot off the ground, still going twenty-five miles an hour. Must’ve rolled half a football field before I stopped. Then I almost got hit by a truck.” “And that’s what all this is from?” Amy motioned at my body. “Yes.” I rubbed the dirty scrapes, wincing every time the rough cloth touched broken skin. Amy stared at me. “Okay, Scott. Assuming that’s true, that was yesterday morning. These look fresh. Like they happened twenty minutes ago.” “Yes. Exactly.” “What?” I turned. “Amy. Honey. When the car disappeared, when I stopped rolling, I thought it was still the thirteenth. I thought it was still Monday morning. The rest of Monday never happened, not for me. One second, it’s Monday, the next, it’s Tuesday.” The worry lines were back. Amy stood next to the bathtub and was very still. “Say something,” I said. I almost smiled. “Anything.” “Did you hit your head, Scott? When you were in the accident?” I didn’t feel like smiling anymore. I faced the mirror again. “I don’t think so.” “I think we should take you to see a doctor.” “I’m okay. These all look worse than they really are.” “I’m not talking about the scrapes, Scott.” I rinsed the washcloth and started on another patch of bloody skin. “Yeah. I know.” “I’m going to call Dean’s, see if there’s anyone available to see you this morning. You should call work. Tell them you were in an accident, that you won’t be in today, either.” I nodded. She stood for a second, watching me. She reached out and touched my bare shoulder, on a part of skin that wasn’t torn up. She did it gently, carefully. Like stroking a wild animal. “I’ll call Dean’s.” “All right.” She gave me another searching look, then walked out of the bathroom, pulling the door shut as she went. I stopped dabbing my wounds and stared at myself in the mirror again, leaning forward until I was inches away. My own hazel-blue eyes, bloodshot and haggard, revealed nothing. “You’re fine,” the doctor said as he shouldered his way through the door, one arm balancing his laptop. “Apart from all the abrasions and dermal contusions, of course. You’ll want to keep those clean and use a topical antibiotic to prevent infection. Over the counter should do, although I can give you a prescription if you prefer.” I sat on the examination table, the thin, crinkly paper rough and cold under my bare legs. Amy perched on the bench next to the doctor’s desk. Lyle sat next to her, legs hanging off his seat, his intense eyes taking in his surroundings. “The X-rays all came back negative,” the doctor said. He pulled the swivel chair from under the desk and sat, glancing at me over the top of his reading glasses. “No fractures, no broken bones.” “What about a concussion?” Amy asked. “No sign of a concussion, either.” “What about this, this missing day, or whatever?” “Well, Mrs. Treder, again, your husband appears perfectly healthy apart from the cuts and bruises. We might see something more serious with an MRI—” “More serious?” Amy asked, straightening. “Like a tumor?” Lyle took this all in with his usual calm, his eyes flicking between the doctor, me, and Amy. “I wouldn’t want to speculate, Mrs. Treder,” the doctor said. “But I doubt we’d find anything. Your husband’s health record is clear, and he’s had no other symptoms.” Amy sat back and blew out a long breath. The doctor turned to me. “So, you can’t remember yesterday, is that correct?” “Yes.” “And this memory loss started after the accident?” “I—” I looked at Amy. “Yes.” The doctor raised his eyebrows but didn’t push further. Instead, he stood. “I think you’re fine. The memory loss may be temporary and stem from the shock of the accident. It can surprise people. Even minor fender benders can be terrifying. And you certainly took some knocks. If you want, I can refer you to a psychologist for an evaluation.” “No, thank you, that’s okay.” “Okay. You can get dressed, Mr. Treder. Feel free to take aspirin for any discomfort in the next few weeks. And the antibiotics?” “Thanks, I’ll get some aspirin and Neosporin at the pharmacy.” I stood, shook the doctor’s hand, and he left the room. Amy didn’t say anything as I dressed. She met my gaze. “I’ll get the van.” Her eyes flicked to Lyle. I caught the motion and gave her a tiny nod. “Thanks.” Lyle and I watched her leave. I turned to Lyle. “Ready to go, bud?” “What happened, Dad?” I crouched to his level. “Bud. I don’t know for sure. But I’ll tell you the truth. I was driving to work yesterday morning. Then, in an instant, in an eyeblink, it was today, this morning. The car was gone, but I was still traveling as fast as I’d been when I was driving. I got all these”—I held one arm up and nodded at the bandages scattered over my skin—“from falling on the road.” He studied me a moment. “Okay, Dad.” He hopped off the chair and walked out. I bit my lip and remained crouched there, reviewing what I’d said to him and his simple acceptance of something so outlandish. I was struck, not for the first time, that I might not have much time left to enjoy that side of him, that childish belief in his father’s authority and infallibility. He was seven already, seven going on thirty it seemed sometimes, and soon enough he’d be an adolescent and informing me in no uncertain terms how much of a fool he thought I was. I’d certainly let my father have it when I’d been a teenager. He’d deserved it—even growing up and becoming a father myself hadn’t changed my mind on that score. But I couldn’t bear the thought of my gentle and trusting Lyle doing that to me. I stood, grimacing, and followed him. When we got home, Amy changed clothes and asked if I wanted to take Lyle to the park. I was stiff and sore, and I wanted to do some investigating of my own, so I told them to go ahead without me. Amy touched my shoulder as Lyle got his shoes on. “Take it easy, okay? Just focus on getting better.” “I will.” Lyle gave me a tight hug before they left. I made myself some coffee and sat in front of the computer. Time to figure things out. I entered “missing time” into Google. Aside from blows to the head, the top result was stranger than I had imagined: alien abduction. I was admittedly a little more credulous than I would have been two days ago, but still, the idea that I was snatched out of my car and deposited, traveling the exact same direction and speed, exactly twenty-four hours later by some advanced species from the stars was ridiculous. Although, if the websites I perused were to be believed, I was dealing with utterly impenetrable alien psychology. I moved on. I uncovered other, potentially more reasonable, explanations. One cause of missing time was multiple personality disorder. Another possibility was syncope, or fainting, often caused by low oxygen levels, hypertension, or extreme exercise. None could explain how I ended up traveling twenty-five miles per hour through the air with no car. Overindulgence in alcohol was another potential and no doubt common cause of a blackout. Again, unlikely. The blackout would have to have been retroactive, assuming I started drinking later in the day. I hadn’t slipped vodka into my orange juice that morning. And I wasn’t much of a drinker. I never had been. Two stiff drinks and I was asleep on the couch. I sat back and put my hands behind my head. I stared at the off-white spackled ceiling. I was forgetting something. My Honda. It had crashed into a parked car without me at the wheel. Twenty-four hours later, I fell out of the air. I took a deep breath, let it out in a long rush, and closed the unhelpful billion-plus entries on “missing time.” CHAPTER 2 Amy was quieter than normal for the rest of the day. I knew not to rush her. She needed to process things at her own pace. She always had. After they returned from the park, I spent time with Lyle. We had an early dinner, then he and I retired to my “den”—the spare bedroom—and read. It was one of our favorite things to do. Our routine was well established. He sat in one recliner, nearly disappearing into the overstuffed cushions, and I sat in the one next to him. A small desk with a reading lamp sat between us. We read, me with my book, him with his. In minutes he was deep in a novel most librarians would have pegged at many times beyond the reading ability of a seven-year-old boy. Today it was Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park, culled from my shelves of heavily worn paperbacks. I had never been much of a reader. My parents hadn’t read books. We spent dinners in my youth eating off TV trays and watching sitcoms. I moved away from television and toward film in my teens, going to the theater at least weekly with my friends to escape our respective houses. Even later, in college and beyond, Amy and I typically spent our evenings watching a movie from my ever-growing collection. But after Lyle came along and after we started to understand his gifts, Amy showed me the research on how parental reading encouraged children to read and how important reading was to expand a child’s mind and help them understand the world. I pivoted. I became a fixture at the local used bookstores, of which Madison had many, and shifted the money I might’ve spent on movies to picking up books for Lyle and me. I gave away or sold old DVDs and Blu-rays to make shelf space for books. I never gave up on movies, of course, and I had a whole list of ones I wanted to watch with Lyle when he was old enough. But I cherished this nightly reading time with him. As Lyle churned through Crichton’s world of genetic engineering and business interests gone awry, I tried to read a popular nonfiction account of Lincoln’s presidency, a book I’d missed back when it had been on the bestseller list. My mind kept wandering. I found myself staring at my son in the soft light, watching as his eyes skimmed along the pages behind his thick glasses. My whole body hurt, even with the aspirin, and I kept shifting in my seat to keep from pressing on one injury too long. Even so, Lyle never looked up, never appeared aware of my frequent glances or my constant fidgeting. He was amazing. This full-fledged person Amy and I had conjured into being. A little human, product of a miracle of nature so commonplace we never gave it a second thought. But now, after displacing an entire day, I was reminded forcibly of how miraculous he was to me. Funny how getting your life briefly knocked off-kilter could cause you to reevaluate things right in front of you. At eight o’clock, Amy appeared and announced it was time for Lyle to go to bed. Lyle looked up, blinked at her, and nodded, solemn as ever. He never complained. Amy regarded me in the doorway after he’d left. “Remember anything yet?” “Nothing new.” She hesitated, just enough for me to sense it. “All right.” She took a deep breath, her eyes tracking over the bandages on my face and hands. “Come to bed, okay?” “Right.” She gazed at me a moment longer and walked out. I rubbed my eyes and let out another long breath. Then I stood and shut off the light. Amy made pancakes the next morning. A rare treat. It was the day of the week I took Lyle to school, Gifted and Talented day, where he and other gifted students met before class and took on more challenging coursework. On non–Gifted and Talented mornings, Lyle took the bus to school, just as he took the bus to get home in the afternoons. Gifted and Talented was a district-wide initiative, and Amy was one of the teachers who helped with the early-morning group at her own school, so she couldn’t take Lyle and still make it to her school in time. We lived in a different elementary school carveout than the one in which Amy worked. Amy and I had done this deliberately when we were finding a place to live so Lyle wouldn’t have to put up with being that kid, the one whose mom was also his teacher. As it turned out, Lyle probably wouldn’t have cared. But we hadn’t known that at the time. We hadn’t known Lyle. Amy gave me a hug. It felt spontaneous, and I hugged her back and kissed the top of her head. “Have a good day, boys.” “Okay, Mom,” Lyle said, as if he was making a promise he had every intention of keeping. Amy looked at me. “No mountain lions, okay?” “No mountain lions.” I shot an exaggerated look at the microwave clock and eyed Lyle, brows raised. “Ready to go, partner?” “Yes,” he said, eyes intense and serious. The Civic was roadworthy. We followed Amy in her minivan for a few blocks before we turned and headed for Lyle’s elementary school. I stopped in front of his school. There were a few other parents there, letting their sons and daughters out. I recognized them as part of the Gifted and Talented program. “You want me to walk you inside, bud?” Sometimes he still wanted me to. I thought it might be one of those days, after the day we’d all had before. “No, that’s okay, Dad.” He pulled his backpack to his chest and moved to get out of the car but stopped and looked back with his hand on the handle. “Dad?” “Yeah, bud?” “Are you going to leave again?” A vise clamped down over my heart, pulling the breath out of my lungs. I leaned over and met my son’s eyes. “No, bud, I’m not going to leave again. I don’t know what happened, but I’m not going anywhere.” He gazed at me. “Bye, Dad.” I watched him make his way into the building, a small figure among other small figures. Then, taking a breath, I put the car into drive and left the parking lot. I made it to work early, even before Casey, the receptionist. I walked through the maze of silent cubicles to my small work area and sat. A headache formed behind my eyes, pulsing distantly but growing more insistent. I was still bandaged up. The headache was likely thanks to my neck muscles, still stiff and sore from my tumble down the road, so I did some brief stretches in front of my monitors, watching the twins of myself move in the matte reflections. When I logged on, I had dozens of emails of varying levels of priority, including one from Melissa telling me to come see her for a one-on-one regarding my absence for the last two days and how I should have handled things. Others were code changes, checkouts, reviews. Two days of my work life gone, and now I had to catch up. I was trying to organize the emails when it happened. One moment I was sitting there, my hand on the mouse, headache pulsing with my heartbeat, then everything slipped again, a fractional impression of world-shifting movement. I fell and landed ass-first on the hard carpet of my cubicle. Off-balance, I reeled backward, my back hitting the seat of my chair. The chair rolled into the hallway and thudded into the wall of the cubicle across from mine. “Whoa, shit,” someone said a few feet away. I looked up in time to see Andy, my coworker and cubicle neighbor, poke his head up over the side of the separator. “Scott?” I sat there, blinking. “Andy?” “Scott, man, I didn’t hear you come in.” He walked around the edge of the cubicle. “Where’ve you been the past few days? Mel’s going apeshit. And your wife, she called here, like, four times looking for you.” I pulled myself up using the edge of the desk for support. “The past few days?” My computer was off, the screens dark. “Yeah, man. You didn’t show up Monday or Tuesday, then we hear you got in a car accident or something. You were supposed to come in Wednesday, and your computer was on, but you were gone. Where you been? Your wife sounded upset. I mean, like, really upset.” My phone chimed and buzzed. I pulled it out and unlocked the screen. I had dozens of new texts and voicemails. But I took in the notifications as an afterthought. My eyes were drawn to the time and date. 7:52 AM. Friday, April 17. “Jesus Christ,” I whispered. “It’s Friday?” Andy frowned at me. He reached up, tentatively, as though to pat me on the shoulder, but he let his hand fall. “Um. You okay, Scott?” “No. No, I’m not okay, Andy.” “Can I, like, do something? Help?” “No.” I stopped. “Yeah, actually. Tell Melissa I’m sorry, and I’ll call her later.” I pushed by Andy and headed out the way I’d just come in. The way I’d just come in two days ago. “You serious? You’re going to get fired, man. You gotta talk to her yourself, explain whatever happened.” “Just tell her I’ll call,” I said over my shoulder. I was already thumbing the icon on my phone to bring up my voicemail. I started to jog. My car was in the same spot. Two yellow tickets flapped under the windshield wiper, blaring in large letters that employees could not use the office lot for overnight parking and threatening me with a tow. I grabbed the tickets and got in, holding the phone to my ear with my shoulder. “Mr. Treder.” It was Melissa. “You know, this is becoming a habit. And I don’t mean that in a good way—” I deleted the message. The next message started. “Scott… I can’t believe—I can’t believe this is happening again. It’s seven at night, Scott. I called Andy. He said the Honda’s out in front of your office and your computer was on, but no one’s seen you. I don’t—Lyle’s upset. He hasn’t said anything, but I can tell…” There was a long pause. “Call me.” I grimaced and gripped the steering wheel with one hand as I started the car. “Mr. Treder—” I deleted Melissa again. The next one began with a long silence, filled with slow breathing. Then: “I don’t know, Scott. Really. I mean, am I overreacting? Maybe, I guess, maybe I am. But how should I react? How would any wife react when their husband starts disappearing for days at a time? I waited. I thought maybe— maybe you’d show up, like you did on Tuesday.” Another pause. “Call me when you get this.” I ended the call before the next message could start. I thumbed through the contacts and speed-dialed Amy’s phone, even as I put the car in reverse and started out of the parking lot. She answered on the third ring. “Scott?” “Amy, honey, I don’t know what’s going on—” “Scott.” “Yes, it’s me. I—” “Scott, did you—what’s going on?” “Amy—” “It’s been two days, Scott. Two days without a single word. Not even a text.” “I know. I mean, I don’t, I don’t know—” “How should I take all this, Scott? How would you take it if you were me?” “I—I don’t know, Amy. I really don’t. But I would give you a chance to explain or I’d help you figure it out.” She was silent. I heard her breathe. “Look, Amy. I’m on my way home. Are you home? We’ll talk about this, okay? We’ll figure out what’s going on.” My heart was pounding in my chest. “Scott, I—” “I’ll be home in a few minutes. We can talk about it then.” I gripped the steering wheel so hard my knuckles popped. I stopped at a red light. She had to listen. I had no idea what I would say, what I could say, other than the truth. But she had to listen. “Okay, Scott. Okay. I’ll play along. But you have to explain this to Lyle, because I’m—I’m struggling here.” “I know. Okay. Are you home?” “Yes. I—I took the day. Another day. Lyle’s here. He stayed home from school.” “I’m on my way.” Someone honked behind me, making me jump. The light was green. I pushed down on the accelerator. “All right.” She hung up. I put the phone in the cupholder and drove. I started shaking. I knew what was coming, what my body was doing. My palms were wet against the steering wheel, and my heart pounded as the muscles in my arms shook. Pain radiated from my neck, from all the scrapes and bruises across my body. I looked in the mirror and away again. I had to breathe. “Stop,” I whispered. “Okay. It’s okay. Stop. Calm down.” I used the breathing exercises my grandmother had taught me, that I had honed over the years. They helped. The attack subsided, for the moment. I drove straight through town as fast as I dared. At every red light I sat and tapped the wheel with my thumbs and tried not to look at myself in the mirror. My phone rang twice during the twenty-or-so-minute drive. Both times the caller ID showed my office, no doubt Melissa, calling. I let them go to voicemail. It was a liberating experience, ignoring my boss like that. The job, which seemed so important a few days earlier, just… wasn’t. I pulled into the driveway next to Amy’s minivan. When I pushed through the front door, I found Amy sitting on the couch next to Lyle in the family room. There was a cup of coffee and a cup of hot chocolate on the coffee table in front of them. The hot chocolate was in an oversized polar bear mug. Amy didn’t get up. Her arm was around Lyle. Her lips were pressed tight. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy. Lyle gazed at me with an unreadable expression. “Hi, Dad.” “Hey, bud, you okay?” “You left again.” The vise clamped down on my heart again. The strength of it hunched my shoulders. I glanced at Amy. She met my eyes. I looked back at Lyle and crouched before him. “I know, bud. And I know I promised I wouldn’t leave. But I don’t know what happened.” “Was it the same as the last time?” he asked. “Yes. Just… longer.” I could almost see Lyle’s brain at work, trying to piece things together, trying to figure out if I was telling the truth and, if I was, what the truth meant. Amy wore a sweater I’d given her years ago. I wondered if she’d remembered it was a gift from me when she’d put it on that morning. The corners of her eyes were tight as she watched me. “Scott. I called the police. I filed a missing person’s report. I told them you’d been in an accident the day before. That maybe you had a bad concussion after all, that it hadn’t shown up at the doctor’s.” I rocked back on my heels and rubbed at the bridge of my nose. “Okay. Okay. I wish you hadn’t.” “What was I supposed to do?” “I—I don’t know.” “I imagined you out there. Wandering around. Maybe not even knowing who you…” She trailed off, her chin quivering, and she hugged Lyle tighter to her. “You were gone two days, Scott.” “I…” I couldn’t think of what to say. Lyle peered at me. “Dad?” “Lyle. Bud. I don’t know what’s going on.” He waited. “I’m—I’m scared, bud,” I said. “I’m scared it might happen again.” Lyle pushed himself off the couch and put his arms around me. “It’s okay, Dad.” I felt his small arms tremble. I picked him up. He buried his head against my shoulder. Tears welled in my eyes. For a long moment I only stood there. “Scott,” Amy said. “Sit down, okay?” I set Lyle down. Lyle clambered back up next to Amy. I sat across from them. No one said anything. Amy gazed at me, and I looked alternately at her and at Lyle. Lyle’s expression was again unreadable. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to just repeat myself. I wanted to do better, to explain, to give her and Lyle what they needed. But I had no idea what the hell was going on. Amy licked her lips. “So.” “So.” “Let’s start over. It happened again.” “That’s right.” “You skipped over two days.” “Yes.” “And you were at work when it happened?” “It was the same time as last time. Exactly the same. Seven fifty-two.” “It sounds crazy.” “I know.” “Do you have any idea…” She trailed off, glancing at Lyle. “Two days, Scott.” “I know.” “Do you really?” She shook her head. “I don’t think you do. I don’t think you can.” “I’m so sorry, Amy. I really am. I wish I knew what this was.” I pushed my hair back with both hands. Gripped my head with my arms. Leaned against the plush back of recliner. “I—I looked it up yester… I mean, Tuesday. There’re reports of other people losing track of time, missing time. Not exactly like this, but…” I saw a flicker in her eyes. The need for an explanation. “Like what? What happened to them?” “The crazier ones talk about UFOs.” Her eyes narrowed, and I hurried on. “But websites talk about multiple personality, schizophrenia.” “You think you might have some kind of mental disorder? Should we get you an MRI? Some other tests?” “I don’t know. Maybe? But a mental break doesn’t explain everything. Like how, both times, I was in the same spot, even traveling the same speed, when it happened, when I—when I came back.” “Came back.” I nodded. “Your bandages are all the same. You haven’t changed them. Since Wednesday. And your clothes.” “I—yes. I mean, no.” “You don’t really think it’s something wrong with your head, do you?” I hesitated. “No. No, I don’t.” “Then what’s going on, Scott?” “I don’t know.” I glanced at Lyle. He watched me, his eyes rendered small by the lenses of his glasses. “You have to give me more than that,” Amy said. “We need more than that.” The walls were coming up. I could see it, feel the shape of what was coming. It was in the way she sat, the rigid posture, the hard eyes. She was laying the foundations for what she needed to protect herself. If I didn’t get my act together, those walls could stand for days. She didn’t often get mad at me, even when I was being an idiot. More than once she’d forgiven me for things I would have been low-key angry about for days had our roles been reversed. But when she did get mad, she went all in. All that went through my head in a shot. As they stared at me, I put my hands together. My palms were clammy with sweat again. My heart pounded, booming against my chest like I was running for my life. I made myself take two long, deep breaths. Forcing myself calm for the second time that morning. The last time I’d had a severe panic attack I’d been in a hospital hallway outside my grandmother’s room after she’d died. My lifeline, my anchor and bulwark against my father’s disapproval for years— gone. I let out the last breath slow, conscious of Amy’s eyes on me. Lyle’s eyes. Taking in everything, as always. A panic attack would not help right now. I looked up, still taking even, deliberate breaths. “I know. I know, Amy. I wish I had more. I wish I had an explanation.” “Because right now, Scott, right now this sounds crazy. It sounds like you’re lying. This can’t—it has to be an act.” “Well, I’m not. Lying, I mean, or performing. The crazy part… well, I’m not so sure on that.” It was a pitiful attempt at humor, but it came out too bitter, too dark, to be funny. Silence stretched. “So,” Amy said. “This, whatever it is. Is it going to happen again?” I almost said, No, absolutely not, I’m not going anywhere. Then I looked at Lyle. “I hope not. But it already happened twice.” “What do you want us to do, Scott?” How things must look to her. I had a hard time even imagining what I would do if she up and disappeared for a day, came back, then vanished again for two days. I probably wouldn’t handle things as well as she was. I swallowed hard. “Help me.” “How?” “Stay with me. Stay with me tomorrow morning. At seven fifty-two.” Seconds ticked by. Lyle gripped his mother’s hand and gave her a brief, reassuring smile. She smiled back, her lips trembling. “All right,” she said. “All right, Scott.” I let out a breath I wasn’t aware I was holding. “Thank you.” She didn’t reply. She sat there, gazing down at Lyle. The rest of the day passed far too quickly. I spent much of it trying not to think about what had twice happened, trying not to wonder what it would mean if it happened again—or what it would mean for my marriage if it didn’t. This time, when Amy invited me to the park, I went with them. She even cracked a tentative joke about mountain lions and aggressive house cats. I ran up and down the steps of the elaborate dragon-themed play castle with my son, happy he hadn’t decided he was too old for this sort of thing. Not yet. I half carried him as he did his best on the monkey bars across the moat, his shoes dangling above the dragon’s gaping maw. I felt his heart through his thin chest, felt the warmth of his body pressed against me. We went on the swings, and I applauded that he was now able to get swinging all on his own. My heart climbed up into my throat when he jumped off at the apex of a swing. He tumbled but was back up on his feet in seconds, laughing and adjusting his glasses, and I jumped off and chased after him. I really committed to the moment, reveling in the fact I could still make this ever-somber child smile and laugh like the seven-year-old he was. The sun shone. It was warm. The spring air was cool, and it felt good to charge around after Lyle. I hadn’t played with him enough in the past few months. I’d been too wrapped up in the day-to-day demands of work and bills and life. Melissa called a few more times that morning, then stopped. Usually at this time of day I’d be deep into code, in my cubicle, drinking cup after cup of coffee and counting the minutes until lunch and then end of day. Checking out repos, branching forks, hunting bugs. Rationally, I knew I should call her back. I should beg to keep my job. But I couldn’t bring myself to disconnect from my small family, even for a few minutes. Instead, I ran around the playground with my son while Amy watched, her smile genuine but the corners of her eyes tight. That evening Lyle and I read in the spare bedroom again. And, like before, I had a hard time concentrating on my book. Lyle finished Jurassic Park and moved on to Sphere, another of Michael Crichton’s classic epics. I noticed him looking up at me more often, as if reassuring himself I was still there. I felt his eyes each time he looked up, but I kept my head down, appearing to read, because I sensed he didn’t want me to notice. He wanted to watch me. I wondered if he’d come into the den the last few nights, alone, when I wasn’t there. Perhaps he’d sat in my chair, in my spot. Feeling me not being there. Amy came at eight. She stood in the doorway. “Time for bed, Lyle.” “Okay, Mom.” She watched him leave and looked back at me. “Seven fifty-two.” “Yes.” “Okay. Okay. Come upstairs.” An hour later we lay in bed together, both staring at the darkened ceiling. I listened to her breathe. I’d matched my own breathing to hers. Or she’d matched mine. I heard rustling under the covers, and her hand, surprisingly cold, found mine. She gave a tug. I rolled toward her even as she turned on her side to face away. I put my arm over her shoulder and hugged her close, our bodies forming together beneath the flannel sheets. I buried my face in her hair and smelled the pomegranate shampoo she used. “Are you lying?” she whispered. “No. No, I’m not.” “This isn’t some attempt to drive us away?” “No.” “What’s going on, Scott?” I let out a slow breath. I stroked her arm. “I don’t know.” I tried to keep the frustration out of my voice, but it came through anyway, bitter and hot. “I, just—it’s hard. You know?” “I know.” “I was so… It wasn’t like you, Scott. It’s not you. I was so angry. So angry. I even… I even hoped, imagined, that you were hurt somewhere. Trapped somewhere. Being hurt somewhere gave you an excuse but it also—” She let out a hard breath. “It punished you.” I shut my eyes. Pressed them together, hard. I kept my palm on her arm. Felt her skin. “I had to keep it together for Lyle,” Amy whispered. “I have to be strong for Lyle, even though he’s just confused and… And the stuff I had, with my parents, my dad, you know…” “I know.” “I won’t put Lyle through that, Scott. Not what Kate and I went through. I can’t.” “You won’t have to.” Kate was her older sister. She and her husband lived in Sun Prairie. I was not her biggest fan, nor she mine. “It’s hard to take in.” “I’m not having an easy a time with it myself.” There was a quiet moment. I tried to feel her body as much as I could, feel her warmth and presence next to me. There was a sudden urgency to it, a need to pay close attention to the sensations. “What if it’s all in your head?” she asked. “I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.” “But what if it is?” “Honestly, honey, I’m more worried it isn’t.” She was silent again, long enough I thought she might have fallen asleep. Then she whispered, “Yeah.” She fell asleep sometime later. I stayed awake late into the night, holding her close, not willing to turn over and let her go. CHAPTER 3 We waited, the three of us, around the kitchen table. Lyle and Amy sat across from me. I sat with my back to the window, the blinds pulled shut. Minutes ticked by. The conversation I tried to keep alive tapered off after breakfast, and finally, as 7:52 AM approached, it died. We sat there, watching the clock on the microwave. I had my phone in my hand to double-check the time. The headache was there again, behind my eyes. I hadn’t slept much the night before. I stopped myself from rubbing my eyes. No need to worry Amy even more. Amy put her arm around Lyle, her face drawn. “What do we do if—” “I’ll come back. Even if I disappear, I’ll come back. I have before.” She looked away. I turned to Lyle. “Whatever you see, buddy, just remember I love you, and I’ll always come back to you.” I had to stop twice to get the words out. Lyle nodded without blinking. It was 7:51. I blew out a long breath. I looked at Amy, drawing her eyes back to my own. “Wait for…” The world slipped. “…me.” I jerked, but I was still sitting in the chair, behind the breakfast table, in the kitchen. Across from me, in different clothes and standing, rather than sitting, Amy and Lyle gaped at me. Then Amy burst into tears and ran from the room. Lyle turned to watch his mother go. My phone had come with me, just as it had the last two times, just as my clothing had. I held the phone up and watched the date change through the cracked face as it rejoined the network. Wednesday, April 22. It had been Saturday the 18th. I looked up. Lyle watched me. “Four days?” He walked around the table and put his arms around me, a motion that might have been awkward if not for its pure innocence. “We didn’t know if you were coming back.” I put my cheek against his head and held him. “What did you see?” “You just vanished. Poof. Well, except, not really any poof. We left the chair in the same spot. We checked every day. Seven fifty-two. We waited every day for you. Then you came back.” “Four days. It’s getting longer.” “It’s doubling.” I blinked. “You’re right. It’s doubling.” Excerpted from The Traveler, copyright © 2026 by Joseph Eckert. The post Read an Excerpt From <i>The Traveler</i> by Joseph Eckert appeared first on Reactor.