The Magic Meadow by Alexander Key

lock and key. But there they are. Anybody can walk right in and walk right out with ’em. So I figure we’re in the middle of a huge estate, thousands of acres, maybe, with a steel fence all around it and guards to watch over it.” She hesitated, then added, “The only thing I can’t figure is the difference in time and in season—that is, if we’re in the South, like I think we are.”
    â€œYou still believe we’re in Alabama?”
    â€œWell, it could be Mississippi, Georgia, or somewhere in the Carolinas or Virginia.” Suddenly she pointed. “See that tree yonder? That’s a sassafras. I know, because when I was a little girl I used to dig the roots of one of those trees so we could make tea. Brick, the only place you’ll find a sassafras tree is in America. It’s the same with those big pines behind us. They’re what we call yellow pines, and the only place they grow is in the South. You see? So we’re bound to be in one of the states I mentioned. But why is the time different?”
    â€œIt could be because we teleported here,” he said, and began explaining the theory that had come to him during the night. But somehow, as he told it in the bright light of day, the theory didn’t sound so hot. Nurse Jackson listened to it politely, but seemed far from convinced. “Anyhow,” he finished lamely, “I’m sure time has something to do with it.”
    She chuckled. “Of course it has. That’s what’s really got us bugged.” She glanced at her wristwatch, gasped, then studied the sun and looked at her watch again. “Speaking of time, my watch is acting crazy. The sun tells me it’s only about ten in the morning, but the watch says it’s past noon. It’s gained all of two hours since we’ve been here. Do you s’pose teleporting did that to it?”
    â€œIt must have. Look what it did to us!”
    His eye was suddenly attracted by a carved wooden disc on a post. He went over and turned it, and was rewarded by a bright glow of light from the rafters above.
    As he stared at it, Nurse Jackson said, “That’s funny. There’s no power line coming in here. But maybe there’s an underground one leading from the bunkhouse.”
    â€œThat must be it,” he agreed, as he turned off the light. “Say, that gives me an idea. If we can’t find a road anywhere, then all we have to do is to follow the power line that comes into the place, and it’ll lead us to people.”
    She nodded slowly. “And we may have to locate some people soon, Brick. It all depends on how much food we can find. It takes an awful lot when there are six mouths to feed. That dried stuff won’t last long, and we can’t live off dandelion greens. Some of you need meat—especially Princess and Charlie Pill.”
    â€œMaybe I can kill a deer with the crossbow.”
    She looked at him sharply. “I doubt if Princess would eat it if you did. But we’ll see. If we don’t locate a road in the next day or two, I think we’d better plan to follow the power line and see where it goes.”
    Before moving on, she borrowed his adze and dug some of the roots of the sassafras tree and put them in her basket. Later, near some monstrous oaks at the lower end of the meadow, she found a curious brown mushroom, pitted and crinkled, that started them upon an eager search that lasted into the afternoon. His legs had nearly given out now, and to save them for the walk back to the bunkhouse he did his searching on hands and knees. The pitted mushroom, he learned, was a morel. It appeared only in the spring, and they were lucky to find a spot where so many of them had been overlooked by the deer.
    â€œWe used to call ’em hickory chickens when I was a kid,” Nurse Jackson told him happily. “Best eating things on earth! Better than beefsteak. Don’t pass up