Across the Winds of Time (32 page)

“Molly?” Sara gave my hand a tug.

I shook my head and looked down at our hands.

“Well, you saw us disappear. Where do you think we went?” It would have been so much easier if she guessed. I didn’t know how to explain it.

“I have no idea. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Sara said in a strained voice. “That’s why I couldn’t call the police. But I was going to in the morning if you hadn’t come back today.”

“I’m so sorry, Sara,” I muttered as I clutched her hand. “I would have never disappeared without telling you first if I’d had a choice.”

“So?” she prompted, her impatience at my hesitation evident.

“Do you remember talking to me about time travel?” I said quietly. I kept my gaze downcast, sounding crazy even to myself.

Sara nodded. “The book I’m reading.”

I stared at her, willing her to guess. She watched my face carefully, and within seconds, her eyes widened.

“What?” she said incredulously.

I could only nod.

“Are you trying to tell me that you traveled...” she couldn’t finish. I didn’t blame her. She pulled her hand from mine and wrapped her arms around her chest.

“Are you nuts?” she whispered.

“Well, you saw us disappear? You tell me,” I muttered.

She turned to look at the end of the drive, and I followed suit

“Where is he?”

I gave her a quick look and shook my head, desperately trying to keep the ever ready burning tears in check. I looked back at the road, wondering how I could have taken my eyes off the drive for even the last few minutes. What if Darius came? Wouldn’t he need me to help him? Was he alive? Was he dead? Pain carved such a deep hole in my chest that I wondered if it would ever stop hurting. I suspected not. This was not fixable.

“Where did you go?” she asked in a voice tinged with awe.

I gave my head another befuddled shake. “To his time. To 1880.”

“Are you telling me that Darius was from the past?” Her raised brows suggested I was out of my mind, and I was fairly sure she was right.

“If he even existed at all,” I gave her a quick look before returning my gaze to the road.

“Oh, he was real all right. No wonder you guys made no sense,” she muttered with a shake of her head.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing about him seemed quite normal, and nothing about his story seemed plausible.” She nudged me in the arm. “You lied to me,” she said accusingly.

I nodded, too depressed to feel guilty.

“Yes, I had to. I couldn’t just say, “Oh, guess what, here’s this strange guy I met in the cemetery, and he has come to live with me.”

Sara leaned forward to get in my field of vision.

“You met him at the cemetery?” She gave a short mirthless laugh and sat back in the loveseat. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by now. But I am. What possessed you to bring home some man you met in a cemetery?”

I opened my mouth but had no answer to give her. I still couldn’t understand anything myself.

“Oh, wait! Is that why you were asking me about ghosts? Did you think he was a ghost—because of the cemetery?”

“We both thought he might be.” I wanted to smile at the memory, but the pain in my chest forced me to concentrate on breathing shallowly. Smiling just didn’t seem possible right now. I kept my eye on the road.

“I don’t think I can talk about this anymore right now, Sara. I don’t feel very well,” I mumbled. “I just can’t...”

Sara nodded. “I understand. I just have one quick question, and then I’ll leave you alone for a while.”

I nodded wearily.

“Is he coming back?”

I broke down in sobs, and with a mumbled curse at herself for insensitivity or some such thing, Sara wrapped an arm around my shoulders and rocked me while I cried for what seemed like hours but must have been fifteen minutes or so. When I ran out of tears, though the ache in my chest continued to burn, I told her everything I could remember.

“And now I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again,” I murmured in a broken voice. I lay my aching head against the back of the love seat and closed my burning eyes...for just an instant. I had to maintain my vigil on the road.

“I-I don’t know what to say, Molly. This sounds so...fantastical.” She paused. “And to top it all off, you think you saw...what?...your ghost?”

I opened one swollen eye and looked at her briefly before I scanned the road. She held her hands to her temples.

“I know,” I sighed. “I know.” Although I’d told her about Molly, I wished I had kept that part to myself, though I was in no intellectual shape to think about future implications if I managed to edit the story. I wanted to keep Molly to myself. After all, she was...my other self, and I wanted to honor her memory. The word “ghost” simply did not do justice to Molly’s vitality. I had fallen in love with her in an instant...and I found myself missing her. She had truly understood everything I was feeling. And why not? She was me.

“Time travelers and ghosts,” Sara murmured in a bemused tone. “You sure have had a busy week.”

“I’m sorry to have put you through all this, Sara. You were supposed to fly back today, weren’t you?” I held my breath. I didn’t want her to go.

“Yes, but I rescheduled the flight for tomorrow. It’s summer, and there’s no school. I’ve got meetings next week though. And Brad will be all right on his own without me.”

She gave me a quick impulsive hug.

“I’m so glad you’re alive.”

I gritted my teeth to stem the scream threatening to erupt at the word “alive.” Was Darius alive? Even if the house had not burned down, and I didn’t know how that was possible, he would not really be alive—not in the twenty-first century. I couldn’t bear the thought. I simply couldn’t bear it. I hugged myself tightly.

“Cynthia and Laura came by yesterday,” Sara said on a quiet note. “I told them that you and—”

She paused, and I waited anxiously. Me and Darius?

“I told them that you had gone to Council Bluffs. They’re almost ready to head off to Florida.”

I tried to focus on the faces of the sisters, but everything seemed fairly blurry at the moment. I wondered if I was in shock.

Darius’s great-great nieces...or was it another great? I couldn’t figure it out. They lived. We had not changed the future. Darius must have been successful in settling his estate, and it seemed likely the house might not have burned down after all. Who wills a burnt-down house to his family? Had I dreamed the whole thing? How had I gotten to the road?

Had I asked the sisters everything I could about Darius and his family? What had they said about him? That he’d “disappeared mysteriously?” What did that mean? Had he died in the fire then? But the house still stood!

“Wouldn’t Cynthia and Laura have mentioned that the house burned down...if it had?” I asked aloud. I’m not certain I really expected Sara to answer, but she was game.

“We could ask them,” she said in a tentative voice. “We could call them.”

The road was empty. No one walked up the drive.

I turned to look at Sara. “Yes, I think I need to talk to them.” At the look of alarm on Sara’s face, I almost chuckled. Almost.

“No, no. I’m not going to tell them my bizarre story. But they might know if the house burned down. And they might remember hearing anything about how...” I meant to say how Darius died, but I couldn’t voice the words.

“We’ll call them,” Sara said quickly. She seemed to know when I couldn’t talk further.

The picture! Darius’s picture! Was it real? Did it exist? I jumped up without a word and ran into the house, ignoring Sara’s startled exclamation.

“Where are you going?”

Sassy jumped down from the couch and followed me up the stairs to the master bedroom.

“Molly!” I heard Sara’s voice down below and then on the stairs. “What is it?” she called out.

I pulled open the nightstand drawer and fell back against the edge of the bed with weak knees. There it was, lying on top of an assortment of paper, pens and the rest of the house photos the sisters had given me. Darius’s picture!

I straightened and reached for it slowly, reverently—as if it were the last thing I would ever have of him.

Sara ran into the room.

“What the—” She stopped when she saw me. I didn’t take my eyes off the photograph as I passed her to leave the room.

“I just had to get this. I have to run back downstairs. I need to keep an eye on the road,” I murmured. I cradled the photograph against my chest as I hurried down the stairs. Both Sassy and Sara followed me.

“I didn’t know you had a picture of him,” Sara said. She took her seat beside me again as I scanned the road before lowering myself to the loveseat.

I knew she wanted to look at the photograph, but I couldn’t seem to make myself pull it away from its place near my racing heart.

“Laura and Cynthia gave it to me. It was in a box of old family photographs they’d left here. I wanted it, and they let me have it.” I took a steadying breath as I stared at the road. “They said he didn’t have any descendents to leave it to.”

“Oh, Molly,” she almost crooned. “I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now.”

I turned to look at her then, and with a tight smile, I pulled the photograph away from my chest and let her look at it. She probably knew better than to ask if she could actually hold it at that moment. She leaned forward and peered at it.

“Look at his mustache!”

I looked down and ran a tender finger over the length of his mustache.

“He shaved it off,” I said quietly. “For me, I think.”

“Well, he looks handsome with it or without it, either way, although it is easier to see his smile when he’s clean shaven.” She leaned forward again. “What year was the photo taken?”

I turned it over. “1880 Sometime this year...or the other year, I guess.”

“Molly...” I knew she hesitated, and I tensed. “Why do you think he’s not coming back? What if the fire wasn’t real?” She turned to look over her shoulder at the picture window where Sassy sat watching us intently. “How can the house still be here if that really happened?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Even if the fire wasn’t real—and I couldn’t have imagined anything that ferocious—I don’t know why he would come here.”

“Because he loves you. Even I could see that. Victorian house restoration specialist, my foot.” She chuckled, and even I felt a corner of my mouth lift momentarily. “Well, I imagine he probably did—does know more about Victorian construction than most men.”

I didn’t miss her use of past tense, and I winced.

Sara rose. “Let me get you something to drink. When did you last eat?”

I shook my head and shrugged. “I don’t know. This morning? An hour ago? Over a hundred years ago?”

“Why don’t you come inside,” she asked as she headed for the door, “while I get something for us to eat?”

I threw her a desperate look. “I can’t. I need to wait here...just in case.”

She turned to look at the road and then brought her gaze back to mine. I didn’t want to see the pity in her eyes. Her sympathy seemed somehow to make Darius’s absence an unalterable future reality. I couldn’t give up hope so easily. I wasn’t sure how I would go on if I didn’t have some small spark to cling to—even if it seemed almost an impossibility.

“Okay,” she shrugged lightly. “I’ll bring it out here, along with the phone...so you can call Cynthia and Laura.”

****

Laura pulled the car up the driveway about an hour later, and I stood to go help Cynthia alight.

“Molly, dear! I’m so glad you called. We wanted to see you before we leave for Florida.”

Sara came out of the house and down the porch steps.

“And here’s Sara. How are you, dear?”

I wasn’t sure to whom she was talking at the moment, so I let Sara be “dear.” I nodded at Laura as she came around the front of the car.

“Let’s go sit on the porch. The late afternoon breeze is so nice,” I said, just in case anyone had an idea that I was going to give up my vigil. Sara hadn’t said anything further as we ate—or as I picked at my food and she ate—but I knew she was wondering how long I was going to stand guard watching the road. As far as I was concerned, I was sleeping on the porch.

“Yes, it is wonderful, isn’t it?” Laura agreed. “It’s days like these that make me forget why we’re moving to Florida.” She settled into one of the single chairs while I lowered Cynthia onto the loveseat.

“Not me,” Cynthia chirped. “I’m not likely to forget the winters here.” She shivered delicately. “Brutal.”

“Can I get you some lemonade?” Sara asked.

“No, thank you, dear, not for me,” Cynthia murmured. “Laura?”

Laura declined, and I shook my head, impatient to ask the sisters about the house. Sara read my face and took a seat.

“I’m so glad you were able to come by,” I rushed in. “I was wondering. It’s the strangest thing really,” I chuckled nervously, “but I was wondering if you had remembered any more details about the history of the house...or the builder?” I ended on a bit of a squeak. “I mean...is this the original house? Or did it...burn down at one point?” I saw Sara’s cautionary look as I finished on a stilted note.

The sisters looked at me with puzzled brows for a moment and then at each other.

“Oh, goodness, Laura! Do you know, I think it did,” Cynthia murmured thoughtfully. “Do you remember mother saying something about that? A fire? Part of the house burning?”

Laura pursed her lips and nodded. “Now that you mention it, I do.” She leaned forward in my direction. “Molly. We would have told you if we had remembered. Is this a problem?”

“Oh, dear, Molly! Is there a problem with the house?” Cynthia asked with worry lining her frail brow. “Is that something we should have disclosed in the sale? I don’t even know much about it...just what Mother mentioned.” She looked at Laura for confirmation.

I watched them as if in a stupor, barely aware that Sara leaned forward in her seat and stared hard at me.

“I know almost nothing about it. I think most of the house burned. The basement survived. At least, I think that’s what Mother said. And then it was rebuilt.”

“Who rebuilt it?” I whispered, hoping my voice didn’t reflect my despair. Through the haze over my eyes, I saw Sara’s face drop in dismay.