Ascension

by C J M Naylor

  I sat down across from where Thomas was sleeping and watched him. A part of me felt guilty that I hadn't told him about Bessie being his mother. But thinking about it, there really hadn't been any free time to talk about it. Almost as soon as I had found out about it, Melanie had found out where we were and we had to go. I would tell him. I didn't know when, but I would. I reached into my bag and pulled out the next letter that my mother had written to Henry. Every letter of hers brought me closer to her. I carefully removed the letter from the envelope and began to read:

  December 8, 1926

  Henry,

  How are you? I know you won't be able to respond to this letter, but it still comforts me to write this as if you were going to. I hope this letter finds you happy and that you've found some solace in raising Thomas. I know it must hurt not to have a mother figure in his life.

  Guess what! I'm in New York City. I left a photo for you. I've never gotten to see the Statue of Liberty before. It was beautiful.

  As I write this, my heart pangs as it is the first birthday of my girls. I take comfort in knowing that one of them is doing well, being raised by a couple that loves her. But my heart continues to hurt for the loss of the other. I can't imagine what it is like to be raised by my mother. Of course, I do know. But I at least had my brother and sister, and Abigail. Melanie has no one.

  I'm planning to travel across America. I will be in San Francisco at some point. Maybe we'll run into each other? Wouldn't that be lovely?

  Hope you are well.

  Love,

  E.

  Abigail. My mind spun. Who was this person I was named after?

  I folded the letter back up and placed it back inside the envelope. Also tucked inside the envelope was the picture she had spoken of. My mother was standing in front of the Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island. The smile on her face was bright and cheery, but I could tell she wasn't the same. There was a pain that hadn't been there before. Her hair was pulled up and she was wearing a large hat, I assumed to disguise her identity as much as possible, just in case. I wondered what she would be like when I found her. Would she be happy to see me? Would she be proud of the woman I had become? I wasn't proud. I kept thinking back to everything that had happened in San Francisco. I caused that. And it all could have been avoided. I had gone looking for this world she had tried to keep from me. How could she possibly be proud of that?

  I wiped the tear that slipped down my cheek and put the picture back in the envelope and all of the letters back into my bag.

  "Are you okay?"

  My head swiveled up in surprise at the sound of Alma's voice. I hadn't realized she was awake. She sat across from me, hugging her knees in the cold.

  "I'm fine," I responded. I wasn't. What I had found out about Thomas was eating at me, and I had no one to talk to. I certainly couldn't talk to Thomas about it. Not yet at least. If Bridget were here, I could talk to her.

  Bridget.

  A great sadness came over me when I thought about her. With everything that had happened, I really hadn't taken the time to mourn for her. She didn't even get to have a proper funeral. Did anyone even see her, or check on her, before the entire city flooded? Had she just been left there, completely forgotten? Alma made a slight movement and I realized I had stopped speaking with the intention of saying more.

  I looked her in the eye. "Can I ask you something, hypothetically?"

  She smiled. "You can ask me anything you'd like."

  "If you found something out about the person you loved, something that might crush them, would you tell them?"

  "I'd tell them anything," she said.

  "But even if this, if this changed everything about them. Everything they had come to know?"

  Alma gave me a questioning look. "This is hypothetical?"

  I shrugged and she looked over at Thomas and then back at me. "All secrets have a price Abby. Something that you're describing, if I didn't tell the person I loved, I feel it would change them more than if I hadn't. It would change our relationship. The trust we've developed between each other."

  I nodded. I knew I would tell Thomas. I would. But just not now. Not like this. With the world the way it was. But I would.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Turbulence woke me up. At some point during the night, Alma and I had gone back to sleep.

  "Is everything alright?" I asked to everyone attempting to sit up.

  "We hit a bit of a rough patch," Thomas said. He was still sitting next to me, but it appeared he had woken up hours ago as he was reading a book.

  "We're making our descent at the Le Bourget Airport," Oliver said from the cockpit. "I radioed when we were within distance and told them we needed to make an emergency landing. Let's hope they don't ask too many questions."

  "Has it been that long already?" I asked, amazed that I'd slept through almost the entire journey.

  "You were out cold the entire time," Alma said, still sitting across from me.

  "You haven't been getting as much sleep as the rest of us," Thomas said. "You needed it."

  "Everyone buckle up," Henry said. "We're almost there."

  As the plane gradually made its descent, there was more bumpiness, and then we hit the runway. We were in Paris. I'd only been once, as a little girl, with my parents on holiday. I'd loved it and I wished I was returning for a better reason then needing to save the world.

  The plane continued moving on the runway for a few moments, and finally we came to a stop. Henry and Oliver left the cockpit, going over to open the doors. Before they did, Henry turned and addressed all of us.

  "Oliver and I will take care of the questions," he said. "We were given clearance to land, but I’m sure they will still be suspicious. The rest of you find a place for us and wait inside the airport."

  The door opened then, and Oliver and Henry stepped out first and headed to the airport security approaching our plane. The rest of us made our way into the terminal, showed our passports, and then found a place to sit.

  "Where do we go next?" Thomas asked as we sat down.

  "I suppose Henry will have the answer for that," I said.

  He nodded and the three of us waited patiently. Alma was looking out the window and she appeared a bit somber. I reached out and touched her arm.

  "Are you alright?"

  She turned, smiling, but her eyes were a bit watery. "This is the first time I've ever been anywhere except for America and my home country. It makes me feel somewhat liberated and free to be able to go to different places like this. I've always heard that the City of Lights has been a place of freedom for African Americans, obviously not for the past couple of years though.”

  "I'm glad that you are able to finally feel welcome in a place," I said. "I hope you know that you're always welcome anywhere with me."

  "Thank you," Alma said quietly.

  Henry and Oliver entered the terminal at that moment.

  "All cleared up," Henry said. "When we were in the air, we told them that we were escaping Colorado and we just updated them about everything since then. Apparently since we've been gone, Colorado Springs has been completely wiped out by one of the worst blizzards they've ever seen. Weather-related tragedies are slowly making their way across the country and the entire system is collapsing. People are robbing stores without any care or thought of breaking the law, their instinct is simply to survive. It's slowly spreading."

  "Dad," Thomas said, gesturing toward me.

  I had stood up while Henry had shared the news and was looking out at the City of Lights, wondering what terrible tragedy would befall it.

  "It's fine," I said. "It keeps me going."

  Turning around, I looked toward Henry. "Where can we find my mother?"

  "The University of Paris," Henry replied. "She's been a professor of literature there for many years now."

  A professor of literature. She loved books as much as I did. She was studying literature just as I had.

  That was where we needed to go, but
first, we needed to get Mathias.

  "We need to find a way to get Mathias first," I said. "Any ideas? Is he living at the Paris Headquarters, or just working there? We never had the opportunity to figure all of that out when it happened."

  "How would we possibly get in there though?" Alma asked. "We're basically fugitives in the Timekeeping world."

  "I have a contact at the Paris Headquarters," Thomas said. "I know she won't be falling for whatever Headrick is spreading about us. And she lives in the city, not at the Headquarters, so I could pay her a visit and see if she could relay a message."

  Henry nodded. "That sounds like an excellent idea. Thomas, do you want to do that with Oliver, and then Alma, Abigail, and I can head to the university and find Elisabeth?"

  Thomas nodded and we finalized our plans, making the Eiffel Tower our meetup location.

  Before Thomas could go any further though, I took his hand and pulled him back to me.

  "Come back to me," I said, and then I leaned up and kissed him.

  He smiled against my kiss. "I will. I promise."

  And with that, we parted ways.

  After arriving at the University of Paris, I left Alma and Henry outside, and entered alone. I used a pair of books I'd brought along with me as a prop and acted like a lost student, hoping Elisabeth would be teaching a class right now. I was in luck. A French girl with jet black hair and glasses asked me if I needed any help. I had learned French growing up and told her I was a student of Professor Durand, the name Henry had told me my mother was using here. The girl quickly led me in the right direction and we found that my mother was indeed teaching a class. The girl left me outside a pair of double doors and I hesitated for a moment, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, before reaching out and pulling one of the doors open.

  The lecture hall was much larger than anything I had been in when I attended Birkbeck. Visually, it was breathtaking. The hall itself was circular, with levels and levels of seats rising up around the center of the room where my mother, Elisabeth Callaghan, stood lecturing her students in her British Literature class. They were discussing, ironically enough, Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities and because the class focused on British Literature, everyone was speaking in English, rather than French.

  All of those thoughts left my mind however as I looked down at my biological mother for the first time. She was as beautiful as she had always been in my dreams. And she was everything I had imagined her to be—beautiful, educated, and independent.

  Discreetly, I made my way to an empty chair at the back of the hall and took my seat.

  "Sacrifice," Elisabeth said to her students, "is a common theme in classical literature and it comes up more than once in Dickens' novel. Can anyone tell me how the theme of sacrifice makes its appearance throughout the book?"

  Elisabeth placed a copy of the novel that she had been holding as she talked on the table behind her, and leaned against it, folding her arms and waiting patiently.

  "Several of the characters sacrifice something important to themselves," a girl at the front of the class said.

  Elisabeth nodded. "So they do. Can you elaborate?"

  "I mean there is the fact that Sydney Carton sacrifices himself in order to save Darnay and his family," the girl said.

  A smile lit up Elisabeth's face. She was proud of her students. She looked around the room. "Any other examples?"

  There was silence. I was surprised no one was questioning whether or not Carton's sacrifice was a true sacrifice, or whether it was laced with his own self-doubt and self-worth about himself. But nobody said anything. So I decided to.

  "Do you really consider Carton's death the ultimate sacrifice though?" I asked the girl.

  All eyes turned to me. The girl looked taken aback. "Of course. He could have fallen in love with Lucy after her husband's death."

  "Yes, but it was noted over and over again by Dickens that Carton was a drunk. He doubted his abilities. This was constantly emphasized throughout the text, but at the end of it all, we don't know if Lucy reciprocating his feelings would have actually made him a better person. And Carton knew this when he did what he did."

  I looked back at Elisabeth and she was staring at me dead on. She knew who I was. I could tell. Her students looked back to her as well and she quickly regained her composure.

  "Excellent discussion, everyone," she said. "I think we will call it a day. Please finish up your essays and have them ready by next class. Good day to you all."

  The noise in the room increased as the students started gathering up their materials, closing their books, and putting things into their bags. They began to file out of the room, and within minutes it was cleared. I stood and walked down to the center of the classroom where the lecture area was, my heart beating rapidly in my chest. The woman I had always assumed to be dead was alive. She was alive and in front of me. Elisabeth had her back turned to me, gathering up papers at her desk.

  "I know you know who I am," I said.

  She stopped, and as she did, I took a moment to reflect on how different she looked compared to the dreams I had of her and the pictures I had seen of her. In my dreams, she had always worn a dress, yet now she wore a blouse and black pants. But the key difference in her appearance was her blonde hair. She had cut most off it and now sported a short, styled look.

  "Why are you here?" she asked.

  The words weren’t the ones I expected. I expected her to throw her arms around me, to embrace me. She hadn’t seen me in so many years. But instead she wanted to know why I was here? Finally, she turned around.

  As she did, I looked upon her face. It was the same, but older. There were lines in her forehead, from worry no doubt, and she had some wrinkles around her eyes that were slightly concealed by makeup, but still there.

  "Because I need your help."

  Elisabeth shook her head in frustration. "She found you, didn't she? My mother."

  I nodded.

  Elisabeth screamed a cry of fury and pushed all the contents of her desk to the floor. Books and papers spilled everywhere. Something breakable had been on the desk as well and shattered as soon as it hit the ground.

  "I should have just taken you with me," she said, attempting to choke back tears. She quickly brought her sleeve up to her eyes and wiped away the tears. And then she stepped forward and pulled me into her. My arms came up instinctively around her and I held her close, so close, I didn't want her to go away. Never again. I took in her scent. Peppermint. Pure peppermint. It must have been some kind of perfume or oil she used. It didn't matter. I loved it as soon as I smelled it.

  "I know you wanted to protect me," I said, "and I know why you did what you did, but you have no idea how happy I am to be here with you. Before I met Mathias, I thought you threw me away like trash, but when I learned the truth, I wanted nothing more than for you to be alive, so that I could meet you. And here you are."

  Elisabeth pulled away and stepped back. "I shouldn't be surprised that you've met Mathias."

  I smiled. "It wasn't the greatest time in my life. We both did things to each other that we regret. And he lied to me about the initiation. I know if I had never been initiated then Lucinda would be powerless."

  Again, Elisabeth shook her head. "She would have found another way. She always finds a way."

  "Your plan worked though," I said. "It worked for eighteen years."

  A smile lit up Elisabeth's face. "Eighteen years. I was so excited when I found out that there was a couple looking to adopt, and they seemed like lovely people. And I'm sorry about what happened to them."

  I knew she knew. I knew she had to be the one warning about me about what was to come, what was to happen.

  "I'm sorry," she said, and pulled me into her again. We stood like that for a few moments, holding on to each other. I wanted it to last forever, but I knew it couldn't. I needed to move this along though, so I pulled away. I was about to refer to her as my mother, but then I called her by her name instead.r />
  "Elisabeth," I said, "I’m sure you’ve heard about San Francisco."

  She took my hand and then went still, as if she were in a trance. It took me a moment to realize she was watching the past events from my life. She had the same power I had only recently been acquiring.

  "I saw bits and pieces just now," she said, releasing my hand. "Lucinda."

  I nodded. "It was part of her plan. I have to fix this. I need to get into the original Headquarters. I need to reverse time. Elijah told me that it was possible there. He—" I stopped, unsure how to tell her about Elijah's death.

  She looked at me sadly. "I saw it in your mind and it is something I will have to process. I didn't know until now. I never had the connection with him that I had with my sister. He helped me in a way I'll never be able to forget, and then I never saw him again."

  "I'm sorry," I said, "but can you help me?"

  "I will do whatever I can," Elisabeth said, "but turning back time won't solve anything for you."

  "What do you mean?"

  "She will just find another way."

  I shook my head in frustration. "Then we will have to—to kill her." It was difficult for me to say it out loud, I knew it would have to be done, but it was still difficult. "But not until we get into the Headquarters. She told me she sealed it off, and only she can open it, otherwise I would have done it already. I'm prepared to do it."

  Elisabeth nodded. "That doesn't surprise me. There are three options to stop this prophecy from being fulfilled, and this must be done before time is reversed. As long as all of the requirements haven't been fulfilled, the prophecy can be defeated by you or your sister dying, Lucinda dying, or by waiting it out entirely until your birthday. If she doesn't fulfill it before midnight on your nineteenth birthday, it can never be fulfilled."

  "And how do you know she hasn't fulfilled all of the requirements?" I asked her.

  "Well, the first is killing a Timekeeper."

  I turned away in frustration.