I shake my head, still trying to understand how she could possibly exist. And then I begin to put things together: the way certain smells have been making me gag, the constant rolling of my stomach. The fatigue. How have I not realized until now?
I’m pregnant.
I’ve been pregnant since Henri left Saint Antoine, and the girl who stands before me is the result.
She’s still waiting, wondering if I’m mad, when I don’t understand how she possibly managed to arrive in the first place.
“But how did you get here?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I jumped. Last summer you showed me some of the places you stayed. I jumped to one of them, but you were leaving.”
“My God,” I whisper, pressing my hands to my face. “You’ve been following us all this time?”
She shakes her head vigorously. “Just a little while yesterday but I had to go home.”
“Home? You live here? Outside Lyon?”
Her head tips to the side, as if she doesn’t understand what I’m asking. “No, we live in Virginia.”
“Virginia,” I repeat. To go back to a specific date, to a specific place on the other side of the world with almost no landmarks to guide you...the skill it would take to orchestrate it is almost unthinkable. “Are you saying you time traveled all the way from Virginia and managed to land here?”
She nods, looking a little uncertain. “You always tell me the story about the soldier and I wanted to see him.”
I feel the air whistling through my lungs. “What soldier?” I whisper.
“Henri, the one who fights off all the Nazis.” Her face grows wary. “I always thought maybe he was…my dad? I just wanted to see him. I wasn’t going to talk to him.”
The shock nearly sends me to my knees. She’s saying she’s never met her father. And I can only think of one reason why that would be the case.
I take a deep breath, trying to focus, trying not to fall apart in front of this girl who says she’s mine. Who must be mine. Even standing here I feel a connection to her, as if something has us tethered. I want to ask her so many questions—What happened to Henri? Are the rest of the children okay? But she is too young for all that, too young even to realize how her simple visit could thrill me and break my heart all at the same time, and that she’s endangered herself by coming at all. Only moments ago, I was ready to kill her myself.
I grab her hand. “It’s not safe here, so I need you to swear to me you’ll go home and that you will never come here without telling me again. Do you swear it?”
She nods. “But...my dad is the tall one, isn’t he? The one with eyes like mine?”
I feel the sting of tears and nod quickly. “Go now, okay?”
She throws her arms around me. “See you at dinner,” she says, pulling away with a wide, fearless grin, so like her father’s. She closes her eyes, and just as quickly, she’s gone. Leaving me so stunned I can’t even remember why I came into the house.
She time traveled over an ocean. How is that possible? Marie has a talent, like I do, but nothing along the lines of what I just witnessed.
Suddenly I recall Madame Durand, reciting the prophecy to me so long ago: In France there will be a hidden child, born of the first family, conceived during a great war and born on the other side of it.
This will be a child born of two first families, conceived during a great war, but not born on the other side, unless…
Unless I chose to go to my own time to have her. If she’s the hidden child, nothing could be safer than hiding her five decades into the future, could it?
But no. I would never leave Henri and the children. Let someone else be the hidden child. It does not have to be her.
I walk back to the barn and lie down next to Henri, who is still sound asleep. I curl up against him as if I can somehow cement us together. I wish I’d asked if he was alive when she was born. Because if he wasn’t, it means we have less than six months left.
He rouses. “Well, hello there,” he says. I start to pull away, but he holds onto me. “Not so fast.”
“I need to check your wound.”
“And I need to enjoy the feeling of you wrapped around me like a blanket.”
“Fine, but no more sex.”
He laughs. “Not even married yet and you’re already denying me.”
It hits me all over again: I am pregnant. I want to tell Henri, but...it would also mean telling him he will not know his daughter. It means telling him he might die in the next few months.
“I’m not feeling well,” I whisper, and then I press my face to his chest and begin to cry. I don’t want to be part of the prophecy. I don’t want to be the mother of the hidden child. I just want Henri and our life, and even now—as he swears to me everything will be fine—I suspect I’m not going to get it.
* * *
In the afternoon, Henri goes out to check the traps. “Perhaps you’ll eat if I can find you something other than meat in a tin,” he says.
I bite down hard on my lip, watching him walk away. Going off into the woods is a risk, and so is building a fire to cook the meat. I should tell him about the baby, but this is a perfect example of why I’m reluctant to do so. He’ll take risks he shouldn’t, and he’ll coddle me in ways that are unnecessary. Most of all, I’m worried he’ll ask me to leave, because this is a terrible time and place to give birth. Even finding a doctor will be an issue, and what if she comes early like Cecelia did?
I return to the house, looking for anything that might prove useful for the last leg of our trip, and find myself facing a mirror in the bedroom upstairs. Now that I know I’m pregnant, I’m not sure how I could have failed to see it. My face has changed, and so has my body. I turn to the side and pull up my shirt just enough to see that the perfectly flat plane of my stomach, the one I’ve had all my life, has disappeared. It won’t be long until Henri sees it too.
“Well, well, well,” says a voice. I let the shirt drop and round on Quinn. Why the hell I would name any child after him is beyond me.
“I didn’t think you were capable of sneaking up on people,” I snap.
“When the occasion calls for it, I manage.” He glances at my stomach, his mouth set in a grim line. “So whose is it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“A woman doesn’t stare at her stomach in the mirror the way you just did unless she’s looking for one particular thing. Is it his or not?”
I glare at him. “Don’t be an idiot. Of course it is. You really think I’d risk my life trying to save someone I’d been cheating on?”
His arms fold. “Then why doesn’t he know?”
“Because I just found out myself,” I snap. “And because it will complicate things. I’ll tell him when we get to—”
The purr of vehicles approaching silences me. Quinn and I stare at each other, our constant animosity gone for once, and rush down the stairs.
“Two vehicles,” he says, peering out the window. “Six soldiers. With at least one machine gun.”
I pull my gun out of my waistband, a quiet, ugly thrill in my veins. I know I told Henri I’d try to stop, but this is different. “I’ll go around the back of the house and shoot from the side. You go to the window.”
He grabs my arm. “Are you nuts? They turn that machine gun on you and it’s over. Do you not even care about the baby?”
I should, but the desire for revenge is humming in my blood, louder than any other sound. “We can do this,” I hiss. “I can get the three in back, you take the three in front.”
He shakes his head. “No. Just run. I’ll surrender and tell them I’m alone. Maybe it’ll give you enough time.”
I blink. Since we met, I’ve seen him do little that isn’t selfish or boorish. But here he is, unexpectedly noble. I don’t understand. “Why would you do that for us?”
“Henri is a good man,” he says, and for the first time he seems like the adult he might be one day—decent and responsible. “He deserves
to know his child.”
He walks out before I can stop him. His hands are up. I can reverse this, I think. I can still save him. And then the soldier with the machine gun rises and begins to fire. I watch as Quinn falls to the ground.
It feels as if it lasts a very long time, but in truth it’s probably only a second before my shock morphs into dark rage. I should care that I’m pregnant, that what I’m doing is suicidal, but making them pay...it surpasses everything else.
I run out the door behind the kitchen with one gun, hoping to kill the three in back before they realize where the bullets came from.
I slide along the wall, and once I’m close enough, I take aim. I’m almost calm, empty, as I open fire. The first soldier falls, and then the second. The third swings toward me and falls...but the bullet isn’t mine.
Henri, just on the periphery of the woods, has begun to fire. And it feels as if the world is falling apart as they turn toward him, rather than me. It was different when it was just my life at stake, or even mine and Quinn’s. But now it’s Henri’s, and all my confidence and rage abandons me in a sudden rush of panic.
The soldier who holds off the Nazis, our daughter said.
Is it this? Is it because of me? The questions and the fear flood my brain and it’s impossible to think clearly. Had I listened to Quinn, had I not given into my hideous anger, this wouldn’t be happening.
The machine gun is directed at Henri, and even the tree he stands behind won’t protect him for long. Somehow I manage to shake off my terror and jump to the house, grabbing the weapon Quinn left behind. I aim at the soldier with the machine gun and strike him in the head, but his gun swings wildly as he falls, and a bullet comes through the window a foot from me. I dive, and when I stand again, I see Henri, coming at the remaining soldier at a run.
Once again I’m paralyzed, unable to think, unable to fire. I watch as the soldier turns toward him, takes aim.
Henri lands in the jeep, on top of him. The gun explodes and then they are both still.
I freeze. I can’t stand it if he’s dead, I think. I won’t be able to survive it.
Another shot is fired, and then...a miracle. Henri lifts himself off the soldier, and his eyes go to me, standing in the doorway, naked and stiff with shock. He climbs from the jeep and crosses the yard, pulling me tight. My knees buckle with relief.
He pulls away just enough that I can see the fury in his face, and the fear behind it. “You could have died. Why didn’t you leave?”
Why didn’t I? I could have stopped Quinn and time traveled back a few hours to warn us what was coming. Quinn is dead because I made the wrong choice. Because I wanted to kill more than I wanted us all to live.
I lean my head against his chest. “I wanted to kill them,” I admit. “And now Quinn is dead. He surrendered and I just watched him go. I should have stopped him.”
“This makes no sense,” he whispers. “Why didn’t he fight? It isn’t like him just to give up.”
My chest tightens with regret and sorrow. Henri’s right. It wasn’t like Quinn to just give up, but he was willing to make sacrifices for my family even I wasn’t willing to make.
“He did it for you,” I whisper. “You and our child. He thought he was buying us time to get away.”
He stills. “Child?” he asks. “I never told anyone about Cecelia.”
“Not Cecelia,” I say gently, looking up at him. “Our child. I’m pregnant. I figured it out this morning and he figured it out right after I did.”
“Pregnant,” he repeats, his eyes alight, but wary at the same time. “You’re certain? Because I thought the doctors said it wasn’t possible.”
“They said it was unlikely,” I amend. “And I’m very sure, because I met her.”
He blinks. “What? You mean, in the future?”
I shake my head. “Here. Today. Henri, she crossed an ocean to get here and her powers were...extraordinary. I think she may be the child mentioned in the prophecy.”
His jaw falls open. “Conceived during a great war and born in its shadow,” he recites. “But it’s not possible. This war will continue for years.”
“For some reason, I must jump forward,” I reply, and then my head hangs. I don’t want to tell him the rest.
He uses his index finger to tip my chin up, and then he studies my face. “What is it?” he asks.
“She was here to see you,” I tell him, looking at the ground once more. “She said you’d never met.”
I feel him stiffen, and then, slowly, his hand cups my jaw, forcing me to meet his eye. “And that’s why you wept this morning?” he asks. When I nod, he presses his lips to my forehead. “Nothing is set in stone, little thief. Maybe there’s another way.”
I nod, swallowing hard to keep from crying and praying he’s right.
“But this changes everything, Sarah,” he continues. “You’ve got to protect our child and leave the rest to me until she’s born. You’ve got to escape dangerous situations instead of staying behind to fight.”
Quinn’s body rests twenty feet ahead. He lies at an awkward angle, impossibly still for a man who was so very alive a few minutes before. I cross the distance and pull his dog tags up to the light.
Michael Robert Quinn. Waco, Texas.
He had no reason to sacrifice himself for us, but he did, and it’s time for me to give things up too. That ugly part of me has to be set aside so I can bring this child into the world and keep her safe.
I understand now why I named her after him. Not just because he sacrificed himself for us, but so I’ll always be reminded of what happens when I give in to the dark.
47
SARAH
Over the next week, as we head to Nanterre, we come to terms with our news. We have to stay quiet during the day, but at night we discuss the future—what it means that this child is the product of two first families. I tell him about the time traveler I saw lurking during my last visit to 1989, and we come to the same conclusion—there’s no assurance that our child will be safe, regardless of the decades she’s raised in.
He insists on taking more breaks than I need and coddles me as if I’m fragile, but I don’t really mind. Our time together feels more precious than it ever has. No matter what we tell ourselves, we both know it may end soon.
On our final night together, there is no shelter to be found—not a safe one anyway. We make a bed of leaves and then lie down with the blanket pulled around us and his arm beneath my head. It’s still cold out, but growing warmer now, with the barest hint of spring on the way. And all I can think is that by the time it gets cold again, I may be gone.
“I’m probably due in October,” I whisper.
“I can’t imagine a life without you, little thief,” he says, reading into my words and my sudden melancholy. “I refuse to believe that’s what’s in store for us.”
“You once said something about the island.” I glance away, as tears threaten. “About being reunited there. Do you think there’s a chance it’s true?”
He’s quiet for a moment. “I’m a practical man,” he finally replies. “I struggle to believe in the concept of heaven, and the island sounds, to me, like another version of that.”
I suppose I mostly feel the same way. I just wanted him to convince me otherwise. I wanted him to convince me there was time.
* * *
It's afternoon when we finally crest the hill and see Chateau de Nanterre. My stomach drops at the sight—it’s mostly rubble, destroyed either by time or German bombs.
Henri, who’s been tense all day and trying to restrain his fury about Marie and Edouard’s predicament, stiffens in a way that does not bode well.
“They can’t be living here,” I whisper, squeezing his hand. “There must be an explanation.”
“I hope for my sister’s sake it’s a very good one,” Henri growls.
We proceed down the hill. The grounds are surrounded by a twenty-foot wrought iron fence with spiked posts and the gate is locked.
“I’ll just time travel to unlock it,” I suggest.
His eyes flicker with anxiety. “What about the baby? What happened to Marie—”
“Won’t happen here,” I say softly, squeezing his hand. “I’ve been time traveling throughout this pregnancy, and this child’s abilities surpass all of ours, remember?”
Before he can argue further, I fade and land on the other side.
He raises a brow at me. “Just keep in mind that you’re supposed to avoid time travel for the next six months.”
I grab the bars of the fence and smile at him. “I thought I’d mostly agreed to stop killing people.”
I unlock the gate and, once I’m dressed, he takes my hand and we proceed down the long gravel path. The grounds are overgrown but flourishing in the March air—rose bushes budding, tulips already springing up in the beds along the exterior.
The remains of the chateau hardly look stable, so we head to the back. Crawling through a break in the eight-foot hedge, we emerge to a wonderland on the other side—a reflecting pool and long yard with cottages along its periphery and woods behind them. In the grass, at least twenty children stand frozen, staring at us in shock.
One small figure breaks from the group and barrels toward us—Charlotte, brown curls flying around her joyful little face. “Mama!” she cries, throwing herself into my arms. I kneel in the gravel and pull her close, breathing in her smell of soap and grass and sunshine.
Tears spring to my eyes. It’s only now, now that we’ve finally gotten home to them, that I recognize the empty space that’s been inside me since I left. Lucien runs next and then the four of us are on the ground, entwined.
“Please don’t go away again,” whispers Charlotte against my ear. My chest squeezes tight at her solemn, tear-stained face. She already lost one mother and spent the last several weeks worried she’d lost another. I wish I hadn’t put her through that.
“I hope I never have to,” I tell her, turning my head to see Cecelia toddling forward, led by Marie.
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