Predestination Unknown

by Tanya Chris

  “All by yourself?”

  “If need be.”

  My man, of whom I could always be proud. I used the excuse of our being on horseback to drag him closer against me and considered my own future. Seminary wasn’t for me, nor was preaching, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t find a way to make a difference in this time. There was much to be done and though I didn’t share Ezekiel’s faith that I could do it alone, I wasn’t going to be alone, not so long as we both did live.

  Ezekiel steered Daffy past the Cheever household toward the far barn—no doubt we’d left it a mess—but by the time we got there it was full-on dark because we stopped in to see the Coreys, then Rebecca Nurse, along the way. Martha fed us dinner and Rebecca Nurse served us tea, and we arrived at the far barn sated and talked out.

  “Are we spending the night again?” I asked.

  “I thought as we’d have one more night together.”

  One more night being naked and loud sounded good to me. Ezekiel’s eyes in the candlelight were sad, but I kissed it from him. First I took the sadness, then I took his clothes, and finally I took him in a tangle of mouths and hands and silky-slick dicks.

  The next morning I woke to find him cross-legged at the foot of the bed watching me. From the light filtering through the barn door, I could tell it was past milking time. Probably too late to screw around before we left for home.

  “Good morning,” I greeted him. Any morning that didn’t start with getting arrested counted as a good one, but Ezekiel watched me dress with those sorrowful eyes I thought I’d vanquished.

  “Where’s my gay boy?” I teased him. I liked how gay meant happy to him. It meant happy to me too now. I expected him to smile, but what he did instead was grab my hands with his.

  “Now you must go through the mirror, Luther. We have had our time together, but I bid you farewell.”

  “What? No.”

  “I cannot allow as you should stay here.”

  “Do you not want me?”

  “Indeed, but more so do I want you safe, and for that you must be home.”

  “OK. If you’d rather live in my time, we can try going through the mirror together. Maybe if I hold on to you—”

  “I cannot go, for I have work here to do. I must not shirk my duty, no matter how I might wish it otherwise. But you must go.”

  “Well, if you’re not going, I’m not going. We got married, Ezekiel. Till death do us part. Don’t tell me that meant nothing to you.”

  “It meant everything to me.” His anguish hurt to hear. “But Luther, I cannot bear that you stay here where your very life shall be in jeopardy at every turn, where you must hide who you love and fear those who hate you. It is too long until you shall be equal, more years than you shall live, more even than I can count.”

  I could count them. How many years before slavery would be abolished? Almost two hundred. Until men would be allowed to marry each other? More than three hundred. Until there would be true equality? Never. Because it hadn’t happened, not in my timeline. But maybe it could.

  “I don’t know what’ll happen if I stay here,” I told him, “but I do know this: twenty people were hanged in Salem in 1692. It happened and it was recorded and I’ve been taught it my whole life. Except no one was hanged. We changed history yesterday and if we can change that, we can change anything. Nothing is predetermined.”

  I went over to the mirror. There were no glimpses of the future tempting me this early in the morning, but I knew what lay on the other side—the good and the bad, the progress that had been made and the injustices we still overlooked, the conveniences of modern life and the resulting restlessness, the people I’d miss if I didn’t go home and the one I’d leave behind if I did.

  “History tells me I’ve got a long wait for equality, but what if that doesn’t have to be true? If I go through that mirror, life gets easier for me, but I’m not the only African American trapped here. You said you had to stay because you’ve got work to do? Well, so do I.”

  I kicked at the mirror. Once, twice, three times, until it was shards at my feet, nothing left of 2017 but a memory, no way back to where and who I’d been.

  Ezekiel clung to my back as I did it, his fingers digging into the tops of my shoulders as though to hold me back, but whether to stop me from destroying the mirror or stop me from disappearing through it, I didn’t know. Perhaps both.

  When it was done, I turned to face him. “I’m not staying just for you,” I told him as I kissed salty tears from his sweet face, “but I would. There’s not going to be anywhere that’s better than where you are. It might not be an easy life, but this is the life I choose. For better or worse, till death do us part.”

  He cried a long time in my arms, long enough that I understood how scared he’d been that I might leave.

  “Always,” he said, his skin wet beneath my mouth.

  “Forever,” I agreed.

  Epilogue

  Stephen Johnson nearly tripped over the box on his doorstep. The box had been hand-addressed to him in what looked like his son’s handwriting, though he couldn’t think of any reason why Luther would mail him a present. They’d just seen each other a few days ago.

  Beneath the rough brown paper bound in an excessive amount of dirty string, he found a small wooden chest. The chest opened on creaky hinges to reveal a stack of paper, yellowed with age, and a rectangular object wrapped in yet more paper on which was scrawled, “Charge this, then watch the last video.”

  The rectangular object turned out to be a cell phone—a newish Samsung very like Luther’s. Stephen carried it into his bedroom and hooked it up to the charger by his bed, then waited impatiently while it booted.

  The wallpaper was Luther’s too—a photo of the two of them with his mother, Luther’s grandmother, at Luther’s college graduation. But why would Luther mail him his phone?

  Stephen navigated to the camera app and started the video. On screen, Luther appeared, dressed in some kind of costume, his hair longer than it ought to have been. He waved at the camera, then began to speak.

  “Hey, Dad. If you’re seeing this, I guess it arrived OK. I’m hoping it shows up before someone tells you I’ve gone missing—not an easy thing to arrange. You’ll understand after you read through that document I sent. I can’t explain it all right now, because my battery’s about to die, but here’s a quick summary: I’m living in the year 1692. I know—crazy, right? You have to read the story. Anyway, the important thing is that I’m OK, and I’m happy, and I’m sorry I’ll never see you again, but I think you’ll understand why. And most important, I want to introduce you to the reason why.”

  Luther beckoned to someone off-screen and a young white man came into the frame, dressed in a costume similar to Luther’s. He smiled shyly towards the camera as he took a seat. Luther put his arm around him and tugged him closer.

  “This is my husband, Ezekiel Cheever. Say hi to my father, Ezekiel.”

  “Hello, Mr. Johnson.”

  “My Dad’s telling you to call him Stephen right about now.” Luther kissed Ezekiel’s cheek and Ezekiel ducked away.

  “He’s shy about PDA,” Luther said to the camera. “You’ll get why after you read that story, but don’t worry. He loves me.”

  Ezekiel nodded solemnly.

  “We’re in Connecticut right now. Zeke’s going to seminary here and I’m going to start the Abolitionist movement. I’m about a hundred and fifty years early, but that’s all right. No time like the present.”

  Luther was going to start the Abolitionist movement? But that meant— Could his son be the Luther Johnson? The one who—

  “Thing is,” Luther went on, drawing Stephen’s attention back to the video, “I don’t even know what world you live in, whether it’s anything like I remember or totally different. If you look at my camera roll you’ll see some screenshots from a Wikipedia article about the Salem witch trials, which I guess never happened now. I worry Ezekiel and I will change things so much that you don�
�t even exist, but if you didn’t exist, then I wouldn’t exist, which would mean I couldn’t change anything, so …”

  Luther rolled his eyes up to the ceiling for a moment, then shook his head with a quick smile.

  “Well, that’s a paradox I’m not going unravel before this battery dies. It’s blinking at me right now. I just wanted you to know where I am and why I’m staying here. I think you’d be proud of me, Dad. I love you and I miss you. Tell Grandma—”

  The video ended before Luther could finish his sentence. Stephen played it through once more, then went back into the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. He had some reading to do.

  Thank You!

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