Love and Gravity

by Samantha Sotto

  Andrea set the wooden sphere on the worktable. “Here you go.”

  “Thank you.” Isaac centered his cardboard tube on the top of the wooden ball and affixed the metal rod that ran along the length of the tube to the sphere. He tested the range of motion of the tube, tilting the wooden ball on its stand. He stepped away from his creation and beamed. “Come. Look through it.”

  Andrea bent down and peered through the eyepiece at the top of the tube. She could see the whorls in the bark of their favorite oak tree as clear as though it were right in their garden. She gasped. On a dented worktable, behind a small limestone cottage, in a village no history book thought worth noting, the world’s first reflecting telescope had just been invented. Isaac’s innovative design had solved the problem of the blurry images produced by the crude refracting telescopes of that time by replacing the conventional image-blurring glass lenses with metal mirrors that eliminated this distortion. His new telescope was one-twelfth the size of traditional telescopes and had far more powerful magnification. On Andrea’s side of the wall, nearly all observatories used a variation of Isaac’s original design to explore the stars.

  But this was not what made the device in front of her remarkable. Her research had revealed that this groundbreaking invention had earned Isaac entry into the ranks of the prestigious Royal Society of London—in 1668. This morning, he had invented it two years early. Isaac’s fate had not changed. It had accelerated. “Isaac, do you realize what you’ve just made?”

  “Something slightly more useful than my kitten door, I hope. It is a project I have been toying with for a while now. I decided that it was time to finish it. It was the only way we could settle our little debate.” He flashed a grin.

  “Debate?”

  “Tonight, you, my dearest, shall have to concede that the ‘Andrea Constellation’ looks nothing like a cat’s arse.”

  —

  Sleep found Andrea swiftly. For the first time since she crossed over, she did not have to drown out the scratching in her head. The doubts she had about Isaac securing his spot in history ceased clawing inside her. The telescope sitting on their windowsill made her see more than just the stars clearly. Destiny would find Isaac wherever he was.

  —

  A wave of nausea washed over Andrea before she opened her eyes. Her stomach heaved and pushed its contents up her throat. The crack, she thought, had taken her back in her sleep. She flipped to her side and threw up. She lifted her lids. A pool of vomit spread over the rough wooden floor. Unless her landlord had pulled out the carpeting, she was not in her apartment. She had not fallen back through the crack. She wiped her mouth with her nightgown’s sleeve.

  Isaac ran into the bedroom. His eyes flew from her face to the vomit by their bed. He pushed the hair from her face and laid his palm over her forehead, checking her temperature. “What happened? Are you ill?”

  “I must have eaten something bad. Maybe it was the stew.”

  “I shall fetch the doctor.”

  “Don’t.” She rested her head on the pillow. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  After another week of nausea and vomiting, she learned that she was wrong.

  Thus all things are but altered, nothing dies.

  —OVID

  Andrea and Isaac’s Home

  1666

  Andrea is twenty-three.

  Not all history books spoke of Isaac the same way. Andrea knew this because she had read as many as she could about him. Some showered him with praise while others dwelt on the eccentricities of his later life. But all agreed on one thing: Isaac had no direct heirs. Andrea stroked her stomach through her dress, feeling the small swell where his story was being rewritten. She sat at her desk and wrote in her journal.

  Dear Mister Johann Sebastian Bach,

  Her pen hovered over the page. She crossed out the greeting and closed the journal. This was the most she had dared to write in all her five attempts at making a new entry. She did not know what to say next. It might have been easier if all she needed to confess was that she had been reckless and that her pregnancy was an accident. It was harder to admit that her abandon with Isaac was tinted with a shade of hope. The silver hands of her watch never let her forget that her time with him was limited, but they could not reach deep enough to find the spot where she hid away a tiny world of possibility, a place where they were a little family with nothing to set them apart from their neighbors other than their two cat doors.

  Nursing the possible in her heart turned out to be very different from finding it growing in her belly. Fear grew along with it. It was now 1666, the year she had seen on her crumbling grave at St. John the Baptist Church. The date entwined itself around her spine. She had convinced herself that by knowing what was ahead, she could be more wary of danger and stay a step ahead of fate. Now she wasn’t so sure. She was looking out for not just one life but two.

  “How are you feeling?” Isaac strode into the room and set his textbooks on the table. He kissed her on the cheek. “You still look pale. Are you certain you do not wish to see a doctor?”

  She drew a pillow over her belly. “Isaac, do you remember the calculations you made? The ones that you used to predict when I would be coming back?”

  “Of course. Why do you ask?”

  “Would you be able to do them again and find out the next time it will be possible for the song to crack the wall open?”

  His face blanched. “Are…you leaving me?”

  “No.”

  “Then why do you wish to know such a thing?”

  “I came here to convince you to save my father’s life.”

  “And I have done as you have asked.”

  “And I am grateful for it. But now I have to ask you for one more thing.”

  “Anything. Ask and it is done.”

  “Rip your letter apart.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I love my father, but if we change his fate and save his life”—Andrea wiped away a tear—“we would take someone else’s.”

  Isaac rubbed his temples. “Andrea, you are not making any sense. Who are you talking about? Whose life would be in danger?”

  Andrea pressed his hand against her belly. “Our baby’s.”

  “A child…” Isaac said, his voice a fraction louder than a whisper. He caressed the small swell, his lips quivering as though he were about to laugh or cry. “Our child.”

  “If we change the events that led me to this point, I may not make the same decisions that got me here. I may not choose to cross over and…” Andrea clutched her stomach.

  “It is a terrible, cruel choice.” Isaac held her hand. “But you are making the right one. A man can never truly perish if his line persists. Your father would live on in our child. He would understand your decision.”

  Andrea sighed. “But I won’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I blamed you for his death.”

  The light in Isaac’s eyes faltered. “Why?”

  “Because not once, in all your letters, did you warn me about it. I hated you for it. But the night after my father’s funeral, something happened. I…” Andrea pushed the night she spent in Nate’s bed away. “I was in the music room and the crack opened. But I wasn’t playing your song. You were standing behind the wall. That was the night I received the message that led me here.”

  “I do not recall any of this.”

  “That’s because it hasn’t happened yet.”

  “What was the message I sent you?”

  “You didn’t send it. I did. The message was written on a paper plane made from a page of my journal. It had my handwriting on it. That’s why I need to know when the wall can be opened. I have to play the song from this side of time and deliver this message to myself. The Andrea on the other side needs to find her friend Nate so I can come home to you.”

  —

  Isaac’s quill flew over the pages of his notebook. The candle by his side had melted into a stub, but he didn’t seem
to notice. A fire, brighter than the candle’s flame, flickered in his eyes. It was the same fire Andrea had first glimpsed when he hammered away at a small apple cart. He set his pen down. “I have it.”

  “When can we open the wall?” Andrea leaned forward on her toes. “Tell me.”

  “Tomorrow at nightfall. That is when the paths of time on either side of the wall will be closest to each other. If you play the song at the right moment, the crack should open. But remember that this is merely a prediction. I cannot guarantee that my calculations are completely accurate.”

  “I can,” Andrea said. “Your numbers brought me here. They are correct. I just need to make sure I can play your song tomorrow without making any mistakes.”

  —

  Andrea practiced Isaac’s song in the meadow while Isaac was teaching at the grammar school. Mistakes were easier to live with in front of an audience of wildflowers. A lifetime had seemed to pass since she had played Isaac’s song and crossed over. While its measures were simple, no other piece of music made her fingers tremble more.

  —

  Isaac paced the width of the cottage’s little sitting room, his breath racing in and out of him.

  “Stop. Please.” Andrea twisted the peg on her cello’s neck and tightened the A string. “You’re making me nervous. Relax.”

  “How can I?” He folded his arms across his chest. “The woman I am about to see behind that wall loathes me.”

  “That woman is me,” Andrea said.

  “No. Not yet. The Andrea behind that wall just lost her father. I am the last person she wishes to see tonight. I will only cause her more grief.”

  Andrea held his hand. “That’s why we need to do this. This is the night that sets everything in motion. This is when I learn that I need Nate’s help to decipher your code. It’s when I give myself hope. Without this night, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “But can you not tell yourself about all that has happened to you here? That you are carrying our child and that you are happy?”

  “I wish I could. But everything needs to happen exactly as it did.” She placed her hand over her belly. “We can’t risk altering the path that brought me here.”

  Isaac stroked Andrea’s stomach. “I just wish I knew the right words to say to you—her—when the crack opens.”

  “Don’t worry.” Andrea played the first notes of his song. “You will.”

  The song sprung from the cello and touched Isaac’s ears for the first time. His eyes brimmed with tears. He clasped his hand over his mouth. A gasp expanded his chest. “I never imagined—”

  White light broke through the wall’s plaster. Isaac turned toward it and pulled his shoulders back. The wall cracked open. Andrea ended the song before the hole grew too large. She needed to pass a message, not cross over. Isaac stepped in front of her, blocking her view of the woman behind the crack.

  “I am sorry for your loss, Andrea,” he said.

  Andrea pictured herself clenching her fists on the other side of the wall. She could not see past Isaac, but she knew that her past self was screaming at him.

  “I am deeply, deeply sorry.” Isaac stepped away from the wall. The light from the crack glistened on the tears streaming down the finely chiseled angles of his face.

  Andrea kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.”

  He squeezed her arm. “Go on. She is waiting.”

  Andrea picked up the paper plane she had made from a page of her latest journal, careful to stay out of her past self’s line of sight. She hurled the plane through the crack. Her twin’s face paled as she read the message on its wing. Her resolve to stick to the script that time had written for both of them shuddered. She laid her palm over her belly and reminded herself why she could not allow it to crumble.

  —

  Sybil’s dark ringlets framed her chubby, round face. It took every ounce of Andrea’s will not to reach out and pinch the little girl’s rosy cheeks. If she made her cry, Andrea feared her mother would no longer bring the five-year-old over. Sybil and her family lived down the lane from their cottage, and sometimes her mother asked Andrea to watch her when she had errands to run in town. “Would you like something to eat, Sybil? I made some snow.” Andrea offered her a bowl of the sweet dish she had just learned to prepare, a dessert made by whisking cream, rosewater, and sugar until it resembled a little snowy hill. It was one of Isaac’s favorite treats.

  “Yes, please.” Sybil clambered onto the chair at the dining table.

  Isaac sat down next to her and ruffled her hair. He reached behind her ear and made a small spoon appear in his hand. Sybil giggled, grabbed it, and scooped up snow. “Do it again, Uncle Isaac.”

  “As you wish, princess. But my magic isn’t free.” Isaac grinned and tapped his cheek.

  Sybil kissed his cheek, smudging it with cream.

  Isaac laughed. Cream dribbled down the side of his face. He waved his arm and pulled two pink wildflowers from the air. He tucked one into Sybil’s hair and the other one in Andrea’s. He laid his palm on her growing belly. He did not say a word, but Andrea heard his heart sing.

  Love is a thing full of anxious fears.

  —OVID

  Andrea and Isaac’s Home

  1666

  Andrea is twenty-three.

  It lived under the cottage’s thatched roof, beneath its uneven floorboards, and inside its limestone walls. It crackled in the tinder in the fireplace and whispered in Andrea’s ears. She often caught herself wondering how death would find her. Was she going to meet an accident? Was she going to catch the plague? The happiness growing in her belly pushed her fears away. But not far. The inevitable is nothing if not persistent. It hovered close, waiting to tear her little family apart.

  Each day her baby grew inside her counted down the time she and Isaac had left. There was only one person Andrea could share her fears with and she lived centuries away. One night, after Isaac had gone to bed, she dipped a quill into a pot of ink and wrote to her.

  I do not know exactly how this letter will find its way, but I am trusting that time will deliver this message from my hand to yours. I know that nothing that I can say will make what I must tell you easier to believe. I can only offer you my word that everything in this letter is true.

  The rest of the letter flowed onto the page just as she remembered it. The day Mr. Westin had delivered it was fresh in her mind. All his visits were. Her journals housed every memory she had of him since her seventeenth birthday. Sweeping herself back to the morning a silver-haired man dressed in a gray double-breasted suit that was slightly too large for him rang her doorbell was as easy as breathing. She wondered what he was doing and then remembered that he had not yet been born. She scribbled the last lines of her letter:

  Everything will be okay. I promise.

  She intended her words for her past self as much as for her present one. Both of them needed to believe it.

  “Why are you still up?” Isaac rubbed his eyes.

  Andrea tucked her letter between the pages of her latest journal, along with her fears about a crumbling grave. “I was just writing.”

  Isaac pulled the blanket from his hips and walked toward her. Andrea watched his every step, memorizing the way his muscles moved in the candlelight. She wanted to remember as much as she could.

  “I miss you.” He tilted her chin up and kissed her. “Come back to bed.”

  —

  A pale morning crept over the wool blanket. Isaac rolled over and laid his cheek on Andrea’s stomach. “Good morning, little bean.”

  The baby kicked.

  Andrea chuckled. “I don’t think he likes that name.”

  “He?” Isaac grinned. “So you think we’re having a boy?”

  Andrea smiled. “No. I have no idea if we’re having a boy or a girl. It just feels weird to refer to our baby as an ‘it.’ Do you have a preference?”

  “It does not matter as long as he or she looks like you.” He kissed her belly. “If you happen to look li
ke me, little bean, you have my deepest apologies.”

  Andrea propped herself on a pillow. “Would you like to start your cello lessons today?”

  Isaac’s eyes brightened. “I thought you were not keen on giving me lessons. I have been begging you to teach me for months.”

  “I figured that it was now or never. I don’t think I’ll be able to hold the cello if I get any bigger, and finding time for sleep, much less cello lessons, once the baby comes is going to be next to impossible.”

  He grinned and patted her belly. “Sleep shall certainly be a luxury in a few months. Shall I fetch the cello? I am eager to get started.”

  Andrea watched Isaac’s eyes as he spoke, checking if they narrowed or hardened. They looked back at her, bright, wide, and happy. They had not caught her lie. Andrea thought it was best to spare him from the truth behind her change of heart. She was going to teach him how to play because her music was the only thing she could leave to him and their child.

  “Hang on, mister. Not so fast. Nothing gets between a pregnant lady and her breakfast. I believe that it’s your turn to make the porridge.”

  Isaac jumped up from bed and bowed with a flourish. “Right away, madam.”

  —

  Andrea straightened the sheets of paper on her lap and dipped her quill into the inkpot she had propped against one of the oak tree’s protruding roots. A drop of ink fell over her skirt and added to her collection of stains. Composing lullabies beneath the shade of an oak tree wasn’t the neatest of endeavors, but it was easier to find notes in the meadow than in their house. The wind carried them over the grass. All she had to do was listen and write them down. She jotted down the last measure of her newest song.

  Isaac walked across the meadow, a chair hooked on one arm, a small wooden box with a slanted lid tucked in the other. He glanced at Andrea’s stained skirt and smiled. “Good writing day?”

  “I have a couple of songs to show for the mess. Whether they are any good is another matter.”