Across Time: Across Time Book 1

by Elizabeth O'Roark

  Listening to the two of them fight has made me tired, and depressed. I close my eyes for a moment and lapse into a fantasy that’s carried me for years now, even before I met Mark, though it's his face I see when I picture it of late: the two of us married, living in some luxurious apartment with enough of everything that I no longer need to jump—enough money, enough support, enough care. I will be normal at last. I won’t need to feel conflicted about the things I haven’t told him because they’ll no longer matter. If you go long enough without time traveling, you generally lose the ability to time travel. I picture my mother visiting us, proud of me at last.

  I just need to stop jumping, and in order to do that I need to get home. As Henri himself said, the sooner, the better.

  6

  On my third conscious day in 1938—my sixth total—I finally rise feeling slightly closer to normal. My level of fatigue is more akin now to a serious hangover, or the day after an illness, as opposed to the worst flu of my life. My limbs are still heavy, though, and I feel an emptiness inside that warns me I probably couldn't jump up a flight of stairs, much less jump to the next decade or beyond.

  Which means I definitely won’t get back in time to see Mark before he leaves for Nepal. I hate that he’s leaving with this strain between us, hate that we had our first argument in two years just before I left, and over something that seems stupid in retrospect. He’d asked me to move to New York City with him, which would mean dropping out of college with one year left. My goals matter too, I said to him. “Just transfer to a school in the city,” he said—as if it was all so easy, as if leaving an Ivy League university and losing a year while I applied for the transfer was meaningless—and I reacted poorly.

  My days here have reminded me, though, what a novelty it is to be wanted at all. He pushed me hard because he loves me, because he enjoys my presence. I still don’t want to transfer, but I wish I’d handled it better. I wish I’d been grateful rather than indignant.

  I wish, most of all, that I hadn’t come here in the first place.

  I spend the morning with Marie-Therese, "helping" her make scones and pie, though my help is nothing a six-year old couldn't provide. I cut and peel apples while she does pretty much everything else.

  “What’s with all the baking?” I ask. It’s just pure laziness on my end, but if I were her I wouldn’t be filling up every available moment with unnecessary work. And to me baking seems like unnecessary work.

  She shrugs. “I thought we’d have tea today.”

  “Tea?” I ask. “Isn’t that a British thing?”

  She laughs. “We do tea here as well, though to be honest I thought it was also an American thing. I was trying to keep you from being homesick.”

  She probably doesn’t realize I’ve never once in my entire life been homesick. Even now, what appeals to me most about my own time is not the people, but the idea of showers and air conditioning. “That’s really thoughtful of you. It sounds like fun.”

  Marie-Therese smiles. “I enjoy baking anyway. My mother and I cooked together every day of my life, from the moment I was old enough to climb on a chair and stand at the stove beside her." Sadness flickers over her face. "She'd have liked you, my mother. Though she'd have convinced you to cut your hair. Is that really the style, in your time? To wear it so long?"

  I shrug. "There are lots of styles. I keep mine this length so it covers things up in case I land somewhere naked. Unlike you, I don’t seem to have much choice about where and when I land.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” she says. “I wonder if you struggle so much because you have some other ability. Perhaps the energy I devote to landing in the right time and place is for you…diverted elsewhere. To some other gift.”

  I laugh aloud. “Trust me, I have no other gifts. And it doesn’t matter anyway, because I will never jump again, after this.” My eyes catch on Henri outside, walking past the window on his way to the pump. He's down to a t-shirt today, and I'd be lying if I didn't admit that he has the most amazing biceps I've ever seen in my life. Mark spends hours at the gym each week lifting weights, but apparently working on a farm provides a little added oomph no gym can provide.

  "Of course you will jump again," she counters, combing through the pantry. "You haven't visited my mother yet."

  Henri pulls the t-shirt over his head and I stare, fascinated, at smooth olive skin and muscles I didn’t even realize were possible until now.

  "I'm not going to visit your mother," I say faintly. "I told you that."

  Henri cups his hands and drinks, then cups them again to dump water over the top of his head, shaking it out of his eyes as it falls. I flush, suddenly aware that I’m gawking and my hands have fallen still.

  "I know what you said," she replies with a small smile. "But I feel increasingly certain you're wrong. We’re out of sugar. I’ll be right back.”

  Before I can ask where she’s going, her dress has fallen to the floor and she is gone. When I choose to jump, I’m a lot like someone trying to justify breaking her diet: here’s why I should make an exception and I’ve been super good and it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But Marie-Therese treats time travel as if it’s spinach or kale—something without a single negative repercussion, the kind of thing you can binge on without guilt.

  I’ve barely blinked before there’s a clatter upstairs, and then she’s walking back down in a new dress, calmly grabbing a full tin of sugar from the pantry and placing it in front of me before she begins folding the clothes she discarded a moment before.

  "Did you really just time travel to go buy sugar?" I ask. "That has got to be the most boring use of a superpower ever."

  "Even more boring than that. I just added it to yesterday's shopping list." She sees my shock and smiles. "It just makes life easier. Surely you've gone back at some point to remind yourself of something?"

  I shrug, unwilling to admit she’s right. When I’ve done it, it’s only been for important things…or things that seemed important at the time. Missed homework assignments, pop quizzes. But I’ve never done it without feeling like I was cheating somehow, whereas Marie-Therese clearly suffers no such qualms. As much as I want to look down on her for using her gift so shamelessly, a part of me is envious at the same time.

  "Don't you worry you'll depend on it too much? You won't be able to just disappear in front of your husband and children."

  "I would not marry a man I was unwilling to tell," she says. "Although I probably won't marry, so I doubt it will be an issue."

  Her answer surprises me. As pretty as she is, I’d think her possibilities were limitless, and she’s awfully young to have given up anyway. "Why don't you think you’ll marry? I’m sure you have your pick in Saint Antoine. There must be someone here you'd consider?"

  Her gaze drifts away and her cheeks grow rose pink. "There is no one suitable here."

  Her choice of words is odd. "Suitable?"

  The blush deepens. "The only man in this town I'd consider is not..." she takes a deep breath and looks away. "He is not available."

  My eyes go wide. Marie-Therese seems so sweet and innocent, so proper. I never dreamed that she'd be lusting after a married man. "And I guess he'll never become available?" I ask. "Divorce is probably frowned upon now?"

  "Divorce?" she gasps, and then flushes again. "Dieu. He's not married! What do you think of me?"

  I throw up my hands. "You said he wasn't available."

  She throws an unnecessary amount of vigor into rolling out the dough. "No, no, no. I don't like anyone. I was just saying there's no one here I would consider."

  Except that's not what she said, and she is still blushing fiercely. Maybe it's someone Henri would not approve of? Someone poor? Someone Jewish? Of another race? I wish I were staying long enough to help her sort it out.

  But, again, I am not.

  That afternoon, she serves tea on the side porch, which is pleasant in the shade, and forces Henri to come inside to join us. He raises a br
ow as he eyes the table. “What’s the special occasion?” he asks. “Is she leaving?”

  Marie-Therese frowns at him. “I thought it might help Amelie feel like she was back home.”

  His mouth twitches. “Americans don’t take tea,” he says.

  She rolls her eyes. “Yes, so you tell me now.”

  I take a scone with clotted cream, doing my best to ignore Henri while he ignores me. Poor Marie-Therese is left to fill in the gap in conversation, and begins telling me about Henri as a teen, trying to borrow the car to meet a girl in the middle of the night without making his mother aware. It’s hard for me to imagine Henri being fun enough to sneak out with the car. He’s close to my age and yet he seems a decade older simply because of the weight he carries on those broad shoulders—I see it in his wary eyes every time he looks at me.

  “His plan was to push it to the road before starting it, but instead, it went careening into an irrigation ditch,” Marie says, laughing. “So he woke me, begging and pleading with me to jump back a few hours to warn him it would happen.”

  "Which you refused to do," adds Henri.

  "Henri was the golden child in our house," Marie-Therese explains. "I thought every once in a while I should not be the only one in trouble. And naturally, he still didn't get in trouble, even when my mother found out."

  I look toward the vineyard, stretching green and lush as far as I can see, and wonder what it would be like to live in a household where rivalries are merely amusing. Where the preference for one child is slight enough that no one minds all that much.

  "If you had to live with a sibling who could do no wrong, you'd understand," Marie-Therese says, interpreting my silence as disapproval.

  "I did," I reply. Unlike her, though, I don’t have any fun stories to share. In my home, after my sister died, I expected nothing from my family other than what was required to survive, and even that didn't seem like a certainty. “My parents didn’t approve of our gift, so I never stood a chance."

  "Didn’t approve?” asks Marie-Therese as if she might have misunderstood. "But why?”

  I shrug. Though I tell myself it doesn't bother me anymore, at times like this I find it requires a certain amount of effort to act ambivalent. "My mother never liked it, but after—" I stumble over my words, trying to sum up the past without giving any of it away. "After my father left, she seemed to decide it was a little…evil."

  The mere act of referencing my mother is sometimes enough to open a hole inside me. I can feel it even now, black and shapeless, filling my head with all her accusations over the years. It’s always been as if she knew slightly more about me than I knew about myself, and what she knew was deeply, irredeemably terrible. Even as I struggled to deny what she said, I always found evidence she was right. Every single time.

  I look up to find Henri’s eyes on me, and for once they aren’t narrowed in suspicion or disdain. He’s looking at me like I’m something passing by too quickly, something he wants to see and understand before it’s too late. And then the expression is gone, leaving me to wonder if I imagined it.

  Marie takes a sip of her tea. “Your family must be worried about you, coming here all alone the way you did.”

  My smile falters a little, and stays in place only by force. I shrug. “No one knows I’m here, actually. Like I said, they wouldn’t have approved.” I’m sure my mother was relieved by my absence. But once I get home and announce my engagement, maybe she’ll start to see me in a different way. Maybe then she’ll start to care.

  Henri sucks in his cheeks. “So where does everyone think you are?”

  “I told them I got an internship in France studying art. My boyfriend was leaving for the summer anyway, so…”

  "Boyfriend? I didn't realize you had a young man," says Marie-Therese. There is a tiny wrinkle between her brows. "I suppose you’re not allowed to tell him what you really are unless you have children together.”

  My eyes go wide. "Mark will never, ever know."

  "Ever?" she asks, flabbergasted. "You must not be serious about him then."

  I sit up a little straighter, feeling oddly defensive. "Of course I am. We're getting engaged after I return home. But no, I'm not going to tell him. He wouldn't understand."

  She and Henri both look dumbfounded. It's as if I just announced I was marrying a family member or someone in prison. "Wouldn't understand?" Marie-Therese repeats. "I'm sure he'd understand quite quickly once you demonstrated."

  I flush. "Not that. I mean he...wouldn't appreciate it. It's complicated."

  Henri remains still. His hand rests on his fork, unmoving. "That's what a woman says when she makes excuses for a man," he says.

  I narrow one eye, flicking him with my most disdainful glance. "I'm sure the women you date make plenty of excuses, Henri."

  Marie-Therese snickers beneath her hand but Henri glances at me coolly, without emotion. "So tell us, then, how it's so hard to explain."

  It feels like even his most innocuous questions are tinged with suspicion, and a thousand responses he’d deem unladylike come to mind. Most of them some version of go fuck yourself, Henri. I lift my chin. "Fine. He's from a very wealthy family. They just don't...they aren't strange. They would not appreciate a strange ability. He wants a normal wife, and that's fine because I plan to be one. Once I get back home, I'm done with jumping. This is my last trip ever, and then it's behind me."

  "Pah," Marie-Therese says with a shocked laugh. "You can't be serious. What if you need something? What if you need to escape? What if you need money?"

  I rise and begin to gather dishes. "I won't. Mark's family is wealthy and well-connected. There's nothing I'd need to time travel for that they can't make happen."

  Henri rolls his eyes, tipping back in his chair as if the conversation is over. "So you've chosen to marry for money," Henri says. "And he’s marrying you for your looks. Apparently some things haven't changed, from my time to yours."

  My face heats. “I love Mark,” I hiss. “It's a happy coincidence that his background means I no longer have to be something I'm not interested in being.” I thank Marie for the tea and retreat. From the moment my mother’s name came up I’ve felt this dark shadow overhead, and Henri’s words only compound it. He seems to live to find weak spots in my armor, and God knows I’ve got enough to make his work easy for him.

  I go out to the coop and swing handfuls of feed around. My mother’s voice is in my head, asking what Mark would think if he could see me now—chickens scurrying around my feet, which are clad in Marie-Therese's old shoes, scuffed and two sizes too big. He’d see that you’re a liar, she whispers. There is no art history internship, no glamorous, can’t-miss journey throughout the country.

  That’s the problem with the things my mother said about me: there was a grain of truth in every single one of them. I am a liar. I’m lying to Mark, to my mother. I’m lying to Henri and Marie about not understanding French and by implying that my sister is still alive.

  There are so many bad things in the world and I know, deep in my heart, that I am all of them to some extent. And I don't see any way to stop being them aside from starting fresh with Mark when I get home. If I never jump again, once I get back, will it be enough? Or will I always be telling him a lie of one kind or another?

  The sound of an opening door draws me out of my thoughts. Henri is walking out of the house but his eyes are on me. I'm never in the mood for his bullshit, but at this precise moment, I feel too fragile to hear a word of it.

  His mouth opens and I cut him off. “I spent my entire life raised by a woman who thinks I’m the devil,” I snap. “So whether you’re about to imply that I’m a thief, or a monster, or a gold-digger, just save it. I assure you I’ll hear all that and worse once I return home, and from someone whose opinion I actually care about.”

  I snatch the milk pail I set outside the coop and turn toward the barn. In spite of what I just said, I feel a sob swell in my throat. I know I’m just tired, but there are days when
it feels like I’m not up to another decade or year or hour of being hated for what I am and all the mistakes I’ve made because of it.

  I’ve just begun to milk the first of the two cows when I hear the crunch of hay underfoot. He stops a few feet away and I ignore him.

  "If you pull from the top of the udder," he says quietly, "it'll come faster."

  I brush my eyes against my sleeve, wishing he would leave so I could take a deep breath.

  But he doesn’t. "I'm sorry," he says quietly. "I don't actually think you're a monster, or a thief."

  I glance up at him. For the first time ever, he looks contrite. "Then why do you keep saying it?"

  He rubs the back of his head. "Because with each hour you spend here, you're making things harder,” he replies after a moment. “No matter what you say to Marie-Therese, she's convinced you're going to find out where our mother went. Whether you intended to or not, you've gotten her hopes up."

  I stand, wrapping my arms around myself. I liked it better when Henri’s objections to my presence seemed ridiculous. But this one isn’t. "I thought you agreed that me traveling back to see your mother was a bad idea."

  He pinches the bridge of his nose. "I do. I know my mother wouldn't want Marie-Therese following her, and there’s probably a reason she left in secret. But my sister can't move on from her obsession while you're still offering some possibility of assistance.”

  I stare at the ground, trying to gather my thoughts. What he says makes perfect sense. God, I'm tired of getting everything wrong. “And you want me to leave before it gets worse,” I conclude.

  He runs a hand through his hair and exhales. “I’m sorry. If things were different, I—”. His gaze rests on my face, more wistful than I’ve ever seen it, and then he shakes his head. “Things aren’t different though,” he sighs, more to himself than me, and he turns to walk out of the barn.