Across Time: Across Time Book 1

by Elizabeth O'Roark

  I roll my eyes. He doesn’t want to discuss it and there’s no point anyway. He’s too stubborn to listen to anyone but himself. I suddenly notice we’re heading toward the woods. “Where are we going?”

  "There's a lake at the border of the Bousonne Wood you might like."

  I stiffen. "That's okay."

  He turns to look at me. "You're getting tired?"

  "No," I reply. "I just don't like lakes."

  He looks at me for a moment, waiting, perhaps, for me to explain. Saying you don’t like lakes is like saying you don’t like good food, or comfort. Who doesn’t like lakes? When I say nothing, he just shrugs. "We can ride to the eastern meadow. It's a sea of wildflowers at the moment."

  We turn and head north, picking our way through the vineyard and then the woods, until the trees clear and a hill stretches in front of us. "Just to the top," he says, hovering close to me as we proceed.

  When we finally ascend the hill, my breath releases in one long, contented sigh. It's not merely a field of flowers. It's a field of lilies, so densely packed it's hard to believe they're real.

  He climbs down and before I can stop him, he's grabbed me by the waist and set me gently on the ground. "The horses will graze and we will rest."

  I have far less faith than he does in the animals’ obedient nature. "What happens if they run off?" I ask.

  "Then I will walk home and leave you for dead, of course."

  I laugh. "It was probably your plan all along."

  He nods, rubbing his chin contemplatively. "I do wish I'd thought of it sooner."

  He helps me lower myself into the grass and I lie back, letting my face turn toward the sun. We sit in silence for a few minutes, and when I open my eyes, he's watching me with a hint of a smile.

  "What?" I ask.

  "I'm wondering if you've realized yet what happened the day before yesterday?"

  "That I broke my ankle? No, I didn't realize it at all. No wonder it's so painful and encased in plaster."

  He laughs. "Always so sharp-tongued. I was referring to the fact that you asked—no begged—my sister to use a gift you yourself claim to neither need nor want."

  "I certainly realize she refused."

  "That's not the point. The point is that some part of you desperately wanted this thing you claim you hate. What makes you think you won't need it again, just as badly?"

  "I won't. Mark’s family is very well connected. There's nothing they can't access."

  "They can heal a broken bone with the blink of an eye, then?" he asks. "Money can accomplish that in your time?"

  He has a point, of course, but I refuse to consider it. "No, it can't. But a bit of suffering is part of life, and using time travel constantly—it becomes a habit, an addiction, to avoid things you'll live through just fine. Maybe you'll even grow from them."

  "But you didn't want to grow from the experience of this broken ankle, it would seem."

  I’ve come around to Henri, but his constant harping on this topic is getting old. I frown at him. "This is different. It's a special situation. I'm not in my own time. I'm ready to be a different person, and I can't do that until this is all behind me."

  He's silent for a moment while the lilies rustle in the fragrant breeze. "I don't think you need to be a different person," he finally says.

  "What about my unladylike behavior?"

  He grins at that. "True. I'll amend what I said. You don't need to be an entirely different person."

  By the end of my first week in a cast, I've finally realized my sulking does not seem to be changing Marie's mind in the least.

  I take over baking the bread and help her make preserves of the strawberries she's picked for days and days. It's hard to do much else, however. I can milk the cows, but I can't carry the milk. I try to feed the chickens, but I'm not coordinated enough to do it while holding onto the crutches. And no matter how hard I try, I can’t stop feeling resentful—of her freedom, of her mobility, not at all helped by the fact that she’s now busier than ever. Between her language classes and all the things she does for the church, she’s never home. I’d suspect she was doing this hoping a romance might blossom between Henri and myself, except it’s just too absurd. Surely she must realize that even if I didn’t have someone waiting at home, I could never give up my own time to stay here.

  Though I’d be lying if I said I never thought of Henri that way. We’re spending so much time together it would be hard not to. He’s been coming in from the fields early on the days when Marie is gone and we spend those afternoons together on the porch, reading or playing chess. I reread Mansfield Park, which isn't as bad as I remember, and finish Tender is the Night out of desperation. I find a new stack of books on the porch a few days later, better books. Some that I’ve read—Sense and Sensibility, Gone with the Wind—and some that I haven’t, such as A Handful of Dust, Decline and Fall, and Howard’s End.

  It’s not a bad way to spend a summer, yet I can’t get past being annoyed that I’m confined while Marie’s not. When I enter the kitchen the morning after I’ve found the new books, she is packing her bags to leave. The rain is going to start at any moment, yet I still envy her ability to go at all, to control her life in small ways I cannot. I should be home right now, doing the only thing I can to win my mother over, and every minute I stay here puts that off, which is aggravating because I’ve already waited a lifetime. How could Marie possibly think this situation will persuade me to do anything for her?

  I have to force myself to be polite. “Thank you for the new books.”

  Her brow furrows. “I didn’t get you any books. I haven’t been back to the library this week.”

  I bite my lip. It’s strange that Henri would have done it. And that he’d have chosen so well.

  “I’ll be out until after dinner,” she continues. “You and Henri won’t kill each other while I'm gone, will you?"

  The rancor between Henri and me has grown into an odd thing. He still routinely acts like it’s an unpleasant surprise to find that I’m here, and I still ask if he’s thinking of killing me. But almost anything he says to me, no matter how terrible, just makes me laugh.

  "I'm small and I don't know how to handle a gun. Also, you might not be aware of this, but I have a broken ankle. So I think your brother is safe. No promises on his end, however."

  A small smile turns her full lips up at the corners. "I suspect you're safe. And you've forgotten you do have a weapon or two."

  I glance down. "Are you talking about my breasts?"

  She explodes in laughter. "Dieu, Amelie. I meant your cooking, but if you think your breasts can kill also, by all means use those if necessary."

  Henri drives her into town, and I find myself at loose ends. On crutches, I’m mostly too inept to help with much. I could cook something, but my best-case scenario is wasting a lot of their food and my worst case is burning their home to the ground.

  I’m tired of reading. I’m tired of my own company. I while away the time by swinging my body around the living room on the crutches, trying to see how fast I can cross the room. It’s a stupid and potentially dangerous game, but I don’t know what to do with myself today.

  When Henri walks in, he is drenched to the skin but stops, looking over at me with suspicion. "What are you doing?" he asks.

  "Absolutely nothing,” I reply. “Perhaps you should entertain me."

  He laughs, brushing wet hair off his forehead. "I have a fence to mend."

  The rain is coming down so hard I doubt he could even see a foot in front of his face. Why does he never give himself a day off? "You can't mend a fence in this weather. It's pouring rain. You'll get sick."

  "Better a cool rain that a hundred degrees and sun,” he says.

  "Come on," I wheedle. "Stay in. It’ll be pleasant on the porch."

  He gives me a half-smile. It's enough to light up his whole face. "So you want me to entertain you? Shall I sing? Dance?"

  "Can you sing or dance?"

 
; "Non," he says, mouth still turned up.

  "And you're not funny, and you don't say all that much, which really makes you a poor choice on my part, but I don't see a lot of options."

  He leans back against the wall with his arms folded over his chest. "So I'm to struggle to entertain you while you insult me today. This sounds better and better."

  "I won't insult you," I promise, holding up my hand as if I’m taking an oath. "Not more than usual, anyway. And I'll even...I'll make you hot chocolate."

  "You know how to make hot chocolate?"

  I shrug. "Sort of."

  "Fine," he says. "Let's see you sort of make hot chocolate. Then, perhaps, I'll stay."

  "Go get on dry clothes, first," I order.

  A single brow raises. "You're worrying about me now?"

  I flush. Why do I care that he’s in wet clothes? "No,” I reply. “I just don't want you dripping all over the floor."

  He goes up to his room to change and I stand at the counter, struggling to remember the recipe for cocoa. It's always been a skill of mine, this bizarre ability to recall things when I need to—I just have to focus on the memory and it's almost like I'm there again, seeing what I need to see. I close my eyes and try to picture the back of the Hershey's cocoa box. It’s been ages since I’ve made it from scratch. Probably not since Kit died.

  My eyes are squeezed shut, but I hear him come back into the room. "What are you doing?" he asks.

  "Remembering the recipe for cocoa," I reply, pressing an index finger against my lips so he won't ruin my concentration.

  I see myself as a child, in the kitchen with Kit after a day of sledding. Her cheeks are pink and her hair is soaked through. How long will it take? she asks, jumping in place. She always had so much energy, a constant blur of movement from the moment she woke until she collapsed into sleep. I’d forgotten that about her, and remembering hurts. I guess it’s why I try so hard to avoid thinking about her.

  I pick up the Hershey's container and begin to read from the back of the box.

  "I need sugar," I say to Henri, my eyes still closed. "Half a cup. Four cups of milk. A teaspoon of vanilla—the recipe calls for slightly less but we like it with more. A third cup hot water, a dash of salt, and a quarter cup of cocoa."

  I take one last look at Kit. I’m sorry, I think. God I’m so sorry. If one of us had to die, it should have been me. Not a single member of the family would say otherwise.

  And then I open my eyes and find Henri standing across the counter, staring at me. His eyes are all pupil. "What was that?"

  "I told you I was going to make cocoa. I was just remembering the recipe."

  He shakes his head, slowly. "Non. You didn't just remember. You seemed to flicker in and out like a candle. You were…shimmering. I saw it."

  My breath stops for a moment, and then releases. It's not possible that I time traveled. I'm not even good at being in one place at a time for God's sake and being in two places at once…it’s just not a thing my kind does. "You were seeing things."

  "Then how did you recall that recipe verbatim?" he challenges.

  "I just have a good memory."

  He tilts his head. "Tell me again how much cocoa you need then."

  I blink, searching my head for the answer. When I was reading the ingredients, it's as if I was channeling it all. "I told you. You were supposed to remember."

  He gazes at me, still with that assessing look, like I just escaped from a locked cage wearing a straitjacket, and he wants to know how I did the trick. "I do. A quarter cup. My point is that you don't. So don't try to tell me this was your fabulous memory at work."

  I sigh loudly. "I didn't time travel, if that's what you're trying to say. I was standing right here the entire time."

  He tips his head, as if he’s conceding the point. But it’s clear as day in his face that he doesn’t quite believe me.

  Fifteen minutes later we are seated on the porch with our cocoa. While he sets up the chess board, I gaze out over the fields, surprised by how oddly content I am right now. I love the colors of the farm on a sunny day, but I think I almost like this more: against the charcoal gray of the sky, all the colors seem deeper. The grass and vines a lush green, the air pleasantly balmy rather than sweltering.

  We begin to play. Slowly, carefully. Even a week ago, I wouldn’t have done this with him solely because I couldn’t stand to see him win. Now, oddly enough, I’m not sure I’d even mind. Perhaps I’m giving him too much credit, but he’s surprisingly easy to be around at the times when you’d expect him to be unbearable.

  As the game carves its way through the afternoon, we put the mugs of cocoa aside and replace them with glasses of wine, which I’m starting to come around to, although perhaps I merely like that it’s accompanied today by salty olives and fresh bread.

  We finish the bottle and he opens another. “You must have a hollow leg,” he says. “Marie-Therese would be falling out of her chair right now.”

  “I suppose that’s unladylike, according to you?”

  He grins. “Not at all. Though it would be unfortunate if I were trying to get you drunk.”

  Butterflies flutter in my stomach at the mere suggestion of it. “Is that your strategy on dates?”

  He gives me another half-grin. “I have a few others I try first.”

  I’ll just bet he does. He probably doesn’t even need to get a girl drunk. He can just smile at her the way he’s smiling at me right now and she’d pull her dress up to her waist.

  “Do you and Mark do this?” he asks.

  For a second I think he’s asking about sex. I blink. “What? Oh, chess? No, we..." The truth is that I'm not sure what we do. We haven't lived in the same place since the summer we met and our time together has always been in short bursts of togetherness, jam-packed.

  When we see each other, it’s always a reunion, and therefore a celebration…a slightly exhausting one. I sleep for a full day when I come home from a trip with him. I’ve been looking forward to the time when we could have a day like this, yet I’m hard pressed to imagine it. Mark never wants to stop. The idea of staying home on a rainy day might drive him insane.

  For so long, he’s represented how I will grow, how I will become the person my mother wants me to be, once we’re together. But now it occurs to me for the first time that I might be giving something up in exchange.

  14

  As the weekend approaches, Marie attempts to demand that I attend church.

  “She can’t,” Henri argues. “She sticks out like a sore thumb.” Trust Henri to find the most unflattering light to put me in. “Just let her stay home.”

  “We had an excuse last week. She’d just broken her ankle,” says Marie. “We no longer have one.”

  I swing forward on the crutches—I’ve gotten pretty adept at getting around on them as long as there is level ground. "I'm on Henri's side for once,” I tell her. “I have no desire to go to church."

  Marie raises an eyebrow. “What about heaven?” she counters. “Do you desire to go there, or would you prefer somewhere a little warmer?”

  I ignore her. “Can’t you just tell everyone I went to Paris for the day? Surely when people visit here, they sometimes go elsewhere?” God knows I’d be on the first train to Paris right now myself, if it were a possibility.

  “I will very reluctantly stay home with her,” Henri says with a gallant bow. “Otherwise they’ll wonder how she got there.”

  Marie shakes her head vehemently. “And how do we explain it if someone stops by, or sees the car here?”

  “We could actually go?” I venture. "To Paris, I mean. I'm dying to see it before the war.”

  Henri shakes his head. "You’re on crutches and I can’t be responsible for two of you in Paris. You'll attract too much attention."

  "I can’t go anyway,” says Marie. “I'm helping Father Edouard set up the small social after mass. But the two of you feel free, since you’re so ambivalent about where you’ll spend the afterlife." />
  Ignoring this, I turn to Henri. “I’ve gotten so much better on the crutches,” I say eagerly. “I think I’ll be fine.”

  I fully expected him to object and am delighted when he shrugs in agreement instead. "A day in Paris always beats a morning at church. Yes, little thief. Even one spent with you."

  The next morning Marie wakes me early, giddy with excitement on my behalf. She makes me wear a different dress – baby blue serge, with a v-neck and collar. “I took up the hem a bit last night after you went to sleep,” she says. She forces me to wear hose and garters with it, acting like going into Paris without hose would be the equivalent of going there nude, and also insists I put my hair up.

  Because I refuse to cut it, which is the style here, she uses curling tongs to roll it under at the nape of my neck so it looks as if I have shoulder length hair, along with a few waves on top. When she's done and she’s got me in the dress, she claps her hands together. "You look like a movie star," she says with a dreamy sigh. "Henri, look at our Amelie," she says, turning me to face him. "Does she not look like Carole Lombard?"

  I find I am waiting for his response more anxiously than I should. How could his opinion possibly matter, especially when it's bound to be negative? He reluctantly glances up from his newspaper, and I see something on his face I can’t quite read—as if he’s looking at me and thinking hard at the same time—before he looks down again. "Yes," he says. "Perhaps a little."

  Marie grins, turning me back toward her as Henri walks out to start the car. She fixes a bobby pin in my hair and beams at me. "Did you hear that? He said you looked a little like Carole Lombard! He thinks she’s the most beautiful woman alive.”

  I laugh. “Yes, because you specifically asked him if I did. What else was he supposed to say?”

  She gives me a look. “Are you seriously under the impression that Henri wouldn’t have said no to that question if he could have? Have you found him to be a man who minces words?”

  Hmmm. I suppose she has a point.