Across Time: Across Time Book 1

by Elizabeth O'Roark

  She gives me a small smile, though I’m not sure she’s convinced. “So it’s okay?”

  I swallow. The last small child I was asked to care for was my sister. But I can’t live in that shadow forever. “Of course.”

  On Thursday afternoon, Marie and Henri drive to Jeannette’s to pick up the children, while I wait at home feeling slightly ill. I’ve already told Marie I don’t want to be in charge of the baby, but three-year-old Charlotte is scary enough. I keep picturing her seeing through me the way my mother did, spying some hidden evil inside me. Knowing it’s ridiculous doesn’t seem to help.

  Marie walks in the door a short time later, carrying a swaddled bundle that must be Lucien. And behind them, a little girl with huge hazel eyes and curls past her shoulders, her tiny hand tucked into Henri’s.

  He has the widest smile on his face, so wide my heart twists a little. Whoever this little girl is, she’s got him hooked around her finger already.

  He walks her toward me and then squats low, so they are nearly the same height. “Charlotte, this is my fiancé, Amelie.”

  I’ve never heard him call me that. I can’t help but smile as I squat down beside them. “Hello, Charlotte.”

  She stares at me with her wide, serious eyes for a moment. Long enough for my stomach to begin the inevitable slide to my feet. And then she reaches into the small bag she carries and pulls out a book, pushing it into my arms.

  “Do you want me to read it to you?” I ask.

  She nods. I cast a last nervous smile at Henri and then take her by the hand out to the porch. I take one seat, expecting her to take the one beside mine. Instead, she scrambles into my lap, puts her thumb in her mouth, and waits eagerly for me to begin.

  I look back into the house, where Henri is watching us. He smiles again and I know he’s seeing his future, when this is our child out on the porch in her mother’s lap. And I smile back, because I finally see how magnificent that future will be.

  All afternoon and into the evening, Marie tends to Lucien while Charlotte has us at her beck and call. Her initial shyness evaporated quickly, and we’ve now heard all about her doll and her tea set, her best friend and her papa, who is very brave and will be home soon. I read to her, and Henri is in charge of games, including a ridiculous one that involves holding each other’s chins and slapping the first to laugh, which Charlotte finds unbelievably funny. Dinner is lively, the three adults passing the baby while we take turns eating, all of us marveling aloud at Jeannette, who somehow is handling this all on her own.

  At bedtime I take Charlotte to the room upstairs, the one that belonged to me when I first arrived, but minutes after I’ve tucked her in and said goodnight, she’s downstairs again, saying she’s scared. I tell her I’ll lie down with her for a moment and do so, surprised to discover how much I like having a three-year-old curled up beside me.

  It’s Henri who wakes me, his hand on my shoulder. “Come to bed,” he whispers. I blink and look at Charlotte, her tiny face on the same pillow as mine, her thumb tucked in her mouth.

  He smiles softly. “You’re spoiling her.”

  I open my mouth to argue and he stops me. “I like that you spoil her. You’re going to be a very good mother.” He gently pulls me to my feet. “But right now I’m more interested in seeing how you’ll be a very good wife.”

  “When will I be a wife, by the way?” I ask as we walk downstairs. Henri mailed my photo to the forger just a few days ago, but now that it’s really underway I’m impatient for it.

  “Your papers will be ready next week,” he says. “As soon as possible after that.”

  “Now we just need to plan a honeymoon,” I say. “Unless people don’t do that in your time?”

  He laughs, pulling me close as he shuts the door behind us. “Yes,” he says, against my ear, “we definitely honeymoon in my time. Where do you want to go?”

  My lips skate over his collarbone and then his neck. “A beach. Somewhere private where we can have sex on every available surface and swim naked.”

  He groans. “I’m not sure where this magical place you’re describing is, but let’s definitely find it. We have the money as long as we don’t tell anyone where we went.”

  “The Riviera, maybe?” I suggest as I unbutton his shirt.

  His fingers press into my hips. “It’s October now and it will be November by the time we’re married. We can go but I don’t think we’ll be doing any swimming.”

  “Further south then. Italy?” I reach for his belt.

  “You’ll have to go further,” he says with a groan.

  I drop to my knees. “Greece?” I ask, wrapping my hand around his girth, already hard and beyond ready.

  “Yes,” he says with a hiss as I take him in my mouth. “That’s perfect.”

  The next day when it’s time to go, Charlotte clings to me, her arms tight around my neck. I feel the pinch of tears. “Perhaps I’ll see you tomorrow at mass,” I reply, trying to reassure myself as much as her.

  She looks from me to Marie, not understanding. “Charlotte is Jewish,” Marie says softly. “So she doesn’t go to mass.”

  My stomach drops. All this time I was worried about Henri and Marie.

  It never occurred to me that there are thousands of little girls like Charlotte in France. And many of them won’t survive the war.

  They leave and I bury my head in my hands. How am I going to approach the coming years? Because it’s clear this is a situation I’ll find myself in, again and again. I can make things better for Charlotte and her brother by getting involved, but if they died during the war, nothing I can do will change that. Which means I also might be risking their lives by getting involved.

  Perhaps it would be better to do nothing, but I already know I’m not capable of it. I can’t watch them marched off to a concentration camp while I simply hope they survive it.

  I wait until evening to broach the topic.

  “You need to make Jeannette leave,” I tell Marie over dinner. “It’s not safe for her and the kids.”

  Marie shrugs. “If it’s safe enough for us to stay, I’m sure it’s safe for Jeannette too.”

  My eyes meet Henri’s and he nods slowly, his hand sliding into mine. It’s time to tell Marie the plans we’ve made.

  “Marie,” he says, “we need to talk you about something. We’re moving.”

  Her eyes go wide. “You are? Where? This is your home.”

  “I meant all three of us,” he amends. “We have some time, but next spring, next summer at the latest, we need to leave for the United States.”

  “Leave?” she gasps. “Why?”

  “It’s not safe here,” I whisper. “Truly, it isn’t. Especially for you and Henri. If I’d known about your mother, I’d have been on my hands and knees begging you to leave when I was here before. Hitler doesn’t just dislike the Jews. He will do his level best to eradicate them.”

  “That won’t happen here, though. And we are practicing Catholics,” she insists.

  From my perspective her stance seems insane, but I understand it. If someone swore to me back home that all the people in my town or my college were about to be annihilated, I’d have struggled to believe it, regardless of the source.

  “I’m not sure it will matter. War brings out the best and the worst in people. And there’s always someone who will inform on you just to get a leg up. Always. Do you really think that André Beauvoir won’t be the first to tell the Nazis your mother was Jewish if he sees a benefit to it?”

  Her jaw sets. “Even if that’s true, I can’t leave. What if my mother comes back looking for us? She'll have no idea where we went."

  Henri’s shoulders sag. “Marie…she’s not coming back. You know this. She’s had two decades to get back to us if she was going to.”

  “But she might escape!” exclaims Marie. “Perhaps she’s been held somewhere and when the war comes she’ll escape at last, and return to an empty home.”

  Henri slumps at the table, runnin
g frustrated hands through his hair. "We've gone over this so many times. This obsession with waiting for her to come home…it’s just your way of avoiding the truth. If you don’t care for your own life, think of mine, and Amelie’s, and any children we might have over the next seven years. Are you willing to risk all of us just so you don’t have to face facts?”

  She lifts her chin. “Then go without me. I’m not asking you to stay behind.”

  Henri shakes his head. “The one thing that will not happen is you remaining here on your own.”

  Her arms fold. “I’ve stayed here and led this quiet little life, as you and Maman wanted. I’ve done everything you’ve asked. But I’m an adult now, and I won’t be pushed into doing something that isn’t right for me. So I won’t leave, not until I know for certain she’s gone.”

  His eyes meet mine, tight with worry, when even he can’t fully realize how bad things might be. Unless I can change Marie’s mind, I know one thing for certain: the odds of us surviving the coming years just got dramatically worse.

  Marie barely speaks for the rest of the afternoon. She chops vegetables for the bouillabaisse with a ferocity that scares me.

  “You got to decide,” she says out of nowhere. “You decided to come here, to go home, to come back. You decided you wanted to go to college, and you decided you would leave. All I’m asking is for the right to decide for myself to remain in my home. Nothing more.”

  I get the feeling her resentment has been brewing for a long time. Not at me, necessarily, but at the lot she’s been dealt. Watching me flit around and do as I please probably hasn’t helped, and now she’s stuck here, lovesick for Father Edouard while Henri and I bask in our relationship. It must seem unbelievably unfair.

  “You’re right,” I tell her. “And I’d feel the same way. But this isn’t the only chance you’ll have to make a decision for yourself. You have your entire life ahead to decide whatever you want.”

  She shakes her head vehemently. “My entire life has been ahead. All of these things that will be possible later—when exactly do they happen? When does Henri decide we don’t need to hide ourselves? When do I get to make my own decisions?”

  I don’t know what to tell her, because it won’t be any time in the near future. “Give me the knife,” I say, “before you cut your finger off.”

  She sets the knife down entirely and pulls off her apron. “I’m going to town. Which appears to be the only decision I’m allowed to make on my own.”

  I watch in silence as she walks out the door. When I was a child I always thought that in any argument someone was right and someone was wrong. As an adult I realize that often isn’t the case, and it certainly isn’t here. Marie deserves to make her own choices, but her brother should be allowed to do what’s necessary to keep his family safe.

  I head out in search of Henri once she leaves. I don’t have to wander long—he’s on the far side of the barn, chopping wood as if it’s life or death. For a moment I just watch: his shirt is off, his bare chest rippling with muscle and flecked with sweat and sawdust.

  He swings the ax viciously and the wood goes flying, nearly to my feet. His eyes widen at the sight of me, and he carefully leans the ax against the tree stump and turns to me. “Have you been there long?”

  I shake my head. “Just briefly admiring the view.”

  He gives me a small smile. “I’m filthy. You have strange taste.” He glances at the house. “Is Marie still mad?”

  I close the distance between us. “It was a lot to throw at her. She went into town to cool off a bit.”

  His hands go to my shoulders, his thumb grazing my collarbone. “You’re so small,” he says quietly. “I forget sometimes how fragile you are, how vulnerable.”

  “I’m not that vulnerable,” I reply with a grin. “I can disappear when necessary, remember?”

  He swallows. “That you can disappear is never far from my mind,” he says heavily. “But you’re far more vulnerable than me in the one way that matters right now: your future isn’t already decided. Mine is, and Marie’s as well.”

  I stiffen. I already know where he is going with this. I knew from the moment Marie refused to move south that we’d circle back to the point where we began.

  “I want you to marry me,” he says. “And then I want you to leave. Just until the war ends.”

  I lay my head against his chest. Sweat, sawdust…I want all of it. I want all of his highs and lows, as long as we can be together through them. “I already promised I’d go home just enough that I can escape if necessary.”

  His arms tighten around me. His heart is hammering now, just beneath my ear. “It’s not enough. Anything can happen. What if you get pregnant and I’m gone? You’ll be stuck here.”

  “Then I won’t get pregnant.”

  He laughs unhappily. “After the past two months are you still under the impression that it’s entirely within your control? And don’t expect me to believe you’d vanish if trouble came. You won’t leave me, just as I would not leave you.”

  My hands clasp his face. “I’d rather have a few years with you than an entire life without you.” Something calm settles over me as I say the words aloud for the first time. Yes, I still want a future with him, but even if I don’t get much more than what I’ve had, it’s…enough. If I had to trade every future autumn in order to keep the one we just spent together, I’d do so without hesitation.

  I just hope it’s a choice I’m not forced to make.

  The air is thick with tension when Marie gets home that night. I decide I’ve created enough trouble, and quietly excuse myself, leaving them in the kitchen and going to the room I now share with Henri. As soon as the door shuts, the arguing begins. First, a quiet, hissing sort of anger, followed by shouting on both sides.

  “This is ridiculous!” Henri cries. “I don’t even know who you are right now.”

  “How easy for you to say when everything has always gone your way,” she screams. “Our mother left and your life didn’t change at all, whereas mine completely stopped. If you truly loved her, you’d understand why I’m determined to stay.”

  “My life went on?” he asks with an incredulous laugh. “You have no idea what I’ve given up. And Amelie has made every one of those sacrifices worthwhile. If I lose her because of your stupidity, I will never forgive you.”

  “Don’t put that on me!” Marie screams. “I’m not asking anyone to stay.”

  She needs to know about the prophecy. In another world, she might have time to choose a course for her life, but this isn’t that world. When he goes silent, I’m certain he’s thinking the same thing, so I walk into the kitchen and take the seat across from him. He meets my eye—should I?—and I nod.

  “There’s something you should know,” he finally says. “You’ll be angry that I didn’t tell you sooner, but I was doing so at Maman’s request.”

  Her eyes go wide as she looks between the two of us, wondering what’s coming.

  Henri’s shoulders sag. He leans forward, hands clasped above the table. “Maman thought the prophecy was about you. She believed you were the hidden child. And I suspect she was right.”

  Her face is completely blank for a moment, and then she laughs. “Me? Why?”

  He exhales. “You meet all the requirements: you were conceived during a great war and born after it. The day after it. In France.”

  “But—” she begins.

  “I know,” he says, cutting her off. “You can’t be the only one to meet that description. But Maman didn’t tell you the most important part of the prophecy: the hidden child is a product of one of the first families.”

  Unlike me, she appears to already know they are one of the first families, so she doesn’t question it. Instead, she slowly drops into a chair, looking shell-shocked. “Why didn’t she tell me?” she finally asks.

  “She thought it might be a burden, that it might change things for you. She wanted you to at least choose a direction for your life free of that re
sponsibility.”

  Marie nods, staring at the floor. “Is that why she went back to 1918? Because of me?”

  Henri’s teeth grind, hating the way this conversation has turned. “I think so, yes.”

  Her eyes well over. “And that’s why you’re so insistent on staying here with me, in spite of the danger. Because you promised her you would.”

  Henri looks at her. “I stay because you’re my sister and I want you to be safe. I’d stay whether I’d promised her I would or not.”

  We are all quiet for a moment. My stomach is clenched tight, praying that she’ll change her mind about leaving, now that she understands what Henri has given up on her behalf.

  “I will go with you to the United States,” she says. My head and Henri’s jerk at the words, but she holds up the palm of her hand. “Hear me out. I will go, but only once I know what happened to our mother.”

  Henri groans, sinking low in his chair. “So in other words, nothing has changed. You will wait here, decade after decade—if you manage to survive the war at all—on the off-chance she returns.”

  “No,” she says softly. “I’m going back to 1918 to find her.”

  My gasp is audible. "Marie," I whisper. "Please...don't. It's not safe. Who knows how many of our kind have gone there and not returned? It's like some kind of Bermuda Triangle for us."

  "I have no idea what a Bermuda Triangle is," she replies, "but it doesn't matter. I want to move on with my life as much as you want me to. And I can't, until I’ve done this one thing."

  I look to Henri, hoping he will slam his hand on the table and forbid it and threaten her with any power he has. But he sits, beaten, knowing that she has made her mind up. The same stubbornness that led to her to refuse to fix my ankle is guiding her now.

  "I can't stop you," he says quietly. "I realize that. But please don't. If I’m off fighting, you and Amelie will need each other. What if we have a child? Even a child who is one of your kind wouldn't have the ability to jump, not for years. Amelie will need help."