Tempus (41 page)

“What does that have to do with my question?”  I asked.

“
Everything
.”  He replied, opening his eyes again, letting me see the pain inside them.  “Because every time I feel it coming, every time I have to let you go, it’s like a little death.  A little death inside, and then a prayer for resurrection which I’m never confident will come.”

“But you’ve argued with your dad about it, talked about destiny and all that, how can you not be confident?”  His uncertainty made
me
feel uncertain.

“Saying you are certain, and being certain in practice, are entirely different propositions.  When you are talking about the most important thing to you, the possibility of losing it…”

“You would find me.”  I whispered.

“I
would
.  I’ve thought a million times of the ways to do it, if time goes back too far.  I know when and where you live, I would know when and where to find you, but it’s not quite as easy as it sounds, not for a traveler.”

“I don’t even understand what that means.  What is a traveler,
exactly
?”  He and his father had used that word over and over, and I still didn’t understand it.

“The simple explanation is that I can travel forward only, primarily within a certain time-frame covering a few years.  For instance, I came here at precisely 100 years after the current year in my time, nearly the same day.  When I return home, I will return to the instant I departed, and vice versa, when traveling through the same mechanism.  Anyone watching here or there would never notice me come or go.”

“But I saw you step into the mirror.”  I reminded him.

“That’s why my father held my hand.  You would have seen nothing otherwise.  That connection allowed you to see.”

“So if he hadn’t done that, you would have disappeared?”  I asked.

“No.  You would have seen me stand in front of the mirror a few seconds, and then we would have continued on our way doing whatever we had been doing.  You might have noticed
something
, similar to one single wrong frame on a thirty frame-per-second movie, but your brain would discard it.”

He stopped and got a thoughtful look.  “The only way I would disappear to your eyes would be for me to never use that mirror again to come here—unless—I used
your
mirror, the one in your room.  The time would be off, but not by much.”

“The one in my room?  What do you mean?”

“It’s just an idea.  I need to talk to my Father first, though, and ask some questions.”

“Okay, so what would make it difficult for you to come back here, if time went too far back?”  I still didn’t know.

“We explained to you before about setting a path, like a doorway, do you remember?”  I nodded.  “If time goes back past that, the mirror is ‘reset,’ then there is no path.  I might not even find that mirror, if I do, it may not lead here.  There are too many variables.”

“But if I am always
here
, what does it matter when or where you show up?  My name’s not going to change; who I am’s not going to change.  I’ll still be me, and I’ll still be here.  Even if you show up in Detroit in two thousand one, you just come
here
.”  Duh, it couldn’t be any harder than that, could it?

“It’s not so much that I couldn’t physically come here and find you.”  He put his head down.

“Then what is it?  What is the big problem?”

“Love between two people from different times is a little more complicated than,” he let out a sigh and rubbed his hands together, “than a
normal
relationship.  Normal ones are hard enough.”  He looked around the room, then at his door.

“Case study.”  He said.  “We had a friend, we’ll say his name was Robert, and Robert met a woman in the future and fell in love, we’ll call her ‘Annie.’  They were together a long time, and it was undoubtedly love.  Robert had to return home.  Had things gone as planned, Annie would have never known he was gone.  While Robert was ‘home’ taking care of neglected duties, there was a fire in his home and the mirror he used was destroyed, erasing it from the future.”

“Robert then spent most of his time in search of a way back, a way as near as possible to the time and date he left her.  The closest he ever found was about a year prior to their first meeting.  He went back with the understanding that, to her at least, he was a stranger.  He found her, introduced himself, and attempted to develop a relationship.  She was involved with a man that Robert knew of, a relationship that had ended; that he
believed
would end again.”

“Unfortunately, Roberts presence caused the other man to change in both attitude and action, and those changes affected his relationship with Annie.  Ultimately, Annie agreed to marry the other man, prior to the time she had originally met Robert.”

“Then it wasn’t meant to be, right?”  I asked.  “If it was meant to be, it would have happened.  Your dad said you can’t erase a soul, so if Robert and Annie were meant to be, and they married and had children, those children would have a soul and couldn’t have been erased.”

“Try to explain that to Robert.”  He laughed a sad laugh.

“What I mean is that, if it is meant to be, for us, then it won’t matter how many times we start over, or when or where.  None of that matters, right?”  That gave me something to hold on to.

“That’s the theory, but not everyone believes that theory is correct, not unless it affects the world as a whole.  If the body is a vessel, and the soul exists separately from it, both before and after the existence of the body—but the body has an effect on the souls perceptions—then isn’t it possible that everything is changeable, even the soul itself?” 

“I don’t know.  I’m not sure what you mean.”  This was making my head hurt.  I liked it better when people just lived, died, and then went to heaven or hell.

“Say there’s a soul, and it could end up in a body born to rich and influential parents, or poor and abusive parents.  If the body and soul are separate entities, then either could happen, and they would have different effects on the souls' perception of
everything
.  A poor little girl, bad parents, turns to drugs, finds and marries an abusive man, has children, the cycle starts all over.  Or a rich little girl, loved and cared for, marries a man of stature who loves her—you get the idea.  Same soul, different
lives
.”

“Could that happen?  Could something that drastically different happen to the same soul?”  I thought for a moment.  “Using your idea, what about stories of people who were born under the worst of circumstances, but rose above it all against the odds.  Or the opposite, perfect upbringing, but turned into serial killers.  I would think the soul would be unchangeable, no matter what ‘vessel’ it ended up in.”

“Good argument.  I don’t know the answer, though.  We don’t know when time ends, and as long as we are here and can travel then time goes on at least for a while, and farther than I can see.  As long as it continues anything is
possible
.”  He took my hand.  “
Animae implexus.
”  He whispered.  “That’s what my Father said.”

“What does it mean?”  I remembered it made Gabriel smile.

“Soul mates.  That’s what it implies at least.  It’s more accurate to say souls entwined, or wrapped around each other.”  He wrapped his arms around me.

“Do you believe in such a thing?”  I’d never thought about it, but I knew I believed in it.  It’s why I searched for perfect, for fireworks.

“
I do
.”  He whispered into my hair.

“Then why are you afraid?”

“Because they seldom find each other.  People are too impatient and the body is a desperate vessel, always searching for something to make it feel useful.”  He said.

“Then that takes fate out of the equation, doesn’t it?  At least for people.”  I didn’t like that idea at all, made everything seem a little pointless as far as living was concerned.

“So it would appear.”  His voice was barely audible.

“Wait, I don’t get something else.  You said time is resetting, so does that mean the whole future, or just this part?  If it’s just this part, then how could that not affect the future?  Or if it resets, then why doesn’t everything just repeat, like a record skipping?”

“The whole line shifts, all of time shifts from the point it was reset to, to accommodate the ‘skip.’  It overwrites what was there when it starts again.”  If you record something on an old magnetic cassette tape, then rewind and record over it, the original recording is underneath, but covered up.  It’s still a tape, still records, still plays the same direction, but what is apparent, perceptible, is the newest recording.”

“I will never, ever understand this.”  I closed my eyes. 

“No, you
won’t
.  Don’t let it bother you.  We have thousands of years of experience, and we still don’t understand.  Sometimes it’s just easier to be what we are and do what we do and believe that all will end up as it should in the end.  It will, I think, in the very end, which makes me wonder why we exist at all.  It is we who break things, and then we fix what we’ve broken.  It seems ultimately like a purposeless life.”

“It can’t be purposeless.  There has to be a purpose for everything, or at least important things, like living a life.  You exist; you are what you are, because it’s the only way we could have met.  Maybe
that
was your purpose, to find me.  I know it doesn’t seem that important to the world, but it’s a world of importance to me.”  That was a good way to explain it.  I even sounded smart.

“I would like that to be my purpose.  It would mean I could find you again.”

“You know what?”  I said.  “We ‘normal’ people do the same thing.  We break things, and then try to fix them.  That’s all life is, the bad people screwing things up, the good people accidentally screwing things up, and the rest trying to sort it out and fix it.  Wouldn’t that make everyone’s life purposeless, if yours is”

Gabriel smiled and then sat up, just before the knock came.  “It’s open.”  He said as he pushed me up to a sitting position.

Mr. Knight walked in resolutely, a serious look on his face.  “Gabriel, I need to speak with you in the library.  It is of the utmost importance.”

I didn’t like the look on his face, or the way he completely avoided eye contact with me.  My heart leapt up into my throat.  I couldn’t tell if he was angry, or worried, or just focused.  I could feel the apprehension radiating off Gabriel, it stung my skin.

“Is everything okay?”  I asked, standing with Gabriel, hanging onto his arm, afraid to let go.

“I’m sorry, Dear, no need for alarm.  Just an important matter needs immediate attention, I need Gabriel's assistance.”  He barely spared me a glance, kept his eyes pointedly on Gabriel's.

“Yes, Father, please give me a moment and I’ll be right there.”

I could already feel the pull from Gabriel, and I could tell by the look on his face, Mr. Knight could feel it too.  The moment the door closed, Gabriel put his arms around me.  “He’s found something.”

“Found something?” 

“I have to go.  I swear to you I will come back, nothing will change between this moment, and when I see you again.  I can tell.  Don’t be afraid.”  He kissed me gently, but it did nothing to take away the fear that was suddenly choking me.

Gabriel released me, went to the door and through it without turning back around.  I listened to his steps fade down the stairs.  ‘Found something’ could only mean one thing.  This could also only mean one other thing—time would reset.  To when?  How far back?

I looked around Gabriel's room, and then looked out the window.  I hadn’t thought until this moment about this room in relation to the library.  I tried to orient myself.  Part of this room had to overlap the library, because it was huge.  It was an old house, these were old floors.

In my house, there was a board on the second floor with a tiny knothole in it.  You could see straight into the ceiling.  When I was little, I took a pencil and poked a hole in the ceiling, and I could see all the way into the room below.  What was more, with or without the hole in the ceiling; I could hear what was going on in the room underneath through the hole in the wood.

Once I figured out where the library should be, I started crawling around on the floor, checking every board.  I had no idea what excuse I would give if I were caught.  Maybe temporary insanity, which would make perfect sense.  I wondered if Gabriel could ‘feel’ me moving around up here.  If so, he would probably be very confused.

Board after board and I found nothing.  I pressed my ear to the wood and could hear muffled voices, but nothing discernable as words.  There was a desk in the corner; I estimated it would probably be near where Mr. Knights desk was below, if my directions weren’t off.  There was a chair, and under the chair, a rug to protect the wood.

I grabbed the chair and moved it carefully, then slid the rug out of the way.  There were two damaged boards, one of them split.  I wondered how mad Gabriel would be if I chipped the wood out with something. 

I pulled out a drawer and found a letter opener.  It looked newer, so I grabbed it.  No glimpses.  I stabbed it into the largest split and tried to pry carefully.  A piece popped loose with barely a sound.

My heart was pounding, so when I first put my ear to the floor, all I could hear was the sound of my own blood going ‘whoosh-whoosh.’  I tried to make myself calm down.  In through my nose, out through my mouth, slow, deliberate breaths.  I placed my hands around my ear, trying to make a seal to funnel the sounds.