Page 26 of Across Time

Henri's eyes raise to mine—darker now, like the forest at dusk. "You’re deluding yourself if you think otherwise. How could he possibly love you? He doesn’t even know you.”

I once again see Kit’s hand around my ankle. He doesn’t even know who you are, she said.

I feel a sob swelling in my throat and I refuse, refuse, to cry in front of him. I just won’t do it. I jump up from the table. “Excuse me,” I say, but my voice cracks on the last word, ruining the effect entirely, and I bolt out the front door. The rain is coming down so hard I can barely see an inch past my face but I just need to get away from him. I'll leave now, I think. I'll leave right this second and Henri will never know he made me cry.

I run toward the barn, soaked to my skin, ignoring the sound of him shouting somewhere behind me.

But just as I arrive, I find myself airborne. Plummeting down, down, a fall that seems to occur in slow motion. Long enough for me to wonder if I will survive it.

I land feet first. Hear the snap of a bone and the sharp shot of pain above my foot. I crumple, flailing as I fall to the ground.

Above me somewhere a match is struck. A torrent of profanity, all in French. Then a ladder slides into the hole and Henri is scrambling down it faster than I ever dreamed someone could. He drops to the ground beside me, and his hand reaches out to hold my face. In the dim light his golden skin appears pale for the first time.

"Are you alright?"

I squeeze my eyes shut. I don't want to cry but the pain makes it nearly impossible not to. “It’s my ankle. I think it’s broken.”

"I'm so sorry,” he whispers. “This is all my fault. I was being awful tonight and I don't know why. I didn't think you'd take it to heart like that."

I’m still not sure why I did. Perhaps because, as always, there was a grain of truth in the ugly things he said, and I was able to find it.

"Please don't cry," he begs. His thumb brushes a tear away, and he continues to hold my face, looking at me like I'm the only thing in the entire world that exists for him. For a moment, I wish that I was. I wish he would pull my face to his and kiss me, and I wish for it in a way I've never wished for it from Mark.

A spark of pain from my ankle jolts me back to the present, reminding me that what I’m thinking is insane. Henri, in my time, is a 72-year old man. And it’s that, more than anything else, that has another sob swelling in my throat. “Why is there a hole here?” I ask.

“You told me we’d need to hide food and weapons,” he says. “I never dreamed you’d run out here tonight like this.”

"Mon Dieu!" cries Marie, standing at the edge of the hole. She speaks French so quickly I can't understand a word she's saying, but I know she's angry, and it seems entirely directed at Henri.

"Je sais, je sais," he replies. I know, I know. Finally, he holds up a hand. "Enough, Marie. You can yell at me later. Right now I'd like to get her out of here so we can set the bone."

I shudder a little at that last bit...set the bone has me picturing Civil War hospitals, biting down on a rag as limbs are fixed, or amputated. Will it be any more advanced here, with these two French people my own age in charge of the repair? I doubt it.

"I'm going to carry you over my shoulder,” he says. He lifts me as carefully as possible and begins to climb the ladder, holding me with one hand and the rungs with the other. He’s trying not to jolt me but even the tiniest movement around my ankle is intolerable.

"Hurry, Henri," urges Marie Therese.

"She's heavier than she looks," he grunts, ruining what might have been a decent moment between us.

"Or maybe you're just not as strong as you look," I reply between gritted teeth.

"So you think I look strong," he says in response as he takes the final steps out of the hole. "Good to know."

He puts me down and I take weight on the good ankle, which doesn't feel all that good. Marie’s arm comes around me.

"Poor Amelie," she whispers. "It looks like you may be stuck with our company a little longer than planned."

I almost laugh when I realize how simple the solution to this problem really is. “No,” I say. “Wait. If you just time travel to earlier tonight, you can warn me it’s going to happen and I won’t run out of the house. Problem solved. I’d do it myself except I can’t jump backward without landing on my ankle.”

The answer is so obvious and so easy, but there's something strange going on with her. I expect her to readily agree, but instead her eyes slide from me to her brother, and then rest there, her mind both on us and also somewhere very far away. "But then I might fall in the hole,” she argues.

Henri exhales loudly. "For God's sake, Marie. You know how to land well. You've never injured yourself once. And if you're so worried, just go back a few days, before it was dug."

She folds her arms across her chest. "No."

My jaw and Henri’s drop at the same time.

"You cannot be serious!" Henri yells. "She’s in pain! What the hell is wrong with you?"