Page 62 of Across Eternity

“But I’m not a priest!” he says again, irritated and amused at once.

“I’m well aware,” I reply, scooting beside him. “No priest would say the things you do in bed.”

His eyes slant toward mine, his mouth tipping into a reluctant half-smile. “And you love every one of them.”

“I do,” I reply, pressing my mouth to his jaw. “So have no fear. I will never take up with a priest.”

“I never realized it was something I had to worry about prior to today,” he says, pulling me toward him. “But thank you for letting me know.”

* * *

For the next week, we see little of Marie. She continues her duties at the church but spends most of her hours at home on the cusp of tears, and every time the post arrives she dives for it, only to retreat, small and broken and disappointed when there is no letter from Edouard. It’s a terrible time to go to 1989, given the way my trip has Henri’s nerves frayed, but I can’t cut it any closer to the day we leave for England than I already have.

The night before I go, Henri and I lie in bed, unable to sleep. He makes love to me with a desperation that borders on violence, again and again. Yet early in the morning I can sense something that remains dissatisfied in him.

“What is it?” I ask, lifting up on my forearms to see his face.

He stares at the ceiling, thinking hard before he finally voices what’s in his head. “Whatever it is, whatever it is you won’t tell me—does it have to do with someone in your own time?” he asks. “Is it the musician?”

My stomach sinks. I hate that he’d even think it. I hate that I can’t tell him the truth. “No,” I tell him. “Nothing ever happened with that musician and I only brought him up to make you mad.”

“Then why won’t you tell me what it is?”

I could. I could risk it. But how would he respond, if he knew what I did? If he learned that the people responsible for his mother’s death and his sister’s captivity share my blood? It would change things. A piece of him, even if it was a small piece, would start to distrust me, just like my mother did.

“Because I like the way you look at me now, and I’m not sure you still would if you knew.”

His lips press to the top of my head. “I will love you no matter what you tell me, Sarah, I swear it.”

I wish I could believe that. I just don’t.

Just a few hours later, it’s time to go. I feed Cece, memorizing the solid weight of her in my arms, still heavy with sleep. She smiles around her bottle and reaches for my face. My eyes sting. How am I going to leave her? How am I going to leave Henri?

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I tell her, my voice rasping.

Henri walks me to the barn and I say the same thing again, this time crying in earnest.

Time travel is so much easier for me now that I have my aunt’s spark, but we both know, after my time in 1918, that there are no guarantees. That anything could go wrong in my absence, on his side or mine. “I love you and I will wait as long as it takes,” he says, begging once more to be forgiven for something I forgave long ago.

“I know,” I reply, kissing him once before I let my body go light. The impulse to return to my own time hits me as hard as ever, but it’s tempered by my sadness at leaving him. Even when I’ve completely disappeared, I can see him standing there, staring at the space I just vacated, his face bleak, and I have to force myself to go.

29

SARAH

When I reach 1989, I land with ease for the first time. I’m still in the barn, though it’s now quite modern, and once I’ve confirmed that no one is around I scurry to the woods for the clothes I buried there years before.

It’s technically spring but still feels like winter, and I’m thrilled to find warm clothes in place of the ones I left—including a Burberry coat, hanging from a branch. No sooner am I dressed than a limousine pulls up and Cecelia climbs out, shielding her eyes from the sun, looking for me.

She’s dressed impeccably, as always, in a coat and dress that match—designer, I’m sure—and stiletto heels. That she is the same baby who pressed her tiny palm to my face only a few hours ago absolutely stuns me, but I can see it, in the set of her mouth and her eyes, even in the way she glances around.

“Cecelia,” I whisper from behind a tree and she smiles and hurries forward, wrapping a big coat around me.

“You have teeth now,” I say, and my eyes fill with tears.

Her eyes well over too. “You have no idea how wonderful it is that you finally know who I am.”

I shake my head. “You shouldn’t have saved me the last time,” I tell her. “It could have gone so, so wrong.”