Page 64 of Across Eternity

“Did I tell you about her?” I whisper. “During my visits as you were growing up, did I ever mention this girl? Or have you seen her lurking around?”

She gives me a single terse nod. “I’ve noticed her once before. And yes, you’ve mentioned a time traveler following you in the past.”

“Is there anything you want to warn me about?” I ask.

She meets my gaze. It’s only a moment before she smiles and tells me there’s nothing. But I saw it.

She hesitated first.

30

SARAH

For the rest of my time in Paris, there is no sign of the time traveler. But I never leave the flat without a knife in my pocket and Philippe or Louis by my side, and it’s a relief to say goodbye to Cecelia and climb into a limo for Saint Antoine once my abilities are finally restored.

When I arrive in 1940, to a warm April day and a cloudless sky, I want to weep with relief. I run to the house and find Henri in the living room pacing. “Thank God,” he says, crossing the room to hold me tight.

I laugh against his chest. “I was only gone a little over a week.”

“I know,” he says. “And Marie reminded me a thousand times that nothing had gone wrong. I just—”

He trails off, but he doesn’t need to complete the sentence. He’s already lived through a time when our plans failed and I didn’t return. His mouth presses to mine and I inhale him, wishing I could stay just like this with him for hours and days, until I finally feel full. “How’s our daughter?” I ask when he lets me go.

“Napping at the moment,” he says. We creep up the stairs to her room and peer in on her. She sleeps flat on her back, arms overhead, fists curled, mouth open and sated. My heart lurches with love for her. She seems happy in 1989. I just pray the years until then will be happy for her too.

We quietly slide from the room and go back downstairs. I fully expect him to pull me to the bedroom—he seemed ready enough for it before when he was kissing me, but instead he takes my hand and leads me to the parlor.

He runs a hand over his face, as if weary. “There has been a small change to our plan,” he says.

My stomach drops. “Is it Marie? Is she refusing to go?”

He bites his lip and leans toward me, pressing his forehead to mine. “No. The Germans have attacked Norway and sent troops toward the Maginot Line. Petain is ordering half of us there, and the rest to Norway. I leave Sunday.”

I freeze. “No,” I argue. “I read everything about this. The Germans don’t attack until May twelfth. Until then, the French assume nothing will happen.”

“Perhaps it changed,” he says. “Or perhaps history books have it wrong.”

I try to breathe but can’t seem to manage it. Even with all the reading I did, even knowing the goddamn future, I messed up somehow. But I wasn’t wrong—I know there is no battle yet, not for another month. So why is this happening? “It’s a diversion,” I whisper. “Hitler’s making you all think he’s going to attack at the Maginot Line and then he’s going to push through the Ardennes.”

“I still have to go,” he says. “Which means you and Marie and Cecelia will need to travel to England on your own.”

I flinch. If it were just me, I’d refuse. But now there’s Cecelia, who can’t blink and disappear into another time at the first sign of danger. Henri is an adult and I have to let him make his own decisions, even if I disagree. But Cecelia can still be saved.

Which means these two days I now have left with Henri may very well be the last ones we share.

* * *

Henri’s military-issue backpack is carefully packed for a long, cold winter. I pray it’s not that long until we see him again, knowing even as I pray that seeing him after the winter would be a best-case scenario, a stroke of incredible luck. The early battles are vicious and there are so, so many casualties. All who survive are taken prisoner, sent to work camps in Germany.

Henri tries to persuade me that all will be well, but when I wake at night to find him watching me, or catch him leaning over Cece’s crib with a lost look on his face, I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to memorize us, as if this is the end. I’m devastated, but also angry. Angry at myself for not researching more thoroughly, irrationally angry at Henri for his refusal to disobey orders. Angry, most of all, because it keeps me from bursting into tears.

We rise early on Sunday, before dawn. Anger abandons me and I weep like a child, pressing my face to his chest. “Don’t let them send you to Dunkirk,” I whisper, frantically trying to remember what I read. “It’s a massacre.”

He pushes my hair back from my face and kisses me. “I have no control over that,” he replies. “All I can promise you is that one day it will all be over, and I will come to England to bring you home. No one will fight harder than I to make that happen.”

I want to ask him to promise, but I don’t. Everything that’s happening now is beyond our control. Everything that’s happening now has already happened. I can only pray that it all turned out well.

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