Tempus (40 page)

“There are things that will never be known, Jessie.  I can’t answer those questions, as much as I wish I could.”

“What does any of this have to do with
me
?  You said my dots are insignificant, so what does any of it,
any of it
, have to do with me?”  I suddenly felt on the verge of hysterics, it was overwhelming.

“I don’t know.”

I heard the door swing open wide and
felt
Gabriel before I saw him.  I released his father’s hand and jumped up in time to be enfolded in strong, warm arms.  I held on for dear life. 
My anchor.

“What is it, love?”  Gabriel said in a soothing voice.  “I’m here.”

“Gabriel, I told you it would be too much.”  His fathers' voice sounded chiding, but not angry.  “It’s too much for anyone.”

“You started with the wrong thing.”  Gabriel replied.  He sat on the chair I’d just left empty, and pulled me onto his lap.  “What’s the last thing he told you?”  He asked me.

I wasn’t sure.  My mind searched for the answer.  “You made him buy the mirror because you almost jumped through it to me.”  That sounded so absurd.  All of it was absurd, except the feeling, the
memories
, of Gabriel.

“Every answer I give you, you will have another question.  I won’t be able to answer most of them; there simply is no answer for most.  You
do
understand that, right?”  His voice was so soothing.  I nodded.  I felt like I was twelve years old again.  Younger, maybe.

“I am here for
you
, it’s why I came.  My father is here for me.  The serendipity of the situation is that, while my purpose was to find
you
, we have stumbled upon something that may help my Father.  Our reasons may be different, but our goals have found their commonality in
you
.  I want you, my father wants the source of the reset, we both want to fix time, and you are somehow involved, or can help.”  He waited and let it sink in.

“But what could I possibly have to do with any of it?  I’m just a normal,
insignificant
,” I glanced at Mr. Knight, “nobody.  I’m just a normal person with a normal life.”

“You were never insignificant to me.”  He pulled me closer.  “Though I did think you were
mostly
normal, until last time.”  I wrinkled my nose at him.  “That was the first time you told me about your ‘glimpses.’  That was when my father wanted you to try the mirror.”  I had flashes of memory, lifting my foot toward the mirror in the library.  “We couldn’t do it.  That’s never happened before, to our knowledge, being actively
prevented
from doing something.”

“Prevented?  What does that mean?” 

“Hmm.  This is hard to explain, because
you
can’t feel it, or notice it.  It’s a subtle thing, but it’s like running into a barrier.”  He shifted his weight, felt a little restless beneath me.  “There are all these movies and books about time travel, and most of them have a measure of truth in them, accidentally, of course.  Some are absurd, like you can’t go to another time where you already exist and see yourself.  It can’t be done.  Nothing bad happens if you try, you simply can’t do it.”

His father spoke up then.  “
The Grandfather paradox
.  It’s not a paradox at all.  I could not go back in time and kill my own grandfather, even if I could go backwards, which I can’t.  I could do nothing to influence the death of his soul.  Neither could you, or anyone else, for that matter.  I have existed, I existed before my physical form came into being, and you cannot undo a soul’s existence.” 

I looked up at Gabriel and he kissed my forehead.  “This is too much for one day, isn’t it?”

“This is too much for one
lifetime
.”  I grumbled.

He laughed.  “It’s
not
.  My father and I are well adjusted.”  His father cleared his throat and Gabriel shook his head.  “
I
am at least.”

“I still don’t understand anything.”  I didn’t.

“How about this idea.  Think about every movie and book you’re familiar with where time travel is the subject, and know that approximately half of it is
true
.”  He kissed my forehead again, playfully.

“Why are you so relaxed right now?  Aren’t you worried you’re just going to have to tell me all of this all over again?”  I believed they were telling me the truth, even if I didn’t understand, and I had a fear that the ‘reset’ thing was going to happen.  I could remember Gabriel's voice,
Please don’t forget me this time.

“It could happen, but not soon.”  Mr. Knight spoke.  “Gabriel thought he felt it coming a little earlier, he’s much more sensitive than I, but it
didn’t
happen.”  I saw him glance at Gabriel.  “We can typically feel it well ahead of time, an ‘advanced warning,’ if you will.  Not always, though.  Occasionally, not often, there are only a few minutes.”

Gabriel's arms tightened around me again. 
Please don’t forget me this time
.  “I don’t care much for those.”  He said.

Mr. Knight leaned forward over his desk.  “Jessie, we are trying to unravel this time issue, and normally we would not allow someone from outside to learn any of the things we have told you.  Gabriel has fought hard to convince me otherwise, and I have concluded that either you are a key player somehow in this, or that once it is resolved, you’ll have no recollection of us, or anything we’ve discussed.”

I stiffened with his last words.  Even after I had
remembered
Gabriel this time?  If it went back far enough, could he be
erased
from my memory?  I wouldn’t let that happen!  I was going to burn everything into my heart, my mind, my soul.  I would
not
let myself forget this time, or any other time.  Never again.

Suddenly Gabriel sat forward, pushing me away a little.  “There are only a couple of hours until your father gets here.”

My dad!  How was I going to act around my dad?  I felt like a different person than I was this morning.  He would notice, I was sure of that.  I felt my phone vibrate, then make the message noise.  I looked at Gabriel.

I reached down and pulled it out of the case.  I had a serious fear of checking the message, but I didn’t know why.  It could be Julie, or Katie.  Gabriel scooted me off his lap, forcing me to stand up.

“You should check it.”  He said.

Mr. Knight bent his head to a book, and Gabriel turned his back and walked to a window.  I pushed the button.  It was from Steve, and my heart stumbled over itself.  It was a mixture of guilt and something else.  I took a deep breath.

‘Hey beautiful.  Thinking of you.’  It said.

What was I going to say?  Should I ignore it, pretend I didn’t get it?  That seemed so wrong.  I couldn’t lie, though. 
Lord, help me think of something to say
, I thought.

I just stood there, staring at the phone.  Gabriel turned to face me, trying to smile.  “You should answer, I think.” 

“I don’t know what to say.”  I felt like a horrible person.  These last few days with Steve, he was wonderful.  Too good to hurt, too good to cause pain.  Why this
now
?  Life sucked.

“What would you have said, if today had happened differently?”  Gabriel's voice was so quiet I could barely hear it.

I looked at my phone and typed, ‘Ditto, lol.  :-)’

That’s probably what I
would
have typed, or something similar.  I waited a few seconds to make sure there was no response, and then put my phone back in its case.

Gabriel had turned his back while I typed.  His arms were folded across his chest and his shoulders were stiff.  The light through the window created a glowing silhouette.  
Archangel
.  I knew he wasn’t, but he looked like he
could
have been.

I wondered if I would have to physically lift my hands for him to feel them.  I didn’t move physically, but I imagined with all my might that my hands were on his shoulders.  I imagined rubbing them gently, and watched as they visibly relaxed, the tension appearing to release a little.

“You were more right than I realized, Gabriel.”  His father’s voice from behind startled me, and I was so embarrassed I wanted to crawl under the floor.  “I’ve read of it, but never have witnessed it in all my years.  Not like that. 
Animae implexus
.”

Gabriel turned around, a slow smile spreading across his face.  I had no idea what his father said or meant, but it must have been good.  I felt the pull from Gabriel's direction, stronger than ever.  I could have resisted, if I had wanted to, but my feet moved and carried me with them.

When I stepped into his arms and stopped, I still had the sensation of moving forward, as if I were stepping inside him, as if we were
overlapping
.  It didn’t feel like we were separate people.  I wondered if it was
visible
to someone watching, it felt like it would be.

I could have stood there forever.  The feel of his heart under my cheek, the warmth of his skin through the fabric of his shirt, the weight of his arms around me, the scent of him filling my nose—this was where I belonged, where I was supposed to end up.  I felt it with certainty, and my arms instinctively tightened.

“This won’t last, will it?”  I asked.  I realized that if they found the problem, it was surely
before
this moment.  If that was true, then...

“What do you mean, love?”  He whispered.

“If you find the cause, if you don’t find the cause, either way, time will go back, won’t it?  Back to somewhere?”  Right this second that seemed impossible, but my heart knew it wasn’t, and my heart knew it was right.

It was only one word, but one word too many.  “Yes.”

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

There was not a lot of time before my dad arrived for dinner.  I still was not sure how I was going to act ‘normal’ in front of him.  Nothing felt normal at all, not even a little bit.  Gabriel and I had just been laying here in his room, wrapped around each other, for an hour. 

The more we lay here, the more came back, the more I
remembered
.  These last few days had been repeating, over and over.  Gabriel was beginning to think he was responsible, was doing something to trigger it.  His father seemed to think it meant they were closer to learning something important.

Unlike me—forgetting everything—they remembered every detail.  That was helpful in trying to find a solution, but in other ways, it was torture.  This was much harder on Gabriel than on his father, and harder on both of them than on me.  I just started where I left off, as far as my mind knew. 
Tormented.
  I understood what he meant now.

His father seemed to think that my memories were only triggered by being around Gabriel, that if Gabriel were not around, what memories I had independently would eventually fade.  Fade like a dream.  I could and couldn’t imagine it.  Right now, with the memories jumping at me left and right, it seemed impossible.  Remembering this morning, that first sight of him through the trees, I remembered nothing but the glimpse and my dream.

My dream!  “Gabriel!  I would have remembered!  I dreamed about the heart on the tree!  I dreamed about it after my glimpse, but before I knew you were a real person!  I mean, like a real person
here
!  Before the store, before I saw you for real!”

I was suddenly excited, but he didn’t seem to share my same enthusiasm.  He leaned back where he could look into my eyes.  “You still saw me though, in the mirror.  Since we met, time has not reset prior to your glimpse.”

I tried to figure out what he meant.  I saw him in the mirror on Monday, we later met, and we spent time together,
lots
of it.  Time reset.  We met, repeat, repeat, and repeat.  “What’s the earliest then?  The earliest after Monday afternoon?”

“Tuesday morning a couple of times.”  He replied.

“How long is it normally, before something happens?”

“Hmm.  As I said before, the first time we met lasted sixty two days.”  His arms constricted around me.  “There was almost a month after that.”

“But
usually
, after the first time, how many days?”  I needed to know.

“Jessie, do you know why we never check to find out when we are going to die?”  He pressed his cheek to mine.

“Why?”

“We believe that every person’s heartbeats are numbered.  You can subtract from them maybe, but you can never add.  It’s been tried, trust me, and is unsuccessful without fail. 
Knowing
that, imagine knowing the exact number of your days, especially if they are much shorter than you’d hoped.”

“You would then have every day after colored by that knowledge, and be left to either try to make a difference you may have never been intended to make, and subsequently fail, or squander your days in an attempt to change the inevitable.  Either way, how would you live life to its fullest, as was intended?”

“With the absolute understanding of inevitability, the preceding knowledge of one’s' own death would become more burden than benefit, under any circumstance.”  Gabriel closed his eyes, shutting me off from the emotions roiling inside them.