The Timeless Journey

The Timeless Journey

3:17 a.m. The numbers shone in the dark, pulsing through the blackness and making Mara’s eyes burn. She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to shut out everything around her.

What will it be like this time? She wondered desperately. A castle in ancient times, or a dungeon deep down in the earth?

The experience was so familiar, yet Mara’s heart raced every time it happened. She never knew if she would wake up as a young girl in the 1920s or a married woman living in early Greece. Every morning, at precisely 3:17 a.m., she woke up in a house she didn’t recognize, in a bed that wasn’t hers.

Mara stared at the numbers as they faded away into the dark, leaving only a mocking wakefulness in her mind. She knew from experience that once the numbers disappeared, she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep until she had thoroughly scoped her new surroundings and lived a fresh life for one day.

Mara took a steeling breath and swung her legs over the side of the small bed. She kept one hand on the bedpost as she felt around in the dark, looking for a light. If there was one. Once, in 753 B.C. Rome, she had found herself in a servant’s quarters with a grouchy old woman and no light to see her surroundings.

Mara’s groping hand found a short, greasy object standing on her bedside table (or was it somebody else’s?) and she realized with relief that it was a candle. She found a box of matches next to it, struck a flame, and lit the candle. Mara used the faint light to find five more candles in the wardrobe and ignite them. The room was filled with a dusky glow.

The first thing she noticed was that the room was small, with wood floors and old-fashioned furniture. The creamy wallpaper was plastered with golden roses which seemed to weave and dance beneath her gaze.

“Good morning,” she said to the roses solicitously.

She knew that most people couldn’t talk to wallpaper. But she could, and most of the time it deigned to speak back. Sometimes the wallpaper could serve as a good companion, or it would laugh and stare at her until Mara couldn’t stand it.

This set of roses seemed to glare at Mara. She felt like she knew the type well by now.

“My name is Mara,” she introduced herself. It was always best to speak respectfully to flowers on wallpaper, and roses in particular, because they could be especially evil if they got a mind to.

The roses tittered.

“Evil roses,” Mara said resignedly under her breath and turned her back on the writhing flowers. She could get along with nice flowers, but evil ones were not something to reckon with.

Mara crossed to the white vanity and gazed at herself through the grimy mirror. She froze.

“Oh, goodness…” Mara’s words trailed off as she stared at her reflection. She was an entirely new person. She had fallen asleep at the convent of Paris in the year 1650 as a slim young girl, privileged with sleek black hair and fine features. The person gazing back at her was a middle-aged woman with greying red hair and hazel eyes. Not a bad-looking personage, but still.

“That’s a new one,” she muttered, then recoiled in horror. Her voice had changed, too!

“No, no, no…” Mara sank onto “her” bed, despondently yanking her hideous green skirt out of the way. The roses snickered in unison.

Each time Mara woke up in a new place, she rose wearing new clothes that corresponded with the timeline she was in. Mara guessed glumly that she must be somewhere in the 1800s.

Although Mara was used to her clothes changing on their own, her appearance never altered. Now she was practically ancient!

Mara got up from the bed resolutely. She would not let a new twist in her routine or malevolent wallpaper deter her. First, she would scope out her environment and determine exactly where in history she was. Then she would try to find out who she was.

Mara stepped over the threshold onto a wooden stair landing and shut the door on the annoying wallpaper. Then she proceeded down the steep rickety staircase to her right.

Mara toured the whole house. It was entirely empty, except for herself and oodles of archaic furniture. It was a good-size old house with four small bedrooms, a library, living room and kitchen.

The house was altogether unimpressive until Mara ventured into a small office tucked behind the stairs. It only had room for a walnut desk and a bookcase. The room was that small.

Mara made a beeline for the bookcase. The one good thing about being sent to all these unknown places was that she could get her hands on all sorts of books that might be out of print in another era.

She picked up a red, leather-bound book from the middle shelf and blew a sheen of dust off it. Then she opened it.

It was not a book at all, but a photo album filled with pictures. Mara began at the beginning of the album, which held old black-and-white pictures of stern families in their Sunday best. Then, as she flipped farther into the pages, the photographs became less formal. Several colored photos were sprinkled in with the black-and-white ones, featuring smiling children at the beach, a very happy bride and groom, and a collection of other family moments.

I wonder who all these people are, Mara speculated. Who did the photos belong to, and where are they?

Mara continued to search through the pictures until she got to the last few pages of the album. Her gaze hovered over an assortment of clear, colored photographs. Suddenly, her knees felt like jelly, and she leaned against the desk as she stared at a picture of two little children, a boy and a girl, sitting on the steps of a red brick house. They looked to be about eleven years old; their arms were slung about each other in an easy manner.

Colors began to flash through Mara’s head. Voices. Memories.

A little girl with red hair and mischievous brown eyes. A young boy, standing next to her in a field, holding a dandelion toward her in innocent emotion. His mismatched green eye and golden-yellow eye sparkling at her playfully.

“This is for you, Elizabeth,” the voice echoed in Mara’s head, stirring shimmers of recognition. “It’s ‘cause you’re my queen. The Queen of Romania!”

“Don’t be silly,” the little girl laughed comfortably. “Dandelions are weeds. Mama said so. Besides, I’m just Elizabeth, not a queen!”

“You are a queen. And guess what?” he said in earnest certainty, “I’m going to marry you someday, ‘cause you’re my best friend, and best friends should never be apart. Understand?”

The little girl nodded seriously, the sun gliding through her ruddy hair. “I’ll marry you when we’re all grown up, Del, on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“Try to remember that dandelions are weeds!” Elizabeth laughed and took the flower from him. She slipped it behind her ear.

“I’ll remember. You bet I’ll remember!”

The memory began to fade in Mara’s mind, but she could still vaguely see the image of two children, hands intertwined, setting off through the field together. Their happy voices echoed dimly in her mind.

“No, please! Come back!” The vision faded completely as the words left Mara’s mouth. She stared straight ahead, the walls of the library once more before her. She felt like she knew those children, that she had somehow been a part of those lives. She knew them in the fiber of her being just as she knew herself.

“Who are you?” she moaned. Then her eyes widened with an abrupt revelation. She set the photo album down almost reverently and raced out of the office and up the stairs toward “her” room.

She went straight for the mirror. With a shaking hand, Mara wiped away a layer of collected dust. She peered intently at her reflection in the small, clear circle. Luxurious, red hair, streaked with silver. Large brown eyes that showed hints of youth, but also much more of the strain of life.

A tear slipped down Mara’s cheek, unheeded.

She knew now why she felt so close to those memory children, why she felt like she could have been one of their closest friends.

She was Elizabeth.

After her shocking discovery, Mara went through every picture in the photo album. Each one with Elizabeth and Del sparked a stirring in her heart, but no more visions came to her. She could see the friendship in their eyes in each picture together, each one building on the last: The two of them, heads close together, conspiring on the church steps. Around thirteen years old, at a diner, sharing an ice cream sundae. Prom photos. Graduation photos. And then the pictures stopped. There were no more pictures after Elizabeth and Del’s graduation photo, each making a goofy face for the camera.

Mara flipped desperately through every single book in the house, hoping for more. What had happened to them? To her? Did they ever get married? Stay best friends? Or did they go their separate ways after graduation, never to hear from each other again?

Mara was frantic to find out about her past. She wanted to know if the beautiful friendship portrayed in the pictures had gone on, wanted to know if their dreams had ever come true. But she might never know.

Late in the afternoon, Mara ventured out of the house to find out where and when she was. After wandering around for an hour and discreetly asking questions, she discovered that she was in Goshen, Connecticut, in 1852.

So that’s when I lived here, Mara mused to herself, walking slowly back to her house amidst the activity going on in the streets.

Only when she had come back to the small brick house and was fully facing it from the front did Mara make yet another discovery. She studied the house design thoroughly before running inside, grabbing an object, and dashing back outside.

She held the old picture of Del and Elizabeth sitting on the steps of a red-brick house up and grinned triumphantly. Her house and buildings surrounding it were the same as those in the picture.

“So, this is where I lived,” she said aloud in wonder. “Or perhaps where Del lived,” she added speculatively.

“Missus! Hey, Missus!” A loud, persistent voice broke into Mara’s thoughts. She turned to see a large, red-faced woman chugging down the street toward her. There was no use in pretending Mara hadn’t noticed her. The woman waved boisterously and skidded to a stop a foot from Mara’s face.

“You must be new in town!” she exclaimed so loud that half the people on the street turned to look. Mara blushed and opened her mouth to speak, but the flushed lady rushed on: “My name is Mrs. Murray, and I run the mercantile just over yonder—” here she pointed at a drab whitewashed building, then hurried on—"and everybody in town comes there once or twice a week. I know everyone in this here county, and when I saw your new face out my window I thought to myself, ‘Now Mrs. Murray, you’d better do the civilized thing and welcome that poor dear to this here town.’ So welcome!”

“Th-thank you,” Mara stammered. She wanted to get away from this woman and search for more clues about Elizabeth and Del, but Mrs. Murray wouldn’t let her slip through her clutches that easily.

“What’s that?” she asked nosily. She took the picture of the two children and studied it. Then she snorted.

“Well, now! And who might those two good-looking youngsters be? Relatives? Your children, perhaps?” she grinned toothily.

“No,” Mara responded coldly. “I’m not married. These children are myself and my best friend when we were children.” The words felt strange coming out of her mouth, because she knew next to nothing about herself and Del.

“Hmm… Well, I—” Mrs. Murray began to speak, but Mara cut her off.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go in now,” she said, and without another word she swept past Mrs. Murray and stalked up her steps.

She could hear Mrs. Murray calling as she shut the door: “Come over for tea sometime! I’d enjoy that! Wait! Don’t—”

Mara slammed the door and sighed in relief. The wallpaper in the living room sighed sympathetically with her.

“Dreadful woman,” Mara commented to the curlicues on it darkly. “I’m surprised she’s married.” The wallpaper seemed to agree.

Mara didn’t do much for the rest of the day except look at the pictures of the two children. By nine o’ clock at night, Mara knew that her time in Goshen was drawing to an end. By the time 3:17 a.m. rolled around again, she’d be in a new timeframe altogether. But Mara didn’t want to leave without finding out about Elizabeth and Del. It felt important to her; it was her past.

There was only one way to stay in Goshen. Mara knew from experience that if she stayed awake all night, she would be able to stay where she was for another day. The time-traveling wouldn’t work when she was awake. The problem was keeping herself up until morning.

By 10:30 p.m., Mara was so exhausted that she considered going to bed and leaving all her questions with loose ends. It was worth it. Wasn’t it?

Mara was walking out of the kitchen toward her bedroom to go to sleep when she noticed a shimmering threshold of light coming out from under the library door. Her heart began to race.

Mara set her candle down on the stairs and pressed her ear to the door. No sound came from within, but the shining light seemed to sway about her feet, completely immersing them in the glow. Mara’s whole body grew warm.

She put her hand on the doorknob and turned it slowly. Then she opened the door.

At first, all Mara could see was light. The whole room was filled with a glistening golden brightness that misted around her. Within seconds, though, the light began to diminish. In a moment it was all gone, revealing a straight-backed man reclining in the swivel chair in front of the desk.

The man’s handsome face was creased with lines. He looked up at Mara and gazed at her through one brown eye and one green.

“Del?!” Mara cried.

Del’s whole countenance was awestruck. He reached out a paper-thin hand toward Mara.

“Elizabeth,” he breathed, “are you real?” His voice wasn’t startled but calm and loving.

“I- I don’t know,” Mara stammered. She came closer. “Sometimes I think that I am, but other times I feel as though I’m not.”

“My dearest Elizabeth,” Del murmured, his unique eyes warm and full of affection. “I’ve waited so long for this moment. How did you find me?”

Mara went to him and knelt onto the floor by his feet. His presence stirred emotions inside her that she didn’t recognize. She felt completely safe with him, as though he was someone she had trusted her whole life. Which, in a way, he was.

“I don’t know,” Mara said, dipping her head. “I don’t remember anything. Except you. I think I remember you. Us.”

“We always were a pair,” Del reminisced, taking her hand in his own in what felt like a familiar gesture.

“I don’t remember,” Mara responded, tears leaking out of her eyes. “I don’t remember anything at all.”

“I was afraid of this,” Del said in a suddenly grim tone. “I know just what you’ve been going through, Elizabeth.”

“You do?” Mara raised her tear-streaked face in surprise.

“Yes.” Del looked down at her tenderly. Mara thought she could detect a trace of guilt in his expression. “It’s my fault, Elizabeth. But I can fix it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m the Timekeeper. I’ve been able to fiddle with time since I was eight years old. Don’t you remember?”

“No,” Mara responded in a soggy voice.

“I thought not. We had such fun as children, traveling through the passages of time together. That secret is what held us together.”

“What happened?” Mara asked.

“You don’t remember, but if the Timekeeper travels to another time with a companion, they must stay together no matter what. If the two people got separated, one person would be kept in the spiral of time, and the Timekeeper would be sent back home alone. That’s what happened, Elizabeth.”

“How?”

“It’s all my fault. We were about fifteen years old, and we’d been time-traveling together for years. We both knew the rules, and I was the one who broke them.” He took a shaky breath. “I was angry with you, Elizabeth. I asked you to be my girlfriend, and you said “no”. You wanted to stay friends. I was so angry and selfish, remembering that foolish promise of yours when we were children, that I left you there and went back home alone. After only a few minutes, I realized the horror of what I’d done and tried to rescue you, but it was too late. The portal had closed on me forever in punishment for my crimes.”

“That’s when the cycle of time resumed, and I was caught up in the middle of it,” Mara said in sudden understanding.

“Yes. I never got over it. I tried to tell, but everyone thought I was crazy, raving about Timekeepers and being lost in time.” Del looked deep into Mara’s eyes. His face crumpled. “Oh, Elizabeth,” he wept, “can you ever forgive me?”

Mara took his hand in her own and rose from the floor. She looked strongly into his face.

“Yes, Del,” she said. “I forgive you.”