REUNION: A TANGLED TAPESTRY OF LIVES

Standing in the quaint antique shop, Ruby held an old photograph in her hand stunned by the face looking back at her. It was her face but not her face as she knew it. This face was older and had seen more of life. She clutched the photograph wondering what had propelled her to enter the antique shop. Yes, antiques were her passion. She especially liked looking through antique photographs from the Victorian era. Still grieving over her mother’s death about a year ago, she sought comfort by traveling to pursue her passion for the Victorian era. She was visiting Wycliff because it was small, and she had read about it in one of her antiques magazines. She had visited the same shop just yesterday morning and found nothing. But this afternoon as she strolled through town, she felt a sudden and powerful urge to revisit that shop.

Now, holding the photograph, she thought, who was the woman that looks like me? She turned the photograph over and read the handwritten poem attached onto the back.

To My Beloved

One day I will answer your call

Come through will I

Barriers will fall

We shall be one again

Somewhere, somewhen.

Believe, my beloved, you will see

I shall return to Thee

Meanwhile wherever we be

We must strive on

Ever dancing toward Destiny.

Believe, my beloved, believe

And you will see

I shall return to Thee.

Ever yours always,

Adamantine

Ruby’s heart skipped a beat as she reread the poem. She felt dizzy and steadied herself by grabbing onto the chest upon which sat the box of old photographs she had been perusing. Who was she, the poet named Adamantine, and to whom is the poet promising to return? Ruby closed her eyes and shivered as a wave of energy swept through her.

She opened her eyes and found herself no longer in the antique shop. She had been whisked away and found herself standing outside a beautiful Victorian home sparkling red in brilliant sunlight, replete with a rose garden from which the perfume of blooming roses wafted in the air. She closed her eyes to breathe in the rose perfume and as she breathed, she experienced a wave of joyous energy enveloping her. The perfume of the roses faded.

She opened her eyes and found herself back in the antique shop.

“Did you find something you like?” the proprietor’s voice grounded her in the antique shop.

“Yes, please. I would like to purchase this photo,” Ruby replied.

“Just the one?” asked the proprietor.

“Yes,” she answered. “I’m very interested in Victorian times.”

“That will be $2.00 plus tax for the photo.”

She paid the sum and then asked, “Are there any other old Victorian homes in this lovely town? I am seeking such houses to photograph them, study them, and include the photos in a book I’m writing on Victorian homes in the USA.”

“You’re in luck here. We have some fine, old Victorian houses in our historical district here in Wycliff,” he answered and handed her a brochure entitled Walking Tour of Historical Wycliff.

Ruby thanked the proprietor and left his antique shop. She oriented herself using the map and headed down one of the streets that led her to the historical district. A small sign that read Historical District of Wycliff. Established 1801 signaled she had arrived.

She smelled the roses before she found herself standing in front of an architectural gem, a faded red, two story Victorian house with magnificent turrets, towers, and an inviting wrap-around porch. The path leading to the front entrance was graced by rose trees in full bloom. She felt drawn to this house as if she were returning home. She followed the path to the stairs that led up to the front entrance noticing that the red paint was getting brighter and less faded the further up the stairs she went. She started to ring the bell when the door opened.

“Ah, miss, out for your morning walk. Was it a good one? Now, you come in. Cook has breakfast ready, so wash up. I’m going to check on things in the kitchen downstairs.”

This flow of words washed over Ruby. She followed the speaker, a young woman dressed in proper Victorian housemaid clothing .  

“Here’s the water closet. Breakfast is being laid out on the second-floor balcony. Come up when you are finished here.” The housemaid disappeared down stairs.

Ruby washed up and made her way up the stairs to the second-floor balcony without encountering anyone else. The balcony was off a large second floor bedroom and looked over a breathtakingly beautiful garden complete with rose bushes and flower beds filled with hollyhocks, snapdragons, chrysanthemums, marigolds, pansies, hyacinths and irises creating a colorful and richly textured real life “painting” worthy of Monet himself. This scene from the balcony felt very familiar. She sat down at the table arrayed with fresh flowers and silver cutlery. There was a small bell by her plate. She picked it up and rang it like it was the natural thing to do.

Within a few moments, the same housemaid plus a man dressed in servant livery appeared carrying various prepared dishes. They served her silently somehow knowing just what she would like to eat and drink. They finished serving her with smiles and nods and left.

Ruby reached for her coffee cup and looked down at her hands. They were paler than she expected and well cared for, with no signs of her habitual nail biting. She set her coffee cup back into its saucer and dropped her hands into her lap. She realized she was now wearing a cream-colored cotton summer dress with long sleeves. When had her clothing changed? This place, these circumstances were pushing at her mind, pushing her to remember something that she couldn’t. She sighed and stood up, realizing that her dress swept the floor, she moved carefully about the balcony and then wandered into the bedroom adjacent to the balcony. She had been in a haze when she previously passed through here on the way to the balcony. Maybe that was when the clothing she had been wearing had transformed into the clothing she now wore. Her musing came to a screeching halt when gazing around the room she was astonished to see a portrait she recognized. Drawing closer, she confirmed that she definitely knew that face. It was the same face in the photograph from the antique shop. Ruby felt the air around her tingle with invisible electric energy. She felt so connected to this person. There was a plaque in the bottom of the ornate frame of the portrait that said Adamantine Celestia Blair Godwin.

Somehow, Ruby knew not how, she was experiencing another life that was entangled with the woman in the portrait, the same woman in the photograph. Now she knew the woman's name: Adamantine Celestia Blair Godwin. She almost panicked, but held herself together driven by her insatiable curiosity to know more. She returned to the balcony and her breakfast to see what would happen next.

Ruby finished her breakfast; rang to signal she had finished. She returned to the bedroom, slipped out of the dress, and crawled into the four-poster bed in her chemise, sinking gratefully into a massive feather mattress. Before sleep claimed her, she briefly wondered where and when and even if she might awaken and then she was deep asleep. She didn’t even hear the servants when they came and cleared the breakfast things from the balcony. 

When Ruby awakened, she was no longer lying in the four-poster bed. She was fully dressed in her 21^st century clothes and standing at the end of the walkway flanked by old gnarled rose trees staring at the faded red Victorian house holding the map of the historical district of Wycliff in one hand and the photograph from the antique shop in the other hand. She remembered the woman’s name, Adamantine Celestia Blair Godwin, and the faded red house she faced had been that woman’s home. Ruby realized she had somehow recently visited this home as Adamantine’s daughter Elizabeth. Then, there was that surname Blair attached to Adamantine. Ruby’s deceased mother, Cecelia, had been a Blair before she married. Was that the connection? This was a lot to process.

Slipping the photograph and the map into her small backpack now in its place on her back, Ruby stumbled away from the house down the pathway. Upon reaching the entrance gate, she opened it and walked back onto the sidewalk. She turned to look again at the house in its faded glory state. As she turned away from the house again, at the edge of her vision, she caught a glimpse of a woman in a flowing white dress wandering amongst the flower beds, and then nothing.

Ruby crossed the street to a little neighborhood park she hadn’t noticed before. It was well cared for and awash with colorful flowers surrounding a Victorian style gazebo. She entered the gazebo and sank down onto a bench therein. She pulled the photograph out of her backpack and ran her finger over the face looking at her, which she now knew was somehow connected to her through her mother. But how? And who was Mr. Godwin whom Adamantine apparently had married? As she pondered all that had happened, the only conclusion she could draw was that for some reason she was caught in what appeared to be some kind of parallel reality/time shift pattern, which she had heard about before but not experienced directly. This time shift pattern apparently had been triggered by the faded red Victorian house she had just left. She remembered the walking tour map of the historical district had included a cemetery. Thinking she might find more clues there, she decided to explore that cemetery. She could see it was within the historical district of Wycliff, and she set out to find it.

After walking a couple of blocks and rounding a corner, she stood in front of an ironwork sign mounted on an arched ironwork entranceway that said Wycliff Township Cemetery, est. 1802. Ruby entered and began painstakingly exploring the headstones. It was a small cemetery, and the tombstones marked graves of people born in the 19^th century, though they may have died in the 20^th century. She had almost given up, when she was drawn to a yet unexplored corner of the graveyard.

That’s where she found them. There were two tombstones close together. She brushed away the bits of nature obscuring the inscriptions.

One read, “Here lies Adamantine Celestia Blair Godwin, b. 1884 d. 1970 wife and beloved of Eugene Everett Godwin. 

The other tombstone read, Eugene Everett Godwin, b. 1883 d. 1916 husband and beloved of Adamantine Celestia Blair Godwin.

Between the two tombstones was another marker that simply said “Separated too soon in life, Eugene and Adamantine are reunited in death.”

Ruby pulled out the photograph and reread the poem again. She dropped to her knees beside their gravesite. Tears trickled down her face as she realized that her ancestor had reached out across time to reassure her that when death separated her from loved ones, it was not as final as it seemed. Reunion had been promised by Adamantine and though she had outlived her beloved Eugene for over fifty years, she had never remarried. She had answered his call to reunite. Ruby wiped her eyes and arose from her knees.

As she turned to leave, she noticed a small gravestone near Adamantine and Eugene’s markers. She brushed away the vines growing over it and read. Here lies Elizabeth Ruby Godwin b. 1905 D. 1946, beloved only child of Adamantine and Eugene Godwin. Ruby froze. Her full name was Ruby Elizabeth Underwood and coupled with her mother’s Blair family line, there it was. The connection. Grief resolving. Reunion complete.