Twenty minutes later I was sliding the garage door up on my storage unit. Thankfully it was twenty-four-hour access. I wanted to kiss my mom, but then again — I was faced with fifty boxes, no order, no labels, no logic,

Hayley and I forgot to bring something to cut tape, so I used my keys marveling at their many different uses in the past few days. That jerk’s DNA was probably still on them from where I swiped at his neck.

Just before Magnus beat him and got away. Magnus got away!

But also, Magnus got away and now he had a vessel and didn’t know how to use it. I sliced across the top of a box and dug through the contents: towels, shoes, a bowl of potpourri from the upstairs hallway.

Another box contained some of Lady Mairead’s clothing and books from a shelf in the upstairs hallway.

“Got anything, Hayley?”

“A box full of dishes with two desk planners. I’m going through the pages. Who packed like this?”

“I don’t know. It’s like the person was pissed off at me, but more likely total incompetence.”

“She didn’t hire them through me. This box has pens and a tape dispenser, spatulas, plus a blank photo album.”

“I was going to put wedding photos in there but got sidetracked—“ My phone vibrated in my pocket. “It’s Zach.”

As soon as I answered he started talking. “I just got off work. I’m headed south to pick up Emma, but I just had the weirdest thing happen to me. I have a full memory of something that wasn’t there earlier today. It just appeared. It’s fucking so crazy Katie—“

“I just had one too. Magnus came to see me about two years ago in Los Angeles. He gave me a letter. I’m in my storage unit trying to find it.”

“I helped him find you.”

“What?” I stood still running it through my head.

“Two years ago, a man named Magnus, wearing a kilt and carrying a sword, came into the restaurant I was working in and told me this whole story about how he needed help getting to the girl he loved, in Los Angeles. Emma was sitting at the bar, waiting for me to get off work, and she bought the whole story, hook, line, and sinker, because she’s a total sucker for romance. He gave us some gold pieces and we helped him buy new clothes. I explained how to use a taxi in the city. And it was you. I wouldn’t give him your home address, but I followed you on Twitter. He was going to go to the club there. I don’t know how the hell he convinced me. Should have been more cynical about it, but somehow I believed him. I’m sure I’ve got the gold probably at home in a box. I’m expected in Gainesville so I can’t look—”

“Zach thank you, thank you so much. He’s so lucky. I’m so lucky that you’re in our life, thank you. Drive safe, tell Emma thank you for being a romantic.”

“Welcome, I’ll see you around three, and we’ll move us all back into the house.”

I hung up and Hayley stopped sifting through the contents of a box. “Zach has a memory too?”

“Yep, he’s how Magnus found me in Los Angeles.”

“That’s amazing.” She ripped open another box.

It was getting tight in the room. We were moving the top boxes off the pile and making one layer all over the floor. It made it hard to move around. “Okay, we’re taking a quick break. We both need a beer, a bathroom break, plus we need to create a pile over here of the boxes we’ve already opened.”

Ten minutes later we were back at it. The pile in the middle had dwindled smaller than the pile on the side. Each box had the potential to be ‘the box,’ but it was disheartening to see the pile get so small, like I was running out of time.

Time for what though? This was an unprecedented thing. It meant everything and nothing — Magnus was alive and looking for me, but we were in the wrong place and times. It was unfathomable how we would get back together. Zach helped him learn how to take a taxi.

I pulled open a box. Coffee mugs, a bath mat, a dried flower arrangement, and three books. I pushed it on to the pile of Sifted Through Already.

Then Hayley yelled, “I’ve got panties!”

I raced to her side and we peered in: a layer of underwear, jewelry, a makeup mirror, and at the bottom, in a pile of belts — the red envelope.

I pulled it out. My hands shook so much I thought I might drop it. I flipped it over and there was the now faded front. The edges were creased and worn. The handwriting though — Magnus’s:

Madame Magnus Campbell.

I sat on the floor and clutched it to my chest tears rolling down my cheeks. “He sent me a letter through time.”

Hayley said gently, “Would you like to open it?”

I nodded.

I wiped my tears on my wrists and shoved the flyaway hairs from my face. I had been wearing this bun since yesterday morning. I was a wreck. I also wiped some snot from my nose on the closest piece of fabric, a silk scarf from back in my LA days. I didn’t want to wet the envelope.

When I decided I would be calm enough to handle it, I inserted a finger under the corner of the sealed flap and tore it up.

Inside was a piece of paper, folded small to fit the square envelope. I gingerly pulled it free. and unfolded it with my eyes closed.

Mo ghradh,

I am alive. Thank ye for doing as I asked. That you are home, safe, waiting, is keeping me alive, able to do this.

The numbers we have used for our vessels no longer work. I am journeying to you, but my time and your time winna coincide. I canna understand the pattern. I am tryin’ tae make sense of it by journeyin’, but I have tae rest in between and recover my strength. I will nae give up until I am home.

I am coming to you.

I love you, mo reul-iuil,

Mahgnus

Hayley crouched beside me. “He’s coming?”

I nodded, lips clamped between my teeth, holding back a sob.

“This is good sweetie; it’s really good.”

I nodded again. I folded the paper back, exactly as he had folded it two years ago and stuffed it into the envelope and clutched it to my chest.

“Are you ready to go back, get some sleep?”

I nodded again.

She gave me a hand and helped me up. “Zach will move in tomorrow. You’ll have Emma to fuss over. I’ll visit every day, and you’ll wait. You can do this right?”

I nodded again.

She said, “Right?”

I straightened my back. “I can do this. He’s alive Hayley, he’s coming home.”