Cora

When the girls gathered for breakfast, Cora sat quietly, not knowing what to say. There would be time for that later. For now, she listened to them tell about their Victorian vacations.

With the food eaten and the adventures told, they decided to take a last walk around the gardens before packing for their return flight. They stood on the dock, looking out over the Thames toward Swan Island.

“It’s not the same.” Reese remarked. “It’s different and more comfortable. It was so incredible, but I’m glad to be in my own time.”

Traffic was light on the road behind them, but it still drew Cora’s attention and seemed out of place. Or she was. “I’m going back.”

Her friends turned to face her, each with varying degrees of surprise in their expressions. “There’s something you don’t know. I didn’t come back when you all did.”

“Last night. We all came back last night,” Kaitlyn said.

“Time is a fuzzball, and I jumped on a different strand. They both landed here, together.” Cora smiled at how she could actually believe that now, but she did.

“I stayed a couple of months longer, then returned at the same time as you.” Soon, she’d board the train again. The same warning would sound at each stop on their way toward the airport. “Mind the gap. Mind the gap.” But this time the gap Cora felt was the one that separated her from Simon. “I had to know where to be. I’m going back on the next full moon to marry Simon. I’d like it if you would be my bridesmaids.”

“Oh, you’re going to be our own Jane Austin. Of course, I’ll come.” Kaitlyn hugged her.

“She never married,” Reese said. She joined the hug.

“Elizabeth Bennett, then,” Kaitlyn said as they began walking back to Twickenham Manor.

“She’s fictional,” Reese added.

“Stop it,” Kaitlyn demanded. “You’re ruining the happily-ever-afterness of the moment.

Reece shrugged.

* * *

It took two weeks to get herself ready to return to England. She had to figure out what to do with the money from the sale of her parents’ home and the life insurance money from her father. Cora sold everything she owned and emptied her bank accounts. The best way she thought to take her “dowry” with her was to buy diamonds—lots of them—to be delivered under security to Nellie’s house. Then she and her bridesmaids would each carry a sack of them in their purses.

A week before the full moon, she returned to Waco, Texas. She walked through the town and the college, indulging in memories. She stopped to have barbecue and a Dr. Pepper before she left town. She’d be back, but she didn’t know when.

She made a short drive across town. This was the last goodbye she’d have to make before her wedding. She entered the sanctuary through the iron gates into the calming green of the Oakwood Cemetery. She was never truly alone here. People came to feel close to family members long departed, and others just to walk or sit in the peaceful acreage or admire the statues. The hot summer day cooled in the shadows of the towering oaks on both sides of the drive as she walked. Birds’ songs muffled the hum of the city behind her.

Headstones and stately monuments dotted the grass. She wondered what she’d say to her parents if they were beside her. She’d made this walk dozens of times with her father to visit her mother’s site. Now, they were all here—together.

She sat on the grass, looking at the monument inscribed with their names. She remembered a poem she’d heard once about a dash between the years.

It touched her how final a decision to marry was. Just as her parents weren’t parted, even in death, lying here together, so would she be with Simon. Her chest clenched at the thought that today, in this time, he was dead. Sorrow filled her with the prospect of never living his dash with him, not knowing what he accomplished and who he became if she couldn’t return. It was her place to be there and hold him. Even then, someday, one of them would have the loss of the other.

Cora had watched that with her own parents. She knew it from losing them both. Living gave memories and emotions that sustained you over the years after loss. Cora couldn’t imagine herself without making those kinds of memories with Simon. That had convinced her to seize the time with him now—each day a gift to be treasured up, like her father had told her.

Her father would have loved the opportunity to be pulled into the past and crawl through history with his own experiences. He would support her for that reason and for the love she’d found. He and her mother had had feet in two cultures and had found love and happiness together. She and Simon would do the same.

She sat at her parents’ feet, her hands pouring out her heart, telling them all about the children and the school, having a chance to give them words and language and community. She told them of the man who loved her as they had loved each other, of her dreams for a family, of her hope for happiness. She told them of the other time, of her own future in the past, of how she would miss them, of how deeply she loved the man.

When her words were still, and her hands were settled in her lap, and her eyes were dry but sore, she knew without a doubt she could leave the cemetery and Waco and her time.