Wayfarer

Etta wanted to speak to her, to understand, to finally clear the air between them, even if it was only one last conversation.

And now it would never happen. At least five hundred years and a single deadly cut had stolen their last chance. If her mother had survived…somehow survived, there was no way of finding her.

Etta sat on the carpet for hours, considering her mother, considering the life they’d had together. The sun tracked around Alice’s bedroom like the arm of a clock. Alone.

Finally, thirst won out. Etta rose, carrying the portrait back across the apartment with her to its new place in the living room. In the kitchen, she went straight for the refrigerator. She’d already noticed that the water was running when she’d stopped to wash her hands and face, and the electricity, too; but she was surprised, somehow, to find that the food stocked inside the fridge had already been cleared out, leaving only a few water bottles.

Who had done that for her? Who had cleaned this place and covered everything inside of it?

Her answer came in the form of a letter, resting on the kitchen table beside two heavy letter-size envelopes. One was labeled with her name, the other with Rose’s.

Dear Spencer Family:

My name is Frederick Russell and I have been appointed by my firm to handle Mrs. Hanski’s estate. I was recently asked by Mrs. Hanski to serve as the executor of her will. As you may already know, the bulk of it has been left to your family in a trust, but I have been unable to reach you by means of phone or Netgram to confirm this.

Netgram? Whatever passed for e-mail in this timeline, most likely.

I’m leaving these envelopes here per Mrs. Hanski’s request, and against my better judgment, as I believe they may contain personal material both sensitive and valuable. Funds to maintain the utilities and upkeep of this home, as well as its taxes, will be paid out of the trust until you specify otherwise. Please notify me the moment you arrive, so that I may explain these next steps to you.

“Still taking care of us,” Etta murmured, folding up the letter and the man’s contact information. She reached for the envelope bearing her name, and dumped the contents out onto the table, finally taking a seat.

Inside, as the lawyer had expected, were personal documents—a birth certificate, a passport, a Social Security card, and vaccination records. Real, copies, or forgeries, Etta wasn’t sure. She turned her attention to the letter itself, hoping for some clue. It was dated July 3.

Dearest Etta,

I don’t know where to begin. It has been only minutes since I last saw you. Both you, and to a lesser extent, your mother, have been appearing and disappearing almost at random throughout the years. There have been moments where we are sitting together at a meal, and I’ll rise to refill my glass of water, only to return and find you both gone. I cannot tell what has become of the timeline, only that it must be very bad. Your great-grandfather tried to explain the idea of “imprinting” to me once—how the timeline adjusts around the travelers’ actions, and when it can’t, it leaves impressions of them behind to maintain consistency. I wish I had paid better attention. The great gears of time are shifting, and I am powerless to do anything other than watch.

I remember our encounter in London as if it were yesterday. I remember the look on your face when you saw me—when you spoke of what our life would be together. I believe I have lived it in pieces. Not the whole, perhaps, but I am grateful to have been your instructor, and your friend. I am grateful I saw you become that young lady with my own two eyes. But I am afraid for you now. I’ve seen the world shift around me in tremendous waves—destroyed one moment, healed the next. I know it must be tied to your search, and I know my own end, the one I saw so plainly in your face, must be near. And so I have taken precautions for you, should you return to an unfamiliar city. These documents should suffice in establishing a life here again, should you choose to.

“Should you choose to…” These words strike me as odd, because it seems as if there has always been a kind of inevitability to your and Rose’s travels. Those of us left behind, perhaps, can see it more clearly, the way it all eventually weaves together and connects. There are patterns; loops are opened that ultimately must be closed. The choice is whether or not to open new ones, I suspect.

Duck, you are the pride of my life. I should very much like to hear you play again, and I hope to see you return to me soon; if not here, then in the past. I’ve tickets to a concert at the Met in September, a night of Bach, but the only question is whether or not this blasted timeline will straighten out again before then, and weave you back into my days in time for us to go together.

Oh God. Of course the timeline would restore that moment to the best of its ability—she clearly wasn’t a part of the concert, but what were the chances that she and Alice had still gone—that she had heard the sounds of the passage—that she had bumped into Sophia and followed it…? Fairly good, if she had to guess.

But if something should happen before then, or if you are reading this years and years from now and I’ve merely kicked it from age and whatever else life has decided to throw at me, I wish to tell you only this: I love you and your mother beyond time and space.

Etta read and reread the letter before returning it to its envelope. She arranged it at the center of the circle of documents she’d laid out and began to consider her options.

The passage was closed. Whether there was another one in this year, or any forthcoming year, remained to be seen.