A Rip Through Time(29)

“For your help today, Catriona.”

“I thought we agreed to time off instead?”

“You earned both.” A faint smile. “Spend it on something that makes you happy.”

I don’t even have time to thank him before he’s heading back to those books, leaving me staring at his back and thinking that, of all the fascinating things in this world, he might be the one I’ll most regret not getting to know better.

“I’ll look you up when I get home, Duncan Gray,” I murmur as he bends over the cart of old books. “I expect you did some amazing things.”

I lift my fingers in a wave, even if he can’t see it, and then I hurry from the market.



* * *



I have been in the right spot for over an hour, pacing and wandering, and at one point—when the lane is clear—even dropping to the ground, as if I can somehow pass through time that way. I realize that is ridiculous. Just like I realize this entire plan is ridiculous.

I’m trying to pass back through time by returning to the place where I crossed over. My brain says that makes logical sense, but I am well aware that it only makes sense because I’ve seen it in movies and read it in books. To return to your own time, you go back to that spot—that magical bridge between worlds. Or you go there and do something you did the last time and that makes you cross over. Maybe it’s a word or a phrase or an action or an emotion. Do that thing, and it will unlock the door through time.

Which is like saying that if I tap my ruby slippers three times I can go home again. I am basing my entire theory on the imagination of fiction writers. Not scientists, because there is no science. People can’t travel through time. Therefore, writers don’t need to worry about “getting it right.” They make up whatever they want.

To return to your own time, child, you must find the spot where you crossed, during the same alignment of the planets, and then eat one hundred and fifty leaves of thyme, one for each year you must travel.

I knew this was a preposterous plan. Yet it was the only one I had, and what was the alternative? To throw up my hands and resign myself to the life of a housemaid when a walk across town might have been the key to returning? If so many writers used that particular trope, maybe there was a kernel of truth to it. It’s like meeting a vampire while holding a vial of holy water and not throwing it at him.

I don’t know what happened to me. I cannot begin to understand it, because the possibility doesn’t exist in any reality I know. I suspect modern theoretical scientists would have ideas, but it’s not a subject I’ve ever needed to research. I am hoping, then, that some author or screenwriter did the research for me and this whole “return to the spot where you passed over” idea is sound.

What I suspect, though, is that what I encountered here was a rip in the fabric of reality. I was strangled in the same spot, on the same day, at the same moment as a young woman a hundred and fifty years earlier. That caused some crossing of wires in a cosmic sense, and my consciousness—my soul or whatever you care to call it—somehow swapped with that of Catriona Mitchell.

Can such a thing be undone? I can’t even contemplate a negative answer. The despair would swallow me whole, and I might find myself taking the most desperate action to get home again. To put myself in those exact conditions. To die on that spot and hope that took me home because I cannot imagine being trapped here forever.

There are worse fates than being a maid in a decent household. I have a job and food and a roof over my head. There’s even the possibility that I could become the assistant to a man doing work I find fascinating—work I could surely help with. But those are only scraps, barely enough to keep me from lying down on this spot and strangling myself.

Yes, there are things in my real life I’d like to change, but I want the chance to do that. I need to see Nan and tell her all about this before she dies. Give her a glimpse into true magic, a goodbye gift, one last secret between us before she’s gone.

I want to make other changes, too. Work less. Play more. Renew friendships. Fall in love. Compared to Catriona, though, I had an idyllic life. A challenging job that I love. A cozy condo and a loving family and my freedom. Most of all, I had my freedom. I could go where I wanted, do what I wanted, be who I wanted. This is not my world, and I do not want to stay in it.

So I will sustain my spirits by telling myself there must be a door. That I can get back, and either I’ll figure it out or I’ll return when the universe repairs its glitch.

Until then, I’ll make the best of it. Be Catriona Mitchell. Do whatever I can to make that role mine. To be a version of this girl that I can live with and not go mad. Also, to not act in any way that’ll have me labeled mad. Keep my secret, blend in, and do my best.

I pace the alley one last time, as if the thousandth will make a difference. When footsteps sound, I stiffen. I’m not alone on this lane. I’ve had my share of curious looks. I entertained two offers of “companionship” before I learned to busy myself whenever anyone passed. Still, it’s been safe enough. However bad the neighborhood, it’s still daytime and even the offers had only been for a drink, while naturally hoping it’d lead to more. It’s not as if anyone has honestly mistaken me for a sex worker. At those footsteps, though, I still steel myself as I turn.

It’s a woman, maybe in her late twenties. Dark-haired, with a scar across her cheek and a narrow-eyed look that dares anyone to ask her how she got it.