Until We Meet Again(85)
His face is ashen, his eyes wide. I draw in a sharp breath, and
we collide in a fierce embrace. There are no words. We just hold
each other.
Lawrence finally steps back. Taking my hand, he leads me to
our spot on the sand, overlooking the waves. The place we first
met. Side by side, we stare out at the sea.
“I don’t understand,” he says.
“I do.” The words hurt to say. “This beach is just an anomaly.
A crack in time. Always has been, always will be.”
Lawrence frowns. “But how could that be? Don’t you think
someone would have noticed in the nearly hundred years this
house has been standing?”
I shake my head. “Maybe they didn’t.” But even as I say it, I
realize how implausible that would be. Surely someone would
have noticed.
“There has to be another explanation,” Lawrence says. “Some
sense to it all.”
“Or maybe there’s not.”
Despondent, I lie on my back, wincing at the pain that still
hangs over my body. My eyes are drawn to the moon. It’s especially big and bright, hanging over the beach. Beautiful. Almost
full, by the looks of it.
A sharp snap of realization clicks into place. The moon. The
full moon. The full moon tomorrow night. I sit up.
“What is it?” Lawrence asks.
I set my hand on his knee. I need a minute of silence to put
together the wild thoughts in my mind. That first night. The full
moon rising out of the ocean. The pulse of light. Lawrence suddenly standing down by the water. The painting in the library.
The full moon. It has to mean something.
“What’s going on, Cassandra? You’re making me jumpy.”
I turn to him. “I have an idea. A theory, really.”
“Okay. So, tell me.”
“First, I have to ask a question. On the night we met, did you
watch the moon rise?”
He frowns. “I think so, yes.”
“And did you notice anything…strange?”
He stares at me for a long moment. Then, slowly, shock
spreads over his face. “The flash of light. You saw it too?”
I release a shaky breath. “Yes.”
“I thought it was a trick of the eye. What was it then?”
“All I know is, I was alone on the beach, and right after that
pulse of light, you were suddenly standing down by the shore.”
His eyes widen. “That’s exactly how it happened for me. That
has to be significant!”
“Lawrence. The next full moon is tomorrow night.”
Lawrence perks up at the revelation. “Are you sure? Well, this
could be our answer, Cassandra! This will be what allows us to
travel into each other’s worlds. Another full moon will open
the portal.”
“Or it could close forever.” My words bring his enthusiasm
to a halt. “Maybe this anomaly will only last through one
cycle of the moon. And at the rise of the new full moon…it
will be over.”
Lawrence shakes his head, processing what I’ve said. “No.”
“Think about it. If we were going to be able to move through
time, it would have happened when we tried it. It’s not going
to last forever.”
Lawrence’s lips part to reply, but no words come. We’re silent
for a while, digesting the awful, sad truth of it. I glance over at
Lawrence, my heart still raw from everything I’ve gone through
in the last twenty-four hours.
“They’re probably all wondering what’s taking you so long,”
I say.
Lawrence sighs. “You were supposed to come with me.”
“I know.”
He grips me by the shoulders. “We’ll figure this out,
Cassandra. There has to be a way. We will be together.”
“You should go,” I say. “The police have probably made it to
the house by now. You’ll need to tell them about your uncle.”
His expression drops. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry. I…can’t imagine what that must have been like.”
He only shakes his head. I touch his face.
“Everything’s gone wrong,” he says, his voice choked.
“You’re alive. That didn’t go wrong. And that’s the most important thing. We changed the past. And probably the future.”
A shiver passes through me. The old fear about messing with
the time prick at me, but I shake them away.
“Will you meet me here tomorrow?” Lawrence asks. “Will
you spend the day with me, if it…”
His voice drops off, but I know what he was going to say. If
it is our last day together.
“Of course,” I say.
He rises, brushing the sand from his pants. His steps to the
bushes are slow, conflicted. He turns just before going back
to his own world. His beautiful brown eyes are flush with
sadness.
“I need you, Cassandra. Now more than ever.”