Prom Night in Purgatory(61)

“I couldn’t talk about the future. Every time I did, I felt like I was being pulled away, like any minute I would be wrenched back to the present. I fought it, and Lizzie seemed to accept what I could tell her.” Maggie proceeded to tell Gus about the prom, about meeting Johnny, spending the evening with him, and then how she had been pulled forward in time once again.

“I didn’t need these.” Maggie pulled her glasses off her nose and looked at them accusingly. “I put them on and it was as if I’d flipped a switch. I called for Johnny, but it was too late. And then I woke up, back in Irene’s bed. Irene was trying to wake me up. It was as if I’d just been dreaming.”

“But it wasn’t a dream,” Johnny added softly. “She was there. I never knew what happened to her. She just disappeared. I spent the next three months wondering where she was.” Johnny opened the scrapbook they’d brought along and showed Gus the picture and the missing persons report.

Gus placed a little pair of wire-rimmed spectacles on his nose and stared at the picture and then carefully read the report Clark Bailey had penned fifty-three years before.

“You say this wasn’t here before?” Gus tapped the plastic covered page.

“No,” Johnny replied swiftly. Maggie nodded in agreement. “I’ve been through that book over and over. The picture of the two of us wasn’t there either.”

“You goin’ back changed things, Miss Margaret,” Gus spoke carefully, thoughtfully.

“Not enough, Gus. Billy still died, and Johnny still lost everything, and Irene married that jerk...”

“Margaret!” Gus spoke sharply, cutting her off. “You gotta leave well enough alone. You can’t be goin’ in and tryin’ to fix things. You don’t understand the harm you could do!”

Maggie bit her lip, surprised by Gus’s vehemence.

“None of what happened to Johnny or Billy or Irene is your fault. Johnny bein’ here now ain’t got nothin’ to do with you!”

“How is it that Irene remembered a girl who danced with Johnny at the prom...a girl who looked like me...before I ever went back?”

“I dreamed about the prom, about Maggie, right after I met her the first time in the hospital. The dream was so real, down to the smallest details...and it felt like a memory, yet I knew it wasn’t. I remembered the prom, and she wasn’t there,” Johnny broke in, contributing to Maggie’s argument.

“That which has been is now; and that which is to be has already been,” Gus quoted quietly.

Maggie and Johnny stared at him, their eyes wide, not understanding.

“Wh-what?” Maggie stuttered.

“It’s scripture. In Ecclesiastes. See, nobody knows that verse. Everybody quotes the parts about there being a time to be born and a time to die, a time to dance and a time to mourn. But if you keep reading, you’ll find that verse. My grandma used to quote it. I think it helped her understand her ability. And you have the same ability, Miss Margaret. You gotta listen to me, child. Listen good. You’re tryin’ to put everything in a tidy little box and wrap it up tight, but I’m tellin’ you, you have the ability to change lives and alter destinies. I don’t know why or how Johnny is here, but be thankful for it, and don’t go tryin’ to unravel mysteries that can’t be unraveled without unraveling people’s lives.”

“I’m not trying to do anything, Gus! I didn’t try to go back in time. I just did!”

"I don't want to scare you, Miss Margaret, but you gotta understand. My grandma was deathly afraid of slipping into another time. And after that first time, when she'd seen the slaves trying to escape, she felt the layers were especially thin. She said it almost got to the point where she feared sleeping alone or being alone in any place where the history of her family was the strongest. She made my grandpa hold her while she slept, to make sure she didn't slip away."

Johnny and Maggie shared a glance, remembering how she had clung to him in the car, holding onto his hand for dear life.

"My grandma worked in a big old house in Birmingham owned by some rich white folk. Her mother, and her mother's mother had both worked in that house as well, along with various cousins and aunts and uncles going back several generations. That was how she got the job. Originally, our family had been slaves, and after emancipation, we just kept on working for the same family, 'cept we got paid a little. It wasn't really much different than it had been before. After my grandmother had her experience with the dogs and the slave trackers, she said working in that big house became a nightmare. It was as if the floodgates had opened. The blood connection, along with the house that had been standing for more than a century, filled with the history of her family, became like one of them houses of mirrors at the circus. You ever been in one of those? There's a million of you in all different shapes and sizes, and you don't know which one is real - which one is actually you.

"One day my grandma was at work in the big house and she started feelin' poorly. The lady of the house told her to rest herself in the parlor in a big rocking chair. My grandma fell asleep, rocking back and forth in that chair. She woke up to find a young white girl strugglin' to fight off an older man who was makin' improper advances." Gus looked uncomfortable but soldiered on. "My grandma didn't think twice and started poundin' on the man's back, tryin' to pull him off the girl. The man ran from the room, and the girl cried in my grandmother's arms, begging her not tell what she'd seen.