Across Eternity Read online

  Across Eternity

  Elizabeth O'Roark

  Copyright © 2020 by Elizabeth O'Roark

  Developmental Edit: Tbird London

  Edit: Stacy Frenes, Grammar Boss

  Copy Edit: Julie Deaton, Janis Ferguson

  Cover Design: Lori Jackson

  Photo: Wander Aguilar

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Also by Elizabeth O'Roark

  Acknowledgments

  1

  Sarah’s Mother - 1966

  Her eyes open slowly. In the dim morning light, she sees him, the man she brought home last night, searching the floor for his clothes. Alexander. That’s what he said his name was. He looks like a movie star, but she can’t really explain the depth of her attraction to him. He’s at least twice her age but it’s there, even now, when he’s clearly planning to sneak away.

  “You’re leaving?” she asks.

  He raises a brow. “It seemed best.” His accent is slight. Where did he say he was from? Sweden or Norway. She shouldn’t have drunk as much as she did when they were talking. “As I recall, you’re getting married this afternoon,” he adds.

  She sits up, pulling the sheet to her chest, suddenly cold. “You knew?” They were together for hours last night and he never hinted at it, just plied her with wine and questions about her family until they wound up here, shedding clothes.

  His smile is cruel now, not charming the way it was a few hours ago. “It’s how I found you in the first place.” He pulls a folded newspaper clipping out of his wallet. Her wedding announcement. “Poor Peter Stewart. Does he think you’re a virgin, Vanessa? He’ll be in for a bit of a shock tonight, won’t he?”

  She is speechless, watching him shove the clipping in a pocket.

  “Why did you do this?” she asks. “What is it you want?”

  “I was here for information and simply partook of what you offered so freely,” he says. His eyes flicker over her. “You’re lovely but soulless. I can’t explain the attraction...perhaps it’s the time traveler in you.”

  That chill goes straight to her spine. He was dangerous before, but this is a different sort of danger entirely. "Time traveler?” she asks. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She meets his gaze, daring him to challenge her.

  “I can see it in your eyes,” he says, sitting beside her on the bed and leaning close. She’s furious and yet he can feel the way she wants to yield, as if the desire for him is in her DNA. And maybe it is. He understands little about how that gene they share works, but he knows it contains multitudes no one has yet discovered. “You’ve tried to stop, I’m sure. But it’s still there. Do you think not using it makes you better than that sister you hate so much?”

  Her fist tightens around the sheet. Iris. Ruining everything, even when she’s no longer here. Suddenly she remembers all the questions he asked about her family while they were drinking. Probably for reasons less benign than she thought. “What does my sister have to do with anything? She moved to Paris over a year ago.”

  He pulls something from his jacket pocket and hands it to her. It’s a picture of Iris, sepia-tinted and wearing an old-fashioned dress that sweeps the floor. A man stands behind her with his hand on her shoulder. What was Iris thinking, allowing herself to be photographed like that?

  “That’s my father with her,” Alexander says, “not that I’d actually call him father under the circumstances. It was taken in 1918, just before they held my mother captive and allowed terrible things to happen. Based on your hatred of your sister, I doubt you’re surprised by that.”

  She isn’t. Yet Iris was always her mother’s favorite. It enrages her even now. “And you decided to punish me for it? You could have gotten me pregnant.”

  He gives her an arrogant smile. “Punish? As I recall, you enjoyed it, many times over. You were as drawn to me as I was to you, and believe me, I did not want to be drawn to anyone related to your sister.” He rises and walks to the door. “But if it really bothers you, just rewind time and undo the whole thing. Because we both know you can.”

  She says nothing as he walks out of the room.

  She swore two years ago she’d never time travel again, and now God is testing her resolve. So she will endure this memory, and her regret. But she won’t get pregnant. It was just one night, and she’s going to do the right thing from now on.

  God just wouldn’t punish her like that.

  2

  SARAH

  Henri.

  He comes into the house just after Marie has left for town. It’s early fall, still warm, and his shirt clings to him from a morning’s labor, unbuttoned to mid-chest. Want kicks sharply in my stomach and I swallow, trying to force it away. My hunger for him is excessive, incessant—it needs to be kept in its place. “I was about to see if you wanted lunch,” I tell him.

  His mouth lifts, a hint of a dirty smile. “I think I need a bath, little thief,” he says, closing the distance between us. “And I think you need one too.”

  I start to reply when I hear it—that shrieking noise again, like a hand inside my skull, squeezing and twisting. Make it stop, I try to say, but my tongue won’t obey my commands. That noise is pulling me back, somewhere else, somewhere I don’t want to be.

  My eyes open to find that I’m in a windowless room where the noise is worse, louder. I sit at a long table, surrounded by blank-faced women spooning something in their mouths, empty-eyed yet desperate. Stew. It sits in front of me as well, its taste on my tongue though I’ve no memory of eating it.

  I understand their desperation. Something inside me cries out for the contents of the bowl, as if it’s oxygen and I’m short of breath. My spoon rises to my lips almost without my consent, my hand shaking with desire.

  But why? The question slips forward alongside the craving. Why do I want this so badly? Why am I even here?

  For a moment I see Henri’s face. Picture his eyes, intent on mine, worried, begging me for something, as if my answer means everything to him. I shudder with relief as th
e spoon hits my tongue and the tension finally eases. I feel closer to Henri, now, less bothered by that endless shrieking overhead. Even at the worst of times, he looks at me as if I’m something worth fighting for, something precious. That wounded part of me, the one that still hasn’t shaken off my mother’s hatred, heals a little more with each moment he’s near.

  I watch as he unbuttons my dress, as his fingers slide down my collarbone, then dip to the base of my breasts. There’s the smallest sound from his chest—a quiet groan, full of need.

  “What if Marie comes back early?” I ask, but I make no move to stop him.

  He laughs. “Then she will learn not to come back early.”

  A snap of pain between my shoulder blades jars me. The blank-faced women surround me again and something presses hard against my spine.

  “Eat,” a man grunts behind me. “Been here a month. Shouldn’t need to be told.”

  My pulse jumps at the words. Even hazy and half-asleep, something inside me panics. I’ve been here a month? It’s not possible. I don’t even remember how I got here in the first place. I pick up the spoon, glancing quickly at the faces nearest me. Beautiful faces, with eyes only time travelers possess. They don’t seem to notice me or each other—they only care about the stew. My head is too foggy to make sense of it, but I know something’s wrong. I force myself to put the spoon back down, sweating with the effort.

  I want this too much.

  Thick-fingered and clumsy, fighting every impulse, I exchange my bowl for the empty one beside me. The woman sitting there begins to eat greedily, sending droplets of it flying.

  Evil, says my mother’s voice in my head. Whatever’s in that bowl might kill her.

  It’s not evil, I argue. If I don’t figure this out, it might kill us all.

  Such convenient logic, my mother replies.

  And I have no response to that, because this time she’s right.

  * * *

  By the time the meal ends, the pounding in my head is worse and my skin is clammy. We are pushed down a long hall, into another gray, windowless room lined with cots, which the women move toward as if this is home. I know mine too, somehow.

  My head hurts so much that my stomach rolls in response. I lie down, waiting for it to pass. When my eyes open, the room is dark, but I can make out the face of the woman on the cot next to mine.

  Marie.

  I whisper her name. My throat does not seem to work right. The word is garbled, and she doesn’t respond. “Marie,” I repeat. Nothing.

  I close my eyes, sick again, longing to be anywhere else, longing for Henri. And then I am with him, watching as he slides into the bathtub, lean-muscled, still tan from summer. He holds his hands out for me. “Give me the pitcher,” he says. “I’ll wash your hair.”

  I climb in and sit between his legs, my back to his. “That’s very Out of Africa of you.”

  He raises a brow. “What’s African? Washing your hair?”

  I laugh. “No. It’s this movie with…never mind. You don’t know who they are. Anyway, the guy washes the woman’s hair. It’s very erotic.”

  His hands slide around me to cup my breasts. “I’m glad you think so.”

  The water sloshes as my knees fall open. “Do you want more?” he asks, his hand sliding down my torso.

  “Yes,” I groan, but suddenly I begin to shake. I’m hot. Sick. This is not the way this is supposed to go. Not the way it happened the first time.

  “Sarah?” he asks, his voice urgent. “What’s wrong?”

  I flail in the water, sending it spinning over the lip of the tub. My insides are twisting. “Don’t know,” I murmur. “Make it stop.”

  This is all wrong. I remember the afternoon vividly. I remember how Henri used his hands on me in the tub until I came, with my head pressed to his chest, and how he carried me to the mattress afterward, too impatient to even let us dry off.

  But instead I am curled into a ball against him, hot and shivering at once, and I’m hearing that noise again, that awful noise. “Henri, make it stop,” I beg, clutching my hands to my head. “I don’t know where I am.”

  My eyes open and I’m back in the dark room with the shrieking noise, sweating, breathing too fast. My shift clings to me, twists around my legs. No, I think. I don’t want to be here. Please don’t let me be here. Let me be back with Henri.

  And then I am. He’s perched beside me on our bed with his hand on my brow. “It came out of nowhere,” he’s saying. “She was fine and now she’s like this. It’s been hours.”

  I don’t understand, I want to weep. What’s happening to me? Why am I in two places at once and sick in both of them?

  “It’s just a fever,” soothes Marie, leaning over us. “You’re as panicked as a new father.”

  “It’s more than that,” Henri argues, running his hand through my hair. “She keeps telling me you’re with her, saying there’s something in the stew.”

  “Stew,” I whisper. “Don’t eat. Trap.”

  She smiles at me over his head as if I’m a sleepy toddler. “We haven’t had stew in weeks,” she says. “You’re dreaming.”

  My eyes open in the dark room once more. Marie is on the pillow across from mine, unmoving, her lips bled of color.

  “No,” I reply, though no one is listening. “I think I’m the only one who’s awake.”

  * * *

  All night I’m feverish, going from Henri to the room with the cots, uncertain which of them is real. I’m awakened the next day by a guard who slams his gun against a metal pipe to rouse us. I’m shaking so hard it’s a struggle to climb from the bed, and I do so too slowly for the guard’s liking. I’ve just pushed myself to standing when he plants his boot in my stomach, sending me flying backward. I go to my hands and knees, certain I will throw up.

  “I should put a bullet in her head,” he says to the other guard. “She’ll be dead by morning anyway.”

  I push to my feet and nearly fall in my haste to join the other women. I follow them down a long, poorly lit hallway, all metal and concrete block—back to the cafeteria, where we line up like lambs to the slaughter.

  They push gruel at us instead of stew this morning, but my mouth waters with desire for it just the same. I pretend to eat, and when the woman next to me empties her bowl, I replace it with my full one.

  “Watch them carefully today,” says a guard who passes only a moment later. “They’re decreasing the sedative. The ones we’re looking for will be the first to wake.”

  The ones they’re looking for. I know this means I need to be careful, even though it’s not me they’re after, but I can’t. Fighting my desire for the gruel and that noise overhead, that noise that never goes away, has exhausted me. My eyes close, despite my best intentions, and remain so until I feel Henri’s palm on my forehead. My eyes flicker open to find that I’m in our bed, the curtains drawn but sunlight sliding through the cracks around them.

  I want to ask him why this is happening. I want to ask him if I’m being punished for my sister’s death. Or perhaps just the hundreds of times I used time travel to get myself ahead—to finish a paper I’d forgotten, to learn something I didn’t know would be on the test, or when I needed tuition money,

  All because of time travel, I want to tell him. My mother was right. Don’t let us make this journey.

  But the words never come. A sentence in my head becomes only a gasp, a single syllable, as it exits my mouth.

  Doctor Nadeau leans over me, his brow furrowed. “She’s been poisoned,” he concludes. “I’ll give her castor oil to bring it back up.”

  Henri stiffens. “Poisoned? How?”

  “Mushrooms, juniper berries, even too many apple cores maybe,” says Doctor Nadeau. “She’s American, yes? Perhaps it’s not common knowledge there.”

  I’ve never seen Henri look as desperate as he does right now. He knows something else is going on—he just has no idea what it is.

  Help me, I think, and his hands go to the sides of my face.


  “Tell me what you need,” he begs, as if he’s heard my words. “Tell me what to do.”

  The shrieking catches my attention and pulls me away before I can answer, if I was even capable of answering. My eyes open to find I’m back in the cafeteria and being pushed toward the door. What just happened? Was I hallucinating, or was I—sort of—in two places at once?

  There’s a faint taste of castor oil in my mouth, but it’s not until my stomach starts churning in response to it that I have my answer. I was, somehow, in two places simultaneously. I have no idea how it’s possible, and I don’t know why that shrieking noise doesn’t entirely keep me in place. At this exact moment, I wish it would, though. We enter the hall and the first wave of nausea hits. I walk faster, but the women shuffle so slowly I can’t go anywhere. When we turn a corner I vomit, letting it fall in a trail to my right as I walk.

  “Which of you stupid whores threw up?” shouts a guard behind me. I hear a thwack and someone falls, suffering a punishment that should have been mine. I continue walking, despite the nausea, despite the guilt, as if my life depends on it—which it probably does.

  We are pushed into a large room which holds chairs and nothing more. Some of the women sit, and some wander, muttering to themselves, lost in a dream world. Right now, as I stumble toward a chair as far from the guards as possible, I wish I was in a dream world too. Even if it’s only in my head, a dream of Henri is better than this, with my stomach rolling, sweat dripping into my eyes.