Rita smiled.“Don’t they say we all have a twin somewhere?”
Ty chuckled and nodded.
“I have a lot of twins out there,” Con said, hoping to turn the conversation away from Ty.“I run into someone about once a week who thinks they know me from somewhere I’ve never been.”
“You have that kind of face,” Ty said.
Was that another reason they’d picked him?The thought made him feel less, well, less something.
“It’s getting too dark for you all to leave today.There’s quarters of a sort to one side of the hangar.A couple of bunks and some food in the fridge.I can show you where…” He half turned as the door opened and Mel came in.
Before she could speak, Rita gasped, her eyes wide as she stared at Ty.
“I have seen you before.You were…” she stopped, her gaze moving between the three of them.“Who?What?How?”
“I had a feeling things might get awkward,” Mel said.
Chapter9
There were places that Alastor felt compelled to revisit, places with emotional connections.He couldn’t stop himself, so he tried to mitigate the risk by varying the when.
Those places mostly looked nothing like those in his memory.It didn’t matter.For the most part, it was the location that brought him there.
The one exception was the graveyard.It was funny how those never seemed to change.Depending on when he arrived, the headstones could be more or less crumbling.And the time of year affected the bleakness.
He liked to come in winter.All the flowers were as dead as the people buried there.
His parents.
His wife.
He didn’t approach their graves.Just watched quietly from a stand of trees.There was no sign of anyone but him.The snow that lay over the graves and dead grasses was unmarred.The air was chill, puffing out in small clouds with each of his uneasy breaths.
He shouldn’t be here.
Ness wasn’t here, though she had a headstone.His wife had needed the closure, she said.She didn’t get it.Neither had he.
He lifted his wrist and made a minute adjustment, then activated.Time shifted and so did he.Now he stood in front of Ness’s headstone.
Beloved daughter.
They said that time healed wounds.So far time had failed at its job.It could have been the day they set the headstone here where she wasn’t.
He only had a few minutes, perhaps just seconds.He lifted his wrist to jump out and saw an envelope propped against the headstone.
He looked around, checking the area.Once again, there were no footprints in the white layer of snow, not even his.
He bent and grabbed it, ripped it open.He had to read it here.It could be tagged.
A single, folded sheet had been inserted inside.He yanked it out, looking around again.Then he opened it.
I know.
It was Stella’s handwriting.
He dropped it and jumped out.
Rita sank onto the couch.Her legs couldn’t hold her upright, not with her thoughts spinning faster than traveling through time.
