“I don’t know you,” I say. “And I never lost my father.”
“Not in this timeline, you didn’t,” he says.
Alright. He’s weird. There are a lot of strange men in the colony who like to talk about stuff with timelines and call things quantum when they’re not even close to quantum. It makes my dad so mad, because he sells quantum engines from time to time, and these guys sometimes try to stand in the exhaust to see if… I don’t even really know what.
This guy looks too clean and too smart to try to huff quantum fuel, but you never really know. I’m starting to think more and more that he’s from off world. There’s something about him that makes me think he’s not from here. He’s going to have to be careful if he’s already on the verge of being unhinged. Something about living this close to the edge of the world makes people go very much their own way. Not every man is a Jimothy with a lot of colony ladies after him.
“Well, the only timeline I know about is the timeline in which I have to get back to work. My father’s going to be big mad if I leave the booth for too long.”
“Mara!” My father calls for me almost on cue.
“See?”
He doesn’t even glance in the direction of my father. He just smiles at me with those pretty, stellar-striking eyes.
“I’ll see you soon, Mara,” he smiles. “Next time, I’ll be more of a gentleman.”
The sound of the market is growing again. I hadn’t noticed that it faded, but now that it’s returning, I notice the difference. I move away from the stranger with a mixture of confusion and regret. He dared touch me intimately, and I don’t like that, but it does feel as though some part of me recognizes him.
“Where the hells have you been?” my father asks me. “It’s been the better part of an hour.”
“I thought it was more like five minutes,” I say. “Sorry. A guy wanted me to show him the tractor.”
“What guy?”
I turn around to point at him. The crowd is thick for a moment, and then it clears. He’s not there.
“Uh, I don’t know where he’s gone. But he said he was interested. Maybe he’ll be back. He might have gone to get something to eat? The bakery is selling their seconds, and the bread is so good.”
My father frowns for a moment. “If anybody wants to look at a tractor, you refer them to me. I’m the one who knows how the transmission works, and I have the keys if they want to test the hydraulics and such.”
CHAPTER 13
Freak
Seeing my pet again very nearly brought tears to my eyes. I have come so far. I have done so much. I have sacrificed everything I was to be with her. She does not remember me, of course. She can’t. The life she is inhabiting is one in which we never met.
But there is a little recognition inside her, I think. No matter how well events are erased from time, there’s always something left over. Vestiges of what was, things that are felt and understood for reasons that make no sense.Déjàvu. That sort of thing.
It is apparent that I am going to have to go through her father to get to her. I do not mind that. It gives me a clear path to claim her.
I have spent some time observing the man. He is a dedicated businessman and father. The two seem to hold equal importance to him, and one is not allowed to come before the other. He keeps Mara close to him, insists she must work in his store, keeps the other males of the colony away from her. She seemshappy with the arrangement, and now I understand why she was prepared to give up so much to find him. He is the emotional core of her world. He is the structure of everything. And the affection between them is more than obvious.
Her father, himself, is an impressive man. He is tall, broad-shouldered, and strong, even though he is starting to come into the age that represents what should be the first decline. His hair is being allowed to both gray and grow, and it sits around his shoulders.
He receives plenty of attention from the single ladies of the colony, but I notice though he is polite, he does not give them much energy. They bring him little offerings. A few eggs. Some sugar. Another lady brings cocoa. He has all the ingredients for a cake, and I am sure Mara will make that for him.
I do not know whether to be jealous or impressed at the way the female parties of this little society band together to serve him, but I can tell that the other elders are indeed jealous. The way they look at him indicates a viciousness that makes the original question of what happened to him much less of a mystery. I have my doubts he ever left the planet. I imagine that in the original timeline, some part of these vast, dry lands was graced with a shallow, dry grave.
Mara is different with him. He has her in hand in a way most would not. She respects him. She loves him. She obviously has transferred all her loyalty to him. But a father is not the only thing a young lady needs when she is of age, and Mara, as is pointed out through mutters and mumbles, is well past marrying age.
I approach her father at his shop. Mara is not home. She is running errands, and though I am sad to miss her, I do want thetime to speak with the man who made her. Up close, I can see that he is graying to a near white at the temples, and a few long streaks of that same hue are starting to speckle his hair.
“Hello, sir,” I say as I step into the showroom. The floor is polished to within an inch of its life, timbers sanded and stained and kept in top shape. It’s all been done by hand. This is a careful man. I imagine it must have taken quite a few of them to subdue him. Or perhaps they simply made a well-placed shot while Mara was distracted.
He looks me in the face as I walk in, and I think I see a flicker of recognition. Strange, considering we have never met. I know who he is, but he should think of me as nothing but a complete stranger.
“What’s your name, stranger?” He asks the question on cue.
