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SARAH
Over the next week, as we head to Nanterre, we come to terms with our news. We have to stay quiet during the day, but at night we discuss the future—what it means that this child is the product of two first families. I tell him about the time traveler I saw lurking during my last visit to 1989, and we come to the same conclusion—there’s no assurance that our child will be safe, regardless of the decades she’s raised in.
He insists on taking more breaks than I need and coddles me as if I’m fragile, but I don’t really mind. Our time together feels more precious than it ever has. No matter what we tell ourselves, we both know it may end soon.
On our final night together, there is no shelter to be found—not a safe one anyway. We make a bed of leaves and then lie down with the blanket pulled around us and his arm beneath my head. It’s still cold out, but growing warmer now, with the barest hint of spring on the way. And all I can think is that by the time it gets cold again, I may be gone.
“I’m probably due in October,” I whisper.
“I can’t imagine a life without you, little thief,” he says, reading into my words and my sudden melancholy. “I refuse to believe that’s what’s in store for us.”
“You once said something about the island.” I glance away, as tears threaten. “About being reunited there. Do you think there’s a chance it’s true?”
He’s quiet for a moment. “I’m a practical man,” he finally replies. “I struggle to believe in the concept of heaven, and the island sounds, to me, like another version of that.”
I suppose I mostly feel the same way. I just wanted him to convince me otherwise. I wanted him to convince me there was time.
* * *
It's afternoon when we finally crest the hill and see Chateau de Nanterre. My stomach drops at the sight—it’s mostly rubble, destroyed either by time or German bombs.
Henri, who’s been tense all day and trying to restrain his fury about Marie and Edouard’s predicament, stiffens in a way that does not bode well.
“They can’t be living here,” I whisper, squeezing his hand. “There must be an explanation.”
“I hope for my sister’s sake it’s a very good one,” Henri growls.
We proceed down the hill. The grounds are surrounded by a twenty-foot wrought iron fence with spiked posts and the gate is locked.
“I’ll just time travel to unlock it,” I suggest.
His eyes flicker with anxiety. “What about the baby? What happened to Marie—”
“Won’t happen here,” I say softly, squeezing his hand. “I’ve been time traveling throughout this pregnancy, and this child’s abilities surpass all of ours, remember?”
Before he can argue further, I fade and land on the other side.
He raises a brow at me. “Just keep in mind that you’re supposed to avoid time travel for the next six months.”
I grab the bars of the fence and smile at him. “I thought I’d mostly agreed to stop killing people.”
I unlock the gate and, once I’m dressed, he takes my hand and we proceed down the long gravel path. The grounds are overgrown but flourishing in the March air—rose bushes budding, tulips already springing up in the beds along the exterior.
The remains of the chateau hardly look stable, so we head to the back. Crawling through a break in the eight-foot hedge, we emerge to a wonderland on the other side—a reflecting pool and long yard with cottages along its periphery and woods behind them. In the grass, at least twenty children stand frozen, staring at us in shock.
One small figure breaks from the group and barrels toward us—Charlotte, brown curls flying around her joyful little face. “Mama!” she cries, throwing herself into my arms. I kneel in the gravel and pull her close, breathing in her smell of soap and grass and sunshine.
Tears spring to my eyes. It’s only now, now that we’ve finally gotten home to them, that I recognize the empty space that’s been inside me since I left. Lucien runs next and then the four of us are on the ground, entwined.
“Please don’t go away again,” whispers Charlotte against my ear. My chest squeezes tight at her solemn, tear-stained face. She already lost one mother and spent the last several weeks worried she’d lost another. I wish I hadn’t put her through that.
“I hope I never have to,” I tell her, turning my head to see Cecelia toddling forward, led by Marie.
“Mamamamama,” she cries when she’s close enough to see my face, releasing Marie’s hand and running on chubby little legs, her arms outstretched. She lands with a thud against me, wrapping her arms around my neck and scrambling into my lap with such force that she knocks me flat on my back. I lie on the ground, laughing while her arms squeeze me tight, until Henri lifts her up and turns to face his sister for the first time since he left to go fight.
Marie no longer wears a nun’s habit and is flourishing in the early-spring air. Her eyes glow, her cheeks are rosy, and she is smiling widely.
