“Your daughter. Caroline Reed.”
She took a step closer, examining me. “You can’t be—it’s impossible.”
“I live here, but I also live in South Carolina in 1727. My grandfather is Josias Reed.”
Her face grew pale, and she looked like she was going to faint. I reached for her, and she grasped my arms.
We stood for several seconds, just staring at each other.
“You have two lives, too?” she asked.
“Yes, and I’ve been looking for you for months.” I didn’t know how much time we’d have, so I quickly told her about the letter I’d found in the wall of the plantation house and my visit with Mary Jones in Nassau. “When I learned that you lived in 1927, as well, my friend began to look for you. I was in Lakeville the day after you.”
She slowly let go of me and took a step back, humiliation creasing her brow. “So you know about me?”
“Yes.” The word held the weight of all her transgressions.
Annie crossed her arms again and lifted her chin like she had before, almost defiant. “I suppose you’re ashamed of me.”
“I’m confused.”
She pressed her lips together.
“I have so many questions,” I continued.
“I’m sure you do.”
“How? How is this possible? Why do we live two lives?”
Annie shook her head and said the one thing I feared the most. “I don’t know.”
“What?” I wanted to reach out to her again, to demand a better answer. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged and paced away from me. “Until this very moment, I thought I was the only person in the world who lived like this. I had no idea you would be the same.”
“What about your mother? Did she live like this?”
“I don’t know, Caroline. I never met her. She died in Salem, and my father raised me in South Carolina. He refused to speakabout her. I know nothing except her name and that she died in jail during the witch trials.”
“What was her name?”
She let out a breath. “Rachel Howlett.”
“And you never thought to go to Salem to find out if she had family or to see if they’re like us?”
“No one is like us.” Anger filled her voice as she said, “My mother died as an accused witch. The last person her family would want to see is me. But it doesn’t matter,” she said. “I stopped waking up there in 1713.”
“When you died.”
She frowned. “I died?”
“Yes, on your twenty-first birthday. You died in your sleep. Mary told me.”
“I suppose I never wondered what happened to my body there.”
“You weren’t sick before that?”
“No. On my twenty-first birthday, I woke up here and then never went back there. It was a crushing blow, but to be honest, it was also a relief.”
