“Goodbye, Bea.”
May 2, 1851London, England
Beatrix wakes groggy and bleary-eyed. She has barely slept, despite crawling into the soft bed hours ago. The words pounding a relentless drumbeat through her skull make sure of that.
My obituary.
About three months.
I can’t see you again.
She groans and pulls the duvet over her head, turns her world dark again. But she can’t escape herself.
You will live to regret this moment. And then you will keep on living.
The faerie made it sound like that night—that decision—would be the only one Beatrix would ever regret; that all the rest of her days would be spent lamenting that singular moment that changed her life.
If only that were true.
June 22, 2202Winchester, Massachusetts
Oliver follows the asphalt path, winding between endless rows of graves. He has never found comfort in the cemetery. There is nothing of his mother’s joy or his father’s wry sense of humor in their stone. He goes for his brother. He goes to make up for the shit job he did at all this the first time.
His hand sweats against the cellophane wrapping his bouquet. He hopes he didn’t pick the same one as Theo.
He spots his brother standing on the grass, his head bowed over a polished granite slab. Theo is a little taller than him, a little broader, a lot better dressed, wearing a suit and tie to his button-down shirt and dark jeans. They both have their father’s blue eyes and their mother’s wavy brown hair. Theo’s is cut short and neat. Precise, like everything else about him.
The crinkling plastic gives Oliver away.
Theo tears his gaze from the headstone. “I wasn’t sure you were going to make it.”
A shard of guilt stabs through Oliver’s chest. Did Theo really think he would bail on him?
“I tried calling you,” Theo adds.
“Yeah, sorry,” Oliver mumbles. “I was busy.”
“Right, no, I get it,” Theo says.
It is the flimsiest of excuses. They both cling to it, a life raft in the ocean of things they can’t bring themselves to say.
Oliver places his bouquet of yellow roses next to the pink ones Theo has laid. He contemplates the engraving in silence, how it still says his parents’ names, how somehow the date is ten years past. How in three months, his name will be etched there, too.
“How’s the time travel going?” Theo asks. He tries to sound casual.
“Good,” Oliver replies. He still hasn’t properly thanked his brother. He doubts he’ll ever be able to. Every time he has traveled, he’s gained so much. Not just more time. More time with Bea.
His heart sinks. He should have told her sooner.
He shouldn’t have met her again. Shouldn’t have kissed her back. Shouldn’t want to kiss her again. Not thatshouldsandshouldn’tsmatter now. Bea told him to go. It’s over.
He wishes he could tell his brother about her. Theo could talk some sense into him or reassure him or maybe just tell him he’s a fucking idiot, like only a big brother can. But that would require confessing that he has fallen for an immortal woman from the fifteenth century. Theo would drag him to the hospital for another brain scan.
“Thank you for the account at Aevum,” Oliver says. “You didn’t have to.”
Theo shrugs. “I wanted to.”
“I went to the first modern ballet performance,” Oliver offers. “It was at a theater in London, in 1717.”
