Across Eternity (Parallel, #4)

by Elizabeth O'Roark

I cry for all the moments in our past that meant nothing. How deeply I felt them all and how badly I wish I had never left. I suppose I should consider myself lucky to learn just how shallow his feelings for me actually were, but I’m not. If someone would allow me to go back to those days, to return to my ignorance, I’d accept the offer gladly.

There’s a fiction we tell ourselves when we’re saying goodbye to someone we love. We always pretend there will be another time, because it would be too painful to acknowledge it’s the last.

It’s how it should be, and maybe that makes this the perfect time to leave. No drama, no weeping goodbyes. A chapter that ends just as a far more exciting one opens. My chest hurts at the thought of it, but I wanted to know what it was like to love someone so deeply that it felt like I couldn’t breathe when he walked into the room, and I got it. I will never have this again, I know. But I had it once—how many people can say that?

“She’s the most beautiful thing,” I whisper. He turns and his eyes go from my hair to my eyes to my nose to my mouth. “She’s one of them.”

But then he takes three large strides to where I sit, and he drops to his knees in front of me. His head falls to my lap, like a child’s might. His voice is strangled when he finally speaks. “Please don’t leave me. I will find a way to earn your forgiveness. Please, just give me a chance.”

“As much as I’d like to, I think it’s best I don’t. I see you trying to read the future in every word I say, like a child who says she doesn’t want to know what’s in the box but keeps peeking inside anyway.” I hesitate. “Do I want to know? Will I regret not asking later?” She shakes her head. “There is not a single thing about your life you would change, Sarah,” she says. “Your life will be filled with more magic than you can possibly realize.”

“You’re not going to scare me away, Sarah,” he says. “I know you. Killing might make you feel powerful, but it’s not your driving force, and even if it were, God help me, but I’d love you all the same. If you are soft and sweet and need protection, I will love you. And if you are a weapon capable of destroying people in ways I haven’t even dreamed of, I will love that version of you as well. Whatever it is you are, I want you and I wouldn’t change it.”

Being with him tonight is more than love or lust. For the first time ever, it feels holy.

Suddenly I recall Madame Durand, reciting the prophecy to me so long ago: In France there will be a hidden child, born of the first family, conceived during a great war and born on the other side of it. This will be a child born of two first families, conceived during a great war, but not born on the other side, unless… Unless I chose to go to my own time to have her. If she’s the hidden child, nothing could be safer than hiding her five decades into the future, could it?

I understand now why I named her after him. Not just because he sacrificed himself for us, but so I’ll always be reminded of what happens when I give in to the dark.

“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.”

I fight it for only a moment. It’s what Henri wanted. It’s what I already knew I had to do. I press my lips to Henri’s, one last time. And then I’m gone.

I think of Henri. This isn’t the time for weakness, little thief, he said. You were chosen to bring her into the world for a reason. Show the universe it hasn’t made a bad choice.

Like Luna Reilly, the time traveler who tried to fight off Coron in 1918 and died for it. My hands grip the steering wheel. I want to tell myself it isn’t possible. But as I look at the two of them there, my daughter and this little boy, so spellbound by each other, I know what I’m seeing. Two of the first families in my daughter, and—I am guessing—the other two in him. Four pieces of the puzzle, in the same place at last.

We all, in the end, have to give up the things we love, and I am no exception. Even so, I would not change a thing.

“More than twenty years have passed, Henri. The children are grown, and happy. It will all happen as it’s supposed to now.” She feels the same and in the dim light she looks the same, but slowly, I begin to understand. “You came back to die with me.” “I came back to go on to the next place with you,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “But even if there isn’t one, it’s enough, the time we had. You and our family—they were worth all of it.” My lips press to her head. She releases a single, long breath, and then she is still. I hold her against me. “Take me with you, Sarah,” I whisper. “Wherever it is you’ve gone.” My eyes shut and the pain leaves as I sink somewhere heavy and dreamless. But Sarah is tucked against my chest. Our children are safe and we are together.