An Untimely Romance: A Time Travel Romance (10 page)

“Heather...”

Frank’s voice was now a
welcome sound to her ears, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him,
embarrassed by her earlier outburst. She felt two strong arms lifting her up, encompassing
her whole body. Frank held her close, and she was too tired and upset to argue,
so she buried her head into his broad chest and clasped her arms around his
neck.

“Frankie, I’m sorry,”
she sniffed.

How did I possibly
manage to get myself lost?
she thought, as after
only a couple of minutes or so they were heading back up the spiral staircase.
She was shielded from the damp mist by his body, and she could feel the firmness
of his chest against her and hear his heartbeat. The tree house felt so welcoming
as Frank lowered her gently onto the settee, seating himself beside her.

“Regrettably, there is
much I have kept from you.”

Sitting forward,
Heather rested her hands on her knees.

“But I hardly know you,
Frank.”

“That is not entirely
true. We are very well acquainted.” He paused, brushing his sideburns with the
back of his hands.

Heather sat up tall,
almost prompting him to speak, though her face soon wore a frown when he didn’t
elaborate further.

“One meeting when I was
thirteen isn’t knowing someone.”

He placed his hand over
hers, looking into her eyes.

“What do you think
you’re doing?” she snapped, pulling her hand away,

“I think it best I show
you, since my explanation will far from suffice.”

Frank rose and
disappeared into the bedroom.
What on earth?
she thought to herself.
Is
he making a play for me now Ruben’s out of the picture?
She fidgeted
uneasily. Maybe she shouldn’t have stayed after all; perhaps it would have been
better if they had all gone home together that night. But her thoughts were
soon interrupted when the bedroom door opened again, and she looked intently at
what Frank was holding.

“I don’t think so!” she
said, jumping to her feet. “Take it back, now!”

“This is the only way I
have of showing you,” Frank explained, and placed the Ouija board on the dining
table. “We must endeavour to know her true intentions.”

“Whose intentions?
Frank, stop it, you’re scaring me.”

His eyes were intense.
“The maid’s,” he answered.

Heather felt a chill
spread throughout her body.

“You saw her too...” she
whispered.

“But of course,” Frank
answered. “Her eyes were filled with anguish, and I need to know why she’s
here. It’s not her time.”

“I guess some things
just need leaving in the past.” Heather stood. “Anyway, I think I’m going to
have an early night,” she said, forcing a yawn, and made her way to the
bedroom.

“The past is where I
thought I had left her. This, I presume...” He paused, looking down at the Ouija
board. “...is our only means of communication.”

“You’ve got some
explaining to do,” she snapped, scowling.

The strange happenings,
the ghostly apparitions, were these all linked to Frank somehow? She didn’t
want to dabble with the Ouija board for one moment, it scared her senseless,
but maybe there were answers she needed too.

“I am not of your
time,” he said.

“You can say that
again,” Heather sneered. “Look, I can’t be doing with any of this or you, and I
don’t think I want to know.”
Maybe not knowing at this moment in time is an
easier option
, she thought.

“This, Heather, is a
reality from which we cannot run,” Frank said as he sat down at the table.

He placed his fingers
on the pointer of the Ouija board.

“Anna, are you there?”
he asked. “Why are you here? What is it you want of me?”

Although she was
scared, Heather’s curiosity wouldn’t allow her to walk away, and she watched
from the safety of the bedroom doorway in silence.

“Nothing’s happening,
let’s just put it away,” she said after a few minutes, talking to the back of
Frank’s head.

“Maybe it is not me
they seek,” was his response.

Heather stood with her
arms folded, rocking herself from side to side as a defence mechanism. She
didn’t want to go anywhere near that Ouija board, yet something was drawing her
in its direction, and taking small steps, she edged closer.

“Are you there, Anna?”
Frank repeated.

Heather looked down
apprehensively at the rectangular-shaped board.

“Who’s Anna?” she
asked.

Her eyes ran over the
board’s alphabetic letters and numbers, each corner holding a different word:
Yes, No, Goodbye, and... As her eyes rested on the word ‘Hello’, she noticed a
slight movement from the pointer,

“Stop it, Frankie! You
trying to scare me?” she snapped, jumping back.

The pointer suddenly
took on a life of its own and surged across the board, resting abruptly on the
word ‘Hello’.

“Frankie...”

Waves of emotion and an
all-consuming fear took over her body. She wanted to run, but as her eyes
darted around the room, the rich wooden structure of the tree house began to
fade, its brown veneer reinventing itself, melting into a brownish-grey, a
sepia, a colourless canvas.

“Frankie, what’s
happening?!” Heather screamed, but as her surroundings altered, so had her
company.

In a momentary blink of
the eye, in Frank’s place now sat a shrunken form, and her mind flashed back to
Snowdonia, and the steam train. The mist was clearing and she could see that it
was the same boy, as grey and lifeless as the insipid walls she was now
imprisoned by. Her veins were pulsating as her blood ran cold, her mind and
thoughts now totally out of sync. She could feel her eyes smarting, the tears
so close. After an icy silence, the boy’s black eyes stared at her, sunken deep
into his emaciated head, their smouldering gaze watching, waiting. But for
what? His face was a mass of distorted pictures, nightmares calling out, but
not a word was spoken. Then a hand, skeletal in appearance, was outstretched,
the unsightly fingers searching. Heather, now in a trance, felt his hand brush
against hers and then gripped it tight, and the more she tried to pull away,
the tighter the grip became.

It was an unnerving
meeting between the living and the dead, from which Heather had no escape. A
dark shadow eked its way out of the walls, a cloak of invisibility, redressing
the room and all of its occupants. Heather suddenly found herself at the end of
a very long corridor. As she walked forward, she couldn’t feel her feet moving,
though she could hear the echoes of her footsteps against the stone floor
beneath her. She looked up at the high ceilings, the arched doorways, and
wondered where they were leading her.

“Frankie!” she cried
out. “What the hell’s going on?”

She stood, anticipating
an answer, but it never came.
Am I going out of my mind?
she thought,
her shallow breaths deepening. An unpalatable aroma of deathly decay met her
nostrils, suffocating her. She turned and hurried to the nearest door, opening
it in the hope of some absolution, some kind of relief. A narrow windowless
room stretched out before her, with solid plain wooden tables, unvarnished,
running alongside whitewashed walls, against each of which was bench-like
seating. On these sat young sickly looking boys of varying ages, their
expressionless faces synchronised as they ate the unappetising gruel, no
deviation in their movements as their spoons delved into earthenware bowls.

Heather felt uneasy and
shuffled her feet, not wanting to cause any disturbance and wishing she could
pass through the room unnoticed. She felt their sadness as she glared at their
tormented faces. Each one was a carbon copy of their predecessor, all wearing
outgrown bottle-green pullovers and dark grey neckerchiefs, probably concealing
ingrained dirt from lack of bathing and inhuman sanitation. They continued,
oblivious to her existence as she passed each in turn, in a timeless rotation
of hand-to-mouth robotic movements. Panicked, her pace quickened and she found
herself running, yet with each step she took, the room seemed to grow with her.
An optical illusion
, she thought. The robotic souls’ habitual movements
also quickened with her accelerated pace. Then she saw a narrow exit, with an
open doorway growing closer.

With breathless relief,
as she couldn’t possibly have run for very much longer, and with a backward
glance, her stomach surged into her mouth at what she saw. The boys’ heads
jerked up in unison to face her, their taut skin lacking lustre and youth with
their ashen complexions. And then she saw their eyes, discoloured, dehydrated
and cracked; with un-timeless pain they were crying out to her, yet in silence
they sat like a line of marionettes, their puppet-like movements coming to an
abrupt standstill as they held their spoons at mouth height.

Screaming inside, yet
too scared to make any kind of noise, Heather held her mouth in her hands,
hyperventilating and then falling to the floor. She crawled through the doorway
and lay face down, sobbing.

“Frankie, help me!” she
screamed, unable to hold her silence any longer.

With her eyes tightly
closed, she cried like a child and curled up into the foetal position. And
that’s where she stayed; seconds, minutes, she couldn’t be sure. Suddenly, she
was disturbed by a child’s voice humming a strange tune, yet a melody she
recognised.
Oh shit, have they followed me through the door?
she
thought, picturing their haunted faces, deathly images that would stay with her
forever, imprinted on her mind. Opening her fingers very slightly, she peered
apprehensively between her lashes. She was met by darkness, and as her eyes
struggled to adjust, she realised that she was in another room, and could just
make out the outline of a staircase, a stoned flight, which after about eight
steps turned and made its way to the left, its final steps concealed by a
heavily set darkness. She was very much alone, yet the humming continued, its
monotony broken by a sharp cracking sound. Not once, but again, as a hard
object bounced towards her down the stairway. The two sounds merging, creating
an unnerving echo, was just too much for Heather, and wasting no time she sat
up and, using both her hands and the heels of her feet, forced herself
backwards, away from the unexplainable ruckus. The object was small and round,
only just visible, and as it rolled closer, it sounded a lot worse than it
looked. When it came to rest by her feet, she grabbed it in her hand and held
it between her thumb and index finger. It was a small glass marble.

“Really? Is that the
best you can do? Well, I’m not scared any longer!” she shouted, her fear ebbing
as pure adrenalin and a rush of anger overwhelmed her. “What do you want of
me?!” she yelled, jumping up and throwing the marble in pure frustration back
towards the stairway from where it had come.

Its destination,
however, was to remain unknown, as she never heard it land. Stomping towards
the stairs in pure defiance, she wasn’t prepared to live in fear or be
browbeaten any longer, and an inner strength surged inside her. The ominous
humming hung around her, gaining velocity. She realised she was now standing in
an empty space; not a room, just a surreal darkness. The staircase had no
handrail, and climbed steeply with no apparent end. Her footsteps added their
own beat to the melodious melody. From out of the gloom she saw a distant
light, and noticed the stairwell disappearing behind her.

Heather was once more
standing on solid ground, and she walked along what appeared to be a landing or
a corridor, she wasn’t entirely sure. There were many doors, all closed except
one, which stood ajar, emitting vibrant rays. Heather hurried towards the warm
light, but as she did so something caught her eye and she realised she was no
longer alone as the silhouette of a woman took shape and the door swung open
before her. The figure had no face, no expression, just a ghostly outline of
what once was. As the woman drew closer, she raised her arm and pointed towards
the room beyond the open doorway. Suddenly, the humming stopped and a deathly
silence fell. Heather now knew where she was supposed to go, and perhaps she
would finally come face-to-face with the answers she so desperately needed.

Out of the Darkness

H
eather walked into the room, bypassing the apparition. After only
three or four steps, she gasped as the door slammed shut behind her. She found
herself in a small square-shaped room, with dark wooden beams stretching up
into an apex ceiling. The gloom was interrupted by a couple of cylindrical
curved glass lanterns hanging from the walls, beneath one of which, next to a
small bed, was a plain unattractive table, its rough wooden surface and knotted
legs enhanced only by a decorative earthenware vase with a black enamel
over-glaze. The vase held three very distinctive-looking flowers; they were
roses, but had black petals, and their aroma held a deathly stench. Heather
wrinkled her nose.

Suddenly, a coldness
descended over her, and she could hear heavy laboured breathing rising up from
the bed, yet it lay empty, with the exception of what looked like a small
golden pendant. On second glance, however, she thought it more likely to be a
pocket watch.

“Ain’t ’e a beauty,
miss?”

Heather’s heart missed
a beat, and she turned.

“It’s you!” She gulped.
“What do you want from me?” she demanded, staring at the maid, whose eyes were
dark against a ghastly white complexion, her wiry hair scraped back.

She looked just as
Heather remembered, wearing the same plain white dress.

“Tis me boy. Beautiful,
ain’t ’e?”

Heather looked back at
the bed, straining her eyes, but she still couldn’t see anything, yet the
breathing continued, more raspy now.

“Eighteen hours o’
labour, that’s what dun me in, miss... Made ’im a bastard well ’n proper he did.”

“I don’t understand
what you’re saying.”

“Yer bloody fancy man.”

“Ruben?” Heather asked,
her eyes fixated on the pocket watch.

The maid followed her
eyes,

“It’s a good’en, worth
a bob or two. Belonged to me boy’s father. I be tellin’ ye the truth, miss. I
watched ov’a him every day o’ ’is life, missed ’is first breath, but twas ’ere
for ’is last in this godforsaken work’ouse, that I was.”

The maid reached out
and held Heather’s hand. Heather saw that her expression had changed, her eyes
angry.

“Yer neva feel me
anguish, miss. Now get out, bitch!” she wailed.

Heather ran blindly to
the door and opened it, expecting to see the landing, but she was standing back
in the room and the maid was nowhere to be seen, yet the unnerving breathing
continued, although it was now more laboured, with intermittent gasps as it
struggled to take in air. There was nobody there, but Heather knew she was
witnessing a death. She couldn’t cope with this fatality, and blindly she
rushed to the door again, to find the same empty room. But the breathing had
stopped now and there was a brief silence before the earthenware vase trembled
and was then thrown from the table, shattering into tiny pieces on the floor,
lying amongst petals and stagnant water. Too scared for tears, her eyes felt
dry and gritty.

“God, help me,” she
pleaded.

She wanted to run
through the door and escape, but knew she was just going round in circles;
there was nowhere left to go. Her sorrow clung to any remnants of sanity and with
the small amount of strength she had left she closed her eyes and dragged herself
through the open doorway.

Is it all over?
she thought.
Was it just a bad dream?
She opened her eyes,
hoping that she’d find herself back in the safety of the tree house. But her
adventure had taken on an even more uncanny twist, and she was back home,
walking in the gardens of Freesdon Manor.

Welcomed by the scent
of pollen from wild roses, the last bloom of forget-me-nots, and newly mown
grass, Heather peered between the wispy branches of a nearby weeping willow
overlooking the lake, and her eyes were immediately drawn to a young boy and
girl playing next to a rectangular plain picnic blanket, on which plastic cups
and saucers were laid out neatly. She couldn’t see their faces since they had
their backs to her, but she could hear their conversation. She watched their
body language, and saw the girl tilt her head back, seeming to find what he had
said amusing. It was hard to put an age on either of them, but she guessed they
were around six or seven, their playful laughter drifting into the air. The
young girl wore a crochet cardigan, partially covering a black and white
polka-dot dress. Her light ash-blonde hair was enhanced by the sun’s natural
light, and cascaded down her back in loose ringlets.

Heather’s focus then
moved to the boy, and he turned, his eyes cold, looking straight through her,
though she couldn’t draw her eyes away from his face. Snowdonia, the steam
train... She could still picture him standing in the mist. Everywhere she went he
seemed to follow, and she only hoped it was all in her mind. Covering her eyes,
the children’s laughter stopped, and the song thrushes’ vibrant tune and the
warm sun evaporated around her. Panicking, she opened her eyes, terrified of what
awaited her this time. With a sigh of relief, she realised she was back in the
tree house, but it still had its sepia hue, and wherever she’d been, she’d
dragged the boy back with her, as he was still sitting where Frank had
previously been, his head bent down towards the Ouija board. She noticed his
hands were placed firmly on the planchette. 

“What do you want?”
Heather sobbed.

As the words left her
lips, the tree house reinvented itself again, this time in reverse, with the
colour seeping back into the walls, pulling the room out of the darkness and
back to life, and with it, Frank. Everything was as it should be, as it always
was. She laid her hands on Frank’s shoulders, to reassure herself it was really
him and that she was safe.

“Frankie...” She paused,
looking down as the planchette shifted towards the alphabet, and watched on in
awe at the letters as they spelt out the answer to her question: A, L, I, F, E.

Frank looked up, a
confused expression on his face as he gazed at Heather’s reddened eyes and
tear-stained cheeks.

“Stay with me tonight,”
she sniffled. “I don’t want to be alone.”

She grabbed his hand,
pulling him from the table and the Ouija board, and they walked into the
bedroom. She lay on the bed, exhausted; it had been a long night in so many
ways.

“I don’t want to give
you the wrong idea, Frankie,” she said, looking up into his eyes, “but can you
please just hold me, if only for a little while?”

Removing his shoes, he
reclined back, placing his head on the pillow next to hers. She lifted herself
slightly, just enough for him to wrap his arm around her and pull her close.
She could feel the warmth of his body, and all the pent-up fear she felt inside
slowly began to drain away.

“What troubles you,
Heather?” Frank’s voice was soft, a sensitivity to his tone, as if he was able
to pick up on her unease and sadness.

“Oh, Frankie, I don’t
think I know where to begin, and if I do, I don’t think you’d believe me anyway
... I wouldn’t believe me,” she said, her voice earnest.

Heather tried to
explain as best she could as she stared up at the stars through the skylight.

“Are you sure?” Frank
asked when she had finished. “Pray tell, what had she to say?”

“Yes, Frankie, I’m
sure; it was the maid from Freesdon Manor. I found it hard to understand her,
but she said something about Ruben, and a boy, her son, I think.” Heather
paused, trying to remember any detail, however small.

“Pray continue,”
Frankie encouraged, showing more than a slight interest.

Releasing his arms from
around Heather’s shoulders, he sat up.

“I really don’t know,
Frankie,” she sighed. “The maid was looking at the bed, and I could hear
breathing, but the covers lay flat and undisturbed. I really couldn’t see her
son, I couldn’t see anything; well, actually there was something, what looked
like a small pocket watch, I couldn’t be sure. But I remember her saying it
belonged to the boy’s father, who was a bastard, or maybe that was the boy?”

Frank leant over, his
head in his hands; his body language had changed significantly.

“This cannot possibly
be.”

Heather’s eyes narrowed
at his words.

“You know more than
you’re letting on, don’t you? Who’s Anna, Frank? What aren’t you telling me?
And where are you really from?”

“A young girl at
Freesdon Manor, be that your last recollection of you and I?” Frank asked, his
voice holding an unusual sadness.

“Well no, of course
not, you’re here with me now.”

“I’m afraid you’re not
understanding me. When I spoke earlier, explaining that I was not of these
times, I spoke only the truth. My dear, there are lifetimes between us, and for
only the briefest of moments our paths, or should I say our worlds, crossed. I
guess our worlds are not worlds apart after all, so you see, the sights you
have witnessed may not be as uncanny as you first thought.”

“Why are you talking in
riddles? I’m more confused than ever. Frankie, please...”

He leant towards her
and placed his finger against her lips. She could feel his soft words as they
brushed against her cheek.

“Shhh,” he whispered.

There was a gentleness
about him that stirred something deep within Heather, something she’d not felt
before, not even with Ruben; contentment, safety, but it wasn’t just that, it
was more. Momentarily lost in her thoughts, she was jolted back to reality as
Frank lay down again to join her.

“Rest now,” he said.
“There is much to be said, but I regret that now is not the time.”

Too tired from the
night’s events to question Frank further, she snuggled up against his chest and
closed her eyes. There were many questions she wanted to ask, but she would
pick up where they left off over breakfast.

Sleep didn’t come
easily and she was disturbed by every small sound, the only thing comforting
her being the warmth of Frank’s arms around her.

~•••~

The sun streaming through the skylight
woke her from her sleep.

“Frankie,” she
whispered, reaching for his hand, still in a dream state.

But his side of the bed
lay cold, the covers pulled back.
He must be making breakfast
, she
thought, stretching. She reached down into the front pocket of her trousers and
took out her phone. She smiled to herself when she saw Ruben’s name and his
message:
8.38 a.m. Good morning, princess, hope ur night with Frank wasn’t
too boring! Hurry home, need me car ASAP. By the way, girl, got a surprise for
you tonight. Luv ya xxx

Her mind elsewhere, her
reply was brief but to the point:
9.02 a.m. Ok, c u soon.

She sat on the end of
the bed for a few minutes, finding it hard to wake herself up properly. Her
phone began vibrating, and she picked it up to the sound of Ruben’s voice.

“No kisses in me text?
You must have had a good night. Maybe I underestimated our little friend!”

Before she had time to
answer, the phone went dead; he’d hung up on her. It would normally have
bothered Heather, but she had far too much playing on her mind to worry about
Ruben’s mind games. Already dressed, she freshened up in the en suite, brushed
her hair and applied the slightest bit of make-up, remembering Ruben’s words.
She quickly threw her things in her suitcase, not forgetting Ruben’s and Beth’s
belongings after they’d left in such a rush. Opening the door, she wondered why
she couldn’t smell smoked bacon wafting up from the hot plate.

“Frankie?” she called,
walking into the living area.

But there was no
breakfast waiting for her, and the room was empty. Frank was nowhere to be
seen, and any remnants of him ever being there had gone. She hurried on to the
veranda, searching through the trees, wondering if he’d gone for a walk. But
after sitting for an hour waiting for him, she realised he wasn’t coming back
and her stomach sank. Something didn’t sit right with her; it didn’t seem
feasible that he had left without so much as a goodbye.

Forgetting the hour and
lost in thought, it was only the sun’s movement in the sky and its growing heat
that made Heather realise that time had moved on considerably. Checking her
phone again, she saw it was fast approaching eleven. Remembering Ruben’s text,
she collected her belongings, penned a short note and added her mobile number
at the bottom, although on reflection she couldn’t recollect seeing Frank use a
phone during the time they had spent together. She placed the note on the table
on the off chance that Frank would return. She walked back on to the veranda,
turning to take one final look around the tree house, with its quaint little
touches, and smiling, she closed the patio door and walked down the stairs.

After packing the car
she sat in the driver’s seat, closed the door and punched her home address into
the satnav before starting the ignition. On her way back, she passed through
picturesque leafy villages, and noticing the pending mileage, she stopped to
fill her tank, aware that she had a long drive ahead. After a couple more
narrow lanes, an A-road opened up in front of her. She turned on the radio for
company. She rarely ventured far from the village, probably no more than five
miles from the manor, and this was the furthest she had ever driven. Thinking
about it, she realised she had led a relatively sheltered life for the past few
years. With the open road before her, and the radio playing in the background,
she allowed her mind to clear, giving her the space she needed to think about
everything that had happened recently.

The last few days had
been a whirlwind; Ruben had been centre stage, with Beth and Frank somewhere in
the wings, but each had played an immense part. There was a niggling unease in
the back of Heather’s mind, and she felt something wasn’t right about how the
two of them had left together the previous night. Her thoughts were suddenly
overloaded with what ifs. Had anything happened between Ruben and Beth last
night? They had certainly had the opportunity. And was Ruben’s mum’s illness
just an excuse for them to slip away for a romantic rendezvous?
No, Beth
seemed lovely, she wouldn’t do that
, Heather thought, trying to be
sensible, but Ruben... She wasn’t as sure. Given the chance, would he? After all,
they had a history, and thinking about the intimate moments they would have
shared made her feel extremely uncomfortable.