Time After Time (6 page)

Ignoring her, I kept working. Mixing a selection of blues and greys, I concentrated on the clouds drifting above the parsonage. I was pleased with the buildings—the church and the cottage stood just as I remembered—but the sky somehow needed to show movement and change. I’d toyed with the idea of doing a sunset or sunrise, but that seemed too clichéd. It also seemed too hopeful, when I knew there was no hope for the parson’s daughter. There never was.

He
would get her in the end. He
always
got her in the end, and for Penelope, the end was drawing frightfully near.

After working silently for a while, I became aware of someone standing behind me, watching wordlessly. Assuming it was Miss Morup again, I continued painting, concentrating on the clouds, making them darker and angrier. Frustrated and looking for advice, I turned around, only to jump, startled.

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.’ Marcus was there.

‘What do you want?’

His eyes flickered slightly between me and the painting. ‘Nice work.’

‘Oh,’ I said, caught off guard by his compliment and the gentle warmth of his voice, ‘um, thank you.’

‘Where’s that place?’

‘Nowhere.’

‘You haven’t been there?’ He seemed surprised.

‘Well, no. Not really.’

Marcus continued to stare at the picture, a thoughtful look on his face. I watched him and wondered if perhaps he knew it. If perhaps he remembered…

Then his eyes snapped back to mine. ‘You do beautiful paintings,’ he said after a lengthy pause. ‘England, isn’t it? Broadhurst parsonage.’

I gasped. ‘You know it?’

He pointed at my notes lying on the floor, a smile tugging at his lips. ‘You wrote it there.’

Glancing down at my flowery handwriting, my heart sank. He didn’t know the parsonage. He hadn’t been there. ‘Oh.’

‘Be nice to go there sometime,’ he said slowly, his eyes roaming my face, ‘England.’ I watched him, my mouth dry. I felt hot and itchy as I waited for recognition to flood his eyes, silently begging for him to recognise his connection to Broadhurst, to me.

But it never came and, after a few moments, he blinked, his eyes lightening to a soft caramel colour, before he moved away.

I watched him walk back across the room, unsure of exactly what had just transpired.
Did he know the parsonage? Did he remember?

After school, as I walked towards the car park to meet Beth, I spied Lilly and Emma with Marcus. They had followed him and were leaning against the bonnet of his red Toyota, flirting with him.

‘Admit it,’ Beth said, approaching me, ‘you think he’s cute!’

‘Hardly,’ I scoffed. ‘And really, how long are we going to be talking about him? Hasn’t the novelty worn off yet?’

‘Not for those two,’ Beth commented. ‘Besides, I was watching you. You seem awfully interested in him.’

For the second time that day I felt a rush of heat to my cheeks. I opened the car door and climbed in, dramatically slamming it shut behind me.

I waited for Beth to follow suit before replying. ‘Not at all. The only thing I’m interested in is
not
having Lilly and Emma hang around the house next door.
That
would be a fate worse than death.’

1806

‘Heath and I have been studying phrenology. Have you heard of it, Georgie?’ Harry said, his eyes flashing teasingly at his sister.

Penelope watched with interest. Harry was baiting Georgina; she recognised the signs well. Georgina would be baited until she asked what he was talking about, only to be told something shocking. Harry got a peculiar delight out of shocking Georgina and herself.

‘No, what is it?’ Georgina played her hand at cards and looked at Harry expectantly, the low lamplight in the room giving her curls a golden hue.

‘The study of the skull and human behaviour,’ Harry announced before sitting back and waiting for realisation to dawn on Georgina.

It was Penelope who responded first. ‘You mean to say you have seen a human brain?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Heath replied, playing his own hand. ‘It’s very interesting.’

Georgina made a face. ‘You really shouldn’t talk about such things, Harry. Not in the presence of ladies.’

‘Ladies?’ Harry laughed, looking about the room, ‘Heath do you see any ladies?’

Penelope lifted her eyes just as Heath’s fell on her. ‘I do indeed,’ Heath replied, the corners of his mouth tugging in a smile.

Harry frowned and threw down his cards, annoyed that his friend hadn’t joined in teasing his cousin and sister. ‘Well, they’re certainly different to some of the
ladies
we’ve met, aren’t they?’

This time Harry managed to provoke a scowl from Georgina. ‘And you really shouldn’t talk about things like that, either!’ Georgina admonished.

‘Well, what can we talk about,’ Harry replied sulkily, ‘if we can’t talk about our study, and if we can’t talk about our fun? Maybe you can talk to us, my dear sister? Go on, tell us some gossip.’ He nudged Heath. ‘My sister knows all the gossip, and so does Pene, although
she
doesn’t prattle on about it half as much as Georgie.’

Heath was watching Penelope carefully, and she suddenly felt very hot. A slow flush, starting at her toes, crept steadily up her body, and it was all because of his chocolate brown eyes and the way they regarded her so intensely. Rising, she excused herself and went to stand by the open window, feeling the faint evening breeze waft over her, cooling the high colour in her cheeks.

‘What is it? Are we not playing anymore, Penelope? Do you give up?’ called Harry.

‘Oh, Harry,’ Georgina said in a harsher tone.

Penelope didn’t turn around, wanting first to settle her disorientation. She wasn’t used to so much attention, and she certainly wasn’t used to the type of attention Heath seemed to fix on her.

‘Is everything all right?’ Heath’s warm voice whispering in her ear elicited a fresh surge of heat up her throat and she didn’t dare look at him.

Somehow, she managed to find her voice. ‘Yes. I just felt a little warm, that’s all.’

‘Would you like to walk outside?’ he asked.

She hesitated. Glancing towards the card table, she saw that Harry had abandoned the game and was pouring himself a glass of brandy. Georgina began packing away.

Opening her mouth to answer, she found Heath had already presented his arm.
It would be rude to refuse him now
, she decided, and without another thought she slipped her arm through his, allowing him to lead her out the large doors and down the porch to the gardens.

‘You visit Broadhurst Manor quite a bit,’ he observed after a few moments.

‘Yes, it’s like a second home to me,’ she replied, smiling back at the house. Then a new thought occurred to her. Did he think she visited so much because he was staying there? ‘My father grew up here.’

‘He never visits?’

‘Rarely. He’s quite busy with his duties,’ she explained, ‘but he has never stopped me from visiting. Georgie and Harry are more like brother and sister to me than cousins.’

‘I can see you are close with them.’

She glanced up at him. He was staring into the distance, his eyes fixed on something. Following his gaze she saw something move, like a large bird had flown overhead, its shadow fleeting and brief on the lawn. But that was impossible since it was night and there were no birds that were as large as the shape she had just seen.

A chill raced up her spine, but Heath pulled her closer and the sensation was soon gone as the heat from his body permeated her.

‘Do you miss your brother?’ she said eventually.

‘Yes. He visits though, as often as his commitments allow.’

‘And you never thought about following him into the navy?’

‘Oh yes, I did. That is what I wanted, but he insisted I further my education at Cambridge. And I have to say I’m glad I heeded his advice. I’ve been very fortunate. I met Harry and now here I am, at Broadhurst Manor, with
you
.’

He stopped walking, and Penelope paused, glancing back at him, her hand falling from his arm. His face was half-hidden in the shadows of the night, the other half illuminated by the thousand twinkling stars that filled the moonless sky. A muscle moved in his cheek, and Penelope’s fingers trembled with her overwhelming desire to touch him, to run them along his jaw and over the line of his lips. The sensation was so strong that she folded her hands and hid them in the folds of her skirts.

‘I feel so lucky to have met you, Penelope,’ he said softly, his eyes darkening with each word, ‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am.’

From somewhere in the distance there came a low, disgruntled rumble. The ground seemed to tremble slightly beneath her feet, causing her to stumble. It was as if the earth were interrupting Heath and her, when the stars were pushing them together.

Heath caught her, his hand’s touch so intense it felt as if he burned her arm as he steadied her on her feet. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Did you feel that?’ she asked, blinking up at him. Her thoughts flittered to the stranger on the edge of the forest. She’d heard a low roll of thunder then, too.

‘Feel what?’

‘The earth move, slightly, when you spoke…’ Realising what her words implied, she blushed deeply and looked away, feeling silly.

The edges of his mouth played with a tiny smile. ‘Actually, now that you mention it, I think I did feel something. Yes. I definitely felt it too.’

Present day

I arrived early to work that night. I wanted to spend time browsing the shelves to see if there were new volumes in the way of psychology or dream analysis. I doubted there would be, but I had to keep looking, had to keep searching for an explanation or diagnosis and, hopefully one day, a remedy.

Picking up a book on dreams, I ran my eyes down the table of contents. These books were generally pretty useless—great for dream interpretation but not so useful for my peculiar predicament.

I made to shut the book, disappointed yet again, when a heading caught my eye.
Time Travel
. Not exactly what I experienced, but nevertheless I flipped to the associated page number. I read:

Time travel—represents dissatisfaction in your present moment
.
Dreaming of time travel suggests a yearning to escape to a better time or place
.

Well,
that
much was obvious; I wanted nothing more than to escape my current life. To get away from the small town and its small-town mindset, away from Lilly and Emma. I’d even settle for staying in my dreams permanently—in most cases I had lived a much better life. Apart from the whole being murdered part, of course.

My search proving futile, I shoved the book back on the shelf before meandering to the front of the library to begin my shift. Simone was stacking returned books on a trolley for reshelving.

‘How was school?’ she asked, smiling at me, her eyes lit with something akin to sympathy.

She’s heard about the pumpkin soup incident
, I realised. It doesn’t take long for high school gossip to extend beyond the actual school.

‘Fine. You know, same old, same old.’

Simone regarded me for a moment. I suspected she had something more to say, so I waited patiently, steeling myself for yet another of Simone’s pep talks.

‘Abbie,’ she began eventually, ‘I wanted to ask if you could work Saturday night?’

I paused. That wasn’t what I’d been expecting, and it took me a moment to process the request. On Saturday, Hard Candy were playing at
Hurricanes
, and I had plans to go with Beth and Laura. It was where we spent nearly every Saturday night, hidden in the alternative nightclub from the disparaging looks of our peers. Plus, it was the only club in town that turned a blind eye to our being underage. ‘I’m already working Friday and Sunday.’

‘I know, but…well,’ Simone paused, then lowered her voice and inched closer, ‘you see, I’ve, um, got a date.’

I dropped the stack of books I held and looked up, startled. Simone
never
dated.

‘Don’t look like that,’ Simone said, ‘I do have a life outside this library, you know.’

I blinked disbelievingly.

‘Well, at least I’m
trying
to have a life outside this library,’ she corrected. ‘So can you work Saturday, please?’

‘I have plans.’

‘It’s just until nine o’clock when the library shuts.’

‘Where’d you meet him?’

‘None of your business.’

I considered my boss for a moment, wondering where the shy, overworked woman aged in her early twenties would go to meet someone. Not far. It was doubtful they’d met at the library; I would have heard about it before now. No secrets remained hidden for long in Brookdale. Maybe it was an old school friend, or an old boyfriend? But, as far as I knew, there were no old boyfriends. ‘I know!’ I cried suddenly, realisation dawning, ‘You met him on the internet! You’ve been trawling dating sights, haven’t you?’

Simone flushed before busily checking in more books, the beep of the scanner filling the air. I giggled. Simone, as far as I knew, lived the typical librarian existence. She even looked the part of the classic librarian: very much ‘the girl next door’, with mouse brown hair and glasses. And in the two years that I had worked at the library, I’d
never
known her to date. Not once.

Whoever they were must be pretty special.

‘So can you work, or not?’ she asked again, her voice tight with annoyance.

‘Where are you going?’ I teased, knowing I was pushing it.

‘Dinner.’

‘Where?’ Probably
Delilah’s
. That’s where everyone went.

‘Abbie,’ she snapped, her patience running out, ‘can you do it or not?’

I shrugged, stifling my giggles. ‘Fine. But at nine o’clock I’m outta here.’

Simone nodded, looking exasperated. ‘Thank you.’

1806

‘My goodness, Mr Lockwood is just as handsome as everyone says,’ Ellen Parker whispered in Penelope’s ear, her voice full of admiration as she gazed across the room.

Georgina had organised a welcome evening for Harry and Heath at Broadhurst Manor, inviting a few neighbours. Ellen Parker lived in the village and was one of the few girls their age.