Partway through 1910, the handwriting changed. Blots of ink now dotted the pages. Some of the lines were smeary and smudged, as if they’d gotten wet. My gut knotted as I deciphered the cramped writing.
On a journey a hundred years into their past, husband and wife—along with their friend Archie McPherson—found themselves near a tiny, secluded loch only a few miles from their current home. Though they’d traveled there to see a local baron about some kind of painting they hoped to purchase, the three were delighted when they arrived in the year 1801, close to the exact spot on which—a hundred years in the future—they would build a holiday cottage. As the sun shone down on the trio, they decided to play hooky and simply enjoy the beauty of the as-yet-unspoiled countryside.
March 17, 1910. I report the account, Jonathan wrote, to warn of the evil we’ve unleashed. I shall not look upon my Julia’s face again until I can repair what we have broken. She has left, claiming she cannot bear to be near me without thinking of them. Our precious girls. We played God that day. And now we suffer for our sin. I must find it. This mysterious opal Tesla believes is the key. I must find the stone and get them back. For I think Julia shall die without them.
Even blurry and dotted with water marks, Jonathan’s words made my mouth go dry. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and I was desperate for a drink. But I couldn’t pull myself away. I had to finish it.
My Julia had looked so merry that morning. In her peasant’s gown, she was as beautiful as the day we wed. I played the gallant, casting my cloak on the ground for her to sit upon. Afterward, Archie and I stripped to our undergarments and went splashing into the loch, shouting like children at the cold.
It was she who first pointed out the young saplings near the water. In our own time, the trees had grown gnarled and ancient. An eyesore. “You know,” Julia mused as we munched on freshly picked blueberries that burst in our mouths like a gift from summer herself, “that is the very tree from which our impetuous Penelope will fall.”
Penny’s arm had never healed right, and I’d always resented those blasted trees.
“Well, then.” I stood and in amused retribution wrenched one of the infant trees from the ground. Not to be outdone, Archie did the same to its sister, who’d dared drop a hornet’s nest on us during a summer picnic three years later. “That’s done for them, I’d say.”
Julia, do you remember how you kissed me then? With the summer sun bright on our hair and the sweet juice on our lips?
I will never be that warm again. Oh, that I could take it back. Holy Father, let us take back that one reckless moment.
Home. Thrilled as ever to be safe and of sound limb in our loving house, we flew upstairs, caring not that we had played truant, without thought to our mission. If only we had gone on that long walk to the baron’s home instead of dripping water on the carpet, all of us sun browned from our lazy follies. With Archie following, Julia and I called out to our children.
The next few lines were too smeared to read. I skipped ahead, though a cold foreboding crept up my legs as I perched on the edge of a deep leather chair.
My mother and our Henry met us at the top. Our son had grown tall and straight as a sword over the summer. Oh, how his young face lit to see his mother so sunburned and jolly. He lived for the day I would take him on his first journey, two years hence, when he turned sixteen.
“Wherever are the girls?” Julia asked, puzzled. Unusual, their absence. Normally they were first to greet us, begging to view the trinkets and treasures we brought back. Bubbly Catherine, who at twelve already cared far too much for boys and pretty dresses. And Penelope. Only ten and already a little scholar.
“Yes,” Archie called. “I’ve brought Penny a fern to identify.”
“Father!” Henry’s face, aghast and suddenly pale. My mother’s hand flew to her mouth.
“What’s happened to the girls?” I demanded. “Tell us.”
It couldn’t have been serious. Only three days had passed, and surely they would have informed us at once.
“Are they ill?” My voice sounded hollow, as if it came from the bottom of a well.
“But, Father . . . Mother?” I remember, quite clearly, hearing the tremor in my son’s voice. “Why would you say such things, when my sisters have been dead these two years?”
I flinched at the sound of a door closing nearby. Someone was back, but I had to know what happened. I traced a finger over the bottom of the page where the lines had been crossed out with such vehemence, the thick vellum was ripped. I had a hard time swallowing as I turned to the slashed, crabbed writing that followed.
Archie rode for the loch as if the hounds of hell were at his heels. Julia and I stayed behind, begging my mother for an explanation.
As she spoke in a tight, choked voice, my mind whipped back to the day, two winters past, when my sweet girls—skating alone on the frozen loch—had fallen through the ice.