Chapter 15

Mary took a sip of tea. She stood, stretched again. They had talked about the past nonstop for two days, and both she and Marjorie needed a break.

“Let us go out for supper,” Mary suggested.

“Good idea,” Frank said.

He knew Mary’s tale was difficult to tell. Until she began, he never realized Rebecca was such a close friend. It had to be difficult for her to talk about those times.

“The usual place?” Marjorie asked.

“We can try somewhere else,” Frank said.

They chose a familiar restaurant. All knew it. Frank stopped there when he first came to Woodstock. It was half-full, and they took a table near the back.

They had eaten there before. It was a break from their usual place, located across the street.

“We’ve got to expand our horizons,” Frank said.

“What does that mean?” Mary asked.

“There are others,” he said. “We always choose the one across the street, or this one.”

“I like them,” Mary said. “Here was where you first saw me, out there on the street.”

“Believe me, I remember.” He thought back to the day, when Mary appeared on the street staring into the restaurant at him.

“You were frightened of me.”

“She was after me, to kill me. I thought you were her.”

“This is where you met Jackie,” Marjorie said.

“Yeah,” he said. He shook his head. “I wish someone had clued me in about her.”

“Clued you in?” Mary asked.

“Let me know what she was like.”

“It’s over and gone.” She smiled at him. “We are together, as intended.”

“I still don’t understand how fate can destine two people, over 300 years apart, to be together,” he said.

“There are things not meant for you to know or understand,” Marjorie said.

“I guess not, but I can’t help thinking about it.”

“Three hundred years apart,” Mary said, “yet we met and here we are.”

It was something Frank knew he would never comprehend. They had explained ‘traveling’ to him, but he could not grasp it. At death, a moment before the soul left the body, a person could take to a path. Or some people could. Not everyone. He could not do it.

It was an in-between world, neither eternity nor in the mortal realm. Mary tried to simplify it, describing doors along the path leading to different levels, and it made sense if a person could put aside lifelong beliefs. What it did not do was explain how they kept their bodies.

“Frank,” Mary said. “Don’t dwell on it. We are here. Rebecca was here. The one who called herself Davina was here.”

“There are others scattered across New England, and in Virginia,” Marjorie said.

“None ever went west, with the pioneers?” Frank asked.

Both women shook their heads.

“Not that I’m aware. We remain here, close to the first settlements,” Marjorie said.

“You can’t leave the coast?” he asked.

“Here is where we were born or settled,” Mary said. “Here is where we should remain. We can leave and travel west, but none to my knowledge has ever desired to do so.”

“Why would we want to?” Marjorie asked. “Our history, all we were and are, is here.”

“I guess it makes sense.” Frank glanced around the restaurant. “I was born and raised here and have never been further west than New York State.”

“This place called New England is special,” Marjorie said. “I can think of no reason to want to be anywhere else.”

After finishing eating, they relaxed over coffee and greeted the occasional diner who recognized them. No one in Woodstock, Vermont viewed them as celebrities, although many knew they had a hand in removing the horror that was Rebecca Collins.

Mary preferred to be inconspicuous because she had been warned of the danger. Marjorie remained low key because she knew the danger. If it became common knowledge that people from more than three hundred years ago existed in today’s world, and how they came to be in the 21st Century, governments around the globe would hunt them in hopes of learning how they did it.

Rebecca coming to town for vengeance against her descendants and for Frank Jackson almost exposed them. The showdown with Rebecca happened in their home, while Frank was away with Gail Collins confronting a traveler he knew as Davina.

Mary and Marjorie told him about their encounter with Rebecca, and they told him how they drove her away. He asked if she was gone for good, and they did not know. The event happened several months earlier. Since then, Rebecca had not returned.

“Whether she went back to where you sent her, we cannot know,” Mary said.

Marjorie shook her head. “That’s the difficult part. She’s gone, but we don’t know if she’ll return. Rebecca has much more power than I realized.” She looked at Mary. “You told me she was formidable, and you were right. What I can say is she shields herself from us.”

“She is not now here,” Mary answered. “It gives us a chance to catch our breath.”

“Thank God,” Frank said. “I thought it was the end of me.”

“Had Gail not seen you, it would have been,” Mary said.

Frank shivered, remembering the wispy, web like tentacles encircling his neck and beginning to tighten, strangling him. What troubled all of them, he was in an area thought to be safe yet Rebecca broke through.

Woodstock, Vermont was a small town, yet became the focus of what he called a witch war. It was unusual to have so many from the past concentrated in a small town. What was also unusual to him was to have so much evil descend on the otherwise hospitable little community. The other strange thing was, all but a few residents were oblivious to the battle. Life went on for most, and only a handful knew anything out of the ordinary was happening.

“We try to stay under the radar,” Marjorie said.

Frank nodded. “I remember. You don’t exist.”

“Well, that’s one way of putting it. There is no record of our existence. Imagine meeting someone like us in today’s world, with the myriad of problems and governmental intrusion we have.”

“Imagine them finding out what you’re capable of doing,” he said.

“They’d try to lock us away, and want to study us like lab animals.”

“I’m sure it wouldn’t happen. I mean, you’d never let them.”

Marjorie frowned. “And it would get ugly and dangerous. We aren’t laboratory rats.”

“I have much to learn,” Mary said. “Are you saying in this age, when women dress in such a brazen fashion and society seems to prohibit nothing, we must still hide?”

“We, the old ones, must,” Marjorie replied.

“They do not yet know of the path?”

“Most believe in a life after death,” Marjorie said. “They would say we are time travelers rather than accept the reality.”

“What is the reality?” Frank asked.

“That we can go backward and move forward to now,” Mary said.

“But not beyond now?”

“There is no beyond. The future is not made,” Marjorie said. “We talked about this, Frank, until we ran out of air.”

“I know, but being able to go back and forth is hard to understand.”

“Don’t try to understand. Accept it. It happens.”

“But you can’t influence events,” he said. “I remember.”

“No, we cannot change history.”

“We can view it,” Mary added, “and watch it happen, but not take part or change anything.”

“Isn’t appearing somewhere changing history?” Frank asked. “Everything in the past is history. Someone stands in a certain place, or walking down a street is part of history.”

“Yes,” Marjorie said. “It cannot change.”

“Nothing can change what happened,” Mary added.

“But you can appear there,” he said.

“Frank,” Mary sighed, “we can be there because we were there. If we were not there, we could not be there.”

He thought about it and thought the discussion was becoming more confusing. They could travel through time only to the present, not into the future because there was no future until it happened, and they could be somewhere because they were there even though they weren’t from the time.

“You can’t appear where you never were.”

“No,” Marjorie said. “Our being there might change an event a thousand miles away. What if we replaced somebody who might have historical significance, but won’t because we were occupying his space?”

“We can only be where we were,” Mary finished. “And I am finished with this talk. Frank, you’re giving me a headache.”

They left the restaurant minutes later and returned home. Mary sat on the sofa and, after a few seconds, stood.

“We’ve spent days talking about the past. I don’t want to tell the story right now. There is only a little left, and some of it is troubling to me. You know much of what happened in the next few months.”

“Tomorrow is soon enough,” said Marjorie, “or the next day. There are gaps and if you want to tell it all, you need to talk about them.”

“A day or two,” Mary said. “It will give me a rest, and I can put things together to make sense.”

“I’ve heard most of it,” Frank said. “The little details are what’s interesting to me.”

“Most people would find them interesting,” Mary said. “Rebecca was driven mad by the shadow. How it happened is conjecture, and I will not dwell on what I do not know. Suffice to say, it was horrible for her and drove her mad.”

“You never told me how you and Marjorie stopped Rebecca when she came after the Collins family and me,” I said.

“It will be revealed,” Mary said.

One thing Frank had learned about Mary: when she set her mind, she seldom changed it. She spoke no more about the past.

“In a few days,” she finished.

On Wednesday and Thursday, Frank worked his accounts and got them up to date. He sent the orders to Boston and then prepared for his Friday visit to the office, as required.

“For how long will this be necessary?” Mary asked.

“For as long as I work for them. There could be things they want to go over, or talk about, maybe changes I need to know.”

“It is silly. They talk to you on your computer.”

“I’m an employee,” Frank said. “They make the rules.”

“You will return next day,” she said.

“Saturday, like always.”

“We will have a nice dinner prepared.”

“We’ve also got to talk about my situation,” Marjorie added.

Mary nodded. “I know, and I hoped the day would not come.”

“What are you talking about?” Frank asked.

“Marjorie believes it is time she moved on, to build a new life.”

“It’s past the time,” Marjorie said. “I feel like I’ve been taking advantage of you.”

“It is not true.” Mary put her arms around the woman.

“We have sent away Rebecca. Since then, I’ve done nothing.”

“You have done much,” Mary said.

“You’re like a sister,” Frank said.

“I would not be as familiar with this new world without you. They fill it with so many new wonders. You taught them to me.”

“We’ll talk about it,” Marjorie said. She smiled at Mary. “We all knew this situation wouldn’t be permanent.”

“When Frank returns, we will talk,” Mary said.

“I won’t leave until we finish the story. There are details I can contribute, places maybe where our pasts touched.”

Mary smiled and nodded. “It will also give me time to change your mind.”