The City of Love_A Medieval Time Travel Romance

by Paige Elwood

  Many of the people seemed to be holding little rectangles of glass and metal. Some were speaking into them while holding them to their faces, and others were simply holding them and looking into them, paying little attention to anything around them.

  He seemed to waited for a very long time, but eventually a familiar young woman exited the inn. She was also dressed in trousers and strange, form-fitting clothing. Her dark hair hung to her shoulders in a glossy sheet. She set off, walking towards Notre Dame. He followed at a safe distance, keeping his eyes on his supposed true love. The ring in his pocket was reacting to her presence as it had in the dream, trembling as though with excitement through the thin fabric of his pocket.

  Keeping his eyes fixed on her helped him drown out the disorienting distractions. He had been here over an hour now, he was sure. He did not have much more time. How would he convince the girl to take the ring?

  She entered what seemed to be a bakers’ shop and came out a few minutes later eating a small cake. The smell of baking drifted from the shop, and his stomach growled, but he had no time to eat now. He must not miss his opportunity.

  She continued her walk, eating it as she went, and Edouard followed her all the way to the Quai. She stopped by the banks of the Seine just like she had in the dream, looking over at the cathedral and holding up one of those metal and glass rectangles for a while. He wondered why everybody in this time was so fascinated with them.

  He kept a distance away, never taking his eyes off her. When she found her way to the market stalls he saw his opportunity. One stall was set apart from the others, as though someone had simply placed a table in the square and it was not part of the official market. It had been left unattended, a sorry collection of strange items strewn across the tabletop. Edouard took a place behind the table, as though he were a merchant.

  The woman was still browsing a different stall, and he kept watch on her. When she crossed the square and began moving towards the establishments on the other side he saw his chance. It was now, or never. He reached for her.

  Chapter 6

  Sophie gasped as the hand gripped her tightly and dragged her towards a small, almost bare stall where nobody was browsing. Her heart hammered in her chest, the intrusion a startling contrast to her feeling of invisibility just minutes before. She wished she’d stayed invisible now as she stood in front of the weather-beaten, run-down stall and the very creepy old man that had pulled her towards it.

  “Arête!” she yelled, yanking her elbow out of his grasp. His gray hair was limp and baby-fine, plastered to his skull. His face was wizened and lined, his features almost masked by the numerous folds in his skin. At first she was horrified by his appearance , but then a strange feeling came over her. It was almost like the world physically jolted when she made eye contact with him. Everything flared brighter than usual for just a second, before settling back to normal.

  What was that feeling? It was like a physical pull in her stomach, her body almost vibrating slightly. He placed his hand on her elbow again and she allowed him to draw her closer to the stall. He was speaking, but his words washed over her like rain rolling off a rooftop, without her understanding anything he said. She didn’t even know if he was speaking English or French as her mind tried to understand the reaction of her body, and…her soul…?

  The man had to be the oldest person Sophie had ever seen. She wondered how old he was, how anyone could be alive for as long as he obviously had. He was here and solid in front of her, yet it looked like a strong wind might blow him away. Not that it would simply blow him over, but that it would disintegrate him into tiny pieces of ash that would float away on the wind, leaving not a single trace of him behind. Yet the strength in the hand that gripped her elbow belied that. He kept on speaking, but it was like they were underwater. She felt the vibrations of his words but couldn’t make sense of them.

  She became aware of the people around them, some of whom had stopped and were looking at her and the old man curiously. Some looked disgusted at the sight of the wizened old man in his ragged and stained clothes. She registered that the onlookers were there, but she couldn’t fully tear her attention away from the old man that still held onto her elbow.

  “Are you ok?” A group of tall, muscular young men had joined them at the stall and were speaking to Sophie. She tried to shake off the feeling of being underwater, but she couldn’t speak. She simply looked at the young man who had spoken and nodded vaguely to indicate that she didn’t need help. Or did she? She felt so strange. But not in danger, or uncomfortable. Just strange.

  “Are you sure you’re ok?” he asked again in heavily accented English that gave away his Eastern European roots. He looked from her to the old man, clearly uncomfortable at the situation.

  Sophie nodded again. All three of the young men still seemed uneasy, but the shortest one of them shrugged at the others, and they turned and walked away in unison into the thronging crowd. The man who had asked her if she was ok turned once, still obviously concerned, but Sophie gave him a weak smile and another nod to demonstrate that she was fine. Then she turned her attention fully to the old man before her.

  Despite his incredibly ancient appearance, the old man’s bright, startlingly intelligent brown eyes transfixed Sophie, and she could barely tear her gaze away from his. They were a deep amber color that was completely mesmerizing. Sophie’s own chocolate brown eyes locked onto them, and she couldn’t move. Their desperate eye contact generated a kind of vacuum where everything else fell away, leaving only her and him. No time, no space, no other people. Just them. A young, intelligent wit sparkled in those amber depths. They were the eyes of a much younger man.

  His hand still rested on her elbow, and electricity crackled through her, radiating from the spot where their skin touched. Those strong hands that looked so frail, and those incredible, captivating eyes. What was happening here? Why did she feel such a strange pull towards this man? She felt like she’d been drugged, but that was impossible. His words still danced around her, breaching the periphery of her consciousness, but she was still unable to follow a single word he said. There was a kind of communication in his touch, though, one her body seemed to understand but her mind couldn’t comprehend.

  A sharp poke in the ribs from his other hand jolted Sophie rudely into awareness. She yelped. The feeling of being underwater dissipated a little with the shock, although she still felt strange. She was finally able to make out some of the words, her brain switching into gear and trying to reach for her rusty French.

  “Ecoutes-tu mademoiselle?” he said. Sophie struggled to understand. Her French had been better in the confines of the university classroom, away from the distractions and realities of real life. He frowned and switched to English. In a heavily-accented voice, he tried again, “Are you listening to me?” He was asking. Sophie nodded.

  “I have you an authentic relic from the Notre Dame, yes?” he said. When she didn’t reply, his tone took on urgency. “You must buy the relic. It is genuine, from the cathedral.” he said as he glanced towards Notre Dame.

  Sophie frowned. She still didn’t understand. His heavily-accented English was better than her French, but what he seemed to be saying made no sense. Why would she want a relic?

  “You must have, it is yours,” he insisted. Sophie was confused. How could a relic be hers? It was just a relic, surely. What would she even do with a such a thing?

  “You must take it,” he said, the hand still resting on her elbow giving her a little shake. Sophie wondered if he was desperate for money—his stall was practically an afterthought amongst the other bustling stalls that lined the Quai. Maybe he needed money for food and thought that the lone woman wandering the Quai aimlessly would be a good target, more likely to buy.

  “I need you to have it,” he insisted. “It is yours, and I’ve waited forev…for so long for you to come.”

  Come where? Sophie thought. How could he have been waiting for her? This was a last-minute impulse trip, nobod
y could have known she’d come to Paris.

  She shrugged, her hands moving with her shoulders, palms up. Quick as lightning, he pressed something sharply into her palm. Instinctively, her fingers closed around it. He covered her hands with his, trapping the small object firmly in her closed hand. His hands were so strong she couldn’t resist it. That pulsing, tingling electricity that she felt before coursed through her hands and up her wrists, radiating through her body. It was a low-level vibration, but it was like nothing she’d ever felt before. When he finally let go, the tingling in her skin subsided. Shaken, she opened her palm and looked down to see a small ring nestled there. It looked old, as old as the man who had placed it there, if not even older.

  A light breeze whispered around her, and Sophie looked up, confused, wanting to ask him more questions. But the old man was gone. She spun around, trying to spot him, scanning the crowds, the other stalls, but he was nowhere to be seen. It was like a gust of wind had blown him into ash and scattered him. Sophie couldn’t understand where he disappeared to. She closed her fist around the ring again, feeling the metal cool against her palm. She hadn’t even paid him for it. She didn’t want it, but he seemed so insistent that she have it. Even if she could find him again, it would feel wrong to make him take it back.

  An elderly woman approached, dressed in ragged clothing with tendrils of white hair escaping a tight bun on her crown. “Are you buying anything?” she asked, her crooked smile displaying a black cavern where her two front teeth should have been. Her eyes were cloudy and dull, in direct contrast to the old man’s. Sophie looked at the woman confusedly, then quickly darted her eyes from side to side, questioning her surroundings. Was this not the man’s stall?

  “Do you know where that man went?” Sophie asked her. “I need to find him.”

  The woman shook her head, and shooed Sophie away from the stall now that she was sure there was no sale to be made. Sophie let her, still looking around for the old man. He couldn’t have just disappeared, could he? She pocketed the ring, unsure now if it really had belonged to him or if she’d just stolen a ring from the old woman’s stall. She hadn’t paid either of them for it. Still, she felt like she should keep it. He’d been so insistent, desperate almost, that she should have it.

  Sophie stumbled along the unfamiliar streets in a daze. Every so often she would catch a flash of gray hair and her heart would leap, thinking it was the old man, but it never was. Her stomach rumbled again, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten anything more than a pain au chocolat for a long time. She took a seat at the nearest pavement café, not bothering to read the menu, and ordered a Croque Monsieur and a vin rouge when the smartly dressed waiter came to take her order.

  When her order arrived, she found it difficult to eat. The bread was golden and the cheese perfectly melted, gooey and unctuous. Yet there was a disconnect between her mouth and her stomach. Her stomach was hungry, but her mouth was dry, and each tiny bite and swallow felt like sandpaper in her throat. She sipped at the rich red wine, letting the smooth liquid flow over her tongue, but it still didn’t bring her much pleasure. She paid for the half-eaten food and drink and left the café. She must be jetlagged. She’d get back to the hotel and sleep this strange mood away, start afresh tomorrow.

  People jostled around her as she tried to find her way back to the hotel. Once again, she felt invisible in the midst of the hustling crowds of people. She walked in a daze, not really seeing what was around her. She lost all sense of where she was going, and it felt like ages before she eventually walked down the street that her hotel was on. The sight of the familiar building lifted her spirits, and she picked up her pace to reach the heavy wooden door.

  “Everything ok?” Helene asked as she entered. “I thought you would be out all evening.”

  “Just a little jetlagged, I think,” Sophie said. She took a seat on the plush velvet loveseat, feeling suddenly out of breath.

  “Did you buy anything nice?” Helene asked.

  Sophie blanched. How did Helene know she’d bought…well stolen…something? She wondered. Had it been the woman from the stall? Did she know? Had she called the police? Sophie’s mind raced frantically.

  Helene, seeing Sophie’s confusion, motioned towards the bag that Sophie was clutching. She looked down at it, realization dawning. “Oh, books,” she said, pulling the burgundy leather tome out of the bag. “I can’t read them, but they looked pretty,” she said. Out loud it sounded absurd. Who bought books they couldn’t read?

  Helene took the book from Sophie’s outstretched hand, scanning the title and flipping through the pages. Her eyes lit up. “Ah, I know this one. It is a very old story of a French nobleman who has been put under a curse!”

  “Really?” Sophie wrinkled her nose. She’d assumed it was something boring, maybe even nonfiction, for some reason.

  “Yes.” Helene grinned. “My father used to tell me this story when I was a child. It was one of my favorites.”

  “What happens in the story?” Sophie asked.

  “Ah, well there are two versions,” Helene explained. “In one, the nobleman never breaks the curse and is doomed to eternal sadness.” She said, dramatically.

  “Eternal sadness? It sounds a bit tame, as ancient curses go,” Sophie scoffed. Helene looked aghast.

  “It is one of the cruelest curses,” she insisted. “He can never experience happiness, or desire, or have children.” Helene’s hands gestured wildly as she spoke, animating her empathy for the plight of the French nobleman. “His soul cannot be free until he breaks the curse. Which means he cannot die.” Her eyes widened at her last words, as though immortality were the worst thing imaginable.

  “Isn’t immortality a good thing?” Sophie said, thinking of the stories of dark and handsome immortal vampires that her sister liked to read. They didn’t have it so bad, apart from the annoying having to drink blood thing.

  “His body still ages, until eventually he is trapped as a young soul in an old body with no hope of release.”

  “That does sound like an unfortunate way to live,” Sophie admitted. “And in the other version?”

  “He finds what he needs to break his curse, and his soul is freed. He can live his life in happiness.” Helene smiled, obviously preferring this version.

  “I like the second version better,” Sophie said, yawning. She wondered which version was in her book, but decided she could ask Helene about that tomorrow. Right now, there was a weariness seeping into her very bones. The relic was practically burning her through her pocket, and she wanted to take it out. For some reason she felt she needed to be alone when she did that.

  Helene smiled. “Me too. You look very tired, Sophie, can I get you anything before you retire to your room?”

  “No, thank you,” Sophie said. “I think I’m just going to get straight into bed.” She stood and yawned again, covering her mouth as she did so.

  “Tres bien,” Helene said. “I wish you pleasant dreams.”

  “Goodnight,” Sophie said, pressing the button to call the tiny elevator.

  On her way back to her bedroom, the old pictures caught her eye again. She studied the photograph with Helene’s great-grandmother. The likeness was really very remarkable, even down to height and hair color. Moving across to the oldest picture, she ran a finger over the tiny image of a woman in the background. She still couldn’t make out any features of the woman, but something in her stance looked familiar.

  Sophie squinted at the image, and then turned away. What was she doing? It’s not like it was actually Helene in these pictures. That would be impossible. She carried on down the corridor until she reached her room, as relieved to be opening the door now as she had been a few hours earlier. She couldn’t wait to sleep off this strange mood that had her imagining all kinds of weird things.

  She entered her room, the heady sandalwood scent of the Tom Ford perfume still lingering in the air like a ghost, and her makeup still out on the dressing table. It all looked so normal, yet
strangely out of place. The last time she was in this room, she’d been different. For some inexplicable reason, she felt like her life was now divided into two parts. Before the old man, and after the old man. You’re being ridiculous, she chided herself. Still, that peculiar feeling like electricity tingled along her skin as a constant reminder of the strange encounter on the Quai.

  Sophie took a deep breath, remembering what her sister Claire would sometimes do if she felt tense or upset. She’d take off her shoes and do some deep breathing, concentrating on imagining any stress leaving her body and going into the floor. Sophie had laughed at her on many occasions for doing this, and thought it was a pretty bizarre, new-age kind of thing to do. Claire just brushed off Sophie’s teasing and did it anyway; apparently Claire’s mindfulness coach called it ‘grounding’ yourself, and she insisted it worked wonders. Sophie had never felt the need to ‘ground’ herself before; she couldn’t really see the point of it.

  What the heck, she thought, it couldn’t hurt, could it? Feeling slightly self-conscious even though she was alone in a hotel room, Sophie kicked off her shoes and stood barefoot on the plush, deep pile carpet. It felt luxuriously soft under her sore feet. The carpet pile tickled between her toes as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She imagined the tingling sensation as a visible blue light, flowing off her body and deep into the ground. If only Claire could see me now, Sophie thought. She’d probably suggest we do some yoga afterwards.

  She stayed like that for a few minutes and then opened her eyes. Nothing had changed. The tingling was still there, faint but noticeable. She wondered if maybe the third floor of a hotel wasn’t close enough to the ground for the exercise to work. Or, maybe she’d been right all along, and Claire’s mindfulness coach was selling her a bunch of hokum. She caught sight of herself in the mirror, her face flushed and her eyes wild. What am I doing? she thought.