Once in a Blue Moon

by Kathryn Kelly

  “I’ll be right back,” Augustus said, releasing her hand, and turning away.

  “Wait.” Arabella called. She suddenly felt dizzy with an aura that she was about to faint again. “Augustus.”

  He turned back to catch her. She saw his outstretched hands, but then there was nothing.

  Chapter 56

  Arabella woke to sound of a power saw.

  A power saw.

  She lay very still, not moving. The power saw stopped, but then she heard… sounds. Normal sounds. The roar of an air conditioner. The hum of a refrigerator. Music. Someone was jamming out to Brett Young’s In Case you Didn’t Know.

  A range of emotions tumbled over each other. Relief. She was home. Excitement. She was back to her own time.

  She opened her eyes. She was back on the couch. The grandfather clock was silent. She clutched the key around her neck.

  Heartbreak.

  She was no longer in 1863.

  Chapter 57

  Augustus grabbed for Arabella as he watched her fall to the floor. But instead of catching her, he caught an armful of air.

  He stumbled. Caught himself, then turned in a circle three times.

  She wasn’t there.

  She’d vanished in front of him.

  No!

  He dropped to his knees. Arabella. His love. His life.

  Where did she go?

  “She’ll come back.”

  Augustus jerked his head up. Charles was leaning against the doorjamb. “You shouldn’t be up.” The words were automatic. He’d said them a thousand times. He struggled to find the words to ask the next question. “Where did she go?”

  “Come with me.” Charles said. “I’ll see if I can explain it.”

  Augustus got to his feet and followed his host back to the study. Charles poured a shot of whiskey and handed it to him.

  Augustus swallowed, feeling the burn all the way to his gut. He held out the glass. Charles chuckled and poured. Then put the cork back in the bottle and set it aside.

  “Arabella is my daughter.” He said and Augustus heard the pride in his voice.

  “I know.”

  “Oh. Does she know?”

  “I think so. Yes.”

  Charles nodded. And sat in the big leather chair behind the desk. His face contorted in pain.

  “You shouldn’t be up.”

  “I know. I want to get all the use out my leg before you take it off.”

  Augustus held up his glass. Then drank the whiskey. “Good point. Tell me where your daughter went. Please.” Augustus sat in the chair opposite Charles. He felt like someone had punched him in the gut and he couldn’t quite catch his breath.

  “She’s from the future.”

  Augustus inhaled deeply. “I think I misunderstood.”

  Charles shook his head. “Technically she was born here… in this time, but through an accident, she went forward in time.”

  Augustus scoffed. “How can someone accidentally go forward in time?

  But he thought about her strange dress when he’d first met her – she’d been wearing men’s trousers. He thought about the magic glass that captured their images. The way Villars had reacted to seeing her.

  Those were things that couldn’t be ignored. And most of all, he couldn’t ignore that he’d seen her disappear in front of his eyes.

  “I was out in the fields,” Charles began. “My wife, Ericka, was here with Arabella.” He put his fingers over his eyes. Then continued. “Arabella was four months old. Ericka’s brother Bradley and Camille had just married. So the two women were here as well as Ericka’s great-grandmother, Vaughn. Ericka went upstairs to take a bath, leaving Arabella with Camille and Vaughn.

  “Bradley came home early and Camille rushed out to see him. Before she left, she handed Arabella off to Vaughn.” Charles lifted his head and Augustus could see the pain in them. “We never saw either one of them again. We tore this place apart, inside and out, but they were gone.”

  “Where did they go?” Even as he asked, he knew what Charles was going to say.

  “There was only one explanation. Vaughn had traveled through time and had taken Arabella with her.”

  “For God’s sake man.”

  “It nearly tore us all apart. Ericka was from the future, too, but from what Vaughn said, once someone is with their soul mate, they stay put. So Erika couldn’t go get her. It wasn’t from lack of trying, mind you.”

  “I can’t imagine the hell this family must have gone through.”

  Charles nodded. “We survived. I never doubted I would see my daughter again. But it’s been so long. She looks so much like Ericka did at that age. I knew her immediately.”

  “Only to lose her again,” Augustus said quietly.

  “Yes. Only to lose her again.” Charles studied Augustus. “What is your relationship to my daughter?”

  Augustus felt his eyes widen under the scrutiny of Arabella’s father. “I was planning to marry her.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t be daft. Men marry for a variety of reasons. When I met Ericka I was engaged to another woman. My own father had arranged the marriage for business reasons.”

  “I don’t have any business with her.”

  “Some men marry because they don’t want to be alone or just because they want a pretty face around. Someone to scratch their itch.”

  Augustus flushed. He’d talked with men often enough about itches, but this was the father of the woman he loved. “It’s not like that.”

  “Do you love her?”

  “More than anything.”

  “How do you know?”

  Augustus stood up and filled his glass with whiskey. After drinking the liquor, he squared his shoulders and turned to Charles. “I love everything about her. Her beauty. Her laugh. The way she can make a man feel better just by listening to him talk. I get drunk on her kisses and I can’t stand to be apart from her for more than minutes at a time.”

  Charles shifted, leaned back and propped his leg on a stack of books. He winced. “Does she know this?”

  Augustus went to the window, his back to Charles. “I haven’t told her.” I should have told her how I feel. And now it was too late. I never should have let go of her hand.

  Chapter 58

  Ericka gathered up her skirts and dashed upstairs, ran down the hallway, and looked into each of the rooms. They were much as she had last seen them – in this time – paint cans, no furniture.

  What had Jerry done with her luggage?

  She ran back downstairs, her heat beating frantically. Her mind echoing one word over and over. No!

  She found her suitcase in the parlor, tucked in the corner where she had left it. She put her hand to her forehead. Think. She inhaled deeply. Slowly. Her hands trembling, she knelt and unzipped her suitcase. There tucked beneath her tee-shirts was the folded up letter that Vaughn had written.

  She took it with her to the couch and sat down as she unfolded it and read it for the thousandth time.

  She could only make out a few words from the bottom half of the letter. The part where her tears had permanently smudged the ink.

  Clock. Time. You were a baby…

  I wish… back.

  She groaned in frustration and crumpling the paper, dropped her hands into her lap.

  “Miss Arabella?”

  Arabella jerked her head around. Jerry stood behind her, watching her warily.

  “Jerry.” Arabella was suddenly self-conscious of her long dress. She stood up and hid her hands in her skirts.

  “Are you okay?” He asked.

  No. “Yes.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Oh. Um.” She forced a laugh. “There’s a reenactment…”

  “Right. It’s that time of the year.” He scrubbed his chin. “Your boyfriend was looking for you. You might want to give him a call.”

  Arabella slipped a hand into her pocket and wrapped her fingers aroun
d her cell phone. “I didn’t have my charger.”

  “Okay. Well…” He seemed unsure what to do. “I’ll be out back running a few boards. If you need anything.”

  Arabella collapsed on the sofa and pulled out her cell phone. She pressed the power button and watched as it lit up. She had fifty messages and about a million texts.

  Instead of playing them, she put the phone on the console table where she’d left her charger, plugged in the phone and went down the hall to take a shower.

  Chapter 59

  “It’s time for us to go.”

  Augustus glanced over at Captain Jones sitting on the veranda. “Surely not to Vicksburg.”

  “We have to.”

  “It’s a lost cause, you know.”

  “It may be a lost cause, but it’s our lost cause.”

  Augustus nodded. He understood completely. How many lost causes had he fought for? Men that he knew wouldn’t survive. A few of them did and that made it all worthwhile.

  “Do you want to come with us?”

  Augustus knew that he should. They were no longer needed here. His men were rested and well fed which was more than most of the officers could say about their troops.

  But he couldn’t leave here. Not without Arabella.

  Charles’ words rang in his ears. She’ll come back. It was a phrase he repeated to himself over and over. “I’m still needed here.”

  Captain Jones nodded. “You’ve done some good work.”

  “It’s been a lot. But there are still men who need to be treated. And they keep coming.”

  Captain Jones laughed. “Somehow word got out. It’s almost like a little hospital here.”

  It was, Augustus thought, when Arabella was here. Now it was just a place with a bunch of sick soldiers. He would never say that out loud though. It would sound almost treasonous. Like he didn’t want to be here. And without Arabella, being here had no meaning, but then being anywhere without her would be meaningless.

  The only hopefulness was that Arabella’s father was here. Augustus had told Charles everything he knew about her. Well almost everything. He didn’t tell him about the hours they’d spent kissing on this very veranda.

  “We’ll leave at dawn,” Captain Jones said, breaking into Augustus’ thoughts.

  “I wish you the best,”Augustus said.

  He would stay here. Right here in this house and wait for Arabella. He would wait for her as long as it took for her to return to him.

  Even if it meant he spent the rest of his life here.

  Chapter 60

  Feeling oddly out of place, Arabella sat on the sofa and played her messages. She took notes as she went. The receptionist from the ER called everyday for about a week, then stopped. There were a couple of telemarketing calls. The bank called to remind her about a credit card payment – the only one that wasn’t automated.

  The rest of the calls were from Matthew Caldwell Jennings, III. She wasn’t sure why she always thought of her fiancé by his full name. Maybe it was because the name fit him so well. He was very formal and always wanted things just so.

  She’d found that cute at first. The way he was always well dressed and didn’t like to walk on grass because he’d get his shoes dirty.

  She had a vivid memory of Augustus hugging her, both of them covered other men’s blood. Messy. The work Augustus did was messy.

  And somewhere along the way, she’d become desensitized to it. She still turned away when he cut into someone, but she could clean someone up and think nothing of it.

  She wondered what he was doing now. Had he seen her vanish?

  How had it happened? She remembered calling out to him and reaching for his hand. What was he thinking?

  And then there was the man that was likely her father.

  She grabbed up her phone and googled Charles Becquerel. Nothing.

  What had happened to him?

  He died when you were an infant.

  Ericka went to stand at the window. The heat from the sun was unbearable. It was nothing like the torrential rains they’d been having in 1863.

  I must have been dreaming. But she’d lost three weeks. If she’d been asleep for three weeks, surely Jerry would have called the ambulance to come get her. He’d seemed surprised to see her. But he had taken her dress in stride.

  It was too much to think about. And there was no one to talk to about it. My father. I need to talk to my father.

  Maybe I need to check myself into the psych ward.

  With a flash of inspiration, she opened her phone, went to photos and found the picture she’d taken.

  The selfie of her and Augustus. The live feature had been on. She pressed the image and saw him take a breath.

  Augustus had been real.

  And if Augustus had been real, if she could accept that fact, she had to accept that she had really been in 1863.

  Chapter 61

  “Let me see it.” Augustus gestured toward Charles’ leg.

  “You just looked at it this morning.”

  “Yes, but I want to see it again.”

  Charles sighed and allowed Augustus to look at his leg – puffy and discolored with infection.

  “I’m gonna have to take it.”

  “Not until Erika gets here.”

  “That could be weeks.”

  “Then we’ll wait weeks.”

  “What do you expect her to do?”

  “I don’t know. But she’ll think of something.”

  Augustus pressed on the wound. “Because she’s from the future. That doesn’t make her a doctor.”

  “No. But she knows a lot of things.”

  “We’ll wait a little longer, but I won’t have you dying on me.”

  “Being without a leg may be worse,” Charles murmured.

  “Many men before you have said the same thing. And many men have adapted to life without a limb.”

  “I don’t think I could. Besides, don’t most people die anyway?” He continued when Augustus stared at him blankly. “So you’re going to haggle me up to keep from dying and I’m going to die anyway.”

  “Your daughter said almost the same words.”

  Charles smiled as he always did when they talked about Arabella.

  The mere mention of her name nearly sent Augustus spiraling. He could barely eat for missing her. He couldn’t eat and he couldn’t sleep.

  He thought about her all the time. He vowed to himself that if she ever came back, he would declare his love immediately. If it were up to him, he’d take her from this house. But he knew that neither she nor her parents would allow that to happen. No, he mused, either way, I’m destined to live out my days here. Either waiting for her to return or living life with her here.

  “I understand the hell you’re going through.” Charles pulled the sheet back over his leg. “I went through the same thing with Ericka. I thought I’d lost her forever.”

  “How did you cope?” Cope. Arabella had even changed his vocabulary. She often spoke of helping the men with their coping skills.

  Charles scoffed. “Horrendously. No one could tolerate being around me. I spent my time brooding and staying alone in my garconniere. I came around occasionally to read to my little sister, but it wasn’t long before she sent me away for making her fairy tales sound like horror stories. The worst part was that I was actually going to marry someone else – Anna.”

  “I can’t even imagine wanting to be with anyone besides Arabella.”

  “I no longer cared. I knew then that she’d gone back to the future and I was convinced that I would never see her again in this lifetime”

  “But she came back?”

  “Yes. It was quite dramatic. Like something out of a fairytale. I was at the altar next to Anna when I saw Ericka standing in the back of the church.

  “Good God.”

  “It was a miracle.” Charles’ eyes filled with unshed tears and he looked away. It was our love that brought us back together.”

  Augustus had
seen this before. Sometimes the infection was so bad that it began to affect the mind.

  Perhaps he’d waited too long to do the amputation.

  Chapter 62

  Arabella roamed aimlessly around the big plantation house. She was having a hard time wrapping her head around all that had happened. She wished fervently for her great-grandmother. Vaughn could explain everything and make sense of it all. If only she had talked to Arabella about this before her death.

  She brushed off Jerry’s attempts to engage her in conversation. Since Vaughn wasn’t there, she just wanted to be left alone.

  She plundered through the room with all the furniture shoved against each other. It was highly inconvenient. Especially since she was pretty sure the wardrobe in the corner was the same one she’d used in 1863.

  “Jerry,” she called. “I need to get in this bureau. Will you help me?”

  Jerry blew out a breath, but went to work moving aside four other heavy pieces of furniture. “What are you looking for?”

  “I don’t know.”

  As soon as he had the doors free, she threw them open, more than halfway expecting to see her jeans and tee-shirt stacked on the third shelf where she’d left them. Instead it was empty.

  “Are you looking for something that belonged to your great-grandmother?”

  “Yes.” Anything that would give her some glimpse into the past she’d left behind.

  “Most everything got stored in the attic. There’s a bunch of old trunks up there.”

  “There are trunks in the attic?” Of course. It made perfect sense. So many people had lived here over the years, things would naturally have been packed away and stored.

  “Yeah.”

  “Where’s the attic?”

  After Jerry led her to the attic door, she stood in awe at so many things she’d used when she was in the past. There was the full-length mirror and a vanity that had been in her room. And there, shoved against the wall was the trunk.