Synchronic: 13 Tales of Time Travel

by Michael Bunker

  “In the questionnaire you said you had the last two bills of sale.”

  “Sure—you want me to get them?”

  “Please.”

  She left the room, and I took a closer look at the mirror, swallowing my distaste. From the craftsmanship and the appearance of the wood, there was no doubt that this was either the genuine article or an excellent forgery. When Rebecca came back with the bills of sale, I told her as much, then went on to explain the procedure for appraising the mirror’s value. The bills of sale would help establish a pedigree, especially if it had been part of an antique collection already. I’d also try to trace the chain of title further back.

  “So, you’ll take it on?” she said, her gray eyes sparkling with hope.

  “Sure,” I responded, “but only if you’ll do me a favor.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Go out to dinner with me tonight.”

  She smiled, shyly and also a bit sensually, though that might have been my wishful thinking. She brushed her lush hair away from her face. “It’s a deal,” she said.

  “Great. I’ll have Sammy and Mario pick up the mirror in the morning. Will someone be here?”

  She nodded. “Do I need to wrap it up so it doesn’t get damaged?”

  I grinned. “Don’t worry—we’re competent. They’ll pack it properly, so you don’t need to do anything else. It’ll take a couple of weeks to value the piece, and if goes well, we’ll get the word out that it’s on the market. Do you have any other questions?”

  “Is tonight going to be casual or formal?”

  “Casual.”

  * * *

  And that was how I met the love of my life. It was the classic whirlwind courtship. We saw each other two or three times a week right from the start, and within two months, it was almost every day. We’d take long walks in Riverside, her favorite park. We’d have languid dinners and take in old movies. We’d make love—she was a sublime lover: playful, sincere, dirty or sweet, depending on the occasion—then lie in bed, reading late into the night.

  And not only was she beautiful, she was also clever and down-to-earth, very much a small-town girl—if such a stereotype really existed. Even though she’d been raised in Manhattan, and her parents, Robert and Amanda Ward, were wealthy—both scions of old Manhattan money—and she’d attended Columbia, she was nevertheless the most earnest person I’d ever met. Maybe that was the quality I’d seen on that first day.

  Sometimes I wondered if she was too good to be true. Was she putting on a show just for me, seducing me with ease with her gray eyes and raven hair, with a personality designed just for my psychological profile? Did she know me better than I knew myself?

  Even now, I don’t know if I could have stopped what happened next by taking those questions more seriously. And I guess it doesn’t matter. Since I didn’t.

  * * *

  The first strange incident occurred during a romantic getaway in Avon, upstate. We were staying at a small boutique hotel, and everything was going well. We’d gone hiking, visited the Five Arch Bridge, and eaten quail and lamb, each with a different rare wine, in a charming restaurant nestled in the woods overlooking the Genesee River.

  I’d been working long hours over the previous month. A number of the shop’s long-term clients had pulled some of their money out of the stock market, fearing a bubble, and wanted to invest that money in antiques. As a result, I’d been scouring other shops, auction houses, and private collections looking to fill that demand. We’d only made love twice over the previous few weeks, and both times had been hurried.

  But after that fantastic day, Rebecca had planned a fantastic night. The room was lit by candlelight, and the fresh scent of wildflowers drifted into the room through an open window. She wore nothing but a sheer camisole and silver earrings, and when the candle flames flickered and the shadows of light and dark played off her smooth pale skin, I was spellbound by her sensuality.

  We made love, and it was all-consuming. A strong breeze blew into the room, stirring the candle flames into a wild dance. My eyes went from the wild flames to the dresser mirror, and I saw our bodies entwined. I was about to turn away, self-conscious, when I saw something that sent me into a panic.

  My breath caught in my throat and my heart started pounding.

  In the mirror, the woman I was making love to looked nothing like Rebecca.

  She had auburn hair and green eyes, and when I focused more closely on her features, trying to convince myself that this was just Rebecca reinterpreted by an odd trick of the light, another breeze blew into the room, sending the curtains billowing in front of the mirror.

  The curtains cleared, and I saw I was once again entwined with the raven-haired love of my life—Rebecca.

  “What’s wrong?” she said.

  “Nothing,” I quickly answered, still a bit shaken. “Mixing those two wines at dinner must’ve made me a little drunk.” But I didn’t feel drunk, not that I was especially familiar with the feeling—I rarely drank. Still, I convinced myself that the wine must’ve caused the strange hallucination.

  I was able to get back in the mood, somewhat, but an uneasy feeling stayed with me for the rest of the weekend. So did the image of the woman with the auburn hair and green eyes.

  A few weeks later, I decided to ask Rebecca if she’d marry me. I assumed she’d say “yes.” She appeared to be as in love with me as I was with her. We were happy and comfortable with each other. Also, her parents had welcomed me into the family and didn’t seem to mind that she was dating “below her class.” I’d seen how some of the other old-money families disdained the beaus their daughters dated and/or married because the beaus didn’t have the proper pedigrees.

  I was so confident that Rebecca would say “yes” that, rather than discuss the proposal with her in advance, as most couples did nowadays, I planned to propose to her the old-fashioned way: surprise her with an engagement ring over dinner.

  On the chosen night, as I was closing up the shop, I glanced at the cheval mirror that had brought Rebecca and me together. Rebecca had joked that my only fault was that I hadn’t been able to find a customer for the mirror, even though it had turned out to be a rare piece from the Middle Ages. Roman Myers, a specialist in glass antiques, had dated it to the fourteenth century.

  I had tried hard to sell it and was eager to be rid of it, not only for Rebecca, but for myself. Over time, the mirror had gone from being a piece that felt merely peculiar to one that made me feel downright uneasy whenever I glanced at it. Maybe Rebecca had felt the same way about it and that was why she’d wanted to sell it. And that possibility wasn’t so farfetched, because even though it was prominently displayed in the shop and several customers had been tempted to buy it, no one had pulled the trigger yet. Maybe everyone felt uneasy around it.

  I closed up and headed uptown to our current favorite restaurant, a small, undiscovered Italian restaurant on Amsterdam. In my pocket was a diamond ring—a French Victorian given to me by Melvin, who was ecstatic that I’d found the woman of my dreams.

  I had the cab drop me off a few blocks from the restaurant so I could walk off the day’s stress before meeting Rebecca. It had been a hectic day. I’d had to deal with Christie’s on a Chippendale armoire, which I’d promised I could deliver to a client for a certain price. Turned out I couldn’t.

  But with every block, my chest lightened and my thoughts drifted away from business and toward the restaurant and the proposal. Night was falling, and the city was bathed in purple twilight. The sidewalks were busy with young couples out for the evening and Columbia students laughing and joking with each other.

  Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until I looked down an alleyway and saw a figure skirting the shadows. Silhouetted by the purplish light, he looked like he was wearing a long black robe, a brimmed hat, and a mask shaped like a bird’s beak. The sight sent a creepy chill down my spine, but I kept right on walking and told myself that I’d just seen some odd configuration of shad
ows. My backup explanation was that I’d seen a man headed to a costume party.

  For the rest of the walk, a feeling of disorientation stayed with me. I tried to shake it off, but didn’t succeed until I arrived at the restaurant and a more pressing concern took over. I was about ten minutes late, yet Rebecca hadn’t arrived yet. This was odd, because Rebecca was never late, and I wondered if this was a bad omen. The night I plan to propose to her is the first time she’s late. That was silly and I knew it. It was just the lingering unease from the figure in the alleyway.

  I waited for fifteen minutes before texting her, then waited another five minutes for a return text. When there was no return text, I called her. She didn’t answer, so I left a message, trying to hide the anxiety in my voice—and doing a bad job of it. After ten more minutes passed, spent trying to convince myself that all was well, but knowing that this was unlike Rebecca, I finally called her parents.

  I heard myself explaining to Robert, her dad, that Rebecca was late for dinner—well aware that I was coming across as unduly worried, perhaps even a bit obsessive, like an overly controlling lover. Still, he was friendly and said that he’d seen her earlier in the evening, and not to worry.

  But as it turned out, my concern was justified. She never did show up for that dinner.

  * * *

  The next few days were a haze of increasingly panicky inquiries and horrible scenarios playing themselves out in my head.

  I looked everywhere for Rebecca, but she was nowhere to be found. The police got involved almost immediately because everyone who knew Rebecca—her parents, her friends, and I—insisted that her disappearance was highly unusual. She was far from the type to take off on a lark.

  Detective Bill Moore was assigned to her case, and at first I thought it was his gruff manner, in combination with my own lack of sleep and raw nerves, that gave me the impression he was targeting me as the prime suspect.

  But after three weeks or so, when some of Rebecca’s friends started to treat me more coldly and with less sympathy, and the police themselves were slow to return my calls and less forthcoming with information, I realized that my initial impression had been correct. And all doubt was erased when Detective Moore called me in for questioning.

  He interrogated me about every facet of my relationship with Rebecca. From the gist of his questions, it was clear that he was building his case around the theory that I was obsessed with Rebecca, and that I’d asked her to marry me and taken it badly when she’d turned me down.

  Melvin was still in my corner, and up to this point, so were Robert and Amanda, but her parents were about to have a change of heart. Their sorrow over their missing daughter permeated every one of our conversations—which of course, under the circumstances, was appropriate. They had been so close to Rebecca that at times I’d been jealous. Unfortunately, Detective Moore had somehow picked up on that emotion and used it to further bolster his theory. He saw this as yet another trigger for my anger at Rebecca. If I couldn’t have all of her, than no one could have any of her. I finally decided I needed to visit Robert and Amanda to counter Detective Moore’s propaganda against me. From the last couple of phone calls I’d had with them, I sensed that they needed to be reassured that I loved their daughter more than life itself.

  Robert greeted me at the door. “I’m afraid we’re not very good company,” he said, reaching out to shake my hand.

  As I took his hand, I felt a couple of bulbous, gelatinous lumps on his palms, and I instinctually jerked my hand away, leaving him visibly startled.

  “I’m not the greatest company either,” I said quickly, hoping to mask my awkward reaction to his handshake. But it was too late. He was already taken aback.

  I followed him into the living room, and on the way, I tried to catch a glimpse of his palms. I wasn’t able to get a good look until we were both seated, and when I did, I saw—there were no lumps. And that sight turned out to be even more disturbing than if there had been, because I was left wondering what it was I’d felt just seconds earlier.

  Amanda came into the room, her cheeks sunken and her eyes weepy. “Would you like something to drink or eat?” she asked.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  She sat down next to Robert and her eyes met mine. “How are you doing?” she asked.

  “Hanging in there. Barely.”

  “Join the club,” Robert said, rubbing his hands together anxiously, a habit he’d picked up since Rebecca’s disappearance.

  I didn’t want to look at either of them for too long because the hopelessness etched on both their faces drew my own feelings of despair right to the surface. I realized right then that it had been a mistake to come over, and that realization became even more obvious when I found that I also couldn’t bear to look at the family photos that lined the mantelpiece. The last time I’d visited, I’d taken solace in those photos of happier times—Rebecca’s family intact—and had still held out hope that the police would find her.

  Now, that hope seemed distant. And I was the prime suspect in her disappearance.

  Not wanting to focus on Robert or Amanda, or the photos, my eyes fell on Robert’s hands just as he pulled them apart—and my heart suddenly starting racing. Scattered across his palms were bulbous lumps, black and red. Oozing.

  “Are you okay?” I said.

  “No, I’m not,” he said, defensively.

  “I meant your hands.”

  “What about my hands?” he asked, and glanced at them, then at Amanda.

  “Is something troubling you, my dear?” Amanda asked me.

  “Yeah—” I said, checking out Robert’s hands again. They were fine; the lumps were gone. “I mean, ‘no’… I guess I can’t stop replaying everything, looking for clues.”

  “There aren’t any, are there?” she said.

  I shook my head and my eyes fell back on the photos. And what I saw made my throat tighten and my stomach ball up into a knot. I couldn’t fathom what I was seeing. I blinked a couple of times, then rubbed my eyes, and felt the heat of anxiety on my skin.

  In the photos, everywhere that Rebecca had been, just seconds ago, was another woman—a completely different woman. Smiling in front of the Wards’ summer house in the Hamptons, waving from under a cherry tree in Riverside Park, holding her diploma in front of the Alma Mater statue at Columbia. Even the portraits of Rebecca—as a child, as a teen, as an adult—were now portraits of this new woman as a child, as a teen, and as an adult.

  A woman with auburn hair and green eyes.

  The woman I’d seen in the mirror in Avon.

  What the hell was going on?

  I couldn’t help but get up and approach the mantelpiece. A closer look at the photos didn’t change a damn thing. My heart was racing and nausea was starting to well up from my knotted stomach.

  “Who is that?” I blurted out.

  “Who’s what?” Robert said.

  “The woman in all these pictures.”

  “What are you talking about?” he said.

  I looked back at him. “What happened to the original pictures?”

  “Son—You’d better tell us what’s going on.” Robert’s voice wasn’t sympathetic.

  “The girl in all these pictures—” I wasn’t sure how to put it without sounding like a lunatic. I wanted to shout out, This isn’t your daughter, but maybe I was mistaken. Another scan of the pictures confirmed that I wasn’t—there just wasn’t any resemblance at all between Rebecca and this woman.

  Robert stood up. “Is there something you need to tell us?” he asked firmly.

  I knew exactly what he was getting at. A confession. My erratic behavior was proving to him that Detective Moore was on the right trail.

  “Mrs. Ward—Amanda—” I said, looking for support. “Don’t you see that this woman isn’t—?” I stopped myself. There just wasn’t any way to ask the question without sounding delusional.

  “I’m sorry,” I s
aid. “I’ve got to go.” I headed toward the foyer, trying to come up with an excuse for my quick departure, and ending up with the always lame, “I’m not feeling well.”

  I thought they might say something before I stepped out into the foyer, and when they didn’t, I glanced back—and could tell that the tide had turned. Robert was standing tall and unyielding, ready for the battle ahead. He had his arm around Amanda, who was now slumped, as if the revelation that I might be guilty was too much for her to bear.

  I hurried through the foyer and let myself out.

  * * *

  I had many of my own photos of Rebecca, so I took them to the restaurants we’d frequented. The maître d’s and waiters stared at the raven-haired woman in the photos, then shook their heads. They’d never seen her before. On the other hand, when I showed them a photo of the auburn-haired Rebecca Ward, which I’d downloaded from her LinkedIn profile, they all immediately recognized her as the woman I’d been dating.

  This was true of everyone who’d seen us as a couple.

  I was baffled and couldn’t confide in anyone, even Melvin, for fear of being labeled psychotic. So I scheduled a couple of sessions with a psychologist. He said I was basically of sound mind, though he did prescribe medication for what he said was normal depression brought on by Rebecca’s disappearance. When I pressed him for a diagnosis based on my strange symptom, he told me he’d never heard of a case like mine and that this symptom wasn’t associated with any of the classic psychological disorders.

  My visits to the psychologist, plus my new obsession with finding someone—anyone—who’d seen me with the raven-haired Rebecca, prompted Detective Moore to call me in for another talk/interrogation. Melvin suggested I hire a lawyer, which might have been the smart way to go, but I went with the stupid way: relying on the fact that I was innocent.

  Detective Moore and another detective led me into an interrogation room, where Moore started asking me questions about a seedy neighborhood in Queens. I had no idea what he was getting at, but I should’ve figured it out. Looking back, it was clear he’d been trying to connect me to a lead that had come in.