by Amy Harmon
Maggie collapsed into a chair as the room around her tipped dizzily. She felt, rather than saw, Johnny letting the book slide to the floor as he knelt beside her. This time, he was the one who forced her to look at him, bracing her face with his hands.
“You didn’t disappear, did you? You came back here. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Maggie nodded, her eyes filling with tears, unable to speak.
Johnny looked like he might cry right along with her, and his jaw tightened again, holding back the emotion she could see mirrored in his blue eyes. “It’s the only thing that makes sense, and it makes no sense at all,” he whispered.
Maggie reached up and locked her hands around his wrists where he still held her face in his hands. He was right. None of it made sense, but it didn’t make it any less true.
“Did I remember you in....Purgatory?” he asked, his eyes still on hers, his voice still laced with feeling.
“No,” Maggie whispered. “You said I was familiar, that you felt like you knew me. But I thought it was because I looked like Irene.”
“How can that be? Purgatory came after I met you. You said I knew who I was, and I knew my family, my story, right? So why didn’t I remember you? I wouldn’t have forgotten you, Maggie. After that night, you were all I thought about. I was obsessed with you.” Johnny shook his head, incredulous.
Maggie smiled at that, a hint of pleasure tinging her cheeks at his frank confession, but her smile faded quickly as she struggled to suspend his disbelief. “You and I met in Purgatory, Johnny. That’s all I know. For you and me, Purgatory came first....1958 came after. I can’t explain it. But maybe there’s someone who can.”
~18~
A Time to Heal
They arrived at the school when classes were dismissing for the day. Maggie hoped she wouldn’t run into any of her teachers and have to explain where she’d been during class. Mr. Marshall, her chemistry teacher, had become more bold and more brutal since Johnny had tried to teach him a lesson. It had scared him off for a while, but he’d slid back into his old ways before too long. She would have to tell Johnny about that day he’d put the nasty old man in his place; she thought he would probably enjoy the story. She just hoped she wouldn’t have to deal with Mr. Marshall today.
She and Johnny walked through the front doors and veered down a long flight of stairs in search of Gus. Maggie had folded her arms only to have Johnny reach down and snag her hand as they walked by a group of guys who seemed more than a little interested in the way Maggie looked in her snug jeans. He quirked one eyebrow as he looked down at her.
“I think I prefer girls in skirts,” Johnny said dryly, and tightened his hand around hers. He tossed a black look over his shoulder at the group of boys, and Maggie’s heart sang a hopeful tune. A possessive Johnny was a very good sign.
Johnny received his fair share of interested looks as well as they navigated the crowded halls to the gymnasium where the janitor’s closet was located. Jillian had kept the explanation of his presence in the small town very vague, and Johnny had kept an extremely low profile. But it was a small town after all, and he was a very good looking guy. Word spread and people, especially teen-aged girls, were curious, to say the least. This was the second time he had been seen in a very public place, and both times in Maggie’s company. There would be talk.
Shad was at the janitor’s closet with his grandfather when they arrived, and Maggie tried not to groan out loud when Shad folded his arms and stuck out his chest like a peacock. His lower lip jutted out too, and his eyebrows lowered in displeasure. He opened his mouth to say something, most likely something that would make Maggie groan even louder, but his grandpa shoved him lightly in the middle of his back and gently told him to “Get a move on, Shadrach. You know what needs to be done.”
When Shad walked away, after looking back and glowering several times, Maggie entreated Gus for a private place where they could talk. Gus led them into the gymnasium and, using the rickety railing, eased himself down onto the lowest bench of the old bleachers. Maggie and Johnny climbed up a few rows and sat above him. Johnny had kept her hand clasped in his, and Maggie was pretty sure Gus had not missed the significance of his grip. He released her when they were seated, moving away slightly and shifting so he could look at both her and Gus as they talked.
“How are you, boy?” Gus said gently, looking at Johnny with something very akin to affection in his chocolate brown eyes.
Johnny rested with his elbows propped on his knees, his hands loosely clasped, looking down at Gus from two rows up. “I’m okay, sir,” he answered quietly.
“Ah, call me Gus.” Gus waved a hand in the air, shooing away the deferential “sir.”
Johnny nodded his head, but didn’t comment further. Gus looked at Maggie questioningly, and Maggie dove in.
“Remember what you told me about your grandmother, Gus?”
Gus nodded, his gaze sharpening immediately.
“It happened, Gus. I fell asleep in Irene’s room last night. Irene had been digging through some of her old things and I was wearing her prom dress when I fell asleep. When I woke up, I was still in Irene’s room, wearing the same dress, but it was 1958. We’d been talking about the prom when we’d fallen asleep, about....Johnny and....regrets.” Maggie didn’t want to air Irene’s personal sorrow so she tiptoed through her explanation, still wanting to give Gus enough information to understand what might have triggered the time travel. “Irene’s room has all of her old things from when she was a girl. Her bed, her furniture, almost all of it is the same, and she has arranged it to look like it used to look too.”
“Last night?” Johnny interrupted, his expression one of shock. “This happened last night?”
Maggie nodded her head, entreating him with her eyes. He just stared at her, trying to make the details fit. “Is that why I woke up this morning and suddenly remembered everything? Because it just happened?”
“What happened, Miss Margaret?” Gus chimed in, clearly a little lost. “When you realized you were somewhere else, what happened?”
“My grandmother, Lizzie, she remembered me, Gus! She remembered me from the time before. She helped me. She’s just a little girl, but she’s funny and smart, and she reminds me a little of ...well, me! I was there for a day and a half, and I saw so many things. I saw Billy Kinross, and I saw Johnny’s mother,” Maggie shot a look at Johnny’s face, gauging his ability to hear what she had to say. His hand shot out and grabbed hers.
“You saw them?” he cried.
“Yes...and I saw Roger and Irene, and so much more!”
“What else, Margaret? How did you get back home?” Gus laid his hand on her leg, pulling her attention back to him.
“I couldn’t talk about the future. Every time I did, I felt like I was being pulled away, like any minute I would be wrenched back to the present. I fought it, and Lizzie seemed to accept what I could tell her.” Maggie proceeded to tell Gus about the prom, about meeting Johnny, spending the evening with him, and then how she had been pulled forward in time once again.
“I didn’t need these.” Maggie pulled her glasses off her nose and looked at them accusingly. “I put them on and it was as if I’d flipped a switch. I called for Johnny, but it was too late. And then I woke up, back in Irene’s bed. Irene was trying to wake me up. It was as if I’d just been dreaming.”
“But it wasn’t a dream,” Johnny added softly. “She was there. I never knew what happened to her. She just disappeared. I spent the next three months wondering where she was.” Johnny opened the scrapbook they’d brought along and showed Gus the picture and the missing persons report.
Gus placed a little pair of wire-rimmed spectacles on his nose and stared at the picture and then carefully read the report Clark Bailey had penned fifty-three years before.
“You say this wasn’t here before?” Gus tapped the plastic covered page.
“No,” Johnny replied swiftly. Maggie nodded in agreement. “I’ve been t
hrough that book over and over. The picture of the two of us wasn’t there either.”
“You goin’ back changed things, Miss Margaret,” Gus spoke carefully, thoughtfully.
“Not enough, Gus. Billy still died, and Johnny still lost everything, and Irene married that jerk...”
“Margaret!” Gus spoke sharply, cutting her off. “You gotta leave well enough alone. You can’t be goin’ in and tryin’ to fix things. You don’t understand the harm you could do!”
Maggie bit her lip, surprised by Gus’s vehemence.
“None of what happened to Johnny or Billy or Irene is your fault. Johnny bein’ here now ain’t got nothin’ to do with you!”
“How is it that Irene remembered a girl who danced with Johnny at the prom...a girl who looked like me...before I ever went back?”
“I dreamed about the prom, about Maggie, right after I met her the first time in the hospital. The dream was so real, down to the smallest details...and it felt like a memory, yet I knew it wasn’t. I remembered the prom, and she wasn’t there,” Johnny broke in, contributing to Maggie’s argument.
“That which has been is now; and that which is to be has already been,” Gus quoted quietly.
Maggie and Johnny stared at him, their eyes wide, not understanding.
“Wh- what?” Maggie stuttered.
“It’s scripture. In Ecclesiastes. See, nobody knows that verse. Everybody quotes the parts about there being a time to be born and a time to die, a time to dance and a time to mourn. But if you keep reading, you’ll find that verse. My grandma used to quote it. I think it helped her understand her ability. And you have the same ability, Miss Margaret. You gotta listen to me, child. Listen good. You’re tryin’ to put everything in a tidy little box and wrap it up tight, but I’m tellin’ you, you have the ability to change lives and alter destinies. I don’t know why or how Johnny is here, but be thankful for it, and don’t go tryin’ to unravel mysteries that can’t be unraveled without unraveling people’s lives.”
“I’m not trying to do anything, Gus! I didn’t try to go back in time. I just did!”
"I don't want to scare you, Miss Margaret, but you gotta understand. My grandma was deathly afraid of slipping into another time. And after that first time, when she'd seen the slaves trying to escape, she felt the layers were especially thin. She said it almost got to the point where she feared sleeping alone or being alone in any place where the history of her family was the strongest. She made my grandpa hold her while she slept, to make sure she didn't slip away."
Johnny and Maggie shared a glance, remembering how she had clung to him in the car, holding onto his hand for dear life.
"My grandma worked in a big old house in Birmingham owned by some rich white folk. Her mother, and her mother's mother had both worked in that house as well, along with various cousins and aunts and uncles going back several generations. That was how she got the job. Originally, our family had been slaves, and after emancipation, we just kept on working for the same family, 'cept we got paid a little. It wasn't really much different than it had been before. After my grandmother had her experience with the dogs and the slave trackers, she said working in that big house became a nightmare. It was as if the floodgates had opened. The blood connection, along with the house that had been standing for more than a century, filled with the history of her family, became like one of them houses of mirrors at the circus. You ever been in one of those? There's a million of you in all different shapes and sizes, and you don't know which one is real - which one is actually you.
"One day my grandma was at work in the big house and she started feelin' poorly. The lady of the house told her to rest herself in the parlor in a big rocking chair. My grandma fell asleep, rocking back and forth in that chair. She woke up to find a young white girl strugglin' to fight off an older man who was makin' improper advances." Gus looked uncomfortable but soldiered on. "My grandma didn't think twice and started poundin' on the man's back, tryin' to pull him off the girl. The man ran from the room, and the girl cried in my grandmother's arms, begging her not tell what she'd seen.
“The girl was dressed in the style popular around the turn of the century, and my grandma realized she had woken up in the same room, but not the same decade. She was afraid, both for herself and the girl. The girl was about eighteen or nineteen and was apparently engaged to be married. The man who had attacked her was the girl’s uncle, and the girl knew it would destroy her mother, embarrass her fiance and his family, and probably cost her her engagement. The girl was more afraid of losing her fiance than she was of her uncle, and she promised my grandma that she would 'be more careful' in the future.
“A black woman, a servant, walked into the room while my grandma was trying to calm the young woman. She apparently worked in the house; my grandma said she was certain it was a young version of her grandmother. Of course the woman who walked in didn't recognize my grandma and demanded her name and who she was, tellin' her to leave at once, puttin' her arm around the young woman, who protested in defense of my grandma. The servant hurried the young lady out of the room, telling my grandma she was sending for the authorities. My grandma got in the rocking chair and pulled her Saint Christopher necklace out, and started rubbing it and rocking in the chair, holdin' my grandfather's face in her mind. She said she came abruptly awake, back where she'd been when she'd fallen asleep, thankfully back in her own time."
"She saved the girl, Gus! How could that be a bad thing?" Maggie interrupted.
Gus looked at her for a long moment, his eyes grave. "My grandma was shaken up and didn't want to be alone. She wanted to go home and went lookin' for her employer." Gus reached for his hat and pulled it off his head, rubbing the brim and twisting it between his long fingers. Maggie didn't like the way he'd paused in the story, as if trying to find the courage to continue.
"What's wrong Gus?" Johnny asked softly. "What aren't you saying?"
"When she found the lady of the house....she didn't recognize her," Gus whispered. "Her voice was almost the same, but the woman was tall where her previous employer had been short - her hair dark where the lady of the house had been blonde."
"I don't understand. What changed?" Johnny questioned.
"Was the house owned by a new family? Did that event cause some kind of rift that changed the history of the house?" Maggie asked.
"Nope. The woman had the same name," Gus answered. "She was married to the same man. Nothing had changed but her appearance."
Maggie and Johnny stared at him, dumbfounded.
"The woman had a different father," Gus said flatly.
"The girl your grandma helped didn't marry her fiance after all?" Maggie guessed.
"No..that ain't it," Gus retorted. "She married him and she had a daughter...the lady of the house was her daughter."
"Your grandmother prevented a rape that resulted in the girl becoming pregnant by her uncle." Johnny's face was grim as he supplied the correct answer. He looked at Maggie and then back at Gus. Gus nodded, and Maggie breathed a whispered exclamation. The three of them sat in contemplative silence.
"But Gus...your grandma helped the girl," Maggie repeated, insistent.
"Yes she did, Miss Margaret - and in that moment she altered circumstances dramatically enough to make one woman completely disappear and another take her place. Do you understand what I'm tellin' you?"
Johnny reached out and touched Maggie’s hand again, almost as if he was suddenly afraid to lose her. Maggie clasped his fingers and wrapped her hand around his.
"You might have the very best of intentions, Miss Margaret, but this is life we're talkin' about, and you can't play with it. What was and what is can be changed in an instant. Sometimes people's memories are a little slow in keepin' up. All those things you don’t understand? That’s just time changing its mind, like I told ya. Time is shifty...like those fun house mirrors, but it ain’t a game, girl. It’s for real. "
***
Johnny helped Maggie with her jani
torial duties that day, and it was almost like the old days when he was invisible to everyone but her, the imaginary friend only she could see. She told him how he had been able to accomplish things that took her hours, simply by wishing it so. He just shook his head in amazement and tried to make the floor clean itself, only to have the floppy mop fall to the floor in a wet heap.
“So Purgatory had its advantages,” he sighed, and Maggie laughed at his glum expression.
“It did - but I don’t think you’d go back - not for all the power in the universe. You were like a genie in a bottle - completely trapped.”
“Would you have me go back?” he queried softly.
“To Purgatory?” she squeaked, incredulous.
“Yeah. I get the feeling you’re in love with the ghost, and the real guy is a bit of a disappointment.”
Maggie stared at him and then looked away guiltily. She mopped silently for a moment, trying to put her thoughts in order before she spoke them.
“No. I wouldn’t. But I....miss you. I miss the Johnny that read to me and made me laugh and thought I was....something special. I miss your affection and your touch. I miss being able to touch you in return, to dance when I know you’re watching. I miss my friend.”
Johnny felt her yearning, and it echoed painfully in his chest. He had tasted what loving her could be like. He’d only had the one perfect night under the stars, with her in his arms, but it had given him a glimpse of the love affair that was possible, and it had been enough to keep him looking for her when he thought she had run out on him.
Maggie tried to smile at him, a wobbly turn of her pink mouth, but he could see her unhappiness. “I miss you, Johnny. But I’ve lost a lot in my life, and I will survive losing you too if it comes in exchange for your happiness or your freedom. But I really hope...” she broke off then and stared at her Converse sneakers. “I really hope I don’t have to,” she finished in a rush, and her cheeks flushed, spreading the stain down her slim neck and into the V of her pink tee shirt.
