Across the Winds of Time (2 page)

I gave myself a quick shake. Must have been my imagination. Turning back to the valley, I checked my watch, fearing it was growing late. 5 p.m.

I sighed, reluctantly accepting that Sara and I should leave soon. We had a 45-minute drive back to our hotel in Council Bluffs, and the day had been long. But I didn’t want to go. I had the oddest desire to linger at the cemetery. I supposed it was that sense of connection I still felt. For the first time on our “cemetery hopping” journey in search of ancestors, I felt a kinship to a place, though it bore no resemblance to the familiar cloudy skies and wet forests of my home in the Evergreen State of Washington.

I relaxed again and beamed as I surveyed the cemetery and listened to the rustling leaves of the trees. The unexplained peace and contentment continued to keep me company in this new bond I had formed with the Midwest—here in this cemetery, where it seemed likely no single relative of mine actually even resided for all eternity.

The wind continued to whip around me, pushing the hair from my face. There was no sense trying to drag my bangs back down over my impossibly high forehead. I’d given up the day before when I first encountered the incessant winds of the prairies bordering the Missouri River of Iowa and Nebraska.

“I have missed you so much, Molly.”

I jerked my head around again.

“Sara?”

But Sara had moved off even further, lost in her explorations. I cocked my head to the left to hear better. I could have sworn it was a man’s voice. Was it a trick of the wind? A sigh from one of the grand old oak trees protecting the cemetery from the winds?

“Is someone there?” I whispered. I truly hoped no one was. There was no answer...thankfully.

I gave myself a shake and dropped my gaze to scan the surrounding stones, one bright white stone catching my eye for an instant before I allowed my gaze to move on.

“Please come back to me, Molly.” The poignant sadness in the deep voice took my breath away. I swung around, scanning the surrounding area in a 360 degree panorama. My pulse pounded against my throat, and I raised a hand to my neck as if to soothe it.

“This is ridiculous,” I squeaked as I crushed my arms across my chest and turned to hurry toward Sara. It was definitely time to leave the cemetery if I had begun to hear things. I didn’t believe in ghosts, and I wasn’t about to start now...here in the cemetery. We were only on day three of our “ancestor hunting” trip, and we still had several more cemeteries to visit in the coming days. Hearing voices in the graveyards could certainly become an impediment to the rest of the trip. Especially if those voices seemed to know my name.

I thought I heard the elusive sound one more time as I scurried along the graveled path toward the other side of the cemetery...and the sanctuary of Sara. I quickened my step. The wind at my back helped propel me forward, and I reached my sister’s side in minimal time, albeit slightly out of breath.

“Did you find something?” Sara straightened from an examination of a tombstone and looked up at me with vivid blue eyes...so like our mother’s.

I threw an embarrassingly furtive glance over my shoulder before replying with a shake of my head. I hesitated telling Sara about hearing a voice, certain she would think my imagination was in overdrive...as usual. It would be just like me to be the only person around hearing voices. And if word got back to my parents, they would chuckle and say, “That Molly! You never know what she’s going to come up with.” They would exchange knowing looks. “Molly! Such a vivid imagination, you can’t take her too seriously.”

“No, nothing,” I replied. “I don’t see any familiar names on the tombstones. This was a long shot, but I’m glad we stopped by.” I gestured expansively, though I noticed my hands shook a bit. “What a beautiful cemetery!”

Sara rested her hands on slim blue-jeaned hips and surveyed the grounds.

“It is beautiful, isn’t it? And you thought for sure some long lost relative would be here when we drove by. I’m sorry we couldn’t find anyone.”

Now that I was within the sphere of my practical, no-nonsense sister and out of the spell of the captivating wind, I felt a sudden urge to leave as soon as possible. I linked my arm in Sara’s and pulled her toward the dark green rental car parked just inside the entrance of the cemetery as I chattered inconsequentially.

“I’d say I’m sorry I dragged us on a wild goose chase to this cemetery, except that I really like it. I don’t know why I wanted to come in here. I thought we might find some relatives buried here, that’s all. Just a weird feeling, you know? I can’t really explain it.”

And if I kept talking, I wouldn’t hear the voice again, would I?

“Well, some of the stones are so old, I can’t even read them. The lettering has worn away,” Sara said as she allowed me to pull her along without complaint.

“Yeah, I noticed that over there as well.” I nodded in the direction of the top of the hill. “The wind blows so steadily, it must have done some damage over the years. For all we know, we might have a whole family of ancestors buried here.”

“Let’s call the town clerk tomorrow and see if they have a listing of the names of people who are interred here,” Sara said with renewed enthusiasm. “If we don’t recognize any names, we’ll move on to the cemetery in Council Bluffs. At least we know our great-great-grandparents on the Hamilton side are there.”

Sara hopped in the driver’s seat while I pulled open the door on the passenger side. I didn’t hold out much hope that we’d have luck with the town clerk, and I felt a bit guilty allowing Sara to expend energy pursuing any further links to Lilium. But Sara was in her element. The practical sister...the one who made phone calls to town clerks during office hours to eliminate wasted time. I, on the other hand, was the dreamer...the impractical sister...who’d rather just stumble into a cemetery and search for ancestors by “intuition” or a “feeling.” Sara had been more than patient with my half-baked way of finding ancestors.

“Gee, Sara, I really don’t think we have anyone here,” I sighed. I was aware of an irrational desire to have a relative buried in the cemetery on the hilltop. I saw myself popping in to visit my dear ancestor on occasion, blithely ignoring the fact that I lived 2000 miles away in Seattle. But there was no way Sara could understand my whimsy...at least I didn’t think so. I turned to give Sara my best “I’m over this fad” smile. Hopefully, though, my dear relative wouldn’t decide she...or he...had to actually talk to me.

Sara eyed me quizzically for a moment and nodded before she turned the ignition key.

“Well, we’ll call anyway,” she said with a knowing smile. I hadn’t fooled her. She knew I was drawn to the cemetery. “It can’t hurt...just in case.”

Anxious to leave and yet reluctant to do so, I turned to take one last look at the top of the hill. Inexplicable longing brought a sudden, sharp ache to my chest, and I couldn’t breathe for a moment.

The late afternoon sun crowned the hill with a blaze of fiery gold. A distinctively white stone gleamed and basked under the light—maybe the same stone I had noticed earlier. I couldn’t remember if I’d looked at the marker closely to see the name. I put my hand to my chest as if to soothe the sharp pain, but the ache seemed too deeply embedded to touch. I swallowed hard, fighting against a profound and overwhelming sense of loss as we drove away.

****

That night, I tossed and turned in bed. The hotel sported large comfortable queen-size mattresses, so I knew my restlessness wasn’t the discomfort of strange sleeping accommodations. In fact, the bed was much more comfortable than my plain no-frills mattress at home.

A man’s face drifted in and out of my dreams. I couldn’t really remember the substance of the dreams...something about the cemetery in Lilium...the wind...the bright white stone. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t remember how. Surprisingly, the image was in black and white. Did I always dream in black and white? I hadn’t noticed before.

He kneeled before a tombstone, his head bent as he rested one tanned sturdy hand along the top of the stone. The white stone?

“Molly,” he whispered. “Please come back to me.”

He raised his head and kissed the tips of his fingers before transferring his hand to the stone. Finally, I could see his face.

His face was long and angular with light-colored eyes under heavy, sensuous lids. His jaw line seemed to be carved out of stone, ending in a distinctively masculine chin. A full, well-groomed mustache draped over his upper lip and ran down past the corners of his mouth in an old-fashioned style. His thick hair appeared to be light brown with a soft wave that swept away from a side part and settled just over both ears with a slight lift at the ends. I could just see where it settled on the bottom edge of his stiff high-collared white shirt. Long sideburns framed his face, again in the style of another time. I couldn’t make out the color of his eyes, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Were they blue? Green?

He turned as if he saw me and sprang to his feet. His wide smile welcomed me as he opened his arms. I melted against him and he folded me in a loving embrace.

I opened my eyes in the dark. The room was quiet. Sara wasn’t a snorer, thank goodness. A faint light from the bottom edge of the closed bathroom door kept the room from total blackness. I’d left the bathroom light on as a nightlight in a strange place to avoid stubbing my toe should I need to get up in the night.

That bittersweet moment came upon me in the semi-dark room...that moment when we realize our handsome lover existed only in a dream. I sighed in the dark.

Why did this man’s face seem so familiar? Had I watched some historical movie recently with a Rhett Butler-type character? The man in my dreams looked as if he stepped straight out of the nineteenth century. If his unexpectedly handsome sideburns and mustache weren’t enough of a clue, the thin satin string tie around the squared color of his white shirt certainly screamed, “I don’t own a flannel shirt.”

I turned on my side toward the wall, closing my eyes once again and willing myself to return to my dream at the exact spot where I left off. I had no idea what my handsome man was doing in the dream, but I wanted to see him again and delight in the twinkle of his eyes as he looked at me.

****

I awakened in the morning, unaware of any further visitations from my handsome historical man, but I felt energized and determined to return to the cemetery I’d visited the day before in the little town of Lilium, though I had no plan and no coherent thought other than a sense of something left behind. I wasn’t sure I had explored the cemetery as thoroughly as I should. The bright morning erased my anxiety of the day before. The memory of the voice in the cemetery seemed distant...and rather absurd. It seemed likely that what I’d heard was the wind whistling in the trees. And it was the memory of that wind that drew me back to the cemetery again...that and a nagging sense that I’d missed something. I just didn’t know what. But I had a nagging suspicion that if I didn’t go back, I would always wonder what I had missed.

“Sara...” I paused in the act of brushing my shoulder-length ash brown hair in front of the dresser mirror. I watched Sara in the mirror as she looked up from the phone where she was apparently on hold with the Lilium town clerk’s office.

“Hmmm?” she said.

“No matter what they say at the clerk’s office, I’m going back to that cemetery today.” My gaze flickered away from her and back to my reflection where I watched my face redden. I brushed a few curls over my cheeks to cover my heightened color. I honestly couldn’t justify returning to the cemetery, and I didn’t want to try. I just wanted to go back.

Sara narrowed her eyes but was interrupted by the return of the town clerk. I watched her in the mirror.

“No Peters then? How about Hamiltons? No? Okay then, thank you very much for your time.”

Sara closed the phone and leaned back against the headboard of her neatly made bed, eyeing me with a crease between her dainty dark eyebrows.

“Well, that’s it then. There’s no one in the Lilium Cemetery that we’re related to. You don’t still want to return, do you? It’s almost an hour drive from here...in the wrong direction. We need to hit the old cemetery here in Council Bluffs today.” She looked down at the silver watch on her slim wrist. “If we’re going to stay on schedule.”

I chewed my lower lip and turned slowly, moving over to sit on the edge of my bed. I lowered my gaze to the hairbrush that I twisted in my hand.

“I do need to go back. I’m not sure why, but I need to.”

“Well, that’s just weird, Sis.”

I looked up to catch Sara watching me with narrowed eyes and a twitch at the corner of her lips. I could hear her thoughts now. “That Molly, always marching to the beat of a different drummer.” She and our mother might look at each other. “You try talking some sense into her. I can’t,” Mother would say. Ultimately though, Sara was much more tolerant of my flighty ways than my parents. She’d come to my defense more than once when my head had been “in the clouds.”

“What do you hope to find there?” Sara asked with a lift of her right eyebrow.

“I don’t know.” I shrugged helplessly. “Maybe a connection we missed. Something. I just have a feeling about the place.” I grinned at my foolishness and stood to return the hairbrush to my cosmetics bag. “Maybe I just like the wind.”

“I did notice how windy it was out there. I can’t imagine how those old oak trees managed to get a foothold on that hill back in the day.”

I stood up and faced the mirror once again, running some lipstick across my lips for a bit of color on my fairly pale face. Coffee-colored brown eyes, thanks to my father’s genes, stared back at me.

“Someone must have planted them,” I ventured as I closed my lipstick and returned it to the cosmetics bag. I’d wondered that myself the day before. I turned away from the mirror and faced Sara once again.

“So, what do you think? Are you coming with me?” I asked, hoping she would say no. I was conflicted about Sara’s presence at the cemetery. I had a compelling desire to return there alone, so I wouldn’t have to explain what...or who...or what I was looking for.