Across the Winds of Time by Bess McBride

Night had fallen, and the wind had picked up outside, blowing gently through the old window screen and filling the room with a cool breeze—just cool enough for a good night’s sleep, I hoped. The absence of curtains did not bother me unduly as I suspected no one would be able to see me from any particular vantage point—unless they drove up to the cemetery and used binoculars! With that ludicrous image in mind, I grinned, wished them well if they wished to exert such effort, and pushed myself off the bed to head for the bathroom. I’d prevailed upon the inspector to have a water heater put in over the two week period that I’d been gone, and I was anxious to see if it worked. He assured me it had. There were still many, many renovations needed to the house, including replacing many of the pipes.
    I grabbed a towel out of one of the unpacked boxes in the bathroom and picked out soap, shampoo and conditioner from my traveling kit. A twist of the knobs on the clawfoot tub, kindly loosened by the inspector, sent warm water flowing into the tub with some clanking and a groan or two from the old pipes. I tossed in some bubble bath to celebrate my first bath in my new/old home. As with most things in the house, the chipped and stained tub would require a facelift, and I was happy to undertake that project.
    I wondered at the miracle that Darius had built this house—the house I now owned, though I felt as if I was only borrowing it. He had probably ordered the tub...and hauled it up the stairs, though I couldn’t imagine how. No doubt, he had taken baths in it himself. My face reddened at the thought. I shed my clothes and stepped into the tub, slipping down beneath the bubbles.
    Darius’s clawfoot tub. I closed my eyes for a moment and rested my head against the back of the porcelain. Some candles would have been nice, I mused. I’d have to get some the following day at the store.
    “Be careful you do not fall asleep in there, Molly, my girl.”
    I shrieked at the sound of the male voice behind me and jerked. Slipping further into the tub in a panicked attempt to cover myself, I banged the back of my head on the hard rim.
    “Get out! Get out of here! I have a gun!” I screeched as I ignored the pain in my head and rotated onto my knees below the water line to face my attacker.
    Darius leaned against the bathroom doorsill, his back to me. He glanced over his shoulder for an instant before averting his face. The adrenaline surging through my body barely allowed me to see that his cheeks were reddened. Before I could yell at him, he raised his hands above his shoulders in mock surrender.
    “A gun! Good gravy, Molly! Since when did you own a gun? You hated those things.”
    I crouched below the water and covered whatever body parts I could. A sense of the surreal surrounded me once again. I thought I had imagined him. Was I hallucinating...again?
    “How did you get in here?” I choked out. “Who are you?”
    Darius stole a sideways glance over his shoulder—as if to see that I indeed did not have a gun aimed at him—before turning his face away.
    “It is I, Molly. The same man you met two weeks ago. The same man you loved over a hundred years ago.”
    “You’re nuts!” I spit out. “You’re not here. I’m just imagining things.” My knees were aching, and I shifted awkwardly in the tub to dive under the water again, keeping my neck twisted to watch him. I couldn’t stay in the bathtub all night. I felt so vulnerable—even if this was a hallucination...or a fantasy.
    “So, since you’re not really here, you wouldn’t mind keeping your face turned away, so I can get out of the tub, would you?” My heart pounded, the rhythm matching the pounding in my head from smacking it on the edge of the tub. “Please?” I couldn’t keep the quiver from my voice.
    “Certainly. It is not proper for me to be standing here at any rate. I simply came upstairs to see if you were here, and there you were—in my tub—a