“I’m Sam,” he said, shaking her hand, holding it for too long.
She smiled wider.
“I know,” she said.
Sam was baffled. How could she possibly know? Had he met her before? He couldn’t remember.
“I was sent for you,” she added.
She suddenly turned and began heading down a forest trail.
Sam hurried to catch up to her, presuming she meant for him to follow. Not looking carefully were he was going, he was embarrassed to find himself trip over a branch; he heard her giggling as he did.
“So?” he prodded. “Aren’t you going to tell me your name?”
She giggled again.
“Well, I have a formal name, but I rarely go by it,” she said.
Then she turned and faced him, waiting for him to catch up.
“If you must know, everyone calls me Polly.”
Chapter Four
Caleb held open the huge, medieval door, and as he did, Caitlin stepped out of the abbey and took her first steps out into the early morning light. Caleb at her side, she looked out at the breaking dawn. Here, high atop the hill of Montmartre, she was able to look out and see all of Paris stretched before her. It was a beautiful, sprawling city, a mixture of classical architecture and simple houses, of cobblestone streets and dirt roads, of trees and urbanity. The sky blended in a million soft colors, making the city look alive. It was magical.
Even more magical was the hand that she felt slip into hers. She looked over and saw Caleb standing by her side, enjoying the view with her, and she could hardly believe it was real. She could hardly believe it was really him, that they were really here. Together. That he knew who she was. That he remembered her. That he’d found her.
She wondered again if she had truly awakened from a dream, if she were not still sleeping.
But as she stood there, and squeezed his hand tighter, she knew that she was truly awake. She had never felt so overjoyed. She had been running for so long, had come back in time, all these centuries, all this way, just to be with him. Just to make sure he was alive again. When he hadn’t remembered her, in Italy, it had crushed her to the depths.
But now that he was here, and alive, and remembered her – and now that he was all hers, single, without Sera around – her heart swelled with new emotion, and with new hope. She had never in her wildest dreams imagined that it could all work out so perfectly, that it could all actually really work. She was so overwhelmed, she didn’t even know where to begin, or what to say.
Before she could speak, he began.
“Paris,” he said, turning to her with a smile. “There are certainly worse places we could be together.”
She smiled back.
“My whole life long, I’d always wanted to see it,” she answered.
With someone I love, she wanted to add, but stopped herself. It felt like it had been so long since she’d been by Caleb’s side, she actually found herself feeling nervous again. In some ways, it felt like she had been with him forever – longer than forever – but in other ways, it felt like she was meeting him again for the first time.
He reached out his hand, palm up.
“Would you see it with me?” he asked.
She reached out and placed her hand into his.
“It’s a long walk back down,” she said, looking down at the steep hill, leading all the way down, for miles, and sloping into Paris.
“I was thinking of something a bit more scenic,” he answered. “Flying.”
She rolled back her shoulder blades, trying to feel if her wings were working. She felt so rejuvenated, so restored from that drink, from the white blood – but she still wasn’t sure she was able to fly. And she didn’t feel ready to leap off a mountain in the hope that her wings would take.
“I don’t think I’m ready yet,” she said.
He looked at her, and understood.
“Fly with me,” he said, then added, with a smile, “just like the old days.”
She smiled, came up behind him, and held onto his back and shoulders. His muscular body felt so good in her arms.
He suddenly leapt into the air, so fast, that she barely had time to hang on tight.
Before she knew it, they were flying, she holding onto his back, looking down, resting her head on his shoulder blade. She felt that familiar thrill in her stomach, as they plummeted, coming down low, close to the city, in the sunrise. It was breathtaking.
But none of it was as breathtaking as her being in his arms again, holding him, just being together. She had barely been with him an hour, and already she was praying that they would never be apart again.
The Paris that they flew over, the Paris of 1789, was in so many ways similar to the pictures of Paris she’d seen in the 21st century. She recognized so many of the buildings, the churches, the steeples, the monuments. Despite its being hundreds of years old, it looked almost exactly like the same city of the 21st century. Like Venice and Florence, so little had changed in just a few hundred years.
But in other ways, it was very different. It was not nearly as built up. Although some roads were paved with cobblestone, still others were dirt. It was not nearly as condensed, and in between buildings there were still clumps of trees, almost like a city built into an encroaching forest. Instead of cars, there were horses, carriages, people walking in the dirt, or pushing carts. Everything was slower, more relaxed.
Caleb dove lower, until they were flying feet above the tops of the buildings. As they cleared the last of them, suddenly, the sky opened, and spread out before them was the Seine River, cutting right through the middle of the city. It glowed yellow in the early morning light, and it took her breath away.
Caleb dove low, flying above it, and she marveled at the beauty of the city, at how romantic it was. They flew over the small island, the Ile de la Cite, and she recognized the Notre Dame beneath her, its huge steeple soaring above everything else.
Caleb dove even lower, just above the water, and the moist river air cooled them on this hot July morning. Caitlin looked out and saw Paris on both sides of the river, as they flew above and below the numerous, small arched foot bridges connecting one side of the river to the other. Then Caleb lifted them up, and over to one side of the river bank, setting them down softly, behind a large tree, out of sight of any passersby.
She looked around and saw that he had brought them to an enormous, formal park and garden, which seemed to stretch for miles, right alongside the river.
“The Tuileries,” Caleb said. “The very same garden of the 21st century. Nothing has changed. It’s still the most romantic place in Paris.”
With a smile, he reached out and took her hand. They began strolling together, down a path which wound its way through the garden. She had never felt so happy.
There were so many questions she was burning to ask him, so many things that she was dying to say to him, she hardly knew where to begin. But she had to start somewhere, so she figured she’d just start with what was most recently on her mind.
“Thank you,” she said, “for Rome. For the Colosseum. For saving me,” she said. “If you hadn’t had arrived when you did, I don’t know what would have happened.”
She turned and looked at him, suddenly unsure. “Do you remember?” she asked worriedly.
He turned and looked at her, and nodded, and she saw that he did. She was relieved. At least, finally, they were on the same page. Their memories were back. That alone meant the world to her.
“But I didn’t save you,” he said. “You handled yourself quite well without me. On the contrary, you saved me. Just being with