she was in the coffee shop. Another: a girl, around my age or younger, leaning against a tree, her skirt billowing back against her knees, her arms crossed. She doesn’t know she’s being photographed. Her feet are bare and her hair long and straight. She looks like a fairytale princess. She is small and delicate.
I think it is my sister.
Chapter Two
“Where did you take this?” I ask hoarsely. I feel as though my world has tipped sideways and I am dizzy and nauseous.
He peers over his coffee cup at the photograph of the girl I feel certain is my sister, Rose. “At the river,” he says. “It was during the fair last weekend. Know her?”
Suddenly I feel ridiculous. Of course I don’t know her. Of course it isn’t Rose. How many times have I thought I’ve seen her, been certain I’ve spotted her? I do the same with my mother. Any woman with yellow hair and light eyes really. That quickening of my heart and breath, that butterfly feeling in my stomach, and then they turn and I see they are nothing like my family at all. I feel foolish and desperate. And yet, she is so very much the way I imagine Rose to look.
I clear my throat. “No, no I don’t know her. She looked familiar though for a minute, that’s all.”
“Well, I didn’t catch her name, but she’s a beauty and the camera loves her. Got a couple shots of her in the crowd as well. Do you have any muffins left?”
“Hmm?” I say distractedly. “Oh, sure. They’re day old though, still want one? I’ll charge you half price.”
The photographer eats his muffin, drinks his coffee. We listen to Penny’s poetry – he’s right, there was mention of a goat. When he leaves I clear his plate and find his business card, Luke Dawes, Photography. I pocket it in my apron to show Prue and since he leaves a nice tip, I decide to vouch for his character so that maybe she’ll let him photograph her.
I’m home late that night as I always am on weekend nights. The shop stays open late and I’m the only one who can close it because I’m the only one trusted enough to do the changing out of the cash register and balance the books. Israel comes to collect me, as he always does, and we walk home together through the night, since his car is low on fuel and the night is warm.
Israel is a good man to walk with; he’s not talkative and we fall into an easy rhythm. He has been with our group since we came here – no, since just before I suppose. We met him in our time before this one, which was Portugal in the 1850s. I have traveled thirteen times in my life, and lived in four different centuries. There is no rhyme or reason to how long we stay, no pattern, no way of anticipating how long our times will be before we move on unwittingly. Portugal was short. My time here now has been two years, longer than most. I do not get attached. I have all that I need, or fiercely say that I do. My father is irritating and difficult, but he’s mine. Prue is as well. The others have been with me long enough to love them dearly but they will most likely not be with the three of us forever. At some point someone will distance themselves and we won’t make a jump through time together, but we will meet up with others. Sometimes you are lucky enough to find someone from your past again, but it’s rare. Once we met my uncle, my dad’s brother, who has always been a wanderer and a loner. I hadn’t seen him – well, no one had – since he had wandered away from us when I was ten, but we somehow made a passing together anyway and ended up in Portugal together. He seemed happy enough to see us and we all made plans to stay together this time, but no one was completely surprised when he wasn’t around the night we all traveled again and woke without him. Every so often the loneliness is more than you can bear; but it’s easier for some to be the one to force it upon themselves than to be the one who is left behind. I wonder if Luke is like that, and then I remember no, he is not Lost,