Full Circle in Time
The steady patter of rain against the archive’s windows has been my only companion for hours. As slowly as the rain has subsided, I’ve managed to pack another two hundred books in boxes small enough that either Spencer or I can hoist them into the truck when he returns from Birmingham. The urgency of our task weighs on me; we’re racing against time to preserve these precious texts before disaster strikes. I don’t know yet when or where the next load will go, and it’s times like these when I miss the twenty-first century with its fast technology and overnight mail.
And the internet. God, I miss the internet.
I’m hopeful the next load can go by train to a safehouse in Virginia where Spencer says it’ll stay securely beyond the reach of the tidal wave that will destroy most of the southeastern states in the future that Veronica and Spencer both have seen. Spencer may remember the future, but at his age, his memory is faltering, and that means he’s more unsure every day that he recalls correctly.
Reaching for one of our greatest prizes, a medieval artifact known as The Key of Hell and Death, I pause. This ancient grimoire, rumored to hold the power to both destroy the living and raise the dead, is too valuable to risk packing carelessly. I think better of it and decide to rest instead. I’m exhausted, and every hour is an exercise in balancing the urgency of my task with my body’s demands. My chest has been tight for the last month.
Not from stress. It feels more like a repeat of the days before my first heart attack, and I knew I had little time left, even before my younger self showed up to start the countdown to the end of this lifetime.
I’ve been careful to take regular breaks today and stay as upright as I can with my head above my body so that I don’t lose my equilibrium. I can’t afford to lose a day to a bad bout of vertigo.
The tome at my fingertips yields a hundred recipes for death and only one to resurrect the dead into a new body, but I don’t want to be called back. Not without Spencer. I can’t hope for a better incarnation than we’ve had in this life. Nor do I want to start over in a new incarnation and search to find my love in some new body I don’t recognize. I don’t want to come back. I just want to finish this mission with my beautiful husband.
I wipe my hands on my work apron, leaving smudges of dust. The sudden roar of an engine and the squelch of tires on mud shatter the silence. I frown, glancing out the window to see a big Cadillac with suitcases on top pulling up, spewing mud from the road. The engine shuts off, and car doors slam.
My pulse quickens.
Who could be visiting in this weather?
It’s not uncommon for researchers and visitors to arrive at odd hours, but the storm and muddy roads should have kept everyone away today.
Have I been careless with what I’ve left unpacked?
The weight of our mission—to safeguard these texts for future generations—suddenly feels heavier than ever.
Still, I can’t shake the feeling that something is different about these particular arrivals. There is a sense of urgency, of purpose, emanating from the car. I’m not an empath, but I recognize an energy I can feel all the way through the archive walls. Maybe it’s that the veil between this life and my exit has thinned enough that I’m more sensitive to the energetic signatures of people I’ve not seen in years.
Finally, I give in to my curiosity and peek out the window once more. My heart skips a beat when I see a familiar face among the group of people gathering under the awning outside the front door.
Breathing in to a count of four and out to a count of four, I try to calm the flutter in my chest. I close the secret room where I’ve been working, making sure everything is secure before wiping my hands on my apron again.
As I open the door, the sight that greets me almost knocks the breath from my lungs. Standing just outside is Mr. Casey, his little Ronan, and his two daughters. The last time I saw Ronan, he was ten years old, but here, he can’t be over four, and wearing a cowboy hat and cowboy boots in smaller sizes than before. His half-sisters are older, but not grown. I recognize them from photos Mr. Casey showed me of them after they had moved away.
And Mr. Casey! I can barely maintain my composure. My eyes fill with tears that I blink away but not quickly enough.
“Ma’am? Are you all right?” He bursts through the door and catches me before I hit the floor. Steadying me, he helps me to the wing chair just inside the door.
It’s funny seeing him this way. Young. Usually when you see someone you haven’t seen in a long time, you notice the extra lines around their eyes or grayer hair, but not with Mr. Casey. He’s younger now, maybe early forties. No graying hair. No glasses yet. No lines on his face. He still has a full head of hair and a thick mustache that almost meets his sideburns. Tan bell-bottoms, paisley shirt, wide belt with an oversized buckle, worn sandals. The last time I saw him, I’d been twenty and he’d been fifty, and just. . .ungodly old in my mind. Now here he is at least twenty years younger than this body of mine, and at last I can understand why he was so popular with all the women in town when I lived next door.
I catch my breath as one girl closes the archive door behind her and the other girl rushes to catch Ronan before he wanders into a side room. Ingrid, the older sister, moves with a quiet grace that belies her youthful appearance. Grace, true to her name, has a dancer’s poise despite her casual attire. I bump my fist against my chest and nod, but the man doesn’t look reassured.
“Yes, yes, thank you.” I inhale deeply and steady myself. “Thank you again, Mr.—”
“Casey,” he finishes for me, and I’m glad because I almost said his name without thinking.
“Hoyt Casey.”
“Like the ar-kibe!” Ronan shouts it over his shoulder before he looks around with wide-eyed curiosity for the reflection of his tiny voice. “Ar-kibe!” he says even more loudly, and then laughs at the echo. “Wow, look at all the books, Papa! This place is neato!” A split second later, he dashes between two stacks of family histories and a row of bound census reports. One girl races after him.
“Ronan,” Mr. Casey calls after him, “mind your sister and use your inside voice.”
“He’s fine,” I assure him. I mean it. Nothing in the genealogy room has any real value. All this will be gone soon enough. And I’ve missed Ronan’s squeaky voice. “Sorry about almost fainting in your arms, Mr. Casey—”
“Please, call me Hoyt.”
I ignore his request. There’s no way I can make myself call him anything so familiar when he was always Mr. Casey, to me.
“Sorry about almost fainting, but I just realized I worked right through lunch today.”
“Oh! Can I get you something? Crackers? Juice? Is there a kitchen?”
“No, no. I’ll be fine. I just need to sit for a bit, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all, ma’am. I hope we’re not intruding. We were passing through and thought we’d stop by, seeing as the archive shares our name.”
Of course it does, I want to say but don’t. I named it for him. I never got to tell him how much he meant to me or how he was the father I never had or how grateful I was that he watched out for me when I was a teenaged mom with a newborn, no husband, and no obvious source of income in a nice house in the Country Club estates. I’d moved in amid all the small-town gossip with Siobhan and Spencer’s baby, doomed to be a babysitter for the High Priestess’ granddaughter for as long as the old woman needed me and discarded when she didn’t. This man was my lifeline for three years, my closest and only friend. I know who he is and everything about him, but he hasn’t met me yet and won’t for another few years.
“We’ve seen the T.Y.M. Casey Archive sign on previous trips through here,” he continues, “taking the girls to college in Baton Rouge and back. My son went with me to pick up Ingrid and Grace for this semester’s end, and I promised them we’d stop by on the way back home to see this place. What can you tell me about the founder? We’re really curious.”
Ingrid and Grace, dressed in jeans and with long hair parted in the middle, exchange amused glances as I realize they’ve found a book on penis worship, complete with sketches. I’d accidentally left the book on a work table because it’s not of any real value to the Daeganean priesthood and not worth the space if our shipments are limited. Ingrid, barefoot, nudges the other girl playfully. They’ve completely forgotten about their brother.
“Dad, I told you this place would be cool,” Ingrid teases. Her smile is bright, but she knows her father doesn’t realize she’s not gawking at a volume of nineteenth century census documents.
“We should’ve brought Linda. She’d hate it here.” Grace laughs, her flip-flops clacking against the wooden floor as she moves.
“Girls, let’s be respectful,” Mr. Casey admonishes gently.
They both answer, “Yes, sir,” unlike Siobhan yesterday.
I never met the Casey sisters—they moved away long before Veronica and I moved to our middle-of-nowhere hiding spot in small-town Alabama—but I do know they detested their stepmother, who apparently has stayed home for this trip. Linda wasn’t a bad person but she’d been considerably younger than her husband and jealous of any woman he said hello to, especially the suspicious new mom next door.
He’s a good father. Always was. And I love him like the father he was to me.
“Actually, Mr. Casey, to answer your question: my husband and I founded this genealogy archive over a decade ago. We named it for someone very special to me. My. . .my foster father. His name was Casey.”
“Was?”
My throat makes a clicking noise that keeps me from speaking. I swallow. “Yes. Was. He died a long time ago. From what I’m told, he lived a full and happy life, and left behind a dozen grandchildren to miss him as much as I do.”
I lapse into silence, once again missing the advantages of internet research. Before Spencer and I had retired to 1960, I’d occasionally cyber-stalked Mr. Casey’s progeny to study photos of their weddings and birthday parties and smile to myself about how much they looked like him. I’d been careful never to contact them or blow my cover so that the priesthood would find us.
Or them.
“Ah,” Mr. Casey says. “Does his family ever stop in to admire what you’ve done here?” He lifts his gaze to the columns of books and smiles to himself.
I nod as I look at him, drinking in the sight of him again. “Once,” I answer.
I don’t think I ever knew how much I’ve missed Mr. Casey. I want to throw my arms around him, but I know better. Why didn’t Spencer tell me Hoyt Casey came to the archive? Didn’t Spencer know? Did I not tell him? Did Spencer forget?
“Well, I’m sure they appreciate what you’ve done in his honor.” He squints out the window at a single ray of sunshine. “Looks like the rain has let up for good, so I’d best be heading back home. I’ve got another hour or two’s drive. Say, maybe on a future trip through here when I don’t have the kids with me, I can look up our family tree, if you have it.” “You might find more than you expected,” I tell him.
Somewhere in the stacks is a family bible belonging to his great-aunt, its end pages footnoted with births and marriages. I’d located it in 1962 and set it aside, somewhere, even if I never expected him to show up. I’d felt close to him, having it here in the building. I’ll have to find it, and that won’t be an easy job, given the current messy state of both the archive and my brain. I have so much to do, but if I have the chance to see him again before I die, I’ll take it any way I can get it.
“Maybe, Mr. Casey, if you’ll come back in the next two weeks, I’ll locate your family history and have it ready for you.”
“Two weeks?” He looks confused.
“Yes. We’re retiring—permanently—in about two weeks. But if I find it, I can mail it to you. If you’ll give me your address.”
“Sure, sure.” He fishes his wallet from his back pocket. “Congratulations on the retirement, but I’m sad you’re closing down. I guess that explains all the boxes and packing materials.” Nodding at the rows of taped-up boxes near the door and the empty ones scattered around the main room, he hands me his business card. “Here you go. My phone number is on there, too.”
The formal design and heavy cardstock reek of success. It’s the italicized words under his name that pull my attention into sharp focus: Attorney-at-Law.
“You’re a lawyer.” I hadn’t forgotten, but I have an idea.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I glance at the hidden door to the secret room where I’ve been working all day. He follows my gaze, his expression open, curious.
“Come with me, Mr. Casey. I want to show you something.”
As I lead him towards the hidden room, an anxious mix of emotions swirls within me. This man, who will one day become like a father to me, stands before me now, unaware of the role he’ll play in my life. The burden of our impending conversation settles on my shoulders. The next few minutes will change everything—for both Hoyt Casey and my younger self.
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