Resting her skis and poles against a tree, Elizabeth walked through the graveyard gate shortly before two o’clock on Sunday, December 14. It had been two weeks since she had made her promise to her mother, and she had missed Steve more than ever during those weeks. Missed him and worried. What would they do? How could they keep on meeting?
She’d lied to her mother today, told her that she was going over to Janice’s house and that the two of them were going skiing on the Jack of Clubs Lake. Her mother was on her way to work, and had smiled happily. “I’m so glad you’re making an effort to find a friend, Elizabeth. Have a good time.”
Elizabeth was unused to lying. She had felt her cheeks redden, but had turned away quickly and hoped her mother hadn’t noticed. No one should find out, she thought. Her mother was going to the restaurant and wouldn’t be likely to phone Janice’s to check up on her. She’d stayed close to home for two Sundays now; her mother probably thought she’d forgotten all about the cemetery and Steve. Sometime this week she’d make a point of going skiing with Janice after school, and maybe even have her over to the trailer for cocoa afterwards. That would please her mother, and ease her own conscience, too.
The weather had warmed up to just below freezing and there hadn’t been much new snow since she had come to the graveyard with the Judge. She could see their tracks quite clearly, and she followed them to the grave. Would the ring work this time? When the Judge had been with her nothing had happened, and she hadn’t tried the time change since then. What if the Judge’s presence had somehow contaminated the ring so that its power to change time was lost?
She sighed and, hoping for the best, turned the ring on her finger. The nausea, the mist, the slight headache — everything happened as it should. Then the mist cleared and she was in the old graveyard, back in 1870, and there was Steve waiting for her.
“Steve, oh, Steve, you’re here, you’re here!” She ran to him and he gathered her into his arms, holding her close to him for a few minutes. Although she hadn’t admitted it to herself she had been worried that her mother and the doctor had been right after all. It wasn’t until she actually saw Steve that she realized that a part of her had been doubting his existence for the past few weeks. “You’re real, you’re solid and you don’t look a bit like my dad.” Reaching up a hand she gently touched his cheek and laughed at his puzzled expression. “Oh, Steve, you don’t know how much I needed to see you!”
“It’s been a long time, Bess, very long. I’ve missed you more than ever.”
“I’ve missed you, too, Steve. And such rotten things have happened that I almost began to think that you weren’t real after all!”
“Not real?” He slipped off his gloves and placed his hands on her cheeks. Tilting her head back, he bent down and gently fastened his lips on hers. “There, my little Bess,” he said at last. “Was that real enough for you, or should we try it again, just to make sure I do exist?” He bent towards her once more, but she laughed and slipped out of his arms.
“Come, let’s clear a spot and sit down. I’ll get the blanket. Oh, Steve, how did you get up here today? Do your parents know you’ve come?”
“No.” He took the small blanket from her and spread it out in a hollow in the snow. “No, Bess. I lied to them. I said I was going to Marysville to borrow a book from Dr. Black. I’ve never lied to my parents before and it was hard to do. But I had to see you . . ..” He broke off, turned his head away and coughed, a deep cough that seemed to shake him apart.
“Steve! You’re sick!”
“A cough, nothing more. It’s been with me for a while now.”
Elizabeth took a good look at him. He was so pale that his freckles stood out across his nose as if they’d been painted there. “You don’t look well. Are you running a fever? Have you taken your temperature!”
“Temperature?” He looked puzzled. “My temperature?”
“Yes. You know, with a thermometer.”
“Thermometers are for telling the temperature of the air. We have a big one in the store.”
“No! I mean the little ones that doctors use. You know, they tell how high your fever is so they can judge how sick you really are.”
“Bess . . ..” Steve sighed, but the end of the sigh turned into another cough. He held his hands to his face until the spasm passed, then said: “I think that’s one of those inventions of the future you promised not to talk about. Dr. Black feels your forehead to see if you are feverish.”
“I’m sorry.” Elizabeth hadn’t forgotten her promise not to talk about the future, but in her worry for Steve she hadn’t stopped to think what she was saying. Besides, she thought that medical thermometers had been around for hundreds of years. “I’m sorry, Steve, but you don’t look well. I was worried and didn’t think before I spoke.”
“The sickness will pass. Now, come and sit beside me and tell me all the rotten things that have happened to you these past weeks. Such things that make you wonder if I am real!”
They sat, nestled into the hollow in the snow, their arms around each other, and Elizabeth told him. She told him how her mother had discovered her diary, of her futile attempt to show the Judge the time change and, finally, of her mother’s ban on visits to the graveyard.
Steve sat and listened, trying to muffle his frequent coughing spells. When she finished her story, his arms tightened around her. “Oh, Bess. It has been hard on you. Now the both of us are forbidden to come here.”
“I lied to my mother, too, Steve. It was hard to do, but I wanted to see you so badly. I had to see you to find out —”
“To find out if I really exist? Yes. I do, and you do too, but the two of us together only exist here, in this one small spot in a graveyard. Oh Bess, if only it could be otherwise!”
He put his head on her shoulder and pressed her face close to his. Even in the cool temperature of the outdoors, his face felt hot. “If only you were from my time. We could go courting together, and you could meet my family and some day, when I become a doctor, we could . . ..”
She looked at him. “We could what, Steve?” she asked softly.
“We could marry, my Bess, and be together always.” This time the coughing would not stop easily. His shoulders twisted and he held his hands across his mouth, as if he were trying to push the ugly sound back into his throat.
“Oh, Steve! You are sick. You shouldn’t have come to the graveyard today.”
The coughing spell passed; there were tears in Steve’s eyes. What had brought them, Elizabeth wondered? The strain of coughing or the words he had just spoken, words that told of a life together that they could never know?
“You must go home, Steve, right away. The cold air will make you worse. Do you have anything to take for your cough? Have you seen the doctor?”
He pulled her to him again. “I’ll go soon, Bess, but we have so little time together. Let me stay a while yet. Dr. Black says I should be well in a few days. He has given me a cough elixir which helps some. You worry overmuch.”
Elizabeth was worried. Her younger brother, Brian, suffered from bouts of bronchitis every winter, and Steve’s cough sounded very much like Brian’s bronchial one. Brian had to take antibiotics for weeks to get rid of his cough. She knew that there were no antibiotics in Steve’s time. A few years ago she had done a report on Sir Alexander Fleming who discovered and named penicillin, the first antibiotic, in 1928. There were no antibiotics for Steve to take.
She knew that bronchitis could become very serious if it wasn’t treated properly. That was why her mother worried so much over Brian, pulling him out of minor hockey every winter when he started coughing. Steve would have to get medical help.
“Steve,” she said firmly, “there is a medicine that will help you, but your time doesn’t have it yet. I’ll bring you some; you must take it. But now, go home and go to bed. You need steam in your room to help the cough and you must drink lots of liquids. Also, stay right in bed!”
“My Bess, the doctor.” Steve started to laugh, but stopped as he began to cough again. “How will you give me this magic medicine from your time?”
“I’m serious, Steve. Mom has a whole prescription of tetracycline which she brought to Wells just in case one of us got sick and couldn’t get into Quesnel to see a doctor. Go home and go to bed. Come back next Sunday. I’ll bring you the pills. You must take them; they’ll stop the cough from turning into something worse, from becoming . . .”
“Oh, Bess. Of course I’ll come next Sunday, sick or well, but only to see you, not for the magic drug with its long name. Drugs from the future might not work on illnesses from the past, you know.”
“I’m sure they’ll work, Steve. Oh, I wish I could come back before next Sunday, but I can’t. Mom is sure to find out if I skip out of school, and it’s dark too soon in the afternoons for me to ski up here after three.”
“I’ll be fine until next Sunday, Bess. Stop worrying about me.”
“You will take care, won’t you?” They stood, and she shook the snow off the blanket before putting it away in her backpack. “You will stay in bed?”
“Yes, my Bess.” He held her hands in both of his. Gently he turned them so the palms faced upwards and planted a soft kiss on each one. “I’ll be here, waiting for you and your potion next Sunday, but the sight of you will do me far more good than any tonic you might bring.”
He was silent for a moment, then he said, “Next Sunday will be the 21st of December. Only a few days before Christmas. What shall I bring you as a gift, my Bess? What can I bring you that you can take back to your time?”
“Oh, Steve. You’ve given me your ring. I don’t need anything else, except you, healthy and without that awful cough.”
“I’ll be here, Bess. I’ll be here and waiting for you next Sunday.”
“Steve? Remember what you were talking about earlier? If . . . if we were both from the same time?”
“And could go courting and marry and be together always?” His hands tightened around hers. “Yes. I remember.”
“I’d like that, Steve. I’d like it very much.”
“Bess!” He pulled her to him and she could feel his ribs strain with the effort of suppressing another cough. “I love you, Bess. I love you. Maybe sometime, somehow, your time and my time will come together and you and I . . ..”
He stopped and looked into her eyes. “I think it best that I should go home now. Wait Bess, wait until I’ve gone before you turn the ring. It saddens me so to see you disappear before my very eyes.”
“I’ll wait. Good-bye, Steve. You will look after yourself, won’t you? You will stay in bed?”
“Yes. I’ll take care. Good-bye, my dear, my love.” He kissed her gently, turned his back and slowly walked out of the graveyard.