Satus Tempus

CHAPTER ONE

As I gazed up at the magnificent, weather-worn castle that loomed before me, the white stone seemed to glow in the bright afternoon light. I glanced excitedly at my best friend, Kira Sato, who stood beside me. "Isn't it gorgeous?" I breathed, pulling out my camera for a photo.
    "Absolutely," Kira agreed, smiling. She shaded her eyes with her hand, squinting as she studied the tall spires and arched windows. "Not the best upkeep, but definitely unique."
    "Right? Especially since—"
    Someone tapped me on the shoulder, and I spun around. "Would you guys like a photo?" one of our classmates, Emily, asked, nodding towards my camera.
    "Oh sure!" I smiled, juggling the camera awkwardly in my hands before thrusting it forward. Emily giggled, quite used to my discomfiture after our many semesters spent together. I blushed slightly as Kira linked her arm through mine, pulling me close to her side.
    "Okay, one...two...three..." Emily stood back to assess the photo, smiling at me before handing the camera back. "Is it alright?" she asked, pulling a strand of hair out of her eyes that the wind hand untucked from her loose ponytail. I nodded, offering Emily a wide smile.
    "Thanks so much, Emily," Kira said, waving to her as she rejoined the group. I powered down the camera, dropping it back into my bag with a thunk. "We'd better hurry up," Kira started towards the group, pulling me along behind her. Our classmates were already making their way inside the castle, and in just a moment the students would choose their groups and be assigned a section of the castle to study for their final coursework assignment.
    As we slipped through the tall wooden doors and joined the chatting group of students, Professor Mieter stood at the head of the crowd, attempting to quiet us. "Now, now students! As you know, you were asked to consider which others you would like to work with on your final research project, and keep in mind that I won't allow groups over three," he said, glancing pointedly at a group of four girls —including Emily— who practically did everything together up until now. "We should have approximately seven groups, which will cover each major section of our lovely castle here, Burg Hartz. As a refresher, Hartz was constructed in 1189 by the Schulers, a rather prominent Saxon family until around the late eighteenth century, when the Schulers left Saxony for differences in religious beliefs, we believe.
    "Of course, we know that in hindsight, religion in what would soon become Germany was largely reshaped by the coming of the new century, as the Germanic Lutheran and Protestant churches opted to unite. Nevertheless, the Schulers essentially abandoned Hartz and spread throughout continental Europe, leaving Hartz in near ruins until one of our archaeology teams took over the site in the 1990's. Ever since, it's been available to our students for their research projects, in fields from archaeology to yours, Germanic History.
    "Now, if you'll form your groups, I'll assign locations and you can all get straight to work. Though it may seem like you don't have much area to cover, I assure you there is much to explore, especially considering how well-preserved this particular castle is—or, rather, now is," Mieter said over the clamber of students forming their groups. Though our classmates were switching places all around us, no one thought to join me and Kira. We worked, just the two of us, on most projects, and this last one would be no different.
    "Nothing new, huh?" Kira whispered, grinning. "We'll get more work done this way, so it's fine by me."
    I slid my arm over Kira's shoulders, pulling her close. "I've never minded, even if it's been this way since the second grade," I smiled back. We had met when I was eight and Kira was seven. I was the new girl at school—shy and of course, quite awkward—having just moved to Buffalo, New York to live with my aging Aunt Hannah. Though I immediately felt like an outcast at my new school, Kira had joined me at lunch one day, and we had basically been best friends ever since, even opting to attend the same university in Germany. Even if my German far surpassed Kira's—though I'd never say as much to her—nothing could split us up.
    "Alright then, let's get started," Mieter said, leaning against the braided iron banister that hugged the curved stone staircase. "Amy and Christopher, you'll have the kitchen. Dieter, Jens, and Paul, the master bedroom. Kira and Genevieve, the family library, as opposed to the sitting room, the main library, which will go to Krista, Emily, and Katrin."
    Kira smiled at me, squeezing my arm. "Ooh, the library! And the private family library at that," she beamed. "Do you think we'll find old family secrets or something?"
    I shrugged, grinning. "I hope so! At least it would make our essay more interesting."
    "You will all have around six hours each Tuesday and Thursday to conduct your research, though today will be a bit shorter as we settle into the different areas of the castle. Any questions before everyone heads off?" Mieter asked, waiting only a moment before going on. "Perfect! Well then, use the directories to find your way to your area and begin working. If you need any help, you can find me or any of the archaeologists in various spots around the castle. Good luck!"
    As the students dispersed, Kira pulled out her printed map of the castle. She traced her finger from where we now stood—in the foyer—to the back staircase which led to the cellar. "Ooh, spooky. Turns out our family library is in the basement," she grinned, holding up the map for me to see.
    "Oh, great," I laughed nervously, curling my fingers around the strap of my canvas bag. "I swear, if there's spiders down there..."
    "Probably, with your luck," Kira snorted, leading the way to the narrow staircase. I bumped her shoulder, shaking my head. Kira would never miss a chance to tease me about my long list of supposedly 'irrational' fears—spiders being at the top. According to her, my list didn't really compute with my drive for spontaneous adventure, such as the time we skipped class to take a day trip to Vienna.
    "You can kill them, then," I said, shuddering slightly. "I'm not getting anywhere near those things." We wound through the long hallways until we reached a dead end with only a single window. I raised a brow. "Is this...did we go the wrong way?"
    Kira studied the map, turning it in her hands. "I mean, that's what it says. There should be an entrance to our left," she said, looking at the solid wall where there should have been a doorway. "Should we go back to Professor Mieter?"
    "I mean, I guess. What else are we going to do?" I sighed, leaning against the window frame. We heard a small click, and a portion of the wall gave way. Kira looked at me with wide eyes before pushing on the wall, the panel swinging open to reveal the narrow staircase as it was pictured on the map. We stood at the top of the stairs, peering down into the darkness below.
    "After you," Kira grinned, holding her arm out.
    I turned back to the windowsill, tracing my fingers over the single brick that had been pushed in by my shoulder, probably, to reveal the door. Looking back at Kira, I wiggled my eyebrows before starting down the staircase. "No one thought to give us a tour of our hidden, overly dark research spot?" I grumbled, ducking out of the way of a large cobweb just as Kira flicked on her phone's flashlight. I shivered, no longer wanting to run my hand along the wall as I headed down the uneven stone steps.
    "Geez, you'd think no ones been down here since the family left," Kira murmured, shining the light at the low ceiling oozing with dust and cobwebs. She slipped on one of the steps, pressing her back to the wall as she laughed shakily. I frowned. 
    As we reached the bottom of the stairs, I stayed close to Kira, my hands wrapped around her thin arm. Though she was much shorter than me, I often found myself turning to her for protection. "Maybe you should go first," I whispered.
    "Why are you whispering? And what, are you afraid of the dark?" Kira teased, poking my side. But I only glared at her, crossing my arms over my chest. "Alright, fine," Kira chided, setting out across the room. As she scanned the ceiling with her flashlight, she walked into a heavy wooden table. "Oof," she grumbled. "Oh, finally. A lamp," smiling, she turned the switch, filling the room with a warm glow.
    I kept my arms crossed, hating how cold it felt down here. I glanced around, no longer as curious as I was now uncomfortable. "Let's get this over with," I mumbled, setting my bag on the table and pulling out my worn white cardigan. Kira gave me a knowing smirk, bumping my shoulder.
    "Loosen up. You love history and culture and archaeology but you're afraid of an old castle? It's all a package deal, G."
    Rolling my eyes, I scoffed. "I'll remember that next time you're too afraid to speak in German at the grocery store. You live in Germany, you study German history. It's all a package deal, Kira."
    Kira laughed, pulling her notebook out of her backpack. "Fair enough. But either way, if we don't get enough material for the essay, neither one of us will graduate, no matter what we are and aren't afraid of. So?" she prompted, pointing her pencil towards a dusty row of bins and trunks.
    We settled before the first bin, sliding on the vinyl gloves we were issued and carefully pulling out the top layer of artifacts: a small, discolored yellow hat encased in a plexiglass box, a leather ledger that was slightly sticky, and a tiny book with a fabric cover. I studied the classification guide that was placed over the items, translating for Kira. "So, it seems that each layer is organised by year, this bin being..." I leaned over to read the side of the bin, "1632-1636. Hm, okay, so each item will be in its own plastic bag or box, and students are only allowed to observe through the bag."
    "That's boring," Kira frowned, turning over the bagged book in her hands. "There's not even a title or anything on the cover or the spine. We're only doing 'research' through the entries made by the castle's archaeologists?"
    I continued reading, then sighed. "I guess so. This isn't really as fun as it sounded."
    "Well..." Kira grinned, "No one really has to know whether or not we touched the stuff. No fingerprints with gloves, and there's absolutely no one down here but us."
    "You can't be serious," I said, eyes wide. "Kira, we could get into so much trouble for that—Kira wait!" I cried as she opened the book's bag, slowly reaching in and gripping the edge of the small fabric volume.
    "They'll definitely find us if you're that loud," she grumbled, holding the book gingerly in her palm. I held my breath as Kira opened the cover, running her gloved fingers over the first page. "Oh wow, look, it's inscribed," Kira smiled, holding the book out for me to see.
    I craned my neck, reading the faded, looping letters. "Für meine Liebe, in unserem neuen Zuhause zusammen. Für immer dein, H," I whispered. "For my love in our new home together. Forever yours. How sweet," I smiled for a moment, then immediately frowned. "Kira, you know we can't be doing this. Besides, if we mentioned any of this in the essay, they'd definitely know we went against the rules and opened the bags."
    Kira carefully turned the pages, her eyes bright. "Don't worry, I won't mention a word of this. This is purely to satisfy my own curiosity."
    "Kira—"
    "Look, I think it's a book of poetry!" Kira said, turning another page. "This is amazing. Looks like most of the poems are from the fourteenth to the early nineteenth centuries. See, each one is dated, under the author's name. Weird though, this is in the wrong box."
    I gazed at the little volume over her shoulder. The pages were worn from obvious use, but the binding still looked pretty decent. I wondered why someone had sorted it into a box of seventeenth century articles, rather than having placed it on one of the shelves.
    As much as I wished I wasn't, I was dying to know these items personally, to really see what life was like centuries ago. It was one thing to know the events in Germanic history back to front; it was another altogether to feel some kind of connection to the people who actually lived in that time, to hold the items they used day in and day out. I gripped the corner of the book, slightly tugging at it so that it was held between us and I could get a better look. "I wish we had the time to read some of these," I breathed, smiling down at the bold printing over the yellowed, stained pages. I wondered how many times the book's owner had poured over these poems, which were their favorites, which they shared with others, perhaps even the book-giver, H.
    "Me too," Kira sighed, slowly closing the book and sliding it back into the bag. "Are we interested in the ledger, too?"
    I scrunched my nose, shaking my head. "Not so much. Let's see if there's anything good from 1633," I said, reaching back into the bin and removing the strip of cloth that separated the layers. I pulled out four more items: a dull hand mirror, a small wooden doll, a ceramic mug, and a golden ring. Twisting the bagged ring between my fingers, I watched as the wine-red stone set in the thick gold band caught the lamplight. "Look at this," I said, handing the ring to Kira.
    "Looks like a patriarch's ring to me. Remember when I took that eight week focus course on family symbols and relics? There were a lot of examples that looked just like this for rings that were passed down from father to son, predecessor to successor."
    "Hm," I set the ring back in the pile, moving on to the mirror. "You can hardly see yourself anymore," I murmured as I held it up, twisting the mirror in an attempt to see my reflection. The glass was blackened and rippled, looking way past repair. Just like with the book, I wondered which faces had been reflected in this mirror, what occasions they were dressing for.
    Kira sighed loudly, tying back her dark, shoulder-length hair. Short strands fell out of the ponytail and rested at the nape of her neck. She leaned back on her hands, gazing around the room. "How about that?" she pointed at what appeared to be a large frame covered by a dusty white sheet. "The bins aren't as interesting as they seemed."
    "Well, we'll have to go through them at some other point anyways," I sighed, lifting up the fabric over the next layer. At the sight of more mugs, I began to agree with Kira. "Let's at least put this all away first," I said, carefully setting the wooden doll in the bin. Kira crouched beside me, laying the mirror next to the doll.
    "Maybe this would have been more fun if we had added new blood to the group," Kira teased. "Too bad no one branches out enough to work with someone different."
    "'New blood' definitely would've told on us for opening the bags," I laughed, laying the classification sheet over the first layer and sliding the lid back over the bin. I stood, dusting my hands off on the front of my dark jeans and followed Kira over to the covered frame.
    "You're probably right," Kira grinned as we each grabbed a corner of the sheet, pulling it over the frame on the count of three. We let the sheet fall to the stone floor, coughing through the cloud of dust it left behind. I waved my hand in front of my face, laughing as I looked at Kira. But Kira's gaze was focused on the frame, her mouth agape. "What?" I giggled. Kira pointed at the frame, not breaking her stare.
    As I turned towards the frame, my knees suddenly grew weak. I was looking at my exact reflection. Or, rather, the portrait of a seventeenth-century woman who looked exactly like me. "Wha—um, that's weird," I whispered, leaning down towards the picture to get a closer look.
    "It's...it's you," Kira breathed, looking at me, then the portrait. "How..?"
    I scoffed, though my throat was unusually dry. "Oh come on, she doesn't look that much like me," I said, waving my hand dismissively. I tried not to glance back at the portrait, afraid the resemblance might mess with my head. We were only here to study the items, not remark on how uncannily similar this stranger looked to me.
    "Help me pick it up. I want to check if there's any description on the back," Kira said, wrapping her hands around the corner. I hesitantly grabbed the other corner, and together we pulled it forward, struggling to keep it straight as Kira tried to read the back. "I can see a label, but I—I can't quite read it," she said, straining to twist around the frame. "Here, I'll just take a photo." She held her phone around the back of the frame, only able to take the photo after wildly tapping the screen a dozen times in search of the capture button.
    We leaned the frame back against the wall, and Kira came up beside me, zooming in on the photo to read the label. "It says...that can't be right..."
    "What?" I asked, genuinely curious, leaning towards Kira. She turned the phone towards me, and I squinted, trying to read the bright screen. My breath caught in my throat as I made sense of the description. "Mistress of Hartz...Baroness Genevieve Schuler," I croaked, my skin suddenly feeling very cold beneath my usually-toasty cardigan.
    We looked at each other, eyes wide. "G, does this mean you..."
    Gulping, I quickly shook my head. "All it means is that a woman from the seventeenth century happened to have the same name as me. The universe just has a funny way of showing you stuff like that, you know?" I tried to sound confident, but my voice was shaky.
    "Oh, yeah, because you're just a regular Mary. Practically everyone and their mother is named Genevieve, right?" Kira said, her voice filled with an excitement I did not share. She rolled her eyes. "Come on, G. This is...spectacular. You literally exist four hundred years ago. There's no way in hell that someone could have your name and your face. That is you." Kira nodded at the painting.
    "And what, I just casually travelled through time? I seriously doubt it," I scoffed, crossing my arms. "Besides, how are you so ready to accept your theory as fact? It's...preposterous, the idea that I could have lived then. That's not me." I insisted, my bottom lip jutting out.
    Kira looked at me seriously, her brows creased over her dark eyes. "G...honestly. How do you even begin to explain this with anything other than the unexplainable? I know you're not so straightforward as to dismiss the possibility altogether."
    Oh, yeah? I massaged my temple, closing my eyes. "It's probably just that we're too tired, got a little too excited with finally starting our final project, that we're so close to graduating...there's plenty to explain this."
    "Personally, I wasn't at all excited until I saw this portrait," Kira said dryly.
    "Can we...can we just work on our research?" I huffed, gathering up the white sheet and handing one end to Kira.
    "You can't be serious," Kira scoffed, placing her hands at her hips. "You're just going to, what? Pretend you and I never saw this?"
    My hands fell to my sides, wrapped tightly around the corners of the sheet. "Well forgive me if our little 'discovery' wasn't all rainbows and butterflies for me. Yes, actually, I'd like to forget all about it and do what we came here to do: research."
    "Which is kind of a conflict of interest now, wouldn't you say? Knowing what we know. There's absolutely no way you're not part of all this. G, you're meant to be here, meant to have found...all this," Kira said, waving her arm across the room. I looked around at all the old trunks, plastic bins, and weathered tables surrounded by empty, dust-covered bookshelves. "What are you going to do if you're reading records on this family and your name pops up? Are you going to ignore it, write it off as a coincidence? How do we explain that in the essay?"
    I sighed, closing my eyes. "I don't know, Kira. Honestly, this is all giving me a headache, so can we just move on? I'd like to have some work to show for our time here today." I turned towards the portrait, avoiding looking at it as I struggled to arrange the sheet over its frame. I heard Kira cross the room back towards the table, scribbling something in her notebook. "What are you doing now?" I huffed, rolling my eyes as the sheet slipped down from its weak hold over the portrait's edge.
    "Taking notes," Kira hissed, though I knew her better than that. I crossed the room to hover over her shoulder —an easy feat with my height of 5'8" to her 5'3"— with my hands at my hips. My eyes scanned over her scrawling script, quickly narrowing.
    "Those aren't notes," I seethed. Kira glanced at the portrait again, tapping her pencil on the edge of her notebook. With a small hm, she pressed the pencil back to the paper to print another bullet point. "You can't be serious."
    Slamming the notebook shut with a quick slap, Kira spun to face me. "Sorry to disappoint, G, but I'm not so content to just let this go. You might have the mind to ask Mieter for a new assignment—well, no, because then someone else would see all this. Unless..."
    "Just stop!" I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose as I squeezed my eyes shut. We were both quiet as Kira waited for me to settle down. "Please?" I whispered as the stress lines carved in my forehead smoothed out. I opened one eye, peering cautiously at Kira.
    Her arms were folded over her chest, a brow raised. "You know I can't do that," she said curtly, her mouth set in a hard line. "It might be you in the portrait, but there's no way I'm not involved." Her voice softened considerably as she reached out to wrap her fingers around my wrist. "I'm all you have left, G. We'll figure this out together."
    "If there's anything to figure out," I whispered. Though, if I was being honest, I had already loosened up to the idea considerably. Kira was right; I had never been one to outright deny something which we knew nothing about. Though it seemed ridiculous, I couldn't help but feel intrigued by even the slightest possibility of...this.
    Kira sighed, a small smile tugging at her full lips. "Good enough for me, as long as we look into it," she said.
    I nodded my agreement, grabbing Kira's hand from around my wrist and holding it between my own. "Let's just...not go overboard, okay? No matter what, the idea is a bit...out there."
    Though I could tell Kira wanted to roll her eyes, she settled for pursing her lips. "Sure, alright," she mumbled, pulling her notebook behind her back as if to protect it from me.
    I headed back towards the bins before rolling my eyes, sitting in front of the one marked 1635 and taking off the lid. As I carefully peeled back the protective fabric to reveal the first row of items, my eyes rested on a badly-fraying pair of child's slippers. As a wave of—compassion maybe?—passed over my expression, Kira confused it for something more.
    "What, do you recognize something?" she breathed. I looked up at her wide, dark eyes, glittering with excitement.
    If I hadn't been so annoyed with her, I would have laughed. "No, why would I?" I asked casually, pulling out the bagged shoes and letting them slap to the stone floor with more force than I had intended. I swallowed hard, hoping Kira hadn't noticed that, too, before turning back to the contents of the bin. This one seemed a bit fuller than the others, small toys and books stacked on top of one another in their own plastic bags. I gently picked through the bin, pulling out things I thought might interest Kira.
    She looked through the pile I had started for her, her obvious disappointment in my failure to 'recognize' the items keeping her uncharacteristically quiet. Once I had nearly emptied the bin I turned around to face her, crossing my legs. "Anything good?" I asked, trying hard to keep my tone light.
    "Not really," she murmured, sorting through the pile without an ounce of interest. I guess only the portrait held any real fascination for her.
    "What, you aren't interested in the toys of my supposed children, or grandchildren, or whatever?" I sighed.
    "That's not at all funny," Kira scoffed. I frowned, thinking of how very much she sounded like an annoying, fitful child right now, but then I immediately felt guilty. She was right, really, but I was too terrified to admit it. If she were in my shoes—and really, I wish that she was—she would be absolutely thrilled, even if it all had turned out to be nothing more than a mere coincidence. Still, it would offer a bit of an adventure, something to really fascinate us during the last project of our college careers.
    But that didn't stop me from hating my involvement in the situation, my resemblance to the woman in the portrait. Not to mention our shared first name, which opened an icy pit in my stomach. If you really considered it, it seemed rather beyond coincidence. But how could any of it be possible? Me, a time traveller? That was...pretty ridiculous. Anything I knew about time travel was from movies or books, and considering that I wasn't equipped with some elaborate machine or a strange stone circle, I was pretty sure I would stay put in my own century.
    I sighed, lost in thought, and Kira looked up at me. "Are you at least considering it?" The words slipped out as if she had wanted to ask them for quite a few minutes now. Knowing her, that probably wasn't far off.
    "I guess you could say that," I admitted quietly, fidgeting with the frayed corner of one of the plastic bags. Inside it was a pair of blue satin hair ribbons which, despite their age, still shone slightly in the dim lamplight. I frowned at my beat up black high tops folded under my knees, waiting for Kira to respond.
    But she only exhaled softly, using the table to get to her feet before crossing towards one of the bookshelves. She browsed the collection of dusty books for a long while, sighing every so often as she slid one off the shelf and flipped through its pages. I knew what she was doing: she was milking this place for any answers to her theory. Though I had half a mind to pry the book from her fingers and convince her to give up her little exposé, my resolve was waning.
    Kira had selected another volume from the shelf, I observed from the corner of my eye, and turned to spread it across the long table. The volume was more of a folder, not a book, and she carefully pulled out laminated sheets of paper from its folds. She leaned over the pages, brows creased downward, running her finger over the lines as she read. As something seemed to catch her attention she quickly cycled through the documents, holding two of the pages up before her. "Well, what do you know," she breathed, grinning rather haughtily.
    I looked over my shoulder at her—as if I had not been carefully watching her through my peripheral—and tilted my head. "Hm?" I prompted absently, weighing a wooden pipe and a lone coin in either of my hands, items that I had been pretending to observe closely.
    "So," Kira grinned, "I was...right."
    "About?" I would play along. Just out of curiosity, I told myself.
    Kira was practically squealing with anticipation as she beckoned me over. I sighed deeply as I lay down the plastic wrapped items and got to my feet, adjusting the hem of my rolled up jeans with one ratty shoe. "The suspense is killing me," I said dryly as I came up behind Kira, my hands on my hips.
    She ignored me; my sour mood did nothing to diminish her elated beam. Arching her arm out before her as if presenting a new invention, Kira stepped aside to reveal the papers she had been going through. I glanced at her warily before leaning over the table, my eyes scanning the first document. It was all in the looping, rather confusing script of Kurrent, a Germanic cursive that dated back to medieval times. Therefore, it took a moment to make sense of the letters. "I knew I'd find something," she whispered as I read.
    But I hardly heard her. The icy pit returned to my stomach as I recognized my own name signed in elegant loops, though not Kurrent, at the bottom of the page. My full name. Genevieve Louisa Claremont. The looping letters were distinctly dated, mimicking the beautiful script I had so often admired in old letters and documents, but something about the curve of the G and the crossing of the t seemed all too familiar...
    I—reluctantly—scanned the rest of the page, slow to make sense of its fuller meaning. A name was signed next to mine. Or, more so, a title: H. Schuler, Baron von Hartz. Above that was a lengthy, rather wordy paragraph. Though I could only pick out bits and pieces, I had made enough sense of it to determine exactly what this document was.
    A marriage contract.