The Time Travel Journals: Bridgebuilders

Chapter 1

Second Timeline

March 1977

Comber, Ireland 

Sam Altair didn’t believe in life after death, but even as the flower-lined casket inched lower into the ground, he knew that Casey Andrews would never release her hold on him. He stood a few feet behind the people who rimmed the gravesite, providing the space due them as family. He had known the old lady for only five years, yet his wire-rimmed glasses had fogged up several times with unshed tears. Was he crying for himself, or for the older version of him who had known her for many more years?

The older version who had stolen her from an alternate timeline when she was just twenty years old.

The younger Sam Altair, thirty-one years old, and inheritor of a lifetime of someone else’s sins, stood surrounded by Casey Andrews’ children and grandchildren, along with a plethora of grand-nephews and -nieces.  A wail from the side reminded him there were also a couple of great-grandchildren.  She had become a matriarch.

The seventy years since her abrupt move backwards through time had brought her love and family and friends, something which he suspected would have happened to her no matter where she was. Casey Wilson Andrews had been that kind of person. He had grown to love her, himself.

Her last request burdened him. He doubted that she had asked anything of anyone else, other than to live in peace and happiness. But Sam Altair had debts to pay and Casey had not felt reluctant to demand he cover them.

Even though he wasn’t that Sam Altair.

The casket rested at the bottom, and a woman stepped forward, her white hair cut short, her black skirt and blouse flowing like water along her thin body. She tossed a single daisy–Casey’s favorite flower–onto the casket. She was Casey’s daughter, Terry, and her gesture released the others, who moved to toss their own offerings into the grave. Casey had often said she wished to die in the spring, when the flowers were blooming, so they could do this very thing. She wanted flowers in her grave. It was true, somehow, that Casey usually got what she wanted.

When they were all finished, a few of them looked to him and he stepped forward to place his own offering–an acorn from the oak tree that grew in the Belfast Botanic Gardens. The tree had come back in time with Casey and Sam in 1906, the result of a time travel experiment gone haywire. She would have laughed in delight if she’d known he was going to do this. Sam rather hoped the oak would take hold in this place; he could think of no greater legacy for her.

The graveyard workers began to fill in the hole and Sam’s gaze wandered to the waiting headstone.  Like all the others in this part of the church’s graveyard, it was dignified and simple, but with a message chosen years ago by her husband:

Casey Ashley Wilson AndrewsMay 16, 1885 – June 4, 1977Beloved Wife of Thomas Andrews of Dunallonand Mother of His Children“The Reason I Lived” Of course, she had been born in 1985, not 1885, and the truth behind the quote was a story known only to three of the people here. And to any in the future, who might have access to the time travel journals.

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At the entrance to the graveyard, Sam caught up with Sarah Andrews as she waited by the small gate. The early summer day was bright, and the green hills of Comber wandered quietly away to the blue sparkle of Strangford Lough. The moment might have been awkward, but Sarah favored Sam with a mischievous glance.

“The flowers are bloomin’ everywhere,” she stated. “Just like she requested.”

His lips twitched as he noted the blanket of color covering the hills. “Casey’s inside track,” he suggested and Sarah laughed.