'MY NAME?’ SHE asked. ‘Why do you want to know my name?’
I was ten years old in the spring of 1976. My tonsils started flaring up again, and I was in bed, sick with a sore throat and a burning fever. I recall waking up with the sheets soaking wet, the fever brutally intense. Mom pampered me with hot chicken noodle soup and icy popsicles. The doctor prescribed medication and bed rest with thoughts of removing the infected tonsils soon. I played the ill-effects up a bit, just to secure an extra day off from school.
I slept often during that weekend, and along with the much-needed rest came the weirdest dreams I had ever experienced. I dreamed that I could communicate with a girl who had lived over three hundred years in the past. I know it sounds crazy, looking back on it now, but the story I share with you is true, so help me.
Little did I know she was experiencing a similar kind of scorching fever at the same exact time—only she was living in the year 1676. Only later would I learn how similar our circumstances really were: We were both the same age, born on the same day—October 10th—living in small, historic towns on the East Coast, she in Colonial Massachusetts and me outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We both had a fondness for dogs.
I opened my eyes before dawn and saw the strangest thing: not my bedroom, not my walls adorned with sports posters. Instead, I awoke in a strange room, small and candle-lit, the light flickering against the cold stone wall. I heard coughing, a persistent, racking cough so severe it shook the bed I was in.
I could see, hear, feel, smell everything in this dank room…only it was not my room.
I blinked hard, thinking I was dreaming, wishing to snap out of this bizarre nightmare. I sat up, bewildered, gazing about. Suddenly, words came into my mind, like words typed from a word processor.
‘I’m scared,’ my mind read. ‘Where am I?’ It was then I realised these weren’t my words that were in my mind. Someone else was controlling my thoughts. Someone else had taken control of my body. I couldn’t stop the words from flowing.
Petrified, thinking I was going insane from the fever and the medication, or I was experiencing some sort of manifestation of split-personality, I irrationally decided to answer myself.
I said, ‘I’m scared, too,’ only I didn’t speak these words. I focused and concentrated with great effort and found that I could ‘type’ words for my brain to decipher. Astonishingly, there came an answer.
‘Am I possessed?’ was the reply. ‘If so, leave me alone, devil!’
It started to dawn on me that I was having a subliminal conversation with someone somewhere. That’s when I asked for a name and was given a rebuttal. I suppose I couldn’t blame the person…or animal…or alien…on the other end. What in the world was going on?
Right then and there, I was completely awed, but for some reason, I continued this so-called ‘conversation’ with boldness, offering my name.
‘I’m John,’ I greeted. ‘Nice to “meet” you.’
‘I can hear you!’ was the reply.
Now I started to get scared.
‘Okay, now let me hear your voice, please,’ I asked. ‘What is your name?’
‘Virginia,’ came the soft answer. Ah, now we were getting somewhere! The person on the other end of this nightmare was a person, a female with a trembling voice. She sounded young.
‘Virginia, it seems we have some sort of telepathic connection going on here. You can read my mind, and I can read yours. I can hear your voice, and you can hear mine. I can see what your bedroom looks like. Can you see my room?’
‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Who is Doctor J.?’
My eyes quickly diverted from the poster on the wall. I wasn’t about to explain the posters on my bedroom wall just yet, or why a large, African American gentleman wearing shorts was holding a large, orange ball. Nor would I attempt to explain my fascination with Farrah Fawcett in a revealing red swimsuit.
I soon learned a few guidelines to our unique situation: 1) We could ‘turn off’ our interaction at any time, and if one of us concentrated hard enough, we could try to reconnect with the other, sort of like a Zoom conference call before the invention of facetiming. 2) We weren’t sure how long this ‘connection’ between us would last, but we both agreed on certain ground-rules: for instance, when we were bathing or dressing or anything potentially embarrassing or humiliating, we would not answer each other, almost like getting a busy signal on the phone. We promised to keep those specific rules until we figured out how to cease this odd form of communication.
I woke up the following morning, thinking it was all a dream, only to find Virginia wishing me a timid ‘Good day, sir.’
She was still there. It wasn’t a dream.
As time went on, I learned more about Virginia. What were the odds that we were born on the same day at the same time… three-hundred years apart? This strange interaction was some sort of cosmic connection, as though our signals got crossed in a time warp, with the ability to interact like we were next-door neighbours.
It was summer where Virginia lived, and where she lived troubled me. When she walked about her small Massachusetts town, with the cute Cape Cod stone dwellings and green, leafy meadows, I feared for her safety.
I was never a great student. I hated Math in particular. But I was pulling solid grades in one subject: American History. I loved it almost as much as sports, which was saying a lot. I planned to be a history teacher someday…if not the next Mike Schmidt. I learned about Salem in history class one semester. It was where the infamous 1692 witch trials occurred. Hysteria, fuelled by superstitions and ugly rumours, spread like wildfire in the small community and soon nineteen innocent people were tried and convicted of witchcraft. These unfortunate souls were sentenced to die by hanging.
Since our unusual interaction wasn’t going away anytime soon, we grew to be friends. As mentioned, she had the ability to see, hear, feel and taste everything I did, if she wanted to. At first, she was terrified—then fascinated—by things like televisions, automobiles, movies, and airplanes. I could only imagine how I would feel if suddenly I had the ability to see things three hundred years in the future. Would there be flying cars cluttering the skies? Or movie screens as large as skyscrapers?
Since Virginia could also hear what I heard, music was a common link. She gasped when she first heard timeless music like The Beatles. A soft, melodic tune such as ‘Eleanor Rigby’ stood the test of time. She was soon dancing in the early sunrise to ‘Rock Around the Clock.’ The lovely Jim Croce ballad, ‘Time in A Bottle,’ grew to be a favourite song; so was ‘Time After Time’ Cyndi Lauper. and we listened to music together at night. She loved Frank Sinatra, even the song ‘Witchcraft.’ If only Ol’ Blue Eyes knew how popular he was in the seventeenth century.
When I ate French fries, she ate fries. Imagine the aroma of pizza filling up your senses for the first time! Being a teenager in 1976, my diet wasn’t always the healthiest. I had to be careful about what I ingested; what if Virginia didn’t like the taste of Coca Cola or MacDonalds? I tried her food as well; porridge in the morning, meat and cheese at supper, fresh fish and other seafood from New England, and plenty of freshly baked bread. There were fruits and pies, often sweetened with honey or molasses or maple syrup. Turkey or chicken roasting in her mother’s giant Dutch oven was to die for.
Even without refrigeration, in many ways her diet was fresher and healthier than mine. So, because of Virginia, I began to give up fast food and my parents wondered why the sudden change. Several of her neighbours witnessed her dancing to The Beatles and started to be concerned, advising her parents to take heed.
1976 was our bicentennial year celebration. America was two-hundred years old. While we watched the tall ships sail into New York Harbour, while we watched the fireworks burst in the night sky, and while we listened to the speeches given at Independence Hall in Philadelphia—where our country started—Virginia was still one hundred years away from the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Famous forefathers such as Benjamin Franklin and George Washington weren’t even born yet.
I was there on that Independence Day, 1976, when the wagon train rolled into town, the one that had crossed the entire country, including over the famed Oregon Trail, to arrive at nearby historic Valley Forge Park, where then President Gerald Ford would speak to over a million people. As I watched the wagon train roll through my little town, I saw a young girl around Virginia’s age riding shotgun on one of the wagons, and I naturally thought of Virginia. Wouldn’t it be cool if somehow, someway she was able to travel through time to meet me? I checked with her and sadly, no, that wasn’t her. Wishful thinking on my part.
We kept our communication a secret. No one knew about it. In Virginia’s world, if someone found out she was communicating with someone three-hundred years into the future, she would be thought of as possessed or as a witch, whereas I would be taken away to a mental institution or detox for substance abuse.
Whenever the life in her world became too much to handle, Virginia would take her sheepdog, Martha, to her favourite place in Salem: a local freshwater stream. A babbling brook in the woods outside of town was a perfect, picturesque place to think, to dream, to be alone with one’s thoughts. There was a flat white stone—perhaps it was granite—partially submerged under the stream. Virginia told me how she would go there in the spring and summer, her bare feet splashing in the crystal-clear water. I longed for such a place to vanish to when the incessant noise of my world—the electronics, the machinery, the engines—became unbearable.
Relaxing along Virginia’s stream, we would simply be in the moment…not in the past, not in the future, but in the then and now. I would be in class, bored to tears, and send her a message about how Math sucked. It was nice to hear her laughter cheering me on gloomy days. Other times at night, we would lie in bed, thinking. Her mind was as inquisitive as mine, and some nights we would just ‘talk’ until we both fell asleep. This was right up my alley, because of my love for American history. I was enthralled about the past while she was fascinated with the future. In a weird way, it was as though we were already familiar with each other’s world, space, and time, as though déjà vu had entered our lives on a permanent basis.
Time passed by. We remained companions, through the birthdays, the Christmas celebrations, the happy times and illness. We were always there for each other. Here we were, sixteen, and we began to have feelings for each other. For a long time, we avoided glass and mirrors. It was part of the ‘unwritten rules’. We didn’t know what each other looked like and, despite natural curiosity, we resisted asking. Trust me, we attempted to avoid these unusual feelings. Normally, ‘unusual’ wouldn’t be the appropriate term for two teenagers who knew each other so well. But because of the circumstances—the barrier of time—we did our best to limit any feelings more than friendship.
One day, while Virginia was chasing Martha across a meadow, she came upon a lovely little pond. I saw her reflection in the tranquil, glassy water, and I immediately fell in love. So, this is who I’ve been communicating with for six years? She looked like an angel, with long, blond hair over her shoulders, large, ice-blue eyes, and pronounced high cheekbones—a natural beauty.
My heart skipped several beats.
She realised her ‘mistake’ and began to blush. ‘Don’t worry,’ I whispered. ‘I think you are very beautiful.’
My honesty may have been a mistake because she failed to communicate with me for the rest of the day. I attempted to contact her to apologise for breaking the rules, but she wouldn’t answer.
Later that night, Virginia asked to talk. She told me not to worry. In her strict Puritan world, it was improper for a gentleman to openly express his feelings as I had done. But she realised that I was living in the twentieth century. In fact, to be fair, she asked if she could see me.
I had always been careful not to break the rules while shaving or brushing my teeth. However, since she asked, I smiled awkwardly at my reflection in the mirror the following morning. Not surprisingly she had no comment, and I wondered if she liked my appearance or regretted her request.
Our contact was never the same after that. I knew we both had romantic feelings for each other. Yet I wasn’t prepared for what was to come next.
One autumn morning before our Thanksgiving, we expressed feelings for each other near her stream. She used a word I had never heard of: ‘smitten.’ She was ‘smitten’ by my appearance.
Names, dates, places, and events in history books were cold, unfeeling items, not human emotions. The way I felt about Virginia taught me that even my ancestors long ago had heart. They had spirits and souls. My grandparents, for instance, had once been young and in love and did all the crazy things young people do. At one time, they were very much alive. Their memories still lived. I had a hard time accepting the cruel, cold fact that Virginia was a long-forgotten memory, resting in peace in a Salem graveyard, even though I spoke to her in my present time.
Sadly, our time together was increasingly becoming filled with despair. We could have continued as friends forever, living out our lives. Of all the wonders we had shared together—the music, the food, the laughter, the dancing, the sights and sounds, blending the twentieth and seventeenth centuries, we could never kiss or hug or even merely touch. We both knew, as we were growing older, that our future together could never be. Life would go on; we would marry others, have children, perhaps even grandchildren. We would be happy, happy for each other, happy that we had experienced something magical and mysterious in our youth, happy we would always have the memories to cherish, memories even time could not erase.
But somehow, that still wasn’t enough. We either had to accept those facts or move on. There was no in-between.
So, there it was, out in the open. Unfortunately, we weren’t time travellers. Ultimately, we made the heartbreaking decision to say goodbye. I would miss her terribly. I would think about her, wondering what she was doing in her world, in her era. Someday I would forget her, forget she ever existed. Even if I wanted to contact her, perhaps the ability would melt away, like frost on a sunny windowpane. Someday, if memories of Virginia ever would exist, I would attribute such childhood fantasies to lengthy dreams, dreams that would eventually fade…with time.
‘If you ever need me,’ I reminded her, ‘I’ll only be a thought away.’
Ten years flew by. I graduated from college with my degree in education, and I started teaching American History at the local high school. I found a sweet girl named Bernadette, a beauty with raven hair and a kind heart and soul. She was a music teacher at the same school where I worked, and we started dating, eventually living together, hoping to marry someday.
One fall morning, Bernadette was taking my temperature and declaring that I had a slight fever. I stayed home from work that morning to fight whatever illness I had.
‘Stay in bed!’ she ordered. ‘I wish I could stay home but we have exams today. I’ll try to sneak back during lunch to heat up the chicken soup. Take your Tylenol and rest.’
‘Thanks, Hon,’ I croaked. ‘Love you.’
‘Love you too,’ she replied. ‘And John, stop being so damn stubborn and let them take out your tonsils already!’
‘I will,’ I answered, my fingers crossed under the warm blanket.
‘No kisses, no touching for now,’ she declared, throwing me an air-kiss. ‘I don’t want to get sick. See you around noon.’
Once Bernadette left, I fell asleep and immediately collapsed into a deep, deep dream. I dreamed that I was running through trees, the thick branches breaking behind me as I rushed by, the cool scent of misty rain dripping ever so gently off the spring green leaves, running through the forest, unsure where I was going, unsure why I was running, unsure if someone was chasing me or if I was in pursuit of someone.
I woke up with a start, my heart pounding and racing at what felt like a million beats an hour, beads of sweat dripping down my face from the fever and the nightmare.
‘Get a hold of yourself,’ I whispered. ‘It was only an intense dream.’
At that exact moment I felt a distant yet all too familiar notice in my head. After ten years, Virginia was calling. I thought of ignoring the sensation; no, it can’t be again. I was only a kid when I began having those delusions. After ten years of quiet, Virginia, I had decided, was only a delusion.
When the sensation wouldn’t go away, when I reassessed those ‘delusions’, I began to wonder if she was alright. That little voice inside (no pun intended) alarmed me.
‘John!’ she began. ‘John, I’m so scared.’
I began to focus, and I saw what her vision was witnessing: there she sat, on a hard, wooden bench, in a stony, cold, dark jail cell. An icy chill went through me, different from the fever chills. Chills of fright.
‘Virginia? What’s wrong?’
‘They think I’m a witch,’ she replied. ‘I was thinking of you. I was missing you. And I mentioned you to Sarah Good, a friend. I made a mistake because she told others. I’m awaiting trial tomorrow. If I am found guilty of witchcraft, they will hang me, John. Just like the others.’
‘You’re not a witch. It wasn’t witchcraft. It was… I’m not sure what it was,’ I answered.
‘John, I know there is nothing you can do. I just wanted you to know…I’m always thinking of you. My heart is yours.’
‘And my heart is yours,’ I whispered, all thoughts of Bernadette ceasing to exist.
‘John, look under the white stone,’ she said, sobbing. ‘The white stone near our stream. I love you.’
With that she disappeared, as if someone had pulled the plug on our cosmic connection.
Instinctively, I quickly got dressed, jumped in the car and headed north. I took Interstate 95 and started the 346 mile trek to Salem, Massachusetts, a nearly six-hour drive. By mid-afternoon I would be there.
What was I thinking? What did I hope to accomplish? I wasn’t sure. Something pushed me, drove me, inspired me to get in the car and drive…to Virginia.
Around noon, as I drove out of New York City, heading towards Connecticut, my cordless phone rang. It was Bernadette.
‘John!’ she began. ‘Where are you?’
I had never lied to her before, and I wasn’t about to start now. Yet, if I told her the entire truth, she would probably hang up and move out of the apartment. I wouldn’t have blamed her. So, until I got back, I tried to schmooze my way through.
‘Bernie! How the hell are you?’ I said, trying to sound peppy between coughs.
‘John? Where are you? I came home for lunch to find you were gone. Why aren’t you in bed?’
‘Nice day, isn’t it? Do you think it will rain later? You should see the foliage up here…’
‘JOHN! WHERE ARE YOU?’ she yelled. Bernadette rarely raised her voice. She never needed to. She was the sweetest person I knew. But now she was pissed.
‘I’m on my way to Salem, Massachusetts,’ I blurted out.
‘WHAT? The witch-place?’ she asked. ‘Why?’
‘Oh, you know me, doing research,’ I said. ‘Please, trust me. I’ll explain everything to you when I get back tomorrow. It’s six hours one way, so I plan on getting a motel room and coming home in the morning. Don’t worry, I’ll take my Tylenol. Love you…’
Click went the phone. She hung up.
I arrived in Salem after two in the afternoon. It was late September, and the days were shorter so I would need to hustle to visit the places I planned to see before dark.
Everywhere I went in town there was a witch-theme: restaurants, hotels, gift shops. I grabbed a sandwich, booked a room and asked where to find the area where the hangings took place. I was given a free travel brochure and a map, and I was off.
Surprisingly, the location of the public hangings was very simple, compared to all the commercialisation around me. On the outskirts of town was a place called Gallows Hill, an ominous name for sure. For centuries it was thought this was where the nineteen innocent people had been executed for witchcraft. However, fascinating recent research found the true spot of the hangings, an area called Proctor’s Ledge, a leafy area across from Gallows Hill, located in a residential neighbourhood.
I found it to be mere coincidence that my family name was Proctor.
The Proctor’s Ledge memorial was a semi-circular wall built of granite stones. Nineteen stones were engraved with the names and dates of execution of the innocent people who were killed there. Flowers of remembrance from family had been carefully placed above certain stones. A young oak tree grew in the middle of the area, a symbol of strength and endurance.
I quickly visited each stone, breathlessly checking to see if the name Virginia Adams appeared. I couldn’t find her name, which confused me. If she was hanged because of witchcraft, an innocent victim of murder like the eighteen other lost souls, why wouldn’t her name be included in this memorial to the dead?
Yet, I didn’t find Virginia’s name. Instead, I found my own name engraved on a stone: John Proctor.
The area was named after another John Proctor, the gentleman who had owned this parcel of land in 1692. He had vehemently spoken out against the witchcraft trials and executions, only to be put to death himself for doing so, the accusers thinking he was in league with the innocent souls.
There was one other person at the memorial while I was there, an older local woman who reverently placed white flowers beside the wall. She informed me, in a thick New England accent, that the actual site of the hangings was above the slope; this location was the site where most of the bodies ended up after being taken down from the Hanging Tree. The bodies were rolled down the hill and left to lay, decaying, until each family quietly retrieved their loved ones’ body in the blackness of night and buried the remains at the nearby Old Burying Cemetery.
I made the walk up the slope and immediately felt a sense of overwhelming sadness in my heart and a heavy feeling of despair in my soul, so extreme it almost took my breath away. I stopped for a moment and sat in the meadow overlooking the memorial, catching my breath and trying to come to grips with what I was encountering. The depressing sadness almost clung to the crisp, cool air like a relentless, thick fog. It was almost as if one could see the sadness in the air.
As I descended the slope, I felt a sudden, sharp pain through my neck: a sore, aching tightness, as I gasped for air. A gentleman saw me struggling and asked if I was all right. I thanked him for his concern, commenting in a hoarse whisper that I was just getting over an illness. As I walked toward the cemetery where many of Salem’s town-folk from the colonial era were buried, I noticed the pain in my neck area was easing as I distanced myself from Proctor’s Ledge.
Slowly trudging through the creepy cemetery, I thought this would not be a place I would want to be on Halloween. It was still daylight, yet a feeling of gloom permeated the grounds. I saw a group of tourists taking pictures as a tour guide told haunting stories about this historic graveyard, the second oldest cemetery in America.
On and on I walked. The ancient tombstones were barely legible; even if Virginia was buried here, it would be easy to miss the spot. Exasperated and exhausted, I leaned against an old oak in the middle of the cemetery, unsure of what to do next.
‘Virginia, help me find you,’ I whispered.
Then there it was, in front of me, the grave I was searching for. I had literally stumbled upon the old, crumbling grave-marker which simply read ‘Here lies Virginia Adams, died 1713’. An hourglass was engraved on the stone, signifying time.
I knelt in front of the grave, brushing away ancient dust and dried brown leaves from the stone. That’s when I looked to the right and saw the neighbouring plot.
‘Here lies John Proctor, died 1692, hung for practicing witchcraft.’
Was I delusional about my ‘communications’ with Virginia Adams? Or had I been experiencing flashbacks the whole time, memories of a past life? Was I this same John Proctor, who had inhabited the grave now before me, for over three centuries?
There was one more place I needed to visit before nightfall. Instinctively, I started walking…to who knows where. My destination was not on a map or in a brochure. I headed for the nearby woods, hoping I wouldn’t get lost in the approaching twilight, not seeming to care, seeking a place that may have only existed in my mind. This trail may have been burned in my mind, walking this route so many times before with Virginia. This path before me was similar to the way I followed in my dream back home, the one where I ran through the woods, searching and searching but never finding my whatever I was looking for.
It wasn’t long before I arrived at a stream, a place so familiar, like it was déjà vu, like I had been in this exact location many times before. The soft, pleasant babbling brook called to me, guiding me like a beacon through the woods. There was the stream, the water so clean and clear, as it was in my memory. I found the white stone, the same stone my Virginia sat upon as we conversed and passed time between the centuries. It was all here, everything as I remembered it, everything as I imagined it, everything as I saw through Virginia’s eyes.
‘Look under the stone’ she had said. I struggled to lift the stone from its bed near the stream, turning it over and finding a worn yet legible sign. The cold water had preserved the inscription I found on the rock. Someone had scratched or chiselled, perhaps with a penknife or hair pin, a simple heart. The initials inside the heart read V.A. + J.P.
I gently and carefully replaced the stone, and there, in the twilight of a dying late September afternoon, I began to cry.
Then I heard it. Her voice. A voice I thought I would never hear again. A voice soft and melodic.
‘John,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you for coming to me. Thank you for giving up your life for me. You told them I wasn’t a witch.’
‘Virginia!’ I replied. ‘I had to come. You were here. We were here together. I can feel you. I miss you…so much.’
‘It’s time, John,’ she replied, tenderness in her voice. ‘Go home to the one you love. Hold her and never let her go. You will always be in my heart…but it’s time for you to let go of the past.’
I felt a hand on my shoulder, a warm touch I had longed for so many times, a touch that eased all my fears and worries, a touch that soothed my heart and soul.
I finally felt at peace.
I didn’t bother to stay the night in Salem. I drove straight through to Pennsylvania, hoping Bernadette would be home waiting for me. I thought about what Virginia had said: ‘I gave up my life for her?’ ‘I told them she wasn’t a witch?’ Was it true? Had I somehow crossed time to ‘save’ the one I loved?
When I opened the door, I was surprised that my dog was not greeting me, like usual. The apartment was shrouded in darkness, quiet and still. I feared that Bernie had come to her senses and moved out while I was gone. I couldn’t blame her.
I turned on the kitchen light to grab a snack before a much-needed hot shower and twelve hours of sleep. I opened the refrigerator and grabbed a carton of milk when I heard a rustling in the bedroom and called out:
‘Bernadette? Is that you? Listen, baby, I’m so sorry. I drove home to you instead of staying the night up there. I hope that means something…’
At that moment I heard four paws running down the hall to greet me. I should’ve known Bernie had my dog in the bedroom with her for company.
Only it wasn’t Max. It was a sheepdog.
It was Martha. Followed by a short, beautiful woman with wispy blond hair tied in an elegant bun, wearing only my pyjama top.
VIRGINIA.
‘How did the research go?’ she asked, yawning. ‘And who is Bernadette?’
Stunned, I proceeded to drop the milk carton all over the floor.
‘I’m so sorry. I’m still a little woozy from the fever,’ I stammered. ‘And the research went well. I found what I was looking for.’
‘Good!’ she said, smiling, rushing over to help clean up the splattered spill all over the kitchen tile. ‘You still don’t look too good.’
‘I’m just tired,’ I said, standing frozen near the refrigerator. I finally snapped out of my shock and grabbed a dishtowel, stooping down to help her wipe the floor. I came face-to-face with Virginia as we cleaned up my mess. Once centuries apart, we were so close I could smell the sweet scent of her body.
‘How?’ I simply asked, my mouth hanging open.
‘How what?’
‘Oh, never mind,’ I replied. How Virginia navigated time wasn’t so important right then and there. Nothing was, I decided, as I looked deep into her blue eyes. We both stood and stared without a word for a brief second.
‘Who is Bernadette?’ she asked softly, finally breaking the silence.
‘Bernadette who?’ I answered. I wasn’t kidding. It appeared that any memory of someone named Bernadette had been erased from my memory.
‘John, you’re looking at me as though you’ve never seen me before,’ she said.
‘I haven’t…really,’ I whispered. ‘I’m sorry I took off like I did. Please forgive me.’
‘Forgiven,’ she said. ‘Hey, I was thinking—you asked me for suggestions for what to do for our birthday next month. Why don’t we go to New England… together this time… to see the fall foliage? I’ve been craving seafood lately. What say you?’
‘Absolutely,’ I agreed. ‘But right now, I really need a hug!’
‘Of course,’ she answered, giving me a warm embrace as I pulled her closer.
Virginia had advised me in Salem, ‘Go home to the one you love…Hold her and never let her go.’ I held Virginia for the longest time, never wanting to let go. I wondered if she knew anything of our connection, if she knew she had spoken those words. Just like me, she never mentioned the past again.
We got engaged on our birthday during our weekend in New England. Somehow, we crossed the barrier of time. We may have passed in time, but more importantly, this time, we were together for eternity.
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