Page 96 of Across Time

"Sleep," I reply, and plant face first into the hay.

* * *

When I wake it is dusk, and I’m somehow dressed and bundled under a pile of blankets with Marie snuggled against me. Between her and the hay and blankets, it's almost warm enough. Certainly warm enough for me to fall soundly back to sleep.

When I rise again, it is fully dark—I'm not sure of the hour but it has that heaviness of the middle of the night, when nothing good happens—and Marie is gone.

"Marie," I hiss.

There is no response. My heart rate begins to pick up, imagining worst-case scenarios, but given that I don’t see her clothes lying around I can at least rule out the worst of all: that she time traveled somewhere without me.

I convince myself she’s just heeding nature’s call and fall back into fitful sleep. It feels like only minutes later that Marie is kneeling by my side, trying to wake me. “It’s time to go,” she whispers. “Do you think you can make it back down the ladder?”

I nod, pushing my hair off my face. "So what's the plan?" I ask. "You said you knew how we'd get to Paris."

"I do," she says. "But it will involve some theft." For a woman who spends so much time at church, Marie has a very loose relationship with a few of the commandments.

"What kind of theft?"

"A car,” she says, wrapping food she's stolen in a blanket. "Madame and Monsieur Perot have the only car in town. I've heard people complain about how awful she was during the war. She wouldn't lift a finger to help anyone, so I don’t feel especially guilty depriving her of it.”

I’m less troubled by the ethics of the situation than I am the legality. Spending a night or two in a French prison because I don’t have the strength to jump away is not particularly appealing. "Don't you think someone will notice if the only car in town is driving away?"

"Well," she says, "they haven't noticed it yet. I've got it parked on the far side of the barn, but we should try to get close to Paris before it's light, I think."

I groan. "My God, Marie. It's like you searched for ways to make everything riskier."

"The term you seek, I believe, is resourceful. And you’re welcome. I just saved your barely mobile self from walking to Paris."

I follow her down the ladder and out to the road. “How did you even get it here? You don’t know how to drive.”

She points at the bashed-in front bumper and broken headlight. "I didn’t say I stole it well.”

* * *

The car, for all its luxurious finishes, drives more like a tractor, with rudimentary gears and a steering wheel that takes unbelievable strength to turn. Fortunately, I learn how to drive it on mostly empty roads. Aside from a horse and cart I nearly run right into, we see almost no one.

I laugh quietly to myself. “You realize you are the reason André’s grandmother will have a lifelong hatred of gypsies, right?”

Marie shrugs, picking at some bread she stole from the Perots along with the car. "On ne fuit pas d'omelette sans casser des oeufs". You can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.

It takes well over an hour to get to the city, driving as slowly as we must, and when we arrive just after dawn, our progress slows dramatically. I hadn’t realized that in 1918 there were still so many horses and carts. They don’t operate like carriages in New York City, which remain on paths in Central Park or stay off to the side of the street. They march right down the middle of the road as if they own it, and all I can do is roll along behind them, which gives me a chance to look around. There are few women out this early, but they definitely look like the product of another time: dresses that hit just above the ankle, and a kind of modesty in attire that will disappear entirely over the next decade.

“Isn’t it amazing,” says Marie-Therese, voicing my thoughts, “how much things will change in just a few years?”

I glance at her. “They change just as much between your time and mine,” I reply.

“Is it entirely for the better?” she asks.

I bite my lip. Life is so much better in my time for women, for minorities. But it’s grown less personal as well. “Mostly, but not entirely.”

We weave through the city toward Sacré-Coeur, as Parc de la Turlure—where Marie’s mother would have headed—sits just behind it. Our plan is to wait there, beginning at sunset, for Madame Durand to arrive, and follow her as best we can. Though we are many hours ahead of schedule, it seems wisest to get the lay of the land before we do anything else.

We park the car a few blocks away, and find Parc de la Turlure easily, just a stone’s throw from the basilica. To my dismay, the square is not nearly as small or uniform as I’d imagined. There are lots of large trees, with nooks and crannies between them, which means Madame Durand could easily disappear somewhere in here without us ever noticing.

“I don’t like this,” I say quietly.

Marie smiles, untroubled. “Look what I found,” she says, pulling a necklace away from her collarbone. “It was my mother’s. I found it in the pocket of my dress. I think it means we’ll have good luck today.”