Time Bent

Time haunted her. It didn't do what it was "supposed to" when she was around.

It ran forward, backwards, sideways. Sometimes time helped her solve her problems, sometimes it made them worse.

For a lovely young woman, you'd think there would be young men lined up to talk to her at any gathering. But she stayed away from them - to protect them from her curse.

What would be the good of a comittment like that if the other person was going to age too fast or too slow - or live forever haunted with the thought of a long lost love?

Or was this time-problem contagious? Were other people at risk because of her - or could she pass it onto her children?

Life wasn't all that safe, just because you could bend time anyway you wanted.

Excerpt:

We showed up at an outside terrace, where some sort of gathering or party was going on inside. We could see through the thin curtains inside, through nearly floor-to-ceiling windows. The terrace itself was build of old stones, large flagstones at the base, and larger, flat field stone built the walls up to sitting height, where a wide slate top allowed flat seating.

The landscape dropped off gradually below, where a small orchard of dwarf fruit trees dotted the small yard - just before larger native oaks and hickories climbed into the sky. The grass in the orchard was short, but not cropped close. This wasn't mowed like a lawn or sheared by sheep.

A motion out of the corner of my eye drew my attention back to the terrace. I saw a young woman over to the side, wearing a loose blouse, tan knee-length skirt, and light brown hair pulled back with a dark wide ribbon or a narrow bandeau. Simple, understated. As was her make-up. She could just as easily pass for one of the domestic help as a guest.

When she saw us appear, she smiled and started walking over to us. Within a few steps, she was in conversation distance.

"John - and Harpy. Thanks for coming. I'm so glad we could meet here. Oh - as you've probably read, my name is Carol."

"You've been expecting us?" I asked.

"Short answer: yes. I wouldn't say looking forward any more than looking backward. But don't expect me to keep my tenses straight. Time bending gives me grammar problems. But no more than knowing to dress warmly in winter or lightly in summer. Intermittent rain and windy days can throw me off though. I'm not some walking almanac."

"But you're a time traveler."

"More a time tourist. If we wanted to put a name on it. I'm always looking for someone in my travels like me, but it's a bit like using a needle in a haystack to find another needle. Even a magnetic one would have a very hard time. Or so I think right now."

"When did you notice this ability?"

"When I was a kid, sometime in my teenage years. I'd be able to go back to hand myself something I'd forgotten, but would need later. That might seem confusing at first, and it was. Later, I found I could simply travel to a place and then move forward and backward in time there. So I worked out jobs or vacations where I could travel physically around the globe, and then move backward as I wanted then. And all that was fine until I found out how lonely it was."

"Because you always traveled by yourself?"

She nodded, sighed, and looked off to where the sky started above the trees...

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