A Shiver of Wonder (24 page)

It was when his eyes alit on the beautiful
Episcopalian Church that David veered off from the public square to
cross the street. How long had he lived in Shady Grove? And how
many times had he intended to look inside? It had been over
eighteen months since he and Genevieve had climbed the steps to try
the doors, but not once since had the idea reoccurred to him.

His grandparents had gotten married in
there, fifty-odd years before. And, undoubtedly, countless other
events involving elder Wilcott generations had taken place as well
in the building.

David climbed the steps, a melancholy smile
creeping onto his countenance as he recalled that magical night
early on in his relationship with Genevieve. The impromptu kiss on
their way to a casual dinner of soup and sandwiches; the leisurely
stroll along Willow Avenue; their arms linking as they sat close to
one another on the steps of the Shady Grove town hall.

Such promise, so many hopes.

So many of those hopes realized, and then
dashed as reality intervened to break the promise.

The door was unlocked this time, and he
pulled it open. He furled his umbrella and stepped into the
narthex.

The natural light filtering in from four
highly set windows was muted due to the clouds. The floor was gray
marble, the walls a burnished dark wood. David glanced around, but
as the door eased closed behind him, shutting out the murmurs of
the street, he saw nothing but a nicely appointed foyer.

He moved toward the doors that led to the
nave. And as he caught his first sight of the interior of the
church, he almost whistled in admiration. Ornately carved wooden
crossbeams floated high above; a circular Rose Window on the west
wall glimmered ethereally; the glowing golden cross on the high
altar appeared to have been placed there by God Himself. The
chancel was only a few inches higher than the floor of the nave,
allowing a sense of connectedness between the pews where worshipers
sat and the raised platform where holy activities occurred.

A single congregant was sitting in a pew,
about halfway down the center aisle. Glad that he hadn’t emitted
any audible demonstrations of his awe, David moved quietly forward,
continuing to look in all directions: at the vaulted ceiling, at
the detailed scrollwork on individual pews, into the rounded
transepts as he drew nearer to them. The church was indeed
gorgeous. And in the rich stillness that precluded practically all
outdoor sounds, David felt that he could be anywhere in the western
world. London, Boston, or one of the thousands of other small towns
that held a divinely built edifice such as this one.

As he closed in on the midpoint of the nave,
the man in the pew shifted and began to turn toward him. And even
before his face was entirely revealed, even before their eyes met,
David had frozen in mid-step as a shiver that had begun in the
deepest recesses of his brain thrust its way through every last
molecule in his body.

Impossible!

But yet he was seeing him, he
knew
without a doubt who this was.

This was absolutely insane!

And yet it made perfect sense, even if it
was one hundred percent preposterous.

The spasm completed its journeys, and David
felt faint. The man hadn’t risen, but was studying him with an odd
mixture of curiosity, amazement, and relief imprinted on his
face.

“You’ll know when,” Clair had said to him a
week ago today. “You’ll want to. Just go in.”

David hadn’t even
thought
about her
words as he’d approached and then entered the church!

“You will know yourself, David,” she had
told him nine days ago in the courtyard. “One day. Soon.”

And here he was. Two of him. The other David
was older, far older, but yet…

David had to close his eyes for a few
seconds. He was dizzy, discombobulated, and very nearly distraught.
Calm, calm. Once he opened his eyes, he might find himself alone in
the cavernous church, or perhaps gazing at the ceiling of his
bedroom at the Rainbow Arms, the remnants of an especially vivid
dream dissipating as swiftly as had his shivers of a few seconds
before.

David opened his eyes. He was still in the
church. And so was the other David.

And then the other David spoke.

“I know that right now, you’re questioning
your grip on reality. But I also know that the second I began to
talk, you found that you could actually accept that we are both
here, together. And that I do exist.”

David nodded, slowly. He couldn’t speak. He
was correct, in everything.

The man smiled at him warmly. “It’s been
twenty-seven years since I stood in your shoes, quite literally,
but I retain quite a memory of this day, as you might imagine.”

Another lethargic nod. That voice was his! A
little more crackle, a touch more definition to the delivery, but
this was what he sounded like!

Or rather, this was what he
would
sound like, twenty-seven years in the future.

“Why don’t you sit? Please.” The older David
rose, and then made himself comfortable a few feet further down the
pew.

David stepped toward him as though in a fog,
his movements sluggish, his mind still reeling. He sat, cautiously,
and then folded his hands in his lap as he scrutinized himself.

The man was wearing dark pants, a white
button-down shirt, and an expensive-looking linen coat. He was
trim, as was the younger David, and he appeared younger than he
should have for his age. His eyes were sparkling, his face was
confident. David had to admit that he liked what he saw of his
future self so far.

A grin appeared. “It was easy to select my
wardrobe for today,” the man said with a glance down at his garb.
“No worries, no fuss. One of the benefits of having been here
before.”

“How did you get here?” David asked. And of
all the eerie experiences he’d undergone in the past two weeks,
listening to himself ask himself a question in the same voice with
which he’d just heard himself comment on his clothing was right up
there with the most fantastic of them.

“How do you think?” was returned
immediately, the grin undiminished.

“Do you… I mean, do I still live in Shady
Grove?”

The man’s hand slapped the top of the pew,
and the sound echoed mightily about them. “The weird thing is,” he
said, “I already know what we’re going to talk about. I mean, I’ve
had this conversation before, obviously. Just not from the same
perspective. But I also remember which questions were
not
answered. And that was one of them.” His hand then performed a
brief dance in the air. “But I also recall my frustration at the
lack of answers that I thought could easily be given. So I
apologize! But you can understand my predicament?”

David found himself nodding again even as
his jaw was still dropping. He knew he couldn’t dwell too long on
all of the permutations that could occur in the future because of
what was happening right now, but still! This conversation had more
than a dash of fun house mirror maze to it. He closed his mouth,
and then clamped down on the whirlwind of paradoxical thoughts that
were threatening to deluge his sanity. “So… you’re fifty-eight,
then?” he asked in the lightest voice he could manage.

An amused nod. “I am. So at the very least,
you know that you make it this far.”

David had to concede that that was an
illuminating point. “And… you most likely live in or near Shady
Grove. Which is good, I think?” He met the man’s eyes, but his only
reply was a fleeting glimmer. “Okay. So how did… how did you come
here today?” he asked. “And how did you
know
to come here
today? Or rather, today in your own today.”

The older David laughed at that, an honest,
unforced reaction that yet again stirred in the younger David the
realization that his elder self had matured, had become
self-assured in ways that he himself had only begun to apprehend.
The older man was relaxed, and comfortable with his confidence. He
almost reminded David a bit of his younger self, when his career
had been flying high. Except that what was
not
evident in
him were the immature swagger and false bravado that had been among
the least admirable of his traits at the time.

“The easy part of that answer is that I was
told
to come here at this time,” was the man’s jocular
reply. “How I ended up sitting next to you – or rather, me – at
this exact
moment
in time is a somewhat different
matter.”

“Clair,” David uttered simply.

“Yes. Clair,” the other man agreed.

And then the two of them gazed at each other
for a long minute, neither one in a hurry to explore, both wishing
that they could concoct together an explanation of any sort
regarding that extraordinary little girl who had once lived in
apartment 2B of the Rainbow Arms.

“I received a communication,” the older
David eventually stated. “A date and a time. I already knew
where
to go, obviously. And I’d known for a long time
approximately which year. There was a message as well. Two
sentences: ‘Tell him about the four. Tell him what you already know
you told him.’ ”

Another shiver assailed David, briefer than
the first, but just as potent. “You knew what she meant,” he said
softly, suddenly afraid of what he would hear, not eager in the
least to learn what four things that he loved would be lost to
him.

“Yes. I knew,” the other man replied
gently.

“Did you ever see her again?” David asked,
aware that he was procrastinating, aware that his other self was
aware of this, too.

“No. Never.” He rapped the top of the pew
once more. “I’ve tried many times over the years to find her.
Online searches, websites and groups that track strange phenomena,
reading account after account about people who can supposedly alter
weather or events with their minds. I have no idea if any of what I
read was true. I only know that not a single one of them resembled
Clair.”

“What about Mrs. Rushen?”

“Oh, Patricia?” he asked with a smile. “She
doesn’t exist. She never did! There are several Patricia Rushens
out there in this country, but so few that I was able to look them
all up. Not her, not one of them was even close to her.” His hand
waved dismissively. “You’ll see. You’re the idiot who’s going to
ignore what I’m saying, and still go ahead with all the
searches!”

David couldn’t help but grin, taking in the
eerie mirror image of his expression on the face of the man who was
sitting a few feet away from him. He found himself eager, excited
by the prospect of becoming this person, of spending the next
twenty-seven years refining and improving, mellowing and maturing.
“So…
why
do you think we’re here?” he asked aloud. “I mean,
as amazing as this is, why us? Why now?”

And his older counterpart beamed. “Perhaps I
am here just to reassure you,” he said.

“Reassure?” David replied in confusion.

But the elder David had begun laughing
again.

“What? What?” But David wasn’t annoyed. He
knew that he’d be let in on the joke; he was aware that if he had
ever met anyone in his life who was solidly on his side, it was
this man.

“It’s just that… that’s one of the few
things that I can – I mean, that
you
will – remember word
for word.” He shook his head in amusement. “It’s not that
everything I say is scripted or set in stone, it’s just that… it’s
that I can’t really make it come out in any way other than that
which I heard all those years ago.” His hands flew up into the air.
“Even this! I can remember watching myself do
this
while
listening to me say these words!” He lowered his hands to his lap
with a chuckle. “But I did recall that exact phrase. And I honestly
couldn’t wait to say it.” His eyes bore in on David’s as he smiled
again. “Be reassured, David. Because after all these years, that’s
about the only explanation for this that I’ve been able to come up
with.”

The sound of a door opening jarred both men,
and a second later, the pastor who had nodded to David from the
front of the church nine days before stepped onto the chancel. He
closed the door behind him, and then strode briskly toward the
nave. A small leap brought him to the level of the pews, and he
headed directly down the center aisle.

“I actually forgot about this,” the older
David whispered. “I think he nods to you first, then me. Then, he
trips.”

And within a quarter of a minute, all three
of these had occurred.

“Whoops!” the pastor uttered with an
embarrassed grimace as both of the men in the pew nodded back to
him.

“He’ll glance back at us once,” came another
whisper. “And then we won’t see him again.”

And sure enough, the pastor did look back,
just before pushing open the door to the narthex. David waved
goodbye, perhaps to atone for his lack of response to the
invitation to come inside the week before. The pastor nodded once
again in return, and then left.

The older David had a touch of a smirk on
his face. “It’s kind of fun being omniscient,” he said.

“Then tell me who wins the next World
Series,” was David’s rejoinder.

“Ha! That, I’m afraid would be considered
bad sport.” He waved his arm to indicate where they were. “Wrong
place to ask, anyway. Look where cheating got us before!”

David groaned. “Tell me about it. Any chance
I end up married to Camber?”

This elicited another laugh. “I don’t think
it’s a deal breaker to let you know how fortunate you are not to
have ended up stuck with
that!
” He cocked his head. “Let’s
just say that hubbies number one, two and three ended up
experiencing some serious buyer’s remorse. And very publicly,
too.”

David would have heaved a sigh of relief,
but for the fact that the days when he had found Camber attractive
were long gone. “I actually came up with several questions I could
have asked Clair at some point,” he said. “And here I am with a
second opportunity, and I suspect that you won’t answer any of
them!”