I married my school teacher. And on our wedding night, when he handed me a gift, my throat went dry. I looked at him and, trembling with inner turmoil, whispered:
“Do you really think I can do all this?..
When I was in secondary school, Mr Harper was a legend to all of us. Young and charismatic, he turned history lessons into live performances: he staged scenes, drew maps on the blackboard, and talked about ancient civilisations as if he had once lived in them himself.
He was an inspiration to me — not as a man, but as a person capable of making me believe in meaning.
I graduated from school, moved to the city, plunged into the hustle and bustle, into work, into endless attempts to be ‘grown up.’ But at twenty-four, I felt like I had forgotten how to breathe. I returned to my hometown, as if to my childhood, hoping for silence.
And there, at the farmers’ market, amid the smell of fresh bread and apples, I heard a voice that made everything inside me tremble:
‘Claire? Is that you?’
He was standing at the honey counter, wearing a dark shirt, with a tired but bright smile. Leo Harper.
Now just Leo. No “Mr”.
Thirty-two years old. A few more wrinkles, a little less youth, but the same gentle gaze.
We talked as if we had parted only yesterday. One coffee turned into lunch, lunch into an evening walk. He listened — not just politely, but genuinely. And I caught myself thinking: everything seems possible when I’m with him.
The age difference didn’t matter. A year later, we got married. It was a quiet ceremony under the oak tree where I had once memorised poems for my graduation. He held my hand, and it felt like the whole world had gathered in one place, in that moment.
When night fell, I expected excitement, confusion, tenderness. But Leo seemed strangely composed. He closed the door, took an old wooden box out of the drawer and placed it in front of me.
‘This is for you,’ he said quietly. ‘A gift that has been waiting for its moment.’
I opened it. Inside were neatly folded papers: yellowed, covered in small, even handwriting.
‘What is this?’ I asked.
‘Lessons,’ he replied. ‘Stories that cannot be told in school. But now you must know.’
The top sheet read:
‘Claire Wilson. The Test of Time. Project Chronos.’
My heart began to race.
‘Is this a joke?’
Leo shook his head.
‘Everything I told you about ancient civilisations is true. Only I wasn’t talking about the past. I was talking about the future that has already happened. I’m not a teacher, Claire. I’m a curator of the timeline.’
He said it calmly, like a man accustomed to the unbelievable.
I laughed nervously, awkwardly.
‘Leo, stop it, you’re scaring me.’
‘I don’t want to scare you. I want you to choose. We have to go back. Today.’
He took a silver medallion out of the box. Inside were grains of sand, shimmering as if alive.
‘This is the key. The chronocode. It only works if there are two of us. Teacher and student. The one who believes and the one who is able to remember.’
I took a step back.
‘Go back… where?’
‘To 1889. To the moment when it all began. History has been distorted. Someone has rewritten time. We are the guardians, Claire. You are my partner, even though you don’t remember. In your past life, you were a chronicler.’
He took a step towards me, his eyes glowing softly. ‘I’ve been waiting for you to remember.’
The world around me seemed to tremble. The room grew darker, the air thicker. I could smell ozone and hear a soft crackling sound, like before a storm.
‘Leo,’ I whispered. ‘That’s impossible.’
‘Anything is possible if you remember.’
He touched my temple with the medallion. The world exploded with light.
I was standing on the pavement, wet from the rain. Above my head were gas lamps. Carriages. Horses. It smelled of smoke and leather.
Leo was next to me, wearing a long coat, with the same look in his eyes.
‘Welcome home, Claire,’ he said. ‘We made it.’
I didn’t understand. Everything was real. And at the same time, it wasn’t. Images flashed inside my head: the laboratory, books, a clock with moving gears, and me in a white coat next to Leo.
I remembered.
We had created a device to correct time. But it had malfunctioned. The world had split into two lines, and one of them — ours — had become false. To fix everything, we had to start over.
And we agreed to erase our memories.
Until we met again.
The next few days passed in a fever. We found an old chapel — our laboratory. There, under layers of dust, stood the device — a metal circle with intertwined copper spokes. ‘Chronos.’
‘All that’s left is to turn it on,’ Leo said. ‘But remember: someone has to stay in this line to keep it from being destroyed.’
‘Someone?’ I froze. ‘Are we going to lose someone?’
He looked at me as if he had already made up his mind.
‘Yes. Me.’
‘No, Leo. I won’t let you.’
‘This is my mission, Claire. You must continue.’
He handed me the medallion.
‘You can do it.’
And then I realised that his gift was not just a symbol. It was the key to a world that would disappear without both of us.
I turned on Chronos. The air trembled. The streams of time merged into a dazzling whirlwind.
Leo stepped forward, and the light engulfed him.
I only had time to shout:
‘Leo!’
And then — silence.
The world scattered like dust and reassembled itself. I woke up on the floor of my house. The present. Everything was in its place. Only the box was gone. Only the medallion remained — cold, with a barely glimmering grain of sand.
Three years have passed.
I opened a small café on the corner — Chronos. People come there unhurriedly, read books, talk about time.
Sometimes, when I close the doors at night, I think I see a man in a coat and hat standing outside the window, smiling and looking up.
On one such night, I took out the locket. Inside, the grain of sand glowed brighter than ever.
And I heard his voice, quiet as a breath:
‘I’m here, Claire. I always have been.’
And then — a new message, illuminated inside the lid:
‘You think you can’t do all this? But you already have.’
I smiled through my tears.
Time had no power. We had found each other again.
