Page 28 of Time After Time (Golden Sands #1)

Geneviève

A jarring noise tore me from the peaceful grip of sleep.

The wind howled outside. My heart jumped as I shot up in bed, just in time to hear the heavy thud of a tree branch smacking against the glass.

My hand flew to my chest, my heart threatening to burst as I glanced around the dark room, intermittently illuminated by the flashes of thunder outside.

The night had become wild and chaotic. What started as a grumble in the sky had grown into a full-blown roar.

A sharp gasp escaped me as my feet hit the freezing tiles, a chill instantly racing up my legs. I wrapped my arms tightly around myself, inching toward the window. The air had shifted—crisp, biting, and nothing like the heat of summer nights.

For a moment, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. But no matter how many times I blinked or rubbed them, I still saw what I thought was Sebastian running through the rain toward my house, like some kind of mirage.

Concern washed over me, and I threw open my bedroom door, racing down the stairs so fast I almost tripped at the bottom. Before I could reach the front door, however, I heard quick but careful knocks.

“What’s happening?” My mum and sister shuffled down the stairs together, both still in their pyjamas, hair mussed from sleep.

Mum’s eyes were half-closed, squinting in the dim light, while my sister rubbed at her face, clearly not fully awake yet and not very happy to be out of her bed by the line that appeared between her eyebrows.

I glanced at the kitchen clock—2:30 a.m. Dad was likely still asleep. Not even a tornado could stir him.

Without saying a word and not wanting to make him wait more, I dashed closer to the door, wrenching it open. There stood Sebastian, soaked through and shivering, his eyes wide.

My fingers instinctively curled around his wrist, and with a swift glance to ensure he wasn’t injured, I pulled him inside, slamming the door behind him. My mum exited the room, leaving Sylvie in one corner of the living room, watching us intently with a confused expression.

I swallowed hard, the lump in my throat making it difficult to speak. My voice came out rough even after I coughed, trying to get rid of the knot as my eyes fixed on his drenched form. “Are you okay?” I asked, my voice barely cutting through the roar of the rain.

Sebastian drew in a shaky breath, his shoulders heaving with each uneven inhale. His once neatly styled hair hung in damp clumps, plastered to his forehead and obscuring his usual defined curls.

He stood there, completely drenched, his white t-shirt clinging to his body, showing every dip and muscle.

His black shorts stuck to his thighs, making me notice how tense every part of his body was, even as he shook.

When my gaze descended a bit further, I spotted his house slippers, soaked and muddy.

He’d come running without changing, and it only made the churning feeling in my stomach grow.

Sebastian’s breath misted in the cold air, his whole body trembling.

He shook his head, eyes glistening with unshed tears.

His intense, silent stare locked onto mine, pleading for something I couldn’t quite grasp.

My own heart raced, desperate to know what was going on, but before any word could leave me, my mum returned, wrapping him in a large towel and offering him a steaming cup of chamomile tea.

He attempted to smile, but his hands trembled as he gripped the towel, bringing it to his hair and getting rid of as much water as he could. Noticing his distress and scared he would end up sick, I took the tea from my mum and blew on it to cool it down.

Once the towel went back around his shoulders, he took the cup from me, his fingers looking numb and colourless.

“What’s going on?” My fingers had been fidgeting and I had almost taken my thumb into my mouth before I took a step closer, getting rid of the small distance between us as I finally cupped his hands with mine, seeing them tremble, wanting to give him some of my heat and scared he would drop the tea on himself and end up burnt. “You’re scaring me. Are you okay?”

“Mrs. Marley is dead.”

My heart pounded so loudly in my ears that I could barely hear his words.

I must have heard wrong.

My legs felt like they would give out at any second, trembling as I struggled to stay upright. I felt my vision blur slightly as I tried to hold myself together. Seeing my distress, Sebastian, despite his own wobbly state, reached out a hand to steady me.

“Mrs. Marley?” Sylvie voiced the question that eluded me.

Sebastian immediately grasped the confusion in her words.

Mr. Marley had been ill, bedridden under the doctor’s orders, which is why Sebastian and I had agreed to help out on the farm during his recovery.

It struck me as odd that Sebastian was mentioning her when I was expecting him to be talking about Mr. Marley—the one who had been sick.

“Yes,” he replied, taking another sip and glancing in my direction. “Mrs. Marley.”

My mouth opened and closed several times as I felt the room closing in on me. So many questions ran through my head, fast and immediate, that all words clashed with each other, only creating more confusion.

“What happened?” My mum asked, her voice barely a whisper. I didn’t need to look at her to sense her grief. There was a flutter in her voice, which had become high-pitched, and the sniffs made me think tears were likely streaming down her face.

“Natural causes,” Sebastian answered. He went on to describe the heart-wrenching moment when Aria found Mrs. Marley asleep on the couch, never to wake up.

The image of such a peaceful end sent a shiver down my spine, knowing how deeply Aria would be haunted by the sight of someone she loved, lying still in what should have been a simple sleep.

“Is there going to be an Embrace Parade?” Sylvie stepped forward, walking closer to our mum and looking like a kid as she grabbed her arm, pushing herself under it and allowing herself to be hugged tightly.

The Embrace Parade was an equally heartbreaking and beautiful tradition we had here. It was our way of saying goodbye—of showing love and gratitude for the ones we’d lost. An entire community coming together, honouring the memory of someone who was gone forever but never forgotten.

Sebastian glanced at the kitchen clock.

Time hadn’t stopped, even though it felt like everything else had.

“In a few minutes,” he said, one of his hands escaping from mine as he rubbed his nose aggressively with the back of his hand. “I’m going to join them.”

“What are you guys carrying?” Sylvie asked.

Sebastian took a moment to gather his thoughts.

“We’ve got an old photo of Mrs. Marley and Mr. Marley from their younger days, and a more recent one.

” His eyes drifted to the ground for a second.

“And there are some of her favourite flowers from the farm, a couple of her handmade blankets, and her sun hats.”

All those things mentioned seemed just like objects, but they were things that reminded everyone of Mrs. Marley.

She had the biggest collection of straw hats I’d ever seen.

Every day, without fail, a breeze would lift one off her head, sending everyone into a scramble to catch it.

She loved flowers, too—never a day went by without her tending to the ones in her garden, refusing to cut them, afraid they’d die too soon.

And the handmade blankets? I don’t think there was a single person in town who hadn’t been gifted one.

Concern creased my brow, my mind jumping from one Marley to the other. “Is Mr. Marley going?” I felt a knot tightening in my stomach, worrying not just about his health, but how this loss was weighing on him.

Sebastian drained the last of his tea and passed the cup back to my mum, offering a grateful nod.

“He’s trying to,” he said. We all knew how much Mr. Marley wanted to be part of things, even with his health going downhill.

He’d always seemed so tough and indifferent, but I could now see how much he had relied on her to soften the edges.

“Aria’s been trying to reason with him. He’s trying to get out of bed and join the parade, but Doctor Windsor is there, doing his best to calm him down.”

“Do they need company? Mr. Marley and Aria?” Without waiting for a response, I let his hands go, even if he had tightened his grip, to move towards the front door, grabbing my house keys hanging on the wall.

“Maybe they could use some company.”

“I’ll take her to the farm,” my sister said, arms crossed tightly in front of her chest, a shiver rippling through her as if the cold had seeped into her bones.

“Alright,” Sebastian said, his eyes flickering between us. First, on Sylvie, “I’ll see you at the parade.” Then he focused on me. “I’ll come find you when it’s over. We can walk back together, alright?”

I winced as the door slammed shut; the sound echoing louder than the rain falling all around me.

The force behind it caught me off guard, and I felt a tremor in my limbs.

My attention shifted to the farm, eyes squinting and gasping as I spotted Mr. Marley, who sat on the porch, his gaze lost somewhere in the distance.

Without looking back, I lifted my hand in a wave to Sylvie, hearing the engine roar back to life as she drove away.

Approaching cautiously, a shudder rushed through my body.

Even though he was shielded beneath the porch, the weather couldn’t be suitable for him to be outside.

“Mr. Marley,” I halted before him, still drenched from the rain, attempting to embrace myself against the chill.

“What are you doing outside?” Receiving no response and noticing his bare feet, I spoke again, this time with greater gentleness, fearful of having him break down into pieces. “You are going to catch pneumonia.”