Time After Time Ch. 01

Author's note: this is the first chapter of a long, long story I've been working on. Sex is a big part of this story, but won't occur until the next chapter. All characters are 18+. Enjoy!!

It all started with a letter.

I held onto it for fifteen years, the envelope unopened. I discovered it in my backpack on a chilly January day in 2011, my senior year of high school, shortly after my eighteenth birthday. Wrapped up like a Christmas gift in a soft, royal blue ribbon, it was addressed simply, and rather mysteriously, in neat handwriting:

Graham Bauman

do not open until

January 10 2026

Fifteen years. At age eighteen, this was an impossible amount of time. I remember turning the letter over at the desk in my bedroom, feeling the weight, holding it up to the light. It felt like a call to adventure, and it was everything I could do not to open it up that first night. But there was something mysterious about it, something uncanny that made me follow its simple instructions, and something that was just powerful about that distant date. For weeks I held off, imagining a future morning when I would wake up, peel back that flap, and see what was inside. I pictured money, a treasure map, something, something... and wondered what kind of guy I would be by then. I'd be thirty three years old, practically an old man. Would I be rich? Married, a father? For a teenager, living a boring life in a small town on the coast of Maine, it was all hard to imagine. Lying awake at night, I tried to think of what the next decade and a half would bring.

For the rest of the winter, the anticipation was hard to take. I wondered who could have written the thing, and when it might have been slipped in my bag. I peered at my classmates' desks, trying to find a match for the handwriting on the envelope. I even left my bag wide open for a few weeks, hanging on my chair at lunch, unattended, to try and lure another clue or even another message. For some reason I didn't dare mention it to anyone, embarrassed that I was making too much out of the whole thing, but I occasionally dropped hints among my friends, asking if anyone ever got letters in the mail.

But the weeks turned into months, and like all teenagers, I got distracted. At that age I was part of a pretty grungy crowd, and the attractions of weed and alcohol took over my life as my senior year came to a close. I spent half my time getting stoned or drunk, and the other half getting in trouble for it, taking long stints in detention or suspension for being late or missing assignments, and generally just marking time until graduation day. I had already been accepted into a school across the country in Los Angeles, and I couldn't be bothered to act like the last four months of high school were that important. Instead, I killed time and tried to look forward to college in California, far away from my freezing, boring hometown.

It's funny how quickly the years pass by. The letter stayed unopened, and although I kept it close, the thick white envelope began to yellow, and the rich blue of the ribbon began to fade. I lived outside of L. A. after college, and started to take it easy with the smoking and drinking. I got a job - well, settled for one, at least - in publishing. I met a girl, moved in with her, and we got engaged. That mysterious letter started to become less and less of a fixation - until it finally became something more like a memory.

I had almost forgotten it entirely when my whole life came crashing down. In late 2025, I discovered my fiance cheating on me. Just like in a movie, I walked in on her in bed with another guy, and our ten-year relationship was over in the blink of an eye. She moved out, and I couldn't afford our apartment on my own. I started drinking, hard - and lost my job because of it. Before I could catch a break, my father died, and my mom moved into a small place on her own. Before I knew it, I was back in my hometown of McKinley, Maine, taking care of their old house - and starting all over again on my own at the age of thirty three.

And that's where this story really begins.

I rediscovered the letter while unpacking boxes at my parents' old place. The place was mine now, but stripped of my parents' old things, it was hard to think of it as home, and the meager possessions I'd brought back with me from California filled just a few cardboard boxes in the living room. It was a little split-level, set back from the road on the outskirts of McKinley's small downtown, on a quiet side road where tall trees towered overhead. The house was mostly unfurnished now, but I tried to keep it neat out of a need for self-discipline. I had boxes waiting to be unpacked, piled neatly against the walls, where a few family photos still hung, and had set up a mattress on the floor of my empty old bedroom. I hadn't quite felt comfortable claiming the master bedroom as my own, yet. And although I had set up a desk there, I had been doing most of my work at the kitchen table, where light streamed through the sliding glass door that faced out over the yard.

McKinley itself was quiet. Sitting on the coast of southern Maine, its days as a fishing village were pretty much behind it, and these days it was a charming little tourist town in the summer and a sleepy one the rest of the year. There was a short town beach, a boardwalk, and the kind of picture perfect downtown area you probably think of when you imagine Maine: a few neighborhood bars, cafes and restaurants, a town common with a war memorial and a couple of charming BnB's for the summer tourist crowd. Wealthier neighborhoods were built up on a small cape jutting out into the ocean, in view of the McKinley Point lighthouse, while the more middle class families lived inland, along the state highway and up a short, broad hill overlooking town.

All in all, it was a sweet little slice of Americana. My teenage self had considered it boring, uncultured, and isolating, of course - but when I returned fifteen years down the line, I found myself recaptured by its charms. When I came back after everything in my life fell apart, I couldn't help but fall in love with its beauty, its pace, and especially its simplicity. I picked up a job as a clerk with the local parks department, and quickly made friends with my coworkers. I would walk downtown to get groceries at the small grocery store, visit with the regulars at the little corner bar called Jerome's, and stroll along the boardwalk nodding politely at the familiar faces. I recognized a few from my past - and had an awkward encounter or two with some folks from back in high school - but overall, there was a feeling that in a lot of ways, I was starting things over. As summer turned to fall, and fall turned to winter, the anxieties of my life began to fall away, one by one.

On the afternoon I rediscovered the letter, Christmas had passed, and the new year was underway. Snow hung heavily from the branches outside, bathing the kitchen in bright, wintry light. I was pawing through shoeboxes, sorting out my personal effects: old tax papers, my passport. The letter must have been wedged in with my passport, because when I flipped through its empty pages, the envelope fell right onto my lap.

It took me a moment to realize what I was looking at. I had forgotten about this thing, this simple little thing that had occupied so many of my thoughts when I was younger. I must have known that it'd slip my mind, and put it in my passport for safekeeping - after all, I didn't remember seeing it when I moved back from California, and I couldn't remember the last time I'd even handled it, let alone thought about it. But as I picked it up carefully, the feelings came flooding back, and in an instant I felt myself overwhelmed by emotion. I could see myself from a distance, that burnout teenager who wondered what his future would bring. Sitting here at the kitchen table in my parents' old home, alone, starting things over in my thirties, I couldn't help but feel pity, and ache for my teenage self who assumed that by this point I'd have everything together. Sure, my life had gotten stable since I moved back to McKinley - but I was alone, without much of a family, or much to show for fifteen years of adulthood. I bit my lip, and turned the envelope over in my hands.

It had yellowed, and the corners and edges of the paper were worn and discolored. The blue ribbon was still tied tight, but it felt brittle, and the edges had begun to fray. The message written on the front was clearly visible, but the ink was less vibrant than I remembered it being. And then it struck me. Do not open until January 10 2026. With a slow, creeping sense of recognition, I lifted my eyes to the kitchen calendar. The 10th had passed. It was already January 12th. I could finally open the envelope.

My chest felt very light, and I must have sat dumbstruck for a few moments before the realization fully hit me. I felt as if I were on autopilot as I began to open it up. Many times I'd pictured my future self opening this letter - would I tear it open like a present on Christmas? Or would slide a fancy opener under the paper in some high-rise office somewhere? Well, here I was - untying the soft blue ribbon, carefully peeling back the flap of paper, my heart pulsing in anticipation.

Inside, there was a folded piece of lined paper. It was cleaner and crisper than the envelope, as if it had been placed inside that very day. I slipped it out of the pouch with trembling hands, unfolding it and placing it flat on the table. For years I'd waited for this moment. For years I'd wondered about this mysterious message. I blinked slowly, took a deep breath, and read:

Contact Jean Winter

77 Range Road McKinley Maine

I wasn't sure how to react. I don't know what I expected, but... well, I guess I had expected some closure, at the very least. I flipped the paper over, thinking that maybe, just maybe, there was more on the other side, but the backside was blank. I held the sheet up to the light, guessing that part of the message could have faded, but I saw nothing. I read the two lines over and over, but there was no secret message. Just those few words: Contact Jean Winter.

After all those years, all those years of waiting and wondering, all those years I'd held onto this thing, this is what I ended up with: another clue. I felt heat creeping up behind my eyes, a familiar feeling of defeat and frustration, and I pushed the paper away and took my head in my hands.

Jean Winter. I knew a Jean back in high school, but her last name was Whitaker. And I had a teacher named Ms. Winter, who taught... I couldn't remember for sure what she taught. It was either English or History. But her first name wasn't Jean, or at least I didn't think so. I put my fingers on my temples, thinking, but all I was getting was a headache.

It would make sense if the "Jean Winter" on the note was someone that I went to high school with, or someone who was around the school at that time. After all, I discovered the letter in my school bag, after a school day, and it's not like I carried it around with me when my friends and I were screwing around town. Rubbing my eyes, I suddenly felt as if I were going crazy. Had I really held onto this thing for so long? Maybe it was a prank, or a bit of private joke meant for someone else.

I stood up and walked to the kitchen island, where I poured myself a glass of whiskey. I'd cut back on my drinking in the last few months, but... well, habits die hard, and I wasn't above a drink or two when I had the afternoon off like this. I was still in okay shape for thirty three, and I'd found that balancing it with exercise and rest was a good way to keep things from getting out of control. Plopping down on the living room couch, I took a sip, and let the heat of the liquor creep through my body, trying to clear my head.

I thought for a moment about the Jean I knew. She was in my homeroom. Our homerooms were small, probably just a dozen students or so, and we stayed with the same group all through high school. Jean and I never shared any other classes, and even if we did, we probably wouldn't have interacted - I was considered a bit of a "druggie" and she was more of, well... a girl next door type. Her dad was a pastor at one of the churches in town, and it always seemed to me that she was a bit repressed, or maybe that she came from a strict family. She had her own friends, who were typically plain, high-achieving kids, and who all seemed glued to each other at lunch, in the hallways, and after school.

That being said, homeroom was a special social environment. It was somewhere between a study hall, free period, and advisory hour, where you could catch up on assignments, get guidance on college prep, or just enjoy some idle time. For forty-five minutes a day, all of the clique politics and loyalties fell away and you could engage with students outside your circle without the fear of judgement. As an unfocused, weak student, I loved homeroom - my advisor, Mrs. Bradley, was totally non-judgemental and would coach me through math and science stuff I struggled with, and because I had a bit of a lack of focus, the free time was a nice mental reset. When I wasn't catching up on assignments, I could listen to music, or draw in my notebook, without a teacher breathing down my neck.

Jean liked to sit with me, since none of her usual friends were in our homeroom. She'd often chat with me, asking what music I was listening to on my iPod and what bands I liked, and teasing me every time I earned another detention. She'd add little details or speech bubbles in the sketches that filled the margins of my notebooks, and talk about her boring home and her strict parents and what she planned for college. She was sweet, and had a sincerity that most teenagers haven't really developed yet.

It wasn't the only thing she'd developed. My hormones were as overactive as any teenage boy's, and by senior year, I would have had to be blind not to notice her body. At eighteen, I secretly thought she was stunning. Her thick thighs and wide hips might not have been to everyone's taste - especially given that she was probably just five feet tall - but they were perfectly fit to mine, and there was something unique about her arched eyebrows, her roman nose, her thick lips and her round face framed by straight, jet black hair. She wasn't fat or chubby, but she had curves. And although she wore sweatshirts and sweaters for most of the year, it was obvious from her build that she had a heavy, full chest.

Part of me always liked Jean. And I'd be a liar if I said I didn't think about her. During the day, I'd wonder what she was up to, what classes he was breezing through, and wonder about how I might fit in with her smart, studious friends. At night, I'd lie in bed and try to imagine what she might look like under her baggy clothes, and how things might go if we were alone, away from the controlling influence of our cliques. I'd picture her leaning in for a kiss, blushing with innocence, and the moment I'd lift her protective sweatshirt to reveal her big, soft breasts she'd laugh shyly as if she'd let me in on some secret. In my fantasies she was soft, but she was eager, too, and in that place that we could be alone we might give each other something that we couldn't get from anyone else.

But... they were fantasies. Jean and I were from different worlds. I knew from chatting with her that she lived out on the cape with the wealthy kids, and even if the social structure of high school had been easier to navigate, she was still a preacher's daughter. If she was religious, we'd be... incompatible, I guess. And given that her parents were definitely religious, I doubted that we'd be able to get along very well. So in the end, I chalked it up to my hormones being out of control, and when I graduated I never heard from her again.

Until now, I suppose. Eyeing a pile of books beside the couch, I dropped a stack into my lap and sorted them until I found my yearbook. Wiping the dust off the cover with the back of my hand, I rested my glass on the floor and flipped through the pages. They were crisp, and some stuck together, as if I'd never opened the thing. I probably hadn't - when I was eighteen, I was so eager to leave McKinley that the thought of interacting with people from high school used to make me sick. But now, turning each page of the "seniors" section, I had to admit I felt a little nostalgia.

I was on the "B" page, of course. Graham Bauman. Extracurriculars: N/A. Goals: to become a writer. My teenaged face gazed up at me, grinning, from the page. It had been a long, long time since I'd cut that shaggy, dark hair, but I couldn't have changed that much otherwise, right? I still wore round, wire-frame glasses and had the same brown eyes, the same long nose. I was still thin, and I must have been 5'10'' then as I was now. But there was something else there, something in those eyes that was still so innocent, oblivious to the way that life tends to get away from you.

I sighed, taking another sip of my whiskey, ice cubes clanking in the bottle of the glass. Someone had drawn a border around my photo in purple pen, radiating waves and stars so I could find my own picture more easily. I flipped through the pages, landing on some of my friends, none of whom I spoke to anymore and none of whom, it seemed, still lived in McKinley. Marcus, who lived in the "poor" part of town with me and worked at the coffee shop with college-aged kids on weekends. Piper, who I sort of "dated" on and off throughout high school, who dyed her hair impulsively and played saxophone in the school bands. Hunter, who was more of a rich kid, but who hated his wealthy family and hung around with us because he thought we were "real." I gazed down at them with a sense of strange recognition, wondering how long it'd been since we spoke. I was the one who moved far away - who cut ties. Was I the bad guy? Next to each of their photos, my friends had left a note, some inside joke or reference. I drank again.

I turned to "W." Jean Whitaker. Extracurriculars: Chorus, Color Guard, Debate Team. Goals: to travel the world! AP Bio, AP English. Among that page of awkward teenaged portraits, she stood out - her dark eyes seemed to gaze right out of the past. Her intelligence and drive were obvious even just by looking at her photo. She must have gone far, I thought to myself. It was a funny feeling, thinking about her like this after so many years. Probably successful, married...

Fishing my phone out of my pocket, I quickly opened Facebook and did a quick search for her. There were a few strangers with that name, but no matches. I did the same on Instagram, and finally on Google. Nothing, I thought. I guess she changed her name to Winter. But if it was her that put this whole thing together, how could she have known that back in high school? And either way... what was this all about? Why me? Why now?

Finishing my drink, I rose to my feet. There was only one way to find out, and that was to follow the address on the note. I pulled on a wool coat and scarf, tying my boots quickly before I could think twice about what I was doing. After all, who knew what was waiting for me up on Range Road? I tried to ignore the most plausible option, which was that this whole thing was some kind of elaborate prank, or even a scam. But if it were something like that, how could the "sender" have known I'd be back here, living in McKinley? If things hadn't gone the way they did, I could have still been far away, living on the other side of the country.

As I closed and locked my front door, I pulled my collar higher, instinctively bracing against the chill of the winter afternoon. A breeze blew crystals of snow through the trees above the driveway, settling silently into the drifts blanketing the front yard. I never thought I'd be back here... and in high school I made a lot of noise about getting out. No one could have assumed I'd be here fifteen years later, available to drive up the road on a moment's notice.

Yet here I was. Sitting in the driver's seat of my car, letting the engine warm up, I shivered - partly thanks to the cold, but also with anticipation, even apprehension, as I let the mystery of this whole situation get the better of me. But even though I had settled back into life here in my hometown, I had to admit that I didn't have much else to lose. And that reminder is what pushed me to back out of the driveway and head up the snowy road, away from town, and to the address on the mysterious letter I'd kept close for fifteen years.

Turning onto Range Road, the old church proved that the Jean connection was the most likely. Up there in the woods outside of McKinley, number 77 turned out to be the First Presbyterian, the white clapboard church where her dad had been pastor. I drove by slowly, making a first pass to check the place out, nervous to get out of the car right away. The place looked like it hadn't seen a service in years. It wasn't exactly in disrepair, and the words Pastor Charles Whitaker still hung on the sign out front, but the front steps were unshoveled and the wood siding was worn. The gutters were clogged with branches, and icicles hung heavy along the roof. Only a single pair of tire tracks cut through the driveway, which was otherwise blanketed in snow, snaking around to an outbuilding with a bright red door, where an old pickup truck sat beneath a metal driveway shelter. There were no neighbors, and the woods were quiet. I suddenly found myself feeling self conscious about the noise I was making as I drove slowly by.

Unsure of what else to do, I drove down to the next intersection and turned around. Unwilling to pull into the driveway and risk getting my little car stuck there, I parked on the side of the quiet road and stepped out of my car. The smack of my door closing echoed through the trees, and a pair of crows took flight. Otherwise, everything was still - like a picture postcard of Maine in the winter. I looked around for the next clue, staying put, unwilling to explore without another sign. Even though it was only mid-afternoon, the sun was already low, the sky turning yellow as the sun sank behind the forest.

"Graham?"

The sound of my own name made me jump. I wheeled around - across the clearing, the old door of the small outbuilding swung open. And there was Jean. Fifteen years older, a little heavier, and with a few silver streaks in her hair, but... still her. She brushed a strand of raven hair behind her ear.

"Jean?" I asked, the name sounding strange in my mouth.

"Oh, God," she said. She reached behind the door, hurriedly throwing a coat on. Underneath, she wore a pair of jeans whose knees were worn and gray, and with frenzied hands she pulled on a pair of high rubber boots. As she trudged towards me through the snow, she wore a curious look on her face - excitement, perhaps, but not the joyful kind. It was closer to surprise, or maybe wonder. "Graham, is that you?"

"Y-yeah," I stammered. I found myself backing up, my hands finding the hood of my car. "The letter..."

"You remembered," she said breathlessly as she reached the end of the driveway. Up close, her dark eyes suddenly seemed so familiar. They searched mine, and she stopped just short of hugging me. "Well... you're here, at least. You're late, but you're here." She crossed her arms against the cold. "Come on."

"Late?" I asked. "Jean, did you..."

"I said come on," she repeated, tilting her head towards the door.

I hesitated for a moment, my hands still resting against the frosty hood of my car. "Wait," I said. "Jean... what is this? The letter. This. Everything." It felt surreal, saying the words out loud. Even talking to her after so long, and doing it so casually, felt strange, somehow.

"I'll explain inside," she said impatiently.

"No, I have to know... was it you?"

"Yes."

"How did you know I'd be back home? How did you know I'd come?"

"Time travel," Jean said exasperatedly, finally grabbing me by the sleeve and pulling me down the driveway after her.

The outbuilding behind the church turned out to be Jean's apartment. "I'm still working on making the church itself livable," she said, as she set a kettle down on top of the small apartment stove.

For the last few years, she'd been staying in what used to be a small Sunday schoolroom detached from the main church. I could hardly picture it being used for anything other than living, - she'd had so much work done on the place that it seemed like it had always been a cozy living space. She'd had a loft built against the back wall, where she could put a bed without it taking up any of the main floor, and there was a small kitchen area nestled across from a tight little living space with a couch, TV bookshelf and desk. There was even a bathroom that she'd squeezed a shower stall into. It wasn't quite a tiny home, but it was definitely compact. Squeezed into a chair at a tiny kitchen table, the place felt just shy of cramped.

"I don't have too many guests these days," Jean said, as if reading my thoughts. "But the place is big enough for me. Sorry if it's a little cozy."

"It's just cozy enough," I said, trying to keep the mood light. My mind was racing, but I took a deep breath and tried to act natural. "Have you... have you been back long?"

"Six years," she said, settling across from me.

At the small table, our knees practically touched. She didn't seem as shy about her body as she had in high school. The apartment was warm, and her button down shirt was open - the view of her full chest tantalizingly clear through a tight gray t-shirt. My teenage self probably wouldn't have been able to keep from staring. I shifted my weight a little, in order to sit up straight, trying not to look down. "Jean, I... don't really know where to begin."

"Listen," she said. "I know this is weird. Seeing each other, reaching out... I get it. And I'm going to be frank about some stuff. You might not believe everything I tell you, but I promise that everything I say, even the stuff that sounds ridiculous, will be proven soon. Sooner than you think."

"You mean the 'time travel,'" I said, making quotes with my fingers.

"You don't believe me."

"How could I?" I asked. "It's... well, it's not possible."

Jean closed her eyes, and took a deep breath before reopening them. "If I talk, can you please not interrupt me?"

I sat back in my chair, and crossed my arms. "Okay," I said.

"So... you remember back in high school, I was kind of... a bit of an outcast."

"I feel like you hung out with, like, the sort of nerdy crew."

"You could say that, yeah. I liked those kids because they didn't think twice about trying really hard. Focusing on school and taking extra classes - it wasn't considered 'lame' or a waste of time."

"Sure."

"Well.... there was a reason I gravitated towards that crowd. I know my dad was a pastor, and I know I probably came off as kind of uncool or maybe like I was a bit sheltered. That wasn't exactly true. It's not like I wanted to be the boring, quiet Christian girl. My parents wanted that for me. They were really kind of awful and overprotective. My, um... I had an older sister who disappeared, and it sort of broke my family. She was 19 when she vanished"

"Really?" I asked. "I had no idea. I'm - I'm so sorry."

"Yeah," Jean said, brushing her hair behind her ear again. It seemed to be somewhat of a nervous tic. "They were always pretty overbearing. But when Maggie - that's my sister - disappeared right before our freshman year, things got kind of crazy. I had serious curfews, wasn't allowed to hang out with my friends outside of our house, things like that. That pretty much went all the way through high school. It was so, so restrictive - and after awhile I just kind of put my head down and focused to getting out of there. I figured that if I worked really hard at school, I could go really far away."

"You went to London, right?"

"Yeah, I got my wish. I went to England and did four years of university there. It was really great, and the freedom was exhilarating. Like starting my life for real. It was really amazing. Before that, my little attempts at self expression were, uh... pretty pathetic. Do you remember homeroom, how I'd write down all the bands you told me about?"

"Sure," I smile, my face reddening.

"It's not like I could go home and listen to them. My internet was pretty much monitored. I could only access it from a computer in the living room, where my folks could see the screen. I couldn't go look up The Clash or The Ramones and expect to get away with it. So all I could do was listen to you talk about them. God... I had the biggest crush on you."

"You... you did?"

Jean rolled her eyes, smiling. "Seriously, you couldn't tell?" She shook her head. "Not that my parents would be okay with me even talking to a boy that didn't go to our church. It was hopeless."

"Yeah," I said dumbly. She... had a crush on me?

"Plus, you had your own friends, and they sort of scared me, you know? That girl with the pink hair -"

"Piper," I said quickly.

"Yeah. She was everything I think I wanted to be, secretly. Her dyed hair, her thrifted clothes. I would sit up at night and fantasize about going on, like, a shopping spree. Changing my look, my attitude. Everything. Plus, you guys were going out, right?"

"Uh, well... we kind of hooked up once or twice," I stammered. "It was just high school stuff."

"Well, I tried to imagine myself in her shoes."

"Y-yeah," I smiled, feeling my cheeks redden.

"But it wasn't going to happen. When Maggie disappeared, it was like my parents put me on lockdown. I could barely be out of their sight. So I just bided my time, working hard to put myself in a good enough position to get far, far away. If I got a scholarship, they wouldn't have any power over me after graduation. But in the meantime, they were like prison wardens, never letting me do anything. I spent a lot of time here at the church."

"They must have been scared," I said.

Jean laughed bitterly. "Yeah, something like that."

"What happened when she, uh... when she disappeared?"

"Well, that's what I've been out here for the last five years trying to figure out. My parents were so repressed, Graham. We never, never talked about Maggie. After it happened, they spoke to the police a few times, but besides that it was like they never tried to look for her. Some of the people who went to our church put up 'missing person' fliers, and made a website. But my parents never took part in anything. It was like they were embarrassed."

"Jesus," I said, shaking my head. "Jean, I'm so sorry."

"Yeah, it's... it still hurts, I guess," she said. The tea began to whistle, and she stood up. It was only a single step to the stove. She pulled down a pair of mugs and dropped a pair of tea bags in. "Is black okay? I don't have many supplies right now - been kinda busy."

"Sure," I said.

"Anyways... I left, never talked to them again," she said stiffly. She set a mug down in front of me, steam curling towards the ceiling, and returned to her chair. "I was in London for a few years after college, working as a waitress at an American-themed pub. I know," she grinned, hearing me laugh. "Money was good, but I thought about my sister all the time. She would have been twenty seven when I graduated, and I found myself thinking about the 'twenty seven club' and all those musicians who never made it farther than that. I'd finally listened to all those bands you liked, obviously."

I blushed again.

"Anyways," she continued. "It felt to me like Maggie was still out there somewhere. It occurred to me so suddenly that I hadn't ever done enough to look for her on my own. I started by looking up my parents. Turned out they'd moved away, to California. And when they left, no one took over the church. The town bought the land. So I took out a loan and bought the whole place, under an assumed name. I figured that if they ever did decide they gave a shit about me, a new last name would throw them off the trail a bit. And since the disappearance happened when we were all living in Maine, I thought that this would be a good home base to start looking for her."

"Jean Winter," I nodded. "Okay. That's what you wrote on the letter."

"That's right," she nodded.

"So you'd made your mind up by senior year? You knew you'd want to make that much of a break from them?"

"No, Graham," Jean said. She wrung her hands, took a deep breath, and wrapped them around her mug. "This is the part that gets weird. I need you to just... just take it for granted I'm telling the truth."

I nodded silently.

"When I bought the church," she began. "It was in pretty bad shape. I had some money saved up. Enough to get the Sunday school converted into an apartment. But most of the cleanup I did myself. I bought the pickup truck and spent the first year just clearing the old place out, taking trips to the dump and doing burns out in the yard. I explored every nook and cranny of the property, all on my own. I have friends in town, and would have people over for dinner now and then, but something about reclaiming this space made me want to do the hard parts alone."

I nodded.

"My dad was the pastor here, obviously. So I grew up coming here. But there were parts of the church and the school I was never allowed to go. The steeple? Too dangerous, of course. And the sacristy was off-limits to everyone. There was a basement, too - the bulkhead was out behind the garden, and it was always locked. When I bought the place, I cut the chain and went down there. There was a mess of old church stuff down there. You know... old pews, an altar, a baptismal font, all covered in spider webs. Stuff that had been replaced over the years. And there was a door."

"A door," I nodded.

Jean took a deep breath. "Graham... this door had this energy. It's hard to explain. But I was scared of it. I don't know why. It was just a wooden door, painted red, built into the foundation of the church. But I avoided it for the first couple years. It was the morning of my thirtieth birthday, actually, that I finally felt an impulse to open it."

"What was behind it?" I asked, my curiosity getting the best of me.

Jean shook her head. "It wasn't... it wasn't a thing. The door went back in time."

I stifled a laugh. "Come on," I said. "Jean... I don't want to be insensitive. But... is this like some kind of prank?"

Jean shook her head. "It's not that at all. I know it's hard to believe. But that door goes fifteen years into the past. Exactly fifteen years. When you go through it, you just inhabit yourself. Whatever you were doing then, you just blink, and you wake up doing it."

I scratched my head. "Okay... and so you went through the door, and you were, what? Fifteen? A freshman in high school?"

Jean nodded. There wasn't a trace of humor on her face. "It was the morning of my fifteenth birthday. It was about a year after Maggie had disappeared." Her eyes were suddenly glassy, wet with tears, and in an instant I knew she was telling the truth. "Graham, do you know how many times I've kicked myself for not going through that door sooner?" A tear slipped across her cheek, and she wiped it away quickly. "I've... I've never talked about this to anyone. I waited to tell you for long enough, and it's just... it's just..."

"It's okay," I said quickly. "It's not your fault. None of this is." I wanted to leap up from my chair and hug her, comfort her. But the whole thing was just so intense and surreal. I was glued to my seat.

"I know," she said, her voice shaking. "But I could have fixed it so much sooner... I just was too late."

"Well... something must have happened after that," I said.

She nodded. "It took me some time before I figured out what had happened. Because I went through the door early in the morning, I woke up at age fifteen, in my bed. I thought that I had been in a dream for fifteen years, and I lived my life normally for a week or so. But if it was a dream, how did it feel so real, you know? So I broke into the church basement again. The door was blue, instead of red. When I went through it, I was 30 again. It was the same day I'd left, and no time had passed."

"So you go through the door, and it's fifteen years in the past, but when you go, er... forward in time, it's not exactly fifteen years?"

"Right."

"And what about the, you know - butterfly effect? When you came back, had the whole world changed?"

Jean shook her head. "No," she said. "It doesn't really seem to work like that. It takes a pretty big event to change things in the future. It's like time has a way of correcting itself."

"But you have, uh... changed the future?" I asked, realizing the uncomfortable implications of that. It occurred to me that if something really significant had happened in her 'travels,' I may not be the 'original' version of me.

Jean looked away quickly. "Once," she said.

I bit my lip. "... and?"

"And it was just a little bit. Nothing huge. No changing history, or physics, or anything like that. I, uh..." she trailed off.

"You what?" I asked.

Jean shook her head, looking at her lap. Her hands were tight around the steaming mug.

"Jean," I said slowly. "Listen... you realize how crazy this all sounds, right? If you expect me to go along with all of this, you have to be honest with me."

"I know," she said. "I am being honest. But... this is big for me, too. I swear, you're the only person that knows about any of this. You're the only person who can know about any of this. But I need to make sure I can trust you, too, before I can tell you everything."

I sighed, leaning back in my chair. "I... guess that's fair," I said. "But I don't understand why I'm even a part of this."

"I'm getting to that. I'm not sure if you remember this, but fifteen years ago this week, you had three days of detention."

"I had a lot of detentions," I said, shrugging.

"Yeah," Jean nodded matter of factly. "But these detentions are important. Every teacher at our school would have to do a week of detention duty per year, and on this week in 2011, that teacher would have been Mr. Hampton."

"Mr. Hampton?" I asked, searching my memory. The name didn't ring a bell.

"He taught AP Physics."

"Well, that's probably why I don't remember him. I would have died in a class like that. He must have been one of yours, right?"

Jean shook her head. "I was in AP English and Bio."

"Right. So why do you care about Mr. Hampton?"

"Well, when I was cleaning out the basement of the church, around the time I found the door. I found some of Maggie's diaries. In the last entry, she wrote that she was meeting with Mr. Hampton after school."

"Oh," I said. "Do you think... maybe he did something to her?"

"I really don't know," Jean said quietly. "There's no other information. He never seemed like he was, you know - fooling around with students, but who knows?"

My chest felt a little heavy at the thought. "Couldn't you just confront him in the present?"

Jean shook her head, a strand of dark hair coming loose. She quickly brushed it back into place. "He's disappeared. Nothing online, no one at the school has any record of where he went. And if I confronted him in the past... well, accusing him of having something to do with Maggie's disappearance could potentially mess up the timeline, if I were wrong. It could really mess up his life."

"I see," I said. "So... what do I have to do with anything?"

"The way I see it," Jean said, "Is that you'll be in a room with him for three days. You could get ahold of his keys, and we could make a copy, search his place..."

"And what if we got caught?" I laughed. "That wouldn't mess up the timeline?"

"If you get caught in the past, no one will blink an eye. I remember you back then - fearless, always getting in trouble for dumb stuff. You weren't afraid of rules, teachers, authority... I mean, I thought it was amazing."

I laughed out loud. "I was an idiot."

"Well, if you were an idiot, then I was an idiot for liking you."

I blushed. "I don't know about that," I said. I thought for a second. "So you knew that I'd be in detention with Mr. Hampton, and you wrote the note that I found in my bag?"

Jean nodded.

"And you waited fifteen years."

"No," Jean shook her head. "I waited three days. I slipped the note in your bag on January 10th, 2011, and then came right back to the present."

"Right," I said, massaging my temples. "Sorry. It's confusing."

"I know," Jean said. "But the letter itself existed for fifteen years, if that makes sense. It was a bit of a longshot. I knew you were back in McKinley. I'd seen you downtown, and everything clicked for me in an instant. I did a little research on you, then I rushed back to 2011 to figure out the best way to contact you."

"You couldn't have just talked to me in person? Like, in the present?"

"Sure," Jean laughed. "Like, 'Hey, Graham. I know we haven't talked in fifteen years and you probably don't remember me. But I'm doing a time-travel detective thing now, want to join me?' No - I had to give you a little proof, and create a bit of mystery in order to get past your disbelief."

"It worked," I nodded.

"Barely. You made me wait two extra days."

"Well... the letter just sort of slipped out of some of my things today, and... well, I came right up here when I found it."

"Lucky break," Jean said.

"Yeah," I smiled. "Lucky break. And obviously I remembered you."

Jean grinned. "I made sure of that. Listen," she said quickly. "I've thought a lot about this. It's pretty easy, all things considered, and you have three chances to get the keys. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoon. We bring them back to the present, we make a copy, and we can go back and figure out what's next. You're the perfect guy for the job."

"Jean..."

"But since you were a few days late coming down here, we have to start today," she said. "Like... right now."

"Right now?"

She nodded. "It's 3:45 PM right now. In the past, detention is just getting started."

I blinked slowly, the insanity of the whole situation just beginning to dawn on me. Jean took my hand, looking at me intently with her big, dark eyes. "I know this is insane," she said. "But I've been looking for my sister for years, and this is a lead. We were friends back in the day, right?"

"Kind of," I said, trying to be honest.

"Okay, that's fair. But we wanted to be friends, right?"

I nodded meekly, my face still red.

"Well, better late than never, right? This will be like the big hangout we never had. And if it goes bad, or it feels off, I swear to God I'll never burden you with any of this again.

"O-okay," I nodded again.

Jean squeezed my hand tight, before letting go. "Okay, let's go, then. We've got no time to lose."