Time After Time Read Online Free PDF Page A

to the window again and peered out.
    The sun had set, the forest bordering the parsonage cloaked in greying shadows. She wondered if something within forest had made the noise, and her gaze lingered on the trees before wandering back to the cemetery. She paused at a large, exaggerated seraph, its wings stretched in flight. Already a light fog had curled around the tombstones. But there was nothing to startle her. With a sigh, she turned to go, when her glance flickered back to the forest.
    She froze.
    Standing on the edge of the forest, half-hidden in the encroaching shadows, was the stranger. She would recognise him anywhere. He stood with his feet apart, arms crossed against his broad chest, while staring at the attic window of the parsonage. At her .
    Something yanked deeply at Penelope’s chest, and she wanted to look away, wanted to move from the window.
    Wanted to run and hide.
    But she couldn’t. Like in the mud she was stuck in earlier, her feet were anchored to the floor, her eyes fixed on him. And somehow, he held not just her eyes, but her heart, too. It was as if he’d reached out and wrapped a tight fist around it, squeezing it tighter and tighter. She could barely breathe.
    He moved. It was the slightest lift of his chin, almost imperceptible, and her fingers itched to reach out and touch him. She knew he would be as cool as the marble of the statues below. As cold as the giant seraph.
    Move away , a voice whispered in her mind. Step back .
    She shivered, the cool breeze again stirring the hairs on the back of her neck and breaking the trance. It was all she needed. Without a second’s hesitation, she fled the room, racing down the narrow attic stairs.
    Only when she was ensconced in her room, the door firmly closed behind her, did she realise what troubled her the most.
    Twice she’d felt the cool breeze on her neck, as if a gust of wind had blown through the attic, when she had been staring out at him on the edge of the forest. But there was only one window, and it was shut.
    ‘Harry is well?’
    ‘Yes, and, as usual, he is in very good spirits,’ Penelope told her father that evening as they sat by the hearth. She toyed briefly with the idea of collecting her drawing materials and sketching, but she was too afraid to go up to the attic in the dark.
    Afraid of what might be lurking in the shadows. Or who.
    ‘I hear he has a friend with him?’
    ‘A colleague from university. Mr Heath Lockwood,’ she explained, blushing slightly as she recalled the warmth of his chocolate brown eyes.
    The parson nodded. ‘Very good for Harry.’ He fell silent and Penelope struggled to think of something else to say. Her father wasn’t known for conversation, although standing at the altar in front of a crowded church he was never short of words.
    ‘Did you visit Mrs Smith?’ she asked eventually.
    ‘Ah yes. Poor, poor woman. Her situation is dire, with her husband being such a wretched man, drinking and vanishing of his own accord. And her lack of faith does little to help.’
    ‘Mrs Smith has faith, Father,’ Penelope said. ‘Just not the same kind of faith that you have.’
    ‘As we have, Penelope,’ he corrected quietly. ‘I’ve done my best to bring her and her family to the church, but she won’t hear of it.’
    ‘Her own mother was very strong,’ she said gently, knowing how much her father disliked atheism, agnosticism or worse. Eliza Smith had her own firm beliefs on the subject of her soul. Beliefs that were in stark contrast to those which Penelope’s father preached.
    ‘I told her you would visit during the week.’
    Penelope smiled. ‘Yes. I will.’ After a moment, her thoughts drifting once more, she said, ‘Father, have you heard of any visitors to town?’
    He looked up. ‘No. Just Harry’s friend. Mrs Priscopp said the other day she might send for her niece, Anne, but otherwise, no.’
    ‘Oh.’ Penelope didn’t elaborate further, and her father didn’t ask. Eventually she