Love Beyond Time

Chapter 5

"This is your home?" The tall statured man questioned. "Yes. At least I think so." I could barely form words, my eyes were trained on the tall white cottage. The more I studied it the more I noticed small qualities that had suddenly changed overnight.

The pale green window shutters and around the trim of the house my father painted was gone. The small imperfections of the house and porch were fixed. Though the cottage seemed to be a bit smaller wondering if I had indeed wandered onto someone else's property.

His eyes softened, watching me try to come to terms with my surroundings.

"This is my home." I muttered feeling as though I was losing my mind. I was beginning to question everything I thought I knew. The quiet trespassing man never left my side.

The tire swing on the large pine tree was gone. My mother would never ask someone to paint over or take down anything that my father had done for us. And the trees themselves were not nearly as tall and massive as when I saw it outside my bedroom window last night.

"That's impossible, ma'am. I built this house." The farmer stated unamused. He turned his tanned, muscular black towards me clearly not believing the state of confusion I was in. He walked away from me to get back to his labor. The man put his shirt back on realizing I wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

"What? That's impossible." I scoffed as he put his pieces of wood in the wheelbarrow. "The man who built this house was-" I continued but was unable to finish my sentence.

My mind went a mile a minute trying to wrap my head around what was going on.

Was this my house? Was I the trespasser? But I couldn't have wandered miles away to the nearest neighbor at night. Right?

"What's your name?" I wondered if this man was one of my mother's neighbors whom I hadn't met yet. "Michael Holloway." He introduced himself by wiping his brow with the back of his hand.

My mouth hung open as a small smile formed my face. Remembering the story my father told us about the man who built our house over a century ago. "Micheal Holloway?" I laughed.

"Is this some kinda joke?" I questioned as we began to lose our patience for each other. It was clear I was becoming a nuisance to him distracting the man from his work.

"Did my mother put you up to this? Is this retaliation for not visiting her sooner? Where did she find you? Some Civil War reenactment group?" I scoffed amused, raking him up and down. Looking around expecting my mother to jump out somewhere and yell 'gotcha!'.

"Pardon? The war is long over, ma'am. Are you alright? Did you hit your head?" He asked, inspecting my forehead.

I lifted my hand up to the side of my head feeling dirt and dry blood caked into my dark hair. The man noticed the blood dripping down my knees and forehead making him come closer to inspect it.

Flinching as I felt his hands touch around my temple to see how bad it was. "Come back inside I'll help clean your wound." Micheal began walking back towards the little white cottage.

"Here. Please put this on." He pressed, handing me a blanket, making me frown. Deciding to listen not wanting to make him even more uncomfortable with my half nakedness.

He wrung out a clean cloth in a large pot of fresh water and came back over to the table. Looking around the home as he began to gently clean my wound.

The house was much smaller than before with only three rooms downstairs. There was no longer a second floor where our bedrooms were located. Through the years they must've made additions to the home.