Closeted lesbian schoolteacher Lina falls through a sinkhole into a cave. Upon her rescue, she realizes the world has changed and it is no longer 1919. Aspiring geologist Emery is a skeptic who neither believes in love nor the supernatural. Yet when fate places her outside the same cave Lina fell into, Emery feels compelled to help her.
Suddenly unemployed and homeless, Lina struggles to learn the ways of this new reality. She’s drawn to Emery and Emery to her, yet they are as different in everything as two people can possibly be. Whereas Lina accepts she somehow travelled through time and vows to make the best of it, Emery scoffs at the notion and believes Lina delusional or a lying manipulator.
Why, then, doesn’t Emery turn her back on Lina? Is it due to their mutual physical attraction? Or do the dreams that hound her reveal more than Emery wants to know?
“The school house! It’s still there.”
Lina hastened toward it, not caring that she left Emery behind once again.
“Thank you, dear Father in heaven, thank you so very much. Look,” she gestured to Emery who was just catching up. “Over there. That’s my classroom behind that window.”
Emery was frowning. “No, Lina. That’s the church activities building. The school is further up ahead.”
“What? No, I --”
Tears welled up and she angrily swiped at them. It wasn’t possible. It simply wasn’t possible. She’d watched the children run gleefully down these very steps when she dismissed them for the holiday. And that had been only a few days ago. She was sure of it.
“I taught here,” she stated more quietly. “It’s just that all of a sudden I am no longer clear on when. How can you know for sure that this is not the school still? Just because it says Parish House doesn’t mean there aren’t classrooms inside.”
Her classroom, the desk tidy, always tidy, with every pencil sharpened and her fountain pen, the one thing of value she possessed, in its holder, right next to the ink. She’d hesitated leaving it over the holidays, but as she wasn’t going to be at the boarding house anyway, it was as safe at the school as there.
Emery took Lina’s arm gently. “Come with me. The First Protestant Church school building is just up ahead. It’s almost directly across from the café. You can see for yourself. It’s been open for four or five years now.”
Four or five years?
Lina’s heart sank as she plodded along next to Emery. No wonder everything had changed. The school would’ve hired another teacher as soon as the holiday was over and Lina didn’t return, and Mrs. Langstuhl, regretfully, but practical and thinking of her own needs, would’ve packed up her room and let it to the next girl. She might’ve held on to Lina’s belongings for a bit, but not for that long. Not for four years certainly. Except, the woman at the inn had claimed they’d bought it eight years ago, twice the time the school house had supposedly been replaced.
It made no sense, nothing whatsoever did. If Mrs. Langstuhl was gone, the other girls from the boarding house most likely had dispersed as well, since they hardly ever stayed longer than a few years as it was. Wasn’t there anyone left in this place whom she knew and who knew her? Lina shook her head, turning again toward Emery, another stranger even if she didn’t feel like one.
“You were there, when they got me out of the cave. You know, there is no way I was in there that long. I would’ve ...” Died after a few days, or maybe weeks if she kept licking water off the pillars. Died, as Fridolin had, her bones added to the pile. “Why didn’t I perish in there? No human being can survive that long without nourishment of sorts.”
“There has to be a logical explanation for whatever happened. Come on, let’s get some food and maybe things will start making sense.”
Lina doubted it, but she nodded, and together they walked on, past a long, low building with a lot of windows. A bright, colorful sign proclaimed it the First Protestant School of New Braunfels. It was as unreal as all the other things that Lina had seen since stepping out of the cave less than twenty-four hours ago, and she averted her eyes lest she again start crying.
This was not the school she’d taught at. Ugly and large it loomed, ready to swallow children and adults alike. Did it matter, though? Children were children and there was always going to be another school. Lina knew she was a good teacher, respected by parents and pupils alike and she got along with her superiors decently enough, a skill well-honed over twenty-some years of hiding her true nature. Someone would hire her, she was sure of it.
But first she needed --
The enormity of all she needed threatened to engulf her, and Lina swayed, holding on to Emery for balance. Nothing. She had nothing. No lodgings, not even clean clothes. All she currently owned -- unless she somehow magically managed to retrieve what was once hers -- were the dress and boots she wore, unless you counted the water bottle and the crumpled papers from the hospital.
Blindly she trudged on, crossing the road when Emery did, until they stopped in front of a building bearing the sign Krause’s Café. It was full of people. People sitting and talking, people spilling out on the sidewalk even, and Lina’s heart lightened just a little. Maybe Emery was right and after a proper meal, things would be less terrifying.
