The Watchmaker's Gift

III

How could anyone survive a crash like that?

But she was alive!

Anaya's head was already pounding, but now her panic surged even higher. She didn't know what scared her more, the fact that she might actually have been fatally hurt or the idea that she had imagined it all in cold daylight.

What happened... what the hell happened? That was no dream! But did I really just...?

Greg's firm grip on her shoulder helped ground her back to reality. "Ana, you're safe now." His voice was smooth, his breath measured and calm, like time itself stood still at his command. He waited, eerily patient, for Anaya to reclaim her own composure. "Look at me, Ana."

As if in a trance, she shifted toward him. His wide-brimmed fishing hat shadowed his face, and he still wore the navy turtleneck and dark wash jeans. His other hand still clutched the bag of bread crumbs.

I'm back to when I first started talking to him today. I'm alive and somehow I'm back... to before?

Her breathing slowed with the realization, but her mind continued to reel, refusing to accept it.

"You are alive and well, Anaya." Gregory spoke with reassurance, the same way that she might speak to her own patients, encouraging them as they went through their sessions of difficult and often painful rehab. She recognized he was trying to bring her through shock before she succumbed to it. "Yes, you did have an accident. But you are fine now. Please, sit back and take a few minutes. You need to readjust to the experience. Then, I will tell you everything."

His voice was low and soothing. She focused on that and the panic dissipated faster, making room for reality to sink in. Her tongue was as dry as brittle sandpaper, her throat beyond parched. She tried to swallow, but couldn't. Her voice was barely a whisper when she did manage to speak.

"What... happened?"

Gregory leaned forward slowly. "A truth for a truth. That has always been our way. Today, I shall tell you two."

She watched his face but said nothing, unable to give any indication she'd even heard his words.

Gregory sighed. "The watch I gave you turned back time."

Anaya's head snapped up. She looked past the pond and across the wide expanse of manicured lawn towards the road.

There was no van. The lamp post was undamaged.

I didn't imagine it?

Her right hand instinctively grazed her other wrist, searching for the object of this incredulous claim. She tore her eyes from the placid scene in front of her and looked down. Her wrist was bare.

The watch was gone.

Anaya made a sound that came out somewhere between a choke and a sob.

Gregory proceeded almost matter-of-factly, as if they were discussing the weather or the latest foreign news. "I have dedicated most of my life to studying time, its history and movement. I made hundreds of watches for my customers, but there was one I simply could not part with. This one was... unique. As I learned more about how time flows, I modified it. With every passing year, I tinkered with it, willed it to cooperate with my hopes and wishes. Until, at last, it connected and I found a way to rewind time..."

He paused and held out his wrist, revealing that the watch he'd given her was still there.

"That was forty years ago. Since then, I have travelled back to that day and lived my life over and over and over again. I have accomplished all that I set out to do, more than I could have ever dreamed of doing. I had a happy marriage each time until my wife passed away, a successful business, sufficient income to lead a comfortable life. Now, I want to give that opportunity to someone else. Someone who may need it even more than I did."