Winterbourne 336g3x

Winterbourne by Hans Mann

Table of Contents

Title Page

April 28, 2020

January 10th, 2002

March 12th, 2001

January 11th, 2002

April 28, 2002

April 29, 2020

April 28, 2020

Faith Lucas pressed the ground floor button of the middle elevator and watched the red digits blink on the display. She still worked on the 15th floor of the tower where they had worked together all those years ago. He was long gone. He left 7 or 8 years ago; she couldn’t exactly. Dates had always been a bit blurry for her. He had left long after their relationship ended. Faith only found out that he left months later, by accident. In fact, she still thought he spent his days in the office six floors below hers. They had had long periods of silence but just knowing he was there was enough for her even if she didn’t see him in the corridors or in the lobby. That certainty had been blown away by a casual remark from an office mate of hers, about the guys who left for a competing firm and his name was also mentioned. Faith had dropped her coffee mug on her keyboard. Nobody said anything. It wasn’t because they knew the nature of her past relationship with Mark. It was because she was a protected entity in the tower. She was the wife of the founder and former chairman of the company, and nobody expected her to do anything at work. And she didn’t. She just didn’t want to stay at home, and she didn’t mind people talking behind her back or the snickers and scoffs she heard around corners. She didn’t ask anything from anyone, and she didn’t think she owed anyone anything in return. She felt too good for them, for any of them. She was too beautiful and too classy to be bothered with this. It still stung that she had fallen so desperately for Mark Mason all those years ago without him doing much. It stung because of the way in which he had broken off all without even looking back, after the two of them shared years of a relationship that transcended the reality realm. They met and dealt in dreams, in imagination, in an insane mental connection that meant that whenever one of them didn’t sleep at night it kept the other one awake and vice versa. Mark was like a telepath. He was always able to locate

her without talking and even without her wanting to be found. The imaginary space in which they lived for years had become the only genuine thing for Faith and this crumbling office tower was the last connection with that long-lost world. Between that and the way her colleagues reacted to her and felt about her, she roamed the corridors like a forgotten ghost who couldn’t quite go home yet. She was pale, much paler than natural and most of the time she wore long dresses. Her pitch-dark hair fell on her shoulders and her blank, disinterested and condescending gaze added to the ghastly appearance that almost made people get out of her way. She was extremely beautiful. She knew that and she knew that everyone around her, from men to women, knew that kind of beauty was rare and special and it was the source of most of her hubris. She didn’t want to see herself in the mirror just then. It was going to be hard in the elevator because it had mirrors on three sides, but she only wanted to look at herself on that particular day in a particular mirror. It was time. The elevator doors opened. She looked at the dark green high heels she wore as she stepped in. The cabin seemed to be empty. Fatih watched the movements of the lower folds of her dark green and yellow spring dress and rested her palms on the cold aluminum bar on the left side of the elevator. As it went down, Faith frowned at the smell of garlic that came from the cafeteria. Her sense of smell had always been high, but in this period, it was even more so. She touched the slight bump of her stomach and smiled. Outside it was a beautiful day. Spring in her hometown was a splendid season and the road outside the tower did its justice. It was a long boulevard, mostly pedestrian, guarded by linden trees on both sides. They smelled magnificent on that sunny day. It was noon and the streets were crowded with people who were looking for a place to have lunch. Fatih walked slowly and hid her eyes under a big pair of sunglasses. The place she was going to was just 15 minutes away down that boulevard. It was just where the pedestrian section ended. The air seemed to have a strange glow to it. She always felt it like that right

before a trip through time. She didn’t know if the glow was real or just her way of adjusting to it but as she got ready for each trip, a thin layer of reality seemed to come off. The building she went to looked like a museum from the outside. It looked like a museum on the inside as well. It was in the old town, so it fit right in. Nobody would suspect the special qualities it had. Faith had lived there before meeting both her husband and Mark. She had lived there alone for a few months between a gruesome breakup and meeting the two men who marked her life since. None of them had been there. She had kept the place. Her husband had so much money that he didn’t even notice the yearly expense for a 200 square meters big apartment in one of the most beautiful old buildings in the city. She kept the place and she used it to travel. The small yard of the building was separated from the street by a short metal fence. Faith pushed the gate slowly and then walked the thinalley to the left of the building until she reached the back door. She took a large key out of her purse and turned it with a creak. The place was empty. It looked even bigger because it was empty. The hardwood floors, the floor to ceiling high windows and the fireplace were all dear memories to her. She felt that the apartment mirrored her own self the way it was then. Beautiful and unreachable outside, vast but empty inside haunted by old memories. She descended to the basement. That’s where she kept the mirrors. She had 108 of them, once for each day from January 11th until her birthday, April 29th. She didn’t care for the rest of the days in a year. She embraced the smell of old and wood from that basement and enjoyed the clanking sound her heels made on the floor as she went to the second to last mirror. She could finally look. Faith had never seen a more beautiful view. She really shined as a pregnant woman. She touched her stomach again then caressed the soft, smooth skin of her own cheek. 48 years old and people didn’t give her more than 30. Her smile widened when she thought that she could just as easily send her 30-year-old self back to work that day.

She could, but she wasn’t going to on that particular day. She just wanted to have a chat with her.

January 10th, 2002

Mark Mason crawled home, crushed by the weight of his desire for more time with her. He felt as if he was dragging the entire world behind him and the 15 minutes it usually took him to get home from work lasted about 40. She was still in her office. She told him to leave though because she was going to meet her husband in front of the tower, and she couldn’t handle knowing Mark was still inside. She needed him to leave first that’s what she had written to him three times before he finally gave in against every fiber of his body. He wanted to get even a glimpse of her that day, even hand in hand with her husband. It was an icy and dry winter evening and Mark embraced the cold. It was their winter, their territory. They had spaces to fill and vast memories to warm up. She mirrored his feelings shiver for shiver and her words were sometimes even craftier than his. Wherever he wanted them to mean, in whichever fantasy or glorious dream of love, she had no trouble coming. It was tougher when it came to them meeting in real life. Faith was married to the chairman of their company and there were always a few people watching her every move and reporting to him. Even so they had a hard time hiding their affection and some of it spilled. Mark’s office mates smiled implicitly whenever they saw Faith, or whenever she called him and some of them even quipped from time to time. They respected his privacy and the only time someone had been obvious about it was when his best friend Mike saw Mark buy cigarettes for her and cautioned him to be careful if he cared about his career. As he dragged his feet home all Mark cared about was keeping the mood going and maybe exchanging a few more words with her that evening. Anything. Even a goodbye or a warm, intimate quote from a song or book that only he would know what it meant. Anything to feed the fantasy that stung so sweetly. It was hard for him also because it was Thursday evening. One more day and

then the most dreaded part of the week, the weekend, the void, the emptiness, the lack of . They never spoke on the weekends or on her holidays and he felt like he didn’t live during those days. They were grayed out on his calendar. No matter what, he was going to see her the next day. He gave her this break tonight but tomorrow she owed him something, a few minutes. Minute by minute he wanted to build a life with her. It was a long time coming. Mark had met Fatih Lucas many years before, in a dream. From the time he was 7 until he was about 9 or 10 he had a recurring nightmare that shattered him and shaped the kind of girls he would fall in love with. The dream was always the same. It started with little Mark descending a few tall stone steps in a basement. The stone was gray and cracked and the steps were dirty. He didn’t know why he was able to see them so clearly as these were not lit by any source of light e was scared. He was just a kid, and it was cold and unknown down there. At first, he could only hear the constant sound of water dripping on the cracked stone floor. He was in the first room in the basement and the floor had large cracks where the water was gathering. It smelled damp and rotten there. He wanted to run back upstairs but there was no way up. He couldn’t turn back. Only the basement existed. He found the source of light. It came from another room which was further back. It looked like a ridiculously small room, and it was hard to reach. Little Mark crossed the first room, careful not to get his feet wet. The next room had some gymnastics equipment. He knew those devices because he had watched the Olympics with his dad. There was the pommel horse, with a couple of dirty ragged clothes resting on it. They were the origin of the bad smell. He saw specks of dirt on them but also something red. He was worried. He felt sick to his stomach. The dripping sound got livelier. Water was dripping now down the walls as well. Little Mark noticed then that there were no mattresses in that room. The pommel horse, the uneven parallel bars, the beam, they were all there but with nothing on the floor to break an eventual fall. The smell got even worse and little Mark stumbled. He scraped his palm on the wet wall. The dripping sound turned into something else. Each drip swelled and turned into a whimper. The sound wasn’t constant anymore, the whimpers were getting

more frequent. They weren’t loud but little Mark could tell they were coming from that last room, with the natural light. He didn’t want to go there. He had to, though. He was drawn to that cry and he had to see what it was about. He knew he could help. Whatever it was, little Mark could help. He had to help. He was scared. He got close. The light in that small back room seemed natural but he couldn’t see any window or hole in the wall. He could see the wall, dripping wet and cracked but smoother than the walls in the other rooms. The grey was very clear and so were the darker streaks the water left on it. The whimper came from somewhere below. Little Mark went through the small entrance and saw a little silhouette crouched with her back at him. She was near the wall, crumpled in a small ball. It was a little girl. She was crying softly and shivering. She wore a sleeveless gymnastics unitard, dark blue. Mark could see her back. It was bruised by four long and straight lines of blood. The blood was fresh and bright red. Each red streak had a small shadow, proof of older, similar wounds. There was nobody else in the room. There was no exit from that room and yet the wounds were fresh. Mark kneeled and held the little girl in his arms. He held her tight and told her he was going to be there to save her. Every time. In every dream he knew he had been there before and that he was going to come there again. He would always find the little girl there. He held her right and they both got up. Still crying, the girl pointed to the wall above her every time. A name always appeared. Faith L. The same name every night. He promised her he was going to find her and save her in real life as well.

The dreams stopped after a few years, but Mark never forgot her name. He looked for her everywhere and one day a couple of years before, at a company event, he saw Faith Lucas on the list, right below him. She entered the room that day and he fell in love at first sight. She was more beautiful than he could have imagined. She was his destiny, foretold all those years ago. Mark hadn’t told her about the dream. He wanted to conquer her and make her fall in love with him without mentioning the destiny. That would be the grand finale, that would seal the deal, he didn’t want to waste that story. And the more their relationship developed on imaginary plains, the more he knew the dream reveal would come in handy. The many talks they had though convinced Mark that she was indeed the girl from the dream. She told him how she did gymnastics for years as a kid, how strict her parents were and how much she hated gymnastics now and never wanted to it again. This and other little things that fit like puzzle pieces over that image from so many years ago. Mark got home almost frozen. Faith had left in the meantime. He made himself a big meal and at 3 am he was cleaning the house in hopes that she would somehow visit him tomorrow.

March 12th, 2001

Faith Lucas bowed her head embarrassed as soon as her office mate closed the door. “Him, really? Oh wow” she colleague giggled as she pointed at the door through which the chairman had just squeezed out. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean...” the woman went on. Faith motioned her that it was alright. She was sure she had blushed a bit. “It’s nothing, it’s...please, be discreet about this” she finally spoke. Her office mate made the zipper sign to her lips, but the giggles went on all day long. The relationship was fresh and not even a relationship yet. Faith knew how tricky this was but there was something irresistible about the chairman’s charm and power. As tough as he was at work, he seemed very gentle when it was just the two of them. They had gone on a few dates after he had courted herdidn for half a year. It was an unusually warm March day and Faith enjoyed the walk to her apartment. She had only moved there since Christmas. Her father found the place and it was the most beautiful house she had ever been in. It was still light outside when she got home. There was someone on her couch when she got in. Faith stopped and looked at the familiar woman who smiled at her. In her teenage years she had struggled a bit and there were times when she thought she saw things which weren't there but this time she doubted it was a relapse. It was like looking in a mirror that only slightly altered the truth. She saw her beautiful face but with a few more years over it.

She froze and waited for the other one to say something. Older Faith came and touched her softly on her arm. “It’s alright. It’s me. It’s you. It’s ok”. She laughed embarrassed. “I need to tell you some things about the two men in your life.” “Two? But there’s only one, and barely....” Faith replied. The other one smiled and they sat down. She told her about the chairman and that she should continue down the path she was on now. Then she mentioned another guy and it brought an involuntary smirk on Faith’s face. She knew the guy. Mark. They met at a company event a couple of months before and they had hit it off. Nothing more than a few superficial jokes but their chemistry was refreshing. Faith wasn’t used to that, and she welcomed the interaction with an open heart. He seemed shy but pleasant. Faith thought of him a lot since that event, but he hadn’t reached out yet. “This guy...he will be the most intense part of your life for many years. You need that intensity. You need that dream and that connection to be complete again. And you need what I am telling you now to be sure the thread between the two of you will be unbreakable.” Faith wrote everything her older self said. It was a beautiful story, and she didn’t want to forget anything. She told her to tell him that she had been a gymnast as a child and that she still had scars from that period. That was what he looked for. “Pepper these elements through many conversations and build up your back story. Trust me, it will be worth it” Older Faith told her. “Then there is a dream. His biggest secret, his biggest weapon. I will tell you when to reveal what you know about it. This will cement his belief in destiny and will make him obsessed with you for life. Trust me. I will come back and tell you when to say it. Just the red dress.” Older Faith smiled once again and vanished in the basement. Faith didn’t own a special red dress but that seemed a trivial issue to dwell on, given everything else.

And yet it happened. The many pages of longhand writing were proof. Alight, Mark, she thought. I am waiting.

January 11th, 2002

Mark Mason woke up dizzy after only three hours of sleep. He could barely cleaning up his house the night before. He did his desire to meet Faith. The only shadow on his idea of a perfect afternoon was that it was Friday and she was probably going to be dressed casually. In his dreams she always dressed like a princess. He spaced out through the first half of the day. He was worried that she didn’t reply to his messages. She didn’t tell him anything about taking a free day. Apparently, the chairman wasn’t at work either and for a few minutes he feared they had left town. Then he saw her at the cafeteria. The one image that didn’t fit the rest of the crowd. She was a vision. She wore a bright red dress, knee length, and tall black boots. Her hair flowed freely down her back. Her nails were also painted red, and she was made up just to his taste. He knew it was all for him. It had to be for him. They were going to meet today; he had no doubt. He smiled, smitten. She replied in the same way and her eyes glowed excited. He wrote to her that he was speechless. “Did you pick your tongue up off the floor? It’s not that clean in the cafeteria, you know” she quipped in reply. “You know where it is clean though? At my place. I cleaned last night.” “Are you going to make me take off my boots?” “At the very least!” His heartbeat like never before. This was it. The day of the first kiss. He wanted it so bad that he feared he might lose it. He tiptoed until it was three pm and time to go home.

She knew where he lived. He had told her numerous times. He had described the walk-in front of the tower, the back alleys to take, everything. She knew where to come. They met at the back entrance of his building. She smiled from behind her huge sunglasses. Those glasses couldn’t hide anything. The red dress, her bright red lipstick and fingernails, she looked like a character from a 1940’s detective movie. They sat on his couch to catch their breaths. He couldn’t believe she was there. He was frozen, afraid that any gesture might ruin the fantasy and wake him up. She was still hiding her nerves with jokes and small talk. She told him that he had to be careful with her dress because she had a party to go to with her husband tonight. Important people were going to be there, and she had to look perfect. This helped him relax a bit and he took her hand. She waited for him. She stood there in front of him, smiling, caressing his hand. Then she excused herself and left the room for a minute to freshen up. Mark didn’t move. He tried to record every second of the afternoon, he wanted to know every noise that incredible woman made in his home, and he wanted her essence everywhere. He was in no hurry. He was going to enjoy these memories while she was at the party. And many months after. Faith returned with a more serious face. The lights were off in his house and outside it started to get dark, but Mark could swear she looked a little different, as if much more than just a couple of minutes had ed. She also seemed more confident as she sat near him. Her hands weren’t shivering anymore. She brought her mouth close to him and whispered. “You want to take me, right? Take me. Take me now. You’ve been waiting for me for so many years...it’s time”. Mark froze. This couldn’t be real.

She smiled as she fixed her eyes into his. “Yes, I know about the dream. I know how many times you saved me. It’s time to do it again, my love!” “How could you...” “Take me, now!” Mark took her by the hand, and they went into his bedroom. The experience of making love to her was unlike anything he felt before. Just like their relationship until then, it transcended reality. He wanted to pull out at the end, but she kept him there until he finished. Present Faith slowly got off the bed after she caressed him. She kept his seed inside her and smiled at herself in the mirror, before disappearing back to the future. Young Faith washed her face and returned to the bedroom.

April 28, 2002

Faith went through the mirror and climbed to the ground floor 18 years earlier. Her younger self was waiting in front of the window. Her eyes stopped on the other one’s belly. There was a slight, visible bump there. It was the most beautiful view she had ever seen. A vision of her future self. “It worked...” she whispered. “It did...” the other one smiled. “Didn’t I do well?” Older Faith caressed her younger face. “Yes, you did,” she whispered with tears in her eyes. Then her face hardened, and she added. “But there’s just one more thing you have to do, my dear.” Younger Faith still smiled. “I need to take your place and live your life now that I have a baby with him. See, I lost him somewhere, sometime...he’s gone for me. But this...the gift you gave me. This connects us forever.” “How..?” the other one asked softly. “I don’t just want the child. I want to live my life with Mark and the child.” “How?” young Faith repeated in a louder tone. “I will wait for you to reach my time. I will wait for both of you. You won’t let him go. I trust you with this. I will check from time to time, but I will wait for you. You get 18 years with him. That’s a lot. Then I will take over. 18 years, Faith. It’s a lifetime”

Her younger self nodded slowly. “Take care of us,” she added.

April 29, 2020

Faith had followed Mark’s life vaguely for the past few years. She didn’t need the exact details though for what she had to do. She knew that on that day he would go for a run, and she knew his exact route. She also knew how much he loved chance meetings, especially with people from his past. It was almost two pm when she stopped at the entrance to the pedestrian boulevard. The day was superb, sunny, 20 degrees. There was hope in the air. Faith knew Mark usually turned in that very sport to do another lap. Her heart skipped a beat when she recognized him from a distance. Tall, strong, with a dark green cap on his head. She wore a bright red dress. As he got close, he slowed his pace. He stopped altogether a couple of meters in front of her and took out his earphones. “Faith...?’ She smiled and nodded. “It’s been a while; I can't believe it. And you are...are you?” he mumbled and pointed at her belly. She nodded again. His eyes glowed. Faith finally spoke. “I live here, right around the corner...Do you have a little time? I want to show you something.” Mark didn’t hesitate. “But I am sweaty, is it ok?” Faith laughed and ed the long black boots.

“It’s fine”. She welcomed him into her empty apartment. “Are you sure you live here?” “I still come here from time to time.” She stopped in front of the mirror she had brought into the living room. She loved the way she looked just then. She caressed her belly and looked at him. “Come closer.” Mark came. She took his hand and put it in the same place hers was. “It’s yours, you know?” He retreated, startled. “What do you...” “It’s yours, my dear. We have a child together. Now we can be together forever.” Mark didn’t take his hand away. “What are you trying to tell me? What happened to the Chairman? I still see him around here.” Faith shook her head. “It’s something else. Tell me...did you ever imagine us having a family in real life? A marriage, a kid?” “I did...I wished so much for this back when.... a long time ago.” “And if you could go back, or talk to yourself from back then, would you stay with me?” Mark dropped his head. “I am sorry, Faith. I am not sure. It’s been a long time and I can’t ...it’s

gone, you know?” She nodded fast as tears streamed down her cheeks. “I know it is, for you, my love. That’s why I have to wait for the other one”. With this she pulled a thin knife from her purse and stuck it swiftly in his heart. Once. Twice. Three times. Her eyes never left his. “We’ll meet again, my love. I am waiting for you...” She pushed him through the mirror. She didn’t know where it took the body. She didn’t care. She wiped the blade. She knew she had to use it once more when the past was going to catch up. Now all she had to do was wait. Her dream life was on its way.

Copyright © 2021 Hans Mann All rights reserved The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.