Where one woman’s slumber opened a portal to the past encountering a love that refused to stay quiet, echoing across time…

Available from MIRA April 2023!

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Chapter One

March 2020

Henrietta Wilmont was sitting in the Kansas City airport when she first heard of the lockdown.

She had a while before her connecting flight, so she’d bought a couple of magazines, both about cooking, and she was absorbed in them. She was thinking she’d like to visit Portugal and find out how they make pastel de nata.

Since her phone was on airplane mode, the text didn’t ding. By the time she looked, there were six texts from her sister, Alicia. Each was headed with all caps words like, URGENT and VITAL.

Etta’s heart started pounding. Something awful had happened. To Alicia? Her husband?

Please no, not their daughter Nola. Etta took a breath. It had to be their father. She’d left him at home in rural Pennsylvania, alone in that huge house, and he’d fallen down the stairs. It was all her fault.

With shaking hands, she called Alicia’s number. “What is it?” she whispered. “California has been put on lockdown,” Alicia said.

Etta had no idea what that meant. “Is Nola okay? Phillip? Is…?” She hesitated. “Is it Dad?”

“Everyone is fine,” Alicia said. “Healthy. And we mean to stay that way.”

“What does that mean?” Etta’s voice was rising.

Alicia was a psychologist and was used to dealing with people in crisis. She turned on her calm-and-caring voice and explained that there was a virus running rampant throughout the world. It was attacking older people especially and was said to be killing them almost instantly. People were being told to have no contact with anyone outside their immediate family. The lockdown would be in place for at least two weeks.

Etta was so relieved that her family was okay that she couldn’t be upset over a bit of isolation.

“We’ll do it together,” she told her sister. “I’ll show you how to cook something besides pasta and—”

“You don’t understand. You can’t come here.”

“But my plane—” With her phone to her ear, Etta went to the departures board. Her flight had been cancelled. There were some other flights available, but none to California. “I’ll rent a car and drive. How far is it from KC to LA?”

“Etta.” Alicia went into her therapist voice. “You can’t come here and you can’t go home. I don’t want you on a plane with lots of other people. You need to stay there. In Kansas.”

Etta looked around the airport. It wasn’t very big and she was seeing others who appeared to be as confused as she was. “I can’t stay in the airport for two weeks.”