Autumn bled into Winter for the little quartet in the Pacific Northwest. More books flowed in and out of the house then the years combined living there, Esther said. At Christmas they had a simple feast and Oliver had even been allowed to keep some animal blood in the ice box so he could join them for the meal. Estella warmed a cup for herself with mulling spices to celebrate with him.

For Christmas, he wrote the Beckers a letter.

In those cold days, Estella was starting to feel the pressure. She should be further along by now in her research, should have more of a clue of what to do. Instead, it was like she was going in circles, swirling the drain until the past finally swallowed her up.

It was made worse by the continued silence from France. She knew seeing her family unlikely, but truly, would a letter be that difficult, Jacques? It was selfish, self-centered thought but one that pressed painfully on her heart. She missed her family, sue her.

At night, thoughts of home crept in more violently, stealing her sleep. When she dreamed, she dreamed of France, of Saint-Tourre. She wasn’t certain she didn’t prefer the nightmares more.

Winter began to give way to Spring, and she still didn’t feel any closer. Productive, yes, but closer to home? Not so much. Time slipped through her fingers like strands of hair.

It was Esther who broke it to her that it might take years. “What do you expect, girl? You are no god. Only a witch vulnerable to their whims as much as any human. Learn about the universe all you want, but it was a deal with the devil that old Estelle made.”

“What do I do then?” She asked, practically yelling, her arms falling from her forehead to the table.

The old woman shrugged, “Find the devil.”

That was the day she began to think more seriously about France. Oliver wouldn’t like it, she was positive Esther and Eloise wouldn’t either. No matter her words, Esther probably didn’t intend for her to confront a god. Or her family for that matter.

Still, the old woman had a point: go to the devil, indeed.

She would have to figure out how to reach Saint-Tourre and back across the Atlantic with no money, but as far as she was concerned, that was problem for future Estella. She’s stowed away once, surely, she could do it again. As the Americans say: she’ll cross that bridge when she comes to it.

When she first brought the idea to her friends there were mixed reactions. Esther and Eloise were cautious but not alarmed. The war hadn’t reached France yet and buffer countries between it and Poland remained untouched. Oliver was more alarmed. He remembered her description of how catastrophic this war would become. The only leeway she left herself was in the sequence of events. He didn’t know France would be invaded in one month.

She intended to go by herself, so she didn’t tell him at first. But the man was insistent that she wasn’t alone, that he’d promised to follow her to the end, and truthfully her heart was too soft for him at this point to put up too much of a fight.

In the end, she needed Oliver’s help. Travel logistics in 1940 weren’t as simple as she was used to. It wasn’t a matter of pulling up a website that offered flight and lodging options side-by-side. The tickets for the train and the tickets for the ship that would take them to their port of entry in southern France were from different places.

And then---dear god---the documentation. Not the American passport, that wasn’t required yet, but entry visas into Europe. Estella felt especially affronted by this---she was French! But Oliver pointed out that didn’t matter if she didn’t legally exist.

Estella argued for forgeries, a simply magic trick she could do with Esther and Eloise’s help, but that was a no-go. She’d have to build them from legitimate documents, which their older friends didn’t have.

“If we’re entering a tense geo-political situation, forgeries might not be the best, Estella. Authorities will be looking for foreign agents. We don’t want to stand out.”

“And how long would it take to get legitimate documents, Oliver? Weeks? Months? There’s no time if we to slip in and out before the invasion.”

Eloise suggested waiting for the war to end, but Estella threw her such a vicious glare the idea was immediately dropped and not picked up again.

“Jacob might have something.”

All three pairs of eyes set on Esther and the old, recalcitrant woman shrugged. “Worth asking before bull-heading your way into a dangerous situation. Forgeries aren’t a problem, but you do need a legitimate document, or it will look fake.”

That settled the situation temporarily but Estella didn’t feel settled. She urged to do something, to stop whiling quietly away time with books that had long served their prupose.

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The human world and human thought could only carry her so far. And the witches who were writing--- and she was certain some of them were witches --- were limited by human conceptions of time in space. Even in the few letters she exchanged with scholars, they could not see past the human world view they lived, if they had any thoughts about time a all. Many simply told her to give up, she was playing with god to ask such questions.

No one wanted to push the limited of their understanding and when they pressed her on why it mattered (“After all, it isn’t as if you will travel through time!” One wrote) Estella begged off the conversation.

So, she was impatient to be off.

Jacob’s response cam swiftly, as far as letters went (the man refused to get a phone, apparently) and he had official documentation they could use that he sent with his correspondence. Estella could’ve kissed the man if he’d been at hand for her to do so.

She got to work immediately. The best forgeries use material as similar as possible to the original. This meant the next morning she and Oliver set out on foot to run south to Salem, Oregon’s capital. As always, running was not her favorite mode of transportation. By the time they reached the city her feet ached, she was overheated, and her dress was torn.

Oliver, unfairly, looked impeccable but he hailed a cab as soon as he could so she supposed she could forgive him for his audacity.

It was a simple enough task. With help from the driver --- who while distracted Estella fixed her dress --- they found a stationary store and were back in the woods in no time. Oliver went slower this time through the tree, watching out for wayward sticks and other vegetation that might endanger her.

She wanted to be annoyed with the slower progress, but his behavior was so charming, the way he would stop and clear the path, let her pass, then run ahead again.

On the way, they passed a small herd of deer. Estella had mostly abstained from blood since arriving at Esther and Eloise’s – both were disturbed by the sight of it and there was no reliable way to keep it stored here. She had noticed the weakening of her body, the sluggishness of her movements.

The deer were grazing in a clearing not far away from where she’d stopped. That she noticed the musky scent at all was surprising enough, but the other effects enhanced the experience. The tightening of her muscles, the influx of saliva was what truly caught her attention.

Oliver stopped too, watching her instead of what was certainly her prey now. Could she do it? She’d never been very good at hunting, but it has been so long…since before Chicago, when she attacked that policeman. As silently as she could manage, Estella moved to the edge of the forest. They were elegant creatures, still puffed with their winter coats, necks long and broad and not entirely uninviting. Could she really bite through the skin? The muscle? The sinew? Could she even overpower one to devour?

Apprehensive, she stood abruptly from her crouch and turned to run, but a firm hand kept her in place.

“Let me go first.”

Cheeks burning, she wouldn’t look at him. This shouldn’t be so hard, so mechanical for her.

His hand slid from her bicep to grasp her fingers which he squeezed gently. “Let me go first.”

____

She didn’t say much to Oliver when they returned to the house. She went right to Esther and Eloise with her supplies, who took them wordlessly.

Estella had never done a forgery herself but in theory they were incredibly easy to create and would fool the human authorities. Who you have to watch out for were the witches among the humans.

A good forgery, on that would trick a sharp-eyed witch, had to have magic so subtle they didn’t even know it was there. The magic had to be so delicate even the creator got confused which was the original and which was the fake.

It was a skill no one in the house had polished and only Estella had the theoretical training to try, but only the older women had the delicate touch required.

Half of magic was intent. The other half was command: command of the natural world and the knowledge necessary to have such control.

She breathed deeply, slowly feeling the pull of the air in and out of her nostrils, down and back from her lungs. Her fingertips lightly grazed Jacob’s original documents. The paper was worn, soft like the muslin her grandmother used for embroidery. The ink was grainy under the skin, the microscopic metal fragments moved with her as if she was a magnet.

Focusing on these characteristics, piece by piece Estella imagined herself weaving a tapestry, carefully constructing each part to make the work.

Unwillingly, she pulled back at the last minute, just as she felt the heavy weight of her fingers marring the ink.

Eloise stepped forward and took the documents. “Tell me what you felt, so that I may understand the process.”

She was a better student than Estella, careful and attentive in her application. Esther praised her greatly when she was done, while the younger woman inspected the paper.

“Bien. It is a marvelous copy. Perhaps a bit thick, but the difference will be negligible to a human.” Estella declared.

Eloise’s eyes shone bright up at her, smiling. For a moment, Estella could see her as a young woman, shining like a star in the middle of the school room. “Let me do it again. I can do better.”

After a few more attempts, she managed to get the duplicates difficult for even Estella to identify. Oliver couldn’t tell at all, and Esther was fooled after the second attempt.

Quickly, too quickly --- time blurred after that --- Estella and Oliver were saying goodbye to a teary-eyed Esther and Eloise. They left their luggage behind, trading it for much lighter packs loaded to the brim by the two women. It would be forwarded later in the week to John and Eva.

It felt strange, disjointed to say farewell to them, knowing she would and would not see the women again. Such is the curse of being dislocated in time, perhaps: hellos and goodbyes out of place.

In New York, she and Oliver once again feigned being wife and husband for their journey on a freight he arranged. The captain wouldn’t take them otherwise. Her tears and put-on thick French accent helped too. The last passenger ship to France had sailed last year before the war picked up. The freight would still take them to Le Havre in Northwest France. And travel once they got there… well, they would see. Saint-Tourre was near the western front, they were leaning on a luck at the moment.

Pretending to be spouses was more natural this time but that didn’t mean she was prepared to share the tiny room they paid for, but it was too late. They were well on their way and there weren’t many accommodations to choose from on commercial ship regardless. They would share --- that was that.