In a forgotten village clinging to the edges of the 1800s, a girl named Maren stitched clothes for the wealthy in a manor she’d never enter. She was seventeen, sharp-eyed, dirt-poor, and in love with Elias—the blacksmith’s apprentice who spoke like the world was still worth hoping for.
They met in secret under the pear tree near the well. She’d bring bread, he’d bring stories, and they’d trade futures they couldn’t afford. But Maren knew it wouldn’t last. Elias was leaving for the city to chase a better life, and she’d be married off to a man twice her age by summer.
The night before he left, she kissed him hard enough to remember for lifetimes. “If there’s another world,” she whispered, “find me there.”
Then the fever came. One cruel week, and Maren was gone.
2025.
Maren Locke woke up screaming. Her body ached, her head throbbed, but the dream lingered—muddy skirts, firelit kisses, the sound of a hammer in the forge.
A graduate student in Boston, Maren had never set foot in a forge. She didn’t even believe in reincarnation. But when she visited a colonial exhibit on a whim, she stopped dead in front of a blacksmith demonstration. The man turned, and time cracked.
Same eyes. Same smirk. Same scar on his knuckle.
“Hey,” he said, wiping sweat from his brow. “Do I… know you?”
She laughed without knowing why. “Not yet.”
They started talking. Then meeting. Then forgetting how not to.
He was Eli Reyes now—grew up in a small town, always felt out of place. He confessed he’d been dreaming of pear trees for years, of a girl with fire in her eyes and bread in her basket.
They didn’t rush it. The second time around, they were older, warier, but surer.
One night, walking through a reenactment village under lanterns, Eli took her hand and said, “Do you believe in second chances?”
Maren smiled. “No. I believe in earning the first one again.”
They kissed.
And this time, no one had to leave.
