"Have I just missed a one-in-a-million opportunity? It could have been perfect under the situation…I must have disappointed both of us; what if we fail today and she lets me go away from her life forever? Was it fool of me to mention that I will disappear completely if we fail? Couldn't we still associate…" Nathan negotiated with himself as he was making some preparations in the next room. "But any form of physical intimacy might have thwarted the mission and there remained a good chance for her to get a wrong idea of my intentions, notwithstanding her own accordance. I would not risk that for the world. Our connection is way beyond any pleasures of the flesh. Given her busy schedule and otherwise inclination to stay indoors, it would not be appropriate to reschedule our appointment," Nathan lighted the last candle as he pondered on. "There might be a tinge of regret that would bother me forever but for now I must not let any provoking thought prod at my resolve. She cannot be too far away from the truth."

After at last drying herself with the hair-dryer without much of an incident, Pam tiptoed towards the room. The door was closed but unlocked, but Pam knocked this time instead of barging in – Nathan opened and ushered her to come in with an expansive arm gesture. It was a small room with a carpeted floor and a small curtained window on the eastern wall; a low Japanese tea table was pushed against the southern wall, where a few pillar candles were wonderfully lit. The only other upholstery in the room was a centrally placed floor mattress. Pam took her heels off at the entrance before she stepped inside. The carpet under her feet felt soft and cosy, a sharp contrast from the courtesy of her heels. The room smelt subtly of a woody and zesty blend, Pam observed. "It smells beautiful in here", she remarked, inhaling deeply. "Is that from the candles?"

"The candles are infused with essential oils," he replied. "Sweet orange helps you to concentrate, while the amber relaxes you. I try to meditate in this room every morning, with the early morning sunlight beaming through – it gives me a good start of the day."

She moved towards the floor mattress and as if with an untold agreement, gathered her dress to sit down on it, as he offered her his hands to lower herself comfortably. He kneeled down on one knee beside her, with the other bent, looking squarely at her eyes. "Are you sure you want to go through this?" He asked one final time out of responsibility, but yearning that she would not change her mind at the eleventh hour.

"I am sure…you have my word for it," she replied, looking back with confidence. With a reassuring smile, he gently placed both hands on her shoulders, nudging ever so slightly, intending her to lie down. Compliantly, Pam fell back on the mattress, with the window at her head and the table at her left. "I would require you to be completely relaxed," Nathan said as he tried to pull her hair out from under her back; Pam cooperated with his little act of kindness by slightly lifting her head and upper back, impressed at his unmitigated attention towards the small details when her comfort was concerned. He walked around and sat by her side on the floor, next to the table. With a steadying deep breath, he started the session – "gently close your eyes, Pam…relax your eye lids…take a few deep breaths, in through your nose and out through your mouth…

When it was established that she was well under the effect of hypnosis yet responsive, Nathan ventured ask the questions. "It is the year 1814 – late summer, sometime in August. On Wednesday the 26th, around 10 am - Where are you?"

"I was not born yet," Pam managed to reply through her trance, in a deeply sated voice.

He asked again, to which she replied "I can't recall". He patiently asked a third time.

"At the infirmary."

Enthusiasm laden with emotions surged through Nathan, who, for a split second, was on the brink of giving way to his proficient persona of the moment. But he could not afford to falter at this crucial point, hence he pivoted himself back on track.

"What are you doing at the infirmary?"

"I... I am on duty…patients flooding in…the ambush…"

Pam's Recollections

Nathan successfully guided me back through the centuries, taking me to a time where I happened to find myself as a young nurse working in an infirmary. I could still hear Nathan, and I answered him by fetching information from the surroundings that I saw. He metaphysically held my hand as he guided me through this transcendent journey, staying grounded on where he led me, then for a while allowed me to wander around. The whole experience felt as if a video was playing away right in front of me, with the anomaly of myself being able to roam freely through the sequences. Contradictory to what I experienced before, here the sequences felt vivid and real, whereas I felt myself quite spectral.

An elderly nurse with an anxious expression on her face, wearing exaggerated nursing uniforms, rushed towards me in the infirmary hall with large stained-glass windows, calling out "sister Dubois, our frontier soldiers had been ambushed, several soldiers are injured and coming in for help; make the preparations, please. With a little bent of the knees, I darted towards the treatment room to arrange wound dressing equipment on a tray – I wondered how I moved so swiftly and elegantly in those low-hemmed and heavily layered uniforms, not to mention the large cap which somehow stayed perfectly in place. But I felt and looked quite at ease. One of the patients that I had to treat was not severely injured; we seemed to engage in conversation as I was dressing a shallow incised wound on his shoulder. It felt difficult to tear my gaze away from his entrancing emerald eyes, stealing glances at my face as I worked on. A very enticing tattoo of a shooting star was inked on his left forearm. He introduced himself as Captain Thomas Williams before he took his leave, only to return shortly to express his gratitude once again – he affectionately took my hand, saying "thank you miss," to kiss it courteously – but simultaneously slipped a note in my hand, before he left. I opened the small folded square of paper which read "I shall be obliged by your presence in the Grand Hall come Saturday, should you accept to join me in the Ball. A carriage would be arranged to wait for you behind the Hall of Residence building," with his name scribbled at the bottom. I wondered if the excitement I saw on sister Angelique Dubois' face and felt in my spectral self actually exuded all the way through the rest of me lying in Nathan's room!

I skimmed through the timeline to the Saturday of the Ball. It was audacious yet funny, the manner in which I sneaked out of the dorm, concealing my ball gown in an outrageously huge cloak. The rest of the evening was all but a dream… the carriage that took me stopped at the lush entrance of the Grand Hall; a gloved hand of a gentleman with immaculate black sleeve of what looked like a tuxedo was offered to help me step out of the carriage – Thomas looked like the princes I used to read about in fairy stories as a child; I wanted to gaze upon him for longer than shy glints, but I certainly lacked the nerve to do so. Turned out my nerves had always been my nemesis! He escorted me all the way up the grandeur of the staircase and through the main door, opened for us by 2 smartly uniformed attendants. The distinct air of opulence was perceivable in every corner inside - the multi-storeyed hall was lavishly decorated with flowers and flooded with soft patches of light from antique chandeliers; the musicians played a jovial waltz of Mozart from the upper storey to which the ladies in pretty ball-gowns were swirling and jiving in rhythm with the sophisticated gents at the ground floor. We had no sooner entered the hall than Thomas entrained me into the waltz to step away in cadence with him. Towards the end of the score, I was made to arch backwards at my waist, my upper body almost parallel to the floor with my right leg underneath and the left flung past him in the air, my arms around his shoulder and his curled around my waist and back – now where did this happen before? Did my physical self foolishly smiled in Nathan's room? We must be very ahead of our time to end the dance in such a way that is similar to a more modern tango. My spectral self found it quite amusing.

Rolling through the timeline, I soon discovered that I grew a very affectionate bonding of friendship with Thomas. Time and again I found us spending time in each other's company - often we would be sitting together outdoors at the fall of evening, under the stars, talking about the universe; every time we were fortunate enough to glimpse a star that dazzlingly shot, it sparkled across his luminous green eyes more than it did across the dark clear skies. It felt surrealistically soothing to listen to him explaining softly in his deep baritone this simple astronomical phenomenon and how much he grew fond of it ever since he was a child. It warmed my heart to know that as a kid he would run after a shooting star, believing that it fell on the land. I even nick-named him "shooting star" on several occasions. Flipping through a few more sequences, it appeared that a group of us from the infirmary actually went to his regiment camp to provide emergency medical supplies; this was the occasion where I was lucky to identify him marching in the parade, although his cap was pulled close to his eyes. During our times spent together, he would often demonstrate his special skill of gun flicking – I marvelled at how he made that arduous act appear so effortless. Then at other times it appeared that I swooned under the spell of magic conjured up by his long fingers on piano keys. Whether being a classy pianist or a Western beau, his hands did work wonders. I could feel it in my spectral self how his charms were growing into Angelique – and, particularly, how he began to mean more than a mere acquaintance. He invariably invoked an abundance of painfully sweet feelings that insidiously coursed inside me – the feeling was undoubtedly similar to what I experienced in regards to Nathan. The difference is, Angelique did not shy away from baptising the feeling in her mind, whereas Pam tries to pretend that she is up ashore when she is already swimming at the bed of the ocean; probably Angelique's young age, surroundings and the era she lived in had a role in guarding the sanctity of her mind, which allowed her to pristinely identify the feelings she harboured for Thomas. But Pam's era is subjected to more deception where she has earned more than enough experience to easily trust even her own instincts when it comes to men. That explains the self-induced haze that I find fogging my feelings for Nathan – but at this state, I could not help but confess to myself that the opacity could not make the feelings cease to exist.

Soon enough, I discovered some drastic turn of events. The attacks were more frequent and progressing beyond the frontier – civilians were required to shield and people were dreading the break of the Great War. It was speculated that to eradicate a huge chunk of support, the enemies would be targeting the infirmary in no time! It was around this time that I met Thomas in the old fortress at a full moon's night – for one last time. I found him standing with his hands propped up against the shabby banisters of the balcony, head drooped, hair covering most of his face – it was not the nicest feeling in the world to apprehend defeat in his composure.

"You must leave for Dover tomorrow at the break of dawn, whereupon you will be heading straight to Calais; all arrangements have been made."

"But...but I don't want to live away from you. Why cannot you join me?"

With a sigh of despair, he replied "I wish I could…but I am committed to my responsibilities – towards my comrades, regiment and country. I cannot turn away from my responsibilities at this moment of crisis. Whereas you, my dear, can continue to serve for the humanity anywhere you go." I guess he could sense the protest brewing inside me when he gently cupped my face with his hands, moving forward towards me. "It is too dangerous for you to stay. I cannot bear to live with the knowledge that I did not do anything in my power to keep you safe…you must run away when you still can. I will always watch over you." It was the first time Thomas held me that close – and the helpless circumstances insinuated far too loudly that it was the last, too. I tried to remember the feel of his touch on my cheeks to cherish it forever - the temperature, the roughness at the base of his fingers, the largeness which outdid my face and the gentleness of the pressure. The poignance reflecting off his eyes in the bright moonlight gave his feelings away, much deeper than any verbal declarations could ever do. His altruism in engineering his own torments by sending me away to safety left no doubt. He was clearly torn apart between his duty as a soldier, choice of keeping me safe and the consequences of both. I wanted to embrace Thomas with all the might my spectral self could harness, but I was only a shadow in existence, hopping through the timeline of my past.

I could not wait to find out what awaited me the next morning. As it turned out, a few of the nurses from the infirmary were to accompany me. We set off as early as possible, as was planned. As I boarded the carriage, I was overwhelmed with the notion of declaring how much he meant to me; I could not reason how it might help any of us, but I desperately wanted him to know. I had to decide at the spur of the moment – it was then or never. Without much consideration to prudence, I demanded the carriage to be stopped; I jumped off as soon as it came to an abrupt halt, barely paying any attention to the uprising disapproval among the others and their attempt to stop me. With adrenaline rushing at the speed of light inside me, I sprinted towards his regiment camp. It was then that I realised how precarious it got – the earth under my feet cracked with each gun shot that intermittently fired. Not knowing where I might find him, I stealthily moved between various improvised shelters I came across until I reached the headquarter. It was a total mayhem – there was a huge uproar amongst the soldiers – according to what I gathered from the situation, they were preparing to combat an unexpected charge. Some disconnected phrases from the hysteric voices, which only made the sense that the Captain was in the front row, even reached what was left of my shattered ear drums. I darted out through the rear exit into an open space stretching out into dense woods. The shooting seemed to have stopped. But it was the most grotesque scene I ever came across – I was confronted with the horrifying sight of several bodies of soldiers scattered across – if I heard right and the Captain was truly defending at the front row amidst the firing, it left little doubt about his unpromising destiny. I moved further into the open space, with footsteps that felt as though I was treading on the edge of a sharp blade, cutting deeper as I walked closer to a body flipped on its front in blood, some familiar locks of hair covering the side profile of the face. My blood venomously coiled around my heart, constricting my internal organs and pushing the last gulp of air out of my lungs as I turned the stiff body around. The muscles around my throat closed in, strangling me. I wanted to scream…I wanted to scream what I had to tell him. But I could not produce any sound out of my wretched throat, although I kept frantically trying. I could feel hands tearing me away despite all my desperate attempts to cling close to his cold lifeless body, soon followed by a huge explosion which knocked my petrified consciousness out – I fell back into the arms of one of the nurses who was travelling with me, before completely blacking out.

Pam made the first attempt to gently lift her eye-lids; her tears split the soft patches of light into luminescent rainbows, before rolling down her temples - she squeezed her eyes to clear her view, pushing the tears roll beyond her ears. Nathan was patiently hovering over her with a frown and tight set of jaws, barely trying to mask his concern. He withdrew as Pam brusquely sat up, not losing eye contact with him. Then, without any context, she grabbed his left forearm, suddenly reminiscent of something she saw a fortnight before. She pushed up his sleeve, exposing a tattoo of a shooting star – she incredulously traced her fingers over it, as if to verify its existence on his flesh. "Are you feeling alright?" Nathan had to hold back a galore of questions, and asked what seemed to be the most appropriate under the situation.

"I am not very sure", her voice croaked as she spoke. "I…I got to go." Before he had the slightest opportunity to think of something to say or to even acknowledge her abruptness, she pulled herself up on her feet and manged to rush out of the room, collecting her heels on the way out, leaving Nathan wallowing in a sea of uncertainty.