Chapter Nine

The Meeting

Jean could not believe his eyes. Clementine, the girl from his dreams, was sat in the same room as him. There was a delightfully bewildered expression on her face as she scrabbled to regain her balance.

"You – you can see me?" she said, in oddly accented French. It was so strange, to hear her voice and for it to be directed at him instead of her usual companion.

"Yes," he said. "I didn't mean to scare you."

His legs felt weak, so he sank down onto the edge of his bed. He found he could not take his eyes off her. She was prettier in real life, her hair tousled, and that dress she was wearing had him thinking highly indecent thoughts. It was a dress of white cotton, with thin strings holding it up, the top part clinging to her generous bosom whilst flowing loosely over her torso to stop just above her knee.

She was looking at him as if she could not quite believe what was happening.

"You're…" She ran a trembling hand through her mane of brown hair, then let it drop to rest on her thigh. "You're Jean Prouvaire, aren't you? The real Jean Prouvaire?"

He nodded. "And you're Clementine," he said. "I've dreamed of you."

"I've dreamed of you, too," she murmured. Her fingertips touched her temple. "I'm sorry, I…I feel a little unwell."

Jean got to his feet, concern overriding his amazement at the situation. "Would you like some wine?" he suggested. "I have some…"

"I can't see how alcohol would make me feel better," she said. "I'll be fine just…just give me a minute, please."

Jean lowered himself back down onto the mattress. His hands were twitching with the uncomfortable urge to start fidgeting. She was staring down at the floor, her hands now gripping the edge of the chest so tightly that her knuckles had turned white.

"This is very odd," she said, looking up at him. "Wouldn't you say?"

"Odd doesn't begin to describe it," he said. "You said…You dreamed of me, like I dreamed of you."

"Yes, I did. Do. I thought this was one of those dreams – you've never been able to see me before…" One of her fingers began to drum out a tuneless beat onto the wooden chest. "This is impossible."

"Clearly it is not impossible as it is happening," Jean said with a weak sort of chuckle.

"Unless this a dream," Clementine said, after letting out a short puff of breath. "Another dream. A very…detailed…dream."

"That's one explanation," Jean said, slowly. "Or…"

"Or what? I'm in 1832?" Clementine shook her head. "Now that is impossible. Time travel is impossible."

He frowned at her. "Time travel?"

"You know, going to times that are not your own," Clementine said. "It isn't possible."

"You're from another time?" Jean could not help but gape at her. "How is that possible?"

"It isn't," Clementine said, a touch of exasperation in her soft voice. "That's what I'm trying to say."

"Where are you from, then, if you are not from 1832?" Jean wasn't sure he'd heard of such a thing before.

"I'm from 2013," Clementine said. "The twenty-first century."

"That – that isn't…possible," Jean said. His head was beginning to hurt. "If you're from – the future – how are you here? In my bedroom?"

She threw her hands up into the air. "I have no idea. I went to sleep. I thought it was a dream. This is happening inside my head and yet – yet you're here."

The confused expression on Clementine's face would have been adorable if it wasn't for the fact he didn't understand what was going on. A huge part of him was delighted by her presence in his home, because this was Clementine, the girl he'd more or less been driving himself crazy with thoughts of. The rest of him, however, was completely perplexed, filled with a rush of emotions he could not begin to explain or piece together.

"How long have you been dreaming of me?" he found himself asking.

"A while," Clementine said, clearly hesitating. "I…I bought a book. Your book. And ever since…"

"My book?" Jean echoed, confusion evident even to his own ears. "I own a lot of books –"

"Aeschylus," Clementine interrupted. "It's a collection of Aeschylus' plays. You write in it and leave notes in it and I bought it for a couple of euros a few weeks ago."

He certainly owned a book fitting that description, but… "How could you buy my book?" he said, puzzled.

"It was in a junk shop," Clementine explained. "I don't know how it got there, someone might have donated it or something. It had your name in it."

"I bet you know more about me then than I know about you," he murmured. His collection of Aeschylus plays went everywhere with him – he treated it as a diary, not just as a book to be read for pleasure. To think that this girl had read it, read his poetry, his notes and thoughts…It was almost like someone rifling through his life as far as he was concerned. Yet he could not bring himself to feel annoyed about the idea.

"This is…this is so strange," Clementine said, her voice breathless and turning into a somewhat hysterical giggle by the end. "I'm talking to Jean Prouvaire."

"Do you think it is possible for us to understand what is going on here?" Jean asked, watching as Clementine buried her face in her hands and then dragged her fingers through her hair.

Clementine bit her lip. "We can try to," she said, rubbing the back of her neck. "Do you…Do you ever get the feeling this means something?"

Jean blinked at her. "Of course," he said. "It must mean something. Otherwise it wouldn't be happening."

"That's what I thought," she murmured in response.

For a few moments, they surveyed each other. Jean tried to work out what the girl sat in front of him was thinking, but her face was completely blank.

"I've been given advice about you," she said eventually. "Not advice, really. More of a…I don't even know what I'd call it, actually. But it feels unavoidable. There's something I have to do, and it involves you, and…"

"I've been told a similar thing," Jean said. "But apart from that, I know nothing."

"I was told that –" Suddenly, Clementine pulled the strangest of expressions; her mouth pursed and her nose wrinkled, and her lips twisted into an odd shape. Her cheeks twitched with the movement, and then all of a sudden, she was breathing very deeply and making an odd keening noise at the back of her throat.

"Clementine?" He got to his feet again and crouched in front of her. He reached out and curled his fingers around her upper arms in a gesture that was supposed to comfort. Her flesh felt cool and soft beneath his palms, and she stared at him with wide eyes.

"I couldn't speak," she said. "It felt like my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth."

"Try not to say what you were saying, then," he suggested.

"But it's something you need to hear," she said. Her eyes were glistening and in that moment, Jean could tell that Clementine was on the verge of breaking. "Jean, I don't know what is going on," she whispered, voice scratchy to his ears.

He brushed his thumb over the curve of her shoulder. "We'll work it out," he murmured. "It might take time, but together we will find out what this all means, I promise you. And…Call me Jehan."

"Jehan?" she repeated. It was strange, for him, to hear that word from her lips. He'd heard her talk so many times in his dreams – shouting and teasing and flirting and arguing – but never saying his name.

"I prefer it to Jean," he shrugged. She was trembling beneath his hands, now. Yes, it was obvious this was all too much for her. "Wait a moment," he said, standing up and turning on the spot in one fluid movement. He stepped over to the bed and reached down, dragging one of his woollen blankets from the bed's surface. "Have this," he said, intending to wrap it around Clementine's shoulders.

But when he turned back, the girl from his dreams had vanished into thin air.