Free Begun by Time by Morgan O'Neill

sometimes years after the end of the war. You must know all about it, being a physician. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, and it’ll ease with time. You’re not going barmy. It’ll fade.”
    Jonnie stopped pacing and shook his head. “I’m not reliving battles, Dad. There is nothing about this that has to do with my memories. I…I hear things. Conversations that have nothing to do with me. They sound as though they’re actors in a Shakespearean production. Everything looks normal, but I hear strange things that don’t fit with what I’m seeing at the time.”
    Nigel opened his mouth to speak, but Jonnie waved him off. “No, please, let me finish, Dad. The first time one of these episodes happened was in the museum at Hatfield.”
    Frightened, Catherine felt as though she could hardly breathe. She glanced at Nigel and saw much of the same emotion on his face.
    “I heard a man’s voice. He was chanting something strange — Terra…tirra ? — over and over. Utterly unintelligible. And things like that have happened a handful of times since then. Although it’s different every time, there’s always the sense that I’ve crept up on a door, and I’m listening to a conversation. A short time after I returned to base, I was walking and overheard people singing an ancient-sounding folk song. I searched out the singers and found three peasants picking mushrooms. The woods…the entire area looked different. The forest was denser, the tree trunks huge. To make matters even more confusing, I realized no one picks mushrooms in the spring. Then I closed my eyes — briefly — and when I opened them the people and trees had vanished! Jesus, what was I seeing? What is wrong with me?”
    Jonnie sat down heavily beside Catherine, and his chin dropped to his chest. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, and let out a shaky breath. He looked like a man defeated.
    Fear swept over Catherine like a cold wave —f ear for him, for them, for their future. An immediate need to protect, to comfort this man she loved pushed back the fear, and she wrapped her arms around him.
    “Jonnie, I’m so sorry. I want to help. What can I do?”
    “Is there a specific time when these…dreams occur, son?” Nigel asked with a shaky voice.
    Anxious, Catherine sat back and looked to Jonnie for his answer.
    “If you think I’ve been dreaming, Dad, I’m not. They never happen whilst I sleep. These aren’t dreams. They occur when I am awake and only last a few seconds — until today when I saw a ship called the Cisne Negro . It looked like a pirate ship, for pity’s sake! It could’ve been a galleon, I suppose. Have you ever heard of a ship by that name? Do either of you know what that means?”
    Nigel rose. “We’ve the old set of encyclopedias upstairs. I’ll be right back.”
    Jonnie passed his hand over his face and looked at Catherine. “Please don’t think I’m a lunatic.”
    “Oh, Jonnie, no, of course not!” Her heart felt like it would burst as she saw the torment in his eyes.
    “I have it!” Nigel hurried into the room with a heavy tome in his hands. “It says here the Cisne Negro , the Black Swan, belonged to the fleet of Prince Philip of Spain, and it was one of many moored at Greenhithe before the invasion of the Lowlands. He was husband to Queen Mary I, of course, and later king of Spain. The ship is believed to have been burned to the waterline during the Spanish Armada.”
    Jonnie straightened, a look of shock on his face.
    “What is it? Does that mean something?” Catherine asked.
    “Destroyed during the Armada? But how could I have seen it, then?” With his eyes fixed on the floor, Jonnie shook his head and continued with a hushed voice, “I went to Greenhithe today and put a wreath in the water at the bow of the Cutty Sark for a mate who didn’t make it. And it was the Cutty Sark , mind you. I saw her name at the bow.”
    He swallowed hard. “A sodding whore with flaming red hair and a ratty, corseted dress