Free The Color of Forever by Julianne MacLean

guess that’s a sensible conclusion. And I’m just as baffled as you are.”
    “So Logan doesn’t exist at all?” I asked.
    Sylvie set down her fork and regarded me with gentle compassion. “Not in this life. I’m sorry.”
    Feeling brokenhearted and resistant to simply let those memories go, I exhaled sharply. “But how did you get there? How did you reach those other lives? It’s just that…after all this, I feel like he truly is my son and he’s out there somewhere. I know it sounds crazy, but I’ve been wanting to find him, but now there’s nowhere real to look. I don’t know where to start.”
    “You’re not crazy,” Sylvie said. “But I know what you’re thinking. I can see it in your eyes. You want to find a way to reach that other reality and be his mother again.”
    We all stopped eating, and I felt everyone watching me with concern and pity, which troubled me, because I never liked being pitied . That implied I was weak. Doleful. Unfortunate.
    I tried to explain myself. “It’s just that…I never had children, so I had no idea how strong the pull could be. It’s shocking to me. Ever since my accident, it’s like I’ve been living a life where my child went missing, or died. Bailey knows. I haven’t been myself. I’ve been grieving, but trying to ignore or deny it.”
    Sylvie sighed heavily. “I’m sorry, Katelyn. I’m sorry that you were caught up in this, and I’m still amazed, to be honest, that you connected with those memories. But I’m pretty sure that you could never cross over to that other life.”
    “But how do you know?” I pressed, setting down my fork. “Are you worried that if I do go back there and change something, you won’t be married to Chris?”
    She and Chris regarded each other uneasily, then Sylvie bowed her head and wiped her mouth with her napkin.
    “I have no idea what it would mean for this reality.” She picked up her fork again and poked at her haddock on the plate. Then she looked across at me. “But the way I see it, there could be a billion possibilities and it’s likely that one small change can have a ripple effect on how things turn out. Even if you ended up married to Chris again—if you dated him and didn’t cheat on him—the odds of having the same baby are a billion to one.”
    I shook my head, denying that possibility. “My gut is telling me that our son exists, and he’s waiting for me to find him.”
    Now, I did sound crazy.
    Sylvie regarded me with sudden displeasure.
    “I apologize,” I said. “I didn’t mean to imply that we have a son together.” I glanced at Chris. “We don’t even know each other.”
    “You don’t have to apologize,” Sylvie said with a kinder tone. “This is complicated. I admit, I’m feeling a bit threatened here, because in that other life, you did try to get Chris back.”
    “After he started seeing you?” I asked with a frown of disbelief.
    She nodded and studied my expression, no doubt searching for my intentions. “And I lost him to you.”
    “I see,” I replied. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. That memory never played out in my mind. But I promise you, I’m not going to try to steal your husband away. Not this time.”
    I shared a look with Bailey, feeling grateful that I had someone in my corner, here at the table. Someone who knew me well and understood I wasn’t a husband stealer.
    I made an effort to change the subject. “You still haven’t told me, precisely, how you went back in time. I don’t know anything about lucid dreaming. Is it really possible to—?”
    “It wasn’t the lucid dreams,” she told me. “It was something else, or a combination of the lucid dream and a portal of some kind.”
    “Sylvie…” Chris spoke with a note of warning. “You said you weren’t going to—”
    “I think she needs to know,” Sylvie explained to him, then she turned back to me again. “There’s a sundial at a historic home in Cape Elizabeth—the same place where the