Sea of Tranquility

Gaspery, on the beach in Caiette in 1994, reflects on the location’s similarities and differences from when he saw it in 1912 as the priest. The ocean causes him to think about a picture of the ocean his mother had. Gaspery walks to the maple tree clearing in the forest and waits for Vincent, hiding in the bushes. The forest noises make him anxious. In the afternoon, Vincent (13 years old) films the scene that her brother shows at his concert in New York.

When her camera angles up, “reality broke” (204). Gaspery and Vincent are in the airship terminal with Olive and Edwin. Vincent staggers, and Gaspery keeps himself from crying out so she doesn’t see him. He tries to retain a grip on reality.

Reality is questioned. When it becomes night, Gaspery messages Zoey that the file corruption is real. He hopes his discovery will save him.

Gaspery returns to the Time Institute and tells Zoey about the anomaly. She tells him Ephrem is taking him out of commission. He believes finishing the investigation will save him, and asks to go to 1918 and 2007, to see Edwin and Vincent again. Zoey reluctantly overrides Ephrem’s order and puts the coordinates on his device. He leaves as there is a knock on the door of Travel Room Eight.

It is 2007, and Gaspery is in a New York City art gallery. He hopes to avoid Mirella, but she is talking to Vincent in front of a painting. Gaspery is uncomfortable with the lack of social distancing and reminds himself this is before COVID-19. When Vincent walks away from Mirella, Gaspery says he saw a video of her brother’s, one of a forest path to a maple tree, but suspects he didn’t film it. Vincent says she recorded it and that she heard violin music, as well as a sound like hydraulics (an airship taking off).

Gaspery slips away as Vincent’s husband distracts her with a glass of wine. As he prepares to leave this time, Gaspery looks over the crowd with the knowledge of how everyone will die—Vincent on the boat, her husband in a hotel (living into old age), and Mirella’s husband will die by suicide. Gaspery thinks about how Mirella will get stuck in Dubai during the COVID-19 pandemic and meet her next husband, Himesh Chiang, there. They have three children and live until their old age in London. Then, Gaspery thinks about what Mirella told him—that he will get arrested in Ohio when she was a child (her past, his future)—and feels this destiny is inevitable.