She turned fully when I stepped forward. Her eyes met mine—and this time, she didn't look away. Not right away. Not like a stranger.
"Hello," I said.
Her eyes landed on me, and I felt that some pulled—like a thread had been drawn tight between us.
"Can I help you?" she asked.
I nodded once, then hesitated. "I think so. I'm… Matthias Reiter. I've come from Berlin."
Her posture didn't change, but something behind her gaze shifted.
"I'm looking for someone named Clara Weiss."
She gave a small, cautious smile. "You've found her."
The silence that followed wasn't uncomfortable. It was expectant. Not empty, but full of something unspoken.
I stepped closer. "You don't know me," I said. "But I've seen your name before. I—"
I stopped. There was no way to explain without sounding mad.
"I've had dreams," I said instead.
She looked at me carefully. Not disturbed. Not intrigued. Just… listening.
"What kind of dreams?"
"Ones I didn't understand."
She blinked, caught off guard—but not confused. "Dreams can be strange," she said quietly. "Sometimes they feel more real than waking up."
We walked. Not far—just a slow loop around the outer edge of the orchard. The ground was soft beneath our steps. Dry leaves clung to the roots.
She spoke little. So did I. But there were moments—small, impossible moments—when she would look toward something before I did. When I would ask a question she had just begun to answer.
We stopped near a bench, half-eaten by moss. She dusted it with her sleeve and sat.
I remained standing.
"Do you come out here often?" I asked.
"When I can. The children aren't always easy."
"You work with the children here?"
"When I can," she said. "My father says it's good for the soul."
I paused. "He's a physician, isn't her?"
Her eyes narrowed—not in suspicion, but in recognition.
"Yes. You've done your research."
"Only a little. I heard his name in Berlin. Someone mentioned he'd moved here."
She tilted her head slightly. "You come all this way for that?"
"No," I said.
I didn't elaborate.
The wind shifted. A thread of pine needles fell between us.
"You said you dreamed," she said softly. "Did you see me?"
I hesitated. "Not clearly. Just… a presence. A name. Yours."
She was quiet a long time.
Then she said something that caught me off guard.
"I passed the old clock tower yesterday," she said. "It was chiming at the wrong hour. Made me feel like I'd forgotten something."
The breath left me.
I didn't know why—but it felt familiar. Like a fragment of something I'd once seen.
"Does that happen often?" I asked.
"No," she said. "Just once." She gave a faint smile. "It was probably nothing."
We sat there in silence for another minute. Then she stood.
"I should go," she said. "But I'll be here tomorrow, if the weather holds."
I nodded.
She left without another word.
***
That night, I opened my journal.
The page where I had written to her still held the same line:
What do you remember?
The ink had faded slightly since I first wrote it, as if time itself had tried to erase the question. But it remained unanswered. Or so I thought.
I sat with the book open, unmoving, as the candle on the desk trembled under its own flame. The stillness of the room felt too deliberate—like something was holding its breath.
I thought about the bench. The moss. The way Clara had looked at me when I said her name. No surprise. No curiosity. Just… recognition that neither of us could explain.
The candle hissed. A drop of wax slid down the side.
I dipped the pen and touched it to the page.
You looked at me like you remembered.
The words felt strange as I wrote them. Not an accusation. Not a statement.
Just proof that something had passed between us.
Something that didn't belong to this life.