New York City, New York, 2025

December 6th, 7:02 PM

It was finally Thursday. I had been worried all day about how Daphne was doing. Judging by the fact that it was seven o'clock in the evening, I guessed she was at the opera with her soon-to-be fiancé. It would be time to leave in a few hours. I gathered cassette tapes of a variety of genres, and made a playlist on my phone using Apple Music for the songs I didn't have on cassette. It was tempting to take CDs and vinyl records, but I figured that even if I took my CD and record players, I wouldn't have anywhere to plug them in. In the end, though, I figured it wouldn't hurt to take one of each just so Daphne could take a look at them. With that idea, I decided on a Weezer CD and a Smiths vinyl.

Even after getting all of the music organized, I had a couple hours left, so I plugged in my record player and listened to The Smiths for a while. I ended up drifting off as "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" was playing.

It was almost 1:00 in the morning when I woke up. As I remembered that Daphne was probably engaged right now and wondering where I was, I scrambled to get dressed in my eighteenth century attire.

"She must have already gone to bed thinking I stood her up," I mumbled under my breath as I collected all of the music I had prepared and put it in a backpack.

While I drove to my lab where the time machine was, I began to notice the butterflies in my stomach. I shook my head and told myself that I was just worried. I couldn't afford to think of any other possibilities. In an attempt to calm myself, I turned on the radio and listened to the retro station.

I was just starting to get into "Jessie's Girl" when I arrived at the lab.

I ran in, trying to ignore the stares of nearby janitors as they looked at me in my costume. Some of them laughed, to which I responded to by waving awkwardly.

When I finally made it to my workplace, I plugged in all of the wires, straightened all of the gears, and opened the time machine app on my phone. The butterflies still hadn't gone away. In fact, my hands and legs had started to shake. Nonetheless, I took a deep breath and stepped into the elevator-like tube.

Vienna, Austria, 1798

December 7th, 1:47 AM

Once again, the time travel experience made the floor seem to sway under my feet. Normally, I would have lied down somewhere or stood still until it went away, but I couldn't waste any more time. I ran to Daphne's mansion, stumbling on my own feet. I probably looked drunk. The dizziness went away soon enough, though. After about five minutes, I made it to the mansion and I no longer saw two moons when I looked up at the sky. There was still that matter of finding Daphne's room, though. There were about eight options to choose from, and I didn't want to risk meeting her parents tonight.

"We really should have discussed this more," I said to myself.

Just when I was about to knock on the door, I heard her voice behind me.

"Stephen?" she whispered harshly.

"Daphne!"

I turned and found her by a tree on the lawn. I hadn't seen her because she was wearing a black cloak over her gown. I jogged to where she was with a grin on my face.

"How long have you been waiting here?" I asked.

"A few hours."

"Oh my gosh, Daphne, I'm so sorry. I fell asleep listening to the music I had planned for you and I woke up hours later. I rushed over here, though. As fast as I could."

"Don't you worry about it. Rebecca was with me most of the time. She went to bed just about an hour ago. Besides, I've enjoyed looking up at the moon, counting the stars, and wondering what you have planned for me."

I smiled softly as I listened to her speak.

"Well now that I'm here, shall we?"

I offered my arm, which she gripped with her hand, and we began walking to the garden that we visited last time I was here. I felt her sadness as we walked in silence. When I looked down at her left hand, there was an expensive-looking ring on her finger. I knew what had happened.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I suggested quietly.

She nodded and bit her lip; probably to hold back tears.

"I was right," she began.

"We went to the opera, got seated in Box 5, which he reserved, and he proposed right before the second act. The whole theater erupted in cheers. I'd never felt so trapped. But then, Stephen, you wouldn't have believed my mother's happiness. She was beaming the whole night and insisted on starting the wedding planning. I hadn't even gotten used to the fact that I was engaged, and then I had to think about being married!"

She stopped to sigh.

"She looked so proud, though. That was a bit of consolation. I finally felt as if she was pleased with a decision I had made."

I let her last sentence hang in the air as I thought of something to say. I wanted to say so much, but no words came out for several moments.

"This all sounds horrible, Daphne. I'm glad your mom is happy, but I think she's controlling you too much. Tell me, if your mother wasn't so insistent on being married, would you have said yes?"

"No. I know she's influential in my decisions. Perhaps she's right though. If I were to be a musician, the farthest I would get is being a musical servant for another wealthy family. And that's only if they don't see me being a woman as a problem. Mozart himself never made it farther than serving the Archbishop."

"I feel so helpless. I want to help you so bad, but I don't even know where to start."

For the first time since we started walking, I saw her smile.

"I'd love to hear the music you've brought."

We had arrived at the garden. We sat down on the brick ledge of the roses and I took out my cassette player and tapes out of the backpack I had brought. Immediately, Daphne's eyes filled with happiness.

"This is called a cassette player," I explained.

"It's from the 1980s. In order to hear music, you have to put this little thing inside," I lifted up the Thriller  tape, "which is called a cassette tape. When you close the cassette player, you put on these things called headphones."

I helped her put them on. She still hadn't stopped smiling.

"Then you look at these buttons on the side and press this one with a sideways triangle on it. It means 'play'. Now, are you ready to hear some music from the 1980s?"

"More than anything," she replied.

I smiled and let her press the play button. I heard "Beat It" start to play from the headphones. Daphne's reaction was pretty much what I had expected. She was very confused.

"That instrument you hear is an electric guitar," I said.

She nodded and began to nod along to the song.

"What genre is this?" she asked.

"It's somewhere between hard rock and pop. Both genres were very popular in that decade. What do you think?"

"I certainly didn't expect this. I think I could eventually learn to like it, though. These pieces are terribly short."

After the song was over, she began taking the headphones off, but I put them back on.

"I have a couple more songs to show you on cassette."

I fumbled through the tapes and pulled out Storm Front by Billy Joel.

As we listened to "We Didn't Start The Fire", I saw Daphne's expression of confusion as she tried to decipher the lyrics. I had forgotten that she didn't know about a single thing mentioned in the song, so I insisted on listening to something else.

And that was how we spent the next hour or so. Just the two of us sitting by the rose garden, listening to all kinds of music. Some of Daphne's favorite genres were progressive rock (which I had half expected), jazz, and musical theatre. Her least favorites were heavy metal and modern pop. On one occasion, I tried showing her "Freak On A Leash" by Korn, but she only made it a minute in before shaking her head and trying to cover the speaker on my phone with her cloak. We had a good laugh about it, though. Nu metal wasn't exactly my favorite genre either.

After exploring as many genres as I could think of, we came to our second to last song: "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" by The Smiths. It was my favorite song. The only reason I hadn't saved it for last was because I wanted to show Daphne the 1812 Overture last. I knew she would love it.

I grinned as I pressed play to our penultimate song. When I looked at Daphne, she was just as enthusiastic.

I looked around as the song played. Something about being so far from home in a garden at night really made me listen in a whole new way. It was as if I was discovering the song for the first time again. We were about halfway through the song when I felt the butterflies in my stomach return. I stopped to look at Daphne. I began to notice how the starlight reflected in her caramel brown eyes and the way the moonlight danced in her dark brown hair that was braided into an intricate bun with some loose curls at each side of her head. Her skin seemed to glow as her lips formed a slight smile at the music. Her delicate facial features looked dreamlike. Suddenly, I was just so in awe of her. The longer I looked at her, the more I noticed things like her dimples and the way her voluminous dress sparkled the same way her eyes did. When my gaze was drawn back to her eyes, I felt my heart beat grow faster as I saw that she was looking at me the same way. As the song faded away, we seemed to forget about the entire world. There was only her and I. For a person who didn't like eye contact, I felt hers to be strangely comforting. We stayed that way several seconds after the song ended, pretending that she wasn't engaged and that I didn't belong to another century. Alas, it couldn't be that way forever. I broke from her gaze to look back at my phone. My hands shook as I typed in the last piece.

"I had a feeling you would like this next one," I said in a quiet mumble.

Not a minute in, Daphne had tears in her eyes. She looked at me as if she was surprised I even knew this type of music. For the entire fifteen minutes of the piece, I saw her give herself to the piece. Every change of tone captured her attention more than the last. When her eyes closed in meditation, I could tell she had gone into her own world. I did the same when I was having trouble with a physics problem. Unfortunately, I wasn't as invested in the piece. I couldn't process what had just happened. I was so cautious about catching feelings for Daphne, and I had thrown it all away in about two minutes. I hoped it was just the music and the moonlight and the flowers, but even looking at her now without the romantic music playing, I felt differently. The knots in my stomach were still there, I felt my face blushing, and my heart was just about ready to jump out of my chest. And even worse, she was engaged! Even if she had the same feelings for me, nothing could ever happen between us. It would put too much at risk. . . but it couldn't hurt to dream a little, right?

My stream of thoughts ended when Daphne hugged me tightly. The perfect thing to make me ignore the fact that I now had a crush on someone from the eighteenth century. My face was burning up at this point, making me glad that it was so dark.

"Stephen, I'd never heard anything so gorgeous in my life!" she exclaimed.

"Who's going to compose that? And when?"

"A composer from the future romantic era. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Unfortunately, he hasn't even been born yet. This piece won't be composed for another eighty two years."

"How unfortunate. I would have loved to see it performed live. It seems I won't be here to see it, though."

"I'm sorry, Daphne. I'm glad I was able to show it to you here, though."

"I am as well. . . although it does seem like our time together is over for tonight."

I nodded, a little bummed, and began gathering all of the cassettes I had brought.

I began to walk Daphne home. As we walked, we further discussed all of the music I had shown her. She still hadn't gotten over the 1812 Overture. I smiled at her as she rambled on, using music terminology that I didn't understand. In the middle of her excitement, there was an awkward pause where I realized I had been gazing at her. I looked away quickly, but before I did, I could've sworn I saw her turn to look at me. Or maybe it was just this new crush that was making me hallucinate.

Although the two of us could've talked to each other for hours, we soon arrived at her mansion. I tried not to look too sad as we said our goodbyes.

"When will I see you again?" Daphne asked.

"How about Saturday night?" I suggested. "We can explore more of the genres you liked."

She grinned and nodded. I couldn't help but return the smile. She still looked so dreamlike in the starlight.

"Farewell, Stephen," she said softly.

"See you on Saturday."

I pulled my gaze away from her and turned to leave. There was no doubt that I had some thinking to do.