When the Past Refuses to Stay in the Past

One of the most common questions readers ask after finishing The Harbinger, A Triquetra Chronicle, is about the two timelines.

Why move between centuries? Why let one story unfold in the present while another quietly lives in the past? The answer is both simple and complicated.

Because the past rarely stays where we leave it.

History is often taught as something distant; a sequence of events sealed safely behind us. Dates, wars, rulers, laws. Something we study but rarely feel connected to. But lived history doesn’t behave that way.

Memories linger. Choices echo. Patterns repeat themselves in ways that are sometimes subtle and sometimes startingly obvious. And occasionally, the distance between then and now feels much thinner than we expect.

That idea became the foundation for the structure of The Harbinger.

Rather than treating the past as background, the story allows two timelines to unfold side by side; one in the 16th century, another in the present day. Different lives. Different women. Different circumstances. Yet something about their journeys begins to mirror each other.

Readers often describe this as feeling less like two separate stories and more like two halves of the same conversation. The emotional symmetry between them slowly reveals that history isn’t simply remembered. It’s experienced. Not always consciously: sometimes through dreams; sometimes through intuition; sometimes through the quiet recognition that certain places, people, or ideas feel strangely familiar.

For the women in The Harbinger, the past doesn’t return as neat explanation or a solved mystery. Instead, it emerges gradually through echoes - through relationships, through instincts, and through the sense that certain threads of life have been woven long before we notice them. The slow unfolding is intentional.

Rather than rushing toward answers, the story leaves room for curiosity. For reflection. For the possibility that understanding something about the past might help illuminate the present.

Because ultimately, that’s what many of us are doing in our own lives. Looking backward just enough to understand where we are now. And perhaps, where we are meant to go next.

If you enjoy stories that weave history, mystery, and a touch of the unseen together, you can explore The Harbinger, A Triquetra Chronicle here: sarahheximer.com/books