“What’s that?” Willow asked, pointing.
“What’s what?”
“That red thing by the road. Is that a… person?” she asked, squinting her eyes to make out the moving shape in the fog.
Celeste took her foot off the gas. A woman in a bright red rain jacket was walking alongside the road, just ahead. She didn’t appear to notice their van as Celeste slowed down to pull onto the shoulder in front of her.
“What are you doing?” Willow asked, chewing on her thumbnail.
“It’s the middle of the night and it’s freezing outside. Shaman Mike says the only way to earn karma for this life and the next is through acts of kindness. So, we’ll take her to the nearest gas station. I wanted to make a quick stop there, anyway.”
Willow bit her lip, doing her best not to think about the other little person they had left out in the cold that night.
“Roll down the window,” her mother instructed as she shifted into Park.
The woman continued walking along the dark shoulder, her hooded silhouette barely visible in the faint glow of the nearly-full moon.
“Excuse me, ma’am?” Celeste shouted, leaning over her daughter. “Are you stranded? Do you need a lift?”
She didn’t look up.
“Hello?” Celeste waved.
The woman was only a handful of yards away from the van now. From the red light of the van’s brake lights, Willow could see the holes in her jeans, the blackened toes that stuck out from her tattered sandals.
“Mom—” she started to say.
“Hello, ma’am?” Celeste called again. “Do you speak English? Do you need help?”
The woman stopped a few feet from the open window, slowly turning her head to look at them. Willow let out a soft gasp. Though she was young, perhaps only a few years older than Willow, her copper skin was haggard, and she had angry sores blossoming across her chapped lips. She gazed at them with the saddest, deadest eyes Willow had ever seen.
“Run,” the young woman whispered into the fog. A cold shiver ran down Willow’s spine.
“What did you say?” Celeste called, leaning on her daughter’s leg for support.
Just then, a knock sounded on the driver’s side window. As the door to the van tore open, Celeste and her daughter barely had time to scream.
Chapter 12
Beneath the Maple Tree
It was a short drive to the cemetery, followed by a five-minute walk up the overgrown dirt path where its wrought iron entrance stood, eroded by weather and the passage of time. But instead of pushing past the corroded gates, Stanley and Lilah made their way several paces west, where a solitary, fledgling maple tree stood, surrounded by meadow. Per Marie’s final wishes, the upturned soil that nourished the tree’s roots had been mixed with her cremated ashes. In death, she had hoped that she might be able to sustain life where her womb had been unable to do so in life. It was those ashes that brought Stanley to his wife’s grave for the first time since he had planted them alongside the sapling.
He knelt beneath the tree to place a red sunflower atop Marie’s headstone. Despite the warm afternoon sun, his hands were cold and clammy, and his knee was trembling as badly as it had the last time he knelt in front of Marie, to ask for her hand nearly ten years ago. Until that very moment, the possibility of seeing his wife once more had been both exhilarating and frightening. But as the reality of what he was about to attempt began to materialize, Stanley felt very little of the former and an overabundance of the latter.
“Mommy’s favorite flower,” Lilah smiled, reaching out to stroke the sunflower’s velvety petals.
“You were Mommy’s favorite flower.”
The little girl beamed up at him proudly. Stanley did his best to return the smile. If his theory was correct, this test might finally grant him some concrete answers about his daughter’s condition. With those answers, he would be able to provide her better care and medical support. At least, that’s what he had been telling himself since breakfast, when he “forgot” to give Lilah her medicine. But as Stanley stared at the small child before him, trying his best not to think about the damage another seizure might inflict, his resolve began to waver.
Am I really doing this for her? Or am I just doing it to see Marie one last time?
“Pretty bird!” Lilah exclaimed, snapping her father out of his trance. She ambled past the maple tree to chase a red-winged blackbird that had just swooped past them. It perched on the wooden post of a nearby corral fence, squawking in their direction.
“Daddy, come see!”
“Lilah, don’t run off!” Stanley called. He gave Marie’s tombstone a remorseful glance before jumping to his feet. “C’mon kid, it’s just a bird.”
But Lilah was already off running, as curious toddlers often do. Her father wasn’t terribly worried; after all, he could spot her pink overalls from a mile away. He followed the giggling little blur through the calf-length grass, past the stone marker embedded in the soil that read “Buffalo Ridge Monument,” and over to the wooden fence, where she had stopped to gaze up at the bird. Funny enough, from that distance, the bird appeared to be gazing right back at her. But as Stanley blinked, something strange occurred – the bird began to flicker. One moment it was standing there, still as a statue; the next moment, it was gone.
“Lilah, are you okay?” Stanley called hesitantly. He thought he saw her nod. As he got closer, his heart skipped a beat. The bird wasn’t actually disappearing; it was flickering back and forth between being a bird and an egg. A small, pale-green, egg, which wobbled precariously on the edge of the wooden post before changing back into a stunned bird. Stanley stopped dead in his tracks. What would happen if the egg fell off the post and broke open? Would the blackbird still come back? Or would it have ceased to be born? Were there baby blackbirds somewhere in the meadow that might starve without their mother? Would there even be babies if their mother’s egg had never hatched?
Suddenly, Stanley’s plan to see Marie one last time felt significantly more dangerous – as did his unmedicated toddler. His trembling fingers went to his pocket, where he was keeping Lilah’s last few doses of medicine. He knew he had to get it to her, and fast. Not for the bird or even for his own sake, but for hers – every moment she spent in a seizure could result in permanent brain damage, at least according to Dr. Kreuter.
What was I thinking?! he raged at himself. Marie’s voice quickly joined in. She’s right there, Stan! You have to get to her quickly!
Stanley took an obedient step forward, then stopped. It wasn’t the short distance between them that was the problem; it was the time aberration itself. If he got caught up in it, he’d be trapped, like the bird. He had a theory, however: he was fairly certain that Marie hadn’t been touching the baby when she was caught in Lilah’s time “bubble” three years ago. However, he knew for a fact that he had been holding her when their living room reverted to a forest – which meant that anything or anyone who was touching her during a seizure was safe… Probably. After all, if he hadn’t been holding her, he might have been transformed into a little kid, or a baby, or…
Or worse. Stanley did his best to swallow the growing lump in his throat. “Lilah, sweetie? Can you answer Daddy?” he called out, only somewhat confident that he was standing outside the influence of the bubble.