A Hitch in the Stars
I pull my hair back into a long ponytail, just as it was in my memory, and secure it at the back of my head. With my hair swishing against my back, I shift quickly to my feet and make my way toward the opening between the trees and the uneven path that leads down to the creek. I hold my breath as I choose my steps carefully.
But where’s Shelby? This is the exact spot, here with the trees and shallow but gurgling creek. The small stones at my feet, stones in the water. The brown of the creek bed and palette around me. A black crow shrieking overhead.
A couple of boys, no more than eight or ten years old, race past me, laughing, splashing in the water’s edge. Then I’m alone again by the flowing water.
A few tourists move along the path behind me, their conversation low and flowing, but no Shelby. The blonde woman walking ahead of her two companions looks vaguely familiar, and there’s a zing of energy I’ve encountered before, as if I’ve sensed a new recruit.
I shake my head and ignore everything but my search for Shelby. Pushing down the rising tide of panic, I check my watch yet again. He’s late.
Of course, he’s late! The stars have been out of whack. Things haven’t lined up just yet, and at the moment, the planets do not yet predict the urgency of attraction in my memories. So, he’s not really late—time is off, that’s all.
Minutes tick by for the next hour. I’m exhausted. My feet hurt, and not just from my blisters. I want to sit, but I find a nice, solid tree to lean against, or else I might float right off Mother Earth. It’s hard enough to get adequate oxygen at this altitude, but between the hammering of my heart and the thinness of the air, I can’t help but be dizzy.
I don’t want to look at my watch again—I feel foolish—so I wait. No, this is all wrong. If Shelby shows up now, I’m in a completely different vibe than in my memories. Now I’m anxious, scared even. Not the peaceful, happy woman Shelby had taught to skip stones just like he’d promised we would skip through the rest of our lives together.
Do I really want him to see me like this? Not that he wasn’t there with me through so many horrors over four-and-a half decades, propping me up when times were bad and sneaking moments of joy among our destiny to save the human race, and him loving me through it all, but this isn’t how I want our first meeting to take place.
Finally, I give in and check my watch one more time. He’s hours late. Realization dawns—stomach-churning, head-spinning realization. He isn’t coming.
My fingers automatically find the medallion around my neck, tracing the celestial patterns engraved into it. The stars are a little behind. That’s all.
Just as I’m spiraling into my thoughts, my phone buzzes again. I remember this call, though on my own phone, not a burner. And not here next to the creek but beyond the gardens’ exit. Shelby had walked me to his car and realized I’d had a local car service drop me off and was stranded with him. He’d offered me a ride back into Vail just before the gardens closed and dusk overtook us, and I’d excused myself to talk to Virgil while Shelby waited by a couple of huge planters of colorful flowers and gazed out at the mountains.
“Virgil,” I answer before he can say a word. “How’s your mom?”
I already know. Unless time has really changed that much, I also know what he’s going to say next.
“Oh, Zephyr. It’s worse than we thought. It’s spread to her liver and bones. She’s out of surgery, and the surgeon has given her two months, at best.”
“Oh, Zephyr,” he says, his voice wearier than that of a forty-five-year-old woman running on empty after two nights with little sleep. “It’s worse than we thought. It’s spread to her liver and bones. She’s out of surgery, and the surgeon has given her three months, at best.”
“Three?” I blink and stand up straight, back against the tree. “Did you say three months?” One month longer than in my memory?
“Yes, but we’re going to beat this cancer. Not like what happened with Kimber.”
In the end, it was an aneurysm, not his wife’s untreated thyroid cancer, which took her from him while he was half a world away, fighting for his country. Maybe she would have sought medical help sooner if she hadn’t seen his mother’s struggle with breast cancer over the years and hadn’t been terrified to confirm what she already knew. His mother will survive much longer than three months, thanks to Virgil’s attention and magic, but I know what pain awaits him.
“I’m going to stay in Nashville—” I hear him begin in my memory.
“Zeph, I’m going to stay in Nashville for a while and take care of her. I’ll drop my retirement papers instead of taking the teaching position in Monterey. My brother’s more of a social butterfly than I am, so it just makes sense for me to be the one to stay with her. For however long she has. I want to be with her. I need to be with her.”
Like he couldn’t be for Kimber. For all his years as a deathwalker for the priesthood, this time, it’s personal. One day, he’ll make peace with his guilt and be happy again, but that’s a few years away.
“I’m going to make Essiac tea for her and put her on a strict regimen once I get her home,” I hear in my head.
“I’m going to make Essiac tea for her and put her on a strict regimen once I get her home,” he says in my ear. “Any idea where I can get some fresh burdock root and sheep sorrel?”
Hearing those exact words from him, the same ones he’d said in that other timeline, comforts me, but it’s a comfort tinged with confusion. The difference — the only difference— is that the prognosis is off by a month.
“Sure, Virgil,” I say, not burdening him with my uncertainties. “I’ll find out for you.”
“Great! Would you call Nike and let her know? I have to hang up now. They’re gonna let me see Mama and—oh! You and Shelby. I forgot. How’s that going? Am I interrupting your, um, lovemaking?”
I smile. That’s Virgil. Always such a good friend to me.
“No, not yet.”
“You’ll find him soon. I have a gut feeling that it’s only a matter of time. You hang in there.”
“You, too, my friend.”
I end the call and quickly scramble up the creek bank to the main path. The timeline is shifting with every minute. I have to know where the stars are and how close I am to my destiny. Raven has seen Shelby and me at a romantic dinner together this winter. That could be December back in Florida’s warm climate or it could be October here in Vail. But it’s not today. The important thing is that it’s coming within a few months.
My heart skips a beat. Assuming Raven was peeking into my near-term future and not some distant winter day. Before the pole shift, certainly. But Shelby and I are still on course to have the life I remember.
And then the timeline with Virgil’s mom has shifted by a month. Everything is still on track—just a little behind schedule.
I head into a little gift shop next to a garden specifically for children. A woman maybe twenty years older than I am is closing up as I step through the door. She startles at my intrusion. It occurs to me that in my memory, the shop had already closed for the season, yet now it’s still open.
She presses her fingertips to her lips and snickers, her friendly eyes squinting as she does. “Oh, sorry about being jumpy! The park is closing. I wasn’t expecting to see you there.”
I glance around. She’s already brought in several pieces of garden artwork for the night.
“I hate to bother you, but I—I need paper and a pen.”
She opens her mouth to speak but laughs instead. Then, shrugging, she tilts her head toward the tables of sweet-smelling soaps, handcrafted jewelry, and at least fifty specialty notebooks with matching pens, dainty locks, and satin ribbons for bookmarks.
I grab the nearest notebook with one hand and dig cash out of my pocket with the other as I check the price sticker. Smaller than I’d like, but this little notebook will do.
“Thank you!” I call out over my shoulder as I thrust a wad of tens and fives at her and nearly run out the door.
The light is fading fast as I find a bench and hunch of the plush cover of the purple velvet-covered notebook with the embroidered words Times of our Lives scrawled diagonally in silver letters encircled by stars of gold thread.
Pawing through my purse, I find the folded papers that the librarian in Huntsville printed for me of yesterday and today’s daily ephemeris—a table of the positions of various celestial bodies. Before I can pick up the purple pen attached to the notebook by a silver cord, the first entry on yesterday’s astrological table catches my attention. The moon is in the wrong place, the wrong astrological house. I’d swear it was different yesterday when the librarian printed its position for me and last night when I’d cast more charts. Not that it wouldn’t advance to a new house, but the moon just plods along in its orbit: it doesn’t jump around in the sky.
Behind me, the shopkeeper waves and says goodnight, reminding me again that my time here is diminishing. I twist on the bench to catch the dwindling daylight better and scrawl today’s date and time across the top of the first lined page. Then I sketch a circle and divide it into twelve astrological houses, populating each sector according to the ephemeris for today.
“Everything’s in motion,” I whisper.
The skies are always in motion, yes, but not like this. They are moving closer to where they would have been before Aoife’s interference, but not there yet. The strangest thing is being able to see that the timeline has changed since yesterday.
Or am I shifting between timelines? Quantum jumping without intention, one degree at a time?
My heart sinks. The stars aren’t right for meeting Shelby. The celestial bodies don’t spell love or destiny today. I’ve missed the window, and Shelby never showed up in the gardens.
A park guide approaches, telling me gently that it’s time to leave. I gather my things, clutching the medallion as if it could somehow fill the Shelby-shaped hole that’s suddenly opened up in my heart.
The exit looms ahead as I stumble toward it. I can’t help but look over my shoulder toward the creek behind me or scan the face of the few people left in the gardens. Just in case.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt so numb. So lost.
Give me a sign, I pray silently. Show me that Shelby is still in my future, that things are only delayed. That the love of my life will be in my life this winter, if not today. Or in a month, if not sipping wine by a fireplace tonight.
But no one answers.
The parking lot is empty except for three women in their thirties laughing and chattering between a Mercedes and a Jaguar on the side closest to Frontage Road, parallel to the interstate. I envy their sense of ease and joy. I’ve never felt this alone or stranded in the universe. I’ve always known everything that’s coming, and now I know nothing. Standing here with no way back to my cabin but to walk beside the highway in my blister-inducing boots, the chill of impending dusk sets in.
I am untethered.
The three women in the parking lot hug one another goodbye. The two brunettes slide into the Jag and wave and blow kisses to the third woman as they drive away. The one left behind, the blonde who passed me earlier in the day, turns back to her car and freezes.
“Hey!” she calls across the parking lot to me. A wide grin breaks across her face. “You need a ride? I owe you a favor.”
I stagger toward her. “Actually, um—”
Wait. I know her.
“Yes, I do need a ride!”
Half-running, I close the distance between us. I’m huffing by the time I reach her car and am certain I have another blister stinging my left heel.
“Elodie Rousseau?” I wheeze. The mother of Terre Vanderholt’s next incarnation in some other timeline?
“Aw, you remembered my name. How sweet! Thanks for dropping that tiara off at the charity event for me.”
“Y-you’re welcome.” I stare at her. Her rosy cheeks smile all the way into her eyes and long, fresh-from-the-salon eyelashes. Her golden-blonde hair gleams, even without strong daylight. Everything about the way she is dressed oozes money and elegance.
“Yes, I hear my contribution raised a lot of money for a good cause.”
“Um, no doubt” is all I can think of to say. I know there’s no such thing as coincidence. I also don’t want her to think I’m stalking her. “Wh-what are you doing here?”
She motions for me to get in and fumbles with the key fob to unlock the passenger door from her side of the vehicle. “Oh, celebrating with friends!”
An odd silence passes between us as if the moment is frozen in time. From across the roof of her Mercedes, we frown at each other and shake our heads at the same time, then duck into our respective sides of the car in unison. Whatever déjà vu I just felt, so did she. In the original timeline, we were friends for years.
I catch a hesitancy in her eyes as she cranks the car, just before the interior lights dissolve the clarity between us.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I don’t remember your name.”
“Veronica.”
We shake hands, and she laughs.
“I don’t mean to sound crazy, Veronica, but are you psychic or something?”
This time, it’s my turn to laugh uneasily. “I, um, don’t understand. You mean, because we ran into each other here?”
She shrugs as she backs out of her parking space. “I suppose, but that’s not why I ask. Although it is really odd to run into you here. No, I meant because of what happened when you came to pick up the tiara.”
Only my exhaustion overrules my sense of panic. Did I miss something?
“I was being a klutz and almost fell at your feet. You said something about my—” she pauses— “condition.”
Heat fills my cheeks. I’m glad she can’t see how embarrassed I am. I didn’t mean that she was fat or clumsy or any of the ways most women construe such a personal comment on their non-existent pregnancy. In my world, she was supposed to be seven months pregnant and waiting for Terre’s recently departed soul to find his new mother.
“Oh, I didn’t mean—”
She waves her perfectly manicured hand, gesturing for me to stop talking. “But you were right. I knew something was different, and your comment got me thinking, so I went to my doctor the next day, and ta-da! I thought I was late because of all the stress I’d been under from so much travel, but no. Veronica, thank you! I was three months pregnant, and I had no idea!”
“And that’s why you were celebrating,” I murmur, but in my head, I’m calculating how many months her pregnancy is behind schedule—and wondering whether Aoife knows.
“Precisely! Anyway, I owe you because I was not taking good care of myself, and this baby is very important to me.”
Something inside me shifts from dark to delighted. My smile is genuine and heartfelt. “Congratulations, Elodie! That’s wonderful news.”
Terre is still waiting to be reborn, just a few months later than I remember. Virgil’s mom has one extra month’s prognosis than I remember.
And somewhere out there, my sweet Shelby is still waiting to meet the love of his life.
I’ve missed today’s window, but not the entire opportunity. If the universe won’t guide him to me, then I’ll find him myself.
And the day I do, we’ll be skipping stones across a creek, the stars above and around us realigning, finally letting our timelines converge once more.
Just like in my memories.
Just like in my dreams.
⁂
THE END
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