— after twenty-seven years —
March 11th, 2018
THE TREETOPS SWAYED in the gentle breeze as Giselle peered through the birches, trying to catch a glimpse of her tree.
"She's in a mood," Ajay warned as he exited Hester's house and joined Giselle at the patio table, a deck of cards in hand.
"Who?" Giselle asked, tearing her eyes away from the forest. "Hester? She's always in a mood."
Ajay laughed under his breath, dumping the deck of cards out of its box. "She and Selene are fighting again."
"What are they fighting about this time?"
Ajay shrugged, shuffling the cards. "I don't know, my nana shooed me away before I could hear anymore."
Giselle sighed, watching as Ajay began dealing out the cards. She had thought Hester would be ecstatic to have her daughter back after twenty-seven years apart, but when Giselle showed up in the present three days after Selene had arrived back in December, she found that that was not the case.
Hester was still very angry at Selene, and let that be known by every comment she threw her daughter's way.
The house had become a toxic environment for Giselle, and she had spent the better half of the last three months staying in her room or working extra hours at the florist shop in order to hide away from the fighting.
So far, the new year of 2018 had been brutal. She missed her parents and Mississippi like crazy, but somehow missed Will even more.
That had been a startling realization for her, and had led her to the conclusion that she was falling for him a bit harder than she had had originally thought.
Or had she already fallen?
Under her conflicting circumstances, she didn't like to dwell on that topic too much.
"Ladies first," Ajay said, motioning to the cards fanned out in her hand.
Before Giselle could do anything, Selene burst through the back door, red-faced and frowning. She wore a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, an outfit Giselle had seen her wear many times since being in the present. Her normally pin-curled hair was straight and pulled back in a ponytail and not a scrap of makeup was on her face.
Selene had adjusted to the present well, and had been enjoying the leisure that came with it.
"Mrs. Jo needs you to move your car out from behind hers," Selene told Ajay as she settled down in the seat beside Giselle. "She and Mrs. Sophie are leaving."
Ajay frowned in confusion. "They're leaving now? But it's so early. Normally their game nights don't end until dark."
Selene crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat. "Well when my mum decides to unleash her anger out on them, it ends earlier apparently."
Ajay's brows shot up in surprise. His eyes oscillated between Selene and Giselle before he stood and left.
Selene rested her head on the back of the wrought-iron patio chair, looking up at the cloudy sky. "I'm scared, Giselle," she said suddenly.
"What, why?"
"I'm scared I might get stuck here for another twenty-seven years. With her." She shook her head to herself. "It's like my own personal hell, having my mother nitpick and gripe about everything I do, get mad at me for the sake of being mad at me, start fights—I just can't do this. I need to get back." She let out a groan, straightening in her seat and looking out to the forest. "I need to see my babies again. Dorothy has probably forgotten my face already . . ."
Giselle felt her heart deflate at the anguish in her cousin's aged, blue eyes. "She won't forget your face, Selene," Giselle assured her. "I rarely see her and she hasn't forgotten my face, and stop worrying about the tree. It'll call you back, I just know it will."
Selene nodded, taking in Giselle's assurances. She uncrossed her arms, picking at a loose thread on her pants.
"She still resents me, you know," Selene said out of the blue. "My mum. She's still angry at me for leaving her to live with my dad. This is exactly how she used to treat me when I would visit during the summers and on holidays. I can't even remember there ever being a day when we didn't fight." She shook her head to herself. "And this whole time I was gone, I kept thinking that when I would see her again, everything would be right between us. That time would heal our relationship." She chuckled bitterly, sweeping her eyes over to Giselle. "Obviously that didn't happen."
"Maybe you should sit down with her and talk everything over. Maybe then she'll—"
"That won't do anything, Ellie," Selene interjected. "I tried that already, and it only ended in another big fight." She rolled her eyes. "There's no getting through to that woman."
The back door opened again, Hester's friend Jo coming out.
"Are you doing alright, Selene?" Jo asked as she approached the table, relying heavily on her sleek, wooden cane.
Selene nodded. "I'm quite alright, Mrs. Jo. I am used to this, after all."
Jo frowned. "Well you shouldn't be. Don't worry though, my dear, I gave her a few words after you stormed off. Scared that old cow off to her room and everything." She winked at Selene.
"Man, I wish I was there to see that," Giselle said.
Selene laughed. "I'm sure you'll get to see it again one day." She nodded her head towards the old woman. "This lady here has always been a sort of hero to me. She was always putting Mum in her place when we got into arguments."
Jo shrugged. "Well, she deserves it." She drummed her fingers on her cane before sighing and looking to Selene. "I'm sorry she's like this to you, my dear. Maybe she'll come to her senses some day and start treating you better."
Selene scoffed. "Yeah, and then pigs will sprout wings and start flying."
"Jo," Sophie called out as she held the patio door open with her frail body, "are you ready?"
"Yes, I am," she said before looking back to Giselle and Selene. "Well, I guess I'll be off. You two be good."
"We'll try," Giselle joked as Selene said, "bye, Mrs. Jo."
Once they were left alone, Selene let out a sigh. "I wish my mum were more like Jo. You know, all sweet and, well, nice."
"Hey, at least your mom isn't like Ajay's nana who literally tries to marry him off to any girl she meets," Giselle said.
Selene looked at her cousin out of the corner of her eye.
"What's that look for?" Giselle asked, squirming under Selene's gaze.
Selene shrugged. "Nothing, just thinking about what's going on with you and Ajay."
Giselle blanched, looking off to the forest. "There's nothing going on with me and him."
"Hmm, it doesn't seem like nothing. You two hang out an awful lot for there not to be anything going on between you. I may be old, Giselle, but I'm not stupid."
Giselle sighed. "Okay, I might like him a little bit, and I'm pretty sure that he definitely likes me, but we're just friends. Seriously. Anything more than friends would be complicated."
"Because of Will?"
Giselle nearly choked on her own spit, her face flaming. "What? No!" Selene aimed a look at her, one that made her frown and then shrug. "Okay, maybe a little."
"Be honest with me, Ellie. You like Will, right?"
Giselle stared at her for a moment before nodding dejectedly, her eyes coming to rest on the fancy watch at her wrist, the one she had barely taken off since leaving 1937. "I do, but that doesn't matter because nothing will ever become of us."
Selene frowned. "Because you time travel?" Giselle nodded. "Ellie, don't let that get in the way of love. I mean, I didn't and everything worked out fine." She grimaced. "Well, for the most part."
Suddenly overcome with the urge to change the subject, Giselle looked back over to the forest. "Have you ever checked to see who lives at Dare Manor in this time?" She asked. "I've only seen glimpses of it when I go to and from the tree, but I've never seen any people there."
"I've never checked," Selene said. "I'm too scared to look. What if none of the kids own it anymore? I always avoided looking at it when I used to travel." Her face darkened. "Knowing the future is never a good thing."
Giselle could tell that there was something more that Selene wasn't telling her, but didn't ask any questions. The haunted look in the woman's eyes said enough.
"Um, well, how about we just take a peek at the manor?" Giselle suggested. "Just to see what it looks like. I'm curious now. Aren't you?"
Selene looked off to the forest for a few moments before sighing and standing up. "Alright, but if we see any people, we're leaving."
Giselle smiled and stood as well, following her cousin into the forest. "This is really weird," she said as they journeyed deeper into the woods, "you know, coming out here when I don't need to."
"Yeah, it is a bit weird," Selene agreed. "But do you know what's even weirder?"
"What?" Giselle asked.
Selene grinned, a knowing look in her eyes. "How you tried to get off the topic of Will."
Giselle frowned, looking down to the forest floor. "That's because I don't want to talk about it."
"Ellie," Selene sighed, "like I said earlier, don't let time traveling get in your way. Find happiness and stick to it."
"But what if I get stuck like you did? What if I'm not able to see my parents again? Or what if—"
"Hey," Selene cut her off, "you just need to trust that everything will work out the way it is supposed to. Stop dwelling on the 'what-if's' and be happy."
"But could I really be happy with Will?" Giselle countered. "I mean, we fight nearly all the time, we have like nothing in common, we live in two different centuries—I mean, the list just keeps going on."
"You two fight with one another because you both care, you have much more in common than you think, and, technically, you live in both centuries, Ellie."
"Yeah, but—" Giselle stopped short when she spotted the tree. "What the . . ."
She and Selene drew closer to the tree, bypassing the broken angel statue. Bugs were climbing up the trunk, sorting themselves out into different lines that wrapped around the bark like stripes. Several birds had already settled in the branches, along with a few squirrels.
"I think it's getting ready to call one of us," Selene said. "Do you feel anything?"
Giselle shook her head, swallowing thickly. "Nothing yet."
"Brian! Come back!" a young girl called out a few yards away.
Selene and Giselle turned their attention to were Dare Manor stood, spotting a dark-haired girl chasing after a dark-haired boy. The children's backs were to them, but the dark hair reminded her of Will.
Oh my gosh, could these be Will's descendants?
"Brian! Mummy wants us to go back inside!" the girl finally grabbed her younger brother by the waist and lifting him up.
"Let me go, Bailey!" Brian demanded as he squirmed in his sister's hold.
She turned the pair around, providing Giselle with a view of her face. She and her brother were of East Asian descent, something that perplexed Giselle.
"Do you think they're descendants of one of the kids?" Giselle whispered to Selene. "Or do you think . . ." Giselle couldn't finish the sentence.
"Let's just say descendants," Selene said quickly, turning away from the two children.
"Right. Descendants," Giselle agreed, though she was worried they weren't. If they weren't, then that meant something must've happened to the Dares for them not to own the house anymore.
She looked back at the house.
Surely one of them must still be alive. Maybe an older version of Dorothy or Barbara is in there right now.
Or maybe they are all dead in this time.
Giselle's heart jumped in her chest at the thought. It was odd picturing any of the people she left behind no longer alive, and she didn't want to dwell on that thought any longer.
"Oh, it looks ready now," Selene said as she looked up at the tree, nearly every branch covered in wildlife.
Giselle pressed a hand to her sternum as something flickered to life beneath the bone. "Yes, it's most definitely ready."
• • • • • • • • • • •
Word count: 2,109 words.
Question: What would constitute a perfect day for you?
My perfect day would be a cold, rainy day in fall. I wouldn't have to do anything because all my priorities are taken care of, so I can just curl up by a nice fire and listen to classical music while I read.
PLEASE VOTE AND COMMENT TO MAKE ME SMILE!!!