Lilah sat in her usual spot at the very back of her biology class, her face buried in her arms. It had been just under a week since the “incident,” but the days following had passed like weeks. School had been torturous – even worse than usual. Seth still hadn’t said a word to her since her father banged on his front door at 6:00 a.m. last Saturday to apprise Seth’s parents of their son’s newfound recreational habits. Jace was conspicuously absent from class for the entire first half of the week, and when he finally did show up, he was in an ankle brace and crutches. He too avoided Lilah, going so far as to request a seat change in homeroom. She heard him explain to Mrs. Cameron that he was having vision problems and needed to sit closer to the board, but Lilah knew the truth: he just didn’t want to be anywhere near her.
And why would he? She was a weirdo. A freak of nature. An unwanted baby that had been dumped at the fire station most likely because she did creepy, unnatural things. Like making the cutest boy in school magically age backwards and forwards at a rock concert. And then causing the balcony they were standing on to disappear from existence because she had somehow manipulated time and space to a point before the concert venue had ever been built.
While her father – who wasn’t actually her biological father – tried to explain all of this to her at the hospital, Lilah initially burst into a fit of nervous giggles. In her mind, this was obviously his bizarre way of getting back at her for lying about the concert. But as he continued to stare at her gravely, sadness and apprehension etched into every premature line on his face, her mouth snapped shut.
I should have told you a long time ago.
Lilah covered the top of her head with her arms, doing everything she could to block out the memory of that conversation. Fortunately, there was plenty to be distracted by in Biology. Unfortunately, the topic Mrs. Pierson had chosen for that day was hitting a little too close to home.
“If you turn to page eighty-seven in your textbooks,” she droned from the front of the classroom, “you’ll see a diagram illustrating the role of telomeres with respect to cellular aging. As you can see, every time a cell divides, these strands of protein get shorter and shorter. Once the length of the telomere reaches its cut-off point, the cell becomes senescent and will subsequently die. This is the process that happens to all of our cells over time.”
Your mother – your adoptive mother – died of cancer, Li. You knew that. What you didn’t know is that you showed her the course of her disease before she even knew she had it.
“Mrs. Pierson?”
“Yes, Katie?”
“Are the, uh, tele-thingies—”
“Telomeres,” Mrs. Pierson cut in gently.
“Right. These little strings in our cells are the reason people age, right? But, like, if you have really long telomeres, will you live longer than someone with shorter telomeres?”
“Simply speaking, the answer is yes. Telomere length is what we look at to determine an individual’s biological age. Since progressive telomere shortening leads to premature cellular death, one could extrapolate that the longer your cellular strands are, the longer your life will be.”
You gave your mother an amazing gift. Instead of suffering and uncertainty, she got to play and laugh and live out the remainder of her life on her own terms. Until the very end, at least. And every moment she had, she wanted to spend with you.
“Does that mean that making them longer would make a person younger? Like, could we reverse the effects of aging by stretching them out? Or speed up time really fast for a person if we could somehow shorten them?”
Mrs. Pierson chuckled. “Hypothetically, yes. But altering organic material at a cellular level in order to affect the passage of time is veering dangerously close to science fiction, which is well beyond my purview. You may want to head over to the English Department to discuss that with Mr. Oates.”
Li, I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner. I just… I wanted you to try and have a normal life. I made a promise to your mother to love and protect you, no matter what. I couldn’t bring myself to put that kind of burden on your shoulders.
“She’s not my mother,” Lilah whispered into her desk, blinking away the tears that were gathering in her eyes.
“Lilah?” Mrs. Pierson called. “Is my lecture boring you?”
Lilah didn’t bother lifting her head, which was throbbing. Stanley had taken it upon himself to oversee her medication regimen from the moment she’d been discharged from the hospital. That morning, however, she had spit the little blue pill into a napkin as soon as he turned his back to tend to their burning eggs. Perhaps it was a simple act of teenage rebellion; perhaps it was Lilah’s way of getting back at her adoptive father for all the secrets he had kept from her over the years. Perhaps she didn’t fully believe the outlandish stories he had divulged to her in the wee hours of the morning from beside her hospital bed. Nevertheless, at that very moment, Lilah found herself welcoming some sort of magical, time-altering seizure that would suck her into a self-constructed void of oblivion. Maybe she could even bend time far enough back that she’d be eaten by a saber-toothed tiger. Or a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Anything to get out of that classroom.
“Lilah, did you hear me?” Mrs. Pierson asked. Lilah could see her brown loafers standing just beside her desk.
“Yes.”
Mrs. Pierson’s foot began tapping impatiently. “Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind saving your nap for after class?”
“Now works for me,” Lilah muttered against the inside of her elbows.
“I’m sorry?”
Lilah lifted her head to glare at the teacher. “I said, now works fine for me!”
Mrs. Pierson’s jaw tumbled open. A dozen heads turned around to gape at Lilah, who had never so much as coughed impolitely.
“Lilah, I’m vaguely aware of the problems you’ve been experiencing outside of this classroom, but I will not tolerate that kind of attitude here in class.”
Lilah burst out laughing. “You have no idea what my problems are!” Before her stunned teacher could reply, she rose from her desk, slinging her tie-dye bag over her shoulder. “I’m outta here.”
Keenly sensing the wide-eyed stare of every impressionable student in that room, Mrs. Pierson huffed, “Lilah Quinn, if you leave this classroom, I will personally be calling your father to inform him of your deplorable behavior.”
“Go ahead,” Lilah muttered as the classroom door slammed shut behind her. “He’s not my father, anyway.”
After stopping by the corner store to pick up some candy and a cup of hot chocolate for the chilly, forty-five-minute walk to the cemetery, Lilah sat beneath the snow-covered maple tree that sheltered Marie Quinn’s headstone, chewing on a handful of sour gummy worms. The ground was hard and frozen, and the icy grass was melting against the seat of her jeans, soaking through the denim. Above, pale gray storm clouds threatened to add more snow to the ground. But Lilah didn’t care. The cold had a numbing effect, and a touch of numbness was exactly what she needed right now.
As she gazed at the old wooden fence that cut across the frosted meadow, she tried to imagine the herd of buffalo that had charged at her father thirteen years ago. If Stanley hadn’t shown her the arrow head that he’d yanked from his back, hadn’t held it up to the ugly pink scar on his shoulder for her to see for herself, she never would have believed his story. But Stanley wasn’t one for tall tales. In fact, as far as Lilah could remember, he’d only ever told her one lie in her life – one massive, earth-shattering, punch-to-the-gut lie.
“I guess I should say thanks,” Lilah muttered, tracing a mittened finger across Marie’s gravestone. “I mean, you didn’t have to take me in. Especially after I gave you the worst news of your life. I’m really sorry about that, by the way. Dad – er, Stan…” She wrung the gummy worm in her hands in frustration, not knowing what to call him anymore. Out of everything Stanley had told her, that was the part that hurt the most.
“Your husband, I guess, said that the news made your last year… better, somehow. But I’m not sure how it would. I mean, if I was gonna die, I wouldn’t want some orphaned baby to be the one to drop that bombshell on me.”
She brought her knees up to her chin and sighed. “I wonder if my real mom ever thinks about me. Maybe she has other kids by now. Maybe I have brothers and sisters out there. I bet they’re normal. I bet they go on dates and have tons of friends and don’t, like, show people’s deaths or make boys plummet off balconies.”
A clump of snow fell from the tree, landing on Lilah’s head. She hastily brushed it away, then looked up. A blackbird had just landed on one of the branches above, and was cocking its head in her direction.
“Thanks a lot,” Lilah muttered as more clumps of snow rained down on her. “These worms aren’t real, Mr. Blackbird. See?” She dangled a hot-pink-and-green worm in the air. “They’re watermelon flavored.”
As if replying, the blackbird let out an indignant trill and flew away, showing a flash of red beneath its wing as it did. Lilah watched it fly over the gates of the cemetery and land on one of the tall, sweeping willow trees inside. She shivered slightly. Without their leaves, the slender branches looked ghostly and pale – like icy phantoms lying in wait.
“I wish I could have known you,” Lilah whispered to Marie’s headstone, wiping the blurriness from her eyes. It wasn’t the first time she had uttered such a wish in that very spot.
She stood to dust the snow from her jeans, then reached down to grab her muddy backpack. As she straightened back up, she gasped. A woman with jet black hair and almond-shaped eyes was standing in the place where the maple tree had just been. Close enough for Lilah to reach out and touch. Countless hours of staring at the photo on her father’s nightstand told her exactly who it was.
“Mom?” she whispered. “I mean… Marie? Is that really you?”
The woman looked alarmed for a moment. She gazed down at her hands, then up at the sky, then over at the cemetery. When her eyes fell on Lilah once more, they were wide with disbelief.
“Do you know who I am?” Lilah asked.
The woman nodded.
“Are you… I mean… Are you real? Are you actually here?”
The woman touched a hand to her own cheek and frowned. When she pulled it away, she turned her slender fingers in front of her eyes, as if examining them for the first time. Surveying the rest of her body, she traced her hands along her narrow waist and hips, which were concealed beneath a baggy gray sweatshirt. After a moment, she opened her mouth, then closed it again, as if trying to remember how to speak. When she finally did speak, her voice sounded exactly as Lilah had always imagined it would – high and clear, like a church bell.
“I–I’m not sure,” Marie spoke carefully. “Is this the place where you buried my ashes?
Lilah’s eyes dropped to the ground; only then did she realize that the headstone she and her father had been visiting for fifteen years was gone. In fact, the entire swath of tawny grass beneath her feet was now bare, save for a layer of dead twigs and leaves that blanketed it. And yet, just a few yards away, flurries continued to fall on white, snowy meadow.
“What is happening?” Lilah whispered into her fingertips. When she looked up from the ground again, she was surprised to find that Marie was still there, smiling at her.
“You’ve gotten so big. How old are you now?”
“Sixteen,” Lilah replied, swallowing.
“Sixteen…” Marie echoed, her eyes once again far away.
“Dad just told me about… everything.”
“Only now?” The woman’s shoulders slumped. “Oh, Lilah. I’m sorry. I’m sure he meant well. He never was the best communicator, your father. He likes to refer to himself as the ‘strong, silent’ type. Whereas I usually just call him a stump,” she added, eyes twinkling. “Is he here?” She looked around expectantly.
“He’s at work. He doesn’t even know I’m here.”
“Is he happy? Or at the very least, not miserable?”
Lilah bit her lip. “He’s not very happy this week. But most of the time… I think he’s okay. He misses you.”
Marie frowned slightly. “I can’t say that I’ve missed him… It feels like it’s only been a moment since I last saw you and your father. Albeit a long, hazy moment.”
Silence settled in the crisp, autumn air that stretched between them. After a minute, Lilah gathered the courage to ask the question nagging at her tongue: “Are… Are you a ghost?”
“I don’t think so,” Marie replied, surveying her body once more. “I think I’m… me. I’m fairly skinny from what I can tell, but I feel mostly alright. My last memories are of the leaves falling in the front yard. Your father was holding you. You were reaching up to catch them in your hands. It feels like it was just a few moments ago, but at the same time, much longer.”
“I… see,” Lilah said. She had to remind herself not to chew the inside of her lip to shreds.
“You’re… well, were… about ten months old in my memory. How old were you when I… when I died?”
“Dad says I was just under a year old,” Lilah swallowed.
“I see.” For some reason, Marie chuckled. “I don’t know much about time travel – if you can even call your gift ‘traveling.’ It seems to me that you are the only thing to remain static while time itself moves around you…” she trailed off thoughtfully. After a moment, she frowned. “I wonder if I’ll remember this moment in my previous timeline? Or are you just conjuring up a copy of me from my ashes?”
Lilah started. It wasn’t just Marie’s words that caught her off-guard, but her appearance, as well. Her face had grown even paler since they’d started talking, now almost as white as the fresh layer of snow that was coating the ground several yards behind her.
“How… how do you know all of this?” Lilah asked, taking a tentative step forward. Marie might not have believed that she was a ghost, but she certainly looked a bit like one. “I mean, Dad doesn’t even really understand any of it.”
“Since the diagnosis, your father has spent hours poring over books, trying to find a way to beat my illness. He’s become – rather, he became – borderline obsessed with it – pH diets, juicing, supplements, you name it… and I let him throw his grief into that, because I knew he needed the distraction. But I believed what you had shown me and had already resigned myself to my death – oh, please don’t feel bad about that!” she added, seeing Lilah’s withering expression. “Truly – it would have been so much more painful if I had fought, kicking and screaming, to my grave.”
Lilah nodded, but said nothing.
“Anyway, while Stan had his nose in medical textbooks, I spent most of my evenings studying theoretical physics, or, more specifically, relativistic time… I’ll confess I got a little carried away myself. That’s why I’m not surprised to see you,” she added with a smile. “I often wondered if we’d see each other again, well after my death. After all, if you could bend time forward, why not backward as well?”
“That’s actually kind of cool that you figured all of that out on your own,” Lilah confessed. “Especially because everyone else just seemed creeped out by me when I was a baby.”
“Well, I was always a science fiction buff, and hey – a dying girl can dream, right? Besides,” Marie added with a wink, “you were just too darn cute to be ‘creepy’. Even your father was smitten with you. And he was terrified of babies from the start.”
Lilah’s eyes grew wide with an idea. “What if... What if I brought Dad here? So you could see each other again?”
Marie’s smile faded. “I died many years ago, Lilah. I can’t begin to imagine what that must have done to your father. If you were to bring him here, he would have to deal with my death all over again. It would be like an old gunshot wound tearing open.”
“But we could come back – every day,” Lilah pressed. “We could all spend time together, the three of us. Dad and I could tell you everything that’s happened since you left. Maybe I could find a way to take you back with us, to bring you home—”
Marie shook her head sadly. “I’m cold, Lilah… Tired… I don’t think I’m meant to linger here, my darling. I don’t think… I can stay for much longer.”
“But we’ve only just started talking!” Lilah cried. “I think about you all the time. We miss you every day – every birthday, every Mother’s Day, every Christmas! Couldn’t you stay just a little while longer? Please?”
“My sweet Lilah,” Marie smiled, opening her arms. “Come here.”
Lilah ran to her, burying her face against Marie’s neck as they embraced. Her mother’s skin felt warm, comforting, but it smelled strange. Like sulfur.
“I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, but there’s a reason for your gift,” Marie whispered against the top of her daughter’s head. “I love you, Lilah.”
“I love you too,” Lilah whispered back.
Her arms fell to her sides as Marie’s body once more dissolved into ashes, swirling alongside the clusters of snowflakes that had only now begun to fall on Lilah’s nose and cheeks. With a pang of longing, Lilah watched the ashes as they soared up toward the gray clouds above, watched until her face was covered in a layer of snow and her mother’s ashes were long out of sight. She remained rooted beside Marie’s headstone, eyes skyward, for the rest of the afternoon. When the clouds began to darken, and gray afternoon faded to night, she suddenly smelled the familiar scent of her father’s aftershave, felt the heavy warmth of his fleece-lined jacket, which he gently placed upon her shoulders. Without a word, Stanley wrapped his arms around his trembling daughter. He held her tightly, the way he did when she was small, and the two of them wept together, underneath the frost covered branches of the young maple tree.