It was just past midnight and Lilah was lying awake in bed, staring at the icy branches of the elm tree swaying outside her window as a shrill gust of wind whistled against the shutters. Having finally abandoned the stack of depressing news articles to her nightstand, she clutched her lavender bedspread against her chin, waiting for sleep to find her. But sleep was elusive that night as a torrent of thoughts rushed through her mind instead – thoughts that thrilled her and sent her heart racing into her throat. Like the way Jace had looked in her eyes and said, “Maybe I can come by again tomorrow?” just before heading home for the night. Or the way he’d smelled when he pulled her in for an awkward goodbye hug on the front porch. A hug that, in her estimation, went on for a full Mississippi-and-a-half longer than what Seth would describe on his patented Squeeze-O-Meter as a “Standard Platonic Hug.” In fact, if he had been there to time it himself, he might have even labeled it as a “Quasi Crush-Zone Embrace.”
She’d almost called Seth to tell him the news – that Jace McKinnon had spent the entire evening at her house and even stayed for dinner – but there were two major problems with that: for one, it would involve having to confess her big secret to Seth, and, apart from Katie Price, he was the biggest gossip in school. Of course, the other, far more pressing issue, was that Seth still refused to talk to her, even though the concert fiasco had happened more than two weeks ago. Christmas had already come and gone, and for the first time in eight years, even their sacred annual Christmas Candy Cane Hunt had fallen to the wayside. She clutched her comforter tighter against her chest. Her father was never home on Christmas since he insisted on giving his volunteers the day off, and while Stanley and Lilah had always exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve, spending Christmas Day at Seth’s house had become an annual tradition – a tradition she looked forward to very much. But the messages she had left with Seth’s mother went ignored. Even the handmade, sparkly reindeer card that she placed on his front step had been snubbed; when she walked by his house more than a week later, she could see the soggy corner of it sticking out from beneath the juniper bushes.
Spending Christmas alone was hard, but not the worst of it; the thought of losing her best friend of nearly a decade gnawed at her insides. Combined with everything else she had learned that night, it made her stomach wrench into tight, anxious knots. But, as much as she tried to distract herself with thoughts of Jace and Seth, her attention always returned to the most difficult topic of all: her mother. A girl who had been no older than Lilah when she vanished sixteen years ago.
As she lay awake in bed contemplating that uncomfortable truth, the black and white eyes from Willow’s photograph replaced the disdainful brown-eyed memory of Seth, surveying Lilah from the darkness like a ghost. She gripped the comforter tighter against her chin, trying to avoid Willow’s sad gaze, but it was no use. She was everywhere Lilah looked.
Did she have seizures too? Why did she disappear? And where did she go? Did she make a new identity for herself to avoid being found? Is she safe? Happy? More than once that night, the most disconcerting thought of all surfaced above the rest, despite her efforts to quell it: Did I have something to do with their disappearance? Are they gone because of me? At that, Willow’s gray brow appeared to furrow, and Lilah could almost imagine her voice, soft and raspy and full of censure: You did this to me. This is your fault.
A soft knock on the door stirred Lilah from her frightened reverie.
“Li – are you awake?” Stanley whispered. He cracked the door open to poke his head inside.
“Hi, Dad,” she said, sitting up in bed. “I’m up.”
“Can I come in for a minute?”
“Yeah, sure.”
He flipped on the light and stepped into her bedroom, careful to avoid the piles of clothes scattered around the floor.
“So, uh… interesting night, huh? That Jace fellow, he seems nice. Nicer than I gave him credit for, at least… Mind if I sit?” he asked, pulling the chair from her desk beside the bed.
“Go ahead.”
Stanley rested his chin and arms over the back of the chair as he sat down. “I still think it was a bad idea to tell him everything. You hardly know him.”
Why did I feel so comfortable telling him everything? she wondered, marveling once more at the unexpected evening. Is it because he looked so nervous standing at the door? Because I felt terrible about what happened? Or is it just because I wanted him to notice me, to think I’m special?
Lilah chewed on the last vestiges of a haggard thumbnail. “I’ve known Jace since elementary school. We just…haven’t talked much lately.”
“Hmph.” Her father looked unconvinced.
“Anyway,” she continued, “I felt so bad about the concert. I didn’t want him wondering what had really happened for the rest of his life. I know what that’s like, having all these questions and hardly any answers.”
Her father sighed. “Yeah, I get that. And I gotta hand it to the kid, he seemed pretty cool and collected for someone who was just told that his new buddy has time-altering seizures.” He chuckled then, almost nervously, but Lilah didn’t reply. She was staring at the far wall, her hazel eyes distant.
Jace may act like a bad boy at school, but I remember him when he was young – how he would always pick the smallest kid in gym class to be on his team. How he stood up for Marcia Harris when the other kids made fun of her surgery scars. He made me want to be better, even back then.
“Hey – you with me?” her father asked, fear creeping into his voice.
“Yeah, sorry,” she said, finally meeting his gaze. “I was just thinking about something.”
“Good.” He breathed a sigh of relief. “Hey, I wanted to ask you, uh, about what you said earlier. About your mother. About Marie, I mean. Did you really…” he swallowed. “I mean, did she…” He scrubbed a hand through disheveled hair. “I guess what I’m trying to ask is, how exactly did you talk to her? Did she talk back? Did she know who you were?”
“I was sitting next to her ashes when she appeared. She asked about you.”
His eyes grew wide. “She did? What did she say? What did you say?”
“She asked if you were happy. I said that, apart from this week, you seem okay. I told her that you miss her… She said that it felt like she was just here. I think the version of Mom I saw was from sometime in the fall.”
“The fall? I guess that would have been about a month or two before she died.” Stanley rubbed his forehead wearily. “Jesus. So, she was just okay with the whole thing? She didn’t freak out? I would have freaked out. I feel like she would have freaked out… Also, why didn’t you tell me any of this sooner?”
Lilah bit back a smile. “She was calm – almost like she’d expected to see me at some point. I wanted to bring you to see her… But she told me not to. She said it would hurt you too much, seeing her alive again. And she told me she didn’t think she was meant to stick around. And then I hugged her, and she was gone.”
An icy branch clattered against the outside of the window, making both of them jump. Stanley leapt right out of his chair, looking around wildly. Seeing the branches fluttering in the wind outside, he let out a nervous laugh. When he sat back down again, he settled on the edge of Lilah’s bed. His eyes were far away.
After a long minute, she asked, “Are you okay, Dad?”
“Yeah. It’s just, uh… It’s wild.”
Lilah patted her father’s arm sympathetically.
He put his hand over hers, then let out a long sigh. “Your mother’s probably right. It took me a decade to let her go the first time we said goodbye. Don’t know what it would do to me to have to say it again. I’m glad you got to meet her, though. She was an incredible woman. Smart as a whip. And funny as hell too.” Stanley tugged at his beard, lost in thought. “I know you two might not be biologically related, but I swear, you remind me of her all the time. She had this wicked sarcastic streak, and she’d make these hilarious jokes, but with a completely deadpan tone. No one else in the room would get it at first, but I’d be in the corner hollering with laughter, tears rolling down my face.” He wiped a tear from his eye, as if he had just recalled something particularly funny. After a moment, he was struck by a more serious thought. “Did you have another seizure? When you saw her, I mean.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t take my medicine that day.” Stanley’s eyes narrowed as he started to say something, but Lilah steamrolled past him. “I know, I know, it was stupid. Especially after the concert. But I didn’t have a seizure. I was sitting by her gravestone, wishing I could see her, that she would somehow recognize me… and then she appeared. I thought she was a ghost at first.”
Stanley swallowed tightly. “But… How could that be? Every other time, the time dilation stuff has always coincided with a seizure.”
“I think that by controlling time around me, I was able to control my epilepsy.”
“You said that earlier,” he frowned. “What does that mean?”
Lilah bit her lip. “I’m not completely sure. I just have this feeling that if I stop surrendering to the epilepsy and take control instead… the seizures will stop.”
“I’m still not following, kid. What makes you think you can control it?”
“Here, I’ll show you.”
Her father’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. “You’ll what?”
“Just… trust me.” Lilah held her hand to the bouquet of dried roses that hung by her bed. With a deep breath, she closed her eyes.
“Lilah, I really don’t think that’s a good—”
His daughter’s eyes fluttered open. Her irises looked glassy, as though they were far away. “Trust me,” she repeated, resting her free hand on his. As her right eye twitched, Stanley held his breath, preparing himself for a herd of frightened buffalo – or worse.
After a moment, the dry, faded roses began to bourgeon with color as her hand hovered over them. Moisture filled their petals, now silky and vividly pink, and the wilted leaves clinging to the stems stiffened and unfurled, filling with life and chlorophyll once more. Still moving as if in a trance, Lilah slowly reached forward to take the bouquet from the wall, holding the flowers by the silk ribbon that held them together. As she set the roses in her father’s trembling hand, he gasped. The dry patches of leathery skin on his knuckles, the brown age spot he’d noticed just the other day, the burn he’d gotten five years ago – all disappeared. As a sharp thorn pricked his finger and drew blood, Stanley didn’t dare move an inch. It was only when the roses once more became papery and shriveled, and the scar and age mark reappeared on his weathered hand, that he let out a long breath.
“See?” Lilah smiled at him, her hazel eyes bright and present once more. “I’ve been practicing.” She hung the dried roses back on the wall, careful not to knock any of the papery leaves loose. “But this is all I can do right now. I think the medication prevents me from doing anything more – like, something about the seizures fuels my ability to control time.”
Her father stared at her wordlessly.
She took a deep breath. “Dad, I want to stop taking my medicine. I want to keep practicing – see what I can do without it. If I have more uncontrolled seizures, I promise I’ll start taking my pills again. But I think I can control them on my own.”
Stanley licked his lips. They, along with the rest of his mouth, suddenly felt very dry. “But, Li—”
“I’d also like your permission to go talk to Mike Hastings. Jace said he would take me to the library to find that book. From there, we should have enough information to go track him down.”
“Absolutely not!” her father exploded.
Lilah took his shaking hand in hers. “I have to know, Dad. I have to know if he knows anything about my birth mother. Maybe something he didn’t feel comfortable saying to reporters.”
Stanley’s eyes trailed to the place where a thorn had sliced his finger. The cut was gone but two dark drops of blood stained his pajama bottoms. A muscle clenched in his jaw. “Lilah, listen to me. This guy is a complete stranger – you could get hurt! And, while it’s a far less important detail to me, the fact still remains: you could hurt other people. You have no idea what could happen if you lose control and have another episode. Trust me – I speak from experience.”
“But, Dad, if you would just—”
“The answer is no,” he said, rising from the bed. “You have to continue taking your medicine. No matter what. I don’t care what you think you can do – it’s too dangerous to stop. Not just for you, but for everyone around you. And there’s no way in hell you’re driving across the state to go see some stranger.” He set the chair back at the desk, then turned to leave. “When I have some extra time, I will call this guy. I’ll get whatever information you’d like, if he’s even still around after all these years. And then, together, we’ll go talk to Sheriff Reid, let him know our suspicions. But you need to stop all this crazy talk. Okay? Promise me, Lilah. Don’t go looking for trouble and do not stop taking your medication. Do you understand?”
Lilah didn’t reply.
Her father stared at her from the doorway. “Lilah?”
“Yeah. I understand.”
“Good. I’ll see you tomorrow morning before I go to work. Don’t worry – we’ll get all this straightened out. It’s just going to take some time and patience, which I know isn’t your strong suit. Now, try to get some sleep.”
“Fine,” she whispered, turning over on her side to stare at the wall.
Her father turned off the light and quietly shut the door behind him. As the tempest of thoughts once more raged through Lilah’s mind, the image of her mother’s pale, gray face reappeared in the darkness. It continued to linger there long after Lilah had shut her eyes, praying for sleep to find her. It lingered in her nightmares and throughout the night, silently watching as Lilah tossed and turned while the wind rattled against her bedroom window. And it was still there the next morning, when Lilah sat up in bed, desperately trying to rub the sleep from her bloodshot eyes. It was only when Lilah had reached her decision once and for all that Willow’s face quietly retreated from her sight, resigning itself to the distant corners of Lilah’s weary, disquieted mind.