Kenia stumbled, finding herself on her feet, her head still spinning. She lost the battle to stand and crouched down, a knee to the ground, one hand next to it, the other to the crown of her head. She clenched her eyes shut until the flash of pain and disorientation passed. She became aware of sound before sight. The sounds were . . . familiar, the buzz of insects, the whisper of wind in trees, the songs of birds.
She opened her eyes. She was along the roadside. A break in the trees allowed for her to see down into the river valley. It was a view of Selah Station she recognized.
The confusion began to resolve. She knew this place. It was where she had stopped to have lunch the day before. She approached the break in the trees and found the same spot where she had sat—the same but different, just as the trees and bushes were not quite as she remembered them, even if she could not put her finger on why.
The town waited in the valley below. The island, instead of being an overgrown forest with the wreckage of an industrial disaster, was marked by buildings and streets that were visible, even occupied. The trees of the avenues were under-pruned and evenly spaced. Traffic moved, the sun reflecting off the windows and fenders of cars moving along the roadways. Even the buildings of the college were visible. Farther to the northwest, white clouds of steam rose from the chimney stacks at the coal processing plant and evaporated in the breeze rolling down the changeless faces of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The groan of a diesel engine drew her back to the shoulder. A bus was chugging up the hill. It was a Trailways, a cherry red model she would have called “vintage,” with gleaming aluminum sides, sliding windows tilted forward air-stream style, and “Trailways” written on the side in eggshell white. The destination roller on the front read “Selah Station,” and as it passed she caught glimpses of young black faces staring back at her. These were college-aged men and women, their shirts and blouses buttoned to their necks. They were not looking at her so much as they were looking at the valley beyond, their eyes wide, full of hope and apprehension. Only as the bus rumbled past did some of them take note of her, those that did wearing quizzical expressions, as if she were something exotic and out of place.
The bus rolled on, the engine rumbling as the driver downshifted to use the compression brake. She was left staring through the empty space left behind. A mailbox stood on the far side of the road. It was built in the shape of a red barn, complete with a miniature barn door where the mail would go through. What caught her eye was the name.
Pennel.
She swallowed and crossed the road, noticing that the asphalt was old and faded, its face crisscrossed with swaths of tar painted over cracks. As she walked up the gravel driveway, she noted that the day was not particularly different from how it had been: it was summer and hot. The sun was sinking behind the trees. She tried to remember when it had gotten so late, but couldn’t. She checked her phone. It read 2:37 p.m., but it certainly did not look like 2:37 in the afternoon. The long shadows and haze in the air told her it was closer to four p.m.
Then she noticed she had no reception.
She slipped the phone back and walked a bit faster. A squirrel danced on a limb overhead, startling a cardinal that swooped across her path with a series of staccato chirps. She could smell honeysuckle and sassafras and, somewhere more distant, a wood fire. The Pennel house came into view, and like so many other things, it was the same but different. The arrangement of bushes along the front walk was new. She did not remember flowerboxes at the windows, but there they were now, their blooms and leaves hanging over the side in fecund and cheery displays.
Then she stopped short. The yard was empty of car carcasses, bathtubs, and rotting mattresses. The distillery was missing, the grass where it had been not even flattened. No flags fluttered in the breeze except for an American flag that hung from the porch. The crepe myrtle trees that had held the other flags were nothing more than knee-high bushes.
She climbed the steps to the front door and, before knocking, slowed, wondering if this was indeed the right house. The timbers of the porch showed their age, cracks having opened along their lengths. The house paint was thin and without the luster that had characterized it earlier. This house had a weathered but comfortable, lived-in feel. The doorbell was missing but the front door was open, only the screen door shut across the empty space of the door frame allowing her to see all the way back to the kitchen.
The cupboards were no longer glass, but the more traditional wood.
“Hello?” she said, rapping on the door.
“Coming,” a voice answered back.
She could hear footsteps climbing up a set of basement stairs before the silhouette of a man came into view. At first she was certain it was Austin and was relieved that something—someone—was as she remembered it. But as he neared, she could tell this man only resembled Austin. This figure was a stranger. He was younger than Austin, by a decade or more. He had the same handsome features, except the haunted look in Austin’s eyes was gone. This young man’s expression was an open one, his face clean shaven even if his hair was a bit longer, his bangs in a tousle at the top of his head.
His eyes were most striking. They were an electric blue, and once he looked at her she felt her heart skip a beat. She could not quite find her words as he opened the screen door with a gracious smile of greeting. She was seized with a sense of self-consciousness. It was a familiar feeling, one she felt around some of Chikmara’s actor friends, who with their movie-star looks, smooth voices, and self-assured poise made her feel at once giddy and ordinary. This young man, however, wore his attractiveness lightly, as if unware of it. His demeanor was relaxed and kind, his expression so humble she would have thought he was the one trespassing.
She took a deep breath and searched for how to start, how to explain that she was lost but not lost, that she had never been there before, and yet, had been—at least she thought she had been. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Instead the pain slapped her between the eyes again, and her world started to spin.
All she managed before it all disappeared was, “Oh, no.”
Kenia came to in the yard of automotive wreckage again, facedown, next to the distillery, a snail leaving a silver trail as it inched up one of the serpentine copper tubes. She looked up, propping herself up on her elbows. This Pennel house was as she remembered: the fresh paint, the double-paned energy efficient windows, their sills free of flower boxes, the timbers of the porch new, the stone and brickwork lacquered with shellac.
It was Hailey who saw her first, crying out, “She’s in the yard.”
The screen door opened and shut as Hailey rushed out to her. But Kenia was already up and running to Kermit. She kicked the engine to life, twisted the grip, and for the second time in so many days, fled from the Pennel household.