Water (completed story) (Patreon)

The sun beat down so hot that the concrete in the street seemed to waver and radiate it back up, making her skin sticky. May was already wearing as little as humanly possible to keep from overheating, but that just made her sweaty skin stick to things. Like the couch, the door handle, her phone...

She needed to cool down. The usual option was to take a 15 minute walk to the well air-conditioned gas station to buy soft serve ice cream. But that involved running across a highway in her crappy flip flops, and it was hard for her to work up the motivation for that without a friend egging her on. Also- hot. Unbearably hot.

It was getting so hot that she was desperate enough to use the community pool.  

By herself, it didn’t even sound like fun. Usually she would go to splash around with friends, but they were all on family vacations. It would be mostly deserted, but for parents and their young children, maybe. And some very grumpy  – and not terribly cute- lifeguards. They were always caught up in some kind of interpersonal drama, too. Like they thought they were starring in some young adult drama that everyone around them sort of awkwardly pretended not to notice.  

Also, no matter when you came out of the pool, it was still going to be swelteringly hot out. It was still the height of summer.

May considered it- it couldn’t be any worse than lying here on the pleather couch like a lump under a fan. Even though just the idea of moving seemed horrible beyond contemplation and her limbs felt heavier than lead. If she just summoned the strength to get up, grab her swimsuit, and go to the pool, she could cool off for a few hours- maybe see her Gran, too. This was about the time of year she usually made homemade ice cream with strawberries. She might get conned into turning the ice cream machine for half an hour, but the risk was probably worth it. 

But she pretty much never went to visit people by herself. May had never been a social instigator. She had been happy in high school to go where Brittany suggested, and so far college had been working out pretty well that way too. There was always some dorm event, or a classmate who was angling to make sure she didn't sit alone at lunch. Being home from college was a bit of a shock that way- there wasn't an easy social current to slip into. Ugh.

She could ask her sister if she wanted to go. Alicia was out with her friends, but they hadn’t been to visit Grandma since last summer. Alicia had gone with their parents over Christmas break, but May had been busy.

May rolled over to grab her phone from off the charger on the floor and tapped out a message. Ugh. Even her thumbs were somehow sweaty. What kind of world was it when thumbs got sweaty? Why would nature give her thumbs sweat glands? 

The heat was making her crazy. Or maybe it was the quiet. Getting up to turn on the TV was unthinkable, even though it would be entertaining. For some reason she couldn’t shake the feeling that it would make the house even hotter. But that was insane.  

Without the noise of music or voices, all May could do was listen to the house. Her dad had always said those noises were the house “settling”, but that really only brought more questions. Why was it doing that? What was it settling on? When would it stop, and would that even be a good thing?

It was so quiet she could actually kind of identify the individual sources of the noise. Pipes rumbled quietly, probably water from the boiler or something. The appliances- particularly the fridge- hummed with electricity.  

The air conditioner was obviously working hard as well, blasting out air over her head. It just wasn’t enough in a house this old, with such iffy insulation and the old, badly-sealed windows. It was expensive to get new windows or have the walls torn down to be filled with insulation, not to mention buying a new air conditioner. She had not quite realized how spoiled she had been in her shiny-new dorm room until her body went through shock at the change in environments. 

This was her life now. Her existence felt limited to this moment, sweating heavily on a cheap, sweat-sticky pleather couch in mid-July.  It was so incredibly boring and mind-numbing that it might have come around to being a meditative state.  

Then her phone buzzed on her stomach. May lifted it above her head to see it better, because she hadn’t yet reached that level of self- awareness where she could read small text placed flat on her stomach by just raising her head. Someday, maybe. It would be a triumph for tired, sweaty, inadequately-entertained young women everywhere.  

She squinted a bit at her phone. It was Alicia, saying she would meet her there later, after a movie at her friends’ house. Well, that was that.  

If Alicia was coming, it was worth it to go. She’d feel like a real garbage can if her sister got there before she did, when she was evidently out with her friends for at least another hour or so. She’d committed herself to leaving, so she might as well go now. Grandma’s house had better siding, insulation, and a newer air conditioner.  

Come to think of it, it was really stupid of her to have not just gone. She could have been eating dessert in comfort by now, if she’d just gotten off her ass.  

Her phone case was already supposedly waterproof, but May grabbed the bag-type one she’d ordered to go over it as well. Two layers of water protection was probably good enough, but last summer she’d had a bad experience with a leak in her older phone case. RIP phone. But this one was new, and she wasn’t chancing it. She’d resolved to only get burned once on that.  

Her swimsuit was by the door, along with some cash in another waterproof baggie. May tucked the rest of her money from her shorts pockets into the baggie with last year’s, and dumped everything she was taking into a drawstring workout bag.  

She decided to change into her bikini in the bathroom because it was the coldest room in the house. The cool fake marble tiles felt amazing on her feet. She considered laying down on them, then dismissed that as delirium. Bathroom floors were not clean enough for that. Couldn’t be. And she couldn’t even complain about that- her mother’s answer would definitely be that she could clean it herself to be sure. Besides, there wasn’t enough floor space for her to do that without, like, cuddling the toilet. She was more comfortable keeping her relationship with the toilet professional. 

Safely ensconced in the relative cool, she pulled her shorts over her bikini bottoms and decided to just wear the bikini top solo. She’d need to change clothes later at Grandma’s, but she had clothes there anyway. Oh- no she didn't. Those would be far too small.  

She sighed and went to the trouble of vacuum-sealing a shirt and pair of jean shorts into a plastic container so that the clothes would stay dry. The vacuum didn’t take that long, but it felt like ten million years.  

Her phone buzzed from inside her bag- maybe Alicia? It would be so much better if May didn’t have to go by herself, it was so awkward to just show up at someone’s door.  

May dug it out of the bag and dumped it out of the second waterproof case.

Nope. Dad.

‘I’ll be home late, so it’s your turn to get dinner tonight. Stop by for cash.’

Ugh. Well, it couldn’t be avoided. And Dad’s work wasn’t that far away from the pool anyway. Not like that was a real consideration in a town this small.  

It still felt like she was forgetting something. May ran a mental inventory, frowning. She had her charger double-bagged, she had money. She wasn’t naked and she wasn’t waiting for anyone. The only one holding up her day was her.  

May padded down the wooden stairs, drawstring bag swung loosely over her shoulder. The stairs creaked with basically every step, which only seemed louder in the overwhelming silence of her deserted house.  

The pool and Dad’s work weren’t far, but flip flops would be a horrible decision. The hot hot pavement would burn right through them anyway. Plus they sucked for any pace more strenuous than shuffling. May crammed her feet into her shoes by the door and air kissed a goodbye to her empty house, letting the wooden screen door slam shut behind her.  

The sunshine and heat were so intense that the tar on the street was looking semi-liquid and bubbly. The stink of hot tar overwhelmed her nostrils and made her scrunch up her nose in distaste. It turned her stomach.  

Dad’s work was about a ten minute walk away. But the sun was so hot it felt like she was dying. Dry hot air kept hitting her in the face. It wasn’t any kinder to her lungs. Every breath sucked.  

May trudged with grim determination to the grain elevator. She tried to ignore the rising suspicion that sunlight was already burning the back of her legs where she had forgotten to put sunscreen. It did make her walk a little faster. Sitting on a sunburn was one of the worst experiences in life, full stop. She took the most direct path possible, even when that meant straying onto lawns. Upside: that route took her through three sprinklers.  

The only time she deviated was by crossing the street on the actual block, walking the length, then crossing again and walking back about 20 feet. It was a necessity. The grain elevator was next to Frank’s mechanic shop. It was always full of high school and college age boys apprenticing. They stood and sat around all day, watching the street. Very rarely one of them hung around a car and took a stab at changing tires or something else that was relatively easy.  

She did not want to get trapped in conversation. If you were close enough to be socially obligated to say 'hello', the probability that someone would swoop and start a real conversation rose precipitously. They never seemed to actually do anything except get filthy with grease and gossip. Presumably they were useful to Frank in some way. Maybe he liked to have the chatter around while he actually worked on cars.

She rushed into the doorway and slammed it shut behind her- it got stuck sometimes and the air conditioning was on full blast. It would be awful to lose some of that to the outside.  

Well, dang. Now she felt kinda cold, actually.  

“Well hello, Miss May.” Her dad said from behind the desk, not looking up from his pile of papers. “That was quick.”

May hummed noncommittally, willing to let her father believe that she hadn’t already been preparing to leave the house and that’s why it took her less than an hour to come get money for dinner. She was not known for her timeliness, so this could only help her convince her dad that she was maturing.

Her father blinked a few times, obviously trying to will some more liquid into his strained dry eyes. When that didn’t seem to work, he dug around in his pants pockets and came out with his wallet and a small bottle of eye drops.  

Dad poked around in his wallet for a few moments, before selecting two twenty dollar bills. He held them out without looking. She hesitated a moment, and then leaned forward to take them out of his hand. She held onto them awkwardly, not sure about what she was supposed to do from here.

“You haven’t even told me where I’m going or what I should get.” May said, confused. She stuffed the cash in her back pocket.

He shrugged as he slowly unscrewed the lid from his bottle of eye drops. After Dad had carefully- with his mouth slightly open- put in two drops of liquid per eye, he said, “Doesn’t matter, does it? You can decide.”

“There’s not that much in town, Dad. Do you want me to drive?”

He huffed. “Just get pizza from the gas station or takeout from Vera’s. Your mom should be home around 8, like usual, and I should be back around the same time. I don’t know exactly when- we’re updating software or something from this old crap and God knows how long that’ll take.”  

“Ooohhhkaayyyy,” May drawled, hoping that the exaggeration would prompt a little more from her father. Which one was better? What kind of pizza? If she went to Vera’s, should she order them all the same thing?

Alicia would have just taken the money and made them all eat what she felt like eating, if she wasn’t given any directions. May didn’t feel quite as comfortable with the vagaries of human behavior. She didn't want anyone to be unhappy with her choice.

She settled for a segue. “Should I ask Alicia to come? She’s with her friends right now.” If Alice was there, there was zero chance she would be quiet about what she wanted to eat.

Dad just looked amused. “Pick dinner yourself. You can’t always follow around Alicia or someone else.” He leaned over his desk and grabbed her hands. “ I believe in you!” He sang, in his usual embarrassing caterwaul. “You can do it! You can decide your own fate- no one can tell you what kind of pizza to eat! You have worlds of potential-”

May pulled her hands away, knowing that he was going to carry on like this for as long as she was physically present. There was no talking to him now.  

“You’re strong and determined, and you can definitely order cheeseballs by yourself!” Dad’s eyes were bright. Oh no. It was going to continue with or without her for some time. It was better to leave before he really got on a roll.

“You know, Dad, I was going to go take a dip in the pool.” May got out quickly over his continued yowling, backing towards the door and the heatdeath outside. She touched the door without looking at it and tried to find the handle. “I’ll be back in time to get dinner- talk to you later!” Her questing hand found the doorknob, and she launched herself out onto the sidewalk.  

She walked the short blocks separating her from her goal, passing green lawns, a tire swing, and the small restaurant next to the pool where all the farmers congregated in the mornings. As soon as she stepped into the concrete building, the air felt noticeably cooler. She didn’t need to pay to use the community pool, so the lifeguard at the desk just waved her on to the changing area.  

She wasn’t even sure why they needed to do that if it was free, since they only let in people from this area anyway and everyone knew everyone else. Was some roguish type going to barge in and attempt to dive in the deep end? Were they guarding from people who might hog the baby pool? It wasn’t like the place looked special from the outside. There were concrete walls, next to a concrete parking lot.  

It was special, though. May thought that you could tell as soon as you were close enough to see the water. The first time she had gone to the university pool had been a major disappointment. It had been so plain and sad-looking.

But here, it was better. The water was sparkling clean, and seemed to have the kind of tempting gleam that the ocean had. It wanted her to slide into it. Her ancestors had been here for generations and the water knew her like a family friend. It beckoned, with enticing ripples in the water. She felt better as soon as she looked at it. It had been here long before her time, and it would be here when her grandkids' kids were splashing around in their first floaties.

Maybe it just seemed more interesting than a regular crappy community pool because it used to be a lake. The myth of the thing was important. People had always swum in the lake, from the days when the town was a cluster of wooden houses around a general store.  

To hear her grandmother tell it, some 50 or so years ago a drought dried the whole thing up. The town had immediately “pooled” the money to have an actual pool built instead. There was something funny about that- farmers' whole lives were designed to work around nature's whims, but they couldn't stand to bow to it when the water was at stake. The drought barely disrupted one summer. People just couldn’t imagine living without it.  

May dropped her bag by a chair and noted the gigantic chipboard and clock by the lifeguard stand. It was, evidently, July 26, 2018. The time was exactly 11:06:24 AM. She sighed. It was gonna be a long day if she hadn’t even made it past the hottest part yet. It really was probably better that she’d left now instead of letting inertia win. She only would have been more miserable.  

She didn’t feel like diving or climbing like a real human being today, so May just walked briskly to the edge of the pool, held her breath, and dropped in without thinking of anything in particular. The plunge was crisp and cold, like the water just kind of existed in some sort of pristine mountain stream state regardless of the weather or time of year.  

It was silent. Pure silence, not even the sound of her heartbeat like you'd expect when submerged. Hearing that had been terrifying and confusing the first time she'd gone to a normal pool. No voices echoed above her head, warning toddlers from steep drops or cackling at a friend’s bellyflop. The water was just there- an insulating barrier between May and everything else outside.  

She came up for air, and checked for her bag. It was gone. That made sense. She paddled for a bit, taking in the scenery. It was a bit cooler now, but maybe that was just because she wasn’t out in it.  

There was a family at the side of the pool now. May watched as the father grabbed the two toddler girls up in his arms. They attached around his neck like good little koalas, while their mother had a slightly older child affixed to her back. The parents held hands and jumped in, but their entrance didn’t make a splash. They just slid right into the water. It was kind of like… if someone jumped into jello. The water gave a bit under the pressure, but gave and then almost immediately bobbed back into place.

By the time that it had, the family had of course disappeared.

She idly wondered where they were going. A glance at the clock informed her that it was July 26, 2009. It was nearly to 11:07 now. Maybe they were going to visit relatives, too, but they'd gotten a bit of a late start on it. Family trips usually started early. They couldn't be going very far, though. Not with such young kids.

The thought made her sad. She’d cooled off enough for now, anyway. So she brought her hands above her head and sunk down. She thought hard about July 26, 2018.  

She emerged from the water on the right date, at least. The time seemed okay- 11:09. A little distortion today, but nothing too major. All the people who had been mulling around were already gone. Even the lifeguard had taken a break. But her bag was still there and nothing seemed to be on fire, so May hefted her body onto the cement and grabbed her bag without ever taking her feet out of the water. She heard an angry, muffled beep from her phone that she ignored. Then she walked her hands back and slid fully into the water. All sound disappeared. 

It accepted her like she belonged there, like the water she displaced didn’t really take up space but just somehow sucked itself in to make just enough room for her.

As she transitioned, May thought about homemade ice cream and a cheery yellow-sided house. She thought about the summer that Grandpa had let her, Alicia, and their cousins ride in the scoop of his tractor. She thought about midnight snacks and deliberately horrendous good morning songs about ‘sun-shining faces’.

She exited the water in 2005.

The air was humid as well as hot and hit her face like a ton of bricks. May clambered out of the pool with her usual lack of grace. She settled onto one of the shaded beach chairs to drip-dry at least a little bit before going onto Grandma's nice carpeting. She let one hand hang off the chair to rest on her bag, willing it to act as a talisman that would ward off the excessive heat somehow. Or at least not to disappear while she was recovering. Longer trips made her feel a little tired, for some reason.

It was a good year, at least. It would be a few years before the stroke, and the endless hospital stays. She was a good six years from the nursing home and seven or so from the funerals.

Using a time- displacing pool was not an exact science and it was fairly normal to find yourself in the wrong year when you were going more than a summer or two. But she'd gotten it on the first try, so May just closed her eyes and let herself acclimate. She let the warm air hit her face. The heat felt a lot less torturous after a dip in the pool, even though she could still see heat waves coming off the pavement.

She probably sat like that for a good twenty minutes. The wind picked up. A sudden chill warned her of the possibility of a quick shower of rain, so May performed the quickest sit-up of her life and speed-walked out of the pool area. She winced at the horrible sound that wet shoes make and wished her feet would stop sliding around.  

The cloud cover was surprisingly chilly- or maybe that was just the sharp contrast from the earlier heat. Either way, it wouldn’t last long. It would either clear and heat up again, or rain would drop out of the sky in a big thick sheet. May wanted to be inside before that happened, and she had about half an hour of walking to do. If it started to come down she could bang on any door and get let inside, but she really preferred to be with someone she knew.

She made it to the step-stones leading to the porch just as the downpour started. The fat raindrops made horrible pounding sounds on the tin garden shed roof and smacked down on the pavement. It splashed and spattered up onto her calves as May dove under the cover of the hydrangea-covered porch trellis.  

The smell of the hydrangeas was overwhelming up close, though a bit dulled by the smell of petrichor. The combination was heady and nearly intoxicating- it was a one-two punch for nostalgia. May felt sad and happy and maybe-somehow- hungry? Weird. Or maybe that was a Pavlovian response to coming to Grandma’s house. If you weren’t hungry before, you got that way real quick.  

May stared at the white screen door with trepidation. This was always the awkward part, and she had always made Alicia do it. She didn’t really have the nerve to just walk into her deceased grandparents’ house ten years ago and just expect that it would be okay. She was in elementary school now. Did her grandparents even want to spend time with a weirdly older version of her?  

Having spent a semester away made it seem even weirder. She had always known from movies and tv that death and time were more, uh, immutable, for most people. But it had never been relevant to her or anyone she was close to before.  

What do you even say?  

‘Hi, Grandma, Grandpa, it’s me, your granddaughter from the future. Don’t think about this too hard, like why I’m here now, or what my cell phone is. Can I get some casserole, homemade ice cream, and maybe a dessert?’

She was getting off track and way too far into her own head.  

This is why she needed Alicia. She was much better at stuff like this, she didn't think about it all too much. Maybe… May should go get her, or wait around outside the pool for her sister to show up. That would be better.  

“You comin in, or not?”

Oh.  

Grandpa was standing behind her.  

May turned, feeling more than a bit sheepish. She managed to smile, but she felt her shoulders creeping up just a little. “I just wanted to stop by and say hello,” she said. “I didn't have anything going on today and wanted to see you. Mom and Dad are still at work, but Alicia said she'd come by sometime soon.”

Grandpa just looked amused. “Is that so? Good, good. I'm glad to see you.” He walked up behind and put his arm around her shoulders. It was warm and she could see the line where his tan abruptly cut off into pale skin. The casual touch made her feel small again. She leaned into his chest a bit as he opened the screen door and led her inside.

“Judy, May’s here!” He called, directing her into the kitchen. The house was a good twenty degrees cooler than outside. She flinched at the difference. Grandpa squeezed the arm around her back once, as if to say, 'I know.' Then he drew it back, patted her between the shoulderblades, and let her linger on the warm rug while he took off his shoes at the tile flooring. ”Our girl is getting tall.”

Grandma looked up from folding laundry on the cleaned-off kitchen table. The oven was on, as was the old radio attached to the underside of the cupboard. The familiar old commercial about raisin bread was on – ‘made with real raisin juice,’ the deep voiced man half sang.  

It was easy to just relax and let the comfort wash over her. The rumble of the dryer in the background, the hum of the refrigerator behind her, sunshine spilling over the handmade fake glass ornaments she and Alicia had ‘helped’ make on the sill over the sink.  

Grandma put the last lilac-colored hand towel down on the pile, and turned to face May. She sized May up in an authoritative fashion, lingering on the butterfly tattoo on May’s collarbone. She pursed her lips ever so slightly, but thankfully didn’t say a thing about it.

“You should take a shower, honey.” Grandma picked up the pile of bathroom towels. “Chlorine does nasty things to hair.”

May was led to the bathroom, and watched her grandmother put all the towels away. Grandma first set out three towels on the counter by the shower. All the towels went in the closet, in their respective piles. Hand towels by the sink were exchanged for the fluffy recently washed ones.

Grandma surveyed the bathroom quickly for anything out of place, and then turned to May again. “Did you bring some clothes, or do I need to wash yours?”

Ah. The bathing suit. It was probably fine?

“I’ll just rinse my bikini, Grandma. I did bring clothes.” May lifted her drawstring bag into her grandmother’s line of sight.

Her grandmother smiled, and it was genuine. “I knew I raised you right. Good girl. Let me know if you need anything, Grandpa and I will be right outside.”

Grandma swept outside with all the authority of a queen, no doubt off to manage her kingdom elsewhere.

May took a hot shower in air conditioning and reveled in it. It was luxurious and ridiculous, and she could never do that at home. She scrubbed from top to bottom, and was sure not to forget behind her ears. She’d done well to remember a change of clothes, and she hardly wanted to disappoint her grandmother now.

Her change of clothes felt crisp and clean, which was much easier to enjoy when she wasn’t instantly sweaty after leaving the shower. May blow-dried her hair on high because she felt like living dangerously. She left the bathroom pristine except for her rinsed bikini drying on the shower rod and felt virtuous. She was not nearly that neat in her own house.

Her grandparents were sitting in their comfy chairs in the living room when she came out. The clock read that her shower had taken less then 10 minutes, so they must have barely just sat down. Grandma was hard at work on a crossword, and Grandpa was on one of the first pages of some tractor magazine.

“All clean!” She announced cheerily.

Her grandmother hummed, and Grandpa looked up from his reading.

“How would you like to go out to Vera’s for lunch, instead of eating at home?” He asked with a mischievous wink. “It’s lasagna today, and I’m itching to go. If we beg your Grandma, she might just let us.”

May could actually somehow feel her grandmother rolling her eyes, before she looked up slightly from her crossword.

“I only have enough for two- we were going to eat leftovers.” Grandma clarified. “So it’s Vera’s or takeout pizza from the gas station.”

Actually, that pizza was damn good. But it was more comfortable to eat at the diner. Plus, May was starting to lean towards pizza for dinner and didn’t actually want to eat it twice in one day.

“Alicia should be coming at some point, too.” May restrained the urge to check her phone in her bag. It was more a crutch than anything. Her cell phone company didn't exist yet. Why did she even bother bringing it? “Maybe in time for lunch. She was finishing a movie at a friend's house.”

Grandma hummed. “Definitely Vera’s, then. That way we’re nice and close when she gets here. I’m sure she’ll be hungry.”

They drove, making the 30 minute walk into a 3 minute affair. May sat in the backseat and relaxed into the comfort of a space where she didn't have to be an adult, listening to the classical music playing on the radio and staring out from the beige car into miles and miles of flat farmland.

The soybeans swayed in the wind, looking like beautiful lush waves rolling over the ground. The corn was much more dignified. But honestly it just made corners hard to see around and was a horrible driving hazard. Still, it was bright and green. Must have been a good year- nothing looked overly wet or dry.

Vera was wiping down tables when they arrived. She ran a very tight ship, and was probably preparing for the lunch rush anyway.

There was basically nobody in the restaurant yet, save for a group of schoolkids huddled over a tray of fried stuff. But it was basically the only place to hang out in town. Kids always came there when they had nothing better to do. She had done that all the time- especially on the test days, when she was free in any unassigned period. Many waffles, stacked high with cut fruit and dusted with powdered sugar, had been eaten on test days in junior and senior high school.

The memory made her appetite sharp. They took a booth near the front window, so they could wave Alicia in when she came.

Vera strode up to the table like she just happened to be in that area at the same time and was mildly surprised that they were present. As a human being, Vera was five feet of frowns and May always felt wary of her. She had caught the broadside of that temper only once- it was easy to forget that it was only alright for agemates to use the lady's first name. Grandma had been a year ahead of Vera in school and so May had the unfortunate habit of mentally referring to the older lady by only her first name. It had come out verbally exactly once.

“What are you hungry for today?” Vera asked, businesslike. She didn’t even both to get out a pen and paper. They all knew she didn’t use them.

Grandpa, as always, just ordered the special. May wasn’t even sure he remembered what they were, but he was just the sort of person who trusts the recommended specials in any restaurant. Also, it was easy to remember. Really took the guesswork out of one’s life to just show up and ask for ‘the special and a coffee, thank you ma’am’.

Grandma ordered the pizza pork- some breaded, fried pork cutlet that was then coated liberally with marinara sauce and cheese, and a coffee as well.

“And you.” Vera leveled her gaze on May, who felt vaguely like a fuzzy bunny being watched by a hawk.

Also, that wasn’t even a question.

“I’d like the cheeseburger platter, a water, and a hot chocolate, please.” May ordered as politely as possible. It was what she usually got. At most diners, actually. Cheeseburgers or steaks- she liked her beef.

Vera nodded and walked away into the kitchen.

The food came within half an hours and they lingered over it for a long time. They’d come in at about 12, but left sometime after four. It didn’t take long for everybody else to come in for lunch from the heat, which meant that Grandpa and Grandma had some wonderful social time while May merely enjoyed their company and answered softball questions about how much she'd been liking her classes. Also, Grandma was absentmindedly rubbing May’s back the entire time, which was really nice.

And she could just keep ordering hot chocolate until Vera cut her off.

After the last of their peers wandered out their door and into the midafternoon, with no sign of Alicia, they gave up. She had probably picked hanging out with her friends over visiting family and not thought to message May about the change in plans until it was too late. That was probably the beep she'd heard from her phone, actually. There was no point in checking now, since she was heading home in a minute anyway.

Grandpa paid the bill despite May’s admittedly halfhearted protests, and they left.

Grandma and Grandpa parked the car close to the entrance and walked her back to the pool. They stood at the edge of the pool on the painted DEEP END letters. She heard them talking quietly while she double-checked that the bag with her phone was zipped tightly and tried to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything. She was always leaving things behind, probably because she never felt ready to leave.

There were so many things she wanted to say. Leaving was always so difficult, because all of them knew why she’d come back here instead of just walking down the road to the house that would have cell reception, at the very least. But she never had any words, and they didn’t, either. There was just quiet understanding of the tenuous balance they found themselves in. They'd been on the other end of those kinds of visits enough time to know what was happening. 

It was weird, transitioning to being old enough to realize the undercurrents that adults were aware of. Four years ago, she would never have thought about what her grandparents would have realized. She had just enjoyed the time with them at face value.

When was the first time they’d realized that they would die soon? It must have been somewhat of a shock. They were only in their mid-50’s now. They both died so young. Were they at peace with it when they went? Did knowing that it was coming make it better or worse? Had they ever asked her parents how it happened?

“Well.” May cleared her throat and pasted on a smile. “It's about time to get going. I don't want Mom and Dad to worry too much.”

Grandma leaned forward to smooth her hair. “Have a safe trip,” she said.  

Grandpa made a hum that sounded like agreement. “It was nice to have you come by. If you're free later this week, we were thinking about going down to Uncle John's place.”

Uncle John was still around, actually. She'd seen him at the gas station last week. But it'd be nice to see him with her grandparents. He was a lot happier in these days. May nodded.

Wow, she felt way too melancholy today, considering that it really hadn't been a bad day. She hated goodbyes, though. It was intense to leave with someone watching you. And leaving her grandparents was always the worst. It got harder every year. It was all always too much to say, so they never said anything.  

...Okay, she had to leave before she started bawling. even though Alicia hadn’t shown up yet. She really should have, once she realized that May hadn't gotten her text. May heaved out a sigh. Maybe Alicia’d stayed with her friend instead, or maybe she'd just ended up somewhen else. They hadn't actually coordinated on a year- she could be a year further back or something like that.

May climbed down the ladder into the pool, paying more attention to her footing than she really needed to. She blinked away tears. It was probably the chemicals in the water.

She kept her mind clear when she pushed off of the ladder, so she didn't travel. Instead she floated in the water, treading to stay upright. Her hair was just long enough to catch the water and grow heavy.  

There was a heavy sigh. Grandpa took the last steps to the edge and leaned down. He didn't have to say anything for May to get the message. She kicked her way to the edge of the pool, to the left of the ladder, and stretched her face up. He placed a whiskery kiss on her forehead and stepped back. Grandma handed her her bag, and gave her a kiss, too, along with a wobbly smile.

She didn’t want to leave. But she had to leave. It would be way weirder to change her mind now, or to just sit and stare.

May put her hands on the pool wall and pushed back. The motion propelled her out into the more potent waters, and also helped her feel a little bit more distance. It was hard to go anywhere if you couldn't focus on the time that you wanted to go to- you have to actually want to go there. At least a little.  

So she closed her eyes a moment and thought about having dinner with her parents, and playing a board game before bed. Maybe they'd watch a movie. Oh, tomorrow they might be able to go do something as a family, which was pretty rare now that May was in college.  

She chanced a look at her grandparents, standing sympathetic and solemn in front of a sunset. It made for a nice image. She kind of wished she could take a picture.

“Goodbye, I’ll see you later.” But only, like, five summers later at most. She got it out before her throat started to close on just how unfortunate that word choice had been. Good job, that would definitely make them think about their strong suspicion that their deaths were coming soon. It was a little weird to get repeated visits from increasingly old grandchildren in a short period of time- she and Alicia had spent half the summer here, the year that their parents had been arguing a lot.

They waved. May gave one last bright smile and she quickly dunked her head under the water before the real waterworks started.  

May concentrated on coming back to 2018. She swum back up, shaking water out of her hair immediately.

The effort was wasted. She blinked, confused. Her grandparents were still at the end of the pool. Grandma frowned, tilting her head a little to the side. Grandpa took a step forward. “Having trouble, hon?” Grandpa called.

She shook her head, and dunked herself back down. 2018. She was in college. It was summer vacation, and her parents would be home soon from work. She hadn't messaged them to say she was going anywhere, because she had planned to be back before they were off, so she really needed to get going.

She popped up again. Her grandparents were still standing there. When they saw her break the water surface, they actually started to look concerned.

Her stomach lurched. Her muscles felt tense, almost to the point of soreness. Was this just a nerves problem? Why wasn’t she going back home, or at least coming up at a different time?  

“One more time, dear.” Grandma called. Her voice was brighter than her facial expression implied. “Third time’s the charm. It’s ok, just think hard.”

May nodded, hard. It felt like she was trying to convince herself with the motion.  

‘One more time. Just stay down for a while and think really hard.’

This time, May dove down to the very bottom of the pool. She held her breath and thought about the same things over and over again. 2018. Her friends in college. She was 21. It was difficult because the town hadn’t really changed any in more than 20 years, but there was so much outside it that was different.

She held her breath until her lungs hurt, then kicked her way to the surface.  

May opened her eyes.

“Maybe… there’s something wrong.” Grandpa said quietly.  

Grandma pursed her lips like she always did when she was thinking. After a moment, she waved May to come out. “No sense killing yourself,” she said matter-of-factly. “We’ll feed you dinner and get you to bed. We can try again tomorrow morning.”

Maybe she was just too tired? It had never happened before, but…

'I guess Dad is going to have to make other plans for dinner.'

“Kay.” May paddled to the edge, dragging her floating bag behind her. She went back to the house, relaxed and watched some tv, and got up bright and early to try again in the morning.

It didn’t work the next morning, either. Or the day after that. They didn’t say anything, because there was nothing to say. They didn't know anything more. She had no frame of reference for this. She put her bag into the dresser for safekeeping without unpacking it. What was the use in dragging it around forever? The phone didn't work, and the money could go in her pocket. If she got home, she wouldn't even care about having left her phone. Fuck, at the worst she could go dig it, dusty and long-dead, out of that same dresser. It'd still be there.

Her grandparents exchanged a look when they saw she didn't have her bag the next time she tried to go back, but they didn't say anything to her. It made her feel bad enough that she got the bag right back out that night, no matter how hopeless she felt.

May was afraid to not think about the year she was from. She could get dumped out anywhere in her lifetime. It wouldn’t be horrible to end up in another time with her family, but it was probably better to stay with the version of her grandparents that knew what had happened. Otherwise she would just have to explain it again to people who still didn't know anything about how to fix the problem. She couldn’t be sure that she wouldn’t end up in the years between when her grandparents died and her parents moved back, either. What if she got stuck there? She’d have nobody to go to.

After a week of trying, her grandparents pooled all their friends for information. Nobody could understand what had happened, or why she couldn’t go back. There had been no new arrivals from that timeframe since she got there, and no one from this year could go forward to check, either. She didn’t even want to broach the subject, due to the fact that many of them were deceased by the time she’d turned 20.  

The world was hot. May sat on a beach chair next to the pool, staring into the water that wouldn’t accept her back. She could feel sunbeams burning the skin on her back through her soaking wet shirt, but she didn’t feel like moving even the two feet to another chair under a sun umbrella.  

The stress and exhaustion were starting to wear on her. She’d been trying for the last two hours to get back home, and it wasn’t working. Her arms were heavy, and she’d barely found the energy to slump over to the chairs.

The water gently lapped at the sides of the pool, clear and clean and unmoved by her existential crises. It looked a lot less friendly than she thought it had before. She watched the water she’d dripped on the ground rapidly evaporating, until the spots of darkened cement disappeared entirely.

There was no room in her head to think about how screwed she was. The first night she slept alright, lulled by her grandmother’s cooking and the safety of her family home. The second night, she’d spent the night crying and trying not to scream. If she didn’t get back, her life was probably over. She had her ID, but she wasn’t enrolled in college in this time. She had no accurate documentation and no way to get some. She had nowhere to live on a permanent basis. Plus, she was terrified of waiting around and seeing her tiny self. That kind of seemed like something that shouldn’t happen. Seeing a glimpse of her own back in the pool once in a while was otherworldly enough for her.

But the water wouldn’t give. Every time, she came back up here. It was like the water decided this was where she belonged.

Maybe… she should try something else. May was desperate enough at this point that she would do anything to get home.  

She willed herself to her feet and limped forward into the water, not even caring that she’d left her bag. May channeled all of her energy into her legs and half-jumped into the water.  

She sunk to the bottom. She immediately put her arms to her sides and kicked once, propelling herself upward.  

When she came out, May braced herself and looked at the calendar.  

July 29, 2017. 2:46 pm.  

Families were relaxing around the edge of the pool, reading books and slathering children in sunscreen. Groups of teens and young adults loitered near the deep end. Familiar colors caught her eye- one of the girls had a butterfly tattoo like hers.  

Exactly like hers.  

It was her.  

From last year.

Well. That made sense. May felt a twinge of sympathy for her past self, along with some incredible wistfulness. She couldn’t stay here, either- time paradox or not, her parents definitely were not interested in helping pay for two of her to go to college.

She took a longing look at her past self. Past May was talking animatedly with all of her friends from high school- Zach, Carla, Brittany, Matt, and Kelsey were all there, joking and laughing. They had slipped back together easily that first summer. It had been something of an unpleasant shock when this summer had turned out to be so different. They were all traveling, or seeing friends from university. Things like that. Not spending time with friends from high school.

No sense in postponing it anymore. Obviously the pool was working- something about what she was doing was wrong. May took a deep breath and submerged herself again, thinking about just one year forward. She was so close. Just one more. She didn’t even care that she’d left her clothes and phone behind in 2005.

She rose up by reflex and lifted her stomach to float on her back. The sun beamed down on her face, hot and bright. It was a moment of truth- so she wanted to postpone it for a moment.  

May took a long, deep breath and counted. Inhale, one, two, three. Hold, one, two, three. Exhale, one, two, three. Again. Eventually the sunlight in her eyes started to subside, and the temperature dropped a few degrees.  

May leaned forward into a dog paddle position, and focused her eyes on the area of the pool the calendar occupied.  

July 29, 2005.

Her mind went blank.

It started to rain.

She should be stressed about that. Getting caught in the rain could really matter in this town. You could lose time or skip around. But water wasn't working for her anymore. What did it matter.  

May slowly, slowly paddled back to the cement. She picked up her bag and walked directly out of the pool.

The raindrops were warm and huge, quickly covering the streets and filling the gutters. Puddles were going to start forming soon. That jolted her into caring, at least a little bit. May had had enough unpredictable shit in the past few days to last her a lifetime, so she wanted to get inside.

She felt grotesque and miserable when she got into the diner. She was cold and sopping wet and she wanted to eat until she didn't feel sad or stressed anymore. Cheesecurds. She was going to eat cheesecurds.

Every table was full, but there were free seats scattered around in the booths. May purposefully avoided eye contact with the old pioneer people that always had something to say about her outfits and headed directly to an empty booth with a particularly large tear in the pleather seat.  

Farmers and their family members from every decade were taking shelter from the rain- the mass stopping of time caused by the occasional heavy showers smashed them all together in any building they could get into.  

It was awkward for everyone involved, so the general policy was to be polite, inoffensive, and not to look at or really talk to anyone else. May stared straight forward into the cushion on the other side of the booth and contemplated the various cracks in the upholstery.  

Just out of the corner of her eye, she could see where a family from either the 60’s or the 70’s was spread out over a large section of table. They were idling over a family platter of chicken strips, cheese curds, and fries. There was a glorious pool of ranch dressing. She liked their style- in regards to the food, not their clothes. Their clothes were hideous.

A sudden, piercing shriek made her look up- a child was on the ground, slamming their little chubby fists onto the linoleum.  “Bouncy ball!” they screamed, “Mommy! I want a bouncy ball!” An older woman glanced down, but the parents were just ignoring the toddler and talking over a cup of coffee.  

She was so envious of their calm that it made her stomach twist. She didn't want to be around other people anymore. Maybe she should have waited out the rain in the bank, instead. But who knew how long a shower could last? There wasn’t much to do in there at the best of times. Besides, that had a quarter machine with stickers in it, and anyone who did happen to be stuck in there would be desperate for something to entertain themselves with. She couldn't totally avoid socializing there, either.

She shook her head, and in doing so accidentally made eye contact with some old farmer idling by the order window. She didn't know him, but he would have fit in well with her grandparents' friends. May immediately looked away. She settled for studying the daily specials- they were set by the day of the week and she knew them by heart, but it wouldn’t hurt to look at them again, would it?

The special for Thursday was always hamburger steak with onions- “a dinner roll, side salad (it would probably be macaroni, unless a stray vegetable or two had arrived with the rest of the groceries), and a side of potatoes (fries, baked, or mashed).” She stared into shine on the laminated paper as if it held the solutions to all her problems. It did not. But it was a decent place to fix her eyes and let her mind zone out.  

Actually, it sounded kinda good. And if she somehow had room in her stomach after that, she could get her cheese curds.  

“Ready, hon?”  

Oh. How long had Vera been there? May felt… weird. Kind of lost. She opened her mouth, forgot her order, and closed it again. She glanced back at the daily special list at the back of the table for help- but it was missing?

Perplexed, she looked back to Vera.

Vera gave her the subtle once-over and pursed her lips. “May, honey, you want the special?”

She nodded. Something caught her eye- it was the special list, in her hands. Ah. That made some sense. It was the end of the day- Vera was going to change those out. “Yes, please. Um. Medium rare, with mashed potatoes?” She half-asked, half- mumbled it.  

Vera was quickly losing her usual look of maternal disinterest in favor of genuine concern. Oh no. That was just weird. “Drink?” Vera prompted, eyes softening. She looked like she might actually be seeing a kid she'd watched grow up, not just a face in a sea of customers. “Are you going to have anything to drink?”

Oh yes. Beverages. May was a human who needed liquids, even though water was being so rude to her lately.  

“Sorry. Yes, tea and a Dr. Pepper, please.” May averted her eyes to just over Vera’s shoulder, extremely uncomfortable with how the interaction was going, but not willing to be outright rude.  

That turned out to be a mistake. Doing so had led to her making direct eye contact with the same old farmer as earlier. Awkward. He was still looking for a place to sit and she had a rising sense of social obligation clawing up from her chest. Maybe she did know him, at least in passing. He looked like a lot of the older men in town. Shit. She was going to have to talk, wasn't she.

‘Get it together, you lunatic.’ May chastised yourself. ‘It’s really not that hard to keep to yourself and not start interactions with other, equally unwilling people.’

But they were both in it now- that was too much eye contact to not actually talk, at least briefly. Judging by his grimace, he knew it too and felt the same.

Vera went back to the kitchen with her order, and the farmer shifted a little in his sun-bleached cotton shirt. The natural impulse to be left alone fought the other impulse to be polite. In her heart, she knew she was fully capable of being a rude little gremlin so long as it left her in peaceful solitude. But her grandmother had raised her to respect the laws of human interaction and care about what other people thought, and that died hard.

Eventually, politeness won out. May managed a smile and gestured to the seat on the other side of the booth as an invitation.  

He walked up slowly, back slightly hunched like every other farmer she knew, and a stiffness in his knees that also resulted from decades of hard labor.  

He didn’t actually sit, which was a relief. They didn’t know each other and that would dial up the conversation from polite pleasantries to something more substantive- who her parents/grandparents/great-grandparents/great-great-grandparents were, because the nature of time in this town made that question so much more difficult. Then how she was doing in school, how were the folks doing, until the older person in the conversation ran out of questions and found someone else to talk to.    

The man stood at the edge of the table, about two feet away. He nodded, and May nodded back.

“Pourin’ out,” he said, staring at the maple syrup on the condiment tray.  

Yeah, he was definitely going through the motions as well. She felt some relief and remembered that she liked farmers, as a rule. A lot of them weren't up for substantive conversations with strangers, which was also the way she liked to live her life.

She hummed in agreement, and picked a staring spot out the window, just to his right. It had a tree in it, which was nice. “But this morning was so nice, too.” She had no idea if the weather had been particularly good. It was just something to say.  

“You seem a little lost,” he observed, while still watching the maple syrup for any signs of suspicious movement.  

She sighed. Wasn’t that the truth of it. “Pool problems.”  

The man took that in stride, not even moving his gaze. “Mmm. Happens sometimes. You get tired or somethin’, forget when you’re comin’ or goin’.”

That did make her feel a little better, actually. If she wasn’t the only one that had had that problem, it was probably fixable? Maybe Grandma was right, and she just had to wait it out to resolve itself.  

“’course, that summer a few years ago, that was different.” He scratched his chin, and sniffed. He continued to monitor the condiment tray. “Maybe you have that kind of situation on your hands.”  

“Yeah?” She asked, curious despite her impulse to throw the salt shaker on the ground- no, the pepper, spilling salt was bad luck- as a distraction and escape out the door. NAME would doubtlessly track her down next time and demand payment, anyway.  

“When the lake dried up,” he grunted. “Nobody could come or go. People were stuck in other times, up until we got that pool built and filled in.”

That shocked her enough that she actually looked at him, realizing that she must be around the time her grandparents were young adults, maybe even teenagers. Or that was when he was, anyway. She couldn't really know when she was until the rain stopped. “That’s what happened? I didn’t know people were stuck…”  

But it made sense. You couldn’t come in and out of a non-existent body of water. It was the water that was weird as hell here. Damage to the area, or no water, would probably leave it unusable.  

But that couldn't be it. The pool had not dried up in an afternoon.  

...Okay, so people getting stuck in the first example actually was not that understandable. If the lake was drying up, they should have had the sense to stay out of it. Therefore, no one should have known about that problem. People. People were ridiculous sometimes.

Her anonymous farmer friend grunted in the affirmative, clearly disengaging from the conversation. “I best be going now, that table opened up.”  

May watched him walk away, feeling both somewhat relieved and more nervous than before. It was really unlikely that the pool evaporated within a span of 5 hours- it was a hot and dry summer, but evaporation doesn’t work that fast. And if other people had been stuck before and eventually got back, it was reasonable to assume that she would as well. There was probably an explanation. She didn't know it now, but it would make sense eventually and she would feel better then.

At the same time, not knowing the cause was tying up her stomach in knots. There were a lot of possibilities. Maybe in a day or two (or before the summer was over, at least), she’d be able to go home. No harm done, and she’d get to spend a lot of extra time with her grandparents.  

That was a thought. Maybe it was on her end- she didn’t want to leave. May had never felt good about how much time she’d spent with her grandparents before they’d died. They were sick for most of the last five years of their lives, and towards the end they’d barely remembered her or Alicia at all. The medications and spiraling mental health made them foggy and confused, not at all like the shrewd, attentive people taking care of her now.  

It… really made sense.  

Her thoughts were interrupted by Vera, placing her food on the table. The heady scent of onions and beef wafted into her nostrils. May hadn’t realized how hungry she was, but she was suddenly actually salivating.  

Vera strode back into the kitchen without a word, back to her usual gruff persona.  

May devoured her lunch, reveling in the comfort it provided and her newfound sense of ease. The mashed potatoes were light and buttery, and the gravy today was her favorite- pepper gravy, creamy and rich.  

Afterwards, she felt like taking a long nap. The pattering rain outside the window was still going strong, and the soft murmuring of other peoples’ conversation were lulling her into comfortable complacency.  

The door swung open and slammed shut. It took May a moment to realize why that was weird- most people should have already been out of the rain. It wasn’t very common to go out if you didn’t have to do so. There were urban legends about people going missing by doing that, ending up sometime before there were any people in the area, or even in the future.  

It was probably just a stupid story parents told their kids to keep them from getting soaked, but in a town where the water did mystical time shit, it was just worrisome enough that no one wanted to try.  

“…May?”

May knew that voice like her own. “Alicia!”  

Alicia threw herself at May, wrapping her arms around May’s shoulders and burying her head into May’s neck. May didn’t know quite how to react to that- so she reciprocated. She freed her arms from Alicia’s –surprisingly strong and slightly painful- embrace to wrap them around Alicia. She traced little awkward circles with her thumbs on Alicia’s back, waiting for the hug to end.  

Something wet was on May’s shoulder, but she couldn’t move to wipe it off. It was only when Alicia leaned back and rubbed at her eyes that May realized it was probably tears.  

Oh shit. Why was Alicia crying? Absolutely all of May's anxiety was back, just like that.

“I was so scared,” Alicia choked out, grabbing onto May’s hands instead. Scared? Scared of what? Just because she was lost too? She would have assumed Alicia would handle that better, out of the two of them.

May pulled Alicia fully onto the booth seat.  

She swallowed once. Twice. May wasn’t sure how to begin this conversation.

“Is it because I didn’t come back? I can’t make the pool take me back home…”  

Alicia looked confused, now.  

“I keep trying to go back, but it usually dumps me out right back in 2005.” May explained, running her right hand through her hair. This was strange. And now she was feeling defensive.

“But what can I do? I tried going back so many times. I think maybe I’m not ready to go back, I’m sorry I made you upset.”

May avoided making eye contact. She hadn’t really thought about how Alicia or her parents would deal with her being gone for a few days. That probably was a shock for them, too.  

Alicia was shaking her head, tears in her eyes. Her whole face was turning pink. Poor thing.

Outside, the rain started to come down harder. May leaned backwards into the seat, and looked at her little sister. She was wearing her ‘bad news’ face, lips pressed thin under big, watery eyes.

“That's not it,” she said slowly. She shook her head. “So what happened?”

“I don’t know!” Alicia whined. “Lilah, Dylan and I were…” She looked incredibly guilty, breaking eye contact and pulling her hands under the table to hide her fidgeting.
 

Well, that was one hell of a pause.  

“What, Ali,” May prompted. “I’m not mad at you.”

Alicia was obviously doing quick math in her head, probabilities and statistics regarding getting her butt whooped. After a moment, she relented. It wasn’t like May had the temperament or ability to ground her.  

“We were smoking.” Alicia explained. She dropped her voice to a near-whisper.

That sounded like standard teenage bullshit- May really had no idea where this story was going.

“We were just having fun, and then Lilah’s mom just burst into the basement, screaming at us.” Alicia grabbed for a chunk of her own hair and started twisting it between her fingers. “She made us leave the basement, and kept yelling at us to get outside. She wouldn’t let us go grab our phones, or our bags, or anything! She followed us to the pool, had us hold hands, and pushed us all in.” Alicia was looking off into space now, looking small and a bit empty in the red diner booth. “It was really freaky. Lilah’s mom said something about checking other kids and following us, but she never came.”

Alicia was looking for answers and some comfort. May could only provide comfort, because frankly she had no fucking clue what was going on.  

“So why’d it take you so long to get here?” May asked, careful not to jostle her sister too much. If she moved too much, Alicia was liable to cling tighter. May had to wait it out until Alicia was ready to let go.  

Alicia looked a perfect picture of misery. “Went to 2008 or so with my friends, and the lifeguards then took us home. I guess that's what they're for. Grandma wanted to keep an eye on me for a few days, because I was having a hard time. Also, I smelled like weed and she gave me a talk like you wouldn’t believe. Then I started checking around. I came to 2005 three times but I guess I kept missing you in the pool.”

That was both an answer, and yet kind of vague. May could only imagine the kind of stress and confusion her sister had gone through.  

She’d had a shit few days herself. Very little sleep, high stress. Going between not being able to eat, eating too much, and feeling like she was operating on some sort of auto-pilot function to do basic things like brush her teeth and bathe.  

May looked up to the rest of the restaurant. Some eyes met hers briefly, but gradually everyone looked away and back to their own lives.  

Vera, however, held her gaze constant. It was unnerving.  

Those mashed potatoes were feeling suddenly heavy in her stomach. Maybe she shouldn’t have eaten so much.  

Vera's expression was unreadable. May had a terrible, foreboding feeling that it meant something.

May remembered that once, in a rainshower just like this, her grandmother had joked with Vera about how she knew everything that was ever going to happen. “Everyone comes on in here, and you get all the gossip,” she’d teased, and Vera had just huffed.

That little exchange had made quite the impression upon May when she was little. She’d hassled poor Vera all the time- after school, at morning coffee on the weekends with her grandparents, at family dinners- wanting to know what the future was like. The closest she’d gotten from the woman was ‘Believe me, it’s never that interesting.’

After a year or two, May had gotten over it and moved on to over concerns, like which member of the latest pop group was the cutest. And horses. Her room at the age of 11 was coated in horses.  

The heaviness had proceeded to feel like genuine nausea. Her eyes felt hot, and the arm Alicia was holding hostage started to feel numb. She might be sick. Blaming the food was premature and near sacrilege. May could only hope that Vera hadn’t known of her momentary betrayal and was cursing her with the flu.

The room was quiet. There was only the muffled clinking of dishware over the murmur of the strategically-placed fans throughout the room.  

Vera blinked, slow and knowing, and then turned away.

She let out a breath, and only then realized that she had been holding it. Was it getting colder in here? It wasn’t likely, but May felt like every turn of the rotating fan dropped her down another five degrees down the Fahrenheit scale.  

Alicia had turned her face back into May’s neck at some point. Every breath was hot behind her ear, and only made the rest of her feel colder.

May vaguely registered the fact that people were disappearing around her. It was a gradual fade as they became more and more transparent- if you focused you could stare at them for longer, but they winked out one by one as the boundaries of time and space reasserted themselves.  

The rain had stopped at some point, obviously. And none too soon. May felt sick to her soul and this place was suddenly suffocating.  

“Alicia, we should go home.”  

Alicia quietly and willingly followed May to the counter, where May had to finally dump out her bag to find her wad of cash. There was her charger, her phone, the sunscreen that she used whenever she was being responsible…

Ah, there it was. A little waterproof bag of crumpled cash and change.  

Honestly, it looked like crap and she needed a wallet. She felt like an eight year old insisting she’d pay for her own lunch with her allowance.  

May counted out enough bills to pay her tab, and grabbed two cans of pop to share at home. Grandma and Grandpa didn’t really keep any around, and they could both use a treat. She passed over her suspect-looking bills and waited for Vera to count back her change. It took a long time to use the old register. She was sure neither of them really needed it at this point, but it was the ceremony of the thing.  

Her phone lay face up on the counter, and May pressed the on button on reflex. Ah. It was dead.

No surprise, really. She’d left it on when she came here and hadn’t had a use for it here. The thing might actually have signal, though. She hadn’t checked. Would the card work more than 10 years before it was sold?  

It was an interesting question. For now, it was basically a fashionable brick.  

Vera hammered the last few buttons on the till and opened the change drawer. She was a fast hand at counting, and it was about 10 seconds max until the change rested firmly in May’s offered palm.  

“Take care, now,” Vera said, scanning over the both of them with lightly pursed lips and a queenly expression.  

“Thank you, we will,” May and Alicia chorused automatically, manners overriding their mutual exhaustion.  

They walked out, with May still directing Alicia via an arm around her shoulder. Really, it was hard to tell who was supporting whom. May felt both relieved that Alicia was there and that she wasn’t broken, but the revelation that there was no pool to get back due to some unknown disaster was more stress than she could handle. What the actual fuck? Had an earthquake or sinkhole ruined the pool? Was that a possibility? It seemed like a natural disaster or something- why else would adults start evacuating kids?  

In her experience, the most likely reason to run for shelter was the barrage of tornadoes in spring. But the smart place to go was down, into basements. Not make a break for the swimming pool.

It was a long walk back to her grandparents’ house. They were both tired, and unwilling to break physical contact. There wasn’t even a lot to say. May let the bag with their cans of soda hang loose. They kept tapping on her leg as she walked. The sudden brief contact with the cold (but rapidly warming cans) kept her more awake, even though all the carbonation was getting stirred up and they’d need to sit in the fridge for a while before being drinkable.  

They walked past the tiny school and the track and took the left dirt road at the fork. It hadn’t been rocked in a while, which was a blessing when walking in the sunshine, but not so much after a rainstorm.  

Doubtless, the fact that it was overdue for the county to regravel it would be a major topic when they finally got back to the house. It made it so much muddier and very unsafe to drive. May could already hear the conversation now, because it never really changed.  

After the rain, the sun had come out again in full force. Doubtless in a couple hours it would all be bone dry again, but May didn’t want to stay at the diner that long. It had become suddenly uncomfortable, bordering on inhospitable, before she left. Though that was more likely due to her sudden bout of nerves than anything else.  

One foot in front of the other, repeat.  

May decided that focusing on that was a good plan of action. First, go to Grandma’s. Then, uh... Panic, maybe. Cry, definitely.  

The minutes stretched like the seemingly never-ending miles of flat land around her. The soybeans waved, the corn bobbed slightly, but it lacked its earlier majesty in her mind.  

The sun beat down on her face relentlessly. Was it just doing that to make up for the hour or so of rain? Seriously, it worked too hard. Take a break, already.  

The cans smacked her leg again, and May foggily remembered that she’d had a bag the whole time on her back, and she probably should have used that instead. At least then the drinks wouldn’t explode when they opened them.  

Well, whatever. It was done now and May didn’t really care. Definitely not enough to stop walking even for a second and fix it. She was moving forward because she already had the inertia. Pausing to put some hot cans in her bag would only make it harder to stop again.  

Left foot forward, right foot forward. They passed the end of a corn field and could see the little yellow sided house peeking up over the rows of much shorter soybeans.  

So close.  

Alicia yawned, making May suddenly more aware that the physical touch was making her hotter. It made her want to scream, but at this point they were both committed to it. They were only a minute or two from the house and all the cold air they could stand, anyway.  

The pace was really dragging on the way up to the house. May could feel her legs, at least, starting to give out. Soon it would be a real adult’s problem. Maybe many other adults’ problems. May could pass on the burden and then go hide in the kids’ bedroom and take a stress nap.

Cheered by the idea of yellow walls and no responsibilities, May pulled Alicia a bit to get her going faster. They used the last of their energy to speedwalk up the long driveway and the porch stairs.

The wisterias provided some much-deserved shade as May fiddled with the door. It was never locked, but sometimes the thing stuck. Especially on hot days.  

She pulled the door open and nearly fell inside, pulling Alicia down with her.  

“Grandma, I’m home!” She called, letting Alicia go to take off her shoes. “And I found Alicia!”

“I found you.” Alicia muttered, somehow taking off her tennis shoes in an aggressive manner.  

May had to stop to watch that for a moment, because really her sister was very talented. She hadn’t realized the full emotional register for something so simple. Life was truly full of possibilities.  

Footsteps sounded from the basement stairs, and the door to the kitchen opened. Grandma put the jars of her homemade pickles on the kitchen table and came forward to receive her hugs.  

Alicia just took off running into Grandma’s arms, socks sliding rather dangerously on the smooth tile. She made it safely enough, though, and wrapped her arms around Grandma’s neck.  

“Excited to see me?” Grandma chuckled, lightly brushing Alicia’s hair back with her fingers before enfolding her in her own hug.  

Alicia hummed happily, apparently secure in the knowledge that this particular version of Grandma wasn’t going to bawl her out for her ‘extracurricular activities’.  

May just rolled her eyes a little bit, and skated on her socks into the kitchen to put their sodas in the fridge.  

She put her hand on the first one and scrunched up her nose in distaste. Ew. It was so warm. Nothing should be able to get that warm from a refrigerated temperature within half an hour. It was against the laws of decency.  

“You both reek of chlorine,” Grandma informed them, leaning out of Alicia’s clingy little arms. She poked Alicia’s nose. “You take a bath first.”

Alicia bounced her head up and down. She was always game to be doted on.  

“Make sure to put your dirty clothes outside the door so I can wash them.” Grandma reminded her, “I don’t want a mess in my bathroom, either.”

“Yes, Gramma.” Alicia chirped, and flounced away to take what May was sure was going to be an hour long bath.  

Grandma huffed, and eyed May. “Is she ok?”

“A little shaken up about something.” May admitted, not feeling especially willing to rat out her sister for sins that were more than a decade in the future. “She and her friends were herded into the pool by one of her friends’ moms. She can’t get back home, either. I was thinking maybe some kind of really bad weather?”

Grandma did not seem surprised whatsoever. She just hummed in understanding.  

“Well, that’s that, then. You’re both here and you’re safe, and that’s what matters.” She was thinking, worrying her lip lightly. After a minute, she seemed to decide something. “You should go put your things away and get a change of clothes for you and your sister.”  

And so May trudged back to her room (or the grandchildrens’ room that she was occupying, anyway), and dropped herself and her bag on the better bed. The baggie with her charger cord was poking out of the bag from when she’d shoved it in after paying for lunch.  

‘I should charge that.’

It certainly couldn’t hurt, anyway. And May was curious as to whether her phone would, in fact, work on the network of yesteryear.  

She put her fingers in the bag to pull it open and yanked out the plastic bag and dug again for her phone. Luckily, it was still somewhere towards the top.  

She emptied out both baggies on the bed and shoved the empty plastic back in her bag, not really interested in real cleanliness so much as not making her grandma sad with trash on the floor.  

The charger was…

She strained to remember, gave up, and started examining the walls of the room.  

Well, the tv had to be near one, right?

May heaved herself off the bed, feeling resigned. Of course more moving had to be done. There was never a convenient outlet right next to your bed. That was for fortunate people, who weren’t stuck in the past and definitely didn’t have chlorine-bleached hair at the moment.  

She unplugged the tv and plugged her charger into the wall, draping the cord up to the tiny bedside table that doubled as a tv stand. Her phone could probably sit there. At least that way she wouldn’t step on it.  

May stared at it as the screen lit up in the shape of the battery. The color changed from red to yellow to fully green. She wondered how long it really took to charge enough to turn back on. May hadn’t ever let it die before.  

Red.  

Yellow.  

Green.

Red.  

Yellow.

Green.

Red. Yellow. Green.  

Red, Yellow, Green, Red, Yellow, Green…

The screen flashed white, and May blinked in mild surprise. She had definitely zoned out at some point.

The startup on this felt like forever, but May didn’t really mind. At least it didn’t seem have any water damage.  

Her screensaver pic came up- it was a picture of her and her friends from college, after a concert. But it was mostly blocked by a big white notification with red writing.  

May focused her tired eyes, and picked up the phone to bring it closer to her face.  

BALLISTIC MISSILE WARNING

Her heart may have stopped.

She wasn’t sure.  

But she felt suddenly ill.  

BALLISTIC MISSILE INBOUND.  

To where? They lived in the exact center of nowhere.

SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER.

Except, there was that military base kind of close… May vaguely remembered someone- who, though?- saying it was kind of important. Something about targeting…

THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

It was marked at 11:09. Had she not heard it? She thought that was about the time she’d left- it was sometime between 11 and 12, because the hottest part of the day hadn’t even started yet.  

Maybe she’d been in the water at the time? That and the bags would have muffled the sound.

May felt… something. It was exhaustion and fear and a deep dark knowing, something she knew and didn’t want to know at all. It would be easier to pretend she didn’t.  

The door behind her opened.  

“Everything all right, dear?” Grandma inquired, probably about to segue into an invitation to the front room or to a relative’s house.  

May turned and stared. She thought about saying something. She thought better of it. She wanted to cry.  She wanted to scream.

May settled for holding up her phone for her grandmother to see.

Grandma leaned forward and lightly pried the phone from May’s grasp, careful not to pull it off the charger cord. She looked at it for what felt to May like hours. Days.  

That just could not be real. It didn't make sense. She could not have just ducked into the pool and missed a- a fucking bomb. She could not be in her Grandma's house when her parents were dead. They were dead. Almost everyone she knew was- was-

May was feeling a bit numb. Except the telltale feeling in her stomach that said she was going to throw up all over everything.

“Ah.”

That was all Grandma was going to say? Ah? Like it was a notice for school closing on a day where they got three inches of snow.  

“So that’s what happens.”

Grandma closed her eyes, slowly. She swallowed.

May waited, feeling increasingly desperate for some comfort from someone who knew what the absolute hell they were doing. Her heartbeat was picking up pace, and nausea was getting stronger. She could taste metal in her mouth.

Grandma’s eyes opened, and she moved to sit on the bed. She patted the space next to her in an invitation to sit.   

The inside of May’s mouth tasted like pennies. The nausea was threatening her senses. She lurched forward and crawled half onto the bed and half onto her grandmother’s open lap.

“The pool is our evacuation plan.” Grandma said very clearly, but quietly. “For anything unexpected, out of the usual. Since the 1970s. Children who are old enough to go alone are first, of course.”

There weren’t that many kids in a town this small.

May focused on her grandmother’s scent. It was floral and comforting. Some vanilla hand cream, her cold cream for her face, the perfume she wore. It made her heartbeat relax just a bit. She closed her eyes to focus on what her grandmother was actually saying.  

“We didn’t know what would happen.” A deep sigh. “I didn’t think it would be that. I thought that was over…”

Her grandmother leaned forward and stroked her fingers through May’s hair. “It’s all right. We’ll take care of you. You and Alicia and those other children haven’t been forgotten.”

“Has anyone else come?” May asked, doubtlessly muffled because she was talking half into her grandma’s shoulder.  

Silence was her answer.  

It made sense- another adult would have known what had happened. Alicia’s friend group just hadn’t been paying attention. Other children might not have ended up back this far- you could only go back during your life time.

There was nothing but the sound of breathing. Warm sunshine splashed down on the other bedspread, looking inviting and oh so cheerful. Birds were chirping just outside the window, on a tree May knew was covered in beautiful leaves and flowers.

She was going to throw up.  

“Honey.”

May refocused on her grandmother, and pulled her head back just enough to make eye contact.  

“You are safe.” Grandma repeated. Then she lovingly detached May’s arms from around her neck, and shifted her torso to face May better.

“We’ll take care of you. But first, you take all the time you need. OK?”

May nodded, feeling increasingly lost.  

Grandma leaned forward and gave May a big kiss on the forehead. Then, she stood up. May’s eyes followed her blankly.  

“Don’t forget to get cleaned up.” Grandma said, kindly. “I’ll come get you when dinner’s ready.”

May couldn’t even imagine eating right now. Her stomach was full-on rebelling, her head was reeling, and she could barely focus on anything but how good the bed under her felt.  

“Just lie down.” Grandma advised. “I promise, it will be ok. I won’t let anything happen to you.”  

She left the room and shut the door quietly behind her.  

May slumped down the rest of the way on the bed, missing the pillow by a mile.  

Thoughts sprang up, unbidden. Would she have left the house even, by herself, if she’d still been lying on the couch?