Twenty-Three October 29, 2023
LATE SUNDAY evening, Elsie and Zander cuddle on the couch under a blanket in his grandmother’s ornately decorated living room, eating popcorn and streaming movies that Elsie has never seen before.
She loves that Zander tears up during the romantic or heartbreaking moments and fast-forwards past embarrassing scenes.
He’s funny too. Just before midnight, Zander tells Elsie a joke about a Mobius strip that walks into a bar.
Elsie giggles uncontrollably, not so much at the joke, but at her dumb luck at capturing the interest of this marvelous man.
She leans over and kisses him. It’s the most natural kiss in the world, an extension of their laughter.
He kisses her back. But true to his word, he hasn’t yet taken things any further, and she hasn’t nudged him to.
It’s nice, actually, that he wants to get to know her before jumping into bed.
It took her a bit to realize he was shy, that she (of all people!) could make him nervous.
The slight tremor in his hand as he offers her the popcorn bowl.
But then she flops over on the couch next to him to stare at the ceiling, the ornate tin tiles.
“What?” he asks. “What is it?”
“This is so—” She flaps her hands. “Good.”
He grins. “It is, isn’t it?”
“Do you think—” She pauses. “Do you think it will last?” When so many things in her life haven’t.
“I don’t know. I sure hope so.”
She feels a little disappointed, hurt at his response. What had she been expecting, exactly? That he’d say “Absolutely!” and give her a money-back guarantee?
“I guess I’ll know more when I open the atlas to the eighth chart,” she says, sitting up. “The moon starts travelling through the house soon, right? At 11:00?”
“Just after, at 11:02.”
Only minutes from now. She can open the atlas to the chart any time after that, until Wednesday morning, when the moon transits into the next house, but why put it off? She throws back the blanket to get up, scattering dropped popcorn on the Persian rug. “I’ll do that now.”
“Hey, wait.” Zander takes her hand to stop her. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
She sits back down on the couch. “Why?”
“Maybe you’ve seen enough of your future. Our future. Do you really want to mess with what’s happening here?”
His face is clenched with—what? Fear. “What aren’t you telling me?” she asks.
He rolls his head back on the couch. “Nothing.”
“You saw something in my chart, didn’t you?” she asks. “Something about the eighth house.”
He smiles back at her. “Honestly, right now, all I can see is you.”
He holds her gaze, breathing her in, and she melts. Oh my god, she likes this man! And he likes her! Determined to enjoy it while it lasts, she snuggles up against him again, her head on his shoulder, and he kisses the crown of her head. The future can wait, for now.
EARLY MONDAY morning, at 2:30 A.M., Elsie startles awake in Zander’s guest room. She sits up and starts again when she sees her: The old woman in the nightgown stands silhouetted by the light of the full moon pouring like skim milk through the window. Her eyes glisten, unearthly, in the twilight.
Elsie feels the cold crawl up her spine. “Who are you?” she asks, as she has so many times now. “What do you want?”
But the ghost doesn’t respond. She only taps her bony wrist as if to say, It’s time, and then she’s simply not there anymore.
Elsie slips out of bed, plants her feet on the carpet.
In the room across from hers, Zander snores lightly.
She dresses quietly so as not to wake him, slipping on her pleated miniskirt, her cardigan.
Zander seemed adamant that she shouldn’t open the atlas again, but the ghost seemed just as adamant that she should.
In the dusty light of the full moon, she finds her backpack and The Pocket Atlas of Nostalgia and Longing but then hesitates before opening it.
The next page is titled “The Eighth House: Sex and Death.” So, who’s going to die?
Then again, Zander said she shouldn’t take the title literally, that the house was more about endings, letting go of things that no longer served, transformation.
But she can’t shake the feeling that this next time-travel journey may be about the literal end of things.
Perhaps she should listen to Zander. She’s seen more than enough of her own future. She places the atlas back in her bag.
But her heart still pulses with a powerful desire for certainty, a wish to know what lies ahead. She picks up the atlas again and opens it. Nothing happens. She’s still in Zander’s guest room on this particular October night in 2023. She closes it and opens it again. Still nothing.
She carries the atlas downstairs and tries again in the hall, her bare feet on tiles, then in Zander’s office, where his bird of paradise is silhouetted in the streetlight.
Finally, she steps into his living area, the softness of the Persian carpet underfoot, the china cabinet looming, a menacing presence, in the dark corner.
As she opens the atlas, the streetlight outside the room sputters and then winks out.
There’s that feeling of disorientation, the vertigo, and though she’s still downstairs, it takes her a moment to understand what she’s seeing.
The couch and chairs are gone, replaced by a queen-sized bed.
Why would anyone move a bed into their living room, especially when it is so close to the kitchen?
There’s a slight snoring coming from under the covers.
And then her eyes adjust to the dark and she sees Zander lying on the floor next to the bed, writhing within the blanket.
“Elsie?” he whispers. “Is that you?”
Elsie rushes forward. “Are you okay?” Zander shushes her so she lowers her voice. “Why are you sleeping on the floor?”
“It feels better. The mattress is too soft.” He holds up a hand. “Help me up.” But his speech is slurred, his movements not fully under his control.
As Elsie supports him, Zander reaches for a cane propped against the nightstand. A cane. She immediately thinks of her father. “Did you have a stroke?”
He shuffles his feet into slippers. “Let’s go into my office so we can talk.
I don’t want to wake her.” Elsie looks back at the bed, the woman lying there, softly snoring.
She’s fifteen years older, her face is fuller, and her hair is a platinum blond, but that’s her.
Herself. Elsie. What does she call herself now?
“Lizzy?” she asks Zander.
“She prefers ‘Liz,’” he says.
So, she’s still reinventing herself.
The phone on the bed beside Liz chimes, and Zander reaches for it, shutting it off. Liz turns, flinging an arm out, but doesn’t wake. “Let her sleep,” he says. “She’s exhausted.”
Elsie follows him into the hall illuminated by the shaft of streetlight coming through the office window.
The tap of his cane against the hardwood floor.
His wiggling gait. He slides the barn door closed behind them, then grips the knob to the office door awkwardly and closes this door behind them too.
Only then does he flick on the office light.
“Why did Liz set an alarm for this hour?” Elsie asks, taking a seat. She sets the open atlas face down on the table. The office is almost exactly the same: the round table and stools, the coffee station, the desk, Zander’s rubber duck. “Do you need help with medications or something?”
“No.” His voice is soft, raspy. “She wanted to be here when you arrived. Some part of her still believes she can change things, for me. But I suspect it’s better for her, for us, if she doesn’t.”
“Change what exactly?”
“I don’t know. She would never tell me what happens tonight. I got the impression she didn’t want to scare me.”
“Scare you?” Elsie feels a chill run through her. Sex and death. “What’s happening?” she asks. She looks at his cane. “What is this?”
He sits with her, slowly, stiffly. His face is a bit more lined, his hair greying and somewhat receded at the temples, but he doesn’t look all that different from the Zander Elsie just spent the evening with in 2023.
His movements are lurching, awkward. Yet his physical beauty is still there, in his hands, the turn of his neck, the way he holds the cane with a theatrical presence. Those lovely amber eyes.
“It’s okay,” he says, taking her hand to reassure her. “I’m okay. It’s not life-threatening. Not for a long time, in any case.”
“But the cane.” The shaking.
“It’s a degenerative disorder,” he says. “A neurological disorder.” He pauses. “Recently, it’s gotten worse. So now I use a cane.”
Elsie lifts her chin, remembering. “Parkinson’s,” she says. “Your grandmother had it.”
“The condition can run in families.” He pauses again. “But more so with early onset.”
So, there is no recovering from this. He would lose his mobility little by little, and perhaps even bits of himself, as cognitive decline took hold. She thinks of the tremor she noticed in Zander’s left hand. “Just how early was the onset?”
He looks past her, over her shoulder, and blinks a few times. Then he sits forward, readying himself to stand. “I should have asked. Would you like some tea?” When she doesn’t answer, he grimaces a little as he pushes himself up with the support of his cane. “I’ll make us some tea.”
“Are you in any pain?” she asks.
“My knees, my hips are killing me.”
She starts to get up. “Should I help you?”
He waves a hand. “No, I’m fine.”
He fills a kettle, plugs it in.
“Are you still able to hike?” she asks. The easy trails along rivers and streams that meandered through moss and fern. “I know how much that meant to you.”
“There’s an outdoor accessibility program that I’m involved with,” he says. “But I haven’t been out as much lately, after I started to fall.” He leans on the cane, holding the top with both hands. He’s in the thick of it, then, the transition from walking to wheelchair, the cane a dividing line.
“Have you been injured? From the falls?”
“Not yet. Just bruises and scrapes.”