Yesterday's Sun

by Amanda Brooke

  It was only the insistent chirping of the phone that raised Holly from her slumber. She unraveled herself from her blanket and her body screamed out in pain as she forced her tensed limbs to straighten up so that she could reach the phone in her bedroom.

  “Hello?” she asked. Her voice was raspy and her throat felt constricted.

  “Holly? Is that you?” It was Tom.

  Holly’s stomach churned and a wave of nausea washed over her as she thought of the decision she was about to make.

  “Yes, it’s me,” she croaked. She glanced at the clock. It was half past six and Holly was expected to leave for the airport in less than an hour.

  “Are you OK? You sound awful. Are you ill? Are you going to be able to make the flight?” There was a growing panic in Tom’s voice.

  This was it, thought Holly. This was the moment she had to say good-bye to Libby. “Tom!” Her voice was a sob now. “I can’t do this.”

  “Christ, Holly, what’s wrong? You’re scaring me.”

  Holly struggled to pull herself up straight. She took a deep breath. She had to remind herself that she was doing this for Tom.

  “I can’t come,” she told him. Her voice was still raspy but it was emotionless.

  Holly had intended to tell Tom that it was the weather keeping her home. The country had been brought to a virtual standstill by the latest big freeze, and Tom wouldn’t take too much convincing that it made traveling for Holly impossible even if a thaw was already under way. But as soon as she answered the phone, Tom had assumed she was ill, so Holly just went along with the idea. The guilt of the lie barely registered with Holly; there were far greater burdens on her conscience. She could almost hear the scratching of a distant pen on paper as the future was being rewritten.

  Tom knew nothing of her betrayal and was only concerned about Holly’s health. He hid his disappointment well and made her promise to stay in bed and to get help from Jocelyn if she needed anything. There would be other Christmases together, he told her, and Holly couldn’t help but wonder about those future Christmases she had secured for herself. Would they still be together?

  The decision that had plagued her for months had at last been made. She had expected some sense of relief when she put down the phone, but she felt none.

  It had been a little more difficult to convince Jocelyn that she was all right. They both knew it was the full moon that night and Jocelyn took a lot of persuading that she didn’t need to keep watch over her. Holly insisted the deed was done; her life was taking a new route and Jocelyn could relax. Jocelyn was more resigned than relaxed, but she did eventually agree to leave Holly alone to find her feet on her new path.

  And Holly knew exactly where her new path was leading her, at least that night. With the full moon rising above her, she headed straight for the moondial. She needed to put some final ghosts to rest. And if she witnessed a future that realized her worst fears then that was surely her punishment for the decision she had just made.

  The night was cold and blustery. The scattering of bulbous clouds that glowed in front of the moon scurried across the sky to reveal stars that twinkled with a sense of inferiority; it was the bold brightness of the moon that would dominate the night. Holly’s heart was hammering in her chest as she stood in front of the stone plinth. She asked herself what she was doing, playing with her future again, and it was her heartbeat that reminded her that she owed her life to the moondial. Now she needed to know what kind of life it was granting her. Was the sacrifice ever going to be worth it?

  The thaw had exposed a ragged mess of long grass and weeds that poked through the icy carpet of snow. The temperature might have nudged above freezing but it was still bitterly cold, and Holly zipped her winter coat right up to her chin. She held the glass orb in her hand, but she still hadn’t built up the courage to place it in the dial’s expectant claws. She let it roll around her gloved hand and it glinted playfully in the moonlight. Holly felt entranced as it turned this way and that in her palm, but then the orb veered off course and dropped, falling where destiny dictated that it belonged, in the center of the dial.

  It happened so quickly that Holly was unprepared for the shower of moonbeams that followed. Her eyes were wide with fear as the claws snapped greedily around the glowing orb and she was temporarily blinded. She had to rely on her other senses to reveal her new surroundings and the first thing she noticed was the temperature. The night had suddenly become warm and the smell of summer filled the air. Holly stayed in place as she took off her gloves and unzipped her coat. She reached out and touched the surface of the moondial. It felt warm and familiar.

  As Holly blinked, she took in more of the garden. It was lit by a mixture of light from the full moon and artificial light streaming from the kitchen. Her heart was still beating wildly and now it skipped a beat at the thought of what lay ahead. For a brief moment, Holly considered staying where she was. She had been to hell and back in the last few months and she could be walking into another nightmare. But she needed to know what she had sacrificed for. She realized that she needed to know more than ever if she was destined to become a mother beyond the realms of the moondial visions.

  Holly stepped slowly across the lawn toward the back door. Her neck was tingling with sweat, so she let her coat slip off onto the ground and carried on walking. She concentrated on her breathing to try to calm herself as she opened the back door and stepped into her future. Her breath caught in her throat as she looked around her. The kitchen was brimming with hope in the form of baby bottles and a highchair standing erect at the kitchen table.

  With trembling hands, Holly scanned the kitchen for a newspaper but had to make do with a gas bill. The date on the bill was June 2012. The moondial was still pulling her eighteen months into the future. Holly stood paralyzed by her thoughts; as she stared at the highchair, a thousand butterflies took flight in her stomach, each carrying with it a question. There was only one question that Holly grasped and demanded an answer to. She didn’t want to know if there were other babies; she didn’t need to know if she had survived childbirth even. She only needed to know if the child that used that highchair was Libby. Holly took a step toward the door to the hallway, ready to spring into a run, but the lights flickered and went out. The kitchen plunged into darkness and the hairs prickled on the back of her neck. Before her eyes had a chance to adjust, before she could pick out anything other than the soft moonglow seeping through the kitchen window, the lights came back on again. Holly shivered but pushed away the sense of foreboding that had crawled out of the darkness. She concentrated instead on the spark of hope that was growing inside her.

  As she entered the hall, she heard Tom’s voice coming from the study. Holly hovered at the door, listening to him chatting away. It was a one-sided conversation and Tom was obviously on the phone. He sounded like her Tom, not the broken man she had seen in her other visions. He laughed, and the sound lifted Holly’s heart. Tom was talking about work, planning an interview with someone, and he sounded happy and animated and alive. What Holly heard next made her heart swell with joy.

  “Sorry, Pete, but I really have to go. I was just putting Libby to bed. She’s ready for her bottle and she’s not a lady to be kept waiting.”

  The words barely registered as Holly turned on her heels and leaped up the stairs, two at a time. She intended to stop at the nursery door and peep cautiously into the room but she was moving so fast that she couldn’t stop and was in the middle of the nursery before she knew it. The room was lit up by a single night-light but it practically glowed.

  “Hello, sweetheart,” Holly gasped between ragged breaths of excitement.

  Libby was standing up in her crib, holding on tightly to the rails and to the comforter doll that was even grubbier than it had been the last time Holly saw it. Libby smiled and jiggled up and down, sharing Holly’s excitement. She jiggled so much that she lost her balance and fell onto her bottom with a thump. Her lip trembled and she reached up her arms to Holly. �
�Mama!” she said.

  The tears were stinging Holly’s eyes as she rushed to the window to lift the blind, letting just enough moonlight into the room to allow her to do what she thought had been stolen from her forever. She reached over the side of the crib and picked up her daughter.

  Holding Libby in her arms, Holly closed her eyes and let her other senses take over. She took a deep breath to calm herself, at the same time taking in Libby’s smell, which was a heady mixture of soap, sweat, and something else that was just Libby. She felt the solid weight of her daughter in her arms, heavier, sturdier than she had been the last time Holly held her. She was now nine months old and there were other changes, too. Her blond, unruly curls tickled Holly’s nose. “I’ve missed you,” she told Libby. “You don’t know how much I’ve longed to do this. I can’t believe I’m here. I can’t believe you’re here.”

  Holly hadn’t even tried to think about what was happening or why. Perhaps the actions she had put in place hadn’t changed the future yet; perhaps it was only at that moment in time when Libby was supposed to be conceived that everything would change. Holly shivered and pushed the thoughts to the back of her mind. She didn’t want to think about that now. After the longest time, Holly opened her eyes and smiled at Libby. “I love you and I don’t ever want to let you go.”

  Libby smiled back at her. “Dada,” she said, reaching toward the open door.

  Holly turned and could hear Tom on his way upstairs. “I have to put you down now,” Holly whispered, not sure if she could let go but knowing that she had to. If Holly was still holding Libby when Tom came into the room then two worlds would collide and Holly couldn’t face that. She wanted everything to be perfect and calm and right.

  As Tom came into the nursery, he was rolling a baby bottle in his hands. “Bedtime, young lady,” he told Libby, who was standing up in her crib again, bouncing with excitement. Tom looked over at the open blind in puzzlement but could not see Holly staring at him from in front of the window. Holly’s presence was nothing more than a handprint on water. Wasn’t that what the poem had said? Tom closed the blind and gave his full attention to Libby.

  Holly watched the two of them intently. Tom looked well; in fact he looked his normal disheveled self. Disheveled in a good way, and not just because he looked in good health, physically and mentally, but also because he didn’t look polished. He hadn’t become an anchorman. Holly was sure of it.

  Tom picked up Libby and gave her the feeding bottle and a big bear hug. He smiled as she dropped her ragdoll and took the bottle in both hands. As she started to drink, she never took her eyes off Tom.

  Tom smiled at her. “Hello gorgeous,” he said, covering the top of her head in kisses. Libby blinked excitedly as his hair tickled her face. “Oh, Libby, I love you so much. More than I thought I could ever love anyone ever again, that’s how much.”

  Tom rocked Libby from side to side and Holly couldn’t resist the urge to reach out to both of them. She stroked the top of Libby’s head and then ran her fingers gently through Tom’s hair, which was as long and unruly as it ever had been, comfortingly familiar. She felt him shiver.

  “Your mum once told me that I should look to what I have now, not always search for more,” Tom whispered. “I know I can’t wish for the impossible. I have you, Lib, and right now that’s enough.”

  Libby stopped drinking and, taking her cue from her mother, grabbed hold of Tom’s hair. As Libby pulled his head down, he rested his forehead on hers and frowned, closing his eyes tightly. “Oh, but I still miss your mummy,” he whispered. “I always will.”

  In response, Libby wriggled in his arms and then burped.

  “Whoa,” cried Tom. “You’ve got smelly breath just like your mum!”

  Tom laughed and Libby giggled, too, as he lay her down in her crib to finish her milk. They were still staring intently at each other. “So what story would you like tonight?” he asked.

  Libby tore her eyes from Tom and looked toward Holly. “Mama,” she said.

  “Oh, so you want a story about your mummy do you?” Tom asked. He sat down on a beanbag next to the crib and rested his head on the bars, watching his daughter with pure adoration. “Well, where shall we begin? Once upon a time there was a beautiful young princess and her name was Holly. The wicked king and queen kept her locked up in a tower and told her she would never be loved.”

  As Tom told the story of how his princess was saved by a dashing young prince, Holly crept closer to the crib and sat down opposite Tom. She, too, rested her head on the bars of the crib and became just as mesmerized by the story as Libby. Tom had tears in his eyes, but he was smiling as he told Libby how the prince and princess captured a star to make their very own baby. He said how that had left a hole in the sky that needed to be filled and the princess had to go to heaven to fill the gap in the sky where the star had been. Holly felt the tears sting her eyes, but the tears froze like icicles on her cheeks as the light flickered again. The image of Tom and Libby flickered, too, and darkness skittered across her vision as if Holly were watching the scene on a broken television.

  Tom and Libby seemed to notice the flickering, too. Libby dropped her bottle and sat up. As she began to cry, her daughter lifted her arms to Holly and her fingers grasped desperately at the air. Holly’s heart pounded in her chest at the sound of Libby’s cries, which became more fearful. Tom and Holly both stood up as the flickering became more darkness than light.

  “Libby?” Tom gasped, leaning over to pick up and protect their baby but Holly never saw him reach her. Somewhere in the distance, above the sound of Libby’s mournful screams and the hammering of Holly’s heart, a clock ticked.

  The soft, warm glow of the night-light transformed into a cold blue as the moon peered through the window and cast its glow toward Holly. As the sound of the ticking clock retreated, it was replaced by a hollow silence that was only interrupted by her ragged breathing. This time Holly did have time for her eyes to adjust. She was still in the same room but it was now empty, devoid of life. It was the spare room that Holly knew only too well. There was no trace of Libby at all, not even her sweet baby smell, nothing other than the sound of her cries still echoing in Holly’s mind.

  Holly looked around in disbelief. If her time in the future was up then she should have returned as usual to a spot in front of the moondial. She trembled with a growing fear that she was still in the future. Looking through the window, she found no comfort. The trees weren’t covered in snow but were swelling with summer leaf. The lifeless room contained the familiar mixture of bric-a-brac and boxes but there were more boxes, more mess, and squashed next to the suitcase that she had slept against the night before was another suitcase: Tom’s. There was no remaining doubt. This was a new vision of the future being revealed to her.

  “No, no, no,” gasped Holly. “This can’t be happening. I’m not ready. I didn’t get a chance to say good-bye. I have to say good-bye.”

  The tears that welled up in her eyes mercifully blurred her vision and softened the torturous sight of time unraveling and of Libby’s life being erased.

  “I’m sorry, Libby. I’m so sorry!” she gasped, stepping backward out of the room. When she was on the landing, she turned and fled through the darkness. As she stumbled down the stairs, the lights flickered again and she tripped as she took the last step and fell onto her knees. The house switched from one version of the future and then back again, from a dark lifeless place to one full of light. In the room upstairs, Holly could hear Libby sobbing and Tom’s voice trying to soothe her, but he sounded frightened himself. She heard Libby cry out, “Mama,” and then silence fell as the darkness descended with such force that it knocked Holly’s breath from her body.

  She scrambled to her feet and couldn’t help but run. She reached the kitchen but then forced herself to stop and take stock, forced herself to take a look at the life she had been given at the expense of Libby. The kitchen, like the rest of the house was dark and lifeless. In the dimness, Ho
lly could see that the room was clean and clutter-free. It even smelled sterile. “Sterile and empty, just like your life will be,” she told herself.

  Pushing herself onward, Holly ran across the garden and didn’t stop until she stood staring down at the moondial. “I’ve seen enough. Take me home,” she demanded.

  The surface of the moondial glinted menacingly in the moonlight but it had rules to follow and it took its time, counting down the minutes that marked the end of Holly’s nightmare and the beginning of the rest of her life.

  Holly’s vision of the future had left her feeling empty and hopeless, but as the moonbeams whipped around her, sending her crashing back to the present, she was consumed by an anger of such force that it shook her to the core, anger directed at the moondial. “No!” she screamed. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  Her words sounded like the howl of a trapped wild animal, only to be whisked away dismissively by the cruel wintry gusts that gathered a storm around her. Only her painful sobs were left to echo into the night. Holly was gripping the dial with a force that could have turned the stone to dust. She wanted to inflict the kind of cruel devastation that the dial had wrought on her life.

  “I know what I am. I know I’m my mother’s daughter. I always knew I was going to fail Libby.” Holly was gasping between sentences, her voice now a hiss rather than a howl. “I should have trusted my gut instincts and told Tom I wasn’t going to have children right from the start. I don’t deserve to have children.”

  Another sob escaped but Holly held back the tears; she hadn’t finished venting her anger at the moondial. “Why did you let me see her? Why did you let me hold her and love her? Why did you let me do all of that and then let me watch her life being erased in front of my eyes? Did you think you were proving something to me?”