Once Upon Another Time

by Jettie Woodruff

  “It costs a dollar to get in.”

  “We’re gonna sneak in. Duuuuh.” I said, assuring him with attitude, like he was the dumbest little boy on the planet.

  My eyes opened wide a few minutes before my alarm the next morning, just enough time to reflect on my dream. At first it was like shock, but then I talked myself out of thinking it was anything more than a dream. No signs. Just dreams.ThenI smiled, remembering the day like it was yesterday. We were way too little to be crossing the creek, let alone hiking through the woods and following the tracks into town, but we did it. Four miles to the backside of town and we got away with it. Not only did we get away with it, somebody dropped a ten-dollar bill, and we had an awesome day. Royal won a Bogey monkey from The Shirt Tales cartoon and gave it to me because I could only hit one balloon. I got a stupid deck of playing cards with the fair logo on the back. Bogey was both our favorites, but Royal gave the stuffed monkey to me and took the cards. We ate cotton candy for lunch, and we rode the Ferris wheel until we were sick. I could just see the two of us walking back, full of life and excitement while we skipped railroad ties and balanced ourselves on the tracks, planning the next day’s adventure. Of course, they were always mine. Poor little Royal just did what I told him to do.

  I got up and started another Monday the same way I had for the past twenty-six years. Since I turnedtwenty-four, I’d worked my way up the ladder with a publishing company who handled sales papers and store catalogues. It was my second job after graduation. Sure, there was a lot of political crap to deal with, systems that made no sense, and rules I despised, but that was with any job. At least, I liked my job. For the most part, anyway.

  I handed Eric his cup of coffee first, just like I always did and tilted my head to the side for a kiss on the cheek. Just like I always did…

  “See you tonight.”

  “Okay, have a good day.”

  “Yup, you too.”

  Unlike other Mondays where I spent most of my morning replying to emails for the next weeklyprinting, I worked on my layout first. Not that it made any sense,but it kept my mind busier than answering emails that didn’t need answered. All they had to do was take the time to read the final instructions. No one did things the sensible way anymore. They wanted thingsdone with the path least affecting their time, like theirs were more important than mine. It didn’t matter anyway, changing up my routine a little did nothing to keep my mind from wandering. No matter how hard I tried, it kept floating around to places it hadn’t gone before. The creepy little lady who stole my money and the cryptic things she’d said, the sudden infatuation about going home, the dream, and thoughts about Royal. I hadn’t thought about him in forever, and now I couldn’t not think about him. The light cascading over the word sign, and the twin flame thing. Was that really a thing?

  A midlife crisis.

  That was a real thing, and I was having one. It made the most sense. The more I tried to get back to my normal life, the more I thought I saw signs. It was driving me insane, and I had no one to talk to about it. First, I tried talking to my daughter Taylor, but she deemed me crazy, so I refrained from telling her everything. The only signs she believed in were the ones on street corners, telling you where you were. I asked my husband the same question about signs and got about the same answer. He believed in what he could see with his own eyes. That’s basically what he said. If he couldn’t touch it, it wasn’t real.

  It had been almost a week since I’d walked into that little shop, and every day I thought I saw signs; and every day, I thought about Royal and other childhoodmemories. It was the weirdest thing ever, and I couldn’t figure out why it was all about Royal instead of my real friends. My girlfriends who I shared everything with. I had way more memories with them, yet those weren’t the ones that plagued my mind. Was that a sign? Was there really something to the wand? Was there really anything to this twin flame thing?

  Laying out a kid’s fall lineup for a department store in New York City, I drifted off to another time. Only it was more than that. It was like a movie, and I was watching from the outside in. Just like it always was, except I felt it too. They weren’t your run of the mill daydreams. They were more. Much more. I saw us in a different perspective, and I could remember every single detail right down to the band aid on my knee and Royal’s messy hair caused from rolling down the hill.

  Laughing our guts out when Royal came crashing over the top of me at the bottom, we stopped and looked up, seeing the same thing. Giant, white clouds in front of a majestic, purple sky. Royal was six already, and I was a couple weeks behind him. I was wearing some sort of blue jumpsuit looking thing, and Royal had on the same green shorts he’d worn in most of my visions. For at least an hour, Royal and I had lainon the ground pointing to puffy, white clouds, trying to see them for more than the clouds they really were.

  “That one looks like a giraffe.”

  “A giraffe with short legs,” Royal countered with a laugh. “Jessie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you think we’ll always be like the gypsy lady said? Like we’ll always be together?”

  “Course we will. Till we get married anyway.”

  “We can get married together.”

  “My grams says I have to marry someone with straight priorities.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I dunno. I think it’s like a cop or something. Yogi Bear!” I yelled, calling the next cloud before Royal could.

  “I’m going to live in a cabin and have a pet bear like Grizzly Adams. You think that’s a straight priority?”

  I shrugged, thinking it sounded like it was. “Maybe, I’ll have to ask my grams. I want to have a bear friend too.”

  I never even noticed the smile I wore as I recalled that day until it was gone. Staring into the same empty space, I not only saw myself from above, I saw Royal as well. He wasn’t even looking at the clouds. He was looking at me. Studying the expression on his face and the look in his eyes, I felt something I didn’t understand. Not only could I see the love he had for me in his eyes, I could feel it. Right here. Right now.

  “Hello…Earth to Jessica.”

  “Huh?” I said, my head shaking away something I wasn’t ready to let go of.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Looking up at two friends from the office, I tried to feign ignorance. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re out there. Like for real. One second you’re over here smiling like you won the lottery, and the next you look like your goldfish died. You going to lunch or not?”

  “I looked sad? Really? Because it felt sad.”

  “What?”

  Realizing I sounded crazy, I shook it off. “Nothing. Forget it.”

  “We’re going to Parris for lunch. Want to come? We need a drink.”

  I needed that too, but I had other plans. “No, you guys go ahead. I have some errands to run today.”

  Enough was enough, and I had to put this behind me. It was driving me bananas. This was all too weird for me. It all felt so real, yet the logical part of my brain begged me to stop, my ego worried about what people would think, and truth be told, I felt a little loopy. It had to be some sort of subconscious thing. Like this midlife crisis thing. Maybe something happens in your brain and you see stuff. Maybe it opens up something that lets you see yourself and remember stuff you shouldn’t be able to remember. Maybe it was something else. Like a mental illness, but how could that be? I wasn’t hallucinating. All that stuff really did happen. I was one-hundred percent sure of it. I just didn’t understand how I could be so, so, so…there. Like the director in my own movie. But there were other things. Lots of other things.

  “You know you’re just going to go lose another forty bucks, right?” I berated myself with a heavy sigh.

  “Who me? Why?”

  I looked up to the mail carrier’s confused expression, shaking my head. “No, not you. I’m leaving.”

  “You coming back?”

 
Tossing my jacket over my shoulder, I looked back with a frown. “I’m going to lunch. Why wouldn’t I come back?”

  “I dunno.”

  I walked away without a response because none was needed. Riding the elevator down from the fifth-floor office building, I dialed my daughter Taylor to keep my mind grounded. “Hey, what are you doing?”

  “Getting ready to try out a new video game. What’s up? Dad called this morning. What’d he want?”

  “Um…let me think about that. I was distracted. Oh, you got a letter here about your car. There’s a recall on the brakes. He wants you to go get it fixed.”

  “Okay, I’m off Thursday.”

  Taylor and I talked about her job, videogames, a kitten her friend Casey named Destin because she loved Taylor’s middle name, and a movie she wanted me to watch. That’s when it hit me, almost buckling my knees. Royal Destin Pierce. Trying not to be distracted, I once again talked myself off the ledge. Now, I was just being silly. I hadn’t seen him in years. I didn’t even remember his middle name. Did I? Even though I had no logical reason for the name Destin, I knew in my mind it was a fluke. I knew in my heart it was not. There was no way I unconsciously gave my daughter his name.

  “Mom?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. Sorry, I must have lost you for a second. I’m in the elevator, going to grab some lunch.”

  “Okay, go eat. We’ll talk later. Love you, bye.”

  “Love you, too. Get your car fixed.”

  “I will.”

  Instead of making up anymore crazy in my head, I watched people, something I’d always done. It didn’t matter where I was, I’d always been a people watcher. This time I noticed something different though. This time it was in twos. That had to be a sign. Couples. Couples holding hands. Couples kissing, young couples, gay couples, old couples. Everywhere I looked there were couples in love. Waiting for the crosswalk signal to go, I asked myself the same question I’d been asking myself every day since I wandered into that mysterious little store: was this a sign? When I looked up, a city bus passed right in front of me with an advertisement to see Bill Engvall. “Live at the Palace Theater. Here’s your sign.” Right over his head. That’s what it said.

  “Jesus, Jess. It’s a bus.”

  “Excuse me?” a feeble old lady questioned from my side.

  “Oh, no. Sorry. I was talking to myself.”

  “It’s okay. I do it all the time. It only gets worse from here, dear.”

  “Thanks,” I replied sarcastically. I was closer to fifty than forty, which worried me for obvious reasons. Maybe I was having early onset of Alzheimer’s disease. It all made perfect sense now. I really was losing my mind. Anxiously, I made my way three blocks west, worrying about something I’d already been through. Eric’s mom passed from the horrible disease three years back, and it was awful. There was no way I could put him through that again. Still, I made a mental note to look up some of the symptoms, already wondering if I should use the same doctor my mother-in-law, Carole, had.

  Once I’d made it to the street, I stopped in front of a thrift store on the corner one more time to talk myself out of going in. Holding the air in my lungs, I kept going until I courageously stepped through the door to wonderland. The room was dimly lit with salt lamps lighting the right side of the wall, and ambient music with wind chimes played all around, but I didn’t see anyone.

  And then she spoke, right smack dab behind me. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  I turned, seeing her long hair flow with a breeze I didn’t even feel, and yes, I screamed. Adrenaline shot quickly through my veins, and I felt every bit of it. All the way to my heart beating right out of my chest. “Jesus, God! Don’t do that. I could have had a heart attack.”

  The lady took my hand in hers and patted the top of it. “There comes a time when you have to stop being scared, and just go for it. It’s nice to see you again. I’ve been waiting for you. Shall we get started?”

  It all caught me off guard, and I wasn’t sure what to come back with. “Started with what?”

  “The reason you’re here, child. What else? Sit. I’ll see if I can help you with your questions.”

  “How much is it going to cost me?”

  “Prosperity comes in many forms, child.”

  “I’m not a child. We’re practically the same age. What should I call you?”

  “People call me Shotgun Roxy. You can call me Roxy.”

  I followed her to the back of the store, feeling a little let down. “Roxy?”

  “You don’t like Roxy?”

  “Sure. I mean, I guess. I was just expecting something like Madame Cleopatra or something more powerful.”

  Roxy tossed her head back and laughed. “I like that. Maybe I’ll change my name. Now, tell me. How have you been?”

  I sat in the same painted chair I had the first time, unsure of whether I was ready for more. “I know this is going to sound crazy.”

  “Please,” Roxy said, her hand waving around the room. “Look where you are?”

  “Oh, yeah. Well, I’m, I—. I don’t know. Weird things have been going on for almost a week. I keep remembering this little boy I used to play with when I was just a small girl, but they’re more than just day dreams. It’s so real. And I know it sounds ridiculous, but I swear there are signs everywhere all day long. I feel like I’m…”

  “You’re not losing your mind, you don’t have Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. You’re just remembering who you are, where you came from, and where you’re going. You’re supposed to see it from a different perspective now. Why do you think you have a memory in the first place? How would you ever learn a lesson without the memory?”

  “No, it’s different than that. This is so vivid. Do you think …?”

  “Think what?”

  Looking to the right where the wand had been, I noticed it was gone. “Well, I sort of have a confession.”

  “Go on.”

  Trying not to pay attention to how ludicrous I sounded, I pushed on. “I might have touched the wand. But it was before you told me not to.”

  My heart picked up a few extra beats while witnessing the expression on her face change from joy to shock. Her jaw dropped, her eyes widened, and she gasped. “That’s it. That’s it. Oh, my God. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  Even knowing how much I would regret it, I asked anyway. “The wand?”

  “Yes. I’ve been trying to give it to the right person ever since I got it.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “I’m not the one who chooses. It’s the wand. It’s you. It was looking for you.” As notions and ideas fired in her brain, Roxy relayed them to me. With a finger in the air, she paced the floor and continued to tell me about the magic wand. And not like she was telling a fairytale story either. Roxy said it like she was hypothesizing string theory or finding cures for cancer and not nonsense. “That’s why I’m here. That’s why you’re here. That’s why this store became available the same day I needed it. Of course.”

  Glancing around to make sure there was no one in earshot who could possibly hear me, I asked the question. “You think the wand picked me? Why me?”

  Again, Roxy walked around, trying to piece together parts of the puzzle, communicating them to me as they came to her. “Hmmm, I don’t know.”

  “Well, how do you know it’s a magical wand? Where’d you get it?”

  “From a flea market in Arizona.”

  My peculiar interest was gone in the blink of an eye. “Okay, I’m out. Thanks for your time.”

  “Wait. Where’re you going? You can’t leave. We’re on to something big here. You have to take the wand.”

  “Oh, no. I’m good. Besides, you got me for forty bucks last time I was here. I’m not buying a magic wand you bought from a flea market. Nice try. I’ll see you.”

  “Wait. Why did you come here today?”

  That thought stopped me at the door. Ever since I had touched that wand, my life felt like I was in the sp
in cycle of the washer. And for that, I turned around. There was no way I could honestly deny that something crazy wasn’t going on.

  Roxy continued in a fast speaking tone, but I wasn’t sure if it was from excitement or to say what she needed to say before I left. “The wand is from the planet Sirius. It’s linked to a time portal. You’re the eleventh person I’ve given it to.”

  “Yeah? Go on.”

  “I—I don’t know,” she said with her hand over her forehead. “I don’t know what makes you different. Do you remember anything? Like what happened the moment you touched it?”

  I glanced at the floor and back to Roxy, recollecting the day. “I—I had a flashback of my friend, Royal. He was just a friend from when I was a kid. A little kid. Like forty years ago. It was more than a flashback though. It was like virtual reality. I’ve been having them ever since, but only about him. That’s the part I don’t understand. Why not my mom, my grams, my other friends from school, my kids, or my husband? They’re all Royal and me. Why?”

  “Hmmmm. Is that all?”

  I shrugged one shoulder and animatedly told her about the stone and my hands. “Well, I thought the sapphire at the end lit up into like a bright blue, glowing ball when I touched it, but I was a little creeped out that day. It could have been my imagination.”

  Roxy gasped, grabbing her heart again. “I highly doubt it was just your imagination. That’s a sign for sure.”

  “This is silly. There is no magic in that wand, and it didn’t find its way into my hands. It’s just something someone made. Something you bought at a stupid flea market. And there are no signs.”

  “Is that why you came here?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “For me to tell you there are no signs? That you should just keep getting out of bed every morning to go to the same job, talk to the same people, go home, and eat the same food with the same husband, in the same house, at the same table? Is that what you want?”