“I think I understand. I did notice that you didn’t ask me to leave my trees and go into the light with you.”
“I know better,” Mia said. “We both seem to have conditions to our eternities. Let’s speak of this again when things change.”
Murphy smiled wide. His face lit up to his eyes. Mia never remembered seeing him this animated before. “Until then, we are friends.”
“Yes, best friends,” Mia said.
Mia’s dinner of peanut butter sandwiches and milk filled her. She made up the rest of the bread into sandwiches and twisted the bread wrapper closed and secured it tightly. She was exhausted from all the activity. She opened up the flap of the old tent slowly, preparing herself for the funky odor. She was surprised by the scent of lilac. Mia crawled in to see that Murphy had placed four mason jars full of lilacs in each corner of the tent.
“How did he know?” she said to herself.
“Your face gave you away,” Murphy said, materializing beside her. “You had the same expression as when you changed Varden’s poopy diapers.”
“I didn’t realize I did that. I hope I don’t give the kid a complex.”
“The boy is going to have wings; I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t have one already.”
“Varden is my snuggle bunny. Brian grew up too fast. But every now and then, he climbs in my lap and hugs me.”
“They are great boys. Are you going to have more children?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you have more children?” Murphy asked.
“If I make it back to the right time I can, but I don’t know if I want any more.”
“Why?” Murphy asked.
“Oh, I have my reasons, some of them are sane and reasonable.”
“For example…” Murphy led.
“Sane ones first. I’ve got my hands full. I still want to be a PEEP, but I don’t think I can spend as much time away now that I have two little kids and a teenager. Adding another baby into the mix isn’t responsible. I also have a new gene, courtesy of Raphael and Lazar. It’s the crone gene. If I have a daughter, she will have witch abilities. I haven’t done my homework on that yet, so I’d better not have a child until I do. Now for the unreasonable ones. I don’t want to stretch my body all out of shape again. I may have to fight for my family, and it’s damn hard carrying a baby. Look what happened while I was carrying Varden. I almost cut my leg off.”
“That was very brave,” Murphy said. “There’s more. I can see it behind your eyes.”
“Abigor said something to me that I hear every time I think about having a baby.”
“Did he threaten you?”
“No.”
“Tell me.”
“Promise not to tell Ted or Cid or anyone?”
“I promise.”
“He said, ‘Give me permission, and I shall put a beautiful daughter in your belly.’”
“What did you do?”
“I declined and later found out it was just a line to get me into bed with him. Which never happened. But still…”
“I can’t give you children.”
“You’re dead, of course not.”
“I mean before, I couldn’t give Chastity a child. I had the mumps as an adult. It left me sterile.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Mia said.
“Turns out, I wouldn’t have been around long enough to get to know them, to teach them all I know, or to provide for them.”
“Is that why you’re so hard on Brian?”
“Maybe.”
“If I blow this, I don’t want to have any children,” Mia announced.
“Of course not, you’re twelve.”
“I mean when I grow up again. The reality will be different because it’s impossible to recreate it right down to the point when Roumain interfered and I conceived Brian. Varden is Varden because a very valuable birdman died. I can’t see me sending that man to his death again. And so, I fear that there will be no Brian or Varden.”
“What about your daughter, the little girl you conceived when you cared for the man in the orchard? I’ll fight the ghost that killed him to save you both.”
“I know you would, but you see, if I had to do things again, I would stop all the horrible things from happening. I knew it the minute I saw Yann standing there. I couldn’t let him die if I could stop it from happening again. I’ll go to Washington and make sure that the wildfire never happens, and Neil would never have to be bedridden. There would be no baby because there wouldn’t be a relationship between Neil and me. We would never meet. I can’t predict what will happen in my new timeline. This is why it’s so important to fix this.”
“But Mia, Ted would end up with Beth. Beth the witch.”
“But would she become a witch if not for me?” Mia asked. “How much of her life did I mess up?”
“She wasn’t right from the beginning,” Murphy assured her. He lay back and sighed.
Mia looked over at the ghost. What will you do if we can’t fix this?”
“I’m staying with you.”
“I’m a child.”
“I’ll watch over you until you die,” he said matter-of-factly. “Then if you choose, we will be together for our eternity.”
“We wouldn’t have to come back here. There are grand trees on the west coast.”
“Whatever you wish, Mia.”
Mia fell asleep with those words in her head.
Chapter Nine
Dawn broke on a clear day, but by the time Mia was washed – courtesy of the ice-cold stream on Murphy’s property - and dressed, the clouds had rolled in. She and Murphy hurried to the hill and stood there, as promised, and waited for Wyatt’s transportation.
“I hope it’s not a damn airplane,” Murphy complained. “Those metal birds
