“Hey, Daisy!” he called.
Daisy looked up at him with startled, round eyes. “How do you know my name?”
“What do you mean? We’ve met before. I’m Adam, remember?”
Daisy continued to look at him in amazement. Adam understood.
Daisy hadn’t met him yet.
“Nobody comes here this early in the morning,” said the little girl. She motioned to the cemetery around her. “Are you here to visit someone?”
“Oh, no, my parents aren’t buried here.” Adam’s voice faltered, but under Daisy’s curious gaze, he went on, “They’re at a different cemetery.”
“How did your parents die?” she asked.
“They…died in a plane crash.”
The truth would always be sad. But saying the words aloud to Daisy, it was as if an invisible weight that had been crushing Adam’s chest had lifted. He would always remember that fateful day, but it was only one brief moment on the timeline, a timeline that held a million other moments, connecting a million other people. A timeline that continued to unfold with infinite possibilities. He would no longer dwell on a single point in the past. He was going to be truly open to the future. His parents would have wanted that.
He glanced at the name on the gravestone in front of Daisy, and said, “Your grandma, right?”
Daisy nodded.
Adam clasped Daisy’s hand. For a few moments, neither of them spoke.
“She was my best friend,” Daisy said softly. “We made all kinds of meals together. I don’t have any other friends. Besides my cat, Dr. Tabbypaws.”
“You’ll meet new people one day,” Adam promised. “There’s a whole world out there. You like cooking, don’t you?”
Daisy nodded again.
“One day you’ll make a friend in New York City. She’s a bit younger than you, but age doesn’t matter when it comes to friendship. She says you make the best candies ever. I agree. I’ve tried them myself.”
Daisy looked at him with wide eyes. “How do you know this?”
“The snow globe showed me.” Adam held up the snow globe with the tiny cemetery inside. “It belonged to my parents. It connects me to people, you see, from different times and different places.”
“Like magic?”
“Yes.” Adam went on to describe some of the adventures he’d had. Daisy listened in awe, and laughed when he described Charlie and his menacing eye patch.
“When it’s empty, it means it’s time for me to go,” Adam finished.
Daisy suddenly looked worried. “You’re going to leave?”
“I’ll be back.”
“When?”
Adam gave her a mysterious smile. “How about this? On the fourth Monday of May, at eleven o’clock in the morning, come outside and look for me in the garden by your house.”
“Really?” whispered Daisy. A smile lit up her face. “Does this mean we’re friends?”
Friends. There was that word again, one that had once seemed so foreign to Adam. But his cocoon days were over.
“Yes,” he answered. “We are friends. I might not see you every day, but remember: you’re not alone.” He held up the snow globe. “We’re not alone.”
“We are not,” agreed Daisy. Adam was reminded again how smart the five-year-old was.
The snow globe had turned empty again, and he knew his work there was done.
Before he shook the snow globe, he said, “One more thing. If someone is upset, what do you think is the best way to cheer them up?”
The little girl thought for a few moments. “I think a little bit of candy never hurts,” she said wisely, a spark of inspiration in her eyes. “Some sweet to temper the bitter.”
Adam thought that was the last he’d see of Daisy. He was wrong, of course. Though he didn’t know it at the time, in ten years he’d see her once more. But not through the snow globe. Rather, he’d find her in a town not far from Candlewick, thanks to a quick search on the rapidly developing apparatus called the Internet. Daisy would be recently retired from running a successful candy shop in Manhattan. She would welcome him warmly, and introduce him to her brilliant granddaughter, Rose, who was Adam’s age and made sweets just as well as Daisy did.
And the three of them would sit and laugh and munch on bonbons into the night.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREECLOSING THE TIME LOOP
Christmas Eve was a sight to see at the homeless shelter down the street. Adam had spent the morning helping decorate the place with vibrant lights and evergreen garlands. By the time of Victor’s memorial service, the building looked not so much like a run-down residence but more like a gingerbread house, with striped candy canes hanging from the wood panels, and colorful droplets of light woven through the white snow on the rooftop. A perfect green wreath balanced on the front door.
“The Hole isn’t really much of a hole anymore, is it?” said Uncle Henry as they admired the view.
“Don’t call it that, Uncle Henry.”
“You’re right. It’s not very respectful.”
“No.” Adam toed the pile of snow lining the edge of the sidewalk. “It’s not a hole. It’s a place for people to go when they’re lost, like”—he raised his head—“a lighthouse. A candle.”
“A candle,” murmured Uncle Henry with a nod.
The service went well. Adam even went up in front of the room and said a few words, something he wouldn’t have dreamed of doing a few months ago. The audience was a bit bemused by his speech on orange peels and permutations. But Adam knew every word he’d said was from the heart.
And that was when Adam fully understood that the snow globe was never meant to change the past.
From Francine, to Jack, to Daisy, to Robert Baron IV, the snow globe had instead shown Adam the ways in which people from every year and generation shared the same thoughts and fears. How they lost loved ones and had pasts they wished to change. But in the end, the clock only ticked onward, and that was the direction they needed to go. Including himself.
Later, in his room, he opened his drawer. The snow globe, the music box, and the pendulum rested peacefully in the white moonlight. The
