The Last Present

by Wendy Mass

  “It struck very suddenly,” Mr. Kelly says. “Just a few hours ago she was so excited to go to the bar mitzvah. She couldn’t wait to play with her brother’s friends.” He stops talking while a family exits the elevator and we step on. He presses the button for the third floor. An older couple carrying pink balloons and flowers slip in right before the door closes. The woman — who I quickly deduce is a new grandmother — uses her elbow to push the button for the floor marked BIRTHING CENTER. “Our daughter just had a baby,” they gush. We try to smile for them, but like Mr. Kelly before, it’s hard to make our mouths go that way.

  The couple gets out on the second floor and Mr. Kelly continues his story. “So we arrived at Apple Grove early this morning. Connor needed to set up the video feed to allow David’s father to watch the service.” He pauses. “I hope that worked out all right?”

  We nod. “It worked perfectly,” I tell him. “It was like David’s father was in the field with us.”

  “It was Connor’s idea in the first place,” Leo adds. “He worked out the whole thing with the clinic where David’s dad lives.”

  “He gets his technical skills from me,” Mr. Kelly says, pride evident in his voice. Then his expression saddens. “When Phil — that’s David’s dad — first got sick, Mrs. Kelly and I used to drive David and his mother up to see him at the clinic. Phil could still crack jokes, and could even get around a bit on his own. But once his condition worsened, they stopped asking us to come.”

  Neither of us says anything. David’s never spoken much about his dad, at least not to me. I know his condition is permanent, and hereditary, which means that David might get sick one day, too. Mr. Kelly shakes his head as though shaking off the sad memories before picking up his story. “So Connor finishes setting up and we’re about to take our seats when Grace starts breathing heavily, gasping almost. We thought maybe she was having an allergic reaction to a bee sting or something, but we couldn’t find any sign of it. At first she could still talk. In fact, all she was doing was talking. But it wasn’t making any sense. She kept talking about strings in the sky. She kept saying what sounded like ‘Willow Falls is a blanket.’”

  “‘Willow Falls is a blanket’?” Leo repeats as we step out of the elevator and turn down a long hallway. “What does that mean?”

  “We have no idea. Then, just as suddenly, she stopped speaking at all. She didn’t appear to hear us, either. I carried her back to the car and brought her straight here.” He doesn’t talk after that, just strides quickly past rows of closed doors. The halls have that cleaning solution smell to them, which I guess is better than a lot of other smells a hospital could have.

  When we get to Grace’s room, all I can see at first is a metal bed completely surrounded by doctors with white coats and clipboards. In the absence of any chairs, Mrs. Kelly is sitting on a window seat that looks out onto the parking lot. Her face is white and she keeps clenching and unclenching her hands. I don’t see Connor. He’s such a good brother, he’s probably in the gift shop getting Grace some balloons.

  Everyone is talking at once. From what I can make out, the doctors are debating various solutions. I hear words like benzodiazepine treatment, intravenous fluids, shock therapy. My heart beats faster. Those don’t sound fun. Finally a gray-haired doctor tells everyone that the best thing to do right now is to make sure she’s comfortable and not dehydrated. One by one, the doctors and nurses trail out into the hall. I hear one of the doctors mutter, “Never seen anything like it. Not in Willow Falls.”

  Mr. Kelly hurries in and we follow behind. I stop short when I see Grace. She is lying on top of the covers, her small body taking up very little space on the bed. She’s still wearing the pretty striped dress she wore to the bar mitzvah. She should be on her way to the community center right now with the rest of David’s guests to dance and celebrate, not stuck here with doctors poking and prodding her. Her mother had braided her long red hair for the party and the braids are now neatly draped over her shoulders. Her bright blue eyes are wide open. Almost too wide. She is unmoving, her face frozen in place like a Halloween mask. As someone who has become an expert in reading facial expressions, I can easily recognize the one on her face now.

  It’s amazement.

  I scribble the word on my blackboard and hold it up to Leo. He nods, then writes, I was going to say awe. And also confusion.

  I nod in agreement. He takes my hand and squeezes it. My pulse quickens whenever he does that. I squeeze back, grateful as always that he’s here with me. We step closer to the bed. I don’t see pain anywhere on Grace’s face, which is a great relief. I can’t help but wonder what her last conscious thought was before she froze. I’m not sure what her parents see when they look at her. Judging from their own expressions of worry and fear, they must not see what we see. Or maybe it doesn’t matter to them. They just want their daughter back.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Kelly?” a woman asks from behind us. Her voice is all business. “Please take a few moments to visit the main office. They need to go over hospital procedures, sign paperwork. Insurance, visiting hours, that sort of thing.”

  I almost don’t look away from the bed. But something about that nurse’s voice sounds familiar. So does the ever so slight smell of apples that wafts through the room. Leo and I turn in unison.

  Angelina! She is no longer wearing the dress I saw her in at the bar mitzvah service, or the purple scarf. Instead, she has on a green nurse’s uniform, complete with an official-looking badge and sneakers almost as white as her hair. I wonder where she got the outfit. We were clearly right to come here. Not that I’d really doubted it, but seeing her is nice confirmation. For some reason though, I find myself a little annoyed. She could have told us where to come instead of making us guess. Even when she needs our help, she’s secretive. I look at her expectantly. She looks right past me.

  “We’ll stay here with Grace,” Leo offers. Grace’s parents exchange a look that says they’re not sure about leaving her with two kids they barely know.

  “I’ll be here as well,” Angelina says, straightening her uniform. “I’ll come get you immediately if there are any changes to her vital signs.”

  “All right,” Mrs. Kelly says with a concerned glance at the bed. She picks up her pocketbook and squeezes me on the shoulder as she heads to the door. I feel my anger at Angelina drain away a bit.

  “And you might want to tell someone the coffee machine in the lobby is broken,” Mr. Kelly adds.

  “I’ll get right on that,” Angelina replies, closing the door behind them.

  I put my hands on my hips. “So you’re pretending to be a nurse now?”

  She shrugs. “I’ve been a nurse for a long, long time.”

  “So let’s see,” Leo says, ticking off on his fingers, “that makes you a nurse, a school bus driver, the owner of Angelina’s Sweet Repeats and Collectibles, the caretaker of the Willow Falls Historical Society, a ticket taker at the Willow Falls Reservoir where you’ve been known to rescue people from drainpipes, a server in the school cafeteria, and one time you worked at the paint-your-own-pottery store where Amanda and I had our fifth birthday party. That’s seven jobs. Did I miss any?”

  “You missed plenty,” she snaps. “I like to stay busy.” She glances over at Grace and a shadow crosses her face.

  I put my hand on Angelina’s arm. “Today’s the day, Angelina. You obviously knew this would happen to Grace. It would have been nice to warn us, but I guess then you wouldn’t be you. Tell us what to do. Tell us how to fix it.”

  “If only it were that simple,” she says, sitting down on the end of the bed. There’s plenty of room, since Grace fills only the top half.

  “Is it all right to talk in front of her?” Leo asks, gesturing toward Grace. “I feel kind of weird about it.”

  “She can’t hear us,” Angelina says, shaking her head. “She’s in her own world now and we can’t reach her.”

  Leo gives the wide-eyed Grace one last uncertain look before faci
ng Angelina. “Is this like last time, when we wake up tomorrow, it will be today again? Then, somehow, Amanda and I will be able to prevent this from happening to Grace? That’s your plan, right?”

  To my surprise, Angelina shakes her head. “It will be different this time. When you wake up tomorrow, it will be tomorrow, same as for everyone. But for the next ten days, the two of you will be able to travel back to today, only a different year each time.”

  I let her words sink in, trying to absorb what they mean.

  Leo scratches his head. “Huh?”

  “Huh is not a word,” she says. “Honestly! How do young people today expect to make it in the world without using real words? It’s all omg and brb and lol and —”

  “Angelina!” we cry. I look quickly at Grace to see if we’d disturbed her, or better yet, woken her up. Nope. No change. It’s like she’s a statue in the bed. Or a doll.

  Angelina is still for a minute. Then she whispers, “This is all my fault.”

  Our eyebrows shoot up. Angelina admitting any wrongdoing? Unheard of! I want her to explain what she meant about traveling back in time, which is very different from being stuck in time like before, but I can’t pass up the chance to hear her admit to something being her fault. She stands up and begins to pace, her white rubber sneakers squeaking unpleasantly. “You know how kids don’t get sick very often in Willow Falls?” she finally says. “Or at least not seriously ill?”

  “Yeah,” Leo replies. “I mean, yes.”

  “Did you ever wonder why?”

  We both shake our heads. I never really thought about it before.

  “Well, it’s because every time a baby is born, it’s my job to come to the birthing center and seal them off from harm within an hour of their birth.”

  “Seal them off from harm?” I repeat. “What does that mean?”

  She waves me off with her hand. “I don’t expect you to understand. I bestow a benediction upon them. It took years to get it just right, even with all my special abilities. It’s like a blessing. A binding spell. The protection lasts eighteen years. But I made a mess of it with Grace. I was late, her brother distracted me, and I ran out of time.”

  “Her brother?” I ask. “You mean Connor?”

  She nods and her pacing quickens. “He was banging on the nursery window. I kept losing my place. Once I realized I’d failed, I started plotting my next move. I’d have another chance to set things right on her first birthday. All year I worried she would fall ill, a tiny little thing she was, but except for a few months when she wouldn’t keep much food down, she made it. I showed up at the Kellys’ door, right on time, ready to give Grace the benediction she deserved.”

  Her pacing slows and her face darkens. “But they wouldn’t let me in. They said Grace had just been put down for her nap. Even though I hadn’t thought to wear my uniform, I explained I had been the nurse on duty when she was born and it was tradition for us to wish the babies a happy birthday when they turned one.”

  Leo nods appreciatively. “Quick thinking.”

  Angelina ignores the compliment. “They finally allowed me inside, although the looks they gave each other let me know they hoped I’d be quick about it. Mrs. Kelly led me to Grace’s room, but something stopped me from going in.”

  “You mean you changed your mind?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “No, I mean something literally stopped me. It was as though an invisible shield barred my way. Until today, I have not been allowed in the same room as Grace on her birthday.”

  “Where could the shield have come from?” I ask.

  “As far as I know,” she says grimly, “the only person powerful enough to erect such a shield is me. I certainly didn’t do it on purpose, but perhaps I was punishing myself for my failure on the day of her birth. It had been a mistake simply showing up like that. I needed to think of another way. I needed to work harder. So I spent the following year figuring out how to weave the benediction into her birthday celebration so that it would work without me being there. On her second birthday, when her guests sang to her, they would unknowingly be weaving my spell for me.”

  She holds up a hand. “And don’t even bother to ask me how I could do this. I cannot possibly explain. But this time, too, I was thwarted. Grace was sick with a stomach bug — she often had digestive troubles, which kept her small and vexed me to no end. As a result her party was cancelled, nobody sang ‘Happy Birthday’ and the spell was never released. By her third birthday, I had begun to panic. I couldn’t fail again.”

  I glance over at the unmoving Grace. “But you did,” I whisper.

  “Yes,” Angelina says, following my gaze. “I failed again that third year. And every year since. I wove the protective spell in so many different ways — once, it would kick in when she blew out her candles, another time it was the balloons — you get the picture. Each time something went wrong. It was uncanny. My plan never got a chance to work.”

  “But why couldn’t you just tell Grace’s parents? I’m sure they would have helped you.”

  She shakes her head. “No one can know what I do to protect the children. I took a sworn oath.”

  “But you’re telling us,” Leo points out.

  She shrugs. “You already know my secrets.”

  I put my hands on my hips and purse my lips.

  “Maybe not all of them,” she admits.

  “More like none of them,” I mutter. After all these years we don’t know where Angelina lives, where she came from, why she’s in Willow Falls, how or why she does what she does. None of it. “But why is Grace like this now?”

  Angelina strides over and reaches toward Grace’s head. I think she’s going to stroke her hair, but instead she gently lowers her eyelids. It makes Grace look more at peace, and less like she’s listening to our every word.

  “Her ninth birthday was my last chance,” Angelina explains, turning away from the bed. “If I failed, I would not be able to stop whatever was on its way when she turned ten years old.” She gestures behind her. “This was the result. Thanks to your great-great-grandparents’ curse, the two of you are her only hope now.” She checks her watch. “We still have a while before her parents return. I made sure they’d be busy with paperwork.”

  “What do you want us to do?” I ask.

  She points at both of us in turn. “I want you to go back to every one of Grace’s birthdays until you are able to fix what went wrong. You will have to succeed three times. Once that happens, Grace will be protected from serious harm for the rest of her childhood, until she turns eighteen. And most important, she will awaken from this state.”

  “Why three times?” I ask.

  She shrugs again. “Who knows? Three is tradition. I don’t make the rules.”

  “Then who does?” Leo asks.

  Angelina ignores the question, but her face softens. “I know I’m asking a lot of you. It’s not like last time, when the choice wasn’t yours to make. After all I’ve put you through these last few years, I would understand if one or both of you don’t want to take the very real risks that go along with altering the past. Time will be moving at the same pace for everyone. The present will continue moving forward, adjusting to the changes you make in the past. Bottom line — whatever you do in the past can and will affect the present. Be very careful to only change what is absolutely necessary to get the job done.”

  My head is beginning to swim with all these instructions. And I’m hungry, which doesn’t help my powers of concentration.

  “You’ll need to follow my instructions very carefully,” she continues. “Impact the lives of those around you as little as possible. This especially applies to people you know, like Grace’s family. They cannot discover that you are trying to change their history. You must alter only one thread of the past, lest the whole future unravel with it. I need to hear that you both understand this.”

  Leo says, “Are you telling us that if we make some really small change in the past, like teaching some kid a
t Grace’s birthday party how to tie her shoes before she would normally have learned, when we get back the world might be totally different? Like maybe we’d have never been born, or we could find ourselves in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, running for our lives?”

  She rolls her eyes. “I’d say the risk of that is low. You’re not going back in time far enough to infect the world’s population with a deadly flesh-craving virus.”

  “Then I’ll take my chances,” I tell her. “Leo and I managed not to talk for an entire year in preparation for this day. We’re going to see it through, no matter what. And I’m kind of relieved we won’t be stuck in the same day again. That was pretty crazy.”

  “It wasn’t all bad,” Leo argues. “It had its moments.” We share a secret smile. No one will ever know everything that happened on those eleven days except for us.

  “I’m still not sure how we’re going to be able to make this work,” I tell her. “But I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

  “So will I,” a boy’s voice says. Only the voice doesn’t belong to Leo.

  The three of us freeze. We slowly turn around to find Connor standing in the doorway, holding hands with a SpongeBob SquarePants balloon. Only one of them is smiling, and it isn’t Connor.

  Unlike the SpongeBob balloon my parents got for me on my eleventh birthday, which had limbs made of streamers, this one has fully inflated arms and legs that make him look like a small, oddly-shaped child floating a few inches off the ground. I’m aware this isn’t a detail I should be focusing on right now, but I’m afraid to look directly at Connor.

  Leo clears his throat. “Um, hi, Connor. Did you, um, hear what we were talking about?”

  Connor walks unsteadily into the room, the balloon strolling in beside him. Gone is the boy who flounced across the stage last night singing (badly), with a pillow stuffed under his shirt and a fake beard. Though he’s dressed up for the bar mitzvah, he looks like a black-and-white photocopy of that person now. Pale and shaky. Even his red hair has dimmed.