Stone Time

“Stone Time”

by Bo Balder

Vink softened in the middle of a vigorous headshake. The fly she’d meant to scare off had long since died. She found herself under a mighty elm tree, dripping with generations of bird poop, crotch deep in nettles and fireweed. Great. Somehow her petrifaction sickness never waited until she’d found a nice snug spot. Sometimes rivers changed course during her stone time, swamps dried out, villages disappeared.

Walking along the hedgerows in her now clean but wet clothes she found a lane and followed it to the church steeple in the distance. Maybe it hadn’t been that long this time. Maybe someone still remembered her. The longest time she’d ever stayed awake had been about six months, but she felt the waking periods were getting shorter. One day, she’d be stone for so long that the seas would close over her head and she’d only come up during low tide, worn away to nothing but a stump.

She never stayed awake long enough to make friends or settle down. When she’d been younger, she’d tried to fit in, and it hadn’t worked.

In waking years she was still a young woman, but in the world centuries had passed. The great smoke on the horizon, the city of London, had grown bigger and bigger. Clothing styles changed, idiom and dialect shifted. And just when she’d caught up, she went to stone again and had to start all over.

But at least this was still recognizably the same village she’d walked away from yesterday, and it still had the same inn at the sharp bend in the road.

Vink ducked through the doorway and stepped into a dim, smoky room. Tinny music was playing although she couldn’t discover the performers. Clothes were odd, with brighter colors than she’d ever seen. Over the bar hung the oddest moving painting, little footballers on a green field. She threaded her way to the counter, getting wary looks in her wet, out-of-date clothes.

She asked for a pint. The bartender gestured to the menu written on the wall.

Vink had never been much good with letters.

“The top one,” she said. There was a lot of writing there. She might have to learn. A kid standing next to the bartender stared at her with big blue eyes.

“That’ll be one pound, please,” the bartender said.

Vink gaped. Last time she was awake the price of a pint had been tuppence. She must have been away for a really long while. More than twenty years, most likely. Tears prickled in her eyes. The longer the stone time, the harder the adjustment.

But she still wanted the ale. She counted out the money in pennies and shillings. Luckily she’d been paid just days before going stone.

“Eh, that’s old money. We can’t accept that.”

Vink bit her lip. There was new money? What did that mean?

“Hey my lover, you look like you need that drink. It’s on the house.” The bartender shoved the pint towards her with a smile.

“Thanks,” Vink said. She must look a sad case. Better take the charity. No use pride now.

She turned to look for a place to sit.

“Take the chair by the fire, don’t mind the old codgers,” the bartender said. “The missus’ll bring you up a meal.”

Vink shuffled to the fire and gratefully sank into the chair. She was going to nurse that pint all night, to stay near the blessed warmth.

She relaxed, sipping the beer as her clothes gradually dried. More patrons entered as dinner time arrived, families with children. The women wore so much rouge, and their hair! But for once, nobody had remarked on her trousers.

A boisterous toddler careened by and made straight for the fire. Vink stuck out an arm and managed to hold its squirming little body until the mother came to scoop it up.

“Thanks, love,” the mother said. Another smile for Vink.

Vink sank back in the chair and stretched out her legs. She didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, or even tonight, let alone the rest of her life. But right now, she was warm and safe, and people were friendly. She felt like a real person, a human being among human beings.

She took another sip. It tasted great. Her trouser legs steamed gently in front of the fire.

She could be satisfied with that for now.

Vink woke up and sneezed. She felt surprisingly fit and rested. She was sitting in a comfortable chair with a blanket over her head.

Vink threw the blanket off and struggled to rise. She was in the middle of more dusty—hatchoo—farm machinery than she’d ever seen before in her life, dusty scythes and hayforks and ploughs. A droning sound was in the air, like a giant swarm of bees. No, wait, she’d heard something like that before. It was one of those new horseless carriages.

She picked her way out of the barn, glad of the sunlight that slanted down from the gappy roof. Last night she must have fallen in front of the fire, in that comfy chair, and she’d turned to stone. And someone had put her, chair and all, in the barn. And covered her with a blanket. That had been truly kind.

She squinched her eyes against the summer sunlight, late morning it looked like, to orient herself. Still in Kingston St. Mary. There was the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, its squat brown tower greeting her over the treetops. Downslope was the road and the pub she’d fallen asleep in. They’d carried her and the chair several hundred yards. She wondered if she’d weighed as heavy as real stone.

“Good morning!” a friendly voice said.

Vink jumped anyway.

“I heard you sneezing so I figured you must be awake,” the voice said. It belonged to a nice-looking young man in workman’s trousers and undershirt. One of the hired hands, Vink guessed.

“What’s it to you?” she said.

The boy ignored her challenge. “It’s the year 1983,” he said, “and we’re in Kingston St. Mary, Somerset, United Kingdom.”

Vink wasn’t a reader, and never bought a newspaper, but she did remember the date of the Armistice. A huge weight pressed on her shoulders and it felt hard to breathe.

“I’m Austell Rosewarne,” the boy said. “Last time you were awake it was 1979. Is four years longer than normal?”

Vink didn’t know what to say. He talked to her as if he knew her, as if he knew about her sickness.

“I don’t know,” she said, her voice rough with unshed tears. “We didn’t used to be talking about dates all the time. I remember the end of the Great War, and I was awake at least once after that. Not too long after that. Not like this.”

“The Great War. The First World War, you mean? That’s like sixty years.”

“I don’t mind about that, really,” Vink said. “I mind that it was only an evening.” She couldn’t suppress a sob.

The boy kneeled down beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. That made it worse, but Vink appreciated the gesture.

“How do you understand about my sickness? Nobody knows.”

“My granda told us about a stone woman he saw standing in a thicket, caught in the middle of a gesture. So lifelike he expected her to wake up any moment. One whole summer long he visited her every day. But that winter there was a bad storm and a lot of trees went down. He was never able to find the spot again, but he told my dad and me about it all the time. So when you turned to stone in our pub, we knew who you had to be from granda’s tale. We put you in the barn. We felt we had to look after you, for granda.”

Aw. That was so sweet. Also very silly. There could be no connection between a stone woman and a living man.

“We looked for you, when I was small,” he said.

“It’s nothing, just my life. Can’t be fixed.” She wiped a stray tear away. Her hand came away dark from the dust that had gathered on her face and hair. “Is there a pump where I can wash up? And maybe you know someone who has work for me?”

What time of year was it now? Late spring, maybe. “Strawberries? Binding up the green beans?”

“Not yet. I’ll show you the bathroom and then I’m going to give you breakfast. I bet you’re hungry after all that time.”

Vink shrugged and followed Austell. A Cornish name, that was. She was a Somerset girl, born and raised, but she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. She wasn’t that hungry, her lavish meal of last night not even fully digested, she bet. But she always ate when she could.

Austell showed her an incredibly fancy washroom with taps and everything. Hot water, even. Rich people. She amused herself by turning them on and off and making faces in the large, spotless mirror. She was a sight. Dust and cobwebs made her look thirty years older than she thought she was. After a vigorous shrub with scented soap her ordinary face emerged, familiar from glimpses in pools and the occasional mirror. Still Vink.

She wished for a bath, but the washroom didn’t have one.

A knock on the door. “I’ve got some clean clothes here if you want?”

The charity rankled, but she couldn’t afford to be picky. The trousers were fine, sturdy blue workwear, but the undershirt was flimsy. Vink needed something with long sleeves and made of tougher material. For work, and to hide the fact that she was female.

She asked Austell if he had any old shirts or jackets she could use and he simply grabbed a heavy checked shirt from a coat stand. “This do?”

“Thank you. You’ve been very kind. But I must be off now.”

Austell almost grabbed her arm but managed to stop himself. Vink approved of that. She was not to be hindered by man nor woman. “Where to then? You can’t know anybody.”

She looked at him oddly. “I never do. But I have to find work. Life is very expensive these days. I’ll just ask the farmers around here for day jobs. There’s always some.”

Austell frowned. “Times have changed a lot. A farmer can’t just employ any old vagrant, they have to apply for benefits. I bet you don’t have a Social Insurance Number. Do you even know your date of birth?”

Vink shrugged. “I was born on St. Ethelwin’s Day.” On Austell’s blank look: “That’s in early May.”

“Listen, I’ll talk to my dad about getting you a temporary number. It’s the law.”

“So who cares what the law says? I’m never around for the punishment anyway.”

Austell sighed. “I’ll just give you work here on the farm. We grow our own vegetables for the pub. Can you weed?”

“What do you think I’ve been doing all my life? Day labor. Weeding. Mowing, haying, harvesting,” Vink said.

“Follow me.” Austell walked her to a large kitchen garden, steaming gently in the sun, full of early produce and weeds.

Vink was about to fall on her knees to get to it, when she remembered she should negotiate a rate. “How much?”

“How much what?”

“My wage. How much?

“Minimum wage is three quid. That suit?”

Vink boggled. But then she remembered the price of beer last evening. Prices always went up, never down. “How much for a loaf of bread? A beer? A pint of milk?”

“Meals thrown in,” Austell said, reading something in her face. “Board as well.”

“Taken. All right, see you.”

She bent down and started pulling weeds in the first row of lettuce.

“I’ll go bring you some gloves and tools,” Austell said.

“Don’t let me keep you from your own work!” she called to his retreating back. She didn’t like being watched and that’s what he would do if she let him. Stare at the mysterious stone woman. She snorted. It would pass. Next time she saw him he’d be a grown man with little ones of his own.

But he was a good boy. He came to bring her garden tools and gloves, and even a hat. Vink worked on contentedly. It was always hard to start up again, but once you had work and a place to stay, things settled back in a routine. The world didn’t change that much. Vegetables were vegetables, nobody could change that.

The day grew hot, and Vink shifted to the shade. She was halfway through, stretching her back, when Austell came with lunch. He brought it on a fancy tray, and Vink saw from the two plates and two cups that he was expecting to eat with her. No harm in that.

As they chewed, Austell was preparing to ask her a difficult question. Vin could see him shift on the wooden bench, cough, and then decide to take another bite. Boys. Also a thing that never changed.

“Mom says I should take you shopping. Come on, it’ll be fun. Have you ever ridden in a car?”

“I’ve seen one,” Vink said doubtfully. Noisy thing.

“Let’s do it now. It’s too hot to work for a couple of hours.”

Vink wasn’t used to so much leniency from her employers, but why not?

She had never seen anything like the supermarket shop. The lights were so bright. It was so big, and there was so much food. It had a greengrocer and a baker and a butcher and a chemist. She trailed after Austell and his big shiny rattling cart, afraid to lose her way, afraid to never come out again. Every now and then she became convinced she was in a sidhe mound, doomed to wander here forever, but then she found Austell again holding a carton of milk or a loaf of bread and she told herself this was real. Even after years of stone sleep, the world had never been this different ever before. As if everything had sped up and she was still on her own slow, backward time. She didn’t like it one bit.

“Austell, I want to go home,” she whispered, wary of speaking out loud in the hubbub of tinny music and screeching carts.

“It’s a lot, I know,” he said. “But I’ll help you. I’ll teach you to read and write. And to drive. And get you a Social Insurance Number. You need to learn new stuff.”

She returned to her weeding with great relief. At least vegetables were a constant, although there was less parsley and chervil than she expected, and more basil and garlic.

After the weeding Austell fed her again. His mom didn’t invite Vink in, which was only to be expected.

Vink put on her new hat and stood up. “Thanks for the food and the work. I’d like my pay now, so I can get going while it’s still light.”

He pulled two large bills from his wallet. Thirty quid in funny-looking bills was more money than Vink had ever held. She tried not to boggle and pretended to find it normal.

“You can stay here,” Austell said.

“But the garden won’t need weeding tomorrow,” Vink pointed out. “I need to find other work.”

“You can sleep here tonight. If you turn to stone again, you’ll be looked after. I’ll make some calls and drive you to a new job tomorrow. Promise.”

Well, why not. She was feeling flush and full, and it would be nice to have a rest in that comfy chair in the barn. “Fine.”

#

Vink woke up. Not from a stone time, but from actual sleep. She felt wonderful. The difference was easy to spot. Softening up from a stone time was just like you’d expect. You were stiff, slow, cranky. Waking up from a real sleep was delicious, fuzzy, warm, stretchy. You snuggled deeper into your blankets before you let the day begin.

Vink stretched until all her joints creaked and opened her eyes. She was in a real bed. She figured it might even be the next day. That hadn’t happened in a long, long time. Her happy mood evaporated. That’s what happened when you let your guard down. You started thinking of things you didn’t want to think about. Such as the fact that her stone times had been getting longer for quite some time now, and her living times shorter. Like when she’d first woken up in this new time. One evening was all she’d gotten. Two days in a row now felt like a special gift.

The cherry tree’s pink blossom and the bluebells didn’t look so inviting anymore. Maybe the good feeling wasn’t from real sleep, just from the bed. For all she knew it was sixty years later again. She slipped down the stairs in her stockinged feet. Red socks. In spite of her somber mood, the gaiety of colored socks gave her a little thrill of pleasure.

“Vink!” Austell’s voice said.

She stopped guiltily, but then a huge rush of relief swept over her. Austell was still a boy. It couldn’t have been years.

“How long?” she asked.

“Only a week.”

She sighed. “That’s marvelous. I’m always so afraid…” Her throat closed up and she couldn’t finish the sentence. Silly Vink, she chided herself. Stop confiding in the warm people. You are alone in this world and that’s how it’ll be.

“Breakfast first and then I’ll get you a day job,” Austell said.

Vink glanced outside. “If it’s been a week, maybe the kitchen garden needs weeding again?”

“I did most of that,” Austell said. “Asparagus and strawberries wait for no man.”

“Or woman,” Vink said.

Vink ate till she burst and staggered after Austell into the motorcar. By mysterious means, or possibly the telephone, he had organized work at a strawberry farm that day.

Several days passed like this. Vink woke up every morning in the same bed, more and more surprised. The same breakfast every day with Austell. Did she even like waking up to sameness?

Austell had bought old records for her to play, so she didn’t have to listen to the new music. That was impossible to get used to. Austell showed her how to use the telephone and was teaching her to drive. And to watch television without wincing. She just closed her eyes and imagined she was listening to the radio. He wanted to go dancing with her, but she didn’t want to be seen with a kid.

Vink sneezed. Oy, she was in the shed again. Time must have passed. She stumbled outside. The car was a different model and color. How many years?

“Vink!” a deep voice yelled, and she was almost bowled over by a burly man with an impressive width of shoulder.

He hugged her like she hadn’t been hugged in a century. “Austell?”

He smelled like a man. Vink leaned in, intoxicated by his scent and his warmth. She couldn’t help but assess what time of year it was. It was hot, the trees dark and heavy, a hint of wheat ripening in the fields. July, she thought.

“How long?” she asked.

“Seven years. I was afraid you’d wake up while I was at uni and I’d never see you again.”

“Because your parents wouldn’t look after me?”

Austell grimaced. “Yeah. Mom doesn’t really believe in stone women.”

“So this is 1990?” Vink had learned that keeping track of the exact date was very important in this time. “Anything new?”

“The Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union is toppling, a movie star became president.”

Yeah, that meant nothing to her. “I mean, things like new inventions, kings and queens…”

“Nope. Still Elizabeth. Planes, trains and automobiles you already knew.”

“Aw, pity. I was looking forward to flying cars and trips to the moon.”

Austell gave her a sharp look. “Did I forget to tell you that that actually happened? In 1969?”

Vink boggled and looked up instinctively, although the moon wouldn’t be visible by day. “People live on the moon?”

“No, not live. Just a few visits. A very arid and cold place. Vink, let me take you dancing tonight!”

“No, please, I can’t stand the music.”

“There’s special old-timers’ night every week in the city hall. You’ll like it, swing and old jazz. People dress up for it.”

Vink looked down at her checked shirt and jeans. “Not like this, I bet?”

“Mom went with dad all the time before she broke her ankle. I’m sure one of her dresses will fit you.”

“But I need to work!”

“It’s too late in the day to get you work. Come, I’m sure you never spent any of your wages from last time. You can stand me a pint.”

Vink dug up her money and counted it. “How much is a pint by now? Ten quid?”

“Just two.”

Although that would make a dent in her savings, she would get her meals and board at Austell’s anyway. Why not go mad a little?

Vink woke up next to a warm body. Oops. She checked, and was relieved that it was Austell. So last night had happened, and it was the next morning. 1990. Drink had been consumed; dancing had occurred. The old music Austell had promised had been new to Vink, but at least she could follow the tunes. She’d taught him the Lindy-Hop and he’d taught her to foxtrot. And then she’d taught him something else. She liked this grown-up Austell. He was sweet, he was warm and smelled good. What more could a difficult girl want?

A job maybe. What day jobs could she get at this time of year? Oh, wait, and a shower. She’d really enjoyed that last time.

Austell stirred beside her. “Hey,” he said sleepily.

“Good morning,” she said.

He stroked her hair. Vink was painfully reminded of how the other girls’ hair had looked, compared to her home-chopped boy cut, and winced away.

“What?”

“I’m not pretty like those other girls,” she said. “The curly hair and the lipstick. Why do you take an interest in me?”

Austell pulled her close, ignoring her averted face. “Why would curly hair and lipstick matter to me? That’s only the outside. Anyone can go to a hairdresser and slap on lipstick. It’s who you are that matters.”

He kissed her. It got later.

“It’s been three weeks now,” Austell said, as they took a late-night walk through the fields. “What’s the longest you’ve ever been awake?”

“My childhood was ordinary until I was thirteen or so. Then the sorcerer enchanted me and I turned to stone for a hundred years.”

“Were you a princess?”

“Ha-ha. Hardly.”

“And then?”

“Everyone I knew was dead and gone.”

“Okay, what’s the longest time you’ve been awake after that?”

“About six months, I think,” Vink said.

“When does it happen?”

“What do you mean?”

“When do you stay an evening and when six months? What’s the difference?”

Vink turned her head to look at him. Even in the dusk beneath the trees she could see the seriousness of his face. He meant it. He was going to try to make her stay. Didn’t he know that was hopeless?

“Don’t go there, Austell. I have no control over it. Trying and wanting this will only cause you heartbreak. I will be gone one day, and you shouldn’t wait for me. This is fun, you’re a wonderful guy, but it’s not going to last. It can’t.”

Austell set his jaw. “There has to be away.”

Vink sighed. “Oh Austell. Please don’t. Let’s just enjoy what time we have?”

The next evening Vink steered the borrowed jeep expertly into the parking space. She was a proper modern girl now. She’d even telephoned a potential employer. It wasn’t that hard, actually. Reading was another matter. Her brain had a really hard time holding on to the shapes of the letters. Her name, sure, Austell’s name, okay. But new words? Such a grind.

Austell came out of the house, his face set. Bad news.

“What is it?”

“There’s a war on. The reservists of my regiment have been called in. I’m leaving for the base tonight, probably for Saudi Arabia in a week.”

Vink didn’t even know where that was. Arabia. Deserts? “I thought Britain no longer had an empire?”

He hugged her tight. “I’m so sorry. I hate to leave you, but it’s unavoidable.”

“What if I pretend to be a man and sign on as well?”

He laughed. “You’d be outed at the first medical. Don’t be silly.”

Vink’s face hardened. “I served in the civil war. Don’t belittle me.”

“In America?”

“It was under Cromwell.”

His eyes got big as saucers.

She waved him off later that night, at an awkward distance from his parents. Vink already knew how that was going to go. They would be wanting to turn her out at the earliest opportunity. Well, she wasn’t going to wait for that. She packed a small rucksack with her stuff and snuck out in the middle of the night. It was summer, she could sleep outside easily. She didn’t want to be beholden to Austell’s suspicious parents.

She found a clearing in the woods, filled with the lacy seedheads of hemlock. The underground was dry and fragrant with summer.

As soon as Vink woke up, she knew time had passed. It was cold and her clothes weren’t adequate. Well, she knew how to do this. She walked through the grey morning until dawn had properly set. There, below her, lay Austell’s farm. Someone was moving around in the yard, working on a tractor. From the set of the shoulders and the movement she knew it was Austell. Not killed in the war then. She felt a wash of relief, and a gust of grief as well. She didn’t know what she wanted to do. No, she did know. The grief told her she’d already decided to go away. Spare Austell her presence and the trouble she brought.

Best make it a clean break. It was hard though, having to leave the area she’d lived in all her long life. Hundreds of years. She should buy some bread before she left, and find out what year it was. The village shop announced: “Closing after 75 years on Dec 31.”

She found the County Gazette and put her finger on the date. 2002? That was such an odd number. Could it be real? Eleven years gone. No great shock, except if she related it to Austell. He’d be in his thirties now.

She bought her loaf of bread at the crazy price of 57 pence. The girl behind the counter looked at her sharply. Vink didn’t know her, and didn’t see how the girl could recognize her. She turned around to leave and came face to face with a likeness of herself. “Please call if you see this woman,” she spelled out.

She checked the counter girl. And sure enough, she was on the telephone.

Quickly!

But the moment she stepped out onto the street she heard the familiar grumble and hiccup of Austell’s old Rover. Someone else must have seen her and phoned him. The bastard. Trying to curb her freedom.

The jeep turned the corner and raced towards the little shop. Run or stay?

Vink decided to stay. Austell would find her anyway.

She stepped to the curb, crossing her arms and putting on her sternest frown.

Austell practically jumped out of the car while it was still moving and ran up to her. He burst into laughter. “You have bedhead.”

He held his arms out wide and Vink fell into them.

Things had changed at the farm. Austell took her through the house without his usual glances to check where his mom was. Clearly it was his house now. Vink admitted to some relief. She could see the woman’s point, but it had still rankled to be regarded with so much suspicion.

“What happened to your parents?”

Austell didn’t even look up from his tea and toast making. “Dad died a couple of years ago, and Mom moved to a small flat in Taunton. She’s never been a country girl.”

Vink regarded Austell. He had filled out, become more of a man. Not old, but definitely no longer young. It had been ten years. What else had changed?

Vink dug into the toast. Real butter, she noticed, instead of the marge that had been served last time. She eyed her tea but knew it was still too hot to drink. Austell jumped up, filled a glass with water and handed it to her. He wasn’t a sweet little puppy anymore, but he still knew exactly what she wanted.

“You know why it was so long this time?” Austell began abruptly.

“No?” Vink said over a mouthful of toast.

“Because I was gone. My parents told me you lit out even before they had worked up the courage to ask you to leave.”

Vink shrugged. “I knew it was coming. Your mom was dead set against me.”

“Sure. But I think you went into stone for so long because I wasn’t there for you.”

“You had to go to war!” Vink said. “I understood. How was the war, by the way? Is it over?”

“It was terrible, and it is sort of over, but also not, if you know what I mean?”

No, she didn’t. But why bother getting up to speed on politics?

“So now that you finally woke up, I want you to stay. For good. I bet that if I’m sleeping next to you, you’ll stay warm.”

Vink blinked. That was so sweet. But she couldn’t take the offer. His mom had been right. She’d ruin him. His normal life, with a normal wife and kids.

“We can’t do that, Austell. This is my lot to deal with, I can’t drag you along. What kind of life would you have? You deserve happiness and kids and stuff.”

He leaned forward, a light in his eyes. “Yes, I do. Happiness with you, and kids with you. How about it?”

Vink’s face flamed up. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

“Yes, of course.” He beamed at her.

She wanted to beam back and shout yes, but of course that was impossible.

“Come on. Next time I wake up you’ll be old. And the time after that you’ll be dead.”

“I like to think I’ll get older than fifty-six,” Austell said. “People generally live to eighty, you know.”

“But I’ll be young!”

“You won’t like me anymore when I’m old and crusty?” he said, looking wounded.

Vink didn’t know what to say to that. Maybe, maybe not? Her face was scrunched up so hard she felt a headache coming on.

“Listen, Vink. I’m not just doing this for me. What if this farm was a place you could always come back to? Your kids and grandkids would always know you.”

He looked so pleading. But that was not what the problem was. ‘Not just doing it for himself.’ He wasn’t doing it just for himself, he was doing it mostly for her.

It would be wonderful not to have to always wake up wary and afraid, not to have to scrounge for her next meal and a place to sleep. It sounded loving and peaceful. She’d only endured, until now. She’d never lived.

Vink couldn’t bear Austell’s hopeful, nervous gaze any longer. She reached across the table and took his hand. “All right,” she said. “Let’s do it.”

Vink woke up on a shadowed bench in the courtyard. Robin hurtled herself on her lap. “Mommy mommy mommy!”

She sighed in relief. Not long, not that long. Robin had hardly grown. Every now and then she still turned to stone for a few weeks or months, but never as long as she’d used to. Austell had been right. Love mattered.

Austell came out of the kitchen, dish cloth still in hand. ” You’re awake. Isn’t this a lovely place to wake up? I planted wisteria and lily-in-the-valley. So you’ll always be surrounded by good scents.”

A small part of Vink still wanted to wake up alone in the wild woods, overgrown with cow parsley, but that Vink had mostly been hungry, cold and lonely. She stood up to hug her husband. She was happy, for now. Looking too far ahead into the future would only make her sad, so she didn’t. She knew how to seize the day.

_______________

Bo Balder lives and works close to Amsterdam. Bo is the first (and so far only) Dutch author to have been published in Clarkesworld, F&SF, and Analog. Her science fiction novel The Wan was published by Pink Narcissus Press. When not writing, she knits, reads and gardens—preferably all three at the same time.

For more about her work, you can visit her website or find Bo on Facebook or Twitter, or her author page at Amazon.