EJ stirred as he looked around the room, seeing Ma and Pa all in a strange room. "What am I doing here, Ma?" As everyone laughed. "Man, I'm hungry," trying to sit up and dizzy. EJ looked at Richard, Will, and Robert in their shorts and smiled at Sam and Teddy. "Pa, where are we?" EJ asked again as he looked around the room, Ma tucking the sheets around his waist.
Everyone laughed at him as Aunty M. walked back into the barracks, closed the door, came over, and gave him a hug. "Don't you ever do that to me again," she said, shaking her finger at him, then running her fingers through his hair and sighing, wiping a tear from her eye.
It was just a dance with Time, but somebody is still after this one. The question is, who? And what deal can I make, if any? Some may question a dance as just a dance, but others may question the dance partner. The real question lies in Time, plus who you know and what you may not know. Regarding what and who is behind the looking glass, you are the Judge of what Aunty M. really knows.
Round and round, the others danced the night away, mingling, slapping congratulations to the new Mayor and the Second Sheriff of New Downing. "Hello, partner, I'd need to see you. Wayne!" Sheriff Whitmore watched them all head back to the farm and yelled at him. "You forgot to tell me a few things!" watching Wayne getting lost in the crowd.
Wayne looks back at Sheriff Whitmore as he leaves and grins. "Come, dear, come, my little family," picking EJ up in his arms. Ma wraps him up in a sheet as they load him and the boys back up with blankets and masks. They take them all back to the farm in the cars, not saying goodbye. "Let's go home, boys," Pa said.
"Yes, Pa. Yes, sir."
The nurses were waiting for them to sign back in and scrub them all down before Ma tucked them safely back into their beds to make sure. Give each one more shot in the arm before leaving and one more in the hip. "Ouch, that smarts." Ma kissed each of the boys before leaving the room, closed the door, checked the closet, looked under the beds, and then locked the door behind her. "Ma?"
"Yes, boys?"
"Please leave the light on for a while," she nods, then shuts the door with a click of the lock. Hearing Richard and Robert jump out of bed and move the dresser against the closet door, she smiles and nods to Pa as she rubs her arms and leans close to him.
Neither of them says a word; they walk down the hall toward Sam and Teddy's room. They take just a slight pause at the door, looking for shadows or hearing voices coming from Aunty M.'s room. "Nah, just her snoring," they sighed and opened the boys' room, bending down to give each of them a kiss on their heads.
Ma sighed. "I miss him so much, Wayne. I do hope he is ok," she asked.
"He'll be back, dear, she promised; one more week, dear, I checked; he was fine. Strange it was just them," Pa said as Ma gazed down the hall towards the boys' room, "and one especially," he whispered, closing the door. Turning the corner to the girl's room, he looked at his angels still awake. They sat on the bed beside them. "Are you girls disappointed we didn't stay for the dance?" he asked.
"No, Pa," the girls said as they looked towards the boys' room. "We thought we saw someone or something, that's all," they said as they pointed to the corner of the room.
Ma, Pa looked in the corner, at the girls, and down the hall. "Did he say who?"
"No, Pa, he left when you opened the door. Can we sleep with you tonight?" Anna asked with wanting eyes, and Julie held Pa's arms.
"We all can," Ma replied as Pa led his girls down to their bedroom with blankets and pillows. Ma grabbed Sam, Pa grabbed Ted, and they jumped into their great big bed with the light on and the door wide open so they could see the boys' room with a key in Ma's hand. They nestled together, falling to sleep, and waited to tell morning when the roosters crowed, though it would never come.
With morning comes a soft, cool morning breeze out of the north, Letting Pa know that fall is coming, and summer will be gone soon. Still, there were just enough warm summer days, not too many, as he watched the little ones play in their summer clothes.
Pa realizes the boys need clothes to wear because theirs had to be all destroyed, and we have work that needs to be done and sighs. Martha leaned down and looked at his charts on the table. "Looks like we need to go into town again," he said, looking at his list of supplies. "Is there anything you need while I'm there? Just going up to Santaquin, I'll take Ned and Bill with me," Wayne said as Martha looked towards the barn.
"Yes, dear," she said, getting her sewing basket, nodding with a sigh, walked down the hall. While Wayne yells for his Deputies to pull out the pick-up and load it up with things for trade for Dave at the store. Martha unlocked the boys' room, brought in her sewing basket, and looked at her four boys, shaking her head. "Sorry, boys," she said, pulling out her measuring tape pad and pencil. "We had no choice; Doc didn't want to take the risk," Ma said with a worried look as she tried to smile at EJ. He still looked peek 'ed and still very weak.
"Yes, Ma, yes, ma'am," Richard sighs and stands. "Why sweat it, right, ma'am?" Richard said, going first.
Martha laughed, sitting on the bed. "Right," she nodded her head. She measured each one as they said, "That tickles."
"Man, Robert, I swear those legs get longer and longer. Doc says we can even fit you for a new pair of shorts, EJ," Ma said as she measured his waist, "and take these stitches out next week. But he still likes you to wear that Kitenge around the house, but we can fit you for a pair of overalls, too, just a bigger pair, I think, while you are out on the farm," she said.
"Yes, Ma," he said. He gave her a hug and a kiss, looking down at his feet, "But do I have to wear those?" he said, pointing to the shoes in the box. Robert, Will, and Richard laughed. Ma sighed, rubbed his hair, tucked it back under his bed,
"Thanks, Ma," EJ said.
"It's not winter yet," she said, leaving the boys alone, shaking her head and closing the door. Martha walked down the hall to the kitchen and handed the list to Pa. " Here's the list, dear," she said, laughing, looking down the hall and thinking of her boys. Feeling a sudden chill in the air. "Wayne, dear, you will hurry right back?" She said, holding him in her arms.
"Yes, dear," he replied. Pa and the boys headed towards town while Ma busied herself in the kitchen, and Aunty M. and the girls watched the little ones play on the farm while the other men and women in New Downing and Cracken Villa were busy building New Downing. Her children are the only ones that have been excused from school. Ma is home-schooling them because they are under lockdown. Doc is not taking any chance for another twenty-four hours, regardless of whether they feel fine; at least three boys and one are still under observation.
EJ felt a draft in the room, the boys watching his face turn white and pale, and three boys looked towards a corner at nothing, thinking they saw a shadow. Chills ran up and down their spine as they looked at his face. It went dark, and he fainted and returned to sleep. Robert runs down the hall, yelling for Ma to come quickly as Ma drops the cup in her hand. She, too, feels a strong, cold breeze and hears a whisper. "Thanks, I got it. I will be a few minutes," the cold voice said as the door in the bedroom shuts in her face, leaving her and Robert outside the hall. Will and Richard were in the room pinned against the wall in their beds, looking at nothing and wondering what was happening around them except the cold, displaced wind and strange whispering in the room.
Martha pounds heavily on the door, and Aunty M., hearing the noise, sees Robert and Martha in the hallway. She screamed as she watched the shadow climb from underneath the door, gliding away, whispering. "I'll be back to dance when he's ready," the cold voice said. "I am the beacon and the guide, the warning before the tide. You will not see me, you will not need me till it's time, and then when end cometh, I'll guide you safely to distant shore. Until then, you won't remember me or mourn my passing upon the evening tides. For I am the warning and the sign and will guide him when the time is right. But for now, it's just a warning and a sign that more are coming; he knows me; we go way back a long way." As the shadow glides and disappears in the bedroom, the door opens.
Will and Richard are in their beds, shivering with fear, and the air is ice cold. EJ is sound asleep, breathing slowly and sweating from a hard day's workout. Ma runs to the boys, embracing them both to calm their fears and hers. They couldn't tell them a single word, just a feeling he was somewhere else doing something, and it was cold, very cold in the room. Their knees were shaking, and they rubbed their hands for warmth as they watched EJ's sleeping face.
Ma gently placed another quilt on him and wiped the cold sweat off his face. He looked older now and tired; she noticed the slight changes in his face as she bent down to kiss his cheek. She could feel the temperature was almost normal. Tucking him in, she sat in the chair and waited for Pa to return while holding his hand in the other.