Sisters, Long Ago

  Mrs. Paige smiled. “I’m glad to hear that,” she said. “We’ll postpone your birthday dinner until tomorrow but I just happen to have blueberry muffins in the oven. Would you like room service tonight?”

  “Sounds great.” Blueberry muffins were her favorite kind.

  “We might even let you open your gifts in bed.”

  As her mother turned to leave, Willow said, “Wait a minute, Mom.”

  Her mother looked back.

  Willow tried to keep her voice casual, as if this question were perfectly ordinary. “Do you remember if I made a drawing for Grandma once, for a present? It was a red picture on yellow paper, when I was real little.”

  “It was for Mother’s Day,” Mrs. Paige said, “when you were three. You knew it was Mother’s Day because Dad took you and Sarah shopping the day before. He bought gifts for me and for Grandma. But you made the drawing all on your own and when Grandma and Grandpa came for dinner that day, you brought it to her, so proud, and you said, ‘Happy . . .’ and then you stopped. You couldn’t remember what the occasion was. Finally you blurted out, ‘Happy YOUR Day!’ and handed her the drawing. I’ll never forget it.”

  Mrs. Paige’s eyes looked moist. “Mother never forgot it, either. She kept that drawing and I found it in her desk, when I went through her things.”

  “What did you do with it?”

  “I couldn’t bear to throw it out; I put it in your Save Box.”

  “Could I see it?”

  Mrs. Paige went into the hall and opened the linen closet. From her bed, Willow saw her mother reach up to the top shelf and remove a brown cardboard box. She carried it back to Willow’s room and handed it to her.

  The box was labeled Willow’s Save Box and it contained items such as report cards, school pictures, and her Certificate of Graduation from Tiny Tots Nursery School. There were some old newspaper clippings and the book of poetry that Willow’s fifth grade class put together and a pile of other keepsakes. Her mother rummaged through it all and handed her a piece of yellow construction paper, covered with red squiggles and lines. On the back was written, “Happy YOUR Day from Willow, age 3.” She recognized her grandmother’s handwriting.

  Willow stared at the drawing. It was exactly what she’d seen in her mind as she struggled to keep her head above the water at Pinecone Lake. Apparently she had recalled, in accurate detail, a scene from her childhood, a scene which she had consciously forgotten.

  And the other scene? Did that, too, come from some vast subconsciousness?

  Only one explanation made any sense. She’d heard that when people are near death, important scenes from their lifetimes sometimes flash before their eyes. This would explain the Mother’s Day scene with her grandparents, and Willow’s knowledge that she was loved.

  But what about the other scene? The odd clothing, the raft made from branches, and the river with tall reeds and crocodiles, unlike any river Willow knew?

  Was it possible that scenes from a previous lifetime might also flash before one’s eyes, just before death? Had she lived before, long ago in another time and place? And had the girl with the braid lived then, too?

  Did the same person save her from drowning twice—once when she was Willow Paige and once when she was someone named Kalos? Kalos who? She didn’t know that other person’s last name. The girl who floundered in the river reeds had no identity except, inexplicably, the name Kalos.

  It was enough.

  I was Kalos, Willow thought. She didn’t know how or why, but she knew she had witnessed herself in another body.

  Where had it been? When?

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Mrs. Paige asked. “You look a bit pale.”

  Willow forced a smile.

  “What made you ask about this drawing? I’m surprised you even remember it.”

  “I didn’t exactly remember it,” Willow said. “I . . .” She hesitated. Should she tell her mother what had happened? Should she describe the scenes and explain her certainty that the people in the second one were herself and the girl with the braid, even though the scene clearly took place long ago, in a far-off country?

  Maybe she should. Maybe Mom could help her understand what it all meant.

  “It happened while I was in the water,” Willow said. “Just before . . .”

  In the kitchen, the oven timer buzzed loudly.

  “Excuse me, Willow,” her mother said. “The muffins are done. I’ll be back with your dinner in a few minutes.”

  Willow dropped the squiggly red drawing back into the carton labeled Willow’s Save Box and watched her mother hurry from the room.

  3

  THAT NIGHT, she dreamed about Kalos and Tiy.

  Her parents came into her room to say goodnight, the way they used to when she was little.

  “You gave us a scare,” Mr. Paige said.

  “I don’t even want to think about it,” Mrs. Paige said. “If we lost you. . .”

  “We didn’t lose her,” Mr. Paige said. “And we aren’t going to.” He spoke firmly, as if by speaking with assurance, Fate would not dare to prove him wrong. “Happy birthday, Willow. And many happy returns.”

  Many happy returns. As she thought of Kalos and Tiy, the traditional birthday greeting took on a new meaning.

  She heard the “click” of the bedside lamp and she heard her parents leave the room. Then she fell into a deep sleep, and had the first of the dreams.

  Kalos was walking with her family—her mother, father, and Tiy—on a dirt road. Kalos and her mother and Tiy all wore long white linen gowns, belted at the waists. Her father wore a white loin cloth, crossed in front. Other people, similarly attired, walked near them but nobody spoke. It was early in the morning, not yet dawn. The round moon cast a silvery sheen on the road as they walked toward the temple of Amun-Ra, to worship.

  Of all the gods, Kalos loved Amun-Ra the best. And of all the holy days, this was her favorite. Even though it meant getting up from her sleeping mat long before it was light and making the long walk to the temple of Amun-Ra, Kalos didn’t mind. She hoped they would arrive early enough to get a good vantage point.

  The temple was designed so that at dawn on the day of the winter solstice, the sun’s rays shone directly on the temple altar. Kalos got gooseflesh on her arms, just thinking about it. Of course, she could never see the altar itself; only the priests were allowed inside the temple. But on this special morning, devout people gathered outside the temple and waited to see if Amun-Ra would ascend on time.

  Last year, Kalos had been close enough to hear the chanting of the priests and her heart had filled with joy when Amun-Ra’s glorious light arrived. Since then, the season of sowing and the season of harvest had passed, and now, today, the earth was again in exactly the right position.

  She thought the people who designed the temple were the most clever people in the land. Surely Amun-Ra would reward them generously.

  Kalos set her basket of grapes, pomegranates, and duck eggs with the other offerings. Then she stood outside the dark temple, huddled shoulder to shoulder with other people from the village, waiting for Amun-Ra to illuminate the sky. It made her shiver with excitement to know that this was the exact moment when winter began.

  Shortly before dawn, her father began the solemn prayers.

  “Thou art beautiful, O gleaming Amun-Ra.

  When thou risest in the east, thy warmth spreads across all the land and chases the darkness away.

  Thou art mighty. Thou art high and shining. Thy rays sparkle on the mountaintops and penetrate the deepest sea.

  We praise thee, mighty Amun-Ra, king of the gods, giver of all life.”

  Kalos felt a special love for Amun-Ra. The other gods were only names, faraway deities with no visible form. Amun-Ra was real. She could look up whenever she chose and see his sun-boat sailing across the sky. Whenever she felt the heat of the sun on her arms and face, she remembered that Amun-Ra had chosen her especially to receive his blessing. It was a secret she had shared
with no one.

  As the prayer continued, she looked upward. Would Amun-Ra bless them again this year? She had worshipped him faithfully and loved him truly. Her family had never taken water from a neighbor’s field, nor baked sacrificial loaves that were too small. Still, the gods were sometimes unpredictable and there was always the chance that she would stand here in the darkness, past the time of dawning, while Amun-Ra stayed hidden in the chambers of the underworld, sailing his boat along the river-under-the-Earth.

  In the darkness, something touched her hand. It was Tiy. Tiy’s fingers trembled as they intertwined with hers and Kalos knew her sister shared her apprehension. Kalos squeezed Tiy’s hand, to reassure her, and Tiy squeezed back. The firm pressure of her sister’s hand made Kalos stand straighter.

  Slowly, the sky lightened. She could make out the shadowy forms of the date palm trees and, beyond them, the temple’s great pylon.

  The ram-headed sphinxes along the road went from gray to silver to pink as the morning’s first light touched them. And then, in a sudden glowing burst of brightness, the golden rays of Amun-Ra shone directly on the temple’s massive columns. Winter was here but they need not fear its darkness, for once again Amun-Ra promised heat and light in abundance.

  Kalos closed her eyes and felt the light of Amun-Ra surround her, enter her, shine through her. Her heart filled with love for this most wonderful of gods. She knew Amun-Ra had chosen her, more than the others, to receive his special light. When she felt it shining through her, she was filled with gladness.

  * * *

  WILLOW AWOKE with a start. Her heart pounded and she felt an incredible sense of well-being. She blinked in the darkness, unsure at first where she was. Gradually, she realized she was in her own room, in the same bed she’d slept in every night since she was two years old.

  She closed her eyes and tried to recall the dream which made her feel so happy.

  Tiy. The name leapt into Willow’s mind and with it, the dream came back to her. She saw herself as Kalos, with her family, at the temple. She felt again her love and gratitude toward Amun-Ra.

  Amun-Ra! Willow had never heard of any god named Amun-Ra. And she’d never had strange dreams like that before, dreams peopled with herself in a different body, living in a distant, unknown land.

  The odd dream made Willow anxious. Was it possible that the near-drowning had somehow affected her brain? Was she hallucinating? Was the scene of Kalos falling from the raft and now the dream of Kalos outside the temple some bizarre trick of her mind?

  Or was she actually recalling scenes from a previous lifetime?

  Maybe when she was drowning, the scene from an earlier lifetime came to her and now, even though she was no longer in any danger, the way was somehow cleared for more of those long ago memories to surface.

  The thought excited and scared her at the same time. Was it dangerous to have such dreams? Was it possible for her to slip backwards in time and not return?

  Again, she wished she knew the identity of the girl with the braid. She remembered the piercing look the girl gave her as Willow watched her struggle with the beach umbrella. At the time, Willow thought it was because the girl had caught her staring. Now she wondered if it was something more. Had the girl with the braid recognized Willow? Was the girl already aware of a kinship in another life?

  I need to find her, Willow thought. I need to find out whether she knows anything about a previous life. If I don’t, I’ll always wonder about this.

  At breakfast the next morning, Willow said, “I’d really like to find the girl who saved me from drowning. I want to thank her in person.”

  “Why don’t you look in your school yearbook?” suggested Mr. Paige. “If she was at Pinecone Lake, she probably lives somewhere in this area.”

  After Willow loaded the dishes into the dishwasher, she took out her yearbook and looked carefully at every picture. None of them looked anything like the girl with the braid. She described the girl to Sarah, too, but Sarah had no idea who it might be.

  “Could I put a notice in the newspaper?” Willow asked. “In the Personals column?”

  Willow and Gretchen read the Personals faithfully. There were always several ads describing the kind of person the ad-placer wanted to date.

  Young athletic nonsmoking male wishes to meet attractive woman under 30. Purpose: tennis, sailing, and?

  Willow and Gretchen wrote fake responses to the ads, describing themselves in glowing terms and adding ten years to their ages. Dear Sir: I am a gorgeous gymnastics instructor, age 23. I like tennis and sailing; I love? They never mailed such letters, of course, but they had fun writing them.

  Mr. Paige agreed that an ad would be Willow’s best chance to locate the girl.

  Willow composed the ad carefully. She wanted to put in something about a past life but she was afraid she’d sound so crazy that the girl with the braid wouldn’t answer the ad, even if she saw it. She decided to find the girl first and then worry about whether they had known each other before, in another lifetime.

  Will girl who saved other girl from drowning on August 23 at Pinecone Lake please call 344–6005?

  “I don’t like putting our telephone number in the newspaper,” Mrs. Paige said. “We could get all manner of crazy calls.”

  “Would you rather have me put in our address?” Willow asked.

  “No. That’s even worse.”

  “She has to have some way to contact me.”

  Willow knew why her mother hesitated. When Sarah first got sick, the local paper did a story about her. It told how cheerful she was and how determined to fight her disease and win. On the day the article was printed, the Paiges received several telephone calls. Most were from other people who knew a leukemia patient. Most offered sympathy or advice. But one of the calls was terrible.

  Willow had answered it. A man’s voice, scratchy and low, had whispered, “Sarah’s going to die. Sarah’s going to die soon and the worms will eat her body.”

  Horrified, Willow had handed the phone to her father. Mr. Paige listened for a moment, cursed, and hung up. The man didn’t call back but for weeks afterwards, whenever the phone rang, Willow remembered his sinister voice, whispering in her ear. She still shuddered, every time she thought about it.

  Willow agreed; she didn’t want a phone number in the ad.

  “Let’s rent a Post Office box,” Mr. Paige suggested. “We can use the box number in the ad.”

  “Great idea,” Willow said. “If any weird people read the ad, they won’t know where we live or our phone number.”

  Mrs. Paige nodded her agreement. Mr. Paige said he would stop at the Post Office on his lunch hour and rent the box. Then he would call the newspaper and place the ad.

  That afternoon, Willow went back to Pinecone Lake. She didn’t swim. She walked along the beach and looked at the people. For a while she sat in the sun, relishing the warmth on her shoulders. She closed her eyes and turned her face up. As always, the sun soothed her.

  Thank you, Amun-Ra, she thought and smiled to herself. She liked having this new—or was it old?—name for the sun. She wondered if her fondness for the sun had anything to do with the feelings of Kalos. Was this part of her personality a carry-over from that earlier existence? Did she, Willow, like the warmth of the sun so much because in another lifetime she had worshipped a sun god?

  Willow stood up and began walking again. The more she thought about the whole situation, the more complicated it became. Was reincarnation possible? Do people live more than one life? If they do, how soon does it happen? Are they born again right away or do many years go by in between lives?

  Maybe Grandma and Grandpa had already been reborn. What if some little baby, yowling and sucking on a bottle, was Grandma? That idea gave her a creepy feeling. And it didn’t fit with the fact that, when she was drowning, she saw Grandma and Grandpa waiting for her. They held out their arms to her, looking just the way they used to look.

  Maybe she should forget the whole thing. Put
Kalos and Tiy and the girl with the braid completely out of her mind and pretend that none of this had ever happened.

  Only she couldn’t. She was too curious; the vision and the dream had seemed too real. She continued down the beach, searching for the girl with the braid.

  The girl with the braid was not there.

  4

  THE AMBULANCE came at midnight.

  Two days after Willow’s birthday, Sarah awoke in the night, drenched with sweat. She complained of pain in her knees and elbows. Mrs. Paige took Sarah’s temperature, looked at the thermometer, and called Dr. Rogers immediately.

  “It’s probably only the flu,” Sarah protested. “Let’s wait and see how I feel tomorrow. I’ll take Tylenol.”

  Willow could tell by looking at Sarah that it was not the flu. Sarah was pale as a new moon in winter and there were odd red blotches on her arms. She needed more than Tylenol. Much more.

  “Call an ambulance,” Dr. Rogers said. “I’ll meet you at the hospital.”

  Willow felt sick herself as she watched the attendants wheel Sarah toward the door.

  “We’ll follow you in our car,” Mr. Paige said, “and meet you at the emergency entrance.” He turned to Willow. “Can you hold down the fort here by yourself?” he asked.

  Willow nodded.

  “We’ll call you when we know anything,” Mr. Paige said, and then they were gone.

  Willow stood at the living room window and watched the whirling ambulance lights and the red taillights of her parents’ car disappear. She turned on the TV. She might as well watch an old movie; there was no way she could sleep.

  She wanted to call Gretchen and ask if Gretchen could come over, but she knew Gretchen’s parents would not let her go out alone after midnight nor would they want to get up and drive her over.

  At 3 A.M., she made buttered popcorn and shared it with Muttsie. At 4:30, she fell asleep on the sofa. That’s where she was when her parents came home, just after nine.

  “They gave her a transfusion,” Mrs. Paige said.

  That didn’t tell her much. Sarah often had transfusions.