“—Whatcha reading?” Aiden interrupted.

“Good heavens!” Mrs. Moore jumped, almost knocking the binder into the bare patch of dirt worn into the mulch by the feet of those who sat at this park bench.

She caught it, just barely, slapping her hands down against the pages of Tabitha’s Goblin Princess outline before they could slip out of her lap. It was a thick binder, and if she was honest with herself it seemed to grow a little heavier with each page she read. Sometimes she could only read and helplessly reread her daughter’s words over and over again in consternation and disbelief.

“Young man!” Mrs. Moore finally collected her wits about her with an exasperated laugh. “You were ‘bout liable to give me a heart attack!

“Aiden!” Tabitha yelled from the other side of the playground. “Please don’t bother your Auntie Shannon when she’s reading. Say you’re sorry and come back over here with your brothers.”

“Sorry,” Aiden complied, giving Mrs. Moore another glance before trotting back over to the others.

Her heart in her throat, Shannon Moore spent a long moment watching her daughter play with the four cousins. Tabitha had them all lined up and was showing them some dance or another—Mrs. Moore didn’t have the faintest clue about modern dance and couldn’t tell whether this was supposed to be the electric slide or the macarena—but she still just looked so young that it was all but impossible to reconcile the frail little girl with the one who was capable of writing about all of these dreadful things.

I KNOW that Tabby’s sharp, Mrs. Moore watched on with a complicated expression. But this—? This is beyond her just being a smart kid, this is—I don’t know what to do with this. She’s putting words to things I’ve felt for—for a long time. Too long. More than just putting words to them, she UNDERSTANDS them. To her they’re these, these fully-fleshed-out ideas she can turn over and examine in her mind, ideas that she’s already figuring out how to fit into other things.

Mrs. Moore adjusted her parka and drew Goblin Princess the rest of the way back up into her lap, cradling it carefully against herself.

As a parent, it’s so EASY to underestimate how much she’s grown up! She’ll always be my little girl, but she’s a teenager now. And somehow, she understood. Really understood, that I had completely lost my own narrative. That I thought I was going to be a model, a beautiful Hollywood actress, a star, a SOMEONE, and that I was so set on it, so set on just racing down that path, that once I WASN’T—there was nothing left of me. No spark, no drive, nothing but just complete bitterness.

It was alarming that Tabitha understood so much, alarming that Mrs. Moore could feel that same bitterness rising up from the girl’s written words. To such an extent that they stung! She’d never in her life read anything that made her lose her composure so easily—this was the daughter she’d so thoroughly failed to connect with in the past summer months of this year. These were some of the feelings Tabitha was grappling with and struggling to jot down back then.

Lord help me—raising a teenage daughter sure isn’t easy.

Ostensibly, Mrs. Moore was here at the playground to chaperone the boys and keep an eye on Tabitha should she start feeling faint again— which still happened frequently enough to make Mrs. Moore’s insides feel like they were twisting themselves up into knots. But, the reality was that she was terrified to allow Tabitha out of her sight.

When Tabitha had set about her little neighborhood weeding project, and both of the times Tabitha went out to work at setting up the garden plot in their yard for spring, Mrs. Moore had stolen up to the window and watched her in secret the entire time. Guilt, relief, and some difficult-to-define sense of dependency were continuing to gnaw at the mother in a maddening way. Her overprotective instincts had kicked in—too little, too late—and she had no earthly idea how to manage them.

At the same time, Mrs. Moore knew Tabitha was already feeling smothered beneath the restrictions placed upon her for the sake of recovery. There were plenty of excuses to hover over the girl when she was cooking or out here with the boys, but there was also the constant compulsion to follow Tabitha everywhere she went, even from room to room in the house, and that was too much. She couldn’t do that—because while not knowing what her daughter was up to every second of the day stirred up anxiety, the idea that Tabitha would start to resent her presence filled her with absolute dread.

Hypocrite mother that I am, Mrs. Moore couldn’t help but steal another glance over at Tabitha. All of those years when she needed me, I couldn’t stand to be around her. Now, she’s at the age where she’s trying to go out and be her own person, and I can’t bear to give her any space.

“Is... everything okay?” Tabitha called over.

“Oh! Yes, yes,” Mrs. Moore forced a smile, looking from Tabitha to the notebook and back again with an incredulous shake of her head. “This is all—well, it’s incredible, honey.”

“Okay. Keep on reading. If you want to, that is,” Even in the distance, she could see Tabitha muster her own nervous smile. “I’ll try to keep the boys occupied.”

Feeling inexplicably strained, Mrs. Moore forced herself to turn her attention to the next story section of Goblin Princess.

That sounds… just absolutely dreadful! Mrs. Moore couldn’t help but glance over at her daughter again.

Each page of the story manuscript itself was written on white notebook paper, which was then followed by Tabitha’s commentary put onto yellow legal paper, and sometimes there were as many as three or four yellows for every white page. Mrs. Moore first read a single story page, then she delved into the yellow legal pages wherein Tabitha often explained how the ideas were connected and outlined the purpose they served in the larger narrative. Mrs. Moore read these pages over and over and over again, searching for and studying over every scrap and hint Tabitha was willing to reveal before finally returning to reread the story page with new appreciation.

Though she had of course read screenplays before, Shannon Moore didn’t regularly read for fun, and her daughter’s writing prowess was honestly intimidating. Some details were easily gleaned from her first casual read-through—the book was intended for an audience of teen readers, after all—but reading the note pages always seemed to shock Mrs. Moore.

Tabby just has so many ideas she puts into these!

A good deal of the process seemed to be Tabitha creating a methodology for herself as she wrote. The girl was attempting to use a regular rotation of sensory exposition—visuals, sounds, smells, tactile sensations, temperature and et cetera—while also utilizing what she called her ‘economy of words’ stratagem, using increasingly brief references to past descriptors to omit the more lengthy and repetitive description.

The slave irons worn about Beon’s wrists had been written in lavish detail in a previous chapter, both because of what they represented to him and because he would rattle and shake his chains simply to annoy his captors—a character moment. Censede’s first line of dialogue here in this section immediately conjured that scene from the reader's memory. As the story progressed, Tabitha would ease back and only allude to previous imagery or build ever so slightly upon them, using less words to greater effect each time because the ‘set pieces’ and ‘production value’ now already existed in the reader's imagination.

Many of the more complete notes were almost too verbose to follow, but more than the technical difficulty of interpreting it all, there was just something sanitized and clinical about all of this story authoring that Mrs. Moore found honestly bewildering. It was the unorganized notes Mrs. Moore adored and kept poring over again and again; most of them were meandering rambles, important abstracts that Tabitha hadn’t quite completely organized yet. Each of these seemed like a precious gem that might allow Mrs. Moore to glean better insights into her daughter’s actual feelings and thought processes.

She eagerly flipped forward to the next yellow page, completely enthralled.

Mrs. Moore rocked back in her seat at the memory of taking a very young little Tabitha to the flea market. It had been a fair drive away across Sandborough, over forty-five minutes, and she only remembered the whole place as being crowded and unpleasant. The rows of stalls had been beneath the roof of a long covered pavilion, but it was still too sweaty and humid. Their little Tabby had gotten hungry and started whining for one of the disgusting overpriced hot dogs some filthy vendor was selling, and personally Mrs. Moore been resolved to never allow their family another trip to the flea market. So, they’d never visited the place again after that.

But, she wrote here that she remembered it was fun, Mrs. Moore seemed flabbergasted. Never even considered what it might have been like to her little eyes. To her it wasn’t awful, it was just this exciting new experience. Part of her fresh narrative. All these years, and we never ever even talked about the flea market again. Talked about going ANYWHERE. These notes of hers, they’re not a diary, but then somehow... they also are.

There were also sections that Mrs. Moore couldn’t make any sense of at all.

Darkweb marketplace... thing? Shannon repeated to herself, rereading over the phrase again for any context clue she’d missed. I’ve never heard of anything like that. Silk road? Wiki? What in the heck is a wiki page?

Although Tabitha did occasionally misspell things, all of the errors thus far had already been caught and struck through, likely long before this notebook came into Mrs. Moore’s hands. Wiki might have instead been shorthand for something—but, she couldn’t imagine what it might be. Wiki? Her guesses leapt all the way from the city of Wichita in Kansas to bamboo tiki torches, with no concrete way of connecting different possible meanings into something she could make any heads or tails of.

While Tabitha’s story itself was written in fairly simple parlance as it was intended for an audience of a certain age range, her unorganized scribbles were often downright strange. Seemingly made-up parlance and methods of expression for who-knows-what were common, and the notes also fell into a strange habit of mixing tenses so incomprehensibly that it was difficult to tell whether they were referencing an occurrence that happened in the past, or one that would perhaps happen someday in the future. Tabitha didn’t seem to be able to mentally separate observation from speculation—but, for some reason none of her casual assertions seemed born from childish naivete, either. Something about it all seemed very off to Mrs. Moore, but it was difficult for her to put her finger on exactly why.

Also, whenever the word ‘goblin’ pops up in her notes, there’s this STIGMA of inferiority to it. I feel like I should maybe talk with her about that. But then, at the same time— it’s like where to even begin? I need someone to have that talk with ME. It’s like seeing Tabitha elaborate on all of these concepts really strikes home how many of my own issues I’ve yet to ever unpack. It’s intimidating that she’s capable of writing these things out. That she gets herself so intent on not leaving anything out that may be important to her story, her own narrative…

Mrs. Moore’s thoughts couldn’t help but keep returning to the idea of narrative. Her own book of Shannon Delain had obviously already closed—it was long since over and done with. But after such a long— too long—period of suffering through self-loathing and drowning herself in what she now recognized was severe clinical depression, a new narrative was beginning for her. One that began that late night epiphany after she’d cooked that godawful broccoli—or, maybe it really started with the unexpected clashes she had arguing with Tabitha over the summer.

Maybe I started into my new identity when I decided to start walking in the mornings, Mrs. Moore mused. That was a big change—feeling resolved about anything at all. Maybe it was the moment I made love to Alan again, after so long. SO damned long! Maybe this real Shannon Moore came about when we thought we’d lost our baby girl, and who knows? Maybe who I’ll be, what I’ll be all about is something still up in the air, something that’s still undecided, something that’s yet to come to pass.

She hadn’t actually started considering it all until the Moore family attended that church service. Some of her fears about presenting herself socially again reared up and absolutely suffocated her, while other fears instead seemed to fall away like they’d never existed at all. Was there some sort of dissociation at play? Or, was it because she’d begun to untangle her current narrative from the dead weight of Shannon Delain? It was so strange feeling alive again, feeling purpose and drive again after so long, feeling herself transform.

Strange and more than a little terrifying, especially realizing how many years she’d wasted completely. But, Mrs. Moore needed this change. Her family was growing, and she was determined to be a much better mother. Both Tabitha and their new child deserved so much more than the half-hearted parenting Mrs. Moore had displayed before—they needed a family. All of the children did, even these four brats Tabitha was playing with across the yard. Her nephews had gone from little terrors she couldn’t stand to even think about to becoming family.

And they’re all LISTENING to her, instead of just running amuck, Mrs. Moore thought, shaking her head in amusement as she let herself grow distracted by what the kids were getting up to again. I just… I can’t even fathom what sort of dance that’s supposed to be, when she has the boys step and wave around their arms all together like that!

---

The four young boys were arrayed in a line on the frigid November mulch of the playground, each in identical stances with one fist extended outwards and held in a punch, the other drawn low and tucked in against their body. It felt silly realizing how proud of each of them Tabitha was, and how emotional she got at seeing them now. Today, her four elementary-school cousins were standing still.

It seemed like a watershed moment to her, because until this day, no, until this very hour, Joshua, Aiden, Samuel, and Nicholas had been restless fidgets, unable to contain the endlessly distracted energy of their own youth. Her own expectations had been set from her time helping wrangle in the little ones at Lee’s Taekwondo studio in her past life, and she knew exactly how difficult children were to corral. She’d only even managed to teach the Moore cousins some dozen odd practice sessions, so it was as if they’d grown more disciplined after her not-so-brief stay of absence when she’d been hospitalized.

“I’m very impressed,” Tabitha praised them, striding down the line of stoic boys as though she were a general inspecting her troops. “You’ve all kept practicing.”

“We’re gonna be karate masters,” Sam revealed. “I figure, since we started out learning real young like this, we’ll be martial art masters by the time we’re grown-up.”

“We’ll be legendary masters, and nobody will be able to beat us,” Joshua added with a look of glee. “We’ll always win, no matter what!”

“Who are you going to be fighting?” Tabitha asked with a wry smile, stepping in and gently correcting Aiden’s posture. “Bad guys? Criminal thugs?”

“Monsters,” Aiden said.

Amused, Tabitha was tempted for a moment to make a glib remark referencing Power Rangers villains, but she realized she didn’t remember what the bad guys were called in that show. She wasn’t sure that she’d ever known.

“Sshh,” Nick hissed. “There’s no such thing as monsters. We’re gonna be green berets and fight in the military.”

Their buzz-cuts from the past summer had grown out into shaggy hair that fell upon each of the cousin’s foreheads. Grandma Laurie would occasionally single out one of the boys to sit on the stool at the counter and trim away whatever tiny bit was annoying her, but the speed at which they were all growing seemed to outpace the old woman’s ability to fuss over them. All four of them were sprouting up like unruly weeds, just like in Tabitha’s previous lifetime.

At least in this life they seem a bit less out-of-control, Tabitha observed. They all seem a bit neater, more well behaved—they were obnoxious little hooligans back then. Or, maybe I’ve just become biased by how much more time I’ve spent with them? Now they’re MY little hooligans.

“The military,” Tabitha repeated in amusement. “You’re joining the army, and you’ll use taekwondo. To fight against…?”

“The other military,” Nick answered. “Special forces. Death squad commandos. The bad guys. Germans—you know, the Nazis.”

“I think you may be a couple generations too late to storm the beaches, there,” Tabitha said. “That was back in World War two.”

“Well, there’s the Russian Nazis, too,” Samuel added helpfully. “Like in Red Dawn.”

“Those were Soviets, also extinct now, and—Red Dawn, who let you boys watch Red Dawn?!” Tabitha demanded in exasperation. “Aren’t you a little young for—you’re talking about the original Red Dawn, with Charlie Sheen and Patrick Swayze?!”

“We have it on tape,” Nick shrugged. “The one that starts with all the parachute troopers all landing in at the high school, and then the one like, shoots all across the windows with an automatic machine gun and one of the high schoolers watching gets shot, right in the head! You can see him dead right there in the next scene—”

“—And then there’s this one bad guy with a rocket launcher,” Sam added, “and they’re all trying to get away in the one brother’s truck—”

“Wolverines!” Aiden cried out, making a shiiing noise under his breath as he held out both fists in imitation of the famous X-men character with adamantium claws.

“I... think I may have to go through your VHS tapes at some point,” Tabitha decided, shaking her head with a wry expression. “Next stance, please.”

The four boys stepped forward as one, drawing back the extended fist in unison and then swiping in their opposite hand in a lateral chop. The two youngest threw themselves into it with a bit too much enthusiasm and ended up with their feet in the wrong stance, so Tabitha patiently oriented herself to face in their direction. One demonstration of the proper distribution of weight was enough for them to pick up on their mistake and right themselves. Turning back around to regard the four boys, that feeling of pride surged up again and it was hard to even be cross at them.

“I suppose at your age you’ve seen all kinds of rated-R movies,” Tabitha sighed. “Sex, violence? Swearing, nudity?”

All four of them nodded in eager agreement. It was a little jarring—in some ways, Tabitha felt like her cousins treated her like an adult, but in other ways it was as if she was just a bigger kid, one that it was okay to confide in with things they thought would impress big kids.

“There’s a lady with three boobies in Total Recall,” Nicholas boasted.

“Don’t tell her that—Tabby’s a girl!” Samuel hissed his brother silent.

“Oh yeah,” Nick clamped his mouth shut. “Sorry.”

“Next position,” Tabitha instructed, rolling her eyes. “Turn, knee up in the air—hold it there for a moment—now, side-kick, and, down into the next stance. Good—good, very good.”

To her continued surprise, they were doing well, they all kept perfect balance without wavering as they pointed one knee in the air and then flashed out a kick before landing. The kicks themselves weren’t quite there yet, their feet didn’t quite snap out cleanly or hit with power just yet, but the boys had all come a long way and had clearly been practicing their forms. I haven’t even heard about them hurting each other!

“I’m definitely going to go through whatever tapes your dad left behind... but, I’m not going to take any of them away,” Tabitha decided. “You’re boys, and all the shooting and blood and explosions and action whatnot will just seem cool to you. You’re young enough that I don’t think you’ll really fixate on boobies, just yet. So long as you all act appropriately and I don’t catch you picking up swear-words, you boys watch whatever you like. Did you know your Auntie Shannon was almost an actress?”

“We know,” Sam replied. “Grandma always tells us.”

“Tabby—I have a question,” Aiden relaxed out of his stance. “If you’re so good at karate—uhh, taekwondo like this, how did you even get attacked even in the first place?”

“Aiden, God—shush up,” Samuel gave the cousin a glare. “You don’t ask stuff like that! Sheesh.”

“Yeah, the other girl had a baseball bat—what was Tabby supposed to do? You can’t beat a baseball bat with your bare hands,” Nicholas retorted. “Idiot.”

“Shut up, both of you,” Samuel insisted, casting a wary glance towards Tabitha.

“Why don’t we… take a little break,” Tabitha suggested after swallowing back a nervous flutter. “I would like to talk to all of you about it... clear up some misunderstandings.”

Inspecting the patch of earth beneath her for a moment and absentmindedly brushing the skirting of her dress with both hands, Tabitha carefully lowered herself down to the chilly ground and then arranged her legs beside her. The boys, they gracelessly dropped down and clambered over to gather close around her—as little kids, they were as comfortable rolling around in dirty playground mulch as they were their own bedcovers.

“Okay. To begin with—I started learning taekwondo strictly for exercise and weight loss,” Tabitha explained. “I didn’t set out to become some sort of fighter. I never planned on or wanted involved in anything confrontational or dangerous. Never imagined it would ever happen.”

All four young cousins stared at her with what she thought of as blank expressions, and once again she felt the twinge of that massive age gap between them that spanned across decades and decades all the way into the inscrutable future. Culturally, mentally, and even psychologically it sometimes felt like there was a chasm there between them that simply could not be bridged by any explanations she might ever offer. Perhaps most jarring of all, the ripples of change she affected on the timeline might mean that the era her mindset came about from might in fact never come about quite the same way again.

But, I’ll just go crazy if I keep worrying about that, Tabitha tried to fight down her anxiety again. I can’t change the world. Right? I mean, nine-eleven, Afghanistan, and the Iraqi war? They’re too big for me. I’m just a teenage girl in Kentucky. The coronavirus pandemic, the One-China war? Somalia getting burned off the map, the liberation of North Korea... I’m just one girl! All I can do is the best I can, for the people I care about.

“So, of course when something did actually happen—I wasn’t ready. I completely froze up,” Tabitha continued in a solemn voice, looking each of her young cousins in the eye, one by one.

“Knowing all of the moves by heart, being able to go through forms with grace and precision—that doesn’t translate into me automatically being some amazing fighter. Actually applying what I’ve learned in real-life situations, I couldn’t do that yet. Still can’t. It honestly wasn’t something I was that prepared for—because I didn’t even want to be in a fight, ever. Didn’t imagine it happening. As stupid as it sounds now, I still don’t see it happening.”

“To be able to actually use taekwondo in real-life practical situations, you need to run through self-defense drills over and over and over, until moves become instinct. In the heat of a real-life threat moment, you won’t have time to think about them—I know I didn’t. You also need practice sparring against another person, to learn how to read an actual opponent and learn to react to what they’re doing. I’ve done neither—I would be the equivalent of a yellow-belt in taekwondo.

“For starters, I’ve had you boys learning all the taekwondo stances and the moves—I’m not going to have you fighting each other until I can afford protective equipment. I won’t allow you boys to fight each other. It is very easy to get hurt or to hurt someone else, and the rule of the real world... is that getting hurt is expensive and it sucks. Okay?”

Tabitha hefted her left arm—still in its cast—for emphasis, but with bitter humor she realized she probably didn’t have to. From the reaction of the four boys, the word expensive seemed to spook them even more, and that seemed to tell her a lot about their situation of poverty. I’m working on that, too.

“In the coming year, I’m going to get all four of you enrolled in the Taekwondo place in town,” Tabitha announced. “Lee’s Martial Arts, next to the Food Lion. I have a bit of money coming in from those lawsuits, and I can afford it if you’re all going to take it seriously and not fool around.”

The news seemed to thrill the boys, and Tabitha got some small measure of satisfaction in the way they twisted to look at each other with wide eyes before their attention returned to her.

“Your parents…” Tabitha set her jaw for a moment, somewhat unwilling to badmouth those lowlifes in front of the boys. “They aren’t really looking out for your future. They’re caught up in their own messes, right now. But, you’re family, and you deserve better. Grandma can take care of you, and I’m going to do my best to make sure you have the tools you need to get wherever you want to go in life. Practicing martial arts now, learning discipline and control will be good for your body and mind—if you at some point want to do football instead, or soccer, or find an interest in… I don’t know, carpentry, or art, or even if you want to join the military and serve—I’m going to help you. All of you.”

She wasn’t sure what reactions to expect in the first place, but the boys mostly looked thoughtful—but puzzled. Did they think she was grandstanding, now that she had money coming her way? It was hard for her to tell. Were they too young to really understand their own situation and the significance of what she was saying? Tabitha couldn’t really discern that either. It doesn’t really matter. I’m being open with them, and whatever they wind up thinking about it, that’s up to them.

“What do you wanna do?” Joshua pressed. “When you grow up. Are you going to go do taekwondo too? Like, with us at the taekwondo place?”

“Do I want to learn more taekwondo? I... honestly don’t know,” Tabitha admitted. “Whatever you might think of me or see me as, and despite what my mother thinks, I’m not a movie star or novel protagonist with this iron will or limitless grit and determination, or anything like that. My transformation over this past summer had a lot more to do with my obsessing over my weight and appearance and that turning into… well, something like a compulsive disorder.”

“Your taekwondo was… a disorder?” Samuel gave her a look of disbelief.

“I hated myself for being fat and unattractive and unpopular, and that hate turned into fear, and that fear motivated me into change. Well, ‘motivated,’” Tabitha bitterly used her fingers to make air-quotes. “But, being thinner and prettier didn’t magically give me confidence around other people, and it didn’t magically make me popular like I thought it would—it just put me in the game, put me at the starting line. Then, it turned out the game isn’t actually fun to play once you’re in it, the rules are nasty and whether you’re winning or losing it’s stressful and cutthroat and—

Tabitha stopped herself and remembered the four cousins who were listening to her without interrupting.

“Okay, sorry. I’m just rambling now,” Tabitha winced. “There’s so many things I just kind of need to get off my chest and talk about with someone, but they’re kinda too embarrassing for me to bring up with Alicia or Elena.”

“It’s okay,” Joshua said. “Yeah, say whatever you want.”

“Yeah, you can tell us,” Sam encouraged. “Talk about whatever you want. We don’t care about being popular.”

“Popular kids suck,” Nick griped. “Like Max, in my class at school, he thinks he’s all better than everyone. Popular kids are just all full of themselves—but actually nobody really even cares. They’re just dumb!”

“Yeah, dumb jerks,” Aiden agreed.

“I just feel…” Tabitha couldn’t help but feel flustered. “It’s awkward, I was worried you guys have like, built me up into some unstoppable super big-sister figure, and I didn’t want to destroy that for you. But, I also—I just want to be real with you boys, not have to put on a front or anything. You’re family.”

“Is Elena popular?” Aiden mused, tapping a finger against his lip. “She seems like that kinda popular person who’s all into that.”

“Yeah, she’s blonde,” Nicholas nodded. “Blondes are always the most popular. Like cheerleaders and stuff.”

“I think it used to be important to her,” Tabitha said, idly picking at the mulch with her fingertips and letting a smile play across her face. “When she first approached me, she was—weird. Facetious, I didn’t like it. Like she was being friendly but not really friendly, like she was going through all the motions but not really… it’s hard to put into words. She was treating it like a business agreement? Or an alliance, or something. A mutual agreement to leverage each other for further popularity or… something. Whenever I think I start to understand it, I wish I hadn’t.”

“Fashefous?” Aiden screwed up his face in puzzlement at the word. “Leverage?”

“Beverage,” Joshua corrected helpfully.

“Sorry, um. Facetious means being fake, putting on an act,” Tabitha explained. “Beverage means something you drink, leverage is… I don’t even really know how to describe it. Using each other? Utilizing someone or something to best effect?”

“Being fake means you’re not really friends,” Nick pointed out. “So wait, is she not—are you and Elena not real friends?”

“No, we are now, I think,” Tabitha sussed. “It’s hard to even put a finger on when it actually happened—it just did. She’s changed a ton—she’s not even blonde anymore actually, she dyed her hair black! I feel like we’re both kinda figuring ourselves out together.”

“What about Alicia?” Aiden asked. “She’s just weird.”

“What’s weird about Alicia?!” Tabitha put on an affronted look.

“She likes Star Wars, and she’s weird,” Aiden said. “Girls don’t like Star Wars.”

“I like Star Wars!” Tabitha argued. “I probably know more about Star Wars than all of you combined!”

“What’s the name of the desert planet?” Joshua challenged.

“Tattooey,” Tabitha answered without hesitation.

“It’s Tatooine,” Joshua said. “Tatooine. Luke grew up there. Jabba’s castle was there, too.”

“Whatever, I knew what it was—it sounds like Tattooey whenever they say it in the movies.”

“Swamp planet,” Nick pressed.

“Swamp planet is—Dagobah,” Tabitha had even more confidence in that one.

“Ice planet?” Joshua demanded.

“Ice planet is—I don’t think the ice planet really had a name,” Tabitha confessed. “The Rebel base was Echo base, but it was supposed to be on some uncharted planet way out hidden away from everyone.”

“The ice planet is Hoth, but… she did know it was Echo base, so she definitely knows more Star Wars than a girl,” Samuel frowned, seemingly invested in her level of knowledge and authority on the subject.

“But she didn’t even know it was Hoth, and we all do,” Joshua crossed his arms. “So, we know more, actually.”

“She’s a girl and she knew Dagobah and Echo Base, though,” Nicholas deliberated. “That’s already really good, right?”

“You’ve seen the teasers on TV for the upcoming Star Wars movie by now, right?” Tabitha struggled to suppress a grin. “What if I told you… that I’ve already seen Episode One; The Phantom Menace?”

“How?” Samuel’s eyes lit up.

“How—” Joshua jumped up. “When? Where?!”

To her surprise, the boys didn’t seem skeptical at all. She’d honestly expected them to scoff at her and need some evidence or convincing, but apparently her image in their minds as an unstoppable superheroine hadn’t been shaken down just yet. On the one hand, she still had mixed feelings about them putting her up on a pedestal to revere, but then on the other— when it came to giving them a better future this time, she was willing to become a hero for them.

Last time only Aiden and Nicholas even graduated high school, Tabitha schooled her expression into a forced smile. Joshua died somewhere in 2015, I didn’t even go to his funeral. Samuel from what I heard was doing drugs and in and out of prison his whole life, just like his parents. That’s NOT going to happen this time.

“My friend’s dad works for Nintendo,” Tabitha answered with a straight face. “We get to sneak in and see a bunch of movies before they come out.”

---

Of all things, Mr. Moore thought to himself, I shouldn’t be worried about the money.

Closing the door of his truck with a half-hearted gesture, he took a moment to appreciate the way their sparse little yard looked now. He’d had mixed feelings about Tabby picking up so much slack around the house in the past half-year. From inside to out, everything was spic and span and up to shape, and some of the pointed questions she’d been asking suggested that if left to her own devices, his daughter would also begin tackling some of electrical and plumbing work.

Having spent years as a handyman and working now as a general contractor, Alan Moore was more than aware of the irony of leaving so many of his own basic home maintenance tasks undone. Many of those in the industry, however, understood—after a long, hard day at work, the very last thing anyone wanted to do was come home to more work. It was rare that he didn’t clock out completely exhausted, and failing to relax in his off hours put him in a cycle of punishment he always wound up paying for.

Hands on his hips, Mr. Moore took the time to walk around the lot and survey some of the changes again. Their lawn was currently looking a little threadbare after the weeding, but what remained was all good grass. An area near the back of the yard had been cordoned off with the old bricks from the shed, creating two rectangular areas of bare earth that would apparently be the future site of their vegetable garden; one on either side, with a footpath between them towards the shed doors. Back behind the shed, an additional place had been cleared for their composting heap. Tabitha had dubbed that area the Moore family F-22 aviation scrapyard—he’d seen her let slip an almost manic-sounding giggle, and then watched with eyebrows raised as she admonished herself. Put her good hand to her temple and said ‘okay, actually not funny, though.’

Teenage girls continued to mystify him.

He hadn’t understood them back when he was a teen, and as the years flew by, he realized it was smart to just assume anything he ever thought he knew was miles and miles off the mark. They were strange and often cruel creatures—Tabitha excepted, of course, as his little girl she was of course both perfect and also an angel. They all seemed to speak in riddles or some sort of code, however, and generally teenage girls seemed to be a rollercoaster of emotions that never let you figure out what was what.

For better or worse, you were just along for the ride.

Could probably pick up some of that decorative brick I keep walkin’ by at Home Depot, Mr. Moore mused as he absentmindedly scuffed the toe of his boot against one of the upturned clods of earth at the edge of the garden. Bet she’d be tickled pink to have stepping stones for this little path. I can tell her it was just leftover junk from some contracting job and that whoever all was just gettin’ rid of it.

Tabitha in particular was extremely sensitive to costs, seemed to be ever since they’d had that sit-down with her about allowance over this past summer. Money had always been such a touchy subject in their household, and because of that, the big sum of settlement money coming their way was troubling in a lot of ways. Unlike his brother Danny, Alan Moore didn’t put much stock in getting rich and living that kind of life. In fact, because of his brother’s naked greed constantly getting him into awful fixes, Mr. Moore had what he thought of as a deep understanding of the often-overlooked pitfalls of wealth.

This was Kentucky; any of the men he worked with, for instance, would immediately buy a bigger truck with that money, whether or not they needed one. And, as soon as one of them drove up in the newest F-150, well, then suddenly everyone else felt like they needed one, too—it was as asinine as a bunch of bickering women compelled to show off those luxury brand purses. Was the F-150 a good truck? Of course it was. But, was spending all that ridiculous kind of money on having the newest thing any kind of necessity? Half the value fell right off of the darn things the moment they drove out of the dealer’s lot—and what was the point? In another year there’d be a newer, bigger best truck. And so on, and so forth. Wasn’t it more important to learn to appreciate the truck you have?

Mr. Moore frowned, giving the empty garden beds one last lingering look before he headed inside to see his girls.

What will THIS kind of money comin’ in do to a thirteen-year-old girl? Mr. Moore worried. One who’s grown up in—well, I know the place we have here isn’t the best. I know she deserves every red cent of it for what all she’s been put through, but at the same time, I’m just afraid that…

He didn’t know quite how to articulate his fears.

Money had a way of changing people, and learning not to let it control your life was a hard lesson for anyone to learn. Many never learned, and to them, money was the be-all and end-all. The Moores had their own financial ups and downs and hadn’t always been poor; Alan Moore’s father was a war veteran and they’d in fact been a pretty well-off family, growing up. As the times got leaner, however, that seemed to affect the pair of brothers in completely different ways. Danny began to obsess over money, while Alan—

Well, guess I was too simple to get into all that. Was too busy chasin’ after the girl of my dreams, Mr. Moore wore a slight smile as he opened up the door. Everyone said I was a damned fool with his head up in the clouds, that she was out of my league. And every-a-one of them was right.

Both his beautiful wife and his adorable little daughter were sitting in the living room together, one in the chair and the other on the sofa. As he stepped inside, the pair of them looked up from their reading and rewarded him with beaming smiles. Constant change had characterized what he thought of as home for the past months, most of it good. The place was bright and open and all cleaned up, his girls seemed happier, and Mrs. Moore even had a meaningful look for him instead of ignoring his entrance in favor of staring at the TV like a zombie like she used to for all hours.

The meaningful look was an even more recent development, as his wife getting caught up in Tabby’s fitness and dieting craze was somehow bringing the woman’s confidence and libido stirring back to life. To him she’d always been stunning, even with the extra weight, but nowadays she just seemed to light up and be more there, as if she’d been in a fugue for years and years and was only now really coming back to herself. It made her seem young again.

“How’re my lovely ladies today?” Mr. Moore asked, shrugging off his coat. “Gettin’ up to mischief?”

“We spent the day with the boys,” Tabitha answered with a wry smile. “I was very careful. I didn’t do any running around, or any hand-springs, or hand-stands, or cartwheels, or back flips, or anything fun, even though I really wanted to. You’d be proud of me.”

“That’s good to hear, Honey,” Mr. Moore nodded in approval. “You leave them circus acrobatics to the boys.”

“Circus acrobatics!” Tabby repeated in an indignant snort, flicking her hair with a turn of her head. “Hmph!”

“You just remember the doctor’s orders,” Mr. Moore chided her. “So, don’t you be readin’ too hard, neither. That goes for the both of you!”

““Yes, Dad,”” both of the girls answered—although one of them with a very teenage eye roll, and the other with that rather meaningful look in her eye again.

You cool it with those bedroom eyes, Missy—don’t you even get me started on that OTHER predicament we’ve gotten ourselves into!

That issue was even more enormous than the ludicrous settlement money, but still a distant ways off—right now, Mr. Moore’s concerns extended as far as his daughter’s immediate health and the happiness and mental well-being for both her and his wife.

“Either of you’ns decide what we’re gonna do for Thanksgiving?” Mr. Moore probed. “Thanksgivin’ with Grammy and the boys, or Thanksgivin’ over with the Macintires?”

“Oof,” Tabitha groaned, clutching at her stomach in mock indecision. “I want to say both, but I also don’t want to put on weight. Can we… can we have two Thanksgivings?”

“Alan, just listen to her!” Mrs. Moore shook her head in dismay. “Two Thanksgivings, now?!”

“If you’re lookin’ for me to be the voice of reason here, you’ve got the wrong guy,” Mr. Moore chuckled, holding up his hands. “We really do have about that much to be thankful for this year. Might need two Thanksgivings just to fit it all in.”

Women, to him, were social creatures—they thrived on making connections with other people. Friends, family, meeting people and establishing relationships, opening up a dialogue and just talking each other’s ears off about this and that helped them actualize themselves in ways that were well over his head. He didn’t characterize himself as any sort of social type, really, but he’d seen that his girls opening up so much in the past months had created miracles. He wasn’t above helping nudge them along in that direction whenever opportunity arose.

“Two Thanksgivings it is, then!” Tabitha declared with a wistful sigh. “Can’t miss out on one with Grandma Laurie and the boys, and then I also can’t say no to Hannah. I’m just going to have to be that much more careful with how much I eat.”

A part of him wanted to take comfort in knowing that his Tabby had such a damned good head on her shoulders. Surely she wasn’t going to let the incoming settlement money change her—and, if she did? She would still be his daughter, and he would love her no matter what. Careful to not let the matters weighing so heavily on his mind rise up into his expression, Mr. Moore dropped his keys and wallet into the tray on the ledge where he always did, and then began kicking off his boots.

No matter what, it was always good to be home.

---

Loud, insistent banging sounds startled Tabitha awake and she jerked against her covers, staring without comprehension into the darkness of her room. It seemed to be the dead of night, and being so suddenly roused had her blinking in a daze. There was a moment of silence, just long enough for her to doubt what she thought she’d heard, and then—bang bang bang bang bang it resounded out again. This time she could identify the unpleasant noise. It wasn’t a stray cat on the roof again, it wasn’t a neighborhood squabble a few doors down, and—heaven forbid—it wasn’t even her parents fooling around in the bedroom.

Someone was outside their trailer and knocking insistently on the aluminum of their front door.

At this hour…? Tabitha half-rose, unwilling to throw back the covers once she felt the chill in the air. What—what time even IS it?

Again the bang bang bang of someone’s fist rattled their front door, and Tabitha turned back her covers and sat up in alarm, pulling her legs free and preparing to—she paused as she heard Mr. Moore swearing under his breath and opening the door down the hall. Unfounded fear and a bit of adrenaline wiped away the last traces of her drowsiness and all at once Tabitha was completely alert—but frozen in place, straining her ears as she heard her father’s footsteps stumble past her door and out towards the living room to see what the late-night commotion was.

Who would bother us this late at night? Tabitha wondered. The neighbors? The POLICE? Did something bad happen? To who?! What could be so important that—

Her disoriented mind raced from possibility to possibility. Could one of the boys have gotten hurt somehow? Or had something happened to Grandma Laurie? To Elena, or Alicia? Nothing much stood out in memory from this time period in her last life except Uncle Danny being arrested and the South Main shooting. But, that didn’t mean anything anymore, either—Tabitha blundering around through this timeline had potentially changed anything and everything.

Beneath her bedroom door a strip of light shone as the living room light was flicked on, and she heard the front door open.

“Oh thank gawd,” A grating but somewhat familiar woman’s voice jarred Tabitha out of her thoughts. “Christ, Alan, lemme in! I’m liable to freeze my tits off, out here! Y’all are even lockin’ your door, now?! Things sure do change fast!”

“It’s—it’s almost midnight,” Tabitha heard her father say.

“All yer lights were off, I was ‘fraid y'all’d packed on up and moved someplace else without tellin’ me a word!” the woman complained. “What were y’all doin’, didn’cha hear me knocking?! I was fixin’ to break a window just to get in! Hold on—I gotta take myself a piss.”

To Tabitha’s bewilderment, the woman’s voice was closer now, as if Mr. Moore had let her into the living room. Which surely couldn’t be possible. Tabitha couldn’t make any sense of what was going on. In her shocked silence, she listened on as unsteady footfalls sounded just outside her bedroom door, and she heard a hand smack against the hallway wall as if someone was using it to catch their balance. She’s—who IS this— she’s just letting herself in to use our bathroom?!

“Lisa, it’s almost midnight!” Mr. Moore rebuked the woman in a harsh whisper.

Lisa—AUNT LISA?!! Tabitha leapt to her feet at the realization, immediately overcome by white-hot anger. This can’t be happening. This CAN’T fucking be happening. No. No. No no no no no.

“Hold on a second Al, I gotta piss!” Lisa loudly announced.

“Lisa, it’s just about—it’s eleven forty-five at night,” Mr. Moore didn’t sound any happier than Tabitha was about the unwelcome intrusion. “You can’t just—”

The sound of the toilet seat slamming down had Tabitha gritting her teeth, and hearing the clink of her Aunt undoing her belt—it was all too easy to picture the enormous COUNTRY GIRL belt buckle the woman sometimes sported, with its machine-stamped confederate flag motif—threw Tabitha into a fit of rage. How DARE she come back here. At this time of night, at ANY TIME, EVER!

“Lisa—Lisa, you realize how late it is?” Tabitha’s father was standing just outside the bathroom door and seemed to be struggling to lower his voice.

“What?” Aunt Lisa called back at her same obnoxious volume. “Were y’all asleep?”

Tabitha smashed her good hand into the lightswitch beside her door, flooding her bedroom with light. The air was frigid, but she didn’t feel the cold right now. In the mirror she saw a teenage girl that she didn’t recognize at all, a hateful glare framed by a mussed tangle of reddish-gold hair, the oversized sweatshirt she’d been sleeping in and her winter pajama bottoms. Tabitha searched her tiny room in desperation for a moment for something to strangle, and in no time at all settled in the plush Flounder pillow from Halloween. She crushed it awkwardly between her hand and her cast, but it offered no respite.

She’s here for the money, Tabitha bit down hard to keep herself from grinding her jaw. Of course she’s back for the money. The newspapers all went on and on about the lawsuits. About the settlements. Why the fuck else would SHE come back? She didn’t come back last lifetime, no, not this early. She sure as FUCK didn’t come back for her four fucking children. No—she’s here for the money. We don’t even HAVE it yet, but here she is.

Cradling Flounder against herself with one arm, Tabitha opened her door and stepped out into the hall. Her father was in long johns and gave her an apologetic look colored by his own aggravation, and past him Tabitha caught a glimpse down the hall of a furious Mrs. Moore hurriedly changing into a nightshirt. Satisfied that both of her parents were almost as pissed as she was, Tabitha turned on her heel and stalked out towards the living room.

Oh, we’re all going to have a lovely talk about this, Tabitha seethed. This is just like the stories from people who win the lottery—at first it’s all fantastic. Like living a dream, because all of their money problems are over forever. Right? But, then comes the greed, the wretched fucking UGLINESS, then the family or friends or what have you come crawling out of the woodworks, expecting generosity. DEMANDING it.

As if Aunt Lisa is entitled to our good fortune, after she fucking abandoned all of us when we were suffering through hardship. Abandoned her own fucking children! It’s unforgivable. I KNOW she’s only back for the money, because last lifetime she didn’t come back for years and years and years after she left.

Mr. and Mrs. Moore followed her as far as the kitchen, where they paused to speak with each other in harsh whispers, while Tabitha continued on and took a seat on one end of the couch. It wasn’t easy to contain her fury, and Flounder once again deformed beneath her squeezing hand as she rushed to put her thoughts into order. Aunt Lisa was here. Aunt Lisa was surely going to play every card in her hand, every dirty trick she could, to worm herself into this family and leech off of their apparent new wealth.

The thought of it made Tabitha so incredibly angry that she thought she might be sick.

“Whew my damn, it’s cold-as-can-be inside, even! BrRrRr!” Aunt Lisa chuckled as she swung the bathroom door open and plodded down the hall towards the Moore family. “Thought fer sure y’all’d’ve had some heat runnin’, didn’t ch’all come into all that money?!”

Hearing the woman even mention money had Tabitha’s frown turn into an immediate scowl, and the sight of her Aunt almost sent Tabitha into a belligerent rage.

Aunt Lisa was trashy.

Despite the temperatures outside, the peroxide-blonde was wearing a sleeveless top with a plunging neckline that revealed an unhealthy amount of cleavage. As always, the woman’s bra cups were visible, and nothing seemed to fit—she had crammed herself into that top, and the ragged blue jeans were pinching her midsection into a pronounced muffin-top. Rather than the confederate flag belt buckle Tabitha recalled seeing Aunt Lisa wear in the past, this was a new one, an oversized buckle featuring two crossed pistols and a tacky assortment of stars.

“Lisa—what’s going on?” Mr. Moore demanded.

“Y’all weren’t asleepin’, were you?!” Aunt Lisa seemed amused as she glanced at each of them. “If I’d’ve known, I wouldn’ta been hollerin’, y’all shoulda said somethin’!”

The woman waltzed past Mr. and Mrs. Moore where they stood in the kitchen and helped herself to the living room chair across from Tabitha. The light cast from the lamp here was even less flattering—again, Aunt Lisa was trashy.

Her hair looked greasy, pit-stains were visible upon her shirt, her face appeared both oily and caked with makeup at the same time, and a prominent pair of cold sores on her lip weren’t quite hidden beneath the cosmetics. She was clutching a handbag against herself with both hands—immediately prompting Tabitha to suspect she’d already stolen something—and the combined smell of body odor, cigarette smoke, and stale urine wafted across the living room, as if someone had left open the door of a truckstop’s restroom to air out.

No. No no no no. NO, this is NOT happening, Tabitha was livid, and she pointedly glared daggers towards her parents. She is NOT family!

“Well yeah we were all asleep, it’s damn near midnight,” Mr. Moore groused, putting his hands on his hips. “What on earth’s going on, here?”

“My word, I’m so sorry!” Aunt Lisa pursed her lips into a pout. “I woulda been more quieter if-ins I’da known! I didn’t reckon y’all’d’ve gone ta bed this early! I heard all ‘bout all yer family’s troubles from my girl Tiffany in Fairfield, an’ I rushed over to come help soon as I could get myself here—sure ain’t easy without a car!”

Aunt Lisa turned in her seat and looked Tabitha up and down with that false smile of hers that never failed to draw out revulsion.

“Lookit you, though! Tabby girl you must sure be on the mend, ‘cause you look prettier’n I’d a ever thought from all that goin’ on on the news! You look prettier than ever! Just look at you!”

Please don’t, Tabitha carefully schooled her face into a neutral expression so that her disgust wasn’t as blatantly obvious. Please just—don’t.

“I been workin’ the Wild Wings up in Shelbyville—good money there! But, I up and dropped everythin’ the minute I heard the word ‘bout all what y’all been through! I’m so sorry it took me so long to get my way here!” Aunt Lisa drawled out. “Tabby, yer damn near famous! You been on the news and everything, even all the way out in Shelbyville we heard about all this nasty business. You gettin’ pushed around at school, then this boy attackin’ you right there in the middle of a Halloween party?! Unbelievable! Unbelievable!”

Tabitha used all of the acting she’d learned in the past few months to approximate a hesitant smile for her Aunt.

“Well y’all don’t need to worry ‘bout a thing anymore, ‘cause yer Auntie Lisa’s here!” the woman crooned, taking a moment to check and make sure her handbag was still held in close against her body. “Ain’t no one messin’ with my baby niece Tabby while I’m around, no nuh-uh!”

Now that Tabitha took a closer look, there was a smattering of acne across her Aunt’s brow, and something about the set of her eyes now made her immediate impression come off as more haggard than Tabitha remembered from seeing her last. The tells were all present—from the unhealthy skin, her slightly-too-loud voice, the twitchy way she was completely unable to relinquish her grip on her purse. It only took a moment for Tabitha to remember the rather storied end of Aunt Lisa from her past lifetime and spot the puffy pink puncture mark on the inside of her Aunt’s arm. When she knew what to look for, there was another one too, an obvious scab on the woman’s left hand, apparent just between her thumb and forefinger.

Great, Tabitha forced a warm smile as her Aunt continued rambling on. Great! Looks like our uninvited guest is already a heroin addict. She’s not staying. She’s NOT family—and she’s not welcome here. We’re getting rid of her.