“Will you take me to the stream when we’re back in Nysa?” you ask. “Will you show me the stream where you used to play, the one in the field?”

“How do you know these things?” I ask. For some reason I feel so, so sad.

“What?”

“The stream. The field.”

You smile patiently. “Grampy, you’re so forgetful. I told you. That woman is helping me with my map.”

“Ah, yes,” I say. “The woman with the silver hair.”

Crossing Over

You’re right. There was a stream, and we came to it in the dead of night. I knew we needed to hurry so that we would get home before my parents left to pick me up at the party they didn’t know I had already left. They wouldn’t mind if I brought friends home; in fact, they would probably be pleased. They didn’t think I had any friends. I mean, I guess they were right. I didn’t. Until that night.

There was something there with Mary and Tom and Shirley, something I hadn’t felt before. They seemed to actually like being with me. They were happy welcoming me into their group. I fit. There was something about fitting that felt very nice. And it happened so quickly, without any effort. As I consider how we came together, something about it feels predestined, as if it couldn’t have happened any other way. I don’t know what to think about that.

“Jump over?” Tom asked. The four of us were standing there staring at the stream.

“It is kind of a big jump,” I admitted.

Surprisingly, Mary was the one to insist we cross. I would have expected it if it came from Tom—brash and assertive Tom. Or even Shirley—she could have pressed us to do it in her laughing way. But Mary?

I shrugged. “Don’t fall in.”

The water swept away from us. It was five or six feet wide and murky in the night.

Tom, full of nervous energy, shouted, scaring us, and suddenly took a quick run up to the stream and jumped. He sailed over, his foot landing at the edge of the water on the far side, and he stumbled forward.

“Whoo!” he shouted. “That’s how it’s done!”

I could feel the girls’ nervousness coming off of them in waves.

“I don’t mind walking you around,” I said. “I really don’t.”

Mary pushed a wisp of hair behind her ear. “It’s okay. I can do it.”

“Let me go first, please?” Shirley begged.

I laughed. “Go for it.”

Unlike Tom, she backed away from the stream quite a ways in order to get a running start.

“Get a good jump in, Shirls!” Tom shouted, and even I could hear the nervousness in his voice. But to her credit, she was fast. That was something I’d learn about Shirley in the coming years—she could run when she had to.

She flew right up to us, running barefoot and clutching her ruby slippers, one in each hand. Her last step splashed at the edge of our side of the stream, and she launched herself across. She landed in the water on the far side and started to slip backwards, but Tom reached out and grabbed her, lifted her to safety.