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The Accident

Nothing was more coveted by the artists of San Francisco than a rent controlled apartment. Willa had been lucky to score hers and smart to hang on. The sweet deal had ripened over decades, allowing her to stay in the city on a theater wage while richer friends were exiled to Oakland. She was one of the chosen few. So whenever she felt the rumbles in her heart for someplace new, she stamped them down hard. Her commitment to this flat had been the longest in her life. Sure, she was stuck, but she would be crazy to leave.

That morning as she headed out for work, Willa pulled her keys from the hobo bag and something dropped out. It rolled across the porch and bounced down the wooden stairs. After locking her front door she walked slowly down, on the look-out for the fallen object. Reaching the sidewalk, she sat on the bottom step. There it was, at the toe of her boot: the tiki with a missing eye.

Just looking at the crudely carved bit of stone dragged her back. She was only twenty-four on that February day when she had found it lying just like this at the toe of another boot. She closed her eyes and was there again, on that Haight Street corner.

The mist glistens on the toes of her Doc Martens. She tugs her leg warmers over her knees, bridging the gap to the ruffled petticoat and buttons her jean jacket up to the neck. She draws her braid over her shoulder to keep it from tangling with the wide leather strap on her hobo bag and waits at the corner to cross with the light.

The beer truck inches forward blocking the crosswalk. From the tail of her eye, Willa catches sight of the bicycle tearing down the hill. She freezes. Her heart bashes into her rib cage. The truck begins its turn. The bike skids on the slick asphalt. Bystanders gasp in shock as it plows into the hood. Truck brakes squeal. The rider flies up into the sky. He seems to hang above her for a moment, his open sweatshirt flapping behind him like a cape, before dropping inches from her feet with a crack and the chilling crunch of bones. The next sound is her own scream "Don't die! Don't die!" repeated over and over like a mantra, as her eyes lock with the wild stare of the boy on the pavement. His back is bent at a crazy angle and a leg bone pokes out through his jeans. Blood pools around his hair like a halo, trickling dark and shiny into the gutter.

Willa sinks to the curb, quivering as the medics load his body into the ambulance. The mist turns to droplets and then to rain, washing the last of the boy down the sewer grate and finally into the ocean.

That's when she first sees it, at the toe of her boot: the tiki carving with one of its shell eyes missing. She can't be sure it is his, but still she picks it up and strings it onto her key ring.

Willa knew the details of the accident that day like she knew her own name, maybe better. She had relived it in hundreds of nightmares. Willa held the carving in her palm. It is strange, she thought, how I must have handled it every day for decades, but almost forgot it was there.

Why after all these years on the ring, had it tried to escape today? Should she put it back on the key ring, or let it go? For her the tiki was a symbol of the young man's life. She thought of the MIA bracelet her dad had worn to his dying day, long after hope of finding the soldier engraved on it was gone. She looked at her friend Hank's ring still on her finger; then threaded the tiki back on with her keys. Tossing it away would mean throwing out the memory of the accident and of him, something she wasn't ready to do.

Damn, I'll miss the bus, she realized. Dropping the key ring into her bag, she headed down the hill to stand again on that same Haight Street corner, waiting for the Muni.

Pins and Needles

The costume shop, where Willa worked, sat on the end of the pier in an old cement structure that had once been a morgue. It was built over the water before refrigeration so the breeze would blow the stench across the bay. The building had served many purposes since then, but there was still something odd about the place. In spite of its history, ghosts were not the problem. In fact, it was almost the opposite. Instead of holding on to consciousness, the building seemed to help it drift away.

At first, Willa found this feature of the shop appealing. Floating her mind above her body-like olive oil on vinegar-offered a shortcut to creativity. But as time passed, she had trouble getting her oil to mix again. More and more her thoughts preferred to float. And after years of holding on in this slippery spot, she was starting to lose her grip.

"Ow!" The hard jab yanked her back. Her mind had strayed and so had her needle. Now a glistening red bead was growing on the pad of her thumb. She wrapped a strip of muslin from the scrap box around the wound to keep her blood from staining the leather. Then she finished off the knot and clipped the thread.

While squeezing her thumb in her fist to stop the bleeding, she stared out the window into a sea of white fuzz. On a clear day she could see Alcatraz and sometimes part of the Golden Gate Bridge from the costume shop, but this morning a scrim of mist had dropped, blurring the view.

It was the third strange occurrence of the morning. First, the tiki had wiggled off her key ring. Then, on the way to work, the button had come off her leather jacket. She had been slipping it through the hole, like she had a thousand times before, when it fell right into her hand. It had been sewn on properly, with a heavy button twist, so this event must have been years in the making. Yet today it chose to come off. And if that wasn't weird enough, while sewing the button back on she stabbed her thumb. She hadn't pricked herself with a needle in years-years and years.

"Willa."

It took a moment for her mind to hover low enough to recognize her name.

"Willa, feel your light."

Willa turned to face the young apprentice. "What did you say?"

"I said, Willa do you feel alright?" Kaitlin looked at her with concern. "Do you?"

"I'm fine." Willa replied. "Did you need something?"

"I can't thread the overlock."

"Tie the thread on and pull it through."

"I tried, but it didn't work. It's completely jammed up and you're the only one who can fix it." The apprentice grabbed her long blond hair and twisted it into a messy knot, which somehow managed to look stylish. Kaitlin was a smart young woman and Willa wished she would stop using the mumbling diction so popular with her generation. After all, this was a Shakespeare company.

She checked her thumb; the bleeding had stopped. She tossed the muslin bandage into the trash. It was strange to hear that phrase Feel your light again, especially when Kaitlin had not actually said it. Why had she misheard it? The term was common in the theater. An actor onstage cannot always tell if they are in the right place at the right time; they need to feel the light on their face to be sure. When she was younger, Willa used the stage direction to explain how she knew if she was making the right choice in a situation. It was as though she could feel the light shining on her. It had been years since she had felt it, however. These days she was perpetually dim.

Her right knee was hurting again which slowed her pace as she crossed the shop. It was then she looked up and noticed, next to the overlock, a cluster of people around her ironing board. On a paper plate was a muffin with a candle on top. Of course the thread jam had been a ruse.

Kaitlin shouted, "Make a wish!"

At the command, Willa's mind flashed on an image, but it slipped by so fast she couldn't catch it. She closed her eyes and blew out the candle anyway, wondering what it was she had just wished for.

Carolyn had come over from the festival office. She held a small paper box with raffia wrapped around it. "A little something for you."

Willa took the box and shook it lightly. She looked at Carolyn who, as usual, was wearing some sort of large beaded "ethnic". . .

"A necklace?" Willa guessed.

"I thought you could use a little flare, now that you hit the big 5-O." Willa held up the box, showing its contents for everyone to ogle. Carolyn grinned. "Put it on!"

Willa lifted her braid and Carolyn hooked the clasp. As the necklace landed, it pulled her black crew neck down, accentuating the bones of her shoulders and flatness of her chest. She felt the weight of the glass encircling her throat like a slave collar. And what was that large bead, a wooden rabbit?

"Thanks Carolyn, it's great."

Carolyn kissed the air and pivoted on her kitten heels. As general manager of Bard on the Bay, she tried too hard to dress the part. Her style had a carefully cultivated edginess: dyed red hair cut in a short pageboy bob, a collection of quirky eyeglasses and chunky beads which bounced on her bosom. An armload of bangles chattered as she left the costume shop.

"Wow, you look terrific for fifty." Kaitlin said. "My mom's forty-eight and she looks much older than you."

"Thanks." The idea caught her by surprise. Until this moment Willa hadn't realized she was old enough to be Kaitlin's mother. She had a connection with the girl, though it felt more akin to mentor. Willa wondered if they would stay in touch after the season ended. Kaitlin was a good apprentice, but unlikely to be cut out for the backstage life.

Willa assumed she had volunteered for the summer festival as a lark, hoping to have some fun before embarking on a real career. Today Kaitlin wore a 40s style geometric print sundress with a pink sequined cardigan. No serious costumer would dress like that, not for work.

Willa, like Coco Chanel, almost always wore black. And Kaitlin was right she did look terrific, with a ballet body, long dark hair and expressive gray eyes that picked up tints of nearby colors. Willa still turned heads. But now a few strands of silver were braided into the black and with the morning joint stiffness she detected a new ache in her chest that sometimes felt like longing, sometimes regret.

Willa turned to her three young helpers. "Okay, party's over. Back to work."

Rabbit in the Racks

This weekend, the last of the summer shows had opened. The costumes had been moved to the theater and were now the problem of the wardrobe mistress. It was time for Willa to switch roles from designer to shop head and oversee the clean-up. She wanted to get things squared away for the winter season before the summer apprentices drifted off to their real lives.

She walked over to the wall of sketches, hanging crooked, weighted down by the fabric swatches stapled to their corners. They looked flat and faded in the fluorescent light. After pulling the push pins from Titania and the fairy court, she stacked them carefully into a manila folder. The end of another Dream, she thought, writing the date on the cover.

She put the folder in the drawer and pushed it shut. The heavy necklace smacked into the file cabinet reminding her of another reason why she didn't wear jewelry like this. It seemed ungracious to take it off just yet, so she readjusted the beads shifting the weight more to the back. Then she turned to the hopeless task of thinning out the costume storage racks.

Rows of galvanized pipes hung by chains from the ceiling, higher than Willa could reach without a step stool, with a second row of pipes below the first at elbow height. The chains swayed and groaned as she parted the hangers crammed with dusty capes. Willa slipped inside and the faded velvet closed softly behind her.

In the narrow fabric maze, light was dim and sound muffled. She made her way, navigating by touch: fur, satin brocade, vinyl, muslin. Her fingers passed chain-mail made years ago from the tabs of old soda cans and dried macaroni bits sprayed gold and glued on to pass for fancy embroidery. She stood for a second to breathe it in. Most people would have sneezed, but not Willa. To a costumer this was the essence of theater.

The costumes held emotional charge. Perhaps because they experienced such high and lows of energy, night after night, the fabrics themselves had become transformed. Costumers talked of feeling overwhelmed by the whispering spirits in the wardrobe room. What could one learn from Hamlet's ruff of agony, grief, madness, or of first love from the ribbon on Juliet's cap, or magic from Prospero's mantle? Just touching things like these could make a person catch their breath. Dry cleaning and time only seemed to set the imprint deeper. Standing among them almost made her faint.

Perhaps she did space out a bit, because she suddenly came to her senses to discover that she was standing several rows over from where she had entered. Her birthday necklace had become entangled in something. It was twisted tightly, but she finally ripped it free. Disoriented, heart racing, she had that slipping sensation like the floor was moving under her feet and her head lifting off.

Feeling the start of a panic attack, she took a few deep breathes and told herself to get a grip. Everything was fine, she wasn't lost. She was only standing in the racks with her imagination going wild. She tried to get grounded, as her friend Lauren said, and pull her mind back into her body and on to her task.

In a few minutes, she felt calmer and ready to make the tough calls: which costumes would stay and which had to go to make room for the new. Not knowing what would be needed next season and unable to decide, she called for volunteers. With closed eyes she reached out her fingers until they poked through loosely crocheted acrylic yarn.

"Thank you all for your years of service," she told the shawls. "Remember this isn't the end." She didn't say that just to cheer them up. Pieces like these should easily find new homes at the Halloween sale. There was no telling how much time had passed since she had entered the racks, but at last she reappeared with an armload of distressed shawls.

"Didn't you hear me calling?" Her friend Jeremy was waiting in the shop. "You're still up for lunch I hope. We should hurry if we want the good table."

Willa blinked in the relative brightness and what she saw made her shudder. Jeremy was wearing an electric blue sweatshirt with a cartoon of a polar bear clinging to a shrinking iceberg.

"Don't say it. Horrible, I know. It's the new promotional gift. We have to wear them." Jeremy worked at WildWorld, a small environmental nonprofit with an office down the hall.

"Why people want to wear billboards, I'll never understand." Willa said, although she would be the first to agree that every garment made a statement of some sort. Dropping the shawls onto the cutting table, she said, "Lunch, of course. I just lost track of time."

Kaitlin scooped the shawls into a cardboard box. "Don't forget your past."

"What?" Willa spun towards her.

"Don't forget your badge. Your costumer's badge." Kaitlin pointed to the cluster of safety pins pinned to her shirt.

Taking off the pins, Willa noticed a bit of frayed satin ribbon wrapped around the rabbit bead and recognized it immediately. "Oh no," she said. If she had realized while in the racks that the necklace was caught on the old corset, she wouldn't have pulled so hard.

Laying the ribbon on the cutting table, she promised to fix the damage later. She swung her bag over one shoulder and glanced at the black leather bomber with the newly sewn button. With a sigh she grabbed the jacket. It was July, but this was San Francisco and the fog was in.

Whining and Dining

Willa and Jeremy walked down the pier to a weathered picnic table overlooking the boat docks. There he set down a green tote bag with a baby seal pup pictured on the side.

"Let me guess, a gift from Carolyn?" Jeremy squinted at the beads.

"Remember, it's the thought that counts."

"But what was she thinking?" Willa pulled the necklace off over her head. "This has nothing to do with me. I never wear this kind of thing. It's not my style. I don't even wear jewelry anymore."

"What about that ring?" He pointed to the wide silver band with the Celtic border. Sometimes Jeremy felt he had missed his true calling: shrink.

Willa fiddled with the ring. It had dangled on a chain around her neck for ten years, after Hank died. Then she had it resized to cover the strange indentation which had appeared one day on her left middle finger. That was over fifteen years ago. Jeremy had made it clear many times he thought she should take off the ring. After all, Hank had been his boyfriend not hers. And because Jeremy had put Hank's death behind him, he thought Willa should too. But then the mark would show.

"Yes, but the ring is not jewelry, it's a bandage."

Willa stretched out the necklace in a line on the tabletop and for the first time really looked at it. It was strung on a leather cord with a silver clasp at the back. Each of the glass beads was a different color combination, speckled with glass dots and separated by spacer beads of silver. The focal bead, centered on the cord, was carved of a reddish wood into the shape of a sleeping rabbit. This was no cute bunny, more like a jackrabbit with long ears carefully carved and an expressive face that was almost sly. Lifting it into her palm, she couldn't stop her finger from tracing the smooth inside of its ear. Her mind drifted and almost remembered something.

Jeremy was unpacking lunch from the canvas bag. "I admit you are pretty hard to buy for, but that is one ugly necklace." Popping a bottle of champagne, he set two paper cups on the table and began to pour. He held out a cup to her. "Willa." He nudged her arm. "Willa!" and she jumped.

She sat down on the picnic bench and took a sip. "I had a really weird experience in the racks today."
"Weirder than usual?" he joked.

"I must have spaced out and when I snapped back into my body it was like I was lost in a forest, or maybe one of those hedge row mazes. Then I got the feeling that something was about to happen, that my life was about to change in a big way."

"Good. You need a big change."

"Oh, I don't know. There is change and there is change." Willa scooped up the necklace and stuffed it into her coat pocket.

"Finish your cup. As Toulouse-Lautrec said, One should not drink much, but often." Jeremy removed a napkin from a small tray with a flourish. She took a crab cake, finished her wine and held out the empty cup which he filled.

Willa tipped the second dose of brut into her mouth. It was then the alcohol hit her brain.

"So Willa, my darling," Jeremy started. "Maybe change is what you really want for your birthday." His voice dropped into "shrink" tone. "What kind of change are you looking for?"

Willa grabbed the bottle and drained it into her cup. Jeremy reached into the bag which produced another and popped the cork.

"How about a change of careers? You can come save the world with me."

It wasn't the first time Jeremy had suggested they work together again. He wanted it to be like the old days, when they were all working at the ballet: Willa and Lauren in the costume shop, Hank making props, Jeremy in the box office. They were young then and had so much energy. Now Hank was gone, Lauren had her own business and Jeremy had quit theater to save the whales.

Of course, she cared about the environment and all, but WildWorld was always on the edge of financial disaster. Willa felt lucky to have a steady paycheck. Besides, she was a theater person, always had been. And although Bard on the Bay wasn't cutting edge, at least it was Shakespeare, and better than working for the corporate Ice Capades.

"And wear matching sweatshirts? I don't think so," she said.

"They come in purple too," Jeremy teased. "It would change your look." He paused for a reaction. Getting none he continued. "Let's see, you already have a dog, how about a cat? Or you could always change your diet, become a vegan or something. But you definitely don't want to lose any more weight! One thing we learned from AIDS: you can be too thin. I don't think you eat enough." Jeremy had hit a nerve.

"Are you my mother? What are we doing right now? Eating. And I bet you have dessert in that bag." Willa knew she had been losing weight. She had never been fat, but lately she needed a belt with her tightest jeans. A lot of the time she just didn't want to eat. Was she stuck in some kind of depression?

"Maybe a change of scenery? How about Paris? London? Bora Bora?"

"Like I have that kind of money."

"That never used to stop you," Jeremy said. "Well, how about love? True love. Now that would be a big change for you."

She felt her aura contract and wished he hadn't brought it up. It had been years since she had been with any guy and Jeremy knew it. He also knew why. She let the silence last a bit too long.

"True love?" Willa shrugged. "Sure, if you're offering." And they both laughed, pretending to clink their cardboard cups.

She gazed at the fiberfill sky. "The truth is I don't want change. I'm so afraid of it that I don't even know if I want true love. Isn't that awful?" A shudder ran through her body. How long had she been like this, numb, floating through her days. Two years, five? When was her last trip, her last kiss? Maybe it was the alcohol but she felt dizzy. She grabbed the table corner for support.

"That's sure not the way you used to be," Jeremy said. "When we were working at the ballet, you would be up to something new every couple of days. Lauren and I used to take bets on how fast you would recycle boyfriends."

"Well, that's certainly not what I'm looking for at this point." She stopped herself, feeling her throat close up. "But you're right. I've lost my sense of adventure, my joie de'vivre."

Willa widened her eyes, which reflected the blue of his shirt. "I'm past my sell date, plodding along in a safe little rut, afraid to rock the boat."

"What boat?" Jeremy gestured wildly, scattering the seagulls. "I'm sorry, but I can't see what you are so afraid of losing: that run-down apartment or the dead-end theater job?"

This rant again, she thought. Of course the apartment had been a mixed blessing. It kept her from moving to L.A. to do that movie and from going in with Christy on the loft in the East Bay-Jeremy always reminded her-but who says she wasn't better off staying here. It was her home. And as for the theater, it was also home. She knew it wasn't the wild, creative world she had hoped to find when she was young. By definition it was scripted, rehearsed and buried in tradition-particularly the Shakespeare festival, talk about stuck in the past. As Jeremy liked to point out, she might as well costume Civil War reenactments. But realistically, what were her options?

The wine exaggerated the sensation of motion as waves slapped against the dock pilings. The bench rocked and swayed her body, giving Willa the sickening feeling things were spiraling out of her control. Something was coming; something long overdue. She was not so sure it was love, but whatever it turned out to be, it was not asking her permission.

She grabbed her head to keep her thoughts inside. "I'm fifty and I have no idea what I'm doing with my life."

"Too bad, you've got to get on with it." Jeremy put his arm around her shoulder. "Remember what George Eliot said. It is never too late to become what you might have been."

Willa lifted her cup. "I'll drink to that."

After they finished drinking their lunch, the rest of the afternoon blurred in a champagne haze. Willa had already planned to take tomorrow off, so it hardly mattered if she left the shop early. She rode the bus to the Haight and clomped up the wooden stairs to her flat.

Exhausted and with a headache starting, Willa unlocked the door and was greeted by her excited poodle. Dizzy, who preferred her proper name of Isadora, was hoping for a walk. But Willa scooped up the dog and carried her to the bed where they both fell into a restless sleep.

Broken Dream

Down the hill toward her he runs, covering yards with each step. As he nears, her long black braid twists and coils itself into a bun at the nape of her neck, tucking in its end and fastening it with a small lacquered hair comb. He stands behind her, watching, as an invisible hand embroiders a peacock with fanned feathers onto the satin back of her dressing gown.

In his heart he calls her name, but she doesn't respond. So he reaches out his hand and taps her shoulder lightly. At the touch of his finger she vanishes with a snap, as though he has pressed the delete button.

Layers of Meaning

The nap ended suddenly. Willa sprang upright then leaned back against the headboard. Her skin was tingling. What had just happened? She had to know. After years of trying to forget her dreams, she now pressed her mind to remember. She closed her eyes and tried to recall the scene.

I was following Dizzy into the park. She was running ahead, fast like when she was a pup. I was following behind and going just as fast, through the bushes and everything. But I wasn't running. I was gliding a few inches above the ground. I saw my feet and I was wearing Nana's old satin bedroom slippers.

Then the picture faded and Willa lost the image. I'm trying too hard, she thought and let her mind drift to the messy bedroom and how she really should vacuum tomorrow. As soon as she moved her focus, she felt a flutter of silk against her shoulder. She sensed her hair was up and touched the back of her head, but found her braid was still hanging down as usual. Yet that action must have lit her memory because instantly she could see the rest of the dream.

Everything was blurry, but I knew we were in the meadow behind the baseball diamond. It was sunny and I was standing-or floating-near that trash can at the beginning of the path. Peach colored silk was wrapped around me. Dizzy came running over and then, from far away, I heard a man's voice say my name. More like I heard his thought than his voice. He called me Willie. A hand touched my shoulder, and everything zoomed into very clear bright focus. I was startled-like an electric shock-and began turning to see who touched me. That's when I woke up. I didn't get a look, but I know it was him.
Suddenly, another image flashed into her mind. "A peacock!"

Since she had stopped having the nightmares, Willa almost never remembered her dreams. If she did, they were fuzzy and faded fast. Even though it wasn't a nightmare, this dream felt significant. She didn't know what it meant, if anything, but decided she should write it down.

Willa climbed on the chair and groped for something on the top shelf of the closet. She pulled down a black garment bag that had been rolled up and stuffed there. She unfolded it on the bed, but hesitated before unzipping it. The bag contained one of her deepest secrets, something that would have Jeremy dragging her off to the loony bin, if he found out. Lauren would perform an exorcism if she knew she had kept it. Her mother would cry and figure out a way to blame herself.

And yet, really, what was the big deal? Willa opened the plastic bag exposing the gathered layers clamped to a hanger. It was just an old skirt. She had made it herself from pieces picked up at second hands. There were three skirts originally-hot pink, security guard orange, and tiers of black lace-sewn together at the waistband. A hideous look now, but in the Cyndi Lauper 80s, it was happenin'.

The day of the accident she had worn it inside out, if there was such a thing. The black, on the outside, showed the pink through the lace. The orange, next to her skin, was the part that trailed in the gutter as she sat. Blood does not stay red after it dries and by the time she got home it had turned a dark brown. Though she worked for hours at the sink, it would not come out with washing. As she ran her finger over the arrow she had drawn pointing to the rust colored splotch and the first bit of writing she had put on the fabric: Down the Drain, she was careful, as always, not to touch the blood stain.

All over the orange, in black laundry marker, were equally cryptic phrases. After a few years, when that layer was filled, she had moved on to the pink: The beer truck turns. His eyes are still open. My heart jumps out my mouth. She was surprised to see the line: A one-eyed Tiki at my feet. It must have been part of a dream once, but she wasn't able to remember.

She un-clipped the marker from the waistband of the skirt and found an empty spot. I vanish at his touch. A Peacock. Then she zipped the bag again, but this time she hung it on the bar with her jackets-easier if she needed to get to it again.

Willa went into the bathroom and splashed her face. The dream had really thrown her and the cold water wasn't enough to settle her thoughts; she needed some air.

The Isadora opened an eye. She sensed action, hopefully a walk.

"Dizzy Dog, let's go to the park."

On the Scent

Isadora Duncan was thirteen years old. Though her dancing days were over and her eyesight and hearing had begun to go, her nose had actually sharpened with age. Every dog picks up the primary colors like food, sex, fear. Most smart ones learn to sniff-out sickness, worry, and deceit. But Isadora tuned into more subtle aromas, like the one Willa wore today: a new luggage smell of anticipation with musty overtones of dread and a note of nostalgia which brought to mind over-ripe pears. This was actually an improvement.

The last few weeks a stagnant odor, like the flat guest pillow in the hall closet, had the dog concerned. It was a scent so unlike the real Willa, that Isadora felt it was her duty to intervene.

When they turned to enter the park, her tail began to wave wildly. What Isadora loved most about the park was the complex aroma layering. As they came in sight of the trash can at the edge of the meadow, she pulled ahead. Reaching her goal she plastered her snout to the metal frame and sniffed feverishly.

Willa had been dragged many times to this spot. She thought: if this can was visual art it would be like a group show of different artists in an evolving gallery collection; if written word, maybe a chapbook by local poets. But as scent art there were no pictures, no metaphors. The can was pure emotion, coming straight from the gut. Not intended for everyone, it had a very exclusive and devoted audience. And Dizzy was a major fan. So Willa waited-leash in hand-for the dog to finish.

Isadora breathed in all the can had to offer. She considered carefully before adding her own personal expression. Then she waddled away to nose around the clearing, searching in the grass with the same focused intensity.

Willa sat down on the nearby bench. Gazing at the meadow-the same one she had just visited in the nap-she tried to overlay her memory of the scene. The dream meadow had been sunny with beams of light shining down. Over there were the bushes where she had floated, following Dizzy. And it was right near this spot that she had felt the touch on her shoulder. Suddenly she flashed on the image of a peacock and chill went through her bones. It was stitched onto the dressing gown, on her own back.

Willa was as superstitious as anyone who worked in theater. For her, whistling backstage, speaking the name of the Scottish play; almost everything carried a curse. Even saying "good luck" was bad luck. She knew and followed all the rules. Never use the color blue on a costume unless accompanied by silver. No real jewelry, hats or canes; to be the safest have nothing from the real world on stage. And never, never, never, use peacock feathers, not on sets and especially not on costumes. It will bring disaster. And now she dreamed of wearing peacock feathers. What could that mean? Nothing good, she feared.

Part of her wanted to blot the dream from memory as she had the others, but something inside her had shifted. There was no going back. If it was time to face her fears, to face him, what had made her jump awake before she could see his face? She felt a headache coming back. Cheap champagne.

Isadora stood at her feet, staring at her. Sometimes it seemed the dog could read her thoughts. "Are you ready, Dizzy girl? Let's start home." Willa rose from the bench feeling again that achy knee.

As they heading back for an evening of kibble and Netflix, the dog stopped for one more sniff. There, in a clump of grass, Isadora finally found what she had been searching for: the small hair comb that Willa had lost during their nap. She hid it in her mouth and secretly carried it all the way home.

The Crow's Nest

Three hours north and a world away, Miles awoke with a shock on the upstairs deck of the Crow's Nest Bar and Grill. The last thing he remembered he had been sipping a beer and drawing in his sketch book. Had he actually fallen asleep? Now the beer had gone flat and the sun was much lower. Holy shit, a dream, he thought, selecting a pencil to quickly sketch the image that burned in his mind. As soon as he had captured it, he flipped the page.

The sun sparkled on the water so brightly he could hardly distinguish the surfers straddling their boards as they waited for a wave worth the effort. He scooted his chair to the edge of the deck, lowered his gaze to the object of his interest and began shading using the side of the charcoal. The sun was sinking now and turning everything to silhouettes. Soon he would have to move to another position and start on something else.

"Hey, Miles." It was a young woman named Ariel. He didn't remember ever speaking to her before, but she gave him a big grin.

"Hey," he replied keeping his voice totally even.

"Mind if I join you?" Ariel asked. "Can I get you another of whatever you're drinking?"

He had an idea what was going on now. "Arena Cove Pale Ale, get us a pitcher and just put it on my tab." he said with a grin.

"Cool," she said "I wanted to try it. Any good?"

Miles shrugged, "It's probably just the Booneville Ale re-branded for us, but I like it."

"Cool." She hurried inside the bar to pick up the pitcher.

On a Miles friendship scale of one to ten, Ariel was like a two. He knew her name and apparently she knew his. He had seen her around town, but that was about it. Miles scanned the deck outside the restaurant-mostly tourists. Maybe she was meeting someone here and didn't want to sit alone. But he thought he knew what she was really after. She wanted what all the twenty-something girls around here wanted from him.

Carrying the pitcher, an empty glass and a bowl of pretzels, he could see Ariel had experience working in the food service industry. Around here, who didn't. Actually, he didn't.

She put it all down on the table and filled both their glasses. "The Albatross!" she said, with a glance at the pad, "I thought you were drawing the surfers."

"The surfers are there all the time," Miles pointed to the large white bird standing on the pier railing. "But Al, that's a rare opportunity. In fact, he shouldn't be here this early in the year."

Ariel tried to think of what came next. "Hey, thanks for that great poster you did for the poetry slam. It was awesome."

"Do you write poetry?" he asked her. It didn't really surprise him. Around here who didn't? Actually, he didn't.

"Yeah, I do and I helped organize the slam." She seemed glad to be on an easy subject.

"And I've seen you belly dance. A woman of many talents."

"I also make herbal lotions and teach yoga," she added, taking a handful of pretzels.

"Cool," he said thinking, who doesn't? I don't.

They sat in silence. He was not going to say anything. She was going to have to make the move. Ariel shifted in her chair.

Here it comes, Miles thought, preparing himself for the big question. Dozens of times since coming here young women had cornered him at bars, at the movies, at the beach. All of them had the same goal.

"I hear Deirdre is moving to San Francisco," Ariel began. "She said to ask you. . ."

"Sure," Miles said, like it was up to him.

Ariel jumped from her seat. "Sure she's moving or sure, I can have it?"

"Both. I mean, if Deirdre said." Though the cabin sat on Miles's land, it had never felt like his.

"Oh wow, great!" Ariel stammered. "How much is, you know, the rent?"

"How much can you pay?" It was a ritual they might as well play out.

Ariel looked at her hands, then at the sketch pad, then at the pretzels. "Deirdre said she did gardening and other stuff around the place and watched it when you were in the city."

"Sure" Miles said.

"Can I have a dog?" Ariel leaned over the railing and whistled. Miles saw a medium sized dog with a short black and white coat looking up at them. It was the common local mix: part healer, part unknown.

"An Ocean Retriever. Looks pretty young."

"Just over a year. His name is Basho, like the father of haiku."

"The father of haiku? Like poetry?" Miles asked.

"Yeah, when he was just a little pup he ate a poem I was working on, so I called him Basho." Ariel explained. "And he was born over in Ukiah. Haiku is Ukiah backwards, you know."

Miles mentally spelled the county seat. "I never knew that."

"They have a haiku festival in Ukiah every year. I'm surprised you haven't heard of it," Ariel said. "It's kind of a big deal."

"I'll have to check it out someday," he said, though he doubted that he would. "So I'll just leave you and Basho to work things out with Deirdre then." That's the way it was always done. If Deirdre thought that Ariel should live there, who was he to mess with tradition. He held out his hand to shake on the deal. "Okay?"

As Ariel took his hand, a familiar feeling that she had repeated this scene on a parallel plane, made her mind spin. To shake off the deja vu, she took off her knitted Rasta cap and rearranged her mop of strawberry blond braids. "Great and thanks really, you saved my ass. I mean if this hadn't worked out I probably would have had to move on." Ariel fiddled with her glass and found her eyes wandering to the canes leaning against the empty chair.

Miles followed her gaze. If she was going to live on the property near him, she needed to get past the canes. "It's just one of those two cane days," he said.

"I guess I only saw you use one," she said quietly. "Are you getting worse?"

"Just older," he said with a smile. Was he twice her age? Something like that. Actually he was supposed to use two canes all the time. But for years he had only used the one-vanity probably. Lately the pain was getting intense and his therapist had laid down the law.

The canes were hand carved with animal faces peeking out of the staffs. "They are really amazing," Ariel turned one cane over in her hand. "Did you carve them?"

Miles nodded and returned to his beer. "I used to work with wood."

"Hey Ariel. Hey Miles." Another young woman slid a chair over to join them.

"Halley, did you hear Deirdre's moving to The City and I'm taking over the cabin?"

Halley's jaw dropped. She looked to Miles, who nodded. "You're moving in? Did Deirdre say?"

"Yeah," Ariel looked sheepish. "Sorry."

"Oh well, at least you can get off my couch." Halley looked at the pitcher, "Can I get a glass?" Miles nodded. Halley went inside to grab a glass from the bar.

Now its official, Ariel thought. I'm the keeper of the sweetest cabin on the coast.

The surfers were packing it in for the day, changing out of their wetsuits and coming up for a drink. Fishing boats began to dock and unload. Miles flipped shut the cover on his sketch pad, tucked it away in his backpack with his charcoals, and scooted his chair around to make more room at the large round table. He could see his surf buddies heading to the deck.

"Why don't you go in and tell Halley we need two more glasses and another pitcher?" Miles suspected it was a going to be a night. "And a couple orders of nachos."

Ariel hopped up. Even though she had never been in on it before, she knew that drinking with Miles was the ticket. Years ago he had bought part ownership in the Crow's Nest Bar and Grill. He took his share in beer and chips. If you were at his table, you could drink all night for free. The kitchen would keep sending out snacks and sometimes serious food. Everyone in town knew it, so he was always surrounded by friends.

"You have a good nap out there?" Miles signaled to Sam and Nick and they flopped into their usual seats. They both wore hooded sweatshirts with watch caps on their wet hair. Weathered men of the board and looking every bit of fifty, they acted like twenty.

"Flat, flat, flat, like this beer." Sam held up the pitcher. "More on the way, I hope. Didn't I see some young things sitting here a minute ago?"

"Here they come." The women squeezed into their seats around the table as Sam and Nick dug into the nachos. "You know Halley and Ariel?" Miles played host.

"Yeah, Hey Halley, and Ariel, yes we know each other. I'm a big fan of belly dance." Sam flirted.

"I'll get the next pitcher," Nick said as he poured the beer. "And by that I mean I'll get up and carry it out here." He laughed at his own joke.

"So guess what? Deirdre's leaving and I'm moving into the cabin." Ariel's voice rose in excitement. "This means I can stay on the coast."

"Really?" Sam looked at Miles with raised eyebrows.

"As you know, it's out of my hands." Miles shrugged.

"I don't get it," said Halley. "It's your cabin, so why does Deirdre get to choose who gets to live there next. And why is it free? I know lots of people who would pay you to stay there."

"Oh, Grasshopper, it isn't Deirdre who chooses, it's the cabin." Sam explained. "The cabin makes its desires known to whoever is living there."

"What?" said Ariel and Halley together.

"It's like The Shining, but more mellow," added Nick.

"People say stuff like that, but I'm not sure it's true," Miles said. "As far as I know, each woman chooses the next one. When I bought the place, Susanna was already there. The realtor said she was the caretaker and was living in the cabin free in exchange for watching over the place. Susanna told me she got the place from the woman who was caretaker before her. And when she finally moved away, she chose Bridget to be caretaker."

"So it's like a job?" asked Ariel. "What does the caretaker do?"

Miles thought about it for a minute, "It is kind of like a job, but I don't know what it will be for you. When I moved here I was a city boy. Susanna taught me survival skills, how the water system worked and the wood stove. Bridget made the garden and built the back deck on the cabin. Deirdre brought the chickens, which I plan to keep. So whatever your job turns out to be, the pay is living for free in the cabin." He looked at Ariel's face and guessed her thoughts. "It's got nothing to do with taking care of me, it's about the place. And it's up to you, I think."

"It's a sacred trust," said Sam mysteriously.

"Stop freaking her out. You make it sound supernatural," Miles said.

"For some people, that would be a plus." Sam looked at Ariel to see if she agreed.

"I guess that would depend," Ariel said.

"Ariel tells fortunes," Halley offered. "She was reading the Tarot just the other night."

"Really?" Miles perked up, "Do you know much about dreams?"

"Oh man, if we have to hear about Miles's dreams again we're going to need another pitcher." Nick grabbed the empty pitcher and headed inside.

"I have a book about dream interpretations," Ariel said. "It tells what it means if you dream about teeth or if you dream you are flying, that sort of thing. But I'm no expert. I have to look things up."

"That's not exactly the sort of dreams Miles is interested in." Sam said.

Miles felt his face redden. He leaned back in his chair with his arms folded across his chest. When was he going to get over feeling embarrassed in front of people, especially girls? After the accident he really had to thicken his hide. He was over the stares people gave him when he limped around town. By now all the locals were long past noticing that anyway. But Miles had a persona he carefully cultivated and Sam seemed to always be chipping away at it. "Thanks, Sam, for that thumbnail sketch of my interior landscape."

"Hey, look. The sun's just going down." Sam pointed to the horizon. "I bet we see the green flash."
The conversation stopped and all eyes turned to stare at the horizon. Even the tourists focused their attention, hoping to finally catch it.

"I've never actually seen it." Ariel said.

Sam took her arm and led her to the railing. "Seeing the green flash for the first time is a mystical moment. Like finding a pool of phosphorescent plankton or a grunion run, you have to get to the right beach on the right night to actually believe it's real. Until then, it seems like just another tall tale," he said. "Keep your eyes open or you'll miss it."

That evening, conditions were perfect for the green flash. The horizon stayed clear with no marine layer or mist. The sun turned from yellow to orange to red before it sank below the ocean. At that moment, a green light flared for just an instant from the spot that swallowed the sun.

The entire deck gasped. "Oh my god!" screamed Ariel, "Did you see? It looked just like a spaceship!"

Miles turned back to the table in time to catch the albatross flying off, his beak full of nachos.

The Fairy Ring

On a nearby bluff top, inside an old cabin, the iron bedstead rattled as Deirdre rolled to her side. A shaft of light cut a path across the rumpled fabric, brightening the faded calicos on the quilt they call Wild Goose Chase.

The walls creaked as the afternoon sun warmed the planks. The wedge of light broadened, brightening her auburn hair as it trailed across the flowered pillowcase. Soon the whole room glowed golden. But Deirdre still slept; wrapped in the quilt, on the iron bed, inside the cabin, in the center of a fairy ring.

In the forests of the north coast, circles of trees, called fairy rings, sprang up from the roots of redwoods that were no longer standing. The mother of the cabin ring was once an ancient giantess. Loggers worked in teams to saw through her immense trunk, but they abandoned it when a blackened circle near the heartwood was revealed. The huge flat stump was left to weather, a stage for squirrels and rabbits, until some fishermen decided it would make a sturdy foundation on which to build a shelter. Nearby lay the body, ready to be milled for the walls and roof joists.

Over time, the remnants of the mother tree melted back into the earth. But the tree only appeared to be gone. Underground its roots lived on, spreading into a sweeping arc from which slender sisters sprouted and grew into a perfect circle of tall redwood daughters framing a forest clearing. Legend said that standing inside a fairy ring could calm the wildest mind below the line of thought and crack the hardest heart open just a bit. Sleeping in one could change a life forever.

At dusk, Deirdre finally awoke. With the quilt still around her, she walked outside to watch the sunset from the porch steps. She had lived on top of the stump for three years, never knowing. A newer perimeter was poured a decade ago, hiding the trunk from view. The ring of daughters had grown so large that Deirdre never recognized it as a circle, just that the cabin stood amid huckleberries in a grove of tall redwoods, youngsters at 150, but old by her human clock. Although blind to the roots beneath the floorboards and the protective fairy ring, Deirdre still felt them, always had.

I'll really miss it here, she thought. As an answer, a small round seed cone dropped from a branch above and rolled toward her Birkenstock. She picked it up and put it in her pocket, glancing up just in time to watch the sun plant a bright green kiss on the horizon.