Rendezvous

As I looked up at the full moon, the wind skittered through the leaves, as if on cue. Every step I took toward the barn was a dangerous one. I dared a glance back at my old, white farmhouse (at least, it used to be white; the paint on the siding was so chipped that it was almost beige again), watching carefully for a light to flip on. If she woke up, she would almost definitely check my room, and if I weren't in there...

A barn owl suddenly swooped down next to me, too close for comfort, ultimately landing on a branch in a nearby tree. I could swear, as it looked at me, that it knew my secret. It was in cahoots with them and would sound out its warning cry at any moment.

No, it was just an ordinary owl. I needed to stop being paranoid and get myself together if I was going to pull this off. I tugged my coat tighter around me and crept closer to the barn door, keeping an eye on the owl as well as I could. The handle of the door was cool under my grasp, and the door was heavy enough that it required some force on my end. I slid through and closed it as quickly as I could behind me while maintaining my stealth. A click sounded behind me and suddenly I was staring at my shadow on the door -- someone behind me had turned on a light.

"You're early," they rasped. I enjoyed his voice. The raspy quality might have bothered others but it meant to me that he had lived a full, long life.

Turning to face him, shielding my face from the flashlight beam, I retorted, "No time like the present." An ironic statement for the deal we were about to make. He sat the flashlight to the side, still on and illuminating us, and cracked a smile. "Is it ready?"

His smile widened. "Yes. It's ready." One of his hands reached into the large pocket of his trench coat. Out came a small vial, no bigger than an olive, with a dark green liquid in it, oddly enough similar to the color of an olive. I had thought potions were supposed to look appetizing or at least eye-catching. With this potion, I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference if he had just scooped up some pond water. And maybe he had. "Take it," he offered, his open palm outstretched to me. I tentatively grasped it in my own hand and held it gently, inspecting it closely. An abrupt noise nearly startled me into dropping it, but I held tight. When I looked up to where the sound had come from, the barn owl was perched there on one of the wooden beams, watching me carefully, awaiting my hesitation. My eyes flicked back to the event at hand, literally, the vile tempting me from between my fingers.

I swallowed thickly. "This is for 2082...correct?"

I expected some possible anger or annoyance at my questioning of his competence, though it was more due to my nervousness than anything else -- I couldn't exactly afford to doubt him even if I wanted to. But he looked serene, expectant, and maybe a little pleased. "Indeed. Sixty years in the future. An odd amount but...who am I to judge?"

2082. Hugo had said he would meet me there. He made me the promise in this very barn, the same owl watching over us, pondering our conversation.

What if he lied? What if he was trying to see how far I would go, how gullible, how naive I was? What if he wasn't lying but he didn't make it? What if I don't make it? All I knew for sure was that I had a greater chance of never seeing him again if I didn't try. I stepped back, slid open the barn door just a crack, and peered at the house. Two lights on. It was now or never.

I turned back to him, peeled the foil top off of the vile, and sipped the olive liquid down in one gulp. To see Hugo, to get away from the people who called themselves my parents but never were, to find myself a brighter light, greener grass, a better life on the other side of this one.

I started to feel dizzy immediately and sank to the ground. He caught my head before it hit the hay-covered wooden floor. My breaths felt difficult. Was I dying? He looked me in the eyes and smiled a real smile. I only knew it was real because of how it compared to the others he had shown me.

"I will find you, Margo." My vision was beginning to black at the sides. I thought I heard yells from the house but they were so distant and faint, especially through the fog of my head, that I couldn't be sure.

"You?" Maybe I said it, maybe the word didn't quite find its way from my brain to my mouth. He only smiled, still. "How will I find you?" I was again unsure if I really spoke. He stayed for one last beat before backing away and disappearing into the shadows. My head turned to face the ceiling once more, the voices louder in my seemingly cotton-stuffed ears. The last thing I saw before the blackness was the abyss of the eyes of the barn owl...and I could swear he winked at me.

The parents would open the barn door, eager to punish me, but I would be years away.