The Autumn Tiger

Elena slammed on her brakes and swerved.

A tiger, an honest to goodness full-grown tiger stood in the middle of the tree-lined county road in Hendersonville, North Carolina.

“Oh, my lord.” She gasped as her Buick jerked to a stop.

The tiger stared at her amidst the falling autumn leaves.

Elena adjusted her glasses. This was no trick of the light, but at her age, could it be a trick of the mind?

She didn’t breathe. She didn’t even blink as she took in the sight of the orange and cream fur striped with black.

The tiger swished its tail and strode into the trees, not far from her house.

Her knobby fingers unclenched the steering wheel.

She’d had dreams about tigers since she was a girl, but surely this wasn’t a dream. All of her tiger dreams were the same. She was certain. For as long as she could remember, she'd kept a detailed dream journal in a little black notebook.

Elena’s imagination always stretched her backyard into an endless garden with bright sunlight and vivid greens. The tigers would lounge by a clear pond beside a patch of sparkling white flowers while they watched her—aloof, majestic, and powerful. She’d watch them back with a curiosity that danced a knife-edge between fear and awe, always from behind the safety of the sliding glass door.

Surely this hadn’t been a dream.

But goodness gracious, if this was real, she needed to hurry home and call the authorities.

Elena turned onto the dirt driveway that led to the few acres and modest ranch-style home she’d bought with her ex-husband before he ran out on her and her daughter, Jasmine.

Jasmine had passed away sixteen years ago to the day in that very house, but Elena couldn’t bear to part with the home where she’d raised her daughter and started the baking business they’d ran together. The apple orchards around Hendersonville needed pies, jams, tarts, bread, cobblers—you name it—to sell in their shops and cafes each fall when the tourists descended for the season.

Jasmine had returned to live at home after her divorce, but through it all, they never stopped baking together. Not until Jasmine had gotten that awful cancer diagnosis.

The garage door opened and then closed behind Elena with a strange finality. She carried in the single bag of groceries she’d bought to make the apple cobbler she made each year on the anniversary of Jasmine’s death. It was the only time she bothered with baking these days.

Elena dropped the bag, spilling Braeburn apples all over the white tiled floor.

The tiger—the very same tiger, paced beneath the giant poplar in her backyard atop a carpet of downed golden leaves. The tiger stopped, sat on its haunches, and stared back at her through the window with those amber eyes.

Chills spread. This wasn’t a far stretch from her dream. She clapped a hand to her forehead. Her mother had had Alzheimer’s, but the hallucinations hadn’t started right away.

Elena froze.

An apple rolled to a stop at her foot, nudging her to action. She shuffled to the office computer as fast as her stiff knee would allow, stealing glances of the tiger out of the windows as she went.

After clicking the wrong icon three times, she pulled up the internet and typed, Missing tiger in North Carolina, into the Google.

“Well, I’ll be darned,” she said aloud. There was a missing tiger, and it had been missing for several weeks. She hadn’t lost her marbles after all.

Elena called the private number, explained, and gave her address.

“Thank you, Ma’am. Old Jazzy has never gotten out before,” the man on the phone said. “I’ll send a team over right away. Should we catch her, you’ll be eligible for the reward.”

“Reward?”

“Yes, Ma’am. Twenty thousand dollars.”

“Oh, good gracious!” Elena said. She wouldn’t have to pinch a penny quite as tightly with that kind of money, and she could donate a bit of it to cancer research.

The man chuckled. “It is highly unusual to see a reward worth more than the animal itself, but Jazzy is very dear to her mama, Ms. Sandra, and when we didn’t get any calls, Ms. Sandra kept upping the reward.”

“That wouldn’t be the Ms. Sandra, as in the famous psychic on the television?” Jasmine had often put that program on in the background as they’d baked in the apple-cinnamon scented kitchen.

“That’d be her, but she hasn’t done a show in years.”

They ended the call, and the tiger, Jazzy, came closer to the sliding glass door that led to the backyard.

Elena’s feet carried her closer, and she placed a hand on the glass, wishing she could reach out and touch the magnificent animal.

Jazzy paced and then stretched out on the sun-warmed patio beside Elena’s flowerpots. So close. If Elena opened the door a few inches, she could feel the fur of the tiger’s middle beneath her fingers.

Maybe it was the lifetime of dreams coming to a head that made her want this so desperately, or perhaps it was because she’d been trapped in a cage of old age for so long, she couldn’t remember what it felt like to really live. Either way, she needed to do this.

Before Elena could talk herself out of it, she cracked the sliding glass door open an inch.

Jazzy didn’t stir.

Another inch.

Jazzy yawned, showing those long white teeth and pink tongue.

With wooden movements, Elena lowered herself onto the gardening stool she kept beside the door.

Jazzy remained still.

The door slid a few more inches, and Elena reached out with a steady hand—her fragile skin like paper. This could be the last thing she’d ever do, but that didn’t stop her.

Jazzy looked over her shoulder, bowed her head, and laid it back down before rolling onto her back and exposing her striped, cream-colored belly.

Elena’s fingers fell on the soft fur, and she exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. The rise and fall of Jazzy’s powerful lungs lifted her hand with a steady rhythm. The deep vibrations of the low, broken chuffing were like music, and a joyful tear slid down Elena’s cheek.

In all of her dreams, she’d always watched from afar, and this step forward made her feel alive and as brave as a tigress herself.

Elena sat like that for a quarter of an hour, matching her breathing to Jazzy’s. Reluctantly, Elena pulled her hand back and slowly closed the glass door. The thrill of it all caught up to her, and she had to sit for a spell before standing.

The uniformed specialists arrived shortly after the pounding in Elena’s chest returned to normal.

They slipped a leash around Jazzy’s neck and walked her over to the truck without a fuss.

“Ma’am, this is from Ms. Sandra.”

Elena jumped. She’d been greedily tracing the pattern of Jazzy’s stripes with her eyes, taking mental notes to write in her dream journal, even though this wasn’t a dream.

The young man handed Elena a fat envelope.

“Good heavens.” She’d never seen so many hundred-dollar bills.

“Ms. Sandra said to pass along her deepest thanks.”

Elena thanked them and forced a smile as she watched them drive away with Jazzy. It went against the grain to see her go, but she would’ve been crazy not to report a tiger in these parts.

Elena finished her dinner at six o’clock and pulled Jasmine’s favorite apple cobbler out of the oven to cool. Each year, it became more difficult to peel the apples with her arthritis, but she’d be darned if she ever gave up this tradition. The warm kitchen smelled just as it had when they’d baked together, and she half expected to hear Jasmine say she’d grab the vanilla ice cream.

Elena took a bite, and her eyes watered. Grief and nostalgia mixed to form a heavy weight in her chest. Sixteen years Jasmine had been gone, and this day never got any easier.

The phone rang as she took her last bite.

“Is this Elena Johnston?” a deep female voice said.

“Yes, who’s calling?”

“My name is Sandra Líng. I wanted to thank you personally for finding my Jazzy this afternoon.”

“My pleasure. Seeing her just made my day,” Elena said with an honest smile.

“She’s a special tiger. I’m glad to have her home where we can keep her comfortable. Sixteen is getting old for a tiger.”

“Jazzy’s Sixteen?” Elena’s heart skipped a beat.

“Yes. Jasmine—Jazzy for short—today happens to be her birthday, and thanks to you, she’s home.”

Elena almost dropped the phone.

“Is everything alright…Wait. I’m sensing something,” Ms. Sandra said in the mystical voice Elena had heard on the television program. “I’m picking up on a reading.”

Elena couldn’t have put words together if she’d wanted. Jasmine…sixteen years… Elena swallowed past a growing lump in her throat.

“You lost someone. A daughter?” Ms. Sandra said.

“Yes.” Elena breathed.

“Your life hasn't been easy, but you’re a hard worker, and you've done well with the cards you were dealt. Tell me, were you by chance born in the Autumn?”

“I was,” Elena answered without thinking, even though she’d never really bought into this psychic stuff.

“Mmm-hmmm,” Ms. Sandra said like that meant something. “I’m sensing great personal strength, self-reliance, and optimism through it all.”

“Oh, I don’t know...”

“I do,” Ms. Sandra said matter-of-factly. “And what’s your birth year?”

“1938,” Elena muttered.

“Aha. The year of the tiger. I never did believe in coincidences.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your Chinese zodiac sign, dear. Tigers are courageous and notoriously impulsive. Jazzy must have recognized a kindred spirit. It would seem she found you. And it would seem that you, my dear, are stronger than you think,” Ms. Sandra said like this made complete sense.

Elena didn’t know what to think, but she knew her heart couldn't take another helping of shock today. “You’ll have to excuse me…I think I’d better go—”

“There’s one last thing,” Ms. Sandra interrupted and began to speak slowly like she was translating a foreign language. “The daughter, named for your favorite flower. I sense her presence. She says she’s waited for you, but now it’s time for her to go, and she’ll be there when you make your…trip. Does that mean anything to you?”

Elena clutched her chest with a trembling hand. Through the cancer, Jasmine had always talked about death like a trip, taking her on to her next destination.

“It does.” Elena’s voice broke. “It means something. I think I’d better go lie down.”

Before they hung up, Ms. Sandra wished Elena safe travels and a goodnight.

Elena felt so shaken, she didn’t bother dressing in her nightgown or taking the handful of meds in the Friday pill-box. She collapsed onto the bed—her mind replaying the conversation until sleep finally took her.

Tigers lounged about the backyard, some sunning on boulders her mind had added to the dreamscape, others stretched out on the grass by the glittering, sunlit pond. One of the tigers slinked toward her. Its great padded paws moved silently over the lush dream grass.

This had never happened before.

Elena wasn’t afraid, but what did it mean? Why was tonight different? A piece inside of her clicked in to place, and the confusion cleared. She realized why they’d always watched from afar. They’d been waiting for her.

The tiger that advanced was Jazzy. Tonight, Jazzy welcomed her—brushing her agile, soft body against Elena with a low contented rumbling. Elena reached out—one soul reaching for another after years apart.

At dawn, a red sun rose, but neither Elena nor Jazzy lived to see that day.

Half a world away, in the wilds of India, beside a bush of night-blooming jasmine, two tiger cubs entered the world—together.