Disclaimer: "Tuck Everlasting" belongs to Natalie Babbitt. I am making no money from this story, and it's merely meant to be homage to the book. Heck, even the copy of the book I read was borrowed from my niece. She told me it was her favorite book. I can see why. Note: This story is ENTIRELY based upon the book "Tuck Everlasting." I have NOT seen the movie yet.

VISITOR

"Durned fool toad. Thinks it's gonna live forever." Tuck

The woman sat upon the garden bench, gazing out upon the sun-baked brickwork path. Summer again – the air heavy, the sky filled with clouds aching to break with rain. The garden around the woman was all dry earth and wilting flowers. She'd have to call Lucy out to give the plants a good watering.

As it was, Lucy would probably scold her for being out here, though evening would arrive soon and the sun wasn't as oppressive as it had been earlier. Besides, she was sitting under the shade of a large oak tree. She had taken the trouble to hobble out here because she had wanted to feel the breeze.

Her thin, white, wrinkled hands sat one atop the other on the lap of her skirt. It was so nice to be outside for once, in the garden, despite the hot, heavy air. A flash of movement caught her eye. She looked down. A fat, tan toad stared up at her. The old woman smiled.

"A visitor," she said. The toad replied with a slow blink of its eyes.

"You know," the old woman continued, "I used to have a toad – when I was a little girl. He wasn't really a pet toad... just a toad I knew. Come to think of it, how I remember him... he looked a lot like you – all big and fat and brown."

The toad croaked a slow, low ribbitt.

"Heh, heh, heh," the woman chuckled, "You couldn't be that same toad. I don't know how long toads are supposed to live. I'm sure it's only a few years, though. My old toad is surely long gone. That is, unless that fairy tale is true."

The woman gazed long at the toad. He hopped forward one hop, barely moving at all, landing with soft silence on his copious belly.

"I had a chance to be young forever once," the old woman said. "Oh, you don't believe me?"

The toad blinked again.

"It was the year I witnessed that murder." The old woman sighed with the memory. "I was only ten years old then... little girl, barely a young lady. Ma and Grandma... kept me so tight and tidy all the time... Never saw the world... I just up and decided to run away one day. I got kidnapped by this country family that lived out in the woods."

She looked down at the toad again. "Oh, don't give me that look! Don't worry! They didn't hurt me at all. Real nice people. The Tucks... real nice country folk. There was the Ma and the Pa, and two young men. Jesse had the strangest smile. I really liked him... if it wasn't for the murder, I might have married that boy.

"Oh, I was scared at first, but they didn't hurt me. They treated me really nice and gave me supper. That family... heh, heh... They told me that there was a spring out in the woods that made them live forever. They couldn't be hurt by anything. Jesse wanted me to promise to go to that spring when I was seventeen and take a drink, then run off to find him. We were going to see the world."

The woman sighed heavily. "Things don't always turn out as you'd like them. Oh.. they was real serious about this spring, these Tucks. They acted like they really believed it. Talked about living forever... Pa Tuck... oh, I remember his face, after all these years... such a sad face. He was younger than I am now, but he looked just as worn."

The toad sat still, its eyes closed tightly, basking up the late afternoon sunrays. It looked just like a large dirt clod carelessly left upon the red brick path.

"A man came to get me, come to rescue me... only... he wasn't. He was a bad man – I don't remember exactly what happened... my poor old head. I remember that he wanted to hurt me. Ma Tuck cracked him over the head with the butt of a shotgun. The Tucks didn't want him to hurt me. He died later. I had the first great adventure of my life back then. I saved Mrs. Tuck's life.

"You see, she was going to go to the gallows, on account of the murder – though it was really defense. This old town... they didn't believe plain country people. I met Jesse Tuck in the middle of the night and we snuck out to the jailhouse and made a jailbreak. We pried the old jailhouse window loose, and I shimmied up inside....hunched up under a blanket so the constable would think I was Mrs. Tuck. I sat there all night while those Tucks ran off. I was scolded terribly for it in the morning, but I was glad I did it. They were my friends."

The toad belched another soft "ribbitt." The woman smiled down at it.

"Yes, you look just like my old toad. Back then, I believed that silly story.... If Mrs. Tuck went to the gallows... I really thought that she wouldn't die – then the secret about the spring would be out. Too many people would want to find it... we'd have a world full of people living forever, and that just isn't right, with this world the way it is." She sighed. "It's just too sad a world to live in forever. Life is too hard to keep on for always. I had a little bottle of spring water, gift from that boy, Jesse. I gave it to my toad. There was always the spring out in the woods. I knew where to find it."

"I've been to different parts of the world, but have always returned to Treegap. I even went back to that spring a few times, but I never took a drink. I just decided that I didn't want to live forever. Whenever I thought about it, I thought about how sad Pa Tuck's face was. It was just a fairy tale, anyway. Heh, heh. It's silly what you'll believe when you're young."

The toad eyed a tiny beetle crawling across the brickwork. He shot out his pale pink tongue, lightning-quick, and snapped it up.

"I'm not long for this world... my poor old husband went on many years ago. I'm looking forward to seeing him again. It's a sad burden, we humans bear, little toad. It never occurs to an animal that they are going to die. Sure, you get scared when a predator's about to snap you up, but it never occurs to you that you aren't going to live forever. It's not that way with people.

"Come to think of it... I'm not sure I'd want it that way."

"Grandma Winnie!" a small, feminine voice called. "Grandma Winnie! Oh, what are you doing out here? I was looking all over the house for you!"

"I've just been sittin' out here, dear," Winnie responded, looking up at the young, dark-haired woman coming down the path. "Just sittin' a spell in the garden."

"Oh, Grandma Winnie! You nearly gave me a heart attack! You know you aren't supposed to go off without telling anyone! What if you fall down again? Shew! It's so hot out here... Let's get you inside before you get sunstroke!"

The old woman hefted herself up on her cane while her granddaughter offered out her shoulder to lean on.

The fat toad slowly hopped away. It hopped out of the garden, past the grass, and through the bars on the iron garden fence. It hopped onto the blacktopped road that ran past the little house. A car came on, its driver focused on getting to his destination on time, unnoticing of the animal in the road. He wouldn't have cared, anyway.

The front tire rolled right over the toad, flattening the small animal. Like a balloon being blown up, the toad's skin stretched out. A moment later, the toad hopped off to the other side of the road.

END

S.E. Nordwall, aka "Shadsie", 2004