Lyrics to Through the Mists of Time by AC/DC (2020)

The funeral was a week and a half later. Three dozen people packed into St. Michael's on Parkland Avenue, many of them family members that Lacy barely knew or, in some cases, didn't know at all. Aunt Lori and Uncle Bobby were there with their three kids, Diego, Maria, and Raphel; Aunt Leni was there with her boyfriend Chaz and their daughter Chloe; Aunt Luna and Aunt Sam; Aunt Luan, so many people all coming up to Lacy, hugging her and offering their condolences, that it made her head spin.

It had been almost two weeks, and still, none of it seemed real. She floated numbly through the days like a wraith, her feet never touching the floor, and at night, she dreamed of her parents. In those dreams, she thought they were dead, but they came through the door and everything was normal again. After the viewing, where she saw the caskets for the first time, the dreams changed. They were just like before, except Dad's arm would always fall off and land at her feet.

The sound of her own screaming usually woke her up.

Presently, she sat in the front pew between her grandparents, her arms crossed tightly over her chest against an internal chill. Her red-rimmed eyes brimmed with tears and she sucked her quivering lips into her mouth to keep herself from breaking down. Grandma laid a consoling hand on Lacy's knee and Grandpa stared down at his hands, looking just as broken as Lacy felt. Lacy had been staying with them since the accident and in that time, Grandpa hadn't spoken more than ten words. He spent most of his evenings sitting in his chair and staring at the TV. He was never lively or talkative, but now, he might as well have died with Mom and Dad.

At the front of the church. Two coffins floated side by side on a sea of flowers. The cloying, sickly-sweet stench wrapped itself around Lacy like a ghostly hand and turned her stomach. She shifted uncomfortably and wished she was somewhere, anywhere, else.

A priest in holy vestments read from the Bible, but Lacy's brain refused to process what he was saying, as if by ignoring his words, she could keep this from becoming real. It wasn't over til the fat lady sang, the saying went, and Mom and Dad's lives wouldn't be over until the preacher man preached. If she could put it off, she'd come to a stalemate with God. Mom and Dad might not be here, but they wouldn't officially be there either.

Lacy let out a shivering breath and shuddered at the thought of her parents in limbo, trapped between two worlds like that dumb fly between those stupid window panes. Grandma rubbed a loving circle in her back and Grandpa patted her knee, eyes staring fixedly ahead. Inexplicable tears flooded Lacy's eyes and she squeezed them closed. It wasn't enough to stop the storm, however, and she wept bitterly.

When the service was over, everyone piled into their cars and followed the hearse to Heaven's Gate Cemetery south of town. Gray headstones in rank and file jutted from the snow like jagged rocks from an alien surf and barren trees grasped at the ashen sky like skeletal hands searching for supplication that they would never receive. An awning marked the spot where Mom and Dad would spend eternity, the wind making ripples in the canvas. A green tarp covered a mound of dirt, and two gravediggers in gray coveralls stood by a big yellow digger in the distance and smoked cigarettes. Lacy stood with her grandparents and watched as the coffins containing her parents were lowered into the ground, She tried to cry but she had no tears left, so she only hugged herself. Everyone lined up and walked past the graves, tossing a single flower in. Lacy lingered over Mom's and then Dad's, her chest crushing beneath a dark and icy weight. "I love you," she trembled and finally found enough tears to sob again. Grandma and Grandpa put their hands on her back and led her away.

Everyone met back and Grandma and Grandpa's house for the wake, which was basically a somber party. Grandma busied herself with drinks and snack trays and Grandpa sat in his chair with a can of beer wedged between his legs. They reacted to the tragedy in two very different ways. Grandpa sulked and brooded while Grandma did whatever she could to take her mind off of the pain. She buzzed around the house like a bee, dusting surfaces that didn't need it, vacuuming freshly vacuumed carpets, and washing the same dishes that she'd just washed. Lacy sensed that she was desperate to keep on the go lest the grief of losing her daughter catch up with her.

Not for the first time, Lacy wondered if anyone on her father's side of the family knew what had happened. She knew nothing about them save that Dad's parents were dead. He didn't like to talk about them for some reason. When she was younger, Lacy was intensely curious about them but Mom and Dad got really weird when she brought them up, so she stopped. Deep down, she wanted to meet any aunts, uncles, and cousins she might have from Dad's side, but she doubted that would ever happen, so she kind of gave up on it.

For a little while, Lacy sat on the couch with Lisa and Leni, but the dark atmosphere became too much to bear and she retreated upstairs to her room. She kicked out of her dress shoes and let out a sigh of relief because they pinched her toes, then changed out of her black dress into a pair of lounge pants and a white T-shirt. She stretched out on top of the covers, then curled up into a ball. She had never felt so lost and alone in her life, and she found herself blinking back a fresh crop of tears. She faced the window and gazed sightlessly at the dirty sky, her tears eventually tapering off, leaving her cheeks wet and tacky.

She couldn't believe they were gone...that she would never see them again, never roll her eyes at them acting dumb with each other, never talk to Mom about her problems, never curl up with Dad on the couch. She suddenly regretted not spending more time with them, regretted taking them for granted. She thought they would always be there, she thought she would always have them.

A gentle knock came at the door and Lacy squeezed her eyes closed. Please go away.

The door opened but nothing happened. Finally, Lisa spoke, her voice uncertain. "How are you doing?" she asked.

Lacy took a deep breath. How did Lisa think she was doing? Awul. Her aunt meant well, though, and Lacy beat back her sudden annoyance. "Okay," she said thickly. Sne sniffed and rubbed her eyes with the heel of her palm.

For a moment, Lisa lingered in the doorway, and though she couldn't see her, Lacy could sense her hesitation. Lisa was cold and analytical. Emotions, like other nebulous concepts that cannot be seen and held in one's hands, made her uncomfortable. She did not know how to act with Lacy and was painfully awkward the few times Lacy had seen her.

Sighing, Lisa came over and sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping beneath her weight. She laid a stiff hand on Lacy's shoulder. It wasn't much, but coming from Lisa of all people, it meant the world, and Lacy started to tear up again. "I'm not very good with these sorts of situations, as you know," Lisa started. "I don't know what, if anything, I can say." She grasped for words, and for once, she was not capable and sure of herself. "Your parents loved you very much and while I know it hurts to have lost them, they wouldn't want you to dwell on it."

A lump of raw emotion formed in Lacy's throat and she swallowed it. "I know," she said, "I just...I can't believe they're really gone."

"I have trouble accepting it as well," Lisa said. "I imagine it's more difficult for you. Things will get back to normal, or something resembling it, soon."

Since coming to live in Royal Woods, Grandma had been driving her the twenty miles to and from school. She was out for three days after the accident, and then yesterday and today. Her heart wasn't in it and she had trouble concentrating. Being there was a waste of time. She used to text with Katy every single night, but lately, she simply didn't feel like it.

On Sunday, she was going to stay at Lisa's house so she could be closer to school. Grandma wanted her to finish out the year and then move to Royal Woods with her and Grandpa. Lisa offered to let her live at her house so that she didn't have to change schools and leave behind her friends. Lacy hadn't given either opinion much consideration yet; she couldn't handle thinking about it right now.

Realizing she hadn't responded to her aunt's assurances, Lacy said, "I know."

Lisa rubbed her shoulder, then, to Lacy's surprise, leaned in and kissed her cheek. "I love you," she said.

It took Lacy a moment to recover. There were a lot of things she never expected to hear her aunt Lisa say, and if I ove you wasn't at the top of the list, it was darn close. "I love you too," Lacy said. Lisa took Lacy in her arms and hugged her tightly, and Lacy hugged her back.

Much later, Lacy curled up under the blankets and stared up at the window. A smattering of stars twinkled in the clear night sky. Frigid wind moaned in the eaves and rattled the window pane, and if Lacy listened hard enough, she could almost imagine it was calling her name. She wished Mom and Dad were here. She'd give anything to have them back, anything. Maybe if she closed her eyes and strained as hard as she could, they would come through the door and take her home. They could forget all about this dying business and go on like nothing ever happened.

Unfortunately, life didn't work that way. All sales are final and there's nothing you can do about it once it's done. She heaved a wet sigh and hugged her pillow to her chest. She just wanted her old life back...she just wanted Mom and Dad to be okay again.

But like they say: Wish in one hand and poop in the other, see which one fills up first.

The howling of the winter wind soon lulled Lacy into a thin and fitful sleep. Half-formed dreams like puffs of smoke haunted her fevered mind, and several times she woke with a loud BANG echoing through her head. Her chest clutched and for a horrible second, she was back at Flip's, watching helplessly as her parents died.

Thankfully, she did not dream about Dad's arm…

...but she did dream of coffins, flowers, and wind.


Sunday evening, Lacy packed her bags, hugged Grandma and Grandpa goodbye, and climbed into the passenger seat of Lisa's lim green Prius. The last glimpse she caught of her grandparents before the car pulled away was of them standing side by side on the porch. A gust of wind flipped a lock of Grandpa's white hair back and forth and Grandma folded her arms over her ample chest. They both looked much older and weaker than they did just two weeks ago. Cast in the thin, murkey light of the dying winter sun, they might as well have been ghosts.

Neither Lacy nor Lisa spoke much on the drive into Oak Grove. At one point, Lisa put the radio on and melodic rock music filtered from the speakers.

See dark shadows

On the walls

See the pictures

Some hang, some fall

Tall, snow covered pine trees loomed over the highway. Lacy had taken this route home a million times and had never given them a second thought, but tonight, there was something threatening about them. It was all too easy for Lacy to envision them reaching out with their branches, grabbing her, and pulling them to their yawning maws.

And the painted faces

All in a line

And the painted ladies

Yeah, the painted ladies

Route 220 crossed Potato Creek over a trestle bridge. White, lumpy land sloped down to the frozen water. Shining eyes twinkled in the headlights and Lacy wondered if they belonged to animals or…

Or what?

She didn't know and she really didn't want to guess.

There was something off about Oak Grove. The quaint little shops along Main were unchanged and the houses spreading back from the center of town looked like they always had, but something was missing. Lacy tried to put her finger on it, but the answer eluded her. Later, she would realize what it was: Oak Grove didn't feel like home anymore. Her friends were here, many of her best memories were here, but her roots were gone. Oak Grove lost something when Mom and Dad died. It was no longer the same town she knew and loved, it was a strange and alien place that looked like home, but wasn't.

Lisa navigated the car up the hill and into the driveway. She cut the engine and extinguished the headlights. "Do you need help with your bags?" she asked.

"No, I'll get them," Lacy said.

She threw the door open, got out, and grabbed her bags from the back seat. Lisa went ahead and unlocked the front door, then led Lacy up the stairs. "I prepared the guest room," she said. "It's rather bland but you are welcome to decorate it any way you see fit. Tomorrow we can go to y...the house and collect the rest of your personal effects.'

Lisa had started to say "your house" but corrected herself, perhaps in the clumsy hopes of avoiding a touchy subject, or perhaps because the little ranch on McKinney Street technically wasn't Lacy's house anymore. It belonged to the bank.

The guest room was situated across from the master bedroom and catercorner to the bathroom. It was small and bare, a twin bed on a metal frame stood in the middle of the space and a desk faced the window, which looked out over the backyard. The carpet was a light, sandy beige color and the walls were stark white, boasting no pictures, posters, or portraits.

It lacked life.

Like Mom and Dad's corpses.

That thought came from nowhere and twisted Lacy's stomach. She sat her bags on the bed and steeled herself against a random squall of tears. "What would you like for dinner?" Lisa asked. "I'm not well-versed in culinary matters so I can't promise it'll be good, but I'm willing to try."

Lisa was doing her best to make Lacy feel comfortable and welcome, and that touched Lacy, but also inexplicably annoyed her. Her aunt's tone was sincere, yet she could almost detect a patronizing inflection. She pictured herself lashing out and yelling at Lisa to stop treating her like a baby, and instantly felt bad. "I'm not really hungry," she said truthfully.

"Are you sure? I could order a pizza for later."

A hopeful look crossed Lisa's face and Lacy sensed that doing this - taking her in and caring for her when she needed it most - was important to Lisa. She wanted to help and to be a good aunt. If Lacy moped around, it would crush Lisa.

For that reason, Lacy said, "Okay. That sounds good."

"What do you want on it?" Lisa asked.

"Just pepperoni," Lacy said, "and whatever you want. I'll eat anything on pizza."

"Even broccoli?" Lisa asked.

That gave Lacy pause. "No, but I can pick it off."

A rare smile touched Lisa's lips and she tapped Lacy's shoulder with a light and awkward punch.. "I'm joking. No one with any taste eats broccoli on pizza."

Lacy laughed despite herself. "Rabbits, maybe."

"You know...I've yet to see carrots on a pizza."

Come to think of it, neither had Lacy. "Me either. Or Chinese pizza. Like...with Chinese toppings. They have Mexican pizza but not Chinese."

Lisa hummed. "You're right. I haven't seen that either. Perhaps we can make one of our own some day."

"That'd be cool," Lacy said, and meant it.

While Lisa ordered the pizza, Lacy settled in. She put her clothes into the dresser, set up her laptop on the desk, and sat a framed photo of her, Mom, and Dad in a place of honor on the nightstand. She sank onto the edge of the bed and looked at it with a slight frown. She remembered the day it was taken. It was six months ago, maybe seven, but it felt like it happened in another life altogether.

When the pizza got there half an hour later, Lacy's stomach rumbled. Guess I'm hungry after all. She and Lisa ate in the kitchen and talked about nothing much at all. Lacy, however, appreciated the conversation. Before going upstairs for the night, she hugged Lisa fiercely, and Lisa hugged her back. "I love you," Lacy said.

"I love you too," Lisa replied.

After taking a bath, Lacy dressed in a pair of gym shorts and a white T-shirt and crawled into bed. She held the photograph in her hands, then placed a kiss on her father and mother's faces. "I miss you," she said.

She sat the photograph down, turned the lamp off, and got under the covers.

It took her a long time to fall asleep, and when she finally did, she dreamed of her parents.

And when she woke, she had an idea…


"No," Lisa said firmly.

"But -"

"It's too dangerous."

Lacy slumped her shoulders.

It was the next morning and they were sitting in the sunny kitchen, plates of frozen waffles and instant coffee in front of them. The clock on the wall clicked away precious seconds that they could be using to bring Mom and Dad back and the fridge issued a judgemental hum at Lisa's decree.

The idea struck Lacy as she drifted up from the depths of sleep, coming from nowhere at all.

THE TIME MACHINE!

How could she have forgotten? Lisa had a literal freaking time machine. They could just go back in time to the day Mom and Dad died and stop it. And they didn't even have to do anything crazy, just take a different route home, that was it, that was all, it was so easy, they could do it right now.

But Lisa said no.

"Please," Lacy begged, her hands slapping on the edge of the table. A frenzied light shone in her eyes and her muscles tensed.

"I haven't completed my diagnostics," Lisa said. "With all that's happened recently, I haven't even touched the machine in two weeks. I need to continue testing it."

A hot ball of emotion formed in Lacy's chest. It was part anger and part excitement so intense it threatened to burst out of her like an alien lifeform. "Then let's do it," she said. "It can't be that hard, right?"

"Wrong," Lisa corrected. "I need a better understanding of how time travel affects the space-time continuum and the human body. I can't, in good concious, send someone on what my amount to suicide mission."

"But -"

"Once we are better familiar with the ramifications of inter-time travel, I am open to the idea of going back and preventing your parents' deaths." She reached across the table and took Lacy's hand. "I loved them too, you know."

Lisa was right, Lacy knew that, but even so, she didn't want to wait. Researching could take weeks or even months. She wanted Mom and Dad back now.

She already knew that Lisa wouldn't budge on the matter, so she didn't press further, but all that day, she turned it over and over in her mind, the excitement in her breast growing until it reached fever pitch. She squirmed in her seat during science class and blazed through the teacher's pop quiz, not caring if the answers were right or wrong. At lunch, she pushed her food across her tray and favored her lumpy mashed potatoes with a thoughtful frown. Across from her, Katy tore her roll into tiny pieces that she then nibbled like a bird.

People say that someone who doesn't eat very much eats "like a bird" but that wasn't accurate; they actually ate up to ¼ of their body weight every single day.

As Lacy played with her food, an idea began to take shape in the back of her mind. She turned it over and investigated it from every angle. There were flaws aplenty, but at that moment, she didn't care. She was desperate.

At the end of the day, she walked to Lisa's house with her hands in her pockets and her head bowed. The temperature had plummeted over the past few days, and all the slushy snow had turned to ice. When she reached Lisa's house, she looked up at it with a tight expression. She had always liked the Victorian, but she couldn't see herself living in it.

It wasn't home.

Inside, she found Lisa working on her laptop in the living room. Had she worked on the time machine today? Or did she just sit here and waste her day away doing nothing? "How was your day?" Lisa asked and closed the computer.

"Good," Lacy said. Guilt crept across the back of her neck and she looked away lest some facial tick give away her plans. Lisa was extremely perceptive and it was hard to hide things from her. "How was yours?"

"Productive," Lisa said cryptically.

"Did you make a breakthrough with the time machine?" Lacy asked hopefully.

When Lisa replied, Lacy sagged. "I haven't had the chance to work on it yet. I'll start tomorrow."

Tomorrow? TOMORROW?

In her room, Lacy threw her backpack onto the floor and lashed out at the bed with her foot, kicking the frame. Hot pain streaked up her leg but she didn't care. DIdn't Lisa understand how hard this was for her? Didn't she know how much she missed her parents and wanted them back?

Didn't she care?

There was no other choice.

Lacy had to go through with her plan.

That night, after dinner, Lacy got under the covers and waited. At eleven, Lisa's footsteps passed in the hall, and a moment later, her door closed. Silence fell over the house and held sway. Lacy divided her attention between the ceiling and the clock on the nightstand. Finally, at 12:45, she got up, got dressed, and crept downstairs, being as quiet as possible and wincing every time a floorboard creaked beneath her feet. She fumbled her way along the darkened hall and down the steps to the basement door. She punched in the code, let the scanner read her eye, and slipped quietly into the lab.

Finding the light switch, she flicked it, and cold light filled the space. The tube stood in the corner where it had been the last time she saw it. She went over to the computer, booted it up, and accessed the database.

During the coding process, Lisa showed her everything, and she was confident that she could set it all up by herself. She ran the plug between the machine and the computer, input all the information, and hit ENTER. The machine began to hum and shake. In the field marked DATE, she typed January 23, 2041, 3:00:00 PM.

The machine shook faster. Lacy favored it with an apprehensive look and took a deep breath. She walked over, braced herself, and got in.

She pulled the door closed and hugged herself. The machine shook, lights flashed, and the control panel on the wall beeped crazily.

I hope this works, she thought.

Suddenly, blinding white light filled the chamber, and the floor seemed to yank out from beneath her like a carpet in a cartoon. She fell onto her butt and the machine dropped as if through a hole in the earth. The light went out and darkness closed over her.

Before losing consciousness, Lacy screamed.