Once he started looking for it, William found signs of the Prescotts' malign influence everywhere. They owned a lot of property, and they kept buying more. They paid off the politicians. They controlled the police. They leaned on the local newspaper. The town continued to suffer. The Oregon coast had been hit hard by the decline of the lumber and fishing industries, but Arcadia Bay was a pretty place with relatively good weather and a premier high school. It should have done well without tourists, retirees, telecommuters. But people kept leaving. Those who remained fell on hard times, too often.
William concentrated on his own family. He became less certain of the visions. Living his life, raising his daughter, those images seemed so far away. He still feared them, but he had more immediate concerns and, ultimately, there was nothing he could do about any of it. He'd learned enough, perusing Prescott's notes, to know that even if he uprooted his family, left Arcadia Bay entirely, some form of the same destiny would likely find him and Chloe. So he focused on each day as it came, thankful every time he walked through the front door safe and sound.
The years passed. Chloe started school. The Friday after she began second grade, the family sat around the dinner table. "So what did you think of the first week of school?" William asked.
"It's OK," Chloe said. "Mr. Gustafson is nice, but he makes us sit at our desks all the time. It's boring!"
"Well, hate to say it kiddo, but that's school for you. Lots and lots of desk time. Did you make any new friends?"
"Yeah! At recess I met Max and she's smart and pretty and we're going to be best friends! She's only in first grade but we decided we could be friends anyway."
"Oh yeah? Max is a funny name for a girl." The name was familiar, somehow.
"Well... she said her name was Maxine but only to call her Max. I wish there was school tomorrow, so I could see her again."
"I suppose you'll have to wait until Monday."
"I guess… unless Max comes over to play tomorrow! Can she? Please Daddy?!"
"Maybe! Do you know her last name?"
"Um... Caulfield! She said her name was Maxine Caulfield!"
"Well, I'll see if I can find her parents' phone number and give them a call."
"If I were a boy I would marry her!"
Joyce chuckled and made eyes at William. "Whoah now," he said, "you're a bit young for that. You don't get married until you're all grown up, like me and Mom."
"That's so far away!" Chloe made a mischievous face. "Maybe, when I'm old enough, I'll marry Max even though we're both GIRLS!"
"Hah! Maybe so, maybe so."
After dinner, William called information, found the Caulfields' number, dialed. A woman answered. "Hello?"
"Hi, my name's William Price, is this the Caulfield residence?"
"Yes, hi, I'm Vanessa. You must be Chloe's father? Max has been talking about her all week."
"It seems the admiration is mutual. Chloe's asking if Max can come over to play tomorrow. I'll be home all day so I can keep an eye on both of them, if you like."
"You're offering free babysitting?" Vanessa's voice muffled. "Hey Max, do you want to go over to your friend Chloe's house tomorrow?"
William could hear the distant response. "Yaaaayyy!"
Vanessa's voice returned. "Sounds like we have a date."
When Max arrived, William realized he recognized her. He'd seen this girl, older, years before. She would be with Chloe the day he… whatever was going to happen to him. The thought shook him. If this part still held true, the rest probably did, too.
The girls spent the whole day playing, yelling, running around, drawing pictures, swinging on the swing set. It seemed like they never even slowed down, until Max's father arrived to collect her, whereupon the girls immediately turned sullen and locked their arms together. Their parents pried them apart and agreed that the next play date would be allowed to be a sleepover.
In bed, William lay awake, remembering. Over and over again, he saw Joyce opening the front door, Max and Chloe coming into the hallway, Joyce breaking down. He saw Chloe older, blue-haired, the gun going off, Chloe falling to the ground. He could accept this own fate; he'd been the one who'd helped Sean Prescott. He couldn't accept hers.
When morning came, he couldn't hide his tired, bloodshot eyes from Joyce. "William, you look terrible. What's bugging you, hon'?"
"Just stressed about work. I realized I really screwed something up at the office on Friday, I need to go in for a few hours today to fix it." He hated lying to her. Maybe today would be the last time.
"You shouldn't let it get into your head like that. It's just a job, William."
"I know, I know. Once I sort this one thing out, hopefully I'll be able to forget about it."
After breakfast, he drove into the hills. Cut some manzanita on the way. He hadn't been to the clearing in seven years. He hiked to the spot, looked around. Someone had been here more recently than seven years ago, that much he could tell. He didn't dwell on it, instead hurriedly built the fire, added the necessary plants. He didn't know what he was supposed to draw in the dirt, hoped it didn't matter. He sat down in the usual spot, looked at his hand. If he cut himself a deeply as Prescott had, and this actually worked, he might bleed to death. Instead he took out his pocket knife, pricked the side of one finger, squeezed a single drop of blood into the fire.
Nothing happened. He sat, staring into the flames, muttering over and over. "Please. I need to know how to change this. I'll do anything. Please." After a while he began to lose hope, tears rolling down his face, but he persisted, repeating his ad-hoc mantra until the flames died out.
When there was nothing left but smoking embers, he finally looked up, and lurched backward onto his hands in surprise. The bull elk stood on the other side of the fire pit, staring at him. It turned, walked to the edge of the clearing, then looked back, waiting. William followed, and it led him deeper into the woods. He was quickly lost, and soon found himself among huge cedar trunks, bigger around than anything that should be left in the over-logged forest around Arcadia Bay. They stopped at the edge of another, large clearing. Within it, a small doe stood grazing, and something was moving in the air around it. A bright blue butterfly, the exact color of Chloe's eyes. It landed on the tip of the doe's nose, flexing its wings. The doe crossed its eyes to look at it, waggled its ears.
Max and Chloe, he thought, somehow sure of it. He watched as the butterfly took to the air again, dancing around the doe, which began to leap about, alternately chasing and being chased. William remembered Sean's comment on butterflies. "Pray you never meet one." Well, what was bad for Sean might be good for him.
He approached the pair, hesitated. Found himself terrified of the consequences of dealing with spirits once more. But he had come here specifically for this purpose, to beg the help of his spirit animal, and it had led him here. Steeling himself, he addressed the insect. "You know what's going to happen to my daughter. I'm here to ask if it can be changed. If there's any way she can be saved. Any way to… put an end to the Prescotts' evil. It's worth… any price."
The butterfly flew up, hovered in front of him. Suddenly the clearing was gone and he found himself standing on the bluff by the lighthouse, overlooking Arcadia Bay. Cold, biting wind and rain tore at him, and when he looked up, he recoiled in horror at the enormous tornado that drove into the town, shredding everything in its path. The blue butterfly, unbothered by the wind, settled on his shoulder. The other animals were gone. Nothing he'd seen before, in his visions in the clearing, had been as devastating as this, as sudden, as total. As utterly impossible.
He looked around, confused, and then he saw them. Two young women embracing at the cliff edge. One with blue hair watched the carnage while the other, brunette, buried her face in the blue-haired girl's shoulder. They're going to survive the storm, he thought. He looked back down at the town. And they may be the only ones who do. Joyce… my poor Joyce. He remembered his older vision, of Joyce in the courtroom, eyes rimmed with red, screaming at the jury, the bailiffs approaching from either side. Maybe better to die in this tornado than to live and bury her only daughter.
And below, all of the Prescotts' villainy, generations of corruption, washed away in a river of blood. A cure worse than the disease, at least in the short term. But there was Chloe, alive and well. And Max, too, safe in her arms. He watched them a while, recalling the previous night's dinner conversation. His little girl had known from the moment they met.
William bowed his head, whispered. "Is this the only way?" The butterfly on his shoulder just flapped its wings, waved its antennae at him. Below, the tornado continued to devour the town. He sighed. "It's worth it. It's all worth it, for her. For them. This is… what I want."
Somewhere in the distance, he heard the long, high keen of an elk's bugle.
He came back to himself in the clearing, the fire still blazing, a furious headache pounding behind his eyes. He grunted, stood, began grimly smothering the fire. For better or worse, the deal was done. William loved Arcadia Bay. He was glad he wouldn't have to watch it die.
He spent the evening entertaining Chloe while Joyce worked the dinner shift at the diner. It was inconvenient, but the tips were good on Sunday night. Spending time with his daughter, his mood improved. He resolved not to let himself dwell on the future. She'd make it, and she'd have Max, that was the important part.
That night, he dreamed of the elk. It was the last time he'd ever see it. He followed it through a shadowy forest, suddenly found himself in the Two Whales. He was standing in front of a booth, where Max and Chloe sat, drawing with crayons. Only a few years on, judging by their ages. Through the window, he saw a photographer on the sidewalk, putting away his gear.
"What've we got here?" he heard himself say.
"A circus!" said Chloe, holding up a menagerie, featuring a blonde ringleader and a brunette lion tamer.
"A tornado." Max said solemnly, holding up a swirl of grey over blue water, threatening a boat and, beyond, a town on the shore. She looked up at him with sad, tired eyes. The eyes of an adult.
William looked at her, cocked his head slightly. "Max, are you feeling quite yourself?"
