⊙  The old clock on the high shelf struck four times. GeeMa looked up at it and sighed. She didn’t know why she even looked up, because the clock had never kept time as far as she knew. Well, not the normal kind of time, anyway. It was hard to explain.

Anna peered over her glasses at GeeMa. “The 'Twixt?” she asked quietly. GeeMa nodded. “I’m going to fix some tea. I’ll be right back,” she said. And while that was technically true, both Anna and GeeMa knew that for GeeMa, those few minutes could be days.

GeeMa put the kettle on the stove and watched the robins splashing around in the bird bath. She had to smile a little because the big one was making such a mess, as always. She made a mental note to get his name next time they met.

The kitchen was a wreck. GeePa had made chicken parm last night, and all the dishes were still waiting for him. He enjoyed washing dishes in the morning. It was a ritual that gave him time to think about the coming day. Sometimes GeeMa would wash the dishes if she knew he was “in a mood” when he went to bed. It was a little peace offering. But that didn’t happen very often. Mostly because she hated doing dishes, but also because he wasn’t in a mood very often.

Earl Gray in hand, GeeMa went out the back door onto the covered patio and stopped to pluck a few verbena leaves to crush into her tea. The smell always made her think of summer, which was still a long time coming.

As she stepped through the shop door, she could hear Mr. Robin chirping quite loudly. He must have found something funny.

If the kitchen was a mess, the shop was a disaster. A group of ladies on a quilting retreat had stopped by yesterday, and they were very excited to be shopping. Thank goodness. She hoped a few would come back today to pick up some more fabric. Business had been a little slow lately, probably because everyone was out in their yards instead of in their sewing rooms.

Anna was already in the shop, working on the tiny quilt she was making for her doll’s bed. GeeMa almost told her she was supposed to be straightening the fabric. But she didn’t. She was glad Anna loved sewing. And… she knew Anna wouldn’t be a kid much longer.

Anna woke up early. She couldn’t really sleep, knowing that the tiny quilt she was making was waiting for her. GeePa had made a bed for her doll from a scrap of curly maple he had in the garage. It was quite pretty, but in a very plain kind of way. The wood grain shimmered through the varnish. Chatoyance. Anna had seen that word somewhere. She wished he had used a matte finish instead of glossy, but she would never have said that out loud. Although GeePa was always puttering around in the basement, wood working really wasn’t his thing. Anna knew that the bed was a special gift. She also knew that GeePa knew she wouldn’t be interested in dolls much longer.

But at the moment, the bed was everything to Anna. She was obsessed with making the perfect quilt for it. She had already made a little mattress and pillow stuffed with goose down. GeeMa had frowned when she realized one of the pillows in the guest room was missing. But, as Anna had guessed, she hadn’t said anything. In fact, she was half-smiling when she said, “I would have given you a better pillow if you had asked.”

Anna was like that. Sometimes she just did things without asking when she probably should have. She was a lot like GeeMa that way.

Anna got dressed, grabbed a cereal bar and went to the quilt shop. She wanted to sew for a bit before they opened. The tiny quilt was coming along nicely. Anna had known how to use a sewing machine practically her whole life, but had never had one of her own until her birthday two months ago. She knew that it was a big deal, so she kept it clean. Very clean. And put heart stickers on it.

"Morning!" GeeMa chirped. "Are you going to work on your quilt?" When GeeMa saw the tiny quilt pieces, she almost frowned. But instead, she casually asked, “What size is your seam allowance?” Anna was really bad at math, but really good at almost everything else, so she had asked Andrew for help. After analyzing the situation to death, he had given her the triangle and seam allowance sizes. Of course, he had been right.

Anna knew she should put down the little quilt and start straightening up the fabric. But sewing was so much more interesting. She was reluctantly putting her project away when the old clock on the high shelf chimed four times.

Andrew sat straight up in bed. He looked around, rubbed his eyes, and tried to figure out what woke him up. He flipped over and flopped back down, face buried in his pillow. It was waaay too early to get up. He turned the music back on his phone. GeeMa had come in at some point and turned it off. She hated it when he played his music all night. She said listening to all that chatter wouldn’t let his dreams form properly. But Andrew liked to sleep with his music. Somehow it quieted the voices in his head. They weren’t real voices, of course. He had learned the hard way not to talk about voices.

He had to admit, though, his playlist could probably use a little tweaking. Sleeping to Viking death metal probably was a bad idea, actually.

Normally, Andrew would have been able to drift back into sweet oblivion, but today, something was off. He tried not to think about it, but it kept nagging. Finally, it hit him. Something must be getting ready to happen in the 'Twixt.

GeePa made a cup of coffee and sat down to read the paper.

[Yes, Andy Clark still subscribes to the paper. Holding a newspaper makes him feel really old (like ancient), but also somehow like a real rebel. Sure, you can get free news right at your fingertips any time you want, but it seems like cheating. Or too easy. Or maybe even too… safe. A lot can happen overnight after those printing presses have gone quiet.]

There apparently wasn’t much going on anyway because the headline was something about the upcoming Bittybury Hospital Annual Gala.

Andy got up to pour another cup of coffee. The dishes from last night beckoned to him from the sink, but he wasn’t in the mood quite yet. A dark red blur caught his eye outside the window. The robins were bathing in the bird bath again. A squirrel ran around frantically trying to find where they had hidden the bird feeder. He wasn’t going to find it. This time of the year, the feeders went into the garage at night to keep the bears from tearing them down.

It was already 9:25, but the house was a little too quiet. He assumed GeeMa and Anna were in the shop. He tiptoed to Andrew’s bedroom and listened at the door. He couldn’t hear any music, which was weird. Or maybe not. Sometimes GeeMa went in and turned it off. She said that playing music all night was bad for your brain. He tended to agree, but he wasn’t about to be the one who told Andrew that.

He knew better than to open the door without knocking, but he did anyway. Just a crack. Andrew wasn’t in his bed.

And that’s when GeePa heard the clock chime four times.

The day poor Hamish passed, I went in haste through the crossing, for I thought I might fetch him back. But even in the Betwixt, things done cannot be undone. 

“That damn clock,” Andy muttered. Every time that clock made some kind of sound, the next few days were going to be rough. At least this time it was only a four-alarm call, and it was a muffled "ting, ting" sound, not at all like the last time.

He sighed. He knew what he was getting into when he married Rose almost four decades ago. They had met in college, in a creative writing class. He had been smitten by the stories she wrote. Stories about strange little worlds that sounded so real that he hadn’t been surprised when she had finally told him about The Betwixt.

He sighed again, turned the heat back on under the kettle, and started running the water for the dishes. Doing the dishes gave him time to think. Time to organize his thoughts and come up with a game plan for the day. Back when he worked for the newspaper, he barely had time to read the paper before heading out, much less do the dishes. Now that he was semi-retired, his routine was much less hurried. Sleep late (as late as old people sleep anyway), turn on the news to make sure the world hadn’t blown up overnight, make a cup of coffee, change the channel, read the paper, change the channel, check his email, do the dishes. Shower, decide on whether today was a gym day or not, have a cup of coffee. Step on the porch and smoke a bowl. Go to the gym or not.

The rest of his day was always more of the same. Decide if today was a work day or not. Work on a sewing machine or not. Pay some bills or not. Watch a “Bewitched” rerun or not. Go for a run if it was nice outside. Go to the grocery store and cook dinner. Life was pretty sweet. Unless that damn clock had something to say.

And today the clock apparently had something to say. Rosie came into the kitchen from the patio. She had to push the door twice to get it to close, but then decided to just leave it open. A little fresh air wouldn’t hurt this morning. Andy put the door on his mental checklist. Again.

She sidled up next to him at the sink. He leaned in when she kissed his forehead. It was a familiar move, not just on days that were getting ready to get weird.

“I turned the kettle back on,” he said.

“Yeah,” she replied, and kissed his forehead again.

Rose pointed to the shelf above the cabinet and Andy grabbed the jar of dried Mugwort and Yarrow leaves. She dropped a big pinch into her cup. The smell always made Andy think of Hay Day. Fresh cut hay, dust, a horse barn, and sweat from putting up a hundred bales of hay. He reached into the cookie jar and grabbed a handful of rosemary crackers for her. That smell always made him think of roasted chicken. Mmmm, maybe chicken and mashed potatoes tonight for dinner.

After giving him one more kiss on the forehead (today was going to be hard), Rose retreated to her room with her tea in hand and crackers in her pocket. Andy started on the dishes. He thought about making a cup of Mugwort tea, just to see what it was like, but he couldn’t get past the smell.

Andrew didn't wait for the Revealer to ring. Hearing the old clock's little bell made his anxiety even worse than usual. So he put on a hoodie, tiptoed into the kitchen, and grabbed a Poptart. He went out to the garage, pulling the kitchen door twice to get it to close. Unplugging his scooter, he slung his backpack over one shoulder and put on his helmet. It was his uncle's old motorcycle helmet. GeeMa hated that thing because she said it was too big and created blind spots. But Andrew liked it because it drowned out the sounds around him. And... it had bluetooth speakers. He assumed GeeMa didn't know that, or she would have for sure made him quit wearing it while riding.

He carefully avoided the shop windows. It was late enough that GeeMa and Anna were probably already in there, and he didn't want GeeMa to know he was leaving. She would soon have enough to worry about without worrying about him.

As he drove across town, he wondered what the alarm was about this time. GeeMa never said much when she got back, but she always told them who the call was about. It was mostly kids whose dreams got a little too real, or who went into a mild seizure that nobody really even noticed. That sort of thing. Every once in a while, an adult would cross over and get stuck. Most of the time, the 'Twixt spit them back out like Jonah and the whale. They wouldn't really have any idea anything had happened, but would think they must have been daydreaming because they couldn't remember the last few minutes. 

But then there were the ones who got lost. 

There had been a few over the years. She told the stories the way you'd tell a bedtime story;  there's a lost traveler, GeeMa swoops in to save them with a song and rosemary crackers, and everything turns out just great. But Andrew had a feeling that there was a lot more to it than that. 

And he desperately wanted to see it for himself.

⊙  The old clock on the high shelf struck four times. GeeMa looked up at it and sighed. She didn’t know why she even looked up, because the clock had never kept time as far as she knew. Well, not the normal kind of time, anyway. It was hard to explain.

Anna peered over her glasses at GeeMa. “The 'Twixt?” she asked quietly. GeeMa nodded. “I’m going to fix some tea. I’ll be right back,” she said. And while that was technically true, both Anna and GeeMa knew that for GeeMa, those few minutes could be days.

As she made her way back to the kitchen, Rose stopped on the patio and inspected her herb garden. "The thyme needs a little water when I get back," she thought. She hoped she wouldn't have a migraine like the last time. That reminded her; she needed to remember to strip some willow tree bark next time she and Anna went down to the creek. Maybe she could talk Andrew into coming with them. Probably not. 

When she got into the kitchen, Andy already had the kettle back on the burner. She knew that meant he had heard the clock in the house, too. "Sorry. Did it wake you up?" Rose asked. He said, "I needed to get up anyway." 

As she kissed his forehead, she briefly thought about how lucky she was to have him. Somebody who knew her secrets (for the most part), and yet just acted like it was another ordinary day. When the water got hot, she pointed to the top shelf, and Andy got the jars of dried Mugwort and Yarrow down for her. He reached into the cookie jar and grabbed a handful of rosemary crackers. When he handed them to her, he paused for just a second, long enough to make her look into his face. He didn't say anything, but she knew that he was telling her to be careful.

She kissed his forehead again and headed toward her sewing room. "A strawberry," she thought, and turned back to get one out of the fridge. 

When she got to her room, she took the old apron off its hook and put it on. It had been her mother's, and her mother's before that. She probably could stand to make a new one. This one had seen better days. But, it was comforting to have something that made her remember her past, and always wise, too.

Rose put the crackers and the strawberry into the apron pocket and reached into the big jar of marbles. It never hurt to bring a marble either. She had bought the marbles at the Goodwill a while back. Interesting fact: they bring out a new jar every time one gets sold. Apparently, marble collectors go crazy over those jars. Rose just picked one that looked similar to a bunch of others. She might try to get Andrew to see if there were any valuable ones in there later. That would be a good homeschool lesson, right?

She double tied her tennis shoes (you never know what you're going to be doing in the 'Twixt) and put on her pearls. She set the tea on the end table next to her chair. She loved that chair. She had reupholstered it herself several years ago. Instead of using boring upholstery fabric, she had made an actual quilt to cover it with. It was bright, with large patches of hot pink and orange, lime green and turquoise. There were huge flowers appliqued on top, and crazy quilt stitches in the seams. She was very proud of it. 

She moved Mr. Boots out of the seat and put him outside the room. He was not happy about it, but she didn't need to deal with a cat while she was searching for a Lost One. Settling down into the chair with her tea, she reached for the old family scrapbook and started to read. 

The Betwixt resists. It no more desires a traveler than a sparrow wishes to be held.

And yet, if one is very still, with a mind clear of daily chores and cares, one can feel the edges begin to crumble, like a biscuit in the fish pond.

A tea of dried Mugwort helps free the mind of worry.* A bit of Yarrow in the tea is also helpful, as it calms the mind.  The addition of honey is a welcome treat, for the tea is quite bitter.

It is also advisable to create one's own ritual that will aid in the act of crossing. Reading the Good Book, writing, or perhaps needlework can bring about the trance needed to cross.

It is of utmost importance to be prepared for the return. While our time is more welcoming than the other, once a traveler is on the other side, the poor soul begins to forget and his desire to return wanes. Care must be taken to ensure one remembers which side of the crossing is home. The scent of rosemary is known to aid the traveler with memories of home, as are personal adornments such as hair clips, rings and the like.

*A woman with child must not consume Mugwort, as it can be used to hasten the arrival of the babe.

Settling down into the quilted chair with her Mugwort tea, Rose carefully unwrapped the old linen handkerchief from around the journal. It had been in her family for many, many generations. The first entry was made in 1775 by her fourth great-grandmother, Áine. 

The journal was bound in leather. Very soft and thin leather. The ink had faded so badly that it was hard to make out some of the words. Rose knew she should translate it while she could. Somebody had started doing that at some point - the 1970's? - but then gave up. It was really hard to read parts of it, especially since a lot of it didn't make much sense even if you were reading it correctly. Maybe translating it would be a good lesson for Anna. Yes. That would be a good lesson. It could be both a history and a science class. But not for another year or so. Anna didn't need to be reading the journal quite yet. She might try crossing by herself before she was ready. Rose knew all about that. She had done it herself. 

By the 1950's, nobody in the family believed anything that was written in the old journal. Except Rose's grandmother Lula. Her mother or grandmother, or maybe even a great-aunt, had taught Lula about crossing. The records from that time weren't very complete, so who knew? There were several different handwriting styles in the old book, and many scraps of paper just stuck in there with random notes such as, "bring honey next time." 

Lula had been the last one who truly believed, up until she showed Rose the journal. By then, Lula's mind had begun slipping. Everyone thought she had completely lost it long before she actually had because she talked incessantly about "The 'Twixt." Toward the end, visitors would bring her Twix candy bars because they thought that's what she was obsessing over. 

But luckily, Lula had shared her secrets with Rose, who had spent many afternoons with her grandma. Rose made doll clothes on the old treadle machine while Lula proudly used her new Kenmore. She was an accomplished seamstress who could make a dress in a day without a pattern.

Most of the time, the pair just sewed in silence. Sometimes, Lula would announce that she needed to take a nap for a bit but would be back soon. This always happened just after the old mantel clock's bell made a curious sound of some sort. At first, Rose didn't understand why they kept that old clock anyway. It had never kept time, and when the little bell rang, it didn't seem to be for any particular reason. 

As they both grew older, Rose started finding reasons for not spending afternoons with her grandma, as kids do. One rainy Saturday morning, Lula called Rose and asked if she could come sew with her. It caught Rose off guard and she wondered if something was wrong. Her grandma never called. She lived right across the street, but had always just waited for the kids to come over after school (which they did - because she always had fresh cookies.)

That day Rose didn't have a project. It had been a while since she had been there. So she took a few pieces from the scrap basket and started sewing them together, like a crazy quilt. Maybe a kerchief for her hair, she thought. After a while, Lula cleared her throat like she was going to speak, but didn't. Finally, Rose, who was exceptionally good at reading people even as a child, asked her grandmother what was wrong.

"Oh nothing's wrong," Lula half-laughed. "I just have something I want to tell you, but I don't know how to start." 

Rose instantly felt her throat tighten, like she might cry. Her grandma saw her face, and said, "Oh, no, honey, I promise it's nothing bad. It's just really hard to explain."

And for the next hour, Lula explained as much as she could about The Betwixt, and about what it meant for Rose in the future, if she chose to be a Keeper. She explained what she knew from reading the old journal and what she had learned over the years.

Rose believed her. She had often heard not-quite-voices in the woods, near the creeks, and anywhere else that was quiet enough to be still and truly listen. 

Over the next couple of years (before Lula's dementia really set in), Rose spent more time with her grandma, begging for more stories of her adventures in the 'Twixt. But Lula kept most of the details to herself, except for the warnings. She was sure her mind was sliding. She often couldn't find names to go with familiar faces around her. She wanted to prepare Rose as best should could, while she could. So she did mention the dangers. She made Rose promise she wouldn't cross by herself, and promised her that she would go with her the first time. Soon.

But life happens, and soon never came. 

Rose, now a grandmother herself, closed the journal, touched her pearls, and took a nap.

The old clock made a feeble attempt at four chimes. The little bell in there sounded like it was wrapped in cotton or something. 

Anna peered over her glasses at GeeMa. “The 'Twixt?” she asked quietly. GeeMa nodded. “I’m going to fix some tea. I’ll be right back,” she said. And while that was technically true, both Anna and GeeMa knew that for GeeMa, those few minutes could be days.

As Anna tidied the fabric bolts, she thought about what it must be like to cross over. GeeMa never said much when she returned, but lately had been casually saying things about it while they were alone. Anna was curious and excited to learn more, but also terrified. She knew enough to know that crossing could be dangerous, but that one day, GeeMa was going to teach her how. 

She knew GeeMa did it, her grandmother had done it, and her mother, and her mother, and all their mothers far back into time. Nobody knew why they could cross more easily than other people, but they knew that it was their duty. 

Anna thought about that for a bit. Just because they could cross, why did they feel like they had to? She knew that they found lost people, but why did they feel like they had to? Was it a feeling like when you need to go to the bathroom, or was it more like a feeling that you need to clean your room? 

It was already 9:40. Anna secretly hoped she would have to open the shop by herself. She liked being in charge. She knew how to cut the fabric, ring up customers, and even knew which needles to recommend for different projects. But she knew that if it got to be 10:00, GeePa would stroll in and act like he was saving the day. 

But, odds were good none of that was going to happen. GeeMa was usually only gone a short time. She would probably be pretty exhausted, though, so Anna would get her wish and take over most of the customer duties for the day. 

The customers loved Anna. Who wouldn't? She was a bright, quirky child. Quiet until you started asking about her projects. Then, it was hard to get her to stop talking. Besides the doll clothes, Anna liked making anything that was small. She used shoeboxes to make dollhouses, and had used a Pringle's can and paper plates to make an alien spaceship. It had a center elevator core (the can) and even a laboratory onboard. She had reluctantly asked Andrew to help with the 3D printed parts. She hadn't quite mastered how to design things like an elevator lift, but she was working on it. She had too many hobbies! It was hard to get really good at any particular one.

At exactly 9:54, the side door opened and GeeMa walked in. Anna studied her face carefully. She could always tell how a person felt if she paid attention. GeeMa looked a little tired but her eyes were smiling, so it must have a been a good rescue.