Zoe versus The sparkles

“You and your new friends walked a long way,” Zoey’s dad said as he drove along Hansler Road towards the lake.

“Yeah,” Zoey agreed, wishing once again that she didn’t have to make up stories to explain the sparkles. “We were laughing and joking, so it didn’t seem all that far.”

“Kind of funny that you left your bike behind,” Zoey’s father continued. “After already losing two of them.”

“I was going to go back to get it,” Zoey said. “After we were done at the creek. But when I fell in, it was just too cold to go that far.”

“Hmmmm,” her father hmmed. “You sure were in a sorry state when you got home. Your mother had your backpack hanging upside down and inside out all night trying to get it dry.”

“It was awful,” Zoey agreed, clutching the backpack in her lap. “I don’t think I’ve ever been that cold.”

“Even when you were out sledding that time?” he asked, a wide grin on his lips.

“Welllll … Maybe that once.” Zoey smiled back before sitting up and pointing. “Oh! Right here. It’s just along that path.”

Zoey’s dad eased the car to the curb and out of the way of traffic, then flicked on his hazard lights.

“Take it easy today, Zoey,” he said as he unlocked the doors. “We don’t want you getting sick, so stay bundled up and don’t be out late.”

“I will, dad.” Zoey, once she was halfway out the door, rolled her eyes. “I’ll be home in time for lunch. Don’t worry.”

“See you there."

With a floppy shrug as she dropped her arms, Zoey set off along the path. The leaves had started to change a week ago and the forest had exploded in vivid yellows, reds, golds and even a touch of purple here and there. Though the sunlight reflecting off the leaves reminded her of the world’s most gigantic sparkle, Zoey couldn’t help but marvel at the absolute beauty of the view all around her. A sudden flash of sadness struck. She had nobody to share this with. But Zoey had been living with loneliness for a long time and she smothered the feeling then started off.

She’d left her bike not all that far ahead and well enough off the trail that nobody should have found it by accident. Within a quarter hour she was bent over the lock, spinning the dials then tugging it open after looking around carefully for sparkles hiding on the underside or on the handlebars. A quick wipe of the seat to remove the last of the morning’s dew and she was on her way, retracing her steps from yesterday back to the huge sparkle draped over the standing rock.

Zoey spent a little while just standing there and watching the shapes drift across the surface of the sparkle, enjoying the simple beauty of the way the colors played with each other; swirling around, mixing and mingling, overlapping each other, but always returning to their original shape and direction of movement. Almost like the entire surface of the sparkle was alive with the blobs, streaks, snakes, circles and a dozen other shapes she couldn’t name.

Enough, she told herself, giving her head a shake to clear it. Enough time in the trees. Get out on the sidewalks and do your investigating.

She spent an hour doing just that, trying her best to memorize what different intersections looked like, where the schools, churches, stores, and other buildings were, and what was around them. It was important to know where the visible landmarks were and what they looked like from different directions. The taller buildings, the water tower on the university grounds, the library spire, and the hospital tower; knowing each side of each building and where they sat in relation to each other could do a lot to help her figure out where she was if she got lost. But doing that investigating while always keeping an eye out for sneaky sparkles was a lot of work.

She was riding slowly along Branch Street, idly looking around at the houses and noting interesting features when she saw a boy ahead. He paced from the sidewalk onto someone’s front lawn, then circled around back to the spot where he’d started. Zoey dropped one foot on the ground and leaned her bike to the side to watch him repeat the circling twice more. He was staring at the ground in front of him the whole time and didn’t notice Zoey. When he started his third circuit, Zoey peddled forward again, closing the distance between the two.

He was wearing strange clothes, not suited to Bethel in the fall. Wraps of bright colors swathed him from neck to ankles, his arms protruding through the gaps between them. He wore a purple and orange cloth wound around his head. 

She was perhaps twenty feet away when the sidewalk leveled out and she saw what he was circling. It was an enormous sparkle! It was almost the size of the one from the park and covered the whole sidewalk, spreading out over the grass in either direction.

And he was studying it! He could see it! Someone else could see the sparkles that had plagued Zoey for most of her life. She was so stunned at this discovery that she just sat on her bike and stared at him, trying to understand what was going on.

“Hey!” Zoey yelled eventually and the boy jumped as if she’d poked him.

“It’s okay,” Zoey said. She raised a hand, reaching towards the child as he looked around with wide, frantic eyes. “I can see them too.”

She dismounted and was laying her bike down on the sidewalk well away from the sparkle when the boy turned his panicked gaze on her, shifted a few steps to the side, then stepped purposefully onto the sparkle.

He vanished right in front of her.

Chapter the Sixth