The Wikkeling by Steven Arntson Page A

kitchen table on the ground floor of the Library, eating a bowl of corn cereal. The kitchen door opened behind her, and a waft of lilac scented air entered from the alleyway as her mother stepped into the house and closed the door behind. She took a chair opposite Rose, and set her bags on the floor: a cloth sack filled with groceries and a backpack constructed of stitched-together inner tubes from old bicycle tires.
    â€œHello, Rosie,” she said. She kissed Rose on the forehead. “Is your father home?”
    â€œHe’s in Political Science,” said Rose around a mouthful of cereal. Political Science was a small section in the northwest corner of the fourth floor, a cozy wood-lined room with a stained-glass window depicting a boy and girl walking along a dirt road, carrying schoolbooks in their hands.
    Her mother’s cell phone rang, a chirping sound like a cricket. She dug it from her pocket and saw GAD-FLY on the screen. “Hello?” she said. “Oh, yes—of course I remember you.” She paused. “No, Rose doesn’t have her own phone. But she’s here, if you’d like to talk to her.” She held out the phone to Rose. “It’s for you.”

Through the Windows
    H enrietta and Gary gazed down in wonder at a street they’d never seen before—a broad, one-lane brick boulevard planted on both sides with enormous, leafy maples whose branches stretched out to touch Henrietta’s house.
    People strolled up and down paths on either side—a couple arm in arm, a man walking a dog, a group of grandparents with grandchildren. Everyone’s clothes were of a strange style that Henrietta thought she’d seen once or twice in old pictures. Men and women alike were dressed in wool coats, buttoned across the front over wide lapels, and sported hats of a variety of styles, some with brightly colored feathers protruding jauntily from hat bands. Everyone, from little boys to old women, wore brown or black dress shoes.
    Gary was the first to master his surprise sufficiently to say something. “The houses look like yours.” Across the street they could see a row of homes with pitched, shingled roofs. The general style was the same for all, but each house was different from its neighbors. It was as if ten people had each been asked to draw a circle three inches across, and the ten circles that resulted were similar, but also different depending on who made each. A few of the houses were one story, like Henrietta’s, but some were two. Several had open front porches,one with a porch swing, and some had no porch at all. From the chimney of one house billowed dark smoke, illuminated occasionally by tiny embers. Inside the front room of another, Henrietta saw several candles burning.
    â€œOur house is old,” said Henrietta. “It was my grandmother’s. All of
those
houses . . .” she trailed off.
    â€œThey became like mine,” said Gary.
    They were both thinking the same thought, but neither spoke it right away because it sounded ridiculous.
    â€œThis is the
past
,” Henrietta whispered finally. “It sort of makes sense, I mean, why the windows are blocked off when we’re outside, but not here. If we’re looking into the past—the windows weren’t blocked yet.”
    Golden-green light filtered through the tops of the trees. Below, the brick street turned the sunlight that reached it into cinnamon. As the two continued to stare, their eyes fell upon an object in the middle of the boulevard in front of Henrietta’s house. It resembled an enormous, irregularly shaped table.
    â€œThat’s the biggest picnic bench I’ve ever seen,” said Gary.
    â€œ
Is
it a picnic bench?” said Henrietta. A couple of passersby stopped and sat on its edge, conversing. “I think it’s . . . a stump!”
    â€œYou mean, from a tree?” said Gary. “Like in the history unit at