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A low tune of a forgotten song teases the cornfield with its gentle rhythm, a whistle from well-versed lips. With it, steady hands grasp the sickle, following the motion of the tides – up, down, again. Corn hits the ground with a thud, piling up where its elders have fallen countless times, all handled by the same calloused farmer. It is a full moon when Gura decides to harvest today.
There isn’t a reason for it, despite what prying eyes might tell the townsfolk in the early morning. Farmers were famous for spitting knowledge about their traditions and code of conduct, but Gura has never paid them any mind, not ever since she moved to her little corner of paradise all those years ago. All the misters and ma’ams would try to push rules down her throat disguised as well-intentioned conversation, but after months of watching the little shark girl grow her crops in quaint, yet efficient ways, all mouths turned unexpectedly quiet.
There is business to be had in a small town, after all. Gura grew the best corn around.
And so, she harvests as the moon watches, whistling her latest banjo composition. It would sure be a hit at the fair a week from now.
It’s funny how it happens. At one moment, your boots are dirty with familiar red clay and leaves, ready to return home and be washed like always. Your body follows the same routine, muscles no longer sore from the work, only matured. Head ready to hit the pillow, lungs ready to breathe easy – only for none of these things to happen by a twist of fate.
Gura brings her hand up for another cut, glad for the bountiful day where nothing strayed from its intended path, when a sudden explosion of light a few feet away nearly blind her.
“Ack!” Involuntarily she gasps, letting go of the sickle to cover her eyes. The ground doesn’t tremble and there’s no wind coming from the light’s direction, so Gura rules out space invaders immediately. However, nothing really fills up the empty space for other theories, so her heart beats out of control as the light subsides.
Bringing her hands down, Gura squints. Slowly, she takes the sickle back – a weapon, for reassurance – and carefully steps around the fallen leaves to check what exactly hit her cornfield.
The tall plantation might look like a labyrinth for some, but not for the shark girl who knows every way around it. She’s careful, hiding as much as she can as she does a little stealth work around the area. Gura doesn’t let a single crunch reach the invader’s ears as she approaches, her breathing controlled and steady like her hands.
There’s a soft glow still coming from the spot, cradled by something—
Someone.
It is a girl.
A blonde girl lies on Gura’s cornfield, hands around a tiny glowing pocket watch, cheeks red and breathing heavily. It takes a moment for Gura to notice, but miles and miles of corn behind the girl are squashed, like she’d just fallen from the sky and burned months of hard work and care. Fear is a powerful feeling, but indignation is a strong contender, and that’s what makes Gura less afraid and more upset as she steps closer.
Clearing her throat, Gura gathers courage to speak, “Hello?”
The girl only groans, unconsciously hugging the watch closer to her chest. She doesn’t open her eyes, making it hard to discern if she’s in pain or simply exhausted. Gura’s pupils, accustomed to the dark, search for wounds on the girl, but no blood is apparent.
She tries speaking again, incisively. “Ma’am, you’ve fallen on private propriety. It’s in your best interest to explain yourself, or I’ll alert the authorities.” Nothing still, so her voice wavers. “Please, wake up. Oh, dear.”
And it’s with a resigned sigh that Gura knows what comes next. She puts the sickle on her tool belt and kneels close to the girl. Hesitantly, she places the back of her hand on the invader’s forehead, only to pull back with wide eyes.
“You’re burning up.” Gura mutters. Anger gives way to concern, and Gura is too good of a person to leave a feverish stranger on her cornfield until dawn. So, with another sigh, she looks around to make sure this isn’t a prank and brings her arms around the girl. Grunting, Gura lifts her up bridal style, her strength really coming in handy in moments like this.
And, with no one but the moon and the corn as her witnesses, Gura starts walking, taking this girl back to her house. She only feels her moving once, to tuck her head under Gura’s chin. The watch never leaves her grasp. Gura never loosens hers.
--
Amelia’s first sensation upon waking up is smelling something so good that her stomach nearly punches its way to her brain to yell, “hey! Eat that!”
It’s exactly how she feels when her eyes open and the headache that follows nearly knocks her out again. She has to take a deep breath before turning on her back to exhale, a ritual she’s learned every time something goes wrong with her travels and she has to recharge. Amelia no longer panics upon waking up in an unfamiliar room, as long as all her limbs are intact the moment her mind is fully awake again.
She goes through them slowly – first, fingers. She curls them, in and out. Then, she’s twisting her wrists, putting her elbows up and rolling her shoulders. Toes are next, ankles, knees; she pulls them towards her, hands hugging her legs as she rocks side to side. After all the important body parts are accounted for, Amelia takes a deep breath and sits up, rolling her neck just to make sure her head isn’t a phantom limb somehow. She’s heard in can happen.
The stomach growl that follows hurts badly, and Amelia sniffs the air again to try to make sense of the food being cooked somewhere. It’s dark where she is, but her eyes were closed long enough to be able to see clearly. It looks like a rustic little bedroom, covered in crochet and trinkets.
There are trinkets hanging from absolutely everywhere – the shelves, the massive closet, the bedside table, the lamps. An analog TV welcomes her in front of the bed, its crooked antenna a playground for little plastic monkeys with creepy smiles. Above it, shelves with hard-cover books adorned by badly shaped ceramic… shapes? Amelia has no idea what those are. Thousands little Santa Clauses take a nap above the closet, and from the floor, five snake puppets creep her out with open mouths and button eyes.
Looking down, Amelia notices that the bed she was laying on is small and cute, almost child-like. The mattress is blue and white, reminiscing of ocean waves. The floor and walls are all dark wood, and the window across the room is covered by lace curtains.
Amelia smiles.
“Either the 1960’s or the 3570’s, no in between.” Amelia takes a guess and finally leaves the bed to follow her primal instinct of hunting for food.
Her steps are careful as she makes her way to the kitchen, going down a set of wooden stairs. She notices that whoever had rescued her had hung her coat on the hanger near the door and finds this very endearing. She hopes that her watch is in the coat’s pocket, but more on that later.
Finally arriving at her destination, Amelia freezes on the spot when all her expectations are shattered. The kind grandmother she hoped to see in front of the oven is not a grandmother at all, but a young girl with a shark tail humming a cute song and wearing an apron. Amelia’s brain backpedals, recalculating time and space, which only makes her headache worse.
When a moan escapes Amelia’s lips, the girl turns around, pointing a wooden spoon in her direction like a weapon. “Jeez— Louise!” She yelps, then deflates upon recognizing that it was just the stranger she had brought home. “Are you made of silence? Can’t hear you, ever.”
“Uh…” Amelia snorts an ugly laugh, rubbing her temples. “I didn’t want to scare you. Sorry.” Her stomach growls loudly, obliterating her intentions, and Amelia just laughs again. “It just smelled so good down here, I was enchanted.”
The shark-girl hums and turns back to the oven. “Yeah, well, make yourself comfortable. I figured you’d be hungry after falling from the dang sky, or somethin’.”
“Is that what happened?” Amelia asks, moving to the navy-blue stool in front of the table. The crochet table runner is purple and yellow, and created neat flower patterns. Amelia runs the tips of her fingers over it with a soft gaze. “I fell from the sky?”
“You tell me,” The girl turns off the fire and brings over a pan. “You sure did a whole mess on my corn field, is what you did. I ain’t really interested in the direction you came from.”
“Oh,” That brings a red tinge to Amelia’s features. “I’m really sorry about your corn, miss…”
“Gura.” The girl carefully pours the contents of the pan on the plate in front of Amelia, then sighs. “This food is too good for you. I’m so nice.”
Whatever Amelia was going to say next just dies in her throat, replaced by a hearty laugh. She’s so tired and hungry, and this girl keeps surprising her, so her brain just hallucinates for a second. Amelia decides to eat before thinking about anything else. Grabbing the spoon, she mutters a quiet ‘thank you’ before digging in.
“Oh, wow.” With a full mouth, Amelia groans in delight. “You’re right, this is too good for me.”
“Chew before speaking! Does Miss Corn Destroyer have no manners?” Gura chastises her as she moves back to the oven and removes her apron, pouring a plate of beef stew to herself.
“Ame.”
“Huh?” Gura asks.
“My name. Amelia Watson.” She swallows, smiling. “But my close friends call me Ame.”
Gura frowns, plate in hands as she moves slowly to sit across Amelia. “Is that what we are, are we? Close friends?”
“Someone who cooks this good of a meal for me after I destroyed their cornfield? What else could we be?” Amelia keeps eating, eyes on the food and brain a little less deranged. Her headache subsides too, which is a blessing. She feels like she could lick this plate clean if allowed, but her host would probably kick her out if she crossed that line.
“Speaking of which,” Gura pauses to chew, then continues. “How do you plan to make up for the damage, miss ma’am?”
“Ame.”
“You heard me.” Gura’s legs don’t reach the floor, Amelia notices. “Whatever you did ruined miles of my crops. I was counting on them for the fair. My corn has its reputation, and I’ll be darned if it’s tarnished by a fancy stranger with a glowing… thing I don’t pretend to understand.”
This peaks Amelia’s interest, and she raises her head for once. “My watch? May I ask where you put it?”
“Sure thing. Once you answer my question.” The tone is neutral and calm, and Amelia realizes that this shark girl approaches situations just like herself. Amelia wonders what things she’s seen to be able to act that way.
There’s a silent moment afterwards that clings to them like moisture on a summer night. The only sounds that fill the space are clinks of metal spoons on ceramic plates. Amelia finishes her food before Gura does and puts both hands on her stomach with a comfortable sigh. A cricket jumps on the windowpane outside and is bold enough to sing to two women from different universes a tune familiar to both.
“When is the fair?” Amelia speaks first.
“Next week. Saturday, early mornin’.” Gura replies.
Fingers tapping on her stomach give Amelia the few seconds she needs to pretend to think about it. “Alright. I’ll help you.”
“Pardon?”
“I ruined your crops, tell me what to do. I’ll help you around the farm.” Amelia concludes with a smile.
Gura finally looks at her, truly looks at her. Blue eyes search Amelia’s features like a seasoned predator who can’t afford to fall for a trap because she’s already lost too much as it is, and Amelia’s chest constricts in a way it hasn’t for a long time. She can’t quite remember the last time she found a kindred soul that stirred her slow-beating heart.
“Until I recover all that was lost?” Gura asks carefully.
“Of course. Until the fair, and after if you need it.”
“And if it takes months?” A simple question.
“Then, it takes months.” A genuine answer. “I have time.”
The cricket doesn’t stop singing and Gura’s legs don’t stop swinging back and forth, and when she licks her sharp teeth, Amelia sees the bump on her upper lip.
Gura puts the spoon down and stretches out her hand.
Amelia shakes it to seal the deal. The shark’s hands were calloused and rough but lacked the scars Amelia’s own palms presented. She thought that the bumps could fill the cuts and bruises.
With the business arrangement finally settled, the air seems to lose the invisible heaviness that had been hanging above their heads since Amelia first walked into the kitchen. Whatever walls Gura had put up were finally down, she could tell.
So, at long last, Gura’s voice softens as she asks:
“How are you feeling?”
And Amelia thinks that it’s funny how this is the last question both of them probably ask anyone they meet.
“Don’t worry, the fever doesn’t last.”
The relief in Gura’s face doesn’t fail to make her heart skip a single, millimetric beat, however.
--
The sun hasn’t even come up when Amelia feels hands on her shoulders shaking her to wake her up the very next day. She frowns, dazed, and sees an angel above her.
No, just a farmer pissed that the stranger on her couch dares to still sleep at butt crack hours in the morning.
“Wake up. There’s work to be done, Amelia Watson.” Gura’s voice sounds distant to Amelia’s sleepy ears, but she knows the words are a warning, not a friendly threat.
The smell of coffee is what actually helps, and when Amelia is conscious again she sees a cup in front of her and a plate of warm pancakes and eggs waiting. Gura is gone for good, and there’s not a single note telling Amelia where to find her in that huge farm of hers. But that’s fine.
Amelia is a good detective.
“Good morning.” With a hoarse voice she takes the coffee and raises the cup in a welcoming motion, saying hello to this place that will be her home for the next days, and then completely forgotten once the watch is in her hands once more and she’s back on the time road. A glimpse of an existence to someone who doesn’t matter.
She’s still sleepy when the coffee burns her tongue and the scar there complains.
--
Gura knows what is going to happen long before it does, but that doesn’t mean she’ll stop the wheels of fate from turning. She used to believe in the power of change, that if an individual tried hard enough, they could stop the inevitable. That you have a choice in the matter, that your fate wasn’t sealed.
She’s smarter now, and experience takes its toll. So, when she sees Amelia Watson having the worst time of her life trying to clean manure from the horse stable, and then having the worst time of her life trying to lift hay, and then having the worst time of her life trying to shuck the rest of the corn she hasn’t destroyed, Gura simply curls her lips in a ghost of a smile, because she knew.
The girl wore a long coat. She had no chance in her farm.
And yet, Gura can’t say she hates the company.
“Hip. Hairs. Pull.” Gura repeats for the fifth time that afternoon, showing the motions to the blonde girl who fell from the sky.
“Hip.” Amelia repeats, angling the corn horribly on her hip. “Hairs.” She brings her thumbs up to take the corn apart. “Pull!” Her arms flail, removing the cob from its precarious position on her hip, and it falls on the ground again. “Fuck!”
“Language.”
“There’s no one here.” Amelia sounds admittedly frustrated for someone who started off so mysterious and composed. “Fuck!”
Gura giggles at the scene, never really getting tired of watching her fail at the most basic tasks. “You’ll get it.” She throws the cob in a bucket and moves to another one. “Again. Hip. Hairs. Pull.”
Amelia fails and Gura doesn’t, and that’s how they spend their afternoon until the sun sets and Gura has a bucket full of fresh corn that only she harvested. Amelia’s bucket is empty and sad when they return home, which is humiliating and hilarious to the shark who had no one to share her judgmental stare with until now.
They don’t say anything when Gura prepares the food – rice and corn fresh from the plantation with some potatoes and meat. Gura thinks that her companion is too embarrassed for jokes tonight and wonders if she shouldn’t have teased her so much, or maybe just helped her proper.
But at the first bite Amelia’s shoulders relax, and she groans in delight.
Gura giggles, making Amelia look up at her with a questioning stare. Gura shakes her head, “You’re so easy to read. Tried to fool me all with that attitude yesterday.”
“I have no idea what you mean.” Amelia replies.
“Chew!” Gura grumbles, and maybe their dynamic hasn’t changed all that much after all. It’s only been a day.
This could go on for a while.
For some unspeakable reason, the thought makes her feel queasy. Her fork hits the plate with less enthusiasm, and memories of a routine filled with company and joy tries to break free in her brain, only to be squashed permanently by shark teeth and crumbling edifices.
A sound breaks Gura’s stupor and she’s the one facing a giggle now.
“What?” Gura asks, not keen on being watched like that.
“Nothing,” Amelia Watson, Corn Destroyer, says with an achingly familiar tone. “Just… pot, meet kettle.”
“And what’s that meant to mean?” An indignant question.
Amelia doesn’t reply, pointing to her mouth. I should chew first.
Gura thinks that her cornfield isn’t worth her sanity, maybe.
--
It’s surprising that the first onlooker only arrives the next day, two days after Gura’s field suffered a blast that could probably be seen from all the way there in outer space. It’s Annie Lewis, the brown-haired miss who rides horses and is the second most talked person in town, losing only to Gura herself. A woman wearing pants and knowing how to ride is, for some reason, as strange as a shark who does the same around these parts.
“Hey, Gura, good morning! Mind if I bother you?” Annie Lewis asks with her perfect teeth and red-tinged cheeks.
Gura puts down her rake and wipes the sweat from her forehead with her arm. She can feel Amelia stop working right beside her to exchange a look that Gura somehow knows it means ‘should I pretend I’m not here?’
“Just a second, Annie.” Gura smiles at the woman and turns to Amelia. “Keep doing what I showed you, I’ll be back lickety-split.”
Amelia lets out a huff of a laugh and shakes her head. “I love the way you talk.”
Gura blinks, frozen for a moment before turning on her heel. “Coming, Annie.”
The talk goes exactly as she predicted; questions veiled as harmless curiosity about the stranger in her farm, if that girl was a relative from far away, if she was a friend, what was she? Was she going to stay with Gura for now? No one in town had seen her, so Annie was simply wondering, you see, for it’s a small town and word travels fast, and, by the way, whatever did happen to your cornfield?
Gura is good at dodging questions with expertise, just like she’s dodged all the questions when she first bought that plot of land all those years ago. So, for now Amelia is a friend, yes, and she’ll help Gura with the farm until the fair since, gosh, she can’t well go empty handed to the biggest event the mayor’s put out for our lovely little town, right? People will be waiting for her corn, that they will. Annie laughs and says, yes, they will, me as well. Speaking of which, I heard that Mary Belle White was bringing her corn too, have you heard?
Once the whole ordeal is settled and Gura makes sure to give Annie Lewis more gossip to spread around than the questions she had when she came, Gura bids the horse rider goodbye and returns to her rake and her blonde stranger who was getting better at leveling soil.
“Friend of yours?” Amelia asks casually.
“Something like that,” Gura replies as she watches Amelia work. Her arms are more toned than she expected now that she stops to look. Maybe the stranger isn’t as fancy as she assumed. “You missed a spot.”
“No compliments?” Amelia straightens her back and points at the whole path she’s worked on. “I feel like I deserve one for being a first timer.”
“If everybody went around handling compliments, the world wouldn’t go round.” Gura replies and fixes the spot Amelia missed. Then she sighs and looks at her in the eye. “You’re the new talk of the town, by the way. Hope you don’t mind it a week from now.”
And when Amelia smiles and the sun shines just right, Gura notices, oh, she has freckles.
“It’s fine,” Golden curls frame her face and Amelia Watson says, “I love attention.”
--
It’s her fifth night at the farm when Amelia hears a sound she’s never heard before in all her short days living with Gura, the Shark.
It’s a soft banjo tune coming from downstairs that perks Amelia’s curiosity. She’d been laying in bed, ready to go to sleep after another tiring day of failing to shuck corn correctly and having all her muscles hurt, but now she needs to know where this sound is coming from.
Slowly, with memorized steps on the wooden floor, her ears take her to the porch outside the house. She pushes the lace curtains sideways from the living room window to check who’s sitting outside playing such a lovely tune and tries to fool herself into a surprised gasp when she sees that Gura is the banjo player for tonight.
Unexpected! Amelia thinks to herself and stays in the living room a while longer not to spook the girl who has her back turned to her.
And then, Gura starts singing.
“Black smoke’s a-rising and it surely is a train, surely is a train, boys, surely is a train…”
Time stops.
(Which is funny, Amelia thinks, since she’s stopped time many times. But not like this. Never like this, never unwillingly.)
Gura’s voice fills all the empty spots in Amelia’s soul that she didn’t even know were empty. The melody sinks deep into her, the lyrics breaking something in her and patching her up all at once, immediately, slowly, carefully. It tears her apart. It fixes her. She thought nothing would.
How dramatic.
“Homesick and lonesome and I’m feeling kind of blue, feeling kind of blue, boys, feeling kind of blue…”
For the first time since coming here Amelia feels a desperate urge to search for her watch. She wants to turn this house upside down, tear sheets and cushions, destroy walls if it will help her find the damn time machine and press the button. She wants to get out of here. She needs to get away from this timeline at once. She needs to stay here and listen to this song forever.
She hasn’t even learned how to shuck corn yet.
“It’s dark and a-raining and I’ve got to go home, got to go home, boys, got to go home…”
Amelia Watson opens the door to the porch.
Gura doesn’t even flinch. She knew she was listening.
“I’m on my long journey home…” The last notes fly from Gura’s fingers, the sound vibrating through the night air and into the field. No one in the whole entire world is listening. Everyone who matters is.
Gura turns to her and pats the spot next to her on the porch. “Don’t be staring. Join me.”
For once Amelia doesn’t step into the unknown without thinking. It’s funny how her perception of deadly can change in a matter of seconds. If she had her watch right now, she would definitely go back a few seconds to think of a proper reply.
Instead, she does as she’s told.
“You… Did you write that?” Amelia asks, clearing her throat and feeling silly for doing so.
“I did.” Gura nods, tuning her banjo and placing her fingers on the strings again. “You sing? Know any songs?”
Amelia has experienced more things than a human should be able to absorb, but she’s never once thought about her relationship with music up until that point. She knew the usual songs from different eras, but never stuck around long enough to make sense of their meaning and what the people from those years were trying to express.
Music to her was just a transient thing.
“Not really.” Amelia answers. She pulls her knees against her chest and places her head on top of them, staring at Gura with a vulnerable gaze. “Sing me something else?”
Gura’s thumb plays with the strings for a numb moment as she thinks to herself, then she turns to look at Amelia for a second. Her eyes move slowly. Amelia flinches slightly, palms grabbing her knees, to stop her from running, perhaps.
She never did ask what a shark is doing on land.
“Alright. Hold on.” Gura places the banjo next to her feet and turns around to grab something else. The instrument is replaced by a guitar, and it doesn’t even faze her. Gura sings once again.
Amelia closes her eyes and relaxes her shoulders. The melody invades her ears. The voice tames a beast long forgotten inside a girl displaced in time.
“This world is not my home, I’m just passing through, my treasures and my hopes are placed beyond the blue…”
The cornfield is truly huge. When Amelia is finally brave enough to face the vastness in front of her, she realizes that miles and miles of empty land are the only spectators Gura expects to have for the rest of her life. Maybe music is magic, a sort of magic Amelia never truly experienced, because if she pays attention enough to the melancholic rusted strings, she can almost see ghosts in the field. They don’t move much and they don’t know how to handle farm tools, but they’re staring back at them with arms limp by their sides, listening. The moon shines and they listen. A crowd of thousands, a single soul.
Amelia mouths the words with Gura, delayed and all.
“…angels beckon me to heaven’s open door, and I can’t feel at home in this world anymore…”
They don’t say anything to each other when it’s done.
--
Gura stretches her muscles and rubs the sleep off her eyes the next day, getting up to automatically move to the kitchen, make breakfast, and wake her lazy companion up on the couch. The muscles so used to a routine had changed gears to this new one so fast that Gura hadn’t even noticed. So, she brushes her teeth and opens the curtains to watch the first rays of sunlight drip from the horizon, then puts on her overalls and working boots.
The stairs creak as she goes down, but something is amiss.
The lack of a blonde girl on the living room couch makes her lungs shrink in such a way that her rusted gills move unconsciously, and it feels like someone pulled her spine with a wire.
Amelia Watson is not where she’s supposed to be.
The first thought that crosses Gura’s mind is, No. Not yet.
The second is checking the coat hanger by the door. That stupid, unpractical long coat is not there.
It’s not usual for Gura to act without thinking these days, but there are freckles and failures in her mind as she runs to the kitchen using a speed she’s only ever used on water, which is not ideal for a small house like hers, so when Gura’s eyes see the person she’d been looking for, her legs can’t keep up, and she stumbles into her like a car crash.
“Woah!” Amelia’s voice is stupid, so stupid and loud and ridiculous, but it’s there.
Her body is warm and soft, and Gura lifts her torso to stare at this girl under her. “You… Did—” Words fail her. This day is breaking the carefully constructed pretense Gawr Gura has built on this farm over the years. “Cooking without an apron?” She settles for that.
Amelia can only blink at this string of words as she’s stared down. She brings one arm up, hand dangerously close to Gura’s cheek.
“What are you—” Gura pulls back, gills fluttering again. She moves too fast, too clumsily, back hitting the kitchen cabinet behind her loudly.
All that Amelia was trying to do was reach the apron above them. “I was about to put it on when you knocked the wind out of me.” She finally sits back up, and there’s a silly grin on her face. “What’s the rush?”
Finally calming down enough to think and rationalize, Gura looks around and notices that the long coat is on the drying rack near the table. She points with her head. “Did you wash it?”
Amelia looks over her shoulder. “Oh, yeah. It was stinky.” She chuckles. “I hope that’s okay?”
The word domestic comes to mind and Gura has to get on her feet. “Yes. I was about to do it, quite in fact. Glad you had good sense.”
“Sure,” Amelia gets up as well and ties the apron around her. “I’m not a really good cook, but I can make killer pancakes. Just sit, they’ll be done in a minute.”
Gura nods and moves to her familiar stool, and when Amelia turns her back on her she watches her movements and technique, and the smell is pretty good but not perfect, but she’s also making some coffee which makes the kitchen a lot livelier, but Gura wonders, does she know how I like my coffee? She can ask, I reckon.
And Amelia does return with pancakes and this very same question, all so Gura can tell her, No sugar, just like that is good, and Amelia can reply, Wow, impressive. The pancakes are alright, and the coffee is alright, and Amelia gets a plate for herself as they chew in silence, and not once this blonde stranger who tilted Gura’s world on its axis by not existing asks her why she panicked earlier, because, Gura assumed, she knew the answer to that, and this is not a conversation to be had.
All that Amelia does is meet her gaze at some point in the morning and smile, and all Gura can do in return is capture this moment and hide it so deep down her very soul that her brain has no time to catch up with her heart.
--
The fair is not big.
Not big at all considering the size of the town, but it’s the first time Amelia steps outside of Gura’s farm and she’s quite smitten by the atmosphere. When she sees tiny robots accompanying farmers as they haul their harvest onto their respective stands, she does a little cheer because this isn’t the 1960’s after all. Or maybe it is, from another universe. She’s starting to miss her watch just to get some trivia.
“Alright, this is the last of’em.” Gura throws a burlap sack onto the ground and sighs contently. “I’d say we recovered pretty much all that was lost, yes sir!”
“Even though my corn shucking technique was less than admirable?” Amelia asks, turning on the tiny hologram banner that says, “GURA CORN!” and placing it in front of their stand.
“You managed to get some, don’t sell yourself short, now.” There’s a smile in Gura’s voice when she speaks, tail flailing around lazily. “Them folks won’t know the difference, I bet. Ease your mind.”
“Finally, a compliment! It only took a week!” Amelia teases, receiving an eyeroll and no more compliments forever, maybe.
Next to them is Mary Belle White’s stand, which is bigger and made of metal instead of wood like theirs. The woman’s banner says, “A FRESH TAKE ON WHITE PRODUCTS” and Amelia sizes the competition with squinty eyes and hands on her hips, a menacing posture on purpose. Maybe she can intimidate the rivals since the eyes of the town have been on her since she got here.
A slap on her arm snaps her out of it and Gura grunts, “Quit the staring. We do business with a smile and a good attitude.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Amelia chuckles and follows Gura around the stand, helping her decorate it with all the fresh corn they had brought. “Not a fan of those little guys?” Amelia asks pointing at the helper robots with her head.
“I have no use for them. I got a little helper right here.” Gura shoots her a grin over her shoulder.
Amelia averts her gaze, the baskets suddenly very interesting.
It doesn’t take long for Amelia to understand how this town’s gears work. The people have fat pockets and silver tongues, making the economy more relationship-based than materialistic, and she starts to understand why Gura settled for this place. The children are obsessed with Gura, and the adults don’t fall too far behind, stopping by to ask about her week as they pick the prettiest, most yellow of corns that Gura has to offer.
And the shark navigates this like a veteran. Every answer is on the tip of her tongue, banishing awkward conversation topics to the bottom of the sea with a grin and a tease. She knows about everyone’s lives and uses it as a weapon, and when the questions get a little too close to Amelia, she shields her by asking, How about your mom, Tom? I heard she’s doing well for herself back in the big city. Tell me more, tell me more.
It should’ve been a relatively simple day. All Amelia did for hours was put corn in a basket and say thank you, goodbye. No one bothered her more than she expected, she ate a pretty good lunch at one of the other stands, and the hill the fair was on gave her a gorgeous view of the valley down below. It should’ve been a boring day at a boring local fair.
And yet.
And yet, Gura placed a hand on her arm once to ask her a question.
And yet, Amelia had to crouch to get more corn, and Gura protected her head from hitting the table on her way up.
And yet, she felt a hand on her lower back when she returned from lunch and didn’t notice she was almost bumping into someone else, only to see Gura getting between them so Amelia could avoid the collision.
And yet, the sun set, and they sold all the corn, and Gura cracked a smile and winked at Amelia, who was confused but got her answers when a large crowd gathered near a fireplace and called Gura over.
Gura took a hidden banjo from her bag and ran towards them, but not before stopping to check if Amelia was coming too.
“Come on, Ame!”
It should’ve been a simple day, but Gura, the shark from not the 1960’s, called her name.
Her feet moved before she could think, and filled with nothing but static and a desire to succumb, Amelia Watson let herself fall hook, line and sinker.
--
The return home is quiet. The bus that takes them back to the farm stops only twice to drop an old lady and then an old man, then goes straight to the gate of Gura’s property. She thanks the driver by tipping her straw hat and starts walking the long way back from the gate to the house.
Her steps were heavy due to the working boots, and the only sounds she could hear. Amelia is uncharacteristically silent, but Gura reckons she’s just tired from socializing the whole day with strangers who looked at her like she was the one with a tail.
So, Gura doesn’t pry.
(She bites her lower lip.)
Looking up, she can see the nearly-full moon in the sky lighting their path. Gura has a lantern pointing forwards to make sure they don’t trip, but she’s glad the queen of tides is looking over them tonight as well.
“Quite a night.” Gura speaks to gather a reaction.
“Hm.” Is the only answer she receives.
“You have a moon where you come from, girl who fell from the sky?” Gura tries once more; there’s a levity to her tone.
“We do.” And, after a pause, “There will always be a moon, I think.”
“Well, that’s good to know.” Gura cheers internally for the longer reply this time. “You… seem more like a sunshine type of girl, though.”
A chuckle behind her. “Because of my hair?”
“That too.” Gura’s tail moves slightly side to side. “But I was talkin’ more about your disposition, I think.”
“Go on.” Amelia follows.
“Well,” And, for some reason, Gura smiles. “There’s this way you move when the sun’s up and it’s all hot and moist. Farm work is tough, but you’re always willing to do your best despite the heat. The smell of animal don’t seem to bother you. You smile more, too, when you’re not sleepy. When the sun hits your hair, also, there’s this glow… like you belong in it. Freckles and failures, and all.” A shy pause. “It’s nice.”
Gura stops when she notices that hers are the only steps left, then turns around. Amelia is frozen in place farther back, nose pointing down. Like the ground is a magnet and her eyes are made of whole metal.
“Hey,” With a gentle voice, Gura approaches her. “Ame—”
“Why are you doing this?” Amelia’s voice is calm, devoid of any type of desperation or pain.
“This?” Gura asks.
“Why would you ever— When you know how it ends?” It’s almost like a reprimand. “When you’ve been through this. When it hurt the first time, and the second time, and all the others. I don’t understand. I thought I did, but you’re…” She looks up, finally, eyes of marble. “You need to stop.”
Gura meets her gaze with an icy barrier of her own. Unmovable object meets unstoppable force. None of them budge.
“Who are you talking about?” Gura asks.
Amelia’s sad grin is that of a ghost. “Maybe… just talking to myself.”
It would be divine intervention if something else fell from the sky at this moment just so Gura could avoid the conversation that was inevitable from the beginning, but nothing happens in that big, vast cornfield. The wind doesn’t pick up speed and takes them away to a faraway land, and the earth doesn’t just split open and swallows them whole. The night simply watches and waits for a conclusion.
Gura brings her hand to her pocket. She tosses an object to her stranger.
Amelia catches the watch with one hand.
“I thought we promised we wouldn’t let the other in like this,” Amelia mutters as she looks at the time machine.
“I don’t recall promising a dang thing.”
The sentence is laced with barbed wire, but still, Amelia Watson throws her entire damn self on it, “Then I’m the one who failed.”
Gura moves before Amelia can even think about pressing whatever complicated contraption is about to make her disappear. One hand grabs Amelia’s wrist to push her arm up as the other pulls the lapels of her shirt, faces as close as they’ll ever be. Amelia’s eyes are wide, her breath trembles, caught in a blackhole she knows she can’t escape.
“Then do me a favor,” Gura’s voice breaks. “Either stop yourself from ever crashing on my cornfield, or the next time, stay. Pick one, Amelia Watson. Cause I can’t do this again.”
It’s the rawest Gura has ever been, and it feels like Atlantis all over again. Maybe she should have made that promise when their eyes met for the first time in the kitchen, after all. She knew.
A short nod is all that Amelia can do, and it’s all Gura really deserves for falling for a stupid trap like that. She doesn’t want to hear her voice anymore. Her brain will pick a memory and she’ll cherish it for a few months, and then she’ll bury it down with all the others. This was a mistake.
It’s been one from the beginning.
Gura lets her go and steps back, turning around fast. She refuses to let Amelia destroy her and see her cry.
“I’m sorry.” She hears Amelia’s voice but erases her face from it. “For all it’s worth, I won’t forget you.”
Gura’s laugh doesn’t reach her heart. “Don’t worry. I won’t forget the saddest girl in the world, neither.”
There’s a flash of light, and then nothing.
Gura doesn’t turn around. She simply takes a deep breath and starts walking again. To her empty house with nobody in it, surrounded by trinkets of dead people and gifts of some who are still alive. To the vast nothingness of her cornfield before a flash of light brightened up her days only for dusk to come again.
It was the cycle of things. She knew.
And yet.
--
Gura’s first sensation upon waking up is smelling something so good that her stomach nearly punches its way to her brain to yell, “hey! Eat that!”
She frowns, confusion being soon replaced by concern. Did she forget something in the oven yesterday? No, all she did was take a shower and cry her pitiful self to sleep. It must be an intruder, then. Probably hungry and lost. Gura didn’t mind feeding those who needed it, but they at least could knock first. She had great hearing.
With a groan and a headache, she puts on her robe and a pair of sandals. The stairs creak as she goes down. Her eyes automatically move to the couch and the coat hanger, and her stomach drops. She pauses. There is nothing there, but…
But the sounds in the kitchen suddenly sound very familiar.
Gura’s legs pick up speed. She walks into the kitchen.
Blonde hair tied up and an apron around her frame, there’s a stranger in her kitchen. Whatever she’s cooking smells suspiciously familiar to Gura’s own beef stew.
It breaks her.
(She’s never felt so whole.)
“Oh, good mornin’.” Amelia Watson smiles, and the sun hits her freckles just right. “It took me several years and failures, but I think I’m a good cook now.” She loses the bravado for a second and looks down shyly at the pan. “Would you… like to try it?”
Gura walks towards her slowly.
“It’s obviously not going to be like yours,” Amelia continues, laughing nervously. “No one can surpass the master, but I’d be happy if you gave me an honest—”
Arms around Amelia Watson shuts her up. Gura tiptoes, nose buried on her neck, and she takes a deep breath.
Amelia drops the spoon somewhere and hugs her back. One hand into Gura’s hair, the other around her waist as she pulls her so close that they could melt together. She presses a kiss to the crown of her head. It’s warm. She’s so warm. Like sunshine.
Gura wants to ask so many questions. Who are you? Where did you come from? What were you looking for when you crashed here? How many people have you met in your life? For how long have you lived? What have you seen? What have you experienced? Why did you leave? Why do you want to stay? Did I change you?
How long have you been without me?
How did you survive?
Because I’ve been without you for less than a day and already couldn’t bear it.
In the end, she doesn’t ask a single thing, and just whispers, “Thank you.”
And all that the time traveler who broke her watch does is pull back a little so she can touch foreheads with the shark who lost her home.
“There will always be a moon.” Amelia whispers back.
And Gura decides that answers are pointless when none of them are even from this big, wide universe.
--
“Love has never killed anyone.”
“I’ll be the first, then.”