A high pitched melodic voice calls from the trees as you walk past the park, one dark dreary night. "You there, human, we've met here before and we'll meet here again. Do you remember yet?"
You glance up to see who's talking, and are quite shocked to see a tiny green nude woman, no more than a foot tall, hanging by her legs from a tree branch. You nearly trip as you stammer at the sight.
"Aha! This then is where I grant my gift!" Before you can react, she plummets from the branch, stopping in mid air just as she starts passing eye level, and plants an unexpected tiny kiss on your lips. Then just as quickly she somehow falls upward, hooking her legs around the same branch. "It's our custom you see. Anytime we meet one of you thrice at the same spot in the same life, we have to share the gift!"
You have so many questions you stumble over the words as you try to ask them all at once. Who is she? What is she? What is this gift? Why is she talking about meeting you before when you have no memory of it? She simply giggles as you stammer and holds up a finger.
"It's easier to explain the gift after you've used it. Think back and back again, a dozen summers and a half as many more, when you toddled away from your mother."
Who talked like that? But then, that was hardly the strangest thing about any of this. A dozen and half as many? Eighteen years? You'd have only been two. Maybe you did meet her then... who'd even remember? You try and concentrate on whether your mother had ever taken you to this park back then, when suddenly the world blurs around you...
*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
It takes a moment to get your bearings, as you're suddenly halfway across the park. It's daytime, and your head is barely off the ground. You try to stand up when you realize you already are. Somehow you're a toddler again! Wobbling on clumsy unfamiliar stubby legs. As you look around, you see your mother, in her twenties again with that same haircut from all her old photos. Did that woman... fairy? Alien? Whatever she was, did she send you back in time? You certainly don't want to live through your childhood again, so you wobble towards the tree. Mercifully, you find her there, grinning from inside a small hollow near the base.
"Why aren't you the curious tyke!" she says. "We've met before, I might assume?" You nod. "A dozen summers hence, and half a dozen more?" You nod again. "This then is my gift! To cast your mind on time's swift currents, past and future flowing as you please! I'll explain it more in a score of summers, for now we are interrupted!"
Before you can ask what she means, she's vanished further up the hidden hollow of the tree, and a set of huge hands suddenly pulls you away, spinning you to face your mother, quite worried to have lost sight of you. She scolds you as she carries you off, but you're desperate to learn what the strange woman meant. A score she said? That's... you think hard. There was that Lincoln speech right? Four score and seven... that meant... eighty-seven? So... twenty years? That's further than when you'd left. Still...
*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
You're back to yourself... mostly. Sitting in a car, nowhere near the park... did you overshoot? Undershoot? You try blinking forward again, just a little...
**
At the movies. Back? Maybe just a day...
**
In bed. How was this going to work? Wait! What if you left a note? But where would you look for it? You could plan for it. She said it was summer, your birthday is in early fall, if you skipped to late that night, maybe a note by your desk?
**
It worked! July 19th, 8 PM. OK then...
**
And there she was, hanging from the same branch, giving you a wave, and picking up right where she'd left off two decades prior. Not too strange if she has the same ability, you suppose.
"I assume you have a handle on the basics of what I've given you?"
You nod, and ask if this isn't rather dangerous. After all, the slightest change to the past would radically alter the future, wouldn't it?
She laughs at you for a good long while before answering. "My kind aren't nearly so powerful as that! The fates control all our destinies, and nothing can force them off track!"
That's something of a relief still though how could that work? You ask what would happen if you stopped an assassination, or gave yourself some winning lotto numbers.
"It simply can't be done, silly! Lotteries favor the lucky, and I didn't give you that! If you weren't lucky enough to guess them, you'd never get the ticket right. There'd be an accident, or a gust to snatch it from you, or you'd simply misremember... and death is far from my domain as can be, so there you'd be stopped too."
You nod, a bit relieved, although at the same time unnerved by the implications of the universe conspiring against your free will... death though, that's another concern. What would happen, you ask, if you went forward to far, past your own death, or back before you were born?
She laughs at you again. "My gift travels the web of life! You can't pass the end points, and you flow along the junctions! You should never die unless you force yourself to a dead end, silly thing!"
This is a lot to take in. Junctions? Dead ends? Is she talking about alternate timelines now? You ask, as best you can, to which she shakes her head.
"Every person is a strand in the web of life. You're born at a junction, your children branch away, and it's only once you've had them all it carries on to a dead end."
So then, you begin to ask her, if you go back before your own birth...
"... you'd flow from this strand to your father's," she finishes. "Or your mother's. A matter of chance!"
You ponder that a moment... easy enough to test, you suppose, and you should be able to return here if you have more questions, right? So if you thought, say, thirty years back...
*~~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
This shift feels different, like there was a bump along the way. You feel quite different too... and you're back in school... but not your own. You ask to use the bathroom, and sure enough, that's your father's face in the mirror. He'd have been in high school then, since they had you in their twenties. You focus on shifting back...
*~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
This isn't the park. This isn't even you. You're still in your father's body. Aging, a glass of whiskey in your hand, as you sit in your underwear watching TV. Well, his underwear. Are you trapped like this? You flip back...
*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
And forward...
*~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
Still here! You try again...
*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
And forward...
*~~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
Shaking as you're once again in your own body, by the tree.
"Did you just wander off while we were talking? How rude." The green woman crosses her arms. "Still, if you're that interested in testing things out, I can't say I blame you. The gift really can be quite fun. We may cross paths again once you really start playing with it, but not in my life nor in yours."
Before you can ask what she means, she flips around the branch and starts to plummet upward into the sky. You shout after her, asking if you can control which way you go at these junctions, barely catching part of her reply on the wind. "... chance!"
And with that, you're alone. Two years into your own future.