It was growing late in the evening when Fable reached the boat landing. It was desolate at this time of night, no one around. In her teenage years, she and her high school friends would come out here at this time to smoke pot. She thought it very strange for her mother’s new boyfriend to call and ask her to meet him, especially here of all places. Creepy, in fact. Had she been a typical young woman she would never have agreed to meet him in so isolated a place. However, curiosity—mixed with her ability to summon woodland creatures to aid her in a pinch—helped her decide in favor of meeting him at 10:30 that night.

She had a fairly good idea what this meeting was going to be about. He cared for her mother. He wanted Fable’s blessing to continue their relationship. He had sensed she wasn’t on board so far and hoped to win her over. Blah, blah, blah. Fable thought it absurd to go through this. She wasn’t a fourteen-year-old girl, and it wasn’t necessary for her to get along with the new stepfather—if, Heaven forbid, that was actually what he wanted to discuss.

She was sitting on a picnic table at the water’s edge watching the moonlight glisten off the tiny ripples of the river when she saw him approach. The headlights of Jerry’s car swept around the turn of the lonely road, casting shadows of bare spiny tree branches on the ground. He parked just beyond the table and joined her.

“I’m glad you came, Fable.”

“I feel weird about this,” she admitted. “We hardly know each other. You are just barely dating my mom—what has it been? A month?’”

“Roughly,” he replied as she shivered slightly in the breeze. He pulled the collar up on his jacket and put his hands into his pockets.

“It seems a little crazy to need to meet with me privately and here of all places. But let me tell you something right off, if you even think of trying to rape me, I will kill you on this very spot.”

Jerry laughed and shook his head. “I assure you nothing like that is in my mind. You are very safe with me.”

“That’s good,” Fable said, though not utterly convinced he was benign. “I also should say right away that if you’re here to try and get me on board with your relationship with my mother, there’s no need. She is an adult and free to do what she wants. Neither myself, nor my sister plan on trying to talk her out of anything. However, if I am being quite honest, my mother isn’t over my father. She’s still very much in love with him.”

“Is that so?” Jerry smiled.

“You say you were a friend of his, so you know how special he was,” Fable continued. “So be patient. Be understanding with her. Take it slowly. If you respect her heart, you and I will get along just fine.”

“Thank you,” Jerry replied. “I appreciate the advice. I have nothing but the utmost respect for your mother and father’s relationship. The fact that she still loves him after all this time makes me appreciate your mother all the more.”

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“Good,” Fable replied, rising from the bench. “So, is that all there is? Are we finished?”

“Not exactly,” Jerry answered. “Your blessing isn’t really what I wanted to chat with you about.”

Fable couldn’t possibly fathom what else there was to discuss with this man whom she had met only once before. Politeness dictated she do her utmost to hide her irritability, but Fable was never very good at being polite, particularly with people she had no vested interest in. She plopped back down on the picnic table bench and stared up to him.

“What then?”

“I need a favor from you.”

Fable was startled by Jerry’s presumptuousness. Was her mother’s new boyfriend really about to ask her to do something for him? They barely knew one another. And why the secrecy? Fable began to feel apprehensive. Something was very off here.

“I don’t even know you!” Fable exclaimed. “What favor could I possibly do for you?”

Jerry tried to express himself better. This was not going the way he assumed it would. “I need your help with my parents.”

It was the disconnected way he said parents that struck Fable as the most unnerving. And what sort of help could she offer regarding his parents? She didn’t even know them. Or him for that matter. It was all much too strange for her taste.

Fable stood up to leave. “I think I am just going to go. You are nothing but a man my mother just started dating. That does not establish a social bond between us nor an exchange of favors. You don’t even know me.”

“I know more than you think I do,” Jerry said, grabbing her arm as she attempted to pass.

It was not a threatening grab; it was more like one of concern and urgency. She did not like his touching her, but nothing about the gesture caused her to feel alarm. Still, she readied herself to send out a telepathic call to the wild just in case she was underestimating his intentions.

“I know you are a witch,” Jerry revealed. “I know you communicate with animals. I know Beryl is a healer.” He wringed his hands and smacked himself on the head as if frustrated with himself. “I am sorry that I am going about this so very clumsily. I only wanted to talk. You see, I need you to go to Birmingham and see the Millers...my parents. I need you to do something for me when you are there.”

“I am leaving,” Fable said, wrenching her arm free. “I don’t know what your purpose was here tonight, but I’m not doing anything for you.”

As Fable started walking to her car, Jerry shouted across the empty parking strip to her, “Do you know why I asked you to meet me here? Here of all the places in Daihmler?”

Fable turned back to look at him. He was sitting on the picnic table staring off over the murky dark waters of the Black Warrior River. He seemed so familiar somehow sitting that way. Without being aware she was doing so she began walking back towards him.

“Why did you ask me to meet you here?” she asked.

“Because I had a little girl once,” Jerry said, still staring at the water. “A beautiful, precocious little girl. We used to come here together, she and I. We would talk out all our problems here. We’d skip rocks; we’d watch the barges go by; we’d share secrets. She’d tell me everything happening in her life.”

Fable was beside him now, standing by the table, unable to understand why she felt the pull she now felt inside. Almost as if her soul knew something her mind had not yet learned.

“She saved my life once here,” Jerry added.

“What?” Fable asked, her voice breaking. “How?”

Jerry faced her with a sly, playful grin she had not seen in years, as he explained, “There was a rattlesnake on the trail just behind this picnic area. It was just about to bite me when my little girl spoke to it and asked it to leave. It slithered away.”

Fable stood motionless. Silent.

“I had a little girl named Fable. Of course, that was before I died. She’s all grown up now.”