33

Curses!

In less than an hour, Linda and Deilune were dead tired. Purchasing a few basic necessities of clothing left them exhausted. As did the stares and comments from teens in the mall that Halloween was soooo yesterday.

Drained, they took a seat on the main concourse near large, curvy planters packed with fanning ferns and lofty grasses that screened off the mall’s Food Court.

"If I weren't relatively sure that we'd come back to life last night, I'd say we were in purgatory," Deilune whispered to Linda as they surveyed the frenetic energy of younger shoppers.

"Feeling old?" Linda asked.

Close up, Deilune could see through her veil and her puckered grin. "No, Linda, not old, just other-worldly. And I'm not talking about what happened last night. I'm talking about their world.” He pointed to the packs of teens and preteens. “Their world is so different. How’d that happen?"

She took his gloved hands in hers. "Dale, as much as I like to say I wasn't born yesterday,” she paused, “I was, and so were you. For some reason we've been given another chance. Everything is new again. In a strange way, we get to be parents and children at the same time.

“I'm not questioning what's happened to us. After holding Lottica this morning and watching Nick enjoy his breakfast, I just see it all with new wonder. I'm going to love this life as long as we have it."

Deilune squeezed her hands. "You're right, dear. I've been anxious about how long we have. If Nick and Lottica might lose us a second time. But, we need to enjoy the wonder of what we’ve been given. Besides," he kicked at one of the shopping bags, "we just made quite an investment in new clothes, so we'd better get a few years out of them."

They laughed and Linda leaned her veiled head against her husband's. "So what would Nick and Lottica say if they saw us like this? Would they tease us about puppy love?"

"More likely, zombie love, dear."

Before Deilune had a chance to chuckle at his own joke, he overheard something that stopped him cold. His head swung loosely around searching because he was positive that on the other side of the fern-filled planters he’d heard someone cursing loudly—in Lebreiman!