“I saw something, Father. In the air.” Even at her young age, Rachel was her father’s child, and her choice and usage of words were precise.
“Saw what, dear Child? A bird? Bat? Flying squirrel? What?” Tanner asked, offering up suggestions, none of which seemed to be correct.
“The air looked odd,” Rachel continued. “Like it was hot. And there was an eye in the middle of it.”
Tanner mused over that revelation for a moment.
“An eye belonging to whom?” he finally asked.
Rachel was evasive. “A big eye, Father. I think it was looking at me from heaven.”
Even as his mind tried to process what his little girl was telling him. Tanner spoke in calm tones, slipping easily into the patented parental know-it-all mode. “Then, Child, if the eye was from heaven, there is no reason for you to be frightened. After all, logic dictates there is no reason for you to be scared if God is looking down at us.”
The explanation seemed to placate the gkl. “You think so, Father?”
“I do,” Tanner said firmly.
“Very well, then, Father,” Rachel replied sleepily, her memory of the magical eye apparently already vanishing into the depths of her young mind after Tanner’s reassurances. “Good night.”
“Good night, Child,” he replied and kissed her softly on the forehead.
“So?” Emily asked when her husband joined her in then1 own bed.
“We have no cause for fear, my dear one,” Tanner remarked as he pulled the heavy down comforter over his body, and quickly explained Rachel’s biblically tinged interpretation of what she’d seen hovering in the air.
“That is sweet,” Emily said, snuggling closer to his shoulder. “We must be truly blessed if God is watching us.”
“Aye, indeed,” Tanner said sleepily as he placed a comforting arm around his wife. “Blessed.”
So why did his daughter’s story nag at him so? Rachel wasn’t prone to childish lies or exaggeration. Like her mother, she was quite direct and forthcoming. He found his parental concern battling his scientific curiosity, and determined he’d return tomorrow to the same spot and spend some time observing the area of air that had disturbed his child, thereby satiating both. For while Tanner was a man always fascinated by the unknown, he was a father even more interested in the well-being of his children.
THE FRIGHT YOUNG RACHEL had suffered cast a pall over the family’s usual walks, and with Emily’s agreement to stay behind and watch over the children, Theo Tanner had chosen to make these daily excursions alone, always stopping at the same corner where the mysterious organ of sight had previously levitated. He would loiter there for hours, waiting. Each day, he waited longer, making his trips during the same time span in hopes of glimpsing the oculus, yet nothing happened. No shimmering of light, no blinking of an unearthly eyeball, no haze hanging in the air before his own astonished eyes-nothing.
A week passed without further incident, and Tanner decided he was ready to try the usual daily family outing again. This time, he chose an afternoon for the walk. The air was brisk, yet warm for the climate and time of year. Emily took extra care in bundling up the baby, nonetheless, before placing little Jolyon into the carriage. Tanner placed his hand in Rachel’s and down the front steps everyone went. Down and to the right, past the rainbow of color inside Bowman’s Flower Shop, the sinfully good aromas emanating from Elliot’s Bakery, the Boyd and Hurst and Felts’ residences. Turn right again and there was the empty lot with the sign promising a new business establishment soon courtesy of one Mr. Wesley Keith Johnson, Esq., although naught had changed in the past two years since he’d staked and claimed the property.
Across the way was Pages Bookstore, a small and intimate affair, and the Bluebird Restaurant where he’d consumed many a fine cup of dark bitter coffee. And so on and on, another block, another, and again to the right-more buildings, more homes, more pas-sersby known and unknown, most of whom couldn’t resist smiling at the sight of the baby being pushed along. The sound of the baby-carriage wheels was steady on the wooden sidewalk while Rachel skipped along, excited to be out with her mother and father in the late afternoon.