It's been going on for nearly four years now. Three in the morning on a nameless road, the old convertible, a pack of Marlboros, greasy headphones and an old cassette player. The first few times it happened she didn't want to believe it; who actually believed in the supernatural anymore? There comes to be however a point in time, where you simply can't ignore the facts or blow it all off as a simple mind trick. Had it been any other person then surely this phenomena would have come, passed and been forgotten entirely. But Jenna was not just any other person. Her circumstances unlike any others; once the contact had been made, there was no breaking the connection.

Four years ago, Jenna's great-grandmother died at the age of one-hundred and seven due to a currently undiscovered condition involving her brain. Surprising as it may seem, the two had been great friends for as long as the woman could remember. Though Adaline's condition continued to progress as Jenna grew older, the two had always held a mysterious connection with one and other.

If one were to compare pictures of the two women on their respective twentieth birthdays it might have been thought that they were one in the same. Similar tastes in food, music, literature and film drew their bonds even tighter. Jenna even preferred at times to stay with Adaline over her school friends or birth parents as she was growing up. When Ada's memories began to fade on her eighty-fifth birthday, it was Jenna who would come in after her day job to remind her best friend of who she was. It was Jenna who would visit on the daily, bringing with her fresh-baked cookies and pastries, old cassettes and magazines.

In the times when her granddaughter wasn't around Adaline would shake violently and was completely inconsolable, a victim to whatever had taken hold over her health. But as soon as Jenna would enter the room it'd appear that the elderly woman was completely replaced by someone else, the effects of the illness completely gone. The two would spend hours together, sharing memories, listening to music, gossiping and painting the picture for all in attendance that they were, and had always been the best of friends since birth. But the moment that her crutch had left, Ada reverted back to the diseased and dying woman that she truly was.

One week and two days before Ada's birthday she passed away. Jenna had just finished visiting and the nurse was returning to her side to administer her medications. But when the nurse found Ada she had already passed on. Initial reports showed that she'd already been dead for several hours by the time that her granddaughter had left, but the woman refused to acknowledge it. She had been there with her the whole time and she was just as lively as she had ever been. Several days later and autopsy was performed, revealing that her brain was actually in perfect condition contrary to what they'd believed for well over twenty years.

In the woman's will everything had been left to Jenna. Adaline's own daughter had passed on before her, and her grandchildren never visited leaving Jenna as the last real family that she had had. In the will, Jenna had obtained a small sum of cash in addition to her great-grandmother's collection of cassette tapes, a cassette player, several hastily written notes and Christmas cards as well as an old 1868 Plymouth convertible that hadn't seen the light of day in some ungodly long time.

A month after the funeral, Jenna decided that she would take the convertible out for a ride. Wrongfully thinking that her emotions had had the time necessary to stabilize, the first time she'd entered the car she quickly fell back into tears. The scent of Patchouli and warm cinnamon assailed her nostrils, bringing back memories of her childhood. Pictures of Ada's friends and family from when she was younger were stuck to the dashboard and steering wheel with tape and old chewing gum. Sticks of vanilla and dried up dandelions lay broken and crushed in the floor on both sides.

The woman pursed her lips as she pulled back the roof and placed herself in the driver's seat. As Jenna sat in that place, taking it all in she noticed something in the passenger's seat. Pressed down into the crease where the back met the bottom was an old scrap of paper, twice folded into a perfect square just right for a pocket. As she unfolded the paper, a ring fell into her lap. A copper band with three gems; a ruby and a sapphire in the shape of tear drops connected around an uncut diamond.

The woman slid the ring onto her finger - a perfect, natural fit. The weight that the jewelry added to her hand felt all the more right the longer that it sat there. After breaking free from the spell that the ring had seemingly cast on her holding her attention for nearly a minute, she finally diverted her attention back to the paper. An old map, hand drawn with faded ink and not even appearing to be so highly detailed to begin with. She could point out an old highway that hadn't been used in several years as well as an old dried up river, but other than that she was at a complete loss. A large 'X' was bolded some ways away from where the river and highway met up, but there were no road names or even an indication of how far this marked spot was from the highway.

With no work the following day and nothing better to do that night, Jenna decided to follow the map as far as she could. This would be the final thing that her and her grandmother could share together. A secret that had never been spoke, some hidden location with a meaning that was lost on the girl at the time. The thrill of learning something new about her best friend even after her passing excited Jenna to the point that she could barely contain it. She began to shake lightly as her lips quivered, her mind racing with all the possibilities of what could be waiting for her.

Three hours she rode in that old convertable; the top down, wind rushing through her hair and a cassette player blaring out a shared favorite as Jenna sang along.

"O tell me not of brighter lands, or sunny, sunny climes away. Where morning winds breathe low as lutes, and zephyrs ever play. Where streamlets murmur pleasantly, and all is gay and fair. O tell me not of brighter lands, I care not to be there. I care not, to be there."

Many times in her youth, Ada had sung to her this song. It was a common lullaby in her house, and stirred up warm and fuzzy feelings inside of her as she came to the point where the dried up river and old highway met. As if she knew instinctually where to go, Jenna cautiously took the car down the small hill into the dried up riverbed. Driving straight down the middle of it all for several seconds before finally stopping in front of an old oak tree.

The tree grew up from the center of the river, its branches extending to each side of the bank. Jenna opened her door and approached the trunk, running her fingers across old scars in its bark. Three times a heart was etched into the tree, and with each came a set of initials. TC and NP, CC and RL, and finally AL and KI. A smile formed on the woman's lips as she felt the final set of initials. AL had to have been her grandma Ada, but just as she had begun to imagine the woman in youth a sound started to come from the car behind her.

"O... Not... lands... breathe... zephyrs... murmur... fair..."

Jenna walked back over to the car, peeking her head around to see what had caused the cassette player to not only play, but cut in and out as it did.

"Brighter... morning... low... pleasantly... gay..."

There was nothing. Nothing in the car, beneath or around it either. As far as the woman could tell, she was alone. She slowly pulled the door of the car open, and sat down inside with one leg atop the ground up vanilla and the other on the broken stone of the river's floor. The cassette rewound itself and then began to play once more. Jenna listened closely, hearing only a slight crackling like that of a record player spinning at the end of a tune. But... A cassette was no record player, and this was not part of the song. Uneasy yes, but yet still too curious for her own good - the woman turned the volume up on the player as loud as she could. But even then she only barely heard a whisper in the background. She pressed the player against her ear, listening intently and trying even harder to understand what was coming from inside of it.

"I care not to be there!" The voice screamed in her ear as the cracking was replaced by the jumbled mess of sounds that was the band being rewound and fast forwarded back and forth violently. "I care not to be there!" The voice screamed out again this time sounding more excited, a hint of joy behind the words as each enunciation hung out longer than the last.

Jenna slammed on the stop button, begging for the screaming and music to stop. Her mind ached, a burning sensation forming in the back of her skull as everything escalated. The world around her began to spin as her own pleas for release mixed with the ever intensifying sound of the recording.

The next thing that she knew, it was morning. The sun was shining through the foliage of the old oak tree and the birds were perched on the window of the car, singing their daily songs. The cassette player still sat in the seat next to her, its volume set to the max and the cassette itself completely rewound. Jenna shakily extended her arm and then her finger, pressing the play button before flinching away from it and curling up into a ball in her seat. After a few seconds of silence, the tune started just as it always did before.

"O tell me not of brighter lands, or sunny, sunny climes away. Where morning winds breathe low as lutes, and zephyrs ever play. Where streamlets murmur pleasantly, and all is gay and fair. O tell me not of brighter lands, I care not to be there. I care not, to be there."

Jenna pinched her bottom lip between her thumb and forefinger, unable to decide whether what happened the night before was reality or simply a dream. As she became fully alert and got a grasp of where she was again, she swung her other leg outside of the car and walked back up to the old oak tree. The woman ran her fingers across its bark as she had the night before, but found no scars though the burning sensation she'd felt in the back of her head still persisted though it was faint.

The woman returned to the car and sat down in the driver's seat with both legs inside. She placed her palms on her thighs and pursed her lips, looking around at the interior. She began to pull the photographs off of the dashboard and piled them up in the seat beside her, staring at them from the corner of her eye once she had finished. Her throat was parched, her lips crusty and dry. A bead of sweat rolled down her forehead as the sun rose higher into the sky.

"I have to come back," she whispered to herself. "I have, to come back. Tonight." She shook her head in agreement with herself before turning the key in the ignition. "I must come back," she whispered under her breath as she kicked the car into reverse and pulled out from the dried up river.

---------

Later that night, Jenna returned to the old oak tree in the river, just as she had promised herself that she would. The ring still on her finger, the roof laid back, the cassette player in the passenger seat and the stack of photos placed back where they'd rested for years before. Everything was the same as it had been the night before as she pushed the door of the car open and walked back up to the tree.

Her hands slid up and down the tree's bark, her fingers searched from side-to-side across the tree's trunk. After she'd gone over it once, she went back over it again. But still there was nothing. In a fit of aggravation, Jenna slammed her clenched fist against the tree and let out a monotone scream. She shook her head, and just as she was about to give up and turn away she felt something.

Three indentations on the front of the tree, facing towards the car. Three loose pieces of bark peeled easily away, revealing three dates closed around by small hearts. 1749, 1842 and 1925. Each date was in the same place that the initials had been the night before; TC + NP 1749, CC + RL 1842, and finally AL + KI with 1925. And just as with the night before, as she finished with the tree her player went off again.

"They sing of homes in verdant Isles, beside a tranquil sea. Where sylphlike forms at even dance, beneath the citron tree. Where darkeyed beauties whisper love, and sooth the brow of care. And life is like a marriage feats, I care not to be there.

They sing... a tranquil sea..."

She'd not listened to the tape the trip home or the trip back, and when it came on again she knew there was something different. This was not the cassette which had been in the player all this time. The woman who had sung it the whole trip down the night before, and the one who sang it now were not the same person. As the recording played on longer and longer, she became all the more certain of what this all was. Jenna put one leg into the car, and left the other one out. She pulled from her breast pocket a pair of headphones, plugging them in to the hole on the player and putting the buds into her ears. The woman in the recording struggled to continue in the song, just as she had the night before.

"I care not..."

The woman's voice sounded full of pain, as if singing this song broke her the longer it went on. Her highs became dull, and her lows became a powerful void that sucked Jenna in. Listening to the woman in the recording sing hurt her deeply, and as the new verse started so too did the backup.

"Oh tell me not of brighter lands, where summer sunsets glow. Where perfume floats on ev’ry breeze, and fountains tinkle low. The Bulbul warbles to his mate, beside the starlit streams. And love smiles on us all the day and whispers in our dreams."

Jenna smiled as the words left her lips. As she sang, the woman's voice seemed to cheer up as well. Their voices combined brought the words to life, healing the broken hearts of both in the process. Jenna forgot about the death of her grandma Ada and why she was in this place at all, and the recording broke out into a gleeful fit of laughter as the other carried on the tune without her.

"Very good Jenna. You know you always were my favorite."

The recording faded out as the color drained from the woman's face. Her eyes fell slowly to the player that now sat in her lap. The woman's laughter faded as the recording drew to a close. Tears filled the woman's eyes as her lips shook, searching for the words that she wanted.

"W-who are you?"

The distant sound of clicking. A record player waiting to be reset, and the labored breathing of an elderly woman sitting beside it. Softly, the voice spoke the final verse of the song.

"Oh tell me not of brighter lands, I have one brighter still. And dear to me is ev’ry wood, and ev’ry vale and hill. But dearer far the smiling home, where still I love to be. Where kindred, friends, and parents dear are all the world to me."

Next that she knew, Jenna was just waking up from the seat in the car once more. The birds were perched on the windows singing their daily songs as the sun shone through the foliage of the old oak tree. She was certain now. This event she'd experienced twice now was no dream, and that was no random woman. Adaline. Her grandmother was trapped somehow within this song, this tree, or perhaps even this car. She was trapped somewhere, in some way, but Jenna was able to hear and offer comfort to her.

Jenna continued to visit the old oak tree sporadically throughout the next year. She'd checked in on it at different times of night, tried different songs and had even tried to use a different car. Regardless of what she experimented with next, the results were always the same. For the event to happen again, the circumstances had to be the same. It must have to be between three and four in the morning, the hood of the convertible had to be put down and that song had to be playing.

As the second year of visits began to roll around, the event began to change ever so slightly. The cause stayed the same, but the effect that came with the phenomena did not. Jenna left the car to run her hand across the old oak tree, but as she approached it she saw something hanging from a piece of the bark. A piece of white cloth, torn apart with a cursive 'N' stitched in to it.

As she rubbed the cloth between her fingertips, the cassette player started in just as it always did. Jenna left to go back to the car, pulling one leg in and leaving the other out as the sound of a record player clicked in the background. She waited several seconds for something to happen, but there was only the eerie, constant thud of a record player.

"Won't you sing for me?"

A chill ran through the woman's body as she felt a cold wind brush against the nape of her neck.

"Won't you... sing, for me?"

Jenna turned her head, ever so slightly. There was nothing beside her, and nothing behind her. But still she felt the chill of the wind on her bare neck.

"Won't you..." the voice seemed to be growing more distant, as if it were fading away. It almost sounded sad as it left.

"G-grandma? Is that... is that you? Grandma Ada?"

"Sing child. Sing for me." The voice rushed back up to her, the feeling of fingers resting on the woman's shoulder as the wind blew into her ear. "Help me remember. Remember. Remember..." The voice trailed off again, the feeling of fingers on her shoulder faded with it.

Jenna licked her lips and then looked at the tree in front of her. She took in a deep breath and then let it out.

"O tell me not of brighter lands, or sunny, sunny climes away.

"Where morning winds breathe low as lutes, and zephyrs ever play." The voice returned, finishing off the phrase with a hint of childish laughter in her throat. "Keep on, just like that my girl. I want to hear it from you."

Jenna nodded her head and then swallowed. "Where streamlets murmur pleasantly, and all is gay and fair. O tell me not of brighter lands, I care not to be there."

The voice laughed along through the whole song and when it finally ended, Jenna awoke. Everything was as it was on every other morning. The sun rose, the birds chirped and she lay just as she had while she'd sang.

Time continued to pass. Two more years came and went, the phenomena jumped back and forth between the two versions. Each time that she sang to the spirit, it became slightly more visible. When she tried to look directly at it, the spirit would disappear. But when she began to sing and that voice got caught up in the excitement, Jenna would see it from the corner of her eye. A ghostly apparition of Adaline.

She had known it to be true for quite some time and even believed it, but some part of her mind kept trying to tell her otherwise. She couldn't quite place the feeling nor the reasoning, but for some reason she believed that part of her mind almost as much as she did the part of it screaming that this was her grandmother.

As the third year of these events started to come to a close, the phenomena changed once more. She pulled up to the old oak tree at the same time as always, but as she put the car into park the casette player turned on by itself. The thumping of a record player sounded, but soon after stopped and was replaced by a recording of the song which she'd grown up singing and had been singing nearly every night for the past three years.

A woman's voice came from inside the player - one that Jenna had yet to hear. A younger sounding woman letting out a series of muffled giggles, "Oh sweet Nettie," she'd whisper under her breath after.

Jenna slowly opened the car's door, the sound of a screen door creaking open from inside the player at the same moment. As her legs swept out of the car and her feet touched the ground, the sensation of warm grass struck up between her toes. Frightened, she pulled her legs back into the car before looking at the ground outside of it. She pulled a flashlight from the glove compartment and shone it, but could see nothing that would have stimulated such a feeling.

She pursed her lips, cautiously putting one leg outside of the vehicle and touching her toes towards the ground outside. Again, the feeling of warm grass engulfed her foot. Her mind was racing, completely lost at what was going on now. Her lips parted, letting free short, heavy exhales as she tried to comprehend what this meant. She reached out to the ground with her left hand, feeling the grass around her foot. She wrapped it between her fingers and then lifted her hand up, feeling the tension as the roots were pulled up. The sensation persisted, but when she looked at the hand which had pulled up the grass she saw nothing.

The first thought that crossed her mind was that she had died. There was no sense to be made of what was going on. She had to have died, it was the only explanation; either it was that or she'd gone crazy, which she wanted to believe even less. After several more seconds of deliberation, she flung her other leg out of the car and rose to her feet.

Instantly, the entire world around her changed. The night was replaced with day and the rocky dried up river with fertile land and warm grass. The laughter of children echoed in the distance to her right, and to the left echoed the same old song.

"Nettie! Nettie! Come over here!" A young boy ran up to Jenna, taking her hands in his and pulling her along with him.

She stumbled for words, trying to explain to the boy that she didn't want to go with him. She tried to think of how to explain that he was too young and that he shouldn't be out at such a time, but her mouth moved on its own.

"Oh Tommy! Did you finally finish it?"

The young boy looked back at her, his hand extended and firmly grasping her own. His face had a toothy, childish grin on it. His cheeks were flushed as he wiped the spittle away from the bottom of his chin before nodding his head.

"Yup! Right here! Isn't it great?"

The boy stopped in front of the old oak tree. The letters TC and NP were freshly carved into the flesh of the tree. The bark still lay in a pile at the base with the knife that had been used to remove it on top of the stack. Jenna looked at the boy and nodded her head several times before reaching down for the knife. 1749. She etched the numbers into the tree right below their names.

"What'd you do that for," the young boy asked, his head cocked to the side.

Jenna looked at him and smiled, dropping the knife back to the ground. "This way, even when we're old and gross like Mamaw we'll always remember." The girl's hands were around the boy's face, pulling him towards herself.

As their lips locked, Jenna awoke. The sun shone, the birds sang, all was as it always was once more. Her mind was spinning, the sensation of warm grass between her toes and the feeling of the boy's sugar coated lips still hanging on her own.

----

Jenna didn't return for quite some time. Several weeks went by without her even looking at the car again. She was still uncertain of what exactly all this was that she was experiencing. At first, it had just been a connection with the supposed spirit of her grandmother through a shared favorite song. But with the new visions... Everything had gone out the window. She searched the internet for any accounts of what she might be experiencing, but found none. Even though every part of her screamed out no, Jenna remained too curious for her own good. She had to experience that phenomena at least once more.

After nearly two months of absence, she returned to the old oak tree. A similar event went on, though this time the boy, herself, initials and the very conversation that they had was entirely different. This 'Ronald' didn't seem to care much at all for her, unlike the other boy. This dream didn't end in a kiss, but was much more violent. The teenage boy had carved her current initials into the tree and slammed his knife into it over them. His face was that of disgust as Jenna turned to run away.

"Stop fighting me Clara! Just let me do this! I want to be there for you! I want to be your power, your crutch, the one to finally give you-"

The man had easily caught up with and tackled the young girl. He was on top of her, holding her down by her wrists as he sat positioned on her waist. Like a feral beast, he began to attack her shoulder and neck with his mouth, leaving hickeys all across her skin. Jenna kicked the young man in his groin as he began to make his way down towards her chest with his kisses. He lurched forward in pain, dry heaving and tears forming in the corners of his eyes. Jenna crawled away, her back ending up against the tree. The man wiped his face and then stood up, towering over her. He grabbed her up by her wrist and pressed her body against the tree, his eyes filled with anger and malice as he pulled the knife free from abover her and began to run the flat of the blade up the curves of her body. He held the blade against her throat and began to unbutton the dress she was wearing. Her eyes closed as she began to whimper, and then she awoke.

The next night wasn't any better. It seemed the same boy was involved, but this time they were several years older. Many unfamiliar faces crowded around her and the young man named Donald. His tuxedo stood boldly against the white of the arches around her, and the bouquet of red flowers in her hands were like a stain of blood against her pristine white dress. A woman stood next to her, tears streaming down her face as she took a step towards Donald. The two embraced, their lips locking as Jenna's face began to flush. Her hands shook, the roses falling apart between her fingers as she felt for the handle of the knife hidden within them.

And then she was awake once more. Admittedly, the whole scene from that night excited something inside of her. She felt something towards that woman, even now that the vision was over. She was angry, upset, a feeling of betrayal and the desire to take revenge lingered. She grit her teeth and rubbed her temples. She was still unsure of what these visions were, but perhaps it would all be resolved in the next night's vision?

When she entered the vision again the next night, everything was different. She was sitting inside of a house, staring out at the old oak tree. She pulled a pendant up from her neck, opening it up to reveal a small picture of Adaline and what Jenna presumed to be her husband. A smile stretched across her face as she walked into the living room, letting the pendant down against her chest.

"I care not to be there..." she whispered under her breath.

The elderly looking man in the other room cocked his head slightly, all but for the top hidden behind his armchair. A fire was roaring in front of him, contained behind a metal grate. A small table sat beside him, a closed book on the subject of psychology with a lamp light pointing down on it. He cleared his throat a few times, "Singing that same old song again Ada?"

"No worries my dear. No worries."

The old man let out a sigh, and Jenna walked up behind him. As she went through the kitchen and entered the living room where the man was, she picked up a rather large knife. She held it behind her back with her right hand, and wrapped her left arm around the man's neck as she kissed him in the bald spot on top of his head. The man smiled and closed his eyes, exhaling deeply as Jenna brought the knife out from around her back and plunged it in to his chest.

"You've played your part, now go quietly Kieth. There's no longer a place for you here."

The man's eyes shot open, Jenna's embrace keeping his mouth shut tight. He breathed heavily and in bursts from his nose as he struggled to break free from her hold. He reached behind him, grabbing for the woman's face or hair but found nothing. Jenna twisted the knife in his chest and then ripped it sideways with all of her might. The chair that the man was in was now stained an ugly red, and the color began to fade from his face as his eyes glossed over.

Jenna went back to the kitchen, quietly washing off the knife as she looked at herself in the mirror. But instead of seeing Adaline, she saw herself. And then she saw the young girl who had been assaulted by the teenage boy, and then finally she saw Nettie. Each version of herself smiled back at her, each version of herself wore the same ring and mouthed the lyrics to the same song.

The girl awoke in her car and stepped out, vomiting on the ground around her as she remembered the events of the night before. Her head was spinning harder than ever before as images of the night as well as things she'd never seen before began to play through her head. She sat back down inside of the car and looked over the pictures within it. As she picked one up, the memory of when and why it was taken resurfaced. The image began to play like a movie, showing the events that came before and after it was taken. Jenna's head began to throb as she looked at several different pictures.

Her eyes filled with tears, unsure of what to do with all this new information. She put the car into drive and went to a gas station to pick up a pack of cigarettes. She'd never been one to smoke, but for some reason she'd found herself craving one ever since she woke up. She opened the pack and quickly went through four sticks before finally feeling relaxed. She decided to call off of work that day and instead spent all of her time at the old oak tree, waiting for night to come once more.

As she waited, she thought. She tried to link together the clues, to piece together what all that she had seen and heard meant in the bigger picture? Why had she seen three different men through the eyes of three different women? Why when she looked at these pictures did she remember things that she'd never actually experienced? Was this... a sort of reincarnation? Was someone other than herself sleeping inside of her?

As she racked her brain with all of the questions that she could come up with, the sun began to set. She had been so lost in her own thoughts, that she never even noticed the usual time come around. She didn't notice the music playing, nor did she notice that she was no longer in the car. It wasn't until an elderly woman's hand touched against hers that she was broken from her trance.

"Darling, are you feeling alright? You look pale."

Jenna shot back in the chair she was now in. There in front of her was Adaline, old and on the verge of falling apart. The two were sitting in the woman's old home, a record player sat on the other side of her grandmother and there was a table set up between the two with baked goods and a deck of cards.

"Are you feeling alright," Adaline asked again, her head craned to look into her granddaughter's eyes. "You seem like you don't want to be here..." her voice trailed off, a hint of sadness behind her words.

Jenna shook her head. "No, it's not that. I just... I feel like I've been dreaming for a long time now. My head hurts and I feel tired." The woman picked up a lemon cookie from one of the cases from the bakery that she worked at and bit it in two.

"I see. Well, it's your turn now. Remember, we're playing for keeps this time." The woman let out a soft laugh, smiling at the girl across from her with brown eyes receding deep into her skull, hidden behind layers of wrinkles.

"Yes, I wouldn't forget. It's our favorite game isn't it?"

"I wouldn't know about that. I never much cared for war or conflict in general, but it is an easy decision maker. How has work been darling?"

"It's been good. The owner of the bakery has been getting on me lately about coming to work late and leaving early. My late night escapades have been getting in the way I suppose."

"Late night escapades? Do tell."

"Well," Jenna began, trying to think about the events of the past four years as she bit into another cookie, "like last night for example, I went out to... no, it was daytime wasn't it? How was that... I went out to the old oak tree with Ronald..."

"Who's Ronald my dear?" A sinister smile began to creep across the elderly woman's face.

"Ronald was my boyfr- no. Wait, who was Ronald? Ronald... Ronald... Kieth... Tommy... who are all of these people in my head? Who are... who am I? Why do I remember all of these things? What have I been doing these past few years?"

"Don't worry about that deary. Sometimes we just get memories that shouldn't actually be there. It's a sort of side effect of reincarnation."

Jenna looked up, her eyes glossed over and distant. "Oh? Reincarnation?"

"Yes my dear. Reincarnation. Though not exactly yours, but mine."

"What do you mean?"

"Here, let me show you." Adaline put the needle of the record player down, causing the same song from before to play again. "When I was a young girl, I knew the man who wrote this song."

"He wrote it for the woman he loved at the time," Jenna cut in, "and I was the first to sing it right?"

Ada smiled and nodded her head. "That's right deary. I was the first to sing it. The woman he loved at the time was a singer, and he wanted to be sure that the words made sense and sounded just as beautiful coming from a woman's mouth as much as his own."

Jenna smiled as she began to remember the man who had wrote the song. She felt the joy and the rush of energy that came with singing that song for the first time, her gaze continued to fall onto the man beside her as he played the piano along with her. But as the song progressed her heart grew heavy, knowing that his belonged to another. As beautiful as the song was, it was not a song meant for her.

Ada began to rock back and forth in her chair, biting into another cookie. "It hurt me deeply to see that silly little man chase after that woman. She sang at that tavern every Tuesday night, and afterwards she'd take the most handsome man in attendance up the stairs. And every time, that silly little man just sat there smiling at her. Not once had she taken him up those stairs with her, but yet every time she sang he smiled and played with the ring he had in his pocket."

"And she never did take him up there... did she?" Jenna shook her head. "I remember the night he had finally gathered up the courage to approach her. She had just finished singing and she had started to walk up to a man sitting in the corner whom she had already pointed to in her song, signaling that they were to ascend. But as she had began to leave the stage, that songwriter bumped in to her and placed both song and ring into her pocket. He pressed himself against her, locking his lips against hers before running out of the tavern."

"That night he was beaten," Ada licked her lips, "taken out into the streets behind the tavern, stomped, kicked, beaten and bruised until he was unrecognizable. The man who had went up the stairs with his love came out through the back door several hours later buttoning up his jacket and paying no attention to the man curled up against the wall. Not long after that, the woman came outside and sat next to the songwriter."

"But... they never married. Did they," Jenna questioned.

Ada shook her head. "No. She only went outside to return ring and song. She didn't even look at him. Didn't politely hand it back or tell him no. She opened the door and tossed the paper and ring into the dirt in front of him. After that he left town, never even telling me and never returning."

The two women looked at their knees solemnly. Both picked up a lemon cookie and bit into it at the same time. Memories rushed through Jenna's head as she tried to discern reality from dream.

"Do you remember," Ada began, "when you were in second grade? You came over one time when you were sick with some sort of bug. I was also sick at the time and the doctors were already saying my memories were fading and I didn't have much longer. You brought some cookies and Kool-Aid that you had mixed together with cold syrup. You'd never been too sick so you thought that cold syrup was a cure all and thought that I wouldn't notice."

Ada laughed slightly, her eyes moving slowly over to Jenna who was staring blankly at her feet.

"I don't."

"You don't? Jenna?"

"I don't remember."

"I see. Well then, what about-"

"I don't remember anything. I... I can't remember anything. What's going on?"

"It might just be because you're tired. Your brains geting all flustered with all of these stories we're telling together. Maybe we should just take a break."

"What's wrong with me... why can't I remember anything? Why can't I remember?" Jenna looked over to her great-grandmother, pounding her fist against her head repeatedly as she tried and failed to remember.

"There was another time-"

"Stop!"

"There was another time-"

"Stop it!"

"You were in high school-"

"Please stop! I don't remember!"

"You came over after work and-"

"Nettie please! Please!"

"I see. Then that's it." Ada looked out the window next to her. The sun was beginning to set outside and rain splattered against the glass. The elderly woman bowed her head and smiled. "We'll sing just one last time then. Then I'll let you go."

Ada put the needle down on to the record and reached her hand out to Jenna's.

"Let me hold you one last time."

Jenna looked at the woman and then at her hand. The same ring that she had found in the seat was on her grandmother's finger. Jenna raised her hand up, staring at the identical ring on her own finger, and then locked her hand into her grandmother's as they began to sing.

Time passed quickly, the words of the song blurring together. It sounded almost as if there were two other voices inside of the player besides the one who sang it on the recording. Jenna stopped singing halfway through and listened closely, the foreign voices almost sounding like whispers. The girl felt as if something were calling out to her from the recording, begging for her to remember something. But she couldn't put her finger on what it was.

The record player stopped, the two women stared at each other as the scenery began to fade back to that of the car in the dried up river.

"Thank you, for helping me to remember my dear." Adaline smiled at Jenna, the two women's hands still locked together. Their rings touched together as they pulled in to an embrace.

When they pulled away from each other, Jenna found that she was now in the passengar seat of the car, and her body was in the driver's seat. But, that didn't make any sense. If she were here but also there, then what could that mean? Her body's head turned towards her slowly, a light smile across it.

"Thank you for helping me to remember, now please, be forgotten." She looked down at her finger and pulled the ring free from it, and the Jenna who was in the passengar seat began to fade away. "Oh tell me not of brighter lands, I have one brighter still. And dear to me is ev’ry wood, and ev’ry vale and hill. But dearer far the smiling home where still I love to be. Where kindred, friends, and parents dear are all the world to me. I'll be seeing you Jenna. Grandma still has unfinished business here after all." Jenna's body pulled a cigarette from the carton and lit it up, inhaling deeply before blowing a cloud of smoke in the direction of the cassette player.

The cassette player began to play, the song replaced by the tormented screams of the three women now trapped inside of it. Adaline put the car into drive and began to pull out of the river. She took one final puff on the cigarette and then put it out on the cassette player before driving off into the rising sun.