by ERIN BEDFORD
I flicked the cigarette and watched as it bounced across the pavement. She was on that kick again. Nikki was always working on a new self-improvement project, and this year was repairing personal relationships. This was a conversation I definitely didn’t want to have right now.
“Can we not talk about this? I have enough to deal with today.” I looked down at my right hand and rubbed at the bent in c-shaped scar on the back of my hand near my thumb. I didn’t remember getting it, but lately, whenever I start getting irritated, it would start to burn like it had happened recently.
“You can’t hide your feelings forever, Elle.”
“You know, I think I’m starting to remember how you die. I think it had something to do with bees.” I tapped my chin, pretending to be deep in thought.
“Bees! But I’m not even allergic to bees!” The door to the funeral home opened, and the pallbearers lead the people out with my mother’s coffin in hand. I moved towards Aunt Sue and away from Nikki’s squawking.
She had been hounding me since day one to let her know how she dies, and every time she asked, I gave her a different answer. A hit and run. Suicide. A freak accident involving a blender. And now bees. She was more obsessed with death than I was. Really, why would you want to know when you die?
It’s not like I didn’t know. I just didn’t want to think of her that way. If I let myself think of the way she goes, then that was all she would be. A label permanently imprinted on her face every time I saw her, and there would go my one and only friend.
I let myself be ushered into the black limousine reserved for immediate family and leaned against the door. I knew her. If I told her, she would never let it go. She would be looking over her shoulder all the time, more worried about dying than living. I couldn’t do that to her.
Nikki’s small hand pounded against the glass of my window. I tried to school the emotions on my face to show nothing as I rolled down the window. Giving her my best poker face, I waited for the usual explosion of questions.
“Come on, Elle! You can’t be serious! Bees?” Her face would almost be funny if I hadn’t seen it so many times before when I had fed her one of my previous lies. I rolled my eyes at her and started to roll the window back up.
“You’ll just have to wait and find out like everyone else.”
I bit back a grin when she smacked the glass and let out another muffled “Come on,” before she marched towards her own vehicle.
“You really should be nicer to that girl. I don’t know how she stands to be around you as it is.” Aunt Kate’s snide remarks always made my day. It may be mean and unkind, but the fact that I knew exactly how she dies filled my step with a little bit of a pep whenever she got into one of her tirades about my character.
“Oh, Kate, leave Elle alone.” Aunt Sue glared at her sister and reached over to pat my hands with a small smile. I quickly moved it out of her reach and stared down at her own paused in midair. She cleared her throat and dropped the hand. She knew not to touch me. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to... Well anyways, don’t listen to her. She’s just a bitter old woman. You’re perfect the way you are.”
“Thanks, Aunt Sue.” I gave her a small smile in return and turned to look back out the window. For all her suspicions, I have always liked Aunt Sue. She was always standing up for me against Aunt Kate, even if her older sister was right in most occasions. At least I wouldn’t have to see any of them for a while after this. College was right around the corner.
One good thing about not having that many friends growing up was there was always plenty of time to study. I actually had the highest GPA in my graduating class. If I wasn’t a social leper, I would have been valedictorian, but no one wanted to hear inspirational speeches from the death girl. I could just imagine what my speech would entail.
“Thomas Jefferson’s class of 2020, though many of you will die before you have time to do anything exceptional in your lives, you made it through high school. Your lives will go on to be completely boring and meaningless, and while your husbands and wives have affairs behind your backs and your children end up in juvie, you will think back to this day when you were at the height of your lives. Congratulations, you poor sad fuckers.”
Or something like that.
While I wished I could say I got into Princeton or Harvard with my stellar GPA, unfortunately, the big Ivy League colleges looked at more than just grades. So what if I didn’t want to be a cheerleader or a mathlete? Did that mean that I didn’t deserve a great school? I could be the next Marie Curie or Rosalind Franklin, but no, they only cared if I had spirit. Which I didn’t. Not at all.
Unlike Nikki. She had so much spirit, it was coming out of her wazzoo. But since Nikki didn’t have any such high standards, despite what her parents would want for her, I would be joining her at the big UN of O in the fall. Majoring in whatever I found to be the least nonsensical and touchy feely. Probably a lab tech. I could hide in a tiny lab every day and blow shit up.
Nikki was going to be a nurse.
“We’re here, kiddo.” Uncle Bob, who had been snoring most of the trip, kicked my black ankle boot with one of his dress shoes. I glanced at him and then looked back out the window. We actually were there. When had that happened?
“Come on, kiddo. They ain’t gonna start without you.” Uncle Bob waited outside the door for me as I smoothed out my short black dress over my knitted tights and stumbled out onto the gravel of the graveyard road.
So, this is what a graveyard looked like. For all the deaths I’d seen, I’d never actually been to a funeral before, let alone a graveyard. I had enough problems with the dead. No need to rock that boat quite yet.
I followed the trail of somberly dressed people as we made our way toward where my mom’s new home would be. It was a lot cheerier than I would have expected a graveyard to be. I mean where was the darkened skies, the crows, and all the creepy weeping angels? Maybe that was only a nighttime attraction. Should have signed up for the midnight special.
A hand grasped mine in theirs before I could pull it back. When I followed the hand up to the owner’s face, I relaxed. It was just Nikki. No more visions for me today.
Yay.
“How you holding up?” She gave me a small concerned look.
I rolled my eyes at her. “How do you think?”
“Well, judging by the scowl on your face, I’m assuming your Aunt Kate said something rude again, and you’re trying to decide if it’s worth it to tempt the fates and kill her early.” I snorted and tried to cover it up with what looked like a distraught cry of anguish. God, do I love this girl.
Nikki pulled me into a hug in front of the coffin that held my mother’s body and pretended to be comforting a crying daughter, when really, I was trying hard to breathe through my laughs. She gave me a particularly hard pat on the back. Her signal for knock it off already, it wasn’t that funny. What can I say? I was easily amused.
When I finally had myself under control, I pulled back from her and took my rightful place next to the coffin. The minister was staring at me as if he knew I hadn’t really been crying. I narrowed my eyes and jerked my head towards him. I almost started laughing again when the large man startled at my hard gaze and quickly looked down at the book in his hand. My eyes wandered away from the man as his gravelly voice went on to talk about walking through the valley of death.
Man, you’re preaching to the choir.
My gaze drifted to the surrounding graves. There were a few family tombs around the outskirts of the graveyard. Each lined up along the metal fence. At least that part of the graveyard was consistent with horror movies. I moved my eyes along the different types of graves and paused.
There in the midst of them, sticking out like the only straight guy at a Jonas Brothers concert, was a tree. Though, it was mid-June, the tree looked like it was stuck in a perpetual winter. Not dead, but not full and vibrant like the rest of the trees outside the graveyard. I stared at the tree for a moment, wondering why they decided to p
ut one tree in the whole lot of land. As I stared, the shadows of the tree grew and widened, stretching out into long black wings on either side. My head jerked up from the ground just in time to see a lone figure step out of the shadows.
A man. At least, he looked like a man. He was blurry at first, but after a few moments, he seemed to solidify. There, dressed in what had to be a pretty expensive black suit along with a pair of dark shades, stood my dad. Bart.
What the hell was he doing here? How did he even do that? Crap, he was looking at me.
I looked away from him and turned my gaze back to the minister. Did they see? I chanced a quick peek at the others around me. None of them seemed to have noticed the man just standing in the middle of the graveyard. A quick look at Nikki showed she hadn’t noticed anything either. She glanced down at me as if she expected me to do something.
When it looked like I wasn’t getting what she wanted me to do, she nudged me forward with a nod of her head towards the casket. Oh. It was that time already. I tried to keep my eyes off my father, who just watched us from his place by the tree, and reached out to take one of the white roses off the casket. I clutched it in my hand and moved back to my spot, letting the aunts and other relatives have their turn at it.
I hurried a look at the tree and saw him staring at me. He had taken his sunglasses off now, and I could practically feel his eyes boring into my skin. What was he doing? Without a remark to those around me, I pulled away from the pack and marched over to where the lone tree waited.
As I arrived in front of him, I took in his features. To my ever growing chagrin, I looked just like him. The straight blonde hair that swept across his forehead. His slightly blue green eyes and bowed mouth. Even the little upturn of his nose was the same, and he didn’t have a wrinkle in sight. How was it that he looked this perfect when mom had had grey coming in and laugh lines around her mouth? It just wasn’t fair.
Ignoring his outstretched arms, I stopped in front of him arms crossed. “What are you doing here?”
He dropped his arms and just looked at me. What was he staring at? It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen me before. I hadn’t exactly changed since the age thirteen. Yea, I had boobs now and maybe a curvier figure, but I was overall still the same.
“You didn’t call me.” Had his voice always been that melodic? I glared down at the ground and kicked the dirt beneath my feet.
“Didn’t think you’d care.”
I watched his face turn from concern into anger and then controlled irritation. Wish I had that much control over my temper. I usually just let it all out. Probably another reason why I was getting in trouble all the time.
“Of course I care, Eleanor. I’m not completely heartless.”
I snorted. “Could have fooled me.”
His eyes returned to their previous concern, and for a moment, he seemed flustered. “I wanted to be here for you. Especially today. I...I didn’t know. I didn’t see.”
I stared at him for a moment, my mouth agape. I watched as he dragged a hand through his hair in a gesture I had never seen him use before. My dad was not the frazzled type. He didn’t get flustered. He didn’t show emotion. He definitely never said anything about ever seeing anything. My shocked look must have made him realize he was breaking his usual cool exterior, because he quickly dropped his hand and hid his eyes behind his sunglasses.
I forced my mouth closed and put on my best interrogator face. “You didn’t see what exactly?”
“Don’t start, Eleanor. You know damn well what I said.” Oh, he wasn’t as put together as he seemed. I took joy in knowing he wasn’t as perfect as he put off. Meaning he could be hurt.
“Don’t what? Don’t wonder why my father is never around? Don’t ask why he has never thought to mention to me, not once, that he could see stuff too?” I hold a finger up in his face. It felt good to vent. “Or how about the fact that when I was five, I watched my mother die and had nightmares about it for months!”
“Enough, Eleanor. Stop.” The calm in his voice made my own repressed anger break its leash.
“No! You don’t get to tell me when it’s enough. Do you want to know she died crying out your name? Do you? She was waiting for you to save her!” I gripped the front of his meticulous suit, happy to ruin something of his. “Why? Why would she call for you? A husband who was never there, when I have been there for the last eighteen years, and she wouldn’t let me save her. She wouldn’t let me!” A large part of me delighted in the pain that marred my father’s flawless face. I wanted him to suffer. I wanted to hurt him like he had hurt me all these years. Like he had hurt her.
“How long has your hand been bothering you?”
I took in short shallow breaths and stared at him. I released his suit jacket and stepped back, my brows drawn together. What? Out of all that, he was only worried about my scar? I looked down at my hand where I had been rubbing at it. I hadn’t even realized I had been doing it.
“A few months. Why does that matter?”
I almost laughed when he cursed and pulled out his phone like nothing I just said mattered. Watching him talk into his phone, I realized something. The man I thought was my father was not who I thought he was at all. I didn’t know this man.
“Yes, now. Perfect. Be there soon.”
My brow furrowed as he hung up his phone and turned back to me. “What’s going on? What’s my scar have to do with anything?”
He suddenly grabbed me by the shoulders, and I tried not to flinch against him. My father had never touched me before, and I didn’t really want to see anything about him. But nothing happened. No blurred eyes. No images. Nothing. It was almost like he didn’t exist.
“We have to go.”
“Go. Go where? I’m not going anywhere with you.” I tried to jerk out of his grasp, but he tightened his grip, and I couldn’t break free.
“I’m sorry. There’s no time.” He pressed his lips to my forehead in the way I’d always secretly hoped he would. When he pulled away, I could only stare at him in wonder.
“No time for what?”
But my question went unanswered as the world started to dark around me. Later, much later, I would wonder how nobody noticed when he picked me up and faded back into the trunk of the tree like he was never even there.
SOMETIMES WHEN I dreamed, I found myself sitting in my own personal movie theater where a reel of my life played out on the screen. There was never anyone else around. Just me, in the dark, watching my life pass by.
To my utter irritation, the reel never went further than where I already was in my life. So, when the screen went dark and the reel started to click against the projector, I was left empty and hollow. Alone.
Bullshit. The whole thing was utter bullshit.
Was I not allowed to see my own future? Didn’t I deserve that much? Was it God’s idea of protecting me from myself? I hardly thought after everything I’d seen and felt that He would think that this would be His way of saving my sanity. From what I’d witnessed, God didn’t give two shits about me or anyone else.
He was that mean girl in high school who spread rumors to other kids just to see the horror and mayhem unfold.
If it was the very fact that I was getting screwed over in the whole deal, then I could appreciate the irony. I liked irony. Like the time a bully named Reece at my middle school cut in front of the whole line just so he could get the last piece of pizza, only to find out it had pineapples on it. See, irony. Didn’t want that gross crap anyway, and neither did Reece.
But I had gotten to see even Reece’s death. I could see everyone else’s future, but my own. In the end, I guess I was just like everyone else. Waiting in the dark for a future unwritten. I had never liked the dark. Too many shapes and whispers around the edges that fought to be free from.
“Eleanor,” they whispered. Their voices were like raspy smoke victims, all crackled and harsh. “We see you, Eleanor. We’re going to find you.”
Usually by this point, I was curled up in
to a ball on the floor of my theater with the dark creeping in around me. This dream was different than the others. This time, they didn’t come any closer. They were stuck. As I looked around the corners of the theater, I could feel the pressure of their struggles as they tried to get to me. Why weren’t they moving?
I suddenly cried out as a burning overtook my right hand. The scar. I stared down at it and realized it wasn’t like it was before. It was red and festered like an infected wound. What in world was going on?
“Help!” A scream ripped from my throat as the pain radiated through my hand, and I fell to my knees. The whispers in the dark laughed a haunting cackling that bounced off the walls.
“No one to help you now. We can see you, Nabi.” The last word came out as a hiss. Nabi. They repeated it over and over, almost like a prayer. The sound of them grew louder and louder, until I couldn’t even hear the sound of my own voice anymore.
As I knelt there with my hands over my ears, trying to drown at the noise, the burning in my hand started to fade, and with it, another voice could barely be heard over the chants.
“Eleanor.”
Dad?
The chanting around me came to an abrupt halt, as if they had heard it too and were trying to listen. I lowered my hands and slowly pushed to my feet. With the pain in my hand gone, I scanned around me and saw the shadows still there, just barely moving around in the corners of the room. Were they scared of my dad?
“Wake up, Eleanor.”
The sound of his voice caused light to shine into the darkened theater, and my eyelids fluttered open. Even as my consciousness awakened in the back of my mind, in the theater, I could still hear them. No longer silent and waiting, but panicked and rushing about in the darkness. In their haste for escape, I could still catch them chanting the word.
Nabi.
“I think she’s waking up now, Bart. Give her some room.” My eyes snapped open at the new voice of a woman near my feet. One hand rubbed my eyes as I tried to sit up on what seemed to be a leather couch. Where was I?