Shadow Forest- The Complete Series

by Eliza Grace

  I interrupt her with the first thing that comes to mind. “Jen, do you have any hairbands or a clip on you?” I know she does; I don’t really have to ask, so she’ll know I was trying to avoid the topic of mom. Jen is a veritable walking hair accessory store. She always has half a dozen bands around her wrists, clips attached to the hem of her shirt, head bands in her hobo bag. My aunt digs in her pocket and then holds her hand up so I can see the white hairband clasped between her thumb and pointer. “Can you hold me up for a minute, Hoyt?”

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks.” I don’t release the bars and reach for the hairband until I feel my body raise a fraction from the floor with Hoyt gripping the belt. I know my cheeks are still flushed pink from my embarrassing hysteria and pulling up my hair will put the blush full on display, but I needed a distraction. Struggling a bit, because my center of gravity is out of whack, eventually I manage to put my hair up in a high, messy bun. If the strands were just a bit longer, it would have been easier. But my hair is only just brushing the tops of my shoulders, growing back from junior year when I’d thought a pixie cut would be flattering.

  A few loose strands escape despite my best efforts and they frame the front of my face. “Done.” I grip the bars firmly again and Hoyt lowers me. He doesn’t let go until he’s sure I’m stable. My arms are screaming with searing pain; my hands hurt like hell. I hate everything. I hate everything so much.

  “I love your hair up, Tilda. You really should wear it that way more often.” Aunt Jen plays with a piece of the hair that didn’t make it into the bun; she curls it around her finger for a moment and I refuse to look at her, because I know who she is seeing right now when she looks at me and plays with the black strands.

  “Can we get this over with please?”

  Jen’s hand drops immediately and she sighs. “Sure, sweetie. Let’s knock this out and hit the Cool Zone for a soft serve.”

  “I don’t want ice cream.” I grunt, struggling to swing my foot forward, but Hoyt isn’t lifting the bar to help me move. “Hello back there? Think we can get a move on?” I try to turn around to see my giant therapist.

  “Hoyt, you okay?” Jen is moving out of sight and I fight even harder to turn around.

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Sorry, ya’ll. Guess I spaced for a moment.”

  “Are you sure?” Jen is still out of sight. I’ve tried and I’ve failed to see what is going on. Another great side effect of being crippled. Of course, I could have let myself fall, turning my body so I landed face-up, or on my side, and then I might have been able to see whatever was happening behind me. I don’t much like falling though and I do it too often on accident now to do it on purpose.

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. How about we call it quits for today though?”

  “Sounds good to me,” I say hurriedly, wishing I could just waltz away from Jen and Hoyt and leave the rehab facility. Of course I can’t though. I have to be helped to a chair, the braces have to be removed, Hoyt has to stretch and massage my legs, and then it is back into the wheelchair with me.

  Hoyt walks us to Jen’s car. I wanted him to push my wheelchair, but he said that I need to keep building my upper body strength in case the chair became permanent. I don’t like him saying that, but he said it was just tough love again. Tough love. That’s something my dad used to say all the time when doling out discipline and punishments. I want him back so much. I want them all back… even if it’s just to yell at me and give me extra chores, even if it’s just to say I’m grounded for life.

  When we arrive at the patient drop-off, Jen leaves us to get the car.

  “You did better today, Tilda. I think we’re getting somewhere.” Hoyt smiles and it’s like he’s releasing bottled sunlight.

  “Sure, I only fell once today. That’s progress.” I can’t help but return his smile.

  “It is progress.” His smile widens; my body wants to melt.

  For a moment, I can think of nothing to say and, when I realize that we’ve lapsed into awkward silence and his grin is fading, I let the first words in my brain blurt out. “Hoyt… um…” I can feel heat creep into my cheeks. Blushing. Again. I blush so easily and my skin is so pale that it ends up looking like I have rosacea. Isn’t it enough that I’ve already gone red-faced once today? “Well… um… you’re right. Part of me doesn’t want to get better. I should be going into senior year with my friends, applying to college, deciding what to wear to prom months in advance so my date can coordinate. I should be dating and breaking hearts and all of the other messy shit that comes with being a teenager. And I’m not. I feel like just when everything should have been perfect, it became terrible. And I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to walk and try and start my life over again, because I don’t deserve to have a life. Not when my family’s dead and it’s my fault.” I slam my lips together to shut myself up. It was like I’d opened a floodgate and everything I’d thought or felt the past months needed to come spilling finally out.

  Hoyt opens his mouth to speak, but at that moment, Jen pulls up, folk music blasting from the speakers. The happiness of the music—the way it dances through the air and assaults my ears as if it wants to force me to dance and smile and embrace life—is jarring against the landscape of my insides, which are blanketed in the weight of the world and black as night.

  Jen does not get out as Hoyt wheels me to the passenger’s door. Again, I hate that I cannot see his face and how he has reacted to my outburst. He makes me so nervous—when he’s not pushing me to keep trying, to keep “walking”. And I know that he could never be interested in me, a stupid high school student, but part of me wishes for it—that he’d look at me and see me, not my age or my withered legs or my wheelchair.

  Hoyt walks in front of me and reaches for the door handle, but then he drops his hand and turns around. His face looks unhappy and I’m not sure why. I’m supposed to be the unhappy one. I’m the one whose life will never be normal again. I should be wearing the face he’s wearing now instead of my embarrassed blush and poorly-masked confusion. “I’ve worked with patients time and time again who’ve gone through terrible ordeals, but my life has been…steady, stable. So I can’t really understand what you’re going through. Not really. But when I’m around—”

  He’s surprised into silence when Jen lowers the passenger window. “You guys okay? The door’s unlocked already.”

  “We’re fine, Aunt Jen.” Don’t interrupt him! I want to yell at her, because I know he was about to say something that I desperately wanted to hear. Hoyt turns away from me to glance at Jen and I give my aunt a “hush up and let him talk” face while trying to motion for her to raise the window again. She takes the hint.

  “Well, hurry up. You may not want soft serve, but I’m definitely in the mood. Blackberry swirl is screaming my name.” She raises the window and Hoyt turns back around. Immediately, I can tell he’s re-thought what he was going to say. I can feel my heart sink a fraction within my body.

  “You’re a strong girl, Tilda. You’ll make it through this and I’ll help you any way I can. From the beginning, I told you this wouldn’t be easy. Your type of spine injury—”

  “Cauda equine lesion whatever. It sounds like something a horse would have.” I mumble, interrupting him rudely. I don’t want to hear this. I want to hear whatever he was going to say before Jen rolled the window down.

  “Cauda equina lesion.” Hoyt corrects me, smirking, but the half-grin fades quickly. “It’s serious, I’d never sugar-coat it just to make it easier for you, but the nerves aren’t as ruined as they could be, there’s a chance they can regrow. But we can’t just sit around and wait for it to magically happen. We have to keep trying whatever we can and keep you strong.”

  I look down at my legs; they’re beginning to lose the muscle tone I’d gained from a childhood spent cheerleading and dancing. I hated that they were becoming thinner and weaker with each day that I was stuck in this stupid chair.

  The door is open now and
Hoyt is helping me stand. His fingers wrap around my waist and the sensation sends a tingle up my spine and, for an instant, I imagine it runs down my legs. Imagination can be a cruel thing. I haven’t felt my legs since my family died, like it was not the beam at all that damaged my body; it was the death of them—that their passing was connected to me in such a way that when they were gone, so was part of myself. Yes, in my head, I know it’s the busted nerve cluster, but in my heart…

  Gently, Hoyt lowers me and helps me slide onto the car seat. When his hands no longer touch my body, I exhale a long and painful breath, because him touching me and then releasing me… it’s not like him helping me in rehab. Here outside, we are just a girl and a boy and I can fantasize more fully that he might be able to care for me as something other than patient. Thinking this, about how much I want to be more to him, an ache rockets through my stomach and makes me wince.

  “Did something hurt?” Hoyt is kneeling next to the car, looking at me with concern. Jen has her hand on my thigh—not that I can feel it.

  “No, no. It was nothing. I just… I’m fine.” God, my face is hot again. Why should I even want someone to like me? Emotional intimacy is all I can hope for now. Who would want to be physically intimate with a cripple? Another pain. I feel that if I can get away from Hoyt quickly, the discomfort will not come again, but I don’t know why I think being near Hoyt is connected to the aching. I’m around him often in rehab. This hasn’t happened before.

  “Sure you didn’t feel anything when you sat down? That could be a really good sign.”

  “No. I didn’t feel anything, not in my legs at least.” My chest is another story; it is like an elephant is sitting on it, flattening me, compressing my body and emotions until they are a tiny nothingness. I am nothingness.

  “Well, don’t fret. It just takes time.” Hoyt pats my arm. That I can feel; that makes the elephant stand up and my body begins to reflate with life. Yet, at the same time, another cramp hits my stomach and I wince. “You look flushed. Do you want me to get you a bottle of water?”

  “Ice cream’s in our future, Hoyt. That beats water any day.” Jen’s hand is no longer on my leg. I didn’t notice her move it. Her voice is perky as she reaches toward the dash and turns the AC on full blast, then shifts the car into gear. My aunt answers for me. I didn’t want her to answer for me. I wanted to respond to him. He’d asked me if I wanted water, not her. I know she doesn’t mean to be the way she is—jumping into everything, being spacey and sometimes crazy. Part of me loves her for her free-spirited ways and boundless personality, but other times, I wish she’d just be a normal aunt. Not an artist made up of so many colors that you never know which shade you’re going to get.

  “Hope you beat the rain.” At his words, Jen rolls down her own window and cranes her head out so that she can see the sky. Clouds are beginning to roll in and it does look like a storm is coming.

  “I always beat the rain.” She jokes, looking back at us. “Besides, less sun means slower melting.”

  Hoyt laughs. “Touché. Okay then. See you Wednesday. Remember it’s later than normal.”

  “Yep. Be here around five or so. Bye!” Jen waves and depresses the gas pedal.

  I’ve sat silent while Hoyt and Jen exchange goodbyes. I still feel like nothingness… it’s a stupid, nonsensical way to feel. My frown deepens as a phantom itch on the bottom of my right foot awakens. It pisses me off, but then I also wonder if that isn’t the universe’s way of reminding me that nothingness does not itch and nothingness cannot scratch.

  As we pull away, Hoyt waves. He is looking at me and his expression is strange, almost wistful. I watch him until Jen turns a corner. He’s gone from sight too soon for my liking.

  About five licks into my six-inch tall soft serve, a child running past our table bumps my elbow and I drop the minty-deliciousness onto my lap. For a moment, I don’t move, I just watch as the ice cream begins to melt and run between my legs to pool against the wheelchair seat. Soon, my butt is wet… and I can feel that, the coolness, but it’s only the ghost of memory, phantom sensations that tease and taunt me.

  Jen has left the table and already returned with a mile-high stack of napkins. I’m embarrassed because people are beginning to stare, perhaps wondering why I’ve just remained frozen, looking at the mess I’ve made. The little boy didn’t even pause to apologize. Why apologize to the cripple? Maybe his parents didn’t see him cause the mishap, or maybe they had and they just don’t care. I hope it was an accident. An accident is something I can understand and forgive.

  An accident like leaving candles burning when you were supposed to blow them out.

  “Jeez, Tilda, are you just going to let it soak you?”

  I don’t respond with words, but I do take the napkins she is holding and begin to sop up the stickiness. I wipe at it roughly, letting my knuckles push into my useless thighs.

  “You’re just spreading it around more, not cleaning it up.” I can hear the exasperation in Jen’s voice. “You’ll need to wash when we get home.”

  Right. I’ll need a bath, because I can’t stand to shower. Jen will have to help me into the claw foot tub. She’ll have to help me out of it. We need to get a shower chair—that might make things easier. Maybe then I can manage going from wheelchair to shower on my own.

  “Sorry, I didn’t think about that.” Again, I’ve made more trouble than I’m worth.

  “No, you didn’t.” It’s rare that my aunt shows me that she’s annoyed or unhappy with me. I think she knows I blame myself for everything, so she usually placates my moodiness. Jen sighs and then tosses her half-eaten cone in the nearby trash. “Let’s head home. I had a few more errands to run, but if you stay out in the heat too long, you’ll end up smelling like sour milk.”

  Saying nothing, I roll myself—my lap still covered in napkins and quickly-drying dairy product that is beginning to crust—to the car. I open the door (Jen never locks it), roll the wheelchair as close as I can manage to the door frame, and then lock the wheels in place. It leaves a few inches of space between me and the gray leather, but with a death grip on the oh-shit handle, I am able to support myself and slide onto the seat.

  Once I’m settled, huffing and puffing like I’ve just run a marathon, Jen rolls the wheelchair away and closes my door. She says nothing and I worry that she is thinking, reevaluating her decision to care for me. I would be, if I was her.

  We drive home in silence. My mind is empty, as empty as the cavern in my chest that once contained a full and thriving heart. Now it is a weak thing that barely takes up any space at all. As we draw nearer to the picturesque house and white fence, “it” begins to sing—softly, intimately—until my mind is no longer a cavern. It becomes a confusing jumble.

  It is a clothes dryer cycling through certain memories that I’d rather forget.

  Storm Warning

  The weather is an angry specter outside the house; the rain and wind pound against the siding with such force that I know it will break a few pieces free.

  Wind whistles into my room through minute cracks that went undiscovered during the remodel. It makes me wonder what else was missed by the contractors—what precious secrets this house holds close to its beams and baseboards. Sometimes, all the sounds of the house come together in one overwhelming cacophony of noise and I swear it is yelling at me, trying to tell me something.

  Shivering, I sit up and yank at the gray and white damask comforter that is scrunched up around my calves; it feels so thin tonight. For a moment, like so many times before, I imagine that I can feel the silkiness of fabric against the skin of my legs. This only causes my shivering to grow fiercer. Jen likes the house cold at night and bumps the thermostat down to sixty-eight every evening. Then she burrows under piles and piles of blankets like a hibernating bear. It makes no sense to me—why she’d rather spend a fortune on the electric bill rather than sleep without covers to be warm. Still, it is her house; she has taken me in.

  I just wish the se
cond comforter wasn’t across the room crumpled on the window seat.

  It would take so much work to get it, but I’m so cold.

  Sighing I toss off the blanket that I’ve just pulled up to cover my legs and I reach out for the arm of the wheelchair. I will myself not to fall as I slide out of the bed and down into the black faux-leather seat. Amazingly, I do not miss and end up a pile of pitiful cripple on the ground.

  Wheeling myself slowly, hoping the floorboards will not creak and crack and wake up Jen down the hall, I shiver again as a gust of wind hits me square in the face. When I am almost to the bay window, lightning slices through the storm and brightens the length of meadow between the house and the woods. In the white-silvery flash, I see a figure standing at the edge of the forest just past the fading white fence. At least, I think I do. When the world outside fades once more, the shadows dancing before my eyes as they try to recover from the sudden light, I decide I have imagined it.

  No person in their right mind would be out during a storm like this one.

  Comforter haphazardly folded in my lap; I begin the short journey back to bed—not that I’ll be able to sleep. It wasn’t just the cold keeping me awake. I’ve always had issues falling asleep during bad storms. And unfortunately in this house, the roof is tin and every raindrop adds to the chorus of weather; it beats against my brain until I can think of nothing except counting each and every ping against the roof.

  Not paying attention to where I’m going, my right wheel knocks into the little vanity desk next to my white bookshelf. Immediately, I reach into the fringed shade of the small lamp atop the desk and turn the light on to check for damage. The piece of furniture was my mother’s and her name is carved into the underside wood—Heather Diane Clarke. Mother said her favorite day of life, aside from the days Toby and I were born, was when she married Dad and become a Brennen instead of a Clarke.