by Eliza Grace
I’m so scared.
***
There’s so much fear inked on the next pages that my heart hurts and my tether to the thing in the woods begins to feel oppressive. When I arrive at the last page of the book, tears are racing down my face. I do not bother to wipe them away; I let them fall onto the parchment. They splatter and blur the ink until a few words are beyond recognition.
I do not even wonder why mother has included none of her attempted spells in the book. None of that matters, not even the tiniest bit. Magic might be real, but it was a useless thing that I knew could not give me what I want so much—my family back. I place a hand on my right leg, the other hand holding the book, and I am reminded of another thing I earnest want. I feel awful to admit that this want might even eclipse getting my family back again.
Taking my hand off of my thigh so I feel less guilty, I want to slap myself. My legs are not more important than Mom, Dad and Toby. Walking is not more important. I am a selfish person, selfish and destructive and stupid.
The tears falling faster, I focus back on the words within the journal.
***
I’m leaving today. Dad has everything loaded into the station wagon already. He’s anxious for me to leave. I know it is because he loves me that he’s sending me away. I hate that I have to leave my family though. I hate him for making me, even if it is because of love.
The school is far away, too far for weekends home. Everything is changing. But I’ll be safe… I hope. One last spell though, my last. This journal will be hidden forever, invisible and forgotten. I never want to think about it again. I never want to come back to this farmhouse again. I never want to feel him inside me again.
***
That’s why the contractors hadn’t seen the diary taped to the back of mom’s vanity desk. It had been there, all these years, spelled out of sight. I am about to close the book, hide it beneath my mattress again while I digest everything that I’ve read, when I feel that tingling sensation I’d felt when first finding the tome.
Beneath my mother’s last sentence, words are appearing. But they are stunted, slow to appear, as if it is taking great effort to reveal themselves.
Stay away from the woods, child of mine. Stay away from the woods or you will no longer be a child. You will be his. Stay away from the woods and be safe.
The words, unlike the rest within the journal, do not last once I have read them. As “safe” begins to fade, “I love you, My Little Witch” flashes across the page for only a fleeting moment that is infinitely too short and gutting in its brevity.
I am crying now, sobbing with so much intensity that I fear I will never stop. My mother is the only person in the world who ever called me her little witch.
Holding All the World
Hoyt has changed the normal rehab routine today.
I’m still emotionally exhausted from speaking with Charlie and reading the new pages of mom’s diary. I don’t want to be here, it’s nearly five o’clock and we usually have early afternoon appointments. I just want to sleep again, for hours and hours. Maybe I don’t even want to wake up again. Shut up. Just shut up, you whiney brat. There are people who want to wake up, who love life, and they don’t get to; stop being such an ungrateful asshole! Yelling at myself mentally only makes me want go to sleep more earnestly.
We are outside, in the air that is noticeably cooler today because fall is right around the corner. Hoyt has made me lock my wheels in place next to the steel banister at the top of the outdoor stairs that lead to the parking lot. I glance at the ramp nearby longingly. “This is stupid, you know. I can’t walk inside, what makes you think I’ll be able to walk outside.”
“It’s a gorgeous day. If nothing else, we’ll have a little fresh air during rehab. What’s the harm?” Hoyt smiles at me, his best disarming grin.
I groan. “You’re impossible sometimes. We’ve been at this for months now, just give up on me already.”
“Nope. Momma said never give up on a prized pig before it wins a blue ribbon.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Yeah, my momma rarely made sense.”
“Unless you’re saying I’m a prized pig…” I say it straight-faced, without the hint of a smile and poor Hoyt looks totally confused for a moment and then his entire face goes beet red.
“I would never call you that; you’re beauti—” If possible, his blush deepens and spreads even more, like it wants to color his entire body. “I wouldn’t call any girl that.”
“I know you wouldn’t.” I smile now. “So, let’s do this thing.” Putting on my fiercest expression, I ball my fists and grunt. I probably look and sound ridiculous, but he laughs—head tilted back, mouth wide open, laughs. His face is fully illuminated by sunlight for a moment and I, for not the first time, think how good-looking he is and how much I wish that I was older and not in a wheelchair.
“You need to bring this fighting spirit to rehab every time. You’d be walking two shakes faster than a rooster at crowing time.”
“Again.” I shrug. “It’s like you’re speaking Latin.”
“Pig Latin’s more like.” Hoyt smiles, reaching down to grip the handles on the belt around my waist.
“Hey now, let’s not bring up pigs again. You really hurt my feelings that first time.” He hesitates, searches my face for a moment, and then laughs.
“Fine, fine. No more talk about pigs.”
We struggle up and down the stairs together. It takes us an hour. When we reach the top again and I settle down into my wheelchair, the tiny fire of hope inside my body ignited by my talk with Charlie has died, like a monsoon opened above it and rained down buckets.
Not one step unassisted, not one fraction of movement was made by my own strength. Hoyt might as well have carried me the whole way. Willpower only goes so far when you’re well and truly broken. “I don’t know if I can keep doing this.” I’m staring at a piece of gravel on the top stair. It is a tiny little thing, whiter than the concrete.
“You can. It’ll feel awful sometimes and you’ll want to give up some days, but you can keep doing this. And then, when you least expect it, you’ll feel something. You’ll bend your knee unexpectedly or twitch your foot. It’s going to happen, Tilda. I know it.”
“How? How do you know it?” I pull at the wheel locks angrily and go to push myself backwards from the stairs, but, in my hurry and distress, I push forward instead. Hoyt stops the wheelchair quickly. He moves me back to solid ground and locks the wheels once again and then he is kneeling in front of me, both of his hands resting on my knees. I wish, God how I wish, that I could feel his touch.
“I know because I’ve never wanted anyone to heal as much as I want you to, Tilda. From our first appointment, I’ve known how I felt about you, how special you are. I’ve never felt this way about anyone else. And I know… I just know that you’ll walk again. And I’ll be here when you do. I’ll be here for that first step all the way to your last.”
My last step. That resonated in my head, because there was a finality too it and a promise. “My last…” I let the world trail off into the unknown.
Hoyt clears his throat. “It’s my job to support you, Tilda. But,” he shifts and averts his eyes from my face. “it’s more than that too.” He doesn’t look away from me for long, because we are magnetic forces drawn together. His unbrokenness calling to my fractured parts.
“More?” I push him; I want him to speak plainly, to tell me that he feels something.
“Yes. More. Don’t you know how special you are, Tilda? How beautiful?” His voice is earnest and aching, as if he’s saying things he shouldn’t, but, at the same time, he cannot help saying them.
“I’m not special, Hoyt. I’m not beautiful. Look at me. No one’s going to want me like this. And I don’t deserve to get better.” I sigh; moisture is building in my eyes. I’m so tired of crying. I can’t look at Hoyt now. I don’t want to see the lie in his eyes to contradict his words.
“I am
looking at you, Tilda. And I’m telling you that you are special and beautiful, in every way.” His left hand moves from my knee and grips my upper arm firmly.
Now I look at him, I search his face for the truth—that his words are just his way of motivating me, that he doesn’t really mean any of it. “Hoyt, you have to say stuff like that to keep me going.”
“I do say things to my patients to motivate them, to keep them moving forward, but when I say them to you…” Hoyt’s voice cracks, he swallows. “Tilda, you have to understand, when I say them to you, they mean more. It’s not just the words; it’s what’s behind them. I shouldn’t be saying them to you at all. You’re my patient. God, I never thought I’d be in this position. I’m supposed to care for you, protect you as a medical professional, not anything else.” Hoyt looks away from me again, his gaze directed towards the ground. When he looks back up, I can see the anxiety hovering about him like the weight of the world. I can see how conflicted he is. “But, Tilda, I can’t help the way I feel about you. I can’t fight it.” His face is pleading.
I want to know what lies behind his words. I want him to say it, out loud and without doubt or embellishment, or worry over his position as my therapist. But I’m scared to ask him to do this. I am scared out of my mind that I’m imagining everything, because I honestly believe that I am unlovable—the wheelchair, my family… I should be alone. “I don’t understand Hoyt.”
“You. Are. Special. To. Me.” He bites off every word, as if they take some effort to say, as if they go against his better judgement. “Not to the world, to me. Do you get that?”
“Hoyt, don’t say stuff like that. Just don’t. I told you, I don’t deserve it.” I feel angry now. I don’t know why the emotion is starting to spring inside of me. I want him to love me. But it’s the unlovableness, the angry demoness of the past rearing her ugly head to remind me of who I am and what I’ve done.
“You do deserve it! You deserve everything! You deserve a good guy and love and to walk and everything you could ever dream.” His hands are waving through the air and his voice is stern and emphatic.
Don’t lie to me. Don’t freaking lie to me, Hoyt. The anger is a caged beast. I want to hurt him, like he is hurting me. Telling me these things, all these wonderful things—things that I know I will never have. “Ask me on a date then, we’ll go dancing. It’ll be good fun.” My words are scornful, hateful. I don’t like myself very much as I say them, but I am tired of his falsities. He just wants me to keep trying. It’s part of his job. It has to be…
“Someday, maybe.”
“And if I never walk?”
“Then I’ll hold you up.”
“Why are you doing this, Hoyt?” I am crying hard now, the fury in my body flowing into a lake of grief; my face is hidden behind my hands.
“Doing what?”
“Being so nice. Pretending that you care about me—me the person, not the patient. It’s cruel. You know what I did; you know I killed my family. Stop it; just stop trying to get me to hate myself less!”
His hands are pulling mine away. I try not to look at him, but there’s just something that draws my eyes to his—like the instinct that makes you breathe even when you want to die. In. Out. In. Out. The will to not give up… that is how strong the feelings are becoming for Hoyt. “You. Did. Not. Kill. Your. Family. It was an accident, a terrible accident. It happened. You lived.”
The tears are a tour de force, each drop seeing how fast it can fall. “Just leave me alone Hoyt!” I want Jen. I want Jen to put a stop to this, yell that it’s inappropriate and roll me away to the car, take me home so that I can curl up in the window seat. Take me home so that I can walk out into the woods and never leave it—finish what my mother started.
Because I remember how my hands glowed.
I remember the shadow outside the window.
I remember my mother’s rules.
Never do magic.
Never even think about it.
Not even once.
If you feel it, a tingling in your fingertips, a shaking in your bones… you push it down, down into your toes.
Never. I was never supposed to do magic… Never…
“Just leave me alone,” I repeat in a whisper, my brain assaulting me with everything I’ve ever done wrong. Ever.
“No, Matilda. I’m never going to leave you alone.”
I see it now—the conviction in his face that is screaming at me. He’s speaking the truth. This isn’t a tactic employed for stubborn patients. This is for me. Only me—Matilda, the crippled family killer. Hoyt’s face inches towards mine, his lips are parted a fraction to reveal the very tip of his upper teeth. A kiss. It can be such an innocent thing, affection between friends and family, but a kiss from him, such a kiss could hold all the world; such a kiss could be the catalyst for me to walk again. Powerful, potent, unyielding.
His mouth is so close to mine. Everything around us falls away from view.
But I can’t let it happen. He cannot kiss me. But I want him to kiss me. I… care about him so much. He cares about me. We…
Intense cramping makes me gasp, my upper body wrenches forward and I cross my arms and hug myself as if to contain the pain.
“Tilda!” Hoyt is standing, hovering over me like a watchful medical-mind now. Every trace of the man that was opposite my woman is gone.
“It’s my stomach,” I gasp out, my insides clenching and unclenching, “maybe bad food?”
“Maybe you pulled something in your side… I yanked on you pretty hard to keep you from falling earlier.”
“No… God, that hurts!” I gasp again, spasms running up and down my spine now.
The wheelchair is moving fast across the sidewalk towards the rehab entrance. As soon as we move through the sliding double doors, I see Jen. When she sees us, she smiles at first, but then the smile melts into worry. “What’s wrong?” She’s by my side like lightning.
“Her stomach just started hurting. She said she might have eaten something bad?”
Jen grimaces. “Yeah… we might have gotten pho at the place on main before coming to the hospital. Tell you the truth; my stomach’s been a bit out of whack too.”
“That place barely passes inspection. Heck, even Uncle Larry wouldn’t go near that place and he’s barbecued roadkill before.”
“I know it’s not fine dining, but it’s the only thing within easy driving distance that isn’t fast food or a buffet. And I really thought the new management would turn things around.”
“I heard they cook the meat in big batches and keep it at room temp for days.”
“Well, I only get their vegetarian dishes. So, at least I’m safe there.”
Hoyt snorts. “You really think a place like that keeps everything separate and vegan-friendly? If you do, you’re higher than a dog on a hay bale.”
“Don’t ruin the restaurant for me, Hoyt.”
“Oh, like the food poisoning ain’t already done that?”
As they’re talking, the cramping begins to subside until I can sit upright and breathe normally. They’ve forgotten about me during their banter, and that upsets me—especially since one of them has just confessed undying love for me. Well… he’s said he cared and tried to kiss me. Close enough. “If you two are done, I’m feeling better and I’d like to go home.”
Jen and Hoyt look at me with concern, both obviously realizing that they’ve ignored me while chatting, and I grimace. “I’m fine, okay. Just a little indigestion. I don’t think I’ll be eating pho for a while.”
“Fine, no pho. But really, a little stomach pain for some delicious food is well worth it in my book.”
“Says the woman who eats raw tofu and drinks coffee that’s a day old. I don’t think you know what good food is, Jen.”
“Oh, trust me, I’ve been to all the snazzy places in Boston, but there’s something to be said for little hole-in-the-wall places.”
“Not when their nickname should be ‘bound to give you food pois
oning with that side of kimchi’,” I tease, the last pangs of the cramping finally gone. We all laugh then.
Hoyt walks us out to the car like normal. I want to talk to him more; I want to kiss, to finish what was started—when I think about kissing Hoyt, a mind-searing flash of pain bolts through my stomach. “God!” I grunt, bending forward in the wheelchair again.
Jen turns around; she’d been walking in front while Hoyt pushed the wheelchair. “Okay, okay, no pho ever again. Want some Tylenol? Or, wait, maybe Midol? Is your friend getting ready to visit?”
My eyes go as wide as they possibly can as I stare at my aunt. Even my mouth is gaping open in disbelief. How could she bring that up in front of Hoyt? “I. Am. Fine.”
She nods. “Okay, let’s just get you home then.”
Now, I cannot get away from Hoyt fast enough. I don’t even want to look at him again. But I do, of course. He smiles at me—a tentative, knowing thing that warms my heart and makes my stomach hurt in a very different way than the cramping.
When I am settled in the convertible, the wheelchair in the trunk, Hoyt pulls Jen aside and they speak in quiet voices for a moment. My door is still ajar and I strain to hear what they are saying, but they speak too softly and my hearing is not superhuman. It should be; I should get something extraordinary out of having bum legs. Maybe I would have x-ray vision or supersonic hearing if the bum legs weren’t punishment for killing my family.
Hoyt waves as we drive off. “What did he want anyway?”
“We were talking about moving rehab to the house twice a week instead of three here. He thinks you might feel more comfortable there and he wants to explore different therapy options with the doctors. There’s hydrotherapy apparently where you’d exercise in water and some sort of stimulation they could do where sensors are placed all over your legs? He says it’s fairly new—transcutaneous stimulation or something that sounded like that. Frankly, I didn’t really understand everything, but, if he can get approval, he might start home rehab as soon as Friday. He’ll give us a ring if so.”