by Abra Ebner
My hand released the hair and caressed his shoulder on its way to his chest, where his heart was. My hand was on fire, but his chest felt empty. I felt his lungs fill from the force of the machine then fall as the air was released. I was waiting to feel something, but no matter how much I burned, nothing was there. Below all the bandages, through all the tubing to his heart, a part of him was missing from this room—an important part.
I jerked my hand back, feeling my body heat all but explode with overwhelming sadness. I gripped Ladybird’s cage, wondering what to do. A tear sizzled over my cheek. Ladybird rested against the plastic, unmoving. I gingerly popped open the lid and reached inside. She slowly stepped onto my finger, coaxed by the heat I offered. I drew my hand out of the cage and brought her to eye level.
“I don’t know what you want,” I whimpered.
Tenuously, I lowered her toward Leith, placing her against the bare skin of his shoulder. Her tiny legs gripped him, stepping across his skin and over bandages until she came to rest in the center of his chest. Little by little, her legs retreated under her, her shell coming to a rest against the bandages. Ladybird stopped moving. She was dead and so was Leith.
Tears streamed down my cheeks. I leaned against the bed, my sadness turned to bitterness and hate. What had I expected would happen? Leith wasn’t going to wake up. I wasn’t going to be able to fix him. My hands held fast to the cold rail, and not wanting to be here, I twisted away toward the door. Behind me, two heated handprints were left on the metal of the bed railing.
Once I got the door open, I started running. I heard Jacqueline’s voice behind me, but I ignored it. Doctors stared as I ran past, my cheeks flushed red, my hands stinging with hate, love, loss, and pain. Leith wasn’t here, and in a fleeting heartbeat, I knew exactly where he was.
I burst out of the hospital doors, and behind me, I heard Jacqueline’s voice once more.
“Samantha, stop!”
I stopped for no other reason than to formulate a plan. I turned on my toes, my emotions raw and unforgiving.
She reached me in a few steps. “What happened?”
I wiped a tear from my eye. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
She looked down at the empty cage in my hand. “And the ladybug?”
I shook my head. “Dead.”
Jacqueline’s face look confused.
“I have to go.” I turned again, not knowing how to get to the tree but figuring I’d run. I took one step forward, but a hand on my shoulder stopped me.
“Stop, Sam.” Her voice was soft now.
I yanked myself out of her grasp, but she only grabbed me again. “I have to go! I have to get to the tree!” I screamed frantically.
Jacqueline looked scared, grasping both my shoulders. “You can’t run there.”
“I can,” I protested.
She let go of me. “Wait.” She dug through her purse. “Take my car, at least.”
I didn’t have a license, but I could drive. I’d driven enough tractors to understand the logistics.
She handed me her keys. I looked down at them in my hands. She had a ladybug keychain, and seeing it only made the sadness in me deepen.
“As much as I want to go with you, Sam, something tells me I can’t.” She glanced at a sign in the parking lot, looking at it strangely.
I tilted my head, knowing the look on her face. I glanced at the sign myself. It was a standard sign, but I knew to Jacqueline, it contained something much more. Her mother was guiding her as mine was guiding me.
A tear formed in her eye, and she pulled me into a hug. I hugged her back.
“Be safe, Sam,” she whispered in my ear. “Bring him back.”
I nodded against her shoulder then pulled away as I backed toward her car. Reaching it, I got in, and guiding the key into the ignition, I knew I was about to open the most important box of my life. Holding my breath, I twisted the key and the car started.
Would I be prepared for the answers I found there?
FOURTEEN
I slid out of the lot and onto the main road. Through town, I couldn’t shake the notion that I was losing something. I was worried Leith was letting go, that I’d never see him again. Whomever I’d seen in the hospital wasn’t him. Though Leith may have been there in body, his heart was gone.
It was my job to find it.
At the edge of town, Main Street curved sharply to the right, where it became a gravel road. Dust flew behind me. Gravel spun into the wheel wells, screaming in my head. My skin tingled with anticipation, wanting to know if he’d be there, wanting answers. Going to the hospital had been a mistake. It had been the wrong place to go.
Feeling as I was now, I wished for a moment that I hadn’t known about Leith’s accident at all. I resented Jacqueline for telling me. The purity of my happiness was enough. What a great birthday! But this was how it always was for me. Everything was a test.
I saw my house up ahead, but I didn’t bother to stop. I found I could barely bring myself to even look at it. I rounded the next corner, rolling over hills. Overhead, the full moon from last night could still be seen, glowing against the soft blue of the sky, refreshed by the storm. I felt my breathing waver at the sight, seeing it as an omen for every great thing in my life that had died. The key around my neck still lay against my skin. Sweat coated every inch of me, and the key clung to it.
My heart pounded as I crested the last, familiar hill and saw the tree up ahead. I rolled to a hasty stop and got out of the car, leaving the key in the ignition. There was a lump in my throat. Fear rippled through my bloodstream. With one last deep breath, I stepped forward, feeling as though the whole world were moving around me as I stood still. The tree rolled toward me. Soon, I was safe under its shade.
“Leith!” I yelled.
The wind blew and leaves danced to their own melody. I heard a buzzing then a tickle on my hand. I quickly looked down, watching as a ladybug landed on my skin, wings bright red, drinking in my heat.
I brought my hand to my face. Tears ran down my face as I saw it had two spots. “Leith,” I murmured, not able to bury the notion that what I held was not a good sign. For a second time, no one answered. I fell to my knees. “Please.”
The ladybug crawled over my skin, coming to rest in the curve of my wrist. I leaned forward, putting both hands on the low branch, turning until my spine was against the tree trunk. I leaned my head back, looking up at the canopy overhead as I sank to the ground.
“Mom,” I finally whimpered.
The wind blew harder this time, the tinkling of the creek slipping away.
“I can’t do this anymore, Mom,” I sobbed, barely able to breathe. “I give up.” I bowed my head, dropping my hands into my lap as the fire in me spread farther than it ever had. In the heat, I felt the beauty of Leith’s lips against mine, his arms wrapping me with protection. I brought my hand to my cheek, tender skin still aching beneath my touch.
Then I lost my ability to pretend any longer. Leith wasn’t real. Mother wasn’t real. I had to believe this. Feeling for the key around my neck, I began to rationalize the truth. I had always had this key. I had always loved this key. I ripped it off the string, holding it as I felt fire in my grasp. My years of creating a false reality had come to an end. I was out of reasons to remain sane. I was out of reasons to love this world.
I leaned my head back, my heart bursting into flames. Leaves below my hands began to smolder. Long tendrils of smoke reached up, tickling my nose. I felt my hair curl with heat and flames ripple up my back. It crackled through the heart of the tree, but it didn’t hurt me. It never hurt me. I was immune. I was a ladybird. Opening my eyes, I saw flames dancing over my head, licking at green leaves and sending them writhing and curling. I watched them cringe, felt their pain within me.
I allowed flames to tickle my arms, my head, never burning me, only caressing. I drew in a smoky breath, closing my eyes as I heard the heavy rush of weight through the air. In my lost hope, I wished it were Leith. Looki
ng up, I expected to see him jumping from the tree overhead, but all I saw was a branch falling.
The world went dark.
FIFTEEN
I woke lying on my back, surrounded by shadow. I could smell the familiar sweetness of wheat in harvest, like fresh bread. The smell of smoke had vanished. I curled my fingers inward. My hands grasped at crisp stalks, ripe and cool. As I slowly opened my eyes, my gaze was met with the silhouette of the sky, pricked by the moon and stars.
The air was quiet, save the gentle rhythm of ambient noise. I sat up, feeling my body perform the action easily. On the horizon, the sky was dappled with pink. I found myself wondering if it was the sun setting or rising. Golden wheat leaned toward me, plump with grain as though I’d simply slept through the summer.
I leaned forward and put my weight on my feet, standing slowly. I stood facing the pink sky, waiting to see it change, wanting to know if this was the beginning or the end. Softly a rush of warmth blew over me, and I felt hands circling my belly. A chin came to rest on my shoulder from behind, edging up next to my ear.
I tilted my head away as lips gently grazed my neck, filling me with a tender fire I had never felt before. It was sweet and soft, a far cry from the inferno I always felt.
“I saved you,” he whispered.
There was an eerie feeling attached to his words. I turned in his arms, and our eyes met. “I couldn’t save you,” I whispered back.
Leith’s gaze twinkled, reflecting the pink sky over my head. “I never wanted to be saved. Not really.” He smirked.
“What do you mean?”
He watched me simply, as though in love with every inch of my being, finding enough joy in the simple act of viewing it. “It was my job to save you, Sam.” His fingers slid down my spine, curving back when they met my waist. “I didn’t expect to fall in love with you.”
I narrowed my gaze. “Your job?”
He turned his head away, releasing me. “I was never going to come back to your world. My time there had passed.”
I pressed my brows together. “My world?”
“I was already gone, Sam, but they were still trying to tether me with false hope, as you saw today. That person in the hospital is not me. I will not survive in that sense.”
A forgotten image trickled back to me: the image of him in the hospital bed. That person was a shell of what stood before me now, empty where his heart and soul once lived.
“That’s the reason your mother approached me.”
“How?”
He tilted his head back. “I still had one foot in each world. You could see me, be with me, and talk to me, but I was a ghost, a bridge for your mother to reach you. The job she gave me was supposed to be quick, but time lingered and I forgot what I was there to do. I’d begun to fall in love with you. I’d lost myself. As death slowly stilled my senses to your touch, though, I was reminded that I did not belong in that world. Either did you. You were supposed to come with me.”
I was confused. It must have shown on my face because he hastily continued before I could inquire.
“You distracted me, as you always have, as I told you to do. For years I’d wanted to know you but I was afraid because of who I was. You showed me that we’re not so different in that way. I promised not to hurt you that day by the tree and in that promise I found that though your mother wanted me to, I couldn’t take your life. I couldn’t see that you were unhappy, despite the blatant signs, until I’d spent more time with you. I thought that bringing you with me would seize you away from a world you could love. In my attempt to find a way around that, I thought I could find a way to stay and be with you by ignoring that fact that I was just a ghost, but then . . .” He gathered my hands in his. “Then as I grew to know you more I found that leaving you in that world was hurting you all the same. You didn’t belong there anymore.”
He released my hands only to cup my cheeks. The sting from the bruise my father gave me was no longer there. The pain was quelled by the odd serenity of everything around me. “Your mother loves you. In her love, she allowed you to live in that world just as I had tried to do. In reality, you, too, were meant to go as she did. She was as naive as I to think life was the better choice.”
I didn’t understand what he meant by “life”. I still felt alive—more now than ever. “Then where is here?” I asked, puzzled.
He leaned forward, carefully drawing his face close to mine. I felt all of him there as though he were as real as ever. I reveled in the comfort. Searching my eyes, he pressed his lips to mine. It was sweet, soft, a feeling I was convinced I had imagined just like everything else. These were supposed to be lies. Leith was supposed to be dead. How was this happening? Running his fingers through my hair, his hands trailed down my back and fell to his sides. With a wry smile he took a step back, looking over my shoulder at something in the distance.
I was compelled to turn and follow his gaze. There, the pink horizon had blossomed into sunrise. A silhouette of a woman stood black against it. I felt my whole body still. The outline alone felt like something I’d seen in a million dreams, something I had felt to be the end. The woman stepped forward until the dark shadow of her features became light. I saw myself reflected in the simple lines of her face, the arc of her shoulder, the sweep of her blonde hair. She was not much older than I, maybe nineteen, but she had been young when she died.
Words had fallen away, but words had never been needed between us. She wrapped me in her arms. The touch was real. I felt tears form as they plumped and ran from my eyes. It was there in her embrace that I stayed until the sun rose, the feeling of her love around me like a key to my heart I’d lost long ago. I felt the curse lift. I felt the dread, and all the hatred of the moon fade to nothing but light. The feeling of her embrace was a maternal feeling, a warm, longed-for feeling. When she finally released me, she held a key in her hand, occupying the space between us.
The key was old. The hilt was round and topped with a heart. She handed it to me and stepped away to reveal a box in the wheat where she had stood. I smiled and knelt, placing the key in the lock. I took one last deep breath and turned it until I heard the latch release. In a wave of wind, everything changed. The tree I longed for, the mother I adored, and the boy I loved, all came back to me.
SIXTEEN
It wasn’t long after Samantha left that I got the call.
“Ms. Rosin, we found your car.” Sheriff Blakney’s voice was gruff, but the tremor suggested something more, something I was dreading.
“Where?” I asked, sitting on a bench in town, where I had walked from the hospital.
“The end of Chatterley Lane. Where are you? I’ll send a car.”
I swallowed and told him where I was. I waited what felt like hours for someone to arrive.
Riding in the squad car down a gravel road, I tried to imagine Samantha here, tried to imagine what her life in the fields had been like. Something in my gut told me the past tense was correct, as though it was a life to reflect on. On the dash, there was a discarded ticket from the bakery in town. My eyes scanned the words then scanned them again as they changed.
$ fa.te was written where the total for the bill should have been. My mother was reminding me to be open. All things happened for a reason.
I tried to still my nerves, but as I saw the smoke rising in the distance, my heart sank and the past-tense feeling remained. As we crested the final hill between me and answers I already knew, there was nothing but the smoldering remains of a tree. The trunk was withered, twisting toward the sky like a black knife from the Earth.
The police car rolled to a stop, and I got out. My red Beetle had been parked alongside the road, surrounded by police vehicles and fire trucks. I walked closer to the still-smoldering circle of ashes, toward Sheriff Blakney. He pressed his lips together, his face full of dismay. He shook his head to express a great loss.
Glancing from his face to the scene behind him, I was close enough to see all I needed to. A man stood over a small bod
y under the tree below. He was a farmer with a face like stone, back arched with sadness. For a moment I didn’t know what to do. From somewhere inside me there came a gentle nudge. I left the company of Sheriff Blakney and made my way down the hill to where the man knelt beside the body. The girl’s features were covered with soot, but her skin was untouched by the fire. My stomach lurched with discomfort but was compelled to go even closer. The man slowly looked up at me as he heard me approach. His face was blank and distant. He appeared to have lost something he never knew he had. He was a man on the verge of a breakdown. He didn’t know how to control it.
He looked away from me and back at the girl—the girl named Sam. Her eyes were gently closed, lips parted. I had never seen such a peaceful look on her face. Since she was a little girl, there had been so much pain. She was torn between two places, in a way much worse than I. Thinking on it now, I’m not sure she ever belonged here at all.
The man reached for her with his ash-covered hand. He gently touched Sam’s cheek, drawing four straight lines across her face, mimicking the four straight lines of a bruise that still lingered. There was so much guilt and pain on his face. Though I wanted to be angry with him, a part of me felt sorry for him instead.
Another moment passed before he hooked two hands under her body. He lifted her into his arms, curling them slightly as if to protect her. Her head slumped back, long, wavy hair trailed toward the ground, sweeping over burned earth. He stood, carrying her as though carrying a baby. Her head tilted against the man’s chest, and I saw a mark on her neck that I had never seen before. It was a mark so familiar to me, a spot, like a ladybug reborn. For Sam, however, she had not been reborn into this world. I found myself smiling despite that, comforted by my belief that it was best.