Ghost Flower

by Michele Jaffe

  “But that’s not what happened,” I said.

  “Of course you know it isn’t. Sixty-six pounds. Just enough to drag your body to the bottom of the lake and keep it there. You—you made me help you.”

  Now her eyes were on mine, seeing me, but not me and the sadness in them, the horror was nearly unbearable. “I did it to be kind. You understand, don’t you? I thought it would be better than the truth, but it was worse. So much worse.”

  She shook her head. She seemed to have aged ten years during the car ride—her face sallow, her cheeks sunken. She took a long, shuddering breath and went on. “For some reason—for some reason Aurora blamed herself for the accident. And then when I finally told her the truth, she blamed me. She said I drove you away.” Tears quietly slid down her cheeks from each eye, but she seemed unaware of them. “That I drove you away. When you were the one who left us. You ran away. I tried to tell her that I’d begged you to stay, that I’d gotten you all the help I could, but how could she believe me? She didn’t know you were sick. She didn’t know you were in that special hospital. I kept my promise to you not to tell her.” She dabbed at her eyes with a Kleenex that Arthur held out from the front seat. “It was so hard to see her. See her beautiful and smart like you. Every time she smiled, it was like you smiling. It hurt me, here.” She put a hand over her chest.

  “So you made it hard for her to smile,” I said, finally following. Finally seeing the life Althea and Aurora had led together, understanding it. The silences, the fights, the recriminations. Not because Althea had hated Aurora. Because she’d loved her and hadn’t known how to express it.

  Listening to the pain in her voice, I felt like the unwitting audience of a play I hadn’t wanted to see, now unable to look away. I felt the chasm that had existed between Althea and Aurora, imagined them both groping toward one another, but somehow both were always stopped by their stubbornness, really a cover for their fear of rejection, before they could touch. Mrs. March had been right—grandmother and granddaughter were alike.

  I could picture them sitting at the long dining table together night after night in silence filled with all the things they didn’t know how to say to one another. Picture Aurora sneaking out, getting wilder and wilder because it was the only way to break the round of cool “goodnight, dears” and chilly “good mornings.” Sneaking out not simply for attention, but because she wanted to feel, wanted to be—wanted. Needed. Worthwhile.

  “I wanted to protect her. I wanted to keep her safe,” Althea said, her voice pleading now. “The way I promised you I would after you brought her back. And then she ran away too. You both left me all alone.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “She is so like you. So beautiful and smart like you.”

  Two people sitting across from each other but never really seeing each other.

  I saw Althea now, though. I saw agony etched into her features, into the lost expression in her eyes, into her white knuckled hands. I couldn’t change what had gone before, but I realized I had the power to make her feel better now.

  I told her, “I’m sure Aurora will forgive you if you ask her to.”

  Althea shook her head. “It’s too late. I’m afraid it’s far too late.”

  I took her hand. I said, “Maybe she feels bad about something too. You could try.”

  Her eyes rose from our clasped hands to my face. There was confusion at first, and then they cleared, as though she was seeing Aurora again, realizing that, yes, in fact, she could try. “I suppose—”

  It occured so fast I had no idea what was happening. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flying streak of light. I turned to look, and there was a terrible screeching noise. I was thrown forward and then sideways, and then I was hanging upside down. The queen of hearts brushed my cheek as it went fluttering by, turning end over end, and the back of my mind echoed with a girl’s laughter.

  Everything went black.

  CHAPTER 40

  Smoke.

  I smelled smoke and felt heat. I opened my eyes, and the stinging made me close them again almost instantly. But I’d seen the orange tongue of flame shooting out from the hood, and the forms of both Arthur and my grandmother hanging unconscious in their seatbelts. The car was at an angle to the ground, but I didn’t know which one, only that it was one that had me pinned beneath them both. I struggled to undo my seatbelt with my injured hand, then reached in Althea’s direction. She gave a low moan but didn’t open her eyes.

  Colin’s words—a charred Aurora—echoed in my mind.

  I opened my eyes again. The flames around the front of the car were burning higher, and I heard a crackle that sounded like dry grass catching. My door was against the ground, so it was impossible to get out that way. I skirted Althea and pulled myself up to her door. Bracing myself against the seat, I pressed on it.

  It didn’t move.

  No, I thought to myself. It doesn’t end like this, not another accident. There’s still too much to do, too much to fix. I am not—

  My fingers fumbled along the door again, and I flipped the lock. This time when I tried the handle it worked. With a heaving push, I flung the door open.

  The car was surrounded on three sides by fire, and although there was some licking at the rear tires, it hadn’t reached Althea’s door yet. Bracing my hands on the body of the car, I pulled myself out like I was pulling myself out of a swimming pool, and swung my legs outside so I was lying on my belly.

  I reached in and grabbed Althea around the chest and tried to pull her out, but the seatbelt was holding tight. The crackle-hiss of the fire moved closer, and my eyes burned as I felt blindly for the seatbelt release.

  My fingertips grazed it. Holding her with my right arm, I pushed the release with the left. She flopped loose against my one arm, and the weight of her pulled me down into the car too.

  I felt a brush of flame against my calf. Taking a deep breath of the blazing air, I heaved as hard as I could and managed to get Althea halfway out of the car door, then with another breath, all the way. I fell backward with her head resting on my chest, my arms shaking from the exertion, my lungs aching for breath.

  The fire, taller and hotter now, inched closer. I had to get her away from the car.

  I hauled myself to my feet and got my arms under her shoulders and started drag-carrying her up the hill. The fire dogged our steps as if it could scent us. The smoke clogged my lungs, and my eyes were soot-caked slits. I could barely see where we were going. I’d hurt my ankle somehow, and the burn on my calf stung like it was being lanced every time I moved.

  The flames began to dance in my eyes, and I started to see figures in them, first my mother, then Liza. Liza just stood there, watching me, her body surrounded by flames. She said, “Now do you understand, Ro? It was the shoes,” and in that moment I think I did. The shoes, I repeated to myself. Of course.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind I heard a wailing noise, and at first I thought it was coming from me. But then I realized it was sirens. We were near the road. We were saved. In front of my eyes the flames seemed to splinter into a cloud of dancing orange butterflies, and I heard someone laughing. I passed out.

  I woke up with a bad burn on my calf, lacerations on my arms and legs, and the vague sense of having figured something out but no memory of what it was. The doctor said I’d be fine after a good night’s sleep.

  Like me, Arthur skated through with only cuts and bruises, but Althea’s condition was more serious. The trauma brought on a heart attack in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and she’d had to have emergency open heart surgery.

  “In a way it was a blessing in disguise,” the doctor told Bridger, Uncle Thom, and me as we huddled together in the waiting room of the hospital. “Her heart was in terrible shape. Did you notice her acting differently recently? Erratic or moody? Absentminded or maybe delusional?”

  “The difference would have been if Mother wasn’t erratic and moody,” Bridger said, and the doctor said, “You know, I hear that a lot.
” They shared a good laugh. I seethed.

  I thought about how neither Bridger nor Uncle Thom knew that in fact Althea had been different recently, that she’d been erratic, forgetful, delusional. About how they lived nearly on top of one another and knew so little about each other.

  About how neither of them looked particularly happy when the doctor said, “If it weren’t for the accident, she might have suffered a major heart attack too far away to get the help she’d need. This way, with any luck, she stands a good chance of making a full recovery.”

  Uncle Thom offered to drive me home, but I didn’t want to leave Althea’s side.

  The accident was a weird one. It had been reported by the people in the car coming toward us. They’d seen a blue bicycle come careening down the hill on the side of the road directly into our car. The bike was found badly mangled, twenty yards from the site of the accident where it had fallen after impact. There was no sign of a rider. In fact, the witnesses swore there hadn’t been a rider. Just a blue bike on its own, rushing down a hill on a collision course with our car. “A ghost bike,” the witness called it.

  When Detective Ainslie told us that, I started to shiver. I knew that was stupid. There is no such thing as a ghost bike, I told myself. Those are just words.

  The air around me seemed to stir, and looking up, I saw N. Martinez coming down the corridor toward me. He was in uniform, but instead of making him indistinguishable from others, it seemed to set him apart. He moves better than other men, a voice in my head said. As though the space around him respects him.

  I looked away.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not here to spy on you,” he said. Before I could object, he added, “I just thought you would want to see these.” He held out a manila folder.

  I put the folder on my lap and opened it. It contained copies of the crime scene photos from the accident. The funny feeling in my knees got stronger. He brought me a present, they said. He brought you crime scene photos, my mind interposed. Because he knew you’d want to see them.

  I felt myself starting to smile and bit it back. What would Aurora do right now? I asked myself. Looking for the answer was like groping in the dark through a cobweb-covered forest for the right path.

  “Thank you,” I said, keeping my voice as formal as possible. “These are very interesting.” Then I blurted, “Did you enjoy your date with Coralee?”

  It was clearly the wrong thing to say. He nodded stiffly. “It was very nice. Goodbye, Miss Silverton.” And then he turned and stalked back down the corridor.

  As he left, he took the air of safety and security with him. “Wait,” I called after him, getting to my feet. I realized I didn’t want him to go. I was sore and stiff and not moving well, but he didn’t come toward me, just stood there, a solid mass. “Was there something strange about Liza’s feet when she died?”

  “Can I ask why you want to know?”

  “I’m not sure. Not her feet, her shoes. They—they weren’t the right shoes for the outfit.” That wasn’t quite right, I felt, but it was close.

  “I’m not aware of anything strange about her shoes. I’ll let you know if I hear anything,” he glowered.

  “I didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Stuart’s hands,” I told him.

  “I didn’t think you did.”

  “Oh. Okay. Well, I—I just wanted you to know.”

  He gave me a curt nod and walked out. I watched him go and again had the mad, insane urge to tell him I wasn’t what he thought I was. But even though he was the only person in the world I wanted to tell, he was the last person in the world I could.

  I was going to have to work harder to stay away from him.

  I filed that idea into the same drawer where I kept my better impulses, slid into the closest chair, and reopened the folder he’d brought me. Flipping past the pages detailing the accident, I went straight to the photos. I saw our car from various angles, and then the bike.

  It was twisted but still recognizable, a blue girl’s bike. The handgrips were white, but they looked like they’d been wrapped in yellow electrical tape. And on the metal bar between them someone had glued a red crystal star—

  Liza’s bike. I suddenly realized. Liza’s bike from the yearbook photo. I felt unnaturally calm, like I was watching all this from outside, looking down on myself.

  That’s when I realized I wasn’t even supposed to be in the car.

  I’d thought the threat was from the family, from Bain and Bridgette, but what if I’d been wrong? Maybe it was, but our little deal had unleashed something else. Something much more dangerous. Something vengeful.

  Mine… best friends forever, I heard Liza’s voice saying, and I began to be afraid that I understood.

  Pay attention.

  My phone rang.

  CHAPTER 41

  An icy prickle skittered up my spine like it was a living thing. I reached for the phone with bloodless fingers.

  It was Grant. “I heard about the accident. Are you okay? Where are you?”

  “I’m at the hospital,” I told him. The warmth of his voice, his genuine concern, shattered me. “I’m scared, Grant,” I said. “I—I don’t understand what’s happening.”

  “I’m coming to get you,” he said.

  “I can’t leave,” I told him. “In case something happens to my grandmother.”

  “We’ll meet downstairs. There’s a coffee shop called I Heart Warm Beverages. I’ll be there in ten minutes. You come whenever you can. You don’t have to do this alone.”

  I had to swallow back a sob. “Thank you,” I said, awash in relief. “Thank you. I’ll—I’ll see you there.”

  “You’re not alone, Aurora,” he said and hung up.

  I tried not to think about the fact that it wasn’t me he was coming to help; it was her. The other Aurora.

  He wrapped me in a big warm hug as soon as he saw me and held me like that, safe, kind, for a full minute. He pulled away slightly and noticed the folder I was holding.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Photos from the accident. They—she—” I stopped myself, trying to figure out how to explain the inexplicable. I ended up with, “Can we sit down?”

  He guided me to a green bench that wrapped around a yellow table and slid in after me. “Sometimes when you’re trying to catch an image, an oblique angle is best, but I feel like for this we’d like to be more head on. Start at the top.”

  “There’s something about shoes,” I said.

  He shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t help you there. I’ve been wearing the same kind of shoes since I was ten.” He gestured under the table to his sneakers.

  “Not like that, something—” I sighed and pushed the folder away across the table. His arm was next to mine on the bench, and I reached out and started playing with the cuff of his shirt. “Actually, I think what I want is not to think about it for a little while.”

  “There are a lot of things I’d like to do to help take your mind off of it. But for now, what can I get you to drink? I Heart Warm Beverages is known for their warm beverages.”

  “I’d love some tea.”

  “Black? Green? White? Bubble?”

  “Black, I guess.”

  “With?”

  “Milk.”

  “Skim, whole, almond, or soy?”

  Despite everything, I laughed. He smiled and patted himself on the back.

  I said, “You take this seriously.”

  “Warm beverages are not to be trifled with.” He slid out of the booth. “Besides, if working for Coralee doesn’t pan out, my food service skills may well be my livelihood one day. I’ll be right back.”

  I followed him with my eyes. He had an easy way of moving, as though he were comfortable and relaxed in his body, and I had a flash image of what it would be like to lie next to him, stomach pressed against warm, smooth stomach, my head on his collarbone, his hand cradling my—

  “Excuse me,” a female voice said, and looking up I saw
the girl Colin had called Reggie at the club. His girlfriend. “Aurora, right? We sort of met earlier at the club.”

  “I remember,” I told her. It didn’t come out exactly friendly, and she winced.

  “I’m sorry. That’s why when I saw you here, I—but I understand if you don’t want—I mean—”

  Grant came back then with my tea and the skim-milk jug. Reggie’s eyes got huge, and she blushed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was interrupting. I’ll just—”

  “No,” Grant said. “Stay.” He turned to me. “I got a call from Coralee. She’s got some kind of emergency film need, so I have to go. I’m really sorry.”

  I nodded. “Okay, but you owe me.”

  “I do. Anything you want.”

  “I want to see your movie.”

  He said to me, “Anything but that.”

  “Coward.”

  “In this regard, yes.” He looked at Regina. “Will you take my place? Aurora needs some cheering up. I’ll bribe you with a warm beverage.”

  I protested. “No, don’t—” To him I said, “She doesn’t have to—” I turned back to her: “Really I don’t need cheering up, I’m—”

  Reggie slid onto the bench. “Tea,” she told him.

  He took away the skim milk I’d finished and headed back to the counter.

  “You didn’t want me to stay, did you?” she asked.

  That’s one of those questions you can’t answer honestly. I said, “I didn’t want you to feel obligated,” which walked the line.

  She pushed up her sleeves and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “I’ll go in a second. I came over because I wanted to apologize. For Colin today.”

  “You don’t have to apologize.” I blew on my tea. “He was angry.”

  “He’s got a temper,” she said, hunched over, hands in her lap, eyes staring into space. “He certainly does.”

  Grant came back with a tea for her, the soy-milk jug, and three brown sugars. He turned to me and said, “We’ll pick up where we left off tomorrow? Lunch? Say one o’clock?”

  I nodded. He bent, and we did an awkward kiss somewhere between the mouth and the cheek.