Loreena's Gift

by Colleen M. Story

  The footsteps returned, three sets this time. The side door burst open. “Shawn,” Frank said, “take off her gloves.”

  Loreena went rigid. A new man approached her, his steps like her uncle’s. He had to be wearing cowboy boots. She retreated until she stood against the wall, Dominic in front of her.

  “Crystal?” she said.

  “I told you.” The girl spoke in a menacing tone. “Time’s come.”

  “Miss, your gloves.” The one Frank called Shawn spoke to her. He smelled like Brylcreem. “Take off your gloves. They’re not going to hurt you.”

  “What about Saul?”

  Two of the other men pulled Dominic away, breaking Loreena’s hold on his arm. He struggled, but he was no match. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll take them off.” The leather fell quietly to the floor. Cool air hit her damp skin.

  “Take hold of his hand,” Frank commanded.

  Loreena hesitated. Shawn was the one closest to her. She kept her hands tucked under her arms.

  Frank crossed the room. Loreena heard Dominic struggle, and then the men were dragging him back. Footsteps shuffled on the cement floor, and amidst more grunting and heavy breathing they pushed Dominic forward, so close she could smell the pine on his jacket. “Shake hands,” Frank said. She shrank back in horror.

  Dominic struggled against the two men. They held him fast.

  Loreena turned to run, but Shawn took hold of her shoulders, and when she wouldn’t stop he wrapped his arm around her in a chokehold.

  “Cut it out, now,” he said, as if talking to a wild horse. “Just calm down. This won’t take long.”

  “Crystal!”

  “You killed my father,” the girl said. “Payback, bitch.”

  Loreena stopped struggling. She gasped against the man’s arm, thick as an iron collar. Her hands shook. They wanted to see what she could do—see if what Crystal had told them was true.

  “Oh for hell’s sake,” Frank said. “Ray!”

  More footsteps, then the smell of tobacco. The meaty one took Loreena’s wrist, a metal clamp on her tendons and bones. He pulled her arm forward and up, inching her hand toward Dominic’s.

  “No!” She writhed in Shawn’s hold. The force of her resistance shot pain into her shoulders. Shadows swirled in her vision, tobacco and dust and sweat turning her breath sour.

  “Bring her here,” Frank said.

  Tethering her between them, the two men pushed her forward.

  “Dominic, don’t let them. Don’t let them!”

  His shoes squeaked on the floor as he renewed his fight, grunting with the effort. Loreena struggled too, nearly running in place, but it was no use. Sensing Dominic’s body near, she closed her extended hand into a fist.

  “Open her fingers,” Crystal said.

  “Do it,” Frank said.

  Another thick hand was prying her fingers open. She fought with all her strength, but it was as if her hand was no longer her own. Wrenching her body left and right, she threw herself off balance, her shoes sliding on the floor, but the men gripped her arms even tighter, fingers digging into her flesh until her limbs radiated fire.

  “Ah, this is ridiculous.” Frank took hold of Loreena’s wrist, just behind Ray’s grip. With brute force, he jammed her open palm against Dominic’s.

  Loreena screamed.

  8

  Streaks of light creased the dark like falling stars. Loreena felt a surge of forward motion, as if she had taken off in a plane, only the power propelled her forward rather than upward, through the black tunnel she knew so well. She was screaming, but the sound seemed to come from somewhere else, somewhere far away. A shadow came along beside her, another figure pushed forward by some unknown force.

  Dominic? She blinked and tried to bend closer. “Dominic?”

  The shadow leaned toward her, and in that moment, her mind cleared.

  They had forced her to touch him. She was killing him.

  Legs churning underneath her, she struggled against whatever was pulling them ahead, but it did nothing to change her course, the lights streaking past as if she were simply coasting along. Frantic, she twisted, wrenching against the invisible hold that kept her tethered to Dominic, who hovered like a ghost beside her.

  “Loreena?” His voice echoed as if they were in a cave. “Is this it?”

  She paused, wondering why it was still so dim. Usually she would see more by now. Maybe her struggling was doing something? Twisting again, she tried to find a new way to move, but it was as if she were writhing in a rushing river current.

  “Are we going now?” Dominic asked.

  His face came into view, like a portrait on a dark background. Loreena paused, suspended, limbs splayed. The rest of him remained in shadow, but his face shone as if the moon’s rays had found it. She’d guessed he had brown eyes, but now she could see they were even darker, like cocoa beans. They looked back at her, full eyebrows raised in question, the rounded nose in contrast to the square shape of his face, melon lips straight across, mouth parted.

  Hand outstretched, she floated toward him. As her palm touched his cheek, he placed his hand over hers.

  “Is this it?” he asked again. He looked around, but nothing had changed. They continued to move through the darting white lights.

  Loreena followed his gaze. Never before had she traveled this long without at least starting to see a destination. Dirk’s motorcycle ride. Russell’s forest path. Ben’s walkway through a blossom-filled greenhouse. She turned back to him.

  “This can’t happen now,” she said.

  “What?”

  It was as if they were caught up in a storm. She couldn’t hear what he had said clearly. Then, like the sun breaking through the fog, the light brightened around his body, giving her glimpses of his neck and shoulders and then the navy cotton jacket. It had a tan collar. She hadn’t imagined that.

  “There’s something I need to tell you.” His voice sounded muffled, his thumb moving back and forth in the fleshy part of her palm.

  “No.” Pulling her hand away, she tried to wriggle back. “You have to resist. You’ll die.”

  The force around them came like a hard wind and she fell again, her body turning about in circles. Flopping onto her stomach, she tried to fight against it, kicking and pulling her arms through the air.

  “It’s okay,” she heard him say from somewhere nearby.

  “It’s not okay!” She jerked and writhed, wrenching her body around in every way she could imagine, but in the end she lay breathless and spent, still speeding down the dark river, and when she looked up, Dominic was still there, gliding along beside her. “They can’t do this!” she cried.

  He took her hand and gently pulled her up so they were facing each other, floating upright as if treading water in a pool. When her gaze connected with his, he said something, but the words came out stretched and distorted. Moving closer, she angled her ear toward his mouth.

  “Russell…ann ahn…dude ranch.”

  Why was he talking about Russell?

  The lights darting around them turned blue. They were moving faster now, the streaks becoming long cuts in the black fabric that was this tunnel to the next world, to Dominic’s Heaven.

  No.

  Closing her eyes, she imagined the dust and the smoke and even the awful men surrounding her, their hands digging into her flesh, their breath foul with tobacco and coffee and beer. If she thought hard enough, maybe…

  “Loreena!”

  Dominic’s shout came through the back of her mind. His body flickered into view on her right. He was wearing dark pants, and his sneakers were black with white over the toes.

  “Don’t worry, all right? It’s okay.”

  The sound of a horse whinnying broke through the tunnel. They both turned. The blue lights now streaked toward an open field in the distance, framed by tall mountain peaks tipped in snow. In the middle of it galloped a golden horse with a white blanket and cinnamon-colored spots.

  “Josi
e?” Dominic whispered.

  Loreena recognized the horse from his stories. That same horse was now running free on the field below, tossing its head and looking his way as if inviting him to come down and take a ride, its black tail flowing out behind it as it kept running and running, the field an endless carpet of wild grasses underneath its hooves. Overhead and all around them, the lights were changing from blue to green.

  Loreena tugged on Dominic’s hand. “Come back with me.”

  He glanced once more toward the meadow, and then nodded. They both plunged into the tunnel. Hand in hand, they pushed and kicked, but felt little resistance in the air-like expanse. There was nothing to push against. After what seemed like several minutes, Loreena looked back. The meadow wasn’t growing any closer, but neither was it receding. They tried again, both of them straining as if with more muscle they could somehow break free, but when their lungs burned with the effort and they paused to rest, they had still made no progress.

  Dominic looked at her, chest heaving. Both their eyes were bright in tears. He pulled her into an embrace and she pressed her face against his chest. She wondered then how he knew what was happening, as always before the person had plunged headlong into their version of the afterlife, had hurried ahead like a child to a playground. Even Dirk and the rich man who smoked cigars had hurled themselves forward, never once questioning their strange new worlds, never once thinking about turning back. How had Dominic realized what they needed to do?

  Loreena dug her hands into the fabric of his jacket. It didn’t matter. If there was no way to stop it, this forward motion, then she would go, too. She would hang on, and drift with him down into the green meadow. Better that than to return to the bar and the nightmare that would await her there.

  A flash of light seared between them. Loreena blinked, unable to see. Then something yanked her body back the way she had come like a retracting rope curling around her waist. She twisted in some new vortex, unable to gain control of her limbs. Screaming Dominic’s name, she reached for him, fingers splayed.

  Her hands came away empty.

  ________

  Loreena woke to a burning pain on her wrists, four hands like iron casts on her arms. Darkness enveloped her, dust gathering into the waistline of her skirt as she was pulled back across the floor and dumped on the cement.

  “Dominic?” She sat bolt upright, and then pitched forward and crawled, dirt pebbles sticking to her sweaty palms.

  His body lay nearby, still, denim heavy against his legs.

  “Dominic!” She shook him, pressed on his chest, and then moved up to his face, feeling for his eyes. They were closed.

  “Come back!” she shrieked. “You have to come back!” She pulled on his jacket, nearly lifting him off the floor.

  “Get her up.”

  The voice stopped her cold. Frank.

  Jumping to her feet, she flew in his direction. “What did you do?” Her hands were flailing, striking at his chest, his shoulder. “You killed him! You made me kill him!” Saliva sprayed from her mouth, hair wet with sweat as she attacked.

  “Get her off me.”

  No one moved to stop her. Emboldened, Loreena punched harder, this time finding his face.

  “Get her off me! Ray!”

  Boots thunked on the floor behind her. Meaty hands took hold of her upper arms and then catapulted her to the right. She fell hard on her shoulder.

  “Bert, he faking it?” Frank asked.

  More footsteps, near where Dominic had fallen. Loreena struggled to sit up. Her shoulder was on fire, her shirt torn at the seam.

  “He’s not moving, boss.” The baritone voice. Bert was the big-bellied man.

  “Is he dead?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, check him!”

  The room fell silent except for the music seeping in from the bar, the men seeming to hold their collective breath.

  “You bunch of pansies.” Frank crossed to where Dominic lay.

  Loreena got to her feet and started after him. She had nearly reached him when the same meaty hands threw her aside. She landed back on the floor, and someone nearby retreated, feet withdrawing quickly.

  They were afraid of her. She clenched her jaw and stood up again.

  “Miss Pearson,” Frank said.

  Pearson. Russell’s last name. He was talking to Crystal. Loreena turned, trying to find her.

  “You make an intriguing offer. I’ll give you a reasonable price.”

  Price?

  “Look.” The girl spoke from the corner, close to the door that separated the room from the bar. “I came here for Saul. You don’t want to deal, she comes back with me.”

  “Those are my terms.” Frank got up and brushed off his pants. When he finished, he waited. Was he still checking Dominic? Then he hummed to himself, as if impressed by the whole scene, and started across the room toward Crystal. “Take them or leave them, but she’s not going anywhere. You men, secure her. Cover her hands.”

  No one moved.

  “You afraid of a little girl?” Still the men didn’t move. “It’s her hands, shitheads. Just don’t touch her hands.”

  Another moment’s hesitation, and then they all approached, bodies surrounding her. The same meaty paws reached out first, grasping her upper arms.

  “Pantywaists.” Frank went into the bar, closing the door behind him.

  “Wait!” Crystal said. “Hey!”

  “I suggest you take the money.” The man with the heavy grip spoke in his broken voice. “Frank don’t take kindly to ungrateful people.”

  Crystal ran out, heels hard on the floor. The door slammed shut again. Loreena struggled to get away, calling Dominic’s name. Another man took hold of the back of her neck. Trapped by three of them, she cried out as they dragged her across the room, legs kicking. In the bar, the harsh music started up again, the bass pounding the floorboards.

  Twisting her body, she broke free of one man’s hold, but took only two steps before he grabbed her again and jerked her arm hard. The men pulled her faster then, through the side door and down a hall. About fifteen steps later, they dumped her into a room and locked a deadbolt behind her.

  The room was an office of some sort—that much Loreena figured out after she’d calmed down enough to look around, which had to be a good hour after the men had left her in there. For the longest while she had only cried and screamed, banging her fists against the door, calling over and over for Dominic. Gradually her strength and her voice left her, and after lying awhile on the cold floor, she found a couch by the wall and collapsed, sobbing, her head throbbing and her cheeks chapped with dried tears.

  The desk had a place for a typewriter, but it had been taken out, an empty filing drawer on the right. Shelves along the wall held drained bottles of beer and wine and there was a lamp stand in the corner, but no phone. The walls were decorated with large framed pictures Loreena figured Frank must have bought cheap, as they didn’t weigh more than a pound apiece. After her first tour around the small space, she grabbed the back of the wheeled chair and shoved it across the room. It crashed into the wall on the other side with a satisfying thud and bounced back, so she threw it again and again, the third time as hard as she could. It tipped and landed on its side, wheels spinning.

  Dominic was dead. A heavy weight pressed on her chest until she felt she couldn’t breathe. Drums pounded a steady beat in her ears, her forehead hot with pressure as she rocked back and forth with her arms wrapped around her. Eventually she got up again and hammered on the door, shouting Dominic’s name, and then Frank’s, and then Crystal’s, and then starting the cycle over again, until the heels of her hands throbbed.

  How could she have killed him? What kind of a monster was she?

  When Crystal left the room with Frank. She had felt the danger then. Should have fought them right at that moment, told Dominic to leave, made up a lie about drugs in the truck, something.

  She pressed her hands together—her horrible, d
eadly hands. Turning them over, she banged them against the door again, wishing they would fall off and lie quivering at her feet, blood seeping under her shoes. For several minutes she imagined how she might do it, how she might permanently disable this thing inside her, if only she could somehow separate herself from her hands. In her mind, she saw the shiny blade of a knife and imagined cutting through the flesh and veins of her wrists, but the bone, the bone would require something else. A saw blade, one of the automatic ones that sat on a table. She knew she could never go through with it, could never be brave enough to put her own hands underneath the spinning teeth.

  When she’d first felt it, at the age of fifteen—that’s when she should have done something. Her period started then, and she’d figured that was the origin of the changes, but she’d never read about such things. It started with the smell, something like the way a match smelled after you struck it. Months passed before she realized it was coming from her palms. Multiple washings did little to subdue it, and though Loreena knew her sense of smell was sharper than most people’s, it was still embarrassing. On top of that, her hands seemed to sweat more, and she no longer felt comfortable greeting anyone, so she asked her uncle for gloves, something to absorb the wetness, thinking it would pass as her body adjusted. When her uncle asked her why, she told him it was the fashion, not that he would know any differently. Saul only used the change in her wardrobe as something else to tease her about. She figured her body would eventually settle into being a woman and her hands would go back to normal, but they never did. She didn’t realized what was really going on until Ben, until she was stupid enough to let him take her bare hand to guide her down to see the new rosebud.

  Then. She should have done something then.

  The pain in her head was a vise tightening over her temples. At home, she would wrap some ice cubes in damp face cloths and place them one on each side. There was a small bathroom behind the couch, with a toilet and a sink, but no washcloths. What time was it? Her uncle would be worried by now, but then again, he was probably still busy with the evening visits to those who were too ill or elderly to have made the morning service. Loreena sucked in a sharp breath as she realized he might not even be aware she was missing yet, and that no one but Crystal knew where she was.