by B. N. Toler
Before I knew it, I was laughing through my tears. Isn’t it funny what our minds can do? I was hurting and crying, yet laughing and feeling joy all at once—which probably only meant I was insane, rather than being a wonder of the mind. Ike had a way with me, though. He seemed to have had that way with most people. And maybe that was his gift. I could see the dead…he could make people find something to laugh about in the worst of times. I couldn’t deny his gift was way better.
“Only if you snuck in to see me naked while I was in the shower,” I reminded him as I chuckled and wiped my nose with the back of my shaky hand.
“And because I saw your boobs,” he corrected me. “Like it was my fault you flashed me or something.”
“You woke me out of a dead sleep, shouting at me!”
He widened his eyes as if in disbelief. “You practically forced me to look at them, Charlotte,” he dead-panned. “I’m merely a victim here.”
My smile grew a little bigger as I narrowed my eyes at him. “Is that so?”
“It’s a fact.” Then he rolled his eyes back and fluttered his eyelids feigning pleasure. “But I must say, God, they were beautiful.”
“Ike McDermott!” I scoffed, grinning. “Don’t forget I can actually touch you now. I might have to make good on some of those threats.”
He held his hands up in mock surrender. “I mean, I’m sorry,” he shook his head, “buuut…I’m not. Not even a little.” His smile spread across his face, the one that always melted me and had thrown its invisible rope out and lassoed me years ago. Dear Lord, he was beautiful.
I rolled my eyes. “I kind of did want to punch you in the nads just for that.”
We laughed deeply, and it felt so good. Eventually the laughter faded, and there we were, just us, faint smiles on our faces as we stared at one another.
“So…” I said. “I guess this means I’m dead.”
He raised his brows and began to reply but a new voice cut him off, “Char?”
I whipped around to find the source, and when I did my heart felt as if it might burst out of my chest.
Shaggy hair.
Dimples.
Eyes that mirrored my own.
“Axel?” I gasped, disbelief threatening to take my knees out from under me.
A beaming grin captured my brother’s features. He was exactly as I remembered him. It took us a few seconds, almost like our minds were so busy processing the fact we were seeing each other they forgot to send the message to our bodies to move, but then everything caught up and we closed the distance and slammed into each other. The moment we made contact a million memories cascaded through my mind: Axel pulling my pigtails to make me squeal; the times I’d have a nightmare and sneak into his room to sleep with him because I was scared to be alone; the way he’d tease me relentlessly, but would never let anyone else say an unkind word to, or about, me. One beautiful memory after the other played out until the feed came to a screeching halt and froze on my last memory of him—the last time I saw him and didn’t even say goodbye because I hadn’t realized he was dead. I squeezed him tightly, as hard as I could. “I’m so sorry I didn’t say goodbye to you. I didn’t know, Axel. I didn’t know you were gone.”
His hand found the back of my head and cradled it. “Shh, Char. The only thing that mattered to me was that you were okay. If you had died because I took you on that stupid bike…”
“The accident wasn’t your fault—”
“Dad told me not to get it. They were so mad at me, and they were right.” His voice cracked as his arms tightened around me. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t do that,” I sniffled. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I can’t believe it’s you,” he said, his words muffled by my hair in his face.
A sob broke loose from my chest and Axel kept his strong hold on me. “I’ve missed you, too, little sis.”
There were so many things I wanted to say to him; to tell him. The words just wouldn’t form into anything coherent, so I just held him in my vice-like grip and cried on his shoulder.
“Come on, now,” he soothed after a few minutes, attempting to pull me away. “Let me get a good look at ya.”
Eventually, I forced myself to release him and step back, but I kept hold of his arms, fearful he would disappear if I wasn’t touching him.
He smirked, “You still look like a dork.” I pursed my lips in mock annoyance at his teasing. “God, it’s good to see you,” he went on before I could retaliate with a loving insult of my own. I smiled and slammed against him again, wrapping my arms around his neck.
“Who’s the dude staring at us?” he mumbled near my ear. I shook my head in disbelief, realizing I’d forgotten all about Ike when I’d seen my brother. I grabbed Axel’s hand and led him over to introduce them.
“Ike.” My face hurt from smiling so hard. I was with Ike and my brother. This was just too amazing…too everything. “This is my brother, Axel. Axel, this is Ike McDermott.”
Ike gave his friendly smile and the two shook hands. I couldn’t help thinking—do people really shake hands on the other side?
“I’ve heard so much about you,” Ike told him. “A pleasure to meet you.”
“And you,” Axel replied. Turning to me, he asked, “How long have you been here?”
“Literally just got here.”
Axel tilted his head moving his gaze between Ike and myself. “So you just died?”
I shook my head, trying to grasp that. I was dead. I had to be. How else could I be here with them if I wasn’t dead?
“Did you two die together?” Axel asked, uncertainty in his tone. Now he was eyeing Ike, the idea occurring to him that Ike and I might be a couple. It made my heart smile a little. Some things never changed, even in death. Axel would always be my protective big brother.
“No…” I hesitated awkwardly as it dawned on me Axel had died before I had my gift. “Ike passed away before me,” I finally said. “I have so much to tell you, Axel. I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Why don’t you start with how you died?”
His suggestion gave me pause as I scoured my memory for the answer. The same tickling sensation I’d felt when Ike first came to me returned. The memory of whatever happened was there somewhere, but for some reason it wasn’t coming forward.
How did I die?
George
The love of my life had been in a coma for two days. Forty-eight hours of watching my wife lay motionless in a bed attached to machines. 2,880 minutes of doctors telling me Charlotte wouldn’t wake up. And I’ve ignored that prognosis for 172,800 seconds. They were wrong. She would come out of this. She had to.
Martin Kern had stopped by not long after my showdown with Charlotte’s father the day before, offering to help in any way he could, and I felt bad for thinking he was a douche bag, especially after he’d arranged for our families to stay in one of his agency’s furnished apartments close to the hospital. Charlotte’s and my parents were staying there, and Sniper had closed the restaurant for a few days and would be arriving this afternoon.
I was alone with Charlotte and the room felt strangely still, despite the whirring and beeping of the machines keeping her alive. Tracey and Wayne had left a few minutes prior after sitting with Charlotte while I’d gone for a run. I hadn’t wanted to leave Charlotte, but I was wound tight and needed something…anything…to take the edge off. I’d just returned after my eight-mile run, and my sweat-drenched shirt clung to my skin as I stared at her, my arms crossed, frustration making my muscles tight. She would not die. It couldn’t happen.
I pulled her phone from my pocket and brought up the app she’d last had open before she’d collapsed. I’d found the phone underneath her as the paramedics rolled her onto the backboard. In the chaos of the ambulance ride to the hospital and emergency room, I’d forgotten about it as I dealt with necessary paperwork and contacted my parents. It wasn’t until I was sitting alone in the surgical waiting room, trying not to los
e my shit, that I’d remembered about it and dug it out of my pocket, hoping I’d find a clue as to why she’d gone to visit Click without me. When I’d unlocked the screen, the YouTube app had been open to a video of someone playing Für Elise on the piano, and it’d been nagging at me ever since. Charlotte played the piano when coerced, but I didn’t remember her ever listening to compositions.
I tapped play, angling the speaker toward the head of the bed and studied Charlotte for any indication of her hearing it. I knew it was a long shot, but I was still disheartened when it ended and there’d been no change in her. I tucked her phone back in my pocket before rubbing my face with both hands. Everyone had different opinions about what, if anything, Charlotte could hear in her condition, even the doctors and nurses; all I knew was it couldn’t hurt, and if there was a chance it would bring her back to me, I’d try just about anything.
“I remember the first time I saw you, Charlotte,” I reminisced aloud, my voice sounding odd in the empty room. “You had all that long hair and your eyes, babe…phew…” I winced, rubbing my free hand against my chest in an attempt to ease the constant ache that had taken up residence since she’d been hurt. “They were what got me.” I felt a smile form as I remembered her sitting on the stool by the bar, her mouth open, gaping at me.
“The way you looked at me that first time, I thought surely you were smitten with my good looks,” I chuckled. If she were awake, she’d lift one brow and purse her lips at me in response and I smiled at the thought. We always had the best playful banter. I loved getting her riled up. Of course, she’d gotten her own shot at my ego when I’d learned her reaction was merely because she hadn’t known the brother she’d agreed to help was Ike’s identical twin. That memory made my smile widen; it definitely was something my brother would do. He probably had a good laugh about it. My smile didn’t last, though, and the sadness returned with the beep of a machine and resumed its task of dismantling me by reminding me there was no riling her up because she was in a coma.
“I was such a mess that day, but when I rounded the corner and saw you…it was like the haze parted a little and then…there you were.” I grinned. “Everyone there saw it, too.”
I thought about one person in particular, cringing at the glare I knew Charlotte would give me if I said her name. Misty. I sighed at the reminder of my ultimate stupidity. Most days it felt like it happened a lifetime ago, but now, with everything that’s happened, it felt like I never broke free; that the last three years were just a hallucination to escape the nightmare.
“I thought you were nuts,” I admitted, running a hand through my hair. “I mean…you were…a little nuts.”
Again, I could just picture that glare of hers—the way her eyes would narrow and her mouth would twist. God, I’d give anything to see her look at me with her playful sass. One of the things I loved most about Charlotte, about us, was how we always found a way to laugh at the hard shit. We each had our own shame and dark secrets, but we didn’t hide them from each other. We shouldered them together, and even managed to laugh about the mistakes that would always be with us, instead of letting them define us.
“In all the drama and bullshit, you never gave up on me. Not once.” I pulled in a ragged breath, before declaring, “You didn’t leave me alone in the dark. I’m not going to leave you either, babe. I need you to wake up, Charlotte. Please.”
“Don’t think it’s quite that simple, love.” I jerked at the interruption, turning my head to the door and the source of the unexpected voice. A tall, slender black-haired woman, clad in black jeans and a tight white tee, leaned against the door frame.
Marlena DuBois.
I cleared my throat, a little embarrassed she’d just overheard me begging my comatose wife to wake up. “Marlena, I should have called you. I’m sorry, it’s just been a bit,” I glanced at the hospital bed, “hectic here.”
“Kern filled me in,” she nodded sympathetically, then quirked her mouth into a half smile and shrugged, “I decided I should come anyway.”
Narrowing my eyes, I scanned her face in an attempt to read the psychic medium’s thoughts. Had she seen something?
“No,” she stated firmly. “I haven’t seen anything.”
Holy shit. Did she just—
“No,” she cut me off with a sad, knowing smile. “Your face said it all.” Pushing herself off the door frame, she walked to the other side of the bed, her expression annoyingly neutral as she gazed down at Charlotte for several long moments. “Tell me about how it happened,” she finally said.
“You can’t see that?” I asked bluntly. The question came out harsher than I’d meant, but I’d figured she already knew, considering her gifts.
She cut her green eyes to me and explained with practiced patience, “I see many things, George, but not everything straight away, and there is always more to be seen.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you, Marlena.” I ran my hand through my hair as I scolded myself. She was here to help, and I needed all the help I could get. I blew out a breath and met her gaze across the bed, “I found her unconscious at the bottom of the steps. They think the aneurysm caused her to collapse, and that’s why she fell down the stairs. Luckily no broken bones.”
She was quiet for a long moment, her expression, betraying nothing as she studied Charlotte. The sheer blankness of it reminded me of the guards in front of Buckingham Palace, and I wondered if it was a British thing, or if it was from years of practice not reacting to seeing dead people.
A few moments later she stepped back and settled herself into the chair Charlotte’s dad had moved closer to the bed in order to be close to his wife. “Tell me about the girl you mentioned when we Skyped, George. Anything you know.”
I blinked in confusion. “The girl doesn’t matter now. My wife is in a coma.”
“I’m aware.”
“My wife needs help. Click can wait.”
“You asked me here to help your wife with the girl. That’s what I’m going to do.”
“Yeah, but she’s in a coma,” I said, feeling like a skipping record.
“Which means there’s absolutely nothing she can do to help the girl right now,” Marlena fixed me with her gaze, “but I can, and in turn, help Charlotte.”
“How can helping Click do anything to help, or change the fact Charlotte’s in a coma?”
“Everything is connected, George. Not just Click and your wife, but everything,” she swept her hand around the room, “you, me, the people on the street below us—we’re all connected, part of a much larger picture, and everything happens for a reason. Truthfully, I don’t know how; I only know it will.” She leaned over and reached for my hand, cupping it in hers, forcing me to meet her earnest gaze. “To sort out how, I need you to tell me everything that’s happened, from the very beginning, but not just in words.” She paused briefly, her eyes growing pained as she continued, “I need you to relive it.”
I flinched at the thought of what she was asking me to do. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I understood what she meant, but something in my gut told me to trust this woman who’d crossed an entire ocean just to help my wife. Inhaling a deep breath, I began, doing my best to conjure every detail.
Charlotte was crouched in the doorway of the bedroom where Mary and Diana resided, her expression blank. Something was wrong. I wanted to ask what was happening, but stopped myself. She was concentrating, and me speaking would only distract her. Instead, I readied myself for anything. After a moment, Charlotte stood, her hand to her stomach. Shit. Was she sick?
“What is it Charlotte?” I asked, unable to hide the worry in my voice.
She squeezed my arm reassuringly, holding my gaze for a few moments before turning to face an empty space in the hallway. “Did you lure them here for him?” Charlotte asked the empty space with barely contained rage.
Marlena jerked her hand from mine, startling me from the memory. “Did I do something wrong?” I asked, uncertain if I was even reliving it as she’
d asked. I knew I’d been describing it, but there were really no words capable of conveying the emotions I’d felt.
She held her stomach as if she was feeling ill, but shook her head as she glanced at Charlotte. “No. You are doing fine, George. I just need a moment to sort out everything I’m seeing.”
“Are you okay?”
She inhaled deeply. “Nausea,” she explained with a humorless chuckle. “A fun little side effect to my gifts.”
I frowned. That sounded like it sucked.
“Are you seeing anything?” I swallowed around the lump of defeat forming in my throat.
“I’m seeing an extremely complicated situation,” she said carefully. Turning back to me, she reached her hand out, palm up, inviting me to place mine in it again. “Let’s keep going…if you’re able.”
I loathed thinking about the day we entered that shit hole, but if it helped Marlena to know how to help my wife, I’d relive it a thousand times. Placing my hand in hers, I closed my eyes and went on ‘reliving’ the day we entered the Hell House.
Charlotte
The three of us walked, Ike and Axel on either side of me. We moved along a field of plush green grass that was soft beneath my bare feet. I didn’t understand why I was the only one not wearing shoes, but it hardly seemed worth asking about when there were so many other things to discuss. At my request, we walked in silence for a bit so I could gather my thoughts. I wasn’t sure where to begin. My story was complex, and there was still the question as to how I died. Why couldn’t I remember? All I really knew in that moment was that I wanted to move and see everything. After all, I was on the other side.
How many times had I imagined what it would be like here? How many souls had I pondered this with as I tried to help them move into the afterlife? Surprisingly, it reminded me of paintings I’d seen depicting the promised paradise of Heaven. There were colors everywhere—vast and lush, yet gentle as well. A glowing mix of pink, orange, and gold seemed to float in the air, enchanting everything. It was mesmerizing.