Thin Space

by Jody Casella

  I’ve got to though. This is wrong. I’m leaving. In a minute, I’m disappearing into the thin space. All of this—whatever Maddie and I have—is over. I have to find my brother. I have to fix this mess. I made a mistake and I know it’s the only way—

  “You’re still going through with it,” Maddie says. She’s rigid now in my arms.

  “I have to.” I know I am delaying the inevitable, but I kiss her one more time.

  “Don’t do this.” She clutches my hand. “Please. At least let me go with you. Not to stay, like you—”

  I’m shaking my head, but she keeps talking.

  “I want to see my father. I want to see if he knows me. Me, who I really am, and not that person Sam is disgusted with.”

  “Maddie.” I groan, kissing her once more.

  “Please,” she says. She kicks off her slippers.

  Who knows what makes me say it? There is so much about myself that eludes me these days. “Okay.” I squeeze her hand. “We’ll go in together.”

  The moment slows, freezes, as we stand, shakily, at the edge of Maddie’s bed. I stare at my foot as I nudge it forward. I feel Maddie tensing beside me. Her head bobs as she moves forward too, her fingers digging into my hand, and then my heart seems to jump into my throat. The room slides away.

  It happens just like Mrs. Hansel described. The bedroom walls, the bed piled with blankets, the ceiling, the wooden floor—everything narrows, blurs, and in a whoosh we’re rushing past all of it.

  I can’t get my bearings. There’s no top or bottom. I can’t even tell if I’m falling or rising. It’s like being plunged into a deep pool, but I’m not wet. I can’t see the surface or the bottom. I flail around, enveloped in cold.

  At some point, I can’t feel Maddie’s hand anymore, and I cry out. She’s lost. I’m lost. The air’s black, thick, and I’m still tossing around in it. Where’s the mist? This isn’t how Mrs. Hansel explained it.

  My chest squeezes. I open my mouth. I’m waving my arms. I can’t breathe. I’m drowning in the thick cold.

  “Mrs. Hansel.” I hear the word, shaky and scared. “Mrs. Hansel!” It’s my voice, I realize, and that scares me too, but then someone’s touching my arm, and I’m no longer falling and flailing.

  The dark leaks away. I’m standing on something solid. I can’t see my feet through the mist. The surface is smooth, slippery as ice. Fog swirls around my body, gray and thick. When it pulls apart, Mrs. Hansel sways beside me.

  She looks exactly the same as the last time I saw her—her white hair, her nightgown. All that’s missing is the sickbed and the oversized pillow.

  “You called me,” she says.

  “Mrs. Hansel. You—”

  “I know.” She smiles. “I’ve looked better.”

  That’s kind of the understatement of the year. The truth is, she looks dead. Her skin’s as gray as the fog. Her eyes are sunken. Her body’s skeletal.

  Her voice sounds chipper, though. “I misled you, I’m afraid.” She wags a bony finger at me, and I try not to flinch. “You thought I died downstairs. But after you left, a strange impulse seized me. I felt compelled to go upstairs to my bedroom. How was I to manage it, though, when I could barely lift my head? Thank goodness dear Linda was there to help. She was here too, not long ago. We had a lovely chat before she went off to visit with her husband.” She laughs lightly. “I was so muddled that day, I bungled everything up. I forgot to tell Linda about the bare feet. I forgot the stones. Not that I would’ve been able to line them up properly. I kept hoping you’d both figure it out. But you’re a smart boy.” She pinches my cheek with two sticklike fingers. “Oh my, you’ve hurt yourself. Have you been fighting?”

  “Yeah—I—” I can’t stop shivering. This place makes Maddie’s bedroom seem like a sauna.

  Mrs. Hansel seems to know what I’m thinking. “It’s very cold. You won’t be able to stay here long.”

  “Mrs. Hansel—” My mind’s whirling. I can’t tear my eye away from her—how terrible, how deathly she looks. I clutch at my stomach. I’m afraid I might be sick.

  “I’m glad you came. I’m glad you called me,” Mrs. Hansel says. “I always liked you. Such a sweet young man.” She sighs, and her thin frame rattles.

  She sways closer, hugs me against her. I don’t want to offend her, but I’m afraid if I hug her back, I’ll crush her. Of course, she’s already dead. The thought flits through my head and I have to suck in my breath, try to steady myself. I realize that I might be on the verge of a mental collapse.

  When she lets go, she seems upset. “Lately, dear, I’ve been disturbed by your behavior. You haven’t done what you’re supposed to do.”

  “I know, I—” My teeth won’t stop chattering. My body won’t stop shaking.

  “You’ve been wasting time. Lying to everyone. Lying to yourself. And that’s not the worst of it. You’ve been hurting him.”

  “Hurting—?”

  “He doesn’t want to be here anymore.”

  “I know—that’s why I—see I’m going to—”

  Mrs. Hansel glares at me. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

  I blink my eye. She’s right. What the hell am I doing? I’m here, in the thin space. I have to do what I’ve set out to do. “How?” My voice croaks out. “How do I find him?”

  “You know.”

  It’s so clear, so easy. When it hits me, I practically start crying. “Thank you,” I tell her.

  She hugs me again, pulls back, and smiles. The fog thickens around me until I can’t see her anymore. I can’t see my feet, my hands. I whirl in a circle, doing what I know I have to do.

  I call him.

  And just like that a dark figure rolls out of the mist.

  I take in the dark hair, the black T-shirt, the jeans; he’s limping, dragging his right leg through the gray toward me. Closer and I throw my hands up to my mouth. The accident shoots through my mind, my fists around the wheel, his body pitching forward, his head turned, cracking the windshield.

  It’s hard for me to look at him. He may as well just have staggered out of the wrecked car. One side of his face is blackened with blood. I can’t find his right eye under the mass of bruising. The rest of his body’s no better off. His right arm hangs loosely, awkwardly at his side.

  I clear my throat, not that it does much good. My voice is hardly more than a squeak.

  “Hey,” I say. “Marsh.”

  “Austin,” he says, and the left side of his mouth turns up into a half grin.

  24

  Brothers

  “Austin,” he says again.

  And my body’s like Jell-O. My legs buckle. My breath sputters out like I’m crying, laughing. I can’t stop. It’s seeing him. Hearing him. Hearing him say my name.

  “So, I guess we were wrong about her being crazy,” he says.

  “Yeah. Ha ha. Uh. I’m sorry,” I start babbling. “It took me so long to—I was trying to figure out how to come through. I’ve been working on it for a while and I—”

  He lifts his left arm up. That side of his body seems to be working properly at least. “Relax, little brother,” he says. “I know what you’ve been doing.” He grins another half smile. “I’ve been coming through in Maddie’s room.”

  “Maddie?” I whirl around. How could I have forgotten her? Where the hell is she?

  Marsh seems to know what I’m thinking. “Don’t worry,” he says. His voice is calm, low. Hearing it gets me shaking harder. I haven’t thought about this, how much I’ve missed hearing his voice. “Maddie’s fine. I saw her talking to someone back there. Don’t worry about her.”

  I don’t know why this makes me mad, but it does. “You act like you know her.”

  He laughs. “Well, I’ve been coming through, like I told you. I’ve been keeping up with what’s going on.”

  The idea makes me wince. “She thought she was having nightmares.”

  “That wasn’t me. I never let her see me.” He tries to shrug but only the left s
ide of his body twitches up. “I know what I look like.”

  What am I supposed to say to that? The truth is he’s a horror movie come to life.

  “Anyway, I only did it a few times. I just wanted to see what you were up to. I stopped, though. I’m not like Mrs. Hansel. I’m not like these other ones.” He drags his left arm through the mist.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t want to be here anymore.” He flails his arm. “I mean, look at this place. I’m lost in a fog here.”

  I must be losing my mind because I start laughing.

  He glares at me with his left eye.

  “I’m sorry.” I have to clutch my stomach. I really think I’m going to be sick. “I feel like I’ve been lost in a fog too.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s your choice, Austin.” He’s still glaring. “Me? I’m stuck here. I’m lost, literally, in a freaking fog.”

  This is it, I realize. Time to fix this. Time to make this right. I straighten up, square my shoulders back. Now that I’m facing him, I don’t know how we do it exactly, but I’m trusting that he’ll know. “Okay,” I say. “I’m here. You can go now.”

  His one eye rolls around. “Where am I going?”

  “Back,” I tell him. “I’m going to—”

  He barks out a laugh. “I’m dead. You know that, right?”

  “Yeah,” I sputter, “but I was thinking we could—”

  “Switch?” He hunches forward, clutches his left side, still laughing. “And how are we going to pull that one off, little bro?”

  “I don’t know.” I’m getting angry again. I’m glad though. It’s better than feeling like I’m going to vomit.

  “It’s not possible,” he says.

  “Why not? It’s crazy what’s going on right now.” My voice sounds like it’s rising toward hysteria and I have to take a breath so I don’t keel over. “You . . . died in August and we’re standing who the hell knows where having a conversation.”

  He shakes his head. “You’re looking at me, right?”

  Now it’s my turn to roll my eye. “I’ve got injuries too,” I tell him. “I got in a fight today.”

  “Someone punched you.” He sneers. “My face smashed through a car windshield. It’s not the same thing, I hate to tell you. Anyway, the real issue is that you’re alive and I’m dead.”

  I’m full out crying now. Marsh pats my shoulder with his good hand. I don’t care that he’s gruesome—I love him. I hug him. I breathe him in. We haven’t held each other in years, maybe never—I can’t remember. But it feels right to be with him again, to not be alone. Stupid that that’s what I wished for that one second—that I could be apart from him, be twinless.

  “It’s okay,” he says, like he knows what I’m thinking. “It’s okay.”

  I can’t stop crying. He’s dead.

  Oh my God, Marsh is dead. Why is this such a shocking revelation? I’ve known he was dead since I woke up in the hospital.

  “Wait,” I say. I let go of him, step back a little into the mist. “You said you didn’t want to be here anymore.”

  He nods, that smirky grin back on his face.

  “So where do you want to go, then, if you don’t want to switch places with me?”

  A sigh hisses out of the side of his mouth. “I want to go on. Get it? I want to pass out of this place and die for real. Go on to the next world.”

  “Yeah, so why don’t you do that?”

  “Because of you.”

  “Me?”

  “You’re not letting me go.”

  I shake my head. I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about.

  “The accident wasn’t your fault,” he says.

  “You sound like Mrs. Golden.”

  “I’m telling you. It wasn’t your fault. I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong.”

  My stomach won’t stop lurching. “But it was my idea. I got us into this.”

  “Maybe, but it’s not like you held a gun to my head. I went along with it.”

  I shake my head again, grip my stomach.

  “Hey,” he says, “when the hell have you ever been able to force me to do anything? Tell me that. Never. I was a willing participant. Yeah, it all turned out kind of shitty. But that’s the way it is. It happened the way it happened, and it’s not going to change. I died. You didn’t. That’s reality. The only thing left is for me to go on. And I can’t do that until you do what you have to do.”

  “And what is that?” My voice chokes out, and next thing I know I’m bent over, heaving into the mist.

  He pats my back while I’m sick. It takes a while before it’s all out. It doesn’t help that I’m crying like a blubbering idiot. It doesn’t help that he keeps saying in his familiar, low voice, “It’s okay, Austin. It’s okay.”

  When I’m done, I drag my sleeve across my mouth.

  “Feel better now?” he says softly.

  What’s the answer to this question? Marsh is dead. I’m alive.

  “You know what you have to do now, right?”

  I sway, dizzy. I do—God help me.

  “Please,” he says. “I’m counting on you.” I scan him quickly, overlooking the gruesome parts, trying to hold on to what I want to remember of him. The eyes—like mine, I guess. The hair, short, nothing more than a buzz cut, like mine always used to be. The shoulders, broad and strong from football.

  “Marsh.” It’s Maddie calling from somewhere out there in the mist. “Marsh.”

  My brother jerks his head toward the sound. “Go on,” he says. “You can start by telling her.”

  25

  Truth, Really

  Maddie reaches for me in the fog. Her eyes are wild, wide. I pull her close to me, hide my face in her hair. I don’t want her to see me like this. I’m a raw wound.

  “I saw him,” she says excitedly. “My father. Did you find Austin?”

  I don’t answer. My brother’s broken body limps across my mind. Tell her, he says. Maddie and I slip along the icy surface. I wave my hand, trying to push the cold mist out of the way. Tell her, tell her. I wish I could make him stop. I wish I could push his voice away with a wave of my hand.

  “How do we get out of here?” Maddie says, her teeth chattering.

  “I don’t know.” Mrs. Hansel didn’t mention this part, and I never asked her. Funny thing—I never planned to leave the thin space.

  Around us, in the distance, dark shadows slither. Could we hide from them? Lose ourselves in the mist? Stay here forever?

  Maddie shivers against me and gives me my answer. I have to get her out of here. I hold her tighter, rub my hands up and down her icy arms. “Look,” I say. “Look for your bedroom.”

  The words are only halfway out of my mouth when the mist blurs, narrows, rushes away. It’s the same as how we tumbled into this place, but this time I don’t let go of Maddie. I clutch her to me as we fall and rise and whirl through the thick, cold blackness. I’m almost out of breath when Maddie’s room slides back around us.

  We find ourselves standing at the edge of her bed, still clinging to each other, both shivering, panting in her cold bedroom. Maddie has the same idea I do—quickly, we snatch our bare feet away from the floor, fall backward on the bed. I grope around for my brother’s slippers and push them onto my feet.

  Maddie grabs my arm. “Marsh, is that you?”

  I suck in my breath like I’ve been punched. Because Maddie’s squinting at me, frowning—

  —pausing—

  —trying to figure out who I am. She’s wondering if my brother has taken my place.

  I don’t know if I can take this—Maddie squinting at me this way, Maddie not knowing for sure.

  “Maddie,” I say.

  She smiles, presses her face against my chest. I can feel her sighing into me. She does know me. She does. I let out my breath. “Maddie,” I say again, because I know I haven’t answered her question.

  I remember my brother’s lost out there—dead—in the thin space, but
somehow not dead too. And that part—that part out of everything truly is my fault.

  “He’s dead.” My voice croaks out. “I’m alive.”

  “I know,” she says. “I know, Marsh.”

  “No.” I don’t mean to say it so loudly. I put my hands around her face, make sure that she’s really looking at me. Tell her. It is the only way to set him free. Maybe the only way to set me free too. “No.” I say it softer this time. “Please don’t say . . . Marsh anymore.” I heave out a breath. “I’m not Marsh, Maddie. I’m Austin.”

  Her face is frozen in my hands. Her eyes aren’t blinking. “Austin?”

  I can’t help shivering at the way the word comes out of her mouth. She is the second person to call me by my name today.

  “Austin,” she says again.

  I feel like I’m hurtling through the air, but this time when I land, I’m falling into myself.

  “What?” she says. “How did that . . . happen?”

  My hands tremble against her face. I have to let go of her so I don’t rattle the teeth out of her head. “We switched places, remember?”

  Maddie nods. Her eyes are wide, her mouth, half open.

  “My brilliant idea to see if Kate and Logan really knew us. Kate was my girlfriend, Maddie. Logan went out with Marsh. We dated those girls for like a year and a half, but Logan still thought I was him that day on the football field. They didn’t really know us. That’s why I talked Marsh into switching places. We wore each other’s clothes. We traded wallets. Driver’s licenses . . . ” I tug his wallet out of my back pocket, flip it open, tap my brother’s face. “That’s him. That’s Marsh.” Why is the picture so blurry? Why can’t I see it anymore?

  Both of my eyes are leaking tears, even the one that’s mostly swollen shut. My brother’s dead, is what I’m thinking. Marsh is dead.

  “I don’t understand.” Maddie’s face swims in front of me. “Are you saying the accident happened the same night you switched places?”

  I nod. “Bad timing, right?” I let out a strangled laugh. “Kate and Logan were clueless. The whole time Kate was pawing all over Marsh, and he let her. That’s what pissed me off so much. Why’d he let her?” I close my eye, see the whole crappy scene at the movie theater again. “After we drove the girls home, he just laughed it off, said, ‘Well that went well’—like it was no big deal. I wanted to punch him. I mean, I didn’t kiss Logan.”