Before I Disappear

by Danielle Stinson

  “What were you doing?” she asked as she dabbed my temples with a warm washcloth. She leaned forward. I breathed her in. Violets and honey. Fingers in my hair, her laugh like a song, and I knew that I would never again be happier than I was in that moment.

  “Trying to look like you.”

  Her hands froze.

  I gazed at my beautiful mother, and my fingers itched to pick up the broken pieces and nail them back together. Only, I didn’t have the tools.

  She kneeled on the floor in front of me. “Someday, Rosie, you’ll look at me and you’ll see what everyone else does. When that happens I’ll have this memory to remind me of who I was to you in this moment.” She brushed back my hair and turned me away. I didn’t say it then, but I knew she was wrong.

  She wasn’t.

  The day she was talking about came less than three years later. She had just worked a double, and Mom was so tired she could barely push the grocery cart. The circles were like bruises under her eyes, and still everybody was staring. The monster had been busy, spreading lies. He did it every time we moved on. Every time he found us. To make us miserable and keep my mother in her place. Like most rumors, these had taken on a life of their own.

  Mom moved to the makeup aisle for some of the drugstore lipstick she always wore. It was a little thing, but it made her happy. My father loved it. I remember he was always telling her that, and then he was always kissing it off her lips so she would have to put on more. She still wore it every day. Like she wanted to be ready when he came back home to kiss it off again.

  There was a woman browsing the cosmetics next to us. She clucked her tongue when Mom picked out the reddest shade they had. And suddenly, I was looking through a stranger’s eyes, at a woman whose clothes were too tight, and whose smile was too wide, and whose face was too good to be true. I was ashamed.

  She knew. I don’t know how, but my mother glanced at me and she knew. She didn’t say a word. She just put the lipstick back on the shelf, and she never wore it again.

  And I was relieved.

  THIRTY

  CHARLIE

  One light left. Deep in the Black Nothing. Faded star with a golden tail.

  So much darkness. The star is drowning in it.

  It’s been drowning for a while.

  “I’m here,” I tell the faded star. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

  It flickers. Beautiful, sad star. “Charlie?”

  It knows me.

  I know it too.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  She cries when I wrap the new thread around her. Silver blanket. The Black Nothing beats against it. It’s getting harder to move. Harder to keep all the little lights burning.

  I have to keep them burning. Just a little longer.

  I can.

  I can.

  “Come with me, Mom.”

  “What about Rose? Where’s Rose?”

  “Right here.” I touch the golden thread inside me and it comes alive with Light Music in the dark.

  Slow dances in the kitchen, arms coated with flour.

  Red lips. White pearls of laughter in glass bottles hidden deep in your pockets. Eyes to make the sky jealous.

  The smell of sunshine. Honey. Fields of blue wishing flowers.

  I pull on the golden thread, and the Light inside of me—the one that’s keeping the stars lit—starts to die.

  Remember, Rosie.

  Please remember.

  Hurry, Rosie.

  Please, please hurry.

  I smell the flowers one last time. When the Black Nothing comes, I give it my nose.

  THIRTY-ONE

  I open my eyes to solid cave wall. I’m back in the sleeping bag we borrowed from the camp.

  When I sit up, a blanket slips off my shoulders. Ian’s blanket. I breathe in his scent, and something shifts deep inside of me.

  Sunlight pours into the cavern through a hole up above.

  Just like that, I’m wide awake.

  A few feet away, Jeremy slops something into a tin bowl.

  “How long has the sun been up?” I don’t bother with greetings.

  “Not long. I just have to change Ian’s bandage, and then we’ll be ready to go in ten. Is that fast enough or are you going to take off on us again?” When I shake my head, Jeremy grins. “Excellent.” He thrusts the bowl at me. “Do me a favor. While I deal with our patient, bring this to Becca and make sure she eats some of it. She won’t do it if I’m the one asking.”

  My eagerness to get going is almost painful, but I take the bowl and join Becca where she’s idly sketching inside the corridor. Behind her, Blaine mutters something under his breath and tosses in his sleeping bag.

  “Hungry?” I drop down beside her.

  “Who wants to know?”

  I suppress a sigh and place the bowl in front of her. “I understand why you’re angry. Jeremy embarrassed you.” In front of Ian. “But if he acted like a jerk, it’s because he’s worried about you. So maybe you could cut him a break.”

  “It’s not just that.” She tosses the chalk. “He left, Rosie. He never wrote. Never called. I can’t just pretend it didn’t happen.”

  An image flitters through my head. Becca in the Black Nothing. Writing letter after letter that receive no answer.

  “Maybe not,” I agree. “But if Charlie were here, I wouldn’t waste the time I had with him no matter how mad I was.” My eyes drift back to the corridor just as Blaine sits up like he’s been shot out of sleep with a cannon.

  “What was that?” he cries.

  “What was what?” I ask.

  Blaine blinks at us, looking even more harassed than usual. “I thought you whispered something.”

  “You must’ve been dreaming,” I say.

  He cocks his head sideways like he’s trying to shake water out of his ear. It’s not the first time I’ve seen him do this. I’ll have to ask Jeremy to check on him when we get back to the caverns.

  After we find Charlie.

  “We’re leaving in five,” I tell him.

  Blaine grimaces. “I’d better find a tree before we commence our death march.” He disappears down the corridor. Less than thirty seconds pass before I hear Blaine’s voice, calling for me.

  Hot, muggy air hits me when I bolt outside, Becca right on my heels. My eyes fly around the clearing until I locate Blaine. He’s standing in one piece facing the woods.

  I relax long enough to take in the morning around me. The storm has completely cleared. So has the snow, thanks to the recent heat wave.

  My gaze moves to the east, where the horizon is backlit by an orange glow and hung with steely clouds. I assume it’s the sunset, until I realize.

  The sun doesn’t set in the east.

  My eyes fly back to the horizon. To the strange light and the heavy clouds.

  Not clouds.

  Smoke.

  * * *

  “What’s that?” Becca points to the encroaching light.

  “Wildfire.”

  Ian’s voice comes from behind us. He’s standing with Jeremy outside the cavern entrance, his left shoulder immobilized in a sling.

  Seeing him after everything that happened last night gives me a little jolt. “How long until that gets here?” I ask, ignoring it.

  “It’s a few miles off, but fire can move fast when the wind is driving it.”

  “We have to put ourselves out of its path,” I say, my mind racing. “We can head for the river. It’s a natural firewall. Worst-case scenario, we cross and wait it out.”

  “But that will take us closer to Fort Glory and the wormhole.” Blaine’s voice turns shrill. “The dark pulse will be stronger there. We’ve already had to rescue two people from the Black Nothing. If we head right into this thing, how far do you think we’ll get before the rest of us go full dark?”

  “It’s not like we have a choice,” Jeremy points out.

  “Did I ask for your opinion?” Blaine snaps.

  “Right,” Jeremy cuts back. “Because
I’m a jock, and I had friends, and that automatically makes me an idiot. Well check this, smart-ass, I’m not the one proposing we sit here like a bunch of marshmallows waiting to be toasted.”

  “Give it a rest!” I say. The others look at me in shock, but my mind is in overdrive, and I just need one second to think.

  Being trapped in a shrinking bubble with a raging fire isn’t ideal, but it just might work to our advantage in one important way. “The fire,” I say, meeting Ian’s gaze. “Charlie will have to run from it too.”

  Ian catches my drift right away. His eyes widen. “It will drive him right toward us.”

  Blaine fidgets beside me. “I don’t know if—”

  “Jesus Christ,” Jeremy groans. “Man up, dude. You don’t have to lead the charge, but stop being such a coward.”

  Blaine flinches like he’s been slapped. The guilt and shame I glimpsed that first night in the cabin are suddenly right there on his face. Like he still blames himself for what happened to the town even though there’s no way he could have stopped it.

  “Shut up, Jeremy.” Becca moves to stand beside Blaine. The look she shoots her brother cows him just a little. It reminds me that there’s an iron rod running through Becca, and it makes me think that of the two of them, she is made of the stronger stuff.

  I keep waiting for Blaine to call Jeremy out. To tell him he’s a Neanderthal in his usual, vibrant fashion, but he just shrinks in on himself, smaller and more uncertain than I’ve ever seen him. “Okay.” He rubs at his ear again.

  Something’s definitely up. As soon as we get to the river, I’ll have Jeremy check him out. Right now, we have to move.

  This fire could be our best chance of catching Charlie, but only if we time it right.

  “Grab what you can,” I say. “We’re out of here in two minutes.”

  We scatter, gathering anything useful that fits into our pockets. I’m throwing the hatchet and a few tools through the loops of my pants when Becca moves to stand in front of me.

  “You almost forgot this.” She holds up something.

  Charlie’s egg.

  It’s wrapped in a protective casement of twigs, held together with twine and lined with cloth to form an improvised container.

  “Ian helped me make it,” Becca says proudly. “You can give it to Charlie when you see him. He’ll want to know you kept it safe for him.”

  I stare at the egg in her hand.

  Put it in your pocket, near your body so it stays warm. I’ll take one and you take the other. We can do it. We can keep them safe.

  I’m reaching for the egg when it happens. A tingle in my bones is the only warning I get before the pain hits with blunt force.

  I fall to the hard floor on my knees.

  My nose. Someone is carving it out of my face with a hot knife.

  The world tilts until I am staring up at the cavern ceiling. Dust motes dance in the rays of sunlight breaking through the rock. I fixate on them as someone yells for help. Becca. Her face appears over mine. I can’t focus on what she’s saying. I can’t focus on anything but the wall of darkness closing in. Because I know what it holds.

  Charlie.

  I think his name and then there he is. Right where Becca was just a moment before.

  A scream tears from my throat.

  My brother is almost unrecognizable. There are more holes to him now than substance. More shadows than light.

  He’s leaning toward me, reaching out with his one good hand. This time, he doesn’t try to hide his fear. That’s how I know we’re almost out of time. That if I can’t break through this darkness, if I can’t find a way to breach this wall to reach him, he will disappear forever.

  Just like the town.

  Just like my father.

  Just like everything that has ever mattered to me.

  I strain toward Charlie even as he strains toward me. So close yet out of reach. Right in front of me, and yet, too far away.

  His mouth moves. He keeps saying something over and over. I can’t figure out what it is, and it makes me so angry, for a moment I forget even about the pain.

  When the pain finds me again, it does so with a vengeance.

  It drives a sword through the center of my face.

  It sets my mind on fire until the whole world is made of flames.

  When they burn out, they take me with them.

  * * *

  My eyes fly open to the sight of the canopy gliding over my head.

  I’m lying on a sled, being pulled through the forest. When I sit up, the sled stops moving.

  A few clicks of a harness and Ian is at my side. He gives me a quick inspection before he drops down beside me. “You’ve really got to stop doing that to me,” he says, running a hand under his cap.

  “It’s not by choice.” My voice is rusty. My body aches like it’s been lying in the same position for a week. “How long was I out?”

  “Half an hour this time.” Ian says it like it’s an eternity.

  “Where are the others?”

  “Refilling their canteens at a stream up ahead. We’ll need water when the heat gets worse, and there’s no more till the river. I said I’d wait here with you.”

  Everything comes back to me at once.

  I throw my legs over the edge of the sled. “The fire?”

  “Getting closer.” Ian eases me back down with a hand. “We couldn’t afford to wait for you to wake up, so we dragged out the sled. There’s been no sign of Charlie,” he adds, anticipating my next question. “Can you walk?”

  The pain in my face hasn’t entirely faded, but my legs work fine. For now.

  The attacks are happening more and more frequently and taking longer to let up. The next time the pain takes me out, there might not be any handy sled lying around to save my friends from having to make some tough choices.

  I struggle to my feet. “I can walk.”

  Ian nods. “We’ll move faster without the sled.”

  We don’t say a word to each other while we wait for the others to return. The silence between us is somehow loud. Ian meets my eyes, and I let out the breath I’ve been holding.

  There’s no regret. No awkwardness. Just an expression I see more and more whenever he looks at me.

  Ian’s smile breaks like the dawn. Shy at first, and then with a burst of light that’s nearly blinding. It’s a gift. Like Charlie’s egg, I would cover it in protective wrapping if I could. But it doesn’t work like that. All I can do is take his trust for what it is and offer something in return.

  The truth.

  I open my mouth, but something fills it.

  Hot and coppery. I reach out and touch my nose. My fingers come away bright red.

  Ian jumps back and pulls something from his pocket. A handkerchief. He raises it to my nose with one hand and gently tips my head back with the other. The calluses on his palms are rough and warm against the nape of my neck.

  When I look up, Ian’s face is inches from mine. His eyes widen. His gaze dips to my mouth, and just like that, my skin is tingling like I’ve been chewing tinfoil.

  “Thank you,” I manage.

  The side of Ian’s mouth ticks up. “I know my way around a busted nose.”

  “For pulling me in the sled, I mean. I … know it cost you time.”

  “You stayed for me once.” Ian pushes a curl out of my face and tucks it firmly behind my ear. “That was before you even knew me.”

  My heart is suddenly beating so hard, I’m sure that he can hear it. “Turns out you’re not nearly as scary as people say.”

  I regret the words as soon as they’re out of my mouth. Ian pretends he doesn’t care what people think, but I know better.

  His face clouds over. He starts to drop the handkerchief, but I grab his hand to keep him close.

  “They don’t know you, Ian. They’re wrong. About everything.”

  Slowly, deliberately, Ian swaps out my hands for his. “They think I’m trash, and they think I’m dangerous. They’re
right.” He lets me go.

  “You’re not giving yourself enough credit.”

  A muscle twitches in his jaw. “I know what I am, Rose.”

  The bloody rag falls onto my lap, forgotten. “So you’ve made mistakes. So what? Nobody’s perfect. Does that mean that none of us deserves a chance at happiness?”

  Ian’s eyes meet mine and hold. “Some people deserve to be happy.”

  Blood rushes to my face. There are so many things I want to say to that, but Ian speaks before I get the chance. “Bad things happen, Rose. Sometimes those bad things are people.”

  “What if you had to?” My voice is dangerously thin. “What if you had no other choice?”

  Somehow, Ian seems to know we’re no longer talking about him.

  I’m opening my mouth to spill my guts when something moves in the corner of my vision. A flash of green fifty yards to my left. I track it through the trees. Relief loosens every muscle in my body.

  I force my eyes away from the movement in the trees back to Ian. He’s searching my face, his expression as concerned as I’ve ever seen it. He doesn’t see what I saw. He doesn’t know.

  Everything is going to be okay.

  “Rose, what is it?”

  Joy courses through me. So sweet it unfurls in a smile across my face.

  “It’s Charlie. He’s following us.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  We cut a trail toward the river. Like yesterday, the air gets hotter the closer we get to Fort Glory. It presses in on us from every angle, muffling even the sharp hiss of Blaine’s wheezing.

  Urgency settles over us along with the muggy heat. We’ve been going for less than half an hour when the wind picks up. Ian’s shoulders stiffen. I smell it too.

  Smoke.

  We increase our pace. We’re moving at a steady clip, but the scent of the encroaching fire grows stronger by the minute. There’s a heavy thunk behind us.

  Blaine lies on his back, steam fogging his glasses. “Can’t. Breathe.”

  Becca is bent over at the waist beside him, clutching her side. We ditched the sled back at the stream. We can’t push them beyond their limits, but we also can’t let that fire catch up to us before we reach the river.