Whole in the Clouds

by Kristine Kibbee

  Mr. Catlin had taken her all the way upstairs and laid her down on her bed. Both parents were sitting on a nearby chest, facing Cora with an expectant look in their eyes. The tearful embrace and relief of her homecoming was over, and now Cora had to face the music.

  “So?” Mr. Catlin began, looking very tired. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “I… I fell asleep in the woods,” Cora replied.

  “You fell asleep? In the woods?” Mrs. Catlin repeated with disbelief. The tears on her cheeks had been wiped clean.

  “Yes,” Cora said as she stared at the floorboards, determined not to look at either of them.

  A half-dozen worry lines melted from Mrs. Catlin’s brow. “Well, that’s a far cry better than what I’d imagined.”

  Mr. Catlin’s nose was still upturned but he stayed quiet as he studied his daughter.

  When the stillness became too much, Mrs. Catlin suggested Cora be left to recuperate, reminding her to “think about” what she’d done as both parents made their exit.

  Cora lay in bed, unable to sleep amid the torrent of thoughts and images that raced through her mind. Had it all really happened? Or was it just a figment of her overactive imagination? Was she really from another world? Were her real parents waiting for her, fighting to keep peace in a world that she could only imagine?

  Four: Looking for Magic

  Her alarm clock jolted Cora from bed promptly at 6:30 a.m. The dread of day two at Barnes Middle School should have been on her mind that morning, but yesterday’s events crept in and set Cora’s head to spinning. Suddenly, Ms. Shintaff’s classroom full of bullies didn’t occupy the largest part of her thoughts. She had better, more important things to think about now.

  In a fit of excitement Cora raced to her closet for a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, and threw them on while jumping on one leg and scanning the floor for her backpack. Mrs. Catlin nearly dropped the bowl of gruel she was carrying to the table as Cora erupted through the kitchen doorway and slid into her chair.

  “My! Someone’s found her get-up-and-go this morning,” Mrs. Catlin exclaimed, clearly shocked by her daughter’s behavior.

  “Where do you suppose you got all that energy? Maybe from all the napping you did yesterday?” Mr. Catlin grumbled from behind his paper. Cora could tell that even though her mother bought last night’s story, her father didn’t, and he was still cross with her.

  No comment necessary there, she thought, locating the piping hot cereal. The gunk burned a little going down, but Cora didn’t care. She couldn’t taste it as much that way.

  “Slow down,” Mrs. Catlin cautioned, eyebrows raised. “You usually complain for at least five minutes before touching your food. What’s going on with you?”

  “Just want to get to…school,” Cora lied. At this both parents looked at her, mouths gaping.

  “You want to get to what?” Mr. Catlin chuckled with disbelief. This time he actually dropped his paper and gave her an incredulous look. “Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?”

  “You hear that, Jim? I told you,” Mrs. Catlin chimed. “I told you she’d come around.”

  Cora’s mother had always clung to a wild fantasy that one day Cora would “wake up” and suddenly enjoy school and the social life associated with it. As far as her mother was concerned, this day had finally come and she plopped down at the kitchen table with a look of satisfaction on her face.

  With smiling faces Mr. and Mrs. Catlin watched Cora race down the block nearly an hour early for school. Neither parent noticed the early hour or thought to warn their daughter against a repeat of yesterday’s episode—they were too thrilled to see Cora happy for such matters to even cross their minds.

  #

  As Cora made her way down the forest path, she almost expected to see Celius standing at the head of the trail, waiting for her to arrive. She was disappointed when he wasn’t there, but realized that it was silly to expect him so early and so close to the main road. As cautious as he had been yesterday, Cora was sure that Celius wouldn’t go anywhere near her neighbors.

  Twigs snapping beneath her feet broke through the morning silence as Cora made her way deeper into the forest. She picked up Celius’s pathway and walked for what felt like eternity. She had made her way nearly halfway to the Invisivator before coming to a stop near a grouping of waning alder trees.

  “Where are you, Celius?” Cora called.

  No answer.

  “Celius!” she repeated, this time louder. “Beatrice?”

  Nothing.

  The silence forced her back to reality. Was she calling out to beings that only existed in her mind? No, certainly not. She had seen them with her own eyes. She had touched Celius’s hand and felt its warmth against hers. The memory of it was so fresh in her mind that she could still feel it—rough and smooth at the same time.

  This means nothing, she thought, after all, they had shown up in the afternoon, not on my way to school. Cora smiled now, feeling a little foolish but at the same time overcome with relief. She would find them waiting here on her way home.

  Daydreams of her reunion with Celius and Beatrice carried Cora through the school day. Children who usually made a career of teasing her simply gave up after several failed attempts. More interested in doodling elfin faces and cloaked witches in her schoolbooks than in participating with the class, Cora felt herself blend into the background.

  When the final bell rang, she didn’t linger. She squeezed herself into the rat race for the door.

  Questions flooded her mind as she raced toward the forest. Would Celius and Beatrice be waiting for her at the edge of the wood? Or would she have to travel to the deepest recesses of the forest and find the Invisivator? Would she travel to the world that they’d spoken of this very afternoon? Or would the fighting keep her from what she felt could be her true home yet again?

  Bulleting across the schoolyard, Cora began to fantasize of the amazing new world that awaited her. Spiraling castle pillars and fields of wild silver unicorns danced through her mind as she replayed bits of every fairy tale she’d ever seen or read. By the time she reached the edge of the woods, Cora had created an entire world of magic in her mind, comparable only to the several others she’d already fantasized about during the school day.

  Once inside the woods, Cora searched for Celius and Beatrice while tracing yesterday’s path. As she passed the tree where she had rested she hoped to see Celius there, but found it vacant.

  It took nearly thirty minutes for Cora to finally reach the ancient grove. Every detail was just as she’d remembered it, as if time stood still there. Everything was exactly the same, minus one detail: Celius and Beatrice.

  Cora looked at the base of the tree hoping to remember which knot would open the doorway. When she wasn’t able to spot it, she sat down at the base of the tree, deciding to wait patiently until her friends appeared.

  After an hour of watching and waiting, Cora finally rose from her spot, determined to locate the secret knot-knob. None of the growths on the tree seemed spectacular, causing Cora to realize why Celius seemed to have such difficulty locating the correct one. Even more discouraged, she realized that she wasn’t exactly sure what to do with the knot once she found it. Should she turn it? Push it? Pull it?

  “Well, first things first,” Cora declared. “Gotta find it.” She located a few promising bulges here and there, but no amount of pushing or pulling evoked anything other than frustration on her part. Eventually, she fell to the ground with a sigh and sat, glaring at the uncooperative beast.

  Cora nearly broke into tears. Her negative thoughts took hold of her as she envisioned years of endless waiting for her friends to return. She grew old before her very eyes as the seasons of her life passed by with no sign of the magical existence that she longed for. Then, when Celius finally returned for her, Cora imagined herself as so old and weathered that she was worthless to him and to the world they both came from. Gloom enveloped her until she was so
saturated with misery that it transformed to fury.

  “I wish I’d never met them!” she shouted, before running off through the middle of the woods back toward her neighborhood.

  The trip home was a blurry, tear-stained mess. Cora had accepted a life of misery and dissatisfaction a long time ago, but for Celius to dangle the future of her dreams in front of her, only to take it away again was just too much! Cora was back on the pavement again and headed for home in record time. She didn’t stare in wonder at the harvest moon or look in disgust at the matching yards of every house as she passed them.

  Cora was mad at the world and had no intention of wasting her time regarding any of its treasures or pitfalls. Even Mrs. Catlin stopped herself from commenting when Cora burst into the house nearly an hour later than expected and headed straight for her room.

  That evening was not a pleasant one. Cora spent the majority of the night playing out different scenarios in her mind. In some, Celius and Beatrice arrived full of apologies and smiling faces, ready to take her to her new home. In others they never arrived, or just a bit too late, leaving her to live a life of unhappiness.

  Directly following one of Cora’s more positive fantasies wherein she actually located the correct knot-knob and traveled the Invisivator to her new home, Mrs. Catlin came knocking at her bedroom door.

  “Dinner’s on, honey,” she said in a very soft, tentative voice. “Grilled chicken breasts. They’re super low-cal,” she added with an irritating chime.

  She just had to ruin it, Cora thought, and snapped, “Not hungry!”

  It was about an hour later that Mr. Catlin came to the door.

  “Got ya some real dinner, darlin’,” he promised.

  Amid all her fussing and daydreaming, Cora, for possibly the first time in her life, had failed to notice her stomach growling. She accepted her father’s offer and invited him inside, hoping that something “real” was anything but grilled chicken.

  Cora was pleased by the sight of Mr. Catlin holding a plate of his legendary extra-cheesy macaroni and cheese. He grinned and plopped it down on a nearby table, using it as an excuse to make his way into Cora’s bedroom and her problems.

  “I must say, I like what you’ve done with the place,” he teased.

  “Yeah, well, I try,” Cora replied.

  “So, what’s up, kid?” he said, getting straight to the point.

  “Nothing,” Cora lied, knowing he wouldn’t buy it.

  “Sounds like a bad day at school to me,” he offered. Ah, the perfect excuse, Cora thought. It was entirely believable and certainly wouldn’t be the first one she’d had. “Nothing a little mac and cheese can’t fix though, right?” he suggested, nodding in the direction of the food on the nightstand.

  “Right.” Cora replied with forced enthusiasm. For a moment she wished he’d asked a few more questions or shown a little more interest in her day. She felt like she was hiding an amazing secret that might cause her to explode if she wasn’t able to tell someone. Instead, she swallowed her secret down with her dinner.

  Numbness overcame Cora after that night, and it continued through the next couple of days. She forced herself through each miserable school day, secretly fostering the hope that her trip home would find something more than whispering breezes and haunting memories in the forest.

  Cora’s parents had seen her like this before, but a quick joke from her father or an ice cream sundae always seemed to snap her back. This time nothing seemed to be working. Mrs. Catlin even baked a triple-layer fudge cake that went uneaten. It was out of absolute desperation that after nearly a week of her grim mood, Mr. and Mrs. Catlin presented Cora with a proposal that they were convinced would evoke happiness, even in her.

  “Cora, your mom and I have discussed it and decided that it’s time for you to get that dog you’ve been talking about for so long.” Mr. Catlin announced one evening at the dinner table.

  Cora was overwhelmed. Her smile was infectious and spread across the table like wildfire as Mr. and Mrs. Catlin exchanged relieved and triumphant glances.

  She soon found herself with little time to be concerned about a memory that was becoming increasingly distant. In the weeks to come Cora filled her days with reading puppy care manuals and investigating dog breeds, searching for just the right one. She had been given the opportunity to create her own best friend, one who wouldn’t call her fat or ugly or abandon her for someone more interesting. She couldn’t close her eyes at night without seeing the smiling mug of a bulldog or the blue eyes of a husky looking back at her. She counted down the days until her life would begin again with a true friend.

  Five: A Motley Day

  It took several days but following the announcement of the promise of a dog, it became apparent that Cora’s mother was regretting her pledge. Little hints, just subtle enough for a daughter to recognize, began cropping up. Sideways glances and seemingly innocent comments about allergies and dog hair seemed laced with deeper meaning. Over a bowl of particularly murky Monday-morning oatmeal, Cora stared a hole through her father’s paper. “Dad, you don’t think Mom’s gonna go back on the dog, do you? I mean, I keep hearing her talking about the furniture and the dog hair and all. She doesn’t seem too happy.”

  Mr. Catlin inched the paper down, revealing only the upper half of his face. “Ah, I wouldn’t worry about it. You know her.”

  Cora’s mother appeared in the kitchen doorway just as her father vanished behind his paper again. “Better finish that up, kiddo. You’re gonna be late.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Cora dropped her spoon and picked up her book bag. Her mother walked her to the door, casting a lingering glance at a fine china horse positioned on the entryway side table as she passed it. Sending her daughter off, she groaned.

  On the other side of the door, Cora found her steps heavy. She knew her mother. “Happy wife, happy life,” was her mantra. Her way was law. If she decided a dog was a bad idea, Cora would never get one.

  Cora walked to school as would a mummy. Her day passed by her in a numb daze. She had nothing to look forward to. No light at the end of the tunnel. Even as the final bell of the day released her, she stumbled outside, only half aware of her surroundings. When her father honked and called her over to his car in front of the school, she nearly toppled over from disorientation.

  “What’s going on? What are you doing here?”

  “You’ll see, just get in.”

  From the moment they pulled away from the school, Cora could tell that they weren’t returning home. She was bursting with curiosity. It wasn’t often that her father promised a surprise but when he did it never failed to delight.

  “Any guess yet?” Mr. Catlin asked after a few minutes of silence. Cora could tell that he wanted to reveal their destination almost as much as he wanted to keep it a secret.

  “No idea,” she replied, smiling, almost bouncing in her seat.

  Mr. Catlin laughed in response, stared ahead and declared, “Almost there!” with impish delight.

  Cora hadn’t seen him so intently focused in quite a while. Wherever they were going, he was convinced it was a big deal.

  Without warning, Mr. Catlin began glancing back and forth at Cora, now as focused on her reaction as he had previously been on driving. She could tell that he was waiting for a reaction from her so she searched the horizon for an inkling of what lie ahead.

  Building…building…shrubbery…speed limit sign …Humane Society sign…another building.

  “The Humane Society?” Cora blurted, “Dad, are we really?”

  “You bet, honey!”

  “Can I really? I really get to?” Cora was too excited to finish her sentences.

  “Yes, we’re going to get you a dog. It may be messy and hairy and just a big ole pain in the butt…but we’re getting you a dog,” Mr. Catlin said firmly.

  “Oh, Daddy,” Cora swooned. The resentment and disappointment she’d let fester seemed to vanish in an instant.

  Both Cora and her father were alrea
dy unbuckling as they pulled into the parking lot. They raced each other to the front door and walked into the lobby wearing banana-shaped smiles. Their happiness and anticipation were contagious and the receptionist couldn’t help but grin herself as she asked them if they were interested in adopting a dog.

  “Yes,” they replied in unison. They looked at each other and their smiles grew even bigger.

  “Right through there,” she directed, pointing toward a door to their immediate left marked “Adoptable Dogs.”

  An intense smell of cleaning agents hit Cora as she walked through the door into the kennel area. As the door swung shut behind them a chorus of barking erupted from the dozens of dogs standing expectantly at their kennel doors. Many of the chain-link doors rattled and shook as the dogs jumped and pawed in excitement as if to say, “Look at me! Look at me!”

  Mr. Catlin trailed behind his daughter, watching as she surveyed every dog they passed. Cora had worried that she might have trouble picking out the perfect dog, but she found that many of them didn’t appeal to her. Too big, she thought as they passed a towering Newfoundland mix whose slobber hung in great laces from his mouth.

  “Oh yeah, your mother would love that one,” Mr. Catlin winced. He gave a sigh of relief as Cora moved past the Newfoundland and began peering over a litter of Labrador puppies in the adjacent pen. The pups climbed over one another without much regard for the sibling underneath, all vying for Cora’s attention. They looked like a pile of seal pups, slipping off one another and sliding to the bottom of the heap only to do it all over again.

  “Now there’s a rowdy bunch,” Mr. Catlin affectionately teased while crouching down to pat one of the pups’ heads through the chain-link. The appreciative little fellow arched his neck and began lapping at Mr. Catlin’s hand. Cora surveyed these actions and those of the other pups, studying each very carefully as if looking for some hidden clue.

  “Waddaya think? These guys are pretty cute, right?” Cora’s father was too busy gazing into the brown eyes of his devoted new friend to notice that she had already moved on to another kennel.