by Amber Kizer
Fara changed her instructions and chatted with the cabbie, who’d listened to everything until the radio signals failed. She acted like this was a normal day.
I hope this isn’t our normal. I don’t have the stamina for it. I yawned, closing my eyes in the sway of the car and adrenaline crash.
“Juliet? Wake up.” Fara shook me.
“I slept?” I asked. No nightmares? No tornadoes? No Kirian pleading with me? I felt rested for the first time in, well, ever.
“Yes, can you handle souls or should we wait?” she asked.
“I’m okay.” I meant it.
We walked into the hospice, and several nurses smiled at us, but it was Delia who exclaimed and ran over. “You two look terrible. Are you okay?”
I smiled. “We’re good.”
She lowered her voice. “The track still standing? Gus told me to pray all day and I have been. My whole prayer chain.”
“Thanks. The track is there but we don’t know how many casualties there are yet.”
Her face closed. “I’m sure there are less than there would have been. You did your best, right? We haven’t had any deaths here today, so no souls to worry about.” She opened a door. “This is the staff locker room. Clean scrubs are in the cabinets—use anything in my cubby and get cleaned up. Faye and Gus need you.”
I cleared my throat. “Thank you, Delia.”
She nodded and left. It wasn’t until I saw our skin scrubbed clean that I realized how filthy we were.
By the time we walked into Faye’s room, Gus and Rumi were there, as were Meridian and Tens.
I hugged Meridian as if I hadn’t seen her in lifetimes. It felt as if we hugged for the first time. I finally understood so many of the conversations she’d tried to have with me, so many opportunities she presented that I shied away from. “Were you behind the geyser?” I asked.
She nodded. “You helped, though. If you hadn’t figured out how to move energy through you, I never would have even known to try.”
I grinned.
“Your dad showed up and killed the Nocti leader.”
She turned to Rumi. “I’m sorry, Rumi. I don’t know how to tell you this, but you were right about your uncle.”
Even though Meridian’s tone was soft and apologetic, I watched Rumi crumble under her words.
She continued. “But without your help, we never would have known to look for the well or how to use it. And the Woodsmen used the Spirit Stones to spot the Nocti.” She embraced him. “You have nothing to be ashamed about.”
“Ah, lass, you’re kind, but my heart aches nonetheless.”
Gus reached out and touched Rumi’s back. To me he said, “Tony called from the hospital in Crawfordsville. He’s going to be fine and they’ve recovered the remains as well. A friend was headed over to pick him up; he’ll be here soon.”
“You found your mom?” Meridian asked. “You have to tell us everything. Your father is debriefing the Woodsmen and coming to your condo as soon as he can.”
Fara collapsed onto the couch and said, “Is anyone else hungry?”
Tens high-fived her, while Meridian and I shook our heads in laughter. Over pizza and warm cookies, we traded stories.
It wasn’t until Meridian began talking about what they saw when leaving the track and the amount of water flooding the area that I realized Faye and I sat listening to Meridian at my kitchen table.
On the other side of the window was a working farm at the height of summer. Corn grew taller than Rumi. Animals fragrantly and loudly lived near the big farmhouse. Out in front was a picnic table covered with a whole roast pig, piles of sweet white corn, green tomatoes, and hunks of watermelon.
“Hello, Juliet,” Faye said. “You’ve had quite the full week, haven’t you?”
Among the guests gathering were my mother and Kirian. They waved to us. I barely recognized my mother; she was young, beautiful, and voluptuous like a healthy girl my age should be.
“It’s a lot,” I said, waving back to them.
In a role reversal, Faye bent down and kissed my cheek, much like the many times I’d kissed hers these last weeks of her illness. “What shall I tell your mother? Anything?”
I stuttered. So many things sped through my mind. “Please tell her she’ll be buried soon. As soon as I can, so she can move on.” I paused. “And I love her.”
“Let me tell you something from a mother’s perspective.” Faye stepped closer to the window. “We always watch over the children we love. Buried or not, we never leave them. Never worry that she wants to be anywhere else.”
I nodded.
“And you, tell Gus to live long and happily and that his wife will greet him?” Faye asked me.
“Yes, of course.”
She slipped into the cornfield and ran toward her home, the screen door banging open as crowds flew down the porch steps, running toward her.
My mother waved again, took Kirian’s hand, and they headed toward a glorious sunset on the horizon. Their forms faded until all I saw were the myriad colors of perfect light.
I closed my eyes.
CHAPTER 59
As hard as it was to admit, Faye’s transition to the Light was a relief for everyone. Her most of all. Gus kicked us out late, told us to go home and sleep for a week. I didn’t have the energy to argue with him. Too much.
Freshly showered, with aloe caking my blistered sunburn, I lay in our bed pestering Tens telepathically.
“Say something else. Say something else.”
“Can we stop now?” Tens answered me.
“Are you annoyed?”
Speaking out loud, he said, “How can you tell?” He groaned, rolling toward me. He pulled me close, snuggling a thigh between my legs and my head onto his chest.
I sighed. I love this man more each day. How is that possible?
“Because it’s true,” Tens answered.
I gasped. “That wasn’t for you to hear.”
“Then don’t say it.” He chuckled. “It’s not like I listen in on purpose.”
“What? So now we have to practice not hearing each other?”
“Tomorrow. Please tomorrow. Or the next day, or next year.” Tens rubbed my arms with his palms.
“What if it goes away?” I asked.
“It’s not going to.”
The clock flipped to three a.m. but I was too jazzed to sleep. We did it. Spanked Nocti ass.
Eddie Smith died in the crash with the bunny. There were rumors of bribes, pills, and gambling, but I guessed we’d never really know why he’d agreed. Race officials vowed to have all the water damage cleaned up in time for the next race. The race results were frozen with the last yellow flag. People grumbled about it ending under caution, but it was the best-case scenario I knew.
Tens and I hadn’t yet talked about the other sidelight of our telepathy. I hadn’t told him yet—was waiting for the right time, if ever there was one to tell him—that while we were able to communicate without words, I also saw his whole life as if it were my own. The parts he didn’t want me to know—the ugly pieces of surviving and living on the streets—until he got to Revelation. I knew he’d rather those memories stayed hidden for all time. “I know about your life,” I said.
He nodded. “I know. I’ve remembered more about my mother and what happened because of you.”
I nodded and touched his cheek. “I love you. All of you.” I lifted his chin and made eye contact. “I mean it. I love you even more now, knowing everything about you. All those experiences made you who you are. Let me love you the way you love me, okay?”
He nodded. “It all came back to me too. I remember the mounds, the trip, my mother. My father. I don’t know what it all means, though.”
“We’ll figure it out together.” Because that’s what we did. “We don’t have to talk about it until you’re ready.”
“Good, because I’m very tired. But we’ll talk; we have time.” Tens kissed me lightly on the lips, shifting against me. “You’re thinking too hard.”<
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“I am not hard.” I giggled. He is. “I thought you were sleepy.”
“I am, but you smell good.”
We’d promised each other to wait until we were both ready, until there would be no regrets, no rethinks, no wishes for do-overs. “Can you read my mind now?” “I want to make love with you.”
“Are you sure?”
“More than anything.”
His touch lost the hesitation, the holdback, that I’d sensed he had difficulty maintaining. As I pushed his shirt up off his shoulders and neck, he lifted my tank top. His mouth trailed kisses down my chest until his lips locked on my nipple. I lost track of where his hands caressed, where mine explored.
I loved touching him, feeling the textures, the roughness of his body hair over dense muscle and velvety soft skin. I loved listening to him catch his breath, to his involuntary moans of pleasure. I loved the freedom he touched me with, as if he could explore me all day and never tire or grow bored.
I felt an urgency, a pull toward the unknown, beyond the line we’d drawn in the sand months ago. When he slipped on the condom and settled back on top of me, there was a moment of the unknown that scared me.
“Okay?”
I nodded. Feeling him press inside, I lifted my hips and wrapped my legs around him. After the initial discomfort, I smiled. “You’re in me. I like you inside me.”
He laughed against my lips. “Good thing, cuz I like being here.”
As we learned our rhythm, it was just us, just a girl and a boy in love. Just Meridian and Tens.
“I would have come looking for you, you know,” he whispered against my ear. “If you weren’t on that bus, or a plane, or in a cab, I would have found you.”
“I know. You’re my home.”
As we fell asleep tucked around each other, fingers entwined, sweat sticking our bodies together, I heard Custos pad into the cottage living room and take her place on the couch instead of on the bed with us. “Maybe she likes me now?”
“Nah, she’s just too tired to fight you for your side of the bed tonight,” Tens answered me.
MEMORIAL DAY
ONE YEAR LATER
Cars lined the pathways of Riverside Cemetery. I’d learned from Rumi Memorial Day in Indiana meant gathering with the departed. Around us, families dug holes to plant fresh peony plants or laid vases of cut flowers.
Row upon row of American flags marked the fallen, from the Civil War to present day. Sparkling white rectangles and crosses perched starkly against the green of the freshly sheared grass. Today there were no violets. Only red, white, and blue. Bunting swagged over monuments and mausoleums.
Peony bushes fell to the ground, their arms unable to hold up the fragrant bounty of their heads. Tulip trees offered golden cups toward the heavens. The buzz of bees, call of birds, and lazy dips of yellow swallowtail butterflies reminded us this wasn’t a place of death but of celebrating life.
We spread blankets on the earth and unpacked a picnic lunch from Shapiro’s deli. Thick, juicy Reuben sandwiches, potato and macaroni salads, veggies and chips. I opened a grape soda and leaned my back against a walnut tree. We were all accounted for: Tens, Juliet, Fara, Rumi, Tony, Argy, Gus, Nelli, Joi, and Robert. Bodie and Sema were taller with gap-toothed smiles and new interests.
Rumi recited verses from James Whitcomb Riley’s “Silent Victors” as he cleaned and tended the gravestones.
“And gild with brighter glory every tomb
We decorate to-day.”
All around us, people scrubbed headstones and laid flowers in the arms of stone angels and at the feet of lambs. Several Woodsmen and their families joined us, laying rosemary at the Fenestra and Protector graves. We loved extra attention on those of our fallen family. Kirian and Roshana were laid to rest side by side. Neither stone was changed to that of a Fenestra or Protector, though Rumi’s Spirit Stones hung from each grave marker.
Bales and Faye were also together with a spot next to Faye for Gus when the time came. Gus and Nelli talked quietly; they were no longer just uncle and niece but the living halves of couples. They planted gardens of summer flowers and scrubbed the stones, pink granite for Faye and moonstone for Bales. I didn’t know when Nelli would ever move on and let that kind of love into her life again, but the baby she held gave us all hope that Bales’s last gift would bring her a lifetime of joy.
After dessert with Juliet’s fruit tarts decorated like flags, Rumi passed out bottles of bubble juice and wands. Bodie and Sema started up a game of tag, involving a lot of squealing and fewer rules.
Auntie’s grave was marked but empty. I didn’t need to bury her to let her go. Since the race, we hadn’t seen any of our loved ones at the window. I hoped it was because we didn’t need them as we used to.
An official remembrance program with military bands and speeches started over the hill at the Gothic Chapel. We stayed nearer our loved ones but listened, leaning against each other in all the ways that mattered. I looked around the family we’d cobbled together and couldn’t help but feel as if everything worked out as it needed to. Even the horrid, painful parts served a purpose.
Juliet watched her father with shining eyes. I saw Argy sketching Roshana as he tried to explain a funny story about the first time they snuck out to see a movie called Ghost. It was their first date. Juliet confided last winter she was drawn inexplicably to water; Argy planned to take her to see the Pacific Ocean next month.
Death changes things.
Tens and I were moving forward in our studies and teaching Woodsmen what we knew about Fenestra and Protectors. I spent time each week at the hospice with Delia, having a cup of tea and greeting the newly deceased as they departed.
Rumi’s business boomed like his voice and he’d taken to selling Tens’s wood carvings, including little cars and wolf-dogs.
Word reached us last week that an elder Fenestra in Rhode Island wanted us to visit to help her transition. I finally looked ahead, not in fear but in love and life. I opened a blank book and picked up my pen,
Dear Future Fenestra,
I’m going to do things differently. While I don’t mind sounding like a fortune cookie, you won’t think I’m very useful as a guide. So I’m going to start at the beginning of my story and someday I’ll get Juliet to share hers. Just know this is possible. You can do this and we’ve got your back. Ready?
The first creatures to seek me were the insects; my parents cleaned the bassinet free of dead ants the morning after they brought me home from the hospital. My first word was “dead.”
“Supergirl, look up!” Tens yelled, and I put down my pen. Above our heads, a giant, vivid rainbow appeared, stretching from one side of the sky to the other. We stood and clustered together to get a better look. The bright sunny day left no indication as to how or why a rainbow appeared. As we watched, pink petals fluttered from the sky, covering us all. A light breeze danced them around us happily.
No trees around us were blooming. None were pink.
Rumi raised astonished eyes, and even Bodie and Sema stopped running around to stand in the swirl of petals. Faye? Auntie? I smiled and blew a kiss to heaven.
In the distance, the rainbow doubled, then tripled, each color level brighter than the last.
Faye’s Red Velvet Cake
with Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
Cake:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1-1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 oz. bittersweet chocolate, melted
2 tablespoons liquid red food coloring
2/3 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup Coco López cream of coconut (use the solids; reserve liquid for frosting)
2-1/2 cups cake flour, sifted
1/4 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon baking soda
Frosting:
2 8-oz. blocks of cream
cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup cold heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup Coco López cream of coconut liquid
Preheat the oven to 350°F and place a rack in the center of the oven. Grease two 9-inch cake pans and line with parchment paper.
Cream the butter with an electric mixer; add the sugar and beat until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla and the melted chocolate and beat well.
In a small cup mix the red food coloring with the buttermilk and the cream of coconut. Use only the solids in the cream of coconut can (they look like bacon fat) if possible, saving the liquid for the frosting.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, the cocoa powder, and the salt. Add the dry ingredients gradually to the butter mixture, alternating with the buttermilk mixture.
In a small cup mix the vinegar and the baking soda—it will fizz. Quickly fold into the batter.
Divide the batter between the prepared pans. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. The cakes will pull away from the sides of the pan, and if touched gently should spring back.
Once the cakes have completely cooled in the pans, refrigerate them for an hour or more. This makes frosting the cake easier.
For the frosting, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the vanilla and the powdered sugar and beat until smooth. Gradually add the whipping cream and the cream of coconut liquid until the frosting is thick enough to spread. It should be the consistency of sour cream. Add more sugar, about a teaspoon at a time, if needed for consistency.
To assemble the cake, spoon frosting onto the bottom layer and spread evenly. Top with the second layer and cover the top and sides of the cake with the remaining frosting. Garnish with toasted coconut flakes if desired.
Refrigerate if not serving immediately.
Acknowledgments
My health proves complicated and challenging even in the best of times, but I’m blessed to have the most compassionate old-school physician in Dr. Heidi Rendall in my corner. Dr. Jean Dydell, who was ready to do whatever it took to help last December. And Dr. Michael Towbin, who removed my appendix and gave me my life back. I owe my ability to write this book to you all.