Sweet Soul

by Tillie Cole

  Light burst through me at that tiny smile. Throwing the comforter off my legs, I quickly straightened the bed. As I turned to speak again to Elsie, she was heading for the door.

  “Please don’t leave,” I called out to her retreating back. Elsie stopped dead in her tracks. My hands clenched into fists at the frustration of what to say now. Instead I simply spoke what I wanted most. “Don’t go,” I asked softly. “Stay a while.”

  Elsie’s shoulders were tight and strained, until they dropped. She turned again, fingers fidgeting at her sides.

  Lowering myself down to sit on the bed, I said, “Talk to me a while.”

  Alarm spread on Elsie’s face and she shook her head vigorously, pressing her hand to her lips. Her wide blue eyes implored me to understand.

  “You don’t talk,” I ventured, hoping it would calm her down. She looked to the door, then back to me. I could see she was about to bolt.

  Standing up, I kept my distance, but asked, “How do you communicate with people?”

  Elsie mimed using paper and pen. Moving to my desk, I took out a fresh pad of paper and a pen, and held them out. Elsie looked to them like they were gold. Another piece of my heart broke for her at that moment.

  I didn’t speak to folk because I was crippled with shyness. I couldn’t imagine what it was like not to be able to talk.

  Elsie took the paper and pen, and dipped her head. I knew she was thanking me. I slowly moved back to my bed and sat down. I pointed at the spot beside me, feeling nervous shivers running down my spine.

  Elsie rocked on her feet, then she stepped forward, walking painstakingly slowly to where I was sitting. As she sat down beside me, clutching the paper and pen to her chest, the smell of coconuts drifted past my nose.

  “You smell nice,” I blurted, then shook my head at how stupid that sounded. Feeling my face set alight, I mumbled, “I mean your hair or whatever you used to wash with, smells nice. Of coconuts or whatever…” I trailed off and ran a hand down my face. “Sorry,” I said without looking up. “I’m not real good with talking to girls. To anyone.”

  I kept my focus down as silence followed. Then to my shock, a warm hand covered my hand. My eyes snapped up in time to witness Elsie’s mouth curling up into a smile. The smile was like a hammer blow to my stomach.

  Elsie released her hand to write on the paper. As she wrote, the tip of her tongue rested on her upper lip in concentration. I didn’t know why, but I thought it was the cutest thing I’d ever seen in my life.

  Elsie lowered the pen, then turned the paper for me to read. My eyes scanned the perfect cursive words. “I’m not good with talking either.”

  Relief ran through me, and I met Elsie’s eyes. “We’re similar.” Elsie fixed her focus on the rosary beads still in my hands and began writing again.

  I waited to see what she would say. She eventually turned the page for me to view. “I’m sorry for taking your wallet. I didn’t know the beads were in there, or the picture. I would never have taken them if I’d known. I had seen you drive in to the college in a nice car and thought you would have cash.” She took the pad back, scribbled something else down, and showed it to me. “I discarded your wallet when it had no cash, but I kept hold of the rosary. Something made me keep it safe.” I went to speak when she held up her hand and wrote something else. This time her expression turned to embarrassment and she wrote, “I don’t deserve all you have done for me.”

  Elsie was still staring at the page. Placing my hand over her writing, I forced her to look up. “Yeah, I kinda think you do.”

  Elsie blinked and her blue eyes grew glossy. Pain sliced through my stomach at seeing her so vulnerable. I wasn’t good with words, wasn’t good with comforting people.

  Changing the subject, I asked, “You couldn’t sleep tonight?”

  Elsie shrugged, but I could see there was something more from the expression on her face. My finger traced the textured pattern on the comforter and I prompted, “Why?”

  Elsie hesitated to write on the paper, but eventually she did. I waited, drinking in the scent of her newly-washed hair. It was so light and long. Her skin was bright and she looked good. Real good.

  My admiration was interrupted when Elsie turned the paper for me to read. As I read her words, sadness filled my heart. “I don’t like the dark. I hate silence. I woke up and the room was too dark, too unfamiliar and too quiet… I was afraid. Bad thoughts come into my head at night, when there’s no light.”

  I briefly closed my eyes, and nodded my head. “Yeah,” I rasped. “I used to feel like that when we moved in this place too.” I motioned around the pool house. “I wasn’t brought up in anything like this. We were poor back in Bama, real poor. And we lived in a real bad area. I hated the dark because where I’m from bad things happened in the dark.”

  As I finished speaking, my eyebrows pulled down in surprise. I’d never told anyone that much about my past. Ever.

  When I looked at Elsie, I could see the confusion and surprise etched on her face. I shrugged, feeling my cheeks flush. “All this, this house. It’s Austin’s, my brother’s. He plays for the Seahawks. He saved us.”

  Elsie’s face was almost comical when I told her who Austin played for. Hating that what I had said made her uncomfortable, an idea came to my head.

  Jumping to my feet, I nervously walked to my desk. Seeing the mason jar that held my pens, I tipped it upside down and turned back to Elsie. “When I grew up in Bama, and we had no money to pay for electricity, my mamma used to have a trick to light the trailer.” I laughed thinking of those old memories and shook my head. “Now, we’re in Seattle, so things aren’t quite the same as being back in Tuscaloosa.” I glanced to Elsie and I huffed a quiet laugh at seeing her head tipped to the side and her pretty face wearing a mask of confusion.

  “Come with me?” I asked, trying my best to keep the shaking from my voice.

  Elsie paused for a minute, but then timidly got to her feet. I towered over her small frame.

  On a deep breath, I moved to the door. Hearing the wind pick up outside I stopped, and looked behind me. Elsie was following and she stopped too on seeing my hard stare. I looked at her thin pajamas and chastised myself about the fact she was still sick.

  Elsie’s expression questioned what I was doing. I held up my hand and moved to the closet. I pulled out one of my Huskies football hoodies, and walked to where she stood. Elsie flicked her timid eyes in my direction, and I handed the hoodie to her. “You best put this on, it’s pretty cold outside.”

  I took the paper and pen from Elsie and she slipped on the sweatshirt. When she flicked her long golden hair from the hood, I couldn’t help but smile at how low the sweatshirt hung on her body; how big it was compared to her small height. It drowned her.

  Clearing my throat, I tore my eyes away and made to move from the door, when I saw Elsie tucking her nose into the collar of the hoodie and inhaled. Embarrassed that it hadn’t been washed since I’d worn it for class a few days ago, I said, “If it ain’t clean I can get you another one.”

  Elsie paused, then tucking her arms around her waist, she gently shook her head. Her cheeks reddened and she dipped her eyes. At first I was confused at why she was embarrassed, but as she lifted the collar of my hoodie to her nose once again, this time, it was my turn to redden. She liked that my smell was on it.

  My feet carried me right to where she was standing. Elsie dropped her arms as I came closer. My heart was pounding, my palms sweating but, through force of will, I lifted my hands up and gently pulled the hoodie’s ties tighter to her neck. Elsie’s blue eyes were bright and wide, and I found myself whispering, “It’s cold outside, you need to stay warm.”

  Elsie smiled and nodded her head. Lowering my hands, I clutched the jar to my chest and told her, “We’re just going across to the yard. Lexi has a craft shed out there.”

  I saw Elsie’s head move back as if she was questioning what we were doing. I ran my hand through my hair and flicked my head in the d
irection of the door. “Come on, I’ll explain when we’re there.”

  Turning, I walked out of the door, holding it open for Elsie to slip through. As soon as we stepped outside, a powerful rush of wind wrapped around us. Elsie laughed as the blast of wind blew through her hair. I stilled. I just had to pause just for one minute. She’d laughed. Elsie had laughed. She’d made a sound. It was a light soft sound, a sound just as pretty as she was.

  As if realizing this too late, Elsie stopped laughing and her expression filled with sudden fear. I had no idea why she wouldn’t or couldn’t speak, but I could see that it worried her that I’d heard her soft laugh.

  There was no reason she should have been embarrassed in front of me. I heard Elsie inhale deeply as I pointed toward the shed on the other side of the yard.

  I opened the door, and switched on the light as soon as we were through. The wind slapped against the glass windows as I moved to the table in the center of the room. I placed the jar on top, and turned to see Elsie’s mouth slightly open as she admired the inside of the shed. ‘Shed’ wasn’t exactly the ideal word to describe this place. It was huge, a place where Lexi came to relax, a place where she brought Dante to play.

  Elsie walked to the shelves which were filled with every material and craft item you could think of. She ran a hand lightly over the fabrics hanging on their rolls.

  “Crazy, hey?” I said, pointing around the room when Elsie looked my way.

  Elsie shrugged, then laid her hand over her heart. I studied the movement trying to understand what it meant, when she smiled and pointed at embroidered pictures hanging on a wall.

  She liked the room. That was what she was trying to say.

  Leaving her to explore, I took out what I needed and sat down on one of the wooden chairs at the round table in the center. As Elsie moved past the final shelf, she came over to where I was sitting and, hesitantly, stood by my side. Pulling out another wooden chair, I motioned for her to sit down.

  Tucking a fallen piece of hair behind her ear, Elsie sat down and I watched with amusement as she studied what I’d laid out. Suddenly feeling pathetic, I shifted on my seat and admitted, “This is probably a real dumb idea.” I ran my hand down my face, just to do something with my hands, and said, “Lexi did it for Dante’s—my baby nephew’s—room a while back. It came to mind when you wrote about not liking the dark.” The more I looked at the damn jar and ribbon lying on the table, the more I was convinced this was a stupid idea.

  Deciding to cut my losses, I shook my head and got to my feet. Elsie jumped as I did so and stared up at me, her doe eyes filled with questions. Rocking on my feet, I explained, “It’s a stupid idea, Elsie. Don’t know what I was thinking.”

  Elsie’s attention moved back to the table. I stayed rooted to the spot, my chest heaving in embarrassment, when Elsie blinked up at me again, her long lashes shadowing on her cheeks. How she looked in this moment bowled me over. Heat shot up my spine and I knew I’d remember that look for the rest of my life. If I could have captured her face in a photograph, glancing up at me like this, I’d be hanging it on my wall to stare at every night.

  Dancing from foot to foot, needing to leave and forget my stupidity, I was about to walk toward the door, when I felt trembling fingers reach out to grip onto my arm. She tugged softly. I inhaled long and deep when I saw her pink lips mouth, “Please.”

  Seeing this silent word grace her lips had me lowering myself back down on the small wooden seat by her side. Elsie smiled at me, then removed her hand. She pulled the too-long sleeves of my hoodie down to the middle of her palms and pointed to the jar.

  She nodded her head in the direction of the clear glass jar and placed her hand over her heart. Taking another deep breath, though still feeling foolish, I explained why I’d brought her here.

  Taking the jar in my hand, I moved it closer to us and asked, “You ever been to Alabama, Elsie?”

  Elsie shook her head, but didn’t lose her concentration on the jar. “Well, in Bama it gets real hot.” I laughed a single laugh at the memory of the intense humidity. “I grew up in Bama, Elsie, in Tuscaloosa. We moved away when I was fifteen, five years ago now. Up until then, Bama was all I knew.” I lost focus on the jar, my eyes blurring at the memory of my childhood. I could feel Elsie’s eyes on me.

  Coughing, I continued. “Anyway, like I said before, we didn’t grow up with all this.” I gestured to the room, and the house—everything. “We lived in a trailer in a real bad part of town.” My voice deepened, growing graveled. “There was me and my two brothers, Austin and Axel… and my mamma.” I swallowed down the lump building in my throat. As if sensing I needed the support just to think of my mamma, Elsie’s hand hovered above mine. My breathing paused as I waited expectantly for what she would do. Then as controlled as she could, Elsie lay her hand on my arm, squeezing it just a fraction.

  I wanted to lift my eyes to meet hers, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t sure I could cope with looking away from her hand. Strengthened by her touch, I spoke again. “I never knew my pop; he’d gone before I was old enough to remember him. But my mamma... my mamma was the best.” My lip hooked in a smirk. I surprised myself that I’d smiled remembering something good about my mamma, not how she was at the end.

  “Like I said before, we couldn’t often afford electricity, so she would take us out to the woods near our trailer park,” I held the jar in the air, “and she’d fill the jar with lightning bugs.” I laughed and shook my head. “We’d fill as many jars as we could carry and put them all around our house. The bugs lived where we lived, so we had no problem catching them and keeping them for our light.”

  My vision blurred on the jar as I became lost in the memory. It was like I could almost see those lit up bugs in my hand, as if I was stood in my old tiny room. “I hated the dark too. The stuff that happened outside our trailer wasn’t what a kid should see, so I needed light to sleep. And my mamma, she lit up the house like a Christmas tree with those jars.”

  Shaking my head to release me from the memory, I felt my cheeks heat up with divulging so much. The jar was tight in my hand, and when I risked a glance to the side, Elsie’s eyes were glossy with unshed tears, and her small hand gripped tightly onto the locket around her neck.

  My chest tightened at seeing her response, but as she squeezed my arm again, I knew she was asking me to keep going. Getting myself together, I placed the jar in front of where she sat.

  Elsie watched me like she was hanging on my every word.

  “Here in Seattle, we don’t get no lightning bugs, but Lexi wanted Dante to have those same Bama lightning bug jars in his room. I don’t know where she got the idea from, but she made him these because she couldn’t get the real thing.” I shrugged. “She made me help her. And I don’t know…” I sucked in the corner of my lip, before releasing it. “You made me think of this, when you said you don’t like sleeping in the dark.”

  Moving her hand off mine, Elsie took the pad of paper from the pocket of the hoodie and set to writing a note. I read it. “Show me.”

  “It’s kinda stupid and childish,” I said, real embarrassment ripping through me.

  Elsie scribbled on her pad again. “I don’t care,” she wrote. I could see by the bright expression on her pretty face that she really didn’t.

  I couldn’t believe it was well past midnight, and I was in Lexi’s craft room making fake firefly jars.

  Feeling Elsie’s rapt attention, I picked up the jar and placed it down before me. Taking a glow stick that I’d borrowed from a drawer in Lexi’s desk, I cracked it, activating the neon liquid inside. I cut the stick in half with scissors and dropped them into the jar. Shutting the lid, I shook the jar until all the liquid had sprayed on the sides. I took out the empty plastic tube, re-shut the lid, then tied the ribbon around the top.

  Laying the finished jar on the table, I sat back and announced, “It’s done.”

  Elsie’s hand reached forward and she picked up the jar. Her forehead was creased, cle
arly trying to work out what I’d just done, then she looked at me with raised brows. Getting up from the chair, I walked to the light switch. I immediately saw panic on Elsie’s face, but I asked, “Trust me.” Every part of Elsie was still, but when her shoulders relaxed, she nodded her head.

  I flicked off the light, and as soon as I did, I heard Elsie gasp. The jar, the glass jar in her hand, was beaming yellow neon light, its bright glow lit up the room.

  I walked back to the table, and apologized. “It ain’t as good as the real thing, ain’t no lightning bugs buzzing about for you to watch, but it’s good enough for here and now. To be your light.”

  I wasn’t sure if Elsie heard me, because her eyes never strayed from the jar. As the minutes passed in silence, I was worried her new hearing aid might not be working. But when her head finally turned to me, a huge smile was on her face, a huge blinding smile that knocked the breath right out of my lungs, I knew she’d heard me just fine.

  Her fingers traced the splashes of glowing fluid on the inside of the jar, then she tapped her hand to her chin and lowered her hand. She’d signed something to me.

  My eyes fixed on her lips, she dipped her eyes and mouthed, “Thank you.”

  Chapter Seven

  Elsie

  The jar was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen, but what this boy had done for me, what Levi Carillo had taken time to make me, was the prettiest thing of all.

  He’d cared enough to bring me to this shed and make me this light, so I wouldn’t be scared. So I wouldn’t be afraid of the dark. He wouldn’t understand, but nobody, nobody, had done anything like this for me in years.

  At this moment I was glad I didn’t talk to people. The clogging of my throat meant I wouldn’t get out the words even if I did. So I’d ‘spoken’ using the few pieces of sign language I thought he’d understand. He deserved my thank you in its purest, sincerest form.