Pieces of Hope

by Carter, Carolyn

  “Two, please,” she announced when we stood before the window.

  “One for you,” Mac said, handing a coin to Creesie. “And one for the cutie beside you.” He passed another to me. I felt my face go hot, wondering if I was really all that in this non-living realm, or if it was the classic case of the new—almost dead—girl in town. Then again, it might have been my wild blueberry scent creating such a stir.

  I sniffed the air. Nope. Still nothing.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as Creesie pulled me through the glass.

  “I’m going to the hospital and you’re going to see Ethan.”

  “What’s the rush? I just got back.” I looked to the front of the Station, beyond the many benches, past the hordes of travelers, where the picture windows granted me a clear view of the main street. The light hadn’t altered. The horizon still shimmered in the same sunset or sunrise hues that it always had. “It can’t be nighttime again already, can it?”

  Creesie pointed toward the café, and the face of the timeless clock appeared in my mind. Its message was disturbingly clear. It’s later than you think.

  “Time flies,” Creesie reminded me with a tilt of her head. “Especially here.”

  Several people stood in line in front of us. Snippets of Spanish and French floated past me like so many bits of alphabet soup, but I wasn’t paying attention. Butterflies—the enormous kind, found only on the Sci-Fi channel—were throttling in my stomach. As the adrenaline coursed through me, I sensed that my jitters had little to do with traveling, and a lot to do with who I was traveling to see.

  Creesie started adjusting my shirt, trying to smooth it, it seemed. Then she moved on to my messy head of hair. But making sense of either of them was a lost cause. As she continued to fuss, I asked, “What are you trying to do?”

  Creesie made a face. “Don’t you have something nicer to wear? I have it on good authority that Ethan’s taking you somewhere special.”

  “How can you possibly know that?” The line moved, and we proceeded ahead one step. “I mean, it hasn’t happened yet, and Ethan’s dreaming—”

  “Oh, didn’t I mention it before?” She looked at me with genuine surprise. I could only imagine what was coming next, what other secrets she had conveniently forgotten to mention. “Time isn’t a consideration here.”

  I was almost afraid to ask. “What the heck does that mean?”

  “If there’s no such thing as time . . .” she said, speaking so slowly that it led me to believe she thought I was incapable of understanding English, “that means there’s no end and no beginning . . . no past, present or future. It’s all happening in the present. Because of that, we can see the future here.” I closed my mouth as it fell open once again. If this kept up much longer, I’d have to hunt down some duct tape soon.

  “You can see the future, and yet somehow you failed to mention it? That’s kind of important, don’t you think?” It came out as more of a shout than a question, and I got the feeling that several heads had turned in our direction, but I was too busy glaring to check. I was thinking about Ethan and our last visit. Couldn’t Creesie have told me that no harm would come to him? Ease my worries? I could have overtaxed my heart. Killed myself!

  Creesie shrugged. “The future, as we see it, is more liquid than solid. The living, frequently—more frequently than I’d care to mention—have the tendency to change their minds. Some events are fairly certain, like this trip, for instance . . . but you needed to be cautioned about Ethan’s fragile state either way.”

  I was still huffy, but she’d made her point. “And just where are we going, Miss Know-It-All?”

  Her round eyes went wide, and she giggled. “Oh, no, Hope . . . you’re not getting that out of me. This is Ethan’s surprise.” We were only three people away from boarding the bus when Creesie abruptly suggested, “Picture yourself in something pretty. Maybe a dress. Make it summery.”

  I grimaced. A dress? Though I didn’t have any, Claire had several swirly ones. I pictured one of them, spaghetti-strapped and knee-length. Like most of the clothes in her closet, I’d seen her in it only once or twice.

  “Yes, much better.” Creesie looked pleased.

  When I looked down, I was shocked to see that I was wearing the same dress I’d just imagined in my head.

  “But let’s try it in orange. I think it would be perfect with your olive skin.” As she spoke, I watched my dress darken from pale blue to deep coral. Her eyes narrowed as she studied the rest of me. “I’d love to see your hair pulled back, show off the delicate bones in your face.” The second the words left her mouth, I felt my hair lift, as though a pair of invisible hands had smoothed it into a low, side ponytail. Then Creesie eyed my feet.

  Please . . . no, not my red sneakers, I begged.

  “Those won’t do,” she muttered. Before I could protest, in place of them, a pair of flat, strappy sandals appeared on my feet. Pausing to admire her handiwork, she clapped her hands, her voice giddy, “Heavens to Betsy, you look lovely! What do you think?”

  I grinned in spite of myself. “I think someone’s been double-dipping into the fairy dust.”

  Creesie gave me such an exuberant hug that it was difficult to breathe. When air entered my lungs again, she said, “It might get chilly. Take this.” From out of nowhere, she handed me a bright yellow sweater, mom’s favorite color. I rubbed the sunny fabric against my cheek.

  “Thanks,” I murmured. As vain as it sounded, I wished secretly for a mirror so that I could see myself. Did I look like I belonged here? Like one of them?

  We walked up the steps of the bus, Creesie right behind me. She lifted the sweater from my arm, tossed it around my shoulders. As I looked back, I saw her beaming at me like a modern-day fairy godmother.

  “Be back before midnight,” she laughed mockingly. “Or else . . .”

  8 Dream Date

  The world went briefly black, then immediately brightened to every conceivable shade of green. What an amazing way to travel! It could really catch on with the living. No waiting, no downtime, no traffic. The biggest negative lay in not knowing where you might land. This trip was better in some ways, worse in others. At least I hadn’t dropped behind the wheel of a speeding vehicle. That was good. But the bad?

  Ethan was nowhere in sight.

  I stood alone in a small clearing where tall grasses undulated like gentle waves on the sea. It was warm in the sun, a beautiful summer’s day, so I peeled off my sweater and tied it about my waist. All around me, giant beanpoles of trees sprung up like adolescent weeds, and I heard water rushing in the distance. I closed my eyes for a moment to focus on the sound of his voice, and that’s when something tugged at me.

  I recognized it as that same invisible force I felt whenever he was near. Eagerly, I let it lead me beyond the swaying field, toward the sounds of rippling water. No sooner had I cleared a narrow stand of trees than I froze mid-step, a gasp catching in my throat.

  At first sight, he was standing in a rocky stream, casting a line, his shirt carelessly unbuttoned, and wearing knee-high waders with low-slung jeans that showed off several inches of untanned skin. His stomach was a hardened series of ripples, his chest a mound of perfectly carved flesh. Michelangelo himself would have been humbled at the sight of such a glorious creation. But, like an angel seized from heaven, the thing that made my heart swell was the way he shone in the sunshine. There, in the outline of his body, in the empty space around him—a thin band of light glowed, pale violet in color.

  There was no way to take him in a single look. I needed several pairs of eyes so that I could be everywhere at once, capture him from every angle. I struggled to recall our first visit. Had I overlooked this? Or had it simply taken me longer to see the essence of his soul? If I were right, if this were his truest self, then Ethan must have danced among the divine.

  Unintentionally, I stepped forward and a twig snapped in protest. He saw me then. I stood at least fifty feet away, but even at that distance, his
eyes held me captive. Normally an intense shade of golden green, they now seemed more liquid than solid—two glistening pools of unimaginable depth.

  “Hope?” Happiness and confusion spilled out of him at once.

  I waved in response and walked closer, his beauty consuming me like sunshine devouring the morning fog.

  Still confused, he said, “I was just thinking about you. How did you . . .?”

  “I’ve been following you,” I said at last. My heart was pounding so loudly I thought I might be whispering.

  “A dream stalker?” He laughed. The sound seemed to fill the vast space, glorious and pleasant. “Must be my lucky day.”

  Ethan stepped from the stream, rest his fly rod on the ground, and walked toward me. Before common sense kicked in, I thought about running to him. It took every bit of restraint I possessed not to do it. Crazy as it sounded, all I wanted was to throw my arms around him and feel his arms around me. The strength of my delusion was so powerful it seemed as if he were a missing piece of me—as if my life depended upon his strength. Maybe it did have something to do with our lifetime before, but I couldn’t deny how right it felt. It was as if all my life I’d been waiting for this single moment in time.

  He was still smiling when I reached him. I beamed a smile back.

  “Look at you,” he said, his voice trailing off into tones of admiration. “I wouldn’t have pegged you as a girl who likes dresses, but I’m loving the surprise.”

  Ethan was looking at me like I was the most incredible thing he’d ever seen—not something I was accustomed to—and it made the air stick in my throat. Funny the things I used to take for granted . . . like breathing in and out.

  “A friend suggested it,” I mumbled. As my heart pounded, I dropped my gaze and stared straight into his rock-hard chest, which only made it worse. Quickly, I looked off to the stream.

  “It’s a good look for you.” He smoothed a stray lock of hair that had escaped my ponytail. “But then, I suspect anything is.”

  I swallowed. It was different standing this close to him. No hospital bed between us. No third-party buffers. It was like he was sucking the air right out of my lungs. To be the center of Ethan’s attention was a life-altering experience.

  “By the way, I got your message,” he said. I looked up to see a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He sat down on a patch of grass near the riverbank, removing his waders, and buttoning his shirt in the process.

  I stared at him blankly.

  “Amora,” he prompted. “In case you haven’t heard, I sent mine back.”

  Again, I forced air into my lungs. Being without a body wasn’t as breezy as I had imagined, especially with Ethan around. And he was kidding, wasn’t he? When I left the hospital, I asked Amora to give him my love. I tried to picture his face as she told him—a message from the beyond passed along as innocently as love notes in grade school. He must have thought it a joke. How could that ill little girl have a message from me? I took a second look at that lopsided smile. Or was it a smirk? And quickly decided.

  He was teasing. Obviously.

  “I was just joking,” I said. But the delusional part of me wasn’t so sure.

  “Oh?” he said, his expression unchanged. “I was hoping you weren’t.” I couldn’t tell if he was being serious, but I felt the shock of it register on my face.

  Pulling a shirt from his backpack, Ethan stretched it out beside him, then helped me take a seat. We said nothing for a while, just watched the tiny minnows as they played hide-and-seek in the river’s rocky shallows. His right hand was holding mine a little too tightly, and I suspected he was equally as afraid of me disappearing as I was of him doing the same. Somehow the holding on eased both our fears.

  Still holding my hand, Ethan skipped several smooth rocks across the water. With my heart pounding, I blurted out, “The nerves, uh . . . I assume it’s because you think you know me.”

  “I don’t think it,” he corrected, skipping another rock left-handed. “I know it. And how exactly did you come by this information?” he asked, not at all serious.

  I looked over, marveling at the pale shade of violet around him, trying to be as natural as possible. “I was listening at the hospital when you explained it to me, standing right beside the bed, as a matter of fact.” I sounded fairly composed, given the circumstances —heavenly being and all beside me.

  “Is that so?” Ethan smiled, directed his eyes on mine. “Well, that’s one crazy fact. You know, when I wake up, I’ll probably try to rationalize all of this, chalk it up to a wild imagination, all because I’ve wanted to talk to you, like this . . . face to face, ever since I first saw you.”

  The force of his unblinking gaze made my palms sweaty, or maybe I wasn’t used to someone saying things with such directness. It took a moment to arrange my thoughts, assemble them again in straight lines. I glanced down at our entwined hands, then looked back bravely into his eyes.

  “Please don’t wish me away, Ethan. I’m real, and I can prove it.”

  “Go on,” he said, not hiding his skepticism. “I’m listening.”

  “Well, for one, I know you recently had another dream about me. Brody was in it and we all went climbing. I’ll bet when you woke up you wondered if it had really been a dream. Did you notice how it stayed with you? How you couldn’t get it out of your head? And, unlike other dreams, this one didn’t jump around—it made perfect sense, like it was really happening.” Ethan cocked a single eyebrow, and I emphasized, “That’s because it was really happening.”

  “Sorry, doesn’t prove a thing. If it’s all in my head I could be telling myself to say that.” He looked almost disappointed. But there was amusement in his tone when he said, “You can do better than that. Come on, convince me.”

  I grabbed his hand and pressed it to my heart; it was warm against my skin. “You hear that, don’t you?” I was shocked at my courage, but I was paranoid that he might turn me into nothing—a ghost, a delusion, a wild figment of his imagination. Eighty times the charm! I sprang up and pulled him with me, throwing my arms wide, and twirling around in the sunshine. “You see the colors, don’t you? How vivid they are? This is more than a dream, Ethan. I’m really, really here!”

  He seemed both intrigued and bewildered by my display. I waited several seconds for him to say something. When a smile touched his lips, I felt my heart drop.

  “Hope Valenti . . .” he said softly, his hand cupping the side of my face. “You have the strangest little mind.”

  They were the same words he’d spoken at Heaven’s Peak. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? Maybe he couldn’t get me out of his head. Maybe he almost believed me now when I’d told him this was real. His emerald eyes flicked toward the trees, and then back again, and I saw excitement alight in them.

  “If this is truly my reality”—he grinned as he said it—“I have a surprise for you.” He lifted my hand, turned it over, and kissed my palm. “It’s a little out of the ordinary, but I believe you of all people can appreciate it. You trust me, don’t you?”

  It was an odd question, but I was slightly dazed. Where he held my hand, his pale violet glow enveloped me. Immersed in Ethan, I felt a little off-kilter.

  I was still spinning when he reached inside his backpack, removed a red bandana and rolled it into a narrow band. My ears perked up when he said, “I would carry you, but your senses are a part of the experience.” He looked into my eager eyes. “Ready?”

  I nodded dreamily.

  “Well, turn around . . . I can’t put the blindfold on from—”

  “Whoa!” I yelled, stepping away, my head disturbingly clear. “I’m not into the kinky stuff!”

  Ethan laughed so hard that I almost laughed with him. “It’s nothing like that,” he assured me. “Just part of the surprise. Besides,” he added, his eyes teasing, “you trust me. Remember?”

  “Famous last words of the innocent,” I mumbled, and Ethan laughed again.

  I turned slowly, obediently,
as he slipped the fabric around my eyes, making sure it wasn’t too tight, talking to me as he did so. His silky voice was in my ear, one and then the other. I stood rigid, my nerves on edge. Part of my jumpiness had to be coming from Ethan, I reasoned; I had to be feeling his emotions as well. These couldn’t be only mine, could they?

  In the distance, I heard a faint voice, almost as if someone had called to me. When I tilted my head, Ethan’s lips accidentally brushed against my ear, sending my heart into arrhythmia. Then, just as he’d done in the Jeep right before he disappeared—as if it were second nature to him—he ran the back of his hand gently along my cheek.

  “It’s going to be fun. I promise.” He sounded so normal, quite unlike how I felt.

  “Sure . . . when I blindfold you on our African safari, and you hear hungry rhinos snorting in the distance, I’ll remind you that you said that.”

  “Hungry rhinos?” I heard his low laugh beside me. “Did anyone ever tell you that you think too much? Just let your senses take over.” He took my left hand in his, wrapped his right arm around me, and together we walked to our unknown destination.

  It was difficult to pay attention to anything else with his chiseled body pressed up against mine, but eventually I relaxed enough to follow his suggestion. At first, I felt the skinny blades of grass as they brushed against my ankles, but soon they disappeared, the ground growing rocky and uneven. As we approached a steep incline, Ethan gripped me tighter, briefly causing me to forget what I was doing. Though the ground never leveled, the air smelled sweet and musty up here, like wildflowers and wetness. The whisper of a mist drifted down upon my skin, and there was a pleasant roaring, a pounding in my ears. It seemed to echo off the space around us. We had to be nearly on top of it, a waterfall, I guessed.