Pieces of Hope

by Carter, Carolyn

  Beside her, Charlotte was holding her smile tight. Despite her promise not to listen in, she whispered, “It’s really not as bad as you made it sound.”

  I stared at my feet, shaking my head. “I have no right to put you through this.”

  “Nonsense!” Creesie chastised, then softened her tone. “We want to help. That’s the only reason any of us are still here.”

  It seemed that everyone was waiting on a decision from me—Ethan, Daniel, Mom and Dad, Gigi, Claire, and Brody. I suddenly felt spineless, certain that jellyfish had more of a backbone than I had at the present moment.

  And now, more people were waiting on me—Rin and Charlotte, Gus and Creesie, Cat and Mac, hanging around the Station for what?—a temporary visitor from the living realm? None of it made any sense.

  I looked at Mac and Cat, standing side by side across from me. They seemed quite familiar with one another. Despite their age and height difference, they seemed fond of one another. And, had I imagined their fingertips touching?

  I knew they’d heard me because Cat took a sudden, tiny step sideways.

  Excusing their closeness by the fact that they both worked at the Station, I asked,

  “What about your jobs? Who’ll fill your shoes if you don’t . . . that is to say, if you don’t return quickly?”

  “Things at the Station aren’t always what they seem, doll,” Mac said with a wink, and Cat sent him a sideways look. It didn’t dampen his spirits. His gap-toothed grin never left his face. “You see, we made a promise to—”

  “To protect all visitors,” Cat hissed in his direction. And, of course”—she pointed at me (the blueberry-scented living-dead girl)—“you’re one of them . . .”

  I knew there was something she wasn’t saying, but dead people had a bad habit of keeping me in the dark. And I’d been around them long enough to know I wasn’t about to get a straight answer out of any of them no matter how much I persisted.

  Still, I decided to try. “Clearly, you have my best interests at heart, and I’m very grateful for that. But for my own protection, and I hope, for yours as well, I’d like you to tell me more about this, this soul-sucking thing that Rin and Charlotte alluded to.”

  I could suddenly hear their breathing—too fast. More likely than not, they weren’t frightened (as I was) but were merely taking on my emotions. Though I tried not to think of it, I couldn’t help but wonder—if I screwed up—how painful and permanent the result might be.

  “Nothing is going to happen to you.” Creesie cupped my chin, putting me in mind of my mother. “You might be surprised at who you have on your side.”

  “Never judge a book by its cover,” Charlotte added brightly, as if this trite cliché could solve all our problems. But since they were apt to take things so literally, I voiced a dry thought.

  “If it were a really big book,” I said, alluding to our lack of muscle, “and not half a dozen puny ones, I could at least smack someone over the head with it. How unfair is it to not be given something more substantial to work with?”

  Charlotte was the first to giggle, a happy little-girl sound that infected the entire group. I couldn’t stop myself from joining them. The situation was beyond ludicrous.

  Hearing several of my unasked questions, Creesie sighed. “Come along. We can explain more along the way.”

  Cat led us to an inconspicuous corner of the Station, just a few hundred feet to our right. The travelers had no need to venture here. There were no benches near it, no places to sit and talk privately. In fact, there was so little to see that, at first, I hadn’t the faintest idea why we had stopped here.

  Everyone stared resolutely into the corner, into the vast amount of unbroken wall space as if something else was there—something other than the obviously plain yellow wall. For an immeasurable span of time, no one moved. No one even blinked. Initially, I cast a few furtive glances at the group, trying to assess what we were doing, but everyone kept concentrating on the wall before us. I was staring at it with such focus that my vision began to blur, and at the precise instant that I was ready to throw my hands in the air and ask what we were doing, something altered.

  Dim figures began to appear in the plain-looking wall—rather muted and fuzzy at first, then slowly becoming sharper—as if an unseen hand were delicately carving them as we watched. As the details became crisper, the wall gradually darkened from yellow to a rich mahogany. It wasn’t paint. I could see that. It was . . . it was aging. Seconds later, I recognized the intricately carved figures as the same ones from the ancient elevator doors in Amora’s room. Two massive panels met at the corner of the wall and went all the way to the ceiling. They had to be seventy-five feet high, and just as wide, and those detailed carvings covered every inch of them.

  “The history of mankind,” Creesie said to my stunned expression. She pointed out a few. “There’s the Hunas, the Romans, and over there is a Minoan bull leaper . . .”

  I studied them closely as her finger jumped around. The tiny figures, marching in straight rows end to end, were like tiny works of art. “They look so happy,” I said, unable to look away.

  “Yes, they do . . . here,” she added. Before I could ask anything further, she strode straight through the panels. The rest of us followed. Beyond the panels was an oblong waiting room with an elevator at the end. Its doors were as tall as the panels we had just passed through, but only as wide as a standard elevator. The space was pleasant enough, and bright, almost blindingly so—though I didn’t see any lights—and there was a soothing melody playing quietly in the background.

  Getting here had seemed to take more than the usual effort, but Creesie explained it away with a casual shrug. “Safety feature. Travel between the Stations is generally not encouraged.”

  “Emergencies only,” Rin added in a hushed voice.

  It gave me great relief knowing that this qualified as an actual emergency. To avoid wondering who deemed them as such, I focused on searching for an elevator button, but once again, there wasn’t one.

  “Shall we?” Gus extended his arm and I took it. We were the last to tug through the thick doors, just behind Creesie.

  The elevator’s interior was different from the one in Amora’s room. This one was much taller, the walls stretching up several stories, and with a golden ceiling that created the illusion that it was open to the sun. Polished marble in the whitest white ran beneath our feet and up the walls—one seamless expanse of stone that was cool to the touch—flawless, like everything else at the Station. A golden polished handrail, reflecting our images, finished off the exquisite details.

  Before us, the ancient elevator doors displayed those happily-ever-after faces, and with a sinking heart, I recalled our doomed mission. It was so hopeless. What was the point? There was no way we were ever going to get Daniel back.

  “This is the most direct route,” Gus explained in his soft German accent, though I hadn’t asked my question aloud. “She’s built for speed. You might want to hang on.” His eyes fell on the glowing handrail, but I declined. There was no time like the present to get the hang of this nonhuman form. I needed all the practice I could get. “Don’t worry your little heart,” he added kindly. “We’re going to save Daniel.”

  With my voice shaking, I told a difficult lie. “I believe you.” But in reality, I didn’t believe we stood a snowball’s chance in hell. And given all that they had told me, we were the proverbial snowballs headed straight there.

  Mac squeezed my other arm, gave me a lopsided grin. “No, doll, it isn’t anywhere close. And hell is much, much worse . . . and hotter, or so I’ve heard.”

  I was really starting to despise this mind-reading thing, but obscuring my thoughts was virtually impossible. Breathe, Hope, Charlotte encouraged from somewhere behind me. Think only of Daniel . . .”

  Instantly, I got a clear image in my mind. It was the first time I had laid eyes on him our freshman year. He was leaning casually against his locker as though he hadn’t anything to do o
r anywhere else to be. That smug look on his face led you to think he knew something the rest of us never would, some secret that elevated him several notches above the rest of us mere mortals. Something in his gray-blue eyes whispered . . .

  I know who you are.

  The elevator dinged like someone had just pressed the button to a floor. I heard a whirring as the elevator lifted just a little, and then it suddenly zipped backwards. My body lurched forward, but Mac flung a stabilizing arm around me. As he lent a reassuring wink from under his oversized cap, I could feel love flowing out of him and into me. For some reason, I found it strangely comforting.

  The sunny elevator quickly darkened as if the sun had slipped behind a cloud. In the dull grayness, what appeared to be mold or filth began growing up the pristine walls. Cracks surfaced on the floor. As I stood there petrified, anguish—or what felt more like desperation, and a desire to get OUT—filled me up, threatening to implode my insides. Mac squeezed my side, willing me to breathe.

  I forced in a ragged breath, focusing on the carved doors before me. They too had altered greatly. The once uplifting figures now bore cheerless expressions, their formerly upright posture hunched and distorted. It seemed every ounce of hope had been wrenched from their bodies.

  The once pleasant whirring sound was now an obnoxious, nauseating grating of metal on metal, as if the elevator itself were breaking apart somewhere over our heads. And a horrid smell, like that of rotting flesh, filled the air. I pinched my nose, breathed through my mouth, and continued to focus, though with great difficulty, on Daniel’s face.

  After what felt like an eternity, Creesie announced loudly behind me, “Hold on!” The putrid smell was burning my eyes. “We’re getting ready to stop!”

  The elevator screeched to an instant halt, tossing me backwards. Mac grabbed the front of my shirt, preventing me from crashing into Cat. To my left, Gus pointed kindly at the handrail. Next time, I told him. And as he heard me, he nodded.

  “Thanks, Mac,” I heaved, catching my breath. “I guess you could say I don’t have my sea legs yet . . . or some such thing.”

  Mac chuckled softly, patted the top of my head. “Hope, you’ve always been such a funny kid. Why, when you were just a—”

  “Mac, you’re babbling!” Cat shouted at him. “Focus, please!”

  Mac gave me a sly wink before the three of us turned to face the others. Cat stood along the rear wall, next to Rin and Charlotte. Beside Charlotte, Creesie stood rigid in the darkened corner. Everyone seemed to be carefully avoiding whatever the black muck was that was growing up the walls.

  “Right you are, dear Catherine,” Mac said lightly to Cat. “Consider me focused.”

  Get your head in the game, Johnnie McAllister, she growled without speaking.

  I couldn’t help but think that Cat was repressing a little hostility. Of course, stress could do that to anyone, and it was evident on everyone’s faces that they were feeling the despair as deeply as I was—emanating from outside of our now shabby box. Creesie looked the most worried. A deep furrow appeared between her eyes. It was a given that she was seeing whatever grotesque images were on the other side of the doors, Daniel in the midst.

  “He’s here, Hope. Can you feel him? Close your eyes now. Concentrate.”

  I did as Creesie asked. Almost immediately, I felt something—torment, misery, a dull ache in my heart. Then I saw his face. My eyes flew open. “I see him!”

  “Good. That’s good,” Creesie said, her voice trembling.

  “Doesn’t sound so good,” I admitted, still wondering if she was ever going to tell me any of the particulars involved in the horrors of this place. But as I glanced around at each of their faces in the dim light, I was undecided as to how much I wanted to know. I could feel that they were all alarmingly frightened—for me. That thought alone kept me preoccupied for a few seconds.

  She cleared her throat before speaking, starting and stopping a few times. “I need you to bear a few things in mind as we head into this Station.” She sounded like her usual self, like we were visiting an amusement park, and I was six, and I should hold hands with a partner so I couldn’t get lost. “Your only connection with any of these”—she swallowed as if there were a bad taste in her mouth—“people is through Daniel. We’d like for it to stay that way—”

  Charlotte cut in, her voice squeaking, “DON’T SPEAK TO ANYONE!”

  Creesie held up a single finger. Charlotte, averting her eyes, backed up a step.

  “Charlotte is correct.” Creesie cleared her throat, made that awful face again. “We don’t want you forming connections with any of these people. We don’t want them to be able to hear your thoughts—without great effort. We don’t want them to think they’re in your circle.” She paused. “We most certainly don’t want them following you . . .”

  My voice cranked up an octave. “They can do that?”

  She nodded solemnly. She seemed to be in a state of forced calm.

  “They can do that and much more. That’s how Daniel found you . . . through your connection.” Her voice trailed off. “After all this time, I hadn’t suspected your bond was so powerful . . .”

  All this time? Surely Creesie didn’t think three years was a very long time?

  “You’ve heard of stalkers?” Rin asked excitedly, jerking me from my thoughts. “These people could stalk you through eternity. Try and wrap your brain around that.”

  Creesie held up another finger. Rin clamped her mouth shut.

  “I can’t stress this enough. Speak—only—to—Daniel,” Creesie repeated.

  “I can do that.” This, after all, wasn’t rocket science. No one here could force me into speaking. Yelling, maybe. Screaming, definitely. But talking? No way.

  Moving beside me, Mac took my sweaty palm. I tried to look confident. He turned to Creesie. “What’s the plan, Stan?”

  “We’re going to circle around, find Daniel, and bring him back here as quickly as we can,” Creesie said.

  “That’s not much of a plan,” Cat argued. “Shouldn’t we be more tactical? What if some . . . I mean, someone grabs Hope?”

  “To prepare for any other outcomes may actually invite them to happen. Thoughts have power—especially here. So, in short, we won’t be planning for anything other than sweeping in and bringing Daniel back.” Creesie looked at me, gave me a small smile, and inclined her head. “Ready?”

  Fear was shaking my insides. I inhaled a steadying breath, and gave a slight nod. Mac squeezed my hand harder.

  “Remember, no talking except to Daniel. It will probably take some convincing to get him to leave, to get him to believe that it’s really you. He may be, like many here, in a rather”—she made that awful face again and I was grateful I couldn’t see what she saw—“deteriorated state. Try not to be frightened.”

  “Of Daniel or of something else?” I was now officially scared to death.

  “Don’t worry,” Charlotte murmured in a low voice. “We’ll protect you.”

  Panic rose in my chest once again as I gazed into her tiny heart-shaped face.

  “I’ll lead us out,” Mac said. His sudden display of authority took me by surprise. It wasn’t a trait I would have imagined he possessed. Flipping his cap around backwards, he flashed me a charming half-grin. I distracted myself from the task at hand by focusing on the small space between his front teeth, and in a flash of déjà vu, thought I might have seen that somewhere before.

  “So, here’s the order,” Mac continued, pointing his finger as he went. “Cat, you’re behind me.” Cat nodded once and tucked her glasses into a small pocket of her uniform. “Gus, you’re next. Hope, you’ll follow Gus.” Gus saluted me, sent me a funny picture of low-flying birds. Halfheartedly, I smiled back. “Next up, Charlotte, then Rin . . . Hope, if you get yourself in a bind, yell for Charlotte. She’ll get you to safety.”

  Now I knew why Mac didn’t take the lead much—itty bitty Charlotte was going to save my skin if I got into trouble?

>   Mac turned his head slightly and gave me a hard look that broke into a smile.

  “Yeah, doll . . . itty bitty Charlotte . . .”

  I winced, sufficiently chastised. I’d probably never get used to that.

  “We’re partially aware of the conditions out there, but everyone should keep their eyes peeled and watch out for my girl . . .” I caught the reproachful look Cat sent his way. “Our girl,” Mac corrected, squeezing my hand. “Creesie, you’re our anchor. Stick close to the elevator. I know they can’t get on board, but just in case . . .”

  Everyone except me nodded. They couldn’t get on the elevator?

  Safety feature, Mac whispered. I’ll tell you later.

  “Alrighty then, I guess that’s it. Doll, you stick close to Charlotte.” I waited for a reassuring wink, but it never arrived. “Here we go—”

  Mac charged straight through the elevator’s doors, and once the pink skirt of Cat’s uniform disappeared from sight, Gus’s tall, lanky form followed closely behind. Willing my feet forward, I followed their lead.

  We entered an enclosed entry room that looked similar to the one at our Station—except this one was darker, with thick, black mold growing on every visible surface. My eyes watered. I wiped them on my sleeve. The smell of rotting flesh was worse out here, stronger than it had been in the elevator. Just a single wall separated us from whatever resided at this Station. For the smallest fraction of a second, I wished for Mac’s hand. And instantly, it was there.

  “We should probably try to blend in a little,” Gus suggested, looking around.

  “Good idea,” Creesie agreed as all of our clothing morphed to black.

  Rin said bluntly, “They’re still going to smell her a mile away. I don’t know how much blending in we’re actually going to do.”

  Creesie seemed to gaze straight through the wall. She gave a slight shudder. “It’s likely most of them are too lost in their own tragedies to notice.”

  “Unfortunately, it only takes one,” Cat taunted. “You probably know which of the Stations we’ve arrived at. They can pretty much do—”