Pieces of Hope

by Carter, Carolyn

  “Just focus on Daniel,” Creesie encouraged, interrupting whatever it was that Cat was about to say. “We’ll be in and out in no time. And oh, if you need help—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know . . . yell for Charlotte . . .”

  I thought I’d never been more frightened in all my life. I thought nothing on earth could have scared me more. Then again, we weren’t anywhere near anything living, and I had absolutely no idea what we were about to walk into. I glanced back at Charlotte once, taking in her diminutive size, forcing myself not to dwell on how this speck of a girl could possibly help me if I needed her.

  Then I turned and followed Mac into the Station.

  15 The Other Station

  Before I could take in much of anything else, I absorbed it. The abject misery. The unspeakable regret. The overwhelming sense of loss that hung in the air like heavy sludge. The buzzing that I’d heard earlier, when I’d gotten a glimpse into Daniel’s head, was now almost unbearable. The perennial sunset or sunrise which shimmered through the glass at our Station was not present here. Instead, the room’s one and only source of light was the constantly flickering fluorescents, more off than on, which made everyone’s movements appear choppy and disjointed, adding enormous difficulty to seeing anything clearly.

  Unlike our Station, this one wasn’t crowded. There were flits of movement in the darkness, mostly in my peripheral vision, but I purposely kept my head down. The stench seemed to worsen as I walked, so I held my breath for as long as I could before opening my mouth to breathe. I was highly aware that the movement I could see was impossibly swift, smoke-like, and shapeless, but I trudged on, forcing my thoughts back to Daniel. I was slowly making my way to where I felt his emotions the strongest. Calling out wasn’t an option. Though it might have been faster, his presence was unmistakable.

  Nearly everything in this Station was destroyed—benches, plaster, and where the café should have been, it was dark and vacant. The Tickets sign hung by one nail over an empty booth, and there were no travelers in line. Everywhere I looked there were massive holes in the walls, and where my feet touched it was more trash than floor. In the distance, the enormous windows along the main wall were broken, and a breeze that didn’t make any sound chilled me to the bone. I had shuffled, stumbling mostly, a grand total of fifty steps—painstakingly counting each one—my feet crunching and sliding on whatever lay beneath them. Looking back from where I came, Creesie’s tiny form stood illuminated in front of the decrepit doors. There was a glowing red triangle signaling UP over her head, and she was steadfastly guarding the corridor to the elevator just as Mac had requested.

  Though I could scarcely see her, what with her dark hair and clothing, Cat loomed a great distance ahead. The size of this Station was unfathomable. Or maybe it looked so big because the two farthest corners were completely black. Nearer to me, it was easy to spot Gus’s lean form and blond hair. And, leading them all, slowly rounding the second corner, I could just make out Mac’s red cap as it bobbed up and down.

  Suddenly, instantly—despair flared. We stood out like the living in a sea of dead! Did they have to move so . . . humanlike? It was hopeless. We were doomed . . . trapped! How would we ever get Daniel out of here?

  Focus, Hope. Remember to think only of Daniel . . .

  I whispered thanks in my head to Charlotte; maybe telepathy was her gift to me. It stopped short the sudden terror that had crept in. I shuddered once, then concentrated.

  The precise instant that I thought of him, I pinpointed his location. I squinted hard to see him in the waning light, focusing on an unlit corner near the front windows. And in that instant, I felt close to him—too much so—like I did when I was inside his head. There was a gnawing tension clawing at my insides. Suddenly, I felt the instinct to—to flee? To pounce? My breath came in short, panting gasps.

  There was something feral that pulsed through me, like I was a wild animal caught in a trap, willing to chew off its own leg to escape. I inched my way past the endless debris to get closer, stepping precariously over smashed benches, pieces of broken glass, chunks of moldy fallen plaster, and other possible terrible things I was scared of bumping into in the fading light . . .

  It was too dark in this corner, too difficult to make out much of anything—lumps of debris, mostly. At that moment, something told me to stop. And I did. Silently, I willed myself to turn on my bodiless senses—the ones that required neither eyes nor ears, the ones that allowed me to see and hear things from great distances—but a rising tide of fear seemed to keep them at bay.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin when I passed within a few centimeters of another person before I’d even noticed he was there. To my relief, it was just some old man. He was more miserable-looking than scary, a homeless person you might pass on a deserted street begging for change. But as he shuffled away, seeming not to have even seen me—I flung my hands over my mouth to keep from screaming aloud. The entire back of his head was missing—the flesh rotting and raw. Was this how he looked at the moment of his death? Was this how he felt? The force of his misery seemed to drip down my throat, the liquid too bitter to swallow. Without taking the time to look, I scrambled several harried steps backwards, tripped over something soft and fleshy, and fell flat on my back.

  I was too terrified to open my eyes. I kept them pressed tight; asking myself if it might be might be possible to crawl away without having to face whatever awfulness was there beneath me. A warm, creeping sensation that felt a lot like blood began to run down my face, making me nauseous and slightly dizzy. My head swirled.

  Then it moved beneath me.

  Don’t open your eyes, I warned myself. Don’t open your eyes!

  Another voice, sweet and deliberate, sounding a lot like Charlotte whispered, “Look at me. Tell me your name . . .”

  No, it wasn’t Charlotte. That much I knew. Who . . . or more likely . . . what was beneath me? I rolled away, but the form now seemed to be lying in front of me, flat on its side as I was. I could feel its breath on my face—a scent reminiscent of wildflowers and Oregon summers and ripe blueberries. I squeezed my eyes tighter, struggling to form a coherent thought. My head seemed to be covered in blood. I could feel it pooling in my ears. But how? That wouldn’t make sense. I was fine a minute ago . . . Wasn’t it only a minute ago? Think, Hope! Do something!

  Stay here—How long?

  Crawl blindly—To where?

  I was still panicking when it touched me.

  Excruciating pain, feeling as though every bone in my body had suddenly broken, blinded all logic. My eyes wrenched themselves open. Inexplicably, I was staring blankly into my own eyes. My mirror image and I bled profusely as we lay like discarded dolls across the hood of a beat-up green Pontiac. I willed myself to think . . . to force myself to focus, but my aching head—meshed with shards of broken glass where it had smashed into the windshield—refused.

  The derelict man with the back of his head missing passed into view, and without meaning to, I cried aloud to the only person who could save me from my nightmare. Only he came to mind. Only he could save me now.

  “Ethan! Ethan . . . Pleeeaaase! I need you!”

  And that’s when I saw him. My beautiful Ethan. There seemed to be a glow about him, not violet—no, a light perhaps that distinguished him from the blackness around us. Ignoring the other form—the one now changing and distorting into other hideous shapes, the one skittering away as though it were quite frightened as he approached—my rescuer, my hero bent down on one knee and lifted me from the rubble. I started to touch his face, but his eyes warned me off.

  It isn’t safe, whispered the darkness. Better to be careful . . .

  Why? Why couldn’t I touch him? It was hard, so hard to think. Instead of forming straight lines, thoughts collapsed and faded. Images flitted past me like a movie. Pictures of the happiness we’d shared. Memories of our eternal love. As I gazed adoringly into his eyes—alight with a fire and a color I hadn’t seen before—I felt humbled, mes
merized, powerless . . .

  I thought I heard a little-girl voice calling to me from somewhere very far away, but Ethan was twirling me now and our song was playing. The louder the girl screamed, the louder the song played. It seemed to be coming from my head, not from anywhere in the room, but I didn’t care. I cared only about Ethan. He had heard me; he had saved me. Ethan was here. Nothing could harm me now.

  “This is what you want, isn’t it, Hope? You want to dance?”

  “Yes, yes, Ethan . . . Dance with me.” I felt breathless with excitement.

  We twirled until the room became just a blur. But in the kaleidoscope of colors, I saw a room. Not the one I was in, but another—a high school auditorium, a place familiar and not. As we twirled, Ethan’s features began to change. His cheekbones became more pronounced; his dark hair went lighter, and shorter. His eyes turned hazel. But it was still Ethan . . . an earlier Ethan . . . my beautiful, strong Ethan . . .

  I closed my eyes, breathing in the woodsy scent of him, sensations from the past mixing with those of the present. I swirled dreamily in his arms. Uncaring. Unthinking.

  “Look at me, Hope,” his mellifluous voice whispered.

  I gazed transfixed into his now shiny black eyes.

  “Yes, Ethan?” My voice was breathy, not entirely my own.

  “Do you want to be mine . . . forever?” He made it sound like a very long time.

  I sighed. “Forever?”

  “Eternally.”

  “Yes, yes . . . of course, Ethan. Nothing would make me happier.”

  Through my haze, I saw him smile. It started as the same magnificent one I’d seen countless times, but ended in a definite sneer. To my absolute horror, I felt him shove his hand savagely into my back, as if he had reached straight through my flesh, and was now strangling my heart. My mouth went wide in a soundless scream, but I couldn’t escape—nor was I certain I wished to. A contradiction of emotions ran wild through me. At once, they felt indescribably painful and unbelievably pleasurable . . . deceptively grotesque yet utterly beautiful . . . Like two sides of a single coin, I twisted back and forth, instantly and fluidly between ecstasy and dread.

  I heard a low growl across the room. In my delirium, I thought I saw a flash of black—blacker than my surroundings—and a feline-shaped head. Something crouched, and I felt that same urge to pounce that I’d felt moments earlier . . .

  As the beautiful creature flew through the air, I managed one precise look into its cat-shaped eyes. The color pulled me from the thick gauze enshrouding me. Gray-blue. The color of the sky before a storm . . .

  Daniel’s eyes.

  Fear greater than my own wrestled to the surface. Though he was in the form of a panther, this wasn’t the first of my concerns. Nor did this seem utterly impossible here. I struggled for a single breath to warn him, to beg him to stop, to save himself.

  He was halfway between us now, soaring magnificently through the air, snarling viciously—and still the hand inside my chest refused to relinquish its hold. A strangling sensation, as if my very essence was ebbing away, faded whatever awareness I had struggled to regain. Like an insignificant speck being consumed by a black hole, I was dissolving into a sea of despair, into a vast, empty nothingness . . .

  I looked up blearily at my captor. Sensing ultimate victory, his black eyes bore into mine, refusing my silent pleas of mercy. Again, that little girl’s voice called to me, urgently and desperately, from very far away.

  “Hope, where are you? I lost you less than a second ago—I know it feels longer than that, but . . . Hope, they’re hiding you! Call out my name so I can find you!”

  I sucked in what little air I could gather, causing the pain in my chest to constrict even more. In a small voice, I wailed, “Hellllp. Help me, Charlotte.”

  I felt a slight release in my chest. I couldn’t say precisely what happened next, but it was instantaneous—that much I knew. And there was one other thing I was certain of . . .

  Time stopped. It didn’t slow the way it had in that perfectly lucid moment before my accident. It didn’t torturously creep like it did after Mom’s death. It flat-out stopped.

  I recalled seeing the feline incarnation of Daniel freeze in mid-air, inches from my attacker’s face, razor-sharp teeth bared, mouth wide open. And then came the strangest of sensations. The dark being released its deathlike grip, allowing me a great gulp of air, and that’s when things got even more confusing.

  Like a nightmare on rewind, I watched it all unfold backwards. Daniel flew away from us. The hand slipped back inside my chest, only momentarily, then out again. I felt that same dreamy sensation for a brief moment. We danced. Inexplicably, I was lying on the floor beside my mirror image, then staring into the haggard face of the old man with the back of his head missing, and suddenly I was back at the initial moment when I first suspected that Daniel was within a few feet of me.

  Lights. Brilliant lights now lit up the Station. They weren’t like beacons, more like close-up stars. I counted them. There were six. Their appearance sent whatever forms present to scurry beneath anything available. With no time to waste, I glanced to the once-dark corner. There was Daniel, looking more like himself, but livid and frightened. It dawned on me why he had taken the form of a panther. What better way to protect himself here?

  I don’t remember what I said as I crouched beside him. In my haste, I may have kissed him, may have said some things that in hindsight shouldn’t have been said. But suddenly we were vapor, moving through the Station. Fast, impossibly fast, not human-like at all—then back inside the safety of the darkened entryway, where none of this horror could touch us. One by one, I witnessed the brilliant stars going out, as the tiny human shapes of my dead friends returned from the Station.

  “You’re safe now!” Charlotte cried, giving me a too-tight hug.

  “That was too close for comfort,” Rin panted. “I thought we’d lost her for—”

  “Charlotte, what did you do?” I shouted over Rin. “Did you reverse time?” It was the miracle I was seeking. My mother! Could she bring back my mother?

  Charlotte shook her head. “I’m sorry, Hope. I can’t do that. There are some things that are impossible . . . even here.”

  “Well, technically she could,” Rin cut in, but I distinctly heard Creesie’s unspoken warning, and Rin broke off.

  “You could, but you won’t?” I snarled, surprised at the heat of my anger.

  “It’s not that simple,” Charlotte said in a defeated voice. “For one, too much time has passed. I’ve never reversed it more than a second or two . . .”

  “And for two?” I snapped. “If you’re going to deny me something this important, at least tell me there’s a two!” My voice was shrill with something close to hatred.

  “Calm down, Hope!” Rin shouted. “There’s a two. In the living realm, virtually any chain of events could occur. Charlotte could reverse time and when it sped forward again, it might slide into a different order. Someone else might die, someone in your family, you might die,” she emphasized, thinking this might faze me. It didn’t. “When it comes to the living realm, anything goes. Time reversal isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

  “We have different rules here, but I was willing to risk it . . .” Charlotte looked up at me from under her eyelashes, now wet with tears. “. . . To save you.” The anger drained out of me quickly, leaving me slightly dizzy. In a moment of clarity, I embraced Charlotte.

  “Thank you,” I mumbled as I hugged her, certain I was losing my mind. “I’m sorry. I don’t what came over me . . .” I got the impression that everyone was staring in Daniel’s direction, as if he had something to do with my tumultuous emotional state, but by the time I let go of Charlotte, everyone was looking off blankly in different directions.

  “We should probably be getting back to the Station.” Mac’s smile looked pasted-on, and he, like everyone else, seemed to be busy ignoring Daniel’s presence.

  Their rudeness was infuriating. It ma
de me twitchy all over again. Strangely, I fought back a low growl. Cat took Mac’s arm. The rest followed in pairs. Daniel and I were the last to get on. The elevator was still black and grimy, and the horrific grinding noise started up the instant we thought of the Station. If possible, it smelled worse than it had the first time. My aggravation intensified.

  I glanced first at Daniel, then my eyes zipped around at the each of them. Almost imperceptibly, they appeared to be pushing themselves as close as possible to the moldy walls without touching them—and away from Daniel.

  Another wave of irritation pulsed through me. My eyes narrowed, capturing their every move at once. Charlotte’s nervous hair flicking. Cat’s defiant stare. Rin’s clenched jaw. Mac’s too-straight posture, his chest puffed. And Gus and Creesie, unbothered, cool on the surface. I couldn’t hear their thoughts. Any of them. This irritated me further, but I made myself breathe through it and eventually it lessened.

  “So, Mac,” I forced myself to sound normal. “Tell me about these safety features you mentioned earlier.”

  Rin answered for him. “It’s like those rides at the amusement park, you know, the ones that say ‘You must be this tall to get on . . .’”

  Mac chuckled nervously, flipped his hat around so the small bill was facing front.

  “Yeah, something like that,” he began, still pressing himself centimeters from the icky walls. “With Creesie holding the elevator . . . none of these, uh, folks”—he slipped a sideways glance at Daniel—“could board.” He shrugged, but in his haste, it came off more like a nervous tick. “Like I said, safety feature.” Nervously, he chuckled again.

  Puzzled, I looked at Daniel. He was leaning nonchalantly into the blackened wall, gazing ever-so-casually at the elevator doors as though their comments and actions didn’t trouble him the slightest bit.

  “Then how did Daniel escape?” I hesitated. Wasn’t that Daniel’s Station?

  At last, Creesie broke her silence. She sound cold and distant, not the Creesie I’d gotten to know. But there was something else. I could feel it . . . If I dug a little beneath the icy surface, she seemed . . . conflicted?