Pieces of Hope

by Carter, Carolyn

  Stating the ridiculously obvious, I said, “If time is of the essence, and I’m evidently breathing my last breaths as we speak, what’s with the stop at the county fair? Did somebody need a corndog fix?” I cracked a smile. “If so, count me in.”

  “Sorry, Hope.” Charlotte shook her pretty head. “We should have told you there was time for one last stop. But it’s an important one. We’re supposed to meet some people here.” Anxiously, she scanned the faces of the crowd. I could guess for whom she searched. No doubt Creesie, Gus, Mac, and Cat wanted to chastise me one last time before I returned to the living realm. Or maybe they wanted to say their goodbyes. (Just this once, I preferred the former because I despised the latter; goodbyes never were good, especially the permanent kind.)

  The fairgrounds were really crowded. I’d never been around this many people when I travelled Somewhere, unless it was at the Station. We zigzagged through the crowd, passing by booth after booth of carnival games.

  “Who are all these people?” I asked, slowing my step at the basketball toss.

  Charlotte looked teary-eyed. I got the idea that she’d chanced upon a family reunion and was a little overwhelmed. “These are your forever friends, Hope—the same people you meet again and again, lifetime after lifetime.”

  “These are all my friends?” There were enough faces to fill McMinnville and then some. I was shocked. “But how do they recognize me? Don’t I look different?”

  Charlotte took an extra second to answer. “Oh, I see,” she said, brightening as she finally understood. “The outside is just a shell.” We walked past a boyfriend and girlfriend who gave me a friendly smile. I grinned back at them.

  “Charlotte, you know I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “The outside’s just a shell,” she repeated, more slowly this time. But I still didn’t get it. “If I changed my clothes or dyed my hair, you’d still know it was me, wouldn’t you?”

  I nodded a little.

  “That’s how they know it’s you,” she explained. “The outside may look different, but your soul—who you really are—always stays the same.”

  “Then why don’t I recognize them?” I asked. Rin waved at a black-haired boy who waved back at us enthusiastically. He was so persistent I finally waved, too.

  After the boy had passed out of sight, Rin snapped, “Because you’re not dead!” Then she folded her arms across her chest and turned her back to me.

  “You and Cat ought to get together and take turns beating people up,” I suggested, feeling slightly hurt and very annoyed. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Don’t mind Rin,” Charlotte said as we paused in front of a cheesy rock wall. “She didn’t think you were going to make it back.”

  “If that’s true, then she should be happy—I’m going back!” I growled. But Rin still refused to turn around. It wasn’t a giant leap to guess that there was more to her mood, but as usual, no one was talking.

  I was about to dig deeper when Charlotte gushed, “Recognize it?”

  She was pointing at the thirty-foot rock wall with its varying sizes of plastic hand and foot grips staggered along its surface. A memory from childhood flooded my senses. I looked at my hands; I could see how much smaller they were back then. And I could hear Mom and Dad cheering me on. I smiled at Charlotte.

  “That’s the first rock wall I ever climbed!” I muttered in disbelief. “I was ten. That was also the year my adorable goat, Billy, won me my first blue ribbon.” Rin wrinkled her nose. Charlotte giggled. “I was so ecstatic about winning that ribbon that I scaled that wall faster than Spiderman could have. After that climb, I realized I had a serious addiction.”

  “You didn’t realize it,” Rin said a little too smugly. “You remembered it.”

  “Rin, don’t.” Charlotte looked upset. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”

  “No, please—I remembered it?” There was a confused urgency in my voice. “Are you saying that I climbed in that other lifetime?”

  Charlotte ignored me, scanning the crowd again in search of Creesie. A few seconds later, she gave a frustrated sigh. “It looks like it’s going to be a while . . .” I knew how bad it was when she suggested the same thing she had at the beach in Bali. “Perhaps we should all take a seat.”

  First we grabbed three bags of kettle corn from the vendor—the girl took a moment to ask how I’d been; though I was polite, I still had no idea who she was—then we took up Charlotte’s suggestion. The back of the bench had a ferocious grizzly head carved into it, its chunky arms resembling bear paws. It looked almost real. We sat a few feet from the mulch-covered walkway where the crowd still marched, across from the colliding scents of cotton candy, kettle corn, and corn dogs, and within sight of the climbing wall. Just beyond the carnival games, an old-fashioned Ferris wheel caught my eye. Though it was your average-sized wheel, nothing special there, it shimmered in such a warm, golden, mesmerizing light that I couldn’t look away.

  Its other unusual feature was its single wooden car, suspended in motion at the top of the wheel, painted gold, same as the lights and the lap bar. I could just make out the words carved in an archaic script on the seat back. It took a few seconds to translate. Not because of the distance. Because of the letters. They weren’t like any I’d ever seen before. Beware of the . . . BEWARE OF THE FLASH . . . I finally deciphered, thinking hard about what that might mean . . . Hmm . . . Pyrotechnics, maybe . . . .?

  The groan of a little girl voice pulled me from my distraction. My mouth still full of sticky-sweet corn, I twisted in Charlotte’s direction. She was leaning forward on the bench, casting a gloomy look around me, aiming it at Rin.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked, wondering what I’d missed in the last thirty seconds.

  Charlotte turned to me, the gloom remaining. “You should prepare yourself, Hope. What I’m about to tell you can be quite a shock to the system. Though it shouldn’t ever have been mentioned by certain anonymous parties”—she avoided looking at Rin—“the answer is yes. Yes, you used to love to climb.”

  I quickly swallowed a huge lump of popcorn. “I knew it! And was I any good?”

  “Oh, you were better than good . . .” She bit her lip, seeming to want to hold back something, then decided better of it. “Back in the forties, women were just starting to become more independent, but you were way ahead of your time. Those women weren’t one-tenth as adventurous as you were. Bit of a daredevil, really. Nothing was off limits in your mind.”

  “And you knew me well?” It was impossible to contain my enthusiasm. Charlotte was about to tell me my life story, and I hadn’t any idea what she was about to say next. In a rush, I asked, “Who were my friends? Who were you? What was my name?”

  “Your name was Lucille King,” she said happily. “Everyone called you Lucy.”

  “Ethan was right! I can’t believe he remembered.” Then I grimaced. Lucy? Still, I could imagine worse—Esther, Edith, Agatha . . .

  Hearing my thoughts, Rin snapped, “You didn’t like it much then, either.”

  “I didn’t?” This surprised me. “Isn’t it amazing that I still think like that?”

  Rin looked as if she wanted to choke me. “Duh, not really. You’re still you.”

  I felt a little out of sorts—as if I’d just conked my head and couldn’t get my thoughts back in order. I looked at Rin. “I knew you, didn’t I? And there’s a reason you’re still mad at me . . .” Rin flinched as I studied her, assembling what little pieces I could gather for a clue. “Were we . . . friends?” I finally asked.

  “That would be a stretch,” Rin said harshly. “Sisters. We were sisters.”

  I ignored the duality of her words. Sisters, but not friends? I supposed it wasn’t all that uncommon. Look at Claire and me. We hadn’t been close in the longest time. Maybe we never were. So, Rin and I were distant in our earlier lifetime? Not so weird.

  “Sisters? Wow!” In truth, I’d hoped that Charlotte and I might have been sis
ters and I fought to hide my disappointment. After all, the thought had crept into my mind that one or more of us might be related. Besides, this new and angry Rin wasn’t furthering her cause for sisterhood.

  “There’s a reason I’m so angry!” Rin shouted, a tug on my fingers announcing her intrusion.

  “Then say it!” I shouted back, ignoring my insides warning me to be cautious. “I’m not going to die if you tell me!”

  Rin’s mouth dropped open, and I felt something sticky land on my skin. I must have been waving my arms around when I was talking because I’d spilled my kettle corn all over the seat. Standing shakily, I brushed the tacky pieces off my clothes and the bench; Charlotte helped with the smaller pieces. Then, tossing the container into a barrel that reminded me to Keep Somewhere Beautiful, I turned back to Rin and Charlotte, my eyes roaming from one to the other. Rin—refusing to meet my gaze. And Charlotte—resistant to look at me. And I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why they were acting this way.

  “Somebody has to tell me,” I said, focusing exclusively on Charlotte. Of the two, she was more likely to cave. “Charlotte, if you can’t do, let Rin. I can almost see it on the tip of her tongue. She’s dying to tell me—if only to yell at me for something that I did wrong.”

  They looked at each other, their eyes widened in shock.

  “Sit down, Hope,” Charlotte said nervously. “And take a big breath.”

  I did as I was told. Charlotte took several deep breaths as well before she spoke. I got the feeling she didn’t think this was a stellar idea, but she could see no way around it. Before she said a word, she narrowed her eyes at Rin. No doubt to discourage Rin from opening her mouth and disclosing more than Charlotte wanted me to know.

  “You and I used to be best friends,” Charlotte began, now looking calmly at me. “I couldn’t climb like you, but you didn’t seem to mind. You accepted me for who I was and never made me feel different. We were the same age, but you could say that I admired you.”

  I stopped biting my lip long enough to ask, “What was your name?”

  “Albert Kelley. You usually called me Kelley.”

  “A boy?” Even though Brody was my best friend in this lifetime (and that was a surprise in itself) I almost couldn’t believe I had a male best friend in an earlier one as well. “That’s some coincidence, isn’t it?”

  Charlotte got the reference. “Not really. Like Rin said, you’re still you. People have a tendency to keep doing the same things over and over again.”

  “Fascinating!” I grabbed a handful of Charlotte’s kettle corn and chewed, glancing once at Rin who was busy glaring straight ahead. I asked Charlotte, “How come Grumpy and me weren’t close?”

  “You and your sister had a . . . difficult relationship.” Charlotte couldn’t look at her as she said it, but I guessed from the way Rin bristled that it was true. “She was five years older, and in her mind, wiser, and she tried to . . . well, guide you in a certain direction, but you were very independent, even when you probably shouldn’t have been. You liked to do things your own way. You—”

  “Refused to listen ever!” Rin finished. “Lucy did what Lucy wanted to do and never once thought about consequences! I told you over and over and over, who knows how many times—and you never listened!”

  Almost laughing, I asked her, “And why are you beating me up for something I don’t remember that happened over seventy years ago? Isn’t there a statute of limitations on these things?”

  “No!” Rin shouted, startling me. “Because you nearly did it again!”

  Rin, that’s enough! Charlotte scolded.

  To my surprise, I took Charlotte’s hands in mine and begged, “Please don’t keep this from me. Maybe telling me could help me . . . I’m guessing that this thing I nearly did again is pretty bad seeing as how I’ve almost died several times in the past . . . how many days is it now?”

  “Thirteen,” Rin growled.

  I gulped. Thirteen? Could I get more unlucky?

  Charlotte’s resolve was crumbling. She looked at Rin. “Maybe . . . maybe it’s for the best. Maybe she would do something different next time . . .”

  “Don’t need to convince me,” Rin said stiffly, shifting uncomfortably on the seat. “I wanted to tell her a long time ago, but nobody would let me.”

  Charlotte sighed, her will defeated. “Cat would have let you.” Cat wanted to tell me? She was the only person who was angrier at me than Rin.

  “Why don’t you start at the beginning?” I suggested before Charlotte changed her mind. “That way I can’t get lost and ask you a bunch of stupid questions.” This seemed to satisfy Rin. She, evidently, thought I was going to do just that.

  Charlotte scanned the crowd again, but the group was still nowhere in sight. Just then a young girl called out, “Hiya, Luce! How ya been?”

  When I didn’t answer fast enough, Rin jabbed me with a hard elbow, and I waved back in mock enthusiasm. Ow! I mouthed at Rin. “Great! Nice to see you, too!” I said. I was amazed at my ability to lie. Well, maybe not that amazed.

  “I’m not sure where the beginning actually is,” Charlotte finally said.

  “Why don’t you start by telling her the three of them loved to climb?” Rin huffed.

  Charlotte nodded back, eyeing me with concern. “Fine, we’ll start there.”

  “Three?” I repeated, stunned. The significance of that number made me feel faint and more than a little sick to my stomach. “You mean me, Ethan, and Daniel?” I slid down on the bench as black dots danced before my eyes, my brain swirling like a tornado had just hit it.

  “Are you all right? This is why I didn’t want you to know. The last thing you need is another shock before you return to your body.” Charlotte threw an accusatory glare at Rin. It wasn’t ferocious (angry bunnies had meaner expressions than Charlotte), but she meant it to be. Rin turned away, dismissing her with a flick of her hand.

  I put my head between my knees and the dots disappeared. After a few breaths, I sat up again. “Did you say the three of us used to climb together? If that’s true, then why doesn’t Daniel climb now?” And then I remembered. “Daniel is terrified of heights, and we’ve never climbed together. Not once.”

  “Maybe not this lifetime,” Charlotte agreed, still concerned I might pass out on her. “But that’s because there was a time, not so long ago, when the three of you went out for a climb and only two of you came back.”

  “Daniel fell?” I gasped.

  Charlotte eyeballed Rin, sending another unmistakable warning to keep her mouth shut. “Um, Finley,” she corrected. “Finley fell . . . It was touch-and-go for some time. The doctor didn’t know if he was going to make it. I guess you and Ethan were almost thirteen then. Finley was eighteen. From that day on, he never climbed again.”

  “Couldn’t blame the guy, I guess,” Rin cut in, not seeming to care about Daniel in the previous lifetime anymore than she did in this one. “But it was his own stupid fault. I know for a fact that he was climbing a different route than you and Ethan. He was always taking unnecessary risks—like he had something to prove to his younger brother.”

  “Why would we let him get away with that?” I demanded, thinking of the almost religious precautions Brody and I took before every climb. Climbing solo was never an option.

  Charlotte’s mouth pinched as she spoke, as if she were fearful the details would be too much for me to take. “No one could stop him, Hope. Not then any more than now. He was stubborn, but he had this way about him. He charmed people and shocked them at the same time. You . . .” She swallowed hard. “You loved that about him.”

  I caught the delicate pause before she’d said the word “loved.” I caught the way she looked at me to see if I’d grasped its significance. Unfortunately, I had.

  “I loved Daniel before?” I felt that fainting sensation again.

  “Yes.” Charlotte held her breath a few seconds. “And you loved Ethan, too . . .”

  Everything turned into fuzzy
, indistinguishable shapes as the world began to whirl faster and faster, twisting into dirty blackness. Small, cool hands touched my forehead. I closed my eyes, breathed in hard, fresh gulps of air, and eventually the spinning stopped.

  “Hang in there. It’s going to be all right now.” The voice, surprisingly, was Rin’s. But I wasn’t so sure she was right.

  I had loved them both. The two of them. The three of us.

  Some part of me suspected as much. It was an old decision, this new one I was about to make. I just hadn’t known how old. It was important that I know everything now . . . everything there was to know.

  Moments later, in an eerily calm tone that seemed totally at odds with the way my insides were bouncing around, I said to Charlotte, “Let’s try it again from the beginning, please. And don’t skimp on any details . . .”

  Charlotte began with, “The year was 1942, June fourteenth, as I recall . . .”

  I was sipping on an icy Coke—Charlotte’s suggestion—one that Rin had gone to get without much complaint. She seemed to be softening a smidge, like a glacier exposed to sunlight, melting a little around the edges. But I was grateful for a thawing of any kind, and to avoid any accidental confrontations, I sipped very quietly.

  “World War II had been going on for a year, and although times were tough, you had your whole life ahead of you. You were about to graduate from McMinnville High—Go Grizzlies!” Charlotte’s face went all soft. “Oh, and you were in love!”

  One sentence in particular stuck.

  “I was a senior at Mac?” It was difficult to hide my disappointment. McMinnville was nice, safe, normal. But I’d hoped that in my previous life, I’d seen a little more of the world.

  “People have a tendency to do the same things over and over,” Charlotte reminded me again. “You could say it’s normal.”