by Sarah Beard
“I can’t,” she whispers, shaking her head. “I’m too afraid.”
She doesn’t have to tell me what she’s afraid of. Because I don’t think her fears have changed since she died. She’s afraid that if she leaves the darkness, she’ll eventually be pulled back in, and all her effort will be for nothing. For years I watched her try to quit drugs, or quit Dad, and it was like scaling a vertical mountain without a harness. She fell with every attempt, and the wasted effort, the pain of each fall, kept her from trying again.
A sort of longing spreads over her features. “I just want to know if you and your sisters are happy. If I can know that, then it doesn’t matter if I’m trapped here. I’ll be at peace. So tell me—give me that peace.”
I feel my own hope dwindling. I can’t save her now, just like I couldn’t save her back then. I can’t pick her up and carry her out of the Briar any more than my eight-year-old arms could carry her out of Dad’s house. Because if she truly believes that this is where she belongs, she’ll come back. Only she can decide to leave. All I can do is light the path, and try to convince her that she deserves something better.
“Do you know what would make me happy?” I say. “You know what I or Helen or Jane have always wanted more than anything? It’s for you to be happy. You to be free from pain and fear and sorrow.” I take a deep breath. “If you come with me, I’ll take you to Demoror, to the silver lake. And there, you can see Helen and Jane for yourself.”
For a split second, her eyes brighten at the notion. But then a shadow sweeps over her, dimming her eyes again. I feel the darkness spread, filling the hollow, washing over me, through me. It won’t work, the shadows say. Give up.
I dip my head, my shoulders sinking under the weight of discouragement. My eyes slide shut, and I have the urge to lie down and make myself comfortable here. But I fight it. I curl my fingers around the pendant and search deep within myself for something light. And what comes to my mind is a melody. I hum it softly to chase the shadows away, and soon the weight on my shoulders lifts. My back straightens, and I open my eyes and look at my mom, who’s watching me with interest.
“What is that song?” she asks curiously.
“I wrote it,” I say, and then an idea sparks in my mind. “Remember all those chords you taught me on your old guitar? They were the best gift anyone’s ever given me. I’ve written dozens of songs with them. The one I was humming just now … I wrote for you.”
Very slowly, the corner of her mouth tips up.
“Do you want me to sing the words to you?” I ask.
She nods once, a faint light returning in the depths of her eyes.
So I sing it to her, and the dark, empty space is filled with a melody that chases the shadows away. When I finish the song, she asks me to sing it again. And then again. As I sing it for the third time, she scoots closer to me, and when I finish, she sits quietly for a long moment. Then she reaches out and takes my hand, squeezing it gently. “Do you know what I love most about you, Kai?” she says quietly. “You always fight for the people you love.” She purses her lips and sits silently for another long moment. And then something changes in her face. It reminds me of the day she packed us up to go to San Luis Obispo. The flame in her eyes grows brighter by the second, and she clenches her jaw as though gathering courage.
She looks in my eyes. “I’m ready to fight. For you.”
Hope rises to a sharp and dangerous summit in my chest. I nod and squeeze her hand in return. “Whatever is out there that scares you, whatever causes you pain, I’ll help you face it.”
She brings my hand to her mouth and kisses it. “I know you will.”
The Briar feels even darker on the way out, like it knows we’re leaving and wants to hide the paths that lead back to Demoror. Even with the pendant, I can only see a couple steps ahead. So I navigate with my heart, thinking about all things light. About Avery and my sisters, about the silver lake and the peaceful falls of Elysium. And with every step, I know in which direction the next should be.
My mom follows close behind, and even with her hand in mine, she pauses or stumbles every now and then. But with encouraging words, she keeps going. The shadows are whispering again, louder than before.
You won’t make it out, they say. You’re not good enough. She’s not good enough. She’ll just come back.
As we’re passing through a thorny thicket, my mom stops and lets go of my hand. I glance back, and she’s huddled down, crying with her hands over her ears.
She can hear the voices too.
I drop to my knees in front of her. “Don’t listen to the shadows,” I say. “I’m here. Listen to my voice. You can do this. You’re strong enough. You’re worthy enough. This isn’t where you belong.” I help her to her feet, but when she tries to take a step, she can’t move.
She shakes her head. “I’m stuck.”
Her dress is tangled in a thorny vine. I grab a handful of her skirt and yank, but it doesn’t come loose.
“I can’t get out,” she cries.
I take a deep breath. “Yes, you can. It’ll just take time. Which is something we have plenty of.” I set to work removing thorns from her skirt, one by one. Dozens of them keep her captive, jutting out from the vine twisted around a section of her skirt. It’s a tedious and painful process, and she helps me by holding back the fabric as it gets freed.
When I remove the last one, she scoots away from the vine but doesn’t get up. She looks at me, her face contorted in fear. “What if I don’t belong where you’re taking me? What if people look at me, and judge me for the way I died? I’m not good enough to be anywhere but here. I can’t go farther. I want to stay. I want to stay here.”
I kneel down and take her hands in mine, biting back the tears burning my throat. “All those things in your head—they’re not true. Fight them. Fight for me. Do you remember the words I sang to you?”
She lowers her eyes, and I see her recalling the song. The fear slowly melts away, and she gives a determined nod before meeting my eyes and pleading, “Sing it again.”
I pull her to her feet, and with her hand securely in mine, we continue on. As I sing, I think of all the times I wanted to take her hand when I was a little boy and lead her to safety. Lead her somewhere warm and secure, where she could be at peace. Never did I think I would actually have the chance to do it. Feeling the warmth of her hand in mine now, I’m filled with a love so bright it chases the darkness away, so intense that I don’t even need the pendant to find my way.
itting on the bow of Mom’s sailboat, I lean on the lifeline and watch the sun dip into the west horizon. The mainsail is swollen with a southerly, and as we fly across the face of the sea, the wind rushes over my face and whips through my hair. The sound of laughter pulls my attention to the stern, and I glance back to see Mom grinding the winch to trim the sail while Dad pulls the line. She’s smiling at him, and he says something that makes her laugh again. It’s a contagious sound, one that makes even Sophie smile. She’s at the helm, lounging lazily in the captain’s chair while steering with her feet.
With Mom and Dad being separated, I wasn’t sure if our annual sailing trip would happen this year. But the last week of July, Mom started planning as usual. Three weeks later, the four of us set sail for the Channel Islands. The last couple days have felt like we’ve traveled back in time. Like Mom never left. Like the only care or worry we have is staying afloat on the ocean. I’ve even seen Mom and Dad share a hug or two. I don’t know what it means. Maybe they’re working things out, or maybe it’s just the romantic setting making her more affectionate. All I know is it makes me happy to see them together.
The light is fading fast as we anchor at the islands, so it’s a scramble to get all our camping gear to a high plateau and set up camp. Dad cooks spaghetti on a gas camping stove, and he and Sophie are so beat after dinner that they go straight to bed. That leaves Mom and me, sitting in our camping chairs with half-eaten plates of spaghetti as we soak in the 360-degree v
iew of the ocean around us. The moon is full, its silvery light spilling over the ocean like sapphires sewn into satin.
Mom seems distant and thoughtful, spinning spaghetti noodles around her plastic fork instead of eating them.
“You okay?” I ask after watching her spin her fork about forty times without lifting it off the plate. She looks at me as if just remembering I was there. Then she lays her fork on her paper plate, and her chest rises and falls with a deep breath.
“I’m good.” She gives a sad and laborious smile that doesn’t match her words. “Really good.”
“Mom, did you forget to bring your med—”
“No—” Her hand curls around my wrist, and her lower lip quivers. “I mean it. It’s been so long since I’ve felt so happy, so … so …” She motions to her chest, like she’s feeling something there that she can’t describe with words. She shakes her head and throws her hands in the air, giving up on verbal communication.
“Is it because …” I start carefully, not wanting to push her where she may not want to go. “Because we’ve been all together these last couple days?”
She picks up her water bottle and takes a sip, then sets it down and goes back to spinning her uneaten spaghetti. “What do you think he’d say …” She glances at me and shakes her head, as though she’s not sure she should finish the thought. Or maybe she just doesn’t want to say it out loud. But I know exactly what she’s thinking, so I answer the question she’s too afraid to ask.
“I’d think he’d say it’s about time,” I say quietly. “And probably, ‘Welcome home.’ ”
She looks at me, then she’s looking through me, as though visualizing the scene. The one where she comes home with a full suitcase and tells Dad that she’s happier when she’s with the people she loves. The scene where Dad pulls her into his arms and tells her that it’s where she belongs. At least that’s the scene I’m seeing in my own mind, and it makes my chest swell with hope.
She wipes her hands on a napkin and drops it over her spaghetti. “Well, we’ll see what happens when we get back.” She tosses her plate in a nearby garbage sack, then stretches her arms over her head. “It’s late. The sack is calling.”
“I’m going to sit out here a little longer.”
“Well, don’t stay up too late. Your dad has hiking plans for tomorrow.” She stands and kisses the top of my head, then walks through the dry grass. I hear the zipper of her tent, and then the sound of her rummaging through her medicine bag to find her sleep meds. Before I can finish my cold spaghetti, I hear the soft rumble of her snoring.
I consider joining her, but even though my body is tired, my mind is restless. The island is quiet, save for the sound of waves rolling and crashing down on the shore, and so my thoughts turn to the sea, and to Kai. To the first time I saw him, when he pulled me out of the water and tied the leash around my wrist. As I close my eyes and try desperately to recall the feeling of his hand in mine, my fingers slide into my pocket and find the pocketknife there. Kai’s pocketknife. It’s been my constant companion for the last couple months, a tangible reminder that he really was here with me those few days in June. Reverently, as though unveiling an ancient and fragile relic, I pull it out and run my finger over the smooth metal.
I should really go to bed. But there’s a hollow aching in my chest that I’m sure will make it impossible to sleep. So I rise to my feet and wander away from camp, following a moonlit path that runs along the edge of the cliffs. The music of the sea calls to me the way it used to, and I feel that tugging in my chest, that irrepressible need to go to where the water is. So when I come to a fork in the trail, I take the path that leads down to the beach. The grade is steep, and I use the cliff wall to steady myself.
At the bottom, there’s nowhere to go but through a jagged archway, and when I come out on the other side, I find myself in an enormous cavern with an arched opening that faces a small cove. The tide is low, the sand exposed. Moonlight pierces through holes in the cavern, spotlighting little pools in the sand.
Treading to the middle of the cavern, I sink to my knees and hug my stomach, trying to squeeze the ache out. I always knew that love could hurt, but never knew it could hurt this much. Never knew that losing someone could carve a place inside of me so deep. I’m as hollow as this cavern, waiting for the tide to return and fill it back up.
But what if the tide never returns? What I’m never filled again?
As I sit there, still and silent, feeling the breeze play with my hair and tickle my cheek, listening to the surf echo off the cavern walls, it occurs to me that the cavern is not as hollow as I perceive it to be. It may not be full of water, but there is air—it fills my lungs as I breathe it in, keeping me alive. There is sound—beautiful and rich, saturating my ears. I may not be able to see these things like I can see the water, but the cavern is still full.
There may be a hollow inside of me left by Kai’s absence, but there are other things to fill it. There’s my family. My friends. This life and all the things I can learn and do here, even if Kai isn’t with me.
And then I think how just because Kai isn’t with me now, it doesn’t mean I’ll never be with him again. “When I leave,” he said on the cliff that day, “I won’t really be gone. I’ll be just over the horizon.” Until I meet him beyond that horizon, all I can do is live my life the way he taught me to.
Slowly, I rise to my feet and step through the sand to the water’s edge. The cove is circled by towering rocks, and although I can hear waves crashing into the rocks on the outside, the water in the cove is calm. I wade in and sway my foot back and forth. The water is cool as it glides over my ankle and between my toes. I move deeper, feeling it on my calves. The rhythm of the sea calms me. It hums with life, a lullaby that sooths me into tranquility. My body relaxes, sinks deeper to my hips, then my waist. The sea engulfs my shoulders, circles my neck like a strand of pearls. I lie in the water as though it’s a bed, and the moon and stars are my blanket.
The dark water stirs the adventurer in me awake. I draw in a few deep breaths, then dive under, swimming down a good ten feet. To keep myself from rising, I grab hold of the edge of a rock that juts out of the reef. Gravity has no power over me down here. Even my cares seem to rise from my shoulders and drift away into the nocturnal underwater world. Colors are muted into shadow and light. Shafts of moonlight cut through the surface, slicing up the darkness. The light reflects off the white sand, painting the liquid ceiling into a rippling silver sky.
Being underwater like this, a piece of myself is restored. I am strong and courageous and fearless again. I am the girl who can free-dive to thirty feet and hold her breath for four minutes. A familiar thrill courses through me, a rush of adrenaline I haven’t felt in so long. My skin tingles the way it does when I repel down the face of a mountain or slide across the perfect wave. Or when the boy I love brushes his fingers over my skin.
My chest burns, but not because I’m running out of air. It’s the joy of finding myself again. It’s gratitude for Kai, for all he did for me. And the aching desire to return the favor somehow. To make restitution. To tie that leash around his wrist the way I failed to before.
My lungs are begging for air, so I let go of the rock and push upward. But I only make it a few inches before I feel a sharp tug on the back of my head and then jerk to a stop.
My hair is caught. Tangled in something. I reach back to untangle it and feel the skeletal fingers of the reef entwined in my hair.
I yank hard, trying to free myself, but there’s too much hair caught. My heart is pounding, burning up oxygen. Calm down, I tell myself. There’s a way out of this. And then it comes to me. The pocketknife. My hand grapples it out of my pocket, and it takes me a few tries to unfold the knife. I swipe the blade behind my head and feel a lock of hair come free. I take another swipe. But this time my hand slams into the reef and the knife slips from my fingers. I fumble for it, twisting and sweeping my hand through the water as I watch it sink down, down, but it hi
ts the sand before I can catch it.
It’s only five feet below me. But my arm won’t reach that far.
Calm down. I’ve been under longer than this. I think. Just relax. But I can’t calm down when all I can hear is my heart throbbing in my ears. My lungs are screaming for air. My body gives a jerk, and then a shudder. Calm down. Calm down. Calm down.
My feet. I can grab the knife with my toes. I grab hold of the reef and bring myself vertical. But just as my toes touch the knife, I feel my hair come free and my body begin to drift upward.
I abandon the knife, turning and kicking toward the surface. As I get closer, it brightens as if the night has suddenly turned to day. When I break the surface and take a gulp of air, it is day.
And I’m no longer in the cove.
eneath the crystal trees of Demoror, I sit beside my mother, listening to her soft voice. Starlight sifts through the crystals, scattering little specks of colored light all over her face. We’ve been having a lot of these long conversations since she came out of the Briar—about her new assignments, or my ongoing journeys into the Briar, or about my sisters. And with each conversation, she looks less like a withered grapevine long-deprived of water, and more like one after a few good rain showers. The longer she spends away from the dark, the more light she drinks up, and the more she stands tall and strong, stretching her branches toward the sun.
She’s telling me now about a little girl she was able to heal. Her eyes are bright with enthusiasm, her hands resting peacefully in her lap, her healing wristband glinting under the sparkling sky. In her voice, I hear something I’ve never heard before. Something I’ve ached to hear ever since I was a kid. Happiness. Genuine happiness. It makes something rise from my chest and catch in my throat.
And then as she continues, a different sound breaks through. A different voice. One that sends a jolt through my chest like a shot of adrenaline. My hand falls on my mom’s, and she trails off, looking at me curiously. “What is it?” she asks.