The Remarkable Journey of Charlie Price

by Jennifer Maschari

  He closed his eyes and counted to ten, balling up his hands at his side, resisting the pull of the hatch.

  “Imogen?” he tried again.

  “Is it time to go back down yet?” It was the only question Imogen asked anymore.

  “Why did you quit the play?” Charlie answered instead.

  Imogen didn’t speak for a moment, and Charlie could feel the distance between them growing bigger.

  “Mom can’t be there. Only the things I do with Mom matter anymore.”

  Imogen’s words sucked all the wind out of Charlie, as if he had been hit in the gut.

  “But you love acting.” What he really wanted to say was, What about me? What about Dad?

  “I did. But it’s not important anymore.”

  “But what’s Dad going to say?”

  “I don’t know, Charlie. Maybe he can write it on a Post-it.”

  “What about Lily? What about Min? What about your other friends?”

  Imogen didn’t answer this. She only turned over in her bed so that her back was to Charlie. “Is it time to go down yet?”

  Charlie was torn. On one hand, he didn’t want to leave Imogen here alone and chance that she’d visit Mom by herself. On the other, he had promised Elliott that they would make decorations together. And after letting down Rohan and the other Mathletes, his science teacher, and himself, he couldn’t disappoint Elliott, too.

  “I have to go over to Elliott’s,” Charlie said. “We’re working on a project together. Dad will be home soon to make some dinner. I want you to wait for me, Imogen.”

  “I can’t promise that,” she said.

  Two giant leaps across the room and Charlie was standing over Imogen’s bed, his fingers circled around her wrist. His hand was shaking.

  “Imogen, please,” he said.

  Imogen tried to pull away. “Stop, Charlie. You’re hurting me.” Charlie dropped her hand, looking in horror at the red imprints his fingers had made.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Charlie was losing his balance. He couldn’t control what was going on in this world or the other. The world spun even faster than before. This whole thing was turning him into some kind of monster.

  Imogen cradled her wrist in her hand. “I’ll wait for you,” she whispered.

  CONSTELLATIONS

  Charlie stood on Elliott’s porch for what seemed like forever. He couldn’t seem to stop his hands from shaking. His finger hovered over the doorbell. Finally, he pressed down and waited, counting the beats from the time he heard the sound of the chime to the second someone opened the door, so his mind could focus on something, anything, besides what had happened with Imogen.

  “Charlie!” a voice exclaimed from the other side of the door, seven and a half seconds later. The lock clicked, the door opened, and Mrs. Roberts pulled him into a hug as Charlie’s arms hung at his side. He normally worked to avoid these attack hugs, but this time he let himself fall into it. It was a little bit comforting to know that something was real.

  When Mrs. Roberts pulled back, she held him at arm’s length. “How are you?”

  How was he? He shifted his weight to his back leg and lowered his gaze. Mrs. Roberts was giving him the kind of look Mom used to when she knew something was wrong. “I’m okay,” he stammered.

  “Mom!” Fingers circled Charlie’s arm and pulled him out of Mrs. Roberts’s grasp. “Decorations wait for no one!” Elliott had scissors and glue and stickers and other stuff Charlie couldn’t even identify in her hands.

  Elliott’s mom sighed. “Is this something else you signed up for? We talked about this, between cross-country and Science Olympiad, I just don’t think this is healthy. . . .”

  Elliott sighed back. “No, we were asked to do this. For the grief group. See, processing! Talking! Healing!” She threw the words over her shoulder as she marched Charlie up the stairs. When they got to her room, Elliott fumbled with the doorknob, and her face flushed red.

  Charlie reached out and put his hand over hers, turning the knob.

  “Sorry,” Elliott said, pulling her hand away. She tugged nervously at her ponytail. “She just wants to talk about feelings all the time, and sometimes I just need some space. You know?”

  Without thinking, Charlie blurted, “My dad never wants to talk.” The moment it was out, he regretted it. He had told Elliott a lot—more than most people, but still. It was the most he had said in a very long time, and it felt like he was exposing a little bit of himself, the part he had hidden away.

  He tensed his shoulders, expecting Elliott to ask him questions and want to talk more about it and why he was late to school today and why he couldn’t seem to stop shaking. But she didn’t.

  Instead, she nodded and handed him a scissors. His muscles relaxed. Elliott always seemed to understand him.

  “So, what kind of theme do you want to do? I pulled up some ideas on my computer,” she said, grabbing the laptop on her desk and flopping down on her beanbag chair. Charlie’s line of sight went directly to the picture frame on the desk—Elliott and her brother making fish faces at the camera. He recognized it from the newspaper articles.

  Elliott caught him staring. “Mom wanted to put in the picture of us at Jack’s First Communion, but Jack hated that suit. And my dress was some heinous flower print, so—”

  “I like this one,” Charlie said. They looked so happy in it.

  “I do, too.” Elliott smiled sadly. “It was from that morning. We were supposed to go to the zoo.” She then shook her head and sat on the floor, folding her impossibly long legs into a pretzel shape. Charlie sat down next to her and looked over her shoulder as she clicked on the different websites. Elliott went on about animals and cupcakes and balloon themes.

  She clicked through some different pictures. “So what do you think about this one?” Elliott pointed at a star theme. Bright Christmas lights encircled a picnic area, and strung up between trees were stars of all different shapes and colors. There were bright starbursts coming out of a tin can in the center of the tables, which were covered in tablecloths decorated with constellations.

  Charlie was not really into decorating, but this was a theme he could go for.

  “That looks cool,” he said, but then paused. “But won’t it still be daylight? The lights won’t show up then.”

  Elliott shook her head. “Dr. Miller reserved the park shelter from five to seven. So it won’t be really dark, but it might be dark enough.”

  Then a memory returned, one he had tucked away in the back of his mind.

  “Is it dark enough, Mom?” Imogen had asked.

  Mom only grinned and flipped off the lights. Even though they knew what was coming next, Imogen and Charlie still held their breath in anticipation.

  Then, as if the sky had exploded, giant constellations appeared on the wall across from Imogen’s bed where they sat. One after another after another.

  Imogen oohed and aahed and clapped her hands with every single constellation. It was like Mom had harnessed the magic of the stars. Their own private viewing of the night sky.

  Charlie hadn’t seen Imogen that excited in a very long time. Maybe he and Imogen could do that again with Mom. Maybe tonight when they went down again to see her. “Hey, do you have a flashlight and a black piece of paper?”

  Elliott nodded, popped up, and retrieved them from her desk.

  Carefully, Charlie traced a circle on the paper and cut it out. Using the scissors, he punched a shape into the circle and positioned it in front of the light. “Okay, now turn the lights off.”

  Elliott did, and Charlie shone the light against the wall of her room. A constellation appeared. Just like he remembered.

  “That’s amazing,” Elliott exclaimed. She reached out as if to touch it. “Which constellation is that?”

  “Draco—the dragon.” He went to the window, and Elliott followed. Charlie placed his hands against the glass, cupping them around his eyes. “It’s still too light out, but later, if you look north, you’ll
see it. Right there!” He pointed to a spot in the sky. He wished they could see it for real now.

  “Awesome,” Elliott breathed. “How’d they get their names?”

  Charlie shrugged. “Mom said that most come from the Greeks. They’d make up these stories about the night sky to keep themselves entertained. They linked them up to things they knew, like Leo, the lion, and then some of them came from modern astronomers.”

  “Have you ever wanted to name one?” Elliott asked.

  “Sometimes,” Charlie said. “When we’d go out to the country to see them, Mom and Imogen would name some. Like, Imogen named one after a starfish she found on the beach. But I’m waiting till I find something perfect.”

  “And then you could make one of these star cards for it,” Elliott said. “How’d you learn to make these?”

  “When Mom got sick and she couldn’t drive us out to the country anymore, she said she’d bring the stars to us.” The stacks and stacks of constellation cards that Mom had made were shoved underneath his bed—forgotten and dusty. “I have some of these that we can use if you think they’ll work.”

  “Definitely,” Elliott said. Her head tilted to the side as if studying him, and her mouth bent up into a half smile. It was an expression that Charlie couldn’t quite read, but he thought it looked like a promise.

  “Well, this will be the best grief picnic ever,” Charlie said. “At least the best decorated.”

  Elliott laughed, and that made Charlie smile.

  A BOY AND HIS DOG

  Charlie had just pulled his jacket tighter and was halfway home when he heard her. The jingle of tags, her uneven gallop because her left side didn’t move quite as fast as her right, her huffs and puffs. They were some of Charlie’s favorite sounds in the world.

  He turned and Ruby plowed him over right there on the sidewalk, nearly knocking him out of his sneakers. He couldn’t believe how happy he was to see her. He buried his hands underneath her fur as she licked his face. “What are you doing out again?”

  Ruby barked in response and danced around him, her toenails clicking.

  Charlie laughed. “I think that Edna needs a better gate or something.” Still, he nestled up next to her, putting his arm around her back. They sat there together on the sidewalk, the only light coming from the streetlamps that lined the road and the stars that stretched out above them.

  After a few moments of quiet, Charlie said, “Have you ever not known what to do?” The question had been bumping around in his brain the entire walk home.

  Ruby’s cheeks puffed out, hot air landing on Charlie’s cheek.

  “Okay. Or maybe you know what you should do, but you kind of don’t want to do it.” He knew he should try to convince Imogen that they shouldn’t go to the other world that night. “Something’s not right down there, but I still want to see Mom. Is that crazy?” It sounded even crazier when he said it out loud.

  Ruby barked.

  “I know. I know it is.” He scratched her behind her ears. “There was this one time, when I was seven. I found the Halloween candy hidden under a pile of coats in the closet. I was only going to take a piece, but it was so good. So I took another and another.”

  Ruby groaned, burying her head into his shoulder. “And after a while, I was sticky and covered in chocolate and felt like I was going to throw up, but I just kept eating the candy. That’s what this other world is like.”

  “Just one more visit, Ruby,” Charlie said. Ruby whined and seemed agitated. “We’ll just go one more time and then we’ll be done with it.” He wasn’t quite sure who he was trying to convince—Ruby or himself.

  He sat with Ruby for a long time, even though it was windy and cold and his legs were numb and wet from the sidewalk. He just couldn’t seem to let go of her. She was one thing that still made him feel firmly rooted in the real world.

  STRANGE OBJECTS IN THE SKY

  Charlie’s attempts to convince Imogen not to go visit Mom were halfhearted at best. Even his conversation with Ruby wasn’t enough to stop him from visiting Mom again. He didn’t have the willpower to stay away, and most of all, he wanted Mom back in their lives, too. Hope was a powerful thing.

  He and Imogen waited until the footsteps upstairs had stilled and they were certain Dad was in bed before opening the hatch. This time, Mom wasn’t waiting with dinner on the table.

  “I had a different idea,” Mom said. “There’s always time for eating. I thought we could do some of your favorite things! All together again.”

  Imogen grabbed Mom’s hand and cheered. “Yes! I’ve been writing down everything I want to do with you now. I have a list!”

  Charlie forced a grin. He knew the catch.

  Mom leveled her gaze at Charlie. “Charlie first! What do you want to do?”

  He thought for a moment. He’d have to pick something that he didn’t care if he lost. He wanted to hold on to every memory.

  “The stars,” Imogen said. “Your telescope!”

  Charlie’s stomach sank. Not the stars, not his telescope. Those memories were too important. He started to say no, but then he saw a strange look pass over Mom.

  “Oh, I don’t think Charlie wants to do that yet,” she said hurriedly. “There are so many other things that we could all do.”

  “But it would be so fun,” Imogen said. “Remember my starfish constellation and all the sky stories you would tell?”

  Charlie watched Mom carefully. She bent down next to Imogen; her smile was barely a smile. “Of course, but this is Charlie’s choice, and it seems like he wants to choose something else.”

  Charlie wasn’t going to say no now. When Mom had been so adamant about the pencil during the Scrabble game, he was certain it was because she didn’t want Imogen looking around. Maybe the telescope or something held more clues about what this place was.

  “Great idea,” Charlie said. “We haven’t done that in so long! Let’s go!”

  Before Mom could move to suggest anything else, Charlie pushed past her and Imogen and into his room. Even though he had been down here several times, he had never been in his room before. Like Imogen’s, it looked exactly the same as the world above—just cleaner and neater and unlived in—with everything put in its proper place. That was how Charlie knew that his star map was in the upper right-hand drawer of his desk and the telescope was tucked away in the closet.

  He pulled out the telescope, holding it and the tripod in one hand and the star map in the other. The room was still dark since he hadn’t flipped on the light, but his eyes adjusted. Besides, he had set up the telescope a thousand times before. It had become automatic.

  Imogen and Mom sat on Charlie’s bed and watched as he finished turning the gears and dials on the telescope.

  “We could do something else, Charlie,” Mom said. There was a hitch in her voice, but Charlie wouldn’t be dissuaded. He hadn’t found anything in the closet. There had been clothes, his hamper, his old sleeping bag from camp, the monster movie marathon poster he and Frank had gotten from the local theater. The clue had to be elsewhere.

  “This is what I want to do.” Charlie spread out the star map on the floor. There was still a little light—from the streetlamps outside and the star stickers on his ceiling—so he could make out the constellations and their locations.

  But Charlie didn’t look into the eyepiece of the telescope—not yet. Telescopes zoomed so close up that they only showed a portion of a constellation. He wanted to see the whole thing. He grabbed a pair of binoculars that was sitting on the top of his dresser and looked out to the night sky. The skies were easier to see in this world because there wasn’t the light from other houses or buildings to pollute the dark.

  Charlie started with Andromeda. Then he scanned over to the Big Dipper. He focused on one star after another after another until the pain in his head and neck started again. He stopped on one in particular and focused on the pain as it grew, spreading out farther and farther. He imagined it traveling through his veins and nerve en
dings. Then, right before his eyes, just as the pain in his head was at its worst, the star he was looking at disappeared.

  It couldn’t have. Charlie knew that stars had a life span—just like humans. They were born and then millions and millions of years later, they died. But that star just winked out. It wasn’t supposed to work like that.

  Charlie let the binoculars go loose against the lanyard around his neck and held up the star map. He worked to match up each of the stars to their appropriate spots in the sky. The star he just watched disappear wasn’t the only one missing.

  He turned back to Mom and Imogen. “Can I look now, Charlie?” Imogen asked. “Is it my turn?” She kicked her feet against the side of the bed.

  “There are stars missing,” Charlie said. “From the sky. That’s not supposed to happen. I just saw one disappear.” He got louder with every word. It felt like everything was wrong and out of whack and spinning, spinning, spinning in his brain.

  “You must be reading the map wrong,” Imogen said, looking at him, then Mom, then back to him.

  “I am not reading the map wrong,” Charlie insisted. “I am not reading the map wrong. Look for yourself.” He threw the map toward them and spun around to face the window.

  He couldn’t believe what he saw next. Charlie flew to the windowsill and pressed his face against the glass to get a closer look. There was a boy walking down the street with someone else. Charlie fumbled with the binoculars, finally grabbing hold of them. He smashed them against his eyes, almost poking one with the eyepiece.

  But he could see more clearly now, especially as the boy walked under one of the streetlamps. Charlie recognized the spiky black hair and the untied shoes. Then he recognized the person the boy was walking with—Grandma. “Frank!” Charlie screamed. “Frank!” The boy didn’t look up.