THE SHADOWED ONYX: A DIAMOND ESTATES NOVEL

by NICOLE O’DELL

  Joy hadn’t thought for one moment about that dream or any other since That Day.

  “Aha.” The doc held up a finger. “My point exactly. You’re still Joy. What God put into you to make you unique is all still there. Who you were before your friend’s death is still who you are after her death. Circumstances can affect the way you look at life, but they don’t change who you are inside.”

  Not buying it. Circumstances absolutely did change a person from the inside out. How could this woman try to say anything otherwise? Joy opened her mouth to protest, but what would be the point of arguing?

  The counselor nodded. “See what I mean? We need to spend our time focusing on how to reclaim the Joy you once knew.”

  Joy’s deep questions about life, death, and eternity probably had to wait until next time. Though she had little hope Mary Alice Gianetti would have any answers.

  All the talk of the future made Joy want to cling to the past.

  She pointed her trusty Bug toward Ogallala Cemetery. The last time she’d been there was the last day she saw Melanie in her physical form. In her casket. That smell. Oh, it had been awful. She noticed it the moment she walked into the funeral home. “Where is that smell coming from?” she’d whispered to her mom.

  “Oh, you know Maggie and her candles.”

  She’d been selling them for years, which was fine, but to subject all of them …?

  Joy had tiptoed into the viewing room, where they’d spent the day before greeting the family, shaking hands, and being squeezed by middle-aged women she’d never met. That day they were there to say good-bye once and for all.

  The candles had been everywhere—every surface flickered with a tea light or votive. Maggie stayed near a glowing cluster and inhaled comfort of Melanie somehow. Joy would have to overlook the pumpkin spice that filled the room. At least it was better than roses. She stepped over to Maggie and put her arms around her. “How are you doing?”

  “The best I can.” Maggie’s shoulders slumped.

  “It’s all anybody can ask.” Great. She sounded just like the people who had driven her crazy with questions. Silly questions. Silly answers. Joy looked around the room. “The candles are a nice touch.”

  “Pumpkin spice was Melanie’s favorite.”

  That was true. Joy had forgotten. Mel always loved the minute leaves started to fall because she knew the boxes would start coming from her mother’s candle company.

  “Pumpkin spice,” mused Maggie. “Gingerbread spice, vanilla—and she didn’t play with them. Remember the coffee beans? She’d smell the candle and then the coffee beans to clear her senses, and then another candle and more coffee. She would do that for hours.”

  Joy remembered. They’d inhaled a lot of fragrance that way.

  The pastor stood at the front. “Gather around, everyone. Take your seat and let’s start the service.”

  Maggie clutched Joy’s arm. “You’re family. Don’t sit at the back. You’re the nearest family she had.”

  Joy smiled softly and followed Maggie down the aisle. It couldn’t have been any other way.

  Later she stood beside the family as the coffin lid was lowered. She held Maggie’s hand, squeezed it as they caught the last glimpse of their precious Melanie.

  Joy shook her head. A touch of a smile teased her lips. Even in that dreadful moment at the funeral, the movie addiction she’d shared with Melanie bubbled to the surface. They’d have surely looked to M’Lynn, from Steel Magnolias, talking about the moment her daughter died for the quote-for-the-day.

  “There was no noise, no tremble, just peace…. I realize as a woman how lucky I am. I was there when that wonderful creature drifted into my life, and I was there when she drifted out. It was the most precious moment of my life.” Joy sighed. Shelby’s death, in the movie, was sacrificial in some ways because of what she’d put her body through for her son. A tragic but natural occurrence. Melanie’s was everything but that. So not precious. So unnatural.

  What was it about cemeteries that drew people to them like magnets? Filing in for holiday visits and to bring flowers at the change of the seasons. Dead people didn’t know they had a new plant or a basket of silk flowers or even a visitor—or at least that’s what Joy had always assumed. Maybe she’d been wrong. Joy pulled in close to where Melanie was buried and turned the ignition off. She leaned against the headrest as rain pelted her windshield.

  What was the truth? That question was what brought her there. She needed to reach out to Melanie with no one around.

  To see if she could make sense of it all somehow.

  Joy climbed from the car and shut the door with her hip. Her eyes went right to Melanie’s grave. The only fresh mound in the cemetery. She crept out among the headstones, careful to step around where she imagined the people lay six feet beneath the damp earth, and approached the churned heap of dirt.

  It didn’t seem like a real grave without the headstone. Joy’s grandpa had selected and ordered it as a gift to Maggie while he was in town for the funeral. It would still be several weeks until it was ready. Wonder what Grandpa had engraved on it. Here lies a life ended too soon? Nah. Here lies a stupid, selfish person? No.

  Here lies someone who had no hope.

  Had the concept of hope dissolved for Melanie like it had for Joy?

  Was Mel there? Could she see Joy? Joy’s head twitched as she sensed something. Someone? Don’t look back. The palpable presence wouldn’t be visible. Maybe if she spoke out … as long as Melanie didn’t speak back audibly. Joy couldn’t face that possibility out here alone in a cemetery at dusk. No way.

  “Mel, you know me so well, I’m sure you know I can’t handle hearing from you, at least not yet, but I want you to know that I believe you exist somewhere between the world of the living and the dead. I don’t understand it at all, but it seems to be true. I want you to know that I love you. I hate what you’ve done to yourself, but I love you.” Joy scuffed the dirt with the toe of her boot. “Honestly, I could care less about Austin and what happened between you two. I came to your house …”—Joy’s voice caught with emotion—“that day to forgive you. And I do forgive you.”

  Joy waited. She listened to the wind whistle in the trees. Winter was on its way.

  Could the acceptance of forgiveness and love release Melanie from where she was trapped in the world of in-between? “It’s okay to let go, Melanie. I don’t know how it works. I don’t know if you’re stuck, or if this is where you want to be. I don’t know if you have a choice, but if you do, it’s okay to let go. It’s okay to release yourself to eternity if it’s a better choice than the one you’re enduring. I’ll be okay, and your parents will be okay. We miss you like crazy, but we forgive you and we love you.”

  Joy collapsed onto the fresh dirt, her knees instantly damp and muddy. She scraped at the dirt and clutched handfuls as though hugging what remained of her best friend. Her tears mingled with the raindrops and landed on her mud-caked hands.

  She fell forward onto the grave and sobbed. Her body wracked with the pain of tears withheld. She set them free. Her mind wanted to shout into the wind, “Why?” But she knew the wind had no answer. So she cried.

  Hours later … minutes, maybe … Joy clambered to her feet, feeling much older than her seventeen years.

  “‘Wouldn’t it be lovely if we were old?’” Joy whispered the quote from The Way We Were as she let the mud drop from her fists. “‘We’d have survived all this. Everything would be easy and uncomplicated; the way it was when we were young.’”

  Chapter 10

  Time for us to talk about taking you to the next level.” Raven pulled the wrapper off her straw and rolled it into a tiny ball between her fingers. She flicked it and hit Ronald McDonald in the eye.

  A little blond girl covered her mouth and giggled. Her mother grasped her hand and glared at Raven.

  “Next level of what?” Joy had had enough of the stages of grief talk from the counselor. Was that what Raven meant? She pushed away
her tray of fries.

  “You going to eat those?” Raven nodded at the pile.

  Joy waved her hand. “Help yourself. I’m done.”

  Raven pulled the tray across the table. She squirted a huge pile of ketchup and then shook a flurry of black pepper over the mound of fries and a heavy dusting over the ketchup.

  Gross. Raven selected three very peppery fries, dragged them through the puddle, and then shoved them into her mouth. “Next level of your spiritual journey.”

  Joy looked away. The food was unappetizing enough on the tray, but half-chewed in Raven’s mouth? Disgusting. No wonder they were never very close before now. Totally different people. Something about that appealed to Joy now though. No expectations. No memories.

  What had Raven just said? Joy needed to focus. “Did you say spiritual journey?” Her head whipped from side to side.

  “Um. No way.” There would be no more journeying.

  “Yeah. Listen.” Raven stuffed four more fries into her mouth then pointed her finger at Joy. “You got a lot of shadows, a lot of demons chasing you.” She took a deep breath. “Don’t just reject the idea immediately….” Raven laughed. “I can tell by the expression on your face that you’re hating this idea, but hear me out.”

  Joy’s stomach twisted into a pretzel. No good could come of this conversation. Things had gone so far already. She needed to just grab her things and get out of there, take control back. But she couldn’t. It was like being stuck in a dream. She couldn’t move.

  Raven licked the ketchup off her fingers. Finally. “Look. I know what it’s like to be confused and to have your faith blown to smithereens. Exactly what happened to me when my mom took off and my brother committed suicide.”

  Joy gasped. “What? You’re kidding.”

  “Yeah. Which is when I had to come live here with my dad. It wasn’t by choice. Before all that, I was a happy churchy kid like you were. Suddenly, I was face-to-face with being totally alone. Luc changed it all for me, and I can change it for you.” She shrugged. “It’s really not that big of a deal. If you could take the leap and believe in God without seeing Him or experiencing anything, then this jump is nothing. Especially since you’ve already seen the spirit world at work.”

  She made a great point. It was true. Joy had blindly believed in something that had never, not even once, come through for her or even revealed itself to her in any tangible way. Yet here she was, staring eye-witnessed truth in the face and trying to deny it existed.

  “It’s time for you to put aside blind belief in the unseen and embrace what’s right in front of you.”

  Joy nodded. “I’m in.”

  A leisurely stroll down a grassy lane with a white puppy on a leash. Joy reached down and patted the fluffy pup on the head then scratched it behind the ears. “You like that, boy?”

  The little dog looked up at her with loving blue eyes that spoke his name from the very depths of his soul. Silas.

  They walked and walked. Along the familiar streets of town without a care in the world, like nothing had ever happened to either of them. They had been friends forever, as though born together. Maybe their souls had been united in an eternity past.

  Silas led the way. Not quite a puppy anymore.

  They walked on, not seeing a soul until a form appeared in the distance. A man. Joy would recognize those sandy curls anywhere. Austin.

  Silas began to pant. Even older—changes happened with each step forward.

  How did the dog know she and Austin had a history? It was as if Silas could read her mind or at least sense her heart rate.

  Joy felt the anger toward Austin rise in her chest like bile. A low growl came from Silas’s belly. He pulled at the leash, saliva dripping from his mouth, guttural growls coming at regular intervals. His strength magnified until he looked and sounded like a beautiful, full-grown wolf.

  Austin didn’t notice them at first.

  Silas barked once.

  Austin turned, probably expecting to see a dog walker.

  Silas and Austin made eye contact, and Silas began to run, yanking the leash from Joy’s hand.

  Austin’s eyes grew wide, and he half turned to run away. He couldn’t seem to pry his gaze off of Silas long enough to really attempt an escape.

  Full speed for a wolf was a lot faster than Joy could go, so she watched.

  Silas was at Austin’s heels in a matter of seconds, but Austin kept running. Joy could imagine how terrified he must be, but she couldn’t bring herself to cry out for Silas to stop. Would he if she did?

  Silas stayed at the heels of his prey, foamy saliva dripping to the pavement. Austin ran … and ran, and ran.

  Joy heard a siren in the distance. Ambulance? Police car? It grew closer….

  Joy’s eyes were dry. Blinking. Opening to reality.

  Wait a minute. What was that sound?

  Oh. Six o’clock in the morning. The siren was nothing more than her alarm clock interrupting her dream.

  The dream had felt so real, almost like an out-of-body experience, which made no sense whatsoever. Joy shook her head. She was losing it. Hopefully it was nothing a hot shower wouldn’t cure.

  “Tell me about what happened after you found Melanie on her bed.” Mary Alice Gianetti put down her pen and notebook and leaned forward, her elbows pressing into the tops of her thighs.

  That day? The moments after she’d realized Melanie wasn’t sleeping had become blurred in her mind. Like watching a movie on rewind. “I … um … called for help.”

  “Tell me what happened, if you can. Take your time.”

  Joy couldn’t tell her counselor the details if she couldn’t remember them. She searched her mind for the painful memories.

  “I remember the dispatcher telling me help was on the way. She promised they would be there in about six minutes, but it seemed like it took a lifetime.” Maybe it was a lifetime. Melanie’s. “She told me to stay with Mel. Which I thought was odd. What? Did she think I was going to leave?” Joy shrugged.

  “She talked me through the steps to do CPR.” Joy’s fingers reached up to touch her lips. She had breathed into Melanie’s mouth, pounded on her chest. Sobbed. Shook her. Breathed into her mouth, pounded on her chest …

  Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

  It hadn’t helped.

  “The worst thing was when they wouldn’t tell me anything. They packed her up and sped off in an ambulance and left me behind to get in touch with her mom to tell her to go to the hospital.”

  “Tell me what’s wrong with my baby girl! Tell me! I have to know.”

  Joy shuddered.

  “What?” Mary Alice pressed. “What memory just repulsed you?”

  “The sound of Maggie Phillips begging me to tell her the fate of her daughter. It was horrible.” Joy bit her lip. “She was desperate for me to give details. I almost lied and said Mel was conscious when the ambulance drove away. Just so she’d let me off the phone. So I wouldn’t have to say the words.

  “I also remember they didn’t really do anything. They knew she was dead, so they loaded her in the back and went through the motions of their procedures. But there was no urgency. No hope.” Joy shrugged. “That’s when I knew for sure. That’s when I gave up.”

  Mary Alice nodded. “I know this is difficult. Let’s try to go a little further, but we can stop whenever you need to. What happened next?”

  “I got in my car and drove to the hospital. I think.”

  “You think?”

  Joy nodded and rubbed her eyes. “Yeah. I honestly have no memory of the time between when they drove away and when I saw the doctor. None.”

  “That’s actually pretty common. Those memories might come back or might not. It’s your brain’s way of sorting through the necessities and sloughing off the extra details that take up too much space and pain. At least for now.”

  Exactly what it felt like.

  “What about when you got to the hospital? What happened then?”

  “One nurse.”
A single tear escaped and ran down Joy’s cheek. She let it fall.

  “What do you mean?”

  “One nurse. Melanie had a single person taking care of her. Waiting for us to come.” Waiting for the grief to descend on the hospital room. “The tubes were gone, or maybe they’d never tried any sort of medical stuff on her. I never asked.”

  Joy sighed. “Dr. Sinclair had been both Mel’s and my doctor since we were infants. In fact, she’d been in the room when we both were born.” She stared off into space. “So Dr. Sinclair was the one who finally told Maggie that Melanie had died. I was just so glad I didn’t have to do it.” Joy remembered being slumped against the wall while the two women, two mothers, clung to each other and sobbed.

  “What were you feeling in that moment?”

  “I don’t know. Mostly I wished I hadn’t waited so long to go talk to Melanie. If I hadn’t been so self-absorbed, Mel would still be here. I believe that with all my heart.”

  “Maybe.”

  What? Wasn’t the counselor supposed to go on and on about how it wasn’t Joy’s fault? How she couldn’t know what would have happened? How she wasn’t to blame?

  “But even if that’s true, even if she’d be alive, did you have anything to do with her death? Did you encourage it or drive her toward it in any way?”

  Joy shook her head. “No.” The word came out more like a croak.

  “So we’re going to work on letting go of the whole guilt thing.”

  Easier said than done. “It might not be guilt like a shared responsibility. It’s more like regret, like … if only.”

  Mary Alice nodded. “If only. Two of life’s most gut-wrenching words.”

  What is this place? Joy looked up and down the rows of antique-like trinkets and dark idols carved out of wood or jade. Ivory crystals hung from the ceiling, and the smell of incense flooded the room to the point where it was almost too much for her unaccustomed senses to take.

  Raven smiled at the skinny, Gothic cashier taking money from a middle-aged woman draped in a muumuu and dripping with gold costume jewelry.