Flowers

by Scott Nicholson

  No one seemed surprised when he got sick. The fevers had plagued him off and on, and his attendance record was spotty. His mom rushed him to the doctor every few weeks until the condition landed him in the hospital. His dad was sympathetic to his suffering, but Billy thought he saw secrets lurking in his dad's eyes, as if they were hiding something that all the doctors in the world couldn't diagnose.

  Billy went to the shadowed corner of the living room where his dad had been sitting. He felt better here, where the light didn't stab and the cool air swirled from the air conditioning vent. He clicked on the television with the remote, but the flickering screen hurt his eyes so he turned it off. Mom's car backed into the garage and she walked into the kitchen.

  "Hi, guy. Feeling okay?"

  "Sure, Mom. I stayed in like you told me to. Dad kept me company for a while."

  "He was up today?"

  "Just for a little bit." Billy wondered if his dad would tell her he'd been outside.

  "Well, he needs his rest. He works hard."

  "Mom, what does Dad do?"

  She frowned. "You'll have to ask him. I can't really explain it."

  That night, when his dad came to see Billy to bed, Billy said, "Remember when I was little and I asked what your job was, and you told me you tucked in the sun? And you said you'd explain when I was ready?"

  His dad put a warm hand on his shoulder and smiled. "Of course. I remember everything I ever told you."

  "Well, am I ready yet?"

  His dad laughed, and Billy thought he saw smoke come out of his open mouth. "Well, I guess you're getting to be a big boy now. Nearly a man."

  Billy puffed out his chest under the blankets.

  "Well, like I told you when you were little, I tuck in the sun, just like I tuck you in. Didn't you ever wonder why we always put you to bed just before sunset?"

  "But, Dad, they taught us all about gravity in science class, and how the earth spins and revolves around the sun, and that it's night when our side of the earth is turned away from the light."

  "That's because they don't know about us."

  "Us?"

  "People have always looked for explanations for things they couldn't understand. A long time ago, people believed that the sun and the moon were gods, one ruling the day and one ruling the night. Then they thought the earth was the center of the universe, with the sun and the planets circling around it. Now they have the theories that they teach in school. Because it's better if people believe these things than to know the real truth."

  "What is the truth?"

  "Remember how you told what I did and the class laughed at you?"

  Billy nodded, his belly inflamed at the memory.

  "It's not good for them to know. It would make our work that much harder."

  "What work? There's more to it than just the sun. I can tell by the way you're talking."

  His dad sighed and looked out the window, then removed his sunglasses. The sun was setting like a bloody egg yolk, appearing to hover just over the horizon as if reluctant to yield control of the sky. He turned back to Billy with his lips tight. Billy saw yellow and orange flecks glittering in Dad's irises, and his face looked pained.

  "I put the sun inside here." His dad pointed to his temple. Sweat was collecting on his brow and his teeth were clenched. He closed his eyes and grimaced as if he were swallowing a stone. Outside, the world was growing blue-gray as the last fingers of twilight clutched at the fabric of the day. Then the night rose like a black fog, cold and dead and soothing.

  His dad's face paled, then the rosy color slowly returned. His irises were golden orange and his pupils were fiery crimson, the color of the heart of the sun. He smiled, like someone who had taken bitter medicine and knew the worst was over.

  "Sunset is the hardest part," his dad said. "The sun doesn't like to be put to bed. If it had its way, it would shine non-stop."

  Billy shuddered at the horror of the thought. He felt his dad trembling so hard that the mattress quivered.

  "But I'm strong enough to keep it inside, so that the world can rest for a while. Then it gets too hot inside my head and I must let it out again. It's easier in the winter, when the wind is cold. But during summer, the sun is really hot and strong and angry, and I can't store it as long."

  Billy tried to understand. Did this have anything to do with his dreams and night sweats?

  "I give night to the world, just as my ancestors did before me. It has been our job since time began. We are the keepers of the flame. Long ago, when there were many of us, ice covered most of the earth. But over the ages, as the sun grew older and stronger, our numbers dwindled. Now there's only us."

  "Us?"

  "You and me. And we must never surrender. Only we can douse the wrath of the sun, if only temporarily. Only we can give respite to a world that would otherwise be a cinder."

  "But why you, Dad?"

  "We are born to it, Billy. And someday, when I weaken and become parched and can no longer suppress the flames of the sun, then I will pass the torch to you, just as it was passed to me."

  "You mean, Grandpa—?"

  "You only saw him at night. Remember there at the end, just before he died? Everybody thought it was sickness. They were right, only not in the way they thought. He was burnt out, mentally baked away from decades of swallowing the fire."

  Billy envisioned his grandpa, sweating beneath the sheets, the fever racing through his wasted body as the last days of his life ticked away in that nursing home. Even in his near-comatose state, Grandpa always knew when some nurse had opened the curtains and let the daylight stream through the window. How could the nurses know they were letting the conqueror in to revel over the bones of its vanquished foe? They had been taught that the sun was a healthy, life-giving thing, not a vile enemy.

  "I've been fighting the sun a long time, Billy. Long enough to know its secrets and its tricks. And I will teach them to you when you're ready. Someday you will divide night from day. Someday you'll be all that stands between heaven and hot hell. Someday you will rule the sun, at least for a few hours at a time."

  "Is that why the sunshine hurts so much?"

  "It knows its enemies."

  "And my dreams—"

  "Of the world on fire, in a blaze of yellow and orange glory? That's what happens when the solar power rages out of control. That's what we must prevent."

  The world outside the window was black, a sheet of oblivion stretched tight across the sky and pegged in place by his dad's thoughts. Starlight was sprinkled across the tarry night.

  "Why are there stars, Dad?" Billy asked. He rubbed his eyes. He was getting sleepy.

  "There are no stars, only the sun breaking through in spots. We are imperfect."

  "The moon?"

  "The sun's idiot twin. It's harmless. Just the sun's way of reminding us that it's waiting for us to get tired."

  Billy let his head drop back into the pillows. There was so much to figure out. "Does Mom know?"

  "She suspects something, but she's only human. I've tried to spare her the worst of it. I only wish I could tell her why you have the fevers, so she wouldn't worry so much."

  "When will the fevers stop?" Billy asked, looking at his dad's sickly complexion. The skin had a bloodless pall, and a sheen of bright sweat glittered on his forehead. He shook his head slowly from side to side.

  "It never ends. We burn until we burn up."

  "But why?"

  His dad shrugged. "Why is the earth flat? It is our nature to live just as it is the sun's nature to burn."

  "What if we don't stop the sun?"

  "Then the world burns instead of us."

  Billy was quiet. He thought of the nice shady place in the woods, where he could press his cheek in the cool mud. So escape would be only temporary, and long sweltering years lay ahead of him.

  An idea came to him. He wondered if there was somebody who shepherded the wind, just as his dad controlled the sun. Someone whose cheeks were constantly sore
from puffing and blowing.

  And someone who made the rains fall and water flow, perhaps by crying, when the water only wanted to pool quietly.

  And someone who held up the sky, who at this moment was telling his or her child about the evils that hovered above the clouds, waiting for a sliver of opening in which to descend. Might there not be all kinds of powers at work, each carefully and precariously balanced to make the world livable?

  His dad must have sensed that he'd told Billy enough for one night. There was much for Billy to learn, but there was time. Dad was still strong, and even though he was probably sick of holding the stellar furnace in his head, he wasn't ready to surrender. He kissed Billy on the forehead, his scalding lips touching the equally warm skin of his son.

  "Good night, Billy. I hope you dream of ice," he whispered. He turned out the light as he left.

  Billy lay in the dark, contemplating the illusion of night. One day he would fight the sun. One day he would swallow fire. One day he would keep the world from becoming a funeral pyre, as he had seen it burning in his mind. But tonight, it was enough to know the sun could be beaten.

  He pressed his eyes closed, and his mind spun in bright circles until his thoughts disappeared into a perfect red and stormy sleep.

  ###

  IN THE HEART OF NOVEMBER

  Margaret sat on the tombstone, swinging her legs. Ellen could read Margaret's name carved in the gray granite, though the letters were blurred.

  "How long have we been friends?" Margaret asked, her voice like a lost wind.

  "You mean...before or after?" Ellen pulled her sweater more tightly across her chest. The graveyard was in the heart of November, all shadow and chill and flapping brown leaves.

  "Both, silly."

  "Seven years."

  "And have I ever broken a promise or blabbed a secret?"

  Ellen looked away. Even though Margaret was almost invisible, her eyes glowed bright and strange. Ellen had stopped by the graveyard every day after school since her best friend had been buried, and they often spent hours out here in the summer, talking about boys and Ellen's mom and Mrs. Deerfield's geometry tests. Margaret knew more of Ellen's secrets than anybody.

  "I don't know," Ellen said. "You never blab on this side, but you could be telling my secrets to every dead person in the world, for all I know."

  Margaret's wispy features darkened. "Dead people don't care about your problems. They've got their own."

  "Their problems can't be as bad as mine."

  Margaret drifted down from the tombstone and put a cold hand on Ellen's shoulder. "I wish you never had to find out."

  "If I were dead, then it wouldn't matter if boys treated me like dirt."

  "Don't be so sure."

  "Do boys like you...over there?" Ellen tried to picture Doug as a ghost, but couldn't. He was too tall and healthy and strong. He was meant to be running up and down a soccer field, as swift as sunshine, his dark curly hair flying about his face.

  "Dead boys just aren't very interesting," Margaret said. "They don't want to do anything but sleep."

  Margaret put her hands together, and the pale fingers merged. "It's hard to hold hands when you don't have much to hang on to. And kissing—" Margaret puckered her lips and made an exaggerated smacking sound. "Nobody likes cold lips."

  "Gross," said Ellen.

  Margaret's giggle spilled out over the grass and echoed off the stone wall that surrounded the cemetery. The sun was sinking into the gnarled tops of trees. Cars passed by the highway beyond the wall, the wheels making whispers on the asphalt.

  "I'd better get home," Ellen said. "Mom will be mad."

  "I wish you could stay here all the time."

  "But you don't want me to be dead."

  "I just get lonely sometimes. Lonely for living people. I miss being alive."

  Ellen looked into Margaret's unearthly eyes. "You miss Doug."

  "Wouldn't you?"

  Ellen didn't say anything. How could she tell her best friend that they were in love with the same guy? She'd hoped Margaret would get over him. Margaret and Doug didn't have anything in common, especially now.

  But they had been close once. Back in the seventh grade, they'd been as steady as anybody. And all Ellen could do was watch with envy as they held onto each other at school dances or talked quietly during lunch or passed notes in class. After Margaret was hit by a car and killed, Ellen thought Doug was going to die as well, only from a broken heart instead of a broken body.

  "I've got to go," Ellen said. Her mom would yell at her for being late again. If only Mom knew that the more she yelled, the more Ellen wanted to be late. Ellen waved and started through the rows of tombstones.

  "I might come out tomorrow," Margaret called after her.

  Ellen turned, chilled by more than the long shade of a dead oak. "I thought they didn't like it when you come out."

  "Who cares what they think?" Margaret shook her see-through hair. "I get tired of them telling me what to do and where to go. They don't want anybody to have any fun."

  Ellen didn't know who "they" were, but Margaret's eyes always narrowed with anger when she spoke of them. "You aren't supposed to leave."

  "Gosh, Ellen, you're starting to sound like your mom." Margaret's hollow voice rose in pitch as she mimicked Ellen's mom. "'You were supposed to be home an hour ago. You were supposed to make an A on that math test.'"

  Ellen laughed, even though Margaret's shrill imitation was too perfect, and it reminded Ellen of what was awaiting at home. "What will they do to you if you leave?"

  Margaret shrugged. "Whatever."

  Margaret had left the cemetery once, had floated outside Ellen's window in the mobile home park. This had been about two weeks after her burial. Margaret had seemed so much more lost, lonely, and creepy outside of the graveyard. Whatever invisible chains kept her bound to the dirt under her tombstone must have been painful to break, because when Ellen visited the next day, Margaret had faded to nearly nothing. A month passed before Margaret returned to her usual thin form.

  Ellen moved to her best friend and gave her a hug. At least, she tried. Her arms passed through Margaret, raising goose bumps. "Don't do anything to make them mad. They might take you forever next time."

  "I want to see Doug," Margaret said.

  "Doug's not worth it."

  "How do you know? What do you know about losing somebody you love?"

  Ellen's eyes grew hot with held tears. Margaret was beautiful. She could have had any boy she wanted. Ellen was afraid that Margaret still could, even dead. "I've really got to go."

  "I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to be mean."

  Ellen sniffled. "It's not your fault. I'm just feeling sorry for myself."

  "See you tomorrow?"

  Ellen nodded and hurried from the graveyard, making sure no one was looking before she climbed over the cemetery wall. She slipped into the woods and onto the well-worn path that led home.

  "What's wrong?" Mom asked. "You've hardly eaten a bite. You're not going to starve yourself so you can look like the girls in Seventeen, are you? I told you to quit wasting money on those stupid magazines."

  "No, Mom, I'm not on a diet." Ellen was tired of eating macaroni and cheese and greasy hamburger. Mom's cooking even made the school cafeteria lunches look good.

  "You look pale." Mom leaned over the small table and pressed her hand to Ellen's forehead. Her hand was nearly as cold as Margaret's. "You're not taking sick, are you?"

  "I feel fine." Except her belly was like a nest of snakes. She was worried that Margaret would come out tomorrow.

  "Well, you don't look fine."

  "I think I just want to go lie down a while."

  "Got your homework done?"

  Ellen nodded. She always did her homework while the teachers were explaining it to the rest of the class. Margaret had gotten beauty, but Ellen was lucky with books. Too bad Doug was smart, too, and never asked Ellen to help him with homework.

  "Well, good.
That's one less thing I got to worry about." Mom's face was pinched and tired, her cheeks flushed. She might have been drinking. Ellen couldn't smell anything over the cloying aroma of cheese powder.

  Ellen pushed her plate away, knowing she'd see the leftovers again tomorrow. And tomorrow might bring other horrors. She went down the narrow paneled hall to her bedroom. The bed took up most of the floor, and she crawled onto it and lay on her back, looking at the pictures of musicians and unicorns on her walls. The unicorns would have to go. She was getting too old for unicorns.

  She reached over, slid her desk drawer open, and took out the photograph. Its edges were worn from handling, but the face was just as wonderful as always. Doug smiled out from between the white borders, straight teeth and dark eyes and curly hair. Something swished against the window, and Ellen's breath froze in her lungs. What if Margaret was at her window, looking in? What if Margaret had seen her gazing longingly at Doug's picture?

  She got on her knees and looked out the window. The lights blazed in the windows of the mobile homes, which were arranged as awkwardly as tombstones. Different sizes, moved in at different times, all slowly fading under the wear of time. This was her graveyard, and she was as trapped here as Margaret was in hers of grass and granite and artificial flowers.

  Nobody stirred outside, neither the dead nor the living. Leaves scurried across the bare yards like frantic mice. A pole at the end of the park glowed with a sick blue light, but it was too cold and weak to attract bugs. Ellen drew her curtains tight and rested back on her pillow.

  Doug. He'd said hello to her in the hall the other day. She summoned the memory in all its glory, the flash of his eyes, the warm tone of his voice, his head above the crowd of students changing class. She'd been too nervous to say anything in response, all she could do was give a lame wave and what she hoped was a smile.

  Probably looked like a grimace. She brought a small hand mirror from her drawer and practiced her smile. Dimples that were dumpy instead of cute. Her cheeks were fat. She had a pimple on her chin. God, she was hideous. No wonder Doug didn't want her.

  She and Doug had been close briefly, right after Margaret's death. They had sat together at lunch, Doug wearing sunglasses so that no one could tell that Mr. Cool had been crying. They'd even hugged at the funeral, and now Ellen embraced that fleeting memory of his muscles.