Flying in Place

by Susan Palwick

  Myrna, watching me, sighed and nodded. “That’s what I was afraid of. We have an extra bedroom, you know. Tom Jr.’s old room from before he went away to school.”

  “I’m not allowed to go to your house,” I said, finding my voice. “My mother hates you. She thinks you’re fat and your daughter’s a slut and your husband’s stupid and ugly, and she doesn’t know why you ever married him.”

  “Your mother,” Myrna said, and then stopped and took a breath. “Never mind your mother. The door locks from the inside, Emma, You can stay there anytime you want to.”

  “My mother thinks—”

  Myrna reached out to squeeze my hand. I could tell she was trying not to get angry. “Emma, everyone knows what your mother thinks. I don’t care about that.”

  “She’s my mother!” I said, terror coiling in my stomach. I was sweating lakes in my heavy sweatshirt. Myrna was going to call the police or something: I knew it. And then Mom would die and it would be my fault and I’d be alone with my father. People like that go to jail, Tom had told Mr. Ewmet—but my father would never go to jail, because he’d fixed the judge’s prostate. The judge would give him oranges instead, and my father would come home and punish me. “I have to care about what she thinks! I have to do what she says.”

  “Oh, honey,” Myrna said. “I know you do. I know. Don’t worry. I’ll talk to her, too.”

  “No! You can’t! You don’t understand anything.” If you tell her she’ll die, she’ll die, she’ll die. “You don’t know what you’re talking about! The bruises are from gym and my father—he yells at me for being clumsy but that’s okay—”

  “Emma,” Myrna said, very gently, “It’s all right. You didn’t tell me anything. I just figured it out. That’s my job.” She squeezed my hand again, and then she got up and left.

  I sat there, staring at the book in my lap. Podkayne of Mars, which was about where I wanted to be. And then I realized that it didn’t matter. Myrna could talk to Mom all she wanted to; Mom would never believe her, any more than she’d known what the blood was. She’d think Myrna was getting back at her for assigning The Scarlet Letter. And if Myrna called the police I’d just lie to them. That way Mom wouldn’t die and nothing would change, except that I’d get into trouble for talking to Myrna. It wasn’t fair. I didn’t want Mom to die, but all my ways of keeping her safe meant that I got hurt.

  After another minute or two I left the library and went by my mother’s classroom. Mom had a planning period when I had lunch, so I figured Myrna would be in there with her, and I was right. The door was closed, but Mom and Myrna were both so used to talking to lots of people that they projected even when they didn’t want to.

  “I appreciate your concern,” Mom said icily, “but it’s completely unnecessary. Emma’s fine.”

  “Emma is most decidedly not fine. Pam, forget politics for a minute and open your eyes. You’re not a stupid woman. I can’t believe that you can’t see what’s happening.”

  “She’s having a difficult time adjusting to adolescence. Most youngsters this age do. I’m not in the least worried about her.”

  “Then you’re the only one who isn’t. Have you talked to any of her teachers lately? Her grades have fallen off, she isn’t paying attention in class, and half the time she looks like she’s sleepwalking. She’s afraid of physical contact and she’s wearing entirely too much clothing—”

  “As opposed to Jane, who isn’t wearing enough. Maybe you should stop paying so much attention to my daughter and start paying more to yours.”

  “I could say the same about you, but this conversation would degenerate into something entirely unprofessional. Pam, I like Emma. She’s a good kid. And something pretty damn serious is eating at her, and if you can’t see that you’ve got your head in the sand.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I’d be extremely grateful if you’d leave my classroom. Now.”

  “Then I will, because if that’s your attitude you’ll never listen to what I have to say. But if you decide you want to listen, will you come talk to me? Better yet, will you talk to Emma?”

  “Oh,” my mother said, her tones as chilly as ever, “I’ll talk to Emma.”

  “I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

  “I’m very sure that it’s none of your business.”

  There was a pause, and Myrna’s heavy footsteps moved towards the door. Then they stopped for a moment. “When you talk to her,” Myrna said, “Tell her you love her, please. If you do, that is. She needs to hear it.”

  Dream on, I thought, ducking into the girls’ room as Myrna left my mother’s classroom. The stench of cigarette smoke and urine made me long unbearably for the dream-lake, but the bell rang, and I headed off to French class instead.

  I never got there, because the intercom came on with a hiss of static. “Emma Gray, please report to the English office.”

  English office? Didn’t she have class now? No, she didn’t, because it was Friday and her honors kids were in with Mr. McClellan’s kids watching a filmstrip about Hawthorne. Great. So she had a free period to heckle me, and if I didn’t show up at the English office she’d show up at the door of my French class.

  No way. I headed straight for an exit sign, out the door into hot hazy sunshine, and up the road to the lake, the real lake. There probably wouldn’t be too many kids there; everybody was being more careful these days because of the Jane and Tad incident. If somebody followed me to the dock and tried to touch me, let him. Maybe I’d be lucky and he’d have a knife and I’d get killed. Maybe it would be a really sharp knife and I’d get killed really quickly, before I even felt anything. That way Mom would have another angel to love and I’d be able to get away from my father. Whoever else found me at the lake, at least my parents probably wouldn’t.

  When I got there I lay down on the worn wood. The lapping of the water and the warmth of the sun lulled away my worries, and gradually the real lake faded into the dream-lake, the true lake, the infinitely beautiful lake of which I never wearied. So what if Ginny was being a pill? I didn’t need her. I could come here by myself.

  I flew and flew and flew, without getting tired or hungry or bored. I could fly forever, here where it was safe, and nothing could ever hurt me. And at last I noticed that Ginny had joined me after all, and was sitting on a branch overhanging the water. Had she been sitting there the whole time? I didn’t even know.

  “Ginny?” I called. She sat watching me; I couldn’t read her expression, I waved. “Hey, Ginny, come on!”

  She stayed there. Exasperated, I flew back to join her. “What’s the matter? Don’t you want to have fun? Let’s play tag.”

  “I never should have brought you here,” she said, and another cloud passed over the beautiful scenery. “This isn’t—”

  “Isn’t what? This is perfect, when you let the sun stay out! Come on, play tag with me.”

  “Dad used to play tag with me,” she said, “but it wasn’t fair because he always won. I don’t like that game. If all you want to do is fly, I might as well not have come back at all. Emma, this isn’t Peter Pan.”

  Yes it is, and Captain Hook’s my father and Tinkerbell’s my flighty mother, shooting me down every chance she gets, “Yes it is,” I said, “because I don’t want to grow up, and you never did. We’re the lost girls. Come on—you’re the one who liked the stupid book. Do you think we can find some animals in the woods? Foxes or something? Show me a fox.”

  “I can’t, unless you’ve already seen it,” she said. She was shaking. “Emma, there’s only one way not to grow up.”

  “But—”

  “Go home. Go home now, and never come back here again.”

  “What?” I had to blink back tears, and suddenly I hated her again. Nothing was supposed to hurt here. How could she do this to me? “You’re telling me to go away? After all that work? What was the work for, then?”

  “So we’d talk,” Ginny said. “So we’d share things, so you’d get t
o know me. But all you want is the pretty stuff. You’re just like Mom.”

  “I’m what? Like Mom? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Yes! You’re like Mom! Looking for the pretty stuff and not thinking about what anything means! Emma, this isn’t a real world. It’s just a place where we can talk.”

  It’s just a place to talk, I’d told Jane. It’s not the secret. But I was scared again, because I didn’t want to know Ginny’s secret. “And fly. It’s the only place I can fly.”

  “There were a lot of things I wanted to do,” Ginny said. “I never got to do them.”

  “Yeah, so, you never got to go to Disneyland. Lots of people go to Disneyland. How many people get to fly? I’ve always wanted to fly, and now I can. Come on!”

  I dropped from the branch and plummeted towards the water, only to pull myself into a stall at the last minute. It was gloriously easy. But behind me Ginny, still stuck on the branch like a cat stranded in a tree, had begun to moan. It was the noise ghosts are supposed to make.

  I swung back around, the hair on the back of my neck rising. Improbably swift storm clouds had gathered again, and Ginny was clinging to the tree branch, sobbing and howling.

  “Ginny? What’s wrong with you—”

  “I’m dead! That’s what’s wrong with me! Dead people fly, Emma! I brought you here so I could talk to you, and all you want to do is pretend you’re dead!”

  “Yeah?” I remembered my fantasy about the knife. “So what if I do? Try being alive again! It hasn’t been too much fun lately.”

  She shook her head wildly. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Now go back. Go back! You’ve spent too much time here.”

  “If I go will I be able to come here again?”

  “If you don’t go you’ll never be able to leave. You’re trapping both of us here. Go home!”

  She’d started growing thinner before my eyes, hollower, like something out of a horror movie. “Stop it,” I said. “Ginny, cut it out! Stop trying to scare me and be pretty again.”

  “I didn’t stay pretty in the world and I can’t here, either. Those are the rules.” In the increasing darkness of the clouds she looked gaunt, terror-stricken. “Go,” she said, her voice a wail, and I turned and fled just before she melted to bone.

  “I knew you’d be here,” someone said, and I opened my eyes hoping it would be Ginny, whole and healthy again. Instead, it was a girl nearly as skinny as Ginny, with red ponytails and freckles like mine. If I tried, I could almost see through her. I’d known her name once. What was her name? I couldn’t remember.

  “Everybody’s been looking for you. They’ve been paging you at school and nobody could find you and your mom’s having a fit. I knew you’d be here.”

  Jane. That’s who it was. Jane was standing over me, scowling, her hands on her hips, sunlight leaking through her skin. I blinked, and she turned solid again. Now she’s going to beat me up, I thought, my body weighing me down like stone. She’s been waiting for her chance and she came out here to take it.

  But she only scowled harder, and said, “Cripes, Emma, look at your face! You look like a lobster.”

  “What?” When I tried to talk the skin around my mouth and nose felt like it was going to come off. I blinked, chasing a vague memory of lying down with the sun on my face…the sun. There wasn’t much sun now. The sky was becoming overcast, the same way it had at the dream-lake when Ginny—

  I shivered. “What time is it?”

  “About three-thirty. It’s going to rain. Look, come back to my house if you want to, and you can call your mom and pretend you’re at the library or something and go home when she calms down.”

  “She won’t calm down,” I said. She’ll die. She’ll melt like Ginny melted. “Did you tell her I was here?”

  “Huh? Of course not! I know when to keep my mouth shut, unlike some people I could mention. You owe me one, Emma.”

  Ashamed and frightened, I bowed ray head. I knew I should thank her for sticking up for me in the boat, but I was too embarrassed to talk about it. “I know. Are you going to beat me up?”

  “Huh? No! Who told you that?”

  “Nobody. But you were mad at me, and you kept throwing spitballs—”

  “I was trying to get your attention, idiot! Because you wouldn’t talk to me anymore. I figured your mom brainwashed you into hating me.”

  “She tried,” I said. The sunburn made me feel feverish, and I kept seeing images of Ginny collapsing into a death’s-head. “I don’t know what to do. Whatever I do, she’ll be upset. She’s always upset.”

  “Aw—look, Emma. She was really scared, your mom. You don’t exactly cut classes and disappear all the time, you know. So when she sees you she’ll probably yell, but mostly she’ll be relieved. Come on: whatever else you do, you’d better let my mother look at your face. We’ll sneak through the woods and go in the back door at my house.”

  “But I’m not supposed to talk to any of you,” I said.

  “Emma! What, she’s going to be mad that I found you and my mom gave you first aid? She’ll probably give us medals, unless she’s like ugly old Mr. Ewmet. And I don’t think she’s that dumb, even if she did hate my poem and make us give those stupid reports. Stop worrying so much. Come on. It’s starting to rain.”

  We were both soaked by the time we got to her house. My legs felt like rubber, and my nose and forehead hurt so much that it was hard to keep from crying. Jane led me into her house—she had grabbed the sleeve of my sweatshirt, and tugged at it as if I were blind—and yelled, “Hey, we’re here! Mom?”

  The Halloran household was in full riot mode: TV blaring, animals running underfoot, one of Jane’s sisters-in-law breastfeeding a baby at the kitchen table while Tom Jr. discussed dirt-bike racing with two of his brothers, someone whose back I didn’t recognize rooting through the refrigerator, saying plaintively, “Where’s the celery? I just want a piece of celery! Anybody seen any celery?”

  “In the vegetable bin, dummy,” Jane told him. She parked me by a wall and let go of my arm. “Stand there and drip, okay? I’ll get you some dry clothing.’

  “Nothing of yours will fit me.”

  “We’ll find something. Don’t worry. Hey, guys, where’s Mom?”

  “In her study,” the sister-in-law said. “With the door closed. She’s taking a sanity break and she’s not in a good mood. You’d better not bother her, unless it’s a medical emergency.”

  “I need some sunburn lotion,” Jane said, and started down the hall to her mother’s study.

  “Upstairs,” Tom Jr. called after her. “In the linen closet next to Mom and Dad’s bathroom—hey, Jane! Did you hear me? You don’t need to bother Mom for that, do you?”

  She didn’t answer. Tom Jr. shrugged, looked at me, and whistled. “Well. Maybe she does, after all. That’s quite a job you did on yourself, Emma.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Someone’s toddler wandered up, handed me a stuffed dog whose floppy ears were sticky with spit, and wandered away again. “Do you want to sit down?” said the sister-in-law.

  “No. I have to leave soon.”

  “No, you don’t.” It was Myrna, with Jane following her. “You don’t have to leave at all.” She dumped a cat off one of the kitchen chairs and said, “Sit down while I put this lotion on your face, Emma.”

  I’d heard her use that voice on her own kids. It didn’t permit disobedience. I sat down, cradling the toy. “I have to go home.”

  “Why?” Myrna spread the cream on my face with firm, gentle strokes. “I think you should stay here. This is an awful burn, you know. You practically gave yourself a second degree,”

  Mom will give me the third, I thought, and said, “My mother will be mad at me.”

  Myrna pressed her lips into a thin line. “Yes, I’m sure she will. But she’ll also be glad that you’re safe. Why don’t you spend the night here? I’ll call her and take care of it.”

  “It won’t do any good. She won�
��t talk to you. The only thing that will do any good is for me to go home.”

  I meant it. As much as I hated Mom sometimes, I didn’t want the rest of her to die. And home was where I lived, the place that held whatever I had: my Nancy Drew books, my calendar from Jane and my stuffed horse from Aunt Diane, the afghan Mom had made for me, however sloppily. There wasn’t anything of mine in this house: just other people’s children, other people’s animals, other people’s food and conversations and favorite TV shows.

  Still clutching the damp dog, I twisted away from Myrna’s hands and looked out the kitchen window. The rain had stopped, and somebody was on our porch. I peered at the figure, not daring to hope; when she turned towards the Hallorans’, my joy was so intense that for a moment I thought I was flying, even though I was still in my body.

  “I’m going home now,” I said, handing the stuffed dog to Myrna. “It’s okay. Everything’s fine.”

  “What?” She shook her head. “Emma, I really don’t think—”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, and ran out the back door. Everything was going to be all right, because Ginny was sitting on our front steps.

  It wasn’t Ginny, of course, but a woman who looked the way Ginny probably would have looked if she’d lived to be my mother’s age: still tiny, still with the same flowing auburn hair, but with lines of laughter and weariness etched around the eyes and mouth. She was wearing jeans and old sneakers and had a black leather jacket draped over her shoulders, despite the heat, and her eyes were the blue of the lake on cloudless July afternoons. She smiled and stood up, extending her hand, and said, “You must be Pam and Stewart’s daughter. I’m Donna, your mother’s sister.”

  “Hi,” I said, remembering Ginny’s first visit. I know lots you don’t know. She was real. She was a real ghost, not my imagination, not just something I’d dreamed up to amuse myself. She was a real dead person who’d come back to talk to me, a dead person who’d done cartwheels and melted into a skeleton. My own bones ran fluid for a moment, and I felt goosebumps goose-stepping up my arms. “I’m Emma.”