The Guardian's Playlist

by J Powell Ogden

  Mother’s guilt is a wonderful thing.

  As for me, I didn’t feel too guilty. My parents only asked where I was going, not whether or not I was going to stay there. I got my homework done, kept my grades up, and ran any errands my mom asked me to. And I did study at Jai Ho for a while each day, but then I’d grab a steaming cup of chai and head out to the frigid woods to be with Michael.

  Michael was mostly glad to see me, but he was careful to steer our conversations stubbornly away from his past. He refused to buy into my argument that exploring his past might free him from his forest prison. Instead, he spent his time with me laughing about the latest gossip at Saint Joan, following animal tracks to their burrows—which he was really good at—and telling me stories about what stupid hikers did in the woods when they thought they were alone. But his brave front didn’t fool me. A faraway look was growing in his eyes, and I was impatient to draw him back out, to find out more, to help him go home.

  By the end of October, my friends noticed my absence. I covered by claiming I was swamped with homework, which satisfied them most of the time because they were swamped too. I rarely invited them over because…well, there was no place to hang out at my house, and I always had some reason on the tip of my tongue for not going out. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t seem to make the leap back and forth between my friends and Michael, so I chose the latter. Michael needed me.

  But Cici—we shared a room. I couldn’t avoid her, and she knew something was up.

  The weekend before Halloween, she came home from a hayride, which J.C. had organized for the Social Action Club, with four pumpkins she’d bought to boost the club’s donation to charity.

  “Only four?” I teased as she kicked off her mud-caked flats and shrugged out of her cropped jacket.

  “Not many people showed up, and J.C. was kind of disappointed.” The accusation was subtle, but unmistakable.

  “Oh,” I said.

  She covered the kitchen table with old newspapers and set the pumpkins on top. “Which one do you want?” she asked, pulling out a few sharp knives, big spoons and my mom’s huge all-purpose, metal bowl. She just assumed I wanted to help carve them. I hadn’t even thought about Halloween.

  I reached out with my fingertips to touch the pumpkins’ cold, lumpy surfaces. Which one? I looked them over more carefully than a sixteen-year-old probably should have, and chose the smallest. It was about the size of a cantaloupe, and I knew as I picked it up and moved it down to my father’s end of the table, that it was destined for something special this year.

  “So…” Cici said casually, picking up a knife, “What’s new?”

  “Just studying,” I said, serving up school again as my excuse for not being around.

  “So that’s all you do at Jai Ho every day? Study?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh. It just seems like you’re spending a lot of time doing homework—for you that is.”

  I avoided her eyes, picked up a knife, and stabbed it into the top of my pumpkin. “Yeah, well, sophomore classes are harder than freshmen classes,” I said. Shit. I hated lying to her, hated it. Maybe I should talk to her about Michael. Tell her something. But my thoughts warned against it.

  She’ll think you’re crazy. She’ll tell. You can’t help Michael if you’re locked away in some insane asylum.

  She broke into my thoughts. “It’s some new boy, isn’t it?” Her eyes were all lit up, begging to be let in on the secret. “Someone you don’t want me to know about.”

  I nearly choked. “No!” I cried. “Just me and some tea and a whole lot of homework.”

  “Fine,” Cici said, her eyes raking over me suspiciously. “But you’re going to the movies with me and J.C. this weekend. Okay? That new zombie one? J.C. wants to see it, and Finn and Spence are too busy with basketball.”

  “Maybe,” I hedged, but I knew if I wanted her off my back, I’d have to spend more time with her.

  Yes. You have to be more careful.

  Claire and my dad swept into the kitchen to help. It wasn’t long before the big metal bowl was full of pumpkin slime, and our masterpieces were finished. My dad’s pumpkin had slanted eyes and a mouth that was wide open and moaning. Cici had carved a bat face complete with pointy fangs, and Claire’s had cat eyes with vertical slits for pupils. Mine was traditional: triangle eyes, a triangle nose and a huge gaping grin with a few buck teeth. You couldn’t go wrong with the classic.

  “Come on! Let’s take them upstairs to show Mina!” suggested Claire, grinning. I hesitated. I hadn’t really been in to see her since she’d moved in at the beginning of the month, but the wave formed by my sisters and dad carried me up the stairs and down the hall, where I let myself get hung up in the doorway for the hundredth time. I didn’t want to go in. It was cold in there, damp and somehow dangerous.

  My mom, who’d just finished giving Mina a breathing treatment, smiled as Claire held out her pumpkin for Mina to see. Mina’s pale lips turned up in her pink puffy face. I was envious of the easy relationship Claire had with her. The smell of unwashed sickness in the room, the rattle of her breath, the red splotches on her thin arms, none of it seemed to bother Claire in the least.

  I remained snagged in the doorway until a small point of light appeared on Mina’s face. She shielded her eyes with her dry crooked fingers. The sun had come out from behind the clouds and filled her room with warm, golden light. It was reflecting off something into her eyes.

  The light drew me in, and as I moved toward her bed, I watched the little spot of sunlight move off her face and down onto her chest. I looked around to see what was caught in the late afternoon sunbeam. It was my silver ring. It had somehow worked its way out from under my shirt, its usual hiding place, and for a moment it gleamed as if it were brand new, free of scratches, and polished until it shone like the sun itself.

  Mina reached out with her fingers to touch it with joy in her eyes, but the joy was short-lived. It was replaced by a hardness I didn’t understand. Her brows knitted together, and she turned her face toward the wall.

  “I’m tired,” she said. The warm sunlight disappeared as the sun dipped back behind the clouds, and the temperature of the room felt like it dropped ten degrees. I looked down to see that my ring had reverted back to its usual appearance, dull, scuffed, and unremarkable. Claire glanced up at my mom uncertainly, who motioned with her head that we should leave and let Mina have her rest.

  For that brief moment when the sun appeared, I’d suddenly had an overwhelming urge to talk with my grandmother, spend time with her and reminisce about better days, but now I was left feeling cold and uneasy, shut out. The feeling followed me into my bed that night and teased up forgotten memories.

  “Fear,” said the Demon, his shiny black eyes softening with the awe he always felt when his methods produced the desired effect. “It makes even the strongest among them turn their backs on those they profess to love.” He looked up from the girl into the eyes of her Guardian.

  The Guardian’s eyes flared bright silver. His lips curled back. “Not always.”

  “True,” the Demon conceded. “But we’re still just priming. Fear is a good primer. Watch and learn.”

  The Guardian’s jaw flexed, and he returned his protective gaze to the girl. Her skin glistened. She was beginning to sweat.

  It was dark, and I was lost and alone in my parents’ cavernous, king-sized bed. I was eleven again. I had the flu. I was scrawny and weak and shivering with fever. I hadn’t seen my friends in weeks, and I had hundreds of homework projects due that I hadn’t even begun. I’d fallen headfirst out of my life, and I was still falling.

  Blink.

  I was choking. I grabbed a tissue and coughed up a thick green scab of phlegm from deep within my clogged lungs. With trembling hands, I added the tissue to the other hundred in the big metal bowl that sat next to me on the bed.

  Blink.

  There were shadows moving about at the foot of the bed. I tried to point them out to Cla
ire, who was sitting with me. My mom floated in carrying the big metal bowl, which was now filled with ice and water. She dipped a washcloth in and wiped my burning forehead.

  Blink.

  I inhaled, but froze mid-breath. A knife stabbed me in the back, and I gasped. Another thrust. Another arrested breath. I panicked. I could either suffocate or be stabbed to death. My lungs made the decision for me and inflated. I doubled over. Mom! I think I’m dying.

  Blink.

  The fluorescent lights of the hospital waiting room stung my eyes. The hard molded plastic chair cut into my back and legs. I leaned my head back against the hard, tiled wall and closed my eyes, waiting. I waited forever.

  Blink.

  I was wheeled down a hall into a dark room where I climbed onto a thin mattress. I took shallow breaths. I didn’t want to disturb the knife. I was afraid it would cut deeper. I was afraid it would fight back. “She has pneumonia. Give her oxygen. Give her penicillin. Give her Tylenol.” Tylenol? Were they freaking kidding me? Where was my Morphine?

  Blink.

  It was after midnight, and the knife was gone. I was clammy. Cold. The vampire was here again. There were tiny red needle marks all over the inside of my elbow. Blood draws.

  “Arterial Blood Gas,” the vampire whispered in the dark. I nodded.

  He paused as he held up the needle. “It will sting a little more than the others.”

  I nodded again.

  He felt my wrist, found a bulging artery and slid the hypodermic home. The knife was back. It was lodged in the artery in my wrist. He pulled it out and a deep purple bruise ballooned up. It spread and faded to red, an ugly red splotch on the inside of my wrist. He pressed down on the bruise firmly with a cotton ball, and it throbbed. It throbbed. It throbbed.

  I don’t want to be sick anymore! I want to be sixteen again! God, please wake me up!

  The room began to darken and blur. I was underwater, looking up through the surface, drowning in the deep pool of my nightmares. My naked feet were cold, and I looked down and saw dark inky roots ascending. I strained my foggy vision back toward the surface. Michael was looking down at me from the beautiful citrus and pine scented air above. He plunged his hand into the water toward me, obliterating my view of his face. I couldn’t reach it. I couldn’t reach it. I couldn’t…

  Blink.

  There were dark shapes around the foot of the bed.

  They laughed at me in the deep, still pool.

  They wanted me to drown.

  Where was the music?

  There should have been music.

  I woke up with a start in my own bed and thrust my moon-washed forearms up above the blankets and inspected them. They were smooth and milky white, but I rubbed my wrists, knowing they had not always been so. Like Mina’s, my wrists had once been punctured too. I knew what it felt like to have setbacks—the kind you have when you have lung problems. But I was strong now, not weak, not like her.

  Rolling over, I grabbed my iPod off the nightstand and shoved my headphones in my ears.

  Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think…

  I scrolled to the top of my Playlist, frantically searching for the missing music, “Saving Grace.” It was the first song I’d heard that made me wonder, what if?

  What if someone was watching over me?

  Were they still?

  I’ve stood the edge

  Hands High, Head Down

  And dreamed the End.

  Entire worlds passed by

  Without a notice

  Missing my eyes by a second chance.

  But sunrise came along

  And in a whisper

  Broke me from a long unending trance.

  So I look beyond my eyes

  Step out from behind the lies

  And learn that I can now begin to Fly.

  And learn that I can now begin to fly…

  The next morning, I shuffled out into the cold, dark hallway and glanced back over my shoulder into my grandmother’s room. She was propped up on pillows with oxygen tubes in place under her nose. She was watching me. Our eyes locked and held before I broke the connection and headed down the stairs to the kitchen. I’d visit her later.

  There’s plenty of time.

  My mom will take care of her.

  Sure. She’s good at that.

  She’s got everything under control.

  Yes. Of course she does.

  It was sixty-five degrees, which was unseasonably mild for a Halloween night in Cleveland, but the warm wind tearing across the moonlit field swore to holy hell it would unleash a bitter cold front on all of us tomorrow. The weathermen were even calling for snow.

  The stupid wind kept knocking my velvet witch’s hat off, and I finally stopped trying to keep it on my head, letting it hang instead by its black satin strap across my back. As I trudged across the field, it bounced up and down against my shoulder blades, happy to remind me it was the winner of our little battle of wills. My hair had won, too. I’d left it loose under the hat, and now—without the hat or a hair tie to keep it in check—it was free to attack me from any direction it chose.

  I was coming straight from passing out candy in costume at Meri’s house and was still wearing my short black dress and green fishnet stockings, though I had switched out my peep toe pumps for my aging hiking boots. I was excited. I had a surprise for Michael. One that I hoped would bring back happier memories. One that I hoped would draw him away from the dark nothingness that ceaselessly called to him.

  I should have been afraid as I stood in the gaping mouth of the woods a few minutes later, alone, with a pitifully small flashlight in my hand, but my heart thrilled with nothing but anticipation. The magic that was Michael always affected me the same way. I paused in the forest vestibule to savor the feeling and the smell of the woods. Nestled in among the pines and sheltered from the wind, the air was so warm and muggy it smelled as if someone had brewed a cup of pine needle tea.

  “Michael,” I whispered.

  Strange, he almost always met me at the start of the trail before stubbornly disappearing to meet up with me later back at the cliff or the lightning tree.

  “Michael?”

  Nothing. Not even a whisper of his signature clean and woodsy scent. I started to walk down the trail alone when I heard a soft exhalation above me and then...

  “Boo,” Michael said solemnly, appearing suddenly out of the heavy air in front of me.

  I should have expected it, but my heart stopped anyway and I cried, “Shit! Michael you scared the crap out of me!” He grinned devilishly, laced his fingers behind his head and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. His eyes twinkled with delight. Halloween seemed to agree with him.

  “Isn’t that my job on Halloween?” he wanted to know. “I am a freaking ghost after all.”

  “You’re a pain in the…” I grumbled, but I couldn’t help grinning. He was so pleased with himself. “How did you get that close without me smelling you?” I asked, leaning in to inhale a nose-full of his clean citrus scent. It helped to chase back the shadows.

  “Ah…” He looked embarrassed by my affection for the way he smelled, but tried to hold still. “That was easy. I just stayed above and downwind of you.”

  “Above?” The fact that he could do that still freaked me out a little.

  “Sure,” he said, as if it was no big thing. Then he appraised me from head to toe and shook his head back and forth a few times, laughing. “What’re you supposed to be? A witch?”

  I nodded.

  “Hmm, I like the boots with the fishnet. Very fashion forward of you.”

  “Ha ha. I didn’t think my high-heeled pumps would fare too well out here in the middle of the woods.”

  “No, probably not.” His eyes drifted away from me to the peaceful empty forest, and he became still and quiet. With the twinkle absent from his eyes, he looked tired. Exhausted. The darkness was calling him, even now, even with me standing right in front of him. How could I co
mpete with the solace it offered? I cleared my throat, and he blinked hard and refocused his eyes. He looked me up and down again, zeroing in on my butterfly bag. It bulged suspiciously.

  “So, what’s in there?”

  “A surprise.”

  His eyes regained some of their light, and he studied the bag with growing interest. He took a step toward me.

  “No, you have to wait,” I instructed, laughing. I put my arm out so he’d have to walk through it to get to the bag, and he grinned at me wickedly. I definitely had his attention now.

  “You know I could go right through that.” He took another step toward me.

  “Yes, but you don’t like to do that.” My heart rate spiked as he stepped closer still. He was pale, and he was flickering, and his eyes were deep gray craters on the edge of the flashlight’s cone of light. He looked almost…frightening. “Besides, the bag is closed. Even if you—”

  He raised his eyebrows, and I realized he could pass his face right through the bag if he wanted to, and I snatched it behind my back. He disappeared and materialized instantly behind me.

  “Cheater!” I squeaked, turning swiftly around. My breath momentarily failed me. Calm down stupid, its only Michael.

  “Okay, okay,” he surrendered, relaxing his stance, and I exhaled softly. His eyes lingered on my hair for a moment, and then he added, “Um…I’ll meet you back by the lightning tree. It’s really windy along the cliff top, and I don’t think you’d survive the beating your hair would give you.” Then he disappeared again.

  “Thanks,” I said sarcastically. But with him gone, the shadows closed back in. “You’re still here, though…right?” I whispered cautiously.

  A wave of his scent washed over me, and he laughed. “Yeah, Catherine, I’ll stay nearby.” And he did. His fragrance followed me all the way back to the lightning tree deep in the woods.