All About Evie (ARC)

by Cathy Lamb

  “So Serafina’s scales all became dust in the jar?”

  “Yes. As soon as the red one was dropped in. But one of her

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  brothers knew of the deep magic and he had been watching the king. When King Koradome saw the dust in the jar, he became enraged and he tossed the jar so fast and so hard, it sped by an octopus and lodged in purple-and-orange coral. When the king wasn’t looking, the brother swam over and grabbed the jar of dust and gave it back to Serafina.

  “As soon as Serafina touched the scales, they turned back to their original colors: Deep purple. Lemon yellow. Dusty pink.

  Burgundy and azure blue and lavender. But Serafina knew that she shouldn’t be the only one with such beauty anymore. She placed the scales in her mother’s garden. They shimmered and shone, and mermen and mermaids came from all over the world to see the magical garden. The garden brought smiles to their faces, wonder, joy.”

  “But was it hard for her to give up her rainbow tail forever?”

  “A little. But she knew that when she became an old, old mermaid, she could look back on her life and know that she had made so many people happy. It was definitely worth it.”

  “So when I save people or help people, I make them happy, right, Daddy?”

  “Yes, Evie. When you are old you will be able to look back on your life, as I hope you do now, and know that you saved people’s lives, you made their lives better, even if they’ll never know what you did for them.”

  “It’s hard with all these premonitions.”

  “I know.”

  “Hey! I need a magic mermaid tail!”

  “Your magic mermaid tail is in your heart, Evie.”

  “It is?”

  “Yes, but you won’t ever lose it. Your helpful heart is yours forever, and I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Daddy.”

  My dad died in the sands of the Middle East when I was twenty-one years old. Those sands have haunted me.

  It was the worst thing that had ever happened to me, Jules, and my mother. My parents were in love, they told me, from the

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  first time they met when my mother was traveling through Eu-rope with her sisters, all with backpacks on their backs. My father was with a couple of army buddies and they met in a bar.

  At the end of the backpacking trip, my mother stayed to be with my father in Germany on his army base.

  Cue up the whirlwind courtship and marriage.

  I don’t know when my father went from being in Special Forces in the army to working for the U.S. government in under-cover operations. Not even my mother knew exactly when things changed. It wasn’t something he was allowed to talk about. He still “deployed,” but sometimes he would leave on a dime.

  Twice a helicopter actually came to get him. He had a bachelor’s degree in criminology and a master’s in international relations from an Ivy League school. He was smart and quick. He was gentle and compassionate. He was driven and focused and brave. He was a family man.

  He was shot to death, set on fire by rebels, then dumped in a ditch where he was found by U.S. military forces out searching for him. The rebels who attacked him were hunted down and killed by the army, their cement compound destroyed and leveled until it was a smoking, lifeless ruin.

  It did not bring my father back. The grief was all-consuming.

  The rage at what they did to him was all-consuming. My mother, Jules, and I each cried an ocean of tears, often standing in the ocean at our beach, those tears literally reaching the waves. The horror of what had happened to my father, the vision, was unbearable.

  A few days after he died, I told Jules and my mother the story about the brave mermaid who lost her scales because of kind acts toward others. Jules told us a story that our dad had told her about a magical unicorn who helped everyone see color in their lives, like our mother’s flowers, instead of gray and black.

  My mother told us our father would always be with us in our hearts, in the stories he told, in the hugs he gave us, in the songs he sang, in the laughter we shared. “He’ll be with you in how you live your lives, girls. He’ll be with you in the lessons he taught you, the morals he gave you, the generosity and kindness

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  that he showed you. He’s here on the wind, he’s standing in the ocean with us, he’s in our flower garden, and at Rose Bloom Cottage. We can remember him reading books with us, drinking tea, and baking cakes. Love never dies, it’s always with us, he’s with us.”

  Our tears continued to fall in the ocean, our arms wrapped around one another.

  I loved my father with all that I am. He was honorable and good. I have never stopped missing him.

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  My head was buried in a pillow and I didn’t want to move, my back aching. Where was I? Why was I rocking back and forth?

  Was I on a boat? I should not be on a boat. . . .

  Then I remembered. My brain cleared as if it had been covered by mist and clouds. I remembered the one-lane road, the curve, the mountain and the cliff, the orange poppies. I remembered how I turned my wheel so I would not crash into Betsy. I remembered my premonition. I was now in my premonition. I shuddered as my stomach dropped.

  I must be dead. Surely I am dead. I must be on my way to heaven, although I thought that when I went to heaven that I would not physically hurt. Surely heaven takes away pain? My neck hurt, my back hurt, my body hurt.

  My world tilted again, then back. Like a teeter-totter. I have never liked teeter-totters.

  Ugh. I didn’t think I would feel any nausea in heaven, either.

  I thought heaven would be warm and light and a ton of fun.

  Where were the angels? Where were the golden gates? Where was the harpist?

  I tilted again.

  Maybe I’m not dead yet, I thought, my head still buried in a pillow. Why was my head in a pillow? I was so confused. Maybe I’m in that in-between zone. That would make sense, for me to be cursed like that. Stuck between life and death. For someone

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  who was plagued with premonitions, who was odd and different, this made sense in an ironic, punishing sort of way.

  I breathed once, then twice as I tilted back and forth again, then I heard it, someone shouting my name. But not my real name. My other name, Rose. The name no one called me.

  “Rose!”

  Then “Evie! Evie!”

  But it was muffled. The names were blended and softened. I sunk back into my pillow because my world tilted again and I was getting dizzy. Ugh. Stop moving, world!

  “Rose! Rose!”

  I slowly stuck my head up, the pain buzzing around as if it were loose in my head, a small painful marble pinging here and there.

  Over my pillow, which I realized was not my pillow but my airbag, I looked into trees. In fact, I was looking into the middle of a tree trunk. My truck tilted again, up and down, like a ride at a carnival, and I realized something extremely scary: I was in my truck and I was halfway over a cliff. The tree was blocking me from going all the way down.

  I had not flown straight off the road and into the air and over the cliff when I turned the wheel of my truck to avoid hitting Betsy. I was still on the road. Barely.

  “Rose!” I heard that voice again, a woman’s voice, scared but demanding, insistent, and I turned my head.

  Betsy. There was Betsy in her car. My biological mother. The one who went to jail for ten years with Johnny.

  I wanted to wave cheerily at her, but I was afraid to move. If I tilted the car forward, I’d go right over the cliff. It was then that I realized one more important fact, and it explained why Betsy was in her car and I was in mine but she seemed so close: Her car was imbedded into the side of my truck. I could see her.

  I could almost reach her, her window on the driver side halfway down.

  “Don’t move, Rose!” she yelled at me, her voice pitched up in fear. “Wait until we stop moving. Don’t mov
e!”

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  I closed my eyes in terror. We were so close. Finally we had met, finally she was here and I knew the truth, but our cars were smashed together. We were in my premonition. My probably-death premonition. I wondered if she’d had this premonition her whole life, too.

  I looked into her eyes. Those gold eyes were the same as mine, and within that gold I saw her kindness, her goodness, and her panic. I knew what had happened. She had turned her car to save me. I had turned my truck to save her. We had crashed together, sacrificing ourselves, but at the same time causing an accident, temporarily saving us both.

  My truck and her car finally balanced out. We were still a teeter-totter, but we were in the middle. We were mildly stabi-lized.

  “Get out, Rose!” she yelled. “Get out now!”

  I instinctively turned to grab the door handle, to escape this metal coffin, then stopped. What was keeping me from falling over was her car, smashed into mine. If I got out, my weight could shift this whole thing, these two hunks of metal sandwiched together. My truck and her car would tilt without my weight balancing things out, and the car and truck and Betsy would go tumbling over the cliff. I knew what happened then. I could almost feel the burning of the flames and smell the black smoke from my previous premonitions.

  I took a deep breath, sadness filling my chest. I did not want to die. But I could not live with her death on my head. I had been ruined with guilt from Patsy. I could not take on guilt from Betsy. I shook my head. “No. You go,” I shouted back to her through our open widows. “You have a daughter.”

  “No.” She was resolute, her chin set.

  Her car and my truck started to sway again, up and down, like a carnival ride before you take the big dip down, although there would be no fun thrill or cotton candy at the end. The end would end with tangled metal and an explosion.

  “I will not go before you. When we stop moving the next time, get out of your truck, Rose. Get out.”

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  “We’ll go together,” I shouted at her.

  “No,” she said, her eyes flashing with anger, which I knew buried her fear. “You first.”

  “No,” I said, tears coming to my eyes. “Together.”

  “Please, Rose,” she said. “Go first. I am begging you.”

  “I won’t,” I cried, my tears starting. “I will not.”

  I saw the expression of defeat on her face. She knew we didn’t have much time, and she knew I was not budging. The vehicles ever so slightly balanced out again in our midair teeter-totter.

  “We’ll do it together, at the same time,” she called out. “Ready?”

  “Yes. Are you?”

  She nodded, and slowly, carefully, her eyes never leaving mine, she reached for the handle of her car door. Both of us getting out of the vehicles at the same time would shift the weight, but we could do it as gently as possible.

  I opened my door, then looked down, and my brain felt as if it had been electrocuted by fear. There was nothing but air below my foot. My back wheels were on the street, the hood of my truck scraping the tree, and the rest was held by Betsy’s car.

  I felt sick. I would have to put my right foot on the inside of my truck and stretch my left foot out to stand on the street. My breath caught, but I told myself to buck up. No one likes a wimp. You can do this. You can do it.

  I glanced back at Betsy as we tilted back again, fear eating rational thought. She was ready. She was waiting. There was no way she could know, from her position, that my door was not over the street.

  “Now!” I yelled at her as my truck started tilting again. This was it. It was get out or die. I saw her move to get out, her body jerking toward her door, then I moved. I grabbed the steering wheel with my right hand for leverage, put my right foot on the floor, and reached my left foot out toward the road. I pushed with my left hand against the window frame. I shoved myself out of the truck and onto the road, stumbling several steps in my rush and landing on my chest. I scrambled as far away from the cliff as fast as I could as I heard metal scraping on metal, reverberating off the mountain.

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  I turned my head to find Betsy, ignoring a blast of pain shoot through my body like a sword.

  Where was Betsy?

  Where was Betsy?

  On firm footing now, I ran to the passenger side of her car. I saw her inside, struggling with the door as both vehicles eerily tilted back and forth, back and forth.

  I pulled the handle from the outside. It wouldn’t open. The door had been jammed in the accident. She could not exit the passenger door or she would step right off the cliff. The truck and car lurched forward.

  “Open the window all the way!” I screamed, terrified.

  “I tried, I tried! It’s stuck. Get back, Rose! Stand back!”

  “No! Come through the window!”

  I reached my arms in to grab her, and she started scrambling through the window, hardly fitting, the window halfway down.

  The vehicles screeched against each other again, a grinding, echoing, deathly noise.

  I had my hands under her arms, her hands gripping my arms, and I pulled as hard as I could while she kicked free. The cars made a final grinding, banging noise, and I yanked her out as they both tumbled over the cliff. Betsy landed straight on top of me and I fell to my back, my head slamming against the pavement. Her car and my truck bounced their way down the cliff, the noise deafening, then landed with a thud before one of them, or both of them, exploded, crackling flames and black smoke flying up.

  She levered herself over me. “Rose, are you okay? Are you all right?” Her golden eyes, like mine, were wide, her face panicked.

  “I’m fine, hurt only a bit.” That wasn’t true. My head felt like it had split open. My neck felt like there were spears sticking through it. “How are you?”

  For long seconds she didn’t say anything, then she smiled and her tears fell on my face. “Rose,” she breathed. “Except for this accident, this is the best day of my life. The very best day! I get to see my daughter again.” Then she cried and we both sat up,

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  and she hugged me close and I hugged her back. Hugging Betsy was as normal to me as breathing . . . or reading.

  “I have always loved you, Rose. Always.” Her mouth trembled. “And thank you for saving my life.”

  The flames and the billowing black smoke were seen from town and from Mr. Jamon’s house. Mr. Jamon came down gripping his cane, in his robe with his inhaler, gasping for breath but endearingly worried about me. He’d called 911 for the police and an ambulance.

  Chief Ass Burn did not come. No one asked why. No one knew where he was.

  I later found that interesting, but we were all better off without him there.

  Betsy and I went to the hospital and were treated in different rooms. We were banged up and bruised. My head hurt, my neck hurt, my back hurt. Nothing that wouldn’t heal.

  I saw Marco running by the hospital’s window, his face creased with alarm and worry. When he rushed in, he came straight toward me. My mother and aunts scampered out of the way, smiling. I could tell they were trying hard not to giggle. Marco hugged me close.

  I hugged him back, my heart thudding like a darn fool.

  My mother and aunts clapped. They had been so upset when they got the call about my accident, they forgot to put on hats.

  “He’s here,” my mother said with a high note of victory.

  “He’s here!”

  “Love has conquered once again,” Aunt Camellia said, clasping her hands together. “It was in their auras.”

  “About time they got things straightened out,” Aunt Iris said.

  “Best to be efficient, even with love.”

  I was so happy to see Marco, I cried all over his shirt.

  Then I held his hand and I told him what happened and who had been in the other car.

  He was rather shocked. I knew exactly how he felt. I hugged him
again, I couldn’t help it.

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  * * *

  I met my father, Johnny, at the hospital, a tall and barrel-chested man. He said, his voice low and gravelly, “Rose, I am your father, Johnny. I can never thank you enough for saving Betsy’s life. You risked your own to save her.” He choked up.

  Grabbed my hand. “Thank you so much for letting us come and see you. We are so grateful. How are you?”

  He tried to keep from crying, but I saw those tears. His face was lined from the stress of his life, the time in prison had taken a toll. Losing me, he told me later, had been far, far worse than prison, but his smile was full of love.

  He had the look of a boxer, which I learned he practiced all the time in prison to strengthen himself for when he was jumped or attacked.

  I met my younger sister, Kayla, in the hospital, too. She looks exactly like I did when I was her age. Thick black hair, gold eyes, same build, same height, same worry.

  “Can we talk later, you and me?” she asked. “These premonitions are driving me out of my mind. I’m so glad I have a sister now to talk to.”

  Tilly was reserved but thoughtful, caring. She hugged me tight. “I’ve wanted to do that for decades,” she told me.

  That night, we all had dinner together at Rose Bloom Cottage instead of going to a restaurant. I had invited Marco, but he had declined. “This is your night, Evie. You need this time with them.”

  My mother and aunts had made them extraordinary but elegant hats. Betsy’s, Kayla’s, and Tilly’s were light pink/light red/light yellow wrapped with faux roses “so they can keep them forever and remember this day when they found their Rose.” They added ribbons, netting, and glitter spray. Johnny’s was a black mobster type of hat with a white band around the top and a pink rose.

  “Sexy,” Betsy told him. We laughed.

  We had dinner and we had dessert, a Baked Alaska, which my aunt Iris set on fire and said, “I think I would have been a talented arsonist.” The flames glowed off the crystals in our chandelier.

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  “I am sorry,” my mother said to Betsy and Johnny, wiping her tears. She explained to them why she didn’t tell me I was adopted as a child and then as an adult. Betsy and Johnny were very gracious. They did not argue with her, and they did not question her decision.