Prom Night in Purgatory

by Amy Harmon

  Maggie grimaced and felt sorrow leaking from her eyes and sliding down her nose. Gus had told her there would be unintended consequences, things she could never predict, lives she would unknowingly alter....or shatter.

  “By the time August rolled around, I had come to my senses. Roger had been unbearable, and I was quite afraid of him. When Billy Kinross died and Johnny disappeared, I was horrified, knowing that it was all Roger’s fault. Billy had been so sweet to me, and he was gone -- at Roger’s hand! I believed that, but it was too late. I was pregnant.”

  “No, no, no!” Maggie wanted to scream. This wasn’t the way it happened! Irene had married several years after high school. She’d seen the wedding announcement in the old newspapers at the library.

  “The baby was stillborn. Did I ever tell you that?” Irene’s voice was almost trance-like as she remembered the child she almost had. “He was perfect. A beautiful, full-term little boy with lots of dark hair. But he was dead,” she whispered. “I had hoped and prayed for a way to be free of Roger. Suddenly, I had it....and it had come at the price of my child’s life. So I stayed. It was penance, my own slow dance in purgatory.”

  “Can you forgive me?” Maggie’s agonized whisper filled the room, and Irene shook herself, abandoning the trance-like state she had hovered in. She stared at Maggie, her blue eyes wide and filled with anguish.

  “There is nothing to forgive, Maggie,” she said softly, reaching out and touching Maggie’s stricken face.

  “You’re afraid of me,” Maggie mourned, her voice barely audible.

  “I understand what happened....at least I think I do,” Irene replied quietly. “You slipped back....just like Gus said you would. You tried to help me. I know that...”

  “But...”

  “Maggie! You tried to help me. Now,” she said tiredly, rising to her feet, her back bent and her head bowed in exhaustion. “We need to get you out of this house.”

  ***

  Maggie had slept restlessly ever since coming home from the hospital after the fire. Dreams of Johnny and burning hallways made sleep a minefield, and though she had longed desperately for the relief unconsciousness would supply, she found that she no longer felt safe in her bedroom.

  Maybe it was because she had been awakened twice in the last few weeks to see Roger Carlton, the aged and overweight Uncle Roger, sitting on the benchseat pouring over his old pictures. Both times, she had reached for her glasses on her night stand, pushed them on her nose, and forced herself to concentrate on the details of the room she knew existed in present day, which did not include a ghostly fat man. Both times Roger had flickered out almost immediately without even raising his head.

  That night, the drain from the conversation with Irene had Maggie stumbling to her room and falling into a deathlike slumber. Irene had wanted to leave and check into a hotel. She was afraid that Maggie would slip away if she slept in the house again. Maggie thought of the tongues that would wag in the small town if she and her aunt suddenly checked into the Honeyville Suites right on Honeyville’s Main Street. Plus, Irene didn’t have the funds to waste on a hotel room when there were four perfectly good bedrooms right here.

  Maggie was convinced it was the talk of 1958, combined with the furnishings in Irene’s old room and the dress Maggie had donned, that had precipitated the shift. She had practically stepped back in time before she even fell asleep that night, and she told Irene as much.

  “We have to get you out of this house,” Irene said again, wringing her hands desperately, but she had gone to bed after a little coaxing and reassuring. Irene looked as if she were ready to collapse. Both of them needed rest before making any rash decisions.

  Maggie had been pulled from sleep suddenly. She became completely and fully awake as if ice water had been poured over her, bringing her instantly and alarmingly from the depths of unconsciousness. She sat up and reached for her glasses on her bedside table, but the space was empty. She felt up and down, trying to connect with the surface of the table in the darkness of the room, knowing that she should be feeling the little knob on the drawer and the pointed edges of the table top. She felt a shift, a sense of falling, and then her legs folded and the surface beneath her changed. She was sitting upright in a chair. The chair was hard and the rungs dug into her shoulder blades. Goose flesh rose on her arms as she felt the cool against her bare feet which curled disbelievingly against the flat surface of her bedroom floor. It was still so dark. She looked toward where she knew the window should be and watched as they sky beyond lightened instantly by several shades, as if she were watching a time lapse on the news where the weather of the entire day is captured in seconds.

  Roger sat at the window, his head bent over his scrapbook. The light beyond him was dusky, as if dawn had ascended while he read. He was younger, his hair thick and dark, his body still lean and his clothes reminiscent of a different decade. Maggie longed for her glasses. She didn’t dare move or even breath, knowing that she was no longer observing him in her room. She was with him.

  She must have exhaled too loudly, though she hadn’t felt the release. Or maybe it was simply the sense of being watched, but Roger’s head jerked up suddenly, and he screamed, a strange, high pitched cry that had Maggie flying up and out of the chair to cower in the corner.

  “It’s you!” Roger hugged the wall like a jumper on a ledge, easing around the room toward her. She had to get out of there, but could she run screaming through the house? She didn’t know why she was here or what year it was. If Irene and Roger were living in the house it was after Irene’s father had passed, after Billy had died and Johnny became trapped in Purgatory. She felt for something to shield herself with as Roger crept steadily closer.

  “Are you some kind of a witch?” he breathed, his green eyes wide with fear and fascination. He poked at her with his foot. His shoe was pointed, and he shoved it into her as if she were an animal on the side of the road. She curled her legs into her chest and wrapped her arms around them, closing her eyes and willing herself home. She pictured Johnny in this very room, as she had seen him only hours earlier. The kiss that they’d shared, and the heat of his hands.

  Roger kicked her. And then again. She cried out but kept her eyes squeezed shut and prayed for deliverance. She pictured the room, the pictures on her walls, the blanket on her bed, the fat yellow rug on her floor.

  “I’m talking to you, witch! What are you doing in my house?” She felt his hands on her throat. He was pushing her back into the wall, forcing her head up. Her eyes popped open as he bore down on her, choking her, his eyes crazed yet eerily flat. The green was all one shade, without the striations of color and the golden flecks that made up the human eye. It was as if a child had taken a light green crayon and colored them in. Little spots of white started to flicker at the edges of Maggie’s vision. He was going to kill her.

  Then she remembered the pendant around her neck. She released Roger’s hands and felt for the medal. She rubbed at it desperately.

  “Johnny!” she gurgled, gripping the necklace Johnny had given her for protection. And then she recognized the sensation, almost like a carnival ride, of being pressed by centrifugal force into the wall behind her. Then she was falling away from Roger’s hands as the air was forced out of her lungs and the pressure built inside her until she was no longer conscious.

  ~21~

  A Time of War

  1958

  Irene Honeycutt slid onto the high stool and leaned on the bar, pressing her hot face into her hands. She had felt nauseous all day, and though her stomach rumbled hungrily, she was afraid to eat. She’d been careful to stay away from anything that might make her gain weight too fast, although her clothes were already starting to pull across the chest and her fitted skirts showed the slight swell at her hips and lower belly. She hadn’t told anyone about the mess she was in -- not her daddy or Nana. She hadn’t even told Roger. But she was so hungry, and the smell of the grill was more than she could take.

  She had ple
d sick when Roger had suggested a day at the reservoir with all their friends. It was just so hot -- and swimsuits were too revealing. She had tried to sleep in this morning, tried to pamper herself and listen to her favorite records to keep her mind from dwelling on her troubles. Nana had taken Lizzie for some shopping. Lizzie was growing like a weed, and school would be starting up soon. Irene’s senior year was approaching, yet she wouldn’t be attending school. Girls who got pregnant got married. She would be getting married too. The thought should cheer her. She had always dreamed of her wedding day. She knew Daddy would give her a big wedding, regardless of her condition. She would buy a beautiful dress, and they would have the wedding in the yard at home. The backyard flower garden would be the perfect back drop. Roger would look handsome in his black tuxedo. Everything would be fine. Daddy would make sure of that.

  So why did Irene feel like her life was ending, like her whole world was crumbling around her feet? She mopped at her forehead and tried to ignore her rumbling stomach as she requested a glass of water and a chicken sandwich with no mayo, cheese or bread.

  “You want a chicken sandwich without the bread?” Val asked, his tone incredulous.

  “Yes, please,” Irene spoke primly, not making eye contact. “Just chicken, lettuce, and tomato.” He grumbled under his breath about skinny girls getting skinnier.

  “And a side of fries!” Irene burst out, succumbing to the mouth watering smell of salty grease. Her stomach rejoiced, and her pulse quickened in anticipation of the treat.

  Val chuckled but inclined his head, acknowledging that he had heard her. Irene sneaked a look at the other customers sitting at the bar, hoping they hadn’t noticed her moment of weakness.

  Billy Kinross sat a few seats down, but no one sat between them, and he shot a curious look down the bar before looking away shyly.

  “The fries aren’t for me,” Irene offered, as if he cared. She could kick herself! Now she wouldn’t be able to eat them! She felt like bursting into tears. Val slid a cardboard sleeve of fries in front of her and Irene stared at them remorsefully. She shot another look at Billy, who she discovered was watching her.

  Billy Kinross smiled at her and looked away again. He was cute, Irene noted with surprise. His hair was short and dark, his skin brown with his summer tan. His eyes behind his glasses were chocolaty with the thick lashes that were wasted on boys. He had a smattering of freckles on his nose and a hint of a dimple in his chin that was identical to Johnny’s. She had never really looked at him before. Johnny had such a presence that when he was around nobody spared a glance at his younger brother. And Billy was young...only fourteen or fifteen. She was probably three years older than he was, and that was light years when you were a teen-aged girl.

  “You should probably eat them,” Billy offered suddenly, turning back toward her as if he had dared himself to do it.

  “Why?” Irene countered, flirting in spite of herself.

  “They’ll get cold while you eat your sandwich, and then they won’t be any good anyway.”

  Irene looked around her again, just as she had done moments before, checking who was in the diner. Nobody who ran in her crowd was there. They were all still at the lake.

  “I can’t eat them all myself,” Irene lied prettily. “Do you want some?”

  Billy looked stunned, but wasted no time sliding down the bar and onto the stool that was empty beside her. Irene slid the hot fries between them and shot Val a smile as he delivered her chicken “sandwich.” She dug in without a word, trying to eat like a lady, but hungry in a way she hadn’t been hungry before. The first three months she had had little appetite; everything had made her stomach roil. But in the last week or so, her appetite had returned with a vengeance, and hunger had become almost painful.

  It took her a minute to realize Billy wasn’t eating, and she glanced at him, shamefaced. “Aren’t you hungry?”

  “Not really,” he smiled sheepishly. “I already ate. I just wanted to sit by you.” His cheeks grew rosy under his tan.

  Irene beamed at him, and warmth flooded her chest. He was so sweet. Then she remembered. The smile faded from her lips, and her appetite fled. What was she doing? In only a matter of weeks, she would be planning her wedding. In only weeks everyone would know...and she was acting like a fool. Tears filled her eyes, and her stomach rebelled against the food she had filled it with.

  Billy saw her distress and reached out tentatively, touching her arm. “Are you okay, Irene?”

  Irene mumbled something about being perfectly fine when a voice rang out behind them.

  “She’s a little old for you, Billy Boy.” Roger Carlton stood in the doorway of the diner, his brown hair slightly rumpled, his skin brown and his nose slightly burnt from the day he had spent in the sun. Irene saw the whole gang spilling out of cars in the parking lot. She had been caught faking sick. She shrugged, unable to muster the energy to care.

  “I’m talking to you, Billy Boy,” Roger repeated. “I don’t like you putting your greasy paws on my girl.” He strolled up to the bar and slung his heavy arm around Irene’s shoulders, pulling her tight against him. She immediately slid off the school and tried to steer him away from the unfortunate Billy.

  “He was just asking me if I was okay. I came here to get something to eat, but I shouldn’t have. I started feeling sick right away,” Irene explained, trying to soothe Roger’s ruffled feathers. She was good at it. When were his feathers not ruffled?

  Roger shrugged her off and grabbed Billy by the back of his collar, pulling him from his stool roughly.

  “Take it outside, boys!” Val bellowed, and Roger shoved Billy toward the door.

  “You heard him, Billy boy. We’re taking this outside.”

  “Roger.” Irene laid her hand on his shoulder, trying desperately to be cajoling and sweet, trying to distract him from his clear intention to pummel the younger, smaller boy.

  Roger slapped at her hand, and Billy Kinross grabbed Roger’s shirt, pushing him out of the diner in a way that surprised both Irene and Roger. It seemed the kid had learned a thing or two from his older brother.

  Roger stumbled out of the door, Billy Kinross hot on his heels. The group of kids preparing to enter the popular hangout all stopped and stared.

  Roger recovered instantly. His swing caught the younger boy full in the mouth, and he followed that with a hard slug to his midsection.

  Billy went down with a grunt. Roger grabbed him, pulling him to his feet. Roger had about 20 pounds and several inches on Billy, as well as a streak of mean that wasn’t natural, and he laid into the boy with a fervor that had the circle of kids shifting nervously. Billy had fallen to the ground again and was mostly just trying to protect himself as Roger fell on top of him, raining blows wherever he could connect.

  Then startled cries and shouts rose up as a figure pushed his way through the crowd, shoving the nervous bystanders this way and that in an effort to reach his brother. Johnny Kinross grabbed the back of Roger Carlton’s shirt with both hands and swung him up and off of his brother, tossing him to the side. He knelt by his brother without sparing the raging bully a second glance. A few of Johnny’s friends stepped in and held the outraged Roger by the arms, waiting until Johnny was assured Billy hadn’t been seriously hurt. Billy’s mouth and nose were bleeding, but he waved off Johnny’s concern and rose shakily to his feet. Johnny pulled off his shirt to stem the bloody flow, and checked his brother surreptitiously for more serious injury. When he was satisfied that his brother wasn’t seriously hurt, he turned, his stance wide, his arms hanging loosely at his sides. His face wore the fury of a man who has been pushed as far as he will go.

  “Let him go.”

  “Johnny?”

  “Let him go,” Johnny demanded again, raising his voice. His friends obeyed immediately, freeing Roger and stepping away from him.

  Johnny strode forward and without pause or hesitation, plowed his fist into Roger’s jaw. Roger dropped like a sack of potatoes, his head rolling to
the side as his legs and arms flopped comically in a dead faint. The crowd grew quiet as Johnny leaned over the inert form. Johnny patted Roger’s cheeks roughly until Roger responded, groaning and tossing his head from side to side. He would live.

  Johnny straightened and leveled his gaze at Roger’s cowering friends.

  “Tonight, at the new school. We’re gonna finish this. Just Roger and me and whoever else has a problem with the Kinross boys. You make sure he’s there or I’ll find him and I’ll find all of you, and it won’t be pretty. You got that?”

  ***

  2011

  There were marks on her neck the next morning. Maggie tried to convince herself it had all been a dream, but the bruises proved otherwise. And as afraid as she was of slipping back into a time and space that Roger occupied, she was more afraid of upsetting the new possibilities that loomed on the horizon. Johnny was hers again, Saturday was the prom, and the future stretched out before her like a golden sunrise. Maggie knew she had to get out of Irene’s house. The episodes were getting worse. She only hoped that she couldn’t die in another time, that her mortality would yank her back to where she belonged. But hope was a very weak lifeline, and she knew how foolish she was being.

  Still, she didn’t tell Irene what had happened. She didn’t tell Johnny either. She told herself she would. She told herself she would come clean after the dance, and then she and Irene and Johnny would make a plan. Maybe she could stay with Johnny and Jillian Bailey. Graduation was three weeks away, and then she would be free to live or do whatever she pleased. She resumed wearing her glasses to bed and slept with her iPod programmed to play only current songs. With the music of her own time pounding in her ears, she managed to sleep and live without incident the following night and then the next.