by J. J. McAvoy
“Is that what they call the sound the tree bark makes when the wind blows?”
“Yeah. So you’ve been there?”
No. I hadn’t I didn’t even know how I knew that. Had I read it somewhere? Maybe. But it was a weird thing to remember.
“Esther?”
“Huh? Sorry?” I shook my head clear. “Malachi—hot, mysterious, I’m following…well not really but still I’m here.”
“Are you really that tired?” she asked but before I could once more remind her of what time she kept talking. “Anyway, he’s got this bad boy edge I like, but in reading his books you can tell he’s sensitive. Well…he at least knows how to get a girl going.”
“Li-Mei.”
“He’s also not Chinese.”
I frowned at that. “What’s wrong with being Chinese?”
“Nothing! But it will annoy my mother! And spare me from seeing the smug look that she would have plastered on her face for the rest of her life if I end up marrying and I quote ‘nice Chinese doctor or lawyer with a good family.’…”
“So you’re in love with Malachi Lord because he’s the perfect way to spite your mother?”
“Exactly! With Malachi I can rebel, but she won’t be able to reject him because he’s her savior!”
“You are a terrible person.”
“You have no idea how crazy a mother can make you---shit, I’m so sorry!”
“No.” I laughed though it wasn’t that funny. However, I didn’t want to make her feel bad and changed the subject. “I like your plan. Plus, it’s great story Li-Mei. The beautiful woman who searches for love in a modern world. The mother who wishes that love to come from their own history. The man, who saves them both, one in body, the other in heart.”
I’d definitely read that.
MALACHI
“Yes, Alfred?” I answered as I placed the phone on the bronzed granite countertop of the kitchen and grabbed the box cutter to open the final box.
“Normally I’d scold you…” He coughed and it wasn’t a normal cough, it was the type of cough that made people flinch because you were sure it was painful. “Ah…this gosh darn cough. Sorry, what was I saying?”
I put the box cutter down and lifted the phone instead of taking it off speaker.
“I’d forewent scoldment?”
“You do realize that neither of those words are used in common vernacular. In fact, I’m not sure scoldment is a word at all.”
There were many things I liked about Alfred Noëlle and until this very moment I assumed his directness was evenly distributed among all aspects of his life. But I now realized that he, like everyone else, was well equipped to be bold and direct towards others yet unable to do the same with himself. I was unsure of what to say so decided to say nothing at all.
“Who would have known your silence would be more annoying than your actual comebacks.”
I smirked at that and walked towards the window. “I’ve finally finished moving.”
“Finally? It’s only been three days. And I hired the movers. Did you even unpack anything?”
“I’m not an invalid, Alfred. I’ll have you know that I unpacked the coffee maker all by myself.” Well, I was technically in the process of doing so, but he didn’t need to know that. I glanced out at the green trees that surrounded the house on all sides and found myself somewhat disappointed by the lack of colors despite the fact that it was nearly fall.
“Of all places, why Montana?”
“It was the last state that came to my mind,” I told him. “And now that I know who and where she is…I’m freer to roam around more on a different time zone.”
“Are you sure Li-Mei is her?”
“Yes.” I didn’t have to think about it. The connection I felt as we nearly touched. It was her. “It all makes sense…the way we met again. The impractical story of it all which could start a whole new romance, and I, in a moment of weakness—”
“Humanity,” he corrected.
“Still weakness.” Humanity may be why we kept making the same mistakes over and over again. “The cliché of it all—I save the mother of the woman who not only works in the same publishing house that I write under, but is on the team that manages my work and as such is able to find out where I am. And in rushing to her mother’s side, we coincidentally and serendipitously met at the doors of the local hospital just as I was attempting to leave and she was attempting to enter…and thus the tragedy begins.”
“Unless you move to Montana?”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. “Unless I make an effort not to fall in love with her this time, to put forest, rivers, and mountains between us.”
“You do realize we have planes now?”
I rolled my eyes as I sat on the cream colored couch. “Normally I’d scold—”
“Not funny.”
And while his reply was amusing, but I could no longer give him time to avoid his fears. “How much longer do you have, Alfred?”
Silence.
“I was doctor in four of my past lives. I know that cough is not just a cough.”
He snorted. “Four out of a thousand is horrible statistic.”
“Says the man with tuberculosis in this era of modern medicine.”
Silence again. And I didn’t mind silence. In fact, I preferred it which meant I could wait until he either hung up or spoke.
He chose to speak. “They say it’s antibiotic resistant but not contagious. However….”
“In a man your age it will be fatal.”
He exhaled as if in relief. “The doctors here want to try all these new drugs and whatnot. Part of me said forget it because I wasn’t going to be anybody’s guinea pig. But then my granddaughter…” he laughed with joy at the thought of her. “She comes home crying, and though I’m used to her crying fits, I still gave her my attention and listened as she complained about the hero of the latest book she was reading. She called him every name under the sun for giving up on his love after finding out he had a terminal illness. She said he should live on for love, and yadda, yadda, yadda. And at the end of her rant she hugged me and told me she loved me. I knew then that I was going to be a guinea pig.”
I could feel the pain, the darkness slithering around me like a snake. I didn’t want to shoulder his pain but I couldn’t help it. “I’m sure you’d prepare a much more formal goodbye for me than this call, so what do you need from me, Alfred?”
“Yes,” he finally said. “But let me make an excuse for it anyway.”
Only Alfred. “I’m listening.”
“We aren’t publishing your next novel because it’s boring.”
I paused trying to pretend I didn’t hear that but I couldn’t. “I’m sorry, did you just say the tragedy that was one of my past lives is boring?”
“Yes,” he replied and I was starting to hate this excuse. “It’s only boring because it ends like your other books. Everyone knows your face right now. They will be expecting greatness from their real-life hero and we can’t give them more of the same.”
“So you want me to write a happily ever after? They ride off into the rainbow-filled sunset?” It was like he was mocking me. “To the rest of the world it is fictional, but to me it is an autobiography. I can’t write what didn’t happen!”
“I know, Malachi. I know which is why it’s an excuse,” he said and I relaxed slightly.
“For?”
“My granddaughter.” He didn’t bother to hide it any longer. “She’s smart, beautiful, funny, and just odd enough that it’s adorable, but most importantly she’s kind, she always makes those around her smile, and….and I don’t want the last time I see her or hear from her filled with…this. I don’t want her crying over me. With me gone, and you now knowing who your past lover is, I hoped she could spend the next couples of weeks in Montana with you while I seek treatment here. She’s a fan of your novels. In fact, she’s a super-fan. She’s the one who titles most of your novels and runs your fan page. If anyone ca
n help you make up a happy ending it’s her. And I don’t want her figuring it out or meeting anyone by chance. She’s not trouble, you’d hardly even notice she’s there—”
“Send her when you’re ready.” He didn’t need to explain at all. He merely had to ask. “I don’t know about this book but I’ll keep playing along until...you return.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m a man of word.” No matter what lifetime, if someone of the Noëlle family needed help I’d offer it. It was my eternal debt to pay.
June 17th 1853- St. James Parish, Louisiana
“Are you sure the lady is fine?” Philip de Noëlle asked from up above us as he held the plank of wood tightly at his side. I waited for her to answer because I knew he’d be more satisfied but she didn’t say a word, and even I looked to make sure she was alright, but she merely smiled that smile of hers, her eyes glistening with excitement and jubilation.
“Mary-Margaret?” I spoke her name to get her attention, and when she blinked, her green eyes shifted to Dr. de Noëlle.
“I’m much more than fine, Sir. Thank you. You’re quite kind helping us like this.”
When I looked back, his white face was dumbstruck as if he figured she’d be coming to her senses by now…now that we were miles away from her home and my bondage, and hiding in a dirt ditch as we tried to make it up north.
“I’ll be back at night.” He reached beside himself and carefully dropped a flask of water and a basket of the peaches that grew behind the house into my hands. “They’re for her, you hear me, boy?”
I nodded. I was more than happy to give them to her. “I’ll never forget this Dr. de Noëlle. I’m forever in your debt.”
He didn’t say anything in reply. He didn’t get the chance to. He quickly placed the plank over us and the branches over it, allowing only the slightest amount of sunlight to reach us.
“It’s almost over, Francis,” Mary-Margaret whispered as she rested her blonde head on my dark, bruised chest and ran her small white hands over the scars. “This life ain’t the easiest we’d ever had, it may very well have been the hardest, but we’ll make it. You’ll see, this is the last one. Our last life.”
I wanted to tell her she'd said those words before, that we'd fought the odds just like this before and lost. And yet here we were fighting once more. But I couldn't say those words ‘cause her hope gave me hope. Instead, I wrapped my arms around her and held her close. And the tighter I held her the more comfortable I became which is why I didn’t hear them.
“You’ha dirty nigger!”
“FRANCIS!”
It happened quickly, too quickly for me to even gather my thoughts. Hands were everywhere, white hands, smacking me, beating me, pulling her away from me.
“FRANCIS!” She screamed but I didn’t see her, though I tried to. I tried to protect my head, I tried to see her, to make sure they weren’t hurting her. It was her scream next that reassured me she’d be okay. “DADDY PLEASE! DADDY! STOP! FRANCIS!”
Master Bondurant was an evil man to just about everyone, but even evil men loved their daughters, so I figured Mary-Margaret wouldn’t die here. I didn’t think about the pain. In fact I’d lost the ability to hear anything, which was a shame, cause I wanted to hear her at least. I prayed I’d get to see her face one more time before I went…and that prayer was answered when the noose came around my neck and I was being dragged across the forest floor before being pulled. That’s how I saw her, her face bright red due to all her screaming and tears. Her younger brother, Adam, was holding her back as she kicked and fought to get to me, while her elder brother spat into my face. I wanted to say “Mary-Margaret stop fightin’ ‘em!” as there wasn’t anything she could or say or do but hurt herself at this point but I couldn’t on account of the rope…they hadn’t tied it right, or maybe they did and wanted me to suffer, cause it felt more like my throat was closin’ in than my neck breakin’.
“FRANCIS!” By her voice I was able to hear again, fight on longer.
“He ain’t even human, Mary!” Adam shook her but she didn’t stop, not ‘til she was free and then she ran to me…stubborn to the very end that one was.
She grabbed her father’s fallen pistols and pointed one towards Adam and the other towards her father.
“Let him go, Daddy!” Her face was streaked with dirt.
“MARY!” Master Bondurant called out to her in shock. “Mary, this ain’t you. What it do to you? Mary…”
“DADDY, LET HIM GO! I ain’t gonna miss…just like you taught me.”
Master Bondurant grunted and pushed her brother out of way so that he could pull the rope tighter.
“NO!” She screamed and pointed both guns at him, causing Adam to charge after her in anger, which was never good for someone who wasn’t bright. He took the butt of his rifle and hit her as hard as he could, which for someone his size, was much harder than he should have. Her blonde hair spun as she recoiled from the blow and she fell face forward into the dirt right under me as the guns fell from her hands.
“Mary! Mary-Margaret!” Master Bondurant hollered as he let go of the rope and I fell to the ground. I saw red in the pool of her blonde hair among the dirt and grass. “What have you done?! Adam, what have you done! Mary! Mary!”
“What is this?” Dr. De Noëlle came riding in on horseback. “Is this from the riot?”
“Riot?”
“A bunch of niggers are rioting upstream, I was on my way to help.” He lied. He was good a liar. Even I believed him. He hopped off his horse and rushed to Mary-Margaret. “Rush to my house tell my wife I need the blue vial,” he said to Adam, then to Bondurant and his other son, Sam, he said, “She’s going to need to be wheeled in. I need a barrow and as many sheets as possible!”
They were about to hop to it when they remember me. Their compassion and worry now gone again. How did people turn it on and off like that?
“We don’t have much time! He’ll bleed out soon enough! GO!”
They took satisfaction in that before running into the forest and to their horses. It was only then that Dr. de Noëlle came to me and I tried to speak again. “Save…”
“She’s gone.” He frowned hovering over me. “She felt nothing. But she’s gone.”
I think I knew that but hearing it hurt. Knowing she went first hurt.
“I’ma go.”
“When and if I can, I’ll bury you two together,” he said to me. “You want me to pray with you?”
“I’ma go….” I said as my eyes closed. I’d meant to say I’ma going to see her again. But it he wouldn’t understand anyway so it was okay.
***
“Ahh!” I exhaled as I found myself rolling off the couch and onto the wooden floor gasping for air. Trembling, I tried to breathe even though nothing could stop the panic and fear of dying that had crept over me.
Rolling onto my side, I curled into a ball and laid there until the pain went away and the trembling stopped. I wouldn’t have known how long that took if I hadn’t watched the sun go down over the trees in the window in front of me.
“Why?” I asked rising from the ground. Expecting no answer and getting none I walked back into the kitchen and took out the coffeemaker and the packet of Italian Roast coffee. In the few minutes it took for it to brew I made myself a sandwich. Then I limped from the kitchen to my bedroom which contained nothing but my bed on the dark hardwood floor and dozens of covered canvasses that were all lined up against the walls. Placing my meal on the ground next to the painting I was working on, I sat down and cleaned off my paintbrush unable look away from her green eyes.
“You didn’t have to die too,” I said to her as I dipped the ends of the brush into the white paint and signed not my name but the name of Francis. You didn’t have to but you stubbornly run towards me each time…this time you need to stay away.
The paintbrush snapped from the pressure of my fingers. But I kept thinking If there is any connection between us you must break it and stay away!
/> 5. PERSONA NON GRATA
ESTHER
“Ah!” I hissed in pain as I grabbed my head.
“Sorry! The roads aren’t really paved this way,” The taxi driver said as I opened my eyes, but I immediately flinched at the sunlight.
“Oh no, it’s fine. I’ve had this headache since yesterday,” I said sitting up in the back seat of the car and adjusting the seatbelt near my neck. I checked my watch and saw that it was almost eleven a.m. I’d meant to be there bright and early this morning but somehow I ended up missing my first flight, which meant I had to catch the next plane out which, due to emergency weather conditions, ended up landing three hours away. And because this little town was in the middle of nowhere, Montana, there was no train station and I found myself paying for a taxi. Which was surprisingly still far cheaper than the fare in city. “How much further?”
“Not far, it’s just on the other side of the lake.”
Lake?
Glancing out the window I saw the very hard to miss unless you were jet-lagged, hungry and annoyed, bright blue lake which sat at the bottom of the mountain ridge. In the distance I could see a few houses and buildings in the greens that led up the mountain.
“Wow.” I’d seen things like this in movies and even had something exactly like it as the screensaver on my laptop but seeing it up-close and in person... The vast green treetops that went on endlessly, the beautiful ridged mountains, mountains that even had snow on their peaks.
“Ain’t no New York, but it ain’t’ bad either, huh?” He laughed nodding his head proudly.
“Yeah, it ain’t bad,” I whispered winding the window down which caused my hair to blow around my face but I didn’t care. Holding it back with my hand, I briefly caught a glance of a sign as we drove past.
“Welcome to Lieber Falls... Yours to Rediscover.” I read out loud.
“Kinda catchy right? Ten years ago not many people came up this way—what the—?”
“What?” I looked forward just in time to see the smoke coming out from under the hood. “No!”