Across Carina (5 page)

I folded my arms. “Oh, I misheard you, sorry. And I’m not looking at anything. It’s just cold outside.”

I realized what I’d said made no sense. I wasn’t even wearing a jacket—that’s how not cold it was. Fortunately, my mother let it slide.

“Well, did you like Doctor Pine?”

I shook my head. “
No
, and I don’t want to go back.”

“I think you need to go for a few weeks before you decide. We’ll talk to your father about it.”

Talking turned into fighting. I was standing at the kitchen table, where my mother was sipping hot chocolate and my dad was working on his laptop. I said I didn’t want to go back to Doctor Pine’s, but they both said I had to.

“Why do
I
have to be the science experiment in this family? No one else is in therapy!” I yelled, waving my arms about. I certainly wasn’t cold now—I was on fire. “At least let me choose a different therapist.”

My dad looked up from his laptop. “Fine, but until then you have to keep seeing Doctor Pine. Jade, you cut yourself. We care about you too much to let you continue on without the help that you need.”

“Cut myself?” I repeated. I smiled a terrible smile. “I was
hallucinating
on
Ambien
, a pill
I
don’t even take anymore because
you guys
don’t care if I’m an insomniac! Am I the only one suffering here?”

“What are you talking about?” my mother asked.

“Nobody else seems to realize that Garrett
died!
”

My mother slammed her mug down. Hot chocolate spilled all over her hands, and she winced at the burn. My dad tried to push her toward the sink, for cold water, but she wouldn’t move. She was staring at me.

“Really, Jade? You seem to forget that we
all
lost Garrett that day. You are
not
the only one in mourning. You have been such a wreck—which I’m not blaming you for—but we’ve had to spend most of our time making sure you don’t do anything stupid to yourself! I’ve hardly had a minute to myself to grieve. And never once—”

She burst into tears, and we lost eye contact. She tried to drink more hot chocolate, but she kept choking and sloshing her drink. My dad went to her side, his eyes boring into me. I knew that he would have lashed into me if my mother hadn’t continued.

She sniffed. “Never once have you asked if
we’re
okay. It’s been about
you
. We’re doing everything we can, but you make us feel like we’ve failed you. We just want you to be happy.”

Now I’d done it.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my expression softening.

I leaned across the table and awkwardly patted her shoulder.

“Life really sucks, and I guess I forgot it sucked for everyone else, too.”

I sounded like a child.

“Today sucks, and tomorrow might suck,” my mother said, “but life doesn’t suck, Jade. I’m devastated that Garrett is gone. Some days I don’t know how I manage to get out of bed, let alone put on a smile. But this isn’t permanent. We have to remember that we
will
see him again.”

I scoffed, turning red. “I doubt it.”

“We’ve been over this, Jade. If you want to talk—” my dad started.

“Forget it!” I shouted. “You’re wearing rose-colored glasses. I’m going to bed. I’ll keep seeing Doctor Pine if it means you’ll leave me alone.”

I stormed out of the kitchen and up the stairs, bumping into Tyson on the top step. He was clinging to his blanket and teddy bear. I leaned down to hug him and felt his cheeks, flushed and warm.

“Sorry we woke you, Tyson. Want me to tuck you back in?”

He sighed. “It’s okay. You can go to bed.”

He dawdled into his room. I waited until the door closed and I heard him crawl into bed.

I paused in front of Garrett’s room and thought about sleeping there, but decided against it. That night I couldn’t handle the memories.

I tossed and turned in bed, craving Ambien. All my parents had left me were over-the-counter pills that didn’t do a thing.

My mind whizzed through every category of my life until settling on the bizarre experience at Doctor Pine’s. I wondered if I’d been hallucinating. Maybe some of the Ambien was still in my system. I’d heard of that happening before.

Deep down, I knew that wasn’t what had happened.

I was starting to feel claustrophobic. I walked to my window and opened it halfway to catch a breeze through the screen. I decided to try some breathing techniques I’d once learned to help me relax. Maybe karma would pity me enough for them to actually work.

I lay on my bed, my legs straight, my arms at my sides. From my stomach I breathed in deeply and slowly, counting four seconds. Then I held my breath for two seconds. I breathed out for four seconds and then relaxed for two seconds.

As I repeated this several times, my chest began to tense. I was the world’s worst sleeper. The breathing exercises worked best if I slept on my back, but I was most comfortable on my side. But sleeping on my side usually triggered ear pain by morning. I dreamt of talking bears and underground mazes and occasionally a witch or two. Each night I woke up anywhere from two to six times, often unable to fall back asleep for hours. Every sound woke me—the whoosh of a motorcycle passing, me grinding my teeth, a faint creak in the house. Once while looking for something in my bathroom, my mother dropped a bobby pin on the floor, and
that
woke me up.

This particular night was even worse than normal because I was floating again. When I felt detached, it was like someone had come up behind me, drilled a hole in my head, and removed a sliver from the center of my brain. The air that filled that new space would lift a part of me up and away from the rest of me. I’d float for minutes, sometimes hours, unconsciously furrowing my eyebrows to keep myself on Earth, the same way a bowler moves to the right or left in hopes that she can somehow change the course of her rolling ball.

I finally fell asleep, but awoke several times. Upon my sixth awakening, I opened my eyes to a silent room. No specific sound had snatched me from the land of dreams. And the only movement was the wafting of my sheer, white curtains.

As I stood up to close the window, I noticed that the screen was missing. I glanced around the room, thinking I’d set it down somewhere, but I didn’t see it. The corner of my bedroom was especially dark. It should have been softly lit in the moonlight, but it was black and full.

Not again.

I left the window open in my distraction. I wanted to hide in my bed or run out of the room, but something pulled me toward the nothingness.

Except it
was
something. I could see it now, the outline of a figure in the corner. As my eyes adjusted, I saw that it had no face. There was only a small, round bump where a nose might be. It was one of the shadows, and it towered over me.

“What are you?” I whispered.

But how can it answer if it has no mouth?

I wished that I could fully discern its presence, but I didn’t know what was real anymore. Not when I was plagued by my floating and insomnia.

But somehow, in the back of my mind, I had known this was coming.

The edge of the curtain blew far enough to caress my leg, but I stood still. Peace embedded within me, and I thought that if I couldn’t escape, then maybe I should give in. Maybe I had resisted for too long. Though I didn’t quite know what it was I had resisted.

As the shadow approached me, the corner it came from appeared to zoom away. I didn’t realize the proximity of the shadow until it seized my hand. My knees buckled, but before I could fall I was lifted into the air. The room spun quietly around me as we drifted through the window.

The shadow set me down on the roof. In the open air I could better see its stature. It easily stood eight feet tall with a broad chest and shoulders. Its arms extended past its knees.

It pressed a bony finger on my lips and then pointed to the sky. I followed what seemed to be the shadow’s gaze, even though it didn’t have eyes.

Something was moving through the sky and headed for Earth. At first it just looked like a little white star, but as it came closer it looked more like a meteor on its way to my house.

Suddenly, the sound of horses rang through the sky. My breath caught, and I squinted, but all I could see was a large golden mass with a trail of fire in its wake.

I grew weak; my bones liquefied. I sensed my imminent departure. Certainly I could do something to stop this. I began to turn toward the window, but the shadow pointed, and I looked again to the sky, possessed.

Whatever was coming was coming
fast
. A long, black whip cracked through the sky, and a man hollered at the top of his lungs. I heard him as if he were beside me.

The fiery ball moved closer and closer until its details finally enhanced, and I beheld a flying chariot drawn by two winged horses!

I staggered back as the chariot landed on the roof with a thud. It was made of pure gold, and its horses were large and spotted. They neighed under the hand of their driver.

Their driver was a man. At least, I thought he was a man. He only looked half human, with a severely hunched back and ears that fanned out six inches on either side of his bald head. He had a long, pointed nose that sloped down over his bushy beard. A gray, diamond-shaped birthmark was splotched across his right cheek. He was the most hideous man that I had ever seen, much worse than the cat at Doctor Pine’s.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t acknowledge me. He just stared straight ahead, whipping his horses intermittently.

I looked to the shadow, and it pointed at the chariot. Thin lines where the shadow’s mouth might be seemed to curve upward, and I realized that it was smiling at me.

I looked at my house. It felt empty. I knew that my family was sound asleep and would look for me in the morning, but my house still felt empty. I didn’t hate my family. I didn’t feel understood by them, either. My life had drained me of nearly every emotion.

There was no longer a doubt in my mind that the shadow, chariot, and horses were real. Even so, they didn’t prove the existence of anyone or anything else. I doubted that what lay beyond Earth could be any worse than what I had already been through.

If I took a ride, I could always come back.

The shadow was still pointing at the chariot. I began to tentatively cross the roof. The horses quieted. The breeze rested. My heart beat steadily, and I was calm.

If I wasn’t supposed to leave on the chariot, I wondered why I had seen what I had. There had to be a purpose.

I walked to the back of the chariot and stepped up behind the driver.

And then he looked at me.

“Welcome aboard car six-nine-two-three!” the driver shouted. “Hold on or risk falling to your death!”

“Wait—what?” I asked, starting to turn around.

“It’s too late now,” he said gruffly, and we took off.

The jolt almost knocked me out of the chariot. We flew straight up, and I screamed, grabbing around the top of one of the sidewalls.

“What are you doing?!”

Within seconds the air was cold, and the shadow, my house, and the town were shrinking at a rapid pace. We were flying unbelievably fast, much faster than a plane.

The driver whipped his horses, and we sped up even more. The sights became a blur.

“Where are we going?” I cried over the wind.

I could hardly hear myself. I couldn’t see much either. The wind was lashing my hair across my face, bruising the skin.

I tried to tighten my grip around the wall, but my fingers had started to numb. I couldn’t tell how hard I was holding on. Even using both hands, it wasn’t enough. They started to slip, and my heart ticked like a time bomb.

“Please!” I screamed, closing my eyes. “Make it stop!”

“Shut up!” the driver roared. “You’re fine! Let go!”

“Are you crazy?! I’m not letting go!”

But I didn’t have a choice; my fingers let go for me. I screamed again and waited to fall.

I didn’t fall.

When I opened my eyes, the chariot had leveled out some—but not enough to have prevented me from falling. I looked down to see if there was something special about the floor, some sort of enchantment. It was made of unrefined gold, and so it had a rough surface, but it wasn’t somehow rough enough to have kept my feet in place.

“How could this—” I started.

“Keep you from slipping?” the driver finished. “Little girl, you only know the gold from your world.”

He kept his eyes on the sky ahead. They were gold and never blinked, not once.

I shook my head, hoping that he would somehow disappear. He disturbed me nearly as much as the fact that I was in a flying chariot did.

I looked back at the wall that I’d been holding on to. It was encrusted with rubies and emeralds and two wide daggers. The opposite wall was the same.

The driver whipped his horses, and they pulled us further into the sky. We raced through the clouds until they were far behind us. Ahead the moon swelled and the stars sparkled tangibly. The sky faded from midnight blue to jet black, and I could scarcely see my own hands. Eventually the horses slowed until their legs just dangled, and we drifted like a sailboat through space.

I suddenly gasped for air, realizing that I’d been holding my breath for what seemed like minutes.

“I can breathe! How am I breathing up here?”

The driver wasn’t listening to me. I tapped him on the shoulder, and he barked.

I jumped back. My heel landed at the edge of the chariot, and I looked behind me, my body tipping toward space. The driver’s charcoal gray cloak was fluttering behind him, just slightly, and I pulled on it, reeling myself back in. It was thick and made of soft wool.

The driver pushed me off.

“The floor can’t keep you from slipping when you’re jumping around!” he shouted. “I take it this is your first time?”

“First time doing what?”

“Taking a ride!”

“Well of course it is! But I’m beginning to think I’m dreaming!” I panted. “Oh, I can’t decide.”