Beloved Evangeline (28 page)

Mr.
Wadsworth continued his nonsensical ravings without even noticing I had gone. At first I didn’t feel markedly different and foolishly hoped that the previous quantity had prepared me sufficiently.

At this I was in error. My stomach began to churn unnaturally. I sat down. I crossed and uncrossed my legs. I stood back up. I sat down again, then stood back up. No matter how many times I changed positions, I could achieve no relief. My stomach was definitely uncomfortable, unsettled. I took several deep breaths—no help. I switched to shallow breaths—no help. I held my breath, and then released it slowly.

Was I going to be sick?
I decided to sit back down, but it was too late. A strange sensation began in my stomach, seizing me, bringing me to my knees. Instead of sitting, I sort of flopped over and lay prone on the grass unsteadily. The pain started slowly, a pinpoint, gradually radiating through me. My chest, the pain in my chest was unbearable—I choked for breath. I writhed, desperately trying to change positions to relieve the pain, but what was happening now could not be undone. I felt my chest gradually—painfully—expanding, like a balloon being filled with too much air. I examined it to see if I would soon explode, but there was no perceptible change. I had just time enough to conjure the words
heart attack
before the unimaginable pain spread to my back, and all conscious thought ceased.

I gasped and struggled for breath, willing my lungs to expand and contract. They did not obey.

Mr. Wadsworth face leaned into my view, and he watched me writhe in agony for a few moments. “I say, what are you doing down there on the ground? You’re sullying with dirt your already squalid clothing.”

He seemed to be speaking to me from very far away, “Suit yourself, I suppose. Always had a very delicate back myself, could never quite understand anyone wanting to lie about in the
grime
...”

Either his voice slowly trailed off or I had completely lost the ability to focus. He was obviously not concerned enough for my well being to offer help and, therefore, completely useless. For a moment I thought I heard him continue talking indifferently about my ill-mannered behavior, until I sort of drifted off again, and I heard him no longer.

A strange sensation of being pulled came over me, pulling me down, down,
down
. A rustling sound filled my ears. I felt as though feather-light silken sheets were rushing against me in all directions. I’m assaulted by strange, surreal thoughts, like I am one of the melting clocks in a Salvador Dali painting. Alternately, thoughts of disbelief assail me, nagging that none of this is real.

Flashes of the past came in waves. Jack’s smile. My mother’s voice. Nicky’s kind eyes. Gavin and Simon’s laughter.

Abruptly, sound and movement ceased, and silence settled around me.

My eyelids fluttered groggily, but only a blazing red light fills my sight. Several attempts are required before I can open them successfully, as the red light burns. When I can finally see, I find no discernable source of light—only the world bizarrely colored. I close my eyes tightly, temporarily afraid of seeing any more.

When I finally open them again—slowly—the world is ablaze. Rubbing my eyes in confusion, I realized I could no longer feel pain. With a sinking heart, I knew that, were I still alive, I’d feel pain, nausea, fatigue. I felt none of those. I felt nothing.

Despite this revelation, I could locate no trepidation. Instead, I got up slowly, logically, and beheld the heavenly firmament. The sky above me was
on fire
. There is no other way to describe it. Instead of a brilliant blue or inky midnight, it was fiery red and swirling with constant motion.

The color was so intense that the flaming sky mirrored itself onto the earth, the true color of the ground an intriguing mystery. Aside from a few scattered dead trees, I saw nothing else. The ground was dry and cracked. A perfect soothing warmth embraced me. Despite the bizarre color and surroundings, I felt at
peace
.

Something in the sky seemed to change, like a shadow moving over me, eclipsing my own. A black, ghostly shape was hovering high in the sky overhead. As I watched, another appeared. Then another. On and on this continued until there were dozens of them. Though I was strangely reminded of sharks, specifically sharks circling in preparation for a feeding frenzy, I continued to maintain a calm stillness, a sense of ease that prevented me from being overly concerned. This was the best feeling I had ever felt. No pain. No fear. No anxiety or sadness. It was almost impossible to believe I had ever been burdened by those feelings.

For reasons seemingly unrelated to the strange apparitions, I felt something pulling me, and it suddenly seemed like a good idea to start walking. I walked on and on, endlessly. Time simply had no meaning. I had no idea how long I’d been walking across the barren landscape before I saw another person in the distance, walking toward me. The figure appeared to be shrouded in a blood-red hooded cloak.

As the figure grew closer, I became aware that its movements were not normal. While I moved in much the same way here as I always had, the figure seemed to move in jagged bursts. It might walk forward for four or five paces and then suddenly appear 15 feet from where it had just been. I also began to notice a strange sound radiating with its movements—a deeply macabre baritone, so deep that it vibrated within my chest. My pace began to slow until, without realizing, I had stopped altogether, hands pressed against my ears in wasted effort. Simultaneously, the figure suddenly appeared a few yards from me. With a painful slowness, it removed its hood.

A raven-haired, exotic-looking woman stared back at me. She motioned for me to follow her, but my feet were rooted in place. The murmur of voices off in the distance made me increasingly unhappy. I longed to go to them. But the terrible sound from the woman soon drowned out all others. My chest ached from the constant pressure.

The two of us stood in a deadlock while the black ghosts silently cast their shadows upon us.

And then she smiled.

Just a smile one moment, but the next—the face attached to it flickered and
changed
. Gone were the warm eyes and soft features. In their place was what can only be described as
demonic
. Black eyes and black teeth contorted in an evil grin. But as quickly as the demon appeared, it was gone again, leaving the beautiful woman alone beckoning me to follow her once more.

My obedience owed to the feeling that I simply had no other choice. The horrible blare was quickly driving me into madness. Terrible thoughts filled my head. I suddenly felt trapped in a dream, my thoughts again drifting to the Dali-esque, as I was reminded of the equal parts mesmerizing and disturbing dream sequence from Alfred Hitchcock’s
Spellbound
. Was I the angry proprietor or the wheel being tossed from the rooftop?

Only baked earth greeted us in all directions. Then gradually, in the distance, a dark form began to take shape. Several agonizing heartbeats later I recognized the shape as an enormous dead tree.

All the while, the black apparitions followed.

When we were fully in sight of the tree, I felt the faintest stirrings of unease as my senses seemed to try to reawaken. But what to do? There would be no phone to call for help. No assistance would be forthcoming here. I was completely and utterly on my own—I may no longer even be alive. As my senses returned, I also noticed a drastic change in temperature. It was quickly dropping. The sky was no longer red but a bluish gray. The red sky seemed to be retreating into the distance, and oh, how I longed for it.

The tree itself was much larger than a normal tree. The gnarled black trunk and limbs twisted in every direction. My demonic guide pointed me to a large hollow in the tree, a point at which, when the tree had been living, the trunk had bifurcated into a v-shape.

Without moving forward, I craned my neck to look into the hollow. An eerie blue light emanated from below, and a sudden arctic blast shot up, sending my hair swirling in all directions. I felt that coldness with every fiber of my soul.

I didn’t want to know what was down there. Every natural instinct told me something was terribly wrong. I glanced back to the woman for reassurance, with hopes of asking what I wasn’t sure, but she had turned and was retreating with the same freakish movement.

“
Wait!”

She glanced back, just for a moment, the faintest trace of a smile on her exotic face, but she offered no reply.

My eyes darted about in terror. Above me, an endless stream of black ghosts whirled. Having no idea what else to do, I turned back to the tree, inching ever closer. A strange melancholy sound was coming from below. I finally screwed up my courage and looked down, and as I did so, the ghostly apparitions swirled faster in apparent frenzy. In agitation, they seemed to flee. Before I could investigate further—the moment the blue light reached my face—I was tugged on strangely, and I began to fall. I plummeted endlessly down the hollow, through the strange blue light, with a strange feeling of depressing certainty I would never again see the light of day.

I hit bottom with an odd sound. Not exactly a thud, because the ground was not exactly normal. The impact clinked like glass, or maybe ice. I stupidly rubbed the spot on my hip where I had landed, but of course I felt no pain. The strange underworld was tinged with a smoky, eerie blue hue. Jagged ice formations surrounded me on all sides. Cold, barren sadness pervaded the air. By comparison, the place above had been positively charming.

I heard the same strangely sad sound and began to feel my way toward it, with a surety this was what the woman had wanted me to seek out. Only my breath was visible in the freezing air in front of me as I meandered toward the mournful song. Definitely music, though I couldn’t make out any words.

Every now and again, walking in this strange icy world, I caught the faintest glimmer of movement under the ice beneath me. But if I watched longer to investigate, nothing appeared, summing up the story of my life.

Then, being caught off guard while worrying about what could be lurking beneath me, a sudden memory stopped me short, chilling me through to my core, freezing my heart instantly. A memory, one of those I stifled at all cost, of a chilly fall morning when I was five or six years old and watched my mother singing a lullaby for the last time...

If it was possible that my heart was still beating in this weird place, it would have skipped not just one, but two or three or seven beats. It felt as though it did. Without knowing how I was moving forward, I automatically did. Through a small porthole, an odd cave-like room became visible. Crystallized stalactites of all shapes and sizes hung from above, giving the room a jagged appearance. A woman was curled up in a corner, singing softly, mournfully, and rocking herself.

My mother looked exactly as I remembered from my childhood. Although she was curled up and sobbing, she looked as beautiful and like herself as I remembered, as different from the person in the mental institution as it was possible to be.

Without a moment’s hesitation, I screamed. “Mom!”

It was as though she couldn’t hear.

Clawing and scraping at the ice that separated us, I tried to force my way through. “Mom!”

A terrible sound filled my ears, the ice groaning from below.

The singing stopped, and my mother’s eyes found mine. “No evil can touch you—you can’t be harmed. You’ve been safe, right?” She whispered.

She didn’t seem surprised to see me, or happy, or anything else. I felt only…
disappointment
.

“
Evangeline, have you been
safe
?”

There was no time for disappointment. How to tell my poor mother what a mess my life has become? True, nothing has happened to
me
—just anyone I happen to care about. I nodded in silence.

While I was formulating an answer, my chest gave a sudden lurch, and I stumbled. My entire body began shivering violently.
What was happening?

Just then there was a thunderous crack, and the ice in front of us flew in every direction, chunks of it crashing all around. I couldn’t move—my limbs simply would not obey. I could only watch in terror as something slithered up from the ice below.

My body, I realized suddenly, was in a severe state of hypothermia. I was freezing to death. My fingers and toes ached, teeth chattering uncontrollably. I was going into shock now, and very soon, if I remember the symptoms correctly, I would drift off to sleep, never to wake again.