BRIDGER (4 page)

“We’d all have more oxygen. It could be considered an act of humanity.
 
I might even get the Nobel Peace Prize or something. Jamie nearly had a nervous breakdown while you were out.
 
She started Googling your symptoms to make sure the doctors weren’t incompetent, irritating everyone within a twenty-room radius.
 
The person next door had a rare South American disease according to her, when the doctors had confirmed it was a bad case of shingles.
 
Dr. Jamie’s been on a warpath.”

I shook my head, stifling a laugh.
 
“She’s my best friend.
 
Give her a break.”

“Well, it’s crazy enough around the house without Jamie sleeping over all the time, jabbering away like a parrot.
 
Mom’s mad at me right now.”

Grinning slightly, I rolled my eyes.
 
“Mom’s mad at you?
 
Her prince?
 
What’d you do?”

He looked to the ground.
 
“I kind of asked her if we should put Memaw in a nursing home, but she’s not hearing it.
 
She says Dad wouldn’t want us to ship her off.”

“Woah. Why would you wanna put her in a nursing home?”

“Well, it’s been kind of weird. I’ve found Memaw in your shower three times since you’ve been out.”

“Wait, what? She was in my bathroom downstairs?”

“Yeah. I don’t know how she got down there; you know she’s bad with stairs.
 
Mom couldn’t find her and she was freaking out, so I went down just because it was the only place we hadn’t looked. She was there. It was weird. She was all shocked when I found her and kept saying she didn’t know how she’d gotten there. It kind of worried me. She’s not that young, you know?”

Jamie interrupted our conversation with her arrival, her eyes swollen and rimmed with red.
 
I felt horrible to have caused her carefree world to crash in on her, even if it was for just a moment.
 
Chris looked at me and rolled his eyes as he got up and left the room. “I’ll leave you two to catch up.”

Chris shut the door as he walked out, leaving Jamie to rock on her heels awkwardly in the middle of the room.

“James, you look like crap.
 
When’s the last time you slept?” I asked.

She looked at her watch and shrugged.
 
“I don’t know.
 
I was too worried to sleep.”
 

“Well go get some beauty rest.
 
It’s gonna be okay.
 
Your doctoring skills are superb according to Chris.”

She smiled.
 
Looking away for a moment, she did a double take.
 
“Do you really think anyone here in the hospital cares about your eye color?
 
You’re way too self-conscious, girl,” she teased.

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, I just didn’t think you’d be worried about putting contacts in, considering the circumstances.”

She really needed to sleep if she thought I had put contacts in.
 
“Sis, I haven’t worn contacts for two days.
 
Comatose, remember?” I said jokingly while tapping my head, assuming she would laugh as well.
 
She didn’t.
 
Instead, she inched closer and for some reason seemed afraid.

“Look in the mirror,” she commanded as she fished a small compact from her purse and handed it to me.

I took it from her with curiosity.
 
Those eyes couldn’t be mine.
 
Where there were only black irises before, they were now emerald green, like Memaw’s.

“Um, wow. Mom?”

Walking in from right outside the door, she must have been giving Jamie and me time to catch up. Her eyes were puffy and red; between Dad being gone and my trip to the ER, she must not have slept in a few days. “What’s wrong, hon?” she asked as she gently pulled the hair out of my face and placed it behind my ears.

“My eyes. Look at them.”

Taking her focus off the rat’s nest of hair and glancing at my eyes, her own bugged out of her head. “Emily! Come here!”

Although she hobbled in slowly, Memaw made it clear she was the matriarch of the family.
 
No one could ever forget it, but she hip-checked Jamie on her way over anyway.
 
Hovering inches above the bed, she placed her hands on either side of my face, holding it in place as though I might try to pull away.

Her face mimicked the shock that had been in Jamie’s a moment ago.
 
She seemed uncertain as to what to think.
 
Instead of betraying her usual confidence, she made a joke.
 
“Well, apparently the eggs gave you a little color along with nearly killing you.
 
Not a bad trade-off, if you ask me.”

Memaw could joke, but the worry on her face was evident. Realizing she had given herself away, her face once again became a hard mask.
 
She knew something, and I needed to know what it was before leaving for Ireland.

FOUR

The nurses discharged me the next morning – Christmas Eve.
 
At least the family wouldn’t be spending Christmas in the hospital.
 
Jamie and Chris helped me out of the ridiculous wheelchair the staff had forced me to use to get outside, while Mom tried to convince us to stay home instead of making the trek to Ireland.
 
Memaw agreed, vehemently confirming Mom’s worries. Jamie pouted behind them. Afraid to say anything, she decided to suffer in silence as our plans were torn apart.

Mom begged me to agree with what made sense in light of what had happened in the past few days. “Honey, there’s going to be plenty of chances to go to Cork.
 
The family isn’t going anywhere and those tickets are good for a year.”

Memaw wedged herself between Jamie and I – her usual spot whenever she could manage it.
 
“Your mother’s right.
 
I’ll go over with you if you’ll just wait until spring break.
 
I’ve been meaning to go and see everyone.”

Memaw was offering a lifeline to get out of the trek.
 
However, I didn’t want to disappoint Jamie.
 
Plus, no amount of “quality time” with Memaw was a good idea. The last time we tried that, the next month had been miserable with mutterings of me being kidnapped by little Irish body snatchers. The woman was a piece of work when angry.

I argued and hoped it was convincing enough for them. “Guys, I love you, but we’ve already got the tickets.
 
It’s four hundred dollars to cancel and use them another time.
 
There’s no reason to put out that kind of cash to wait on doing something I want to do now.”

Jamie flashed a quick, encouraging smile behind Memaw’s back. Mom sighed and put the car in drive as she realized she was fighting a losing battle.
 
“Well, at least take it easy until you leave,” she said, her eyes on the road.

Chris pushed his seat back and put his feet on the dash, flipping through the songs on his iPod he had connected to the radio.
 
“Ash, you really need to leave.
 
Stay over there if you want.
 
The vanilla body spray you use is stinking up the car and sticking to me.
 
I can’t go to school smelling like a girl.”
 
He wrinkled his nose, pretending to be completely disgusted.

“It would be an improvement over what you smell like now.
 
You might actually get to say three words to a girl besides ‘Where’s the bathroom?’” I said, laughing.
 
My head spun from the minor movement.
 
I leaned back and rested against Memaw.
 
She patted my head absentmindedly as she looked out the window, avoiding the stitches above my right eye. It was the first time I could remember that we had touched voluntarily.

Chris laughed and continued to flick through his music, never settling on one song for long.
 
I fell asleep on the way home, the past few days’ craziness finally catching up.

* * *

Christmas day came quickly.
 
It was a nice morning, and spending it inside seemed like a waste.
 
The snow sparkled in the sunlight, prisms dancing off the perfect flakes.
 
It didn’t look like it could be real.

Memaw sat at the picnic table bundled up, enjoying watching Chris make a fool of himself.
 
He was trying to snowboard on a sled down the small hill behind our house.
 
She looked so happy, so at peace.
 
I couldn’t feel the same way, having lost Dad not even a week ago.
 
Sitting on a snow-covered swing, I halfheartedly coached Jamie as she tried out my snowboard.
 
Once more, she crashed and burned, laughing the entire way down.

Silently, a group of young men came around the side of the house.
 
They eyed Memaw with what looked like caution.
 
Before I could call out to see what they needed, their faces took on a hungry look, all of them focused on Memaw.
 
It was unnerving.
 
Why were these men so interested in an old lady?

As the men neared her, chains appeared around their waists, ankles, and wrists that hadn’t been there a moment before.
 
Moving forward in seamless synchronization, they each pulled daggers from their hips and charged Memaw.
 
She was so engrossed in Chris’ theatrics that she hadn’t noticed the danger.

I screamed for Memaw to look out so loudly it hurt my ears.
 
Instead of running toward her, I hunkered down, unable to watch them murder her.
 
Would the men come for the rest of our family after they’d finished with Memaw?
 
Why was this happening?
 
Hadn’t we lost enough losing Dad only a few days ago?
 
Terror flooded through my veins, ice replacing the blood.
 
I was involuntarily rooted to the spot.

Although terrified to look, the thought of not knowing what was happening to Memaw was worse.
 
I barely opened my eyes to see the outcome of the men’s grisly attack.
 
My jaw dropped to the ground at the sight.

Where Memaw once sat, stood a gorgeous woman no older than twenty.
 
Her golden hair was wild and unkempt; her eyes were black as pitch like mine. Smiling at her assailants, she unsheathed a thin bow and pulled three arrows from her quiver, one for each man coming toward her.
 
In one fluid motion she released all of them at once, each one finding its mark.
 
The men fell.

To say I was shocked would be the understatement of the century.
 
The woman kneeled down and pulled her arrows from the bodies of the men while I crept toward her.
 
She wiped each one off quickly with the hem of her long, white skirt.
 
As she stood up, the rim of her skirt came into view.
 
It was covered in dried blood.
 
She had probably cleaned the arrows in the same fashion countless times before today.
 
I tore my eyes away from her skirt to look at her face.

The young woman was no longer there. Memaw stood hunkered in her place.
 
Still wearing the long, white skirt, Memaw dropped to her knees. She grabbed the man closest to her and pulled him to her chest.
 
She sobbed uncontrollably over his body.

After a few minutes, Memaw let the man fall to the ground, his shirt covered with her tears.

It was my dad.

Looking back to Memaw, I expected some answers.
 
The action brought only more questions.

Instead of the emerald green eyes Memaw always had throughout my childhood, I was met with the gaze of the young woman.
 
Memaw’s eyes were jet black.