Authors: Julie Hockley
Scare Crow (35 page)
I WAS
“Wak
e up.”
There is that one, monumental question everyone has asked themselves at one point
in their lives, whether they live until they’re one hundred or until they’re twenty
years
old.
What happens when I
die?
“Emily, wake up,” I could hear myself saying to my
self.
“To what?” I answered in my snidest
tone.
“You have to keep figh
ting.”
I guffawed. “I’m done with
that.”
And the light
came.
It wasn’t what I was expec
ting.
It was not soft and peaceful. There were no angels singing or harps playing. The music
was, at least, orchestrated, but it was hot—rather blazing. Like an ant burning under
a magnifying g
lass.
Hell?
I shouldn’t have laughed at this, but I did. The old Emily Sheppard would have never
done anything interesting enough to get herself to
hell.
As I brushed my hands against my clothes, readying myself for what came next, I was
caught off guard by how smooth my clothes were. When I looked down, I saw that I was
wearing a white ballroom dress that went all the way down to my knees. And I had a
spotlight o
n me.
I looked to my side. My mother was holding a microphone to her lips. She was wearing
a similar gown, though hers glistened under the bright lights, like a mermaid’s
tail.
I was at my sweet sixteen party. Or rather, I was at the sweet sixteen party my mother
had thrown. I just happened to be turning sixteen that
day.
“Oh dear God, I really am in hell,” I said aloud, but no sound
came.
If this were hell, then I really was being punished for my sins. I had taken a man’s
life, and this did not go unnoticed, no matter how evil that man had
been.
All of a sudden, my mother’s face disappeared, and the spotlight softened. The orchestra’s
music died, and a breeze picked up, cooling me off. I was able to see off the stage,
see a blank-faced crowd of my parents’ friends—acquaintances—standing in tuxedos and
prom dresses. They swayed with the breeze. It felt as though I were standing before
a cornfield of people waiting to be cultiv
ated.
I took a step forward and got off my mother’s stage. My feet were
bare.
As soon as my toes touched the grass, the corn crowd parted with my every step, letting
me walk by them without me having to touch them, without them having to touc
h me.
I got to the edge of the
pool.
“Cameron,” I called
out.
Even if I couldn’t see him, I knew he was there. He had always been there. I just
didn’t know how to look for
him.
The swarm of faceless people on the other side of the pool parted, and Cameron walked
through. He was wearing a gray hooded sweater and jeans. And a baseball cap that was
pulled down to his eyebrows, shadowing his features. Like the first day we met. But
with every step he took, he transformed. By the time he reached the other edge of
the pool, he was dressed in a tuxedo, with his collar undone and his black bow hanging
l
oose.
He sm
iled.
It was amazing to me how quickly he could take my breath
away.
I had missed
him.
I had missed seeing him—his face, his shoulders, his h
ands.
I reached out to him, even though there was a pool of water between us. I could feel
him taking hold of me, cloaking me like a ray of
sun.
I let him enfold me like that for a little while, knowing that something was wrong.
Something was very w
rong.
I put my hands against his chest, against his heart, and I pushed him
away.
“We have a child,” I whispered to him. But again, no sound came from my m
outh.
I brought my hands to my stomach and found that it was flattened. E
mpty.
Suddenly, the pool was between us a
gain.
I took a step back and stopped there, beaming at Cameron. He fro
wned.
I took another step back. He reached fo
r me.
I shook my
head.
“I’ll see you later,” I mouthed to
him.
“Stay with me,” he ple
aded.
I smiled at my beautiful Cameron. “I’ll be right
back.”
I turned into the dark
ness.
AND THEN I WASN’T
When you lose the person you’ve always lived for, do you
die?
Do your lungs just stop taking in
air?
Does the blood stop flowing to your b
rain?
Do you turn to dust and disappear as though you never
were?
BILLY
An eye for an eye, a life for a life. We’ll all pay for the blood we spill. Ultima
tely.
But not
yet.
****
It was the incessant sound of beeping that rouse
d me.
When my eyes fluttered open, I found myself in a room, in an elevated bed, surrounded
by the machines that had awoken me and that I was apparently plugged into. I couldn’t
feel my legs, and the parts of me that I could feel were nu
mbed.
It occurred to me that I might be in a hospital, except that the room didn’t have
the coldness and sterility of a hospital room. And it smelled of ma
nure.
The mattress was soft and not plastic-coated, and a crocheted blanket had been placed
over me. My hand slowly pushed it down and stopped when it reached my stomach. I couldn’t
feel anything below my chest, but I could feel the hollowness of my insides. A scream
rose up from my empty nest, but the noise that escaped my parched vocal chords was
barely a mouse’s whi
sper.
Something stirred next t
o me.
I forced my head to turn and nearly jumped out of my
skin.
Spider was nestled in a comfy chair, surrounded by pillows, with his legs up on an
ottoman. A plate of pastries lay on a table next to him, with a carton of chocolate
milk. You’d think he was on vacation at a chalet by the sea. I tried to move quietly,
not wanting to rouse Cameron’s killer. Thinking I could actually escape before he
caugh
t me.
He turned his head slowly. Our stares met. His eyes were dull, and he was blanched.
He looked as surprised to see me as I was to see
him.
“My baby. Where’s my baby?” I croaked at him. Spider was slightly panicked as I started
to push my way out of the bed, simultaneously tugging at the wires that were sticking
out of my arms. I was trying to roll myself over, making up for my numbed
legs.
“Carly!” he called out, though his voice was f
aint.
White coats came rushing in, followed by Carly. She was carrying a roll in a blanket.
A bundle that was not moving. I kept my eyes focused on the blanket while medical
staff plugged me bac
k in.
“Billy’s here,” I thought I heard Carly u
tter.
My brother? Billy? It can’t be.
“That’s not possible,” I heard myself growl, my eyes always on the immovable object
in her
arms.
Carly’s face went pale, as though she hadn’t expected me to hear her. “We didn’t know
what you wanted to name her. We just thought … You can change her name to anything
you want, of course. She just reminded me so much of
Bill.”
She took a step forward but was held back by one of the coats. “Not yet. She’s simply
not strong en
ough.”
The back of my brain recognized this doctor. But the rest of me didn’t give a
damn.
“She?” I wond
ered.
Carly pushed the doctor aside and made her way to the side of the
bed.
I immediately extended my feeble arms, yearning to get the bundle—my child … my little
girl—into my
arms.
Carly resisted. “There’s something I need to tell
you.”
My gaze reached hers. I could see the doctor—Doctor Lorne, I remembered—shaking his
head in my peripheral vision, disappro
ving.
The darkness was creeping up on me, as though answering the question, giving me the
answer I needed to know, giving me the answer I didn’t want to
know.
“Is she …” I started to ask, but I couldn’t finish the sent
ence.
Carly looked horrified. “Oh no, no. It’s not that. No, Billy is just fine. She’s sleeping
like a
rock.”
She immediately forgot what she was going to tell me and placed my bundle on my chest.
She folded my bloodless arms over so that I could keep hold of my baby
girl.
The background noise disappe
ared.
Seeing Billy for the first time was like putting a face on all the love and the joy
I had in me, I had ever felt, multiplied to infinity. I didn’t know something so beautiful
could even exist in this ugly world. She opened her striking green eyes—my striking
green eyes—and for the first time, we saw each other. For the longest time, she had
been hidden inside me, and now I could see myself in
her.
She watched me as if deep in thought, finally putting a face to the voice she had
been hearing for months. It was like her pink skin was magnetized so that I couldn’t
pull my eyes away from her, so that I had to touch
her.
My hand found its way to her mouth, where it lingered, feeling the hotness of her
tiny breaths. My thumb found its way to her nose, brushing the cluster of dry skin
that was splashed across it, like the tail of a shooting star. I examined
every inch of her face. I unfolded the blanket and found her miniature hands. Then
I pushed the hat off her head, and a spring of black hair popped out—her father’s
hair.
I pushed myself up and put my cheek against
hers.
“She’s tiny but mighty,” Carly murmured, smiling from one side of her face to the
other. Smiling from some deep-rooted place. “She drank a whole bottle in almost one
gulp. I’ve never seen anything lik
e it.”
“Billy,” I called her. It was per
fect.
Spider was up and standing by the bed, holding on to the rail with a bandaged arm.
I could have sworn he’d grinned when he looked down at Billy. Then a hush spread around
the room like an earthquake. Spider’s eyes turned to the doorway, so I followed his
gaze.
It took a few seconds for my brain to believe what my eyes were descri
bing.
“Cameron,” I exhaled. Cameron stared at me, unmoving, afraid to take a step. Bright-red
blood covered his white tuxedo shirt and had crusted his p
ants.
Carly reached for Billy as my arms started sha
king.
I heard Billy crying as she was pulled away. I was desperately trying to hold on to
the light. but it was like trying to climb up a greased-up
rope.
Then the light was
gone.
****
I was arched over, my hands gripping the wooden rail in front of me. That was the
only way I could keep from falling over. The stitch along the bottom of my belly hurt
so bad I could barely walk and couldn’t stand fully erect. Like the Hunchback of Notre
Dame.
I watched the horses in the patch over the cobblestone driveway. There were so many
cars in the driveway you’d think they were lining up for a parade, with Cameron’s
black Audi at the head. But there was no parade. And it was very q
uiet.
Guards could be seen throughout the property, if you knew where to look for them.
But I kept my eyes trained on the horses. Most of them were far out in the pasture,
avoiding the fuss. But two stood guard at the fence, keeping an eye on Meatball, who
was trying to go say hello but his big head wouldn’t fit through the fence’s levers.
So he sat and whined ins
tead.
The wind picked up, and I hugged the shawl Carly had insisted on putting over my shoulders
before I escaped to the porch. The breeze was warm and I was standing in the sun,
yet I was still shivering. I felt like I had already lived a thousand lives, so I
supposed the old-lady shawl was appropriate. Carly had wanted me to stay in bed, but
Doctor Lorne ordered me to get back on my feet, to get some fresh air and stretch
out. I needed time alone, time to think. So I followed the doctor’s or
ders.
When I heard the porch’s whitewashed floorboards creak behind me, I diverted my attention
from the horses and saw Cameron approaching, Billy nestled in his arms. He was skin
and bones, as though he had really been
dead.
“I picked her up when she woke, but she fell back asleep,” he whispered, his eyes
on Billy. She was mummy-wrapped in a million blankets. With only her chubby little
face peeking through, she looked like a peapod. Carly’s fussing, I gue
ssed.
“I thought she might be cold, so I put another blanket around her,” Cameron admitted,
like he knew what I was thinking and needed to prove me w
rong.
He looked up at me, but I kept my eyes on my beautiful baby girl, who was sleeping
in her father’s arms. She looked peaceful, like she was exactly where she was always
supposed to be. The fact that she and I almost didn’t make it, the fact that I had
almost lost her, crossed my mind again. But I blocked this out before my imagination
ran wild. She was here, with me, right now, and I would be forever grateful to Doctor
Lorne. And forever grateful to Sp
ider.
Cameron must have sensed I was itching to have her in my arms because he gently grabbed
my elbow and helped me to the swing, handing me Billy as soon as I was seated. He
then amassed the cushions from all the chairs. After building a fort of cushions around
Billy and me, he sat down, swung my legs onto his, and swayed us back and forth on
the s
wing.
Feeling his legs under mine made my heart twist in confusion. I could hardly bring
myself to look at him. I longed to touch him, hold him tight, never let go. How many
nights had I wished I could be with him just one more
time?
But now, seeing him, being so near to him brought me so much pain. The pain of betrayal,
of abandonment. I could hardly breathe. I never knew that I would be able to love
and hate someone at the same
time.
“You left us, Cameron,” I said. It was barely a
sigh.
“I had no idea. I should have, would have never …” he started, then stopped. He swallowed
hard and looked into my eyes, searching. “I didn’t know you were pregnant, Emmy. I
didn’t know about B
illy.”
“Sorry,” I snapped. “Let me rephrase that. You left
me
, Cameron. And I cried over you. Every night, for whole days at a time, for months
after you died. After you supposedly died. How could you do that to a person you supposedly
l
oved?”
“
Love
,” he corrected me. “Never
loved
, never supposedly. Love in the past, the present, and the always.” He kept his dark
eyes on me. “To say I made the wrong choice, the wrong decision, is like saying the
sun sets in the west. I’ll never forgive my
self.”
We sat in silence, rocking slowly, Cameron’s hands resting on my ankles, as though
we had been doing this for y
ears.
“What happens now?” I finally asked
him.
“I don’t know, Emmy,” he said, keeping us on a swaying rhythm. “But whatever happens,
we’ll figure it out toge
ther.”
Together. I wondered what the future would hold. I wondered whether I would ever be
able to forgive him for the agony he caused me. The pain. It was still there. The
knife had been pulled out, but the wound continued to
gush.
But I loved him. Undoubtedly. F
ully.
Carly and Spider joined us on the porch. Carly pulled a chair up, trying to sit as
close to Billy and me as she possibly could, and Spider leaned over the railing. He
still had a bandage on his arm where Doctor Lorne had punctured his skin to get to
the blood that was rare, the blood that was the same as
mine.
I had died. When Cameron brought me to Doctor Lorne, I didn’t have a pulse, or so
Doctor Lorne had explained to me. I had just lost too much blood. They told Cameron
that I was probably not going to make it. Doctor Lorne had saved Billy, though, and
he had saved me. But most of all, Spider, his blood, had saved me from death, and
it would run through my veins. In the end, Spider and I were going to be forever linked.
Serendi
pity.
A car came tearing through the driveway, and Griff jumped out of the passenger side
before Tiny even had a chance to fully stop. I couldn’t even think about what I was
going to say to
him.
My eyes went back down to check on the hot bundle in my
arms.
Meatball limped to Griff, and they made their way to the p
orch.
And Billy slept while the horses neighed in the pas
ture.
Where do we go from here?
I wond
ered.
Who the hell knows?
I answered my
self.
But whatever happened, we were in this toge
ther.
For B
illy.