The Reaping of Norah Bentley

By

Eva Truesdale

Copyright © 2011 by Eva Truesdale

These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Eva Truesdale.

Cover art by Grant Gaither

www.owengraffix.com

“Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm;
for love is stronger than death,
passion fiercer than the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
a raging flame.”
— Song of Songs, 8:6-7

I was going to die.

The rip current was too strong. I could feel it—a rush of smooth water at my ankles, weaving through them like a snake and pulling me off balance, pulling me out to sea. And the shore was already so far away. A small crowd of people had gathered on it, and from this distance through my salt-stung eyes, they all blurred together into one giant, shadowy figure that was pointing towards me, yelling things I couldn't hear over the roar of the waves.

So much noise. Between that and the icy water, I couldn’t think straight. My mind was as numb as my body, as useless as my tired arms. I should have been terrified, some part of me knew that—but I didn’t have the strength left to be anything.

The pressure on my ankles increased, swept my feet out from under me.

I'd meant to get away. That much I could still remember clearly. I’d been tired of all the fighting, disgusted with my parents for not being able to get along for even a single weekend so we could have a normal, enjoyable family vacation. I didn't mean to get this far away, though. I don’t know how I got this far away.

The current pulled me under again. I found the gritty sand under my feet and pushed, managed to resurface long enough to gulp down a few breaths of air tainted with salt. The rip current gave one final, powerful tug and then seemed to dissipate, and for a moment there was an eerie sort of calm. That’s the first time—the only time maybe— that I really felt fear. And then I saw it: a dark wall of water, edged with white foam and glittering in the sunlight as it grew taller and taller, pushing forward, the center pulling into itself until it collapsed, breaking over me and slamming me down into the ocean floor.

I can’t tell you how long it was, after my face hit the sand, that the light came. Not that bright, white light at the end of the tunnel that everyone always talks about. It’s more orange than white, and it’s not blinding. It’s bright enough to illuminate everything around you, though—like an early morning sunrise just before the sun gets all the way over the hills. And I was floating through it. I didn’t really have a choice—there was nothing to stand on here. There was no water to tread, no sand to sink my toes into. It was okay, though, just floating like this for awhile. Because I was tired—god, I was tired—and it was so warm and dry and peaceful here. I could have stayed here forever.

And I probably would have, if it hadn’t been for the boy.

I was still floating, swaying awkwardly in the air, while below me he walked gracefully through the nothingness that surrounded us, like there was actual solid ground underneath his every step. He reached up, held out his hand to me. His eyes were the color of the dark, tumultuous ocean I’d left behind, but somehow all I felt was peace as I stared into them. I took his hand. He pulled me down to him, and suddenly there was ground under my feet—cracked gray ground that stretched for miles and miles in every direction. Above us, there was only blackness.

The boy lifted his other hand and brushed my long, side-swept bangs back, tucked them behind my ear. Then he leaned forward and tilted his forehead against mine.

“Not yet,” he whispered.

#

The next thing I remember was lying on the wet sand, the waves flowing onto the beach, reaching just far enough to lap at my outstretched fingertips before receding back into the infinite ocean. And there were people. People everywhere, running and shouting and maybe one of them crying. It was hard to make out distinct sounds.

The boy was there, too. Different looking, surrounded by the chaos and darkness, but watching me through the same beautiful blue eyes. He was the only clear thing on the beach, amidst the blur of color and sound swirling all around us, as he crouched at my side, his hand grasping mine like he was afraid I might float away again. He stayed there until another blurry figure dropped to his knees on the other side of me.

The scene jumped back into focus then, and suddenly I was watching everything from above: my lifeless body lying there, the man in the red shirt beside me, feeling for my pulse and then bringing his ear down to my mouth, listening for my breath, shaking his head.

The boy who’d saved me got to his feet, looked up like he knew I was there, even though his eyes never quite met mine. Then he turned and started to walk away. I would have given anything to follow him, to get away from all the chaos and uncertainty surrounding me. To get back to that peaceful place for just a few more minutes. But I could only watch him until he reached the wooden steps built over the sand dunes. Then I closed my eyes, and in my mind I walked hand and hand with him off the beach, away from all the noise.

#

He’d been in my dreams again. It had been almost three weeks now, and I was still having these crazy dreams where I was surrounded by water, sometimes calm and sometimes angry, rolling waves that crashed over me. And every time the boy was standing on a small island in the middle of it all, his hand reaching for me. At first, I managed to swim a little closer every night, though I never quite managed to take his hand.

But last night, the sea had been especially dark and rough, and I’d drifted farther from him than I’d ever been. I woke up covered in sweat, and in a panic I dove for the switch to turn on the lamp beside my bed. The sheets tangled around me, and I writhed and twisted and ended up falling rather ungracefully from my bed. I scrambled for the switch by the door and flicked it up so hard it left a stinging pain in the center of my palm. I slumped against the wall, staring around at a room that still seemed unnaturally dark.

“Should probably get Dad to invest in some brighter light bulbs,” I muttered to the empty room. Something like 120 watts, maybe. Did they even make those? I made a mental note to find out.

My alarm clock was glaring a bright, angry display: 6:13. Way too early. I could have gotten another forty-five minutes of sleep at least—but that would have meant closing my eyes again. And I wasn’t taking any chances of that dream picking up where it left off.

So in a dazed stupor, I crossed over to my dresser and grabbed a hoodie and a pair of sweats to throw on over the tank and boxers I’d slept in. Then I headed for the kitchen, where I turned on every light and started a pot of coffee. With a mug of it securely in hand, I collapsed at the breakfast table. I was right next to the window, could feel the cool September air slipping in through it. The top of it had fogged over during the night, but water droplets were starting to slide down the bottom half, and through the trails they made I could see a wobbly, distorted view of a cool blue dawn.

My hometown of Sutton Springs, true to its sleepy, southern nature, was completely desolate this time of morning. I stared out the window for at least twenty minutes before I saw a single car drive by. A red Buick. Mr. O’Neal’s, I think. I was squinting through the fogged glass, trying to get a better look at the driver, when my stepmother, Helen, walked into the kitchen.

“You’re up early,” she said.

“Woke up around six. Couldn’t get back to sleep for some reason.” I took a loud sip of my coffee. She eyed the mug with a disapproving frown but didn’t say anything, just walked over and started to pour herself a cup.

“Bad dreams again?” She kept her back to me as she spoke.

“…Yeah.” There was no point in trying to lie about it; Helen was a human polygraph machine.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I took another sip of the lukewarm coffee and thunked it back down on the glass table.

“I already have,” I said, as evenly as I could. “For
some
reason, Miss Brandes decided to ‘randomly’ check in with me twice this week. She took me out of Mrs. Walden’s class and made me talk to her about my feelings. It sucked.”

Miss Brandes was the school counselor, who just happened to be a member of the same book club as Helen. They met every Tuesday, and I had a feeling they probably hadn’t done much book discussing these past few weeks—not when they had me and my problems to gossip about.

“Well you needed to talk to somebody about it,” Helen said, unapologetic. She sat down in the chair opposite of me and fixed her dark green-gray eyes on mine. Even this early in the morning, there was still a hawk-like alertness in her face. Her lips were drawn into a tight, even line, and her dirt-colored hair was pulled into a no-nonsense bun with all the stray frizzies already slicked into place. My hand lifted mechanically, smoothing the tangled mess of my own wavy strands.

“It’s not normal,” Helen continued, “to be obsessing over some dream like you have been the past few weeks. I mean look at you—you look like you didn’t sleep at all last night. That’s not normal
or
healthy.”

“It’s not just ‘some dream’,” I said, staring out the window. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Helen shaking her head.

“Oh, don’t start with that psychology of dreams stuff again,” she said. “The only thing that dream means is that you’re still obsessing over what happened, and you need to talk to somebody about it. It’s not normal.”

“Okay. If you say so.”

Arguing didn’t seem worth the energy. This wasn’t the first time we’d had this conversation anyway, and I had a feeling it wouldn’t be the last. I’m pretty sure she was convinced I’d done that whole almost-drowning-in-the-ocean thing on purpose. She’d been trying to convince Dad for years that I was a “troubled child”—that it was me, not her, making our relationship rocky. What I didn’t get was how seven years of living with me hadn’t clued her into the fact that—assuming I
was
troubled— the last thing I would have done was create that whole dramatic scene at the beach.