I woke with the blanket tucked under my chin and pink rose petals caught in the collar of my shirt. I sat up, shaking them free, but when I looked up at the flowers growing along the windowsill they weren’t just wilting. They were black.
I plucked one from the stem and it fell apart in my hands. Ashes.
The girl’s silhouette flashed on the other side of the window and I wiped my hands on my jeans. That’s when I noticed that the door was cracked, the smell of coffee beans drifting out.
I sat up, staring at the seam, relieved that she hadn’t disappeared again, but also afraid that she might still be angry. When I finally stepped to the door she was sitting at the table, eyes scanning the pages of a book. I draped the blanket over my forearm and when I finally stepped inside, she looked up, startled.
I hung by the door, not sure what to say or do. A million questions buzzed on the edge of my lips but I couldn’t get them out. All I could manage was, “This is weird?”
She eased back from her chair, slowly, as if I was some feral animal that had snuck in through an open window.
“Considering I’m an expert,” she said, “yes, this is weird.”
“Thanks for the blanket,” I said.
“Sure.”
Her voice was thin and I felt strange standing there. But everything felt transitory. I felt transitory. Like either one of us could disappear at any moment. Like I was supposed to but somehow I’d taken a wrong turn and gotten stuck here, wherever the hell that was.
“Do you want to sit?” she asked.
I reached for a chair, waiting for it to self-destruct. When it didn’t I sat down across from her and she poured me a cup of coffee, her eyes wide on my face as I took a sip. I looked down, waiting for her to stop examining me, every inch of me tensed.
“The moon,” I finally said, “it was...” I wasn’t sure what it was.
I looked to her for some kind of explanation but she just shook her head. “I can’t.”
“You can’t explain why it looked that way?”
She looked down at the cup between her hands. “I can’t explain anything.”
“Try,” I said. “Just try.”
“It was a farmer’s moon,” she said, “from a night when I was eight. My mom, my uncle and I were driving back home from a day at the lake.”
I still remembered its face, the glow igniting the ocean like it had been ripped from a children’s story.
“But that thing, it was unreal.”
“That must have been how it looked to my eight-year-old self.”
I thought about that moon, the trees turned to stone, the farmhouse. And the snow.
“The farmhouse,” I said, “it wasn’t there before. The beach was empty and then the sunflowers…”
“This house belonged to my grandparents.”
“And now?”
“They had to sell it when my grandfather passed away. My grandmother lives with us now. Me and my mom.”
“But you’re here,” I said.
Her eyes narrowed. “You still think I’m crazy.”
“I think one of us is.”
“Fine.” She crossed her arms. “It’s you.”
“Me?”
“You’re the one who doesn’t belong here.”
“Well, I’m not hanging around on purpose. I don’t even know how the hell I got here. I don’t remember anything. I don’t even know who the hell I am.” I clenched my fists, tried to stop shaking.
“You think you’re the only one who’s stuck here?” She bit her lip, looked away. Then she let out a breath. “It’s usually only temporary. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Wait and see? How long could that take?”
“It depends. Time is…it’s not the same here.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I don’t know what it means,” she snapped.
I gripped my scalp, elbows on the table. “I can’t do this.”
“Do what?” she asked.
“What are you even talking about?”
“Look.” She exhaled, staring at her hands. “I don’t know what you want from me. But for the sake of my own sanity I’m just going to assume that you are some strange figment of my imagination and maybe you should do the same.”
“Great. Just live in denial then.”
“It’s always worked for me.”
“No.” I gripped the edge of the table. “This is real. I am real.”
“I’m telling you, there’s no answer.” She sunk against the chair, arms crossed. “And trust me, I’ve been looking for one for most of my life.”
“But your memory. How do you have your memory and why am I so fucking empty?”
“Do I look like a psychiatrist?” She bit back the words. “I’m sleeping. Maybe I don’t forget because I don’t really go anywhere. I’m just sleeping.”
“And me?”
She gave a slight shrug. “I’m sorry.”
I tried to sit still, to breathe. Breathe.
“Where does it end?” I asked.
She looked down at her hands again.
Breathe. “Where does it end?”
She finally faced me, lowered her voice. “It doesn’t.”
It was impossible. The snow, the sunflowers, her, me. All of it. It was impossible because…
I leaned forward, searching her face. “You’re dreaming.”
She shook her head, eyes fierce. “I’m sick.” She stopped, catching her breath. “Don’t you get it? I’m sick.”
I pushed out of my chair and charged back outside. I stared into the sun until it burned and then I just closed my eyes, waiting to wake up, because I must have been sleeping too. It was all just one bad dream. A very weird, very beautiful bad dream and if I could just catch my breath. If I could just stop…shaking…and…
“Hey.” I felt her hand on my arm. “You okay?”
I finally opened my eyes, hoping for the thousandth time that when I did I’d be home. That I’d be home and safe and I’d remember my own fucking name. But all I saw this time was her, eyes swollen with something like fear. I felt it too, because what if she wasn’t the only one who was sick?
I started walking down the beach, letting the waves spill into my shoes, climbing to my calves, to my waist. The water surged against my chest but I wasn’t afraid of drowning. I wanted it to drag me under, to gut me and ravage me and fill me with the things I’d lost.
I saw it coming, a wave swelling and ready to collapse. I swam for it and in that split second before it came crashing down, I took a deep breath and let myself sink.
I blinked and it burned but when I looked around everything was dark. I searched for the sun dancing along the surface, for the shadow of clouds. But I couldn’t even see my hands as I scrambled for air. I started kicking, ignoring my lungs, and searched the darkness for the silhouette of a wrecked boat. For something. Anything.
My chest ached and I finally found the surface, breaking to fill my lungs before diving back towards the bottom. And then I just kept kicking, dragging my body forward, trying to cut through the darkness. I kept kicking until my knees burned and my lungs felt like they were about to explode and then I was sucked back out, water rushing past me, sand scraping my skin as I was tossed back onto shore.
I rolled onto my back, coughing up saltwater.
“Don’t move.” I heard her voice and when I blinked she was so bright.
I sat up.
“Slow…” she said.
“No.” I stumbled to my feet again, pushing past her.
“Stop.” She chased after me. “This isn’t the way.”
But it was the way. It was the way I’d come in and it had to be the way out. She reached for my arm but I shook her off, wading out into the water again.
A wave knocked me to my knees, my muscles taut and tired. I crawled forward, taking a deep breath before diving under again. I felt the ocean’s grip on me and I pushed off the first sandbar, lett
ing it drag me away from shore. I tried to cling to the current, to keep kicking against that invisible pull trying to fling me back onto shore but as my eyes fought to stay open suddenly I was so tired.
I was sinking.
A hand gripped my arm, pulling me toward the surface. I blinked and saw the sun. I tasted the tears then, the sting still caught in my throat. I tried to swallow but when she reached for me again I knew she’d already seen them.
“Can I show you something?” she asked.
I wasn’t sure if I should follow her or even if I could but I didn’t want her to let go of me. I didn’t want her to disappear again and leave me there alone, still lost. So I nodded.
We swam to the end of the dock and she untied the small rowboat. She climbed in first, reaching for the oars and holding it steady as I sat down across from her. I watched the house recede. My eyes trailed back to the road, still waiting for someone to come down it. They didn’t.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Not far.”
I searched the horizon but it was empty. No land. No boats. It felt like we were headed straight for the skyline, about to fall off into nothing. The waves grew choppy and I wanted to take the oars from her but I didn’t know where we were going and for some reason I liked listening to the slow rhythm of her breathing as she fought the waves.
The boat finally grinded to a stop and when I looked over the edge the water was so clear I could see tiny creatures bedding in the sand, their thin shadows eclipsed by the girl as she climbed onto the sandbar.
“I went to the Bahamas once when I was thirteen,” she said. “The water was so blue. I strapped on a snorkel and spent the entire week just walking from sandbar to sandbar, face underwater watching the fish swim by.”
I followed her out of the boat and a school of bright yellow fish cut between us, scales glinting.
“This?” I said.
She smiled and walked around to the other side of the boat. The water was a dark grey, my legs tangled in a mess of rust colored seaweed. I could barely see my feet, their shadows disappearing beneath swirls of mud.
“This is the Gulf of Mexico near Galveston. I tagged along on one of my mom’s work trips. It was just a few weeks after Hurricane Ike.”
I stared at the muddled outline where the two oceans converged—one light, one dark. I waited for them to mix, for that invisible seam to break free but it didn’t.
We waded farther out into the clear water, another school of fish bumping against my calf, bright red coral twisting near my ankles. It was startling.
“I used to come here,” she said. “When I first got sick I would stand here and it wouldn’t feel like purgatory anymore. They’re memories.” She faced the beach. “My memories.” Then she looked at me. “I don’t know why you’re here or if you’re—”
“Real?” I asked.
She nodded and I wasn’t so sure anymore either.
“But you don’t have to be afraid,” she said. “It doesn’t have to feel like purgatory.”
I watched the sunlight reflecting off the ocean and dancing against her skin. Her eyes were lighter in the sun; green churning to a soft sea foam like the waves crashing near our feet. And standing there in that invisible seam between two oceans, two worlds, she was just as startling.
The tide swirled in her gaze and I watched it shimmer there, glinting from a soft grey to jade and then I said, “It doesn’t.”
Chapter 8
Bryn