I think of his last words. If you want to help us, you need to go across. Now.
But going across would mean … No, it’s not possible.
Dead. Am I dead? And now, obviously, I don’t want to go across. I can’t. And yet I don’t remember telling him that; I was too busy wishing for other things. But he was a vision. Only a vision, my vision. How could something made of air kill a living being? Could he take a knife, the same knife he’d used to slash at Trey, and plunge it into my stomach? Of course, to other people, he may have been air, but to me, he was more than real. I can still taste his vile lips and feel the muscles of his body straining under his shirt. Maybe being real to me was all it took for him to have the power to claim my life.
Trey warned me to stay away from Jack. What did he say? You love your life? You love your daddy? You want to get back home to him?
Oh God, yes. Yes, I’d give anything.
Trey. I snap back to the moment when he reached down and touched my ankle. The calming effect it had on me, the cozy, comfortable sensation that spread over my body as he massaged out all the pain, all the wrong, with his fingertip. And suddenly I am running. I stop clutching my stomach and dart among the trees, calling to him. “Trey!” My voice sounds different as it echoes among the tall pines, so that for a moment I’m not convinced it’s mine. It’s frantic, yes, but also deeper, more mature. And I don’t know where I’m going, and yet I know the path well. I know this place like a newborn baby knows its mother.
Trey is ahead of me on the path. His eyes are downcast, his hands in his pockets so that the blood from his wound is a crimson racing stripe on the side of his dirty jeans. He sighs as I approach. “I’ve failed, haven’t I?”
I reach down and lift up my shirt, exposing my belly. The few places that are not stained the color of rust are a sick, marbled white. The wound itself is an ugly slit right beside my navel, bubbling thickly with black, like an oil spill. I whisper, desperate, “You can help me. You can heal it, right?”
“Aw, Kiandra.” He looks into my eyes, and I know the answer immediately. But that won’t do. That is not enough. He’s done miracles before and called them child’s play. There has to be something he can do.
“No. Don’t tell me that. You can do something! You have to!”
He reaches for my hand. Before, his body was so cold, and now his fingers are warm when they brush on my wrist. I want him to use them as he did before, to heal, so I take them in my bloody hand and guide them to my stomach. He lets me pull them only so far before he gently takes them away and shakes his head. “Kiandra. It won’t work.”
“But it has to. It has to,” I whimper. “I can’t be …” But I can’t say the word. My lips have forbidden its passage. “I’m only seventeen. I’m going to graduate this month. I’m going to USM. I got in, early acceptance …” I think of my dad, taking me out to Friendly’s for an ice cream sundae when I told him the news. He’d been beaming. The thought wracks my body with a torrent of sobs. “It’s not over for me. Please.”
He doesn’t say a word, but his face is somber, his eyes are glassy. Is he crying, too? And then I move beside him and see a ghastly sight, just off the path. A body, lying supine among the dead pine needles. A familiar powder-blue jacket, now ripped open, white batting spilling out. A spray of blond hair, greenish in the moonlight and marred with bits of dead leaves and dirt. Eyes open, unblinking. My eyes. They’d stared back at me in the mirror every day of my life, and now they’re just glistening marbles, staring forever at the sky, at God. And then I see the blood. So much blood, everywhere.
I bring my hands to my mouth, thinking my breath will warm them, but there is no breath in me. My body is shaking and my knees weaken, like two branches ready to snap. Trey pulls me toward him, and it’s then I notice we’re on a small outcropping, directly over the river. He holds me in his arms, and the moonlight dancing on the ripples is just a sad reminder that things are changing, and will always change, whether I’m ready for them or not.
By morning, my tears have dried, leaving two tight, salty tracks on my cheeks. I sit up, hoping that I’m with Justin, that everything in the past day was just a horrible nightmare. But I’m on the riverbank, and the new sunlight is dappling the water, making its surface so bright that I have this inexplicable urge to jump in, to feel the waves washing over me. Strangely, the river is no longer menacing to me, and I no longer shiver when I look at it. I glance around, blinking. In the morning light, everything has a new, sharper edge to it, with the colors more vivid, the angles more defined. It’s as if in life I had a veil over my eyes, and suddenly I’m seeing everything clearly for the first time.
I rub my eyes and pull my jacket up over my belly. The wound looks fresh. It begins to bleed anew, flooding over the waistband of my jeans. I slide my jacket back into place and the tears begin to fall again.
I’ve almost forgotten about Trey. When I turn around, I’m embarrassed to see that I must have fallen asleep in his arms and used his chest as a pillow, because there’s a spot of drool on his shirt. And here I thought dead people didn’t have to worry about things like that. He doesn’t notice, though. He’s wide awake and staring at me. “Feeling better?” he asks, his voice gentle.
His wound, the knife slash on his forearm, isn’t bleeding. I point to mine. “Will this ever stop?”
He nods. “When you’re not thinking on it. Let it alone.”
“Are you kidding?” How am I supposed to forget about this massive, ugly thing in my middle? The blood is running down my thighs. My intestines could slip out at any moment.
When I look up, his wound has opened, and blood begins to bubble on the surface. He shakes his head. “I know. Easier said than done.”
I shiver in the morning air; my teeth are chattering in a steady drumbeat. I’m not cold; my hands are their normal color, not the deathly blue that they sometimes turn in freezing temperatures. Funny that my hands look more alive now. I think of the last sight I witnessed before Trey pulled me to him and I fell asleep in his arms. It was my body, lying off the path. Dead. I don’t want to see it. Don’t want to at all, yet still I find myself craning my neck, searching it out. Maybe if I don’t see it, this will all prove to be a horrible nightmare and I’ll be able to go home.
Trey puts a hand on my shoulder. “I moved it. Down near the river. Didn’t think you’d want to see it again.”
I sigh, grateful and sad all at once. “I should have listened to you. You knew he was going to try to hurt me. I just didn’t think …” I swipe uselessly at the tears. “Why? Because he hates my mother?”
He’s slowly stroking his thumb back and forth over my collarbone. “Don’t worry yourself over the whys. It’s done.”
Then I say, “Jack told me he killed you. Is that true?”
He looks surprised for a moment. “Wow. Guess lying never got him nowhere, so now he’s trying out telling the truth. Yeah. It’s true.”
“He’s a monster. First you, now me.” I shake my head. “He killed you because you turned him in, right? He’d killed someone else? A little girl?”
His face hardens. “Him? Nah. I don’t like talking about it. Happened a long time ago, so it don’t matter anyway. Let’s see.” Staring at my wound, he unbuttons and removes his shirt. His arms and chest are tan and muscled. I find myself blushing and looking away as he comes close to me and gently presses the shirt against my stomach. It doesn’t hurt, not at all. His hair flops in his face and when he leans down I can smell it. It’s like leaves and fresh wind and woods. And then I see that his shirt is sopping with my blood, and remember last night.
That horrible, horrible night. I don’t even hate Justin or Ange anymore; I don’t think I ever did. I just miss them. I miss those dull, sloppy kisses Justin used to give me. I miss shopping with Ange. The only thing I ever wore bikinis for was sunbathing at the back of the house, but the last time we went out, I’d found a cute pink one. My first thought when I look at that wound is I guess bikinis are out. Then my mind travels over everything else that’s out, too. Kissing. Shopping. Sunbathing. Talking to Ange. Everything. I fold up into a ball and start to cry again.