Her eyes opened wide now. She gazed at Philip, then glanced around the room. She did not pause at Tristan; she looked straight through him.
Gregory rested his hands lightly on Philip's shoulders and moved him aside. He sat down on the bed, then pulled Ivy close to him. Tristan could see that she was shaking.
"Everything is going to be all right," Gregory said, smoothing back her hair. "It was just a dream."
A terrifying dream, thought Tristan. And he couldn't help her, couldn't comfort her now.
But Gregory could. Tristan was overcome with jealousy.
He couldn't stand to see Gregory holding her that close.
And yet he couldn't stand to see Ivy so frightened and upset. Gratitude to Gregory, as powerful as his jealousy, swept through him. Then jealousy again. Tristan felt weak from this war of feelings and backed away from the three of them, moving toward Ivy's shelves of angels. Ella followed him cautiously.
"Was your dream about the accident?" Philip asked.
Ivy nodded, then dropped her head, running her hands over and over the twisted sheets.
"You want to talk about it?" Gregory asked.
Ivy tried to speak, then shook her head and turned one hand over, palm up. Tristan saw the jagged scars running up her arm like the traces of lightning strikes. For a moment the darkness came up from behind him, but he fought it back.
"I'm here. Everything's okay," Gregory said, and waited patiently.
"I–I was staring at a window," she began. "I saw a large shadow in it, but I wasn't sure who, or what, it was. 'Who's there?' I called out. 'Who's there?'" From across the room, Tristan watched, her pain and fear pressing upon him.
"I thought it might be someone I knew," she continued. "The shadow looked familiar somehow.
So I walked closer, and closer. I couldn't see." She stopped and glanced around the bedroom.
"You couldn't see," prompted Gregory.
"There were other images on the glass, reflections that made it confusing. I got closer. My face was almost against the glass. Suddenly it exploded! The shadow turned into a deer. It crashed through the window and raced away."
She fell silent. Gregory cupped her chin in his hand and pulled it up toward him, gazing deeply into her eyes.
From across the room, Tristan called to her. "Ivy! Ivy, look at me," he begged.
But she looked back at Gregory, her mouth quivering.
"Is that the end of the dream?" Gregory asked.
She nodded.
With the back of his hand he gently stroked her cheek.
Tristan wanted her to be comforted, but-"You don't remember anything else?" Gregory said.
Ivy shook her head.
"Open your eyes, Ivy! Look at me!" Tristan called to her.
Then he noticed Philip, who was staring at the angel collection-or perhaps at him; he wasn't sure. Tristan put his hand around the statue of the water angel. If only he could find a way to give it to Ivy. If he could send her some sign-"Come here, Philip," Tristan said. "Come get the statue. Carry it to Ivy."
Philip walked toward the shelves as if drawn by a magnet. Reaching up, he put his hand over Tristan's.
"Look!" Philip cried. "Look!"
"At what?" asked Ivy.
"Your angel. It's glowing."
"Philip, not now," said Gregory.
Philip took the angel down from the shelf and carried it over to her.
"Do you want her by your bed, Ivy?"
"No."
"Maybe she'll keep away bad dreams," he persisted.
"It's just a statue," she said wearily.
"But we can say our prayer, and the real angel will hear it."
"There are no real angels, Philip! Don't you understand? If there were, they would have saved Tristan!"
Philip fingered the wings of the statue. He said in a stubborn, little voice, "Angel of light, angel above, take care of me tonight, take care of everyone I love."
"Tell her I'm here, Philip," Tristan said. "Tell her I'm here."
"Look, Ivy!" Philip pointed toward the statues, where Tristan stood. "They're shining!"
"That's enough, Philip!" Gregory said sternly. "Go to bed."
"But-" "Now!"
When Philip passed by, Tristan held out his hand, but the little boy did not reach back to him. He stared with wonder, not recognition.
What did Philip see? Tristan wondered. Maybe what the old woman had seen: light, some kind of shimmering, but not a shape.
Then he felt the darkness coming on once more. Tristan fought it. He wanted to stay with Ivy. He could not stand to lose her now. He could not stand to leave her before Gregory did.
What if this was his last time with her? What if he was losing Ivy forever? He struggled desperately to keep back the darkness, but it was rising on all sides now, like a black mist, before him, behind him, closing over his head, and he succumbed.
When Tristan awoke from his dreamless dark, the sun was shining brilliantly through Ivy's windows. Her sheets were pulled up and smoothed over with a light comforter. Ivy was gone.
It was the first time Tristan had seen daylight since the accident. He went to the window and marveled at the details of summer, the intricate designs of leaves, the way the wind could run a finger through the grass and send a green wave over the top of the ridge. The wind. Though the curtains were moving, Tristan couldn't feel its cool touch. Though the room was streaked with sun, he couldn't feel its warmth.
Ella could. The cat was lying on a T-shirt of Ivy's tucked in a bright corner. She greeted Tristan by opening one eye and purring a little.
"Not much dirty laundry lying around here for you, is there?" he asked, thinking of the cat's fondness for his smelliest socks and sweats. The stillness of the house made him speak quietly, though he knew he could shout loud enough to-well, loud enough to wake the dead, and only he would hear.
The loneliness was intense. Tristan feared that he would always be alone this way, wandering and never seen, never heard, never known as Tristan. Why hadn't he seen the old lady from the hospital after she died? Where had she gone?
Dead people went to cemeteries, he thought as he crossed the hallway to the stairs. Then he stopped in his tracks. He had a grave somewhere! Probably next to his grandparents. He hurried down the steps, curious to see what they had done with him. Perhaps he'd also find the old woman or someone else recently dead who could make sense of all this.
Tristan had visited Riverstone Rise Cemetery several times when he was a little boy. It had never seemed a sad place to him, perhaps because the sites of his grandparents' graves had always inspired his father to tell Tristan interesting and funny stories about them. His mother had spent the time trimming and planting. Tristan had run and climbed stones and broad-jumped the graves, using the cemetery as a kind of playground and obstacle course.
But that seemed centuries ago.
It was strange now to slip through the tall iron gates-gates he had swung on like a little monkey, his mother always said-in search of his own grave. Whether he moved from memory or instinct, he wasn't sure, but he found his way quickly to the lower path and around the bend marked by three pines. He knew it was fifteen feet farther and prepared himself for the shock of reading his own name on the stone next to his grandparents'.
But he didn't even glance at it. He was too astonished by the presence of a girl who had stretched out and made herself quite at home on the freshly upturned dirt.
"Excuse me," he said, knowing full well that people didn't hear him. "You're lying on my grave."
She glanced upward then, which made him wonder if he was shimmering again. The girl was about his age and looked vaguely familiar to him.
"You must be Tristan," she said. "I knew you'd show up sooner or later."
Tristan stared at her.