“I know, I saw. I was watching her from the window. Call the ambulance.”
Sean’s shouts to the kids to go inside moved farther away and I was left in the echoing silence with the angel. I felt soft lips on my hand.
“Open your eyes, Sandy,” he whispered. “Please.”
I tried to but they felt as if they were glued together, like a lotus nestled in the mud forced to open its petals ahead of time. My head was heavy, my thoughts clumsy and slow, as it throbbed and pulsated repeatedly with abnormally strong force in the protective hand that cradled it. The ground felt cold and rough beneath me. Concrete. Why was I on the ground? I struggled to get up but my body resisted the action, my eyes wouldn’t open.
I heard the ambulance in the distance and I fought to open my eyes. They opened just a slit. Ah. Mr. Burton. My savior. He held me in his arms, looking down at me as though he’d just discovered gold in the Leitrim roadway. He had blood on his shirt. He was hurt? His eyes looked hurt as they searched my face. I suddenly remembered the great big pimple on my chin that I wished all day I’d popped that morning. I tried to move my hand to cover it but it felt like my hand had been dipped in concrete and left to dry. “Oh, thank god,” he whispered, his hand holding mine tighter. “Don’t move yet, the ambulance is almost here.”
I had to cover my pimple. I was finally this close to Mr. Burton after four years and I looked a mess, my seventeen-year-old hormones were ruining the moment I’d been dreaming of. Hold on, he’d said “ambulance.” What had happened? I tried to speak and a croak passed my lips.
“It’s going to be OK.” He hushed me, his face close to mine.
I believed him and forgot my pain for a moment while I once again self-consciously felt my face.
“I know what you’re trying to do, Sandy, so stop it.” Gregory attempted to laugh lightly while carefully removing my arm from my face.
I groaned, words still not coming to me.
“He’s not so awful, you know. His name is Henry. He’s been keeping me company while you’ve been so rudely passed out. Henry, meet Sandy, Sandy, meet Henry, although I don’t think you’re a very welcome guest here.” Gregory ran his finger across my chin, lightly brushing the blemish as though it were the most beautiful thing about me.
So there I was with blood running from my head, a pimple named Henry on my chin, and a face so aflame it could have powered the entire town. I began to close my eyes again, the sky seemed so bright it pierced my pupils and sent spears of pain through my sockets and into my already throbbing head.
“Don’t close your eyes, Sandy,” Gregory said more loudly.
I opened them and caught the worry in his face before he had a chance to hide it.
“I’m tired,” I finally whispered.
“I know you are”-he held me tighter-“but stay awake with me for a while, keep me company until the ambulance gets here,” he pleaded. “Promise me.”
“Promise,” I whispered before shutting my eyes again.
A second siren arrived on the scene, a car pulled up nearby, I could feel the vibrations on the concrete near my head and I feared the tires would run over me. Doors opened and slammed.
“He’s over there, Garda,” Sean was back, shouting. “He drove straight into her, wasn’t even looking,” he said, panicked. “This man here saw it.”
Sean was quieted down, I heard a man crying. Heard garda voices trying to comfort, radios crackling and beeping, Sean being led away. Footsteps came closer to me, there was mumbling above my head of concerned voices. All the time Gregory whispered in my ear words that sounded pretty, the vowels easy in my ringing ears. The sounds shut out the sirens, the cries of fear, the shouts of panic and anger, the feel of the cold concrete and the sticky wet trickling down my ear.
As the ambulance sirens got louder, Gregory’s tones became more urgent as I began to drift away in his arms.
“Welcome back,” I heard as I awoke to see a worried Helena wafting a fan in my face.
I groaned and my hand flew to my head.
“You’ve got a nasty bump so I’d advise you not to touch it,” she said gently.
My arm kept moving.
“I said don-”
“Ouch.”
“Serves you right,” she said haughtily and walked away.
I squinted around the unfamiliar room, feeling the egg-sized bump that had formed above my temple. I was on a couch; Helena was at a sink facing a window. The light was bright and illuminated her, blurring her around the edges as though she were a holy vision.
“Where are we?”
“My home.” She didn’t turn around, continued rinsing a cloth.
I looked around. “Why do you have a couch in the kitchen?”
Helena laughed lightly. “Of all the questions you could have asked, that is the first one you chose.”
I was silent.
“It’s not a kitchen, it’s a family room,” was her reply. “I don’t cook here.”
“I don’t suppose you have electricity.”
She grunted, “Once you get a chance to look around outside you’ll see we have a system of what we call solar panels.” She dragged out the words as though I was slow. “They’re similar to the ones found on pocket calculators and they generate electricity from the sun. Each house has its own power voltage system,” she said excitedly.
I lay back in the couch, feeling dizzy and closed my eyes. “I’m aware of how solar panels work.”
“They exist there, too?” She was surprised.
I ignored her question. “How did I get here?”
“My husband carried you.”
My eyes flew open and I winced with the pain. Helena still didn’t turn around and the water still flowed.
“Your husband? You can get married here?”
“You can get married anywhere.”
“Not technically true,” I protested meekly. “My god, electricity and marriage? This is too much for me,” I mumbled, the ceiling beginning to swirl above me.
Helena sat beside me on the couch and held a cold washcloth over my forehead and eyes. It felt soothing on my throbbing, burning head.
“I had the most awful dream that I was in a bizarre place where all the missing things and people in the world go,” I grumbled. “Please tell me that was a dream, or at least a nervous breakdown. I can handle a nervous breakdown.”
“Well, if you can handle that, then you can handle the truth.”
“What is the truth?” I opened my eyes.
She was silent as she stared at me and sighed. “You know the truth.”
I closed my eyes and fought the urge to cry.
Helena grabbed my arm, squeezed it, and leaned in with urgency in her voice. “Hang in there, Sandy, it will make sense to you after a while.”
I didn’t think that possible.
“If it makes you feel better, I haven’t told anybody else what you’ve told me. No one.”
It did make me feel better. I could figure out in my own time whatever it was I had to do.
“Who is Jenny-May?” Helena asked curiously.
I closed my eyes and groaned, remembering the scene at the registry. “Nobody. Well, not nobody, she’s somebody. I thought I saw her in the registry, that’s all.”
“It wasn’t her?”
“Not unless she stopped aging the day she arrived here. I don’t know what I was thinking.” Frowning, I reached to my pounding head again.
There was a light tap on the door and it was gently opened by a man so tall and broad he filled the door frame. White light impatiently squeezed itself through the small spaces he didn’t fill, shooting into my eyes like spears of fire direct from the sun. He was of similar age to Helena, with shining ebony skin and intense black eyes. He stood well over my six-foot-two height and for that reason alone I immediately liked him. His figure dominated the room yet brought with it a feeling of safety. A small smile revealed snow-white teeth, while eyeballs like purified sugar melted around pupils of black coffee. He was hard, but softened around the edges. His cheekbones sat high and proud on his face, his jaw square yet, above it, cushioned lips for his words to bounce from and launch themselves into the world.