Chapter 15

Fifteen

The darkness surrounds me like an oversized shadow, its invisible weight pressing on my shoulders, weighing down my steps. I wander with numb feet across the icy ground. I can’t find my way back. I have forgotten where I came from. Who I was can only be sensed in the echoes of the blackness like a distant odor.

Suddenly, I hit a hard surface with my outstretched hands and, with sleepwalking certainty, I know immediately that it’s a door. I run my fingertips over the surface. Rose tendrils on ebony like on the coffin. My fingers find the cool metal of the handle. Closed.

You can’t come in, I hear the boy whisper from the next room.

Why not?I ask.

You can’t take it. He’s directly behind the door.

For a moment, it’s like I know this boy well.

You are too small. I put my fingers on the rose tendrils.

Not back then.

What does he mean? I yank my hand back in surprise and within the blink of an eye, where the door used to be, there is the veil of silence and darkness.

Unsteadily, I walk a few steps and suddenly notice that the boy is walking next to me. He wears blue jeans, a white shirt, and polished shoes. He keeps staring at me, and while I’m wondering why I can see him despite the blackness, he points straight ahead.

You have to go a long way.

I want to ask him how he knows that, but then he’s gone again. I blink and look ahead, and all of a sudden, the darkness breaks in front of me like the skin of a fruit.

Something blue drifts through my dream. A blue like bluebells. It flutters around the edges like a piece of sky has been cut out. Without thinking, I reach for it and I immediately feel the pull on my body as if I was being swept along by a wind and carried away. All around me is a soft whisper, incomprehensible words like tender hands caressing my skin. They envelop me like a hug, hold me tight. The next time I blink, a narrow strip of light falls on me like a door opening. It is dazzlingly bright behind it and Lou is standing in the light.

Heart pounding, I pull up and hit my head hard on the RV’s roof. I rub the painful area briefly, then I climb over the backrest of the dining bench onto the floor and creep backward.

Lou is curled up again like a vulnerable animal, her handcuffed arm stretched out from under the covers.

Something crackles hot and cold in my chest. I feel defenseless when I see her as if she has the power to break down the door inside me. A tenderness I’ve never known overwhelms me. I can’t believe she did this for me. I remember the voice that reached me during the flash.

You talked to me, Lou, right? That night I had the blackout, you sat by the RV and talked to me. You comforted me, and no matter what you told me, it helped me. And you did that even though… I am who I am.

I listen to her breathing, but it sounds labored as if it is too difficult.

I’m sorry I’m not a better person, Lou. I wish I could be that for you, but I can’t.

She stops breathing for a moment, rolling over in her sleep, chin-length hair falling across her cheek.

I can’t stop looking at her. This time, there isn’t the deep dark burning in my chest. There is something different, but I can’t describe it. I try to trace the feeling like the injuries after a fight, but it seems nobody ever taught me the right words to describe it. It feels like stepping out of a dusty cave into a valley of fresh green trees and a crystal clear lake. The feeling is extensive, vast, and slight. It tickles as if wind, sun, and shadows were chasing each other across my bare skin.

Maybe it’s just northern-sky blue.