Beneath the Distant Star

by Lisa Shambrook

  “What’s up Jaz? What happened?”

  “Mum’s gone…” she began.

  He nodded. “She always does…today.”

  “I think she missed it…”

  “Missed what?” he asked.

  “The rainbow.” She choked as she spoke and her father took her into his arms.

  “There was a rainbow?” Sadness tinged his voice.

  She nodded as tears spilled over.

  “A real rainbow?” His voice caught.

  “Yes,” she said burying her face in his t-shirt.

  She felt his hot breath in her hair as he held her and the shudder as he tried not to cry. Neither spoke and a few minutes later he guided her to the bed. They sat and he took her hand. “You have to forgive her.” He squeezed her hand.

  Jasmine nodded. “I’ll try.”

  A few days later and the clouds brooded as much as Mum did. She hadn’t spoken a single word on the whole journey. Jasmine stared up at the sky as Dad parked the car and she got out wondering if it would rain, as it had all week, or whether it would hold. Dad had the same feeling as she caught his glance up at the simmering clouds. Her mother stumbled slightly as she got out of the car. Dad hurriedly moved to her side and Jasmine closed the door, he locked it and Jasmine allowed her parents to move ahead.

  Late Sunday afternoon was quiet and the cemetery was silent but for birds and a breeze. Jasmine listened as her parents’ footsteps crunched on the gravel and gripped her roses tight. Dad had brought white roses home and Mum had chosen the best three, and Jasmine had broken the thorns off each stem just as Mum had instructed. Now they walked past the small chapel and on up the path.

  Jasmine studied the gravestones and memorials, repeating the inscribed names and dates silently inside her head as they walked. She knew better than to speak out loud. The roses brushed against her legs, and she lifted them carefully, lest her mother find bruised petals.

  She felt sad as they passed untended graves. She wanted to stop and pull out weeds and stand overturned pots and vases. Her gut twisted at the irony of withered blooms, drooping or dead, propped up against head stones. Silk flowers ruffled in the breeze and little plastic windmills twirled, their foil sails glittering and humming as the wind caught them.

  Her mother’s sob caught her off guard this time, and they turned off the path and onto grass. Each year more polished marble filled the spaces and the graves stretched further out across the emerald grass. Despite being almost May, Jasmine shivered in the chill air as they wandered through the saddest of monuments and the shortest of life spans.

  Freya’s grave sat not far from an ornamental cherry tree, and pale pink petals lay strewn across the grass in a celebration of delicate confetti. Jasmine stood back as her mum approached the headstone and her dad paused beside her. Mum dropped to her knees and gently brushed pink petals from the light-grey stone, and ran her fingers through the stiff leaves of a large clump of bluebells. Primroses pushed through beside the blue flowers and wild violets spread across the grass. Mum tidied a few spent narcissi, removing their wrinkled brown trumpets, and brushed her hands across the stone. She traced her daughter’s name with a finger and sniffed.

  Jasmine glanced up at her dad. “Now?” she whispered.

  Her father nodded and Jasmine offered a white rose. He took it and stepped forward with his daughter. She waited until her mother turned and gave her a white rose holding the last one in her own hand. They waited, as Mum got to her feet and stepped away from the headstone. She nodded and sighed.

  “Our Distant Star…” she read from the stone, her voice barely audible. “Freya, our beloved daughter and sister. May your star shine in heaven and light up our lives from above.” She blew a fragile kiss and bent to lay her rose on the grass.

  Jasmine waited while her father placed his rose beside his wife’s and then Jasmine bent to put hers down too. Once the ritual was over, Jasmine stepped back and left her parents clinging to each other’s hands. She withdrew and sighed. How do you mourn a sister you cannot remember? She asked herself, shaking her head in time with the nodding cherry tree.

  She felt sad in the graveyard, especially amongst the children’s graves, how could you not with all those precious lives cut short beneath you? But her sadness was not the aching kind of grief felt so intensely by her parents, nor was it earth-shattering and tragic. She gave a wry smile as she watched her parents. The scene was so picture perfect, the two of them standing with arms around waists, the spring flowers blooming, white roses placed so carefully, and the cherry tree nodding in weighty sorrow dripping tears of pink. She almost wanted to whip out her phone and take a photograph. In fact she had to fight the urge greatly, as it truly looked so beautiful.

  She backed away, further still, feeling unconnected, and her smile slipped as she realised how distant she felt.

  Her stomach churned, nausea rose, and she trembled. Tears raged behind her eyes and she couldn’t stop them rolling down her cheek. But the tears weren’t for Freya, or for her parents, they were for her. She stood in wretched dejection, as her parents grieved their lost child, and she wondered if they ever saw her, or if she’d remain just as lost as Freya.

  Her emotions fought within, her head in turmoil of frustration and angst, and guilt engulfed her. How could she stand and feel so sorry for herself when they stood broken-hearted over their lost child? She still lived! And then anger surfaced laced with resentment and simmering bitterness, and Jasmine burned.

  She lived, she stood, a real child, a living daughter—and yet her mother still mourned a ghost.

  Jasmine released a shuddering sigh and stared out across the cemetery. All the stones, the graves, the markers, all the ghosts below; she grimaced and cast a glance back at her parents. Her mother still gripped her father’s arm with white knuckles and Jasmine shook her head. She spun on the grass and moved back onto the path. She didn’t want to stand waiting, with the cold coil of spring’s breeze lacing around her and breathing in her hair. She was alive and it was time to live!

  She stomped away without another backward glance, down the winding cemetery path, towards the chapel of rest. The breeze strengthened and the brooding clouds blew away and the sun gazed through. The sudden rays of heat warmed her face and she grinned. It felt good to be alive and then she saw it.

  The rainbow stretched across the entire graveyard, from one end to the other, and Jasmine’s mouth dropped open. The colours against the grey clouds burst out of a paint box. Vivid red like a pillar box stretched across orange and the brightest yellow. Green, the colour of the grass sat beside peacock blue and indigo, and violet the shade of Purple Ted hung in the sky above her.

  Its brilliance stunned her, and she swung back to stare up at her parents beside her sister’s grave.

  Even from her distance, she heard her mother’s gasp.

  Jasmine couldn’t move. She wanted to hate the rainbow and storm away, but she couldn’t, it was beautiful. Instead her legs began to move, and she found herself running back up the path, towards her parents. Her heart thumped and her stomach sat in her mouth, and she wanted to join her parents beneath the beauty of the bow.

  She glanced back up at the phenomenon. It still arced across the cemetery. Her parents stared in wonder and all of a sudden her mother moved. She began running, sprinting down the path towards Jasmine. Jasmine grinned. “Look at that!” she exclaimed. “Just look at that!”

  Her smile broadened and the sun glowed and Jasmine held out her arms to her mother. Her mother’s face was alight with a fervour and joy Jasmine couldn’t recall, and it filled her up. Mum didn’t slow as she approached, and Jasmine stopped. She gazed at her mum and realised her eyes were fixed, somewhere beyond Jasmine. Jasmine stepped backwards as Mum barrelled past.

  She stared after her mother as she ran, her arms flapping wildly and her eyes searching for something no one could see.

  “Mum!” Jasmine yelled. She twirled on the spot. “Mum!”

  “Jaz, it’s
okay, leave her.” Her father arrived at her side.

  “But, but…” Jasmine couldn’t speak.

  “She’ll be back,” he said in an even tone.

  “Where’s she going?”

  He shook his head. “Somewhere not even I can reach.”

  “What’s she expecting to find?”

  He shook his head again. “Something at the end of the rainbow…”

  “When’s she going to realise she’s already there?” whispered Jasmine.

  “I’m going to wait in the car.” Dad moved down the path leaving Jasmine staring after her mother.

  Mum stopped. She turned, gazing back across the graveyard. Her feet danced on the gravel and she cast her head back to stare up at the rainbow. “Freya” she wailed, staring wildly, her head moving side to side. “Freya!”

  Jasmine shook her head and called out. “Freya’s up here!”

  Her mum whirled round, with wide eyes. “Where?”

  “Up there, in her grave…” Jasmine’s voice petered out as her mother faltered. “Where she belongs…” she muttered.

  The wind shifted and the clouds moved, and in a moment the rainbow vanished. Jasmine started down the footpath towards the car. “Maybe you’d love me if I was dead.”

  So what’s over there?” called Thomas, wheezing.

  “You’ll see,” Jasmine yelled back.

  “I’ve not been this far over…” Thomas stopped and bent forward. “Slow down, Jaz!”

  She paused, and glanced back at him. “Either you want to come or you don’t!” she shouted.

  “That’s not fair…” He exhaled. “I’m out of breath!”

  Jasmine waited, biting back her frustration. Thomas caught his breath and resumed running. He cast a look backward. “It’s going to take us ages to get home again. Mum wants me back by six.”

  “Mummy wants little baby home by six, does she?” Jasmine scorned. She wanted to hurry ahead, to run, to feel the wind, and to feel alive, and she didn’t want to wait.

  Thomas stopped again, his face clouding.

  “I’m sorry!” she yelled back across the grass. She knew her comment had hurt him, and regret twisted within. She didn’t want to lose her best friend. “I’m sorry, Thomas, I didn’t mean it, you know I didn’t!” She looked at her phone. “It’s just we need to be there by four o’clock!”

  “Why? What is it?” Thomas jogged forward.

  “It happens at four-fifteen. Well, it happens at four-seventeen, but it’s the four-fifteen.”

  Thomas shook his head. “I’ve no idea what you’re on about.”

  “Just get a move on, Thomas!” she bellowed.

  “Don’t know…what’s…got in…to you!” Thomas managed.

  Jasmine threw her hands into the air as she ran. “Life! That’s what’s got into me!”

  “Yeah, that’s what you said when you almost fell out of the window down at the old Dairy!”

  “Pah!” Jasmine sang out. “I was quite safe!” She shrugged. “Which is not what I’m after!”

  “I can see that.” Thomas slowed again.

  She waved her arm. “C’mon, hurry up!”

  She slowed down so Thomas could catch up and they traipsed through the grass and into the woods.

  “So? You’re gonna climb a tree?” asked Thomas. “Or is it more death-defying than that?”

  “A tree?” she scoffed. “Anyone can climb a tree!”

  Her cousin shook his head and they weaved through the trees. “Mind the mud…” called Jasmine leaping across a puddle in the path.

  “Ow!” cried Thomas as a bramble caught his arm. “How much further?”

  “Not much…” Jasmine sped up, deftly jumping over a log.

  They raced on through the woods, twigs cracking and snapping beneath their feet and vines threatening to trip them up. A few minutes later Jasmine veered off the track and Thomas followed. “Through here…” she said. She held up her arms and pushed through the bushes.

  “Ow!” cried Thomas again, as a branch whipped back at him.

  “Careful,” said Jasmine and pushed out of the undergrowth. “Look!”

  Thomas forced his way through and stopped by his cousin, slipping a little on the bank beneath him.

  “I didn’t know the railway came past here,” he said in surprise.

  She grinned and slid down the bank towards the wire fence.

  “Are we allowed down here?” he asked.

  “Follow me, there’s a hole in the fence just over there, I think…” She scrambled down and caught the fence wire in her hands. She walked beside the fence then crouched down. “Here, look.”

  “Don’t think we…”

  “C’mon, you can watch. Or you can stay there and watch. It’s all the same to me.” She shrugged again.

  Jasmine crawled through the hole and stood on the other side. She grinned at Thomas, who leaned against the wire. His face was pale. “We shouldn’t be here,” he said.

  Jasmine scowled.

  “It’s dangerous.”

  “That’s the point!” she told him. “You can stay there, you don’t have to come through, but what’s the point in living if you don’t beat anything?” She bent towards him and waved her hands. “Especially death!”

  He recoiled and squatted to slide through the gap. “I’m here, okay?”

  “Okay.” Jasmine moved towards the track, stared up and down the railway line, and glanced at her phone. A big grin filled her face. “We’re on time.”

  “What time is it?” asked Thomas.

  “Five-past-four.”

  “So what are you doing? Will you get back behind the fence before four-fifteen?” he asked.

  “Gosh, you’re a scaredy-cat!” Her eyes glistened with adrenalin. “Yes, we’ll be safe before the train comes!”

  “And before that?”

  “It’s our playground before that! We’ve got twelve minutes, or maybe eleven before the train comes!” Jasmine put her foot on the closest track and grinned at Thomas.

  “What about the electric line, the live one?” cried Thomas.

  “There isn’t one, we’re not electrified out here,” she told him. “Look, I can stand on the track!” She stood inside the lines and giggled at her cousin’s terrified expression. “It’s fine,” she said glancing at her phone again, “ten more minutes!”

  “What if it’s early?”

  “It won’t be that early!” Jasmine felt her heart pound within her chest and her legs felt slightly wobbly. She stared down the rails then hopped from one sleeper to the next. “Whoop whoop!” she cried.

  She twirled on a railway sleeper, slipping off onto the gravel between and giggled.

  “Jasmine,” called Thomas.

  “What?”

  “I don’t like you on there…”

  “I don’t suppose you do! Mum would have a heart attack! She doesn’t even like me on your dad’s bike!”

  “How soon do you want to meet Freya?” Thomas quipped, with more seriousness than he meant.

  Jasmine’s eyes glowered. “I don’t want to meet her, that’s the point!” Her voice rose. “I’ll beat death. She couldn’t manage it, but I can!”

  Thomas shrugged and leaned back against the wire fence, gripping it with both his hands.

  Jasmine danced along the track again then rushed over to Thomas. “It’s fun!” she said right into his face, then waltzed back towards the rails and jumped right into the middle of the track.

  “What time is it?” asked Thomas.

  “Eight minutes past, we’ve got ages! The train doesn’t come until seventeen minutes…” Jasmine’s heart suddenly leapt into her mouth as the rails beside her began to whine. “What’s that noise?” she asked, spinning round.

  “Jaz!” Thomas screamed. “It’s a train!”

  Jasmine whirled round and the smile fell from her face. “That’s not the train I expected!” she yelled, “It’s the wrong direction!”

  “It’s still coming!”
/>   Jasmine didn’t move. Her heart pounded and she stared straight at the train racing down the track towards her, but still she didn’t move.

  “JASMINE!” Her cousin’s scream filled her ears as much as the horn that hooted. The tracks vibrated and Jasmine’s legs turned to jelly.

  “MOVE, JASMINE, MOVE!” Thomas leapt forward towards the track.

  She stared blankly at the figure waving fiercely in the advancing train window and suddenly Jasmine came to her senses. Her legs reacted and bounded off the railway as the train squealed past, its horn screaming in her ears. She landed and skidded on all fours in the gravel by the side of the track as a gale buffeted her. She rolled across the stones, unaware of the tear in her jeans and the blood on her hands. Her head spun and her mouth was as dry as the summer earth. She felt violently sick as she rolled onto her knees and stood up, and she shook as she grabbed hold of the wire fence. The train sped on, rushing by in a haze, clattering down the track. Her hands trembled terribly as she hung on and tears slipped unconsciously down her cheeks.

  “Seventeen, seventeen…” she repeated, and tried to read the time on her phone. “seventeen…it’s not seventeen…”

  Her eyes could make no sense of the numbers on her phone’s screen and she heaved a huge tremulous sigh. She looked up and the train had gone, vanished into the distance, leaving only the hint of a hum behind it. Barely able to stand, Jasmine let her tears fall freely. She gazed about her then up and down her body, she smoothed down her jacket and stamped her feet, trying to stop shaking. Then the giggles came, surfacing uncontrollably. She laughed, letting tears stream down her face. She stared up at the sky and let the sun blind her. Then she began to calm down. “Thomas!” She licked her lips and shuddered. “Wow, Thomas, did you see that? Of course you did! WOW—I’ve never been so scared in all my life!” She glanced about her. “Thomas? Thomas? Where are you?” Panic hit her brutally. “Thomas! THOMAS?”