by Wende Dikec
Zoe walked up to my mother and knelt in front of her. My mother shook her head, her face pale and drawn. “Please don’t be sad. Rosie doesn’t want you to be sad anymore. She’s fine, and so happy, but it’s hard for her because she understands how much the two of you are still hurting.”
“Is this some kind of a twisted, sick joke?” My dad did what he could to control himself, but he teetered on the edge.
Zoe shook her head, her dark hair swishing against her shoulders. “I’d never do that, sir.” She wrinkled her brow, as if listening to something very far away. “Rosie said that she knows you carry her yellow booties in your pocket with you all the time. She said that she’s glad you get some comfort from that, but it’s time for you to let her go.”
At that moment, I saw something I never thought I’d ever see in my life. My cold, controlled, detached father reached inside his jacket and pulled out a pair of faded booties. He began to cry, sobbing with huge noisy gasps. He’d held it in for so long, and suddenly a dam had burst deep inside him as all the pain rushed out.
Zoe pulled him into a hug, and he cried, without any shame at all, on her shoulder. My mother sat next to him, an ashen statue, trying to take it all in. Zoe patted my dad’s back, murmuring soothing words to him, and then she turned to look at my mother.
“It wasn’t your fault. Rosie needs you to understand that no matter what you did or didn’t do, it wouldn’t have changed anything. It was her time. Her fate. But you need to go on, for Lily, for your husband, and for yourself.”
My mother nodded, taking a deep breath. She’d been shaken to her core, but still managed to hold it together. “Georgie, come here.” She pulled my father close, put her hands on either side of his face, and looked deep into his eyes. “We’re going to be okay. We’re all going to be okay.” She kissed him and looked at Zoe.
“Where is she? Where’s my baby?”
My mom’s lips quivered as she spoke. The ice lady had melted completely, but without turning into a sobbing mess like my father. She had a spine of steel, but even that was bending.
Zoe pointed to my mom’s shoulder, where Rosie sat. My mother turned so that her cheek rested against that spot. “Sweet, little girl,” she said, and then, finally, the tears came.
Uncle Danny and Uncle Johnny both looked at each other. The other brothers had left the room as soon as the drama with my parents started. Only Uncle Johnny, Uncle Danny, and Maria remained. Uncle Johnny frantically wiped his eyes with the back of his hands. Uncle Danny’s lip quivered.
Maria elbowed Uncle Danny. “I think we need some tissues.”
“We’re on that,” he said, and they both rushed out of the room.
Maria rolled her eyes. “Men. Bunch of jellyfish.”
Nick came to my side. “Are you okay?”
I bit my lip. “I don’t know.”
Rosie had been with me all this time, playing and making me laugh, and I hadn’t understood. In fact, I’d spent the last few weeks trying to get rid of her. I wanted that time back so that I could show her how much I loved her, and now I felt kind of mad, like I’d been cheated out of those extra moments.
“Why didn’t she tell me it was her?”
Zoe got that far away expression again, the one that meant she listened to someone not physically there. “She said she thought you knew. You called her Blobby.”
My mom chuckled. My father sat up and wiped his tears, a smile growing on his face. They looked at each other, and began laughing so hard tears streamed down their faces, but this time they were tears of joy.
“What’s going on here?” I put my hands on my hips. My parents were acting really weird.
Mom wiped her eyes. “Don’t you remember?”
Dad blew his nose and laughed some more. “She might not. She was so small.”
My mom nodded. “That’s true. I always forget. Lily has always been so old even when she was little.”
I stomped my foot, feeling a bit like a two-year-old having a tantrum. “What are you guys talking about?”
“Blobby,” said my mom. “You used to call Rosie ‘Blobby’ all the time. Because she had those cute chubby thighs.”
I sank down on the bed next to Nick’s body. I did call her “Blobby”. Suddenly, I remembered a lot of other things too. The weight of Rosie’s body when I held her, the way she lit up every time I walked into a room, the deep, hearty giggle that came out whenever I tickled her belly. There were good memories, too, not just the memory of her death.
Rosie flew over and snuggled against my chest. All at once, I could smell the sweet baby scent of her, and feel her close to me. I closed my eyes and just breathed it in. “Thank you, baby.”
“Rosie said that when you came to the other side, she followed you back so that she could help you. She says you don’t need her anymore. You’ll be fine now.” Zoe reached for my hand, but I shook my head.
“No. I don’t want her to leave. I miss her.” I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to cry anymore.
“It doesn’t work that way, Lily. It’s time to say goodbye,” said Zoe softly. She looked like she might cry, too. Josh came up and put his arm around her shoulders.
I looked at Nick, and he nodded. “She’s right, Lily. Let her go.” His presence, as always, gave me the strength to do what I had to do.
I stood up and grabbed Zoe’s hand. She reached for Josh’s hand, and then my parents and Maria joined in. We formed a sad little semi-circle around Nick’s bed. Nick stood next to me, at the head of the bed. Rosie floated directly above Nick’s empty body. Zoe looked up at her and smiled.
“It’s time for you to go back now.”
“We love you, Rosie.” My parents spoke together, holding hands, and looking more at peace than I had seen them in a very long time.
“I love you, Rosie,” I said. “I’ll see you again...someday.”
With that, Rosie swished around the room in a happy circle. Then, suddenly, she changed direction and slammed directly into Nick. Nick’s eyes opened in shock.
“Lily....” he said, and before I could say or do anything, he was gone.
“Faced with what is right, to leave it undone shows lack of courage.”
Confucius, 551-479 BC
Chapter Sixteen
“No.” I tried to scream, but hardly any sound came out. “No, no, no, no.”
Zoe grabbed me by the shoulders. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
At first I couldn’t even speak. I doubled over in pain and collapsed onto the floor, pulling my knees up to my chest and rocking back and forth. My worst fears had been realized. Nick was gone.
Zoe patted my back, not understanding. “Is this about Rosie, sweetie? She’s in a better place now.”
Josh shook his head. “This isn’t about Rosie. Something happened, just before she left. I felt another energy force, and then it was gone.”
I trembled from head to toe and my teeth chattered. “Nick. Rosie took him with her.”
Maria sank down into a chair. Her face was ashen. “Why would she do that?”
I shook my head. “I have no idea, but he’s gone.” Too devastated even to cry, I’d turned into a shaking, shocked heap of nothingness.
Josh rubbed his chin with his hand. “I don’t know what happened, but I know what I felt, and I think it came from her. She wasn’t trying to hurt him, Lily. She wanted to help him.”
“By taking him away?”
I scowled at them, and then noticed the sun setting outside the window. I jumped up from the floor and looked at Nick’s body lying on the bed. The soul reaper had climbed even farther and now covered Nick to his waist.
“This isn’t good.” Zoe looked scared. I was scared, too, but couldn’t afford the luxury of a complete breakdown at the moment.
“We have to do what Mr. Wan said. He said to send the little ghost back first. We did that.” I took a deep breath. “Of course, I don’t think he expected Rosie to take Nick back with her, but I can’t say for sure.”
>
Zoe nodded. “Maybe this is all part of the plan.”
“Karma.” I straightened my shoulders. Nick was my destiny. I wouldn’t give him up without a fight.
“What’s the next step?” Mom, looking a little the worse for wear with her mussed hair and wrinkled clothing, showed a spark in her eyes I hadn’t seen in many years.
I kissed her cheek. “The next step is for you and Dad to go home and get some rest.”
My father shook his head. “We’re here for you, Lily, the way we should have been all along.”
I kissed him on the cheek too. “Not this time, Daddy. This is something I need to do by myself.”
I couldn’t tell them that the soul reaper was dangerous, and that I wanted as few people around as possible in case it could jump from Nick to someone else. If I’d said that, they never would have left. Even now, I could see the indecision in their eyes.
“I’ll be fine.” I’d gotten better at lying to my parents, a skill that seemed to improve with daily practice.
My parents looked at each other, and then my mother turned to me. “We’ll do what you want.” She squeezed my hand. “You’ve changed, you know. You’ve grown up these last few weeks.”
I grew up because I’d had to, because there hadn’t been another option. Tiger Lily was in charge now.
My parents left, and when Uncle Johnny, Uncle Danny, and the other brothers came back with a sad looking little box of tissues, we made them leave too. Maria refused to go, even when I told her about the danger, as did Josh and Zoe.
“Then let’s get to work.” I pulled the candle, an ugly, brown lump of a thing, out of my purse. Maria closed the door and stood guard so the nurses wouldn’t come in. As a fellow nurse, she could talk to them and they’d trust her. I just wasn’t sure how bad the smell from the candle would be.
The sky had grown dark outside by the time we were ready. Not quite midnight, but we couldn’t wait any longer. The soul reaper had moved all the way up to Nick’s neck. I grabbed a box of matches out of my purse and lit the candle.
The effect was powerful and immediate. The candle reeked, and I saw the soul reaper shudder, shake, and stop its climb up Nick’s body, but it didn’t disappear. It just laid there, looking stunned.
“Why isn’t it going away?” Zoe’s eyes watered from the smell of the candle. We’d be very lucky if the nurses didn’t come in soon.
“I don’t know. Josh, can you feel anything? It’s all the way up to his neck now.” I couldn’t take my eyes off Nick. His face looked so pale and pinched.
Josh reached over and put his hand on Nick’s chest. He winced, but he held it there as long as he could. When he removed it, he shook it, like it had gone numb. “This thing does not want to leave. It knows it’s close. It wants to win.”
Zoe nodded. “I’m getting that too.” She rubbed her head. “I don’t feel very good. I think I have to sit down a minute.” She curled up in a chair and closed her eyes. Josh looked like he might pass out too.
“Get her out of here, Josh.” He was about to protest, but I insisted. “I’m worried about Zoe. Something’s wrong, and I won’t put either one of you in danger. I have to do this myself.”
He finally relented, scooping Zoe up into his arms and staggering toward the door. “We’ll be right outside.”
“I know.” I turned back to Nick, and the evil thing on his body. I put my hand through it, trying to feel what Josh and Zoe did, but couldn’t. My head felt heavy and woozy. I crawled into bed next to Nick’s body to think.
That’s when I felt the necklace inside my blouse and knew what had to be done. “Sacrifice everything,” I murmured as I placed the necklace over Nick’s head and curled up into his side.
A jolt went through the soul reaper as soon as the necklace touched Nick’s skin, but it wasn’t giving up quite yet. I stared at it, remembering what Mr. Wan and Mrs. Chang had taught me. I had to see what was really there. I looked at the soul reaper closely, and waited.
What I saw was far worse than any nightmare. The soul reaper, no longer a black blanket covering Nick, looked like a demon with red eyes, snarling teeth, and long, biting snakes for arms. It surrounded Nick, chomping and pounding on him, trying to find his essence, his soul. But it couldn’t find it because Rosie had taken it away. She’d done it to save Nick, I knew that now, but the soul reaper did not. It thought Nick’s soul still resided in his body. I refused to let it have any part of him.
“No.” I said. The soul reaper turned to me in surprise, as if seeing me for the first time, and it somehow knew I could see it too. It licked its scabby lips with a long, green, smelly tongue. I recoiled as the tongue shot out toward me, but stopped myself. I had to stand my ground.
I tried to push myself between the soul reaper and Nick’s body, and, to my surprise, it let me. “That’s right, you ugly pile of garbage. I can see you. Now get off.”
Suddenly, it pinned me to Nick’s bed. The soul reaper, on top of me now, held me down. I could barely move. In fact, it was getting hard even to breathe. I turned my head, the effort almost requiring superhuman strength, to see Nick’s face one last time and watch the color come back into his cheeks. His breathing sounded stronger and steadier. I saw the chain around his neck, and knew I could grab it and put it around my own neck before the soul reaper paralyzed me completely, but I refused.
“Willing to sacrifice everything,” I said, my words barely a whisper. I could no longer take a full breath. The soul reaper sat on my chest, but I wouldn’t look at it. I only had eyes for the boy lying next to me. “I love you, Nick.”
Just as the room grew dark, and I began losing my peripheral vision, I saw a bright flash in the corner of the room. A tunnel of light appeared. The portal. I knew I’d lost, but I also knew I’d done everything I could to save Nick.
A sea of blobs flew out of the tunnel and circled the bed, but there was nothing more I could do. The last sound I heard, before the darkness overtook me, was the sound of the soul reaper screaming as it ripped my soul from my body.
The second time I died was even less pleasant than the first. Luckily, I had the foresight, or dumb luck, to do it in a hospital. As soon as Maria, Zoe and Josh heard that scream, they rushed into the room, a team of nurses and doctors on their heels. They performed CPR on me while I still lay on the bed with Nick. I know this because I watched everything from a perch my soul had taken up on the ceiling.
Rosie came to join me. Not the baby Rosie I’d known, but a child the age Rosie would have been if she’d lived. An adorable, nine-year-old with a head of tousled red curls.
“Hi, sis,” she said. She perched next to me, swinging her legs. She had a bucket of popcorn with her, the kind sold in movie theaters, and she offered some to me. I shook my head, thinking about all the fat and calories in the butter, and then realized I was dead so it didn’t matter. I grabbed a handful and scarfed it down. Rosie grinned at me.
We sat in silence for a moment as the nurses struggled to resuscitate me. They had transferred me to another bed so they could use a defibrillator to jumpstart my heart. My body arched in a huge spasm every time they did it. Hard to watch. Josh held Zoe as she sobbed. Maria tried to help the nurses, but she looked terrified too. I felt very detached from the whole experience, like watching an episode of Trauma: Life in the ER.
Rosie sighed as she looked at her popcorn. “You have to go back, you know.”
“Why?” I didn’t really want to go back. I liked sitting here with her.
“Several reasons. Mom, Dad, Nick, your friends. There is also the little matter that this wasn’t your time. You sort of skipped line.”
I shrugged. “Sorry.”
“You did it for the best of reasons. You did it to save Nick.”
I looked down at Nick’s body, still lying there, unmoving. “What’s the point? He isn’t there anyway. I lost him.”
Rosie punched me in the arm. “You’re so dumb. You didn’t lose him. You saved him. With my help.”
“What are you talking about?”
Rosie rolled her eyes. She looked like a little pink cheeked, red haired angel, dressed all in white. The eye roll made me remember she was a nine-year-old girl, too, albeit the ghost of one.
“I knocked Nick’s soul away so that the soul reaper couldn’t eat him. You held it off long enough for us to get the portal open and pull it back. Unfortunately, he pulled your soul back with him, but we can rectify that.”
“How?”
“It’s time for you to go back, Lily. I mean it.”
I looked down at my body. The nurses seemed about to give up. I could see it on their faces. “But I don’t want to leave you, Rosie. I love you.”
Rosie gave me the angelic equivalent of a “duh” expression. “I’ll always be with you, stupid. Now go.”
She shoved me hard from behind, and as I was falling, falling, falling back into my body, I realized something. I was going to live, and this would hurt even worse than it had the first time.
“A day of sorrow is longer than a month of joy.”
Chinese Proverb
Chapter Seventeen
I came back to life in slow, agonizing stages. I didn’t remember anything from the first few hours, other than the blur of lights and nurses, and the constant, aching pain right in the center of my chest. My doctors told me later it came from the pounding I’d taken as they’d struggled to bring me back to life, but I knew differently. It was from having the soul reaper tear me apart. The scars might not be visible, but they would be there, always.
During this time, I thought I saw Rosie hovering near my bed, but it could have been the medications I’d been given. When I finally broke through the fog and woke up, I looked around in the room in dismay.
No Rosie. No black blobs. No terrifying demons. No Nick. Except for my parents, I was completely and utterly alone.
I tried to sit up and winced. Every muscle in my body felt bruised and battered.
“Lily?” It took almost all my strength to turn and see my mother’s face.
