Between Seasons

by Aida Brassington

  “You’re just –”

  “No, Julie. I’m serious. I let you take the lead on this because you were here and seemed to have a handle on it . I admit Sara might be ill, but you’re taking this too far. Give me the key.”

  Patrick grinned. “I could kiss you,” he said, sticking his tongue out at Jules, who looked as though she’d swallowed something terrible. Her eyes widened and bulged, and her mouth opened and shut a few times, no sound emerging.

  “Mom, no. She needs –”

  “It’s not up to you to tell her what she needs. Let the doctors do that.” She held her hand out. “Key. Now.”

  Jules yanked keys from her purse and pulled one off the ring, slapping it into Mrs. Oswald’s palm. She fixed Jules with a withering stare that would have made Patrick feel like a little kid if he’d been on the receiving end.

  “Okay, let’s get out of here. If Sara decides to sell this house and move back with us, we’ll help her pack… and not a second before.”

  Without a word, Jules grabbed her bag and stomped out the door. Mrs. Oswald carefully swept up the pieces of glass with her hand and set the chunks on the edge of the coffee table before following her out.

  Patrick’s dreams were a mix of odd, violent bursts of yelling and soothing images of Sara smiling and laughing. The morning sun shining into his face woke him, his eyes creeping open. He’d taken to crashing in Sara’s bedroom –it smelled like her still, even after a few weeks.

  He glanced out the window at the trees, now completely bare, their skeletal branches shaking in the wind. The neighbor who lived behind the house puttered around his yard in a parka, cutting back trees. He watched for a few moments, envying the man. Patrick didn’t want to do great things or be rich or anything like that; he simply wanted to be free to do yard work. Hell , he just wanted to step outside without instantly being zapped back to Sara’s office… his bedroom… whatever.

  He hummed the song he and Sara had danced to that one time as he walked down the hallway and descended the stairs.

  “Sara?”

  Just like every other morning over the last few weeks, he imagined her yelling that she was in the kitchen. He’d get there, and she’d be fussing at the counter, making tea or toast, smiling at him. He missed the simplest things about her –the way she insisted on using her favorite knife to spread butter on bread , the way her mouth wrinkled in the corners when she drank from her mug. He could picture her sitting at the kitchen table, laughing at some joke he made or telling him about something she saw on the local news.

  “I finished the pages you told Ginny to lay out for me,” he said, his voice cutting through the empty room. “I’m trying to read them as slow as I can , so we can finish the book together.”

  Sara’s voice wrapped around him. “Don’t be silly –we’ll finish another book together. Don’t be bored on my account.”

  A knock sounded on the front door, and Patrick pushed his head around the wall into the living room just as Ginny rushed into the room, a gust of fire-scented air wafting in with her. Someone must have been burning trash or leaves or something. It was one of the smell s Patrick always associated with the fall, but more than anything now it –the entire season –just reminded him of the time he was missing with Sara.

  “Hey, Ginny,” Patrick called eagerly. He’d been waiting for news on Sara, hoping she could come back to him any day.

  “Patrick?” she called, slapping down a pile of mail on the coffee table, scanning around with pursed lips at the boxes Jules and Mrs. Oswald had packed. He moved over and touched her shoulder. She smiled and said, “Hey there.”

  She kept her coat on, heading toward the stairs. “I wonder if Sara knows someone else was in here?”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about it,” Patrick said, smirking and following after her as she clomped up the stairs. “Jules pissed off her mother over it.”

  “So, there’s good news and bad news, which do you want first?”

  “The good news.” Patrick always wanted the good news first, and he hoped it had something to do with the doctors deciding Sara was fine.

  “The bad news then.” Ginny turned the corner into Sara’s office, looking at the desk. There was no way to let her know he couldn’t pick up any of the pencils she’d left, so he folded the sheet of paper he’d torn out of his notebook into the shape of a heart. It wasn’t pretty or well done… but it would make a temporary replacement for the sea glass Jules had broken. “The doctors are convinced she’s holding back, which she is. They’re insisting she stay for now.”

  Patrick swore and slapped his hand against the wall. Ginny jumped and glanced in the direction of the sound with an apologetic expression , pocketing the paper heart.

  “The good news is the deal she made with Jules specified she only had to stay for two months. She’s doing her best to pretend she’s fine, but she misses you so much. We talked a little last night, and she asked me to tell her stories about you.” She grinned. “I told her about that time you met my Uncle Ron.”

  He laughed. “Oh, great. Now she’s going to imagine me puking my guts up.”

  “She spends a lot of time reading. There’s a patient down the hall from her, a man who’s catatonic. She’s reading The Turn of the Screw to him, says it makes her feel closer to you. For some reason, she says he reminds her of you.”

  “That’s good. Tell her I’m there with her. Every word.” For the millionth time, he wished Ginny could hear him. He impulsively slid his arm around her shoulder, his arm sinking through her as he squeezed the space where she stood.

  “I’ll never get used to that,” she said, smiling. “It’s so strange to know you’re really here.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s still weird for me too.” He released her, and she headed back out to the hallway.

  “I do have to go, but I’ll give her your note next weekend. I know it’s not much, but this is all almost half over. She’ll be back before you know it.”

  “It can’t come soon enough.” He watched as she walked down the stairs, her voice carrying back to him a few moments later.

  “See you next week.”

  “Yeah, see you then.” The door opened and shut, taking his lifeline to Sara out of the house. It would be another four or five weeks until his angel was back. He didn’t know if he could take it. Yeah, it was a Hell of a lot less time than the years he’d spent without her, but every nerve ending in his body begged him to find her, haul her into his arms, and breathe her in.

  He sat down at the top of the stairs and balanced his elbows on his knees, steepling his hands in front of his face. He still prayed now and then, but maybe it was time to have a man-to-man with God. Or a man-to-thing… or ghost-to-overlord… whatever. He laughed, a bitter, cold sound.

  “I love her,” Patrick said loudly, staring at the ceiling above him. He didn’t think anything would happen –he’d asked God to save him, kill him, or find him a million times before Sara had come into his life, and God never answered. Nothing ever happened. Nothing different , anyway. Maybe Sara had been the answer to those prayers, now that he thought about it. But what had he done to deserve having her taken away from him? “I can’t do this anymore without her. Just… “ He clenched his eyes shut, conjuring her face behind his eyelids. “I’ll do anything. Anything. Just give her back to me. I don’t care if I stay in this house forever. Turn me into a worm, for all I care. I just need to be with her.” The air stilled , silence turning into an audible static around him. “I’ll give you anything,” he whispered.

  Patrick stood, the stairs looming in front of him. He’d died here, and he felt like he was dying again. His eyes closed, and he saw the faces of his mother and father. They were happy and together, wherever they were –he knew it. Ginny. Andy. Other friends. His grandmother’s voice, the one who died when he was ten, told him to have a cookie and sleep. The voices and faces blurred together until he was dizzy with it. His feet le ft the wood of the step, and he was flying. Sara�
�s face was the one he saw just before a sharp, cracking pain spread through his shoulder.

  “I love you,” she called as his hip sheared across a hard surface, and he winced, grunting.

  This was so familiar, but the pain felt different somehow this time. He landed on his head, and this time everything went black.

  His head pounded, but he became aware of the sweetest sound he’d ever heard as he surfaced: the sound of Sara’s voice. No smell of pancakes, though; rather, the odor of antiseptic and dust rolled around him.

  “I find that I really hang back,” she said, “but I must take my plunge. In going on with the record of what was hideous at Bly, I not only challenge the most liberal faith –for which I little care; but –and this is another matter –I renew what I myself suffered, I again push my way through it to the end.”

  He had to be dreaming again… one of his weird dreams where was in that guy, sort of trapped, just as he was in his parents’ house.

  She took a breath, and Patrick’s eyes fluttered open to take in his surroundings . No family picnic, blood bathroom, or destroyed apartment this time. Beige walls wrapped around , and a light blue blanket smoothed across his legs. He stared at Sara –she looked tired, hair lying flat to her head. She clutched his worn copy of The Turn of the Screw in her hand, her eyes trained intently on the page.

  “There came suddenly an hour after which, as I look back, the affair seems to me to have been all pure suffering; but I have at least reached the heart of it, and the straightest road out is doubtless to advance.”

  Where was he? He glanced down… his arms were too hairy. His body felt wrong and heavy, but it felt strangely familiar too. He wiggled his fingers –his hands were wider, uncalloused. Was he dreaming? It all felt different this time… sharper than the other dreams. Plus, he’d never been able to make that guy’s body move in his dreams. Not like this.

  Sara continued to read, completely oblivious to him. “One evening–with nothing to lead up or to prepare it –I felt the cold touch of the impression that had breathed on me the night of my arrival and which, much lighter then, as I have mentioned, I should probably have made little of in memory had my subsequent sojourn been less agitated.”

  “Sara?” His voice was deeper, raspy, and Sara gasped as she looked up in shock. He jolted too – he said her name . This was heavy. He could control the body. What the Hell was going on?

  “Oh my God! Hang on, I’ll get a nurse.”

  She vaulted from her seat, but Patrick called out to her again. “Wait. Haven’t seen you in weeks.”

  It was the voice from his dreams, without a doubt. He’d heard it when he’d been talking to his dream grandfather that one time. But this wasn’t a dream; he was sure of it. He pinched his thigh as a precaution and coughed out an amazed laugh when he didn’t jerk awake. Instead an annoying but brief pain rippled up his leg.

  She turned back toward him. “Are you okay? Do you need water or something? Nate, is it? I saw your name on your chart, and –”

  Patrick felt the strange lips of his curl on one side into a half-grin. This was genuine . There was no way it could be anything else . He was himself, but he wasn’t. He didn’t know why he was so sure this wasn’t a fantasy –he felt it to his bones, though, that this was the real deal.

  “What are you talking about, angel? Oh, Jules broke the sea glass, but–”

  Her eyes widened and bulged, her face slackening and then stretching into a confused expression of hope . She held out her hand, but her fingers trembled violently. She touched him, and he sighed. The feeling of her skin was like home.

  She sucked in a huge breath and whispered, “Nate?”

  “Sara . . . what is this? I asked God, but I never thought he’d answer. Are you okay? God, look at you. I’ve missed you so much – every day, I think of you and hope you come back. But how—”

  “Patrick?” The white faded out to give way to a brilliant pink flush that started on her cheeks and radiated out, catching the edges of her mouth and pulling them up into a triumphant smile that threatened to split her face in two.

  He nodded, the air crushed out of his lungs when her arms – solid and fiery hot – closed around him, squeezing.

  “Nurse,” she wheezed. “I have to get a nurse.”

  “But I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I.” Sara released him and perched on the narrow mattress. “But you’ve come to me.”

  “Yes. I guess I have.”

  A gust of wind pounded at the window, drawing his attention. Snow swirled outside, and for once it didn’t remind Patrick of death.

  It was a new beginning.

  NEW FROM AIDA BRASSINGTON

  JULY 2012 (PAPERBACK & EBOOK)

  Relationships are complicated even under the best of circumstances. For Varda Dorfman and Tommy Campi, these are the worst of times. Varda, an illegal foods smuggler, has pissed off Anthony Carluccio, the kingpin of the local underground dinner club, and put her plans for the future in serious jeopardy. Her boyfriend Gino won't quit bugging her to get married, even though his mother hates her. Tommy, Gino's brother and the ladies man of the family, can't even introduce the love of his life to anyone: he's secretly gay and dating the son of Carluccio's biggest competition. And now Tommy's getting pressure to go public.

  When Carluccio's hit man turns up dead in Varda's closet after snacking on poisonous mushrooms, all hell breaks loose. Varda's running for her life, and since his mother is dating Carluccio, Gino's convinced the only way to save her life is to drag her to the altar. And when people start discovering Tommy's hush-hush relationship, things really start to get interesting.

  From the author of the best-selling paranormal romance BETWEEN SEASONS comes a darkly funny tale set in South Philly that explores love, destiny, and family and will have you laughing out loud.

  EXCERPT from CHASING FOOLS

  CHAPTER 1: OUR FRIENDS, THE MAGGOTS

  TWENTY POUNDS OF ITALIAN CHEESE TURNED Varda Dorfman’s messenger bag into a public health hazard. She’d read somewhere that the smell of frying cabbage approached the level of hazardous air pollution, but cruciferous vegetables had nothing on casu marzu. It stood proudly as the kingpin of evil dairy products.

  “Thank you for flying British Airways.” The perky flight attendant almost gagged on the final word. She wilted under the assault of the stink emanating from Varda’s luggage. Trying to get past Customs might present a problem if even this chick —trained in the ways of crisis management —couldn’t keep it together.

  The cheese had smelled a little on the short plane ride from Sardinia. The odor picked up on the trip from Rome. Her seatmate appeared to hold her breath the whole way, turning cotton candy pink and then later, the violent hue of rotten cherries. Varda swore the woman passed out once, but the gurgling moan that had drifted from beneath her airline blanket said otherwise.

  At least if Varda could get to a toilet she could rewrap the package and dampen the reek. Her feet swooshed across the carpet lining the jet bridge. Her eyes roved for a restroom.

  Not that she wanted to be face to face with naked casu marzu and its cargo of larvae. Bile rose just imagining the wrigglers looping and tunneling through the Pecorino.

  She’d come close to vomiting when the cheese maker had presented it to her with a flourish and offered a wee taste, the gaping hole of his toothless smile almost as terrifying as the cheese itself.

  Almost.

  Varda had been a procurer of things, odd and illegal foods that people wanted, for seven years. Six years too many, perhaps. She’d enjoyed the novelty of it at first, but the constant worry of being taken down by snarling security dogs and spending time away from Gino wore on her nerves. This had been the worst job by far —the stupid larva required oxygen to survive, and Anthony Carluccio, one of her best customers, had been adamant: “No maggots, no final payment . . . ya unnerstand me?” he’d asked, waving his hands, laying on a thick South Philly accent, and leering. His expression ca
me off more as a severe seizure with that one-eyed winking tic of his. He seemed to believe being the head of an underground supper club in the city required him to be a douchebag . His competition didn’t act like that.

  The oxygen required by the squirming larvae meant light wrapping. And light wrapping equated to a gag-worthy perfume reminiscent of decomposing pigeon in the middle of a Philadelphia summer.

  Varda’s eyes shifted, searching for a TSA agent or a cheese-sniffing pooch on the prowl. She beelined toward the sign for the ladies’ room —her salvation lay just around the corner. Varda ducked into a stall at the far end of the space but not before catching a glimpse of her rumpled clothes and limp blonde hair in the mirror over the bank of sinks. A couple days of tramping around the countryside and several harrowing flight legs had left her resembling like a vagrant with a well-maintained root job.

  She situated her rolling carry-on—black and unpatterned to deflect attention —and perched at the edge of the toilet seat.

  What came next would be awful. There was no question. People were nosy, but terrible smells were presumed in the restroom. Even still, no one expected the Spanish Inquisition . . . or, in this case, maggot-filled cheese.

  Please let the maggots be alive, please let the maggots be alive, Varda’s inner voice chanted, the words automatically becoming the world’s strangest mantra.

  Living critters equated to an extra ten thousand dollars, and that meant she was one step closer to her goal: having enough money to get out of the smuggling business and buy a cheese-making facility she’d had her eye on for months.

  She’d insisted on a higher than average fee, given the humiliation and potential for Customs danger. Travelling with illegal foods usually led to fines and jail time under the best of circumstances.