“Oh. Cool,” he laughs. “Well, see ya ‘round Camden.”
Chrissi bites her lip in embarrassment. Calming fish in aquariums? She chides her inability to think on her feet and her propensity for nervousness. She groans and slams her locker shut as she spins on her heel toward her next class and almost collides with a sophomore boy who stares down at her with a look of fear and worry. “Hi,” she says apologetically, feeling her cheeks getting even warmer and walks away quickly.
CHAPTER FOUR
Heavy breathing. Running.
Bare feet pounding earth.
A bright flash of light, then complete darkness.
Slowly, the world begins to come back into focus as if through tears or as eyes open first thing in the morning.
It is still dark but street lamps provide dim light, casting shadows on the pavement.
Shadows.
Plural.
Someone else is here.
Run!
Small, loose pieces of gravel cut feet, but fear motivates.
Through a gate. Running on grass. Trip over a rock. Get up! Quickly! So many rocks. No, not rocks, headstones!
Graveyard.
Tree!
They are so close.
Running. Fear. Tripping. Crying. Gasping.
Reach the tree. Hand rests on a rough trunk.
Yellow gloves.
Hand.
So tired. Nowhere to go. Sit. Must sit.
Back against big tree, wind rustles leaves.
Hand reaches out to a pink, granite headstone.
Choking. Gasping. Sobbing.
Darkness.
Chrissi screams then stops herself, gloved hands press tightly over her mouth.
Kesil quickly runs behind the tree. The tree, he notices, that should be in the Camden’s front yard. The wind blows harder and dry leaves blow across the graveyard, playing a somber tune with the landscape. A second scream brings his attention back to a horrified Chrissi Camden.
She reads the headstone again and again,
Here lies Chrissi Lee Camden who loved bravely and fought strongly.
Chrissi moves closer, now kneeling in front of the headstone. The earth forms a dome in front of it; it is a recent burial. Confused and distressed, Chrissi lays face-down—allowing sobs to creep their way up her chest and out, out into the chilly night air.
Kesil slowly comes out from behind the tree, now directly behind Chrissi. He draws closer to her with his arm outstretched. Closer. Closer.
“Ahhh!” Chrissi suddenly erupts in outrage, gripping the newly shoveled earth in her gloved hands and pulling up furiously. Dirt clumps in her fists, she sobs mournfully. Nervous, Kesil takes one step back, his barefoot crunching a twig in a gentle crack! But it is loud enough to prove his presence. Chrissi snaps her head around then quickly stands to face him, her hands still in fists.
“Who are—Kesil?”
He opens his mouth to speak but a loud, sharp beep takes the place of his words and the barren graveyard begins to fade into yellow and orange light.
***
Chrissi bolts up in bed.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
She slams her fist on the top of her alarm clock.
Fists. Her gloved hands are still balled up like in her dream. She sits silently, relaxing her hands, trying to recall the dream. She remembers everything, she thinks, but the dream was in short fragments, like a TV station with partial signal. Scene-by-scene replays in her mind.
Kesil.
He was there. But was she…dead?
She takes a deep breath and gets up from her bed. The sun begins to rise and Chrissi goes to her window to soak in the golds and yellows of the morning. She glances across the street to see Kesil’s bedroom light on. Was there meaning to her dream?
Chrissi shakes away her thoughts for now and rips off her canary yellow gloves, heading to shower.
***
Kesil sits at his desk staring absent-mindedly at a blank computer screen. The sound of running water coming from his parents’ bathroom brings him to the present. He lifts his hands to the keyboard and begins to type all that he remembers from last night’s strange dream. His parents and Uncle Tok told him he would start to have dreams like these soon. Dark, but important and significant, dreams possibly about people he knew. His family made him promise to relay every detail to them.
So he types, swiftly and methodically.
CHAPTER FIVE
It’s finally Friday and Chrissi rejoices, opening the door to her room. The week crept by for her. The last four days consisted of slightly awkward tension with Phil as she wondered how many little things he was noticing that might lead him to figure out her secret. She also expended a great amount of energy dodging Kesil, which was not easy since his locker is so near hers, their third period classes are next door to each other, and he lives across street!
As she lies down on her bed she can finally relax and concentrates on the slow rhythm of her breathing.
In. Out. In. Out.
Questions and anxiety threaten to break through her silent psalm. Phil once told her about reading the Book his aunt and uncle gave him about Roi. He says it helps calm his nerves whenever his brain goes into overdrive. Now, after his confession on that awkward evening in the backyard, Chrissi feels maybe he puts too much faith in that Book of his. She has heard stories about the King Roi herself from her grandmother.
Occasionally her mom would make quips when giving advice that referred to Roi and the stories, “You know what Granny would say, ‘To everything there is a season’.” She had loads of them for all occasions: “All things must pass” (sickness, pain, et cetera); “Don’t cast your pearls to swine” (bullies), “Treat others how you want to be treated”, and, Ame’s favorite and most quoted, “A house divided against itself cannot stand” (disobedience and arguments between mother and daughter).
Granny definitely believes her stories are true, but Chrissi has almost always had doubts in the details. The stories must be metaphorical platitudes for encouragement to make people feel better about themselves, just like when Chrissi’s mom quotes the altruisms. They are just stories and sayings people made up about Roi to make him seem more personable and relatable.
As Chrissi ponders the legitimacy of the stories, she realizes she isn’t certain where her grandmother’s stories came from, perhaps her own Book. That was all Granny ever called it, the Book, just like Phil’s aunt and uncle. Chrissi has never read it herself. Once, when Chrissi was about 5 years old, she found her Granny at the kitchen table pouring over this abnormally large, aged, and tattered book.
“What are you reading Granny?” Chrissi’s pigtails swung side-to-side as she bounced into the kitchen and sat at the small round table, across from her Granny.
“Good morning dear!” Granny remarked in a sing-song voice, “This is my very special Book. I like to read it when I feel sad, mad, happy, or don’t know how I feel.”
“It makes you feel better Granny?”
“Oh yes, much better.”
“What is it called?” little, curious Chrissi prodded as she stood and moved to her Granny’s lap. Her little hand caressed the open pages carefully, reverently. This Book obviously held powers. Magic to a 5-year-old can often be found in the most ordinary of things.
“Well, I just call it my Book, sweetums.” Chrissi smiled at her Granny’s use of the pet name.
“That’s silly Granny. Books have to have names! Like Anne of Green Gables and The Jungle Book!”
“Who says?” Granny asked gently. Chrissi opened her mouth to answer but paused. Pondering the question her little brain concluded that whoever did say so, she had not seen nor heard a name. Granny stood up and put the Book on the highest shelf on the kitchen hutch. “Sometimes people do or think or say things simply because everyone else does. We forget that there are other ways. Oh, but this is Philosophy much too far above the wonderings of a carefree child,” Granny smiled warmly, “Go wash up for breakfast!”
Chrissi sits up in her bed feeling the burdens of the week make their way back to her shoulders. Maybe it is time to pay Granny a visit.
***
One horrible night’s sleep, a 45-minute bus ride, and two blocks later, Chrissi knocks on Granny’s townhome door. The small two-story house looks squashed and skewed between its neighbors, but stands out with dark-red brick and a black front door. Every other house on the block is made of light-grey or tan brick with white or brown front doors that have beautiful glass windows that glint in the morning sun. Everything about Granny’s house is liable to turn away any of these suburb neighbors, which, Chrissi muses, might be exactly what Aunt Naomi wants. Naomi is an intelligent real estate agent who believes the only downside to her job is talking to people. Fortunately, Naomi now owns her own real estate agency, so she mostly just orders other agents around and keeps up with the bookkeeping. She has a business degree from the state university and is very proud. Her idea of success is remarkably different from Ame’s, which has caused a rift or two in the sisters’ relationship.
Chrissi knocks again, harder this time, hoping Granny is not playing BINGO at some community center. Naomi is undoubtedly working—on Saturday. After another minute of waiting, Chrissi tries the door.
It opens.
It is the suburb of the suburbs, maybe it is perfectly normal to leave your door unlocked, Chrissi reassures herself, trying to keep her currently on-edge mind reigned in to sanity. She slowly steps over the threshold onto an ornate floral, maroon rug. She follows the long rug all the way down a narrow hallway, passed a sitting room. The walls on either side of her are adorned with dozens and dozens of framed photographs. Antique and faded photos hang at the top of either wall and newer photos of family members Chrissi can actually recognize are near the middle of the wall. A small decorative, half-circle table holds a photograph of a grinning man with two little girls, one on either side of him. He is leaning against an old, beat up Ford truck. Chrissi’s grandfather, George Camden. His white cargo pants are splotched with paint of all different colors.
Suddenly a crash erupts from upstairs. Chrissi moves fast, grabbing the banister at the end of the hall and swinging herself around to the left, the kitchen before her disappearing in a blur. She runs up the stairs taking two steps at a time.
“Granny? Are you OK?” her fortress against anxiety and panic crumbles from the canon of fear. It was not like either Granny or Naomi to leave the door unlocked. “Granny!” she yells louder as she reaches the second floor.
Silence.
“Granny?”
“Chrissi? Is that you? I’m in the tea room!”
Chrissi rushes to one of the spare rooms Granny “remodeled”. There is Granny, standing on the top step of a short ladder in front of a bookshelf, reaching for a bright blue book on the very top. A pile of disheveled books lay nearby on the floor.
“Granny! Get down from there!”
“Oh sweetums. I really need this book. I told Susan she could borrow it and I’ve forgotten to bring it to her two weeks in a row.”
“I will get it!” Chrissi orders as she gives Granny a hand to help her down the last step. Granny trudges to a small, circular table in front of a rather large window. Sunlight streams through the panes and sheer maroon drapes, filling the otherwise dark room with a natural brightness. Mahogany and cherry wood make up every piece of furniture and fixture in the rectangular room. White lace covers the small table and compliments the dark-red, antique love seat in the middle of the room.
The light of the late morning sun forms a halo around Granny’s pure white, short, curly hair. Book in-hand, Chrissi moves to the small game table near the window. As she sits, Chrissi notices that sitting, she sees almost eye-to-eye with her 5-foot Granny.
“Thank you dear, though I really would have been fine. I am so glad to see you! What brings you to visit today?”
“Nothing really,” Chrissi says quickly. She is not sure if she’s ready to talk about the nightmare to anyone yet. She could not even talk to her mother about it at breakfast this morning. But it has consumed her every thought. “Is it OK if I do some homework here?”
Granny looks curiously at her granddaughter, “Sure. I’ll just read the paper.” As she unfolds the newsprint in front her, Chrissi takes out her large geometry textbook, a calculator, and pencil and attempts to set to work. She rearranges her materials about seven times before finally attempting to solve a problem.
An hour passes and, disgruntled, Granny shakes her head. Her giant, plastic earrings click and clang, but Chrissi refuses to look up. Granny shifts in her seat and plays with her plastic, beaded necklace. Click, click, click. She looks up at Chrissi and, finally giving up, leaves the room. She really thought Chrissi would open up by now; it is obvious something weighs heavily on the girl’s mind. Out of her peripheral Chrissi can see her grandmother’s bright, flowing, floral skirt disappear around the corner and hears creaking steps as Granny carefully descends the stairs.
Alone, Chrissi finally sets her pencil down. She has tried to work diligently but all she has managed to do is pretend to work diligently. The single problem on her paper is a mess of eraser residue and scratched-out answers. Bored and slightly aggravated with not being able to control her own mind, Chrissi decides to take a break from her work.
“Time to practice something a little more fruitful than graphic equations,” she whispers, checking the door and listening for creaking steps. After pulling a freshly picked pansy from her walk between the bus stop and Granny’s house out of her bag, she removes her right glove deftly, revealing her alabaster hand. Taking a deep breath and staring intently on just one bright pink petal, Chrissi gently extends her forefinger to touch it only. Quickly she removes her touch and holds her breath as she watches the golden light run across the petal, then effortlessly, to Chrissi’s utter disappointment, across the rest of the flower and finally reaching the end of the stem. She stares at the shriveled black blossom on the desk.
“It’s fine,” she consoles herself, “my brain is divided. I’d be able to do it on any other day.” She picks up her pencil and begins to work again, punching seemingly random numbers and symbols into her calculator.
She sighs. She is not going to focus until the events of the nightmare are off her chest, she resolves. Chrissi slips on her crimson glove and heads downstairs to the kitchen where she finds Granny in her ruffled pink apron preparing for lunch.
“Fresh bread?”
“Always my dear!” Granny says merrily.
“Granny…” Chrissi pauses, uncertain how to broach the topic of dreaming about her death and a boy she barely knows but occasionally watches from her window. That doesn’t sound alarming at all.
“Yes sweetums?” Granny presses expectantly, though never looking up from her work.
Chrissi takes in a deep breath as she arranges her thoughts, “Granny I had this awful dream and it was really scary and I have no clue what it means or if it means anything at all but it felt so real and Kesil was in it, and I mean really in it, I just don’t know what’s wrong with me but I can’t shake it from my mind!” Chrissi realizes she is breathing heavily. She started speaking and couldn’t stop herself, she had to say it all or she feared she would not say any of it. She finally glances up at Granny who is smiling serenely at Chrissi.
“Oh my dear, is that all?”
“Is that all? Granny I saw a…a headstone, with my name on it! It said something about fighting, it was so real!” Chrissi felt the warm dampness of a tear rolling down her cheek. For the first time she realizes she is truly afraid. Afraid of dying, of that graveyard empty of
any headstone but her own. Afraid of whatever imminent battle she feels is so close at hand. Afraid of the chill of that night. Afraid of the feeling that she was running from a faceless, nameless, unknown being. Afraid of—no, she will not let her mind go there. That much she can control!
Granny puts her work down and walks to the kitchen table, gesturing for Chrissi to sit next to her. She clasps Chrissi’s covered hands in her own and directs her vivid blue eyes to Chrissi’s, “You have nothing to fear. Nothing, you hear me?” Chrissi nods half-heartedly, platitudes she expected from her mom, not Granny. “Chrissi Camden you have a purpose in this world. You appeared purposefully in our strange city-town, to be adopted by your mother, to attend your school, to befriend Phil, to be right here this very day. You. Have. Purpose. Now, you can allow your dreams to either deter you from that goal and purpose or steer you to it.”
“Granny…what are you talking about?” Chrissi stares dumbfounded at her wise and intelligent Granny. “How can a dream both deter and guide?”
“Ah, but it is not the dream itself that decides,” Granny says, her index finger raised, “but the dreamer who decides the fate of the dream!”
“Well this dreamer decides her dream was downright terrifying! So what fate is in store for me?” Chrissi says, exasperated. She received an answer, but it has only made her more confused. “Granny I need some clarity. You’re only making it worse.”
“Chrissi,” Granny clicks her tongue in disapproval, “This is your journey sweetums, not mine. You must decide when to begin of your own will. Seek and find. Seek and find,” Granny says as she returns to the kitchen counter to chop vegetables.
Chrissi rests her chin on her hands on the table. Seek and find? Find what? What is missing that she needs to find?
“Would you like some Tai Chi dear?” Granny says from the kitchen sink. “It is excellent when pondering and mulling over life decisions!”
“Tai Chi? Like exercising and meditating?”
“What? Oh dear me, no! I’ve gone and confused the teas and Tai again!” Granny chuckles showing her bright white teeth, contrasted against her signature pink lipstick. Chrissi rolls her eyes in disbelief and plops her head down in desperation. Maybe Granny had too much “Tai Chi” today.
The Reconciling [Part 1] Page 4
