Hannahwhere

by John McIlveen

  “Am I bad if I say I’d feel better if he wasn’t alive?” Hannah asked.

  “I don’t think so, but if you are, then I’m bad, too,” Debbie said.

  Hannah shifted closer to her and Debbie draped a protective arm over her. “Why does your ceiling look like that?” Hannah asked.

  “That’s called pressed tin. They used it a lot in the eighteen hundreds because it’s pretty, fireproof, less work than fancy plasterwork, and cheap.”

  “It’s neat.”

  On the radio, Heart warned them about the guiles of the “Magic Man”. Debbie watched Hannah study the ceiling for a while before the realization hit her that Hannah was traveling. She found it somewhat spooky how her eyes stared ahead, absent, yet still present. She’d figured Hannah might still travel, and probably often, either hoping to find Anna or just for the sense of control it must lend to a life that she had so little control over. Debbie was grateful that she was only mentally traveling, and not physically. Not that she could stop either. Hannah being physically elsewhere made her uneasy, and although she had proved herself one hell of a survivor, the protective part of Debbie still felt Hannah would be at risk during those times. The mental traveling concerned her in a different way. She feared Hannah would become obsessed with trying to find Anna, and if Anna had experienced some kind of closure from them finding her body, then this could segue into even larger issues. Of all the uncertainties that she could have imagined herself dealing with in a parenting role, this was never one of them.

  “Come with me!” Hannah said. She grabbed Debbie’s arm.

  “My God! Where?” asked Debbie.

  “To Hannahwhere! Come!”

  Hannah’s excitement was such that Debbie could not help but concede.

  They are lying on their backs amid the floral fields. The sun is directly overhead, basking them with buttery rays that feel delicious yet oddly alien to Debbie. A quick, warm gust of wind rushes over them and just as quickly fades. Debbie sits up and looks around, feeling a sense of strangeness yet familiarity. Trees and hills surround the perimeter of the field, except to Debbie’s right lies a tremendous body of water, mirror-like, but far larger than before… too vast to see the far shores.

  “Wow, it’s different!” says Hannah from beside her. “I was just here, but now it’s different. What happened?”

  “I think it’s a mix of your place and my place, but even more,” Debbie says. “That’s Lake Erie.”

  High in the flawless blue sky an eagle circles, shrieks its greeting, and is quickly joined by another. A diversity of birds weaves through the trees and over the fields. Countless species peacefully share the skies… hawks… finches. The woods to their left are an amalgamation of trees, sky-high pines, and majestic oaks interspersed with shorter trees draped with shining leaves and laden with blue, metallic-skinned fruit.

  Nearer to earth, a familiar red-feathered bird swoops in front of them and lands in the lower branches of a nearby fruit tree. Despite the new flora, Debbie recognizes it as the same tree Anna had lain listlessly in the last time they saw her—also from the mural in Elm Creek.

  Chirby-chirby-chirby-djou-djou!

  Debbie takes Hannah’s hand and helps her up as she rises.

  “Cool! Look at the mountains!” Hannah says and points. Long, glassine stretches of green land swell sensually toward the horizon, blending and then merging with purple and gray towers of snow-capped granite. “Why did that happen?” she asks.

  “It must be because we’re both here,” Debbie reasons.

  “We were both here before,” Hannah says.

  “Well, maybe it’s because I’m finally accepting it.”

  “Huh?” says Hannah.

  “I’ll explain later.”

  Dismissing it, Hannah shrugs and eagerly waves to the cardinal.

  Djou-djou!

  “Look!” yells Hannah, pointing excitedly to the tree.

  “What?” asks Debbie.

  “Right there!” Hannah starts pulling her toward the tree.

  “I don’t see anything,” Debbie insists, following hesitantly. Apprehension grows within her as Hannah breaks for the tree at full speed.

  “It’s them! It’s Anna and my mom and dad!”

  “Wait! Hannah! That’s not possible! Your mom can’t come here, remember?” Debbie calls, but Hannah is far ahead of her, already near the tree.

  When Debbie finally catches up, Hannah is beneath the tree and appears to be talking animatedly, but Debbie sees no one else there.

  “Yes,” Hannah says. “I am. Uh-huh. I will.” She nods and a profound sadness masks her face. She continues, talking through her falling tears. “Okay, Mommy… I love you.”

  Debbie watches the one-sided conversation warily, not wanting to interrupt, just in case… maybe. She sees something wavering in the air, like heat rising from pavement, and then it’s gone.

  Is it possible that Hannah’s mother is here? How? Could she not come here in life, but only through death?

  “Anna’s talking to you,” Hannah says to her.

  Debbie concentrates on the area where she had seen the wavering, but she sees nothing more.

  “I’m sorry, honey,” she says. “I can’t see anybody.”

  “Mom says there are no bodies to see. She says to look with your heart, not with your mind or your eyes,” Hannah says. She glances back under the tree and asks, “What?” Looking back at Debbie, she says, “Dad says to use a different pra…pa…speck…”

  “Perspective?” asks Debbie.

  “Yeah, that! He says look like you did back in Lakewood.”

  Lakewood? Debbie is positive she has never said the name Lakewood to Hannah or Anna. How does she know?

  “Use your little girl eyes.”

  My little girl eyes? Look with my heart? Debbie thinks, and then she thinks don’t think. She closes her eyes and pushes all thoughts from her mind except for Hannah and Anna and the little girl she once was.

  When the sensation begins, Debbie feels heat, direct and intense like a pinpoint of sunlight through a magnifying glass. Miniscule, but growing and blossoming larger, it spreads like warm oil and covers her body. It is heat beyond measure, yet painless, and it swaddles her with serenity.

  “Oh my God,” Debbie gasps and opens her eyes.

  Before Hannah, and through Hannah, Debbie sees the light and feels the heat. There are three sources of light. They are intense at the center and have rays shooting outward like stars. More appear behind them and then right beside her. Debbie looks over the field and out among the trees where hundreds, or maybe a thousand lights in a thousand different hues shine brightly. Some are still, while some move slowly and others dart like birds across the sky. Some move in pairs, some in groups, and many move alone. Debbie understands that these are like the stars from Hannah and Anna’s mural.

  “Look at them and see them without the conditions life forced on you,” says a female voice, emanating from one of the lights near Hannah. “We are all energy. We are all spirit.”

  It all starts to make sense. Debbie cannot see their arms, legs, or faces, but she recognizes them regardless. She remembers the stars from when she was young like Hannah and Anna, and she would travel to safety. So many travelers, seeking protection and hiding from the pain, like Hannah, Anna… and her.

  “Anna,” Debbie says.

  “Hi,” says Anna.

  Debbie looks again at the many lights. “These are all people!”

  “Yes. Spirits,” says Elizabeth Amiel-Janssen.

  Of course, thinks Debbie, and she recalls the movement of the lights, how some float high in the sky, swooping and spinning like eagles, and others rocket just above the landscape.

  “These are all travelers! Are they all flying away—hiding from pain?” Debbie asks.

  “Some come here for safety. Some are travelers. Some are not. But all are spirits. Some are crossing over, and others may be caught in between,” Elizabeth says.

  “Like Anna,
” Debbie realizes.

  “Yes. She had to remain here until this part of her voyage was complete,” Elizabeth says. “Now she can move on. You and Hannah have a longer voyage here.”

  “Mom says we’ll all be together again, many times,” says Hannah.

  “You and Hannah are living a very small part of a forever filled with journeys,” Elizabeth explains. “We are all different souls with different voyages, yet we are all connected. This place is just a conduit from one voyage to another.”

  A light sweeps past Debbie and halts, hovering about twenty feet ahead of her. It shoots back near Debbie, grazing her. She can feel its energy, vital and intense, and she recognizes it… the young Middle Eastern boy from the bathroom. He must have followed Hannah there from here. The light rockets away from her like a comet rising into the sky, and then it returns to hover near Hannah.

  “He has a connection to Hannah,” explained Kyle Janssen’s voice. “A linking of spirits like yours and mine. Can you remember?”

  And Debbie remembers the very blond boy, flying… escaping with her when she, too, would fly and escape.

  “Why are they all here in Hannahwhere?” Debbie asks of the other spirits.

  “For Hannah, this is her Hannahwhere. For you, it is your Hannahwhere, by however you regard it. It is the same, this haven, for all the others, but viewed through their own consciousness,” says Kyle Janssen, Hannah and Anna’s father. “There is strength here.”

  “Why…” Debbie hesitates, unsure if her question is appropriate.

  “See how conditions hinder you?” says Elizabeth. “You are wondering why I stayed with Travis, knowing what he was. Our bodies make us foolish and weak. Evil is very cunning. He promised to kill Hannah, Anna, and me if I ever left him. I was more afraid of the monster he could become than the monster he was, yet he became that monster anyway. You will do well to learn from my mistakes.”

  Anna’s light moves forward to Hannah and the other two follow to engulf her. Hannah’s mouth moves, but Debbie can hear no words. Hannah raises her arms as if asking to be carried, and for a moment Hannah, too, becomes brilliant light. They blend and become one blazing and pulsing beacon. The light separates into four again, and then Hannah is back, falling lightly to the ground as if in sleep.

  The three lights now surround and then flow over Debbie and she again feels the heat surge over and through her. She wants to stay here, within their embrace forever. Somewhere within the light, she can sense Elizabeth and Kyle thanking her, and as Debbie feels herself lowered to the ground, she hears from a place deep, deep within her heart, “I love you, Ms. Coppertop.”

  They woke, lying in Debbie’s bed with the late-morning sun blazing through the window and across their legs. Debbie stretched, and Hannah opened her eyes and smiled.

  “You are so beautiful, little lady,” Debbie said.

  Hannah sat up and stretched her arms toward the ceiling. Eyes widening, she pointed happily towards the window.

  “Hey, look!” she said.

  Outside the window, perched upon a branch of a Japanese quince, was a perfect red cardinal.

  Epilogue

  January 5, 2016

  Tecumseh State Correctional Institution was about two miles north of Tecumseh, Nebraska on Highway 50. For Travis Ulrich it was home. He hated his home more and more every day. There was nothing fun about life in prison, that was a given, but as far as prisons went, TSCI (pronounced tisky by its residents) was okay. Travis wasn’t exactly an authority on prisons, since all he’d ever known of them he had learned from a series of one-night stays at various times of his life. That was before he’d lost it with Elizabeth and her kids.

  He was in the eleventh year of his life without parole sentence, most of which had been uneventful and even bland years, exactly what most inmates wanted. There had been a bad patch after they had discovered the body of Anna Amiel-Janssen with a huge screwdriver—covered in his fingerprints and DNA—sticking out of her back. You can kill your boss, father, uncle, priest, and even your old lady, but kill your mother or a kid… forget it! You’re fucked!

  Shortly after the discovery, word got out. They gave him his own private room in the Administrative Segregation wing, with its green-and-cream-checkered floors and large steel doors that could double as bank vaults. They said it was for his protection, but they weren’t too concerned about it when they turned a blind eye in the showers. They prefer the showers since cleanup is easy. Travis had received a serious ass kicking that left him bloody and bruised, with two broken ribs and minus two teeth.

  Travis wasn’t a courageous man by any means. He had spent the majority of his life hiding, first behind his mother’s skirt and then behind words and actions. He had been small and odd as a child, but had learned from watching his daddy, that small cowards could conceal themselves well behind big talk and erratic behavior, and the only thing he had experienced that was close to courage were the doses of defiance he found in booze and drugs. His defense system was flight, not fight, so it had been a shock to everyone, including himself, that on his first trial release back into general prison population he chose fight.

  During mealtime, at the first sign of harassment, it was instantly clear that he was targeted. Travis sprung as if shot out of a cannon and drove the top of his head under George Parrish’s jaw. He was immediately buried under a mass of bodies and rewarded with another brutal pounding, but he did manage to sink his teeth into some yielding flesh, eliciting horrendous screams. He still had no idea whose flesh he had latched onto, or the after-effects of his head-butt on Parrish, but he was pleased he had gotten some licks in. He was back behind the heavy gray steel doors in Ad-Seg, right where he wanted to be… and he had dodged the showers. More than eight years and three repeat performances later, Travis was labeled a habitual risk and he had become a permanent fixture in Ad-Seg.

  Comfort had not been a consideration when they designed the cells in Ad-Seg. They were like walk-in safes with a door, four walls, and two windows, one for observation in case inmates were suicidal, the other looking out onto the endless, flat Nebraskan terrain, cut only by a tall, chain-link fence topped with razor wire. The tile even stopped at the door line. The immovable floor-mounted steel blocks with two-inch square-tube steel rails on which to mount restraints—otherwise known as beds—looked more like industrial tables. They employed no hardware like bolts and nuts, only welds. For Travis it was a fair exchange. Ad-Seg meant safety.

  Isolation didn’t bother Travis… inclusion troubled him. People were bothersome, greedy parasites who only wanted to take. If you wanted anything from them, they only expected more in compensation. Fuck the door, just give him three square meals, four walls—even if they were pink—and a window, and Travis was happy… though a bigger window would have been nice.

  After lights-out, the only real illumination in his room was the light that came through the window… more on the nights when the moon was bright. He could tell by the angle of the moonlight that it was about three o’clock in the morning. He’d been awake for about an hour, which was common. Ad-Seg had a way of messing up a sleep schedule.

  Lying on his bed, he stared at the barely visible ceiling and started nodding off, but an unusual sound brought him back to wakefulness. He couldn’t place it, but it had a slow, ripping quality to it. Not like cloth, but like a ribbed metallic sound. He waited to see if it happened again and then started to drift off.

  Bvvvviiip!

  It came from the direction of the little window, which made him think of the mesh screen covering. He got up, moved to it, and peered outside. The small ledge that ran below the window was wide enough to balance on, yet high enough from the ground to be precarious… not that he had any way out of there.

  Click-tick-click.

  From behind him, something had bounced across the floor and hit the side of his bare foot. When he leaned over and picked the object up, confusion and dread washed over him.

  “What the fuck?”

&nbs
p; He recognized the small piece of wood. It was in the shape of a cartoonish dog holding a plaque with Travis written on it in blue ink.

  How in the hell did it get here?

  Bvvvviiip!

  Travis spun towards the window again.

  It must be a bird, he tried to convince himself.

  He shifted his position, trying to get a better vantage point to see the sides of the opening when a hand dropped down and raked something along the window.

  “Fuck!” Travis yelped. He jumped back against the wall in alarm, his heart pounding. It was fast and birdlike, but it had looked like the hand of a small woman. He didn’t see what it had used to scrape the mesh. It could have been a rock, a knife, or maybe talons for all he knew, but whatever it was, it was spooky as shit.

  He wasn’t about to show whoever was out there that they had scared the living shit out of him. He inched back toward the window, figuring if the mesh kept him in, it would keep anything else out. He looked out the window again, but no one was there.

  Then there was…

  She just appeared, her head downturned, but her eyes peered up through her hair, aiming a demonic gaze directly at him. She floated before the window, and then she settled on the ledge, staring that nasty-ass glare his way. Travis shrieked and again leapt away from the window.

  A woman with ghost-white hair.

  He didn’t believe in ghosts, yet, why else would a fucking albino be floating above a window ledge of an all-male prison at three in the morning?

  “Liz?” Travis asked with a quaver in his voice that betrayed his fear.

  She didn’t answer, but the little bitch’s silhouette was still visible on his wall.

  Did ghosts have shadows? he wondered, and then it hit him. She looked like a teenager. She was too young to be Elizabeth, but Hannah would certainly be in her teens, wouldn’t she? How in the hell did she get inside the yard?

  Growling at the top of his voice, Travis scooped water from the toilet bowl, jumped in front of the window, and threw it and the little wooden dog through the mesh.