The Girl With Aquamarine Eyes

by Shelley Madden

  Heaven heard the door close as the woman continued to wail.

  She leaned against the wall in sorrow. A tear rolled down her cheek and hit the floor silently. The lipstick fell from her hand, and rolled into the sterile shadows of day in and day out misery.

  * * *

  Dr. Killmore placed the X-ray on the lighted pane on the wall and dimmed the room lights.

  “This is the film taken of Heaven’s wrist before the cast was applied.” The physician pointed to the transparency, outlining the compound fracture with his finger.

  As if on queue, Harmon and Bice moved in closely, studying the picture of the teenager’s wrist.

  “This is the one taken after the cast was applied.” He placed the new x-ray alongside the first. “The break is gone. The fracture is healed, in only two hours.” He stared at the men, as if waiting for an explanation.

  Bice glanced at Harmon, who stared back at him silently. Soon it became apparent he’d get no help from the musician. God, how he needed a drink. Finally, he peered at the X-ray and feigned confusion. “Are you sure you didn’t get them mixed up with another patient?”

  “Positive, we took three sets.” The physician replied, still studying the films. “Radiology confirmed moments before you arrived there was no mix-up. The fracture is gone, and here are the before and after films.”

  Harmon finally spoke up. “Looks like you got her healed up real nice, Dr. Killmore. I’ll be sure to have Heaven give you her best regards.”

  “I’d like to take another x-ray…”

  “No need.” Bice stammered. “I’m sure she’s ready to get back home.”

  A nurse stuck her head in the door, interrupting the strained conversation. “Dr. Killmore, your patient has painted a smiley face on the security camera in the waiting room, and is now headed down the hallway at a rather rapid rate.”

  Bice and Harmon charged out the door, nearly knocking the poor woman down.

  * * *

  Heaven quietly slipped into the room next to hers.

  The boy’s mother was on her knees at her dead child’s bedside. She wailed and clutched his lifeless body. She didn’t see the girl with aquamarine eyes come silently through the door.

  Heaven walked to the opposite side of the bed and gazed at the silent body of the small child.

  “Who are you?” The woman gasped, when she noticed she was no longer alone.

  “I’m here to help.” Heaven smiled. “Do not be afraid.”

  She laid her hands upon the boy’s cold head and studied the child. His frozen eyes stared back at her, unblinking.

  Undeterred, she gazed into their finite depths, searching for the tiniest spark of life. But, there was none. The current of life no longer flowed through the tiny child.

  As if suddenly drugged, she felt her mind slip helplessly into a dizzying kaleidoscope of color and motion, nearly knocking her backward. She could see his silent movie playing out the last few minutes of his short life.

  She was in a car with the boy. Trees rushed by quickly. Too quickly. She was overcome with gut wrenching fear. She could feel the cold machine beneath her sway and moan.

  Suddenly, it careened and skidded from side to side, and went out of control. She heard a scream, and gazed beside her. The boy had her by the arm in a death grip, his skin a pale shade of grey.

  The jerk of the vehicle wretched his hand from her. She gazed at her arm where the boy had clutched it. There were no marks. It was as if he hadn’t been there at all. Or maybe, she wasn’t there.

  She watched helplessly as the pavement beneath her blurred into a solid asphalt wall. The car veered off the road and began flipping end over end down the hillside. She clutched the child to her, as their bodies were tumbled about mercilessly inside.

  She was thrown from the vehicle along with the boy. Fragments of glass burst around them, as their bodies hit the unforgiving ground.

  She opened her eyes. The car was atop them. The boy lay lifeless next to her. She could only lay unmoving in the grass, gazing into his motionless eyes.

  She followed the warmth of the sun on her cheek toward the cloudy skies above. She gasped as she watched the clouds rapidly weave and spin in dizzying circles above her, quickly forming and reforming into new images. They whispered to her their story, a story which only she could hear. Her mother was one within the wispy clouds.

  Now, she knew how to save him.

  She was suddenly back in the hospital room. She gently pulled the limp boy to her and held him close, and pressed her hands to his head. She wasn’t sure why, only that is was to be.

  Almost immediately, she felt her hands grow warm, and warmer still. In a millisecond, her mind was no longer her own. It was fused with his, her inner core of life melted within his. How this came about, she knew she would never know.

  Her bones merged with his broken bones, quickly spinning silky marrow at impossible speeds around the fragmented pieces, willing them back into place.

  Her blood breathed life back into his, swirling and churning and laying claim to his cold core. Her hands were now hot, burning hot her mind told her, but she could not feel them, for she was no longer one with her body.

  She coursed through the child’s veins at the speed of sound, urging his body to warm. Finally, she could hear his dead cells smolder and pop and begin again their once stilled travels.

  She reached his heart. It hung suspended in time, cold and grey. With every fiber in her being, she urged it to beat once again. It must beat. It had to beat.

  But it continued to lie silenced. She tried again, and again. Silence. Only the clouds above could feel her dismay, as they continued to weave their mystery for her to solve.

  Her body began to numb, her legs ached and quivered. She knew she was out of time and strength. The outside was calling her back. Thundering hooves roared across the plain. Someone was coming for her. Why, she did not know. She must act in haste, or the child would be forever naught.

  With one last mind-numbing burst of determination, she urged his heart back to life yet again, willing from deep within her very soul for its silenced rhythm to restart. If she did not succeed, she would have no reason to come back either. The two would forever be together, but lost to all who had known them.

  Moments hung in a suspended fog as time itself stood still. The earth around her was now a blackened plain. Absence of color, absence of sound. Nothing moved. No birds called out their sing-songs. No breeze blew across the charred slope. Tiny butterflies froze in place, suspended in mid-air as if suddenly pinned to a cardboard display for the world to admire.

  Unbelievably, and not a moment too soon, she felt the tiniest movement within the boy.

  Deep inside his wounded heart, she watched with the eyes of her soul as it slowly quivered and shook, as if it were a puppet on a string. It seemed to take a tiny breath of its own, leaving behind a trail of warm steam to evaporate, as if it had sighed upon a mirror.

  Suddenly, it whirled and jolted it into a weak beat. She watched as the organ slowly turned from grey to a light pink, and finally to a deep rich red.

  She sighed. She wasn’t sure what had happened, nor was she sure she wanted to know. But she knew the boy would now live to do great things, and help others. He would not be a president, no, but he would find a cure for an illness which had plagued mankind for many centuries. He too, would use his hands as she had done. He would carry on her legacy.

  She fell exhausted to the dreary tile floor. She must rest.

  The tiny butterflies were released from their frozen tomb, and softly soared across the meadows once more.

  * * *

  Chapter Sixteen

  The woman gazed at the strange girl who had fallen to the floor, and screamed.

  The sound echoed off the concrete walls, drifted down the corridor and welcomed each passerby with its horrific ear-shattering pitch. Doctors and nurses on endless machine-like rounds suddenly came to a standstill.

  “Momma?” The chi
ld whispered.

  She turned away from the girl, and followed the familiar voice to its source.

  The boy sat up and smiled at his ashen mother.

  The woman fell silently to the floor.

  * * *

  “Heaven, lets go!” Bice shouted as he burst into the waiting room. “Heaven?”

  He gazed at the security camera. Sure enough, a happy face was painted on it. He stared around the room. Each of the drawers and cabinets in the room stood ajar, their contents scattered across the tile floor.

  A scream from down the hall filtered into the empty room. Though he tried in vain to leap through the door to follow the sound, he suddenly couldn’t move. He was going forward in reverse. His arm unexpectedly froze in midair, as he twisted and fought his sudden inability to ambulate. A cold sweat trickled from his brow and dripped into his eyes. He was helpless to wipe it away.

  His mind raced out the door and down the corridor, but his feet refused to follow. Heaven had caused the scream. He must find her quickly, or it would be too late. They’d take her away.

  But he was rooted helplessly to the cold floor. Time seemed to screech to a halt. As if someone had shoved a giant tree into the sprockets of Big Ben. He gazed at the second hand on the clock on the wall. Twelve past noon. But something was wrong. He studied the clock a moment longer. The second hand wasn’t moving.

  His body may be frozen, but his eyes were not. He followed the electrical cord down the wall to its socket. It was still plugged in. He tried to shake his head in confusion, but it had become a block of cement. He wasn’t breathing, but he was. He didn’t exist, but he did. A dribble of saliva trickled from the corner of his mouth, as he fought to scream.

  He glanced at his wristwatch, barely visible under the cuff on his protruding arm. Twelve past noon. He choked back a sob as he realized the second hand on his own watch was also frozen in place.

  He now understood. Heaven was the reason the clock on the wall had come to a grinding halt in an apocalypse of confusion and lost momentum. She’d gone somewhere. Somewhere behind time itself. Straight into a vortex where life ticked away minute by minute, second by second. She was fixing things. Maybe it was a window or a vase, or maybe a patient at the hospital.

  He had to get her the hell out of here. He should’ve never allowed Harmon to bring her to the facility. There was no need. Her wound was already a thing of the past. Now, there were films of her wrist left behind for the world to see. She’d evaporated down the sterile corridors where even more people might witness her strange phenomenon. She was a time bomb. A walking, talking, breathing time bomb.

  He suddenly knew what the scream down the hall was. Someone had come in feeling quite ill, or perhaps with a cut or bruise. Heaven, out of the kindness of her heart felt compelled to help.

  A vision of the golden coins with her likeness emblazoned upon them fell around him and as suddenly, disappeared. Maybe, the natives worshipped her. Maybe, she was a demigod. Churned up from phantoms of the timeless seas. It all made sense now.

  He jolted forward, as whatever held him set him free. Gasping, he jerked his head toward Harmon and watched as the last traces of color evaporated from the musician’s frozen face.

  Though it was only a few minutes past noon, the sun seemed to have set, leaving his employer’s handsome features bathed in darkness. He knew what the musician knew. Heaven’s secret was no more. It played across the musician’s face like a wrinkled newspaper tucked behind a paperboy’s arm.

  Perhaps it was time to get an attorney. Or better yet, a mental hospital. He and Harmon could relax and enjoy themselves amongst the white-coated faceless ghosts who floated on endless errands through the corridors. He’d loose himself in countless aged gardening magazines and rerun after rerun, before lights out. First, he’d throw all the clocks away.

  “Let’s go.” Harmon cried, as he woke from his stupor.

  Bice shook his head clear, and staggered out the door behind his comrade.

  They found her in the adjoining room, lying motionless on the cold floor. A moaning woman lay on the unforgiving tile beyond the bed. A small child was sitting up in bed, and crying.

  “She did this Harmon.” Bice studied the blood-spattered boy. What was once an obvious gaping wound across his forehead was healing before his eyes. He stared in horror as the remnants of ragged tissue seemed to melt together and seal the deadly gash. Sticky blood ceased downward spiral and dried instantly in place.

  A mind-shattering metamorphosis of all he knew could not possibly be, was. Of all he thought was not possible, not in a book or movie, for God’s sake not possible, was unfolding before his eyes. As the damp wings of a butterfly might as it emerged from its cocoon. He could not speak. He could not move. He could not breathe.

  He watched as a mortal wound across the boy’s bare chest shriveled and shrank. He gasped and staggered backward. A chest that had looked like a wadded piece of cellophane when he burst through the door was slowly un-folding, springing back to life. A rib bone rose upward beneath the skin, and with an almost audible click, moved back into place amongst its brethren.

  “Harmon...” He groaned and staggered backward. He pointed to the crying boy, as he struggled to inhale.

  “Let’s get her the hell out of here!” Harmon picked Heaven up from the floor.

  Bice could only watch as the musician staggered toward the door with the limp girl. Thundering hooves where coming down the hall. The fine line between reality and a lost land of childhood imagination was no more. What he thought could not be and what he knew he’d seen, would forever be one in the same.

  He could not sweep it away as if it had been something from a decayed comic book he’d read as a child. He would not pretend what he’d seen was the remnants of his mind fraying at the edges. He and Harmon had been around the world not once, not twice, but too many times to count. He’d seen it all, when in fact, he’d seen nothing.

  He held the door open, unable to wrench his eyes from the crying boy as Harmon rushed out carrying Heaven.

  He watched Harmon charge down the hall, choking back the building bile in his throat. The fire in the musician’s soul which had ignited that terrible dawn the day he’d found her near lifeless body now made sense. It showed. Harmon had a connection to her. If he’d only listened to him, it might have fallen into place sooner. If only he’d listened.

  Harmon had said she reminded him of his dead sister. He’d insanely fought a hurricane to find her before it was too late. It damned near killed them both. There was a reason the girl was at the estate. An unmistakable plan was unfolding.

  A sense of foreboding washed over him. He suddenly felt very, very mortal. A feeling of impending doom threatened to wash him away come high tide. The pull of the moon threatened to suck him into a dark vortex high above the furthest galaxy where he’d forever remain for eternity.

  He finally wrenched himself out of the room and bolted after the musician. They raced down the corridor, pushing aside patients and staff and burst through the front entrance.

  The sun disappeared behind a whirling mass of thunderheads. But the storm was only above their waiting car. The rest of the sky was clear and sunny blue. Bice staggered to a stop in the parking lot, watching in terror yet another haunted scene play out before him.

  Rain poured over their car as lightening raced above. The nearby cars were dry, bright sun reflecting from each. Not a drop of rain fell on their glittering hoods. The shadows beneath them were crisp and clear.

  Almost as quickly, the thunderheads evaporated and raced away. The sky slowly faded into a bright and clear aquamarine blue. A beam of sunlight burst from above and fell across their car, lighting it into an ebony hue.

  * * *

  Heaven opened her eyes a day later. She remembered the boy child at the hospital, and smiled.

  Filtered light from the setting sun played across her hands. She raised her broken arm for a closer look, but the fashionable pink cast was gone. She wiggled
and stretched her wrist and flexed her fingers. The pain was also gone. She lifted her leg, noticing the elastic bandage was also absent. She smiled with joy.

  She studied Bice, who was asleep at her bedside chair. Quietly, she reached over and grabbed a book from the table. She launched it into the air, and watched with glee as it spiraled downward and whacked him across the head.

  Bice stumbled from the chair. “What the hell?”

  She eyed the bookcase above his head, but said nothing. Of course there was an empty spot where the book had once been. Maybe one day he’d figure it out. She batted her lashes at him in mock innocence.

  He rubbed his head and stared at her. “I’m glad to see you are back amongst the living. Well, sort of.” But, the merriment in his eyes was fleeting. “Heaven, we need to talk.”

  * * *

  Dr. Killmore stared at his patient a day after the toddler had suddenly come back to life.

  He’d turned the corner the day before, in time to see Harmon rush out of the dead boy’s room, carrying the crazy girl. She was as limp as a rag doll. He watched as the man inexplicably raced down the corridor, and out the front doors with her. Bice was hot on the pair’s heels.

  He’d stared aghast at Heaven’s limp body as it flopped in Harmon’s arms, until he could finally call out to the fleeing trio.

  He watched in amazement as they quickened their pace upon hearing his voice, until they finally reached the front entrance. They never turned back at the shouts ringing out behind them.

  He gazed at the boy who’d been declared dead the day before. The attending physician hadn’t ordered X-rays or scans on the child, there was no need. He was dead when he was brought in. No pulse, and definitely no heartbeat. The hearse was already waiting out back on their corpse.

  The boy’s chest had been crushed under the vehicle, it’d taken paramedics nearly fifteen minutes to extract him. The child was dead close to thirty minutes by the time he reached the hospital. He’d been left to explain to the undertaker the call was a terrible misunderstanding.

  He gazed at the boy’s mother. “Mrs. Martinez, what happened yesterday?”