Hell's Belles

by Alison Claire

  “Let’s try this one,” my sister pointed toward a flattened, slightly slanted boulder. “That will make it easier to get to the last part.”

  I shook my head. “Mer, no. I don’t think our shoes have traction to climb that and there’s a huge drop next to it. Let’s just take more time and climb the easier ones over there.” I pointed toward scattered boulders down near the end.

  “That will take forever! And Dad said we have to be done soon. Don’t you want to make it to the top?” She was already scrambling up. My mom was catching up as I started yelling at my sister not to.

  “Merritt?” My mom made it to me just as it happened.

  Merritt slipped and caught herself but before we could be relieved she slipped again and all of a sudden she was on the other side, where the drop was. Her scream echoed throughout the canyon and the universe.

  “MERRITT!” my mother’s voice had never sounded so panicked. We both ran to where we had seen her. About twenty feet down from us laid my sister. She was conscious but her leg had been severed by a sharp boulder. It was attached to her only by a couple of tendons. My stomach immediately wretched and I threw up all over my mother’s sandals.

  Everything happened so fast. My mother screaming at my father, him screaming back. I think about how helpless my dad must have felt being so close yet so far away to what was happening. He had left his cell phone in the car since service was so spotty. Another hiker was close by and called 911. It would take them forever to finally reach us.

  Being smaller and wiry, I was able to slowly shuffle and drop my way down to where my sister was. I was crying uncontrollably, but she was so calm. She seemed to be totally okay in her head, but her small body was covered in blood. I couldn’t bear to look at her leg.

  “Merritt, please,” I begged. “Please just be okay. Wait for the ambulance. They can fix everything.” I was choking on my prayers, the first I had ever said them out loud. “Dear God, please don’t let my sister die. She’s the best of all of us and this was an accident. Even if you take her leg, don’t take her. She’s just a kid and she’s my best friend.”

  I shut my eyes and held her hand. So much time seemed to pass before anyone else was with us. Her sweaty hand in mine, an electric impulse between us that I knew was our sister powers keeping us together. We had done this before when we had smaller injuries. We would hold hands, close our eyes and when the pain subsided, all was okay again. This was what love did. It made something possible that seemed implausible. It had never been anything we had even thought about for long. It just was.

  When I opened my eyes, so much was different.

  My sister sat up. Her leg, the one that had been hanging by thin pieces of meaty cartilage, was not severed or injured at all. It was barely even scraped. Her elbows weren’t bloody and she was no more hurt than as if she had stumbled on our sidewalk.

  But this wasn’t possible. I had seen it. Hadn’t I?

  I was assured by my own mother that I hadn’t been hallucinating. She was finally with us, the paramedics scrambling down behind her.

  “Merritt? Your leg? How?” I could see the shock register on Mom’s face.

  “Mom, I saw her bone,” I said. “I saw it.”

  My mother and I looked at one another in slack jawed amazement. The EMT’s had lugged a ton of stuff down, but my sister stood up and brushed off the dust of the red rocks that surrounded us.

  “Sorry, guys,” she said sheepishly, “I really shouldn’t have tried climbing that one.”

  Everyone kind of forced small chuckling, though I could tell the EMTs seemed agitated that they had come all this way for what looked like a simple misstep.

  “We’re just glad you’re okay,” one of them said, patting my shoulder as he walked by. “Your sister lives another day, kiddo.”

  My father had joined us by then, so relieved to see my sister was whole and fine. He looked up at where she fell from and shook his head. “Merritt, you are damn lucky you didn’t lose a limb. Someone was looking out for you.”

  My mother, my sister, and I just glanced at one another. “Someone…” Merritt said, touching my hand. “Let’s go home.”

  I woke up in that clichéd way that people do in the movies. I sat straight up in bed, my heart pounding. I had dreamt of that incident before. I had re-hashed it with my mother hundreds of times, but my sister had never wanted to mention it again. We had tried numerous times, but her mouth would form a hard straight line and there was nothing we could get out of her on the incident.

  “All that matters is that I’m okay,” Merritt would say.

  I mean, yes. All that always mattered was that everything is okay, but one does not see that kind of injury and not question why it is suddenly healed. We weren’t Christians, so I don’t think Jesus would have saved my sister’s heathen ass.

  My grandma was convinced of it, of course. She said we should take it as a sign and finally join a church.

  We didn’t.

  And now here I sat in this bed on the other side of the country. I longed to go back to that moment where even though it was scary, my sister, my mother, and my father were alive. It was hard to be back in the place where they weren’t.

  I glanced at my iPhone. It was five o’clock. My stomach rumbled and suddenly the dream was gone and I was hungry.

  As I walked downstairs a half hour later, I saw Aleta sitting on one of the fainting couches in the foyer. She was reading.

  “Hi, Aleta,” I said. Might as well be friendly.

  “Hello, Emma Ayers. I heard tonight was steak night and decided maybe I would stay for dinner after all.” Aleta put down her book. “Heard Calista had a moment.”

  “If you want to call it that,” my tone was flat.

  Aleta stood. “We are what we tell ourselves we are. I learned that a long time ago and it helped me brush off a lot of bullshit.”

  “Sounds like something my mom would have said,” I laughed. “In fact, I think she may have. It makes as much sense to me now as it did then. Just something very Mom.”

  Aleta nodded. “Well, your mother was wise. I am sorry to hear of her passing.”

  Our eyes met and I could see her sincerity.

  “Thanks. I appreciate that.”

  Josephine bounded down the stairs, her smile lighting up the entire room. I immediately felt invigorated by her presence and by the beautiful afternoon rays of Charleston sunshine that bounced off the foyer walls.

  “Hey, Em!” Josephine called. “Tonight is one of my favorite dinners. Though I feel guilty, I really do try my best to be vegetarian, but Chantelle’s cooking makes that very difficult.” She linked her arm with mine. “Sit by me, okay?”

  We walked together, Aleta following behind us with her book tucked under her slender arm.

  We could smell dinner long before being at our seats. I could hear Chantelle singing from the kitchen. Virginia was already at the table and Calista sat beside her, sullen. But even with her pout, she was exquisite. She had changed out of her school uniform into a simple tank top and khaki shorts. Her hair was piled up on top of her head in a messy bun. She made casual look elegant. I didn’t want to constantly stare at her, but it was difficult. How did anyone function around her at all?

  Fiona rushed out from the kitchen, the doors swinging closed behind her. “Chantelle wanted me to bring out the salads. Dinner should be out soon. These are the days I miss Walter!”

  Virginia laughed. “I know. You and Walter are the cogs that run the ridiculous machine of this home. And we love you for it.” Fiona grinned, placing a crisp Caesar salad in front of me.

  “Well, thank you, Virginia. I love this mood you’ve been in lately,” Fiona placed a bowl in front of Calista. “How was school, girls?”

  Josephine perked up next to me. “Not terrible. My big Creative Writing assignment was due today, where you write your own Wikipedia entry.” She giggled as she chewed on a crouton, “The things I wish I could share with the class.”

  Fiona
gave an awkward laugh. “Oh, I bet. How about you, Calista?”

  “It was fine.” She added nothing else.

  “What kinds of things do you wish you could share?” I asked.

  “Virginia,” Aleta interrupted. “I noticed the pool water was a little low today.”

  “Oh, Aleta, thank you for letting me know,” Virginia looked relieved for a moment. A subject change perhaps? I was too hungry to push anything further and Chantelle had come out with our entrees.

  Dinner was fantastic. My steak was medium rare, just like I preferred. No one spoke as we ate. All that could be heard were the sounds of our expensive silverware clanking on the plates as we cut into meat and buttered asparagus.

  It was odd to be around so many women. It made my father’s absence so much more apparent. I missed hearing his gruff voice and his hearty laugh. He would act annoyed to be constantly surrounded by so much estrogen, but I knew that he not-so-secretly loved being the only man of the house more than anything in the world. He also would have loved this meal. Mom didn’t love red meat, so we didn’t eat it often. She would go on work conferences and we would always go out to a steakhouse while she was gone. We’d catch up on things over prime rib and potatoes stuffed with butter, sour cream, and chives. He’d even let us drink soda, something else my mom wasn’t a fan of.

  “Are you okay?” asked Josephine, touching my arm. “You’re crying, Em.”

  I hadn’t even noticed it, but I was. I felt a warmth from her and my despondency subsided for a moment.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I was thinking about my dad. I miss having dinner with him.”

  The girls all nodded, even Calista, which surprised me. She was looking down at her plate.

  “I’m so sorry, Em,” Josephine hugged my shoulder. “I wish I could have met him. Virginia has said he was a very special person.”

  I nodded. “He really was. Or at least he was special to us. It just hits me at random moments that they’re not waiting for me somewhere. That this isn’t a vacation.”

  Virginia cleared her throat across the table. I looked and could see her eyes were slightly wet. “Emma, I can’t tell you enough how different I wish this all was. I know we are still almost strangers to you, but every girl here wants to make your transition as easy as possible.”

  Glancing at Calista I could see she was still looking down. Then I noticed the phone in her lap. She was texting. Calista couldn’t have cared a lick about anything I was saying or feeling. My vulnerability turned to hurt. I shook off Josephine’s arm.

  “I’d like to go back to my room,” I said, shoving away from the table, “I appreciate the kindness, but I want to be alone.”

  “I’ll walk with you,” Aleta said, “I need to get home anyway. Thanks for dinner, Virginia. Fee said she’d drive me to Montagu.”

  “Thank you, Aleta.” I was waiting for Virginia to request me to stay, but she didn’t. She let me go.

  Aleta and I walked silently through the rooms that separated the dining room from the foyer. She didn’t say anything to me until I was about to go upstairs.

  “It will get harder before it gets easier,” she said. I turned to look at her.

  “I don’t see how it ever gets easier to be alone.” It came out harder than I wanted it to.

  “It doesn’t. But your spirit adapts. You will think of them always and miss them forever. But to go on living, you will adapt to their absence. Some days, you’ll feel really guilty about that. Other days you’ll understand that your misery doesn’t change anything and you’ll find yourself having a good day. You’ll be happy to be here in this land of the living. But it takes a long time before you get there. It happens though. Eventually.”

  I didn’t know how to reply to that. It sounded terrible and hopeful at the same time.

  “Goodnight, Emma Ayers. Have better dreams tonight,” she said as she closed the door behind her.

  I waited a moment, her words stopping me in my tracks. How did she know?

  JOSEPHINE BERKSHIRE

  Well-written or not, the papers scattered on Mrs. Jane Hinton's ottoman were painfully predictable. With The Real Housewives snarking away at one another in the background, the Amherst-educated Bronwyn Hall English teacher yawned her way through grading the assignment that commenced her senior year creative writing class each spring. She'd tweaked it a few years ago from having the students pen their own obituaries (a bit grim for some, anyway) to having them author their own imaginary Wikipedia pages, creating lives they hoped to lead.

  Inevitably, the athletes always went on to win Wimbledon, star in a World Cup, or capture Olympic glory. Those more bent toward the arts were winners of various Oscars, Grammys, Pulitzers, and Tony’s. She had students convinced that they'd fill rooms with Nobel prizes, cure cancers of all sorts, and marry models (male and female). The monotony was broken somewhat by the occasional oddball predicting for herself a dashing life as a notorious criminal, international jewel thief or the like, or even the papers that mandated an e-mail to the school guidance counselor, such as when she’d receive a brief Wikipedia entry in which a troubled teen wouldn't reach graduation before taking her own life or suffering a tragic accident. As she neared the bottom of the pile, she swirled her glass of chardonnay and began to peruse the work of a student that everyone knew all too well; Josephine Berkshire. A quirky, but pretty girl, Josephine had a knack for blending into the crowd, despite being dressed as if she'd just returned from fashion week in Milan with several swag-filled suitcases. Josephine was favored by the queen of the school, Calista Embers, and therefore accorded all the respect, admiration, and envious hatred often afforded royalty. Initially skimming through Josephine's Wikipedia entry, Jane straightened up in her chair, muted the television, and focused herself completely on the fascinating tale being spun.

  Most students focused the meat of their biography on accomplishments yet to come; college and the decades following graduation from universities most of them had no hope of attending. Young Miss Berkshire, however, recounted an impossibly long life already led. Not just a life, a fantastic story beginning in England centuries ago, a globetrotting journey to encounter some of the most accomplished authors, musicians, and philosophers of the past 150+ years. According to Josephine Berkshire, she'd been present in St. Petersburg at meetings of the Petrashevsky Circle. Upon the arrest of that illustrious brigade of thinkers (Jane kicked herself for having to use actual Wikipedia to keep up with the fictional Wikipedia of one of her students), Josephine somehow spirited herself away from a Siberian work camp and appeared next in San Francisco, defying her gender to join Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce at the Bohemian Club. With a chuckle at the girl's ambitious imagination, she went on to connect the dots of Josephine Berkshire's life, including stops at the Algonquin Round Table trading barbs with Dorothy Parker, musical turns at both the Brill Building and the Grand Ole Opry, and finally a few torrid years in Detroit at the height of Motown. Mrs. Hinton read the whole thing thrice before using her red Sharpie to circle a large A++ atop the first page. Her class, after all, was 'creative' writing, and nobody in her 22 years of teaching had submitted anything as creative as this. Monday morning, as the students approached her desk in single file to receive their papers, Mrs. Hinton asked a question of her star pupil as she returned her masterpiece: "I was really hoping you'd have made it to Seattle for the Grunge Movement, Miss Berkshire. I've always wondered what Kurt Cobain was really like." Glancing down at her grade, Josephine looked her teacher in the eye, and with a wry smile replied, "You'd have liked him. I mean he was troubled, sure, but when you have that much pain and heart living inside you at the same time, not many people alive could handle it. He turned it into a movement. Who else can say they did that much with the time they had? Not many come to mind for me." With that, a bemused Josephine shrugged and returned to her desk, leaving bewilderment in her wake.

  Chapter 10

  When I reached my room, Palmer Martin was sitting cross legged on
my floor reading a People magazine.

  “Palmer. Seriously, we can’t keep meeting like this,” I said, in what I knew was a bitchy tone. I couldn’t help it. I wasn’t in the mood to see anyone or deal with anymore secrets.

  “Sorry, Emma,” he said, standing up. “I didn’t know what else to do. I really don’t want to be a bother. It’s just if Virginia finds me here- “

  “Well, what if she had been with me? That would have been bad for all of us.”

  He smiled. “I hadn’t thought of that. I really am sorry. I can go over to Josephine’s room.”

  I shook my head. “No, you can stay. I don’t want to get her in trouble. Why is it a big secret anyway?”

  Palmer made himself comfortable on one of the overstuffed chairs near the windows. “That’s a long story but it really all comes down to Virginia not really wanting any of you ladies to date. Or at least, not to date my kind.”

  “Your kind?” I asked. “Are you a felon? A drug addict? An assassin?”

  “Hardly,” he chuckled. “Although the assassin part sounds kind of cool. No, I’m just not good enough for Josephine. Which is true. I can’t argue with that. But who would be?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  A few minutes later there was a tap on the door, “Em, its Jo. Can I come in?”

  “Sure.” As soon as she walked in and saw Palmer she ran and jumped into his arms.

  “Guys, I’m not in the mood. Take it somewhere else.” I was laying on my bed, my back now turned to the lovebirds.

  Expecting to hear my door shutting as they went off to Josephine’s room, I was surprised to feel slender arms embracing me. “Palmer, how about you leave me with Em tonight. Want to come over tomorrow?”

  I looked over at him. Though clearly bummed, he nodded kindly. “Sure. Sorry to have upset you, Emma. If you want I won’t come in here anymore, I know it’s really invasive.”