The Remarkable Journey of Charlie Price

by Jennifer Maschari

  He walked around her room.

  Imogen wasn’t in her closet or hiding behind the curtain of her stage. She wasn’t sitting in the little window seat with the polka-dotted fabric she loved. The only place left that Charlie hadn’t checked was under the bed.

  They used to hide under there when they were little and it was storming outside. They’d listen to the music that the rain and thunder made. It was where Charlie had found Imogen the night Mom had passed away. Those same eyes he had looked into on those stormy nights peered back at him and her voice, a little bit older, said, “I’m scared, Charlie.”

  Charlie crouched down on all fours and looked underneath the blanket, expecting to see Imogen staring back at him. There was only darkness. But the scent he had smelled that morning—the one that no longer lingered on Mom’s favorite pillow—clung to the air around him and seemed to get stronger by the second. He didn’t understand.

  The flutter of panic in his heart grew. He couldn’t stand the pounding of his chest, his burning face, his tingling limbs. What was going on?

  He crawled under the bed on his stomach, inching forward like a snake moving through the grass.

  As he did, his hand brushed against something smooth and round. He grasped it and pulled it toward him. A piece of the wooden floor lifted slightly, and a small stream of light filtered out of it.

  Charlie recoiled and drew his hand back as if he had been bit. The floor fell back into place, extinguishing the tiny sliver of light.

  He resisted the urge to back out from under the bed and run. Clamping his eyes shut, he willed himself to scoot forward even more. He held his breath as his fingers settled into a deep square groove on the floor that he followed all the way around.

  It didn’t make sense. But it was true.

  There was a hatch underneath Imogen’s bed.

  THINGS THAT DON’T MAKE SENSE

  Charlie began to break down the situation like it was a Mathletes challenge problem. First, the knowns. There was a wooden something under the bed. It was the shape of a square. When Charlie pulled on the metal ring attached to it, it lifted. And there had been a dim light.

  Second, the unknowns. Charlie didn’t know where the light was coming from. Their house sat on a slab of concrete. More importantly, he had no idea why there was a door underneath Imogen’s bed. He had never noticed one before, and frankly, that was something he would have noticed. And he still didn’t know where Imogen was.

  Conclusions. Only two.

  Imogen wasn’t under the bed.

  But something else was.

  For as long as Charlie could recall, he compartmentalized his memories into neat little filing cabinets. That first memory—sitting at a Cincinnati Reds ball game with a too-large cap on his head and a just-right ice cream cone in his hand and a sticky smile on his face—was filed in the Perfect Days cabinet.

  The memory of his mom swallowed up by tubes and stiff hospital linens and squeezing her hand when she couldn’t squeeze back was filed in the Things I’ll Never Forget cabinet (even though he really wanted to).

  But this, this door in the middle of Imogen’s room, joined a cabinet that wasn’t very full at all. The only other things in it were cancer, Frank going missing, Imogen’s outburst this morning, and Dad.

  Things That Don’t Make Sense.

  He slid out from underneath the bed and grabbed the flashlight he knew Imogen still kept under her pillow. Following the beam of light, he ducked back under to examine the door again.

  The wood was rough and worn, gnarled like the branches of a long-forgotten tree. Charlie lifted it again. Tentatively at first, and then all at once. The dim light seeped out of it once more, and Charlie tried to maneuver his face into the narrow crack to get a better look. But the space under the bed was tight and claustrophobic.

  Imogen was small and bendy. If she was down there, she could easily have slipped through the space like those circus performers who twisted their bodies into impossible positions.

  Charlie, on the other hand, was all hard lines and sharp angles. His body could barely fit under the bed, let alone into some tiny crevice. He had to think. He needed to open up the hatch all the way to get a better look.

  Crawling out from under the bed once again, he stood, stretching his arms up to the ceiling. Then he braced his hands against Imogen’s mattress and shoved, a guttural noise rising from his throat. The bed shifted an inch.

  Changing his position, Charlie placed his back against the frame and, planting his feet on the floor, pushed again. He couldn’t believe a bed could be so heavy.

  After several minutes of pushing and beads of sweat forming on his hairline, the door was exposed just enough that he could open it fully.

  For the briefest moment, Charlie considered leaving his dad a note. But he didn’t know what to write, and he hoped they’d be back before Dad was even home. So the thought left, as quickly as it came.

  Instead, he took a deep breath, opened the door, and lowered himself in.

  THE SAME, BUT DIFFERENT

  Once, Charlie and Frank rode the Racer at Kings Island sixteen times in a row, only stopping for the blue Smurf ice cream after ride number nine. At the end, when Charlie finally stepped off the coaster for the final time, he felt like a more wobbly version of himself—his legs were made of Jell-O, his stomach dipped and whirled like he was still on the ride.

  He felt like that now.

  The last thing he remembered was being in Imogen’s room, finding a wooden door under her bed, lowering himself into some kind of hole, and now—

  Now, he was back in Imogen’s room. In the exact same position he was before—half of his body in the hole in the floor and his arms braced on either side of it, propping himself up.

  There was the same red flashlight on the floor. Her musical script on her nightstand. And the quilt that Mom had pieced together with scraps of her baby blanket slung over the side of the rocking chair.

  Imogen’s room. But how?

  He tried to lower himself back in, just to see what would happen. But when he did, he sprang back up, only slightly, like he had taken a very small bounce on a trampoline. The hole wouldn’t let him sink down into it again. So instead, he pulled himself up slowly, sitting on the edge of it so that his legs dangled over the sides.

  He took a deep breath, trying to slow his heart, which kept knocking against his rib cage, and to still the staticky white noise that thundered between his ears. He tried to sort the information like a math problem again, but he didn’t even know what kind of information to sort. What was true? What wasn’t? And what exactly had happened when he had dropped down into the hatch?

  It was while thinking all of this through that he first smelled it.

  The sweetness of tomatoes. A whiff of garlic. The heat of chili peppers. No way!

  Mom’s spaghetti sauce. His spaghetti had smelled nothing like this.

  Oh no. Now he was hallucinating. Could you hallucinate smells? This was worse than he thought.

  Then he heard a voice. And a laugh. Big and raspy, too big for her body.

  Imogen’s laugh.

  “Imogen,” he managed to croak. He said it again, louder this time. “Imogen!”

  “Charlie!” At the sound of her voice, Charlie’s gaze glassed over, and he struggled to clear the lump that had formed in his throat. He had found her.

  His name was followed by the sound of feet muffled by the hallway carpet, and then Imogen appeared at the door, swinging into the room. There was a watermelon-size grin on her face. Her cheeks were flushed pink and her eyes were bright and she practically leaped to him, grabbing his hand. This was not the Imogen from this morning.

  “I have a surprise for you!” she sang, and pulled him up. “Come see!”

  They ran out of the room and down the hallway. Through his watery eyes, he noticed that the surfaces that had once been covered with a layer of dust were now clean. And the clothes that had formed a cascading mountain outside the laundry roo
m were now crisply folded in a white hamper.

  And then he heard a laugh that stopped him cold. This one didn’t come from Imogen.

  He must have imagined it. He leaned forward, an ear toward the kitchen. Banging pots, the whistle of steam, the faint sound of music on the radio.

  “Dad?” Charlie called.

  Imogen giggled. “Nooope!”

  He skidded into the kitchen, with Imogen right on his heels. His eyes went to the stove—the source of all of the good smells and good noises and everything.

  There she was. With her curly blond hair that looked so much like Imogen’s. And her rosy cheeks, round like polished apples. And the white chef hat plopped on the top of her head.

  “I told you! I told you, Charlie,” Imogen said. Her arm began to swing, taking his with it. “I knew you’d come find me. Do you believe me now?”

  And all at once he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. Everything he knew about anything flew out the window and took his brain and heart and voice with it.

  Finally, a word came. “Mom?”

  ONE MORE THING

  “Mom?” Charlie repeated. It was as if he had forgotten all words but one.

  Mom wiped her hands on the towel and held out her arms. “Charlie!”

  Charlie was certain he would have stood there forever, feet glued to the linoleum, if Imogen hadn’t let go of his hand and pushed him forward.

  He walked toward Mom. He resisted the urge to pinch himself—to make sure that he wasn’t occupying some space between dreaming and waking, when things seemed real, but really weren’t.

  Charlie reached out his arms, too, and sank into the hug as if Mom were made of feathers. He rested his head on her shoulder and held on tight. Her curly hair tickled the spot right under his nose, and even over the spaghetti sauce, he could smell the light floral perfume she always spritzed on in the morning.

  When Mom was alive, she gave the absolute best hugs. She’d squeeze and squeeze (but not too tight—more like she just didn’t want to let you go). And then she’d almost let go, but not quite, and really look at you. She always said she was taking a picture with her heart. When she had gotten real sick, Charlie expected that her hugs would get weaker. They didn’t. She only seemed to hold on tighter.

  This hug was one thousand times better than that. Mom was here.

  So many nights, Charlie had thought about what he would say to Mom if he could just see her again. But he hadn’t planned on saying this: “So you’re alive?”

  Mom laughed and Imogen giggled.

  “I’ll explain everything,” Mom said. “But I want you two to eat first. We set a place for you. We’ve been hoping you’d come.” She ushered him to the table, her hand gently guiding his shoulder. She pulled out his usual chair for him and placed a plate of spaghetti on the flowery place mat she had loved so much. Love? Loved? All he could do was stare at the steam rising off the noodles and file this moment away in the Things That Don’t Make Sense cabinet.

  He found his voice again. “Is this heaven?”

  He remembered learning about heaven in Sunday school in St. Cecilia’s basement so many years ago, but the teacher hadn’t mentioned anything about spaghetti and houses that look like your own and strange transport tunnels in the middle of the bedroom floor. Maybe instead of doing his math homework under the cover of his religion book, he should have paid more attention.

  Mom laughed again, swatting him on the arm with her oven mitt. “No, this is dinner.”

  “Eat up, Charlie,” Imogen said, her mouth half full of garlic bread already. “It’s really good.”

  But Charlie couldn’t seem to move his fork to his mouth, no matter how good it smelled. Mom folded her hand over his frozen one. He was still clutching the fork with a death grip. It was his lucky fork, the one he always used, the one with a chip in the left tine. He needed something real to hold on to.

  “I told Mom about the ginger,” Imogen continued, pointing her fork in his direction. “That’s where we went wrong. Let me put it in mathspeak. Ginger does not equal garlic.”

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full, Imogen,” Mom said. But she smiled, and Imogen smiled a sauce-covered smile, too.

  “Is this a dream?” Charlie asked. He felt like a little kid, trying to put a square peg in a round hole. No matter how he sorted the information, he couldn’t come up with anything that fit.

  “How did you find this place? Do you live here now? How long have you known about this? Why didn’t you tell me? Does Dad know?” He couldn’t get the questions out fast enough.

  “Charlie, I know this might be overwhelming,” Mom said.

  Might be overwhelming? The last time he had seen his mother, she was lying in a coffin in her favorite light-blue dress. And people had patted his shoulder and squeezed his hand and said over and over, I’m sorry for your loss.

  Loss. Gone. Mom was gone and now she wasn’t. His stomach was doing loop-de-loops like he was at the top of the hill on the Beast—something that was awesome and terrifying at the same time. This feeling he had was exactly like that—his stomach in his throat, his voice caught midair, not sure if he should scream or laugh or do both—but magnified times a thousand.

  He turned to Imogen and asked again, “How did you find this place?”

  He squeezed the fork so hard that he thought it might pop out from his fist. He stuck his other hand under his leg, hoping to still his trembling fingers.

  Imogen opened her mouth, and then closed it. He traced her careful gaze to his hands. Her own hands perched on the edge of the table. He knew she was ready to push away from him at any moment. His face flushed red, his anger now directed at himself.

  She spoke, her voice quiet. “Last night, after the spaghetti stuff happened and you got mad, I went into my room.”

  Charlie’s face grew hotter.

  “I crawled under my bed like we used to during those storms.” Her voice lowered even further. “And I found the door. And then I somehow ended up here, where I found Mom waiting in my other room for me!”

  He looked at Mom. “I just don’t understand what this place is.”

  “The important thing is that we’re together now.” She squeezed his hand reassuringly. “Now eat.”

  Mom was right. Somehow, they were all together now.

  Feelings that Charlie had hidden away shot to the surface, threatening to spill over through his eyeballs. “I’ve missed you, Mom.” His voice cracked.

  “I’ve missed you, too, Charlie. So much.”

  A dull pain began to grow at the base of his skull, right near his neck. It felt like a mild brain freeze, like when he and Frank used to race to finish the giant cherry slushies from Gas & Snacks.

  But he was certain that traveling through some strange portal and seeing your once dead, now alive Mom would give anyone a headache. He tentatively took a bite of the spaghetti. Then he shoved an even bigger forkful in his mouth. Now, only slightly warm, it was still amazing.

  Amazing. Charlie couldn’t believe how a day that had started out so terrible could turn into the best day of his life.

  A BELATED ADVENTURE

  Charlie didn’t think he had ever had better spaghetti. But when he tried to think back to the other times he had eaten spaghetti with Mom, he couldn’t think of any.

  He leaned over to Imogen when Mom was dishing up more for them. “Gen, is this the first time we’ve eaten this with Mom?”

  Imogen rolled her eyes. “Of course it is!” She said some things after that, but Charlie couldn’t tell what because she had just shoved the remaining piece of bread in her mouth.

  Of course it is, Charlie thought. But something tickled at the back of his brain like a tag on the collar of a sweatshirt. Maybe this was the first time they had all had spaghetti together, but that didn’t make sense. Did it?

  All his questions seemed to disappear, though, whenever he looked at Mom. Her hair had all grown back in. Her cheeks were rosy. She told the same jokes that he loved—
the ones that made him groan and laugh at the same time.

  Once Charlie and Imogen were stuffed full of spaghetti and they had cleared the dishes, Mom clapped her hands together. “Okay! What should we do now?”

  Charlie stifled a yawn. It was probably only six or seven at the latest, though he couldn’t find any kind of clock to check. He didn’t know why he was so tired. However, he wanted to stay with Mom as long as possible, so he pushed back the tiredness and pinched his legs to keep himself awake.

  He still had no idea what was going on, but he knew one thing for certain: he had missed her. If she wanted to do something, he was going to do it.

  “An adventure!” Imogen cheered. “Even though it’s not Saturday,” she added.

  “Well, there’s always room for a new tradition!” Mom replied. “Let’s have a scavenger hunt!” She looked around the kitchen and then brightened, as if struck with an idea. “Okay, you all stay in here and I’ll go hide some things and come up with some clues.”

  She twirled out of the kitchen.

  Charlie leaned against the hard back of the chair, resting his head. For once, his body felt loose and relaxed—not tight like a rubber band, ready to fire. Imogen bounced up and down next to him. “This is going to be so fun! I love scavenger hunts.”

  “Me too, Gen,” Charlie said.

  “Do you think there’ll be a prize?” Imogen asked. “That’s the best part.”

  Charlie was about to agree when he noticed Imogen starting to rub the back of her neck. But before he could ask her about it, Mom stuck her head through the doorway.

  “Are you all ready?” she asked. Imogen and Charlie nodded. “I have the first clue.” She waved a small piece of paper in the air. “Grab your notebook and pick up a pen. For here you will find stories of a giant and tiny men.”