“What can I do?”
“Unless you can hold back death, I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do. Not this time.”
He was silent.
She said, “Kaylie is home with Emma.”
“Yes. I was just there. Checking in.”
Lisa thought maybe she should find that frightening. An invasion of her home, her family. But instead she found it reassuring.
She said, “Kaylie talks about you all the time.”
They were both silent for a few moments. Then the Darkness said, “You look tired.”
She nodded. “I feel like I haven’t slept in years.”
“I will watch over her. Go get some coffee. Maybe call home.”
Lisa nodded again. “Emma asked me to keep her posted.”
She rose wearily from the chair. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“There is no need to hurry.”
She looked about the darkness that was now enveloping the room, as though the lights had been shut off. “You’re very kind.”
“I am what I am.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. She raised her brows in a little shrug, the headed out the door.
“Sondra,” the Darkness said. “Awaken.”
She didn’t. She continued to sleep, breathing easily.
He reached into her mind. Not enough to cause damage, just enough to serve as a little jump start.
She opened her eyes.
“Sondra,” he said again.
“You.” Her voice was thin. Whispery.
“Yes.”
“You’ve come to say goodbye.”
He began to corporealate before her. To become a tall, dark silhouette. “I have come to offer you life.”
“Life? How? I have lived. Now I am at the end of my life. To all things there is a beginning, and an ending.”
“No. Energy does not end. It might changes its form. We are, after all, little more than sentient energy fields inhabiting a body.”
She managed a smile. “You’re getting metaphysical, now? In your odd way?”
“I am simply stating facts. Or, rather, observations I have made, over the years.”
“All right, I have to admit. I’m intrigued. How can you offer me life?”
“I can take you with me. You and I can be as one.”
“You mean..,” she was a little perplexed, “you can make me like you?”
“I don’t know if you would be like me, as much as with me. You could ride the night winds with me, forever.”
“Forever?”
“I think I will always be, as long as there is darkness. Would you make this journey with me?”
“How can you do this?”
“I don’t know. I only know that I can. One of these days, I will have to visit Scott Tempest, and see if he can find some answers. But in the meantime, I invite you to join me. If you will.”
Her life spun before her eyes, in a sort of rapid fast-forward, though she saw every moment in detail. Her childhood. Her teen years. Receiving the engagement ring from Dean. Their marriage. Their children. Their life together. All the years, all the moments.
She looked at the dark mysterious humanoid before her. “Yes. I’ll go with you.”
He reached out to her, placing a cold, hard hand on her head. And he reached into her. She closed her eyes, and let him envelope her within himself.
She found herself gasping. And looking about. Her nightgown was lying on the bed beneath her, but was now empty. She was above the bed, and beside it. And all around it.
She said, I feel like a wraith.
Not a wraith, he said.
I know. The darkness.
She found herself looking into his soul. She saw herself through his eyes. She remembered this boy, from so many years ago. I know you.
He said, I don’t think you ever saw me.
I did see you. I remember you well. I am so flattered that you thought of me as you did.
He had waited so long for her to actually see him. Not to look past him, or through him. He had long ago given up on this moment ever actually happening. But now it was here, and he was not sure how to feel.
She said, If I had only known how you felt then. That there was a boy who had such deep feelings for me.
Would you have looked back at me? He said.
She gave a sort of mental shrug. I don’t know. I was so young then. I don’t know if I was ready for a love so deep.
He was silent.
She said, But we’re here, now. Together.
Yes.
She said, Show me what it’s like. To ride the night winds.
Lisa returned with a styrofoam cup of horrible tasting coffee in one hand. She had gotten it from a dispenser in the lobby. She had called Emma and gave her a progress report. The doctors didn’t think it would be long. Maybe tonight, or maybe tomorrow.
“I should be there with you,” Emma had said.
“No, sweetie. You should be right where you are. With your sweet daughter.”
“I just hate for you to be alone at a time like this.”
“I’m not alone. Uncle D.J.’s flight is due in tomorrow morning. And, he stopped by. That darkness being. I’ll be all right.”
“Keep me posted.”
Lisa had returned the phone to her purse, then invested $1.25 in the worst tasting coffee on the planet, and headed back to her mother’s room.
She found the Darkness was no longer there, which struck her as a little odd because he had said he would watch over her mother. But then she realized her mother was no longer there, either. Her nightgown was lying on the bed, empty. Almost like her mother’s body had simply disappeared, and the nightgown had collapsed to the mattress.
Then she realized what must have happened. Where her mother must have gone. The only reason the Darkness would have left her side, she somehow knew, was if he could take her with him.
She went to the window, and looked out into the night. A three-quarter moon hovered above, casting a silvery light onto rooftops. A cloud drifted lazily.
She expected tears, and yet what came was a smile.
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