Window in the Earth Trilogy

by Fish, Matthew

  Bones let out what could have been a short laugh in between his tears. “I don’t know…I think this part is worse than the dying.”

  Christopher nodded, rubbing the sleeve of his shirt on his nose. “I’ll be outside…,” he whispered, painfully turning his back to Bones and walking out into the hallway. The weight upon his heart was so heavy that he worried that it might bring him crashing through the floor, but somehow, he kept walking.

  James was standing against the wall. His face was red with anger, and he was scowling at the floor. Christopher shuffled to James, embracing him tightly as the tears came streaming down his face once more. James quickly returned the hug, squeezing Christopher so hard that it hurt his sides, yet the hug still didn’t feel tight enough.

  “James…”

  “I’m sorry…,” James whispered to his brother, fighting back his own tears. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Are you ready?” Christopher asked, pausing with each painful breath. “Are you ready to see him?”

  “I’m not ready,” James said between sobs. “I’m not ready to say goodbye.”

  James released Christopher and slowly made his way to the door of room 504. He looked back to Kylie and Christopher, who both nodded at him in encouragement. Nodding back, he took the well-soaked handkerchief from Christopher and then stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him.

  Kylie embraced Christopher, bringing him as close to her as she could. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I just can’t believe this is happening,” Christopher whispered as he hugged her tightly. “I can’t believe that in the morning Bones won’t be here anymore. I wish that this was all just a nightmare.”

  “I know…,” Kylie whispered, rubbing her hand against Christopher’s eyes, clearing away the fresh coat of tears. “I wish none of this was happening. I don’t know why we have to be punished like this.”

  “You’re not being punished,” Bill replied. Christopher had not noticed that he was standing next to Jack. The pair had watched in silence as the events had unfolded before them. Bill continued, “The world is just a place that really sucks sometimes. But you have each other, so at least hold on to that. The whole world can be the biggest mess possible, but as long as you three have each other in your hearts then it don’t matter one single bit.”

  “He’s right,” Jack said quietly as he kneeled down next to the two, placing a hand on each of their shoulders. “Besides, you three have made Bones so happy. Look at it this way: if he had never met his grandkids, then who would be here to care about him when it was his time to go? Who would be here to see him off…?”

  “Not to mention we’ve heard rumors of the strangest things happening lately,” Bill said. “The rest of the area is flooding all around Pine Hallow, yet something is keeping us all from drowning in it. Then you guys all go and find that missing girl from that legend. I think it was fate that you guys were here. Bones needed you, just like that missing girl needed you all to happen upon her, and Pine Hallow is a better place for you all being here in it.”

  Christopher nodded in silence. These words were great and encouraging; however, they did not even begin to help with the pain within him.

  “He should just be here to enjoy this. He should have been allowed more time,” Kylie whispered, placing her head on Christopher’s chest, her arms still firm around him.

  “I think so, too,” Bill said quietly, as though he had no more good things to say. “I really do.”

  The door to Bones’ room slowly opened, and James emerged from behind it. His face was expressionless and blank, as though the whole world had fallen apart around him. He nodded to Christopher in silence as he went to sit against the hallway wall.

  “Kylie…,” Christopher said as he gently let go of her. “Do you?”

  “Yeah…,” Kylie whispered, letting out a small encouraging smile. “Yeah, I do.…”

  Kylie made her way into the room, her eyes down to the floor as she firmly bit her bottom lip. She looked back once more to Christopher, gently shutting the door behind her.

  Christopher watched as James sat against the wall, his head buried in his hands as he sat there, motionless. Then he suddenly looked up to Christopher, a strange look of understanding in his eyes. “We have choices…,” he finally muttered under his breath.

  “What?” Christopher asked, staring at James blankly.

  “We have a choice,” James said as he got to his feet and ran down the hallway. “We have a choice!” he yelled again, startling a nurse, who had to dart out of his way. He was running like a madman.

  “Is he all right?” Jack asked, watching, a confused look upon his face.

  “I don’t know,” Christopher said, thinking for a moment. We have a choice? What did James mean by that? It was what Alena had said before, but what did it have to do with this?

  James came running around the corner; he was pushing a wheelchair out in front of him. He rushed up to the group and stopped before the door, his breathing heavy and his voice too shaky to understand. “We have choices….”

  “What’s this?” Bill asked, shaking his head.

  “Please, just trust me,” James said quickly as he turned to everyone around him. “You trust me don’t you? We have a secret…a secret place.”

  “We trust you, James,” Jack answered; intent on listening to what he had to say. “Go on.”

  “We have to get Bones there, to the cave,” James continued, pausing for a moment to catch his breath in the midst of his excitement. He turned to Christopher and spoke: “Don’t you see, Chris? This is what Alena meant by choices…this must be it!”

  “Take Bones to the window?” Christopher asked, rolling the idea around in his head for a moment. It did seem like something that could be possible.

  “Yes!” James exclaimed. “Don’t you see? He doesn’t have to die; he can live on in the cave. He can live on in his memories!”

  James quickly rushed into the room, startling both Kylie and Bones as Christopher, Bill, and Jack quickly followed behind him. They were causing quite a commotion.

  “What’s going on?” Kylie asked, glancing around the room as though she was missing something.

  “Bones!” James cried as he pulled the wheelchair up to his bedside. “Get in. We’re taking you to the cave.”

  “What?” Bones asked, as he slowly sat up in the bed, surprised.

  “You can live on, with Cat,” James said as he went to Bones side, pulling on him in his bed. “You don’t have to go. You can be with her again.”

  “Are you all right with this?” Jack asked, very confused at the current situation.

  “Yeah…,” Bones whispered back. “Okay, James….”

  “Okay?” James repeated excitedly as he searched for some way to get Bones up and moving. “We can do this….”

  “Bill, Jack…could you please step out for a moment?” Bones asked. “Please shut the door behind you.”

  “But…,” James protested.

  Bones quietly shook his head. “I really do appreciate it, James. Believe me with everything that I am.”

  “You aren’t going to go…?” Kylie whispered as she tightly closed her eyes.

  “Please understand, James…,” Bones said as he reached out for his hand.

  “I don’t understand…,” he whispered, the excitement gone from his face and replaced by sadness and tears once again.

  “In the cave…,” Bones began, his eyes heavy and red and filling with tears, “…in the cave that’s just a memory. It’s just a memory of me and Cat together…she’s not down there. She never really was. While what you are offering me is very tempting, because at least I know for sure what would happen to me, I’ll have to pass.”

  James fell on his knees. He hung his head down as tears came streaming down once more. “I know…,” he finally whispered. “I know….”

  “Wherever I go tonight…that is where she really will be,” Bones said as he lay in the bed. “I’m so sorry; again�
��this is the choice that I make. But I thank all three of you for trying one last time. Thank you for this one last hope of an adventure.”

  “Bones…,” Christopher whispered as he sat down on the ground next to James, “…you’ll see her again, I’m sure.”

  A few hours later, in the early moments of the morning, surrounded by his beloved new family and the greatest of friends, Bones quietly died, releasing his hold on this world and slipping away into the next. He looked as though he felt no pain; he looked as though he carried over no worry. Christopher thought he looked at peace. He always liked to believe afterward that Bones had found what he was looking for.

  Sometimes, he figured, the choices that we think we need to make are not ours to make. Sometimes the memories we have are shared memories and the dreams we have are shared by all. Sometimes the people we care about slip away from us, and sometimes we slip away from the people that we care about. Life is this, both good and bad. It’s the good moments that we have to remember, Christopher had thought, or else there isn’t any reason to try. All the bad memories will take over, and everything in the world will always look grim and hopeless.

  Chapter 16: Last Day in Pine Hallow

  If the sky can shed tears, and the thundercloud cry, then can the sunny day not beam as the ocean rolls with the wind in its heart?

  The rain poured down from the gray sky so fiercely that Christopher wondered if the earth itself was saddened by Bones’ passing. The morning hours had marched on, yet Christopher felt as though time had completely stopped. His body felt heavy, his mind exhausted, and his eyes were red and stinging with dryness.

  Sitting in an awkward, sad silence, Christopher, James and Kylie waited in the hospital lobby, their eyes heavy and their gazes to the ground. There were no words that Christopher could bring to mind, no encouraging thought to break the mood around them, no jokes, and, worst of all, no words to express how sad he felt.

  Jack Olen quietly approached the three with an umbrella in one hand and a suitcase in the other. “Kylie…,” he whispered.

  “Yeah?” Kylie answered, slowly lifting her sad eyes to greet Jack.

  “I got a hold of your mother…,” Jack said, setting his things down on the ground and kneeling before the three. “She’ll be in around five tonight.…”

  “What’s going to happen to us?” James asked as he rubbed his eyes.

  “I’ve gotten in touch with Aunt Lynn…,” Jack said, continuing with a hesitant look upon his face, “It’s been arranged that you two will live with her now.”

  “No…,” Christopher whispered. He shook his head in disgust. “Anyone but her.…”

  “Can’t we just stay…?” James asked, although he already knew the answer to that question.

  “I’m sorry…,” Jack answered, reluctantly shaking his head. “Come on now, we’ll go to the house and collect your things. We have all day to talk about what is going to happen from this point on.”

  Christopher nodded as he rose to his feet. He reached down, helping Kylie up as they followed Jack and James out of the hospital.

  “Wait here!” Jack shouted, attempting to talk over the maddeningly loud rain. “I’ll go get the car, you guys stay out of the rain!”

  “All right,” James said, nodding in acknowledgement.

  Kylie reached out for Christopher’s hand, gripping it tightly. She brought his head down to hers as she whispered into his ear, “Don’t worry; things will be okay.”

  Christopher looked longingly into her eyes, the beautiful piercingly blue eyes that he had come to know and love. Then he slowly shook his head in disagreement, whispering into her ear, “I feel like things’ll never be okay, not ever again. Today we’ll be separated, and, in a small way, the world is ending for me.”

  Kylie looked to him, tears coming to her eyes. She shook her head, slowly wiping them away. She didn’t have anything to say in reply, as though she could not think of a single comforting thing at all. Instead, Kylie reached for Christopher and embraced him fully.

  Pulling up in the large truck, Jack quickly opened the driver’s-side door and jumped out. Umbrella in hand, he circled around and opened up the passenger door, helping everyone into the large cab of the truck. It was James who went in first, and then Kylie.

  Christopher stood alone as Jack held out a hand to help him into the truck. Christopher slowly turned away from the truck to look at the hospital one last time. Rain falling all around him, he slowly raised his head to look up to the fifth floor of the hospital, the floor that Bones had been on. He wondered where Bones was now, wondered if he could see him standing out there in the rain.

  Jack rushed over, covering Christopher with the umbrella. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah…,” Christopher whispered, forcing his eyes away from the hospital. “I was just saying goodbye.”

  “Let’s get out of this rain,” Jack said, sounding either touched or saddened by what Christopher had said.

  “Right,” Christopher said. He turned to the hospital once more, nodding at it as though it was a person he was talking to. He then slowly turned and made his way into the truck. His hair was soaking wet and his clothes cold and damp, and he didn’t care at all.

  Kylie reached over, pulling him closer to her. It seemed as though she didn’t mind the fact that he was so wet either. “At least we got to say goodbye,” she said

  “Yeah,” James agreed. “I wish that we had that chance with our parents. At least we got to see him one last time.”

  “Yeah…,” Christopher replied. He stared out the window, watching the world through the rain-soaked glass of the truck window. Buildings rushed by, distorted in the rain, the lights of the cars in traffic lighting in each droplet of water with a brilliant red. Christopher saw people walking, umbrellas raised above their heads, busy making their way with whatever business they had at hand. He wondered as he watched them, slowly catching second-long glimpses of people who had lived their entire lives up to this point. He wondered it would be like, to be them and to live their lives. Would he not feel anymore sadness, or would he just be experiencing different kinds of sadness?

  Christopher could feel his head becoming heavier and heavier, and the city was no longer visible from the window. He was returning home, or at least to what would be his home for the rest of the day. The ride, and the exhaustion, finally set in and he simply passed out, his head laying to rest upon Kylie’s shoulder.

  He didn’t know how long it had been, as he was suddenly jolted awake.

  “Stop!” Kylie yelled, her hands firmly pressed against the window.

  Christopher jumped, realizing that Kylie was literally on top of him as she gazed through the window.

  Jack quickly hit the brakes, causing the truck to slide for a few feet in the heavy rain. “What?” Jack said, sounding completely shocked, as if he had accidentally run someone over or worse. “What is it?”

  “Is something out there?” James asked, his voice heavy, as though he had fallen asleep.

  “I saw him…,” Kylie whispered as she frantically scrambled to look out the back window. “I swear I saw him.”

  “Who did you see?” Jack asked, slowly turning around in his seat, attempting to get a better view out the back window.

  “My father,” Kylie said quietly, sounding as though she was a little unsure of herself. “I was half-asleep, and I was staring out the window. I could have sworn that I saw him. He just stared at me. He just stood there, staring at me.”

  “I didn’t see anyone,” Jack said. “Are you sure?”

  “I don’t know,” Kylie whispered. “I was so sure at the time.”

  “Maybe it’s the stress,” James suggested, glancing out the back window.

  Christopher scanned the area heavily with tired eyes, trying to make out anything or anyone in the rain. The entire area looked clear and undisturbed. If her father was there, perhaps he had already run off into the trees.

  “I’m sorry,” Kylie said, shaking her
head and rubbing her eyes. “I must have just been seeing things.”

  “Not a problem,” Jack said. He put the truck back into gear, rolling on ahead. “Don’t be sorry about it, it happens under moments of stress and exhaustion like this. I remember one time, back when I was in school. I had stayed up studying so long that I was sure that I saw someone peeking in on me through the window of my dorm.”

  “Was anyone there?” James asked, clearly missing the point of the story.

  “I lived on the twentieth floor,” Jack said as he shook his head. “If someone was there, it must have been Spider-Man.”