HeartWorks

by Charmaine Gordon

  “Jonson.” Mrs. Bernerd called her youngest in to the room. “Okay, I’m waiting.”

  Lawrence waited until everyone, except Callie, was seated. “I asked Callie to marry me,”

  Leisha, still holding Jacob, stood suddenly, “What? You can’t. She was supposed to marry Jimmy.”

  “Jimmy’s gone.” Callie barely whispered.

  “And now you think that marrying his brother is going to bring him back?”

  “No. Nothing will bring Jimmy back.”

  “Child,” Mrs. Bernerd addressed Callie, “do you love Lawrence?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you still love Jimmy?”

  “I always will. It’s different than what I feel for Lawrence.”

  “Mama,” Lawrence took Callie’s hand again, “We’re going to raise Jacob knowing he is Jimmy’s son.”

  Leisha was on the verge of tears, “I still don’t like it.”

  Mrs. Bernerd was quiet for a few minutes, she looked between her children and Callie. Her eyes settled on Jacob and she smiled. “It seems to me that once a woman knows a good love and loses it, she is usually ready to love again. You had a good love with my Jimmy, I just want you to be sure that you love Lawrence for him and not because he is Jimmy’s brother.”

  “I do, Mama.”

  “But Mama,” Leisha interrupted, “You never went with any man after daddy died.”

  “I had four young children to support, I didn’t have time to get involved with another man.” She chuckled, “That could always change now that you three are grown and I’m retired. I just might start having some fun and who knows?”

  “Mama!” Three voices chimed in.

  “Child,” she addressed Callie again, “you’ve brought this family joy since you showed up at our door. I’ll be very happy to call you my daughter-in-law.”

  Several months later, shortly after Lawrence passed the bar, a wedding was held in the family church. Jonson was Lawrence’s Best Man and Leisha stood up for Callie as the Maid of Honor.

  A proud Grams walked her grandson down the aisle as the Ring bearer. Jacob carried a small, white silken pillow with two rings tied on with ribbon and hand-embroidered words, courtesy of Lawrence’s mother.

  Callie read the words by Maya Angelou out loud to her new husband, “Have enough courage to trust love one more time. And always, one more time.”

  The Fourteenth Floorboard

  by Neva Squires-Rodriguez

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my beautiful daughter, Christina Gabriela, who I’ve shared many of my paranormal experiences with. Thank you for watching endless hours of Ghost type television shows with me and for being so obsessed with the phenomena in general. I hope nothing this scary ever happens to you, but remember that just like the mother in this story, I will always be with you and help guide you.

  I would like to thank my author bestie Tamara Philip Vaughan and publisher Kimberlee Williams for checking in on me from time to time and encouraging me to keep writing. What would I do without you, have a social life? Just kidding, I love being a nerd and I love you for putting up with my odd sense of self.

  I would also like to thank my mother Delia Squires for her willingness to be the first to read and critique my work and my three boys Nicholas, Elijah and Anthony for being quiet from time to time and allowing me to write. I don’t know what I’d do without any of the above people being in my life. Last but not least a big thank you to my readers and followers for their wonderful ratings, I truly appreciate them and you in general.

  Chapter One

  “Holy moly!” I exclaimed aloud, wondering if this could really be happening.

  I took a step back and then a step forward, looking down at my feet before doing it again. I was confused, with each step forward and back the scenery around me changed. Everything happened when I passed over the fourteenth floorboard in the middle of my attic. I didn’t feel any different, aside from a slight breeze that hit me with my steps and told myself that whatever it was that I was experiencing couldn’t be possible.

  I held out my arm and scratched it, just to make sure that this moment was real. When I felt the scratch, I did it again and again until I drew blood. This couldn’t be happening. I felt lost in this new world of my attic and suddenly felt weak as I looked around the room. There was no way in the world that I was dreaming and I wasn’t sure how I felt about this.

  I had been up to the attic a hundred times before, despite my grandmother telling me not to. My grandmother could be a weird old woman at times, fueled by the crazy superstitions that she brought to the United States from Mexico. I on the other hand couldn’t help coming up here. I loved to play with the old toys that I found stored in boxes as a young girl, regardless of the fact that I didn’t have the slightest clue who they belonged to. In spite of this, the truth was that I had never once ventured to this side of the attic.

  Our house was pretty big and the attic was a massive room that sat on top of it, I didn’t know if my mother had ever made it up here after her and my father moved in, but if she had I knew that she would have loved it. The back wall was lined with boxes, left by the previous owners. Many of them were labeled, though there was dust, spider webs and anything else someone might think about when they imagined coming up to an attic.

  The smell of the attic was stale and sometimes made me cough, but that didn’t stop me from frequenting the massive room. I remembered dressing up as a princess and looking in the full length mirror that used to be by the window and had somehow moved to another spot, unknown to me because of the dim lighting and clutter that filled the room.

  Now, everything seemed to be different. Everything changed with that one step, the smell, the lighting, the curtains on the window, everything. Could this be real? I thought to myself. That step introduced a new room, bright with lighting, clean and organized. The smell was fresh and somewhat indescribable. It didn’t smell like anything specifically, just not like an attic. I glanced at my hand as I held it in front of me to see if it looked different, but it didn’t. My long and narrow fingers showed before me, as well as my pale skin with a deep scratch mark, from when I scratched it earlier.

  “This is crazy!” I muttered under my breath.

  It was my own attic. I recognized it, but how could it be so different with one footstep? I looked around for answers but there was nothing. The floor of the attic was even bright and clean. It had gone from a deep mahogany color on my side to newly finished pine color on the other side. I glanced around to see what else had changed when I heard muffled voices near the stairway and suddenly the doorway at the foot of the stairs opened. Someone gasped.

  “Mama, she’s here.” I heard a voice say.

  I glanced back, wondering whether I should retreat to my side, but decided against it. Suddenly A woman and a little girl appeared and as I glanced down at them, I couldn’t help noticing how much the woman resembled my mother. I shook my head, knowing that it couldn’t be her. My mother had passed away years before, but this woman had all of my mother’s features.

  Her long dirty blonde hair was pulled back in a clip, just the way that my mother used to wear it. She had a small nose, perfectly shaped eyebrows and glossy lips, which she pressed together when our eyes met. She wore a long blue dress that fit her small hips perfectly. The girl that stood at her side must have been her daughter, though she looked a little like a mixture of my brother and me. The girl had the same smile as my mother and shared many of my father’s features. I gasped and stepped backward. When I did, I was back in my own attic and no one stood at the bottom of the stairs.

  My heart pounded heavily and I took a moment to gather my composure, before asking God to give me the strength I needed to take another step forward. I raised my foot and my body shook with fear. Despite that fear, I decided to lower my foot, stepping back to their side of the attic. When I did, the woman and child were coming up the stairs toward me. I felt my eyes grow larger as they di
d and the woman held up her hands and waved.

  Chapter Two

  “Don’t step back!” The woman exclaimed as she ran up the steps with the girl trailing behind her.

  “I wasn’t planning to.” I muttered, almost against my will.

  The girl seemed hesitant while the woman’s smile grew with every footstep. Her footsteps sounded soft on the stairs, both of theirs did. The stairs didn’t creak with each step as they did in my own attic. I was confused and reached up to grasp my necklace, as if it would protect me.

  “Mrs. Miller,” the girl called down the stairs.

  She held the banister with her life and slowly climbed the last three stairs toward me and the woman who had already reached the top of the stairs.

  “Hush now,” the woman said as she turned back to the girl. “Give us a minute to figure out what’s happening.”

  The girl obediently closed her mouth and stared at me with big eyes. Her long brown hair hung in a messy ponytail. Wisps of hair fell onto her face as she balanced herself and slowly climbed up the last step. Her small face was flawless, not a single freckle on it as I had in spite of the fact that she looked like me when I was her age.

  “Gabriela,” The woman said to me, holding out her hand slowly.

  I looked around even though I knew that this was my name, focusing on her extended hand and feeling as if I was about to faint. I raised one foot as though to step backward, but reluctantly placed it back down in front of me. The hairs on my arms stood up as the woman walked over to embrace me.

  “I can feel you.” The woman said quietly as she took me in her arms and hugged me, rubbing her hands over my back. “Oh thank the good lord that I can feel you.”

  The woman stepped back suddenly as if she was admiring me.

  “Look at you, a little lady now.” The woman asked. “How old are you now, fifteen I’m guessing right?”

  I nodded.

  “Al-almost.” I muttered, looking away.

  I tried not to let our eyes meet, but couldn’t help looking away for less than a moment. I could feel my heart beating heavily within my chest. It seemed to beat so hard and quickly that I thought that the woman and her child could hear it. I moved my hand down, away from my necklace and felt my chest to see if what I felt was real. When I could tell that it was, I looked up at the woman, who couldn’t stop smiling and then at the girl, examining her long brown dress. I thought it an unusual style of clothing for such a young girl. It almost seemed old fashioned, like some of the clothes that I had found in the attic when I was her age. The fabric however, was new and fell nearly to the floor. The girl backed away, as if she was scared. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with her frightened expression, she only looked to be about eight years old, younger than my brother by about a year if I had to guess.

  “Mama, she doesn’t know who we are.” The girl said as she brushed a wisp of hair back from her face, suddenly seeming to calm down. The girl released her hold on the banister and stepped slowly to her mother’s side.

  “I know Ruby.” The woman said as she turned from her to me, her voice lowering with every word.

  She took my hand in hers and turned me to the girl.

  “Gabriela, this is your sister Ruby and I know this is going to be hard to understand, but I am your mother.” The woman said, almost blushing as she spoke. “I hope you will be able to open your mind up in order to understand what is going on here.”

  I shook my head and looked from the girl to the woman. Their expressions were unchanged. I stared at the two of them for a moment and thought to myself that this was some sort of evil prank my brother was playing on me. Who were these people and how did any of them manage to pull this stunt off.

  “No,” I responded quietly to her. “My mother is dead.”

  I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. I tried to fight them off but I felt one roll down my cheek and fall from the side of my face. I held my hand up to catch it and then stared at the drop of water in my hand momentarily, before smearing it on the side of my jeans. The woman touched her cheek softly as tears began to fall from her own eyes. She sighed and used the arm of her dress to wipe them away.

  “I know how hard all of this is to believe.” She said, glancing from Ruby to me. “I know that I’m dead in your world, but I’ve made it to the second realm of life. I was one of the lucky ones, one of the good ones and so was Ruby.”

  The woman stopped talking briefly and smoothed down her dress before continuing.

  “God blessed her.” The woman said. “She was just a baby. Do you remember when I was pregnant last?”

  I finally had regained control over the tears in my eyes and somehow managed to shake my head in spite of how unreal this all felt.

  “No I don’t.” I replied. “I don’t remember a baby. There’s only me and Jack. Jack is my only brother. There is no one else.”

  The woman shook her head and bit down on her lip.

  “No Gabriela.” She replied. “Do you remember about a year before I died, I was pregnant and I lost the baby? Do you remember that you wished so badly for it to be a girl so that you would have someone beside Jack to play with?”

  The woman smiled and wiped more tears from her eyes.

  “You were right Gabriela.” The woman said. “It was a girl. That was her, baby Ruby. She came to stay here to this realm to stay with Mrs. Miller and the others until I joined her.”

  I shook my head in disbelief.

  “That can’t be real.” I said. “That’s impossible. Do you really think that I’m going to believe that? How would you? How could she? It just doesn’t make sense. There is no way that you can be my mother. This is some cruel prank that Jack put you up to. My mother died from Cancer, this is not right what you are doing. Please just stop playing around with my emotions.”

  The woman stared at me blankly for a moment.

  “Gabriela, the cancer was in my uterus.” The woman replied. “It spread quickly and while they originally told your father and me that it was treatable, everything was out of the doctors hands. How else could I know that? This is all very real Gabriela. This is my life as I know it now. It’s all controlled, more so than I ever imagined in the first level of it. I can explain everything to you, if you’ll let me.”

  Chapter Three

  She walked across the room toward the window and then back over to me and took my hand in hers. I looked down at it. Her hand was warm and soft, not how I imagined it would feel at all. It felt just as it had, the many times that I’d held my mother’s hand in the hospital when I’d gone with my father to see her.

  “This is the second realm of life, the second level.” The woman said. “This is a place that no one ever talks about when we’re in the first level. Not many know about it, or about all of us who live here. We share the same space that you live in, but are unseen by the first levels. I don’t know how to explain what’s going on but no one that I know of from the first level has crossed over, until you did just now.”

  The woman stared at me and when I said nothing she glanced at Ruby and then continued.

  “Usually Mediums and Psychics have some kind of an idea that we are here, but there is simply not enough energy or time to tell them exactly where here is.” The woman said. “There is usually only enough energy to get short messages across to them. Sometimes there are bad second levels present and they play tricks so that we can’t get our messages across. I know that it must sound crazy to you Gabriela and the only reason that I can think of that they would do that is so that no one tries to figure out where here is.”

  The woman smiled, but the redness from her tears still showed in her eyes. She paused as she studied my expression. I wondered if she could tell that I was starting to believe her. I looked down and when I did she continued.

  “Gabriela, I’ve tried to touch you a hundred times, but I’ve never been successful until now.” The woman said. “You don’t know how hard it is for me to be away from you and Jack, but
it helps that we can watch over you. I don’t know how you made it into our realm. I didn’t think it was possible, but I guarantee you that if I hold your hand as you go back across that floor board you will no longer feel or see me. I do guarantee you however, that I will still be there. I can get into your realm, easily. I watch over you constantly, whether you be at school or at home. Actually Ruby and I both do.”

  She glanced back at Ruby who smiled from ear to ear. Ruby wiped more wisps of hair from the sides of her face and stepped forward.

  “You still sleep with the doll that Mama bought you when you were just a baby.” Ruby said, giggling. “You call her Hazel and talk to her like you would talk to Mama. It’s actually pretty funny sometimes, the things that you say.”

  She glanced at my mother and bit her lips together as if she had said too much, blushing heavily.

  “I didn’t think you were able to come here.” The woman, who I could now see was my mother said.

  She walked across the back end of the attic as she spoke.

  “Sometimes I try to take your hand in mine as you sleep, but you don’t feel me.” The woman said. “Daddy either. I used to try to hold his hand. I used to try to touch him. I would lay down with him on the bed with Ruby while he was asleep and stay there until it was morning. I did that until he married Farrah and she moved in to our house, now I don’t dare enter our bedroom. I have no desire to see what goes on in there.”

  My mother shook her head and I looked up at her without speaking. It was true, my dad had remarried. I didn’t get along with his new wife, but Jack did. I wondered if my mother knew that and I felt embarrassed at some of the things my mother must have seen.

  “I’ve tried to make myself understand that I always knew he’d move on eventually, but I didn’t think it would be that quickly.” My mother’s voice cracked as she spoke.