by H. G. Nadel
Julia’s hand rose to her mouth as her eyes welled up with tears. No wonder Bertel was hoping to discover a soul somewhere in the brain, she thought. He too had lost someone. “Oh no, how awful. I didn’t know. I should’ve known. How did I not know?” The tears started to slip down her cheeks. “So do you think Dr. Bertel chose today to …”
“Kill himself? No. He’s not the one who double-wired the breaker. Maintenance said it’s been that way for years. And there are easier ways to kill yourself than via light bulb. It’s probably just one of those weird coincidences. Like I said, we just need to cover our bases.”
“Just a coincidence,” she echoed. Just like their research. Just like her mother’s apparent postmortem visits. Just like the fact that the last time she took part in scientific experiments, people had almost died.
“One more thing, Julia,” he said.
She took a deep breath.
“May I call you tomorrow? I mean, in case I have follow up questions.” This time he took a breath, which seemed to catch in his throat.
“Sure, call me anytime.” As their eyes met, her chest again filled with heat, and it rose to her cheeks. She was embarrassed to realize just how much she wanted to see him again. This complete stranger had walked in and lit up an inexplicable fire inside of her. It almost hurt not to be able to put her arms around his muscular shoulders and pull him close. She hadn’t felt this for anyone, not even Tyler. Tyler. A wave of guilt hit her, and she took a step back.
“Great. That’d be great.” He leaned forward slightly and took one of her hands in both of his. A thrill of exhilaration pulsed through her body, with an undercurrent of longing and an unexpected feeling of reunion. Her heart was pounding so furiously, she was certain he could hear it. “Julia, don’t blame yourself for not knowing Bertel’s history,” he said. “You’re his summer intern. That’s not supposed to get personal.”
Suddenly, Julia felt tears forming in her eyes. She never knew that any guy besides her father could express so much sensitivity. She and Tyler were close, but he preferred to gloss over his emotions with jokes. “Now don’t go getting all girlie on me,” Tyler said whenever she stared into his eyes for longer than a few seconds. She was overwhelmed with the urge to throw her arms around this man and sob out all the pain of the past year. Instead, she pulled her hand from between his, used the back of it to wipe her eyes, and said, “Thank you, Detective Moore.”
“Austin,” he said, and his perfect smile brought back another wave of dizziness. The coup de grace. She needed to get a grip; it wasn’t as if she’d never seen the benefits of modern orthodontia before. “Oh, and in case you think of anything you forgot to tell me, here’s my card.”
Julia was still staring at his card when Nadia and her father returned. She barely heard a word they said. All she could think about was his beautiful smile, the way his arms rippled underneath his tight shirt, his electric touch, his piercing blue eyes … and the eerie familiarity brought by his presence. She was mesmerized by his touch and terrified that she might not see him again.
As Julia’s father poured her some water, Nadia gushed, “What’d I tell you? Was he hot-fudge-sundae, eat-’m-up delicious, or what?” Julia was too exhausted to come up with a clever retort. Instead, she took the cup of water from her dad and gulped it down silently, staring at the wall in front of her.
Nadia gazed wide-eyed at Julia with concern and a hint of … something else. She snapped her fingers in front of Julia’s eyes. “Hel-lo-o, earth to Julia? Jeez, girl, blush much?” When there was no response, Nadia turned to Morton. “Well, I can see I’m no longer needed here,” she announced with false alacrity. Then she picked up her purse and stormed out of the room.
The doctor soon cleared Julia to leave the hospital, though he suggested plenty of rest for the next couple of days. As she climbed into her father’s car, he said, “So, I guess we’ll have to postpone visiting your mother. How about next Friday?”
Her mother. As Julia fastened her seatbelt, she said, “Dad, my place isn’t that far, and I’d rather drive myself home. Would you please just drive me back to my car?”
“But Julia, the doctor said …”
“He said to rest. He didn’t say I couldn’t drive. And I might need my car this weekend.”
Morton gave her a skeptical look. “We both know you’re just going to see Tyler.”
“No, Dad. I’m not.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, I’ll prove it.”
“That’s not necessary.”
She held up a hand, pulled her cell phone from her purse, and dialed Tyler’s phone number. She got his voicemail. “Hey Tyler, I won’t be able to stop by tonight. I, um … there was an accident at the lab. I’m fine, but it’s been way too much excitement for me, and I need to get some sleep. I’ll call you tomorrow.” She turned to her father. “Satisfied?”
“Honey, whether or not you want to see Tyler, that’s up to you.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter either way, because I’m not seeing him tonight.”
“This wouldn’t have anything to do with that good-looking detective, would it?”
Julia felt the heat rising to her cheeks again. “Don’t be such a dufus, Dad. I just met him. I’m not some kid who gets all wadded up over a guy just because he looks good. C’mon, you know me better than that.”
“That’s my little scientist,” he said.
But she wasn’t so sure if that definition fit her anymore. After all, as soon as her father dropped her off, she was still planning to go to the cemetery to talk to her mother—and she was hoping her mother would talk back.
FIVE
The cemetery was closed, a possibility Julia hadn’t considered. She supposed it made sense. Tyler and his buddies from the basketball team had once gone on a scavenger hunt in which “tombstone” had been on the list. A couple of other teams had brought back Halloween decorations, but Tyler had brought back the real thing loaded in the back of his buddy Rob’s pickup. She and Tyler had argued about it.
“That’s sick!”
“It’s not like it’s your mother’s tombstone.”
“No, it’s some little kid’s. Take it back.”
“This kid died in, like, 1930. Even her parents are dead by now. There’s no one left who cares.”
That’s when she had started crying. Dying was bad enough, but she couldn’t bear the idea that someday there would be no one left who cared.
Now, staring beyond the iron bars into the graveyard, she shivered. “I still care, Mom,” she muttered. “I’ve come to see you.” She was sure the reason the cemetery was locked was to prevent partying and vandalism. She had no intention of doing either. She just wanted to talk to her mom, silly as the idea made her feel. She didn’t know why the need felt so strong. It must be all that research with Bertel. In spite of her doubts, she wondered if they were on the brink of glimpsing some sort of life after death—nothing spooky or supernatural, just simple energy matter. She stared up at the locked gate, which was maybe eight feet tall. She whispered, “Ummm, Mom, if you’re really still around, could you maybe help me with the gate?” Nothing.
Right, there’s no such thing as ghosts.
She heaved a sigh and grabbed two of the bars. She wedged one sandal between the bars, grabbed first one crossbar, then another, and hauled herself over the spikes at the top of the gate. Careful, she thought, wouldn’t want to have the cops find you stuck this way. Austin’s face flashed through her mind and literally threw her off balance. She caught herself before she slipped, then slowly lowered herself down the other side and dropped the last two feet to the ground. Her ankle twisted under her, and she grunted in pain. She stood, tested it, and, finding it only slightly sore, limped into the darkened cemetery.
She hoped she would be able to find the fat palm tree in the dark. Palm trees in a cemetery struck her as undignified somehow. But then, there hadn’t been much dignity in her mother’s death. She remembered the coma
at the end, her mother’s abdomen swollen as if she were pregnant, her beautiful blonde hair completely gone, her eye sockets like bruises, and her bones protruding so much that Julia could almost make out the shape of the skeleton that her mother was now becoming six-feet-under somewhere in this graveyard.
She found the palm tree and turned to find the second tombstone on the right. It was so dark, she couldn’t see her mother’s name. She sat cross-legged facing the tombstone and traced the lettering with her index finger. The grounds must have been watered recently, because she could feel dampness through her jeans. She shivered, though the night was warm. Julia half-expected to feel her mother’s hands draping a sweater over her shoulders.
“Mom?” Her voice was low, but it seemed loud in the silence of the cemetery. “I was going to bring flowers, but I left them in Dad’s car. Mom, I really need to talk to you. I need some advice. I’m worried that maybe I might have gotten involved in another experiment I shouldn’t have.” She took a deep breath and waited.
The last real conversation she and her mother had was about the high school science fair. High school had presented way too many opportunities for humiliation, but this went beyond that. Her mother had already been bedridden by that point, and she had hesitated to talk about what had happened. But it had been big news. Police had gotten involved. It wasn’t as if she could hide it, even though her mother had stopped watching TV. She’d sat on the edge of the bed, twirling her hair around her index finger as she told her the story. She had tried not to look at her mother’s face, sunken amid all those pillows, half-buried already.
“I hate to see you give up on yourself, and not just because you’re my daughter. I know you don’t want to hear this, but you have a gift.” Her mother held up a hand to stop her from protesting. “I know I’m not as smart as you and your father, with your little private science club, but I do know this: Everyone makes mistakes. And scientists, they must make mistakes. This is how they learn, how they make important discoveries. Where would medicine be today if every researcher gave up after just one science project gone wrong?”
“Mom, two judges ended up in the hospital.”
“Your father says that type of snake bite wouldn’t have killed them. And he says your antivenin could still work.”
“What I did was reckless. That’s the word the judges used, and they’re scientists.”
Her father had walked in and continued the conversation. “Okay, maybe it was reckless to try such a thing without clinical trials, but it was a stroke of brilliance to administer the dose with an inhaler! It’s still a brilliant idea—just needs tweaking.” Morton’s eyes got that faraway look they always got when he was working out a problem. She often wondered if he’d ever had ambitions to be more than a pharmacist. He picked up a book off his nightstand and wandered out of the room, muttering to himself: “Perhaps the concentration of the antivenin was just a bit too high …”
She and her mother shared a knowing look and laughed. That was the last time she ever heard her mother laugh. “You see, you can never keep a good scientist down.”
“Mom, do you know what kids at school say whenever they feel like they’re going to yak after they eat? They say, ‘I got Jonesed.’ My name is now slang for food poisoning.”
“But it wasn’t food poisoning, it was snake poisoning.”
“You’re missing the point.”
“I don’t think so. You have an opportunity to make a difference in the world, maybe even save lives. Why throw all of that away?”
“I’m not throwing it all away. I can still save lives. I’ll become a doctor instead. An oncologist.”
Her mother’s eyes had filled with tears then, and she had shaken her head. At the time Julia had thought the gesture was one of disappointment, but now it occurred to her that it may have been pride. She’d reached out and pulled Julia’s head toward her, pressing chapped lips against her daughter’s silky hair.
Julia had thought that helping cancer patients would fulfill her and that working on Dr. Bertel’s research was a step on that path. Had she only been kidding herself? Even though it was an expert’s research project this time, they were definitely dabbling in risky territory.
“Mom, are you here?” Julia shifted her legs into a kneeling position facing the headstone. “I really need to talk to you. I’m afraid that … that Dr. Bertel tried to kill himself. And I’m not sure, but he might have done it because he thought he’d get to see his son again. I can’t talk to Dad about this. You know I can’t. He wouldn’t understand. Is it possible to see the dead again, Mom? Is it?”
A cool breeze rattled the fronds of the nearby palm, and Julia half-expected her mother to appear from beyond the grave. She listened carefully for an answer. Then she heard the faint sound of muffled footsteps. Julia bolted upright. Adrenaline surged through her body as she scanned her surroundings, timidly calling, “Who’s there?” Suddenly, she saw a dark shadow sprinting towards her.
Julia sprang from the headstone and darted through the thick black of night, her heart piercing her chest with repeated blows. The footsteps accelerated, echoing loudly in the silence of the graveyard. She risked a glance over her shoulder and tripped over a gravestone that sent her sprawling onto her stomach. She felt something wet dripping down her forehead and reach up to feel a deep gash along her hairline. She began crawling on her hands and knees, blinking away the blood that was now spilling profusely onto the ground.
The shadow grabbed onto one of her legs, and a hoarse scream escaped from her lips. She thrashed frantically to escape its grasp and searched for something, anything, to hold onto. She felt herself being pulled backwards as her hand connected with a palm-sized rock. With her last ounce of strength, she hurled the rock directly at the shadow. She heard a loud crack, then a yelp of pain. She felt her leg being released from the vice-like grip as the shadow skulked away and evaporated into the night. Then, for the second time in twenty-four hours, she was gone.
SIX
Wind rocks the weeping willows, setting their long green tendrils swaying, as Julia sprints into the forest. She feels encumbered by her clothes and is surprised to realize that she isn’t wearing her usual jeans and T-shirt. Instead, a scratchy wool bliaut presses into her diaphragm and makes it hard to breathe. It trails from her elbows and snags on branches, billows around her ankles, and forces her to shorten her steps. The dress is a deep shade of emerald that matches her eyes. Underneath, she wears an ankle-length linen chemise. How can she possibly run in all these clothes? Some misogynistic man must have designed this outfit. She’s surprised to find that, in spite of the itchy, voluminous, inconvenient clothes, she is filled with so much joy that it erupts from her in a spontaneous laugh.
In the distance, she hears the peal of church bells announcing the end of another autumn day. Leaves in brilliant hues of red and yellow swirl around her feet. She tries to avoid the crackling brown leaves in their midst, so as not to give herself away. Still, her progress is so slow, and she knows that her pursuer is gaining ground. The thought doesn’t scare her but only makes her giddier. She hides behind a tree as she pauses to catch her breath.
The dense crunch of dry leaves announces he’s closing in. Suddenly, the footsteps stop, and she holds her breath. He leaps out from behind the tree.
This time he isn’t wearing a blue button-down shirt. Instead, he wears a knee-length tunic that accentuates his muscular arms, despite the chainse undergarment that covers them. He throws down the knapsack he is carrying, grabs her by the waist, and draws her close. She can feel his heart beating fiercely beneath his shirt. With a giggle of delight, she throws her arms around him, allowing him to pick her up and carry her from her hiding place to an open spot on the forest floor. He sets her down gently but doesn’t let go. He presses his forehead to hers. A shaft of sunlight breaks through the thick foliage and illuminates his eyes, so she can see their vivid color. He seems to gaze into her very soul. She muses that looking into his eyes is like falli
ng into an ocean and discovering how peaceful it might be to drown.
“Not fair!” she says. “A woman’s attire is made not only to be modest, but apparently to make her easy prey. I would like to try again, but this time with my legs as free as yours, Pierre.” She’s surprised to hear that name come from her mouth and more surprised to hear herself speaking not English, but French.
“Lovely legs I’m sure they are too,” he says, eyes twinkling with mischief as he pretends to lift a corner of her skirt. She pushes his hand away, playfully. “But I thought it was a free mind you sought?”
“I would have both. Or no, all three: freedom of mind, body, and spirit.”
“Few people know what to do with such bounty,” he says. “I’ll give you this: You’re surprisingly agile for an intellectual. But I would never let you get away.”
‘As a student of the Philosopher,” she says, “I was not seeking to achieve too much, only to reach the golden mean: to be just fast enough. I seek the middle way, a balance.”
“You’re a quick study.”
“And a fast runner.”
“Just fast enough. Though I suspect you’re secretly like me—one who prefers to push beyond the mean.” He grows thoughtful. “Of course, the Philosopher meant those ideas for men, not women. But you have given me cause to consider that, despite the musings of Aristotle, women may have potential to meet the intellect of men.” He smiles with the pride of a teacher.
“I am a good student, then?”
“The best I have ever seen. And the most beautiful.” He reaches up to gently trace the contours of her face with his fingertips, sending a shiver of delight through her spine. “ You are the golden mean in every sense—your mind and spirit, form and face are all a study in symmetry, proportion, and harmony. If beauty is truth, then there is nothing truer than you.” He lifts her chin and brushes his lips against hers, filling her with longing. Then he falls into an uncharacteristic silence. As he searches her eyes again, he seems to be considering something. Then he sighs, rubs his cheek against hers, and turns away.
