by S. L. Naeole
I shook my head and groaned when the sound of things falling out of it bounced around me. “I’ve probably got trees and things-”
I stopped. “You know, I really, really want to take a bath.”
“I don’t know how to help you with that.”
Why did I assume that this was going to be easy?
“I need to take a bath. I feel gross, I smell like roadkill. You need to get me hot water, some soap, a washcloth. I don’t need a tub, but I need lots of hot water.” I waited for him to respond. When he didn’t, I almost felt like crying.
I needed him to do this. I needed him to believe me.
“Fine.”
He left—I only know this because the smell of burnt hair was gone again—and I waited. I didn’t know how long it would take for him to get me what I’d asked for. It seemed to always take him hours just to pick up a crappy burger and fries.
“Maybe that’s on purpose,” I said to myself before grabbing my head with both hands and groaning in embarrassment. “And there I go talking to myself again.”
I stood up and began to pace. I counted ten steps before turning around and returning to the wall. I did this over and over, never going over ten.
“You know where to stop.”
Lem’s voice never just eased into the silence, and I almost lost my count. “Damn you; why can’t you just…talk like a normal person.”
“Because I’m not a person; I’m an angel. I have your hot water, your soap, your washcloth, and some clean clothes. They’re five steps behind you.”
“Now I want some privacy.”
He laughed. “Why? You can’t see me watching.”
“I can feel you watching. I can smell you.”
“Fine. I’ll give you twenty minutes.”
“Thank you.”
I felt a hand against my cheek and I flinched. He felt it, too.
“Goodbye, Grace.”
I waited until I was certain he was gone. And then I hurried to the water. “Ugh, I don’t want to waste you, but I have to.” It was in what felt like a large pot, and I heaved it over. The smell of the water turning the dirt floor and walls to mud reminded me of rain and wet moss. I sank to my knees and began to dig. I’d felt something in my hair, something that wasn’t dirt.
It was a plant. Well, part of a plant. I knew that I didn’t bring it with me, which meant that it had already been here, and if it had already been here then there must be more. I needed to find it. Or at least find the roots.
I knew I couldn’t talk out loud anymore. I didn’t know where Lem was, but if he could still control what I saw from outside, then he could hear what was going on, and I couldn’t risk that.
My fingers clawed at the wet soil. I dug quickly, scraping and pulling out small rocks. I kept count in my head the seconds and the minutes that had passed since Lem had gone. I’d reached thirteen when my fingers brushed up against something wiry and cool.
This time my digging grew frantic. I didn’t want to hurt the root, but I also didn’t want to be so careful that I ran out of time. When I’d uncovered enough to hold on to, I grabbed it and closed my eyes.
Bala…I don’t know if you’ll hear this. I don’t know if you can. I don’t know if you want to. But I need your help. I need your help, please. Please, Bala…
I continued to count the seconds and the minutes. If Bala didn’t respond, I’d have to hurry up and cover the hole.
And I’d be muddy.
“I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in here covered in mud,” I groaned.
I had two minutes left. The dirt was cold and soft, but all I focused on was that root. Each fragile tip, each little branch felt like my last hope. One minute, forty-five seconds. I let the root go and began to push the dirt back.
The hole was filled, and the mud had already dried into a thick crust on my arms when I heard Lem return.
“You don’t look clean.”
“You think? I had an accident,” I explained, the lie already so deeply ingrained it came out without a single thought.
“An accident?”
My head rocked forward roughly. “Yes, an accident. I’m blind, trying to bathe out of a pot, in a hole in the ground. Have you ever tried to do that?”
“I can honestly say that I have not.”
I scratched at the dried mud on my arm, my skin growing tight and itchy. “Why can’t I see? I thought when someone was in this place that they couldn’t be disturbed, or bothered.”
“That’s usually true. But this isn’t my sanctuary. I’m merely…borrowing it.”
“How do you borrow one of those?”
“I wouldn’t answer that question even if we weren’t here.”
My teeth began to grind against each other at his reply. Instead of saying what I wanted to, instead of repeating to him all of the best cuss words I’d ever hear come out of Stacy’s mouth, I turned away from him.
“Would you like me to bring you more hot water?”
I moved towards the wall and leaned against it, inhaling the cool air that seemed to flow through it. “I just want you to leave me alone.”
“Are you hungry?”
“Just…just go. Please.”
“You’re angry at me because I won’t tell you.”
I slammed my palm against the wall, feeling the soft dirt spill to my feet. “I’m angry because I even have to ask the question.”
“I’ll leave you alone for a while. I’ll return with some food. Something different, perhaps?”
“Whatever.”
The minute I knew he was gone, I screamed. It wasn’t the kind of scream I’m proud of. There were some things said during that scream that made me cringe, but I had to say them; I didn’t know what else to do.
I hit the wall again. I kept doing it, ignoring the pain, the burning; needing to feel something other than hopelessness. The dirt continued to fall at my feet, and I began to wish that it would just bury me. Lem was going to win; I wasn’t going to get out. Everything I thought I could do because I’d finally accepted who I was nothing but a lie used to make myself feel better now.
I hit the wall again.
No.
The wall hit me.
I was shoved to the ground by a wall of dirt. It grew, weighing down on me, heavy and cold. I was being buried, just like I’d wanted. I struggled against the weight, but the dirt kept falling, covering my legs and my chest, slipping and sliding to my neck. I took a deep breath and felt the dirt pour over my head.
Remember as a little kid, when you’d pull your blanket over your head thinking it would protect you from everything? It didn’t matter how scary the world was outside; inside that blanket, you were safe. Well, as strange as it might sound, I felt safe in this accidental grave.
Even if I couldn’t breathe, even if it seemed darker, even if my body was being crushed beneath who knows how many pounds of dirt, I felt safe. It felt like my mind was clear.
I exhaled, knowing that it would probably be the last time it happened, and felt the dirt settle into the indentation that created in my chest and stomach. I wish I could have told you…I wish we could have told you.
When the pressure of holding my breath finally became too much, I opened my mouth and inhaled. The dirt fell into my mouth, smooth and gritty at the same time. The taste of dirt is one you never forget, and will remember for the rest of your life—if you last that long—reminded by just a hint of its smell. It’s clean, musty.
Eating dirt isn’t really as bad as it sounds. It’s when that dirt turns to a gummy paste in your mouth that you realize you’re choking. It sticks to everything; your teeth, the sides of your mouth, the back of your throat. You feel it getting thicker, almost as if it’s growing in your mouth. And when it fills it completely, you do what comes naturally, instinctually: you breathe through your nose.
And when that happens, you know it’s over. You don’t have to think about it anymore. You just prepare yourself, try not to panic, try not to make
it worse than it already is.
So this is where I was. I’d accepted death a long time ago and then rejected it, and now had no choice but to accept it again. This was much more difficult than I thought it would be. Gagging, clawing at my throat, feeling my lungs stretch and fill with useless sludge took over everything.
My hand pulled away from my body, surprising me. Maybe this was why I’d failed biology; was this normal when you die? Did your body jerk and do things you didn’t tell it to? Did you start to hallucinate and see things when you knew you couldn’t?
If so, then I was very close to being dead. Because my shoulders were straining; both of my arms had snapped over my head, past my head, behind me. I felt stretched, pulled.
My fingers were numb. What little of my brain was left working told me that this particular numbness wasn’t the kind that came when your nerves were dying. This type of numbness came when you’d cut off the blood supply.
Something tight was around my wrist; something that felt like rope. It wasn’t rope.
Roots!
Bala!
Bala! Oh my God, Bala, you found me!
I needed to breathe; my chest was burning and felt like at any second, it was going to explode. Oh dear God. Wait! Bala, wait, if you take me out, the sanctuary will explode!
The pulling continued, faster it seemed. I felt frantic as the two ends warred within me. Dying through suffocation or dying by being blown up because I was leaving both sounded pretty bad. I’d already survived being blown up, but I really didn’t want to die because I had a Graham-sized appetite for dirt.
My heart was racing so fast it seemed like it was screaming. There was almost nothing left for it to pump. I’d finally found hope, but hope couldn’t keep a heart beating.
“Oh yes it can.”
Hands, strong hands that I knew so well, as though they’d been part of my very first memory, were grabbing onto mine. Hands began to pound on me, beating on my back, holding my face, forcing my mouth open.
I was vomiting. Someone had shoved a finger down my throat and I was puking up what felt like last year’s Thanksgiving dinner. My body was wracked with rough, violent heaving.
“That’s a good girl. Throw it all up,” someone said encouragingly into my ear.
“She needs water. Get her some water, dammit.”
Cold, fresh water splashed on my face and was brushed against my lips. I gulped the liquid, my mouth open like a fish. The water felt unnatural, almost as if nothing could feel that good. And then I threw up again.
“She expels things from her like a bird would to feed its young. Only she’s not feeding her young.”
“That’s because she has no…young, or whatever. And get the hell away from me, you freaky Ficus!”
Graham!
“You’re funny. And very attractive. If Lark ever tires of you, I could make use of you.”
“Okay, the plant just made a pass at me—get it away!”
“Oh God, Princess, she’s not a plant.”
Stacy!
“She’s got roots! She’s got leaves and flowers growing on her skin! And she’s—oh my God, she’s naked! Hey…ow!”
“Idiot. Grace, Grace how are you feeling?”
I turned my head to her voice, and slowly opened my eyes. Everything was still dark. “I feel like crap.”
“Of course you feel like crap. Bala here just dragged you out from about fifty-feet of dirt. Oh, and you smell like a-”
“That’s enough, Stacy. She’s been through a great deal. Let her catch her breath, please.”
I threw myself in the direction of that voice. To hear it, to hear it so close to my heart, I knew I wouldn’t be able to contain my emotions. I burst into tears as my arms clasped onto him, squeezing him and holding him as tightly as I could to me. I couldn’t smell anything but dirt, but I knew it was him.
“It’s me, love. It’s me. I’m here; you’re safe.”
“Don’t leave me again,” I sobbed. “Don’t ever-”
“Shh. I promise, I promise. I’m not going anywhere.” The hand that stroked my hair was so gentle, it only made me sob harder.
“God…what did he do to her?” Graham asked angrily.
“Does it matter what he did? Look at her; she’s shaking like a fault line!”
Bala’s strange voice floated over the both of theirs. “She just won’t die. Even buried she rises.”
“You need to return to your tree, Bala. You’re weakening; your petals are falling.”
“You remember what you promised, N’Uriel.”
“Yes, I remember.”
The ground shook beneath us, and I heard Graham whistle. “Whoa. She just…she just sank into the ground. Where’s she going?”
“Back to her tree,” Robert said grimly.
“Her tree? But she went underground.”
“She’s a nymph, Graham. She’s physically tied to a tree and usually can only travel as far as her roots stretch.”
“Usually? What do you mean by usually?” Graham sounded genuinely frightened.
“Bala’s had nothing but time to figure out how to leave the confines of her tree. She learned she can move from tree to tree for a short period of time through their roots as long as they’re touching each other. The longer she remains away from her tree, however, the weaker she becomes.”
“So…the plant used other plants to dig Grace out?”
“She’s not a plant. She’s a nymph; God, Graham, pay attention!”
I heard a grunt, and then a huff. “I don’t want to pay attention to that! My best friend’s spent the past week buried beneath, like, a hundred graves!”
Graves? I laughed. I couldn’t help it; the sound just came out and the motion’s already so similar to sobbing, there really was no change.
“She’s cracked. She’s finally cracked.”
Something wet and soft began to wipe at my face, gently rubbing over my eyes. “Open your eyes, Grace.”
“It won’t work. I can’t see. He’s doing it,” I mumbled.
“Open them. Trust me and open them.”
I scrunched my face up, suddenly afraid. I hadn’t seen anything that wasn’t behind my lids for a week. I didn’t know what light would feel like, or what seeing faces that weren’t frozen in place from a memory would do. Everything that I’d wanted was suddenly waiting for me and I couldn’t let myself have them.
“What’s wrong, Grace?” Stacy asked, her cold hand rubbing mine.
“Yeah, what’s wrong with her?” Graham added.
“She’s been blind for the entire time that Lem’s had her,” Robert explained, his voice rigidly calm despite the anger I felt rippling deep within him. “He refused to let her see his face and where she was.”
“Come on, Grace. Open your eyes.”
“Come on, Frank. You know you want to look at my handsome face.”
“It’s not that handsome,” I murmured before relaxing and allowing my lids to rise millimeter by millimeter.
Light hurts. It’s painful, especially when you’ve only seen darkness for a while. Every second of darkness means one more spent adjusting to the burn that happens when it retreats. Instantly my eyes filled with tears. They acted like a filter to the light, but I closed my eyes anyway.
“Take your time. It doesn’t have to happen right away,” Robert said encouragingly.
It took several blinks, but I managed to get my eyes open just enough to see Stacy’s dark eyes and Graham’s light green ones forming a straight line of concern for me. Stacy’s darkened when she could see the recognition in my face, while Graham’s lightened.
“Hey, you.”
“Hey,” I squeaked.
A hand cupped my chin and gently pulled my head inward, and I felt a shuddering sort of whimper attack my chest when two silver rings filled with more light and joy than anyone had a right to locked on to my eyes.
“I see you,” I breathed.
“And I see you,” he said back before bending down
, his mouth not quite covering mine, but not quite avoiding it either.
“Did Lem stop? Did he stop with the blinding thing?” Graham asked.
“He stopped the minute he realized she wasn’t where he’d left her,” Robert answered.
“Does Lark know where he is yet?” Stacy demanded, her fingers cracking as she opened and closed her fists. “Because I really, really want to hurt this creep.”
“Lark’s relying on the sight of others to help her find him but he’s using his ability to change what people see to his advantage. If Grace hadn’t tried to contact Bala, she would still be down there.”
I needed to sit up. I needed to see where “there” was.
“Grace, don’t—not yet!”
My eyes closed and then opened wide, allowing for everything that was in view when I sat up and looked around. Headstones lined the grassy area that surrounded us. Old trees bowed over some of them, shading them and hiding the names etched onto the old, weathered rock.
But I didn’t need to know the names to know where we were. I turned around and stared at the one stone that I’d know, blind or not. “Abigail Shelley…loving mother and wife…
“There’s a sanctuary under my mother’s grave.”
Robert shook his head. “You weren’t in a sanctuary, Grace. There’s no way you would have been able to leave if you’d been in one; you know that.”
“I know that. He said that it wasn’t his, though. He said it was borrowed.”
“You can’t ‘borrow’ an angel’s sanctuary, Grace. The only way you can enter one that isn’t your own is if the sanctuary’s owner is with you.”
“So it was his then, and he was lying,” Graham argued.
“This isn’t Lem’s sanctuary,” Robert corrected. “And this isn’t Sam’s either.”
“Who cares if it’s not Sam’s?” Stacy snapped.
“We’re linked by our descendents, Stacy. Lem could use Sam’s sanctuary, and vice versa. I’ve been to both.”
“So who’s related to Lem then? Maybe it’s his dad’s. Or his mom’s.”
“That doesn’t answer the question on how Grace could have left without the ground beneath us imploding and taking half of this cemetery with it.” Robert was agitated, as though the answer was right in front of him and he just couldn’t see it.
