A Circle of Time

by Marisa Montes

  He led her along a winding path down the side of the hill and to the cliff road. They had to walk about a half mile up the mountain to reach the V of Devil’s Drop. As they drew near, they heard yelling around the other side of the V but could not make out the words.

  José began to run. Allison followed. When they turned the corner, Allison gasped.

  Beside a tall rock formation at the edge of the cliff, almost blocked from view of the road, stood Isa. Her pale blue dress flapped about her legs and her long hair waved behind her as she leaned into the wind toward the ravine below. At that angle, standing so stiff and still, her arms at her side and her face straight ahead, she looked like a ship’s figurehead leaning into oncoming waves. The ruby cross dangled from her neck, gleaming in the moonlight.

  A few yards away, pleading and crying out to her, stood Don Carlos.

  “Madre de Dios,” whispered José. He dropped the coil of rope that Allison had insisted they bring and stood as stiff and still as Isa, a look of terror on his face.

  “Isa, mija, I beg of you, do not do this,” cried Don Carlos. The wind was so strong it tossed back his words and sent them hurling toward José and Allison. “Think of your mother, Isa. Think of what this will do to her.”

  At that, Isa yelled back, “Mamá betrayed me. Mamá does not deserve my love.”

  “No, Isa, your mamá did not betray you. It was me. Punish me, if you like. But not your mother.” He paused, struggling for more words. “Think ... think of Tere, how she loves you.”

  “Tere shall be better off without me. I will never go back with you, Papá. Never! I’d rather be dead than locked away in that room for the rest of my life. You took away my José and took away my baby. But you will not have my freedom. ” Isa raised her arms.

  “No!” screamed José and Allison together. They ran to join Don Carlos, afraid to go closer for fear of startling Isa and causing her to fall.

  Don Carlos spun around. He looked at José, then at Allison. In quick succession, his expression was transformed from one of horror, as if he’d seen a ghost, to one of supreme relief. He fell to his knees, covering his face with his hands to hide his weeping. “Help her. Help my daughter.”

  “Get up, old man.” José spit out the words. “Tell her I am here. I don’t want to make things worse by shocking her.”

  Don Carlos stared at him, confused. José grabbed the man by the arm and yanked him up. “Tell her!”

  “Isa!” Don Carlos cried. “Wait, José is here. And so is”—Don Carlos glanced at Allison—“your daughter.”

  “¡Embustero!” she screamed. “You are nothing but a liar! You are trying to trick me, but it won’t work. I’ll never go back with you!” She pulled back her arms.

  “Rubia! Mi amor, it is me—José. I sent you the ruby cross. I told you I was coming. Now I am here.” José stepped forward so she could see him.

  At the sound of his voice, Isa lowered her arms. Slowly, as if afraid of what she might see, Isa turned.

  José held out his arms. For a moment, she looked as if she might faint. She closed her eyes and tilted back her head. Then she looked back at him, lifted her arms, and rushed forward. In her haste, she stepped on a stray rock that lay on the narrow, two-foot-wide ledge, and her foot twisted sideways. She lurched to the side, into the rocky wall, and slid to the ground, landing halfway off the ledge. Her legs dangled in midair.

  As José and Don Carlos leaped to her aid, Allison reached out and grabbed Don Carlos’s arm. “The ledge is too narrow for the two of you. Let José—let my father help her.”

  Don Carlos ripped his arm from her grasp. “She is my daughter. It is I who should rescue her.”

  Allison’s eyes blazed. “Haven’t you done enough already ... Grandfather?” With those words she turned her attention to Becky’s parents.

  José was kneeling beside Isa, clutching her dress by the waist. He hoisted her up and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her golden-red curls. Isa clung to him, sobbing and laughing. After a few minutes, José helped Isa up and walked her carefully away from the ledge, bringing her face-to-face with Allison.

  “Ven, mi amor,” he said, one arm still wrapped around her waist, “I want you to meet our daughter, Rebecca.”

  Isa’s eyes, already red from crying, spilled more tears. She brought a trembling hand to Allison’s face and whispered, “It was you all along. You are my baby.”

  With the succession of dramatic events, Allison had completely forgotten the time. When she remembered, she gasped. “José, the earthquake! And Joshua. We still haven’t found Joshua.”

  “What is she talking about, Velasquez?” asked Don Carlos, who until then had been standing off to the side. “What earthquake?”

  “Rebecca had a presentimiento ... about a great earthquake—this morning.”

  Don Carlos rolled his eyes. “You Velasquezes are all the same. Already, this young one is thinking of premonitions. ”

  Allison felt her face burn. “I know what I’m talking about! There will be an earthquake—soon. Just after daybreak. José—Papá—please believe me. We have to find Joshua and get out of here—to lower land. A meadow or something.”

  José’s eyes held the intensity of the night before. He placed his hand on her cheek. “I believe you. Where do you think Joshua is?”

  “I—I thought he might have come here, looking for me. I ... told him I’d had a vision of me being here at this cliff during the earthquake ... and falling...”

  José glanced around. “But you can see he is not here. We have been here at least half an hour—”

  “Maybe he’s hurt,” said Allison, silently praying she was wrong. “Maybe he can’t get to us.”

  José placed his hands on her shoulders. “What do you want us to do?”

  Allison struggled for an answer. Finally, she lowered her head in resignation. She couldn’t risk endangering all of them.

  “We have to go,” she said. “We can’t stay here much longer. Maybe we can search along the way.”

  José picked up the coil of rope, and they began their descent along the mountain road. Allison led the way. Don Carlos took the rear, struggling to calm his white horse.

  “He has been unusually skittish all morning,” Don Carlos explained. “I do not understand it. He is usually a well-behaved animal.”

  “Animals can sense things,” Allison replied. “He knows an earthquake’s coming.”

  Don Carlos snorted and shook his head. Allison ignored him.

  Dawn was beginning to brighten the dark sky. As they passed the V of Devil’s Drop, Allison noticed a piece of wood lying beside the edge of the cliff. It looked like the branch she had been reaching for when she slid down the cliff to the ledge. The hair on her arms rose.

  “Wait,” she said, cautiously approaching the edge. As she drew near, she noticed freshly exposed earth, as though the ground had recently been disturbed. She lay on her stomach and slithered to the edge.

  “Oh, god,” she whispered when she peered over the side. A few yards below, on the same ledge where she had lain, lay Joshua. His eyes were closed.

  After all this, she hadn’t really broken the chain. They had only reversed roles.

  “Joshua?” she called into the strong wind. “Can you hear me?”

  Joshua opened his eyes. At first he seemed relieved to see her, then a look of fear crossed his face. “Go back, Allison. Get away before it happens. You have to save Becky.”

  “No, I won’t leave without you. How ... how did you fall?”

  “I was looking for you. When I couldn’t find you, I thought you might have fallen, so I stepped to the edge, and...”

  He didn’t have to finish. She knew what must have happened. Didn’t the same thing happen to her the first time she was here? And to Becky?

  Behind her, Allison heard footsteps. She turned her head. “Don’t come any closer,” she told José. “It’s dangerous here. The ground is soft.”

  José lay down and c
rawled to her side.

  “He’s down there,” she said. “Joshua.”

  “Are you hurt, mijo? he called down to Joshua.

  Joshua shook his head. The slight movement sent a rush of gravel flying down the cliff. “A little scraped. Other than that, I’m all right. But I can’t move because the ledge is too small.”

  Allison sighed with relief.

  “That’s good, Joshua,” said José. “I’m coming down.”

  “No!” cried Isa. “I won’t lose you again.” If Don Carlos had not been holding her, she would have run to José. “Rebecca, come back, you’ll be hurt.”

  Allison turned to Isa. “Isa, Mamá, Joshua is to me what José is to you. We must save him. He wouldn’t be in this danger if he hadn’t been trying to help me.”

  Isa stopped struggling. She lowered her head. “Help him, José.”

  José sat back on his heels and began to tie the rope around his waist. “Did you have a premonition about this rope, too?” he asked Allison.

  “Aren’t you glad I did?”

  “Don Carlos,” said José, “can I trust you to hold the rope for me?”

  Don Carlos looked surprised. Then his face relaxed. “Velasquez, wait,” he said, stepping forward. “Let me go down for the boy. You hold the rope. ”

  “I am ready. There is no need—”

  Don Carlos held out his hands, palms up, fingers spread. His arrogance was gone, he looked defeated. “Por favor, let me do this one thing. For you ... for my granddaughter ... for my family...”

  José hesitated only a moment. He slipped off the rope and handed it to Don Carlos. The older man tied it around his waist, and the two men crawled to the edge of the cliff.

  With José holding the rope, Don Carlos scooted off the edge. Before he slipped from view, he stopped, looked at Allison, and said, “You are a remarkable young woman.”

  Then he made his way down the cliff, clutching the rope and bouncing off the sides, sending dirt and rocks cascading into the gulch below. When Don Carlos reached Joshua, he perched on the ledge and pulled the boy up. Joshua clung to him awkwardly.

  “Have Joshua climb on your back,” José called down. “We’ll have to bring you both up at the same time. Isa, Rebecca, I need your help.”

  “What about the horse?” asked Isa.

  “We can’t risk it,” said José. “He’s too skittish. There isn’t enough rope, anyway.”

  So Isa grabbed José around the waist while Allison held on to the rope and helped him pull. Together, they hauled the man and the boy up the cliff and over the side to safety.

  Allison grabbed Joshua and hugged him as hard as she could. Isa hugged her father.

  Dogs howled in the distance. The white horse neighed and stomped the ground.

  “The earthquake!” Allison cried. “We have to get out of here!”

  “The meadow at the foot of the mountain,” said Joshua. “That’s the safest place. José, take Miz Isa, but stay on the main road. I’ll follow with A1—Becky and Don Carlos. Hurry!”

  José grabbed Isa’s hand and they began running down the road. Don Carlos took the horse’s reins, but as Joshua turned to take Allison’s hand, the horse began to dance sideways.

  “Whoa, boy!” Don Carlos gripped the reins and tried to stroke the horse’s forehead. “Calm down, Nieve. It’s all right.”

  But the horse continued to prance on his front legs. His nostrils flared, exposing hot-pink flesh. His eyes rolled wildly. He tugged back his head, tossing it, trying to shake loose from the reins. At last, he reared up, towering above Don Carlos.

  “Get down, Nieve. Down, boy!”

  The horse pulled sideways, toward Allison. She jumped back, trying to get out of the way.

  Don Carlos turned to Allison. “Look out!” he cried, as Nieve’s reins ripped from his hands.

  Time switched to slow motion. Allison saw the horse bolt and gallop down the road. Don Carlos, mouth open, a look of terror on his face, struggled toward her as though he were moving through water. Joshua turned from the horse to Don Carlos to Allison. When he saw her, the same expression of terror gripped him. At the same moment, Allison felt the ground slip from under her feet and her body tip backward.

  She opened her mouth to scream, but other screams were already filling her brain. “Save me!” they cried.

  In the next instant, Don Carlos had her by the waist and, in one motion, tossed her into the air toward Joshua. Becky’s body kept going, but Allison felt herself lift up into the air and begin to float high above the scene.

  She saw Joshua grab Becky as she was propelled through the air, pull her toward him, and fall backward onto the ground, still hugging her tightly. She saw Don Carlos, after catching Becky and throwing her to Joshua, continue to fly forward and over the side of Devil’s Drop, into the ravine below. She saw Joshua pull Becky to her feet and run with her down the road. And at the bottom of the hill, she saw Nieve, Don Carlos’s white horse, catch up to Isa and José and leave them far behind.

  Then she felt a wind wrench her with the force of a cyclone. But she fought it, not wanting to leave the past until she was sure her friends were safe. She held on until she saw Isa and José reach level ground. José left Isa and ran back to help Joshua with Becky. As the three of them reached Isa’s side, the world began to shudder and thunder and roar. The two couples fell to the ground and clung to one another. In the distance, the dirt road undulated like waves on a beach. Trees thrashed left and right and hillsides spewed forth dirt and rocks, then dissolved like heaps of chocolate powder in milk.

  The next thing Allison saw was the tunnel as she whirled toward the white light.

  PART FIVE

  The Letter

  Past life and death, I shall transcend

  to search for you till heaven’s end:

  At first, he’s someone I don’t know—

  Until, within his eyes ... that glow ...

  I recognize—He’s you!

  Chapter 32

  I’m floating above a room I don’t recognize. It’s filled with medical equipment and lights and people wearing pale green scrubs, surgical caps, goggles, and masks. The people huddle over a narrow table on which a body lies covered with a green sheet. Only the head is exposed. It’s my head.

  It’s me lying on that table.

  A slow beep ... beep ... beep... dominates the room.

  “Something’s wrong, doctor,” says a nurse.

  The slow beeping becomes a long, continuous beeeeeeeeeppp—

  “Doctor, we’re losing her!” someone cries. “Her heart is fibrillating!”

  “Bring the crash cart! We’re not going to lose her,” a woman snaps. “Come on, Allison, fight! Help me out, here. Fight!”

  What’s wrong? What are they talking about? Am I dying?

  I try to sink into my body, but a force like a strong current pushes me away. Something is pulling me back, back into the wind tunnel.

  Becky? Is that you?

  Silence.

  I try again. The sound of the wind in the distance is growing closer.

  Oh, god, no. I must have stayed too long. I waited too long to come back.

  I feel the strong tug of the wind tunnel drawing me back, away from the operating room, away from my body. The scene below becomes fuzzy, as if I’m watching it through a gauze filter. The sounds and the voices have become garbled, almost incomprehensible. I’m fighting the backward pull, straining to make out what’s happening below.

  A nurse rolls a cart to the table and hands the doctor two paddles. The doctor lowers the sheet, places the paddles on either side of my chest, and yells, “Charge to 200 joules! Clear! Shock!”

  My body jumps, then lies still.

  The doctor glances at a monitor. It shows an erratic squiggle that darts and wiggles across the screen. The eerie beeeeeeeeeppp continues.

  Someone places a hand on the doctor’s shoulder. “Doctor, I don’t think—”

  The doctor jerks her shoulder, shirking off
the hand. She begins to massage my heart, speaking softly. I can barely make out the words: “Allison ... can do it ... Come back, Allison.”

  The doctor again takes the paddles and holds them to my sides. “Charge to 300 joules! Stand clear! Shock!”

  My body jumps, bouncing like a solid rubber doll as it lands.

  The scene is becoming fuzzier; the voices more distant.

  “Dr. Winthrop ... too late.”

  Dr. Winthrop? Joshua? Where is he? He can’t still be alive, practicing medicine, can he?

  The doctor starts pushing her hands into my chest again. “...Won’t let you die ... hear me? Fight! ”

  The doctor stares at the monitor, the monitor with the wriggling line, the monitor that seems to emit the eerie beeeeep.

  All eyes are on the monitor.

  The room is silent except for the sound of the wind and the beeeeep.

  “Try, Allison...,” says the doctor, still massaging my chest, “can’t give up ... time to come back.”

  I’m fighting, Joshua. Wait for me. I’m trying!

  Another jolt of electricity from the paddles, and—

  Through the haze, a distinct blip emerges from the haphazard, squiggly pattern on the monitor. It’s accompanied by a quick beep. The people in the room seem to be holding their breaths. Another blip appears on the now smooth line, then another and another, each accompanied by a tiny beep, until they become a constant, rhythmic beep, beep, beep.

  As if someone turned off a switch, the wind tunnel disappears. A new force draws me down toward the operating table, and with a snap, I’m in my body.

  A cheer goes up in the operating room.

  I feel a hand on my shoulder and a whisper in my ear: “Welcome back, Allison. Welcome back home.”

  When I open my eyes, my favorite song is playing. PoPo is lying in the crook of my left arm. Mom’s head is resting on my chest. She’s snoring softly.

  I grin. Slowly, I pull my right arm from under the sheet and stroke Mom’s baby-fine hair. A whiff of tea-rose perfume wafts toward me. I inhale.