Trance

by Levin, Tabitha

She nodded enthusiastically.

  “Great, come with me.” He led her off stage where there was a table he’d laid some of his tricks on.

  “You thought she was my date, didn’t you?” Jason was smirking.

  “Of course not.”

  “I saw the way you looked at her when we first walked in.”

  “You’re seeing things that aren’t there.”

  “Okay. If you say so.”

  I turned away from him, pretending I was looking at something on the fan. “What are you doing here anyway. I didn’t think you could practice the hypnosis sessions. They sort of happen spontaneously don’t they?”

  He shrugged. “They’re not filming me. Just you guys.”

  “Oh. Why are you here then?”

  “Wanted to see it beforehand. I won’t get to see it tomorrow, as I’ll be pre-trancing a group from the crowd. And I didn’t want to miss out.”

  “Then I hope we don’t disappoint you.”

  “Scarlett.” He ran his hand through his hair.

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve been thinking and you’re right.”

  “I usually am, but about what this time?”

  “I can see that this isn’t the greatest time to start something new. Every time we get closer you pull back. At first I thought it was me, that I was doing something wrong, and maybe I am. But I get it now. It isn’t a good time for you, or I’m not the right guy. Whatever. I hope we can be friends. I really want us to be friends.” He held his hand out. What was with all the hand shaking?

  I stuck to the spot, my feet felt like leads, my arms hung limply to my side. “You’re giving me the friends speech?”

  He shook his head. “No, it’s not like that. But you’ve got to admit, it’s not going anywhere. You and me.”

  “If you say so.”

  He looked angry. “That’s just it. I don’t say anything, because every time I do, I say the wrong thing. I can’t keep trying to figure you out. We’re both busy.”

  I pressed my lips together tightly. “Okay. Friends.”

  He exhaled deeply. “Friends. Great.”

  “Great.”

  The television executive was in the same suit that she wore to our production meeting. At least it looked like the same suit, but really, I couldn’t tell. It was a deep navy blue that looked black in low light. Perhaps it wasn’t the same suit. Or perhaps she had a whole wardrobe of the same style lined up on hangers, one after the other?

  She wanted us to do Blades first. Said that it had to be the first one we did, before everything else because they needed to make sure they got that shot from all angles. They said they always spent the most time filming the finale. It made sense when she explained it.

  My grandmother stood on one side of the fan, and I the other. My grandfather was in the middle. We looked spectacular in our outfits. Lacey knew what she was doing. If I got another job in showbiz after this, I was sure I’d make her my official costume stylist. I wished she was here right now to see us, and for extra support.

  Jason and his sister Helena were sitting in the second row of seats in the audience. I couldn’t see their expressions as the lights were too bright on us, but I could see he was resting his chin on his hand.

  I stuck my chest out further and lifted my head high. If he only wanted to be friends, well he could look at me and see what he was missing. I could feel my lip tremble again. Who was I kidding? I didn’t have any idea what to do to make a relationship work. He was right, all I did was get angry with him. No wonder he was running away as fast as he could. I’d run away from me too.

  “Action,” yelled the exec.

  The blades started to spin. The whump whump sound as the air rushed through them filled the room overpowering any music that might be playing tomorrow night. I hadn’t seen the score. Suddenly I didn’t know what music they’d be playing tomorrow. Did Thomas know? After she yelled cut, I’d ask her. There must be a schedule or something around somewhere that had the musical score.

  The whumping sound got louder. Rose and I spun passed each other as my grandfather stood in front of the fan - a carrot in his hand. He placed the carrot into the sharp end of the blades. They sliced neatly, rounds of carrot flying into the air. A cameraman came in for a closer look to make sure he got the cut. The exec made Thomas slice through another one, just to be sure they got the shot.

  Now it was Thomas’s turn. Rose and I would spin past each other again, except this time, I’d press the button that slowed down the fan, just as my grandfather stepped through it. The blades narrowly missing him. Voila, he’d come out the other side, perfectly intact.

  Whump whump. I wished I knew the music. That way we could time the walk through on the right beat. It would look so much better that way.

  He winked at me before Rose placed the blindfold and cuffs on him. Showtime.

  My grandmother and I moved in harmony, I paused at just the right time to slow the fan. The audience would be so busy looking elsewhere they wouldn’t see what I was doing. That was the idea.

  I pressed and watched the blades. They slowed.

  I took my hand away, just as Thomas stepped in through. Finishing my turn as he came out the other side I waited for the applause. Instead, I heard my grandmother scream.

  “Thom! No!”

  I looked back. My grandfather’s leg was twisted backward. The rest of him was lying on the ground. He looked like he was asleep. Blood seeped out of his shin where the metal had caught him. He didn’t make it. But he always made it.

  Oh god.

  I ran over to him. Rose had removed the blindfold and was cradling his head in her lap as camera crew were simultaneously trying to free his leg and remove the cuffs. The television exec was on the phone. I thought I heard her say ambulance.

  One man moved his camera closer to get a better angle. Anger exploded through me. How dare he keep filming at a time like this? I pushed the nose of the camera away from where it pointed and pushed the man to the ground. I wanted to kick him, but before I could reach, someone pulled me away.

  I turned. Jason’s face was white, his eyes wide. He let me go, raced over to the fan and yanked the electrical cord out of the socket.

  My grandfather’s leg was free now and Jason wrapped a towel around the gash. I didn’t see how deep it was. But it wasn’t supposed to cut him. He was supposed to get through.

  I turned back to the television exec and realized I didn’t know her name. Why didn’t I know her name? I was sure she introduced herself.

  Thomas groaned behind me, first softly and then loudly. He sounded like a cat howling. The sound travelling through you causing your hair to stand on end.

  I couldn’t hear this. I couldn’t see this. I clamped my hands over my ears and sunk to the ground. It wasn’t enough to drown out the sirens that got increasingly louder, nor could I shut out grandmother sobbing. It also couldn’t stop my own tears. The ones I refused to let fall, but they defied me anyway.

  Someone grabbed my hands and shook them. I looked up. Jason was mouthing words but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. I couldn’t hear him. Then I realized why, I was screaming. My own voice was shrieking and I was crumbling. I couldn’t let this happen.

  “Scarlett, look at me,” he said.

  My chest was heaving as I struggled to gasp for breath. “Is he dead?” I managed to squeak out.

  Jason looked at me with a strange look on his face. “He’s not dead.”

  “He’s not dead,” I repeated, not fully comprehending. “He’s not dead. Oh thank god.”

  Jason pulled me closed as I continued to struggle for breath.

  “It’s my fault. I did this.”

  “No, it was an accident. His leg looks pretty bad, but he’ll pull through.” He stroked my hair holding me tighter.

  “I always do this. I always kill them. It’s my fault.”

  “He stumbled just before he stepped through. That’s what happened. It had nothing to do with you.”
r />   Paramedics burst through the door, two of them holding a stretcher and a third with a bag, which I assumed was filled with medical supplies. He was going to be all right. He’d pull through.

  “It wasn’t my fault?”

  “Of course it wasn’t. Why would you think that?”

  “Because I hurt everyone that I get close to. Everyone. Even my mother.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Jason held my hand tight. I’m glad he did, because I wasn’t sure whether I would have been able to ride in the ambulance on my own. He didn’t say anything more to me, just sat next to me in the front seat of the ambulance with my grandfather in the back, my grandmother by his side.

  The sirens wailed as we dodged and weaved our way through the streets to the hospital. I kept repeating to myself over and over that it wasn’t my fault. It was just his leg and he was going to be okay. The fact that I was in the front of an ambulance meant that wasn’t the truth. He was hurt more than they were letting on.

  I looked across at Jason whose face was pale. It was the most serious I’d ever seen him. He was watching me intently as if he expected me to break down again. I wouldn’t though. I may have lost myself for a moment, but I’d gained my composure. It wasn’t my fault. It just wasn’t.

  He squeezed my hand and gave me a half smile before looking away. The ambulance siren silenced and I looked ahead to see we’d arrived at the hospital. The doors of the back flung open before the driver had turned off the engine. Jason let go of my hand and opened the door. He got out and then helped me down as they wheeled my grandfather through the glass double doors.

  I took my grandmother’s hand and we followed inside, past reception and round to an elevator large enough to fit at least three beds. Unlike the passenger lift, this one was plain with a dull sheen. I knew because I examined every corner, looked everywhere except at my grandfather. While I was feeling better, I wasn’t ready to look at him or his leg, just yet.

  “He’ll be fine,” said my grandmother.

  I nodded. “I know.”

  “You need to believe that. He’s going to be fine.”

  “I know,” I repeated.

  “I am, you know,” said my grandfather.

  The fact that he spoke jolted me. Startled, I looked over at him. He was awake and smiling. He didn’t look like someone who had just had their leg caught in a room sized fan with blades of steel. The paramedics must have given him morphine or something. Good. He didn’t deserve to be in pain. “But your leg?”

  “Legs can be fixed.”

  “Doesn’t it hurt?”

  “Probably.”

  The doors to the lift opened and my grandfather was wheeled out and through another set of double doors. “Please stay here,” said one of the people wheeling him away.

  My grandmother put her arm around me as we watched him disappear, and then led me to a group of chairs that were set out in the room like an old west circle of wagons. I wondered why they were set out this way, facing each other inward. People didn’t want to make eye contact at times like this. They wanted to look at the wall instead, waiting to hear news of their loved one. I pulled two chairs away from the circle and dragged them closer to the wall, sitting on one of them.

  I leaned into my grandmother, like I did when I was a little girl, with my head on her shoulder and her arm around me. I was glad there was no clock in this room, that way I wouldn’t have to see how long we would have to wait.

  Jason arrived on the floor a few minutes later. He looked at us tentatively, unsure whether he should come over. But I wanted him here too. Just seeing him made me feel calmer. I could think better. I patted the seat next to me and he came over to sit next to us and took my hand again.

  “I’m going to get some tea,” said my grandmother. “A nice hot drink will help. Do you want one?” I shook my head.

  She stood up and walked away, leaving Jason and I alone.

  “How are you holding up?” he asked.

  “Better.” I sighed. “I’m sorry I lost it before.”

  “I would have done the same.”

  I scoffed. “No, you took control. Thanks for that. I mean it, I was a mess.”

  “I hope you still don’t blame yourself.”

  I frowned. “It’s hard not to.”

  “I get that. But know that no one else is thinking that.”

  I frowned even more. “My mother died after we had an argument.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “I can’t even remember what we were fighting about now. That’s crazy isn’t it. It seemed so important then.”

  I shivered, but I couldn’t tell if it was because I was cold or something else.

  “She left in the car.” I paused. “She didn’t come home.”

  “Wasn’t your fault then. Isn’t your fault now.” Jason looked at me. “You were eleven. You couldn’t have predicted what would happen.”

  “I believed that for a long time. I was a kid, it wasn’t my fault. But then…”

  “You don’t have to tell me this.”

  “I need to get the words out. They are nibbling at my insides. Sometimes I forget they are there, and then they start biting, and then…moments like this they sink their teeth in and try and swallow me whole.”

  “Okay.”

  “A few years ago, I met someone who I liked. He liked me too, or so I thought. Everything was great.” I looked down at my feet. “I didn’t know it at the time, but he was the one that killed my mother, he was in the other car, the one that hit her. I was with my mother’s killer, I thought I loved him.” I stared at the wall. “He was obsessed with me. With all of us after that. I think the accident must have changed him as well. Or perhaps he was like that before, I don’t know. He kept a lot of newspaper articles about the accident. About us. That’s how I found out.”

  Jason nodded.

  “He held me down - he pinned my arms to the bed and straddled me. He was strong - I couldn’t move.”

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “Not physically.” I looked away. “He said that if I ever told anyone that he’d do the same to me and everyone else in the family. He’d run them down, just like he did with my mother. That one was an accident, these wouldn’t be. That was his threat. He said it was to make sure that no-one else would ruin his life.”

  I laughed. “Ruin his life.”

  I chewed on my lip.

  “So I couldn’t leave him. I had to pretend we were still in love. Still happily together for everyone to see. I hated him.”

  “That wasn’t your fault either. He was forcing you.”

  “I didn’t sleep with him again, if that’s what you are wondering.”

  “I wasn’t thinking that.”

  “I made sure I was never alone with him. I moved out of my own place and back in with my grandparents. I’ve been there ever since.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Don’t know. He ran when the media found out. The media went crazy. It was everywhere. A lot of people said a lot of stuff about my mom, about us, about me. Blamed me for so much that wasn’t true. People are mean online when they think there are no consequences. They say things just to hurt you. Especially when you’re dating the man who killed your mother. Once rumors start you can’t stop them by denying it either. People believed I wanted my mother dead. Why would I want her dead? I was eleven! It broke me.”

  “I didn’t know any of this.”

  I sighed. “Thanks.”

  “What for?”

  “Just thanks.”

  My grandmother came back with a tray of three white foam cups. A curl of steam rose from them as she placed them on a small table to our side.

  “I can’t stay,” said Jason. “I need to get back for Helena. But once I get her safely home, I’ll be return, okay?”

  I nodded. I reached over to the table and tore open two sugar sachets, tipping them into my drink and watched as the white granules dissolved in the hot liquid. When I looked back up, t
he lift doors opened and Jason stepped inside. I watched the silver doors close and the light at the top of the doors turn out before I picked up my tea and cradled it in both hands. The warmth was nice. Even if I didn’t feel like drinking, just holding the tea, inhaling the strong bitterness was calming.

  “That’s nice of him,” said my grandmother. “He’s a gentleman. He’ll make a good catch for someone someday.”

  He might be a good catch, but he’s made it clear that we were just friends now. I didn’t want to tell her that, not right now. It didn’t seem important, besides a friend was about all I could handle anyway. Now that I’d told him how messed up I was, he wouldn’t want to be anything more. I still wasn’t sure if I wanted anything more. Thinking about love was the furthest thing from my mind when my grandfather was lying on an operating table at the end of the corridor.

  How long did it take to fix a leg anyway? It felt like we’d been here for hours, although I knew that couldn’t be true. More likely it was less than half what I thought.

  A woman in a doctor’s uniform opened the door that led to the corridor they took my grandfather down earlier. I stood up abruptly and some cold tea splashed onto my costume. I was still holding it. I didn’t care.

  “Tinks family?” We nodded. “We’ve just finished working on Thomas.”

  “How is he?” I asked.

  “There’s a lot of internal bruising, and a deep gash below the shin. We can’t tell yet how that will affect walking, it depends on how it heals.”

  “He hasn’t lost his foot?”

  She smiled. “No, he’ll still have all his limbs. But he won’t be doing anything strenuous for the next few months. Doctor’s orders.”

  “Oh, that is good news,” said my grandmother. “He would have hated to have lost his foot. Can we see him soon?”

  “He’s still under. I’ll send a nurse back in the next hour when he’s woken, and you can see him then. He’ll be pretty groggy though, and may not remember any conversations.”

  “Just being with him, that’s enough.”

  The doctor put her hand on my grandmother’s arm before returning the way she came.

  “See, he’s going to be fine,” I said to myself more than to my grandmother.