Falling into Forever

by Tammy Turner

  “Point taken, young lady,” her mom acceded. “As a matter of fact, I was planning on leaving early today. Do you want me to stop for some chicken lo mein on my way home?”

  “I’d like that. See you soon, then.”

  “Okay. You got it.”

  “Bye, Mom. Be careful.”

  “Bye . . . Oh, Alex, I almost forgot to tell you. Your Granny June has left ten messages on my cell phone that she needs to speak with you as soon as possible. You should call her, okay?”

  “Yes, Mom, I will.”

  “Okay, then. ’Bye, sweetheart.”

  “’Bye, Mom.”

  Alexandra disconnected the line and put the receiver down on the coffee table. The throbbing pain in her head had returned. But as she laid her head down on a soft, chenille pillow, she drifted into an uneasy sleep on the sofa with Jack.

  But Jack abandoned her on the sofa when he saw a small visitor land on the apartment balcony. Watching through the sliding glass doors, Jack growled low while a bluebird rested on the railing.

  Tossing restlessly on the couch, Alexandra’s dream returned her to the cemetery wall tucked behind Collinsworth. Out there, in the dying light of a setting sun, pelting rain burned her skin like drops of liquid fire. The stacked stones beneath her feet became slippery as she navigated her path atop the cemetery’s perimeter wall. Snakes waited below, ready to devour her flesh if she should take a misstep and fall. The rain pounded on her body, and the snakes hissed in her ears. She finally slipped on the stones.

  She held her breath in anticipation of her bones crushing against the earth. She thought that what was coming next would be the piercing slice of fangs into her skin. Helpless, she waited for the pain that never came.

  Instead, two powerful arms gripped her. A heavy cloak seemed to cover her body from the rain. She was brought close to the stranger’s heaving chest. She pushed away slightly to look at her savior. What she had mistaken for a cloak was actually a pair of magnificent wings, extending from his back. She tried to gauge the incomprehensible creature in front of her eyes. Her legs slipped again from beneath her, and foggy darkness descended around her.

  By this time, the bluebird perched on the balcony railing spied Jack through the glass, and she taunted him with her boldness. He barked fiercely, pounding the door with his front paws.

  The noise led to Alexandra’s rolling off the sofa. Groggy and disoriented, she pulled herself to her knees. “What’s your problem, Jack?” she asked him, rubbing her forehead before she rose clumsily to her feet.

  Noticing the tiny, blue visitor, she said wearily to Jack, “It’s just a stupid bird.” Dragging herself to the glass door, she stared at the balcony. “See that? It’s leaving now. You probably scared it to death.” But then she saw that the bird dropped a string from its beak before it flew hastily into the sky.

  Alexandra slid open the door. A thin, black snake writhed on the cement.

  “Gross,” she squealed and stepped backward while Jack sniffed the reptile. “Put that thing down, Jack!” she yelled at the dog. Grunting at her, he picked the snake up in his mouth and vigorously shook it side to side.

  “Drop it!” she commanded again. Whining, he let the dead snake fall from his jaws. Sniffing at the body, Jack pushed it around with his nose until Alexandra nudged the bulldog back inside the apartment with a newspaper she had found on the coffee table.

  “Yuck,” said Alexandra, dropping the sports section on top of the snake. “I’ll let Mom take care of you,” she told the pile of newspaper and retreated inside the apartment.

  Jack followed Alexandra to her bedroom where she changed out of her school uniform and into a tee and shorts for Jack’s afternoon walk in the park. Growing anxious to be let out, Jack rooted around under her bed for his leash and waited for her by the front door, the red strap dangling from his mouth.

  “Are you in a hurry, boy?” she asked him. Stopping to grab her cell phone and keys, she followed Jack to the door. “Hope we don’t end up in the rain again. Maybe we’ll find another snake in the park,” she teased Jack.

  Outside, the muggy August heat quickly slowed Jack’s eager sprint into a lazy plod. Pulling her cell phone from her back pocket, Alexandra plopped herself down on the nearest bench while Jack searched among the grass blades for bugs to terrorize. A butterfly occupied his attention while she scrolled through the phone for Granny June’s number.

  The phone rang only once before a man’s voice answered with an unmistakable English accent. “Peyton residence. May I ask who is calling?”

  “This is Alexandra. Is that you, Ian?”

  “Alexandra, thank goodness it’s you. Your grandmother has worked herself into a perfect frenzy waiting for you to call her. Hold on, my dear, while I fetch her.”

  Alexandra heard the clunk of the receiver being placed on a table and muffled voices in the background. She always pictured Ian in his linen seersucker suit, sipping afternoon tea and eating finger sandwiches with her grandmother on the manor’s front porch. Granny June’s heels echoed loudly on the house’s wooden plank floors as she neared the phone.

  Her voice, as sweet as ever, sang into her grand daughter’s ear. “Alexandra, sweetheart, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, Granny. Is something wrong?”

  Giggles erupted from a nearby playground, and Jack perked his ears in the direction of the little children playing happily on a swing set.

  “Where are you?” her grandmother asked. “Please tell me.”

  Alexandra watched Jack chasing his own tail.

  “I’m at the park, walking Jack,” she said as he fell over dizzily and wiggled his back delightfully in the thick grass.

  “Has something happened to you, Alex?” Her voice remained calm but urgent.

  “What do you mean?” Alexandra asked. Her eyes wandered over the joggers suffering through the heat. Then she said, “Actually, I thought maybe something had happened to you. Mom said that the messages you left on her phone sounded urgent.”

  “Ian and I were sitting on the porch last evening before dinner when my chest started to ache terribly. He said he saw my face grimace, and I swear on my life that I felt terrified, as if something had happened to you. I felt it, and I’ve been sick to my stomach all day. I nearly fainted picking tomatoes in the garden out back this afternoon. Ian is insisting I go to the emergency room, but it’s not my heart, Alexandra. He doesn’t understand.”

  “I don’t either, Granny. Maybe you should let Ian take you to the hospital, if you’re not feeling well.”

  “Those doctors can’t see what is doing this,” Granny June insisted.

  “Please don’t worry. Nothing is wrong.” But her words did not convince her grandmother. She could hear her grandmother asking Ian to take the tea out to the porch. Then she heard footsteps walking away on those wood plank floors, and listened to a door open and shut.

  Granny persisted. “I know what I saw, Alexandra Peyton, and I am certain you know what I mean when I say that.”

  “You’re not making sense. I don’t know what you are talking about, Granny.”

  “If only you could have stayed longer here with me. There is so much you need to know. I should have said something during your visit because I am certain . . .” The cell phone’s reception staggered. “. . . that your gift . . .”

  “I can’t hear you, Granny. My signal is . . .” Alexandra stopped speaking. The battery was dead.

  Fighting the urge to throw the cell into the nearby trees, she instead shoved it into her shorts pocket and picked up Jack’s leash.

  “Let’s go home now, Jack. I’m hungry.” They ran the whole way back to the park entrance, making sure to look twice before they crossed the street. When they got to the mirrored glass entrance door to Park View Tower, she stopped to tie her shoe. Alexandra glanced up at the reflection of the sidewalk across the street.

  There he is! To get a better look, she tied the shoestrings slowly and studied the guitarist’s reflecti
on.

  His raven hair hung to the top of his broad shoulders and fell across his forehead. He had swept it back behind his ears. He wore faded camouflage pants and a plain, black tee. A red guitar strap stretched across his chest.

  Is he watching me?

  The man’s fingers picked at the strings of the guitar resting on his hip. Keeping her eyes on the reflection, she raised her body from the sidewalk and strolled to the door. She felt his eyes follow her until she ducked inside the building.

  So he was watching me. The back of her neck tingled on the elevator ride up to the tenth floor.

  But I was going to ask him his name. The thought flitted through her head when the elevator doors slid open, and she stepped on the blue-carpeted hallway.

  As she pushed open the apartment door, she saw that two brown paper bags full of Chinese food waited on the kitchen counter.

  “It’s about time you got home. I’m starving,” her mother greeted her, smiling wide.

  Angela Peyton stood at the dining table, placing dishes and silverware, as her daughter walked into the kitchen and straight to the refrigerator. Basking in the cool air that soothed her burning skin, Alexandra reached inside for a can of soda.

  “I was getting worried,” Angela said to her daughter while Alexandra carried the warm bags to the table. Her long, wavy brunette locks bounced around her shoulders.

  But during dinner, Alexandra only picked at the pile of noodles on her plate.

  “Is there something wrong with your food?” her mother asked, looking at her daughter’s uneaten plate of lo mein.

  “I met a boy,” Alexandra said, changing the subject, shoving a heaping forkful of noodles into her mouth.

  “What’s his name?” Angela asked curiously, her deep-green eyes twinkling.

  “Benjamin,” Alexandra blurted out. “Lawson,” she said between mouthfuls. “This is his first semester at Collinsworth.”

  “Where did you meet him?” her mom asked.

  “At the opening assembly. But the very first, semi-close encounter? Well apparently, his chauffeur was stuck in line behind my car, waiting in traffic to drop him off. I guess I stared a little too long in the rearview mirror, and his driver honked at me.”

  Her mom laughed.

  “What’s so funny, Mom?”

  “Oh, just remembering how I met your father when I was a graduate student at Emory. He was in such a hurry to park to get to the Egyptian mummy exhibit that he never noticed my car behind his, and he backed into my car’s bumper.”

  “Yeah, that sure sounds like Dad,” Alexandra nodded, chuckling. It was nice to be able to remember him pleasantly tonight, after she’d had such a tough day.

  “Is this Lawson guy cute?” her mom asked, pushing aside her empty plate.

  “Beautiful,” Alexandra swooned. “But Taylor has dibs. She met him first, and I’m sure she’s more his type.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, Alex,” her mother said, sipping on her glass of water. “Lawson,” she said, staring at Alexandra. “Why do I know that name?”

  “This is the best part,” explained Alexandra. “His mother is Olivia Lawson.”

  “The actress?” her mom asked, standing up from the table.

  “Yes! Can you believe it?”

  “She married the senator this summer, right? I think I read in a gossip column that she’s pregnant, too.”

  Alexandra shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know about that, but he did mention she wasn’t taking any work right now, whatever that means.”

  “So you think Taylor has a crush on him?” her mother asked, clearing the dishes from the table.

  “Totally,” emphasized Alexandra, helping her mom with the dishes.

  Alexandra wanted to go straight to bed after dinner, but her mother stopped her before she could escape to her bedroom.

  “Did you call your grandmother?” her mom asked, patting a sofa cushion for her daughter to sit beside her.

  “Yes, I called her when I took Jack out for his walk. But my cell died before she could finish.”

  “Finish what?” her mom asked, concerned.

  “She wanted to know if something had happened to me. She said that she’d gotten a strange feeling,” Alexandra said, sighing.

  Angela swept the hair from her daughter’s face and placed it behind her ears. Alexandra thus had to look her mother in the eyes.

  “Let’s go outside,” her mother said and bolted off the sofa. Rummaging through a drawer in the kitchen, Angela found a pack of cigarettes. Jack followed them outside to the balcony. Twilight had fallen on the city, and bright lights lit up the darkening sky around them.

  Sinking into a chair at the patio table, Alexandra lit her mother’s cigarette.

  “What are you stressed about, that you have to have one of those?” Alexandra asked her mom.

  “Oh, I’ve had this pack for months,” her mother told her, avoiding the question. “And by the way, I took care of the sports section.”

  “Thanks for getting rid of that horrid thing,” Alexandra replied.

  Her mother was standing at the balcony railing, looking out at the city lights. “Alexandra,” she said, turning around to look at her daughter’s face. “I love you to infinity and beyond. There is nothing I would not do for you.”

  “I know, Mom. What’s wrong?” Alexandra could see that tonight, lines of worry had wrinkled around her mother’s eyes.

  “I’m going to tell you a story,” she said.

  Alexandra rolled her eyes.

  “I’m being serious here,” her mother continued. “You’re old enough to know certain things about your family.”

  Her mother took a puff on her cigarette and pulled up another chair to the patio table. “There’s going to be a full moon tonight,” her mother said and flicked her cigarette at an ashtray on the table. She took a deep breath and looked at Alexandra. “Did your grandmother ever tell you about Jasmine?”

  Alexandra nodded her head no. “Who is Jasmine?” she asked, curious.

  “Your grandmother grew up with a nanny to help raise her and her brother Joseph, while her parents Charles and Martha spent their time social climbing through old Charleston society. Her nanny’s name was Jasmine, and Jasmine wasn’t much more than a girl herself, probably only five to ten years older.” Her mom extinguished the cigarette in the ashtray and continued, “Are you sure she’s never told you about Jasmine?”

  “No, never. And what does that have to do with anything now?”

  “Jasmine had a secret that she never told your great-grandparents Charles and Martha.” Angela paused and fumbled with the cigarette pack that lay on the patio table. “I don’t how else to say this, so here it goes. Your grandmother confessed to your father years ago that she had seen Jasmine communicate with spirits.”

  “What, like with ghosts or something? Are you serious?” Alexandra crossed her arms over her chest and sat back deep in her chair.

  “Whatever you want to call it, your grandmother believes in it. Jasmine looked after your grandmother as if June were her own kin. As a result, June has experienced things you and I don’t understand but are very real to her. She’s never mentioned any of this to you? It’s not like you’re a kid anymore.”

  Pushing herself away from the table, Alexandra walked to the balcony railing, her head swirling as she stared down at the city sidewalk below her. Across the street, a couple walking arm-in-arm stopped to listen to the man playing his guitar. As she strained to hear his tune, he looked up at her balcony. Shying from his gaze, she released her grip on the railing and backed away toward the sliding glass door.

  “So what does all that have to do with me?” asked Alexandra, tired and desperate for her head to stop throbbing.

  “I wish I knew. Your grandmother and I never got close, but I know she loves you dearly. Call her in a few days. She’d like that.”

  “Okay. I will,” Alexandra said, sliding open the balcony door. “Taylor is going to flip out when I tell
her tomorrow.”

  “Are you going to bed?” Angela asked.

  “It’s been a long day,” said Alexandra, yawning.

  Gently shutting her bedroom door behind her, Alexandra collapsed on the bed. “I can’t take this anymore,” she admitted to Jack. She moaned and rubbed her head while Jack whimpered beside her and licked her hand.

  Flicking the lamp on beside her bed, she rummaged through the drawer in her bedside table until she found a bottle of aspirin, but it was empty. “Wonderful,” she said to Jack, shaking the empty bottle in front of him.

  Clenching her fist, she raised her hand to slam the drawer closed. At that moment, the brown leather cover of her uncle’s journal caught her eye. Carefully she pulled it from the drawer and propped her head back on a pile of pillows. “Where were we, Jack?” she asked the bulldog, flipping through the yellow pages.

  October 22, 1944, 07:00

  At last the doctor has released me from the misery of the infirmary tent. The moans of the shattered bodies were unbearable as I waited in my cot for him to clean and wrap the puncture in my shoulder. I’d have cared for the wound myself if I could will my hands to stop trembling.

  The sun has risen behind a gray cloud bank above the horizon, and I know that the captain will send for me soon. Shall I say that a hungry Nazi, trapped in back of Allied lines, attacked me? Or do I tell him the truth?

  I am no longer even certain myself of what I saw. A barefoot girl in a tattered dress is preposterous, but she was indeed there in the woods in front of the Jeep. At sunset, she ran from behind a tree into my path. The Jeep bucked like a wild horse when I stood on the brakes, and she kept running farther into the thick woods. She ran toward the cave, the same dark hole that I’d found a day ago in the hillside.

  I called to her when she ran inside, but I knew not to enter. She did not answer. I could see no one in the dark abyss. In my shoulder, my skin burned like a claw had ripped through my heavy jacket. And then, for only a moment, my eyes stared up at the gray sky before the darkness closed in upon me.