The First Time I Died

by Joanne Macgregor

  Cassie was worse than I’d expected. Much worse. She looked as fragile as a dried fall leaf, and much younger than her twenty-odd years. Her cheekbones were sharp arcs in her sallow face, and below puffy lids, the whites of her eyes were yellow.

  A deep wave of sadness swept through me.

  Regret. Fighting. Love.

  Old memories flickered behind my eyes — Cassie alone on a swing hanging from the sugar maple in the backyard, Cassie tearing tufts off a whirl of blue cotton candy, Cassie denying she’d raided my room again.

  No, those were Colby’s memories, not mine. Had he told me about them? Must have.

  I stepped closer to the bed. “Hey, Cassie.”

  She looked confused for a moment.

  “It’s me, Garnet McGee. Colby’s old—”

  “Girlfriend. Yeah, I remember,” she said in a hoarse voice. “How’re you doing?”

  “Better than you, kid. I’ve got to say, you look like shit.”

  She grinned at that. “Always were a straight-talker. What happened to your fingers?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  The table beside her bed was topped with a forest of pill bottles, tonics, vitamins, supplements, a glass of water — Beaumont Brothers, no doubt — and a small vase of purple, pink and red sweet-peas.

  “Enough medicine for you?” I asked.

  “If you shake me, I rattle.”

  “And sweet peas in midwinter? Impressive.”

  “Mom got them for me specially. I’m guessing she doesn’t think I’ll see another spring.”

  Unfair!

  I was seized with an urge to bellow my rage and punch the wall until my knuckles bled, only I wasn’t the sort of person who bellowed and punched. I sat on the edge of her bed and took her hand in mine. It was cold. Again, I felt that surge of helpless fury and misery.

  “I’m so sorry, kiddo,” I said. “This is … there are no words for what this is.”

  “Yeah. Someone needs to invent stronger curse words.”

  “Can I get you anything, do anything for you?”

  “Could you scratch my back? I itch all over and I can’t reach.”

  I eased her forward off the pillows and gently scratched, aware of ribs and vertebrae beneath my tender fingers.

  “Thanks,” she sighed and lay back. “So, you’ve come back?”

  “Hell, no. I’m just visiting.”

  “After all this time?”

  I gave her hand a remorseful squeeze. “I’m sorry, I should have visited sooner. I’m a coward.”

  “So why now?”

  “My mother’s closing up her shop and needs help clearing it out.”

  “Tell her to cast a spell or summon the fairies for me.” Cassie’s soft laugh caught in her throat and became a rough cough.

  I passed her the glass of water, and she took a sip. Letting her catch her breath, I gave her the low-down on my life in Boston, my struggles to finish my studies.

  “When you qualify, come practice here,” she said. “This town is full of crazies and sad-sacks. You could make a mint.”

  “What did you want to be, before you got sick?” I asked.

  “A scientist.”

  “I remember! You were always doing experiments with vinegar and baking soda, or throwing matches on pool chlorine, and didn’t you have a seriously scientific microscope?”

  “No, that was Colby’s,” she said, and her face was so sad in that moment that I felt I could tell her, at least. It was safe. She’d understand.

  “I still miss him so bad, Cassie. More than I can even allow myself to know.”

  “Me, too. But I’ll be seeing him before you,” she said, and with a pale flash of her old spirit, stuck her tongue out at me.

  “Cheeky monkey.”

  “And then I’ll finally know what happened to him.”

  “I wish I knew, too.”

  “Why don’t you try to find out, then?”

  “Me?”

  “Why not?” A spark of enthusiasm lit her eyes. “Do it! The not knowing … it’s a killer. I think it killed me, the stress of it. My mother got this woman in to try to help me. She called herself a faith healer — though, clearly,” she said, indicating her thin frame, “she wasn’t a very good one. Anyway, she said she was also psychic. She told me that I was ‘locked in a limbo of unknowing,’ and that maybe Colby was, too. That neither of us could move on or heal until the truth came out.”

  “Cassie, you know those people all talk pure baloney. Trust me, I’m the daughter of one. I’ve heard those kinds of predictions all my life. They’re always vague and ambiguous; they say nothing definite and only give you false hope. It’s all a steaming pile of—”

  “But what if it’s not?”

  There was an expression like panic in her eyes at the thought that Colby might be trapped in some limbo between worlds, and that she might soon be, too. I cursed the charlatan who’d planted the ridiculous fear in such a vulnerable girl.

  “Sure, I’ll do it,” I said. “I’ll try to figure out what happened and come tell you, so you can relax, okay?”

  “Promise?” she said fiercely, gripping my hand with feeble strength.

  “Promise,” I said, already regretting my rash commitment.

  She demanded I capture her cell number in my phone and, when she was satisfied I had it right, said, “Hey, were your eyes always different colors?”

  I shook my head but was spared the necessity of explaining because Bridget stuck her head around the door just then.

  “Cassie, I think you should rest now.”

  “I should be going,” I said, suddenly aware of how tired Cassie looked.

  “Five more minutes,” Cassie begged.

  “Okay, but no more than that,” her mother said. “See you downstairs, Garnet.”

  Cassie waited for the sound of her mother’s footsteps to recede, then said, “There’s something of Colby’s I want you to have.”

  Damn. More stuff to trigger memories.

  “You’ll need to get it. It’s in my closet, on the top shelf, in my old jewelry box.”

  I rummaged between the sweaters until I found a mauve jewelry box, patterned with silver butterflies. “This one?”

  She nodded.

  I opened it. A tinny melody from The Nutcracker played, while a miniature ballerina in a pink tutu, with a solid blob of gold hair, twirled around on a spring, admiring herself in the mirror set in the lid. A couple of ribboned medals from dance exams nestled in the velvet-lined tray.

  I held them up for her inspection. “These?”

  “Look underneath, in the bottom section.”

  I lifted the inner tray and gasped at what lay beneath. “Is this Colby’s phone?”

  It was the original model iPhone; he’d gotten it as a birthday present that year, when they first came out. I touched the screen with a tentative finger, half expecting it to vanish like my other hallucinations.

  “What the hell, Cassie? You’ve had it all these years?” I asked, flabbergasted.

  “I know. I’m sorry!” she said, and burst into tears.

  Immediately I felt bad. This was a dying girl — I couldn’t yell at her, no matter how much I wanted to.

  “We all thought it must be at the bottom of the pond.”

  I picked up the phone, a thrill of excitement pulsing through me. I transferred it to my left hand so that my fingers might even now be covering the places his own had held it. I closed the lid on the ballerina, trapping her in prostrate silence, and shoved the box back on the shelf, then returned to sit by Cassie.

  “How?” I asked, as gently as I could.

  “I took it, that last night, and hid it. Switched it off so he couldn’t call it and find it.”

  “Why?”

  “To spite him. He’d accused me of stealing his chemistry set again, and I hadn’t. He was always accusing me of taking his stuff. It never occurred to him that it might be Vanessa, or someone else. I wanted to teach him a lesson. I tho
ught it was so funny when he stomped around the house, searching everywhere for it, before he left for that dinner with Dad and Uncle Roger. He came looking for me, of course, but I hid under the bed, and he didn’t find me. Then he disappeared, and I felt so guilty and ashamed … I still do.” She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and cleared her throat, looking miserable. “And then Chief Turner came to question each of us, and I was terrified. He said I’d better tell him anything I knew or I’d be in big trouble, and it kind of had the opposite effect on me, you know? I was too scared to say anything about the phone. And the longer I didn’t tell, the bigger the secret became, and the harder it was to even think of coming clean. I was sure the cops would stick me in prison if they found out.” She gave me a look that pleaded for my understanding. “I was only ten years old, Garnet. I didn’t know any better.”

  “But afterward, when you were older, you didn’t think to hand it in then? I mean, it could have information about Colby’s last days, might even have a clue as to what had happened to him.”

  “I knew it was locked and password-protected, so no one would be able to get anything off it. Besides, I figured the cops got all the information from the service provider at the time.” She sighed. “Anyway, I’d hidden it away back then and kind of blocked it out of my memory. You shrinks have a name for that?”

  “Repression.”

  “That’s the one. For years and years I forgot it even existed. But recently I started going through my stuff, giving some special things away to friends because, you know … And I found it again, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I’d be so relieved to get rid of it. Do you want it?”

  “Yes!”

  I wanted it alright. Because, unless Colby had changed it, I still knew what his password was.

  18

  NOW

  Tuesday December 19, 2017

  On the way home from the Beaumonts’, my eyes kept straying to the rearview mirror. The box of Colby’s stuff sat on the back seat, along with my handbag, which now held his phone. I was impatient to know what information it might contain, but also wary. My casual promise to Cassie to investigate the mystery of her brother’s death now felt like a solemn vow — I guessed a deathbed would do that to you. I had no idea how to conduct an investigation, and I couldn’t think what I’d be able to discover that had eluded the Pitchford police department for a decade, but Colby’s possessions seemed like a good place to start.

  I turned on the car radio, but static interference obscured the news bulletin on WBTN-FM. I hit the button to scan through available stations, but each one hissed and crackled. My radio must be on the fritz. Great — just another thing to add to the list of things that had gone wrong since I hit Pitchford’s town limits.

  Though I’d intended going straight home, I found myself drawn to the pond instead. Without knowing why I was doing it, I pulled into a parking spot near the picnic area at the bandstand, killed the engine, grabbed my bag and parka, and got out of the car.

  Plover Pond waited at the bottom of the rise — a still, empty expanse of white so brilliantly reflecting the winter sun that it dazzled my eyes. It should have been beautiful. The only sounds were of passing cars on the road behind me, and the forlorn call of some bird that ought to know better than to be in Vermont in winter. As should I.

  A cold quickening in my solar plexus unnerved me. My mind urged me to turn and leave, but the pond had a hook stuck in my gut, and it reeled me in closer and closer still, to the wrongness that was Plover Pond. My breathing shortened and shallowed, and a cold sweat beaded my top lip. I wanted to run away. I needed to get nearer.

  I told myself to get a grip. I was merely experiencing some post-traumatic stress — autonomic hyper-arousal, anxiety, distress in response to similar cues — and avoidance of this scene of my trauma would only make the condition worse. I needed to confront it. If Professor Perry was here, he’d tell me to give myself a dose of systematic desensitization.

  I forced myself to walk right up to the edge of the water, at about the spot I’d stepped onto the ice three days ago, and waited for flashbacks to hit. Nothing. I made myself run through the memory of what had happened — the walk across the ice, the boy in red, my fall into the water. Dying. But even that didn’t set off any flashbacks or send me into a panic attack. Relieved, and even a little proud of how well I was coping, I gave myself a metaphorical pat on the back. Job done, time to go.

  Instead, obeying an irresistible compulsion, I found myself walking along the water’s edge in the direction of town. My pace picked up, and soon I was striding, then jogging toward — what? I tripped over a small snow-covered rock, righted myself and gave in to the urge to run flat out.

  Get there.

  Where? What was happening to me?

  When I got to the little bay where the Tuppenny Tavern first came in sight, I stopped abruptly.

  Here.

  Now what? The banks here were as deserted as the ones at the bandstand had been, the pond just as empty, the growing dusk of the afternoon just as silent. I had no clue what I was doing here. Running through a mental checklist of PTSD symptoms, I concluded that I must just have experienced a fight-or-flight reaction, even though I didn’t feel panicky at all. I felt … impatient.

  Waiting. Cold. Wind.

  The words were in my head, settling like snowflakes into my thoughts. But they weren’t my words, or my thoughts.

  Dark.

  Water. Water.

  I stepped right up to the pond where the water’s edge peeked out like a liquid petticoat beyond the white frock of ice. A glint of light beneath the water caught my eye. Crouching down on my haunches, I saw it was a stone — purple at one end, fading to the color of frost at the other. I stuck my fingers into the chilly water, plucked the stone out of its muddy resting place, rinsed it, and brought it up close to my eyes.

  Night.

  Hands pin my arms behind my back. Blows rain down on me. A fist crushes my nose, crashes into my temple. Lights explode in my head. A fist in my stomach fells me like an axed sapling, robs me of air.

  Stop. Please. Help!

  I crumple onto the sand, spitting blood. The toe of a boot kicks my ribs; I hear the inside crack of snapping bones.

  “Enough, man, you’ll kill him!”

  Dark faces.

  I curl into a ball, hands and legs up to protect against the blows. A vicious thud into my hip, another into my lower back. A lightning strike of pain spirals me into darkness.

  I wake up, groaning. The taste of copper and fear is in my mouth. Blood smears my vision. Panic fills all of me. So much pain.

  Help!

  A touch at my neck. Someone bends low over me. I try to flinch away, but I’ve forgotten how to move. Hands slip under my arms, start dragging me backward over the sand.

  They’ve stopped hitting me. Maybe they’ll save me.

  Help me.

  Icy water against my jeans. Pulling me the wrong way, dragging me into the water!

  No. Stop!

  Blood in my throat. Cold water. I twist to see who’s dragging me.

  Too dark. Deeper water. Up to my chest. Every breath hurts. Bursts of pain with every lurching tug deeper. Must get free! I struggle, fight against the dragging grasp. The hands release me! I push myself up onto my hands and knees. Dizzy, wobbly, confused. I must get away. Must crawl out of the water.

  A foot stomps onto my back, presses down between my shoulders. Pushes me under the water.

  Freezing water on my face pile-drives shock into me. My thoughts clear. Breathe, must breathe! I lift my head. Can’t get it above the surface. I’m in too deep. Pressure on my back and shoulders holds me under. My arms flail, try to reach around. Oblivion beckons. Must … breathe … Another shove. My face is in the mud. Dark, dark—

  “Garnet? Garnet!”

  Someone was shaking my shoulder. I sucked in rapid breaths, opened my eyes, and blinked in the sharp daylight, confused and disoriented. I was lying, curled up in a tight ball on
the damp sand by the water’s edge, with a shape looming over me. Ryan Jackson.

  “What happened?” I asked him.

  “You tell me.”

  Drowning. And getting beat up by someone. And …

  More than one.

  The words pricked at me, sharp as pins. I blinked hard, trying to clear my head.

  “Here, let me help you up. Are you okay?”

  No. That was the honest answer. I wasn’t okay at all. I was seriously spooked. Because what I just saw and felt — those weren’t my memories. They weren’t even my imaginings because I had never, not even right after it happened, allowed myself to think about what Colby had experienced when he was attacked. Crazy as it sounded, even to myself — hell, especially to myself — I thought I’d just had a flashback to Colby’s death. And I felt sick to my stomach now that I knew how he’d suffered, how filled with fear he’d been in those last moments, how his death had been nothing like my calm descent into light.

  Silently reminding myself that I knew nothing of the sort, I dusted sand off my knees and the seat of my pants, buying time to compose myself. Something bizarre and scary was happening to me; I hadn’t been right since this man had fished me out of the pond three days previously, and breathed life back into me.

  “I had … flashbacks. Of drowning,” I said, omitting the disturbing fact that they weren’t flashbacks of my drowning. I might have been going crazy, but I wasn’t stupid enough to alert the world to that fact.

  “Some flashbacks. You were full-on fetal, trembling and moaning. And your eyelids were fluttering. Like you were dreaming. Or maybe having a seizure.”

  “That wasn’t a seizure.” I might have been confused about a lot of things, but I was clear on that.

  “You look like you need a drink. Can I buy you one?” Ryan jerked his chin in the direction of the Tuppenny Tavern.

  “Yeah. An Irish coffee would be great.”

  I was suddenly aware that I was freezing cold, chilled through from the tip of my nose to the very marrow of my bones. My body felt unfamiliar, too. On every step, I expected my broken ribs to protest, my back to ache. I wiped my lips with the back of a hand, checking for blood. Nothing. My head felt like it was stuck inside a clamp and being winched tighter with every step, but that pain felt familiar and thoroughly my own.