Essence

by Mandi Lynn

  ESSENCE

  Copyright © 2013 by Mandi L. Strezelewicz

  The following is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN-13 978-1-7325557-4-7

  ISBN-10 1-7325557-4-5

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, scanned, or transmitted in any form, digital or printed, without the written permission of the author.

  Cover Design: Damonza

  www.mandilynn.com

  www.stoneridgebooks.com

  Also by Mandi Lynn:

  I am Mercy

  She’s Not Here

  To my mom and dad,

  Thank you.

  For everything.

  Prologue

  The first thing that the new mother notices about her baby is its silence. She knows something isn’t right. It all happened fast, too fast. Unlike the shows she’s been watching on TV, the doctors in this hospital don’t hand her the child. They speak in quick, quiet words.

  “Remove the umbilical cord from the neck.”

  “It’s too tight. Cut it.”

  “Cole?” the mother asks, pulling her husband to her.

  His sight shifts to her, but he only gives her a quiet glance before he looks to their child.

  “Honey, is she all right?”

  The father nods his head, but she can tell he’s just trying to keep her calm.

  The silence in the room is frightening. Newborns are supposed to scream out to the world to announce their birth.

  The umbilical cord is cut away from the baby’s neck. The mother still can’t see her child. She leans forward to meet her daughter’s eyes. The small infant’s skin is blue; the skin around her neck is discolored from the cord’s tight grip. Not a sound escapes from the tiny mouth. For a flash of a nightmare, the mother believes her child is dead, a stillborn, but then the baby moves. Her hands and feet feel around her, looking for something. Her mouth is open, seeking air, but nothing comes of the action.

  “Cole?” the mother cries, seeing her daughter fighting for life. Her baby, her prefect little baby, was being strangled by the umbilical cord. It’s been removed, but why can’t she breathe?

  “Shh… It’s going to be all right, Jess.” He hates himself for stating the words he doesn’t believe. How long has it been? Seconds, minutes? How long can an infant go without air?

  In the mother’s mind the only thing she can picture is her tiny baby girl, cold and bloody, unable to breathe. This isn’t how the infant should be greeted into the world. It’s supposed to be glorious. A moment that neither the mother nor father would ever forget. The only thing certain is that it is a moment they won’t forget, but they aren’t sure if they want to remember if their daughter doesn’t make it.

  “Can she breathe?” Jess asks, gripping her husband’s hand harsher than necessary.

  At the end of the bed, the doctors and nurses mumble among themselves. In their sterile suits they look like aliens, working on the newborn so she can breathe. The parents can only watch as they wonder what is wrong with their child.

  “Cole?” Jess’s voice turns into a cry. She wants to ask the doctors what is wrong, but she fears, if she breaks their concentration, her baby girl won’t make it. After nine long months of trying to keep this baby, the thought of never being able to hold her breaks Jess.

  Cole looks over to the baby for a moment and spies an instrument that looks like a turkey baster but much smaller. He doesn’t know what it’s called, but he knows its use. One of the nurses takes it and uses it to clear the infant’s throat.

  “They’re working on it,” he says.

  Jess’s eyes are frantic, and he can see and feel her fear. Ever-so-slowly the room grows louder as orders are repeated, and a nurse is dismissed to grab something. One doctor stays, working over the newborn.

  “Doctor,” a nurse says, once she has arrived with a plastic bin that has a soft warm blanket on the bottom, curled around the edges.

  Without a word the doctor scoops up the baby and places her into the transport incubator in one quick, fluid motion. The nurse rushes to another table and cleans the baby.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Barton.” The parents’ heads turn away from their baby and to the doctor who now speaks to them. “Your daughter was born with the umbilical cord wrapped tightly around her neck. Although we weren’t able to simply slip it off, we were able to cut it off to give her the air supply needed. Even after this was done, she still couldn’t breathe, and we think she may have transient tachypnea.”

  “What is that?” Cole asks. Jess is quiet in her tears as the doctor speaks to them.

  “It means she has fluid in her lungs. Recovery usually comes within the first twelve to twenty-four hours, but it can last up to seventy-two hours. There are a few methods of treatment, but we have to determine how much oxygen she has in her blood.”

  “Is she going to be all right?” Cole asks.

  “We can’t be sure. She’s being admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.”

  _________________

  It’s so bright. Even with her eyes closed, the light shines through her thin eyelids. But it’s cold. Nothing like that warm enclosed place she’s always been. It was weird, being there one moment and then not the next. It was like she was being forced out, no longer wanted. She wanted to fight it for some reason, to keep the warm comforts she’d always known, but she couldn’t.

  Out here it is cold. At first she only noticed it in her head and then…the strangest thing happened. Something touched her, and it was also warm. Alive and gentle, it coaxed her out of her home. Something went wrong though.

  When her body enters this new cold world she wants to scream. Every fiber in her body tells her so. Fear envelopes her. What is this place? She wants to go back, but warm fingers keep poking at her and moving her limbs. Scream; it isn’t safe. They’ll take you home, if you scream.

  But—no—she can’t. That’s when the panic came. She kicks and squirms, but no sound comes from her. Her arms contact something around her neck. It’s a piece of her; she remembers it from home. It isn’t supposed to be there, and the warm fingers—the things that took her from her home—keep fussing with it too. It’s slippery like the rest of her body, but it hurts her. It pushes in around her neck; the warm piece of her is overtaking her being.

  Something is missing from this new world she entered. She doesn’t know what it is, but she needs it. Light-headed, her thoughts begin to fade. It’s scary, but a breathtaking peace comes over her body at the same time. A bright light comes, but it’s not like the one when she left her home. She can’t look away from the light. It brings numbness and takes away the pain in her neck, so she follows it.

  The slippery thing that was once around her is gone now, but it’s not because of the light. The poking warm fingers had removed it. She grows agitated as the hands touch and move her, disturbing her peace—the light fades the slightest bit and so does the numbing, calming sensation. She is being wiped down with something soft. She feels so free with nothing around her neck, but her breathing is fast and rapid.

  That’s it! That’s what’s missing from this world. She needs to breathe, but something is still wrong. Inside she feels her heart work overtime to survive. In and out. In and out. It feels off and wrong, like something is blocking her from doing whatever task it is her heart needs so badly.

  In the amount of time she’s left without air, she can feel something leaving her. The light never disappears all the way, but it doesn’t provide its peace. It stays, looking over her. She’s torn in two. No longer one entity, part of her leaves to follow the light. She knows this shouldn’t happen and fights to stay as o
ne being. She imagines her fingers reaching out, grasping the part of her soul as it floats away to the light, but whether she wills it or not, it goes.

  She’s tempted to follow it. The light radiates in front of her and begs her to follow. She’s drawn to her soul that’s left her. The decision is made, and she lets go of this foreign world. She misses the warm, closed-in home she had once known. The fingers pull her away and leave her here where things hurt. She can’t breathe; her heart is always at a fast and labored pace. She again reaches out to her soul, leaving this body that grows colder as the seconds pass.

  A loud noise is heard around her. A thump of blood passing through her body. As she fades away, its rhythm slows. Thump. Thump. Thump.

  It’s so close. The light grows brighter, inviting her. Peace increases around her, and she dreams she can fly; she can do it right now. Wings sprout from her back, taking her to the other half of her soul that has already left.

  Thump.

  The last heartbeat is loud, shaking her from where she flies in the sky.

  “Please, stay with me,” a voice cries. It’s so familiar; it calls her home. She turns, but darkness surrounds her. All at once the light disappears and, with it, her wings. She doesn’t fall but glides safely to the ground, as she is brought back to the world. Unknowingly she has made her decision. By turning to the voice, she let go of the light.

  Thump. Thump.

  She panics. Her heartbeat grows to a steady pace, and she can breathe again. Her lungs fill with sweet oxygen, and she exhales. But she knows something isn’t right. The light is gone, but it took part of her with it. She was never able to grasp the other part of her soul, before the light disappeared.

  A piece of her is gone forever.

  _________________

  The NICU is an unfamiliar place to most, but to some parents it has become a second home. They go in and out every day to visit their child who hangs on only by a simple thread. This is why any visitors have to be as sterile as possible, before they can step through the doors. For Cole this is only his first time visiting, but he hopes to not make a habit out of it.

  A nurse leads him to a room. Inside are monitors and tubes, and, most of all, a large incubator that holds a baby girl. A document is attached to the side, and it reads Amelia Clarice Barton with all of her information and charts on it.

  Inside the baby breathes fast, staggered breaths. Her body has a blue tint to it, but she’s alive. Cole stares down at his daughter, completely amazed by her small size. Her lids are closed, but on the paper with her name, it says she has blue eyes.

  “May I hold her?” he asks, viewing the IV that is attached to her foot, feeding her oxygen through a vein.

  “Not yet. She isn’t stable enough, but when she is, you can. You should be able to take her home shortly after that,” the nurse tells him. He frowns but is thankful for the periodic beeping that comes from the machine, as it announces her heartbeat.

  _________________

  Jess and Cole take Amelia home a week after her delivery. Her vital signs are normal, and the fluids are cleared from her lungs. No permanent damage seems to have been done in the amount of time she was deprived of oxygen after birth.

  Jess cradles her in a snug warm blanket just as the nurse taught her. It’s supposed to resemble the feeling of being in the womb and bring comfort to the newborn. It helps, yet Amelia still cries at times. Cole and Jess thank God for that little scream, though, because it means she’s alive.

  Chapter 1

  The Forest

  Ring around the rosie.

  I open my eyes quickly, and the forest surrounds me. Above, high in the trees, a canary displays itself, yellow feathers a bright spot in the otherwise green mass of leaves. His song stops abruptly, eyes wide to some immense fear he’s not willing to tell. He’s like a statue, listening. With a quick flap of the wings, he’s gone. The forest grows eerily quiet—there’s no longer a whisper of wind; the birds have stopped their songs—the silence is deafening.

  Sitting on a fallen tree, I feel a shift in atmosphere. I tell myself it’s nothing—just breathe. My fingers slip to the side and onto a log. Combing through the soft, moist moss, I close my eyes.

  A pocket full of posies.

  It’s all just an overreaction. That’s what moving does to you. It’s new territory that hasn’t yet been explored.

  The only sound I can decipher comes from a waterfall, a few feet away from me. I can picture it now, even only having seen it once. The clear blue water starts its descent just inches from my feet, cascading into the pond below. I can hear it.

  Ashes, ashes.

  There is a sudden moment of realization. The song—I remember what it was about. The Black Plague. I had done a project on it once for school. The child’s rhyme was really a song about death.

  We all fall down!

  A deep chill sweeps through my core but does not choose to leave. I don’t falter; in fact I stay in place—not because I want to stay; I can’t move. I am somehow bound. My vision blurs—just for a split second—long enough to send chills through my senses, as I lose control of part of my world, but short enough that I don’t know whether or not it really happened.

  My gaze darts around the forest, but nothing seems wrong. The trees sway; the water flows. I can’t move! I will every muscle to fight, to run, to do anything; but I’m left in this forest, clueless as to what’s happening. The more I struggle, the more my senses begin to fail me. My arms and torso are covered with a blanket of warmth that grows hot and uncomfortable.

  Around me the forest is still, silent, unaware of the sensation that has chosen to overcome my body, keeping me rooted in place. Every muscle inside me is on the defensive, tense for some approaching danger that only the canary is aware of. There’s a pressure on my limbs, sending the warmth to tingle in my body as if losing circulation of blood.

  Opening my eyes, I see nothing is touching my arms. My fingers linger on the moss, and I concentrate on the feeling.

  Panic deepens in my being, feeling the soft growth, hearing the flow of the waterfall. I look around me to see the bright forest I once considered safe—the green pine, the quiet creek, and the textured leaves that beckoned me to the forest in the first place.

  There’s a vibration in my back pocket, and a few seconds later, my phone begins to chirp out its generic tone. With the new sound my muscles go limp—as if being released from a trance—and I fall off the log and to the ground. On my hands and knees I slide the phone out of my pocket.

  My mom.

  Emma, get home before dark.

  I rise to my feet and run in the direction of my house.

  Racing through the trees, I jump over fallen branches and rocks embedded deep into the ground. I had never been scared for my life before, until now. I’d never known what it was like to run for your life. I don’t concentrate on my breathing, or where I’m going—I just run.

  Adrenaline pulses through me; I jump over fallen trees, rocks, and small streams. I can hear my heart pounding, and each breath I take becomes larger and more labored. For a second I wonder what I’m running from and look behind me. There’s nothing, just the trees and plants of the forest.

  I stop, catch my breath, but decide to keep going. I trip into a small stream that flows into a waterfall a few feet down. There’s an objection of pain, as I drag myself up and out of the two-foot-wide stream. Tired, I struggle to turn myself on my back, looking at the sky as it models a striking blue canvas.

  The longer I rest on the moist ground, the more I absorb what just happened. The scene replays itself in my head over and over. The sun hovering above beats down on me, and I cover my eyes. Lifting my right arm, I see my sweatshirt is completely soaked in the dirty water. My side is drenched.

  With a sigh I lower my head to the forest floor, and the sun’s rays fill and warm me. My body becomes heavy with sleep, and I can feel myself drifting, thoughts becoming less important and images blurring together.

 
Eventually instinct kicks in, and I sit up, to get back before dark and settle into the warm house. As my muscles cart me off the ground, I’m shocked by the jolt of pain in my side. I press my fingers into my ribs, feeling the throbbing grow more intense. Lying back down, I wait for the pain to go away.

  _________________

  Time passes fast when you’re not in step. If you think for a moment that you can get it back, wake up—you can’t. Some people think time is theory. Everything is a cycle of events happening over and over. If you think this is true, then be aware and learn from your mistakes.

  Wake up!

  _________________

  When I open my eyes again, the sky is a burnt orange. It takes me a moment to locate myself. It’s evening; the sun is going down. Despite what happened just hours ago, the forest is bright; there’s a quiet rustle in the leaves from a small animal looking for food.

  I pick myself off the ground, as my side protests with every move I make. My clothing sticks to my body, as if it’s a second skin. Every move I make is greeted with a sharp pain, begging me to stay in place—don’t move. The thoughts from hours ago flood my brain, gathering questions that need to be answered. Taking a deep breath, I slide out my phone and text my mom a message.

  I’m on my way.

  I run home, trying my best to navigate my way around the forest. I start a fast pace through the trees, ignoring the ache in my side.

  My pocket vibrates again, and even though I know it must be my mom, I don’t break stride. I don’t let myself take a break to check it, knowing that, if I stop, I may not be able to start again. Whenever I stop, something comes over me, stalling my progress, keeping me here in the forest. So I press forward, seeing the woods thin out around me, as I approach my house.

  With a burst through the final set of trees, I’m out of breath. I stop running and lean onto my knees with my hands, crouching as I feel my heart beat violently from within my ribs. The sky grows dim with the passing seconds, and my breathing slows back to normal. My vision comes to focus on my house. It’s a modest home, small in stature but grand in appeal. The chimney is lonely, no smoke billowing from within. The lights inside my house are on, the walls flashing different colors as the TV changes channels, my dad trying to find entertainment after a day of work.