Beautiful Dead

  Then the dark figure wades toward the shore. Farther out in the lake Arizona’s body rises to the surface—arms wide, long hair like waterweeds fanning out from her white face. Her blank eyes stare at the sky.

  We were wrong. We were all wrong, all the way down the line. Arizona didn’t kill herself and neither did Kyle Keppler. Hunter the overlord held the guilty man at the scene of his crime using the sheer strength of his willpower. He gave us all what seemed like an age to stare at Jon Jackson.

  Kyle breaks the silence. “You told me it was an accident.”

  Jackson shakes his head. “You believed what you wanted to believe.”

  “You told me straight—Arizona fell and hit her head.”

  “What do you care? Your problem went away, end of story.” If Jackson feels sorry for what he did, he hides it well. “I got you out of there without anyone seeing us, didn’t I? I was the one who kept his head.”

  I’m still gazing at Arizona’s floating corpse, the glittering surface, and the dead stare.

  Beautiful Dead Arizona is beside me. We see year-ago Kyle emerge from the trees with Raven, watch his shocked reaction as he spots the body in the lake.

  “You killed her,” angel-wing Kyle says in that emotionless voice.

  “Get ready to leave,” Hunter tells us all. “We’ve seen all we need to see.”

  We traveled in a whir, blasted by a wind, buoyed by a million wings. We twisted through a time tunnel, felt the empty gaze of countless skulls swirling over us in the darkness. Arizona was the one who led the way back to the present, and the scrubland at the edge of Daler Street.

  “What’s the deal?” Kyle asked, taking my wrist and walking me down the road. “Are you planning to tell my wife about me and the dead girl? Because, if you open your mouth and say the name, you’re dead yourself.”

  “Why would I tell?” I used all my strength to try to break his grip—the skin on my wrist burned with the effort. “Arizona’s gone. Nothing’s going to change that.”

  “So quit poking your nose where it’s not wanted.” Finally he let me break loose. “You’re about to turn around and get back in your car. I’m about to tell Sable I’m sorry and get on with my life.”

  The arrogance of the guy angered me. “It’ll take a whole lot more than sorry,” I told him. “Besides, you lost your job. Mike Hamill said to let you know.”

  A couple of nerves flicked in Keppler’s jaw. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back. In another second I figured he would have lashed out at me with that massive fist.

  But along came Jon Jackson, toting a shotgun. He aimed it straight at me.

  I stared down that long barrel and calmly thought: So this is what it’s like. My last moments, stretching out in slow motion, yellow grass rustling by the roadside, a plane leaving a white trail in the cornflower-blue sky.

  Knowing what his brother-in-law had done out at Hartmann, Kyle strode between me and Jackson. He grasped the gun and wrenched it from his hands, turned it on his brother-in-law, and pressed the barrel against his chest.

  “Kyle, don’t—I don’t believe you!” Jackson gasped. But he was scared—you could see the fear, and smell it like they say you can.

  Keppler backed him down the road, the gun at his chest. Hunter kept me and Arizona fixed to the spot.

  “Kyle, you saw how Arizona acted—she was like a wild thing. What else could I do?”

  It’s a terrible thing to hear a guy plead for his life and to feel no sympathy. I wanted Kyle to pull that trigger, I admit.

  “You said she drowned.” Kyle wasn’t listening to Jackson. He still held the image of him battering Arizona against the tree, hauling her to the edge of the lake, and throwing her in—thud and splash.

  “It happened—I didn’t plan it. We got the boy back into town and dumped him there without anyone seeing us, didn’t we? We walked away.”

  God knows how empty and hopeless it feels to have lethal steel pressed to your heart, to have words pouring out of your mouth, knowing that they’re a waste of your final breaths.

  Kyle’s back was turned to Hunter, Arizona, and me. We didn’t see his face as he squeezed the trigger and the sound brought people to their doors. It stopped the traffic that headed to and from the freeway.

  In a way that gunshot ended it. In another way, it didn’t.

  Personally, I will never forget the car-stopping blast from the gun and the way it echoed up and down Daler Street. It lives on in my mind and the minds of everyone who heard it.

  Jon Jackson staggered. His knees buckled and he fell on his back. Kyle Keppler threw the gun aside.

  Anyone witnessing it from the outside would say the killer’s next reaction was strange. They saw him bend double as if in pain, rock on his heels, and twist in his effort to get away from the scene, though his legs wouldn’t carry him and his features froze in an agonized mask. He spun and almost fell onto the dead man, but regained his balance just in time.

  Only Arizona, Phoenix, and I knew this was Hunter’s work. We watched him wipe his victim’s memory clean of the time trip to Hartmann exactly one year plus seven days ago to the minute.

  Now he would never know why he’d shot Jackson. How crazy is that?

  The shrinks would describe it as unaccountable rage, perhaps fueled by alcohol and a secret grudge against Jackson that Keppler refused to reveal. They might label him psychotic—unable to recognize the consequences of his actions—and offer him psychiatric treatment while they locked him up. Whatever would happen, his fate was not in our hands.

  The sirens sounded. Arizona, Hunter, Phoenix, and I still had our wings. We hovered above the houses, watching the cops establish a crime scene and drive Keppler away.

  Hunter allowed Arizona one last visit to her beloved Raven.

  He sent us—her and me—from Daler Street to the Taylors’ Mountain Living home so that she could see for herself there was a way forward.

  It was me knocking on the door of 2850 North 22nd Street, minus my wings, with an invisible Arizona at my shoulder.

  To my surprise, it was Peter Hall who let me into the house.

  “How come you’re back?” I asked.

  “A miracle—Allyson had a change of heart.” With a tired grin, the old man led me across the vast lobby. “Frank’s here too. Plus, the Arizona photographs came out of storage.”

  Sure enough, her photogenic face stared out from brushed silver frames. A large, life-size portrait hung over the stone fireplace.

  During her last minutes on earth, my Beautiful Dead friend was breathing fast, treading silently beside me.

  “So, will they still sell the house and move away?” I asked. At that moment, Allyson and Frank emerged from his music room. I’d like to say there was a transformation here too—that they were relaxed and happy, with warm smiles on their faces and a welcoming light in their eyes. But no—they both looked strained, drained, uncertain, and mixed up. Allyson picked up the thread. “Everything is under discussion,” she told me. “The house, our marriage, everything.”

  But at least they were talking. And for me this added up to another miracle.

  “The focus has to be on Raven,” Allyson insisted. “He’s been through a lot. We feel we need to offer him more stability—stick to his routine, surround him by familiar objects.”

  “And people,” Frank added. “My wife tells me you paid him a visit. He seems to have formed an attachment.”

  Allyson managed to smile. “Quite literally,” she recalled. “Raven grabbed a hold of Darina’s jacket and no way could I get him to let go.”

  “So we’re glad for you to come by whenever you like.” Frank led the way through to the back of the house and a big expanse of wooded garden, which offered a spectacular long distance view of Amos Peak.

  I spotted Raven sitting in the shade of an aspen tree, his dark-blue jacket zippered tight under his chin. For a second I was anxious as I felt Arizona leave my side and head toward him.

  Maybe she reached ou
t and touched his face. I saw him raise his hand to his cheek and brush something away—once, twice, three times.

  “Raven, Arizona’s friend came by to see you,” Allyson told him.

  He blinked and jerkily turned his head in my direction. It took him awhile, but then he slid me into a memory slot that seemed to make some sense. He got up and walked to me.

  “Hey,” I said.

  He blinked again. Slowly he put his hand in his pocket, pulled out a piece of neatly folded paper, and handed it to me.

  I unfolded it. Look, I wanted to tell Arizona. It’s the picture he drew of you! I held the drawing in trembling hands.

  The aspen leaves quivered and shook—Arizona sighing. But at least she knew that her parents weren’t about to lock her brother up and throw away the key.

  Then Raven led the way back into the house. He grabbed my hand and showed me the photographs of his sister restored to the shelves and tables. We stood a long time under the one that hung over the fireplace. It showed something unusual—Arizona smiling. Yes, really. Her hair was glossy, dark, and perfect. She wore a silver choker necklace and big hooped earrings. And she was happy.

  “Cool,” I told Raven.

  They said his brain couldn’t relate to facial expressions but I have an issue with that.

  Standing there, gazing up at the portrait with Arizona standing invisible beside him, I say Raven totally knew what that smile meant, that it came from his sister’s heart and would be there every time he walked through the lobby and looked up into her love-filled, almond-shaped green eyes.

  “You have your justice and your freedom,” Hunter told Arizona. “No one promised it wouldn’t taste bitter.”

  He had given us a few moments back at Foxton before Arizona left for good.

  The Beautiful Dead gathered inside the barn, seeming to need the safety and shelter of the shadowy building.

  Eve and Donna stood close by her side. Summer held her hand. Standing with a silent Phoenix, I felt heartsick for her.

  Arizona hung her head. “Back there at Hartmann I saw myself for what I really was—eaten up by jealousy, selfish, stupid…”

  “A human being,” Hunter said without judging, walking out of the barn.

  The door closed and I wondered when I would see him again.

  “Hunter’s right,” Summer said. “We’ve all acted that way.”

  “I put Raven’s life at risk,” Arizona countered. “I was so needy. I hate that.”

  Don’t! I thought. Don’t beat yourself up.

  Phoenix read my mind and gestured for the others to leave us alone. “I won’t be far away,” he whispered to me as he too left. Soon the barn was deserted except for Arizona and me. We stood in the cool shadows. I tried one last time to slip in under the barrier of self-hatred that Arizona had built up again.

  “I plan to visit Raven soon—maybe tomorrow,” I told her quietly. “I’ll take some new Warhol pictures for him to look at.”

  It was the best way I knew to finally set her free. Slowly she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and said the three simple words that meant everything to me.

  “Thank you, Darina.”

  “He knows me,” I insisted. “You saw that he links me with you.”

  “You’re right,” she agreed. Her time was up. She was slipping away.

  “I’ll talk to him about you,” I promised. “I can’t be his shadow, like you wanted to be. But I’ll keep on telling him how you loved him and always will. How you were a strong and crazy girl, how I got to understand and admire you in a way I never believed I would.”

  Arizona stared deep into my eyes. “Sorry, Darina. I gave you a hard time.”

  “You did. Now I know why.”

  “I never…” She searched for the right words. “I never exactly got my balance right when I was alive. I was always, always teetering on the edge of that ledge, ready to fall.”

  I nodded, no words necessary. Anyway, she could read my mind.

  “You know what that’s like,” she noted as a wind came into the barn and gently opened then shut the door. “You know it leads you into making desperate choices.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “I mean Kyle,” she explained.

  “But not Phoenix,” I argued as he walked back in. I smiled at him. “He’s the best choice I made in my whole life.”

  “I want to second that,” he told me. And he grasped my hand like he would never let go.

  Arizona sighed. “Lucky you, Darina. And yet you lost him.”

  Phoenix kept tight hold of me. It gave me strength. I spoke to him, not Arizona. “Then I found you again. Out here at Foxton, for twelve months.”

  “A whole year,” he promised.

  I stared into his pale-blue eyes, shimmering crystal clear like lake water. “And soon I get to work with you to solve your mystery—to find out why you died.”

  Phoenix lifted my hand to his pale, cold cheek. “You’ll set me free.” He sighed. Then he turned to include Arizona. “Darina and I get to go with you to Hartmann,” he told Arizona.

  We stood by the icy shore as the sun went down. Phoenix held my hand while we watched Arizona wade out into the water.

  The lake stretched forever, the trees on the far shore were lost in a gray mist.

  She was waist-deep, her fingertips skimming the surface. She half turned to look at us.

  Her long hair was black, her angel wings pure white.

  “Go!” we whispered.

  She turned and looked ahead. Hartmann was vast and silent.

  Then the mist drifted in from the far shore. It shrouded Arizona and took her away.

  Phoenix and I looked for her in the mist for a long time, listened for any sound, standing hand in hand, knowing that she was gone from the far side.

  “Let’s go,” I told Phoenix at last.

  Summer

  Who decides what’s normal and what’s not? People around here sigh and say, “No one died in six months, thank God. Maybe the worst is over.”

  I say, “Wait, it’s not finished, not by a long way.”

  “No one else died. Now we can get our lives back on track.”

  Ride the bus into school, why don’t you? Go to work. Don’t dwell on the past. Fine, I think, but I keep my cynical mouth shut and put one foot in front of the other along with the rest of Ellerton.

  Normal is gray and narrow. Normal is not daring to look back.

  At night I dream in wide-screen, high-definition Technicolor.

  Phoenix is there, center screen, full of life. He’s coming right at me, smiling, reaching out his hand. I take it and his blue-gray eyes, shining out from under a sweep of dark hair, are talking to me, telling me he loves me. When he rests his arm around my shoulder, I feel the warm weight of it. Awake, I’m alone. They try to get near me—Laura, Zoey, Logan, and the rest. “Look ahead, Darina. There’s so much to live for.” Meaning, you’re seventeen years old for God’s sakes. You only knew Phoenix Rohr for a couple of months. OK, so you lost him in a street fight and that was tough, but you have your whole life in front of you. Normal, gray stuff.

  I push them away. I prefer my multicolor dreams.

  Phoenix and me cross-legged on a rock in the middle of Deer Creek. Silver flashes on the clear water, bloodred sun over Amos Peak. Phoenix’s lips on mine, full and soft. I run my fingers from the nape of his neck down his spine. His skin is smooth, warm, and tanned. There’s no angel-wing death mark between his shoulder blades where the knife went in. It’s like we’ve been together since the day we were born.

  Awake again, I’m driving out of town. I’m cold, it’s February, and the gray voices are winning.

  “I fixed up another session with Kim Reiss,” Laura just informed me. “Please talk to her, Darina. It’s bad for you to bottle up your emotions this way.”

  I’m cold, pushing eighty miles per hour with the top down. The way the wind flaps through my hair reminds me of beating wings. The mountains ahead look black.

&nb
sp; What do I say to Kim the Shrink in her primrose-yellow room? I’m cold, I’m hurting, I haven’t seen my Beautiful Dead boyfriend in twelve whole weeks.

  Eighty-four days of driving out to Foxton since Arizona stepped into Hartmann Lake, her angel wings spread wide. It was late fall, before Christmas and a blank New Year. I stood next to you, Phoenix, at the lake’s edge, while angel-wing Arizona walked up to her waist in the clear green water and a mist came to take her. “Go,” we said.

  You held my hand and your hand was cold as ice.

  Foxton is where I’ll find you and it won’t be a dream. One cold day in the deep snow, when your overlord decides it’s time, you’ll be there at the barn door, waiting for me. Maybe today.

  Black rocks rise sheer to either side, a gray strip of road threading through. The car engine purrs and the wind tears at me.

  Today. I picture Phoenix at the barn door, back from the dead, here on the far side. The frozen chambers of my heart fire up. I’m in his arms and this time I will never let go.

  About the Author

  Eden Maguire lives part of the time in the United States, where she enjoys the big skies and ice-capped mountains of Colorado. Eden Maguire’s lifelong admiration for Emily Brontë’s timeless classic Wuthering Heights ties in with her fascination for the dark side of life and informs her portrayal of the restless, romantic souls in Beautiful Dead. Aside from her interest in the supernatural and the solitary pursuit of writing fiction, Eden’s life is lived as much as possible in the outdoors, thanks to ranch-owning friends in Colorado. She says, “Put me on a horse and point me toward a mountain—that’s where I find my own personal paradise.”

 

 

  Eden Maguire, Beautiful Dead