Sadie didn’t laugh. “You can relive your life. You have a second chance. It’s called your walkabout. It’s one of the benefits of being stuck in the middle, your body’s mind asleep and your soul’s mind wide awake. As long as your body dreams, you’re free to move in time, whenever you’d like. Her voice slowed. “But when Lifeless’s dream ends, your walkabout is over.”
“Dreams last only a few minutes, right?” I stared at Adele. “What difference could I make in a few minutes?”
“One minute can change the world.” Sadie peeked at her watch. “You know that.”
Outside, rain fell. A straight-down rain without wind. It should’ve stopped. That clearing sky was normally the last glimpse I had before waking. This time, the heavens did not break. The downpour grew so intense, I could no longer see the scene through the windshield in front of me.
I patted Sadie’s shoulder. “This has been a nice diversion. It’s been weeks since my last conversation. But I have a packed ambulance to catch.” I exhaled hard. “I’m sure you’ll be here next time around.”
Sadie grabbed my arm. “You leave, and your roads be chosen for you. You want a say? This is your last chance.”
Odds are, there was nothing true to this dream. Sadie didn’t exist. Lifeless’s subconscious had simply stretched a bit further than normal and used its few remaining vegetated cells to think this up. But that obsessive knitter pressed the one button I had left.
Choice. Any choice.
I couldn’t risk leaving one behind, even one in a dream. I couldn’t risk more hellish boredom.
Safe.
Eternal.
Lifeless.
Lightning crackled, and the silhouette of Adele slowly walked away with Mom’s arm around her shoulder. Adele. One hellish minute had changed her world. She believed in me, counted on me, and I had failed her, let a monster lay hands on her. I could make Addy’s life right.
I could stop both Maydays from happening.
“Take me back,” I whispered. “Real back. Real everyone-can-see-me back.” I glanced over my body. “Take me back to April. When I was thirteen. Just before Mayday.”
Sadie raised her eyebrows. “You want to be thirteen? That would place you in middle school? What was so important?”
“You gave me a choice. I chose. Can you do this or not?”
“Spunk you never lacked.” Sadie thought a moment. “April of your thirteenth year? So be it. You’ll be needin’ these.” She handed me newly knitted mittens. “Minnesota can still be cold in spring. Now go on. Best hop in back and get changed.”
“My clothes seem to fit fine.”
Sadie ignored me and picked up a spool of yarn. “What shall I make next?”
“You know? That’s fine.” I patted her shoulder. “You just knit. I’ll crawl into the rear of this ambulance and—”
A young girl rested on her back, her eyes closed.
“Sadie? There’s another girl back here.”
“Her name’s Shane.” Sadie crawled back beside me.
“I don’t really care what her name is. Why is she here?”
“I told you. You a soul-mind. Outside this ambulance, you return to your soul’s form, which I don’t think you want to be wearing right now. If you’re going back, if you want to be seen, you’ll need a loaner.”
“You stick my soul into this dead body?”
“Think of her as your shell. Shane’s long since moved on. She’s been a reliable loaner for a time. We snatched her years ago a moment before . . . never you mind. Each time we use the container, we make a few visual changes.”
I pushed my hand through my hair, exhaled long and slow. “But this is a dream. I got here from a dream.”
“Oh, girl. Everything real starts with a dream. You’ve forgotten yours, I know. Your gift for words, for scratchin’ out stories and poems, you long done sacrificed up every dream you had for that sister of yours. I don’t blame you. Someone you loved asked you to. Someone you really should get to know.”
Sadie opened her hand. “A souvenir for your trip.” She dropped my locket onto my palm. Besides his books, the only gift I kept from Dad.
The only thing I couldn’t throw away.
I stared at the gold heart, which held a picture of Dad and me. My chest tightened, but I didn’t figure soul-minds could have heart attacks.
“I can’t open that. Every time I see his face, I feel I let him down. He asked only one thing of me, and I couldn’t protect her, I couldn’t and I didn’t.” I dropped it on the floor. “I don’t want it.”
“Oh, you will.” Sadie bent over and picked it up. She flipped open the clasp, and brilliant green light shone from inside.
“Remember the colors of your dream?” She tucked the locket in Shane’s pocket. “We try to make things easy, so your walkabout follows the same concept. Keep the locket in mind. When this here green turns to yellow, your walkabout is nearly half over, and you better get a move on. When the locket turns red, you’s almost out of time. When it fades to black, your chance to change the past has ended.”
Sadie sighed. “But don’t you worry none. I’ll peek in on you from time to time. Now, remember, child.” Her face grew stern. “This is not Adele’s walkabout. It’s yours. I’m sending you back so you can change you. I’m not sending you back for Adele. She can take care of herself. No bitterness in that girl.” She squeezed my arm. “Can’t yet say the same about Coraline.”
Yeah, right. Adele needs me. You don’t know what happened.
“Now lie down on this here cot and take Shane’s hand.”
I grimaced. “I’m not thrilled about touching a dead girl.”
“You never had no problem trying to touch Lifeless, and she be mighty close.”
I paused. Sadie grabbed my hand and Shane’s hand and pressed them together. She bent down and kissed my forehead.
“Good-bye, Coraline.”
CHAPTER 5
THE THOUGHTS OF C. RAINE
Every time you wink the stars move.
The Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson
I SLOWLY OPENED MY EYES. I was not in an ambulance—the world was unfamiliar—but in my confusion, I recollected this scene:
Falling, plummeting, upside down—choking on my silent terror. Though I would not let that be known.
The memories trickled in from a childhood summer. I spent the steamy months on the Kleins’ trampoline.
There were two reasons for this. First off, it kept me awake. My lack of nighttime sleep required that I take extreme measures during the day to stay vertical.
The second reason was that our neighbors owned a trampoline without that ridiculous netting. Ask a kid. The bounce off the mat is fun. The constant possibility of a hard frame landing or impalement by rusted springs is the kick.
Addy and me, Joe and Whitney Klein, twins and older by a year, all risked this decrepit joyride. Shaped like a rectangle, with a sprinkler slicking the surface, their tramp was our summer.
Addy bounced small and cautious. Whitney and Joe experimented with flips.
I high-fived Death.
Joe pointed up into the oak. “Dare you.” He elbowed his sister, his best got-her-now look plastered over his face.
A word about those words: dare you. You figure them out around twelve. You realize how stupid you look after going through with a dare. But at eleven? Survive one and you receive the fifth-grade Medal of Honor.
I quick peeked at Addy, who offered a tight shake of the head. Her fear only made the dare more appealing. I squeezed her shoulder.
“I got this one. Don’t worry.”
Addy stared up at the tree and then into my face. “It’s too high.” She whispered, “Please.”
I slumped. One word from her mouth changed my intentions, drained my bravado. “Addy? I can do this. Don’t say
‘please’ again.”
She was silent.
I climbed the tree, shimmied the branch that stretched over the center of the tramp, and dangled. From the heavens, it did look a lot farther down, but a dare’s a dare.
I swung like an ape, back and forth, gaining speed, and then released. I tucked and performed two complete flips. My mind exulted in my own courage, my own grace. Until I untucked and saw my position—I was landing off center, one foot just catching the edge of the mat. My other leg slipped down between the springs; my hip pitched left and landed hard on the metal frame.
I tumbled onto the ground, my back absorbing the fall’s full force.
Addy’s scream sounded faint, though she couldn’t have been more than five feet from me. I lay motionless. My hip ached, my neck and back burned, my ankle throbbed.
“Crow’s dead!” Whitney shoved Joe and fell into a blubbery heap. Joe stumbled back, turned, and ran inside.
And I laughed. Never felt so alive. There with my body on fire, for an instant, life was good.
As I noted before, sensations make the world go round.
“Sadie? Where am I?” I glanced to either side. I lay stomach to sky on the sidewalk.
Night had fallen, and my beautiful straight-down rain returned. From there on the cement, raindrops took shimmering form beneath the streetlight directly above me. They splatted on my cheeks, traced quickly down to the concrete, and joined the small stream, which carried them away.
Cool.
Wet.
My body shivered. My wool mittens hung soaked and heavy.
“It worked,” I whispered. Raindrops bounced off my teeth, soaked my tongue. I would not move. Ever. This four-by-four square of cement would be my new home.
I closed my eyes and let the world have its way with me.
Footsteps neared, quickened, and a man gasped. Two fingers pressed against my neck.
More feelings. Press away!
The pattering on my face stopped. I opened my eyelids and stared at the wrinkles of Mr. Gainer. Hollock, his spaniel, befriended me with a quick lick to the temple. I brushed off the dog and wondered at this man. He had died three years ago—on my fifteenth birthday—but now stood above me, a most nimble corpse.
“Could you move the umbrella?” I asked. “I was taking in that rain.”
“Good Lord!” He jumped back, landing hard on the grassy bank. This was followed by more colorful expressions and a clutching of the chest. I thought then to tell him that he would die in approximately two years . . . that on July 16, he would be found by Hollock slumped forward off the toilet with his torso in the bathtub. But would I have wanted to know the day and description of my own undoing? I let it slide.
I stood. “Mr. Gainer, it’s me—”
I peeked down. It wasn’t me.
“Young lady.” He leaned hard on his cane and rose to his feet. “I thought— What are you doing out here?”
“I’m living? Hold on, Mr. Gainer.” I felt my face. “Is anybody else in here?” All was quiet. “Any other souls? Because if there are, it’s my turn right now. Got it?”
No argument.
“We need to get you home.” Mr. Gainer looked around. “Do you know where you live?”
I kept feeling my body. My breasts. That’s all? Oh, wow.
“Honestly, the last few weeks I’ve lived at Regions.” It warmed me to tell the truth.
“This is the first thing you’ve said that makes sense. You must have hit your head. We aren’t but a few miles from the hospital. I would drive you, but I am a mile from my home.” He pulled out his cell and dialed. “Yes, it is an emergency, I have a girl here.”
I swatted the phone out of his hand, Hollock flew into a barking frenzy, and I took off running. “I’m sorry about that, Mr. Gainer, really I am, but I’m fine,” I called over my shoulder. “I’ve never been so fine.” Thighs cramped, and I winced as stiff legs rediscovered their strength. “A mile from your house? I know where I am.”
This wasn’t completely true.
As it turned out, I was a few blocks from our cul-de-sac, but I gazed at the familiar through borrowed eyes, which changed the landscape in imperceptible ways.
Add that to the rain and the night and you’ll understand why I ran around for twenty minutes before finally standing in our driveway.
“Mom’s house.”
Here I’ll say a few words about Shane, my loaner. First, she was blond, with tanned skin, like Dad’s, her light on dark opposite of the real me. Second, she could not run. This fact irritated. I’d always been fast. Shane seemed to lack the coordination I thought ordinary fare for thirteen-year-old girls. She was tall and gangly and lacked balance, definitely unable to pull off any manner of double flip.
I dug in my pocket and grasped the locket, snapped it open. It glowed a brilliant green.
Time. I have so much of it! I tossed the locket into the air and snatched it out again. The feeling of freedom that filled the green section of my dream overwhelmed. But this was better. This was no reoccurrence; I wasn’t stuck in a field. I could do anything, go anywhere.
This dream belonged to me, now, not Lifeless.
It all could end differently.
Dad, I won’t let you down. I won’t let the Monster touch her.
I sprinted, well, lurched, around to the back of the house and checked the windows.
Jude and Mom’s room was dark. Light shone through the curtains of the room Adele and I shared. All was well. I slowed when l reached the oak. A dim light glowed from the tree house nestled far above, and my heartbeat fluttered. Nobody stayed out here this late except . . .
I placed my foot on the bottom wooden rung. Dad built this strong. Known for maximum nail use and support overkill, Dad made sure that if a tornado was coming, and the neighbors headed for their basements, we’d choose to run to the tree house, at least those of us thin enough to squeeze through the opening.
First rung. Second rung.
Creak.
“Is that you, Addy? Is everything all right?”
Have you ever heard your recorded voice? No matter how attractive you think you sound, the machine steals it all, leaves you hollow and tinny. This voice was thin, thin and clear and thirteen and me.
My heartbeat quickened.
We walk as desperate men, terrified to slow down, terrified to turn around, for we might just run into ourselves. The first line from a poem I wrote suddenly felt much more than philosophical rambling.
“No.” I called up. Shane’s voice held plenty of terror.
Crow poked out her head, and my legs buckled. Until that moment, I felt like me. A smarter me trapped in a different shell. Now, looking at Crow, I wasn’t certain who I was anymore.
“My name’s Shane. Can I come up?”
“Where . . . ?” Crow frowned and bit her lip. “Where’d you come from?”
“I’ve been on a walkabout.”
“In the rain?”
Crow stared a long time, then continued. “Yeah, okay. It’s a free country.”
That’s so I-don’t-give-a-rip me.
I climbed the rest of the way, crawled inside, and glanced around at the graffiti: phrases from books I’d read, ideas I’d worked through. All this philosophy, of course, was graced with obscenities, which is about what all those ideas turned out to be. But my gaze quickly traveled to Crow.
She pressed back against the opposite wall. Her hair was black and wild, her skin pale and beautiful. She blinked bloodshot eyes—anyone would have thought her wasted, anyone who didn’t know.
Her bent knees supported one arm, while the other rested on a stack of books. Tolstoy, Ben Franklin, Nietzsche, Charles Darwin, the Holy Bible. I scooted back as far as I could. I knew a butcher knife lay behind that stack.
I breathed deep. I also knew whom the blade
was meant for.
She didn’t move. She stared through those unblinking eyes, but I recognized the look, the one that searched for any show of weakness.
Inside, I felt a loosening, later I would name it tenderness, toward this girl I knew so well. I remembered my appearance in Sadie’s ambulance. My true self. Why had my soul hardened and twisted? When had it done so? Did it shrivel under the weight of Mom’s accusations? Calcify in the silence between us? Maybe it faded along with my dreams. I could have been a writer; I had lots to say. Pain had been a good teacher.
But I didn’t matter anymore. My chance to gift this world had passed. Not Adele’s. She was still light and hope. Mom made that clear. . . .
“You, Crow, were the wedge between your father and me. You, Crow, are incapable of speaking the truth.” This argument-ending line was powerful, and by thirteen, I was close to believing it; so, likely, was my soul.
I winced. That gnarled shadow already lived in the beautiful girl sitting among the books.
“I don’t usually have visitors in my tree house.” I said.
Crow’s face twitched. “Your tree house? Have I met you?” Her hand reached behind the stack. She was nervous but wouldn’t show it.
“I only meant that this is where I’ve been living. Guess that makes it partly mine.” I let my head thud back against the wood. “I was looking at that stack of books. I, uh, noticed there’s a pretty frightening knife behind it. I really don’t mean any harm.” I stared into Crow’s face. It wasn’t relaxing, a really bad sign for me. “Please.” I winced. “Is your hand on that thing, ’cause one day you might miss.”
Crow clenched her jaw, whipped out the blade, and flung the knife across the tiny house. It stuck in the wood about six inches above my head.
She eased back. “You’ve been digging in my personal affairs. That’s not a good idea.”
“No, not digging. Just looking, but you’re right. Now that we’ve met, I’ll be more respectful.”
I reached up and muscled out the blade. It felt clunky in this foreign hand. Shane didn’t have one callus, not one bruise. It was a good bet that she ran only when necessary, and she worked even less.