Beyond the Rising Tide (12 page)

She shakes her head slowly. “That’s simply how it is. I see others like you. Sometimes I talk to them.” Finally she lowers her hands, but clings to my forearms as though she’ll fall over if she lets go. “But I’ve never touched one of you until now. I didn’t expect you to be … solid.”

“I’m not. I mean, not usually. I’m on a special … errand.”

She holds onto me, staring up at me with frosted eyes, thin lips and chin quivering. “And you need a place to stay. Are you hungry? I can make you
chupe de camarones
. It is my specialty.”

I’ve never had
chupe de camarones
, but it doesn’t exactly sound like throwing tacos together. “It’s the middle of the night,” I say, and my voice sounds tired. “I just need a place to sleep.”

“I can give you a place to stay. And you tell me about Miguel.”

“But—” There’s nothing to tell. I don’t know her son. I open my mouth to tell her this, but before I can say anything, she stops me.

“Tonight, you rest. Tomorrow, we talk. Wait here.” She turns and shuffles back up the stairs and into the house. Dacio stays at my side, wagging his tail and tilting his head like he’s waiting for me to start speaking canine or something. A minute later, she comes back out and hands me a key attached to a little crocheted doll. “Tell me, what is your name?”

“Kai.”

She puts a hand to her chest. “Isadora. And I have always given refuge to those in need. But it has been many years since I have taken someone in. And never someone like you. Usually, people like you are the ones who help me. So this is a great honor.” She points away from the house. “Go through the vineyard. There’s an empty cottage, behind the lavender field. It’s not much. A bed, running water. It was for the workers, but they’re all gone now. You stay there tonight. Tomorrow, we talk.” She reaches up and pats my cheek affectionately, like I’m her own son.

“Thank you,” I say, swallowing back an unexpected wave of emotion at the kindness I didn’t see coming. And I can’t help thinking that for whatever reason, maybe this is exactly where I’m supposed to be.

That night, I dream for the first time since my death. Of my childhood, of broken glass on a filthy kitchen floor, of trying to pick up the shards before my baby sisters put them in their mouths. I dream of weed stashed in an empty bread basket, of flashing police car lights, and the
clack, clack, clack
of a social worker’s high heels in a sterile hospital hallway. I dream of unfamiliar bedrooms and faces, of a well-worn Hefty bag that holds all my earthly possessions. I dream of callused fingertips on guitar strings, of my vocal cords vibrating with gritty lyrics. Of semitrucks eating up white dashes on the highway, and street corners in Omaha, coins dropping into my open guitar case.

And then I dream of Avery. Of a fearless girl on a surfboard in a stormy sea. I feel the air rush over me as I drop twenty feet from the pier, feel the sting of the Pacific in December. I dream of a blade slicing through a surfboard leash, of Avery’s lips drawing breath, of her in my arms, warm and alive. And I think,
It was all for this
. My life, everything leading up to this moment, was all for her, so that she could live. And if given the chance, I would do it all over again.

I open my eyes to an unfamiliar room. Morning sunlight pours through a window onto faded blue walls, and a wooden cross hangs over my head. My bed isn’t the only one in the room, but the other two are empty, their blankets tucked neatly in place. As my eyes sweep the rest of the room, they find an oval picture frame on the wall, and an old Hispanic woman standing in the doorway.
Isadora
.

She hobbles over, her golden retriever following close behind, and pulls up a twig chair. She sits and smooths out her long, striped skirt. “You sleep. Now you tell me about Miguel.”

I sit up slowly and drop my feet to the floor, the remnants of my dream fading with the shadows in the room. This woman has done me a great kindness by letting me sleep here, and now I can’t give her what she wants in return. I look at her wrinkled face, at the hope held there, and my heart breaks a little. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t know your son. You have to understand, thousands of people die every day, and …”

She closes her eyes. Her withered hand reaches for mine, and a tear seeps from beneath her eyelid and travels down a crevice in her skin.

I blanket my hand over hers, doing my best to comfort her. But clearly time hasn’t dulled the pain of losing her son. “I can tell you what happened to me when I died,” I offer. “Maybe that’ll help you know what happened to him.”

She opens her mother-of-pearl eyes. “Yes,” she whispers. “Please. Tell me.”

I let my mind wander back to that fateful day. I skip over the part where I died, because it’s not important to her, and because the details aren’t something I enjoy reliving. “I found myself in a beautiful place,” I say, “and then someone came to greet me.”

“Who?”

“Someone I knew on Earth, who died before me.” I asked Charles once why he’d been the one to greet me and not my mom, but he couldn’t give me an answer. Knowing Isadora can’t see well, I take her hand and place it over my wristband. “He gave me this.”

Her fingers run over the smooth metal and stone. “What is it for?”

“It gives me the power to heal people. That’s my job.”

Her hand leaves my wrist and goes to Dacio’s head, where she strokes his fur. Her knuckles are swollen, and the skin on her hand is spotted with years of working in the sun. “If some have the power to heal, why was no one sent to heal Miguel when he was dying?”

It’s the same universal question I’ve asked countless times but have never found the answer to. “I wish I could tell you,” I say. “All I know is that some mortals’ time comes earlier than others. I was only seventeen when I died.”

She keeps her hand on Dacio as she absorbs my inadequate answer, and then says, “So Miguel is working.”

“If he chooses to, yes. No one is forced.”

“He was a hard worker when he was here. I’m sure he is still working hard.” She lays her other hand on my wrist and leans forward, clinging to me. “I just want to know if he’s happy. Is he happy?”

Another question I can’t answer. There are places on the other side, like Elysium, where everyone is happy and at peace. And then there’s the Briar, where confusion and pain and anger reign. In between those is Demoror, where we wait and work and change for the better or worse, until we feel at home in either Elysium or the Briar. People have ups and downs, just like on Earth. I don’t know her son, so I don’t know where he ended up. “Was he happy here?”

“Always.”

“Then he’s happy there.” Based on my experience of seeing hundreds of people cross over to the other side, it’s my best guess.

She closes her eyes and nods as her hand curls around mine. When her thumb touches Charles’s ring, she stops to feel it. “What is this for?”

“It’s what makes me … solid.” I don’t tell her it’s not mine, that I’m breaking the rules by wearing it. “I don’t usually wear it, but like I said last night, I’m on a special errand.”

“Are you here to heal someone?”

“You could say that.”

“Who?”

I take a deep breath as my thoughts turn to Avery. I picture her face, hear her soft, musical laughter, feel the warmth that radiates from her. “A girl. She lives down by the beach.”

“Well, if you have someone to heal, what are you doing here?”

“I only have the power to heal physical ailments. She needs a different kind of healing, one that will take more time.”

“And so you need a place to stay. You are welcome here for as long as you need. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

I look down at myself. I’m wearing the same stolen clothes from the day before, and I realize I might want to find a way to expand my wardrobe. If I had more cash, I could make a run to a thrift store for some extra clothes, and maybe pick up some soap and toothpaste. I also need to repay the store owner for the things I took, and for the broken window.

“I need a job,” I say. “Work that I can do for pay.”

“There’s always work to do. Come with me.”

ive minutes to closing, Tyler walks into the chocolate shop with Gem on his heels. I’m on the phone taking a custom order, and my pencil lead snaps off. Gem is wearing daisy dukes and sandals with straps laced halfway up her calves like ballet slippers. Not exactly appropriate attire for a surfing lesson.

“Miss?” comes a woman’s voice from the phone receiver. “Are you writing this down?”

“Yes.” I tear my eyes from Gem and scramble for a new pencil or pen, anything to write with. I finally find a sharpie in my apron pocket. “Sixty boxes of assorted chocolate-covered fruit. Got it.”

“No apricots.”

“Right. No apricots.” I make a note on the form.

Tyler and Gem come up to the display case, and he points out his favorite chocolates to her. I already know what they are. Salted caramels and ginger-wasabi truffles. From the look of Gem, she’s probably a sugar-free peppermint kind of girl.

“And you’re sure they can be ready by tomorrow morning?” the woman on the phone asks.

“Yes. It’s no problem.”

Sophie clomps out of the kitchen in her combat boots with a tray of samples for Tyler and Gem, and I finish gathering the woman’s information while trying to figure out why, of all places, Tyler would bring Gem here. Either he’s trying to make me jealous, or he likes this girl so much that he’s willing to hurt me in order to get her some good chocolate.

Only after I hang up do I realize that Dad may not be able to help me fill the order because he’s helping Mom with some things today. If he doesn’t show up, I’ll have to stay late to finish it. And if Kai stops by like he said he would, I’ll only be able to hang out with him for a few minutes.

I take the order to the back where I tack it to a bulletin board, and when I come back up front, Gem is saying to Sophie, “I want to try something that I can’t get anywhere else.”

And I think maybe that’s what Tyler is to her. She’s probably from someplace where surfer boys are a novelty, and she’s sampling them while she’s here.

Sophie’s black hair is knotted into a dozen little buns all over her head, and I see her cheek rise with a smile. “I have just the thing in the back,” she says. “I’ve been working on a new recipe. Wait here.”

Gem smiles at Tyler, her doe eyes practically sparkling with anticipation, and Sophie walks past me with her brows arched in a mischievous way that makes me nervous.

To avoid having to converse with Tyler, I grab a notepad and begin listing our existing fruit inventory so I’ll know how much we still need to make for the big order. When I duck behind the case to count the chocolate-covered grapes, Gem starts briefing Tyler on some chemtrails seminar her parents attended the night before. I can tell he’s tuning her out because when I glance over the case at him, he’s wearing the same face that he wears during algebra and English lit. And world history, and economics. And pretty much any topic he doesn’t find fascinating. The only science Tyler is interested in is how waves are formed. If she really wants his attention, she should talk low-pressure systems and swell obstacles and wave energy.