Finding Casey (6 page)

Things at the Emergency were like Abel used to get when he took drugs, all speeded up, rushing, and yelling. Children were crying. A man with blood running down his arm sat there with his eyes squeezed shut while the blood dripped on the floor, splat, splat, splat. So red. His life dripping out. Another man threw up in a bucket and I remembered the time we all got food poisoning from Frances's tomato sauce. Seth made her do a three-day sweat and fast, and when she came back to the yurt her skirt had to be pinned at the waist or it would fall right off.

After lots of questions from a lady at another kind of counter, and me having I guess the right answers, pretty soon we were in another doctor room with a shower curtain around us, and tubes coming from the walls and machines called monitors.
Moon, main, rain, not.
There was a rolling dresser, and a TV you could switch on from this control thing which you could also use to call for help. TV is Turning Us Into Zombies, so I left that alone. Aspen was still asleep. Medicine that looked like a bag of water dripped into her arm through the tiniest needle, though you can never tell what's in water, like salmonella, which is invisible. Some doctors came in and talked to each other, and went out and came back in again. The nurses all wore blue clothes. “Why is everyone wearing pajamas?” I asked and the nurse said, “They're uniforms and we call them scrubs.”
Curbs, sub, curs,
a bad kind of dog.

She cleaned Aspen up with soap and a washcloth. “This is one dirty little girl,” she said, and I knew she meant I didn't wash her right, but I did, just not last night when she felt so sick.

“You're a brave one,” she said to Aspen while she and another
nurse packed her in an ice bath for her fever. She didn't even moan now. Aspen is brave, but I don't want her to be brave because of bad things happening to her like they did to me, which was why I got upset at the pee tube. Things that happen to her like needles and seizures and throw-up, I can't help it, but nothing else, especially nothing down there where it's private.

Then an older woman dressed in Outside clothes—a brown jacket and matching pants, a necklace of very big pearls and a short silver haircut (the Bible says women should have long hair) came into the room and said, “Hello, Mrs. Smith. I'm Ardith Clemmons. I came to see how Aspen is doing.”

I didn't know her, and her knowing my name seemed tricky, like she was there to do something bad. “Hello,” I said. “Who are you?” I asked, remembering to smile at the last minute. Always smile.

“I'm Mrs. Clemmons, dear. I work here at the hospital helping families and children. The nurse told me you might need some help filling out forms.”

“I can read,” I said, angry they would look at me and think I was that stupid. “There are probably lots of other people who need you more.”

“That's thoughtful of you,” she said. “But as it happens, I have some free time right now. May I sit with you? Keep you company?”

Why? I wondered. I was going to have to pay careful attention. “I was just about to tell Aspen her favorite story,” I said.

“I love stories. May I listen in?”

I didn't know what to do. I smiled, I was polite, I told everyone my name. All that I had left was to bring up Jesus, but was it time for that? Seth said talking about Jesus would make even the nosiest person give up. I didn't want to do that right now. I was
tired and I had to pay attention to Aspen and I might mess up. I could say, “Be my guest,” like the nurse did, but that sounded unkind, and we are Here in This World to Practice Loving Kindness. I guessed it was all right for her to listen. It was just a made-up story.

So because it wouldn't hurt, be my guest, and maybe she could hear me, I started to tell Aspen her favorite story,
The Princess of Leaves
. She loved this story better than any of the other ones I knew, probably because it didn't come from a book and I could tell it wherever we were, even in the dark, and I could make anything happen in it that I wanted to, and whatever question Aspen might ask me, I could make the story change and twist, just like a river.

“This is the story of the Princess of Leaves,” I said.

Once upon a time, long ago …

How long? Aspen would always say.

Long enough that everyone has forgotten this story. There lived a princess in a castle near the woods with her parents, the king and queen. Now all princesses are beautiful, but what made her different from other princesses was that she could sing so beautifully that if any bird within one hundred miles of the castle heard her singing, they were compelled to fly near. If she sang long enough, eventually every person in the village would come to the castle. There they'd stand, by the castle's moat, holding their hats in their hands, looking up to the highest tower, where silver birds perched on the castle walls. They waited for the princess to come out to the balcony so they could catch a glimpse of her.

Every young man in the kingdom dreamed of asking the king for his daughter's hand in marriage once she became of age. Her blonde hair hung down nearly to her waist, curling
on its own. Her eyes were hazel, which is the name of the Tree of Wisdom. Some days they were green and some days they were brown. Her smile caused even the saddest person to forget his troubles.

The townspeople called her the Princess of Leaves, because she liked to collect leaves from the many trees at the edge of the forest. This was especially true in late autumn, when every leaf reveals its true color. Often they would look up from their chores and see her pass by with the palace guard, keeping her safe.

Autumn was her favorite time of year because that's when the earth begins to prepare for winter. The leaves turn gold, orange, scarlet, and rarest of all, a deep burgundy. That means red, but with purple in it. Like a plum, or a bruise at its sorest.

Toward the forest Princess Leafy would go, always with the castle guard at her side to keep her safe. There are some people in the world so angry and unhappy that they stamp on flowers, mistreat animals, and want to make everyone as sad as they are. But you don't have to worry, I'll always protect you.

Her mother the queen often warned the princess, stay clear of the darkest part of the forest. Not a single person who has ventured into the darkness has come back to tell the story. Promise me. The princess promised her mother she would do as she said, but sometimes even the wisest of princesses forgets, accidentally, or on purpose.

The princess picked up only fallen leaves, because she never wanted to harm any living thing. In her heart, she believed every living thing deserved a lifetime, even spiders that weave webs to catch insects that might otherwise bite or pester you. Their webs are made of silk, and when it rains, drops catch on the web and they shine like diamonds. Beautiful things should be admired and then left alone.

The princess would lay each leaf on her palm and examine it carefully. Every leaf told a story: the season it didn't rain, the time a pair of secret lovers laid down on the leaves to say goodbye, the way a rabbit blended in with the leaves, hiding, to avoid hunters. The palace guard's job was to keep a lookout for danger, to fight if necessary, but he loved the princess as if she were his own daughter and it made his heart as soft as butter.

He'd fought in wars, kept soldiers from untimely ends, and though they usually traveled on foot, he was an accomplished horseman. All that was in the past, however, and his job was to accompany the princess and keep her safe. The leaves she loved best came from maple trees.

Leaves come in all shapes, but these maple leaves were shaped like hands, with five fingers, just like you have. Each finger had a vein that led to its stem so it could receive sap, which is like blood to trees. People say no two snowflakes are the same, and when it comes to leaves that's true, too.

Now a leaf collection is a delicate business. Each must be handled with care and preserved, or they'll turn brown and crumble. That's why the guard carried in his rucksack a heavy book. It had leather covers and was embroidered with silk. This book contained all the words ever spoken in the language of the kingdom. It was actually the keeper of language, so that no matter how much time went by, the book would always be there, to keep the language safe.

One word in the book was
Acer japonicum.
It means “full moon maple.” Inside those three words there were secret words, like
mull
,
lamp
, and
moon
, and
ape
,
pear
, and
plea
. That is how trees talk to you. Secretly.

It was the guard's job to press the leaves between the pages of the heavy book as they went along. That way, whenever she
wanted to, the princess could open the book and see each leaf, and using the words right there in the pages, she could make up a story.

Some storytellers write down their stories and an artist draws pictures to go with it. The princess had pencils, paint, and paper in her room at the castle. Once she collected all the colors, she intended to write down the story, using the words she kept locked inside her head. I'll bet you're wondering how did they get inside her head. The same way as a dream. When you sleep, the story arrives, a dream with talking dogs or a moon with the face of an owl, all mixed up to make something so beautiful you can't forget it. There were the five leaves she wanted and these are their names:

Green leaf with golden spots.

Golden leaf becoming orange.

Orange leaf turning scarlet.

Scarlet leaf turning to burgundy.

That's only four leaves, because I haven't got to the last one. The rarest leaf was called Nearly Black Leaf with misshapen lobe. The same shape as your little ear. Even misshapen and torn leaves have stories. Turning colors was the second-best part of the leaves' lives. First best was being collected by the princess. A lucky few were singled out for ironing. The guard knew how to heat up an iron and place the leaf between sheets of wax paper. Once pressed, they never lost their color, and they never dried out. This was the best fate of all, as far as the leaves were concerned. Ordinary people didn't realize the leaves had feelings. They raked them up, stuffed them into bags, and even made bonfires with them. A bonfire is a great big fire out in the open. A good place for one is on a beach by the ocean.

The more leaves the princess collected, the more pieces of
wax paper the guard used. Soon they were stacked up under her bed, spilling out of the dresser drawers, filling every closet. When you have too much, you go to the thrift store, but the princess was selfish. She loved every leaf, so she had a hard time giving any of them away. It's hard for some people to give up pretty things, because sometimes pretty things are the only reason to keep going.

The man nurse arrived with his gurney. “We're ready for Aspen now,” he said.

“Okay.” I stood up.

Mrs. Clemmons stood up, too. “You have quite an imagination, Laurel. I would love to hear more of that story.”

But would she really? People from the Outside play tricks. “I don't feel like telling any more of it today,” I said.

“Does talking hurt your throat?”

I looked at her, wondering if this was a trick. “I have to go to CT with Aspen.”

“May I visit you later?”

“We'll probably be gone as soon as the medicine works.”

“I hope it works quickly,” she said. “If you're still here tomorrow, I'll stop by and say hello.”

She waved, turned, and walked down a hallway, holding up her nametag to a box on the wall that caused a door to open. In a story, it would be magic, but in real life, it was a computer chip. I had to walk fast to keep up with the man pushing the gurney.

In the room for CT, the man nurse moved Aspen from the gurney bed to a white table that connected to a tall white plastic wall machine with an arm shaped like a big circle. In the middle it had a perfectly round opening. “Aspen,” I said. “It looks like a great big doughnut.” But she didn't wake up. The person who ran the scanner came out of a small office and
arranged Aspen the way she wanted her. “Are you staying?” she asked, and I said, “Yes.” She got me an apron that felt like it was filled with sand and told me to put it on over my overalls.

She went into the small office where I guessed the switches were. The thing made a clicking, pounding noise that hurt my ears. I was sure it would wake Aspen up. After a few minutes, she started to move her legs and arms, and at first I thought, Hurray, she's waking up, but then they began to jitter and writhe and I realized what it was. “Please, stop,” I told the woman in the booth. “She's having a seizure.”

She came rushing into the room and so did the man nurse waiting outside, and they hollered, “Aspen! Wake up!” and one rubbed her knuckles on her chest, while the other one felt for her pulse. Then he said, “Holy shit, she's crashing. Call a code!”

Sh, hit, it. Tis, his.
More people came. Doctors, nurses, I don't know, but there was yelling and pushing and carts on wheels and machines. I was shoved to the wall right next to the CT doughnut. Maybe the machine caused the seizure and the crashing. They put wires on her chest. They yelled out “Charging!” and “Clear!” and I could have left and no one would have noticed, but my feet would not go. I put my hands against the wall to make sure I was standing up, because it didn't feel like that.

Then I prayed, the way Seth always complained I didn't. With my whole heart.

The Vigil family's Thanksgiving began like any other morning in the City Different. Juniper awoke to the smell of bacon frying, which meant her dad had been out walking the dogs and was now in the kitchen making breakfast. She heard the dogs barking outside, probably at a rabbit. In the summer, the rabbits' tan bodies blended into the high-desert landscape, but come winter they stood out against the snow like targets. The rabbits' whole reason for existence seemed to be tormenting the dogs by staying just out of reach. Juniper looked at her watch and scowled. It was early enough that she was going to have to go outdoors and haul them inside. She sat up, pulled on her Ugg boots, and wrapped her old Pendleton blanket around her shoulders.