Sapphire: A Paranormal Romance (9 page)

He could see his
footprints in the muddy and strangely sandy ground, but as he looked more
closely, he realized that the second set of footprints was missing.  It was as
if Sapphire had been floating above the ground the entire time.

When
Jimmy got home, he checked his watch and saw that it was one in the
morning.  He sat outside for a few moments, and then got up and walked as
stealthily as he could up the front porch and into the house.   He cringed when
the screen door let out a groan that sounded about as quiet as a double-barreled
shotgun going off.  He crept into the darkened living room and froze.  He
slipped off his shoes to try and be quieter figuring his mother would start
screaming at him at any moment.  He looked to his left into the living room and
saw a form lying on the couch and remained frozen for a time.

The snoring was
what made him move again.  When she was deeply asleep, his mother was known to
saw logs louder than a lumberjack.  The television was on with the volume
turned down, and the screen cast an eerie glow across her face.   Her head was
back, pressed into one of the couch cushions, and her mouth hung open.  She had
a magazine on her chest and the remote control was held loosely by one hand and
had also ended up on her chest.  Her breathing was regular, making the magazine
and the remote move up and down slowly.  She was out. 

Jimmy thought for
a moment that a loving and diligent son would wake his mother up and help her
to bed rather than leave her on the couch.  However, given the verbal assault
he was likely to encounter, Jimmy guessed he could spend one night not being a
good and diligent son.  He picked up his shoes and shuffled in his stocking
feet to his bedroom.  He closed the door carefully behind him, and only then
did he let his breath out in a long sigh.

He undressed
quietly.  He then slipped into bed, the coolness of the sheets welcome against
his skin.  He looked up at the ceiling of his bedroom.  The shadows from the
trees and bushes outside his bedroom cast strange figures across the ceiling
tiles, like hands clawing and scratching.  He smiled.  His head was buzzing and
when he closed his eyes, he saw Sapphire staring at him, her eyes that were
burning coals set far back in her sockets.  He had never known anyone more
beautiful.  He wondered if he would ever get to sleep.

He was asleep in
seconds.  One moment he was staring at the claws and shadows on his ceiling,
and the next he had gone into a deep sleep.  His body was exhausted.  Although
his brain continued to buzz with thoughts and images of Sapphire, his body
forced him into sleep.  His dreams were troubles and, although he could not
remember any of them the next morning, he knew that Sapphire was in most of
them.

Near dawn, he had
a dream that he carried with him right into his waking moments.  He was running
through the darkened woods with Sapphire.  She was clutching his hand, and all
around them was darkness.  The darkness seemed alive, however, not just the
absence of light, but something alive that wanted to reach out and grab them. 
Tree branches slapped Jimmy in the face, whipping at his eyes, tearing the
flesh from his face.  He could feel the blood running down his face, dripping
from his chin, and spattering against the ground.  Beneath his feet, the roots
of trees reached up from under the ground like hungry hands grabbing for food. 
He felt them wrapping around his ankles, threatening to spill him onto the
ground.  And behind them was the worst part, because something was there,
something was coming.  He could hear it thrashing and crashing through the
branches.  Sapphire was terrified, her hands gripping his with such force that
he could feel the bones moving beneath her fingers, squeezing so tight that he
thought the bones might break.

“Run, Jimmy!” she
screamed, and she began to run faster, pulling her hand away from Jimmy’s.

“Sapphire!”

Sapphire’s eyes
were wide as she looked back over her shoulder at Jimmy.  Just then, the trees
near Sapphire split apart as if they had been hit by lightning.  A man emerged
from behind the trees, from within the darkness.  He had glowing red eyes and
huge, long, reaching, and grasping fingers that ended in sharp claws.  He
grabbed Sapphire, the claws sinking into the flesh of her arms.  Sapphire let
out a sound that pierced Jimmy’s heart.  Then the man’s mouth opened, and it
was filled with row upon row of needle-sharp teeth.  Before Jimmy could catch
his breath, the man bit into Sapphire’s neck.  Sapphire screamed again and, in
the real world, Jimmy’s eyes snapped open.

He stared at the
ceiling over his head.  The ceiling tiles were still there, but the shadows
were gone.  Sunlight streaked through the blinds and spread across the
ceiling.  He sat up, the covers falling away and looked down to see that his
entire body was slick with sweat.  The blankets were twisted around his legs,
as if he had been thrashing in his sleep.  He groaned when the blood rushed to
his head and his head pounded angrily in response.  He felt hung over again,
was thirsty, and felt as if he had not slept at all.

“What time is it?”
he muttered to himself.

He looked over at
the clock.  It was ten o’clock in the morning.  He blinked in surprise and
gazed at the clock face again.  Yes, it still said it was ten a.m.  Actually,
now it said it was after ten.  That was odd, to say the least.  There was no
way his mother would let him sleep this late.  It was a Sunday, sure, but the
best he could normally have hoped for was that she would let him sleep until
eight.

It felt like a
knife twisted in Jimmy’s gut.  When his mom suddenly deviated from her rather
predictable norms, that meant she was about to try and teach Jimmy a lesson. 
She was angry.  Perhaps he would be getting the silent treatment from her all
day.  He sighed and freed his feet from the blankets.  The air in the bedroom
was warm.  It was going to be a hot day, he could tell already.

The events of the
night before replayed before his mind’s eye.  Already much of it felt like a
dream.  At that thought, he immediately recalled the large man who had come
tearing through the trees and shot him back into the waking world.  The long
arms, razor-sharp claws, and needle-like teeth made him shiver, despite the
heat. 

He stood up and
stretched, but his head continued to beat a steady rhythm just behind his
eyes.  He would need to take something to get rid of this headache.  He didn’t
have to work, which was nice, so maybe he could try to track down George and
maybe patch things up with him.  First, he had to get through the gauntlet that
was his mother.

Jimmy grabbed some
pants and headed into the hallway.  The television was on, but the volume was
higher than it was last night.  He could hear the soft clinking of a spoon
hitting a ceramic bowl, and knew that his mother had also slept late and was
just now eating breakfast, probably on the sofa in front of the television. 
His mom was not the type to get up and make bacon and eggs for herself.  She
ate cereal and that was that.  If she was feeling particularly celebratory in
the morning, she might make herself some tea and toast coated with honey. 

Jimmy frowned.  It
was unlike his mother to indulge in that extra sleep.  He wondered if she had
cried last night and, perhaps, even cried herself to sleep, convinced that her
once obedient-without-question-son had defied her and gone off with the mystery
woman from the side of the road.

He quickly went
down the hall to the linen closet and got a towel.  He moved rapidly, ducking
into the bathroom, closing the door behind him, and turning on the shower
before his mother had a chance to get up from the couch.  He let the shower get
warm and then he undressed, assessing himself in the mirror.  He looked the
same.  He was skinny, his arms comical rather than muscular.  His ribs showed
and his stomach, rather than showing off a six-pack, seemed concave, as if he
were collapsing on himself.  He hardly looked like a bully-killer who had
injured one of the strongest jocks in school just two days ago.  What the hell
had gotten into him?  One word came to mind when he asked himself that question:
Sapphire.  Everything about her was different, and that made him feel
different.

Steam began to
rise from the shower, clouding the mirror.  He listened for a moment to see if
he could hear his mother getting up or walking around.  He heard nothing.  He stepped
into the shower and let the hot water wash over him. 

His head felt a
little bit better once he was done, but there was still that residual pounding
at the base of his skull.  Is this what people felt like the day after they got
drunk?  If so, why did they seem to enjoy being drunk so much?

Once he was dried
off, his hair brushed and deodorant applied to his armpits, he decided he had
been in the bathroom long enough.  He had expected his mother to knock on the
door or, perhaps, just burst into the bathroom to talk to him.  She had done
neither, and this worried him.  What was she trying to prove—that if he felt he
was old enough not to heed her advice, she didn’t need to offer it?

He nodded to
himself in the mirror.  Yes, if he had to guess, he would put money on that
being the reason.  He sighed again as he opened the door and quickly ducked
down the hall and back into his room.  He shook his head, muttering to himself
as he dug through his dresser and then his closet to find clothes. He decided
to go casual today with jeans and a t-shirt. 

Why were parents
always so complicated?  Why couldn’t they understand what kids his age were
going through?  They went through it themselves, he figured, so why not be more
understanding?

The logic or
illogic of that argument was ignored as he finished getting dressed and then
steeling himself for heading out into the rest of the house.  Unless his mother
had decided to suddenly go out (and he had not heard the car starting or
driving away) then he was going to have to face her when he made his own
breakfast.  He had already decided that cereal was the way to go this morning.

He walked down the
hall.  In his mind he was already going over all of the possible things his
mother might say and was trying to come up with clever ways to counter them. 
He headed into the kitchen and grabbed the box of cereal, a bowl, and a spoon,
poured the cereal, added milk before heading into the living room.

His mother was
sitting on the couch.  In front of her was a tray table that she used when she
wanted to eat while watching TV.  She was in her pajamas and a white bathrobe. 
Her hair was flat against her back and neck and sticking up in a few places. 
Jimmy noticed, with a stabbing pang of guilt, that her eyes appeared
red-rimmed.  She turned her head to look at him, her head turning slowly as if
on rusty hinges.  She did not smile and she said nothing, just seemed to
register that he was there, and then turned her head on those same rusty hinges
back towards the television.

Jimmy sat down in
an easy chair across the room from her, lifted the bowl to his chin and spooned
some of the cereal into his mouth.   He glanced at her out of the corner of his
eye.  She appeared to be staring at the television without really seeing it.

“Good morning,” he
said quietly and cautiously.

“Mmm,” his mother
said.

Jimmy frowned.  He
turned his concentration on to eating his cereal for a moment.  He concentrated
on moving the spoon around the bowl, getting the perfect amount of cereal and
milk, and then carefully getting it to his mouth without spilling.  It was
amazing, he found, how fascinating you could find the most mundane things when
you knew your mother was furious at you.

“So did you sleep
out here all night?” he asked around a mouth filled with cornflakes.

She nodded. 
“Yes.”

“I see,” Jimmy
whispered.

Spoon into bowl,
spoon around bowl, spoon up to mouth and chew.  Swallow.  Repeat.

“Why?” he asked.

She shrugged. 
“Not sure at this point.  Doesn’t seem like it matters anymore.”

Jimmy sighed.  The
dam was breaking.  He could feel it.  The question he had was why was he
chipping away at it?  He knew the answer, though.  If he didn’t chip away, his
mother would repress her feelings and then, suddenly, when Jimmy least expected
it, that pressure would explode, and it would explode in grand fashion,
possibly in a public place.  It was best to try and cause a few controlled
avalanches to save the rest of the snow lodge, in other words.

“Mom,” Jimmy said,
“I love you.  I still respect you.  I know you think that because I went out to
see Sapphire last night you think I don’t, but that’s not true.  I just think
that, with this particular thing, you should let me decide.  Why are you still
overreacting so much to all of this?  I don’t understand it. It’s not like
you.”

“What does it
matter?” his mother said.  “You say you respect me, but then you go out and
spend the entire night outside with some strange girl after I strictly forbid
you not to.  You say you listen to me, and when I talk to you about this whole
incident and how strange it is, you just shrug it off like it’s nothing.  You
aren’t like this, Jimmy.  You’ve always been a good boy and listened to me,
without question.  Suddenly you aren’t the same boy I sent to that dance the
other night.  You’re somebody different and I don’t understand it.  You have to
trust me, Jimmy, about this.  I know things that you don’t.”