Iris (2 page)

I sat down because I had to. No strength in my knees.

“Come on, Mommy!” she sang to me right inside my head. “You forgot the baby things!”

And so I had. I’d been forgetting them for a long time. But I managed to stand up again without falling over, and my hands trembled only a little as I hung the teething rings on the tree. And the yellow whistle, and the white toy bird, and the tiny doll. I mean, Christmas is about a baby, and I’m not the only person who ever lost mine.

Then I tried to think what else might please her. “Let me see,” I whispered. “Paper clip chains?”

“No, Mommy, it’s finished! Look! It’s perfect!”

She was right. There on the kitchen table stood the most beautiful Christmas tree I had ever seen, bright and playful yet awesome and alive, like the burning bush in the Bible. I sat down and just gazed at it. And I swear I seemed to feel Iris sitting in my lap, wriggling like the kid she was, twisting around and giving me a hug, her invisible arms around my neck.

The rainbow light stayed in the tree all night. I know, because I never bothered trying to sleep, never went to bed.

The next morning—Christmas morning—once it got light, I couldn’t see the rainbow in the tree anymore, but maybe it was still there. I could make believe it was still there.

Or I could just plain believe.

In Iris. Bringing me a gift from the sky, a message about how to be old. How it’s all about completion, about coming back around to where you began, like circles, like the lid off a baby bottle, or like a hula hoop, or a teething ring. Or like the iris of your eye encircling the dark window of your soul.

Or like a perfect rainbow, the whole thing, not just the little bit a person can usually see.

You know a complete rainbow goes full circle. I never realized that until I heard it on some quiz show on TV: yes, it is possible to see a rainbow as a circle, a ring of prismatic light, if the shadow of your airplane is exactly in its center.

I’d like to see my rainbow that way one day, scarlet, yellow, green, blue, violet encircling me. But as I’ve never been in an airplane and never will, it would have to be under other circumstances, of which I am not quite so afraid anymore. That inner darkness, I’m hoping it gets left behind on the ground. When I go, I hope I see a ring of rainbow embracing the soul-shadow of my own departing wings.

Edgar Award–winning author
Nancy Springer
,

well known for her science fiction, fantasy, and young adult novels,

has written a gripping psychological thriller—smart, chilling, and unrelenting…

DARK LIE

available in paperback and e-book in November 2012

from New American Library

Dorrie and Sam White are not the ordinary Midwestern couple they seem. For plain, hard-working Sam hides a deep passion for his wife. And Dorrie is secretly following the sixteen-year-old daughter, Juliet, she gave up for adoption long ago. Then one day at the mall, Dorrie watches horror-stricken as Juliet is forced into a van that drives away. Instinctively, Dorrie sends her own car speeding after it—an act of reckless courage that puts her on a collision course with a depraved killer…and draws Sam into a desperate search to save his wife. And as mother and daughter unite in a terrifying struggle to survive, Dorrie must confront her own dark, tormented past.

“A darkly riveting read...compelling.”

—Wendy Corsi Staub, national bestselling author
of Nightwatcher
and
Sleepwalker

“
A fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat thriller that will have you reading late into the night and cheering for the novel's unlikely but steadfast heroine.”

—Heather Gudenkauf,
New York Tim
es best-selling author of
The Weight of Silence
and
These Things Hidden

Learn more about all of Nancy’s titles at her website, www.nancyspringer.com.