M.I.N.D. (2 page)

Two

A Pain in the Astral

Whenever I dream about my father, we're in the backyard soaking up the sunshine, looking at the stars. His arm is around my shoulder as he points out the constellations. When he turns to me and smiles, I realize that you can't see stars in daylight and he's been dead for years, and the dream slips away and I lose him again.

Except this is no dream. I'm wide awake. And we're on a small rowboat watching the sunset, not stargazing in the yard in the middle of the day.

Amanda is standing on the riverbank. She's wearing a bright red dress, and around her neck is a silver locket. Next to her, a little girl, no older than three, is clutching a yellow teddy bear.
We have to go back!
I call, but Amanda doesn't hear, or maybe she can't, and it's like I'm talking to a memory, or maybe a ghost, except her lips are quivering, her eyes filled with tears.

Corpses don't cry.

At the stern of the boat, my father is fishing. I'm sitting across from him, in the bow. Water is gushing in through a hole in the deck, and all I can think about is how strange it is that my father is fishing in a suit and tie.

That and the fact that he has no eyes.

Come out of there this instant!
I hear Mrs. Snyder say, somewhere in my mind. And in the next moment, like a skip in fast-forward, I'm on the riverbank, watching the boat sink lower and lower until it disappears completely in the swirling grave.

Daddy!
I call.
Daddy, where are you?

An arm breaks through the surface, then a head, then shoulders.

It's not my father.

It's Zack, and he's thrashing against the current, gulping for air.

Amanda's mouth starts to move like she's forming words, but no words escape. She grasps the locket, steps into the water.

No!
I yell.
Come back! We have to go back!
But my words remain soundless as though lost in the wind, and I watch, helplessly, as inch by inch she's sucked into the chaos.

Somewhere, someone is laughing. Somewhere, the little girl is crying. Somewhere, someplace else, someone is talking as if through a tunnel.

Come back come back come back…

***

“Come back,” someone is whispering. “Cassie, honey, please come back.”

My eyes fly open. I wait for them to adjust to the light, and then I look around. The walls are stark white and the bed has a rail. Somewhere outside, a siren wails.

“You're in the hospital,” my mother says, looming over me. “They moved you up here from the ER about an hour ago. How do you feel?”

“Not bad,” I answer, trying to ignore the volcano in my head.

I know better than to whine about pain. Scrape my knee while hiking? No more nature walks for me. Ditto for bike riding, even though my neurologist said it was okay as long as I wore a helmet and stayed out of traffic. (“You weren't in traffic when you crashed into that bush,” my mother pointed out. Hello? It was a tricycle and I was five.) Get knocked down by a volleyball in P.E.? A trip to the ER for an X-ray, and yup, you guessed it, nix the P.E. (Actually, the P.E. thing was a perk. Too bad it was temporary.)

She peers into my eyes. “What year is it, Cassie? What's our address? Do you remember what happened?”

Details of the accident come trickling back, but they're choppy, as if I'm watching a movie on TV and Tivo-ing through the scenes. I see myself at the front of the bus.
Click.
I see Amanda lunging at the driver.
Click.
I see a truck coming at us like a missile from space.

Click
. I see myself in that place again, in a boat with my father.

I tell her what I remember, but I omit that last part. My mother can barely handle normal, never mind paranormal. She'd have me back in therapy so fast my already dizzy brain would be spinning. Well, forget that. There's no stigma to therapy after losing your father, but it's another story when they think you're nuts.

She pulls out her organic hand wipes. “You're lucky,” she says, scrubbing the seat of the blue plastic chair. (Has she been standing the whole time, hovering over me? Creepy.) “It's just a minor concussion. It could have been a lot worse. They'll probably release you in a couple of days. Except I think it's a mistake. If it were up to me, I'd keep you here at least a week.” She smiles feebly and then sits down.

If she had her way, she'd be camping out next to me, on the floor if she had to (after mopping it, of course). But I don't say anything. Sure, I hate that she smothers me, but I understand. I'm an only child. I'm all she's got.

It was after I woke up in the hospital, that first time when I was ten, that the seizures started. She's probably terrified they'll start up again. Truth is, so am I.

There must be a lot of terrified people here today, I think. I picture the ER filling up with hysterical teenagers, their parents running around and yelling, “Take my child first! We have Blue Cross!” Omigod. Zack. “Who else was hurt?” I ask, panic setting in.

“Mrs. Snyder has a few cracked ribs,” my mother says, frowning. She replaces the wipes and snaps her purse shut. “And Mr. Haskins, the bus driver, broke his arm.”

I breathe out in relief. No one was killed. And Zack is fine.

“Also, there was another concussion,” she adds, motioning to the empty bed by the window. “She's still in X-ray. They'll be bringing her up here shortly.” Her frown deepens. “I tried to get you a private room, but nothing was available. Maybe you should wear a mask.”

“It's a concussion, Mom, not Halloween.” Understanding only goes so far.

“You think this is funny? Laugh all you want, but from now on things are going to be different. There are going to be changes, missy.”

I once saw a movie about a boy who had to live in a bubble. Is that what she's planning? To convert the living room into a sterile container? No human contact unless they're swathed in Saran Wrap? “Mom, you have to relax,” I say.

She shifts in her chair.

“What?” I ask, a warning bell going off in my head.

There's something she's not telling me. She has that look, like when I asked her where babies came from and she answered, “Paris.” We were eating French toast at the time, so it was probably the first thing that popped into her mind.

Or like when I was ten and I woke up in this same hospital and asked her where my father was. She didn't say anything.

“It's your other friend,” she says quietly. “The one you don't speak to anymore.”

Once again, my panic rises. Amanda. “What about her?” I whisper.

No answer.

“Oh, my God,” I say. “Oh, my God.”

“No, no,” my mother says. She touches my arm as though to reassure me. “She's alive.” Though what she says next doesn't reassure me at all. “But it doesn't look good. She's in a coma.”

Old grudges slip away like sand through my fingers, and tears stream down my face. Tears of grief for the girl who was once my friend, tears of regret for who she became. I picture her in the parking lot, looking cold and frail. I picture her crazed expression, her large shiny pupils bouncing on her eyes. I see her jumping up from her seat, lunging at the driver, grabbing the wheel…

It doesn't matter that she ditched me, or that for the past eight months she's been a capital B. It doesn't even matter that because of her, I might have to spend the rest of my life living in a bubble.

She doesn't deserve this. No one does.

A wave of fatigue washes over me, and I feel myself drifting. So tired…so very tired…can't think about anything… I don't fight it. I'm grateful for the oblivion.

***

I open my eyes to Leanne's intense stare.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” she says, all solemn.

“Stop gawking. I'm not dead.” I glance around the room. “How'd you get past the warden?” My mother warned me, no visitors allowed. Except for her, of course. Her orders, not the doctor's. She said I don't need the stress. Like she doesn't give me stress? The other bed is still empty, but on the windowsill is a bouquet of white and yellow roses. “You snuck in through the window?”

“That's me,” Leanne says, “a regular spider monkey.”

We exchange a smile. Leanne's been dating Josh Melone, jock supreme, since junior high. Problem was, her father said she couldn't date until high school. A perk to having three older sisters: You inherit all their sneak-out tactics, like spraying squeaky door hinges with Pam, or using extra fabric softener so your clothes don't rustle. And, of course, maneuvering through the low-hanging willow tree without breaking a nail. Unfortunately, she also got their hand-me-downs, like that white pleather jacket that looks like a bath mat.

She sits on the blue plastic chair. “Actually, I didn't see your mother anywhere. Maybe she went to the gift shop to get you a magazine. Or a stuffed animal. She can post it outside as a warning. Your own personal guard bunny.”

I grimace. “Funny how whenever she leaves, suddenly I'm Miss Popularity.”

I tell her how earlier today my mother went to lunch and the place turned into Grand Central Terminal. Okay, fine. Only two people showed up, but that's two more than if she'd been here. First Ethan came by. I didn't know what to say to him. I mean, God, his sister is in a coma. Then Brendan dropped by, which was even stranger, seeing how he hardly said two words to me when Amanda was conscious. He asked me all these questions, like what did Amanda say to me on the bus, and what else do I remember?

“I told him I don't remember anything,” I say to Leanne. “What's it his business anyway? She was talking to me, not him.”

Leanne nods. “Maybe he feels guilty. I heard they had a fight. First they fight, then she has a meltdown, and the next thing you know, they're loading her onto a stretcher.” She glides her hands along the rail like she doesn't know what to do with them, then plants them in her lap.

“Something the matter?” I ask.

“So it's true,” she says. “You sat with her on the bus.”

“It's not like I asked her. She just plopped down and started ranting away.” I hate sounding so defensive, like I'm some kind of traitor. Like the mere act of acknowledging Amanda's existence is a criminal offense. “And that's another thing,” I say. “Why was she even talking to me? She snubs me all year and suddenly she's confiding in me? Except she wasn't making any sense. She was talking a mile a minute.” Something occurs to me, and I feel like crying all over again. “It could be the last thing she ever said in her life, and I don't have a clue what about.”

“Yeah, well, neither did she,” Leanne says. “They say she was wasted.”

We're quiet for a moment, and then I say, hesitantly, “I saw her again, Leeny. After the crash. I think she was trying to tell me something then too.”

“Excuse me? After the crash she wasn't conscious. Neither were you.” She gives me a worried glance. “Are you starting that again? Are you saying you took another walk on the astral plane? So how was the weather up there? Did you at least see a white light this time?”

I already regret mentioning it. Like my mother, Leanne is psychically phobic. OBE? To her, an out-of-body experience means limp hair. Near-death experience? Riding in a buggy behind the horse's tail. “No, but I saw John Lennon. And Kurt Cobain says hello.”

“Why are you always so sarcastic?”

“
I'm
sarcastic? You spew it out like a machine gun. Which is why I didn't want to mention it in the first place.”

“Sorry,” she says, though she doesn't sound sorry at all. “Tell me what you saw. I promise I won't laugh. Cross my heart and hope to fly.”

I have no one else I can talk to and I have to talk to someone, so I tell her. “I left my body,” I insist. “I was there again, Leeny. It was
real
.”

“It was a dream, Cass. Just like the last time.” She looks around like she's buying a box of Monistat and is worried someone might see. “Think about it. Aren't you supposed to be going somewhere on a bus or a subway or something with a bunch of spirits? Amanda is kind of disembodied, but why would you see Zack? He didn't even need a Tylenol.”

“I don't make the rules,” I snap. “I just know what I saw.”

“You had a chemical reaction in your head, and everything got all mixed up. The reason you saw your father is because you feel guilty you're alive and he's not. The missing-eyes thing is symbolic of the drowning. If he had seen what was coming, maybe he could have stopped it.”

“Thank you, Dr. Freud, for your astute analysis, but that is totally ridiculous. And I don't feel guilty.” After all that time I spent in therapy, I'd better not.

“You don't think it's odd it happened to you twice? How many near-death experiences does a person get? Wait! I know! You have the soul of a cat. You have nine lives. Actually, seven now.” Then she gets all serious. “Maybe it was a seizure.”

“I didn't smell lilac. I always smell lilac before I zone out. Plus, after an episode, I never remember the details. And it wasn't a near-death experience, since technically I didn't almost die. But I did leave my body. And I was there again. I
know
I was.”

“Fine,” she says. “It wasn't a seizure. I believe you. But seriously, Cass, the astral plane? Do you even know how weird that sounds?”

“What is going on? I thought I said no visitors.”

Standing in the doorway, my mother, an extra pillow in one arm, a big furry bunny in the other, is giving me her I-caught-you-and-don't-try-to-hide-it look while shooting Leanne the evil eye. “Do I have to lock the doors? Keep it up, Cassie, and I'll have you quarantined.”

Did Leanne say weird? Wait till she has to dress up in Saran Wrap.