Pulled to the Dark (The Siriena Series) (45 page)

Only she wasn’t hurrying. Maybe that’s why I first noticed her. Or maybe it was her hair. Long and almost flame red. One couldn’t help but notice her hair. It was unkempt and wind-tossed, but still very striking. I remember wondering whether she realized just how wonderful her hair was.

She seemed oblivious to what was going on around her. She stopped and knelt
down,
I suppose to tie her shoe. She must not have noticed the light rail train coming up behind her.

I don’t remember where I was going, what I was doing there. But I remember this. I was suddenly next to her, reaching down and wrapping my arms around her midriff, yanking her up to pull her out of the way moments before the train could reach her. She let out a quick screech. Or maybe it was the train.

I remember the impact. The train struck me in the back, really just a glancing blow, but it sent both of us flying. I hit something else.
A parked car, perhaps.

Then all went black.

* * *

Time passed. I couldn’t have told you how much. I could only tell you that time had passed. Awareness came to me patiently. It started with sounds. None of the expected sounds, though. No traffic noises, no beeping of hospital machines, no footsteps of nurses hurrying to tend to patients.

I remembered the accident. I knew I had to have been badly hurt. I did a little mental check, wondering when the pain would kick in. I wondered briefly if I had been paralyzed in the accident, if that was the reason why I couldn’t feel anything. But I realized that I could feel my weight against the bed and a sheet pulled up to my chin. I eventually decided I must be on some really good painkillers. Gratitude seemed an appropriate emotion.

At some point I opened my eyes. It was dark at first, but then the room began to brighten. It was strange. Although I could see light, there was no form, nothing for my eyes to focus upon. It was as if I were seeing the entire world through frosted glass.

I heard a noise, the sound of someone shifting in a chair beside my bed. I turned my head to see who was watching over me. What I saw instead was a bright light, too bright to look into. I squinted, but that didn’t help. Then the light began to dim and a form began to take shape. Sitting in a comfortable chair beside my bed was a woman I didn’t recognize.

She was glowing with a white, golden, purple, red, silver light. I blinked. She was still glowing, smiling softly at me. I looked around, but all I could see was the bed I was in and the woman in her chair. There was nothing else to see.

I looked back at her, opened my mouth to speak. All that came out was a rough croak. I closed my mouth and swallowed. The woman continued to wait patiently, still smiling softly at me. I looked at her, waiting for my voice to come to me, and realized how amazingly beautiful she was. Here was a woman to steal the hearts of all mankind with just a glance of her eyes and a twitch of her mirthful lips. I was at least half in love with her immediately.

I tried again to speak. This time, the sounds made more sense. “Where am I?” I paused for just a moment. The woman seemed to know I had more to say. “The girl? Is she okay?”

As if pleased with my questions, her smile grew briefly before being replaced with a more serious expression. “Where are you? You are
Between
.”

The answer made no sense. “Between where?”

“Between Earth and Heaven,” was the reply. Which also made no sense. The woman just watched me, ever patiently, while I puzzled it out. I stared off in the distance, focusing on nothing for a moment, then my eyes snatched back to hers.

“I was wrong.”

“To be fair,” she replied. “You never really made up your mind one way or the other.”

I considered her words. She didn’t seem upset with me. “You’re…” I said, asking a question.

She just nodded once, slowly,
almost
as a mini bow.

“So, I died.”

“You weren’t supposed to,” she said. “Neither of you were. I’m sorry. I was…” she paused. “Distracted,” she said eventually.  “If I had seen what she was going to do, I’d have intervened.”

“But,” I said, sputtering. “You’re God. You can do anything! Can’t you just roll back time, undo everything?”

She looked at me sadly, apologetically. “You shouldn’t believe all the propaganda.”

“You said, ‘What she was going to do.’ She knew the train was coming?”

The woman nodded again. “I knew she was troubled. She had much to be troubled over, but so much promise too. I had such hopes for her.” Then she looked at me directly. “And for you.”

“For me? I’m just-“

She interrupted me. “No one is just anything. You all cast ripples throughout the world with small actions sometimes having such profound effect. You had some ripples waiting inside you, ripples I very much would have enjoyed watching.
And the girl, too.
I needed her, needed her to seek help for her troubles.” She paused, smiled for a moment. “Help can appear in the strangest places, you know.”

I let her words sink in. “The girl died too?”

“No. And yes. Her body is in a coma.
Very recoverable.
I wouldn’t even need to nudge things along.
Which I almost never do anyway.
But her soul is a different story. It’s in tatters. I can’t send her back like this, not for a long time. Too long for her body to wait for her.”

A glass of water appeared in her hand. She stood up, cradling my body for me, and held the glass to my lips. I drank carefully. Then she laid me back into the bed and smoothed the sheet over my body again.

She watched me, allowing me to settle my thoughts, before she spoke again.

“So, where was I? Oh, yes. Ripples. I would really, truly enjoy watching those ripples from both of you. But the problem is, I have one working soul: yours. And one working body: hers. I can’t send her soul back to her body, and I can’t send your soul back to your body. So we’re left with one working solution.”

She sat back, looking quite pleased with herself. She let me figure out the rest on my own.

“You want to send me back into her body?”

“Exactly!” she said, beaming. “It’s a good body. Slightly bruised of late, but bruises heal. She’s troubled, and you’ll inherit those troubles. You’ll have her memories, and I’ll leave you some of your own. I can’t let you take too many details with you; leaving you with the temptation to contact people from your old life is far too cruel. And I hope you can embrace this new life rather than pine for the old one.”

“You’re talking as if I have a choice.”

“Of course you do,” she told me. “I never send a soul to Earth if it doesn’t want to go.”

I considered for a moment. “Can I ask some questions first?”

“You want to know why I allow evil in the world.”

It was my turn to smile. “Of course I do, but I can figure that out on my own.”

She laughed, and it was if the heavens laughed with her. I suppose they did. “I gave you all brains,” she said finally. “I do so love when you actually use them.”

She sat, chuckling to herself for a few more moments, then quieted down and waited for me to ask my questions.

“Why me?” I asked simply.

“Oh, so many reasons,” she said. “But at the core of them is this: you have such a strong sense of right and wrong, and it all comes from within yourself. You don’t need me or anyone else to tell you what’s right and what’s wrong. I love this about you.”

I considered what she said. She was right, I guess. I hadn’t lived my life worrying so much about what others thought was right and what was wrong, but I decided myself. “What about when I’m at a disagreement with the religious leaders?”

“Ah, the people who profess to speak for me, who know what I like and what I don’t?”

I nodded.

“Take those people with a grain of salt,” she said simply.

“One more question?” I asked. She nodded. “My dog?”

“Your brother.”

At that point, I started to cry. “Hush, hush,” she said, patting my hand. “Your brother is going to grow to love your dog.”

“I know,” I said, blubbering. “He’s good with dogs. I was just afraid no one would take her in.”

She crawled into the bed with me, cradling me in her arms, rocking back and forth and making soothing noises.

“I’m sorry,” I said after a time. “I shouldn’t be this upset.”

“It’s hard to give up everything you once knew,” she replied. She continued to rock me as a mother would a young child. As I calmed down, she laid me back into the bed and slipped into her chair again. I dried my eyes with the sheet. She smiled.

“So what do you want me to do when I go back?”

“Be
yourself
,” she said. “Would you like some advice?”

I nodded.

She raised one finger. “Don’t talk about any of this.”

“They’ll think I’m mad.”

“Exactly.” She raised another finger. “Follow your heart.” She raised a third finger. “Trust your instincts.” She waggled her fingers at me. “Remember, help is sometimes found in unexpected places.”

She continued to waggle her fingers, almost in a wave, and I felt myself slipping away from her. But then she spoke again, and it was is if she were whispering directly into my ear.

“One last thing,” she said. “I surely do enjoy reading your stories.”

I remember my last thought as everything disappeared.

God likes my stories?

Copyright 2012 by Julia P.
Lynde

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This is a work of fiction. Names, places, businesses, characters and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, actual events or locales is purely coincidental.

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