Sapphire: A Paranormal Romance (18 page)

It turned out he
did not have to wait long.

“Hi, Jimmy,” she
said from somewhere off to his left.

Jimmy turned and
there she was, at the edge of the bridge, right near where it ended and the
road began.  She was shimmering, as if she had an internal light of her own. 
Her skin was almost translucent, it was so white.  Her hair was dark, almost an
empty space over her head it blended so well with the darkness beyond her. 
Finally, there was the blue dress.  Tonight it seemed to reflect the dim light
of the stars themselves, sending off incandescent light.

“Wow,” Jimmy
said.  “You look amazing.”

Sapphire smiled
and looked down at her feet.  “I wasn’t sure if you’d come,” she said.

Jimmy stood up
straight and sighed.

“I have more
questions tonight than any other time,” he said.  “Are you a zombie or
something?”

Sapphire raised
her head and tilted it to the side, squinting one eye as if Jimmy were standing
in front of a bright light.  “What’s a zombie?” she asked.

Jimmy smiled.  “I
guess you missed the whole zombie craze.  You know, someone who died and has
been brought back to life?”

“Like Dracula?’”
she asked.

Jimmy shrugged. 
“Close enough.”

Sapphire chimed
with airy laughter.  “No.”

Jimmy moved closer
to her.  She moved closer to him.  He could see Sapphire’s eyes, and it seemed
like more starlight was in those, as well.  He reached out his hands and she
took his in hers.  She felt so real.  She felt warm.  A rush of electricity ran
between them.

“You’re a legend
around here, you know,” Jimmy said.

“Am I?” Sapphire
whispered.

Jimmy nodded. 
“You don’t know?”

Sapphire shook her
head slightly.  “Like I said, much of what’s happened to me I don’t really
remember.  Have I been here a long time?”

“Yes,” Jimmy said
with a hint of sadness in his voice.  “You’ve been to dances with other guys
before.  Getting into their cars, then telling them to drop you off here.  Then
you vanish.  You’re a vanishing hitchhiker story.”

Sapphire’s eyes
dimmed.  She frowned and stepped away from Jimmy.  Then her hand went to her
mouth and she gasped.

“I remember,” she
said quietly.  “Every time we meet.  Every time you tell me something, it
sparks something in my mind.  I remember.”

Sapphire looked up
into Jimmy’s eyes.  There were tears standing out against the dark pools that
were her eyes.  Even her tears sparkled, Jimmy marveled.

“I’ve been so
lost,” she said.  “I’ve been looking for someone to help me, Jimmy.  Someone
who can actually help me.”

Jimmy came forward
and put his arms around her.  Again, he marveled at how warm she felt.  She
felt solid and real.  She did not feel like vapor or a monster.  She did not feel
broken beneath his fingertips.

“But help you with
what?” Jimmy asked.

“You already
know,” she replied, putting her head against his chest.

Jimmy sighed. 
Yes, he already knew.  He was already working on it.

“You have no idea
how you ended up like this?” Jimmy asked.

He felt Sapphire’s
head turn back and forth against his chest, indicating no.

“What’s it like,
then?” Jimmy asked.

“What?”

“What’s it like
where you go?” Jimmy asked.  “Where do you go when you disappear from here?”

Sapphire raised
her head.  “I don’t really know.  I walk down there.  I mean, I feel compelled
to walk down there.  It’s hard to explain.  I just know I have to go down there
and then, suddenly, I’m not on the banks of the river anymore.  I’m in a place
that is mostly dark, save for a little spot of light that surrounds me.  I can
hear other things, sometimes, moving around in the darkness.  Sometimes I hear
crying.  Sometimes…well, sometimes I hear things that scare me.”

She shuddered in
Jimmy’s arms.

“There’s another
light,” she continued.  “I’ve seen it.  I saw it when I first found myself in
that dark, formless place.  But when I tried to go into it, I couldn’t get to
it.  I’ve tried since then, but I can’t get into that light.”

She looked up into
Jimmy’s eyes again.

“Do you suppose
that’s heaven?” she asked.

Jimmy shrugged. 
“I don’t know.  I don’t know if heaven or hell are real.”

Sapphire’s eyes
cast downward.  “They’re real.”

There was silence
between them for a long time as each of them tried to come up with something to
say after that.  After a time, Sapphire looked back up at Jimmy.  He leaned
down and kissed her.  Her lips felt soft and warm.  He could smell shampoo in
her hair and faint traces of perfume against her neck.  He could even smell
what he thought was laundry detergent in her clothing.  Jimmy smiled. 

This was no ghost.

This was something
else.  Somehow, something between them had created a kind of bridge between the
other side and this side.  Maybe, just maybe, something between Jimmy and
Sapphire had been so strong that it had punched through one of those thin spots
that Knorr seemed infested with.  And something had been so strong that it held
the door open between this side and the other side.  What’s more, that bridge
was changing.

It was getting
stronger.

At first it had
been tentative and unsure.  She was shy and scared; perhaps Jimmy was just like
the other guys she had tried to reach.  She was cold when he touched her, but
each time they connected, a bit more of whatever it was that had connected them
flowed from Jimmy into her.  Each time they got together, she was more here,
more real.  Now they could hear each other’s thoughts, thoughts that extended
beyond the veil.  Whether the something special was in Sapphire or Jimmy or
just some kind of amazing thing that happened only when they were together, he
had no idea.

“What are we going
to do, Sapphire?” Jimmy asked.

She looked up at
him again.  “I don’t know, Jimmy.”

Sapphire reached
out and touched Jimmy’s head.  Her fingers touched the bandage and she looked
sad.

“Does it hurt?”
she asked.

Jimmy shook his
head.  “Nothing hurts when I’m with you.  I’m in big trouble with my mom,
though.”

“I’m sorry,”
Sapphire said.  “What else happened today?”

Jimmy told her. 
He told her about the investigations that he and George had done.  He told her
about talking to Tabitha and Warren.  He told her about the missing files.

“Oh no,” Sapphire
whispered after a long silence.  “Oh no, Jimmy, what have I done?  I’ve gotten
you into something big, haven’t I?”

Jimmy shrugged. 
They moved to sit on the small concrete wall that served as a barrier for cars
and indicated the edge of the bridge. 

“You and I
connected for a reason,” Jimmy said.  “I love you.  I’ve never felt this way
before, but it’s more than that.  It goes beyond what other people say about
love, Sapphire.”

Jimmy paused and
looked at her.  He had his arms around her shoulder, but her head was up and
she studied his face.

“What does that
mean?” she asked.

“It means that
I’ll do whatever is necessary to help you,” he said.  “The worst that happens
is I end up in the same place you are, but at least we’d be together.”

“Don’t say that,”
Sapphire said.  “Don’t ever think that, Jimmy.  Please.”

She shuddered
beneath his arm.  They were silent for a while.  Jimmy and Sapphire stared up
at the sky.  Above them, the stars stood as silent witness to the impossibility
that was the two of them in the same place, at the same time, in that exact
spot.  If there were answers to how any of it was possible, they were not to be
found in the whispering trees as the breeze blew or the stars and planets
shining above them.

“Let’s not talk
about the sad stuff anymore,” Sapphire said.  A smile crept across her face. 
“Just kiss me.”

So he did. 

They held each
other for a long time.  Jimmy finally looked at his watch and realized it was
almost two in the morning.  Despite his desire to stay with her until the sun
came up, he said goodbye to Sapphire.  She held him tight and parting was
agony, but she eventually did her walk around the end of the bridge and then
vanished.  Jimmy got on his bicycle and headed home.

During the rest of
the ride he tried not to think.  He tried not to worry about the mess he was in
and who he was likely to find at the end of this dark road he had decided to walk
upon.  He had no answers for how anything that had happened between him and
Sapphire was possible.  He could drive himself crazy trying to work it out, or
he could accept it and just go on.  He had things to do now.

He arrived back at
his house about fifteen minutes later.  Jimmy parked his bike in the back of
the house and crept around to the front and the window to his room.  He lifted
the window gently and then hoisted himself up.  He stepped on the surface of
the desk silently and was soon in his room.  The house was quiet.

Jimmy got down
from the desk and crept to the door.  He could hear his mother snoring behind
the door of her room.  He nodded in approval; his ruse appeared to have
worked.  He quickly used the restroom and then crept back into his room and
undressed.  He stripped down to his boxers and then collapsed into bed.  It was
only then that he realized how mentally and physically exhausted he was.

Before he fell
asleep, he let his mind reach out in that way he had done before, earlier that
day.

Goodnight,
Sapphire
, he thought.

After a moment,
that strange static sound filled his head.

Goodnight,
Jimmy,
was her reply.

Jimmy fell asleep
with a smile on his face.  In his dreams he held Sapphire’s hand tight.  They
were older.  They were married.  When Jimmy turned to look into Sapphire’s
face, he saw that she had wrinkles around her eyes and the edges of her mouth. 
Jimmy studied his own hand and saw that the skin was older, slightly more
wrinkled.

With those
thoughts in his head, Jimmy fell in to a deep sleep and dreamed the night away.

Jimmy
was awakened by his mother the next morning before she set off for
work.  Before she stepped out onto the front porch and got into her car she
poked her head into his room.

“Don’t sleep all
day,” she said.  “Get up and put the dishes in the dishwasher away, at a bare
minimum.  Also, don’t forget to contact George about your homework.  I don’t
want you to fall behind.”

“OK, Mom,” Jimmy
replied.  He barely raised his head off of his pillow.

When he heard the
front door slam, Jimmy put his face back down into the pillow and managed to
sleep for another hour.  When he awoke again, the sunlight was reflecting off
of something metal outside and directly into Jimmy’s eyes.  He decided it was
time to get up and do some research today.

His head did not
feel too bad.  In fact, he felt pretty good and he was excited now that the sun
was out.  Yes, he was still in a heap of trouble.  He also wondered if George
was going to catch any grief from the people at school who were fans of the
football team just because he was known to be Jimmy’s friend. 

Jimmy ate
breakfast before putting the dishes away so that his mother would not have
anything to complain about.  Then he sat down in the living room with a small
notebook that he got out of his backpack.  With the television on he sat there,
chewing on the end of a pen and tried to come up with some notes, writing each
note in big block letters.

TALK TO JESSE

He paused and
looked at that.  Jesse would be back at the library today.  Jimmy wanted to
make sure that Jesse knew that someone had been tampering with the periodical
archives. 

MEET WITH TABITHA
AND WARREN

That was obvious. 
He needed to head into town and stop by the newspaper’s new offices.  He
wondered if Tabitha was already looking and if she had found anything.

DOES SAPPHIRE HAVE
FAMILY?

This thought had
occurred to him on his ride home the prior night.  Sapphire had to have been
some one's daughter, and possibly someone's sister.  Surely there would be
someone who would have known her still alive somewhere.  Were they still
somewhere in the area?  Had they moved away?  What did they know?

WHO WOULD BE
POWERFUL ENOUGH TO DO THIS?

That was a major
question and concern.  Jimmy had no idea who could have the wealth and
resources to destroy the archives.  Not that the local newspaper was
The New
York Times
, but if people were hacking into the digital archives, that
meant someone with a few resources and some know-how.  Who could that be?  When
Jimmy tried to run down the candidates, he got chills.  He started with the
mayor, and by the time he got to Stan Little’s father, he was scared enough
that he wasn’t sure he wanted to get on his bike and head out into the world
after all.