Sapphire: A Paranormal Romance (25 page)

Her eyes went wide
and she looked at Jimmy.  Pure terror was in her eyes.

"I feel
fear," she said.  "I don't know what happened, but I suddenly feel
sheer terror in my guts when I think about being here in that car with Jesse. 
Oh, Jimmy, whatever it was happened here."

Jimmy said,
"We kind of figured that.  You are always here and you always return
here.  So we figured something happened here.  Do you remember if Devlin Little
or the rest of the football team followed you guys here or anything?"

Sapphire shook her
head no.  Tears began to flow down her cheeks.

"No,"
she said in a voice that cracked with emotion.  "I don't remember anything
else.  I'm sorry.  Oh, Jimmy, did they kill me?  Was I murdered?"

She held her hand
up to her mouth and bit her nail.  Tears were flowing unhindered down her face,
trailing down her white cheeks and falling from her chin.

"We don't
know, Sapphire," Tabitha said.  "It seems like something happened,
obviously, but it's entirely possible that Jesse crashed the car here.  Of
course, why would Devlin and anyone else want to cover that up?  There are too
many loose ends here, Jimmy.  There are too many questions.  We still have a
lot of holes to fill in.”

Jimmy nodded, but
said nothing back to Tabitha.  He was focused entirely on Sapphire.  He came to
her and held out his arms.  She came into them, collapsing into them and his
arms enfolded her.  She sobbed against his chest.

"Figures,"
Jimmy whispered.  "I fall in love for the first time with a girl who is
technically older than me by decades."

Sapphire laughed
against his chest.  Then she playfully punched his shoulder.

"You're never
supposed to comment on a girl's age," she said.  When she looked up at him
again, she was smiling, the tears no longer flowing, and those that had flowed
were already drying on her face.  "And here I am, the cradle robber."

Jimmy smiled. 
"These days we call women your age who go after younger men
'cougars.'"

Sapphire laughed. 
"That's me!" And she pawed the air.

They fell silent
and Jimmy leaned in and kissed her. 

"I hate to
break this up," Tabitha said, "but we should get back.  If your mom
finds out I came out here with you at this hour, she'll skin me alive."

Sapphire looked
between them.  "Are you staying with Tabitha and Warren?"

"It's safer,
we think,” Jimmy said. “I'm supposed to be out of school for two more days.  I
want to help Tabitha and Warren as much as I can.  I plan to talk to a few
teachers at the school who were there when you were.  I also want to talk to
Jesse."

"Jesse is
still alive?" Sapphire said.

"Yes,” Jimmy
said.  “He runs the library in town.  I've been friends with him for years.  I
overheard him and Devlin talking today, though, and it sounded like they had
been covering up whatever happened to you for years."

Sapphire bit her
lower lip.  "I don't know about any of this.  If you find out anything
else about that night, tell me.  Each time, more memories come."

Jimmy nodded.

"I
wonder," Tabitha said.

"About
what?" Jimmy said.  Then he wondered what there was
not
to wonder
about.

"What happens
to Sapphire when all of the memories are put together?" Tabitha said.

Jimmy and Sapphire
looked at each other.  For the first time, fear and sadness filled their eyes. 
Although it was not spoken aloud, both of them had the same thought at that
point. Sapphire was here because of her connection with Jimmy. For some reason,
she was able to reach out to him and use him to find out what happened to her. 
Thus, the reason she was still trapped between planes of existence was because
whatever had happened to her was still a mystery.  When that was solved, there
would be no reason for her to remain here.

She would move on.

And Jimmy would be
alone.

Jimmy
had said goodbye to Sapphire with tears in his eyes.  Sapphire
clung tightly to him and they kissed again.  Tabitha left them alone for a
while, heading back to her car.  There was little for the two of them to say, though. 
They just held each other and kissed as if it were their last chance.  Perhaps
it was, Jimmy thought.

Jimmy got back to
Tabitha and Warren's house, and he could tell that Tabitha had gotten her
second wind and was ready to go.  Jimmy was just exhausted.  He excused himself
and headed up to his room.

The room was big
and the bed looked comfortable.  The furniture was oak and looked homey.  The
bed was a four-poster and had a colorful comforter on top.  It looked like
colorful clouds to Jimmy's exhausted brain.  He fell on top of the bed and
kicked off his shoes.  He managed to get down to his boxer briefs and then
crawled under the covers. 

Jimmy stared at
the ceiling, listening to the house.  He had never slept well in strange
places.  Downstairs he could hear Tabitha shuffling around, and then furious
typing on the laptop.  She was tenacious, he would give her that.

What was he
doing?  That thought ran around and around in his brain.  Tabitha had caught on
to what Sapphire and Jimmy had been in denial about.  Sapphire had set Jimmy on
this course, and the end result would be that he would lose her forever.  Or,
at the very least, he would lose her until he passed over and ended up in the
same place she was.  The thought was crushing, and his heart hurt worse than he
ever knew possible.

Was this love?  If
so, why did people go on and on about it?  It sucked.  Worse, it hurt.

He sighed and
rolled over onto his side.  His body and mind were exhausted, but he could not
bring himself to close his eyes.  He needed to get to sleep.  Tabitha and he
had a busy day planned for tomorrow.  They were going to start off early with
Tabitha driving them to the high school.  Mrs. Walters always got in early, and
Tabitha hoped they could get in and talk to her before she had a class.  It was
a solid plan, but Jimmy and Tabitha both agreed that they would have to face
Jesse and sooner rather than later.

Jimmy closed his
eyes.  Then he heard the buzzing in his head.  Sapphire was there, in his
mind.  Behind the buzzing sound, that now-familiar static, he could detect a
note of sadness.  His heart hurt all over again.  He did not call out—or think
out, as the case may have been—to her this time.  He just let her sit there,
perhaps reading his thoughts.  Jimmy guessed that their thoughts ran along
similar lines at the moment.

Jimmy figured he
would be up all night, but he soon drifted off.  He wasn't even aware of it. 
One moment he was there with that buzzing static filling his thoughts, his
heart broken, and the next he was in a dream.

It was a dream
unlike any he had ever had before.

He wandered
through the halls of Knorr High.  He recognized the lockers and the floor and
everything about the place, but it was also different.  The students were not
any that he recognized, and they dressed in ways that he had only seen people
dress in movies or on TV, or at "throwback" dances where everyone had
to dress in some old-fashioned form of dress.  When he caught a brief glimpse
out of one of the windows, he saw that the cars parked along the streets
outside were huge behemoths that would never be built today.

Jimmy looked down
at himself and saw that he was still in his modern-day clothes.  Despite being
right in the middle of the throngs of students, all of them with odd hairstyles
and clothing out of a sixties sitcom, no one looked at him.  They all passed
by, lost in their own worlds.  All of them rushed by him, some of them smiling,
some laughing, some somber.  It was so much like the way school was now it was
amazing to Jimmy.  He was peering back in time, but it could have happened
yesterday.

Then he saw her. 
She appeared at the top of the short set of stairs that Jimmy had been dragged
across the other day.  It was Sapphire.  She was out of her blue dance dress,
wearing another dress instead.  This one was a powder blue, and she had a
ribbon in her long, dark hair, holding it away from her face.  Her eyes were
bright, and she was smiling and chatting with another girl who was wearing a
similar dress in green. 

They walked down
the hall and Sapphire headed right for Jimmy.  Jimmy felt his breath catch in
his chest.  She was so gorgeous.  As beautiful as she was during their visits
down by the bridge, she was even more gorgeous in this vision.  This is how she
had looked when she was alive and young.  This is how she had looked with her
entire life ahead of her and a world to take by the horns.  She passed right
through Jimmy, causing him to gasp.  He reached down and grabbed his shirt.  He
could smell her on his clothing.

Jimmy turned,
feeling as if he were floating.  He floated directly behind Sapphire.  She was
still talking to her friend, chatting away excitedly.  Jimmy looked around and
saw hand-drawn and painted posters up all over the halls promoting the upcoming
dance.  As Sapphire walked, heads turned to follow her.  He could see boys
craning their necks to watch her pass.  Girlfriends stared at her with jealousy
as their boyfriends rubbernecked to see her.  Sapphire remained completely
oblivious to the chaos she caused just by walking down the hall.

Sapphire kept
walking down the hallway of the lower level of the school.  The crowds appeared
to part before her.  Again, Sapphire had no idea of what she was doing.  She
finally made a right turn and came to the final bank of lockers before another
short staircase and a short hall that would lead to the main lobby.  She said
goodbye to her friend and turned left.  She faced a young man with a shy smile,
awkward taste in clothing, glasses, and blond hair.

It was Jesse.

He smiled as
Sapphire approached.  Jimmy recognized that smile.  It was the same smile Jimmy
had on his face whenever he saw Sapphire.  Jesse was hopelessly in love with
Sapphire.  Whether or not Sapphire realized it was not clear at the moment, but
she did walk up to him and give him a kiss on his cheek.  Jesse's smile looked
like it might split his face in two, and he blushed a deep crimson.

Just then the
image before him began to change.  The air became wavy, and then there was
absolute blackness for several seconds.  Things slowly came back into focus,
and suddenly it was dark.  Piercing the darkness were lights that emanated from
a stage off to Jimmy's left.  Jimmy noticed that a stage had been set up at one
end of the school gym.  All around were circular tables with plastic chairs.  A
large portion of the middle of the gym was cleared of tables.  Upon the stage
were several teenagers with instruments, playing some kind of music that Jimmy
identified as early rock and roll.

All around Jimmy
were students, most of them coupled-up and dancing.  The music was slow at the
moment, and many were dancing very close to each other. Circling the students,
and keeping a watchful eye were teachers.  Jimmy turned on the spot, taking in
the decorations and sights.  Just then the door to the gym opened, and in
walked Jesse and Sapphire.

Sapphire was
wearing the blue dress she always wore whenever Jimmy saw her.  She was even
more gorgeous in this vision.  She practically glowed, and there was nothing
supernatural about it this time.  It was just her sheer life force projecting
through. 

Beside her,
significantly shorter than her, was Jesse.  He looked dumbfounded, as if unable
to believe that he was actually there and Sapphire was actually on his arm. 
They entered arm in arm, and Sapphire immediately lit up when she saw the gym
and spotted a group of her friends.  It all looked happy.

There was one
exception: a segment of the gym off to Jimmy's right.

Jimmy recognized
Devlin Little.  He looked just like Stan.  His hair was in a crew-cut, but he
looked almost the same.  Devlin and several other large boys were standing in a
loose cluster off to the right.  They all turned and looked as Sapphire and
Jesse entered.  A sneer crossed Devlin's face and he turned back to talk to his
friends.  All around the football players were other pretty girls, probably
cheerleaders, but the group were all clustered together, ignoring their dates. 
Their dates looked bored, but they sat there looking at each other.

Jimmy watched
Sapphire and Jesse head over to a group of kids in one corner.  Sapphire put
her jacket down and then grabbed Jesse's hand and headed out onto the dance
floor.  It was so like what she had done with Jimmy on Friday night that Jimmy
got chills just watching it.  The two of them danced and circled and moved
around the dance floor.  Jesse looked as if he had died and gone to heaven.

Just like with
Friday night, the two of them danced and danced.  All around them the students
parted and let them have the floor.  The two of them were lost in each other,
oblivious to the fact that so many of their fellow students were just watching
them dance.  Their dance had a strange kind of beauty and elegance.  Sapphire
was breathtaking, as if she were absorbing the light itself and reflecting everything
that was good back towards those watching.