There's No Place Like Here (4 page)

Or maybe Jack would have found himself in the same place as Donal was right now. Wherever that place was.

8

J
ack slugged back his third cup of coffee and looked at his watch. Ten fifteen.

Sandy Shortt was late. His legs bounced up and down nervously beneath the table, his left hand drummed on the wood and his right hand signaled for another coffee. His mind stayed positive. She was coming. He knew she would come.

Eleven A.M., he tried calling her mobile number for the fifth time. It rang and rang and finally, “Hello, this is Sandy Shortt. Sorry I’m not available at the moment. Leave a message and I’ll call you back as soon as I can.”

Jack hung up.

Eleven thirty, she was two hours late and once again Jack listened to the voice message Sandy had left the previous night.

“Hi, Jack, Sandy Shortt here. I’m ringing to confirm our meeting tomorrow at nine thirty A.M. in Kitty’s Café in Glin. I’m driving down tonight.” Her tone softened. “As you know, I don’t sleep,” she laughed lightly. “So I’ll be there early tomorrow. After all our conversations I look forward to finally speaking with you in person, and Jack”—she paused—“I promise you I’ll do my best to help you. We won’t give up on Donal.”

Twelve o’clock, Jack played it again.

At one o’clock, after countless cups of coffee, Jack’s fingers stopped drumming and instead made a fist for his chin to rest on. He had felt the café owner’s gaze on his back as he sat for hours waiting nervously, watching the clock, and not giving up his table to a group willing to spend more money than he. Tables filled and emptied around him; his head snapped up every time the bell over the door rang. He didn’t know what Sandy Shortt looked like; all she had said was that he couldn’t miss her. He didn’t know what to expect but each time the bell tinkled, his head and his heart both lifted with hope and then fell as the newcomer’s gaze flitted past his and settled on another.

At two thirty, the bell rang once more.

After five and a half hours of waiting, it was the sound of the door opening and closing behind Jack.

9

F
or almost two days I’d stayed in the same wooded area, jogging back and forth trying to re-create my movements and somehow reverse my arrival here. I ran up and down the mountainside, testing different speeds as I struggled to remember how fast I’d been running, what song I’d been listening to, what I’d been thinking of, and what area I was in when I first noticed the change in my location. As though any of those things had any part in what happened. I walked up and down, down and up, searching for the point of entry and, more importantly, the point of exit. I didn’t want to sleep, I wanted to keep busy. I didn’t want to settle like the personal possessions scattered around; I didn’t want to end up like the backless earrings that glinted from the long grass.

Thinking you’re missing is a bizarre conclusion to arrive at. I’m well aware of that. But it wasn’t a sudden conclusion, believe me. I was hugely confused and frustrated for those first few hours but I knew that something more extraordinary than taking a wrong turn had occurred because geographically, a mountain couldn’t just rise from the ground in a matter of seconds, trees that had never grown before in Ireland couldn’t all of a sudden sprout from the ground, and the Shannon Estuary couldn’t dry up and disappear. I wasn’t simply lost—I was somewhere else.

I did, of course, contemplate the fact that I was dreaming, that I had fallen and hit my head and was currently in a coma or that I’d died. I did wonder about whether the anomalous nature of the countryside was pointing toward the end of the world and I questioned my knowledge of the geography of West Limerick. I did indeed consider very strongly the fact that I’d lost my mind. This was number one on the list of possibilities.

But when I sat alone for those days and thought rationally, surrounded by the most beautiful scenery I’d ever seen, I realized that I was most certainly alive, the world had not ended, mass panic hadn’t taken over, and I was not just another occupant of a junkyard. I realized that my searching for a way out was clouding my view of where exactly I was. I wasn’t going to hide behind the lie that I could find a way out by running up and down a hill. No deliberate distractions to block out the voice of reason for me. I am a logical person and the most logical explanation out of all of the incredible possibilities was that I was alive and well but missing. Things are as they are, no matter how bizarre.

Just as it was beginning to get dark on my second day, I decided to explore this curious new place by walking deeper through the pine trees. Sticks cracked beneath my sneakers, the ground was soft and bouncy, covered with layers of fallen, now decayed leaves, bark, pine cones, and velvet-like moss. Mist hovered like wispy cotton above my head and stretched to the tips of the trees. The lofty, thin trunks extended up like towering wooden pencils that colored the sky. During the day they tinted the ceiling a clear blue, shading wispy clouds and orange pigment, and now by night the charcoaled tips, burned from the hot sun, darkened the heavens. The sky twinkled with a million stars, all winking at me, sharing a secret between them, of the world I could never know.

I should have been afraid, walking through a mountainside in the dark by myself. Instead I felt safe, surrounded by the songs of birds, engulfed by the scents of sweet moss and pine, and cocooned in a mist that contained a little bit of magic. I had been in many unusual situations before: the dangerous and the plain bizarre. In my line of work I followed all leads, wandered down all paths and never allowed fear to cause me to turn away from a direction that could lead me to finding someone. I wasn’t afraid to turn over every stone that lay in my path or hurl them and my questions around atmospheres with the fragility of glass houses. When individuals go missing it’s usually under dark circumstances most people don’t want to know about. Compared to the previous experiences of delving into the underworld, this new project was literally a walk in the park. Yes, my finding my way back into my life had become a project.

The sound of murmuring voices up ahead stopped me in my tracks. I hadn’t had human contact for days and wasn’t at all sure if these people would be friendly. The flickering light of a campfire cast shadows around the woods, and as I quietly neared, I could see a clearing. The trees fell away to a large circle where five people sat laughing, joking, and singing to music. I stood hidden in the shadows of the giant conifer, but like a hesitant moth being drawn to a flame. Irish accents were audible and I questioned my ludicrous assessment of being outside the country and of being outside my life. In those few seconds I questioned everything.

A branch snapped loudly beneath my foot and it echoed around the forest. The music immediately stopped and the voices quietened.

“Someone’s there,” a woman whispered loudly.

All heads turned toward me.

“Hello, there!” a jovial man called excitedly. “Come! Join us! We’re just about to sing ‘This Little Light of Mine.’” There was a groan from the group.

The man jumped up from his seat on a fallen tree trunk and came closer to me with his arms held open in welcome. His head was bald apart from four strands of hair, which hung spaghettilike in a comb-over style. He had a friendly moon-shaped face and so I stepped into the light and instantly felt the warmth of the fire against my skin.

“It’s a woman,” the woman’s voice whispered loudly again.

I wasn’t sure what to say and the man who had approached me looked now uncertainly back to his group.

“Maybe she doesn’t speak English,” the woman hissed loudly.

“Ah,” the man turned back to me, “Doooo yooooou speeeeeaaaaak Eng-a-lish?”

There was a grumble from the group, “
The Oxford English Dictionary
wouldn’t understand that, Bernard.”

I smiled and nodded. The group had quietened and were studying me and I knew what they were all thinking: she’s tall.

“Ah, great.” His hands clapped together and remained clasped close to his chest. His face broke into an even more welcoming smile. “Where are you from?”

I didn’t know whether to say Earth, Ireland, or Leitrim. I went with my gut instincts and “Ireland” was all that came out of my mouth, which hadn’t spoken for days.

“Splendid!” The cheery fellow’s smile was so bright and I couldn’t help but return it. “What a coincidence! Please come and join us.” He excitedly led me toward the group with a hop, skip, and a jump.

“My name is Bernard,” he beamed like the Cheshire cat, “and heartiest welcome to the Irish contingency. We’re frightfully outnumbered here,” he said, frowning, “although it seems that the numbers are rising. Excuse me, where are my manners?” His cheeks flushed.

“Underneath that sock over there.”

I turned to look at the source of the smart comment to see an attractive woman in her fifties, tight salt-and-pepper hair, with a lilac pashmina shawl draped around her shoulders. She was staring distantly into the center fire, the dancing flames reflecting in her dark eyes, her comments flowing out of her mouth as though she were on autopilot.

“Who have I the pleasure of being acquainted with?” Bernard beamed with excitement; his neck craned up to look at me.

“My name is Sandy,” I replied, “Sandy Shortt.”

“Splendid.” His cheeks flushed again and he shook my outstretched hand, “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Allow me to introduce you to the rest of the gang, as they say.”

“As who say?” the woman grumbled irately.

“That’s Helena. She loves to chat. Always has something to say, don’t you, Helena?” Bernard looked at her for an answer.

The wrinkles around her mouth deepened as she pursed her lips.

“Ah.” He wiped his brow and turned to introduce me to a woman named Joan; Derek, the long-haired hippie playing the guitar; and Marcus, who was sitting quietly in the corner. I took them in quickly: they were all of a similar age and seemed very comfortable with one another. Not even Helena’s sarcastic comments were causing any friction.

“Why don’t you take a seat and I’ll get you a drink of some sort—”

“Where are we?” I cut in, unable to take his bumbling pleasantries any longer.

All other conversation around the fire stopped suddenly and even Helena raised her head to stare at me. She took me in, a quick glance up and down, and I felt like my soul had been absorbed. Derek stopped strumming his guitar, Marcus smiled lightly and looked away, Joan and Bernard stared at me with wide frightened Bambi eyes. All that could be heard was the sound of the campfire crackling and popping as sparks sprang out and spiraled their way up to the sky. Owls hooted and there was the distant snap of branches being stepped on by wanderers beyond.

There was a deathly silence around the campfire.

“Is anyone going to answer the girl?” Helena looked around with an amused expression. Nobody spoke. “Well, if nobody speaks up,” she wrapped her shawl tighter around her shoulders and grasped it at her chest, “I’m going to give my opinion.”

Voices of objection rose from the circle and I immediately wanted to hear Helena’s opinion all the more. Her eyes danced, enjoying the choir of disapproval.

“Tell me, Helena,” I interrupted, feeling my usual impatience with people return. I always wanted to get to the point. I hated pussyfooting around.

“Oh, you don’t want that, trust me,” Bernard fluffed, his double chin wobbling as he spoke.

Helena lifted her silver-haired head in defiance and her dark eyes glistened as she looked at me directly. Her mouth twitched at the side. “We’re dead.”

Two words said coolly, calmly, crisply.

“Now, now, don’t you mind her,” Bernard said in what I imagined was his best angry voice.

“Helena,” Joan admonished, “we’ve been through this before. You shouldn’t scare Sandy like that.”

“She doesn’t look scared to me,” Helena said, still with that amused expression, her eyes unmoving.

“Well,” Marcus finally spoke after his long silence since I’d joined the group, “she may have a point. We may very well be dead.”

Bernard and Joan groaned, and Derek began strumming lightly on his guitar and singing softly, “We’re dead, we may very well be dead.”

Bernard tutted, then poured tea from a china pot into a cup and handed it to me on a saucer. In the middle of the woods, I couldn’t help but smile.

“If we’re dead, then where are my parents, Helena?” Joan scolded, emptying a packet of biscuits onto a china plate and placing them before me. “Where are all the other dead people?”

“In hell,” Helena said in a singsong voice.

Marcus smiled and looked away so that Joan wouldn’t see his face.

“And what makes you think we’re in heaven? What makes you think
you’d
get into heaven?” Joan huffed, dunking her biscuit into her tea and pulling it up before the soggy end fell in.

Derek strummed and sang gruffly, “Is this heaven or is this hell? I look around and I can’t tell.”

“Didn’t anybody else notice the Pearly Gates and the choir of angels as they entered, or was it just me?” Helena smirked.

“You didn’t enter through Pearly Gates.” Bernard shook his head wildly, his neck wobbling from side to side. He looked at me and his neck continued to shake. “She didn’t enter through Pearly Gates.”

Derek strummed, “I didn’t pass the Pearly Gate nor felt the burning flames of hate.”

“Oh, stop it,” Joan huffed.

“Stop it,” he sang.

“I can’t bear any more.”

“I can’t bear any more, someone please show me the door…”

“I’ll show you the door,” Helena warned, but with less conviction.

He continued strumming and they all fell silent, contemplating his last few lyrics.

“Little June, Pauline O’Connor’s daughter, was only ten when she died, Helena,” Bernard continued. “Surely a little angel like her would be in heaven and she’s not here, so there goes your theory.” He held his head high and Joan nodded in agreement. “We’re not dead.”

“Sorry, it’s over-eighteens only,” Helena said in a bored tone. “Saint Peter’s down at the gate with his arms folded and an earpiece in his ear, taking instructions from God.”