Few Are Angels (2 page)

The Carltons lived in Northern Virginia along the near-dead Elmwood forest. The mountains there were vast. In Virginia Beach, where I’d moved from, the “mountains” were no more than a few rolling hills. The mountains in Cedar Grove were beautiful, but I had no interest in exploring them as I had during summer and winter breaks in the past. Nothing was the same. Everything seemed smaller. The mountain trails and fresh water streams didn't hold the wonder that they once had. It was October and already freezing. I slipped into my coat and the new snow boots the Carltons had bought me before I arrived. I tiptoed down the stairs as quietly as I could, Max following closely. I headed out the front door, nearly tripping as Max bounded out and ran straight to the abandoned shed to the left of the house. As soon as I stepped outside the, cold Northern Virginia wind slapped me in the face, doing just what I hoped it would: waking me up completely.

I looked ahead and saw that Max had made his way to the back of the shed. I prayed he would make his business short so I didn’t freeze to death. The porch light didn't reach beyond the front of the shed, and Max had disappeared behind it. The snow covered half of my boots, and I hadn’t thought to wear gloves. I soon regretted going out with just boots and a coat. I wasn’t in Virginia Beach where we got an inch or two of snow every ten years or so. In the short time I’d been in Northern Virginia, more than four inches of snow had fallen. I waited, and when Max didn't come back, I made my way closer to the shed, calling his name as quietly as I could, but with the cold and my growing annoyance, it was getting harder to care if I woke anyone in the house. I didn’t have to worry about neighbors. The closest ones were about four miles away.

“Max!” I whispered fiercely against the icy wind. I hoped that even though he was a dog, he would hear the displeasure in my voice and comply. The wind moaned quietly, creaking the brittle frozen branches of the trees around me. My snow boots sounded as if they were crunching glass beneath them.
Great, he’ll hear me before I get to him, and he’ll run.
I had only wanted to get some fresh air, not relocate to the front yard. I walked faster, letting my anger quell the fear I felt creeping along my skin as I neared the shed. It was darker back there because the light from the porch didn’t reach that far. The contrast created an obscure object in front of me. My vision seemed blurred again, and the shed looked like a giant ink spot, dark and ominous. Normally, I would have turned around and gone the other way when my nerves skittered under my skin, but I didn't care anymore. As I neared the blurred ink spot, I almost wished a fox or wolf would be back there to eat me and put me out of my misery. I squashed that thought; the doctor called them “self-destructive thoughts.” I had scoffed at him when he said it, but I wondered why I’d been having so many recently. The thought of something dangerous back there sent a shiver down my spine, and I trembled. I kept walking. It felt right, as if I were meant to be there. I was being pulled closer and closer to something familiar, a feeling that I couldn’t understand.

I heard Max growling before I rounded the corner, but not even that stopped me from moving forward. I understood that something wasn’t right, maybe even dangerous, but my legs wouldn’t comply with fear’s plea to turn and leave. My stomach did a few nervous flips, and my heart raced, leaving me lightheaded and dizzy, but I kept walking. I placed a hand on the side of the shed for balance. I felt as if I were being swallowed by the murky darkness, never to find my way out again. My hands and legs were numbing and stiffening from the freezing cold, but I ignored the pain and continued. It seemed as though I would never reach my destination until, rounding the corner, I heard what sounded like my name being called behind me. My brain wanted to comply and turn around to see who it was; however, my feet had other plans. Max growled again. My heart threatened to beat up into my throat and out of my body. I held onto the shed with frozen fingers, trying not to collapse into the snow. My legs and feet had gone numb, and my head was a balloon slowly floating above me. I heard my name again, but closer. Max finally came around from behind the shed and headed to the voice behind me. As I slowly slid to the frozen ground, I saw he had a red smudge on his gray-black muzzle. Max blurred, and my vision flickered, then went black. I didn’t even feel the snow as I fell face first into it.

Chapter 2

How long can I pretend to belong? The façade will crack, and over time, people will see through those cracks. They will see the truth, who I really am, but what scares me is THAT the person they will see will be a stranger—a ghost.

When I woke up, I was in my room at the Carltons’. My feet and hands were sore and stiff, and when I tried to move them, I cried out in pain. A shadow passed over me, followed by the scent of lavender and mint. My eyes felt filmy, but dry, and I couldn't make out much.

“Ella, calm down. Everything is okay,” Mrs. Carlton cooed from somewhere in the room.

I moved my head around to locate her by the sound of her voice, and found her standing over the sink in the bathroom. I looked out the window and was nearly blinded by warm strings of light let in by the eyelets in the pale yellow curtains.

I cleared my throat and swallowed. I hoped that would make it easier to speak. “What time is it?”

Though my voice sounded more like a croak than words, Mrs. Carlton came over and sat gently on the bed beside me. She placed a warm cloth over both of my hands. Sarah looked at me the same way everyone else had, as though I were something that could be broken just by breathing near me.

“It’s noon.” Her voice was soft and quiet, and I knew she was pretending to be calmer than she felt. Sarah, my mother’s best friend since grade school until her death six months ago, adjusted the cooling rag on my hands. “Ella, what were you doing outside at two o’clock in the morning?” She glanced at me, then looked back at my hands and adjusted the warm rags. Her eyes were red and puffy. I assumed she’d been crying, maybe over the loss of her best friend, maybe something else.

My memory repressor must have been on the fritz, because my parents made their way into my head. I tried to sit up, but winced in pain from my red puffy hands. The pain was welcome. It helped keep my mind off the past.

Sarah looked at me, her eyes silently urging me to let her in, to talk to her. I didn't know how to respond to the voiceless demand. Should I tell her I was hearing voices and thought fresh air would help? I wasn’t sure it would matter. She had already made up her mind that I wasn’t coping as well as she and the doctor had hoped.

“It’s okay.” Sarah patted my shoulder and stood. “I’ll get you something warm to drink. Maybe if you hold the warm cup, some of the sensation will return to your hands.” Sarah headed toward the door.

I worried about what had happened last night, and what she thought had happened. I didn’t want my actions weighing on Sarah, so I knew I had to ease her mind.

“Sarah.”

Her eyes were miserable and hollow as she turned to look at me. I hadn’t thought much about her feelings—how sad she must’ve been to see her dead best friend’s daughter broken and depressed in her son’s old bedroom. She must have felt helpless, knowing there was nothing she could do to fix me. Her teary eyes suddenly made sense; it was me she was worried about. I guess all the pretending and faking I’d been doing hadn’t been enough. I had two choices: try harder or leave.

“I wasn’t trying to, you know, hurt myself or anything. I was just letting Max out. He was scratching at my door, and I couldn’t sleep, so I let him out.” I prayed that she would believe me; no one ever believed me—not since “the breakdown.”

She smiled, a small sad smile, one I’d seen plenty of times since the funeral. It was the smile that said, “I’m sorry you’re so broken, and I can’t help.” Sarah rested against the door, crossing her arms over her chest. “Okay, but why were you out there for so long?”

So long?
It didn’t seem too long. Though the cold had crept into my bones, numbing my hands and legs completely, it couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes. Even that was stretching it. I sat up, wincing at the sharp pain that vibrated throughout my legs. “What? I was only out there for ten minutes or so.” I tried to remember exactly what had happened, but the memory was fuzzy, and it seemed as if certain pieces weren’t there. “I called Max, and he wouldn’t come, so I went to get him.” I tried to see past the fog of last night. Sarah stared at me, and I saw a flash of disappointment on her face, but she quickly recovered. My anger surpassed my confusion. I wanted some answers—if not from my memory, then from Sarah.

“What, Sarah? How long do you think I was out there?” The question came out angrier than I had intended. She flinched, and I instantly regretted my outburst.

Sarah started to talk, picking her words cautiously, as if not to upset me further. I didn’t want her to feel as though she needed to fear or baby me, so I decided to listen calmly. “Lea came to my room to say that she heard the front door open. You weren’t in your room, and I thought that you just needed some air. I went back to bed and told Lea not to worry and to let me know when you came back in the house.” Lea was the Carltons’ ten-year-old daughter. She was the only person who didn’t look at me as if I were some fragile piece of china, but that was just because she didn’t know all that had happened to me. Sarah tugged at her shirt, a nervous habit she often displayed. “More than an hour passed, and Lea hadn’t come back, so I got up to check your room and you still weren’t there.”

“An hour!” I gasped. “There’s no way I was out there that long!”

Sarah hushed me and told me not to worry. She left to make me some hot tea.

Maybe my condition was getting worse. I hadn’t been taking the medicine the doctor prescribed. I knew that I had passed out by the shed, and that I’d heard someone call my name right before I had fallen in the snow. I also remembered that Max had red smudges on his nose. The red smudges on Max’s nose were the least of my worries, but I wasn’t looking forward to disposing of a bloody, frozen squirrel.

I let out a puff of air and resigned myself to lying in bed until I could get up and make a plan. Staying with the Carltons wasn’t working. I had added considerably more stress to their lives, and I’d only been there a week. Sarah, Eric, and Lea were a great family, and I appreciated their help, but we felt like strangers, even though we’d known each other our entire lives. Sarah taught history at Virginia Tech and had taken two weeks off to stay with me to help me get adjusted. She planned to send me to Virginia Tech once I was “better,” and that was fine. I wanted to go back to school, but I wasn’t going back to my old college where the incident had taken place. I was too embarrassed. School was stressful enough; the additional burden was guaranteed to bring back the voice and visions.

Sarah returned with a steaming cup of tea. The apple-spiced scent hit me before she placed the cup in my hand. After last night, I worried that Sarah would feel the need to take more time off from work. I hoped not. I enjoyed her company, but I was sick of people walking on egg shells around me. She would head back to work soon, and my days would be free from sad smiles and wishful sighs.

Five hours, four cups of tea, and a nap later, Lea and I sat at the dinner table while Sarah dished out garlic mashed potatoes. My hands and feet were still sore, but better, and my stomach was speaking louder than the fire crackling in the background. Lea looked at me from across the dinner table as if seeing a ghost. I worried that the one person who treated me normally would start to treat me like everyone else did. As Sarah dished out the food, I wondered if I would ever feel normal again.

“Eric getting in tonight?” I asked. Eric also worked at Virginia Tech. He taught World Literature and Creative Writing.

Sarah looked at the clock and frowned. “I’m sure he will be here soon.”

I wanted to thank Eric for bringing me in last night. I had gotten the whole story from Lea about how Eric saw me face-plant into the snow and brought me inside. She also told me I had been staring at the barn as if I could see right through it. I didn't remember any of those details and hoped I wasn’t starting to have blackouts. The somber mood in the room was depressing, and I decided to bring up the one subject that would make Sarah and Lea happy—Alex. It was the end of October, and he would be home soon for Thanksgiving. The oldest Carlton child, Alex had left for college in New York. My family and the Carltons used to go on vacation together every winter. Alex and I would trade secrets by the fireplace when everyone else was asleep or out skiing.

“When is Alex coming home?” The smile that lit up Lea’s face was proof that I’d moved the conversation in a positive direction. I couldn't help but smile myself. I missed Alex just as much as they did. We had planned to go to the same college, but those plans changed when he was offered a full scholarship to NYU. Lea sat up higher in her chair; her big hazel eyes ignited when I mentioned her older brother. I pushed back the jealousy that slithered into my stomach. My family was gone, but she still had hers and had every reason to be excited about seeing Alex.

“He’ll be back for Thanksgiving break,” Lea said and then added, “Alex said that he would take me to the lodge when he comes home.”

Sarah smiled and shook her head. I shoveled food in my mouth and sipped water. When I had sat down, I was starving, but I was full after a couple of bites. I felt a sudden pressure in my head and saw a flash of the barn, which reminded me that I still needed to go out there. I could barely hear the conversation, so I tried harder to focus.

“Maybe, Lee-Lee. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to go this year,” Sarah said. She snuck a glance at me, and through the fog in my head, I realized that I was the reason those plans were ruined. My face flushed, and I quickly tried to hide it, along with the growing discomfort that snuck its way into my body. Lea’s squeal caused a sharp pain to radiate from my skull to the tip of my spine.