Little Red Gem (10 page)

Talk about uncomfortable.
Talk about feeling left out.

Joining the group wasn’t
an option; I spied Teri, craning her head as if searching for me.
Audrey returned my earlier favor of giving her a break by grabbing
tightly onto her mother’s arm and pulling her deeper into the
huddle.

Finally, the cluster of
grievers broke away one by one and returned to their seats.
Overhead, an unknown song wafted through the speakers. If this
unknown guitarist’s slow, mournful tune was designed to render the
audience more teary-eyed and grief-stricken than when they’d first
walked in, the mission was accomplished. After a dozen bars of the
sad instrumental, the voice kicked in and familiarity brushed at
the hairs on my neck. I’d have recognized Leo’s voice even if he
were buried under a hundred feet of rubble.

This song must have been
from his private collection. I knew his band’s music; this wasn’t
it. Volt play heavy metal and Leo, as their singer, growled out
inaudible monotones despite having a terrific voice. The boy who
sang this song had a gentle lilt beleaguered by tragedy.

It wasn’t only the
mourners who were affected by the melody and lyrics. I listened,
too:

“
When it’s cold

I miss you most

Your smile used to keep me
warm

Now you’re gone

I am a ghost

My heart beat only for
you

If I never breathed
again

I wouldn’t care

Because you’ll never
breathe again

And that’s not
fair

Of all the treasures in
the world

I’d only miss the
one

A million things are
nothing

Without you.”

“
Oh, Leo,” I whispered.
“You’ll win a place in the finals for sure.”

The song ended and
Shanessa and Natalie solemnly walked up onto the small
platform.

“
We’d like to dedicate
this song to our dear friend,” Shanessa huskily
breathed.

“
She wrote it,” Natalie
added, and then as if realizing that I was missing, she let out a
gulp and dabbed at her eyes.

A collective sigh of grief
swept across the room when Shanessa hit the first note on her
guitar:

“
As the night
falls

As the dark
calls

As the wind
toils

And carries me
away

When the day
breaks

When my heart
aches

When all it
takes

Is for you to
stay

I will always be by your
side

I will always come for the
ride

I will always keep
pictures of you inside

To keep you
close

Although I am alone I am
not afraid.”

I wanted to applaud and
cheer and sing the second verse, but the silence that filled the
room was overwhelming; dead or not, my voice would have rung out as
loudly as if I were in front of a megaphone.

Shanessa and Natalie
stepped down off the stage and when they walked past Leo they
rested a hand each on his shoulder. He nodded and smiled weakly.
They took their seats with their heads bowed and hands gripping
onto their tissues for dear life. The minister returned to the
lectern and resumed talking about my young life. I’d never seen him
before and I resented his attempts at familiarity, but it wasn’t
like anyone else was in a fit state to do the job.

A warm wind blew across my
cheek. I turned to see William’s face inches away from mine. He ran
a finger across his eye. “You should have joined your friends up
there on stage. You have a lovely voice. Still think coming here
was a good idea?”

I hoped my scowl was
enough of an answer.

When Leo rose up from his
seat, all sound was sucked out of the room. He staggered toward the
front of the chapel, zigzagging toward my coffin. The crippling
grief was plain to see. I couldn’t look. I also couldn’t
not
look.

I held my breath, fearing
he’d fall on his face, but he made it to the front of the room and
stopped inches away from my casket. Every set of eyes was fixed
upon the boy who didn’t wear grief or suits well, and we watched in
muted fascination as he placed a white-painted cross enveloped with
yellow roses on top of my coffin.

The mourners didn’t
understand the significance of the cross and the roses. I did. And
it zapped the lifeless breath out of me. It affected Leo, too. He
staggered back to the pew, tears freely flowing down his
face.

“
Enough,” I said, turning
to William. “Please take me home.”

“
As you wish.”

Immediately we were in the
woods at the foot of the path leading to the cabin. He put his arm
around me protectively and said, “I’m sorry you had to witness
that.”

I leaned into his embrace,
thankful for the support. “I’m not. It just makes me more
determined to find a way to be with him. He needs me, now more than
ever.”

“
The dead don’t belong
with the living.”

I pulled away and gazed
into his eyes. “I don’t believe that. I don’t think you do either.
I mean, look at you and Anne…every weekend this cabin is filled
with people who are alive and you hang out with them when you could
lock yourselves away. Audrey walks the astral plane and hangs out
with spirits. It must be perfectly fine for two forces to exist on
the same plane.”

“
Why do you want so badly
to be with him?”

Genuine concern filled
William’s face and I wanted to tell him the truth. Instead, I said,
“Because I love him.”

Not a lie, but not the
truth he was digging for.

“
But why do you want so
badly to defy the laws of nature and return from the
grave?”

I walked up the steps to
the cabin and sat down on the patio swing. William followed. What
could he do with my secret if I told him? He had nobody he could
tell it too, except Anne and who could she gossip with? But they
could judge Leo poorly, and for that reason alone, I would never
betray Leo. His secret was safe with me.

“
I need to know that Leo
loves me,” I told William. “The night I died we had a huge fight. I
can’t find peace until I know for sure that he would have loved me
with all his heart, that he loved me no matter what.”

William sat beside me on
the swing. “The boy is clearly devastated over your death. I would
say that is a clear sign he loved you no matter what.”

“
It’s complicated. There
was an unresolved issue.”

“
There usually is.” His
eyes narrowed. “You really believe returning from the dead will
resolve this issue?”

“
It’s all I can think
about. Will you help me?”

William looked deep into
my eyes, probing me. At last he looked away. “I cannot.”

I didn’t believe him.
Suddenly angry, I closed my eyes and willed myself inside the
cabin. William might not want to help me, but I suspected Anne
would.

The moment I materialized,
Anne rushed to greet me. She wore a huge smile; I knew I’d made the
right choice by seeking her help, even if I wasn’t exactly sure
how. Yet I knew one place to start.

“
Anne, can you teach me
how to touch objects?”

She stared at me with her
brow furrowed. “I can try. I merely visualize the action and it is
done. I am not sure I can teach you how.”

“
I’ll bet you can. This is
important to me, Anne.”

We moved over to the
window. I gazed through the open curtains; a path led to the hiking
trails, a dirt road led to the main highway, sunbeams sliced
through the trees, birds hopped from tree to tree. A stunning place
to call home, but I would not accept that my destiny lay in being
trapped in limbo.

I closed my eyes to the
world I wished to have no claim over and tried to sweep aside the
curtains, but my hand swept through the air.

“
Please teach me to close
the curtains.”

Anne’s delicately gloved
hand grabbed a handful of the fabric, and effortlessly the curtains
moved along the rail to first close, then open. She wore a look of
concentration. “You’ll need to focus on connecting with the fabric.
Allow the energy from within to flow into your hand and out. The
electric pulse you experience when your hand nears an object is
like a magnetic pull. Ignore and push through.”

I did as she instructed,
focusing on lifting my hand through the fabric, ignoring the
buzzing in my head. I lifted my hand…and when I opened my eyes, I
was majorly disappointed to find my hand had disappeared through to
the other side of the cabin wall.

“
Why won’t this
work?”

There was an authoritative
edge to Anne’s voice. “Try again.”

I did, and then I tried
again, and again. I spent hours attempting to move objects. Each
attempt failed dismally. When a breeze blew in, it mocked me by
stirring the curtains.

“
This is pointless,” I
whined. “Audrey says poltergeists can move objects because they’re
old. I died a week ago.”

Anne, who had the patience
of a saint and therefore couldn’t comprehend how I was a constant
wound up ball of frustration unraveling in front of her, laughed
gently. “Moving objects took a while to master when I first
started. But I eventually learned. You’ll eventually learn,
too.”

“
I don’t have an eternity
to learn. I have a few days. A few weeks tops.”

“
Try opening the curtain
again,” Anne urged. “This time, envisage the love that binds you to
Leo.”

The need for women to
prove themselves mustn’t have changed over the centuries. Anne got
that I needed to do this, and I was grateful for her encouraging
words. She could have chosen to slip off into the other room and
ignore me, and then where would I have been? So I did as she
instructed. I conjured up images of Leo the way I knew him best,
not the empty shell from the funeral. His skin was the color of
honey. His pouty lips appeared as if they waited to be kissed but
only looked this way because his mind was usually encased in lyrics
that his lips couldn’t help utter. His hair was chestnut brown and
unruly, like a lion’s mane. I pictured his muscled arms holding me
around my waist. I pictured him pulling me toward him so his hips
could grind into mine.

I inhaled sharply when my
hand touched an indescribable something. I imagined Leo’s strong
jaw line and my hand caressing it. I then concentrated on sweeping
the imaginary fringe out of his eyes. When I finally snuck a peak
through half-slit lids, I was greeted by a beam of sunlight slicing
through the trees outside. This was the first morning where I
hadn’t open my eyes and wished the sunlight away.

I laughed out loud,
jubilated by my success. It felt as if a weight was lifted off my
chest and for this brief moment I could fool myself into thinking
that the hardest part of this ordeal was over.

***

I spent the remainder of
the day moving everything in the cabin that wasn’t nailed down –
cutlery, figurines, books, cushions, even the toaster found a new
home on the opposite side of the kitchen bench. Anne clapped in
time to my movements, which inspired me to sweep her up in my arms
and dance with her around the room. Midway through our waltz, the
door swung open with a bang.

William stood in the
doorway. His features were forlorn. “You should have stayed after
the service,” he snipped. “There was cake. Smelled divine. Wish I
could have eaten. Wish I could do many things.”

Anne’s pale face flushed
pink as if she was ashamed at being caught enjoying herself. The
hairs on my neck bristled.

“
Just because you guys are
cursed doesn’t mean you have to give up on the things you enjoy,” I
said.

William stayed a
reasonable distance away from the door to avoid the effect of it
slamming in his face. He prowled the deck as if bristling with
attitude. For once I was glad he wasn’t able to enter.

“
I would never begrudge my
love her happiness,” he said. “Besides, Anne was always more fond
of dancing.”

“
And you were more fond of
cake,” she replied with a wry smile.

Had these two had a fight
while I was at my funeral? A part of me was glad they were acting
like a normal bickering couple. Because a part of me thought, if
they could find normalcy in their afterlife, maybe so could
I?
After
I’d
found a way to communicate with Leo, of course.

Outside on the patio,
William continued to pace back and forth. “What if your plan
succeeds, Ruby? What if you find a way to beat your curse? You’ll
leave and forget all about us.”

“
Oh, William, we are just
having a little fun.” Anne said. “I haven’t danced in a long, long
time. And what is this talk of Ruby beating her curse and
forgetting about us? Ruby would never do that.”