Little Red Gem (9 page)

She was in her astral
projection state. She didn’t need to say a word. I knew why she was
here.

“
I’ve been looking for you
everywhere,” she exclaimed. “I went to the hollow first and you
weren’t there. I wanted to make sure you’re okay. You ran off
yesterday and mom was calling for me so I couldn’t come after
you.”

I rose from the couch.
“I’m good, considering the circumstances. And you’re wasting your
breath if you’ve come to tell me not to go to my funeral.” I
crossed my arms over my chest to bolster my confidence. “I’m going
to pay a visit to Leo and there is nothing you can say to stop
me.”

Audrey drew her eyebrows
together and indicated to Anne with a lift of her chin. “Who’s your
friend?”

I moved a protective inch
sideways. “This is Anne. She was in the cabin when I arrived.” She
was also the only friend I had at a time when I needed more, not
less.

“
She’s a poltergeist,”
Audrey said matter-of-factly. “Or a demon. Yep, those clothes are
ancient. She’s probably a demon.”

“
Anne’s not a
demon.”

Anne cast a long and
curious gaze over Audrey. “How come she can communicate with you?
She is not of the spirit world.”

Audrey’s face was
unreadable. I couldn’t tell if having a conversation with a ghost
impressed her or not. Considering I’d found out yesterday my
half-sister could walk the astral plane in spirit form, this was
possibly an everyday occurrence for her.

“
I’m in a meditative state
and I’ve willed my spirit to walk the astral plane,” Audrey
explained.

Anne’s horror was evident
on her face. She jumped off the couch and ran into the kitchen.
“You’re a witch.”

“
I don’t have time to
pretend I’m offended,” Audrey snapped. “I’m already late. Ruby,
please don’t go to your funeral. No good can come of this. Think of
poor Leo.”

“
I am thinking of poor
Leo. That’s why I have to go.”

“
You don’t belong in the
real world. You’re putting your soul at risk the longer you stay.
You have to move on.”

Maybe I didn’t belong in
the real world, but I didn’t belong in this un-real
either.

The beep of an alarm clock
broke Audrey’s hold and she flicked a glance – annoyance – at her
wristwatch. “Dammit. I took too long finding you. Please promise me
you’ll stay away from the funeral.”

In a flash she
disappeared.

“
You saw her disappear
before I could answer,” I told Anne. “So I can’t break a promise
she didn’t stick around to substantiate.”

“
I don’t like magic.”
Anne’s eyes smoldered like an extinguished candle.

“
That wasn’t magic. Audrey
woke herself up out of her trance by setting the alarm on her
watch. I guess there’s no point me asking if you wanna come to my
funeral.”

She shook her head and her
voice had a little catch to it – worry. “I cannot leave the cabin.
But…you really should take the witch’s advice and stay here. To
attend one’s own funeral is morbid in any century.”

I agreed, but my gut
churned at the idea of staying away. “I have to go.”

Anne kissed me on the
cheek. “Then go. But hurry back. I fear the longer you stay with
the ones you love, the more difficult it will be for you to let go
when the time comes.”

I only had to close my
eyes to picture the chapel on the north side of town with its
pyramid shaped exterior that was out of synch with our old world
charm.

When I next looked up, I
stood in front of the entrance to the chapel. The doors were wide
open so I had no trouble crossing over the threshold. The walls of
this out-of-context building slanted inwards, and the way they
closed in would have given a claustrophobic person the chills. The
floor and pews were made of polished, light-colored wood. Soft
music played through speakers hidden behind the sixteen-foot
burgundy drapes which covered two of the walls. The wall directly
ahead of me looked out over a rose garden currently in full
bloom.

Someone – probably my mom
because despite our differences she still knew me best – had placed
lilac tulips on my coffin.

It wasn’t only the sight
of my favorite floral arrangement that pulled me up short. It
wasn’t only the blast of reality I got that I was attending my own
funeral. What sucked the imaginary breath out of my lungs was the
rosewood coffin – my coffin – covered in flowers, looking real
pretty, yet looking so pathetically small.

No amount of television
could have desensitized me to this sight. Panicking, I raced
through the glass wall and into the rose garden.

I was startled by a voice
behind me. “You were either well-loved or rich. They are usually
the two explanations for big crowds.”

I turned to see William
amongst the bushes. “Quit stalking me, will you?”

“
As you wish, my lady,” he
said.

His voice grew soft, and I
turned around in time to watch him bow low and fade into the
bushes.

“
Wait—”

I plunged headfirst into
the rose bushes, bursting to apologize for being rude, especially
as I reckoned that in eternity I’d need all the friends I could
gather.

The sweet perfume of roses
should have washed over me. In death, flowers took on the stench of
the dirt and the bugs and the insecticide spray. Pretty on the
outside. Ugly underneath. For a second it felt as if I was
referring to myself.

Chapter Five

The love of my life
stepped out of a car I recognized as the one which had driven me
under false pretences to Prospect to purchase a pregnancy kit. The
car drove off and Leo stood in the parking lot, looking lost and
vulnerable. With lightning speed I burst out of the rose garden.
Anyone who says that absence makes the heart grow fonder has only
experienced half the brutality of absence through loss. I was used
to talking to Leo every day. Now I had lost that connection and it
ached deep into my bones.

Leo looked dashing in his
suit, though his tie was askew and his shirt crumpled. We’d known
each other since we were six, yet we’d only been a couple for six
months. Every one of those months I’d valiantly tried to get him to
wear a suit – in readiness for Prom night/College
graduation/wedding ceremony – and every month he’d resisted. He
hated them, yet I hated that my death was the event deemed suitable
to finally indulge my wishes.

Nothing about the rest of
him looked dashing. His face sagged from the dark circles pulling
his eyes downward. His flesh appeared opaque, his lips were
drooped, and his shoulders were rounded. His skeleton appeared to
have been sucked right out of him. When his fingers grappled with
the tie around his neck, as if he was choking, I rushed to adjust
the knot. My ghostly body fell through his warm one and I ended up
on my hands and knees kissing the asphalt.

“
No. This isn’t fair.” I
bashed my fists into the ground, screaming louder when each
sweeping motion connected with nothing.

I continued to lay in a
crumpled heap on the road wailing like a banshee even while Leo’s
mom, looking regal in a cream coat, shepherded Leo into the chapel.
Too late I realized that Audrey was right; coming here was a bad
idea.

A car pulled up a few feet
in front of me. My mother stepped out of the car. The black dress
she wore was one of my favorites. It had sleeves to the elbows and
a wrap-around section. I’d not long ago begged her to let me wear
the dress to a college open day because I’d wanted to appear
sophisticated. Today, the dress hung off my mother’s frame as if
she’d used it for the past year as a hammock.

I stood still. Even if I
wanted to move, I couldn’t. The buzzing sound, which came from
being so close to a living body, attacked me once more, and still I
didn’t move. Mostly because I
wanted
to be this close to my
mother. The ache in my bones signaled that I missed my mother more
than I realized I would. We’d had our share of arguments, and I’d
always hated fighting with Mom, but it seemed especially unfair
that I’d robbed her of our mother/daughter fights the moment I’d
died.

Watching Mom now, I wanted
to tell her a thousand times over how sorry I was for not coming to
her earlier with my problems. She of all people could have related
to the uncertainty and desperation that had controlled my actions.
Even now a sense of desperation controlled them: I knew I should
have returned to the cabin and accepted my fate, but how could I
when I hadn’t yet done everything possible to unearth the depths of
Leo’s love for me.

If anyone had surmised
that in death I’d found peace, they’d have been badly mistaken.
When a few mourners uttered, “may she rest in peace”, I moved off
to the side. There, I watched the crowd of mourners engulf my mom.
I watched her zombie eyes stare over their shoulders. Friends and
neighbors offered her their sympathies. “We’re so sorry for your
loss.” “A parent should never have to bury their child.” “Such a
tragedy.” “They ought to fill in those old mine shafts.”

My mom accepted these
sentiments with a stone face. I’d have given anything for my mom
not to have gone through this ordeal alone. She’d gone through
everything else in her life without support – sometimes without
mine – and I guessed that had a lot to do with my vow not to follow
in her footsteps. It was also a major reason why I’d driven up to
the cabin to confront Leo and demand to know the true extent of his
love. I hadn’t wanted to raise our child on my own. Yet I was the
one who’d walked out on him. The irony didn’t escape me.

The car my mom stepped out
of drove off and her body stiffened. A shaking hand flew up to her
temple.

Dad came charging through
the crowd and placed his hand under her elbow. “You’re doing well,
Suzanne,” he said. “I’m here. You can do this. Are you
ready?”

The relief that washed
over my mom was epic. She nodded her head, albeit weakly, and let
Dad guide her into the chapel, offering the mourners a polite smile
along the way.

“
Thank goodness you’re
here, David,” Mom whispered. “There’s no way I could do this
alone.”

“
You’ll never be alone
again. I promise, this time things will be different.”

Mom leaned her head
against his shoulder. “Perhaps getting away from this town is
what’s called for. You always did know what was best for
me.”

Staring at her as she took
her seat at the front of the chapel, I wondered if she’d gone soft
in the head. She hated Dad. Besides, how could Dad promise her
things would be different this time…when he was married?

I looked around for Mishi,
his third wife, but instead I spied Audrey and her mom walking
toward me. Audrey’s mom had carried on an hour long conversation
with me due to her ability to see ghosts, and I couldn’t risk her
glimpsing me now – and not because she may have harbored desires to
fulfill the psychic reading she’d robbed me of. I ducked inside the
chapel and forced my spirit body into the drapes. After a minute I
sighed heavily, regretting once more not heeding Audrey’s warning
about coming here.
“Love can make you do
crazy things, Ruby,”
my mother had once
said.

Crazy I could deal with;
what I was doing was starting to venture into morbidly
idiotic.

***

Shanessa, Natalie, and I
were in a girl group called Violet Dreamy Youth. Shanessa had an
incredible musical talent. She could play practically any
instrument…piano, guitar, violin, empty bottle; whatever made a
tune could be mastered by Shanessa. Natalie did okay strumming away
on acoustic guitars but her instrument of choice was the violin. I
used to practice the piano three afternoons a week until studies
forced me to cut back to one. When we came together, we rocked. Or,
at least we mustn’t have sucked because we got asked to sing each
week at the Heavenlea Home.

We’d leapt at the chance
to sing in front of anybody when we’d accepted that gig, ignoring
the need to understand our audience. We’d turned up and sang songs
that we liked and it soon became apparent we needed to learn songs
from the era before music was downloadable. Since then, we’d gotten
pretty good at understanding our audience.

I understood the audience
in the chapel loud and clear. They were here to mourn the death of
a seventeen-year-old girl.

Leo avoided eye contact
with my dad like he wasn’t here to mourn my death but to accept
blame for it, and while my dad was many things, he wasn’t cruel.
The moment he copped a glimpse of Leo’s distress he rushed with Mom
in tow to embrace Leo. He arrived seconds before Leo’s mom and dad
and the five of them clung to each other like they were on a life
raft in the ocean. Leo’s sisters hurried over from their seats to
join the circle, then the rest of the mourners got up and slotted
into every available inch until there was a giant huddle of people
in the middle of the chapel, all balling their eyes out.