Pieces of Hope (46 page)

“I’ll
protect you,” Daniel assured me, hearing my thoughts.

And I
believed him. A little bit.

We
visited several museums, even a couple in the United
States, but I adored the
Osterreichische
Galerie
in Vienna
. It
resembled a flattened castle, stretching out for many city blocks, and at night
it was brighter than the brightest stars. We saw several of Gustav Klimt’s
paintings. He was one of my favorite artists, but the name brought to mind
Gustav
Vallerius
—and Charlotte Gooding,
Rin
Suzuki,
Creesie
Brown, and
Johnnie and Catherine McAllister. Even so, as I floated from painting to
painting, safe above the heads of tourists (Daniel’s suggestion), I’d get lost
in the beautiful golden colors Klimt was famous for—

A
raven-haired man and a ruby-haired girl clasped in a passionate embrace, his
gold and black robe entwined around the two of them, shielding them from the
ravages of the real world, her head tilted back in anticipation of
The Kiss.
 

—And
when I immersed myself like that, I’d forget about everything else.

I
sometimes questioned this separation of body and soul, and the fact that I no
longer heard my heartbeat. Then again, maybe I wasn’t paying close enough
attention to notice it. But something about me
was
changing. I could feel it. I only hoped Ethan wasn’t right
about the reasons why. My mother was nearer than she ever had been. That I
didn’t question. What I didn’t understand was what was taking her so long to
show herself to me? When she finally did, would it be too late?
   

After
the museum excursion, Daniel was craving a little excitement so we travelled
outside of Bangladesh
to an area called the
Sundarbans
. I wanted to see the
world’s largest mangrove forest, while Daniel had eyes for other things. It was
ridiculously easy to get there. Under normal circumstances, we would have had a
long plane flight, followed by a long car ride, and then a long trip by boat
(almost
 
ten hours, depending on the
current—it flowed in two directions here). But for us, Daniel simply drew back
a corner of the heavy velvety curtain and after stepping through it, we floated
like morning mist across the muddy Ganges
River.

The
mangrove forest was unlike anything I’d ever imagined. Swampy, and with tree
roots that twisted like knotted pretzels above the ground—tall enough to walk
under—and with enough wildlife to fill several zoos. After walking only a few
hundred feet, we’d already spotted a dozen monkeys, two cheetahs, a handful of
deer, and one open-mouthed salt-water crocodile that I almost stepped into just
as he was devouring a python as big around as two of my fists.

No way
did I wish to add flesh-eating anything to my list of experiences. No way did I
wish to know what it was like to devour live prey. Daniel, however, had other
ideas.

We’d
first heard about the
Sundarbans
during senior year
in Biology while studying the long-reaching effects of global warming. Rising
waters were causing the
Sundarbans
to disappear, and
it was predicted that in less than ninety years, all of this would be gone. My
reasons for visiting bordered on the scientific (after all, I had plans to be a
vet), but Daniel came to pay a visit of the closest kind with the regal Bengal tiger.

“Hope,”
Daniel asked unexpectedly, “do you think you could spend all of eternity with
me?” We had been hanging out in the treetops for some time; he was waiting for
one of the enormous tigers to pass beneath us. “I know how much you love me . .
. now, but it’s a question I’ve been meaning to ask you since our, um,
encounter.”

I nearly
fell off my tree branch. The way he looked at me let me know that he was
referring to our soul-melding moment, and cold sweat broke out along my
hairline. It took me a minute to speak. As gently as I could, I said, “I’m
sorry, but I plan on going back, Daniel. I know I haven’t been clear, but my
intention has always been to talk to my mother, then return to my body. My
eternity isn’t in question at the moment. It’s a long ways off.”

“But
you’re not sure.” He was smiling at me as though he could see right into my
head, and that’s when I realized—he could. From several branches above me, he
slid down, planting a sweet kiss on my forehead in less time than it took to
blink. I wanted to be infuriated, but unfortunately I wasn’t.

“It’s
the pain of . . . her dying.” The words wouldn’t form as I wished they would.
There were things I wasn’t saying. “It causes me to hesitate every time . . .
and that’s the only reason I’m still here. It has nothing to do with us.”

“Okay,”
he said agreeably. “If you say so.”

Right
then, he spotted his prey, and our conversation abruptly ended.

From
beneath the dense underbrush, the cat strolled leisurely, looking like a feline
version of Daniel as he did—with nothing to fear and nowhere in particular to
go. Every muscle in his body flexed and rippled as it walked. The cat had to
weigh nearly four-hundred pounds, and yet there was such a delicate grace to
him. His sandy brown fur had
jaggedy
black stripes
that ran in circles around his body. And on his face, he wore what looked like
a black and white mask. It made him seem approachable, almost cuddly.

“I guess
this is it, my love.” Daniel’s eyes were alight with an excitement I hadn’t
seen before. “Try to keep yourself entertained. I’m going to be a while.”
 

I knew
what was about to happen, and I agreed to it only because it was an animal and
not a human. I hoped it wouldn’t hurt the cat, and I assured myself it wouldn’t.
At first, I wasn’t so certain, but Daniel could be very persuasive. Once he looked
at me with
that
face,
that
smile, no way could I deny him.
No
was not a part of Daniel’s
vocabulary. Nor did he seem to like it much in mine.

Daniel
waited until the ten-foot tiger entered the muddy water. With little effort,
the tiger slid into the Ganges at the same
moment that Daniel drifted down into the Banyan’s pretzel-like roots. When the
tiger let out a low snarl of warning, baring a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth,
Daniel leapt inside him. I gasped. It wasn’t merely the ease with which Daniel
performed this task, but it raised a few questions as to how often—and from
whom—he had acquired such a skill.

To my
surprise, the tiger didn’t put up any protest. Unlike the drowning boy in the
river, unlike the scenario
Creesie
had shown me at
the Station, the ferocious cat gave only a slight shake of its head. All
possibilities considered, I thought it went fairly well. And when it looked at
me, I saw that its topaz eyes had now turned smoky gray. As if in greeting,
Daniel let out a menacing snarl, then continued across the Ganges
river.

That’s
when I made my escape. I wasn’t sure it was going to work—I had never attempted
to travel from the living realm into someone’s dreams (I’d only ever used the
Station). But in theory, I thought it should work. It took me several dozen
attempts before I was successful. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t pull
back a shortcut. It wasn’t nearly as easy as it looked. I kept grabbing at air,
getting nowhere, but I forced myself to concentrate—focusing on Ethan’s face,
willing the curtain to part—and at last I made it happen.

The
first thing I noticed was Ethan sitting atop Heaven’s Peak, at the very edge of
the pirate’s plank. The second thing I noticed was the air. Normally, it felt
weightless, but tonight it was smothering, like breathing through cellophane.

Only a
few stars were alight in the night sky, but nonetheless, there was no missing
him. He was gazing off into the swaying grasses of the meadow, looking
distracted. Without any apparent reason for it, he spun around and turned his
back to the ravine, and after hooking the heels of his climbing shoes onto a
small ridge, he reclined back—headfirst. It looked familiar. While climbing
Heaven’s Peak, I had arrogantly struck the same pose. But when Ethan did it, it
terrified me.

“Hey,
Ethan, I’m here!” I tried to sound cheerful, not the least bit worried. But I
wasn’t fooling anyone. Least of all, not myself. “Don’t go getting all crazy on
me! You know I can do things here that you can’t.”
 

He
didn’t alter his position. It was as if he hadn’t heard me. The wind, I
thought, it must be the wind. It was especially blustery. I watched his hair as
it blew about in a recent gust, but oddly, it didn’t move my own.

Something
was very wrong.

I
crossed the fifty yards between us in an all-out run. Halfway across the
distance, my head struck something granite-like, and I splattered backwards
onto the dirt and stone. “OW! WHAT THE—” Holding my head, I knew—a moment of
blinding clarity amidst the confusion. My head throbbed. I half-dragged,
half-crawled back to where I thought I’d first struck my head. Tentatively, as if
I thought it was going to burn my hand, I stretched out my fingers and touched
something solid.

Panicked
now, I scrambled to my knees and touched everywhere that I could reach. Solid.
Still solid. Squinting my eyes and turning them slightly out of focus in the
dimming light, I looked beyond my hands as they pressed in mid-air and spotted
it. There it was—the
 
sheerest of
curtains. Silvery pale. Flat. But solid as steel. It formed an impenetrable
barrier between the two of us.

He had
meant what he said.

I guess this is goodbye . . .

I began
to throw my full weight against the wall, time and again. This one seemed
thicker than the one I’d encountered with Mrs. Gooding. Something warm and wet
rolled down my face, blurring my vision, but I didn’t relent. I was determined
to break through.

“Ethan!”
I wailed. “Ethan, let me in! I’ll never give up . . . you know that, don’t you?
I love you! I’ll prove it to you!”

I jumped
up and ran fifty feet in the opposite direction, then bolted headfirst into the
invisible wall. When I struck the solid mass, I wailed. I thought for sure I
had knocked the head off my body and dislocated my shoulder. Thrashing about on
the ground, cradling my sore shoulder, I cursed in frustration, wondering how
this one thing—this wall—could be real. I tried imagining it away—nothing. This
barrier was definitely thicker and stronger than Mrs. Gooding’s. Had Ethan
anticipated my return? Why go to such extremes? Had something happened that I didn’t
know about?

I forced
myself up, stepped back a hundred feet, and charged again. Once more, I flew
backwards, this time landing on my hip. But I hadn’t time to rest, no time to
nurse the pain. A dozen more times, several dozen more, I charged at that
transparent, hateful wall. When at last I ached too much to run, I still
refused to quit and began pummeling it with my fists.

And yet,
at no time did I manage to even crack it.
 

Eventually,
a painful squeezing started up in the middle of my chest and I realized the
futility of trying any longer. Ethan would have made sure I couldn’t get around
it. Words he had uttered to Brody at our first meeting floated into my
throbbing head
. I’m either all-in or
all-out. I don’t spend much time in the middle.
If he had made up his mind
not to see me, I had no doubt he would make it happen. And no doubt it had
something to do with Daniel, and my deception . . .

Despite
the guilt, I felt numb . . . as if my blood were Novocain. I lay still as death
upon the cold hard ground, barely breathing in that thick air, and praying that
in some part of his soul, he could hear me.

“Dream
me back to you, Ethan . . . please, dream me back.”

Eventually,
the stars began to fade, and so did Ethan. I stayed where I was. I couldn’t
leave him, even with this barrier between us, yet I couldn’t bear to look away.
In those final seconds before he disappeared, my heart nearly beat a hole in my
chest as I watched him grip the edge of the bluff, freeing his shoes from the
crevice that held them secure—

I bolted
up, screaming to him in terror, clawing at the hideous awful thing before me, “ETHAN,
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

—and
then, releasing his grip . . . the only thing that kept him safe on that
platform; I watched in horror as Ethan fell headfirst from Heaven’s Peak.

22
Crawling into
Ethan

I
screamed in a voice I no longer recognized as my own. This couldn’t be
happening. It couldn’t be real! The darkness had consumed me before I saw Ethan
hit the ground. Had he . . . hit the ground? Did it matter that I wasn’t
actually beside him, that there was a barrier between us? Did that technicality
make it more like a real dream and less like a soul-to-soul visit? My weak mind
was failing me. I couldn’t recall what
Creesie
had
said. I only wanted to know, I only needed to know . . . Was Ethan alive? Was
he?

And then
it occurred to me—I could check!

My hands
were shaking as I reached up and drew back the invisible black curtain. It only
took one try. Instantly, fluidly—before another fraction of a second passed—I
held my breath and skimmed to Ethan’s bedside. It was raining outside. I could
hear it softly plinking on the windows. And there, in the streetlights
filtering through the French doors, I searched for a sign that my true love was
alive . . . the rise and fall of his chest, a twitch, a moan.

I didn’t
have long to wait.
  

He slept
the sleep of the tormented; a moaning, thrashing, restless sleep. His right
hand flung toward the nightstand and an opened bottle of sleeping pills caught
my eye. The pills were startling, but not for obvious reasons. I knew he wasn’t
trying to kill himself . . . He was trying to keep me out. The pills put him in
too deep a sleep for me to reach him. This brought on my first wave of
self-pity as I realized the extremes he had taken to prevent me from entering
his dreams.