Sapphire: A Paranormal Romance (44 page)

"Son,"
the sheriff said, "I've been sheriff here in Knorr for a while.  I know
how things are here.  People think I am some kind of hick sheriff, but I'm not.
I know how strange things are here. I get calls about things that you would not
believe.  I get calls about all kinds of things that would give you
nightmares."

He sighed and took
off his hat. He ran his fingers absently through his hair.

"And, at the
same time," he said, "I have seen some things that give me hope. 
You'd be amazed at those, as well.  Things that don't have any explanation, but
fill you with hope."

He looked at Jimmy
and leaned forward, putting a hand under Jimmy's chin.  He tilted Jimmy's head
up to face him.

"That night,
I saw both," he said.  "I was at home that night.  And when you and
Sapphire did your thing, I felt it.  I felt reality itself change and it scared
me, and I felt the pain and terror that was Jesse and Stan, but I also felt an
overpowering sense of love.  That was you two. And it filled me with hope. If
there could be love strong enough to punch through reality, reshape it, and
defy death itself, well, then the universe isn't just darkness."

Jimmy felt a smile
cross his face.  The sheriff smiled back.

"I just wanted
you to know that," he said.  "I know it hurts, and I know you've been
through a lot, but you have experienced something only a few of us will ever
experience."

With that he stood
up and put his hat back on.  He smiled again and then turned to walk out. 

"Have you
found her family?" Jimmy asked.

The sheriff paused
and looked back.  "Sapphire's?"

Jimmy confirmed
that was what he meant with a movement of his head.

"Yes,"
he said.  "They know what's happened.  We've dug up the rest of her
remains and returned her to them.  They've had a funeral that's been a long
time coming."

"Can you tell
me where they are?" Jimmy asked.

The sheriff smiled. 
Then he wrote down the address.

A
few days after that Tabitha and Warren arrived at the house.  They exchanged pleasantries. 
They talked for a while.  Jimmy's mother made dinner, and they sat around the
table and continued gabbing and laughing.  Jimmy laughed with them, but he
still felt distant.  He had been feeling distant for weeks now.  He had even
gone back to school the week before, ignoring the stares and the comments.  He
was lost in his own world, and he wondered if he would ever find his way back
again.

When the dishes
had been cleared and Warren was in the living room with his mother, Tabitha and
Jimmy sat down at the table and chatted.  Tabitha reached out and grabbed
Jimmy's hand.

"I can tell
that you're still not really here, are you?" she asked.

Jimmy shook his
head.  Almost immediately he felt the tears coming.  He tried to hold them
back, but it was no use.  He wept and when Tabitha put her arms around him, he
held on and wept softly into her shoulder.

"I know it
hurts," Tabitha said, "but you and Sapphire are connected.  I have to
ask you, have you gone back to the bridge?  Have you tried to reach out to
her?"

Jimmy shook his
head again, unable to speak.

"The part of
you that could bend reality is still inside you," Tabitha said. 
"Maybe it's weaker than it was, but I bet if you give it a bit of a flex,
you'll find you can still do amazing things."

She paused,
smiling at him.

"Then again,
you could do amazing things even without that ability," she said.

Jimmy and Tabitha
chatted for a while longer and then she and Warren left.  Jimmy walked into the
living room and hugged his mother.

"What's this
for?" she asked.

"Because I
don't do it enough," he said.

His mother tried
to dab at her eyes and hide the fact that she was going to cry.  Instead, she
shuffled off to her bedroom.  When that happened, Jimmy got onto his bike and
pedaled his way to the bridge.

The evening air
felt good on his skin, and he turned his face up into the sky.  The sky was
dimming, turning from bright blue to purple and then black.  Already there were
stars peeking out.  He imagined that one of them was Sapphire, somehow turned
into a star, still bright and shining. 

"Can you see
me?" he whispered to the sky.  "Can you still feel how much I love
you?"

There was no
response, save for the trees blowing in the wind and the sound of air rushing
past his ears.  He reached the bridge and stopped.  Down below, the ground had
been churned and dug up.  Piles of earth were scattered about down there after
the investigators had dug up the rest of Sapphire’s body.

Jimmy made his way
down to the riverbank.  He sat on one of the mounds of earth that didn't look
too wet and stared at the tiny, lazy river.  He gazed at the trees, swaying in
the breeze across the river.

"I miss
you," he said quietly.  Then he decided to speak louder.  "I miss
you, Sapphire.  For weeks you were inside my head and now you're gone.  There's
just this hole there."

He held his head
in his hands for a moment.

"You told me
to go on living my life, but I don't know if I know how to do that," he
said.  "Now that I've been to the other side, things here still seem so
dull.  And it seems like I'll be here forever.  Forever waiting."

He sighed and
looked up at the trees.  He reached out his hand.  He pointed it at the top of
one of the trees across the way.  At first there was nothing, but then,
suddenly, the top of the tree bent forward, bending towards Jimmy as if bowing.

Jimmy put his hand
down and the tree snapped back.  Somewhere beyond the trees, as if coming from
the air itself, he heard someone giggle.  It was a soft thing, but feminine. 
It was filled with life.

Jimmy smiled.

Then he stood up. 
He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again he was about six feet above
the ground.  He felt a smile cross his face.  Up here, in the air, he felt
warmth instead of the cool breeze.  It was as if he were being held in warm
arms.  He heard the chiming giggle again, but this time it was inside his own
head.

And then he flew.

He flew over the
tops of the trees.  He rocketed between the trunks, zooming up and down and
back and forth.  He felt free and alive as the ground rushed past below him. 
The trees bent away from him, clearing a path, and then he rocketed into the
sky, the ground vanishing beneath him, until he reached the highest level of
the clouds, the Earth itself stretching out for miles all around him.  The
warmth and light enveloped him.

It started at his
feet and worked its way up his body until he was completely enveloped in light
and warmth.  It was Sapphire.  There were no words, just the light and warmth,
but he knew it was her.

"I love
you."

He felt the words
inside, filling the hole in his heart.  He smiled and held out his arms and the
light enveloped him.  Then it was gone, and he slowly descended, watching as
the planet beneath him rose to meet his feet. The world was his.  He had an
entire planet to see.

When he landed his
tears were gone and that sucking emptiness inside of him seemed to have
lessened.  He reached out his hand again, and suddenly rocks and mud from the
bank lifted into the air.  He smiled again.

Maybe things
wouldn't be so bad, after all.

"Thank you,"
he said.

The trees bowed in
response.

Weeks
later, Jimmy asked his mother to drive him to a town about fifty miles away. 
She agreed. 

As they drove, he
held in his hand he a piece of paper that had some handwriting on it.  In his
other hand was a GPS device that he had borrowed from the sheriff.  It took
them an hour to get to the address, but they found the house with relative
ease.

The house was
modest, almost like Jimmy's. The house was painted blue with white trim, and
there was a swing set in the backyard.  In the front yard was a large tree. 

It was the kind of
house Sapphire would have loved, Jimmy decided.

"Are you
sure?" his mother asked.

Jimmy nodded. 
"Yes."

He got out of the
car. His mother hung back in case they had to leave quickly. Jimmy walked right
up to the door and knocked.  After a few moments, a woman with brown hair
answered the door.  Jimmy gasped.

She was older. 
She had wrinkles and her hair was gray, and she probably had a few more pounds
on her than Sapphire, but the resemblance was striking. The woman had
Sapphire's eyes.  A smile resembling Sapphire’s smile crossed her face when she
saw Jimmy standing there..

"You must be
Jimmy," she said in a voice that was so like Sapphire's.

"Yes,"
Jimmy said Sapphire’s mother.  From inside the house there were more noises as
people stood up to come to the door. 

"Come on
in," the woman said.  "We have a lot to talk about."

Jimmy turned and
waved at his mother.  She smiled and made her way up the sidewalk.  When she
got to the door, Sapphire's mother smiled and welcomed her, as well.

They went inside,
and the door closed behind them. 

And a new chapter
began.

THE END

Fiction

The Ballad of
the Blue Denim Gang

The Vanished
Child

Dust

RIG: A Novel of
Terror

After the
Snowfall

Sin-Eater: Book
One

Sin-Eater: Book
Two - Destiny

MYTHOS: A
Thriller

The Dead Phone

One Against
Many

Vicious

Non-Fiction

Ghosts of St.
Louis: The Lemp Mansion and Other Eerie Tales

Chicago Crime
Stories: Rich Gone Wrong

Chicago Disasters

Forgotten Tales
of Illinois

Silas Jayne:
Chicago’s Suburban Gangster

Sabotage: A
Chronicle of the Chesterton Crash

Chicago’s
Unsolved Crimes and Mysteries

Collections

Why Hockey
Sucks and Other Random Thoughts
(collection of
essays)

Stories
(collection of short stories)

Flashpoint: A
Curious Collection of Beginnings and Endings
(flash
fiction collection)

The two dogs
travelled day and night.  They kept to the high grass away from the roads as
much as possible.  They encountered humans from time to time, but they hid from
them and avoided confrontation.  They survived by eating the various rodents
and vermin unfortunate enough to cross their path through the woods.

Demon could sense shelter nearby.
It had the faded scent of humans, but he could tell the humans were no longer
there.  The place smelled of wood and metal and a dampness that indicated there
might be a spot they could use as their den.

When they reached the house, the
third day after their escape, Demon dipped his nose to the ground and scouted
the clearing.  He eyed the house carefully and twitched his ears for sound.  
His nose confirmed that there was no one inside.  There was high grass all
around the house and a small, gravel driveway.  It smelled to Demon like no one
had been in the house for some time.

Demon moved forward, keeping his
nose close to the ground and his ears up and alert for any noise.  Delilah
followed.  They had eaten not long ago, finding a couple of unsuspecting
squirrels frolicking beneath a tree.  Blood stained their muzzles and their
bellies were full.  Now they wanted to rest.

Demon sniffed the house, the gravel
driveway to his right.  As he came to the front he noticed the opening beneath
the front porch.  It was dark, but warm; well-hidden and smelled like it was
free of other animals.  It would be a good place to establish their territory.

The two dogs crawled inside. 
Delilah found a spot toward the far side, away from the opening and the
driveway.  Demon took up a spot just inside the opening.  He sniffed the air
again.  It smelled clear of humans.  Eventually he would walk around the
property, sniffing the ground and leaving his mark to indicate to all others
that this property was his.  This was now their home and he would defend it. 
He crouched near the edge of the property and used his sense of smell to check
for any potential threats. All was quiet for the moment.  Demon tilted his
massive head back and howled, letting the world know that this place was his
and he would defend it with his life.