Shadows Gray

Chapter Three



I land right back where I had stumbled a split second before. The woman helping me is so surprised that she almost lands on top of me since her hand is still on my arm. I feel as though I’ve been hit with something, a blow that knocked me off my feet, and I am stuck in a frustrating state of things being in slow motion and yet happening too fast for me to control. I can see the vibrant colors of the woman’s shoes that are directly in front of me; I can smell the vanilla from the latte on the breath of the man who leans down and helps me up; I can still hear the last strum of my guitar hanging in the air by my ears; and yet I am terrified that when I stand again Rose will be gone. I half leap, half claw my way to standing again and when I gaze desperately into the back of the crowd, my fears are realized and my heart feels as though it has stopped. She is gone. The leather chair is empty.

I know I am almost sobbing and making a spectacle of myself as I push my way through the crowd to the chair. I think I see Luke out of the corner of my eyes but I am uncertain and unconcerned. There are two different exits to the coffee shop and I don’t know which way to turn: right would be the main entrance and exit that leads to the street and left is the back entrance which has more parking spaces but you wouldn’t know that unless you had been here before. I choose right.

When I swing open the big door and step into the night air, the silence is a black hole that makes my air come out of my lungs in a whoosh. I can see far down the street in both directions and there is no one. There is no one here and I have chosen wrong. Pushing back through the crowd and going out the back is hopeless now. Rose is gone. I sink to the sidewalk.

I must have sat there for a few minutes, staring blankly into space as calm, silent tears cascade down my face. I notice when he sits down beside me but I don’t respond. I hug my knees to my chest. The only way I acknowledge him at all is to sniff every few seconds to prevent the snot from running down my face. It’s the only polite thing I can accomplish right now. In spite of what I think is a heroic attempt, Luke abruptly stands and leaves, back through the coffee shop door. I can’t help the pitiful broken laugh that escapes me, but in less than a minute, he is back. He sinks back down to the sidewalk with me and hands me a rough paper napkin.

“Best I can do,” he says. “Men’s stall is out of toilet paper.”

“Sorry,” I croak and accept the napkin. “I always forget to check in there when I’m stocking for the next day.” I blow my nose, at first daintily and politely, but then with more gusto. I take longer than I need to and wipe my eyes, putting off what I think could be a weird conversation and explanation.

“If this is how you always end your act on stage, I think you’re a little hard on yourself,” Luke finally begins. “You weren’t that bad. Kind of good actually. Although your guitar picking needs work.”

I can’t help but smile, lopsided though it is. “I know. You’re a big guitar expert, huh?”

“The world’s leading air guitar expert,” he corrects me. His tone changes from silly to gentle. “Want to talk? Or do you need more sandpaper to blow your nose with?”

“I just thought I saw someone I used to know,” my response is very lame and I know it. But how do I explain that this someone I used to know I last saw over two hundred years ago? I look down, embarrassed, and see my horses on my shirt galloping across my chest; they would look so mighty and strong if they weren’t soaked with my tears.

“And that someone owes you a million dollars? That’s why you’re so upset, because you lost them again?” Although his words are light and teasing, his eyes are piercing and I am uncomfortable under their scrutiny. I make a show of wiping my own eyes with the soggy napkin again, if only to collect myself.

I smile widely, sanely, I hope. I fear it comes across as desperate and crazy though. I am surprised when he doesn’t back away and develop a sudden recollection of what he should be doing, where he should be going, and leave, never to see this tear stained wreck of a girl again. Instead he stands and offers me his hand.

“Well, let’s get some caffeine and strategize, shall we? This isn’t a big city and we can find your special someone. It’s not the end of the world, kid. Chin up.” I am standing now, awkwardly at his side, and he uses his knuckle to rub my chin and lift my head.

I feel very conspicuous when I walk back into the shop. I am hesitant and worry that every head will turn and stare at me - the deranged, clumsy woman who made a spectacle of herself and now has the job of refilling their mugs and bringing them their peanut butter scones. They’re probably terrified I’ll spill a pot of hot coffee on them, or drop a butter knife on their toes. But aside from a couple of sympathetic looks, I seem to be mostly ignored. Ignored is home to me. Ignored is where I dwell quite comfortably, thank you very much. I’ll take it.

At the bar I take off my black apron and tell Micki I’m taking a break. I pour Luke and me two coffees in matching white cups that are ridiculously large. We sit at the only table available; a cozy spot for no more than three people back in the corner of the shop. I watch him sip his coffee for a moment as I stir sugar into mine. Finally, if only to break the quiet, I speak.

“That girl that you photographed, the pretty one with the blonde hair? She’s my sister. I saw her here tonight. It,” I stumble over the inadequacy of my words. “It surprised me.” No, it rocked me. It paralyzed me. It undid me.

“How long has it been since you’ve seen your sister?” His question is so innocent, so appropriate, yet I want to laugh like a loon. How can I tell him I last saw her in 1741? He’d pat me on my crazy head, pay for his coffee, and leave into the night. And I wouldn’t blame him a bit.

“I haven’t seen her since we were children. I thought she was dead, actually.” How to explain this? “It’s only been my dad and I since I was four.” Let him think we are a broken family. Let him think my mother was there for Rose and we have simply been separated since a divorce.

“Must have been quite a shock. I’m sorry.” His words are kind, but his eyes remain unconvinced and skeptical.

I wrap my hands around my hot mug of coffee.

“I asked Prue to let you photograph her,” I blurt out suddenly, hungry for a change of topic. Something safe and ordinary. Something away from this mess of emotions that is eating me up inside. “I don’t think I convinced her though. You might have to take one when she’s not looking or something.”

“And risk death and maiming?” His wooly eyebrows shoot up into his too-long hair. I fight an urge to smooth them back down. “That’s okay; I don’t need to die for my art. I did take some of you singing though, I hope you don’t mind. You can see them if you like. I’ll develop them tonight most likely.”

“You don’t use digital?”

“I’m an old fashioned guy. I like the process of developing the photos almost as much as I love taking them. But anyway, maybe we can use the pictures I got of your sister to help you find her. Something that would give us a clue to where she lives or who might know her or something. I’ll be Cagney, you be Lacey. Fred and Daphne?”

My blank stare must have been a giveaway. He laughed.

“Sherlock and Watson then? Just what is your name anyway?”

“Sonnet Gray. But I get to be Sherlock. I’d better get back to work.” I stand up and wonder if I should shake his hand, hug him, something.

“Goodnight, Gray,” he says. “Stay out of trouble. I’ll bring in those photos tomorrow night.”

I’m so tired when I get off my shift and finish sweeping and mopping and counting the money in the register. Matthias and Harry wait patiently for me, sometimes sitting at their table, sometimes helping me by taking out the trash and wiping down tables. They don’t seem to have noticed my antics from earlier and they don’t seem as though anything is amiss. They didn’t travel with us until about ten years ago and they never knew Rose. They know the story though. All the Lost have stories. By the time I am able to leave the shop clean and ready for opening tomorrow morning, it’s after midnight. I feel bad on nights like this because no one at home can fall asleep without me for fear of traveling on by themselves. No one can sleep until we are all together. Meli will be irritated because I know she has to watch the kids tomorrow, early. We finish walking home in silence and enter our little brown house quietly. I was right about Meli; she shoots me a glare and a tight-lipped goodnight before she shuts her and Will’s bedroom door a little more forcefully than necessary. Prue gets her nightly glass of water and reminds me to run the dishwasher if I’m going to dirty a plate tonight. Dad pecks me on the cheek with his dry lips and absentmindedly settles into the couch with the reading lamp still on. He sleeps there more often than he does in his bed, so I pull an afghan over his legs and switch off the lamp. Matthias and Harry tell me I sang beautifully and they retire for the night to the room they share, whistling I’ll Be Seeing You. Israel is eating soup from a blue pottery bowl in the kitchen and I join him.

“What’s wrong?” He asks. Israel sometimes seems as though he knows me the best. His brown eyes look concerned.

“Do I look that bad?” I joke lightly.

“You look like something bad happened,” he responds, leaning back against the counter.

I look like I’ve seen a ghost, I think. Because I did. Instead I choose my words carefully and speak softly so that my dad, curled up on the couch, can’t overhear.

“I saw Rose today. I know it was her. I know I’m not mistaken. Do you think I’m crazy? Or imagining things? Is it possible that she didn’t stay in that century, that she can travel too? That she’s Lost?”

Israel is silent so long I fear what he will say when he finally does speak.

“I’ve seen my family in the strangest places. Sometimes I’ll turn a corner and I’ll see someone and I’m sure it’s my mother. Other times I stare so long and so hard at someone that their features will start to resemble more and more my father. I see my brothers in every little boy their ages. I always hope that we’ll meet up again one day. It’s good to hope, Sonnet. Hope doesn’t make you crazy. The absence of hope does.”

“You don’t believe me then?” I feel like crying, but I also feel angry.

“Will that make it better? Do you want me to believe?” (In your delusions? is the unspoken ending to his question.)

“Do what you want,” I shoot back. I turn my back on him and rummage through the cupboard until I find what I’m looking for: Nightfall pills. Sleep being so important and vital to coordinate with your group, a Lost man long ago developed Nightfall pills. Although I am exhausted and weary to the bone, I know I will need their assistance in turning my brain off and falling asleep tonight. I swallow two of the lavender pills and go to bed, leaving Israel in the kitchen in silence.

Despite the pills, which usually knock me into a dreamless, comatose kind of slumber, I am fitful and restless all night. I feel stuck in that not quite asleep, not quite awake state like you feel at the very ending of a nightmare. Too groggy and disoriented to wake up fully, but never reaching that refreshing, rejuvenating energy you get after a good night’s sleep. I feel as though my insides are shutting down, everything is heavy and I am being pulled under by a suffocating fog and strange dreams. My room is so dark and my dreams are dark too. At first, I am young again, eating bread in our stone home in the seventeen hundreds. I can see my mother sewing something by the fire. I am lying on a pallet next to her; I can see her bare feet. The fire burns hot, I can feel it on my face and on my legs and arms. I hear my dad humming but I can’t see him. I hear a little scuttling sound and then Rose, little three-year- old Rose, lies down beside me. I can see her light blue eyes, mirror images of my own. She wears a white gown and holds a small wooden toy in the shape of a bear. As I watch her, she begins to grow. Her features grow up, her baby fat melts away. I look down at my own legs and they are growing too. Rose reaches out and strokes my cheek, then my hair. I still feel the fire burning brightly beside us. I still hear my dad’s hums, see my mother’s feet. Rose stops touching my face and her hand reaches down to hold mine. She holds it softly for a moment, then tighter, then tighter still until I want to say stop, that hurts! Her hand squeezes and it feels larger now, not like that of a small three year-old. It squeezes violently then and pulls out of my grasp with such force that the nails scratch me. I cry out, both in my dream and in reality, and wake, gasping. I throw off the blankets and fumble for the light on the stand by my bed. I turn it on, half sobbing. The place on the bed next to me is warm as though a body had been there only seconds before and I cradle my bleeding hand, feeling frightened and very small.