I look at Finn, and he looks excited, as though he’s looking forward to going to England, as though we’ve done it every summer for all of our lives. The problem is… I don’t have any memories of this at all.
“I really am crazy,” I tell myself softly. “I’m as crazy as they say. I’m crazy.”
Finn grabs a plate and hands it to me, stacked with steaming maple pecan pancakes, drizzled in syrup.
It’s heaven on porcelain.
I know that.
I take bite after bite, but by the third one, I can’t move my tongue.
For a second, I think it’s my mind playing tricks on me again, making me think that I’m paused while everyone else is fast-forwarding, but then I watch my hand fall limply to the table, and my mom lunges to grab me and I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t breathe.
“Calla!” she says sharply, and she bangs on my back with her hand because she thinks I’m choking. I’m not choking. I just can’t breathe.
I claw at my throat, claw at my face, claw at my tongue.
The air
The air
It won’t travel down into my lungs.
The light
The light.
It surrounds me and I think I’m dying.
This is what it feels like, I realize.
To die.
It’s warm and soft and inviting.
It’s comforting, like home.
It doesn’t smell like embalming fluid and stargazers, the way it does in the funeral home. It smells like rain, like grass, like clouds.
The light surrounds me, and my throat doesn’t hurt anymore.
Nothing hurts.
I’m light as a feather.
I’m light as a cloud,
The light fills me up and makes me float.
I drift toward the ceiling, and I look down at myself, at my small body crumpled on the floor. My red hair spreads in a fan around me, like a pool of crimson blood and it fascinates me, the color. The endless color. The light distracts me though, shining as brightly as the sun from outside the house, glinting into my eyes. I suddenly realize that I’m ready to leave, I’m ready to let go, to drift away. I’m getting ready to glide through the window to touch it, when I see my brother’s face.
He’s as white as death,
He’s terrified, and he’s screaming my name, clutching at my hand, pulling at my body sprawled on the floor.
I falter, my feet on the windowsill, even as the light reaches my toes.
I can’t
I can’t
I can’t leave him.
I can’t leave him alone.
First he left me, but it turned out he really didn’t. He would never leave me alone, and I can’t leave him either.
With a sigh, I step down from the sill, and slip back into my body, and when I open my eyes again, I’m in the hospital.
“You’re allergic to nuts,” the nurse tells me solemnly, and my mom and my brother are sitting on the bed with me.
“You can never eat nuts again,” my mother tells me, and her eyes are filled with terror.
“You died for a minute and a half,” Finn announces, and he no longer looks afraid, instead, he looks intrigued. Because I’m safe now. Because I was dead, and now I’m not.
I should feel different, but I don’t.
It intrigues me, too.
Chapter Four
Whitley Estate
Sussex, England
The flight is God-awful long.
We get to ride in First-Class, but I had to leave my dad and my room, and even though the flight attendants come to check on us frequently, and bring me apple juice and cookies and a blanket? it’s not worth it. I know it’s not worth it.
My legs cramp and I rub at them, glancing sideways at Finn.
“I don’t want to go to England,” I tell him. He shushes me with a finger to his lips, staring at our mom across the aisle. She sleeps heavily, thanks to a sleeping pill. I roll my eyes.
“She hasn’t moved in three hours.”
“So what? She could still hear you.”
“She doesn’t have bionic ears,” I argue. But then I drop it, because what difference does it make?
“I just don’t want to go,” I continue, a little bit quieter. “Dad didn’t want us to leave? I could tell. I don’t see why we have to.”
Finn glances over his shoulder at mom, then peers at me. “I heard them talking last night. Mom said that we have to go, so that her family can help you.”