“Let go of me!” I hear Jade shout.
It takes me a moment to make sense of the scene before me.
The helicopter is hovering above us like a swollen obsidian dragonfly stirring the sky with metal wings, a rescue ladder dangling down, held by the scowling lady in black.
She’s shouting “GO! GO! GO!” in the general direction of the boys.
Kitty is half way up the ladder, her dress billowing around her legs.
A huge man in a black suit is holding Jade back. Jade’s yelling Kitty’s name over and over, fighting to break away.
For a moment Kitty stops climbing. She looks back over her shoulder at Jade, and I can see the pain written all over her face.
But the lady in black looks up at her and shouts “DON’T STOP!”, and Kitty hurriedly turns her back on Jade and continues climbing, before disappearing int
Time passes. Maybe minutes, maybe hours. I stir to wakefulness, rising up out of a deep and dreamless sleep. The room is dark. I can hear Felix’s voice, soft and muffled. He’s singing Déjà Vu. Where is he? I sit up in bed with a jolt, wide awake, trying to trace the source of the sound. It’s distant, yet somehow very close… far away, but definitely in my bedroom. In fact, it’s in my bed. Silvery light bleeds out from beneath my pillow, a soft glow seeping into the dark. I lift my pillow and I almost can’t believe my eyes – it’s my long-lost phone. It’s been missing for ages, since my birthday. It purrs softly in my hand, and in a split second I’m both relieved to have finally found it, and bitterly disappointed to realise that the singing
I’m running through the dark midnight forest.The night-cloaked trees cluster around me like the walls of a gloomy maze, but I won’t get lost.I know the way. He’s calling me. The one I love.I glide over small streams, hollow moss-encrusted tree trunks, a sea of ferns. From time to time I look up. Stars wheel through the patches of black sky peeking through the forest canopy overhead. As I run, the sky lightens to a deep royal blue, paling to lilac speckled with the ghosts of the fading stars.Day is coming.I have to hurry.I’m almost there, but I won’t reach him in time.So I call his name, hoping he’ll hear me.But no sound comes out. I’ve forgotten his name. In fact, I’ve forgotten his face, my face, my name, everything.How am I supposed to find h
By the time we get into town, it’s well past 9am. The walk from the cabin to the car park took longer than usual – Kitty insisted on wearing kitten heels for our little excursion. Even though they’re pretty low compared to her usual footwear, she still fell flat on her butt right at the start of the hike, and moved at a snail’s pace after that.It could be worse though. At least she’s not wearing stilettos.Still, her feet are covered in blisters after their ordeal, so it’s a blessing that we were able to get into the jeep at the car park and drive into town, rather than Kitty hobbling all the way.By now, the boys should have woken up and found the note I left for them on the fridge. Hopefully they’ll just carry on without me, and they’re in the recording studio working on melodies and lyrics for the new songs.As we drive along NW 32nd Avenue, Kitty po
After we finish our coffees, we head over to the Whole Foods Market on 15th Ave. Kitty got all flustered when Jade gave her the receipt but refused to let her pay the bill. It was folded in two, and I bet he wrote down his phone number for her.He has no idea what he’s getting himself into.She acted like she wasn’t interested, but she slipped the folded receipt into her bag when she thought I wasn’t looking. She’s been unusually quiet ever since.As we walk down the long aisles stacked with a rainbow of organic peppers and fruit, Kitty mumbles about how hard it is shopping for the boys. Lyall and Ben will eat anything, but Elliot only eats low-carb high protein, Alastaire won’t let anything but the finest delicacies taint his refined palate, and Felix always checks labels for MSG and food dyes and throws away anything that doesn’t meet his rigorous standards.
There’s a somber mood in the car as we drive across town to the Ninth Order of Angels Catholic Church.Kitty doesn’t ask me about what happened at the shops. She doesn’t need to – it’s pretty clear what went down.A few months after the accident, after it became obvious that Mia’s parents were avoiding my mom and dad and me, I tried to see it from their perspective. I realized that every time they looked at me, they were seeing the girl who survived instead of Mia. How many times had they wished in the small lonely dark hours of the night for history to rewrite itself? For me to be at the bottom of the ocean with the others, while their daughter got to live on instead? How fervently had they bargained, begged, prayed?I forgave them long ago, but they clearly haven’t yet forgiven themselves.A flock of blackbird
Ask the angel.The words echo through my mind over and over. There’s no doubt who I need to speak to. I only know one angel, after all, even if in real life he’s more pervy and devilish than angelic.Still, I can’t even imagine what I’m meant to say to Alastaire. He’s going to think I’m crazy if I start asking him about witches and sea serpents and ghostly messages from my dead friends.Before we reach the cabin, Kitty and I stop at the edge of the forest clearing where I found my bicycle overgrown with roses and moss a few weeks ago.I wanted to show her that it’s the same as Mia’s grave. She still doesn’t believe that the crumbling old headstone could possibly be Mia’s, but at least if she sees my bike she’ll have to admit that something suspicious is going on.But when we reach the spot, there’s nothing there
Elliot sits next to me on the steps in silence.We look out across Kitty’s vegetable patch. The forest surrounding the clearing is cloaked in darkness, but closer in, silvery starlight bathes the lettuces and cabbages in a soft glow. The light glimmers on the still surface of the water in the birdbath at the garden’s centre. For the first time since Kitty unearthed the secret garden from its prison beneath the brambles, I notice that the birdbath’s column is actually a stone figure, covered in ivy. A beautiful face, a flowing robe, two arms outstretched, holding the water-filled bowl – and two perfect, folded wings sweeping the ground.An angel.That’s right. The angel doesn’t necessarily need to be Alastaire. It could be a statue. Or a painting. Or a lingerie-clad supermodel in a Victoria’s Secret show. Maybe Mia wants me to
I should do this more often.My ensuite bathroom at home has a shower, so I hardly ever take baths. Even here at the cabin, I’ve been showering upstairs every evening out of habit, totally ignoring the beautiful porcelain clawfoot tub in the downstairs bathroom.I hold my champagne glass in the air, admiring the way the warm candlelight glints off the bubbling golden liquid.The boys looked mildly shocked earlier when I passed on supper and instead took a crystal champagne flute out of the cupboard. I half filled the glass with sparkling champers, then reconsidered and filled it to the very brim. Ben and Alastaire were thrilled – they’ve been trying to get me to drink with them for weeks now. They weren’t as thrilled when I said I was drinking it alone, in the bathtub, and I was locking the door behind me to keep out any unwanted visitors.The fruity bubbles sparkle on my tongu