“Don’t let me die in here.”
I smile down at Ronnie, her hair splayed out like a black halo in the bottom of the crude coffin we’ve made for her. Her skin is dry and loose, pale and blotchy with slight yellow patches here and there. I have some thought, probably wrong, that the yellow is from the poison they’ve been pumping into her for months. But no, it’s probably not the chemo that’s doing it. Just Death coming by for a taste before settling onto her chest for its meal.
Still, there’s a slight flush in her cheeks. It makes her beautiful again, at least in a tragic way. For the hundredth time I feel a moment of doubt. What if this doesn’t work? What if I do kill her by accident, or maybe worse yet, get her hopes up just for her to wind up hating me when it doesn’t work?
But no, it will work. Just because I lied to her about where the spell came from, it doesn’t mean it can’t save her. If anything, it means I should trust it more.
Crouching beside her, I reach down and give her hand a squeeze. “Never. You’re my girl. Always.”
And then I slide the coffin lid into place.
I almost went insane when Veronica told me she had cancer. We were juniors in college, already making plans for a long life together. The idea of losing her…It wasn’t just unbearable, it was inconceivable. As though without the maxim of her existence, everything else would fall apart and cease to be. The end of love and hope and laughter were the same as the death of light or gravity.
While she spent months on second opinions and treatments, I vacillated between feverish research into alternative cures and desperate bouts of depression and denial. I hid all of it from her as best I could, of course. She had enough to worry about without taking on my fear and pain, particularly when she’d feel guilty for being the unintentional cause.
So we journeyed together down separate roads, hand in trembling hand as we arrived at the same destination. I’d found no answers and she’d found no cures. The doctors said her remaining time was now measured in weeks or months, not years. The day they told her that, I just held her for hours as we cried.
It was in the early blue of that next morning that I had a dream. A dream that maybe wasn’t a dream at all, but rather a dream of a memory.
In it, I was a child, maybe eight or nine. It was June or July, because I was out of school, and I think I was heading to the park to meet up with some friends—this kid Bobby I used to know and his sister. The route took me through an old neighborhood of big, rambling houses—some of them were rundown and creepy, but it was still way quicker than going all the way over to Main Street. That’s when I heard a faint voice behind me.
“Boy. You there, boy. Come here.”
I jumped slightly as I turned to look back. It was an old man—not just old, but impossibly old to my kid’s eyes. His thin arms were slack with hanging, speckled skin and when he looked at me, I could barely make out his dim, watery eyes from between the wrinkled folds of his sloping brow and jutting cheeks. He stood at the edge of the yard of one of the houses lining the road, his baggy pants and dress shirt covered in dirt. Seeing my fear, the man smiled at me.
“No need for that, boy. I won’t hurt you. But I do need your help.”
I remember that I was still nervous, but I was also afraid to disobey an adult, even a stranger. So I went into his yard, and he took me by the hand. Led me to the house and beyond, past a flowering trellis to a garden filled with roses and lilies and a deep, freshly dug hole.
He took me to the edge and gestured down at the coffin inside. Told me that there was something special about me. Something that made me just right to help them.
I backed up at that. I wasn’t special, and I didn’t know what he was talking about. I was just going to meet my friends, and I was going to be late and…
No, he insisted, gently grabbing my wrist and pulling me toward the hole again. Everything in my life, where I was born, where I lived, even me walking that way that day at just that time…it had all led to that moment. I suddenly felt a strange sort of pride at that, a pride that helped me ignore the numbness creeping over me as his words anesthetized my fears.
Giving me a fresh smile, he nodded and pressed something into my hand. It was a glass box filled with water…or maybe something thicker, given the slow way it moved. In the middle, suspended in that liquid, was a rusty nail wrapped in twin strands of grey and white hair. When I met his eyes questioningly, the old man gave a small laugh.
“It’s a compass, son. I made it myself. Well, me and my wife did.” He glanced toward the hole, a pained look on his face. “It’s very important that you keep it safe until you’re done. Do you understand?”
I nodded, not understanding at all.
“Good. This compass is…well, it’s magic. And when I hold it, it points at you. When you hold it…” He gestured down at it. “Well, it points to someone out there, though I suspect they aren’t far. That’s the way of this thing. Once it’s started, everything bends toward it being done.” He patted my shoulder. “You seem like a good boy. Have you ever used a compass before?”
I shrugged nervously. “A toy one.” Thinking, I added, “but it had a real magnet in it I think.”
He chuckled and nodded. “Good, good. This is like that, but it doesn’t work on magnets. It won’t point north either. Instead it points to the person you need to find. The last piece of our puzzle.” Glancing at his watch, he licked his lips. “You go now. Go and follow the tip of that nail until you find the person it’s pointing you toward. When you find them, ask them to come with you, and bring them back here.”
Frowning, I looked from him to the compass doubtfully. “What if they don’t want to come with me?”
He gave my shoulder a light squeeze. “They will. Everything bends, remember?” His squeeze was harder this time. “Just come back here. Right away. No stopping for anything or telling anyone about this.” I felt his knuckle under my chin and I reluctantly met his eyes again. “You’ll do as I ask because you’re a good boy and a special boy. And because if you don’t, I’ll find you. And you don’t want that. You understand?” I nodded and he smiled. “Good. Off you go then. We’ll be waiting.”
I walked away from the house at a quick pace, driven more by urgency than fear. I knew what I was doing was strange, but also that it was important. That I was special, and that maybe this wasn’t just important, but the most important thing I’d ever do in my life. I didn’t question how odd it all was, or ever consider telling anyone else about it. Instead I just followed the compass as it pointed my way forward.
It took me toward the park at first, and I had a brief moment of panic that I might run into my friends after all. They’d have questions I couldn’t answer and I couldn’t afford the delay. The man had said…but no, I was turning, heading up a side street and over toward the other side of town. Ten minutes later, I was standing outside the public library and there was only one person I could see. Sitting on a bench under a nearby shade tree was a pretty girl that I didn’t recognize, though she looked to be about my age. Reading one of her stack of books, I guessed she was waiting to be picked up.
It didn’t matter. I’d skulked around that tree twice now, and the nail always stayed pointed at her. She was the one.
Stuffing the compass in my pocket, I felt a new pang of nervousness as I walked toward her. I just had to remember that the man had said it would all work out. All I had to do was ask her to come with me.
She looked up with surprise as I approached, and I was relieved when she smiled and said hello. I swallowed and ducked my head in an awkward nod as I stuck out my hand. “Hey. My name’s Jimmy. What’s yours?”
Blushing slightly, she glanced at my hand before meeting my eyes again. “I’m Veronica.”
“I read about it on the internet. I’d show it to you, but when I went back to print it out, it was gone. But…But I remember it.” I looked away from her.
Veronica gave my hand a squeeze. “Jimmy, it sounds weird. And I don’t see how it would work. How is it any different than that faith healer Mama took me to last month?”
I clenched my jaw slightly. I didn’t like lying to her, and I was terrified she’d either refuse to try or see that I wasn’t being entirely honest. “I…because this will work, okay? I know it will.”
She caught my eye. “Why? How do you know it will?”
I swallowed as I held her gaze. I tried not to cry around her, but I didn’t hold back the tears when they came this time. “Because I have to believe in something. I have to find a way to save you. To save both of us. If it doesn’t work, then fine. But if it does…then we can stay together. Isn’t that what you want?”
I saw the hurt in her eyes. “You fucking know…You know I do. I…okay. We’ll try it. But, this other person you’re going to find. You’re not going to have to hurt them are you?”
Leaning forward, I hugged her tightly, both out of relief and to hide the truth in my face. “No, baby. It just takes it from you. That’s all. I don’t know why I have to find another person, but I don’t think it hurts them one bit.”
“Jimmy, you’ve done so well.”
The old man’s eyes were shining with tears of gratitude, and while I felt a sense of pride at having done as he’d asked, I couldn’t help but look down at the girl I’d led there from the library. He’d said a few words I didn’t understand when she’d arrived and she’d collapsed, the man barely catching her before laying her down next to the hole in the garden.
“Is she going to be okay? You’re not going to hurt her are you?”
His eyes widened. “No, no. Nothing like that. Just the opposite. The two of you are giving us a special gift, and I’m going to give you one in return. A way for you to protect yourself, and her, if either of you ever get bad sick or hurt. And when the time comes, when your bodies get too old to go on, a way to keep going in new ones.”
My heart was pounding now, as though it understood more than my head did. “H-how?”
The man nodded as he gave me a small grin. “We’ll start with making the compass.”
I threw the compass into the glovebox as I got back into the car. It was getting dark, but I could still see the fresh mound of dirt at the edge of the trees. It was conspicuous, but it wouldn’t matter. The woman would dig herself free once it was done, not remembering me or how she got there.
She was only a few years older than me and Veronica, and healthy-looking. I tried to lie to myself, convince myself that she might beat the cancer where my girl couldn’t, but I knew better. You weren’t trading disease for health. You were exchanging life for death. It wasn’t something the old man had told me all those years ago, but I still knew it was true.
I sped back along country roads to where Veronica lay waiting. It was hard to keep my eyes from the rearview mirror, not because I thought I was being pursued, but because of the thing that was already with me.
I’d first seen it the afternoon after the dream of the memory of how everything changed. The day after I learned that my love and my world were going to die soon. I’d gotten up to go to the bathroom, my head swimming with sleep exhaustion and the growing certainty that my vivid dream hadn’t been a dream at all.
Veronica was deep asleep in the other room—so deep that she only muttered when I let out a short scream at the thing I saw in the bathroom mirror.
It was smoke, or something that looked like a thick coil of grey fumes, wrapped around my neck and peering at me over my shoulder. I say peering because I thought I saw dark eyes in the smoggy center of it. Eyes that I recognized from a memory of a dream.
“How long have you been there?” My voice was a hoarse whisper as I spoke to the thing in the mirror.
“I’ve always been with you.”
I swallowed. “Why are you showing me all of this now?”
“You already know.”
I pry the lid off the coffin, blood thundering in my ears. What if it didn’t work? What if she’d suffocated? What if a thousand things that made more sense than what I’d done?
But no. She was alive. Alive and flushed with color and smiling at me as I reached out my hand.
“How are you feeling, Ronnie?”
Her hand was warm and strong when she took mine. Blinking, she thought a moment as she sat up. “I…I think I feel great.” Eyes wide, she looked up at me. “Did it really work? Did you really do it?”
I pulled her into my arms and out of the grave. “We did it.” Kissing her lightly, I tried to ignore the murky shimmer at her shoulder, a twin for my own. “We beat it together.” I looked into her eyes, judging if there was any fear or doubt there, any sign she saw the things I could see now, but there was none. Just joy at a miracle she didn’t need to fully understand to appreciate or benefit from, at least for now. I held her tightly.
“We’ll always beat it. Whatever it takes, we’ll always be together. I promise.”
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