TWENTY-THREE
Judging by the surprised expression on his face, I think the remaining wad of bills we handed the driver was adequate compensation for his unflagging cooperation. He tipped his hat to us as he clambered back into his trusty vehicle and took off, the exhaust spluttering out behind him in a stream of white clouds. I watched the back of the cab somewhat forlornly, but also with a fair amount of relief. My body ached when I remembered all the places and things we’d done today. My stomach, long past the point of hunger, had been relegated to a constant state of nausea. The cold, anxious sweat I’d been living in for the last two-and-a-half days did not mix well with the fabric of my dress and my mouth tasted sour and felt dry.
Part of me was eager to get back to something familiar. I wanted a long, hot shower and some mind-numbing television. But as I looked sideways at Drake’s dark, serious face, a deep sadness overtook all the other emotions of discomfort. My other life—my real life—seemed more like a figment of my imagination. Standing on the vibrant streets of 1910 New York, the world we intended to return to seemed drastically different, and much more like a half remembered dream.
“I guess it’s time,” I said to Drake. His mouth was pressed into a thin line, and he didn’t say anything, but merely nodded.
“So what do we do?” I asked, suddenly realizing that despite all of our careful preparations, we hadn’t spent enough time discussing our journey back.
We’d been warned the longer we spent in the past, the harder it would be on me physically. That much was certainly true. I never felt more drained. I could barely find the strength to swallow anymore. I struggled to remember exactly what Christopher and Lovie had said before we left, but my mind failed to recall the conversation. It was like trying to remember a scent from your childhood that always lingers just beyond your grasp. I only wanted to sleep. My eyelids drooped but I forced them open and ignored my dry eyes when they protested.
I didn’t know how it would work, but I knew that I still had the potion in my clutch… For a moment, I legitimately feared my heart would stop. My drooping eyelids snapped open. All other thoughts vacated my brain and a sinking panic paralyzed me. I tugged hopelessly at the pockets of my dress.
The clutch was gone!
A dry tickle slowly crept up my throat and I had to put my hand on Drake’s strong chest for balance.
“What? Mon chaton, what is it?” Drake instantly spotted the change, possibly by the widening of my eyes. He took my elbow and guided me into the café we were standing in front of. It was small and non-descript, but I could barely take in any details. I sat down on the seat nearest the door and tried to steady my breathing. When was the last time I saw it or held it?
“Peyton, what’s wrong?” he asked with a heightened intensity.
“Drake, I think I left my clutch in the cab.” That realization made my already throbbing head scream with pain, “So we have no way of getting home!”
In response to my fears, Drake’s expression went from worried to mildly amused. His lips turned up into a smile and his brown eyes sparkled. I didn’t see anything funny about the situation. Although part of me was relieved at the prospect of not going back; although I remembered Lovie and Christopher’s words with solemn reluctance. No one knew what might happen if the spiritual body were separated from the physical body for longer than a few days. Now we were pushing it and I might not be able to take Drake back with me. The thought of losing him was almost too much to bear. I caught my head in my hands, feeling bruised and defeated.
Drake opened his coat, and pulled my purse out from a deep pocket in the lining. I exhaled a sigh of relief, and my wave of panic left as quickly as it arrived. But now there was something new to bother me. Having the potion now, there was nothing else to keep me from returning to my time. Overwhelmed by a multitude of emotions, the worst one surprised me. Disappointment. After that was guilt for being disappointed, but I truly was. Maybe I wasn’t ready to stop being Drake’s wife!
“What do you think will happen if you take it in here?” Drake asked, glancing around the sparsely filled café. “Think we’ll just disappear?”
“It’s probably better to go somewhere more private. I don’t know; I’ve never taken it before. Last time, we had Samuel to guide us.” I replied, still distracted by my clashing emotions.
“So we don’t have to go back to where we started?” Drake asked. “We don’t have to return to the hotel room?”
“Maybe we should,” I started.
Drake nodded somberly and we stood up to leave the café, but I got up too fast and lost my balance. Drake caught me and I sagged against him. Wherever we went, we had to go there fast. I didn’t know how much time I had left. Drake’s face mirrored my concern.
“I don’t think you have it in you to go much further, so the hotel is out.” He glanced around and then honed his attention on an area at the rear of the café. “It’s more private down the back,” he said, mostly to himself. Instead of leading me out the front door, Drake wrapped one of his strong arms around my waist and helped me towards the rear of the café. A few people looked up from their newspapers and coffees to eye us curiously. Drake smiled at them politely. I didn’t even have the strength to do that.
At the back of the café, there was a small reading room that split off in two directions. To one side was a swinging door with a window that looked like it led to a rear kitchen. The other was a closed door with a broom resting on the wall beside it. Drake tried the handle of the room, which was unlocked.
Inside was a large supply closet. Shelves filled with rags and buckets and miscellaneous jars and bottles occupied the space. There was just enough room for us to squeeze in beside a broom and a mop. Something orange and sticky stained the floor, but I didn’t care. I was beyond any ability to register disgust. Drake looked at me apprehensively, I shrugged. It would have to do. My feet and hands were prickling like pins and needles to let me know they were asleep. The rest of my body was dead weight. Although acutely aware of all my limbs, I doubt I could have moved them if I wanted to.
It reminded me of being chased in a dream where you have to run but your limbs don’t respond so you sluggishly try to move your body. That was how I felt, and no longer in control of myself. It was a strange feeling that I was not at all fond of. We awkwardly waddled in, Drake supporting all of my weight as my numb feet shuffled uselessly beneath me. He looked quickly behind us to make sure we weren’t followed and shut the door to the closet. With the door closed, the room was shrouded in darkness. I sank to the ground, slouching against the back shelf and barely managing to keep my eyes open.
“Almost there, Peyton. Just hang on a little bit longer,” said Drake reassuringly in the dark. I hated that our final moments together featured me as lifeless as the mop I leaned against. My legs were splayed out in front of me. I wished I could see Drake one last time. My eyes struggled to see in the blackness that enveloped the room. Slowly, his face came into focus, but his features remained vague.
“Drake, what if we waited too long and you can’t come back with me?” I asked, giving voice to my biggest priority.
“I’ll stay with you ma minette, I promise.”
I was too tired to argue or adequately express my doubts. There was so much I wanted to say to him, but it was probably better that I was too tired to say it. The thought of waking up to Ryan made me nauseous again. I missed him and wanted to see him, but the intensity of my emotions toward Drake over the last couple of days made me feel like I would be betraying him. In more ways than one, I suppose I had. I’m sure Drake and I reached levels of intimacy Ryan would never be comfortable with—I remembered our kiss with a sharp pang of regret. The regret wasn’t because it happened, but rather for how badly I wanted it to happen again! I shut my eyes and tried to brace myself for the next onslaught of negative emotions.
Drake shook me awake.
“You’re almost there, mon chaton.”
I opened my eyes again, still unable to completely make him out in the darkness of the closet. I felt his hand on mine when he handed me the potion.
“Don’t you need to drink it too?” I asked, barely lucid.
“Non, I don’t think so. I don’t have a physical body to return to, remember?”
I nodded and used my final vestiges of strength to raise the potion bottle to my lips. “Here goes!” I halfheartedly mumbled in a mock attempt at cheers. I tilted the bottle back and nearly gagged when its acrid contents burned their way down my throat. When I emptied the bottle, I had one last mournful look at the slightly darker spot that I assumed was Drake’s face, my body felt heavy.
“Peyton,” his soft, affectionate voice softly started to say, “I need you to know,” he started but his face began to blur as the room started to swirl around me. “I love—”
But I didn’t hear him finish. Just then, the world of 1910 and everything in it—Drake, the cleaning supply closet, the erratic thoughts still colliding in my foggy brain, everything—all of it went black.
***
I was falling. Falling, falling, falling. I couldn’t see my body, but I felt an intense, burning, white light all around me. The light beat down inside me—a pulsating kaleidoscope of colors and shapes, like a fireworks show. Then a dull brown framed a moving collection of crawling, blue worms and explosions of tiny, orange dots. I craved the darkness again, but had to settle for the collage of fast-paced images that came next: Drake, dark and brooding, looking over his shoulder in a sepia-toned street. Baby Alice, her translucent complexion exposing the delicate blue veins that ran beneath the surface of her skin. Dorothy, her skull splintered and raw, lying on the hospital room floor. Guarda, her hooded eyes so menacing, I tried to cover my eyes with my hands. I wanted to stop the flow of images but I couldn’t find my hands or move them.
Panicked, I looked for my body, but all I could see in every direction was light. I could still feel everything, including an intense pressure pushing on my fingers; but all around me was only a vaporous white. My neck hurt and my throat burned with parched thirst; my stomach groaned with hunger. I could hear something, like someone shouting to me underwater, but my vision was black. Then, in the distance, I saw a pair of white glowing eyes. I stared at them for a moment, but they vanished as quickly as they appeared. My vision swirled and suddenly, I was staring at my house. Drake was there again too, and this time, he was walking up the steps to the front door. But he was dressed in a modern suit. Something was different about him but I couldn’t quite make it out. I stared at the man who was Drake but also wasn’t Drake. But before I could take a closer look, my vision swirled in colors again. The underwater sound got louder and louder until I forced my ears to hear it. I realized I knew the voice. It was the Lao, standing in front of me, and his face contorted into a knowing smile, while his eyes were a glowing white.
I could see my body now so I held my hand to my face. There was still a strange pressure on two of my fingers: the index and middle. But nothing was holding them.
“Good to see you, baby!” he called out. I looked up from my hand. He stood before me, and his face began to change, softening his features. His white, painted skin turned to a sun-darkened bronze, his hat became sandy blond hair. But the eyes were glowing and white and they stayed fixed on me. His smile grew bigger but I was no longer staring at the Lao, he was Ryan. He called my name. By now, the pressure left my fingers and I felt a weight on my shoulders. It was like an earthquake. I was shaking, but Ryan and his glowing white eyes stayed where they were, unmoved by the tremors. Somewhere, someone was screaming. Ryan called me again, “Peyton!” The screaming continued.
My eyes snapped open and I gasped at the bright rush of light. Ryan was standing over me, his thick arms pressed down around my shoulders. My mouth shut and suddenly, I realized I was the person who’d been screaming. Ryan’s face was alarmed. As my vision gradually focused, I could make out Lovie behind him. Her eyes are wide with concern too.
When his eyes met mine, Ryan nearly melted onto me.
“Oh, thank God you’re all right!” he exclaimed, enveloping me in his massive arms.
I was back.