Bone Dressing: The Dreaming

By Michelle Brooks

The time for best friends and midnight escapes to the cemetery Syd calls home is over.
As Syd faces the dangerous mysteries lurking in the shadowed depths of her past, she must sail from the shores of sanity through the rocky waters of the unknown on her journey to the sleeping bones of her next past-life. Caught on a roller coaster ride through mysterious cultures, rogue mercenary pirates, past loves and new-found abilities, Syd must find the strength to listen to her own heart. She must find a way to embrace her destiny, her future ... and her past.
Help continues to come through the unlikely team of Sarah and T.J., Syd’s personal time-challenged dynamic duo. Blipping on and off her radar at the worst times, they never seem to be front and center when she really needs them. And Beau ... when will she be able to function, to breathe, in his presence? What is her inescapable connection to him? And why can’t he admit his attraction to her?
Off on a race against time, against evil-incarnate, against her own fears and passions, Syd must turn to the strength within. To the strength of Bone Dressing. Bone Dressing: The Dreaming, the second in a series of seven books, will carry Syd and Beau further on their adventure that transcends life itself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michelle Brooks
• Release date: Nov 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301812271

Michelle Brooks

Michelle Brooks studied anthropology and history at Lincoln University, Jefferson City, and worked on larger research projects, including identifying of members of the Sixty-Second U.S. Colored Troops, founders of Lincoln University; finding men who attended Lincoln University and also served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II as Tuskegee Airmen; and discovering the broad and pioneering career of her grandfather Harry "HAP" Peebles, who was a country music promoter across the Midwest from 1938 to 1993. This book is her first, and it has been a learning experience. Her next book with The History Press will be Lost Jefferson City.

Book preview

Bone Dressing: The Dreaming

Book 2 in the Bone Dressing Series

by Michelle I. Brooks

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Bone Dressing: The Dreaming

Copyright © 2012 Michelle I. Brooks

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters and events portrayed in this novel are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Original cover design by Novel Publicity.

Updated cover for this book by Creative Deeds.

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Dedication

For those three amazing, magnificent creatures in my life who still love me enough to call me their

Goddess of Light and Beauty ...

Dalton, Tristan, and Alex

... and to the one who simply calls me his,

William.

Important Note to the Reader

While each book in the Bone Dressing series of seven novels has a stand-alone story, the entire series has a grand storyline. So if you skipped a previous book and find yourself with many questions, you are encouraged to go back and read what came before. Otherwise, you’ll miss many of the nuances and shadowed depths of Bone Dressing.

Chapter 1: A Little Catfight with Mother Nature

Shit! What the hell are you doing? My body slammed up against the ship’s central mast and bounced off, not slowing down the slightest bit with the sudden change in direction. Immediately I ricocheted against Beau’s chest before crashing right back into the mast, the salt water splashing off the solid wood post, stinging my eyes like a hive full of hostile bees. My eyelids slammed closed in a last-ditch attempt at self-preservation. God, my eyes were on fire! It felt like they were going to burn a hole through my skin and go rolling across the deck any second.

The next wave crashed against the opposite side of the mast, pushing me back from it. But before I could take a breath, arms of steel locked around the post, sandwiching me firmly in-between, in the half an inch of in-between there was, in any case. Now I know what the God damn ping pong ball feels like! Take it easy, would you?

I’m not going to apologize for trying my best to keep you in the land of the living one more day! Beau’s voice growled into my ear, joined by the roaring of the next gust of wind. Half a second later the next wall of freezing water hit.

Yeah, well, if you squash the air right out of me, there won’t be anything left to keep alive in any land, living or dead! Besides, who’s bright idea was it to wait until hurricane season to take a cruise through the Caribbean? I told you we should’ve left months ago, but no-o-o-o ... we couldn’t possibly do something I suggested, something that actually made sense and might have even lowered our daily serving of stress. Of course not! Do you just lie there in bed at night dreaming up ways to make my life hell? Because you couldn’t do a better job of it if you tried.

Dammit, Syd! How many thousand times are we gonna have this same argument? You know exactly why we had to wait until now. So, could we possibly focus on the present and try to work together for five seconds to outrun this storm that is literally breathing down our necks?

I shifted to look over my shoulder at him, You are such a ... But just then, the Gulf of Mexico decided to finish my sentence for me, shoving a gallon of sea water down my throat. Actually, it felt like all that cold, salty, gritty water was pushed straight through my body and into my lower intestines. Suddenly I was choking, spewing up saltwater all over myself and gasping for air with everything I was worth. God, please, I’ll never ask for another thing! Just let me suck down one lungful of good old oxygen, even if it was reeking of fish and salt and heaven only knows what else!

And finally payday came ... the air hit my lungs like a freight train storming through Chicago on a cold, snowy day. Oh! Never mind, God, I got it!

Once I finally filled up on oxygen, I licked my dry, cracked lips, then grimaced immediately. They were gummy from all the water and grittier than sandpaper. Shit! I wouldn’t need to salt my fries for the next year!

All this time Beau just held on tighter. Which was good in that it kept me from going overboard, but bad in that I could hardly breathe as it was, much less with arms of steel clamped around my chest! Damn, I was sure glad Sarah and T.J. weren’t around right now.

As soon as I caught my breath well enough to manage speaking again, I sputtered out, That’s rich! I can’t believe you’re gonna stand here and tell me to focus on the present, Mister ‘Let’s take a nice sweet little heart-breaking, gut-wrenching, death-studded journey through time and place’ ... and with Satan’s wet dream hot on our heels, no less!

Syd, just shut up. I damn sure didn’t schedule this hurricane and if I could have chosen to avoid it, I would have. Sorry to burst your bubble, but Mother Nature’s not on my speed dial, and even if she was, this just isn’t my idea of a good time. There are, in fact, about a thousand ways I would rather spend my time than getting soaked to the bone in a ping pong game between Hurricane Harold and the Atlantic Ocean, especially when we get to be the little white ball. Not to mention trying to save little Miss Sweetness and Life herself while she just pisses and moans about it the whole time like some bratty little five-year-old who lost the top scoop of her ice cream cone.

Ungh! I lifted my foot and stomped back down for all I was worth, praying for gold. And, for the second time in two minutes, I got my wish. Never, never, did I ask anyone to rescue me, least of all you, you little shit!

Beau sucked down a groan, shifting closer by shoving my stomach up against the post, knocking the wind out of me in the process. Before I could even swallow down another lungful of air, strong legs straddled my body to avoid any more Syd-missiles aimed straight at his body parts.

Glaring over my shoulder, I spat out, Dammit, Beau, you got us into this mess! Now get our collective asses out of it and get us to Sydney - Sydney, Australia, that is!

And how, exactly, would you like me to do that, Syd? There is a little thunderstorm going on right at the moment, if you hadn’t noticed. So, if we could put this pleasant conversation on hold and try to make it through this, we just might find ourselves back on track to Sydney, instead of at the bottom of the ocean. He shifted gears on me then, adding, I’m just glad Sarah and T.J. missed this.

Did you know this storm was coming? Is that why they aren’t here now? I tried my best to sound pissed, but wasn’t sure I succeeded. I really was glad they weren’t here.

No, Syd. I didn’t. But, I, for one, am awfully glad they aren’t. This is no place for the two of them right now. Did he really have to stress the for one part? Didn’t he know me any better than that? Or was he just saying it like that because he was pissed, and pissed always wants company?

Either way, I hated that placating, judgmental voice of his! I felt those imaginary feathers that were plastered against the back of my neck prickle in response. Well, no shit, Sherlock! I was complementing you on their not being here, you dumbass. He deserved worse, but I decided to let him off easy ... What can I say? I was still playing catch-up on breathing and my feet kept sliding out from under me on the moving carpet of rain and ocean.

Somehow, I don’t think he saw it quite the same way, though. His voice dropped even lower as he answered right in my ear. Mm-hmm, yeah. How silly of me. How could I miss that, Syd? You were complementing me ... while you called me a dumbass. Of course. It makes perfect sense, for you at any rate.

Stupidly, I tried to stomp my foot down on his again, but he was holding us too close to the mast now for me to do anything other than scrape my knee ... which is exactly what I did, badly. Shit!

Mr. Wonderful just laughed softly. What’s the matter, Syd? Mother Nature won’t let you get another shot of your own in? Now, why don’t we put this stupid argument on the table until later and actually try to help keep this boat afloat, hmm?

And what exactly could I say to that? Even when it was the last thing I wanted to admit, Beau did have a knack for staying on course, staying focused on the task at hand. And this one, this task, could have used a thousand more hands.

Fine. I let him win the battle. Go, Syd! There was plenty of war left ... provided we actually could keep the boat off the bottom of the ocean until the storm called it a day, or we hit shore, or both.

So, for the next thirteen hours we did exactly that. I lost track of how many times I sucked down an Atlantic milkshake ... of course, I was the blender ... so NOT a good thing.

The good was that I was way too busy to even think about being scared after that. Between grabbing hold of anything and everything, to keeping from being shark bait, to trying to hear the steady stream of commands being barked out from everyone, it was all I could do to keep up.

I pulled ropes that were thrust into my hands when I was told to. I grabbed the mast when Beau yelled for me to do that. I watched waves crash down on us that I knew would haunt my nights for years to come. I lost count of the number of times I asked God for one more breath. And how many times I told Him never mind once I’d found it on my own.

Funny thing was, though, as the wind whipped around me and I stared through the rain into the freezing black water ... knowing we could die any moment ... all I could see was the raw beauty of it. It took my breath away. It was electrifying, exhilarating, energizing. Sunny days on the beach were great, but they could never begin to compare to the violent attraction of a wild thunderstorm, much less a wailing hurricane! It held me captive in its clutches ... willingly so. Kind of like some relationships, I guess.

Another belly gusher came busting over the rail, jerking me back into the here and now. Scrambling wildly for something to grab, anything that wouldn’t go over the side of the ship with me as I was washed towards the rail, a cold stab of terror swept through me. Just before I ran out of boat, I managed to latch onto a pile of rope tied to the rail. I wove my arms through it, clutching it to my chest, praying it wasn’t me who had tied it off.

My feet touched down, but before I could regain my balance, another wall of water came ripping past, knocking me sideways off my feet. I slammed against the rail, clutching for dear life to the ropes, then they were all I could feel. The water rushing back out to the cold, hungry ocean pulled me over the side of the ship in its fury. This stupid, wonderful rope in my arms was the only thing keeping me from being just another fish in the sea, holding me suspended inches above the water, a thankful hangman’s noose of sorts.

Lightning exploded all around me lighting up the sky, its reflection answered back, mirrored in the ocean looming in front of me. A man was staring back at me from just below the surface, only he was so dark I could really only see his silhouette, just hints of the rest of him glinting in the blackness here and there.

Shit! What the hell was he doing out here? And what the hell was I supposed to do now, God dammit?!

Another thunderous clap of lightning illuminated him once again. It glistened on his dark, vibrant skin and shone in the whites of a pair of eyes blacker than that ebony ocean swirling all around them. That’s when I realized that the man was only a boy, maybe 20, 22 at most, not that much older than me. And he wasn’t afraid, he wasn’t even fighting the water. He was just kind of floating there, an arm’s length beneath the surface.

He lifted one arm, beckoning me to him.

Was he fucking nuts?! It didn’t even seem like he wanted me to rescue him. No, it was more like he wanted to go for a little stroll ... in the ocean ... during a hurricane ...

I had to figure out how to pull myself back in and throw something out to the boy to catch hold of all at the same time. I looked away from him long enough to see the rope tied off on the rail, a few extra loops were twisted around it near the top, making the length short enough to keep me from taking a swim with Mr. Whoever-he-was out here.

Okay. If I could just pull myself back up the rope, then I could unloop the extra and toss it over. It looked long enough to cover the distance between the ship and the boy twice over.

But Mother Nature decided to ramp things up another notch. Guess she thought it was time for a little more fun than she’d already been having with me.

The sheer power of the water as it came raging over the side of the ship forced loose the excess coils of rope, taking them over the side and down into the depths of the ocean, dragging me right along with them. My head turned in slow motion as I plunged headfirst into the freezing water, feeling it bite into my body, a thousand tiny teeth tearing into my flesh.

Plummeting downward, the movement of the water suffocating in its strength, all I could see was blackness, nothing but certain death below me. Dark, cold, endless depths, from which there seemed no hope of escape.

I guess Mother Nature’d won our little rope-a-dope. But, then again, if it had really been that, I’d have stood the tiniest chance in hell. Like Muhammad Ali letting George Foreman take his best fifty shots before catching him off-balance, lashing out with all he was worth, and taking home the belt. Aunt Annalise had told me about that, she was a die-hard Ali fan. Kind of strange as she was just a whisper of a thing herself.

Nope, rope-a-dope didn’t even begin to apply here. This was more like a one-sided catfight at best. Yeah, a scrawny little hissing, spitting, litter runt lap kitten facing off against a blood curdling, fang-dripping saber tooth tiger on industrial strength steroids.

Huh! Guess which one I was. Yup. Just call me Toulouse from the Aristocats.

Or, better yet, just call me dead. Cause that was where my happy little train was stopping next. The Syd Express, now de-boarding permanently at platform 3. Not one single person there to even give a hug to, either.

As my head sank into the freezing water, it froze mid-thought. Numbed into stillness with a cold so fierce it burned, a silence so deep it screamed ... a fear so complete it would have stolen the breath from the devil himself.

Chapter 2: The Rope Dance

The ropes bit tighter as I struggled against them, desperately trying to figure out which way was up. Pausing for a moment to regain my senses, I realized the water was less dark below me ... meaning my down was the world’s up.

My head instinctively jerked downward toward the surface, toward the light, toward life. But as my gaze followed, I saw him again, the boy. He was directly in front of me, his hands reaching out for my face.

Jesse’s feathers, suspended on the end of the leather cord I’d worn around my neck ever since he’d died in my arms ... in Rachel’s arms ... floated up in front of my eyes. The golden eagle still yearning to fly, even in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. That’s it ... dolphin! I could change into a dolphin! I’d done that before. Once. On accident. If I could just do it on purpose now, everything would be great. Well, maybe not great, but not dead at any rate!

Even as the thought formed in my mind though, I heard a familiar voice. No, Syd, not right now.

I knew it wasn’t the boy, but he shook his head slowly no. Somehow I knew he was agreeing with the voice, responding to my thought. But how? No one had said a word.

Besides, I was in the water for Christ’s sake, I couldn’t talk if I’d wanted to. He didn’t know me. Surely he couldn’t read my mind. Could he?

Besides, why the hell not? Why shouldn’t I turn into a dolphin?

Again the voice rang through my head. I said no, Syd. Pay attention. This time I swear I even heard a deep resonating purr laced through the words.

Sarah? No. That was impossible, but it sure did sound like her. It even felt like her. But she couldn’t be here, of all places. And especially not right now. And anyway, whoever it was, why on earth would they be telling me not to shift?

It must just be the boy. And he was obviously nuts! He’d lost his marbles, probably up and tossed them in the ocean and was out here now just trying to find them! That had to be why he was out here hanging out in the middle of the ocean during a fucking hurricane, apparently not the least bit concerned about little inconsequential things ... like, oh, I don’t know ... air!

I kicked, bucking against the ropes, turning around in a jerky start-and-stop circle, like a low-rider bouncing away ninety to nothin’ at a stop light on a Saturday night. My head swung around looking for something, anything, that could be making those words. Who’s doing the talking?

Syd, it’s time now. Believe. Believe in yourself when no one else can, when no one else will.

God dammit! Now I was spinning around like some stupid-ass epileptic mutt with a flea on his butt! Who is talking?! The words ground furiously through my head as I swung it around, searching for the direction they were coming from.

The growling flared. Suddenly, I stopped jerking, but it took me a minute to stop swinging. Sarah was holding my hands, not any way I could see, but she was. Those soft, tiny, warm little fingers were weaving their way through my own and squeezing gently. It’s me, Syd.

It is? It’s you? But how? My eyes raked across the underwater darkness, trying to find hers, trying to uncover some lost secret. Something I should have carried with me in my back pocket, but had lost along the way. Sarah ...

I had so many chills running up and down my body, I thought parts of me were just gonna start walking off in different directions, if they could break free of the ropes. Somehow I was entering a new orbit and having to deal with a motherload of shimmy-shakes trying to synch myself to the rhythm of it.

Look at me. The child-like voice soothed my senses, easing the tension gripping me.

My lower intestines inched their way up my esophagus. I can’t! I can’t see you! Where the hell are you? My teeth sank into the soft flesh of my lips, holding them closed just in case my internal organs decided to make a run for it! After I knew my mouth was in a full-out lock-down, my eyes slipped to the right, slamming into Sarah’s face, hanging in the water like a ghostly mermaid. There, but not. And strangely, not entirely freaky. Peculiar, but not completely uncomfortable.

Sarah’s voice slid through my head again. Now, just breathe.

Breathe. Yeah, right. Breathe. Underwater? Actually, I could do that. I think. A mental breath, my mind inhaling instead of my lungs. Sarah, why does this feel so ... familiar ... so creepy, but familiar?

Great! Just great. I was leaning on a seven-year-old now for answers. Bet Neil Armstrong managed to keep himself pulled together on all his re-entries!

If this really was Sarah, why did it feel so strange, so familiar, but so much something I didn’t want to be feeling? Even Mr. A never bothered me like this, and this was just Sarah, for Christ’s sake.

With one hand on each side of my face, the boy pulled himself toward me until he was only a breath away, staring straight into my eyes without blinking. The light filtering through from above glinted dully on something below his chin. My eyes instinctively slipped down, in search of an answer to the unspoken question. On a thin tarnished chain at the base of his throat was a small round disc about the size of a quarter. It was sitting right at the soft tender tissue where his pulse would be, hiding it from view.

Fine. Perfect. I give ... for the second time tonight, I call uncle. He could win the staring contest, just let me go! At least I didn’t seem to be dropping any further down in the water, but I wasn’t moving back up either.

His hands tugged at my face, forcing my attention back to him. He wanted to tell me something. Something important.

Shit, how did I know that? And how on earth could he tell me anything underwater?

Syd, trust yourself. Accept this moment just as it is.

Great! How the hell was I supposed to do that?! I could swear it was Sarah. My head instinctively tried to swing left and right, expecting to see that exasperating blonde-headed nymph and her little kitty right beside me. Part of me wished for nothing more than to see my deranged dynamic duo, the other part wanting them safely tucked away on the other side of the world. But the boy’s hands tightened on my head, refusing to release me, refusing to allow my search to extend beyond him. Insisting I listen. But to what, exactly? He wasn’t saying a word. Not one Goddamn word.

But in the very next moment, he did. Not with his mouth, though. I was watching it ... and I was watching it from someplace else. There was no water, no hurricane, no seven-year-old voice in my head, no boy’s hands on my face forcing my attention. I was in a place I’d never been, watching something happen I’d never seen happen.

Then I realized I wasn’t seeing through my own eyes. I wasn’t me. I was inside him, looking through his eyes.

No! I shook my head trying to clear the vision out of it the way you’d shake the trash out of a garbage can.

Shit, shit, shit! Not again! This couldn’t be happening now! Sarah had said we had to get to Sydney first. That our encore performance was gonna be in Australia, not in the middle of the Atlantic ... six feet under in a monsoon ... and all alone! Where the Sam Hill was my past-life posse when I needed them? And why wasn’t I busting a gut to catch a breath of air?

You don’t need to breathe right now, Syd. You just need to focus.

Thoughts were barreling through my head like a screaming banshee on Independence Day. Okay, shut the hell up, whoever you are, Sarah or no, and get the fuck out of my head!

The purr I’d heard before shifted now into a low growl. T.J. Had to be that black, hundred-pound purr box. Didn’t matter, though. Where was the fucking volume control? I’d tune them both out faster than James Bond could make the girls swoon.

Syd ... Poor Sarah would not let go of the ghost ... literally. Too bad, so sad, cause this cookie was ready to crumble.

N-n-g-u-u-u-u-h! No! I cut through the words sliding through my head. I’d had enough with the soothing crap! It was like putting lip balm on a third degree burn, for Christ’s sake.

I glared back at the boy. He was perfectly calm. Intense, but calm. And he didn’t like my balking at seeing whatever the hell it was he was trying to show me. He glanced up toward the surface, then back at me, doing something funny with his eyes, kind of like a half squint. What was it about him that was so familiar? Why did I recognize him ... or at least the idea of him ... and why didn’t I know who he really was?

Pay attention! We don’t have much time! His impatient words sat in my head, echoing hollowly as I stared back at him like a stark raving lunatic. I’d heard those words as clearly as if he’d just yelled them straight in my face! How could he possibly talk to me without even opening his mouth?

Then we were back there again. No, not we. He. He was back there and I was inside him, seeing through his eyes again. I was looking through them as if they were some kind of transcendental peek holes.

Wonder if I looked like one of those stupid billboard cut-outs they have for tourists to take their pictures at. Yeah, I probably had my face stuck on a Chihuahua’s body, his tongue blowing in the breeze, head hanging out the window of an old faded blue pickup truck! Great! Kodak moment here! Maybe I was a Toto instead of a Toulouse.

Huh! A soft smile lit my lips.

Syd, try to focus, please? My seven-year-old Mother Theresa admonished my shoe-size sense of humor. She was gonna have some explaining to do the next time she popped in.

My attention slid back to the boy. I was watching something he’d seen happen already. But I couldn’t make it out very clearly. Something was blocking the way. He was looking through something. But what?

Then, suddenly, I knew. I could feel the touch against his face. He was looking through fingers. His fingers. He was afraid. He didn’t want to see this. Not the first time, and not now, either.

Fine. Great with me. Show’s over, now let me go. And good riddance at that!

But he just shook his head gently, slowly, no.

Okay, this was 8 degrees beyond weird! I was being told no, again, only I could feel the head shaking as if it were my own! Me telling myself no. My own eyesight was shifting back and forth with the shaking of his head. It was like one of those movies where you see everything the person sees, nothing more, nothing less.

His terror grew, utterly consuming him. It filled him head to toe, and then chased around in circles inside his chest, his stomach, even his toes. I felt sure his fear was about to force the life right out of him, just shove its way out through his skin. But instead of giving way, he finally started to fight back against it. The terror began dancing with competing partners ... the boy’s own growing fury and a feeling of complete and utter helplessness. A dangerous dance of light and dark, of hope and despair.

Slowly, with the birth of his rage, the boy’s fingers found the courage, the desire, to stop blocking his vision. They began to spread, and with that, came a better view, more of what was happening. More of what he didn’t want to see.

Feet. That’s what I saw first. Feet in brown leather work boots. They were standing on tiptoe, balancing on an old log, as if a ballerina should have been wearing them. But these were big, dirty, scuffed-up boots, not pretty pink ballet slippers. These feet had no business being on their toes. No. They should be stomping on cockroaches, or walking through thick piles of soft-smelling sawdust, or kicking ass ...

His hands were still in front of him, but there was enough light slipping between the fingers now that as his head tipped back and his eyes slid upward, I could make most everything out. It was a person. A man. Somewhere in the background a girl was screaming, but it was muted. Blurry. A long way off.

As my eyes reached the top of the man’s stained khaki work pants and his well-worn leather belt, the tanned skin of his chest spread before me. It was a beautiful chest. Strong, lean, rough, just like him.

But it was bruised and cut across the breadth of it. He’d been beaten, badly. So much so that I realized the stains on his pants were blood. His blood.

The man’s body swayed slightly, side to side. I couldn’t see his arms and found myself needing to. As my eyes inched slowly upward, reaching his shoulders, it became apparent that his hands were tied behind his back. Again, that feeling of utter helplessness flooded my senses, beating back the anger with its intensity.

The shift in emotion allowed a few questions to break free in my mind, and they came spilling out, tripping over one another in their haste to escape. Who was he? Why did he look familiar? And why was I seeing all of this through the eyes of a boy? A boy I didn’t know, although he did remind me vaguely of someone ... but who?

Were either of them from one of my past lives? If the boy was, why didn’t I recognize him? And if the man was, why in God’s name were his hands tied? What exactly was going on here?

Suddenly, my attention was jerked back to the man. He had done that. The boy. But, how? He was adamant. His thoughts insistent. He wanted me to shut my head up, stick a cork in it and look. Just look.

But I didn’t want to look. Whatever was happening here was bad. Way bad. And disturbingly familiar now. None of this was anything I knew, nothing at all known to me. But somehow as soon as I saw each piece of it, I remembered having seen it happen ... before. I knew it. I knew because he knew, the boy.

Still, I didn’t want to see anymore. I didn’t want to know anymore. But his eyes lifted higher and I saw exactly what I knew I didn’t want to see.

Rope. Rope just like what was wound around me, what I was hoping would somehow still manage to save my life. Only that’s not what this rope was for. This rope wasn’t going to save the man. It wasn’t meant to help him. It wasn’t looped around his arms in a desperate hope for life. No, this rope was tied around his neck ... deliberately. A noose. A necklace of certain death. He was being hanged. He was being hanged in front of the boy. In front of me.

Shit, no! God, I wish I knew the way out! I’d give anything for my own special little pair of ruby slippers right now. There’s no place like home, right Dorothy? Not quite sure where that left me though. If you’ve got no home, where’s your special place? Mine had always been the cemetery my parents were buried in, but I didn’t even have that anymore. Not out here in the Atlantic. Wouldn’t be Down Under either. Hell, I wasn’t sure I’d ever find my way back home, or that I even wanted to.

Dammit, he was pulling me back in again. How, exactly was he doing that? In the next moment, I was looking into the man’s face, into his eyes. Whatever I’d expected to see ... fear, desperation, regret, tears ... It wasn’t there. Not a bit. Not even a hint.

What was there, written across his face, was ... hunger. Hunger, passion, anger and ... love. A love that would never die, even when he took his last breath.

What the hell? An everlasting love ... for a boy? His son, maybe? Me? I was a boy? No! Hell, no! Not this time. Not here. Not now, for Christ’s sake! Ah, fuck!

But I couldn’t drag my eyes away from the man’s. Again the screaming filtered through. His lips formed three perfect words.

I love you.

Glancing slightly downward, toward the disc on the chain encircling the boy’s throat, the man’s lips tipped up in a half-smile. Then his eyes closed and he took one last breath. A shadowy figure in the background shifted forward, kicking. The block of wood under the man’s feet was thrust out from under him, landing in the dirt a few feet in front of me, and his body swung forward, beginning to dance jerkily in midair. A macabre dance of death.

Before the body swung back again there was another shift.

The boy, I, wasn’t in the same place anymore. We were standing at the edge of a cliff, looking over the side of it at the water below. Far, far below. Maybe 200 feet down, maybe more. The water was spraying over sharp boulders scattered throughout the surrounding shoreline.

A strong breeze swept across the skin of the boy’s arms, dusting them with a fine mist of water that hung in the early evening air. It was soothing, cleansing ... it was calling to him, offering an invitation for him to come ... to come and stay, forever.

He turned, and with him turned my vision. He was looking behind us now. People were running towards us, yelling. They were trying to stop us, trying to stop him.

But they were too far away. Oh, God, no! He couldn’t jump! He wouldn’t. Would he? For the first time, I tried to communicate with him.

Words poured through my brain, never reaching my lips. Still, I was betting he could hear them just as easily as if I’d screamed them straight into his ear. No! Don’t do it! It’s not worth it. Stay here. Stay in the land of the living. Please. Just live. I know it hurts like a son of a bitch right now, life packs one hell of an upper cut. It knows just how deep to slice to let the blood seep from your soul slowly enough to keep you alive, aware as you watch yourself bleed to death, watch your own heart stop beating.

Faces poured through my head ... my parents, Jesse, our baby. Even my godparents, Queens and Jacks, my brother from a past life, Joseph, and my best friend, Patricia, all took their places in line. They all stood there holding their hand-carved pieces of my heart, trying to fill the empty holes they’d left in my broken soul with pieces of themselves, stolen moments in time, whispered memories of all the yesterdays left behind me.

I’d left every one of them behind for one reason or another ... for good, or for bad. Some still walked among the living, just in a different world from mine. Others lived now only in my memories. I felt the tears burning for release. My eyes riveted on the water below, I struggled to contain the raw emotions, to swallow back the traitorous teardrops as I continued. But just give it some time. There will come a day when you’ll be able to breathe through the pain. And you’ll realize your soul has stopped bleeding, that the thousand broken pieces of you have fused back together, creating a new you. A different you. Then you’ll step out from the puddle of blood lying at your feet into a shiny new day. The smiles will outweigh the tears and life will taste ... fresh and clean. Maybe not sweet, exactly, but not sour anymore. And eventually it’ll even taste good again. I promise. Just give it a minute or two. Or fifty thousand, my brain added. Damn I hope he didn’t hear that! Shit! Shit, shit, shit!

I felt his lips break into a sad but resolute smile. He was certain, too certain. His decision had been made before I’d ever said the first unspoken word.

No! Please! I felt him, the boy, this stranger, tearing out another bite of my heart, fresh blood from my own soul spilling to my feet, splashing my toes with fresh, sweet, sticky drops of love.

Someone always had to pay the entrance fee to life or death. The blood simply had to change hands. It didn’t really matter who did the carving or who did the bleeding. The knife just had to turn.

He swung back around to face the edge of the cliff, a gust of salty spray whipping through his hair. The water filled my sight again, and as I felt the air fill my lungs, my feet left the ground. The wind rushed along my body, trying to push its way through the flesh and bones that had dared to trespass in its domain. Slowly my eyes closed and all that filled my vision was ... him, the man who’d been hanged, ... us, the boy and the man, ... running and laughing ... loving, together. Together forever.

Before my body crashed into a pile of broken pieces on the rocks below, the vision ended. We were staring into one another’s eyes again. The boy and I. Face to face. Those eyes blacker than the depths of the ocean surrounding us. Smooth skin glistening with the light of a thousand of the blackest diamonds imaginable. He wanted me to do something. Wanted me to know something. Something more. Something important.

Syd, it’s time to go. Sarah’s soft voice filled my head, gently, firmly insisting I follow.

I shook my head wildly from side to side. No! He needs me.

I refocused my attention on the boy. What? My unspoken question filled his mind. I didn’t really care how we were able to communicate anymore, I was just glad we were. That he knew. That he understood. I wanted to know now. I had to know, and I was ready to listen.

But suddenly the ropes around my arms jerked taut and I was ripped from him, his arms stretched out to me, trying to keep me with him just a little bit longer. Just long enough to finish what