Behind the Vines

By Jo Rentschler

"Remember the stories and find the fairies; they will take you home."

Instead of waiting around to die, Elizabeth wanted to enjoy the time she had left.

Taking her son on a road trip, they went to the small town in Iowa where she spent a few happy summers as a child with her mother and aunt as they told her fairy tales while making apple pies at the kitchen table.

At least that was what Elizabeth believe those stories were...

But when she found the butterflies, she discovered those tales were real, and she was destined to be queen in a world where unicorns and fairies existed.

With the discovery of her true destiny, Elizabeth must now unite the people in that other world to stop Baron Priam from taking the Kingdom over, and she must find a suitable King to rule in her place before it's too late and her brain tumor takes her from both worlds.

Previously published by Jill H. O'Bones

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jo Rentschler
• Release date: Aug 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311812117

Jo Rentschler

Jo writes in many different genres, including fantasy, paranormal, science fiction, and horror; but she also likes to add a little romance within.She has always had a love for books, both reading and writing, so when she's not writing or spending time with her family in rural Iowa, you can find her, and probably one of her cats, behind a book.Jo's stories started out as a hobby, but when she wanted to start showing them online, she enlisted her son for help and with the use of a handful of 'Scrabble' tiles, they created her first pen name, Jill H. O'Bones, and she used that pen name to publish her first book, 'A Vow of Tears' as a surprise for her son, never thinking she'd go on to publish five additional books.But as her writing matured, she knew it was time to start writing under a more professional pen name and after a lot of thought she has republished all of her books under her new pen name, Jo Rentschler.Jill isn’t gone, you’ll still be able to find her writing during National Novel Writing Month and visiting other various websites.

Book preview

Jo Rentschler

This is a work of fiction.

All characters, organizations, and events in this novel

are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead,

is entirely coincidental or is used fictitiously.

Behind the Vines

COPYRIGHT © 2020 2nd edition by Jo Rentschler

Previously published by Jill H. O’Bones

COPYRIGHT © 2015 1st edition by Jill H. O’Bones

ISBN: 9781311812117

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another, 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 your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover Design by Jill H. O'Bones Image Manipulation by GIMP 2

Cover imagines provided by FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Butterfly: njaj, Swords: vectorolie, Horse/Unicorn: Boians Cho Joo Young,

Background/Borders: nuchylee, and digitalart

Other Images provided by Kaine Simmonds and B.J.J.

To my son,

My inspiration

Also by Jo Rentschler

Friends in Dark Corners

Series

The Vows

A Vow of Tears

A Vow of Deception

A Vow of Fate

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To my editor, Susan P.: Thank you so much! Loves!

Susan S.: Thank you for being the go-between for Susan and me!

To my son: Thank you for being my inspiration. I love you.

Kaine Simmonds: I love your drawings; you need to post them on your Facebook page!

To B.J.J.: Thank you for the wonderful doodles!

And to my readers: Words cannot express how much your support means to me!

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Dedication

Also by Jill

Acknowledgments

Prologue: June 16, 2010

June 27, 2004

June 29, 2004

July 5, 2004

July 13, 2004

July 17, 2004

July 20, 2004

July 21, 2004

July 26, 2004

August 15, 2004

August 16, 2004

August 22, 2004

September 12, 2004

September 16, 2004

September 20, 2004

September 24, 2004

October 7, 2004

October 11, 2004

October 15, 2004

October 16, 2004

October 18, 2004

October 22, 2004

October 24, 2004

October 25, 2004

November 11, 2004

November 20, 2004

November 26, 2004

December 23, 2004

February 12, 2005

March 19, 2005

March 20, 2005

March 21, 2005

March 22, 2005

March 23, 2005

March 27, 2005

March 28, 2005

April 17, 2005

May 22, 2005

May 23, 2005

May 26, 2005

May 28, 2005

June 7, 2005

July 25, 2005

August 1, 2005

August 4, 2005

August 7, 2005

August 15, 2005

August 23, 2005

August 26, 2005

August 31, 2005

September 3, 2005

September 24, 2005

October 23, 2005

November 18, 2005

December 23, 2005

January 7, 2006

February 21, 2006

April 7, 2006

May 23, 2006

June 2, 2006

July 28, 2006

August 4, 2006

September 20, 2006

September 25, 2006

October 8, 2006

October 17, 2006

November 21, 2006

December 15, 2006

January 19, 2007

January 24, 2007

March 17, 2007

May 28, 2007

August 22, 2007

May 17, 2008

June 26, 2009

June 16, 2010

Epilogue: September 26, 2012

A Note From the Author

About the Author

Prologue

June 16, 2010

Lisa stood outside the bedroom door, afraid to enter. Just a little over a year ago her best friend had died in that room. The closest she’d been was when she helped Thomas pack his things two days after his mom died. Lisa couldn’t go into Elizabeth’s room then, and she wasn’t sure she could do it now, but she wanted to be close to her friend, she missed her so much.

After Thomas asked to visit his mother’s grave during summer vacation, Lisa could only agree. It would only be for a couple of days, and it was the least she could do for the boy. He had lost his mother, and she had lost her best friend. Thomas, who had turned sixteen in February, could have had driven, but she didn’t feel comfortable letting him take off when he just got his license, and she wanted to go with him. Neither of them had really said good-bye to Elizabeth, and they both needed to.

Yesterday afternoon she left her two daughters, Katie and Lynn, in Mankato with their grandma, and she and Thomas drove the four hours to the town in Iowa where Elizabeth had spent the last five years of her life.

Once they arrived, they took their bags into the house and went right to Elizabeth’s grave in the small family graveyard, passed the apple trees. Thomas knelt and placed the flowers he had brought and those he had picked on the walk. Lisa could tell he was trying not to cry, but he failed and a few tears dripped to the ground. With a shaking breath, he had asked if it was okay if he could go for a walk. Lisa didn’t want to be alone, but she knew Thomas needed this time to deal with his emotions, so she gave him a nod and he walked towards the woods. She watched him for a minute or two before making her way back to the house.

When she came here last year to bury her friend, she understood why Elizabeth did not want to leave. It was beautiful, and it wasn’t as quiet in the country as Lisa thought it would have been. Sure, it wasn’t as noisy as the city, but it had its own music and was peaceful.

Thomas came back later that evening, and he seemed depressed, but he cheered up while on the phone talking to the friends he had made while living here. Lisa knew he had stayed in contact with them through the internet, and it might not be until next year when he would be able to see them again.

He had left early the next morning, walking down the half-mile drive to meet his friends. Lisa never heard a car come down the road, but she had been lost in her own thoughts of Elizabeth.

Elizabeth had made all of her arrangements after the chemo almost killed her, every last detail including what flowers she wanted at her funeral, so there was nothing left for her to do, and four days after Elizabeth’s death, Lisa took Thomas back to Minnesota.

He wanted to go; he said that there were too many memories, and Elizabeth had made both of them promise, many times, that they would not mourn her after her funeral; instead they were to go on with their lives. It was hard at first. Lisa had heard Thomas crying every night, but as the days went on he cried less and less.

Lisa turned the handle and pushed the door open. It was like any other bedroom: a dresser, an old desk that sat between the two windows that looked out to the woods, and Elizabeth’s heavy black sweater was hanging over the back of the nearby chair. Out of all of the sweaters Elizabeth owned, it was her favorite. She had said that it felt as if it was hugging her, and it kept out the cold. That was one of the odd things about Elizabeth, she was always cold. It could be the hottest day of the year, but Elizabeth would be wrapped up in a sweater, her hands cold to the touch, and even with all of the tests, before and after the tumor, the doctors could never find a reason why.

But the room was missing the bed. Elizabeth had died in her sleep; an aneurysm was the doctor’s guess, from the headache she had complained about a few hours before she went to sleep.

Lisa was thankful that it wasn’t another one of the other possible outcomes that could've killed Elizabeth, she could have had anything from seizures, loss of motor skill, hallucinations, extreme pain, or losing her memory, similar to Alzheimer’s. Lisa, a nurse, had seen firsthand as a nurse what happens to people who have Alzheimer’s, how they come into the nursing home scared but somewhat understanding what was going on, but the very next day they had no clue where they were. She had seen families leave the building in tears because their mom or dad didn’t know who they were and yelled at them to leave them alone, and it only went downhill from there. The patient would sit and cry for their mom or dad, then they could fall into a zombie-like state where they could barely move on their own until they died.

Feeling tears threatening, Lisa walked through the room and picked the sweater up. Dust coated the black fabric, but when she brought it up to her face, she still smelled her friend. Sitting in the chair, she looked out the window and let her tears roll down her cheeks as she clutched the sweater to her chest.

Lisa had thought she had shed all of her tears for her friend, but she was wrong, and as she sat there so many memories came flooding back: how mean Elizabeth’s father was, her heartbreak when she found out that she could never have a child, her husband’s reaction to the news and how he had beaten the crap out of her, leaving her for dead, and the miracle of Thomas being created from that man’s wrath and how determined Elizabeth was to hide the child from him.

Her eyes drifted to the desk and, even though her vision was blurry, she knew who those six people in the photo were, and fresh sorrow ripped through Lisa. The photo was taken a few weeks before her own husband was killed in a car accident. Elizabeth had been there for Lisa and her two daughters, just as Lisa was there for Elizabeth after her own minor car accident six years ago. Elizabeth wasn’t hurt, but the doctors wanted to make sure, so they scanned her brain and found that little tumor that changed both of their lives. There was a ray of hope: It was so small, the doctors were confident that treatment would get rid of it, but instead, the chemo almost killed Elizabeth.

Picking up the frame, Lisa gazed at her best friend. Elizabeth would have looked just like anyone else, with red hair but her eyes set her apart. While Lisa had always been jealous of how the sun would make Elizabeth’s hair look as if it was on fire, Elizabeth’s eyes both bothered and entranced Lisa from the very first day she’d met her. Elizabeth had passed that broken crystal pattern on to her son, but he had bright blue eyes instead of Elizabeth’s bright green, and even after all of these years Lisa has never seen anyone with those eyes.

Lisa sat there and looked at herself in the mirror. Her brown eyes were red, her round cheeks moist, and she wondered how she was going to be able to move past the pain she was feeling. It was a mistake coming, just as it was for Elizabeth to come here looking for her mom’s grave. Elizabeth would have never found out that her aunt, who her dad had told her had died, was still alive. She would have never sat by that woman’s deathbed, and never would have stayed!

She was mad at Elizabeth for moving away and for dying, and she blamed herself for allowing it all to happen.

Out of her pain she hit the top of the desk, the mirror wobbled, and she heard something fall to the floor. She leaned back, and on the floor was a notebook and a piece of paper folded in thirds. Picking them both up she set them on the desk, and her hands started to shake when she recognized the vine sketches on the cover of the notebook. Elizabeth had always had a thing for vines, and as Lisa looked at the wall in front of her, she understood why.

Even though the white wallpaper was yellowed and fading, Lisa could see the vines that brought life into the room. They were so detailed; from the green shading of the vines, the veins in the leaves, and each flower petal, it looked as if they were alive, snaking their way and curling around each other. Elizabeth had told Lisa that she was sleeping in the room that she had slept in when she spent the nights with her aunt, and the room had brought back memories of her mom and aunt telling her bedtime stories.

Her obsession with vines stayed with her, besides drawing them, Elizabeth took pictures, her potted plants were all vines of some sort, and when the doctor showed them an animated video of how the tumor could affect her, Elizabeth commented on how the synapses of the brain looked like vines.

Lisa played with the edges of the folded paper and, after telling herself not to a few times, she unfolded it. It was a letter addressed to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth

My sweet child, you were so young when your mother left us, and it tears me up knowing that I was not able to protect you from your father. I tried to fight him, but he used my age and our family’s stories to put me in here, but he did not gain your inheritance. I made sure on the day you were born and before your mother died that he would not. I do not know what he has told you, but it is time you know the truth. Although after this many years of life I can feel that I am losing my thoughts; they are here and then they are gone, and some days it is hard to put the words together, but I was never crazy and I never tried to hurt you.

I will not lie; I have never liked your father. He was always more fond of the drink and cards than anything else. He returned my dislike by taking your mother away after they wed, and then you after your mother’s death.

As your mother fought the cancer, your father threatened to take you away if I did not sign over your inheritance to him. He had already gambled away most of your mother’s money, and what was left, we used for her medical needs.

I agreed to a yearly allowance, for your care, but I knew it would not satisfy his greed, and I made additional conditions to my will. My lawyer was a good man, and he knew of your father’s immoralities, and he helped make sure your father would never be able to take your inheritance or birthright away, no matter what course he took.

Upon my death, everything becomes yours.

There are only two exceptions. The first is the birth of your first child. You are entitled to a quarter of your inheritance upon its birth. The second, you must renounce your father and come home to me. Once I am free, you will take your rightful place.

Because I have never trusted your father with your wellbeing, there is an additional condition included in my will, which digs a pit in my soul: The possibility of your death. If you die then your inheritance will transfer right to your children. They will be entitled to a yearly allowance, which will grow in amount every year after they turn twenty-one, but if you do not have any children, then your inheritance will be split between one hundred charities I have designated.

Your father took you away from me when he discovered what I had done, and he put me in here and forbade me to see you again. As I said, he used my age and our family’s stories against me. I’ve spent years trying to prove his lies wrong, to prove my sanity, and I have even lied, but every year that went by made my release less likely.

Do not believe your father’s lies. I never tried to harm you, my child, you are too special.

I love you and not a day goes by where I am not thinking of you. And when I smell the apple blossoms in the spring, I can feel your small arms hugging me.

Remember the stories and find the Fairies; they will take you home.

All My Love

Alicia

That last line sent shivers through Lisa’s body. She could remember Elizabeth talking a little about her mom and her aunt. Before her mom died, Elizabeth would spend most of her time with her aunt, who would tell stories about fairies, elves, unicorns, and a queen, but after, Elizabeth’s father told her that her aunt had jumped off the roof of her house, leaving a note claiming that the fairies were going to take her home.

He had lied. Her aunt had not jumped off the roof of her house; the proof was right there in the letter Lisa had just read.

Lisa’s fingers traced the vines on the battered cover of the notebook, but curiosity overtook her and she opened it. She felt tears sting her eyes as she gazed on Elizabeth’s handwriting.

June 27, 2004

I can’t keep my thoughts straight. It feels as if they are the balls inside a pinball machine slamming around my head, and when I try to make sense of all that has happened in the last month, the flippers will whack them and they scatter, bouncing off the bumpers.

Lisa, my best friend, has always written in a journal, and she wrote a lot after her husband died. She said it helped her get her feelings out in the open and didn’t feel as if her heart was being ripped out as it did when she said the words aloud. I’ve never had an interest in journal writing, even after finding out that I was dying. I would sit with the notebook on my lap jotting down a word or two, but it never felt right, but this does, just as long as I don’t think too hard. If I do, especially about what has happened, then my thoughts start bouncing around again.

Maybe if I start at the beginning; that’s where all stories start.

My name is Elizabeth Mary Simmons but I was born Elizabeth Mary Quenn. I didn’t know this before now, but my mom was the first woman in my family to take her husband’s last name and I was the second, but I changed it to my mom’s maiden name after I divorced my husband. I had to put as much distance between us as I possibly could, and taking a different last name felt right. I’d thought about changing my name completely, but I couldn’t, my mom was named after one of our grandmothers, Mary-Elizabeth, and when she named me, she just flipped the first and middle name around. My name is one of the last things I have of my mom; she died when I was seven. Breast cancer took her, and a brain tumor is taking me.

A week after my mother died, my dad moved us from the small Iowa town I grew up in, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, from the big house to a small one-bedroom rundown apartment, and he took me from the only other person who mattered to me as much as my mom did, my Aunt Alicia. She wasn’t my aunt, but a great aunt, times I don’t know by how many, and she was the one who looked after me while my mom fought her cancer.

Memories of my mom and Alicia faded fast thanks to my dad because he left everything behind. After we moved and I asked for a picture of my mom, he told me that if I wanted to see what she looked like all I had to do was look in a mirror. I never saw my mom in one, just me. Yes, I have the same red hair and green eyes as she did, but I was not my mom. My dad would never talk about her and when I did he yelled at me, and a few times he smacked me around, and when I asked if we could go visit Alicia, he gave me a smile that made my breath catch. He told me that she was dead, that she had jumped off the roof of her house to be with the fairies.

The small gap between the couch and the wall became my space. My dad got the bedroom all to himself, forbidding me to go in there. My bed was the couch; if he wasn’t watching the small black and white TV. My clothes were hand-me-downs that the school gave me. I ate mostly cereal for my meals except when I was at school; that was the only real food I ever got, but my dad, he ate out most nights, came home drunk, and pushed me off the couch because he couldn’t or didn’t want to make it to the bedroom, and if I said or did anything to make him mad, he called me names and sometimes would shut me up with a fist to the gut.

I grew up fast, alone, and afraid until I met Lisa when I was twelve. I don’t know why it happened, but on the first day of school she was waiting at the bus stop with her mom, and we just started talking and never stopped, but when my dad found out, he forbade me to be her friend. That was the first time I disobeyed my father.

I think that was also the first time I thought my dad hated me, and in return, I started to hate him back. But he was my father, and he used that influence over me like a gun to my head.

When I was seventeen he introduced me to Troy, and as soon as I turned eighteen he encouraged me to marry the man. I did as he said, not because he told me to, or not because he told me that no other man would want me, but because I thought Troy would protect me from my father, but I was wrong. It took me three years to find out how much Troy was like my father.

I wanted to please my husband and get my father off my back, but after a year of trying, I failed to get pregnant and Troy’s anger started to show. The fear of him made me save all the money I could so I could find out why I wasn’t getting pregnant. Lisa assured me that it was God’s way of telling me that Troy wasn’t a good person, that he would never be a good father, but I wouldn’t listen.

It didn’t take the doctor long to figure out why I wasn’t getting pregnant. A quick ultrasound told him everything he needed to know. My fallopian tubes were so scarred that there was no way it could happen, at least not naturally and without spending a lot of money. There was hope, but slim. When I told Troy, he didn’t take the news very well. He beat me, then raped me and left me for dead. My mind didn’t connect the dots at the time; I was in too much pain as I lay in the hospital bed for three days with Lisa at my side, but while I was there, they found my dad beaten to death in a back alley near some underground casino.

Troy didn’t spend more than two months in jail for what he did to me, and no one knew who killed my dad, but I’m pretty sure I know, Troy.

I had a few problems getting a divorce from him; he fought it and threatened my life a few times, but my hospital stay set me free.

After reading the letter Alicia left me, it all makes sense, why Troy wanted a kid so much, and why he didn’t want a divorce.

It is too soon for me to get into that, the balls are starting to shift.

The shocking part of it all wasn’t the fact that I almost died, or that dad was dead, it was finding out I was pregnant. The thought of ending the pregnancy did go through my mind, I questioned if I could love my child conceived by rape, but it was just a quick thought. I knew that the child I was carrying was my only chance, and if I ended it, there wouldn’t be another.

Yes, my dad’s influence was still strong, and I didn’t believe a man would want me, especially when he found out I had been beaten and raped, but it was something else, something stronger that made me decide to keep the child. And Thomas is the best thing that has ever happened to me, he makes me feel complete. I am relieved that I never told Troy I was carrying his child, I now know he would have taken my son and killed me after he got the money my aunt had left me.

Lisa was at my side a day after I was admitted to the hospital, leaving her one-year-old daughter with her husband. She didn’t judge or tell me that she’d been right about Troy; she just held my hand and told me that everything would be alright. She even took me to Mankato and into her home, helping me get back on my feet. I owe who I am today to her. Lisa helped me find the strong woman she knew was inside of me, and I was a different person; confident when I wasn’t under the control of my father or my ex.

Life got so much better, I was happy because Thomas was my world. I finally got the horses I had wanted since sneaking off with Lisa as kids to the stables outside of Minneapolis where she rode. I couldn’t remember being around horses when my mom was alive, but I took to them and they took to me as if I’d been around them all of my life. Working at that stable as a kid, was my first job. I didn’t get paid money for the cleaning or working with the horses, but the things I learned were so much more valuable.

Two years after Thomas was born, Lisa had another daughter, and I had started dating men she or her husband knew. I never dated before, Dad wouldn’t let me until he handed me over to Troy, so it was a new experience for me, but I couldn’t connect with any of them. I believe it was because of my dad’s influence, the way he raised me and the way Troy treated me, and I don’t think it will ever go away. I want to be happy, to find love, real love, the same love Lisa and her husband shared, but I don’t think that will never happen to me.

But four years ago, everything changed. A few weeks after the six of us, me and Thomas, Lisa, her husband, and their two daughters, spent a week in Florida, her husband was killed in a car accident. Her world was shattered into a million pieces, and I was there for her to help pick them up and put them back together as best we could.

Then last year both of our lives shattered once again. I was in a car accident this time. Some dumbass was drunk, driving too fast, and went through a red light, nailing me. I wasn’t hurt too badly, but the hospital sent me through a brain scan just to make sure.

The accident didn’t do anything, but they found a little speck hidden deep in my brain, and that speck was a tumor. The specialist I was referred to filled me with so much hope, telling me that I was so lucky, that most people didn’t know they had a tumor like mine until it was too late, but while they couldn’t take it out, it was caught so soon that he was ninety percent sure treatment would get rid of it.

I knew I would lose my hair from the chemo; my mom lost all of hers, so I cut my long red hair into a bob and went to the Mayo Clinic to get rid of the tumor. I almost didn’t leave. The reaction I had to the chemo was so violent that I did die for a few seconds; my heart just stopped.

There’s nothing else that can be done now. The tumor is growing and will kill me, now all I can do is wait. The doctor guesses that I have maybe three years, four if I’m lucky, but that last year I may not even know I’m living it. It all depends on what the tumor does, how fast it grows, and what it does to my brain. It could do anything: a lot to a little pain, make it look as if I have Alzheimer’s, give me seizures, or just up and kill me with no warning.

That is why I came looking for my mom’s grave. I have everything taken care of: my funeral and all the details, including having Lisa take care of my son.

I wanted to spend as much time as I had left with Thomas, and I didn’t imagine that a weekend trip would cause this much chaos. I only wanted to remember my mom, to remember where I came from. I had forgotten pretty much everything from when my mom was alive, and I wanted to remember, even if it was just for a few hours. I knew she was buried in that little cemetery on my aunt’s land, where her mom and dad were buried along with a few others, and I hoped that whoever owned it would allow me to visit my mom’s final resting place.

The pinballs of thoughts are once again threatening to fill up my mind. This is the point in my life where everything started to go haywire, when I realized how much Dad had lied to me and how much he took away. I can’t write fast enough, and I’m afraid to reread what I have written; it probably looks as if a crazy person had written it.

Two days after school let out, Thomas and I headed to Iowa, to the small town where I had spent weekends before my mom got sick and then weeks while my mom was in the hospital, just so I could sit beside my mom’s grave. I never had the chance to do that. My dad never allowed me to go back after her funeral. The last thing I can remember about that day is my dad dragging me to the car as her coffin waited to be lowered into the ground.

I honestly didn’t have a clue where my aunt’s house was, all I knew was it was in the river valley, but where or how to get there I didn’t know. Mt. Joseph wasn’t a big town, around ten thousand people, just a dot on the map, but nothing looked familiar to me as we drove around before stopping at a fast-food restaurant for lunch. It was just another town, as foreign as the other towns we’d driven through on our way here.

The courthouse was a four-story square building with doors on every side, it was the only place I could think of since they kept birth certificates and death records and possibly land ownership records, but the young girl behind the counter didn’t seem as if she cared. As soon as I told her that my mom died in 1984, she let out a breath and told me that those records weren’t in the computer and that it would take a few days to retrieve the information.

I was about ready to let it go and go back home when an older woman walked in from the back, and when she looked at me her face went white as if she had seen a ghost, and then she started to cry as she said my name.

Once the shock wore off, she told me her name was Bessie and that she had gone to school and been best friends with my mom, but just finding that out wasn’t what sent my world into a tailspin. When I told her that I was looking for my mom’s grave, she asked, with a hint of anger in her voice, if my father knew I was there. When I told her that he’d been dead for eleven years, she gasped then told me that my aunt, the one that dad told me had killed herself, was still alive but in the mental hospital on her deathbed.

The balls are dropping; the flippers are knocking my thoughts all around my brain. I feel the same now as I did then. It’s hard to put it into words when I can’t think straight.

Bessie told me that Alicia had been in that hospital for the last twenty-three years and that she was in there was because of my father. He claimed that Alicia had tried to kill me, telling me that if I jumped off the roof of her house the fairies would take me to their home, the same place where my mom was.

She took me there, to my aunt, but the woman who lay in the hospital bed was not the same person I had in my memories. This woman was skin and bones, white hair so thinned out that I could see the pale white skin of her scalp. There was nothing in my mind, no thoughts, as I sat in a chair next to this woman’s bed.

On the other side sat Bessie, holding the old woman’s hand, talking softly. It brought tears to my eyes as she started to tell the woman that I was there, that I had come home, but when Bessie told me to hold Alicia’s hand, I didn’t want to, thinking that this wasn’t my aunt, but I touched her hand and her skin was so soft, so thin that I could feel the bones inside of her hands, and if I squeezed I could break them into tiny pieces.

At my touch the old woman moved, and her eyes opened and focused directly on me. It was like seeing myself as an old woman when I looked into her crystal green eyes that were just like mine, and I knew then she was really my aunt.

Her eyes got brighter as they filled with tears; she struggled to speak, but only air left her.

I told her how sorry I was, that I didn’t know she was alive, but then she started to hum and after a few seconds I realized that I knew the tune. I had heard her hum the same melody as she tucked me into bed while mom was in the hospital.

The pain I was feeling was unbearable. Feeling Thomas’s hand on my shoulder helped a little, until she went silent and I saw a look pass over my aunt’s face. It wasn’t death taking her, it was something else, something that seeing Thomas next to me caused.

The line ends with you, I heard her breathe.

It was quiet in the room, and I thought she had died until she started to hum once again and her cold, twisted, thin fingers grabbed hold of my hand. I was afraid to move out of fear of breaking her bones, so I sat there letting her hold my hand until she died peacefully, her humming coming to a sudden end.

There was a man around thirty waiting in the seating area when we came out of the room. Bessie took me and Thomas right to him and introduced him as Dave Brown Jr.; he had taken over his father’s law firm two years ago and was now carrying out Alicia’s final requests, and I just stood there as if waiting for someone to tell me what to do.

I still can’t remember how or when we got to the motel. All I know is that I woke up in a room, my clothes still on and a blanket over me. The trip to the store with Bessie to pick up a change of clothes for Thomas and me, since we hadn’t intended to stay overnight, was like a dream, but the bags were sitting on the table, and crumpled paper sacks of the fast food we had for supper were in the small trashcan.

Thomas, at age ten, got me going even though I still felt as if I was in that dreamlike state. I didn’t really wake up until I was sitting in the lawyer’s office with Alicia’s letter in my hand. The letter really didn’t make sense, but then again she was in a mental hospital, but when the lawyer said a million dollars was the worth of Alicia’s estate, everything my dad did and everything in Alicia’s letter fit together like puzzle pieces.

My dad told me Alicia was dead so I wouldn’t go to her and leave him with nothing. With me under his control, he’d hoped that I would give him every penny when Alicia died, and when she didn’t, he took the first opportunity to marry me off and have a kid. I’m guessing he picked Troy because he must have owed Troy’s father a gambling debt, and my inheritance was the repayment.

I only planned on staying there a few days after Alicia’s funeral, to take care of the details so I could sell her house and change my will; Now when I die Thomas gets everything she left me, but those few days turned into a week, and Thomas and I decided to get the horses and spend the rest of the summer here.

I’ve sat at my mom’s and Aunt Alicia’s graves and told them everything that has happened, but it didn’t ease the feeling inside me, it only made it grow.

I wish they were still alive, so they could see for themselves and guide me. I was just a kid, and after Mom died I believed the stories were just fairy tales, but they weren’t, they were true. The butterflies, my great-great-great Grandmother who my mom and I were named after, she was the last queen until I opened the door.

Telling someone would be a mistake, but writing it down, it would only be a story, one that no one would see as anything other than fiction, the ravings of a woman who was dying from a brain tumor. Yes, I am dying. I know the tumor is in my head, but I am not raving. I am sane; I know what happened really did happen.

~~~~

Two weeks ago, Thomas and I took the horses for a ride in the woods for the first time since my great aunt Alicia had died. We’ve been going through Alicia’s house, which is now mine, and at first, I thought being here would fill the hole in my soul left after my mom died and my dad moved us so far away, but it no longer feels that way, which was why I needed to get out of the house.

I love the memories, but now they have started to overwhelm me. Every room I walk into holds at least a few memories of my mom and aunt, and some of them are so strong that it feels as if I’m reliving them.

If I took a bath, I could see my mom or aunt peeking their heads in to check up on me, in the living room, I’m lying on the floor in front of the TV while Mom and Alicia sit on the couch watching me more than what was on. Upstairs in the bedroom, the same one I slept in when I was a kid, I can see my mom tucking me in as Alicia sits in the rocking chair telling us one of her stories. I can even still hear her voice, but I can only make out a few of her words: unicorns, centaurs, and fairies. And when I lie in bed and stare at the wallpaper, I can still find the shapes hidden within it: the unicorn, the castle, and the monster. It’s getting to the point where I’m ready to switch rooms so I can sleep through the night, but, at the same time, I don’t want to miss out on any memories that are just waiting for me to find.

The kitchen holds the most memories. I can still see Mom and Alicia sitting at the table or standing at the kitchen sink, hear their voices and the sounds of dishes, water splashing, and I can smell the apple pie baking in the oven. If I sit too long at the table I can start to smell freshly cut apples and almost feel the stickiness of the juice on my fingers.

Being outside, away from the house and the apple trees, seems to be the safest, but every now and again I will see myself twirling in a circle looking up at something in the sky, at what, I don’t remember. It could have been anything: bugs, the clouds, or a passing bird.

As soon as Thomas and I started our ride, following a well-used deer trail, and the trees blocked the house from view, I could start to feel myself relax. Horseback riding has always calmed me, especially trail riding. The smell of the horse, the feel of its gentle stride, and the bird songs just had a way of putting me into a type of trance that seemed to take all of my pain, worry, and fears away. I could think without thinking, make decisions, or just feel at peace, which I did at that moment.

Neither of us spoke for the first fifteen minutes, Thomas was in the same trance as I was. When the tumor was first found I had to stop riding to get the chemo, but when the chemo almost killed me there was nothing else the doctors could do to save my life. As soon as I was back on my feet Thomas and I started to ride every day and, like me, it calmed his mind and body, and as mother and son, on horseback, we were able to make those decisions that no one ever wants to make, with little tears or anger.

I wonder if Bigfoot lives in these woods, Thomas said, breaking our silence.

I don’t know, I said with humor. But my aunt always told me that there were fairies living here.

Fairies, Thomas groaned.

Well, what do you expect? I was a little girl.

Sorry to tell you this Mom, but Bigfoot ate all of the fairies.

Impossible! If he had tried, the Fairy Queen would have turned him into a pink rose bush.

We argued for a few more minutes about who would beat who, Bigfoot or the fairies, but stopped when we came across another trail leading to the west. This one wasn’t used as much as the one we were on, but how the tree branches covered the trail made it look magical. Turning the horses, we followed it.

I wasn’t afraid of getting lost, not in these woods. Sure, it was about ten acres of land inside a river valley, but even if we got turned around we could follow the hillside and would eventually find the house or the road, but I was pretty sure the horses wouldn’t get us lost. I knew I could trust Acorn; she would get us home, and that was why I always made Thomas ride her on the trail.

The path made a sharp turn to the left, and there the trees ended, and I don’t think I was the only one who was in awe at the sight in front of us. On top of a small mound surrounded by first the tree line, and then a creek with water so clear that I could make out the different textures of the rocks, was a beautiful green lush meadow dotted with flowers in just about every color, and when the wind blew, it looked as if every plant was waving hello to us. At the far end, the hillside went straight up into the air. The roots of the trees that grew on the top poked in and out of the dirt like snakes, while other plants grew closer to the bottom, and there was one section where long vines draped down like a giant white and green curtain.

Thomas was the first one to go through the creek. Acorn’s hooves splashing in the water, distorting the sun’s light as it sparkled on the water’s surface. It was a little disheartening to see it disturbed, but in an instant, it was back to normal. The only evidence was the imprint of Acorn’s shoes in the sandy bottom, but as I watched the water was already washing it away.

Cassie let out a whinny that shook her entire body as Acorn made her way up the small mound. I gave Cassie her head and she leaped into the water, then up the side of the mound, eager to join Acorn.

I could only stare at the beauty that lay around me, and it wasn’t just the sight of the trees surrounding the meadow, their branches spreading out like an umbrella, giving shade to the outer edges, the creek sparking, or the looming hillside with different colors of earth. The smells of the different flowers, the sounds of the water, the birds and the bugs completed it and made the entire place more beautiful than words could ever explain, and it got even better when the first huge butterfly floated by me on the soft gentle breeze.

The thing was bigger than my hand, and its wings were so bright and colorful that it was like looking through a prism, and more followed, floating towards us from the hillside. They hovered, lifting in the air to float above our heads. I then knew why Alicia had called them Fairies; they were just so big and beautiful. The feeling of déjà vu came over me so strongly that a chill raced down my spine. Thomas, I said, hoping the fear I was feeling wasn’t in my voice. We better leave.

Why? he asked, looking back at me.

I don’t think we should disturb this place. It’s too beautiful.

Okay, he mumbled, clearly disappointed as he turned Acorn around and followed me.

I wanted to make Cassie run away, but I kept her at a slow walk as we went down the mound and across the creek back into the trees. We can come back, I said. And take a few pictures before we go home.

Thomas only nodded in reply.

I had hoped that the fear I had felt would have gone away but it seemed to only get worse as the day went on, and that night I had a dream, one so real that I think it was really a memory:

I was four or five, and I was chasing those butterflies from the meadow in front of the house when the most beautiful one flew right up to me, and I could have sworn that it said my name. With a laugh, I followed its shimmering wings as they fluttered in the dimming sunlight. Just as I was about to reach for it, it flew faster, until I was running to keep up, and it led me right into the forest.

A crash of thunder startled me, and I tripped over a branch. As I got to my feet the rain poured down and soaked me. It was suddenly so dark that I couldn’t see the butterfly or the house. Someone called my name, but I couldn’t see anyone. It was too dark and the rain was falling so hard and heavy that I could barely make out the trees that surrounded me, but I went to the voice that was calling my name. The thunder crashed again as if it was chasing me. With my next step, my foot was in water that pulled at my legs so hard I couldn’t stay on my feet. The pull of the current started to drag me over the rocks and sticks that had been caught up with me. Something grabbed my hand, and when I looked up I saw my mother.

Elizabeth, I’ve got you, she said.

When I woke up I was breathing hard, and it felt like I had water in my lungs, and my body was shaking uncontrollably from both fear and cold. And even now, days later, I can still hear my name being called, and it wasn’t my mother’s voice or my aunt’s. It’s the same voice that came from that butterfly, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t forget about the voice, the dream, or that meadow. All three of them seemed to haunt my every thought, waking and sleeping, and then a memory started to shout at me, the day my mom died. I could see the light in her eyes fading, but she smiled when my aunt told her that the fairies knew who I was.

Last week I went back to the meadow alone.

~~~~

I had dropped Thomas off at the local Y so he could spend the day with kids his own age, one day each week during summer it was open only for them. After I went back to the house I had planned to clean out the basement, but it was just such a beautiful day, with the birds singing in the treetops and the breeze filling the air with the smells of summer, I couldn’t help it, I went for a ride.

With the sun shining down between the leaves, the wind moving the branches, making shafts of sunlight and shadows dance along the trail, it felt surreal, so calming that I let my mind wander, letting it decide what it wanted to think about. I did not knowingly make the decision to turn Acorn down the trail that led to the meadow, my mind, or maybe fate did it for me.

As soon as we came out of the forest, my breath caught. The meadow was even more beautiful than it had been before. The grass looked taller and greener, the air smelled fresher and was filled with even more flower scents, and the water in the creek seemed more alive, even though it wasn’t any higher.

I let Acorn graze nearby while I sat in the grass watching the clouds drift lazily across the light blue sky, and I let my mind go, thinking of my aunt lying in her deathbed, my mom in hers, both of them had died as I held their hand. And I even thought of my dad, how mad he was that I was in the hospital room when mom died, but my mom insisted and Aunt Alicia did as my mom had asked. I could even hear them speaking as I lay next to my mom holding her hand.

"Are you sure?" my mom had asked, her voice just audible over the sounds of the machines around her bed.

"Yes. The fairies know who she is," Alicia answered, as she stroked my hair.

I also thought of myself. Did I want Thomas by my side when I die? I didn’t know. The thought scares me, but when the time comes I’m going to leave it up to him. Honestly, I think that I would rather him not be there. I don’t know how I’m going to die. I could go peacefully like my aunt and Mom, or my body could fight, and I don’t want Thomas to see that. I want him to remember me happy, alive.

The smells from the fresh grass that Acorn was pulling into her mouth as fast as she could and scents coming from all of the flowers around was beginning to overwhelm me, as were the bugs in the grass with me. Standing, I looked around the meadow. The vines that hung down from the side of the hill got my attention, and once again that tingle went over my skin, as that feeling I had been there before came over me.

I could have been there when I was a kid. The meadow was on my aunt’s property, and we could have had a picnic, or it could have been the place in the dream. I could’ve chased a butterfly into the forest and gotten lost, but no matter how hard I forced my mind to remember, there was nothing.

Movement around the vines caught my attention, and as I watched, I saw one of those large butterflies come out. I took slow steps towards it; wanting to get a closer look to find out why seeing them that first time had bothered me so much.

As I walked across the meadow the hints of strawberries, honey, and other sweet smells drifted from the vines, and when I was close enough, I could see that the butterfly clung to one of the large white flowers that grew from the vine.

I got too close, and in a cloud of color the butterflies burst out from behind the vines, and with their departure I saw the vines move, showing me that there was an opening behind them. I knew I shouldn’t, but I did it anyway.

A perfect rectangle, big enough that I could get Acorn through, was cut into the stone, and with the sunlight shining through the opening, I could see into the cave. Deep inside me, something was telling me to leave, but something even stronger was yelling at me to go inside.

Slowly, I took that first step. The walls seemed to sparkle in the sunlight except for a black spot at the back of the cave. I took another step and suddenly my body started to tingle, like that feeling when you put your tongue on a nine-volt battery, but this felt as if it went through the cave and into my body.

When I stepped farther inside the sunlight behind me disappeared. I turned expecting to see Acorn or the vines covering the entrance, but instead, it was a wall of color. Butterflies were pouring into the space like a flood, and they headed right towards me like a swarm of silent bees. I waved my hands in front of my face and tried to keep them away from me, but they kept coming, blocking my vision in swirls of blue, red, yellow, and orange.

I could feel the wind their wings created blowing across my skin, and when they brushed against my face, their wings were not soft, instead they felt like a paper bag, and suddenly I had the fear of being cut by the edges. I backed away, trying to see past the colors to find the exit, but dust from their wings sprinkled into my eyes and made them water, blurring my surroundings even more.

With two more steps the wall of the cave stopped me, making me cry out in surprise. I tried to move around the wings of color, but they seemed to band together as one, blocking my path.

At my back, the wall behind me was no longer hard; it felt as if I was leaning against cold mud and it was slowly sucking me in. All at once I felt the butterflies press against me and I fell, my back landing hard on cold stone, and it felt as if every breath of air