After Forever (3 page)

I backed away from her. “No. You’ve got the
wrong person.”

The other lady from the bus moved forward
from the crowd. “No, Rory, we don’t. Phillip chose you to be our
hero. He believes in you… and so do we.” She gestured to the crowd
and I began to see familiar faces and features on faces. Every
person whose room I had been cleaning for weeks now, was here. Just
like me, they were all trapped. This couldn’t be real. Things like
this didn’t happen in real life.

I gulped. “I don’t know what to do.”

She walked me to the front door of the
castle like mansion. “You will.”

Just like that first day in the assisted
living home, the door opened by itself. Mesmerized, I walked over
the threshold and then jumped when the door slammed behind me. It
was disconcerting to be alone after having so many eyes trained on
me outside. I tried to open the door and go back out there… back to
safety, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Follow your heart Rory, and you’ll find the
way.”

I turned back toward the interior of the
front room and found myself looking at Miss Merriweather. Only she
didn’t look like the nurse I had met that first day. She looked…
magical… youthful almost and beautiful.

“Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

She smiled sadly, “you had to find it for
yourself.”

The only light in the room was from candles
which threw shadows around the room that seemed to shift and
shimmer ominously. “This is crazy.”

“There is magic in everything, Rory, you
just have to decide if you are going to embrace it or run from
it.”

I took a step forward, remembering how it
had felt in Phillips arms. How I had never felt like I had belonged
anywhere as much as I had belonged with him. Another few steps and
I had passed her on my way to the stairs. When my foot was on the
first step I turned back to her… but she was gone and I was once
again alone.

There was a heaviness in the air it weighed
me down. With each step I took up, it threatened to bury me, but I
pushed forward. If this was my destiny, I couldn’t back away from
it. I had to find the courage and strength inside of me to do the
right thing.

When I finally reached the landing, a blast
of frigid air took my breath away. It was freezing up here. The
hallway was icy and my shoe slid on the slippery surface. My teeth
started chattering and my lungs protested when I was finally able
to inhale the chilled air. Still I moved forward. Slow, but
steady.

There were three doors in the hallway and I
when I opened the first one, I almost lost all of my strength. My
little sister was lying on a bed with her hands folded neatly over
her chest. I ran to her, forgetting about the cold and ice and just
before I got to her, a blast of energy threw me backwards.

“Oh Bella,” I sobbed. “What has she done to
you?”

Almost as if she had been waiting for me to
ask that question, Mallie appeared. Only she looked even more evil
and frightening. “I will give you your sister right now if you
leave this place and never come back.”

Tears where streaming down my face, hot and
steady, leaving a moist trail for the icy air to cling to. It was
so tempting to accept her offer. It would be so easy to take my
sister, my small innocent sister, and put this all behind me. But
Phillips eyes swam before me, steady and strong, giving me the
courage and motivation to move on.

“I will defeat you,” I told her with a catch
in my voice.

She threw her head back and laughed. “You
are a fool.”

The room darkened and when I turned back to
Bella – she was gone.

Unwilling to leave any room unchecked, I
moved back to the hallway and tried to turn the knob on the second
door. The metal was so cold that my hand burned when I touched it.
For a moment I thought that the delicate skin of my palm was stuck
to it, but after a few seconds, I was able to turn it and the door
creaked grudgingly open.

It was Artie. Sweet, brave, and fearless
Artie. Only it was worse than seeing Bella lying in that bed. Artie
was awake. I couldn’t hear him, but it looked like he was screaming
at me from across the room. His arms were restrained with what
looked like old fashioned manacles above his head and even in the
dimmed light, I could tell that they were rubbing the skin of his
wrists raw from his movement.

“Artie!” I screamed, but I couldn’t get to
him. My feet were glued to the floor.

He pulled and fought the chains, with his
mouth open, screaming words that I couldn’t hear. It was worse… so
much worse than Bella. With every second, my desperation grew more
intense as I fought against the invisible force keeping me in
place. Finally, after what seemed like hours, Mallie returned and I
fell to my knees, free at last.

I ran to my brother, but it was like a wall
separated us. I couldn’t feel it, but I couldn’t move through it
either. Nor, could I hear what he was still screaming at me with
tears running down his own face. His lips were turning a scary blue
from the cold and I could I feel my heart breaking in my chest.

“I will release your brother if you take him
and leave this place.” She smiled toward him, enjoying the pain
that marred his face. “If you promise to never return.”

I closed my eyes and buried my face in my
arms. It was tempting. So very tempting – much more so than before
because I could see the pain that he was feeling. I even imagined
that I could feel what he felt and I rubbed absently at my wrists
while the pain of my decision sunk in.

“No.” I said – slightly more forcefully this
time. I looked up at her, hatred blazing through my eyes from the
depth of my soul. “You will not win. I will beat you.”

She narrowed her eyes slightly before
throwing her head back and laughing. “No.” She told me. “I will
devour you.”

Once again the room went dark and when I
looked for Artie, he was gone. The only evidence that he had been
there were the manacles still dangling from the wall. I shivered,
noticing that the air had grown even cooler. The puffs of white my
breath made in front of me were practically freezing into icy
clouds. My bones were starting to groan and crack with each move
that I made.

I moved slowly toward the hallway and paused
when I saw my reflection staring back at me from a mirror. There
were ice sickles dropping from stands of my hair and my eye lashes
were frozen. My lips were a purplish blue and there were trails of
ice where my tears had fallen.

Forcing myself forward, I moved to the third
door. The knob was hot. My skin sizzled when it touched it, such a
contrast from the cold I was standing in. With extreme effort, I
turned the knob. Heat blasted over me and I staggered backward a
few steps. I had thought that any warmth would be appreciated after
such cold, but I was wrong. It was like I was burning.

A staircase loomed before me and I gritted
my teeth against the burning air. My body protested the change in
temperature, but I forced it on. There was a mantra repeating in my
head. Right. Left. Right. Left. I forced first one foot and then
the other up the endless stair case. I had to be climbing into a
tower. There was no other explanation for the winding endless
staircase. Toasted air blew past me, melting the ice in my hair and
eyelashes. Sweat and water dripped down my face and shoulders
making my clothing stick to my skin.

Still I moved up. One step after another, I
worked toward my destiny. I wouldn’t give up. I couldn’t give up.
Just as I had refused to let my siblings starve, I refused to be
the destruction of these people… of Phillip. I would save them.

At first when my feet reached the landing of
yet another staircase, I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. Then I
noticed the door. It was the same ornate wooden door from the
assisted living home. I was sure of it.

“Phillip,” I whispered, my throat damaged
and dry from the heat.

As soon as the name was uttered, fire sprang
up in front of me, blocking my way. I reached out toward it, hoping
that it was an illusion and then cried out loudly when my hand was
scorched and burned from the unforgiving flame.

I sunk to the floor, just out of reach from
the fire, and leaned back against the wall. “I can’t do this,” I
whispered to myself. “It will kill me for sure.”

I wiped at my face, but in the heat my tears
had disintegrated before they even left my eyes. It was then that I
noticed my hand. The one that had been burned from the fire. It was
healed. Rosy from the heat, but otherwise the skin was
unmarred.

Then I knew. I could do this. I pushed up
against the wall and closed my eyes against the fear within me.
Then I took a huge breath of air and took my first step into the
flames.

I wanted to move quickly. The flames licked
at my clothes and skin burning them, devouring them, but the air
was thick and movement was slow. I could smell the hair being
singed from my head and face and body. It was an acrid disgusting
smell. My vision was clouded with the smoke from my burning clothes
and flesh, but still I forced myself forward.

When I finally made it to the door, I knew
that I didn’t have the strength to open it, so I fell forward and
cried as the flames continued to chase me. The door flew open
against my weight and I welcomed the cool air that greeted me. I
lay there for seconds, minutes, hours… I wasn’t sure how long, just
letting the air kiss away my burns and soothe my throat and
skin.

“Rory?”

I froze. “Mom?” I whispered.

It was my worst nightmare. The thing that I
was so very ashamed of. I couldn’t bare the sight of my own mother.
She wasn’t just sick… she had cancer… and I didn’t recognize
her.

I opened my eyes and realized that I was in
her hospital room. Complete with her hydraulic bed and monitors
beeping next to her. Tubes were hooked into her arm and an IV was
dropping water and pain medicine into her veins. Her once beautiful
long blond hair was almost completely gone. A few long out of place
strands were clinging to her bald head giving her a sickly
appearance. Dark circles surrounded her sunken in eyes and her
normally golden skin was bleached white from the illness.

“Come here baby, let me look at you,” she
croaked.

This wasn’t my mother. This had to be some
sort of monster, some sort of scary illusion meant to break me. But
I knew that it wasn’t… and I was ashamed of my disgust and fear of
her. My mother… the woman who had rocked me to sleep and took care
of me when I was sick and I couldn’t even look at her.

Against my will, my feet moved me toward
her. The smell of illness was thick in the air and I gagged against
it. When my hand reached toward hers, I let the tears fall. I
didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to touch her. She disgusted
me.

“I need a kiss from my baby. One last kiss
before I go,” she whispered.

I closed my eyes and shook my head, aware
that her grip had tightened on my hand and she was pulling me
closer to her. “No…” I whispered. I kept moving toward her. “No,
no, no.” I repeated. I was weak. Tears streamed down my cheeks once
again. I could feel her hot breath on my cheek. “NO!” I screamed
and ripped my hand from hers.

I backed away from the bed. I opened my eyes
and was unable to take my gaze away from hers. She was hurt. She
was devastated. I forgot everything. Bella, Artie… Phillip. There
was nothing but her and I was terrified.

“Don’t you love me anymore?” She asked.

I tried to remember the person she used to
be. The one before the cancer distorted her, but it was hard to do
while I was facing her. Images flashed through my mind of days
spent together, but it was like I was looking at two different
people. I just couldn’t believe that she was the same person who
had raised me.

“I can’t do this,” I whispered, broken.

Mallie reappeared. “I knew that you weren’t
strong enough.” She laughed hideously.

Then Florine and Fawn were standing before
me, smiling down at where I had crumpled to the ground. “Luck has
finally found you… all of your dreams are within your reach.”

Then Miss Merriweather was before me, only
she was smaller and a pair of shimmering wings were fluttering
behind her, elevating her above the ground that I was lying on.
“Follow your heart Aurora. You’re not a coward…”

Artie and Bella replaced her. “You’re a
hero.” They finished. “You’re our hero.”

They all believed in me. They all needed me.
They were all depending on me to be that person… to be that hero.
Phillip took their place and I reached for him. My hand passed
right through his image, but he smiled down at me.

“I’ll love you anywhere Rory.”

I stood up and walked toward my mother.

“What are you doing?” Mallie asked, a hint
of panic in her voice. “Don’t do that, look at her, she’s
repelling.”

I ignored her and took hold of my mom’s
hand.

“No, you’ll ruin everything. Leave this
place. Take your brother and sister and go. We were fine without
you.”

I looked down into the eyes that looked just
like mine and ignored everything else.

“GET AWAY FROM HER!”

Light exploded inside of me and love filled
the places where shadows have been hiding. This was my mom. When
the light cleared, it was like my perception had changed. No longer
was I seeing her balding head, no longer was I looking into her
sunken eyes, no longer were there tubes in her arm. It was my mom…
the beautiful amazing mom that I had loved forever.

“I love you,” I whispered to her before
leaning down and pressing my lips to hers.

The room began to spin. Mallie’s screams
began to tear through the room and when I opened my eyes, I was
looking into Phillips. He clung to me and me to him while the room
spun and spun. There was nothing but the two of us.