When the paramedics rush up the hill, Violet is asleep in my arms. I stuff the empty bottle into the pocket of my coat, hiding it from the EMTs before they whisk her away. Drew is hysterical. He’s screaming and wailing in agony as they load her into the helicopter. Clint tries to calm him to no avail. I won’t watch the helicopter go. I can’t watch them take my sister away.
Instead, I walk across the sloping rocks of the Wave. The snow still falls in peaceful flurries. The roaring blades of the helicopter meld with the beating of my broken heart. Drew’s anguish echoes in the tranquil space.
These dunes began forming one hundred ninety million years ago. Shaped by wind and water erosion. What a life these rocks have lived. What stories they must have to tell. I move down an incline until I find myself beside a pool of water collected near the base. The shade from the shelter the rocks provide gives me a chill as I pause to stare into the water. It acts like a mirror, reflecting the landscape around me. Reflecting the face that belongs to us both. It’s almost as if she’s on the other side, staring back at me. Her skin no longer pale. Her cheeks full. Light sprung back into her brown eyes. Hope restored. A lifetime of endless possibilities awaiting.
I can hear someone calling my name. Screaming for me. Maybe it’s Drew. Perhaps it’s Clint. I wave goodbye to my reflection and somehow it seems as if Violet waves back, urging me along. Blessing my simple sojourn. I shuffle past the water, traveling through the crevices, deeper and deeper into the twists and turns of the Wave.
“Indigo...”
“Yes...” I reply softly.
“They’re looking for you.”
“I know.” My fingertips slide across swirling rings of color. There are so many working together to create this miraculous masterpiece: red, brown, orange, white, yellow...even a little violet. Yes. I can see violet, too. “You said if I brought her here she would live.”
“I said that. Yeah.”
“You were right. She lived. She really did.” I stop walking and close my eyes. And suddenly I’m transported. Back to Seattle. Back to the top of the old industrial warehouse. Holding on to the rusted scaffolding in the dead of night. The icy rain beating down on me. The wind roaring. My fingertips burning from cold as I hold on. The anguish. The hurt. The complete desperation. Tears slide down my cheeks. Being up on that building never really was about dying for me. I can see that now.
“Then what was it about?”
I open my eyes. The details of that nearly fateful night seem to float away like dandelion seeds blowing in the wind. Impossible to hold on to while the brilliant Wave spirals and coils around, as if welcoming me into a new dimension—or I’m falling deep down into the rabbit hole at last. “Didn’t I tell you not to read my thoughts?”
“I can’t help it.”
“Right. Because you’re God?”
“Right. Because I am God. I am.”
“Not just the voice in my head?”
“Well...” The Voice pauses. “Maybe they’re one and the same.”
“Yeah.” I glide my hand along the striped sandstone as I continue on. “Maybe they are.”
“It’s your turn now.”
“My turn?”
“To live.”
I think back to what Violet said last night at the Airbnb. Doesn’t seem fair. It’s the same moon, but one man dances under it, another man dies.
She’s right. It doesn’t seem fair. And yet the fact remains. For every one who dies...there is another who lives on.
“My turn, huh?”
“But you have to want it. You have to want to live.”
“Well, I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Yes. You’re here.”
“That’s gotta count for something. Please, let it count for something.”
“It counts, Indigo.”
“Glad to hear it.” I round a corner. The rocks bend with me, beckoning me even farther. I raise my arms and point my face toward the sky as if I am a bird, ready to catch a passing breeze...spread her wings...and fly.
Keep reading for an excerpt from Tiffany Sly Lives Here Now by Dana L. Davis.