Another great read from Astraea Press! 

Jessica Hunter stood on a patch of grass, using her hand to block the sunlight reflecting off her mother’s casket. The humidity made her hair curl around her face, despite the effort she’d put into straightening it. The wooden box before her was perched on a contraption resembling a medieval torture device, which would lower the casket into the hole after Jess left. Then a backhoe would spill dirt on what remained of the best person she knew.

Everyone else who attended the funeral had disappeared. They moved back into their worlds, which still turned and still had significance. Jess was immobilized by fear and waited for her life to come back into focus. There was no color in the trees, and no grass surrounding her. She knew the birds sang, but she couldn’t hear them. She heard nothing, except the sound of the thoughts humming in her head. Being forced to observe the world’s rotation while she waited to reawaken was cruel.

Her unsteady fingers glided over the solid oak casket. They skipped across its urethane surface while her mind attempted to reconcile the truth. Her mother’s body lay inches away, but her spirit no longer occupied it. Her best friend and mentor had found happiness in a place to which Jess had no access. The taste of rusted metal arose in her throat and, eyeing the pristine roses atop the coffin, she thwarted the bitterness which threatened to swallow her. She feared that if she let the feeling boil, she would evaporate into nothingness.

Her brother’s back rested on his black SUV. He crossed one leg over the other and watched her closely. Jordan was tall and slender. In his black suit, he reminded her of the ushers who’d worked at the theater their dad owned when they were kids. He worked a stick of gum into his mouth. His body blurred in the heat of anger that encircled her.

They were about; somewhere near. She could feel it when the wind changed. Their presence drove back the humidity and perfumed the breeze with honeysuckle. In the difficult days of her life, they always arrived. She dared not mention it to Jordan. He would have her locked up if she confessed she saw them there.

Jess glanced to the tree line that separated the cemetery from a subdivision nestled behind it. In the shadows of a massive, live oak, she saw the two familiar figures. One was blond with the body of a man and the soft skin and features of a teenager. The other was female, and although Jess couldn’t see her clearly from her vantage point, she knew her hair was brown and her lips were a peculiar shade of crimson.

They materialized from time to time, as though their presence was scripted into Jess’ life at precise moments. To her, they were as obvious as her brother daydreaming by his vehicle. Even so, she was the only one who saw them. At her father’s funeral, they’d sat in the pew behind Jess and her mother. The girl had laid her bony fingers on Jess’ shoulder, releasing the relentless tension she’d felt, and yet her mother hadn’t noticed. Jess recognized from the outset their comfort was only meant for her, or maybe she was just crazy.

They weren’t the only spirits who haunted her. The others appeared in malls, stood on corners, or occasionally passed her on crowded streets. She didn’t fear them, because they hauled around a load of tranquility that spilled onto her; and when her eyes lingered on them, the world slowed. Whoever they were, their purity ran so deep she could feel it tunnel itself into the shadows of her heart. In those brief seconds, when they crossed her path, she felt she could make amends with the tragedies of her life.

She turned away from the couple and refocused on the roses arranged in a beautiful spray over her mother’s final resting place. The smell of orange blossoms emerged from the heat of the August afternoon and embraced her. The anger slipped away, allowing her a vision of her mom smiling as she cleared weeds from the rose bed planted in their backyard.

Jordan shifted his weight anxiously next to the SUV and audibly cleared his throat. Jess knew it was time to leave. Her insides knotted against her chest, making it necessary to struggle for every breath, and the tears she’d managed to stow away during the funeral came in a cascade of mascara. Her strength was draining, and, under the weight of grief, her legs buckled. Jordan pushed away from the car with his palm and crumpled on the ground beside her. He pulled her to his chest and kissed the top of her head—supporting her, just as he always did.

They stayed for a while, huddled on the manicured lawn gazing upon the box that contained their mother. They had been abandoned, and they both felt the crushing loneliness. Jordan alone held the ties that kept Jess from unraveling. He had been drinking again. The earthy aroma of whiskey hung on his breath and a web of red lines crisscrossed the whites in his eyes, but she couldn’t chastise him, and she couldn’t blame him for giving in to the only crutch he thought allowed his survival.

Jess steadied herself against his body and stood, staring blankly at her brother. Jordan unfolded her fist and buried a key ring in the palm of her hand. She fingered the three keys. The sadness in his eyes said he didn’t want her to hang on to their inevitable goodbye. She looked toward the trees where the couple had been. Jess couldn’t see them anymore, and their sudden absence made her isolation more profound.

“Listen, the apartment in the French Quarter is paid for. I’ll take care of the house. You need to go for a while, so take my SUV.”

His dark eyes were surrounded by deep blue shadows. He obviously hadn’t slept in days. Jess searched her brain for an argument, but inside she wanted to travel as far from reality as his Chevy could take her. “I love you. I promise to call every day. Jordan—”

He put his hand on her shoulder, halting her words, a gesture only she could comprehend. They were less than a year apart, and sometimes his thoughts were hers before they developed properly. “Jess, go. You can’t stay here. I’m going to take care of things and figure out what to do now. You have to find out what being you means." He rested his arm on the casket and then laid his head on it, his voice breaking. “Without this.”

She nodded as a red Ford Focus pulled in behind the SUV. His ride back to the horror of life waited for him, and she needed to get going.

“I love you," she said again. "Please be careful.” Her voice reflected only a hint of the pain she felt.

“We’re going to be together again. I want you to be happy. That’s why I want you to go.”

She threw her arms around him in a final hug and pushed him toward the car. As she watched the gap between them grow, she tried to convince herself starting anew would make her stronger. However, as he pulled away, she felt overwhelmed by solitude harsher than all the losses she had suffered. She wanted to stay, but they had to find a way to become people outside of their protected world, and Jess ordered her emotions back into their cage.