I’ve died a hundred deaths, but I’m alive. Because of her. Because of her light. Because of her smile. Every time I die, I float toward her, and I am saved. I am healed. Her light soaks into me. Oozes inside me. Fixes all the broken parts, accomplishing something all the king’s horses and all the king’s men could never have done.
Sometimes I’m grateful. Sometimes I’m not, because I know it will happen again and again, and I figure there comes a time when it needs to end. When I just need to die and stay dead. But she saves me whether I want to be saved or not.
And now she’s doing it again. I am at her house, drifting toward her light. She brushes past me in the hall and turns around real fast, like I’ve startled her. She’s wearing a summer dress and sandals, and her hair has been pulled up into a ponytail.
I stay back. I always cover myself in the hooded cloak and try to stay back, but she stands there with her gold eyes wide and her pretty mouth open. She’s nine going on thirty. Full of sass and spark and secrets. She shimmers with life. She is the exact opposite of me and I’ve grown to understand the “opposites attract” thing.
Her lips are pink and full and her cheeks warm. If she weren’t so scared of me, I’d try to steal a kiss. But she’s terrified, and that just seems wrong. Like something Earl would do. I shudder at the thought.
Then the problem lady, aka her stepmom, stomps into the hall and grabs her arm. They are going to be late and she is in a lot of trouble, little lady. Why is she wearing that dress? She told her not to wear that dress. It’s too chilly. She’ll just have to freeze. Maybe she’ll learn a lesson.
Anger bubbles up inside me, and Dutch’s eyes grow wider and wider. The lady looks at me, too, but she all she can see is the wall at my back. Nobody but Dutch can see me in these dreams.
They are married now. Dutch’s dad and the problem lady. Dutch was happy about it at first. I don’t know why. The woman has never liked her. And Dutch is like me. She can feel indifference. Apathy. Contempt. But she doesn’t understand why her stepmother has such harsh feelings for her. She hasn’t seen what I’ve seen. Some people are just bad.
When the woman doesn’t see anything, she whirls Dutch around to face her. “You have to stop this. I mean it.”
Her fingernails dig into Dutch’s tender skin and my lungs stop working. I shake. I snarl. I want to kill her. I want to bash her face in.
“I’m not putting up with it, Charlotte. There’s nobody there, and you damned well know it.”
But Dutch won’t quit looking at me, so the lady pushes her down the hall toward the front door.
My anger consumes me. Rises and swells until the walls ripple around me with the force of it. I knock a vase off a side table, and the lady turns. Stares straight at me. Pulls her eyebrows together until they make an ugly line down her forehead. Then she clenches her jaw, turns once more, and hurries out the door.