Alec:
We need to talk.
Lark:
Like last time you needed to talk?
I don’t remember much talking happening ;-)
Alec:
I’m serious.
But I don’t know how to say it.
Dad calls from upstairs. “Lark? Are you coming?”
His voice is strong, and I smile, trying not to overanalyze Alec’s message. This week everything’s been fine with him, but I’ve been so busy looking after Dad that I haven’t seen him much outside of school, and even there, I’ve been distracted.
“On my way,” I call up.
“Don’t bring me soup. I only want water.”
“Too late.” I put a slice of sourdough bread next to the chicken soup I tipped out of a can that I found at the back of the cupboard. I haven’t done much cooking without Dad grocery shopping for me. Reid’s mom has brought over a few things, though. And Alec brought the bread over yesterday. We had time for a quick kiss and a few minutes’ conversation. His message probably doesn’t mean anything—I’m reading too much into it because I’m tired and stressed.
My phone rings, and for a moment I don’t look at it. I don’t know if I want to hear what Alec has to say. There’s a small grip at my heart, like a creature with tiny hands has seized a hold of it. I pocket my phone, which goes off again, and carry the tray up to Dad’s room. He’s propped up in bed with his phone in his hand and a book discarded on his bedside table. I glance at the space next to him, where Mom used to sleep.
He says, “Tomorrow, I’m done with resting.” Then he yawns.
“If you say so.”
“They’ve gotta get these meds sorted so I’m not so tired.”
“You love playing the wounded soldier, Dad.”
Putting his phone down, he pats the bed. I place the tray on his lap and sit gingerly next to him.
“I’m serious. You’ve been amazing, Lark. But I’m okay.”
“You might not be.” My eyes settle on my grandmother’s quilt, on a square patterned with clocks. She loved clocks—antique ones, brand new ones, bird ones, all kinds. Her house was full of the tick, tick, tock of clocks on every available counter space and wall. When the hour arrived, every hour, a crescendo of cuckoos and bells would drive the rest of us crazy, but Grams thought it was marvellous.
“Something might happen, Lark,” Dad says. “We have no control over life and death. Since your mother died, that’s been . . .” He falls silent.
Dad and I both know that if we could have found a way to save Mom, we would have.
I sigh. “It’s not just what happened to you. Actually, Alec just sent me this.” I hold up my phone, the screen facing my dad. “It might be nothing, right?”
“Are you showing me your messages, Lark? Sweet.” He frowns. “What does it mean?”
I turn the phone.
A tear slides down her cheek.
I really . . . hope he was happy.
“Song lyrics?” he asks.
I shudder. This is the fifth message like this in the last three days. But it’s the only one that anyone else has ever seen. I was starting to think I was imagining them, like Alec said—hallucinating phone messages. A sob escapes my lips.
“Hey, Lark, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know. That wasn’t even what I was trying to show you—oh God, it’s freaking me out. And on top of that, I feel bad because Suzanne asked me to go and see Annabelle, but I couldn’t, because last time I got weirded out. And now Alec is saying we need to ‘talk,’ and I really like him, and you almost died.”
“Whoa, whoa, my sweetheart. One thing at a time. I didn’t almost die. I had a flutter. You know that. I’m perfectly fine.” He smells of his shaving foam, and his pyjamas are warm and soft as he hugs me.
“It was a scary flutter.”
“All this fretting is bad for my recovery,” he says softly, but teasing me. “You’ve only been dating Alec, what . . . a month? Even if it doesn’t work out, you’ll be fine.” He holds my hand. “You’re much stronger than you know. Like your mother. She looked like you could break her by sneezing, but she was the strongest woman I ever knew. Until you. You need to read her letter.”
“Her letter? Oh, right. I forgot about it after the cemetery.”
He chucks me on the chin. “Go get it.”
“It’s in the pocket of my jeans, I think.”
In my room, I search through the pile of clothes until I find the jeans I was wearing. Then I pull out the letter and return to Dad’s room.
“It’s here,” I say and lie next to him. I pick up reading where I left off at the cemetery.
Listen to the quiet of your heart. Follow it. The world is more layered than it seems, and in those hidden depths, you’ll find yourself.
There is a dream I keep on having.
One world made into two,
but you only need to look in the moment.
I look at Dad. “Are these song lyrics?”
“It’s a song she was writing for you. She never finished it. She was very tired sometimes, writing these. I’m not sure it made much sense.”
A life beyond
Or behind
Another way
To find you
If only that could be
Only this course for me, only this life
I am with you every step, even though you can’t see me
Believe me.
I love you.
Mom
A coldness comes over me slowly, starting at my throat and passing through my body. I hear my phone and reluctantly glance at it.
Alec:
You there?
Before I can write anything back, a message appears:
You’re just jealous Alec
got to go on a date with me
Another message. A million tiny goosebumps. I want to puke. This creepy sender is scaring me.
Dad says, “Lark?”
Alec:
Come meet me after school tonight . . .
I message Nifty.
Lark:
I know we have the show,
but I’m just not up for practice tonight.
Sorry a thousand times.
Nifty:
Send your dad a hug.
I message Alec.
Lark:
See you at five.
I say to Dad, “Is there any more to the song?”
“That’s all she had for your seventeenth. Why, you want to finish it? Make it work?”
“Something like that. You know what? Would you be okay if I go out later?”
“I’m more than okay. But worried about you. That’s what teenagers are for, right? Being worried over.”
“I’m fine. And I’ll go back to school tomorrow. And don’t worry. I won’t be long with Alec.”
“I assumed you’d be going to band.”
“Maybe on Sunday. Not tonight.”
Evening is falling softly, creeping up on us. Alec sits on the teeter-totter, the other end pointing up. His eyes shine with something that makes my stomach quicken.
“I want you to come here,” he says, and I feel undressed, my shirt unbuttoned, my zipper undone.
I reach the teeter-totter, and he tugs me to him. His arms are strong, and he pulls me onto his lap, my legs astride him. Then he leans me back, so I balance along the teeter-totter. It’s the sort of manoeuvre that could easily end up with me falling, but I don’t, even as he lies on top of me. He’s breathing warmly into my neck, kissing me just at the base of my ear, and every pore is opening, ice trickling down my spine, as I help him tug at my jeans.
We both fall off the teeter-totter and land with a hard bump on the sand, and I start giggling. “Yeah, let’s make out in the play park,” I murmur.
“You can’t say we didn’t try.”
“At least there aren’t any kids around.” I shake sand from my long hair as I sit. “So, what’s up? I thought you actually wanted to talk this time. You had me worried . . .”
“I do. Then when you arrive, I get distracted—”
My phone interrupts.
A video this time. It’s of me sitting in the play park. I turn to look over my shoulder. Someone is filming me here? No. It’s almost the same, but everything’s different. In the video, I am lying on the teeter-totter, reading my phone. I have short red hair. And I’m not with Alec. Reid stands there. He leans over me. Suddenly, audio comes on. In the video, Reid says, “Uh, Lark, what’s wrong . . . I mean . . . everything okay?”
I stand up. “Who’s doing this?” I shout. A whisper of wind in the bushes meets my cry. I run over, but no one’s there.
“What’s going on?” Alec stands, looking confused.
“I don’t know. Someone sent me a video . . . Reid was here with me.” I walk back to him and hold up my phone.
Of course, the video is gone.
He nods. “Ah, Reid,” he says softly. “That’s what I wanted us to talk about. I mean, that’s why I asked you here.”
“You wanted to talk about Reid?” I’m still reeling from the video. “Why? What?”
“I saw you holding his hand. At the hospital.”
“Seriously?” It comes out more sharply than I intend. “Nothing’s going on with me and Reid.”
He sighs heavily. “Are you sure?”
“Are you jealous, Alec?” I try to tease.
He fixes his gaze on me. “I’m maybe a bit jealous. Not cool, I know.” His gaze is serious. Tender.
The feeling I have for him rises in me. That same tenderness. I say, “You trust me, right?”
“I do.” The air thickens between us.
“I can’t think straight right now. I got this letter from my mother with strange lyrics in it. Then I started thinking about stuff, you know, stuff that’s been going on with me. Then this video. I’m sorry if I’m acting . . . weird.”
“Is this weird like what happened when we went to see Annabelle that time?”
“Post-traumatic stress? Maybe. But Dad saw one of the messages. I’m not making them up. Though I know that sounds crazy.” I pout and hope it’s cute. “I’m sorry that you’re seeing a crazy person.”
“My kind of crazy,” he says. “Look, don’t worry. We’re fine. I’m fine. And you’re perfect. You’re just worn out with everything that’s been going on—the accident, your dad, the anniversary of your mom’s death. Hey, I’ve gotta take my truck over to my uncle to get some work done, but maybe I could come see you before you go to sleep?” He kisses me on the hand.
“Sure. That sounds good.”
I listen to Wyvern Lingo on the way home. Their voices calm me, make everything seem less spun out.
When I get home, I find Lucy sitting next to my dad on the front porch in the quiet evening. The smoke of a nearby bonfire drifts over.
“You’re not supposed to be out of bed,” I say to my dad. “You,” I say to Lucy, “should have sent him back upstairs.” I haven’t seen her for a few days, and I’d forgotten how nice it is to have her around.
Dad stands and stretches like a cat. “There’s nothing wrong with me that a little fresh air won’t fix. I actually feel much better than I did lying around in bed. Oh, and I ended up finding a couple of other pages with notes from the same song, I think.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m going to go for a walk. I’ve got a hankering for one of those sports drinks.”
“You should have told me. I’d have picked one up for you.”
“I did tell you.”
I check my phone. There’s a message from him there. “Sorry, I missed it.”
He starts down the path.
“Dad, let me get it for you.”
“Stop, Lark. Everything’s fine.”
Lucy passes me a bag of chocolate-covered raisins. “I bought you these.”
Mom used to love these chocolate-covered raisins. I’d forgotten, but we used to bring them to the hospital, and she’d put one in her mouth and let it dissolve on her tongue. Sometimes they made her throw up, but when she felt a bit better, she’d pop in another one.
“Thanks.”
I think about Alec in the park. The horrible video. Who could have sent it? Why? How? Oh God. I hope I wasn’t too crazy for him. But he said everything was fine, that I was perfect. I’m glad he’s coming by later.
“You can talk to me, you know?”
“Talk about what? Sorry, I was just thinking about Alec.”
“I bet you were.” There’s an edge to Lucy’s voice. “You know, Lark, I’m trying to find a higher meaning in all this, but if you won’t even talk to me, I can’t figure out what that higher meaning is.”
“What higher meaning?”
“I know you’re going through a lot.” The words spill from her. “I understand about your dad. For sure. But I’m getting the sense—something weird is going on with you. You and Alec, okay I get it, you’re in lurve. But it’s you. You’re different. Is something wrong? I just want you to talk to me.”
I stand and rub my head. “I don’t really know what you mean by different.”
She stands too. “Neither do I. It’s just this sensation I’m getting—a vibe.”
Alec:
You okay? I can’t make it tonight—sorry.
Gonna be here a while with my truck.
Lark:
Never mind.
Xxx
I hold up my phone to show her. “Do you think Alec’s avoiding me or genuinely having to deal with his truck? I was a bit, er, full-on at the park.”
She doesn’t look at the screen. “Lark—we’re in the middle of talking . . .”
“Talking?”
“About what’s wrong with you.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m just dealing with stuff with my dad, with some stress since the accident at the lake.” I watch her purse her lips, which means she’s trying to keep herself calm. “This is not about you, Lucy.”
“I’m not trying to make it about me.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Will you listen to yourself, Lark? I try to be the best friend to you that I can, but you don’t make it easy.”
“Just back off, Lucy.”
Her face widens in surprise.
Dad appears at the end of the path drinking a sports drink. “You girls okay?”
“Fine,” I say, thrumming with irritation.
Dad walks past us into the house. “Don’t you have homework, kids? When I was young, I had so much homework.”
“I’ve done it,” Lucy replies. She picks up her bag and checks her phone. “But I do have to get to D’Lish. I’m going to be late.”
I check mine too.
Alec:
See you tomorrow, babe.
Hope my crazy girl’s okay xxxx
“Homework. You’re right, Dad.” I don’t even bother saying goodbye to Lucy. I can’t believe she’s giving me a hard time, with everything else that’s been going on.
I follow Dad inside, where I hurry up to my room. There I find the song notes from Mom that he’s put on my bed. So, forgetting Lucy and her issues, I begin to read.