Hands

If I'd known it was the last time I was ever gonna see her alive, I probably would have fought a lot harder to stay awake. I tried my best, resting my chin on my forearm and just staring at her as the IV drip, drip, dripped beside me. She was my mom and she was sick. She was already sleeping. Her face looked pale and bony and her eyes were sunken, as though she were already practicing being a skeleton. I held her hand. It was cold.

"I want you to take your sister for ice cream tomorrow, okay?" she told me before she fell asleep. "She's little, and she doesn't understand what's going on. Get some money from Baxter and take her for ice cream."

"I will, mom."

"Are you okay? You look upset. Don't look so sad, Ollie. I'm not going anywhere."

"You don't look like yourself."

"No?" and she tried to smile.

"Mrs. Wimmer says you gotta come to my school. She wants to talk to you about my report card. All the other's kids' parents went already."

"I like Mrs. Wimmer. Do you? She's nice."

I didn't answer. I hated it when she talked with her eyes closed. I hated how she trailed off.

"Ollie?" mom said, still not opening her eyes. Her voice was a fading whisper.

"What, mom?"

"I want you to be brave. I want you to be strong. Take care of Sissie."

"I'll take her for ice cream tomorrow." She was talking about forever though. I thought she was talking about tomorrow. She went to sleep and didn't wake up again. I just sat there, trying to stay awake. Trying to be with her, holding her hand, and giving her little kisses.

I fell asleep though, and I didn't hear the machine start to beep when her heart stopped. I think, maybe if I'd heard it, I could have called the nurse or something and they could have saved her. But I fell asleep.

*

Baxter Douglas was some kind of trucker I think. We don't even know what he was when mom met him. He was just all of the sudden there, on our couch everyday, flipping the channel from the show we were watching without even asking. After mom died, he was still there, on our couch every day, and mom's life insurance was sitting in brown bottle on his stomach, being slowly sipped away.

Thing's went crazy very quickly after mom was gone. Sissie and I soon discovered that the whole nice guy thing had been all an act. Now we were walking around like little robots, not looking up above his waist, always doing what we were told, keeping quiet, and hiding in our rooms. The years passed and nothing changed. We just became more afraid, because after a while being good wasn't enough any more.

I was sitting in my room doing my homework and Sissie was lying on the floor colouring with crayons she brought home from school. She was quietly humming to herself and I was trying my best to concentrate on my math, but we could hear the stomping. Sissie kept looking up at the door and her humming got a little louder. She kept swallowing nervously, and blowing out long sighs that had a little too much shake in them.

Stomp, stomp, stomp, back and forth across the kitchen and living room. He was looking for something. Something we'd missed. I tried my best to get as much homework as I could done before the door burst open. Sissie got up off the floor and lay on my bed. The stomping vibrated in the floor. I lifted my foot up onto the bed as well. Sissie's humming got louder.

"Shhh," I said.

"I did everything I was supposed to, Ollie. Honest."

"It doesn't matter."

Her sigh turned to a whimper as the footsteps came down the hall. Stomp, stomp, stomp, faster now, with a purpose.

The door burst open upon our little performance of two normal kids quietly minding their own business. We both looked up, putting on the proper scared face. Not scared, but sort of concerned about what might be troubling him.

"Where's the god damn bottle opener?"

"The... the-"

So it was about the bottle open this time. Okay. This was a new one.

I looked at Sissie. She looked at me and shook her head.

"I put it in the drawer when I put the dishes away."

I got up, to go past him, to show him that it was in the same place it always is. He shoved me. I stumbled forward and fell to my knees, burning them on the hallway carpet as I skidded to a stop.

"Get up! Find it!"

He stomped along behind me down the hall. I moved fast, expecting a kick. The bottle opener was in the drawer, right where I put it, right where it always was.

"Here! Here it is."

He snatched it from my hand and smacked me hard across the side of the head. A bright flash zipped through my head and I saw stars, the side of my face got hot. My ear rang for a moment and I was dizzy.

"From now on I want this thing on top of the TV. Nowhere else. I don't want to have to look for it. Do you understand me?"

I nodded, still dizzy. He smacked me hard again, the other way. I think I cried out a bit, but I can't remember.

"I said, do you understand me!?"

"I do. I do. Yes! I do."

He raised his hand again and I flinched, but he was only putting the bottle opener in his pocket.

"Yes, yes! I do. I do," he mocked me in a whiny little voice that sounded nothing like me. "You do what?"

"I understand you."

He smacked me under the chin, knocking my teeth together and forcing my head up. I'd forgotten to grit my teeth. I usually never forget that.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

I didn't want to look at him. I would have rather pulled out my own eyes. I looked up into his face though and waited for him to continue, trying my best to keep the scared/concerned look on my own face, and nothing else.

"You understand what?"

"I- The bottle opener, goes on the TV."

Yes, that was it. That was the big issue today. Okay. I got it. Are we done now? Can I go?

He studied me for a moment, sneering at me like I was a criminal he was forced to guard.

Scared/concerned. Scared/concerned.

"You think I'm a prick, don't you?"

Oh no. The trap! There was no right way to answer that question.

"No." I said, taking the obvious path.

"No? You're a fucking liar!"

There was no right answer. All there was was a big boom, and I found myself on the floor, waiting for my vision to turn back on. I could feel the cold linoleum, but I couldn't see for a moment. Everything was just a dark blur.

"After all I do for you, you can't even be honest with me! Admit it! You think I'm a prick!"

Another boom, this time in the side of the stomach, with a foot. I slammed against the stove.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

He was worse than a prick. He was a devil in human flesh, but I would never say so.

"Get out of here, you little cocksucker! Go on!"

I scrambled to my feet and was back at my bedroom door before the echo of his yell had even faded. He was coming after me though, running. What had I done? He'd told me to leave, didn't he?

He caught up to me in my door way and kicked me in the back. I slammed into the dresser and the whole thing fell forward, almost crushing Sissie. She screamed. He grabbed me up off the floor and threw me right over the dresser onto my bed. The bed broke and hit the floor with a crash that shook the house, and then he flipped the dresser back up against the wall. The drawers were all over the floor and my clothes were everywhere. He stomped right through the bottom of one of them as he came forward again. Sissie covered her face and I had just a moment to glance over at her before I was yanked up off the bed. My shirt ripped, but held on enough for me to be pulled eyeball-to-eyeball with him.

"If you ever look at me that way again, I'll fucking kill you! Do you understand me?"

What look!? I was looking at the floor the whole time!

I nodded, feeling like this was the end of everything. I would finally be killed. I didn't want to die.

"Don't you ever look at me that way again!"

He threw me back down onto the mattress and the headboard tipped forward, knocking me in the head.

"I understand. I understand."

I didn't though. I hadn't looked at him at all.

He stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

"Christie, I want you in bed in five minutes or you're gonna get it too."

"Yes," her little voice croaked.

I sat there holding my head, holding my side, squeezing my eyes shut and just breathing, deep and hard, trying to force my nerves to calm. I was shaking and I couldn't stop myself. I wanted to cry, but I couldn't. The Devil hates wimps.

"Come on, Ollie. Let's clean this up, okay? Please?"

Sissie was allowed to cry. She was a girl. Her voice was a terrified whisper; her sentences were punctuated by tortured squeaks, like a frightened dog.

"Come on, Ollie, in case he comes back again. Please!"

I got up and began cleaning. I put the clothes back in their drawers, folding them all, and sorting them neatly. Then Sissie helped me slide them back into the dresser.

"The bottle opener goes on the TV from now on. Don't forget."

"Okay, Ollie. I won't."

We had gotten the dresser put back together and had begun fixing the bed again when the stomps returned, thumping down the hallway. Sissie jumped when the door burst open, quickly wiping away her tears.

"What the hell are you doing, girl!?"

"I had to help Ollie fix his bed. He can't do it by himself."

"I didn't ask you to help him fix his bed!" (slap!) "I told you to get in your own room!" (smack!) "Now!"

She was already crying, and her little body was being knocked back and forth like a doll. I watched, still trying to socket the frame of my bed back into the headboard.

"Ollie needs help! His bed is broken!"

She didn't want to leave me. That was the real reason she was still here. I've fixed this bed by myself dozens of times. I could do it in the dark, and she knew it. She didn't want to leave me. She was scared. She was just a little girl.

I saw him raise a fist above her and I screamed.

"Fuckin' PRICK!"

He actually jumped a bit, like a gun had gone off behind him. But then his eyes flared over at me, and he lunged at me instead, dropping her like a rag doll on the floor. The punches rained down on me like a storm, and then the choking until I kicked and struggled beneath him, desperate for air, and the cutting insults about me being useless, weak, no-good-for-nothing.

"What good do you serve in this world? Why are you even alive? Who would care if you died right now? I could kill you right now and no one would even care!"

Then more punches. Then slaps across the face. After a while I couldn't even tell one from another. It was just one solid wall of pain, but Sissie was okay. He would take it all out on me and leave her alone. Thank you, God.

*

I woke up in the dark, on my mattress. There was a tapping at my wall, a light gentle tapping. I tried to get up, but I hurt all over. All I could do was lay there, hardly breathing.

"Hold on!" I said, but the tapping continued.

I got myself up off the slanted mattress and finished fixing my bed, slowly, painfully, replacing the boards into the sockets in total darkness, and dropping the mattress back into the frame again. Then I lay down on it and squirmed up against the wall.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

"Ollie? Are you there?"

Her little voice was weak and cracking. She'd been crying.

"I'm here. Hold on."

I got the wood panelling of the bedroom wall moved aside and I found her little hand reaching out in the space between our rooms. She grabbed my hand and held it tightly.

"It's okay. Don't cry, Sissie. I'm here."

"Are you okay, Ollie?"

"I'm okay. Did he hurt you?"

"No. He just shoved me into my bedroom and slammed the door."

"What time is it?"

"I don't know."

Her hand was damp. Tears, I guess. How long had she been knocking? How long has she been crying alone in the dark, wondering if I was even alive?

"When can we go somewhere, Ollie? When can we just run away?"

"I've got $112 already, Sis. Maybe in a couple weeks we can do it. We only need $73 more dollars and we can get a bus to Calgary and go find dad."

"What if we can't find him?"

"Then at least we'll be far away from here."

"He'll come look for us. He said he would. He can't keep mom's money unless we're living here with him."

"I know, but Calgary is a big city. He'll never find us. Beside he'll look all over Winnipeg first."

"Do you think we'll find dad, Ollie?"

"He works at a bank. We can just go down there and ask for him. If he's not working there anymore we can ask them if they know where he is."

"What if we find him and he doesn't want us?"

"Then I'll just get a job somewhere. I'll take care of us."

She nodded. I couldn't see her but I knew she did. I felt it in her hand. Then she started crying again.

"Ollie, I miss momma."

"I miss her too. Don't worry. She's watching over us. She won't let us down."

"Can you do the prayer thing, Ollie?"

"I don't want to right now, Sis. Come on."

"Please, Ollie. It makes me feel better."

I sighed.

"Okay, fine."

"Thanks, Ollie."

I said the little incantation without much emotion. I'd said it hundreds of times and the words had lost all meaning for me. I wasn't eleven anymore. But Sissie still hung on to her beliefs, so I did it for her.

"Momma, up in heaven, watching over Sissie and me, please take care of us and keep us safe. Please ask God for extra strong angels to protect us. Make sure we have enough to eat and are safe and sound. Thank you, Momma. Love, Ollie and Sissie."

"You forgot the last part.”

I knew I had. I'd left it out on purpose. My aches and pains made it feel more like empty mockery, meaningless words. I didn't reply.

"Please, Ollie. That's the most important part."

I sighed again.

"... and please tell God to make the devil go away."

"Yeah. I hope he dies."

"Don't say that!" I said, though I agreed with her.

"Why not? It's true!"

"God doesn't like that kind of talk. He won't answer your prayers if you talk like that."

"Sorry." But she wasn't talking to me.

I guess she fell asleep after that. Her grip weakened and then faded away all together until I was just holding her limp hand.

"I love you, Sissie." I gave her hand a kiss. "Only $73 dollars more."

I couldn't sleep after that though. I was sore all over and had trouble breathing. Every time I inhaled my ribs hurt. I had a headache and my neck was sore. The rest of me was just sort of numb. I almost felt like I was floating above my bed, sort of twisted around at the waist.

Eventually I pushed Sissie's hand back into her room and slid her wood panelling shut, and then mine. I lay there thinking about everything that had happened, trying to figure out what I could have done to avoid it all. I couldn't think of anything though. We'd done everything right. We always did. Or maybe we didn't do anything right. Maybe we never did. Maybe it didn't make a difference either way. Maybe it would be better if we gave him excuses to freak out on us. At least then it wouldn't be so confusing, so unfair.

The hits always fell harder, and with less restraint though, when he had a reason to do it. That was not an option.

The last thing I remember before falling asleep that night is thinking that if I hadn't fallen asleep in the hospital room five years ago, none of this would have happened.

*

School was bad too, when I couldn't find a hiding place at lunch. I sometimes sat in a stairwell, doing my homework, or reading. I sometimes wandered out into the field and sat by the fence. They'd always find me though.

There was this guy Friesen and his friends. They used to strut around the school like they owned the place, like we had all come there that day for their benefit. They usually always found me, Friesen Alexander and his gang. Sometimes I think they actually looked for me. They caught up to me that day while I was on my way to the washroom. I felt myself pushed into the concrete wall and Friesen got up in my face about me walking down his hallway. It was the usual bullshit.

"Look at him. He's scared!" his friend Daryl said.

"Of course he's scared. He's not stupid. He knows when someone's tougher than him."

"Alright. I get it. You're the king of the fuckin' school. Can I go now?"

The truth was, I wasn't scared. I could mop the floor with this guy and every single one of his buddies. I knew I could.

"I don't think I like your attitude, Octopus boy!"

Octopus boy. Clever. Just because my name starts with O I guess.

"I don't really care if you like my attitude, Friesen. I just want to go read my book."

"What? This?" He yanked it out from under my arm. "Capturing the Rye?"

For Christ's sake, the kid couldn't even read.

He threw the book across the hallway. It banged off of a locker and hit the floor. I moved to go pick it up, but he slammed me back against the wall.

"I didn't say you could leave yet, punk."

I wanted to just loose it right then. I honestly wanted to give up and beat the little bastard into a bleeding, twitching pulp, but I held back, standing there, gnashing my teeth and staring up at the ceiling.

"What? Are you gonna cry, Oliver? Gonna cry for your mommy?"

"No. I was just trying to think of a reason not to kick your fucking ass, you and all your buddies here, right through that glass door over there."

"Excuse me?" he said, with phoney shock, and a how-dare-I chuckle.

"You heard me."

"So do it then, Octopus boy. Come on. Let's go. Right now."

I looked him in the eye and thought about what he'd look like, crying like a baby as I reduced his pretty little face to a sopping pulp. Then I thought about the meeting I'd had with the principle the last time I'd gotten in a fight. He called me into his office and he had a cop standing next to him. He told me he knew I had a history of violence and if I wasn't careful he'd make sure I wound up locked up in juvy.

I didn't have a history of violence. It just seemed that way because of all the times Sissie had gone to school with bruises all over her. I'd told her to tell them I did it if they asked. God only knows what would happen to us if the cops came asking the Devil if he'd done it. The one time I had threatened to go to the police he held me down and choked me until I blacked out, snarling at me that if he ever even so much as saw a cop at our house he wouldn't be taken alive, and he'd make sure we died with him. Suffice it to say we never even thought of asking for help, and lied our asses off to protect him.

It meant that the school saw me as a violent thug however, and didn't think too much of me. Teachers frowned at me as I walked by. Rumours flew. I wouldn't be there for long though. All I needed was $73.

This was part of the reason I protected Sissie from his onslaughts. If she showed up at school with bruises, I'd be blamed and things would get even worse at school. They'd find any excuse to haul me off to juvy and then who would take care of Sissie? Who's hand would she hold at night to help her fall asleep? Who would do the prayer thing for her?

It was also the reason I stood there and let Friesen punch me, right in the ribs where I was already sore.

"He's a coward," he said to his buddies. He hit me again. I gnashed my teeth and took it, with a grunt. I closed my eyes and pictured Sissie's little hand in mine in the darkness of the night. I pictured her reaching out and not finding me there, and I held my temper.

"It's no fun when someone hits back, is it, Octopus? I know you normally beat up helpless little girls, but we ain't no little girls."

A crowd was beginning to gather.

"I didn't do anything to you, Friesen. I just want to leave."

But he hit me again. This time right in the most tender spot on my side, right where the Devil had kicked me on the kitchen floor. I reacted without thinking, shoving him hard away from me. He hit the ground, knocking two of his buddies aside as he went, and slid a couple feet across the polished floor, coming to a stop with the squeak of his running shoe. That was the only sound in the entire hallway. All else was quiet.

"I just want to leave."

Friesen got up slowly, looked around at the crowd, flushed hot with embarrassment, and then lunged at me.

"No!"

The crowd gathered more quickly. Friesen and all four of his friends swarmed me, punching, shoving, kicking at me, and tearing at my clothes, yanking my hair and knocking me into the wall. I could have taken every one of them down, but I just covered my face, ducked, and let the beatings fall.

"Fuckin' kill him!"

"Get him!"

"He deserves it!"

People cheered them on, and I was curled up in a ball with all five of them kicking me and stomping on me.

"You boys there! What's going on!?" a teacher called out from down the hall.

The beating stopped all at once and they were suddenly just standing around talking to each other.

"Go on, get to your classes!"

"Fuckin' coward!" someone hissed at me, and then they were gone.

"He shoved me first! You all saw it right!?"

"Fuckin' rights, man!"

That's all I heard. I slowly got up again, and looked around for my book. Someone had kicked it all the way down the hall.

I sat in class later, aching, shivering, and exhausted inside and out. I just wanted to leave. I wanted to just take off out the door and get far away from school, from everything. I couldn't though. It would give the Devil a reason to beat on me even more. So I was stuck. I couldn't run away. I couldn't stay. I was a prisoner, tortured in an aching body with nothing to hope for but more beatings when I got home. I began to feel like everything would be better if I just died. Why couldn't I just die? It would be so simple. So final. This world didn't want me anyway. Nobody liked me. I should just die.

Sissie would have no hand to hold though.

*

I woke with a start on the last day of that ugly miserable life. He kicked the door in and threw me out of bed.

"Get out there and get your newspapers delivered, boy!"

I barely even had time to give my head a shake and I was already getting dressed.

"If you see your sister, tell her to get her ass home and make her bed."

Then he was gone.

I made Sissie's bed for her and hurried out to find she had already begun my route. She was pulling the wagon down the sidewalk with all her strength and dropping folded papers into mailboxes. She'd already done an entire block.

"What are you doing, Sissie? You trying to kill yourself!?"

"I know all your houses, Ollie. I do this with you every day."

"Why didn't you wake me up?"

"I just wanted to try it on my own."

"Did you get every single house?"

"Yup. Both sides of the street too. I already done that side."

I looked at her, puzzled, and then smiled.

"That freakin' wagon weighs more than you do," I said.

"It's lighter now."

She was a tough little kid. Just like me.

We delivered the papers and had a nice little talk about what Calgary would be like. We of course took our time heading home again when we were done, and it was almost 11:00 by the time we got there.

Baxter was sitting on the couch watching TV. We went to go straight to my room but he stopped us.

"Take your sister out for some ice cream. There's $4 on the counter."

We looked at each other, stunned. Every once in a while, he was almost human, for no apparent reason. We could never figure it out, but we didn't complain. $4 was $4.

We walked down to the ice cream store and sat on the bench watching the other kids eat their cones. Sissie didn't say much, but I could tell she really wanted some ice cream. She liked strawberry. It reminded her of mom. She looked up at me with pleading in her eyes, but I smiled and shook my head.

"Only $69 more dollars to go."

She smiled back and reached out to hold my hand.

*

The Devil was sitting on the couch when we got back, and he had a jar with $112 in it. Sissie's grip tightened on my hand. I went white as a sheet and almost felt like I would die right there.

"Would you mind explaining this to me, Oliver?" The volcano of rage inside him was hidden behind a calm-sounding voice.

I didn't answer. It was all over. We wouldn't be going to Calgary after all. Everything we'd hoped for the past 18 months suddenly vanished.

"I let you take that paper route so you could contribute to this family, and now I find out you've been stealing from me?"

"I didn't steal anything. Those are tips I got. I was gonna buy Sissie something for her birthday."

He calmly rotated the lid off the jar, spilled the money into his lap and suddenly the vessel of our hope was a weapon in his hand.

"I got a phone call from a Mr. Worthing or something. He says he never got his paper this morning, and he was mad, he says, cause he always gives you kids a tip. Always. Didn't I give you specific instructions that every penny you earn is to be given to me for the family?"

I looked over at the empty beer bottles on the end table beside him, and then I quickly looked away. He saw my eyes move there though and suddenly the jar was sailing at my head. I ducked, covering Sissie, expecting it, and the glass exploded against the wall behind our heads.

"I don't ask for much. All I expect is for you two to fucking LISTEN!"

He got up and stomped forward as he said this. We braced ourselves. A kick hit me, knocking both of us against the wall and down onto the shattered glass. I got some in my hand, but that was it. Sissie didn't get cut at all. We sat there, cowering, covering our heads, waiting for the next blow. Sissie was sobbing already. No more Calgary. No more escape.

No more blows fell though.

"I'm going shopping. Your rooms better be cleaned up when I get back or you're both dead. I am not kidding in the slightest."

We got up and ran.

"And clean up this glass, every single last tiny piece!"

Both our rooms were completely ransacked. Every drawer was emptied, every box was over turned. The closets were open and our clothes were ripped down. The mattresses were even sliced open and their stuffing was thrown everywhere. The only thing that was in any sort of order was the wood panelling in the corner of the rooms by our beds. That's where the jar had been hidden. It was now nailed shut on both sides.

Sissie bawled as hard as I'd ever seen her cry, even harder than when our mom had died. She'd only been four years old back then, and she didn't understand what was going on. She was nine now, and she went through her room trying to put everything back the way it was but not even knowing where to begin. Her teddy bears were ripped open and her picture of our mom was torn from its frame. I stood in her doorway, watching. Numbed by the chaos, spinning inside my head like a ship in a storm. I found myself whimpering and moaning and I couldn't stop myself. I was growling strangely too. I didn't know why. It was scaring Sissie.

"Go clean your room. Please. He'll kill you."

She honestly believed it, and so did I.

"It doesn't matter anymore. Nothing matters."

I turned and walked out of the house. She came running after me, still crying, calling out my name. I ignored her and kept on walking. I went across the empty field by our house, and kept going. I didn't even know where I was going. I was just going. Sissie caught up with me, demanding to know where I was going, pleading with me to come back and clean.

"It doesn't matter, Sissie! Don't you get it? Haven't you figured that out? No matter what we do, it's always the same. And now we don't even have the money anymore. We might as well just let him kill us. At least he'll wind up in jail, or dead too."

"I don't wanna die!"

"We're already dead Sissie. Haven't you figured that out? Being alive means you have a life. It means you're happy. It means you have hope and peace, and a good place to live. We're not even alive. We're dead already. Our bodies just haven't figured that out yet."

Sissie didn't understand. She looked down at her hands. I walked over to a tree and sat down, put my forehead on my forearms crossed over my knees and just shut my eyes for the longest time.

"Let's just run away, Ollie. We don't need any money. We can-"

"What are we gonna do? Sleep under a bridge? If the police found us we'd be split up. I'd go to some youth centre and you'd be sent to some foster home. There's nothing we can do. We're just punching bags. That's all we'll ever be."

"Ollie, let's pray then. God can help us."

"Sissie, there is no fucking God. We've been praying for years. If there was a God, he would have killed that Devil a long time ago."

"Don't say that! If you say that, he won't answer our prayers!"

"He's not gonna answer our prayers anyway! He doesn't care. He does not fucking care!"

I said this up at the sky, and I honestly believed it.

Sissie walked over to me and sat down. She didn't know what else to do. Her world had suddenly become smaller, colder, deader, more hopeless. She shut her eyes and hugged by arm.

"What are we gonna do?"

I didn't answer. I didn't know.

We stayed out there all day, in that little copse of trees by the field near our house. We just sat there, not talking, not going anywhere, thinking. Sissie fell asleep for a while, and I let her lie across my lap. I thought all day long about what we were gonna do until the thought of going home was even scarier than staying out there in the woods all night. When we got home he would murder us both, or at least make us wish we were dead. So we just stayed out in the empty field.

We got hungry though. I hadn't eaten all day, and neither had Sissie. I began to think about sneaking back home and stealing some food for us. He would be out, drinking away our $112 dollars, or maybe even out looking for us. I could just sneak in, grab some food, and maybe even some clothes. Then maybe we could hitchhike to Calgary. Or just freakin' walk there.

We had to get some food though, first of all. I couldn't let Sissie go hungry.

It began to rain too and that settled it. The April sky darkened the already fading daylight even more, and it was almost like night already — dark enough for me to sneak in and out again.

"I'm gonna try to sneak back to the house, just to see if he's there. If he's not, I'm gonna try and get some food for us. Wait by this tree and don't go anywhere."

"What if he catches you? What if he kills you?" She was panicked at the thought of it. There was a distant flash of lightning in the sky, and a low rumble of thunder.

"I have to get your rain coat too. You can't stay out here in the rain in a T-shirt. Just stay here. Don't come home unless I say so."

She grabbed my hand and held it tight. She looked like she'd grown a few years older, just from the fear in her eyes. She hardly even looked like herself. It was almost dark now, and the flashes of lightning in the sky were making her skin look pale and her eyes look sunken, as though she were already practicing being a skeleton.

"Don't look so scared, Sissie. I'm not going anywhere."

I turned and headed back for our street. The last thing I heard from her was prayer in a tiny voice.

"Please, God. Take care of Ollie... make the devil go away. Please, God. Take care of Ollie... make the Devil go away."

*

I didn't even make it to our house. He was out looking for us, pacing up and down the street in the pouring rain like a hungry beast. I waited for him to head the other way up the street and tried to run for the house. He spotted me though.

"Oliver!"

I stopped on the spot. Everything inside me wanted to run for it, but all courage left me all at once. There was nowhere to run to. My last thought was that I should just let him kill me there in the street, right in front of everyone. He came toward me, crossing the street, his hands clenched in wrathful fists; he was almost frothing at the mouth, soaking wet and seething with rage.

I stood there, expecting to die in the next few moments, but not even really caring. Maybe this was how God would take care of us, up in heaven with mom.

The truck hit him like a great fist, smacking him like a rag doll about thirty feet. I watched him fly through the air, the great terror that had had me fearing for my very life all these years. He seemed so small and frail, just a normal man, less than a man even, whose only real power was that he was bigger than me. He hit a parked car, folded in half at the waist, and rolled over onto the ground, not moving. The truck swerved. Its drunk driver looked back to see what he'd hit, hoping perhaps that it was only a dog or something. His wheels jumped the curb and stopped hard against a light post. I think a lot of people would have come running at the sound of the crash except that nobody heard it. There was a boom of thunder from the sky right when it hit. He hadn't even slammed on his brakes.

I stood there in a daze. Rain fell on the scene. Nothing else moved. The truck's left turn signal light had come on in the crash and was blinking in the darkness, casting an orange glow, off and on, over the wet pavement. Its engine idled quietly, but the driver was apparently unconscious. Then another flash of lightning lit up the street like daylight for a moment, and I saw the Devil laying there against the tire of the car he'd hit. I saw his arm move a bit.

I walked up to him slowly, stopping first to look around for any other people who might be around. There was nobody. No cars, no pedestrians. I walked up and stood over him, looking down. His eyes were open. He was looking at me. He was still breathing. Thunder crackled above, long and loud like a drum roll. He opened his mouth and spoke.

"Go on. Call an ambulance, boy. Quick. I'm hurt bad."

I could smell the booze on his breath, strong and thick, even in the pouring rain. I noticed that the light from the truck's turn signal was reflecting in his face too. On. Off. On. Off. He looked up at me and I saw a hint of anger in his eyes that I hadn't turned and ran the moment he spoke. Then there was another flash of lightning and I saw a mess of gore on the side of his chest. One of his ribs was poking out of his skin, a jagged white shard surrounded by red. Blood was pouring out of him and into him at the same time, slowly filling his lungs. Then it was dark again, and all I could see was the signal light from the truck lighting his face.

"Go on, boy. I'm gonna die if I don't get help. Hurry!"

Still I didn't move. I just stared down at him. He got angry again and actually tried to get up. He groaned in agony, but I think he might have actually gotten up, maybe even limped over to the nearest house and gotten some help.

"No," I said, and pushed him back down with my foot on his shoulder. His head hit the pavement with a dull thud. The thud was answered by thunder, thunder so loud and so near that he flinched a bit.

"What are you doing? Go get help! I'm gonna die."

"I hope God has a special place in hell for you then."

"I'll kill you, boy. I'll fucking kill you, I swear!" He spoke with his eyes closed and his voice trailed off. I rejoiced inside.

He tried to get up again, but I pushed him back down, this time with my fingertips on his forehead.

"Tell me something. What good do you serve in this world? Why are you even alive? Who would care if you died right now?"

He whimpered.

"Please… Please get help."

He never said sorry though. He never said sorry for nearly destroying our lives, our minds, our souls, Sissie and I. He never asked for forgiveness, and when he died a few minutes later, drowning in his own blood, I'm sure he went straight down to hell, falling into the darkness below as though the ground beneath him had disappeared. His breathing stopped, his hand dropped off of his hip and that was the last of him.

I turned and walked away. I went to get Sissie who was still by herself out in the thunderstorm by the tree. She ran to me when she saw me coming and I hugged her.

"Was he home? Did you get any food?"

"He's gone, Sissie. The Devil's gone."

She looked at me, confused.

"Where, Ollie?"

"Wherever dead people go when they die. Not to heaven though. Not him."

"What happened?"

"A truck hit him. He was crossing the street to come get me and a truck hit him, smacked him right over three cars. He's dead now. We better go."

"He's dead?"

I could hardly believe it myself, and I'd seen it with my own eyes. I took her hand and we headed for home.

We saw the scene as we went by again. An ambulance was pulling up. A guy in a housecoat was talking on a cell phone, pointing up the street as though the person on the phone could see him. A few more people were standing around with their hands on their mouths. Lights were coming on; people were coming out of their houses. The truck that had hit him was gone.

Then Sissie saw him. He was being lifted onto a stretcher. He slipped a bit and sagged downward, limp and lifeless. They got him into the ambulance, but didn't drive away. A police car arrived and they talked to the paramedics. Sissie and I didn't even stop; we just kept on walking, crossed the street and went into our house.

It was dark. We went to our rooms and quietly started cleaning, as though he might come home at any minute and raise hell about the mess he himself had made.

We were still cleaning half and hour later when the police came to our door.

"There was an accident out in the street about a block up. We just wanted to know if you kids saw anything."

"No. We were just cleaning our bedrooms. What happened?"

"A man was killed in a hit and run, a man named Baxter Douglas. We can't seem to find any next of kin for him. Do you kids know him? Is he from the neighbourhood?"

"No. Our mom's gonna be home in a while. Maybe she knows."

The Devil had made me a great liar. The police officer gave him his card and asked me to tell my mom to call him if she knew anything about the guy. Then he left.

Our rooms were put back in pretty decent order and we got into our beds. The wood panelling was nailed shut though, so I called Sissie to my room and she snuggled up with me in my bed, holding my hand.

We slept in restless peace for the rest of our lives.

Heart Rock

Chapter 1

One of the very first questions Ian asked himself the first night he was out there alone in the woods, in the dark, cold, afraid, and weak with hunger, was why had he even come on this journey? He asked the question because he honestly didn't even have an answer, and he thought that perhaps he should have had an answer before he even began, but he didn't.

"The ascent to Heart Rock is no easy road," his grandmother had told him. "Many young men and women have died on their way up there, never to be seen again."

"Died?" he had asked her.

"Yes, and they were never seen or heard from again. My cousin went up there, when I was about ten years old or so, and I never saw him again."

Ian swallowed hard, and his grandmother nodded affirmatively at him, taking a sip from her cup of tea.

"Sometimes never seeing someone again is a good thing though," she added.

He prompted her to clarify the remark with a cock of his eyebrows, but she simply got up and shuffled over to spill some seed into her bird's feeding dish. He gathered that perhaps her cousin was simply not a very nice guy, perhaps someone the world was better off without.

"Has anyone ever come down alive from there?" Ian asked.

"Of course, silly. If they hadn't there would be no one to tell the tale."

"Did they get their wish?"

"Of course," she said. "Everyone who ever came down from there found the one person they truly loved waiting for them with open arms."

"It sounds like a lot of hocus pocus baloney to me," Ian said.

"It is a lot of hocus pocus and baloney, looking at it from down here. So will everything be until you find the courage to seek out the truth for yourself."

"I don't believe in any of that stuff, grandmother. You know me."

"The question is, is your unbelief based on facts, or on fear that maybe there's more to life than you currently understand?"

"Why would I be afraid of something I don't understand?"

"Because you feel safest believing you already know everything there is to know."

"I do know everything there is to know. It's not a question of belief. I see things with my eyes, hear things with my ears, and feel things with my body - this is everything there is to know. Nothing else matters."

"You only feel that way because deep down inside you're afraid there might be something bigger than you. Isn't that right?"

"Bigger like what? The worst thing that can happen is death, and that's something that's easy to understand, so what's to be afraid of?"

Grandmother shook her head. "You should go up to Heart Rock, Ian. Then you'll realize that there are so many things you don't understand, and you'll find that that's perfectly okay."

That conversation with his grandmother had taken place two years ago. He thought about it a lot since then, but he had never completely grasped what she had been trying to tell him. She died a few months later, leaving him only the memory of their talk about Heart Rock, and her little yellow-grey canary Twitsie.

It was about a year after that that Twitsie had escaped from his cage and flown out his bedroom window never to be seen again. The last Ian saw of him he had been flying east, toward Heart Rock.

That was when he first began seriously considering journeying up to heart rock. Watching the pretty little bird fly away had troubled him deeply - particularly because he had been feeling guilty about neglecting the poor thing for quiet a while, leaving it for days without fresh food or water. It's a wonder the poor thing had even survived as long as it had. He was a busy guy though, with school and friends and such. Perhaps too busy to have another creature placed in his care.

Watching the little thing fly away though really shook him up. Mostly he began to wonder if the things he thought were so important really were as important as he thought they were. Then he began to miss his grandmother.

A few weeks later, on the third day of his summer vacation, at the age of fifteen, he set out for Heart Rock.

The trouble was, he didn't really have any particular girl in mind to name when he set his feet upon heart rock, and now, in the middle of his first night alone in the woods, he began to wonder if he should even bother going on.

He was stubborn and proud though. That's what had started him on this journey in the first place, and that's what had kept him going all day, through the thicket, and bugs, and twisted ankles, and skinned knees, and salty sweat pouring into his eyes as he stumbled on through the woods toward the base of Mount Sol. He wanted to get there just to prove that he could. It wasn't even about the romance. To him, having a girl fall in love with him would be more of a burden than anything. Girls were so needy, and he could barely even take care of a bird, never mind another human being.

As he curled up in the hollow of a big dark tree late that night, in the pitch black of the woods, he decided that he had probably really come out here because his grandmother had said he should - to understand what else there was to this universe beyond what he could see, hear, and feel. He owed her at least that much, having lost her little bird.

He had come a good twenty miles or so that first day. From the back fence of Emmery Park, to the base of the mountain was twenty-five miles according to the map he had checked. He had crossed the stream his grandmother had told him would be there about five minutes into the journey, and he had found the Love Stone about ten minutes later. When journeying to Heart Rock it was said that you were supposed to lay your hands on the Love Stone, stating your name, and announcing your intention to journey to Heart Rock. Then you began by simply heading east.

Ian felt really stupid doing this of course, and he actually looked around for a couple of minutes to be sure that no one was around. Then he slowly walked up and looked at the Love Stone for a long time. It was tall, almost an elongated egg-shaped thing, with a reddish-grey tint to it. Somewhere near the top there were a couple of bulges that almost looked like breasts pointed up at the sky. These were what his grandmother had told him to look for.

He sat down next to it and ate his last meal. When journeying to Heart Rock it was said that you must take not food or water with you, and you can not eat or drink until your journey is complete. This is probably what killed half the people who attempted this trek, Ian thought, but he decided to honor the rules, as silly as they seemed. If he was going to prove that he could really do this, he would really do it, without shortcuts or cheating.

He sat for a long time though after he was done eating, feeling so stupid about making the announcement at the Love Stone. Even though no one was around to see or hear him, he was still embarrassed to be talking to someone who wasn't even there. In the end he decided he had to simply swallow his pride and make the announcement, whether it had meaning for him or not.

"I guess if I'm gonna do this I might as well do it right," he said to himself. Then he boldly walked right up and laid his hand on the side of the Love Stone. "My name is Ian Carrey, and I'm going to journey up to Heart Rock."

That was all. There was no lightning or thunder, or harps playing in the background. Everything was silent except for the twitter of birds and the distant sound of the babbling stream. His voice sounded strange to him in the quiet of the woods. He had never really listened to himself speaking before, possibly because he had never spoken when there was no one else around to hear him.

"So that's what I sound like," he said. Then he left his pack with the litter from his lunch wrapped up inside it beside the Love Stone, and he had set off to the east.

There was no trail up to Mount Sol - no beaten path, and no roads. There was only the moss on the trees to remind him which way was south, and more importantly, which way was east. He wanted to climb a tree, to scan the horizon for the Mt. Sol, to be sure he was going in the right direction, but there were no suitable climbing trees, and even if there were, he figured it would take far too much time and energy climbing up and down a tree. In any case, he figured he probably wasn't supposed to know which way was the right way. This was the purpose of the "no compass" rule.

"You mustn't bring a compass or any sort of map with you when you go," his grandmother said. "You won't need them. The trail itself will guide you. You must travel blindly, following your instincts, your heart, whatever you need to follow to get there."

"That seems kind of foolish to me," Ian said. "No wonder not too many people make it."

"It is foolish, my child. But so are all things that require courage."

So he hadn't brought a compass or maps. He was simply trudging blindly eastward, hoping he arrived at the slope of Mt. Sol by nightfall.

He didn't though. The hunger hit him late in the afternoon, and by early evening his legs felt like jelly. He found he actually had to will them to keep walking after a while. It wasn't automatic anymore, and the going was very slow. Finally, as the sun was setting in the woods behind him, he found the hollowed out trunk of a great big tree and decided he would rest there. He rested a little longer than he had planned though, and soon he found himself in twilight, unable to continue without getting lost in the dark. So he decided he would simply stay inside the hollow tree trunk for the night.

He had brought a sleeping bag. His grandmother had said nothing about that. He was thankful for it too, when the cold night air hit him. He got himself completely inside it with only an opening for his face to peek out of.

There were more rules of the journey he was supposed to remember. He thought about this some more as he eased into relaxation, feeling his exhausted body sinking into the numbness of rest.

"The first thing you do when you wake up each morning, before you continue on the journey, is to make two statements about yourself. First, you must state the main reason why the person your heart desires should not, would not, or could not truly love you. You must be completely honest or the journey will be all for nothing in the end."

"What's the second thing?"

"You must state an honest reason why the person your heart desires should, would, and could truly love you with all her heart."

It didn't make sense to him then, and it didn't make much more sense to him now that he was out here. He had been thinking about it pretty much the entire evening too, hypnotized by the monotony of the journey. He didn't even have any particular person that his heart desired, so how could he know why she wouldn't love him? Different girls would say different things. Some might say he's a self-centered jerk perhaps, but other might say he's too pushy, or a bit of a know-it-all. Others, like his mother for example, might say he is just way too stubborn and proud to ever be loved, though she seemed to love him with all her heart.

In the end he couldn't think of any one reason why anyone wouldn't love him. He began to realize that there were a lot more reasons than he'd ever realized before, and it became a question of which one was the main reason.

The same was true with the opposing question too. He could think of a lot of reasons why someone might fall in love with him. He was good-looking, healthy, strong, out-going, popular - all the things girls generally looked for in a boyfriend. But then it occurred to him that these weren't really grounds for true love. He would have to look deeper. All he could think of at that point was that his mom and grandmother loved him with all their hearts, so there must be something lovable in him.

Then he leaned his head against the inside of the tree and fell fast asleep, sitting up with his knees hugged tightly to his chest.



Chapter 2

Nights are not very long in summertime. The sun set around 10:30 p.m. or so, and rose around 5 in the morning. This gave Ian a good six and a half hours of sleep. He woke up several times in the night however, feeling hungry, thirsty, and nauseas. He was feeling fairly lonely and afraid too, and this wasn't improving his situation. Most of all he wanted to be back at home in his nice warm bed, and to hell with this stupid journey. There were other challenges he could conquer in his lifetime. Why was he torturing himself, and possibly risking his life with this? Who was he doing it for?

Images of the different girls he knew floated through his mind. There were a lot of very beautiful young women in his school, any one of which he thought he could easily have as a girlfriend if it ever occurred to him to try.

There was Beth, and Jane, and Mary-Ellen - all three of them perhaps the most beautiful in town, never mind the school. They were a little too full of themselves though - far too interested in their popularity than any relationship they found themselves in from week to week.

There was Courtney, another pretty one who he'd often admired from afar, but she too was a little too snooty for his liking. She seemed like she thought she was too good for anyone else in the school.

Sabrina was cute too, but her beauty was more in her personality. She was friendly and fun and out-going, but somewhat plain-looking. She always had a few minutes to chat with him whenever he said hello to her around the school. That was nice and everything, but there had to be more to any girl he would consider his true love.

Names and faces floated through his sleep-dazed mind, and he even considered a few of his teachers. Eventually he simply fell asleep again, feeling more lonely than he ever had before, realizing that there was really nobody he could truly fall in love with in this town.

The sun rose in the morning, lighting the sky and stirring the birds into their morning songs. The forest was alive with the music of them, and Ian thought he was dreaming for a moment before he opened his eyes.

He unzipped his sleeping bag and struggled out of it. His body was aching and he felt more weak than he ever had in his life. His only thought was that if he were at home he would be enjoying a nice hearty breakfast at his mother's table right now. Why the hell was he not allowed to bring food out here, anyway?

"You must be empty, before you can be truly filled," his grandmother had told him. "You must be bare, and broken, and helpless, before the journey can be complete."

"Have you ever gone on the journey to Heart Rock, grandmother?" he asked her.

"I'm just telling you it the way I heard it," she replied. "Don't bring any food with you. You won't need it. You must travel empty and blind. Empty and blind."

Now that he was out here, laying on the cool wet earth, feeling famished with hunger, weak and all alone, he began to wonder even harder if this was all worth it in the end? He laid there for a long time, trying to decide whether he even wanted to continue this damn journey. If he went on any further he might not have the strength to get back. As it was he already figured it would take him two days to travel back the distance he had come the day before. How would he ever survive if he traveled a whole other day as well?

He was proud and stubborn though, and when he began to think about the idea of giving up, it left a sour taste in his mouth - more bitter than the hunger and weakness he felt burning in his body. He was in the best shape he probably ever would be, if he couldn't make it now, he probably never would, and that's not something he could live with. He's never failed at anything he honestly put his mind to.

So he rolled up his sleeping bag and slung his arms through the draw strings once again, as he had the day before. He got up off of his knees and looked around to be sure he knew which way was east. Then he took one step forward before stopping in his tracks.

"Oh yeah," he said. "I've got to talk about why no one will ever truly love me."

He couldn't think of anything though, and he stood there for a very long time. His mind was as tired as his body was, and even thinking was an effort of pure will power.

Then he heard the birds singing and thought of Twitsie. He recalled the moment back at home in his bedroom where he leaned out the window with both hands upon the sill, watching the little thing fly away into the wide open world. He recalled how terrible he'd felt all that day, and how he had missed his grandmother so much.

"I guess," he began, "no one will ever truly love me, because I was too busy to even take care of that little bird. I should have taken better care of it. My grandmother left it especially for me to care for when she died, but I got so busy with all my stupid stuff I didn't even take care of it. I guess it took off because it didn't feel loved by me. Maybe it went looking for grandmother. She deserves to be truly loved. She took care of him."

Then he tried to think about why he really did deserve to be loved but he couldn't think of anything. He just stood there for the longest time until he finally started crying. He was tired, sore, hungry, and lonely, missing his grandmother, and that stupid little bird.

"I'm sorry. I can't think of any reason why I should be truly loved. I'm just gonna go on anyway though, because I'm too afraid to go home now. If I don't find someone who truly loves me I may never know what it's like. I don't really want to go on. I don't even have a person my heart desires. I'm tired and sad and scared, but I can't go back either. I don't know what else to do, so I'll just keep going. I know there must be a reason why I should be truly loved. I just can't think of it right now."

So he started walking again, all by himself, with tears flowing down his cheeks and the birds filling the morning air with their songs.

The thirst hit him hard that second day. It was so bad after a while he began to feel like sucking on chunks of moss, hoping to get a little bit of moisture out of them. He kept walking though, on shaking legs, and he began to feel lighter in the head than he ever had. The lower half of him felt heavier than ever, but the top of him felt light and clear and wide awake. It was actually a nice feeling, almost euphoric.

It started to rain in the afternoon and he felt exhilarated by it. He was hot and sweating and weary, and the rain hit him from above showering him with what felt like new energy. He stood there for a while with his mouth wide open aimed up at the sky, catching rain drops in his mouth. He wasn't allowed to bring any water with him, but that didn't mean he couldn't drink what he found along the way, did it?

He decided it didn't, and a few minutes later he was drinking rain water he had scooped out of a hollow tree stump with his two trembling hands. It was the best water he had ever tasted his entire life.

There was no food around though, and as the day wore on his hunger got worse and worse. He eventually found himself considering eating leaves off of trees, or moss off of the rocks under his feet, but he resisted these urges, opting instead to simply keep plowing on through the woods. Still heading east with a cool northern breeze chilling the rain that was now drying on his skin.

His sleeping bag was soaked right through however, and it weighed a ton. He unrolled it after the rain stopped and carried it like a cape stretched down his back, all the way to the ground. He hoped it would dry out before nightfall, and was actually considering simply abandoning it if it didn't. It was making him hot and tired and it was more of a nuisance than anything else. Come nightfall however he knew he would be wishing for the comfort and security of even a wet sleeping bag. So he hung onto it, seemingly with all his strength, and carried it on to wherever he would sleep that night.

The slope of the ground grew steeper as the day went on, and he began to wonder if he would ever reach the foot of the mountain. He pictured himself stepping out of a clearing and seeing it tall and majestic before him, rising from the earth like a monument to nature. He never found such a clearing however, and he never really saw the base of the mountain as he had pictured it in his mind. He just kept walking all day long until he realized he was already climbing Mt. Sol when the trees got sparser and the rocks showed through the forest floor more and more.

Finally he reached a bit of a clearing and was able to turn around and see the tops of the trees he had come through in the forest behind him. He looked further on up ahead and saw that he was about a quarter of the way up Mt. Sol already, and he hadn't even noticed. He was burned out though - more exhausted and weak than he'd ever felt before, so exhausted in fact that the exhaustion he'd felt earlier seemed petty in retrospect. Would it get even worse than this?

He was almost staggering now, under the weight of his now nearly dry sleeping bag, and it was only early evening. He could see the sun heading down to its bed below the western horizon. They sky was still partly cloudy, and it would make for a fairly picturesque sunset. He sat down to watch the world below for a while and found he could not get back up again. His legs simply wouldn't work. It was time to find some sort of shelter. It was time to go to set up some sort of camp and try to dry the last of the dampness out of his sleeping bag before he finally fell asleep. There was still a lot of daylight left but he couldn't hike any more even if he wanted to.

A few more minutes up the mountainside he found a small cliff face with a tree growing out of its base and an almost cave-like cleft in the rock about eight feet up. This would have to do, he thought. He managed with great effort to shimmy up the cliff face with his arms and legs between the rock and the tree, clutching the sleeping bag in his teeth as he climbed. He finally got up there and found it cool and clean, and more importantly dry. It was about four feet deep, offering only a bit of shelter from the wind and whatever rain might come in the night, but he felt secure in there. He felt good about being high up too, where no critters could get at him while he slept.

He hung his sleeping bag from a branch of the tree, unfurled like a sail in the wind, and simply sat there feeling the aches and pains of the journey, the burning of his hunger, but not really thinking about anything at all. A good hour passed while he dozed in and out of consciousness, and finally he pulled his sleeping bag down from the tree. It was as dry as it was going to get.

He zippered it up and climbed inside it, pulling it up over his body as though he were a foot going into a nice thick sock. It smelled kind of funny in there, but he was warm at least. He poked his face out of the opening once again and watched the sunset in the distance. It was brilliant.

He began to think about who he might like to share such an experience with, if anyone. That was what people in love did right? They watched sunsets together, and such. Then they made love under the stars. He still couldn't think of any one particular girl he'd have like to have been there with him. It was an especially lonely feeling that way, seeing something so beautiful and not having someone to say "isn't that the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?" to. He felt very empty inside, in spite of the beauty of the scene before him.

"Who's my special someone?" he asked aloud. "Who should be here to see this with me?"

There was a painting at school one time, outside the art class. It was a painting of a sunset just like this one. He remembered it all of the sudden. The artist had sprinkled sparkles on it that caught his eye as he walked by. He stood there staring at it until Sabrina walked up behind him.

"You like it?" she asked.

"Yeah. The sparkles are cool," he replied.

"You can have it if you want," Sabrina told him,

"It's yours?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"It's nice. It's the best one," Ian said, glancing up and down the wall at all the other pictures.

"You want it?" she asked again. "You can have it. It's yours."

"Nah," he said. "That's alright. It's nice and everything, but you keep it. It's not really my kind of thing."

Then he just walked away. He didn't even say goodbye to her.

"I should have taken it. It would have made her feel good," he said. "Why didn't I just take the damn thing? Why am I such a self-centered ass?"

He felt bad about it for a moment, but then after another moment it occurred to him that he might actually like to have Sabrina sitting there with him. She would appreciate a sunset like this, and he could tell her to her face that he was sorry he didn't take the picture when she offered it. He would apologize for being an inconsiderate jerk.

Having Sabrina there with him would make him feel so much better actually, now that he thought about it. In fact, he began to realize that the reason she had offered such a special painting to him, one she had worked so hard on, which she was obviously proud of, was because she actually liked him. She must have some sort of feelings for him that he had never realized before.

"Sabrina Marshal cares about me," he told himself.

Sabrina was a strong girl - probably stronger than she was beautiful in worldly terms. She had strength of character that he admired the more he thought about it. Though she was not the most popular or attractive girl in school, she was well-liked by those who knew her, and had many devoted friends. Besides she wasn't even all that bad looking anyway. Ian had simply never noticed her because she wasn't what was normally considered a knock-out by the general standards of the school. But what difference did that make, if she had a beautiful personality? At least beautiful enough to add sparkles to her sunset and offer it to him the way she had, beautiful enough to create a memory for him that he could take with him into the loneliest hour of his life.

He smiled broadly, peeking out from his sleeping bag, and hugged his knees to his chest once again. He began to feel better about actually having someone to feel good about, and he fell asleep with a smile on his face.

Perhaps he would name Sabrina tomorrow, when he got to Heart Rock.



Chapter 3

Ian woke up the next morning in agony. His legs were cramped and his back and neck were aching like he'd been beaten all night with heavy sticks. He had a headache and was dizzy as well. To make matters even worse, he found himself tangled up in his sleeping bag, unable to even wiggle out of it in the cramped space of the little cave he'd slept in. He was stuck.

He whimpered and struggled weakly. The sleeping bag was caught on something. It must have been, either that or he was simply too weak to pull it out from under himself. He wasn't sure which was the problem. He twisted and turned as much as he could but he couldn't get out.

Finally, after about twenty minutes of squirming, he managed to wriggle one arm free and grab a hold of the rock at the mouth of the cave. He pulled himself forward and found that he was finally able to move a bit. It was agony though. His legs felt dead - literally, and they would barely budge even when he kicked with all his strength. There was only a sharp shooting stabbing pain that ripped like fire through his thighs and calves with each move he made.

So he pulled himself forward, out of the alcove or rock until he found himself almost folded in half, with his dead and useless legs beneath him, and his neck twisted sideways, trying to wriggle his way out of the rock.

When he finally freed himself however, he fell from the mouth of the cave. It was a long drop too. He got himself squirmed out of the the opening but suddenly found nothing to hang onto, and simply slipped out of the hole in the rock and down, eight feet, to the ground.

He hit with a solid thump that jolted through his entire being. He was still inside the sleeping bag however, and that was perhaps what prevented a serious or perhaps fatal injury. He landed on the rock beside the tree and just lay there for the longest time, moaning and whimpering in agony. He found himself laying there with his legs folded up behind him, bent at the knee, stuck in the bottom of the sleeping bag. He couldn't move. He could barely even breathe. He began to wonder if this was where he would die, like so many others had who had come on this journey.

He could still move one arm though, and that's perhaps what saved him. After a good twenty minutes of laying there in cramped and suffocating agony, he managed to reach up with one arm and unzip the sleeping bag. He felt a waft of fresh air on his face and gulped it in like a drowning man.

He wriggled a little more and got his other arm out from underneath him. It was broken however, being the only thing that had prevented his head from hitting the rock directly, and every little move he made with it burned like fire. It throbbed in agony once the blood began flowing through it again and Ian whimpered even louder, like a badly beaten dog. He managed to squirm his way out of the sleeping bag in spite of all this and he stretched out on the rock with his arm fractured above the elbow, waiting to die where he lay. He didn't die though, and that felt even worse.

He was finally able to move his legs though, and he actually managed to sit up and rest his back against the cliff face. He sat there for a long time, looking down at the forest below, wondering how he would ever get home now.

Eventually he decided that he couldn't get home, not like this, and he began crying brokenly, feeling hopelessly lost and alone, hungry, thirsty, and in agonizing pain in almost every part of his body.

"I'll never make it home. I'm gonna die of thirst up here. Why the hell did I even bother?"

His sobs filled the air, in front of him, but were swept away by the wind before they got very far away.

"What am I gonna do now?" he asked.

All he could do, he decided after a while, was continue to Heart Rock, and perhaps die up there. He couldn't make it home, but he could at least finish the journey he started out on. At least he could die up there, having completed the mission he'd begun.

But first he had to make his morning announcements.

"I'm not worth loving, because I turned down the picture Sabrina offered me. I turned her down really, as it was a gift from her heart. I see that now, and I'm sorry. I was self-centered and stupid. I could have made her the happiest girl in the world, at least for one day, but I didn't, and that's why I don't deserve love."

"I do deserve to be loved though, because I do want to make her the happiest girl in the world. I see my mistake now and I can change it. I see that a girl like her is so easy to make happy, and so worth the effort. If I could only have the chance I would take care of her everyday of her life, forever. I don't think it will happen now. I don't think I'll make it home from here, but I don't care. Just the thought of making a girl that special happy is the most joy I'll ever know."

He left his sleeping bag where it lay at the bottom of the tree and started up the slope once again. It took him several hours to even make a mild amount of progress. Every time he stumbled and fell it sent searing pain through his entire body that radiated out from the break in his arm. He screamed out loud each time, and sat there crying for a moment, but always found the will to get up and keep going.

Finally sometime late in the afternoon he saw it - a deep reddish outcropping of rock that stuck out like a tongue from the side of the mountain. It was a good thing he saw it, because the way was now so steep he could no longer even climb it anymore, not without the use of both arms. He pulled himself over to it, stepping sideways along a ledge where the mountain suddenly dropped off into a cliff beneath him. He made his way out there, fearing the slightest little slip from which there would be no catching himself. He got out there and fell onto the heart-shaped slab of rock that jutted out into the air with an almost vertical drop on each side. He had finally made it.

He just lay there with his eyes shut tight however, unable to even enjoy the view he the height afforded. He had gone three days of vigorous hiking without food, proper rest, and only a few mouthfuls of water. He had even broken his arm in the process. He could not go on anymore. He got up there, simply so that he could die knowing he achieved his final goal, and he waited for death to take him. He was completely empty, blind with fatigue and pain, and he was ready for the end of all he was and ever had been.

"When you get up there," his grandmother had said, "when you're empty and blind, and feeling half dead, like you can't possibly go on anymore, you whisper the name of the one your heart desires and your journey is finished."

"Sabrina Marshal," Ian whispered. "My heart desires Sabrina Marshall."

Then he died.

He felt the last of his own energy flowing out of him and something new coming in to replace it, something strong and alive that made him feel full and complete, something he had never felt before, but somehow recognized. He recognized it because it filled him completely and he couldn't not recognize it.

It was Sabrina. He could feel her life flowing into him, overflowing until there was nothing of his own left inside him. He had never felt anything so wonderful in all his life. He felt the beauty of everything that she was. He felt her strengths, and her hopes, and her love, and her passion. He was so full of her that he felt like he understood her completely.

Then he sat up. His arm was still broken but it was numb now. He could barely feel it. It was swollen dead and useless, but it wasn't throbbing and aching anymore. All he could feel was her. He stood up and stretched his legs with the new energy of his love. He looked out across the landscape and suddenly laughed out loud.

"I love Sabrina Marshal!" he yelled. It echoed back to him and he laughed again. He almost wanted to jump up and down he felt so full of her energy. He resisted the urge though, and instead turned to begin the journey home.

The journey home went by quickly, as journeys home usually do. He got all the way down the mountain and a fair way into the forest, stumbling along with a new spring in his step a different kind of heat in his belly. His sleeping bag wagged back and forth behind him like a great tail, and it kept getting snagged on rocks and sticks but it didn't slow him down much. He fell asleep in the woods once again, under a thicket, up to his eyes in the sleeping bag once again. His last thoughts were of Sabrina, and his first thoughts when he woke up were of her as well.

The going the day after that was slow again, new energy or no new energy, he was dizzy, aching, weak, and stumbled along most of the day feeling rather euphoric. Every once in a while he had to stop and lean against a tree because he suddenly star stars zipping around behind his eyes, and the throbbing in his arm would fade away to numbness all of the sudden. It was nice when these moments happened, but it wasn't getting him any closer to home.

Hours passed by, but they seemed to go much quicker. Perhaps it was the numbness of his mind that made it seem that way, but the entire day seemed to be passing all at once. Every time he stopped to wonder how much time had passed, he found he had no idea either way and simply shrugged the notion off, taking a few more steps on his journey home. It was all about steps now, not miles or hours. He just kept taking more steps, knowing he would get there eventually. He was no longer so intent on making sure he was going in the right direction - he was simply going home.

He began to recognize the country he had passed a few days earlier, and after a while he managed to get himself back onto the same path he had followed coming out here. He could still see the broken branches and bent grasses he had trampled down on his way out, though the forest had managed to heal itself a bit from his intrusion.

Somewhere near the end of that day he got himself back to the Love Stone. He was stumbling and staggering, and stopping to rest almost constantly by that time, and he was elated to finally see the thing off in the distance. Sabrina was standing next to it, looking as confused and tired as he was, but also overjoyed to see him staggering out of the woods to meet her. She rushed up to him and gave him the biggest hug he'd ever experienced.

"Are you alright?" she said.

He nodded, unable to tear his dizzied gaze away from her eyes. He saw her for the first time and knew that he really did love everything about her.

"You're looking at me funny," she said, turning her face a bit, but not her eyes.

Ian reached out and touched her cheek. She touched his hand on her cheek and seemed to calm a bit.

"I had a dream about you yesterday," she said, "about you dying on a red rock on the side of a mountain and I've been worried sick ever since."

Somehow he knew she'd say that, and he smiled at her.

"Everyone in town is looking for you. You're like a celebrity all of the sudden."

"I just went for a walk," Ian said.

"You look half dead. Oh my God! Your arm! What happened? Are you alright?"

"I've never been better," he said. "Can you help me to the hospital?"

She nodded, took his sleeping bag, and put his good arm around her shoulder. He leaned his weight on her and found her strong and comforting.

He made his way over to the stone, laid his hand upon it and whispered that his journey was complete.