A Circle of Time (25 page)

“Oh, god,” she whispered when she peered over the side. A few yards below, on the same ledge where she had lain, lay Joshua. His eyes were closed.

After all this, she hadn't really broken the chain. They had only reversed roles.

“Joshua?” she called into the strong wind. “Can you hear me?”

Joshua opened his eyes. At first he seemed relieved to see her, then a look of fear crossed his face. “Go back, Allison. Get away before it happens. You have to save Becky.”

“No, I won't leave without you. How ... how did you fall?”

“I was looking for you. When I couldn't find you, I thought you might have fallen, so I stepped to the edge, and...”

He didn't have to finish. She knew what must have happened. Didn't the same thing happen to her the first time she was here? And to Becky?

Behind her, Allison heard footsteps. She turned her head. “Don't come any closer,” she told José. “It's dangerous here. The ground is soft.”

José lay down and crawled to her side.

“He's down there,” she said. “Joshua.”

“Are you hurt,
mijo?
he called down to Joshua.

Joshua shook his head. The slight movement sent a rush of gravel flying down the cliff. “A little scraped. Other than that, I'm all right. But I can't move because the ledge is too small.”

Allison sighed with relief.

“That's good, Joshua,” said José. “I'm coming down.”

“No!” cried Isa. “I won't lose you again.” If Don Carlos had not been holding her, she would have run to José. “Rebecca, come back, you'll be hurt.”

Allison turned to Isa. “Isa, Mamá, Joshua is to me what José is to you. We must save him. He wouldn't be in this danger if he hadn't been trying to help me.”

Isa stopped struggling. She lowered her head. “Help him, José.”

José sat back on his heels and began to tie the rope around his waist. “Did you have a premonition about this rope, too?” he asked Allison.

“Aren't you glad I did?”

“Don Carlos,” said José, “can I trust you to hold the rope for me?”

Don Carlos looked surprised. Then his face relaxed. “Velasquez, wait,” he said, stepping forward. “Let me go down for the boy. You hold the rope. ”

“I am ready. There is no need—”

Don Carlos held out his hands, palms up, fingers spread. His arrogance was gone, he looked defeated. “
Por favor,
let me do this one thing. For you ... for my granddaughter ... for my family...”

José hesitated only a moment. He slipped off the rope and handed it to Don Carlos. The older man tied it around his waist, and the two men crawled to the edge of the cliff.

With José holding the rope, Don Carlos scooted off the edge. Before he slipped from view, he stopped, looked at Allison, and said, “You are a remarkable young woman.”

Then he made his way down the cliff, clutching the rope and bouncing off the sides, sending dirt and rocks cascading into the gulch below. When Don Carlos reached Joshua, he perched on the ledge and pulled the boy up. Joshua clung to him awkwardly.

“Have Joshua climb on your back,” José called down. “We'll have to bring you both up at the same time. Isa, Rebecca, I need your help.”

“What about the horse?” asked Isa.

“We can't risk it,” said José. “He's too skittish. There isn't enough rope, anyway.”

So Isa grabbed José around the waist while Allison held on to the rope and helped him pull. Together, they hauled the man and the boy up the cliff and over the side to safety.

Allison grabbed Joshua and hugged him as hard as she could. Isa hugged her father.

Dogs howled in the distance. The white horse neighed and stomped the ground.

“The earthquake!” Allison cried. “We have to get out of here!”

“The meadow at the foot of the mountain,” said Joshua. “That's the safest place. José, take Miz Isa, but stay on the main road. I'll follow with A1—Becky and Don Carlos. Hurry!”

José grabbed Isa's hand and they began running down the road. Don Carlos took the horse's reins, but as Joshua turned to take Allison's hand, the horse began to dance sideways.

“Whoa, boy!” Don Carlos gripped the reins and tried to stroke the horse's forehead. “Calm down, Nieve. It's all right.”

But the horse continued to prance on his front legs. His nostrils flared, exposing hot-pink flesh. His eyes rolled wildly. He tugged back his head, tossing it, trying to shake loose from the reins. At last, he reared up, towering above Don Carlos.

“Get down, Nieve. Down, boy!”

The horse pulled sideways, toward Allison. She jumped back, trying to get out of the way.

Don Carlos turned to Allison. “Look out!” he cried, as Nieve's reins ripped from his hands.

Time switched to slow motion. Allison saw the horse bolt and gallop down the road. Don Carlos, mouth open, a look of terror on his face, struggled toward her as though he were moving through water. Joshua turned from the horse to Don Carlos to Allison. When he saw her, the same expression of terror gripped him. At the same moment, Allison felt the ground slip from under her feet and her body tip backward.

She opened her mouth to scream, but other screams were already filling her brain.
“Save me!”
they cried.

In the next instant, Don Carlos had her by the waist and, in one motion, tossed her into the air toward Joshua. Becky's body kept going, but Allison felt herself lift up into the air and begin to float high above the scene.

She saw Joshua grab Becky as she was propelled through the air, pull her toward him, and fall backward onto the ground, still hugging her tightly. She saw Don Carlos, after catching Becky and throwing her to Joshua, continue to fly forward and over the side of Devil's Drop, into the ravine below. She saw Joshua pull Becky to her feet and run with her down the road. And at the bottom of the hill, she saw Nieve, Don Carlos's white horse, catch up to Isa and José and leave them far behind.

Then she felt a wind wrench her with the force of a cyclone. But she fought it, not wanting to leave the past until she was sure her friends were safe. She held on until she saw Isa and José reach level ground. José left Isa and ran back to help Joshua with Becky. As the three of them reached Isa's side, the world began to shudder and thunder and roar. The two couples fell to the ground and clung to one another. In the distance, the dirt road undulated like waves on a beach. Trees thrashed left and right and hillsides spewed forth dirt and rocks, then dissolved like heaps of chocolate powder in milk.

The next thing Allison saw was the tunnel as she whirled toward the white light.

Past life and death, I shall transcend
to search for you till heaven's end:
At first, he's someone I don't know—
Until, within his eyes ... that glow ...
I recognize
—He's you!

I'm floating above a room I don't recognize. It's filled with medical equipment and lights and people wearing pale green scrubs, surgical caps, goggles, and masks. The people huddle over a narrow table on which a body lies covered with a green sheet. Only the head is exposed. It's my head.

It's me lying on that table.

A slow
beep ... beep ... beep...
dominates the room.

“Something's wrong, doctor,” says a nurse.

The slow beeping becomes a long, continuous
beeeeeeeeeppp
—

“Doctor, we're losing her!” someone cries. “Her heart is fibrillating!”

“Bring the crash cart! We're not going to lose her,” a woman snaps. “Come on, Allison, fight! Help me out, here. Fight!”

What's wrong? What are they talking about? Am I dying?

I try to sink into my body, but a force like a strong current pushes me away. Something is pulling me back, back into the wind tunnel.

Becky? Is that you?

Silence.

I try again. The sound of the wind in the distance is growing closer.

Oh, god, no. I must have stayed too long. I waited too long to come back.

I feel the strong tug of the wind tunnel drawing me back, away from the operating room, away from my body. The scene below becomes fuzzy, as if I'm watching it through a gauze filter. The sounds and the voices have become garbled, almost incomprehensible. I'm fighting the backward pull, straining to make out what's happening below.

A nurse rolls a cart to the table and hands the doctor two paddles. The doctor lowers the sheet, places the paddles on either side of my chest, and yells, “Charge to 200 joules! Clear! Shock!”

My body jumps, then lies still.

The doctor glances at a monitor. It shows an erratic squiggle that darts and wiggles across the screen. The eerie
beeeeeeeeeppp
continues.

Someone places a hand on the doctor's shoulder. “Doctor, I don't think—”

The doctor jerks her shoulder, shirking off the hand. She begins to massage my heart, speaking softly. I can barely make out the words: “Allison ... can do it ... Come back, Allison.”

The doctor again takes the paddles and holds them to my sides. “Charge to 300 joules! Stand clear! Shock!”

My body jumps, bouncing like a solid rubber doll as it lands.

The scene is becoming fuzzier; the voices more distant.

“Dr. Winthrop ... too late.”

Dr. Winthrop? Joshua? Where is he? He can't still be alive, practicing medicine, can he?

The doctor starts pushing her hands into my chest again. “...Won't let you die ... hear me? Fight! ”

The doctor stares at the monitor, the monitor with the wriggling line, the monitor that seems to emit the eerie
beeeeep.

All eyes are on the monitor.

The room is silent except for the sound of the wind and the
beeeeep.

“Try, Allison...,” says the doctor, still massaging my chest, “can't give up ... time to come back.”

I'm fighting, Joshua. Wait for me. I'm trying!

Another jolt of electricity from the paddles, and—

Through the haze, a distinct blip emerges from the haphazard, squiggly pattern on the monitor. It's accompanied by a quick
beep.
The people in the room seem to be holding their breaths. Another blip appears on the now smooth line, then another and another, each accompanied by a tiny
beep
, until they become a constant, rhythmic
beep, beep, beep.

As if someone turned off a switch, the wind tunnel disappears. A new force draws me down toward the operating table, and with a snap, I'm in my body.

A cheer goes up in the operating room.

I feel a hand on my shoulder and a whisper in my ear: “Welcome back, Allison. Welcome back home.”

 

When I open my eyes, my favorite song is playing. PoPo is lying in the crook of my left arm. Mom's head is resting on my chest. She's snoring softly.

I grin. Slowly, I pull my right arm from under the sheet and stroke Mom's baby-fine hair. A whiff of tea-rose perfume wafts toward me. I inhale.

“Mom?” I whisper.

“Mmmmm?” Mom mumbles.

“Mom, I'm back.”

With a start, Mom's head snaps up. She stares at my smiling face.

“I'm back, Mom.”

Mom's mouth opens to speak, but instead, she bites her lower lip, brings a trembling hand to my face, and touches my cheek. Tears spill from her eyes.

I remember another scene, so similar, yet so long ago: another mother greeting a child she thought she might never see again. My eyes grow heavy. I suddenly feel so tired. I close my eyes and sleep.

As I gather my things and place them in the box Mom brought, preparing for my long-awaited release from the hospital, someone steps up behind me.

“Allison?” says a familiar male voice. A voice that I thought I'd never hear again. A voice that has haunted my dreams since I awoke from the coma two weeks ago.

“Joshua?” I can barely whisper the name.

“Are you Allison Blair?” the voice repeats.

“Joshua, it
is
you!” I spin around only to come face-to-face with a stranger. A boy, about my age, smiles apologetically. His onyx-black eyes twinkle with the humor of an untold joke. His elfin smile is infectious.

“No, I'm Jonah—Jonah Sloane. My mother is your neurosurgeon. But my great-grandfather's name was Joshua.”

I must be dreaming!
I place my hand on the bed to stop my legs from collapsing beneath me. My heart beats as quickly as if I'd been running a marathon.

“Are you all right?” Jonah reaches out to keep me from falling. “Maybe you'd better sit down.” He helps me onto the bed.

His touch is so familiar ... so right. I lick my lips. My mouth is suddenly dry. “Your g-grandfather was Joshua? W-Winthrop?”

“Mmm-hmm, yes—great-grandfather,” Jonah replies, pulling up a chair next to my bed and making himself comfortable. “You must be wondering why I'm here.”

I can only nod, and stiffly at that.

“My mom—Dr. Winthrop-Sloane? Well, like I told you, she's your surgeon. She was called away—out of state. Mom wanted to give you this herself”—Jonah holds out a sealed, ivory-colored envelope—“but she won't be back for at least a week. Apparently, this thing's been in a safe for a while, and Mom had her lawyer bring it to me. She wanted you to have it on the day you left the hospital.

” Jonah grins—it's Joshua's grin. My heart jumps.

“I guess I get to be the emissary,” he says.

With a shaking hand, I reach for the envelope. My full name,
Allison Anne Blair,
is written in bold black script on the front. The envelope looks yellow with age. I turn it over. A large blue wax seal with the initials JW is burned in the center.