Beyond the Rising Tide (32 page)

He doesn’t answer. Just whispers, “Promise me.”

My arm sinks into his side, and I move back, startled. I reach for his arm, but my fingers sift right through it. I can still feel him, but he’s losing substance. I try to take his hand, and it’s like running my fingers through fine sand. He doesn’t crumble away, but there’s no way to hold him anymore.

“Kai,” I cry as though my heart is being wrenched from my chest. I try to touch his face, and it feels like the edges of a feather, or a soft breeze. My vision blurs again, but I swipe the tears away, knowing that I don’t have much time left to see him.

The sunrise breaks through the window, and as though he’s woven of gossamer, the warm light shines right through him. The texture of the pillow behind him slowly becomes more defined. I reach for him again, but I may as well be trying to capture the rays of a setting sun. I’m powerless to keep him here. So I gaze into his fading eyes through my tears and watch him grow more and more faint, until he’s gone.

In a daze, I find myself at the beach where Kai rescued me last December. I stumble out of my car and shuffle toward the water to where the sand is wet and fizzing with the receding tide. A wave laps onto shore, and I step into the cold water. I sink to my knees and let it surround me like a mote, willing it to numb my pain.

This is his grave. The closest I can get to him now.

As the wave recedes, so does whatever energy remains inside me. Anguish presses down on me, and I have neither the strength or desire to resist. I lie down on the wet sand and close my eyes.

The sound of waves breaking roars in my ears. Cold water surrounds me, rising to my ears and filling them with sand and salt. I let it wash over me again and again, only because I can’t move. I’m a forgotten sand castle, and I’m slowly disintegrating. Pieces of me are being swept out to sea, bit by bit, grain by grain, until there’s nothing left.

n Demoror, it’s silent on the shore of the silver lake. There’s no breeze, no rustling leaves or singing birds, no sounds or smells of the earth. Only the weeping trees with their crystal blossoms surrounding the lake, and the fine white sand at my feet. I’m alone. Utterly alone. I’m wearing my white clothes again, and my feet are bare. My wrists and fingers are bare too, stripped of all my powers. And my hands are empty.

I think of Avery, of how I left her crying and terrified in the cottage. Desperate to see her, I kneel at the edge of the still, silver water. It’s like a mirror that stretches as far as the eye can see.

“How is Avery?” I ask the water, my voice catching on her name.

I wait for the surface to ripple like it usually does before showing answers to my questions, but it doesn’t even quiver. So this is my punishment for taking the ring. I can no longer receive answers from the lake.

And then I remember the consequence for revealing my identity as a dead person.

With dread, I stand up.

I try to step into the lake to enter the portal back to Earth. But my foot doesn’t break the surface. It’s solid now. Impenetrable. I take a few more steps to make sure. Then I jump, slamming my feet against the surface. But I may as well be standing on a sheet of steel.

There’s no going back.

I sink to my knees and bow my head in anguish. What did I expect? I knew this would be my consequence, but I chose to break the rules anyway. She’s lost to me now. I’ll never see her again, not as long as she’s on Earth. My chest seems to be caving in, and an emptiness spreads inside of me, a black hole consuming every speck of light. There’s nothing more.

There’s nothing more.

omeone is stroking my hair. I want to open my eyes to see who it is, but my eyelids are too heavy. I don’t know where I am or how I got here, but everything feels foreign. Something hard and bulky is stuck to my index finger, and I’m being smothered by warmth. It’s on me and around me and shoved between every limb and joint. I try to place myself, to remember something. Anything. But it’s like I’m standing on a beach in a thick predawn mist, and I can’t see any landmarks to orient myself.

“Avery.” A whisper breaks through the mist, gentle and concerned. More stroking on my head. The hand is trembling. And then I smell something like hand sanitizer and ammonia.

“I think she’s coming around,” someone else says. A female voice I don’t recognize. And then I notice another sound. A rhythmic beeping, and a loud breath of relief.

“Avery?” This time I recognize the voice. It’s one that always gives comfort. Dad.

My eyelids crack open, catching a glimpse of my surroundings before closing again. A hospital room. Just like Mom’s. Pastel curtains and a purple upholstered chair by the window.

The woman speaks again, her voice close to me. “Her temperature is looking good, and her other vitals are stable. I think she’s going to be okay.”

Another sigh of relief from Dad. More stroking my hair. His warm hand on my arm. “I don’t know what she was doing out there.”

“Avery?” the woman says. “Do you remember what happened? What were you doing out there?”

Doing out where? My mind searches for something to ground myself to. For reality. I will the sun to rise, to burn off the mist, but it stubbornly stays hidden beneath the horizon.

I open my eyes. The nurse is pushing buttons on an IV pump, and Dad rubs my arm gently. “Sweetheart.” He sounds exhausted, stretched to his limit. “What were you doing lying in the cold water at the beach?”

Water. And then I remember lying down in the sand. Bits and pieces of memories start surfacing in my mind. My fingers on Kai’s neck, and no pulse. His hand under mine, feeling less solid than it should. Ocean water washing over my face, and my not having the strength to sit up. I squeeze my eyes shut and turn my face, burying it in my pillow. I don’t know what’s real and what’s not.

“Let’s give her some time,” the nurse says. “Why don’t you come out in the hall with me to discuss some things?”

Dad pats my arm. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

I hear their footsteps move across the room and the click of the door as it shuts behind them. Their muffled voices seep through the door from the hallway, and I catch words here and there.

Mom in the hospital too. Coping mechanisms. Hereditary. Counselor.

Maybe my worst fear is coming to pass, and I’m going crazy. Maybe I imagined the last few days. It can’t have really happened. Kai couldn’t really be dead. He couldn’t have disappeared in my arms. It’s impossible. But if it didn’t happen, that means I
am
losing my mind, and I can’t accept that either.

Dad comes back without the nurse and pulls up a chair beside me, taking my hand in his. “Do you want to tell me what happened?” he says.

I shake my head. I can’t piece it together in my mind, let alone put it into words. And even if I could, I would be sent straight to the psych unit because no one would believe me. I’m teetering on a fence between sanity and psychosis, between truth and delusion, and not even Dad’s sturdy hand is enough to steady me.

’ve spent the last three weeks trying to make sense of everything that happened with Kai, and I’ve made only a small amount of headway. It’s not like I can talk it out with anyone, and there’s no one to ask the millions of questions crowding my thoughts.