Falling Under (2 page)
But the burning man falling from the sky pulled me from my faraway world. My gaze wandered to the window an instant before he appeared. And then, slowly, like a feather caught on a light breeze, he willowed past my window, turning his grotesque head towards me, his mouth open in a silent scream. He was more than
on
fire. He
was
fire.
on
fire. He
was
fire.
Orange and red flames braided together in the shape of a man, but it was his eyes that caused me to suck in my breath and hold it as I ran to the window. His eyes, scared and imploring, told of a darkness and agony I couldn’t begin to understand.
I leaned farther into the window, the glass surprisingly warm from his brush past it. Like I touched a trace of him. As he completed his unhurried, torturous descent to the lawn, he kept his gaze locked on mine. Beseeching me for something I couldn’t give as the flames consumed him. So many things I should have felt, wondered, or worried about, yet I just watched, fascinated and compelled to see him to the end.
He landed in the yard, still burning alive. My father’s pristine lawn would be scorched.
He’d be so disappointed.
Afraid to leave my perch, I was unsure what to do next. Surely what I was seeing was a figment of my overactive imagination. A dream caused by too much reading and not enough sleeping. But what if he suffered while I did nothing?
I turned and ran, as quietly as I could, through my room, down the stairs, and finally out the back door. The dewcovered grass beneath my feet reminded me of my state of undress. The nightgown felt thinner and more revealing than what my father had intended when he approved its purchase.
I shivered, not with cold but with nerves. The flames of the burning man sputtered and cooled, revealing charred bones and hunks of flesh. Yet he moved and groaned.
I sank to my knees, horrified that God would be so merciless as to let this poor human being endure such misery. The scent of cooked meat triggered my gag reflex. Strips of bumpy, burned flesh covered his bones here and there, but … his eyes … his eyes remained whole and lucid, giving him the garish appearance of a Halloween corpse.
The smell of sulfur stung my nose, making it hard to breathe. Yet the burning man continued to rasp and sputter.
How could he? His lungs had been incinerated.
For the first time, I noticed I still held the phone. Stupid girl. I should have dialed 911 a long time ago. I’d just pressed the 9 when he spoke.
“Don’t bother.”
I whimpered at the sound of his raspy, inhuman voice. “You need an ambulance.”
The skeleton gurgled a bit, the sound grating and raw. “Too … late. I don’t have much time.”
He shouldn’t have had
any
time. I looked to the sky, but there was no sign of smoke or anything else falling. He groaned again.
any
time. I looked to the sky, but there was no sign of smoke or anything else falling. He groaned again.
“I … I’m sorry.” Lame, stupid girl. “I don’t know what to do. I … wish I could make you more comfortable.”
“You must be so frightened.” He whispered now, slowly yet with a carefully measured cadence. “I’m sorry you had to see this.”
How could he worry about my comfort right now? “Do you want to … um … pray or something?”
“No.”
His answer came too quickly, too vehemently.
“You’ll stay?” he asked—no, implored. “I have no right to ask it of you, but … I’m afraid to be alone right now. Will you stay … until …”
“Of course.”
Moisture from the cold, wet grass seeped into the material of my nightgown, promising ugly stains in the virginal white shroud. I already felt the weight of yet another of Father’s disappointments.
“Do you want me to ring anyone for you? To say good-bye?”
“There … is … no … one.” His whisper weakened with each word.
No one to mourn him? I forced myself to look him, death, in the eyes, and leaned closer, blocking out the revulsion of his grotesque appearance. His last vision should be of someone caring that he died. Someone mourning him. He raised his bony fingers as if to touch me and I steeled myself not to flinch as his hand, still smoldering, neared my face.
He rattled and spoke his last words. “Worth … the … fall.”
His hand dropped, and the grass sizzled beneath it.
Then his body turned to dust, leaving only a blackened scorch mark on my father’s lawn.
I rolled away from the sunlight streaming through my lace curtains and burrowed my head under the pillow. It was a dream. It must have been. Burning men don’t fall from the sky. Skeletons don’t speak one minute and turn to dust the next.
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and stared at the ceiling. I was going to have to look. Resigned, I walked the distance from my bed to the window, and it seemed to stretch farther and farther away, the way things do in nightmares. I touched the glass first—it was cool, of course. My fingers splayed on the window and I leaned into it, looking down, hoping to find the perfectly manicured lawn I’d known just yesterday. But the perfection was marred and the grass seared where he’d lain. The burning man.
My heartbeat sputtered and restarted, thumping wildly and faltering with its own rhythm. My mind raced to find an explanation that didn’t include a fiery cadaver with scary eyes and a lonely soul.
What kind of … people … fell from the sky? Aliens? Fallen angels? Skydivers?
Maybe his plane crashed. But none of that explained his ability to talk with no lungs … or skin, or organs, or … No. I must have dreamt it. There was no other explanation. Best to put it out of my mind. Nightmares had no control over me and there was nothing to fear.
Besides, nothing happens in sleepy towns like Serendipity Falls. That’s why Father bought a house here. His commute to the city wasn’t bad, a half hour unless the fog blanketed us in. He did whatever it was barristers do in their offices all day and made it home for supper almost every evening.
He’d chosen this town precisely for its lack of drama, I reassured myself as I grabbed my pink robe off the hook. What devilry ever befell a girl in a counterfeitly cheerful Victorian house? Surely the heavy cornices and gingerbread trim were wards against all things evil.
It wasn’t until I turned on the bathroom light that I remembered what day it was.
The familiar numbness that got me through this day every year painted itself over me. One foot in front of the other, one routine, then the next, lather, rinse, repeat. I’d go downstairs, drink my orange juice, take a vitamin, walk to school. It was just a day, after all.
Father would already be gone to his San Francisco office. It was easier that way, at least in the morning. Not having to face each other meant not having to acknowledge the significance of the day, this day.
The anniversary of my mother’s death.
I struggled with my hair. The wild curls preferred to be loose and resisted the taming of elastic bands or clips. The wildness of my mane—a curse, according to my father, who’d tried unsuccessfully to convince me that I should style it shorter and sleeker—was a gift from my mother. The wildness of my heart was yet another unwanted motherly inheritance. Father tried to convince me that I should live carefully, and the struggle to rein in my spirit, as well as my hair, kept me battle-weary day after day.
Wanting to please Father, I always pushed back my impulses. He needed me. Sure, he could be gruff and impossibly strict, but I was all he had. Things would have been different if my mother hadn’t died, but there was no sense going down that road. Especially today.
I sprinted down the stairs and then chastised myself for the recklessness since Father wasn’t there to do it for me. I took the vitamin he’d left out, drank the juice he’d poured, and ate the biscuit—I mean cookie—only after I’d first doublechecked that he’d actually left, and then made sure no stray crumbs would give me away. I avoided the greeting card left on the center of the polished table for as long as I could.
My hands shook as I opened our one exception to completely ignoring that this day existed.
Happy 17th Birthday, Theia.
Love, Father
I put the card in my pack, grabbed a sweater, and walked to school.
Nobody at Serendipity High extended me birthday wishes because that was the way I wanted it. My friends, now that I had them, shot surreptitious glances at me all day, but respected my request. I was lucky for their friendship; my life had been so different only four years ago, when we had first moved to the States.
Life in London had been even lonelier. Our estate had been a cold place, steeped in Alderson history but not love, not laughter.
After all the years of homeschooling with a stodgy tutor, I had been surprised that Father had given in and allowed me to attend a public school when we moved to America. Surprised and grateful, until I realized that the strange girl with a funny accent was not going to be welcomed easily into a small school with cliques already firmly in place.
Everything about me was different from my American peers, starting, but certainly not ending, with my accent. Not having spent much time with my British peers either, I was as awkward as a foal taking its first steps when it came to interacting.
“Earth to Thei.”
I blinked at Donny across the cafeteria table. “Sorry. What were you saying?”
Donny—Donnatella to those who dared call her that—rolled her eyes and stole another Tater Tot from my lunch tray. “I asked if you had figured out your prison-break plans for this weekend.”
Father preferred I not spend much time with Donny. Which, when I was being honest with myself, I realized was part of the appeal. Donny was irreverent and maybe a little wild.
Okay, make that a lot wild. Why she wanted to be friends with me, a girl who worked so hard at being completely boring, was a mystery. Whenever I asked, she would reply with a comment about liking my hoity-toity accent, and then she’d wink at me mischievously. She’d taken me under her wing during a particularly bad experience in my PE class that first year, and I would do anything for her.
Donny’s family was the kind I used to dream about. They lived in a much smaller house, but it was a lively, almost-tooloud house. Someone was always laughing … or yelling. It was never quite clean, but there were always good things to eat and someone to listen to how your day was. I even envied her for her little brother, as mischievous and destructive as he was, and for her parents, who didn’t put up with much but did it with a sense of humor.
Also, I envied how comfortable she was in her body. A couple inches taller than me, mostly due to her legs, Donny exuded this aura of confidence about her appearance that I would never have. Everything she wore was chosen carefully, as if to exhibit her assets. Her brown hair was layered around her face to draw attention to high cheekbones, and the part was on the side, accentuating her proud forehead. She always wore earrings that peeked out when her hair moved—a whisper that there was more to see if you took the time to look.
“Why is it so important that I go to this club with you?” I asked. Donny was very social, whereas I was not. She often had her own plans on the weekend that didn’t include me, and I was more than okay with that.
“Because you need to get out more. I swear to God, you are going to explode one day if you don’t vent a little wickedness now and then. Does your father know what happens to daughters of overly uptight and strict parents when they get their first taste of freedom at college?”
“No, what?”
“
Girls Gone Wild
, that’s what.”
Girls Gone Wild
, that’s what.”
The thought of me flashing my breasts to a camera in exchange for a trucker hat made us laugh so hard we couldn’t breathe. The funniest part was that we both knew Donny would do it for a stick of gum.
Our third musketeer, Amelia, joined us as the giggling subsided. As usual, she was dressed in what Donny liked to call “rebellious goth.” Ame liked the alternative styles of the emo/goth kids—but she hated black and dark colors. Instead, she looked like a rainbow with skull and spider accessories. “What’s the laughing about, or do I want to know?”
“You don’t. Trust me.” Donny patted the bench next to her. “Ame, help me convince Theia that she needs to cut loose with us this weekend.” She bit the tip of her pizza, the cheese stretching a mile before breaking. Only Donny could make that sexy. When I ate pizza, I cut it into bite-size pieces.
Ame unpacked her lunch from the reusable tie-dyed sack she brought every day—she was very conscious of her carbon footprint. “Theia, if you don’t cut loose with us this weekend, I will have to listen to Donny bitch about you all night and it won’t be any fun at all.
And
I won’t have anyone to talk to when she ditches me for the first pretty boy who comes along. You have to come.”
And
I won’t have anyone to talk to when she ditches me for the first pretty boy who comes along. You have to come.”
Amelia wasn’t joking. Donny really enjoyed her pretty boys. Amelia, on the other hand, had pined hopelessly for the same bloke since he’d moved to our school in seventh grade, the same year I did. She’d been stuck in “just a chum” purgatory for four years, but refused to tell him how she felt or give any other boy the time of day.
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