Pieces of Hope (11 page)

“Charlotte’s trying to
make it simple enough for you to understand,”
Rin
said in a slightly condescending tone. I was on the verge of feigning shock, as
if I had previously believed that a furry, fat man assigned us to our Stations
when she added, “Of course, it’s easier to get once you’re actually dead.”

It was
obvious there was something they weren’t saying, and I was determined to find
out what it was. “But
Creesie
mentioned that nothing
could harm me here. So that must mean that nothing could harm any of you. And
if that’s true, why not mix everyone together? Why so many Stations?”

Charlotte took a big
breath. I could feel
Rin’s
eyes boring a hole in the
back of my head.

“Nothing
can harm us, that’s true. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be . . . affected.” The
way Charlotte
said it gave me chills.

“Affected
how?” I asked.

As if
she were about to tell me a secret,
Rin
glanced
around nervously and leaned in closer. I noticed she had no scent. “Remember
that the selection of your Station is a lot like the way that Santa does it—”

“I’m not
seven!” I told
Rin
impatiently. “I get it. Skip
ahead, will you?” I got the feeling
Rin
was
suppressing an eye-roll—as if I were grating on an exposed nerve.
 

“Not
every dead person was once a good person,”
Rin
said
finally. Shuddering, she flicked her dark eyes Charlotte’s way. “Some of the souls travelling
through those other Stations can be nightmarishly frightening—even to us. We’re
highly sensitive to other people’s emotions. And if we’re in the vicinity of
even slightly tarnished souls—well, whatever horror they’re experiencing then
becomes
our
horror.”

Before I
could process that, Charlotte
said, “Of course, we can’t be harmed long-term, but we don’t like bumping into
them, even by accident.” Charlotte
paused, nodding as if she’d been told something that I couldn’t hear. “That’s
true,” she agreed, confirming my suspicions. “The selection of one’s Station is
never permanent. A person could move up—or sideways, as the case may be, and
alter their eternity in a good way.” She gave me a soulful look, rather long,
as though she were trying to impart a message. I stared back blankly. “It does
require an act of great selflessness. Say, risking your life for another.” She
took a slow breath. “Unfortunately, we hear that rarely happens.”
  

Rin
was glaring at me with so much intensity that I
flinched a little. Why did I get the impression that she was mad at me? I
couldn’t tell if it was for something I’d already done, or something she feared
I might do.

“You
should be careful,”
Rin
said in an ominous tone.
“Temporary visitors have much more to worry about at those other Stations than
any of the dead do.”

Charlotte proceeded to
give
Rin
a chewing out in her head. For once, I
didn’t have to be a mind reader to know that. When she’d finished, she reached
up and smoothed the hair at her temples before turning back to me. “The
Stations keep everyone safer, Hope. This way the dead can travel trouble-free .
. . and temporary visitors,” she added with a bright smile, “can safely visit,
and then safely return home to their bodies.”

“Or
wherever they end up going . . .”
Rin
muttered. More
wordless glaring from Charlotte
followed, but I’d already decided to ignore
Rin’s
commentary.

“But I
don’t get it,” I admitted. “What could these other souls do to me?”

Charlotte placed her
slender hands on my shoulders. “You still have a body. We don’t. For some of
these souls, that’s the ultimate prize.” As the idea of that sunk in, the hair
on my arms stood up.

“It’s
difficult to wrap your brain around true evil, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t
out there, waiting to seize the right moment—”
Rin’s
tone was chilling. I couldn’t tell if she was trying to frighten me. Or if she
had my best interests at heart. Mixed emotions emanated from her. I got the
impression she couldn’t decide whether to hug me or hit me.

Charlotte’s lips started
moving fast, but silently, expressing her exasperation with
Rin
,
no doubt. When she looked back at me, her face was soft again.

“Don’t
let
Rin
scare you, Hope. Most souls aren’t evil. It’s
just that there are some who wouldn’t be the least bit troubled by causing
others pain. In fact, they would take immense pleasure in it, even after death
. . .”

When she
paused, I could see how difficult it was for her to continue. She seemed to be
measuring her words carefully so as not to frighten me. If so, it wasn’t
working. My stomach was in knots.

“For the
truly evil, killing you, or . . . the equivalent in our world—stealing your
soul, would be like winning the lottery and earning eight gold medals at the
Olympics all on the same day.”

Rin’s
face screwed up. “Dirty, nasty soul-suckers!”

I tried
to imagine what that entailed—the horror of it—then chose to dismiss that
image. The expressions on their faces led me to believe that this wasn’t the
time to press for further information. I was ashamed to look at them; I had the
vaguest sensation that I was about to do—or had already done—something
awful.
     

“Yeah,
that’s, uh . . .” My voice sounded strange in my ears. It was difficult to put
it into words. “If you don’t mind, let’s just skip the gory details.”

Charlotte
and
Rin
gave me a big squeeze from both sides,
smothering me in arms and flowers and hair. When I’d caught my breath again, Charlotte cried, “You’re
as safe here as you are in your own backyard. Just don’t go near the other
Stations!” she warned.
Rin
seconded it by narrowing
her eyes. It seemed like overkill. Visiting the other Stations wasn’t anywhere
in the game plan. Crazy was so not my middle name.
  

“Not a
problem,” I muttered. “I’m only here on a layover.”

We
laughed together, and it quickly eased the nervous tension. Taking our minds
off the previous topic, Charlotte
began chattering about her sister’s dress—the beading, the color, the delicate
straps, and my attention strayed. I’d never been much of a girly-girl in the
living realm and, evidently, I still wasn’t. Though I tried not to stare, a
family waiting to board the bus caught my eye. It was the first family that I’d
seen.

The
children faced their parents, backs to the bus, fidgety and excited. Whatever
the occasion, it was undeniably special. The young boy kept knocking his feet
together as he stood in line, occasionally tugging on the curly ponytail of the
smaller girl beside him. His sister, if I had to guess. She was maybe six, and
the boy had about three years on her. He was tall, thin, and fair—like his
mother—and wore long shorts, suspenders, knee-high socks, and ankle-high dress
shoes. The sister was wearing a long-sleeved dress and tights. Both parents wore
hats, but the woman’s was very striking—bell-shaped and with a wide brim that
hit just above her eyes, then dipped down to her collar in the back. The
father’s old-fashioned three-piece suit complemented his wife’s calf-length
dress. As I looked on, the mother slipped one glove from her hand, delicately
licked her finger, and wiped away an invisible smudge from the boy’s forehead.

Watching
them together made me miss my mother. On some deeper level, which I couldn’t
entirely fathom, I still needed to know my mom was happy. Even landing here at
the Station hadn’t lessened my desire to know. Not until I heard it from her
own lips, here in this beautiful place, could I—would I ever—let go. Just how
long I would wait for that wish to come true was anyone’s guess. I could
possibly be dead by then.
     

I
watched the family move toward the bus, the mother reaching for her daughter’s
hand, the father gripping his son’s shoulders. Beside me, Charlotte sighed. “Sweet, aren’t they?” I
pulled my eyes away and saw her staring at them, just as I had been. “We know
their story,” she said, slipping me a contagious smile. “Would you like to hear
it?”

I perked
up. “There’s a story? I love a great story.”

Rin
gestured with her chin, as if it was impolite (even
here) to point. The way she whispered reminded me of ghost stories—though I was
told not to use that word here—and the way Claire and I used to tell them when
we were younger, closer, and bored on a rainy evening. “They’re the
Chartrands
from Chicago,
Illinois. That’s Eliza and Robert.
Their children are Juliette and James. Eliza was a homemaker . . . loved
throwing formal parties and playing the hostess, and Robert was an attorney.”

“Quite
successful, from what we hear.” Charlotte’s
voice was hypnotically sweet. I got the idea she liked the family. “Oh, yes!”
She exclaimed after a silent exchange with
Rin
. “It
was
beautiful, wasn’t it? And for the
20’s, very lavish—a mansion. It had four stories and eight bedrooms and was
designed by some famous architect. You can look it up on the internet and still
see pictures of what it used to look like . . .”

Used to?
I hoped it wasn’t a tragic
story, but given our location, I sensed it wasn’t going to have a happy ending,
either.
   

Rin
, bobbing her head, took over. “At that time, they
didn’t have services like we have—you know, 911, organized fire departments and
all that— ”

I
gasped. This definitely wasn’t going to end well.

“Anyway,”
Rin
plowed on, ignoring my distress. “One night in
early spring while the family slept, a fire broke out in a first floor chimney
and by the time they realized what was happening, they found themselves trapped
on the fourth—”

“Oh,
no!” I shrieked, reaching for my heart. “They all died in a fire?”

“Not
quite,” they replied. They both wore a strange, almost gleeful expression on
their faces. It troubled me to see it, given the circumstances.

“You go,
Charlotte ,”
Rin
said.

“No, you
go,” Charlotte
urged, twirling a single red strand. “You always tell it so much better than I
do. It’s one of
Rin’s
talents,” she said to me.
“She’s very eloquent, always has been.”

Physical
differences aside, the two of them could have been twins, finishing each
other’s sentences the way that twins often do. Then again, if there were such a
thing as best friends for eternity—how many years had they been doing this?

“Well,
somebody tell me!” I pleaded. “The anticipation is killing me!” They both
giggled, and I groaned. Certain clichés didn’t have the same effect around
here.
 

“There’s
more to the story,”
Rin
said, her velvet eyes darting
my way. “There was a third child—an infant, and though neither of the older
children could possibly survive a fall from a fourth story window, they prayed
that their smallest child could.”

I stared
into her dark eyes, willing it not to be true. “They threw their baby out of
the fourth-floor window? How could they have done such a thing?”
 

Rin
shushed me, looking around as if everyone had heard. “I
don’t think you quite get their level of desperation! When they were forced to
make that decision, flames were shooting out of the first three stories, thick
black smoke was making it impossible to breathe, and they had only moments to
live!”

Following
a dramatic pause, during which I couldn’t stop staring at the family, a
heaviness in my heart,
Rin
finally went on. “They
wrapped the baby in several blankets, leaving only his tiny face uncovered.
Then they ran to the northeast corner of the house where the gardener had just
turned up the soil for a vegetable garden, and praying that this was the
softest place to land, they— ”

“They threw
the baby out of the window!” I refused to believe a mother could do that to her
infant child. My heart broke for all of them.

“Don’t
look so sad, Hope.” Charlotte
placed an arm around my waist and leaned her head against my shoulder. “The
baby survived. That’s why the family’s here today.”

“He . .
. survived?” I choked.
 

“Yes,
Jon-Paul
Chartrand
celebrated his ninetieth birthday
this year, but his time on earth is coming to a close, and the family is
travelling to bring him back.” Charlotte’s
eyes rimmed with tears. “They visited him every year, watched him grow up and
become a successful lawyer, just like his father, and now it’s time for them to
be together again.”
 
Charlotte passed a secret smile to
Rin
. “No one’s ever really forgotten, Hope. We all get our
families back again, sooner or later.” I felt certain she was trying to tell me
something about my mother, but I said nothing back.
 

We
watched as the
Chartrand
family approached the bus,
watched their heads rise as they bounded up the three steps, pausing beside the
empty driver’s seat to deposit their coins. And as they advanced hand-in-hand a
few steps down the aisle, we exhaled a long, mutual sigh as they instantly,
suddenly,
vanished
.

I wished
them a lovely return trip,
wherever they
were going
.

Rin
and Charlotte had broad smiles covering their faces. I
was beginning to see the Station through their eyes, and I kind of liked it.
“Thanks for the story,” I sniffled, wiping my eyes. “It had a happier ending
than I imagined it would.”