Wander Dust

::1::
The Lady in Black

Sixteen candles sparkle in front of me. Guests around the restaurant join in singing “Happy Birthday” with our waiter. As the end of the song nears, I reposition myself in my chair, getting ready to inhale and blow out the candles. Before I do, the air around me stirs, suffocating the flames. Each light simmers and vanishes. I jerk back in my seat, staring at the cake.
No wish? This has to be a bad omen.

Everyone breaks into applause. As I glance around at the unfamiliar smiles, I realize, no one but me noticed the flames extinguishing on their own.

I readjust my interest and search for my dad, Ray. Through the swirling candle smoke, I see him sitting directly across from me at our large round table. The table’s size is better suited for six people instead of three, so now there is an awkward distance between us.

Ray’s eyes are not on mine, because he has already returned his attention to flirting with Maddi, his annoying girlfriend. He probably had not even bothered to sing to me, and I had not bothered to check. With Maddi around, he’s had even less time for me.

I want to be jealous of Maddi, but mostly she just annoys me with her plastic looks and superficial disposition. The first conversation the woman ever initiated with me was about lip gloss. Then she blew me away with her follow up discussion about her collection of yard gnomes.

Maddi lifts her hand and traces her long, fluorescent pink fingernail down Ray’s shoulder. Charmed by her attention, he giggles with his entire body. His giggles cause his glasses to slip from his nose, and he pushes the rims back up with a single finger. He turns and grabs her bronze hand, planting a kiss on the back.

When he’s around Maddi, his rigid facade softens. I only see his reserved side—the one that only notices me when I do something unacceptable—which is almost all the time. Admittedly, this is from my personal doing.

I look away from them and shake my head, hoping to dislodge the image of adult foreplay. Annoyed, I lean into the table, drop my cheek into my palm, and turn my attention back to the cake. I pluck each candle off, one by one, and lick the frosting off the ends.

For the final candle, I drag the end through the frosting, digging a long ditch through the cream cheese icing, revealing the red velvet cake underneath. As I flip the end of the candle toward my mouth, the wick’s flame suddenly flickers back to life, burning my hand. Startled, I drop it. It lands in my lap, and I jump up, pushing my seat away from the table. The lit candle rolls off my skirt and onto the floor. I stomp on the small flame, smothering it.

My heart pounds in my chest at the excitement, but I’m not hurt, just stunned. Without another thought, I pick up the pile of candles on my plate and drop them into my glass of ice water—just in case. The water splashes out of the glass and onto my skirt. When I look down at myself, I’m not only soaked, but I find a large singe mark on my hem.
Great.

Ray’s too enthralled with Maddi’s flirting to have noticed my small, dramatic event. If the flames had spread, engulfing me, would he have noticed? If I’d set the fire myself, the answer would certainly be yes. At that point, I would have received a lengthy lecture, followed by yet another grounding. I huff in annoyance.

“I’m going to the ladies’ room,” I announce, leaning onto the table. Neither responds.
I’m invisible to them.
I roll my eyes and walk away.

I weave through the tightly packed tables of the restaurant. Farther away, in another room, dance music blares. Behind flowing white curtains, beautiful people, dressed scantily with drinks clenched between their fingers, dance around a bar. This is Miami Beach after all. I’ve gotten used to everyone looking like models: the men, the women, all perfect, all tall. My small frame shrinks, just standing in their proximity.

Through the undulating crowd, I lock eyes with a woman. Her cropped, jet-black hair frames her pale face, which instantly makes her stand out among the tanned bodies. I continue to stare at her, and her bright red lips contort into a smile that sends uneasy chills racing down my spine.

I look away, trying to ignore her, and then push through the crowd and into a long empty hall. As I walk, the sound of high heels click on the tile behind me, echoing through the hallow space. This noise puts me on edge, and I turn to look, but no one is there. Strangely, the hall is empty.

When I reach the end of the hall, I shove open the door marked Damas. The wood door swings shut, instantly muffling the dance music behind me.

At the sink, I run water over a paper towel and then repeatedly dab the wet, brown blob to my skirt, trying to wipe away the blackened scorch-mark. The burned spot only crumbles under my fingers like ash. My favorite skirt is ruined.

I launch the balled-up paper towel into a waste basket across the room. Of course, I miss. After I retrieve it from the floor and try again with better success, I turn my attention to a mirror. Two loose strands of hair have escaped my bobby pin. One is dyed purple. Ray hasn’t noticed it yet. I wonder when he will and how long he will ground me when he does. At least,
eventually
, it will make him see me.

Nearby, the door crashes open. The sound knocks me out of my personal pity party. Two girls, drunk, fall into the room laughing. They hold each other up as they wobble across the room and smash into a stall.

When I turn toward the door to leave, the lady with red lips stands, guarding the exit. Her arms are crossed, and she’s intently studying me.

Even though she makes me nervous, I don’t look away. I know that it’s a sign of weakness, and I’m not weak. At least, I pretend not to be. So I stare back, giving her an expression of defiance I normally reserve for Ray.

Her black jumpsuit shines like patent leather. It covers everything but her shoulders and long arms. Under the flickering lights, her skin looks milky like wax paper. She drops her hands to her sides and steps toward me as though she’s going to hurt me.

I step back, reaching for the wall. I look back and forward again, but now she’s gone. Disappeared.

Confused, I spin in a circle looking for her, but only the two drunk girls remain. They giggle in their closed stall. One stumbles, banging against the dividers, and drops her clutch on the floor. A hand appears and scoops up the purse. They laugh again.

The Lady in Black is gone.

Where is she? Am I crazy?

I run for the door. As I push it open the music hits me again. I wind my way back to my table, avoiding the dancing models, all while nervously looking over my shoulder for the Lady in Black.

Maddi might as well be sitting on Ray’s lap when I return. She kisses his ear and plays with his dirty blonde hair, pawing him like a piece of meat.

I throw myself back into my chair, wishing my friend Beth were here. At least she would have distracted me from Ray and Maddi’s grope-fest, but her mom grounded her after we took the family car without permission earlier today.

“She’s back!” Ray exclaims from across the table, holding his palm toward me.

You’re back.
I force a smile.

“Sera, did I ever tell you about my collection of holiday hats for Mr. Whiskers?” Maddi asks in her high-pitched, baby voice. She pulls her massive, sparkling handbag from the floor and rummages through the contents. Finally, her phone appears in her hand. Her pink claws scratch at the glass buttons, searching for a photo of her cat.

“Yes, I believe you have,” I say.
A few hundred times.

“Look how cute!” She holds up her phone, wiggling it around, making it impossible to focus on the photo of the costumed animal. An orange blur is all I can make out.

“Nice,” I say through my teeth.

My eyes fall to the cake. They cut it without me, and a large portion is now missing. My lips turn down. Across the table, Maddi turns and feeds Ray a small chunk. The icing sticks to his lips. She kisses it off as they giggle.

Please, someone, make this night end!
My fingers grip the sides of my chair. I want to lash out. I look for the cake candles, this time seriously contemplating setting something on fire. The table cloth? Myself? Anything will do.

The thought is quickly replaced with another—disbelief. The candles submerged in my ice water are now glowing. I lean in and squint to focus on them because I can’t believe my eyes. Fire flickers from their wicks under water.
Fire under water!
Smoke breaks through the water’s surface and rises above our table, toiling gracefully through the air.

My eyes dart around to see if anyone else notices. That’s when I see her again—the Lady in Black. She sits, perched on a bar stool, watching me. She’s laughing as though she has something to do with the unexplainable flames in my glass of water. I blink a few times to make sure I really see her. Five blinks later and she’s still there. Staring.

Who is she? And who does she think she is? I scowl. It’s as though she’s trying to scare me. Test me. Annoy me. What bravado I have kicks in, and I intensify the confrontation with an equally menacing stare.

One black eyebrow lifts. The Lady in Black seems intrigued by my response. She slithers off her bar stool and saunters toward me. Immediately, the crowd parts away from her path like a repelling magnet.

When her onyx eyes lock on mine, I feel it. Golden flames erupt within her eyes, instantaneously igniting flames in my own mind. Our eyes, our minds are now somehow connected, and I don’t know how it’s possible. When the fire intensifies and races through my thoughts, I want to hurl my body into the nearby fountain to put out the fire just like I did with the candles. Unexplainably, I’m paralyzed—frozen in hell.

The flames sear, crackle, and burn until they’ve reached what they’ve come for. A vague sensation tells me they’re here to attain information. A secret. What it is or if the Lady in Black will find it, I can’t tell.

When the sparking peaks aggravate my memories further, asking them to dance to life, I try to scream.
Help me!
But my internal emotions do not mirror my face, which is smooth and lifeless. Inches away, Ray and Maddi sit flirting. They’re utterly ignorant to my suffering. I realize I’m on fire, but Ray still doesn’t notice.

The Lady in Black pauses and cocks her head. Her red lips roll into a malicious smile, revealing her bright, white teeth.

I fight harder to untangle myself from her snare, wrestling for freedom. I want to get away before the fire and pain devours me, but when I mentally tug away from her, the strain is too much. Black dots multiply until they consume my sight. Finally, I black out.

::2::
Transfixed

When I wake, I’m on the floor. The person standing over me is our waiter—I think. He’s kind of blurry, and my head throbs with a headache. His manicured eyebrows pinch together when his mouth moves, but I can’t decipher his words. I rub my temples with my fingertips, massaging them until the sounds around me return.

After a moment, Ray and Maddi are standing over me. Maddi takes a picture of me with her phone. The flash temporarily blinds me, confusing me further. I pray that she won’t post the photo on the internet, but I know that she already has.

Ray looks concerned.
Is this what it takes to get his attention?
He grabs my arm and pulls me from the floor. He and the waiter drag me onto a chair.

“What happened?” Ray asks as he stands directly in front of me. My face reflects back at me from his glasses, and I look as confused as I feel. “What happened, Seraphina?” he asks again.

“What happened?” I repeat, but more for myself as I try to remember how I blacked out and landed on the floor.

The Lady in Black
. “The lady!” Launching forward to stand, I scan the restaurant, every crevice, every shadow, but she is gone. Vanished.

“What lady?” Ray jolts, his eyes scour the faces, trying to understand.

“Calm down, Raymond,” Maddi says with a giggle and smooths down the shirt on his shoulders.

Drained, I collapse back to my seat. The waiter returns with a new glass of water and offers it to me. I drink it, all of it. The hydration seems to subdue my headache. It no longer pounds out of control. When he refills my glass, I chug again.

Ray turns back to me. He’s already forgotten about the Lady, but I haven’t. Her black flaming eyes are burned into my brain. I wince, recalling the searing pain.

“Are you all right?”

Ray puts an awkward hand on my shoulder. He doesn’t normally show affection toward me, so this is a breakthrough. All this time I thought being difficult was the way to get his attention. Now I know I just have to pass out every once in a while.

This revelation should make me chuckle a little, but it doesn’t because my relationship with him is a sad one. I don’t hate him for it. It’s just the way things are.

“I’m okay,” I say, but I’m not sure. I exhale, trying to calm my mind.
The Lady in Black is not real. What happened, didn’t happen.
These are words I want to believe, but I’m still not positive.

Ray hovers over me for a few moments longer, but Maddi has already returned to her glass of wine on the other side of the table. She sucks icing from each of her long fingernails.
Gross.
I close my eyes, unable to watch.

“I think this will make you feel better,” Ray says. Through squinted eyes, I see him walk back to Maddi. She pulls a small birthday bag from her gigantic handbag. He grabs it and brings it to me.

The gift bag is pink with polka dotted tissue paper sprouting from the top. I know Maddi wrapped it because the closest Ray has ever come to wrapping something is leaving it in the bag he originally bought it in.

Clearly, Ray is excited for me to open the bag. I can see it in his eyes. It must be the booze that’s relaxing him—the booze and Maddi.

“Thanks, Dad.”

I called him Ray to his face once, and he grounded me.

“It’s something special for your sixteenth birthday,” he says.

What I want are keys to a car. I perk up slightly, but only because the bag is about the right size, and I’ve been dreaming about it for months.

My hand plunges in, and I fish around the tissue paper. My fingers find what they expect—cold metal. I pull the object out as fast as possible. All the protective tissue flutters to the floor.

“Uh—thanks,” I say, looking at the gift, trying to hide my intense disappointment.

“It’s not just any bracelet,” Ray says with a wave of his hand. “It belonged to your mother.” He sounds pleased with himself. He sits back down and leans onto the table, gesturing toward my gift.

“Oh!” My forehead creases as I scrutinize it closer. The bracelet is unexpected, but I’m thrilled to have something,
anything
, of Mom’s.

“Thanks, Dad—it’s perfect,” I say, feeling slightly guilty for hoping for anything else. “I didn’t know there was anything left of Mom’s.”

“Well, your Aunt Mona borrowed it from her some time before—before—before—you know. Anyway, she sent it to me last week, so you would have it for your birthday,” he says.

I’m caught off guard with Ray’s token—a great gift—not a car, but something better. Sitting in silence for several moments, I stare at the bracelet, wondering about its previous owner, a person I never had the opportunity to know. Sighing, I tuck the newly cherished prize into the side pocket of my tote where it will be safe, a place where I can steal glances at it without anyone noticing.

My mind barely has a moment to enjoy the thought of the family heirloom before Maddi brings me back to the issue at hand. Her mouth takes off, lips racing, chatting with Ray over my fainting drama. This marathon continues until we exit the restaurant and wait for the valet to bring the car around.

We get in the car and drive away. Maddi’s finally onto a new subject, but I’m not. She’s sufficiently worked me further into a paranoid frenzy. Now, all I can think about is the reason for my blackout: the Lady in Black. The fire in her eyes will not leave my thoughts.

Resting my forehead against the car’s window, I attempt to enlist my attention elsewhere. I watch the colorful lighting display from the roof of the restaurant reflect off of the night sky. The neon colors mesmerize me as they switch from blue and green, to hot pink and orange, and back again.

Quaint little cafés and gelaterias dot the walkways through Miami Beach. The lush, tropical landscape around them sparkles with a million, white twinkling lights. As we race down Alton Road, everything streams by us in a glorious, golden lighting display. The lights only remind me of the fire and the Lady in Black.

Her image continues to haunt me when we get home. Instead of sleeping, I’ve nestled myself into the corner of my window seat. My body is positioned in such a way that I can see both my bedroom door and the front yard, just in case she decides to visit me again.

Since I’m sitting up, propped against the wall, the chair railing jabs through my pillow and into my back. The cushion beneath me constantly slides off the seat and onto the floor. Before the night is over, I’ve managed to accidentally rip down a curtain. It’s wound tightly around my body like a blanket when I wake. My face is pressed against the window. Drool drips down the glass. Bags the size of bean bag chairs sit under my eyes, and I’m exhausted, stiff with cramps.

•

By the time a week and a half has past, I’m feeling secure enough to move my lookout from my window seat to my bed, but only after I’ve rearranged the layout of my room so I can see both my door and window when I’m lying down.

After a week of this, I finally sleep through the night. Still, the new bed location doesn’t stop the nightmares. They’re vivid and terrifying, and in every one, it’s like I’m stuck in a horror movie, continually burned by the Lady in Black.

Tonight, I take one quick glance out the front window before I jump into my bed and under the covers. When my head hits the pillow my muscles instantly relax. The nightmares have exhausted me. I close my eyes, conjuring happy thoughts, believing they will help. Ever so slowly, I drift to sleep.

A slow ache fills my lungs, and I finally cough several times. When I attempt to breathe again, the air is tainted with thick smoke, forcing me to cough once again. My eyes dart open. Through a sleepy stupor, I see black clouds hovering in angry swirls above me. Snapping and popping flames, crackle nearby. My heart stops and immediately races in one short second. I vault from my bed, realizing my house is on fire.

Darting for the door, all I can think is that I must save Ray.
He’s all I have.
When I grab the metal doorknob, its searing heat instantly singes my hand. I recoil, hissing, and let out a scream. That’s when a malicious laugh ricochets through my room. When I turn to find its owner, the only thing out of the ordinary is my window, which is wide open. Smoke races toward it, funneling out into the night sky like draining water.

Coughs shudder through my lungs again, and I make a run for the window. Doubling over, I heave my body over the sill, retching until my lungs clear, and I can breathe fresh air again.

When I glance across my front yard, the Lady in Black stands with her head thrown back, sending a wicked laughter through the air. A slight whimper escapes my lips. I know she’s come back for me, to finally finish me off.

“Sera!” Behind me, Ray screams my name.

Knock, knock, knock.

“Sera, are you awake?”

I suck in an agonizing breath of air and lurch forward. In shock, I grab my bed sheets. They slip between my crunching fingers. My back is drenched, and my hair sticks to my neck. My heart races as though my dream is still in progress.

The purple walls of my bedroom come into view after I blink several times. The room is bright with sunlight, but not flames. Through a blurry, sideways glance, I see Ray standing at my door.

“Are you all right?” he asks me.

Breathless, I look around, confirming what I know has happened. I’ve dreamed about her again, for the hundredth time in the past two weeks.

“You were screaming in your sleep again,” Ray explains and leans on the door frame.

“Was I?”

“Is everything okay?” he asks as he readjusts his stance and tucks his Sunday newspaper under his arm.

“Yeah,” I mumble, unsure, and swing my legs over the edge of the mattress. My bare toes skim the carpet, the sensation reminding me that my bad dream is over.

“All right. Well, I’m getting ready to run to work for a few hours. What do you have planned for the day?” he asks.

“Just hanging around.” I haven’t left the house, other than to go to school, because I’ve spent every day since my birthday looking over my shoulder for the Lady in Black, wondering when she’ll show up again.

“Sure you’re okay?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. I guess I’ve been acting paranoid enough even for Ray to notice.

“Yeah, sure.” I look over my shoulder and smile, hoping to dismiss his concerns. I’ve come to conclusion that I’m crazy, and the Lady in Black never really existed.

“Okay, I’ll see you in a few hours.” He turns to walk away, but comes back. “Oh, I forgot. You’ve got some mail downstairs. I left it on the kitchen table.”

“Kay.” I nod.

Ray taps the newspaper to the wall a few times as a gesture of goodbye and turns to walk away. His footsteps disappear down the stairs. He opens the front door and leaves.

Yawning, I stretch my arms above me, lengthening my muscles and tensing my hands into fists.

“Ow!” I yank my hand back down to my eyes. A singe mark, the same one from my dream, is burned into my palm. I squint, holding my hand up in disbelief. When I gently glide a fingertip over the burned skin to make sure it’s really there, it suddenly fades into a healthy pink, completely disappearing in seconds.

Ray’s car door slams shut.

For some reason I decide I need to talk to him about this, show him my hand, explain that I need psychiatric help. So I jump up from bed, rush down the hall, the stairs, and finally into the entry hall. By the time I burst through the front door, Ray is driving away. He looks over at me, honks his horn, and waves goodbye.

I exhale with a moan, telling myself I’m not sure what I would have told him anyway. The conversation doesn’t play well in my head.
By the way, Dad, I’m completely crazy and see things that aren’t there. Specifically, a lady in black, combustible birthday candles, and now burn marks on my hand.