"If ever I should...steal from the world and its distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little valley."
*****
The ceiling in Bram and Jonathan's bedroom features a yellow, cracked water stain, and the industrial carpet throughout the one-bedroom apartment smells like pot. The window is slightly open to let in fresh air, but instead, all I get are the resounding refrains of a couple arguing a few windows away. Jonathan, who had the good sense to move to a friend's house when Bram texted him that I was coming, keeps his half of the room looking like a war zone. Bram never told me what he and his parents fought over to make him move in with Jonathan, but it had to be pretty bad for him to live in this dump.
The yelling couple reaches a new crescendo. There's no way I can sleep.
When I called Bram last month to tell him I was coming back to the Hollow for what could be a week, a month, or more, I threw him for a loop. "Why?" he kept wanting to know, which did nothing for my confidence. I think he was still hurt that I'd turned him down when we were kids and was hoping he wouldn't have to see "the face of rejection" again.
But the more we messaged and exchanged pics, the more comfortable he seemed to be with the idea. "So you finally missed us country bumpkins, huh?" he said one time.
Not really. Him, maybe. And my mom, of course, but that's it.
I'm only here to do good by my mother. I need to understand what happened to her, why she sent me that final note, why she didn't join Dad and me in Miami, why she let other things take precedence over her family. And maybe guilt, too, brought me back. I felt, and still feel, terrible for having left her alone. I can't even tell her anymore. Too late for "I'm sorry."
Since her death six weeks ago, I've tortured myself a million times with the question—why did I leave? And so far, this is all I've come up with:
Her research. Tons of it. Late into the night. Also, I needed a mother. Instead, I lived with an obsessed historian. Finally, everyone hated us. Hated my dad for hitting it big in the South American market and getting the hell out of Sleepy Hollow. They hated my mom for her crazy conspiracy claims, weird handmade dolls, you name it. And they hated me, because...well, hate by association. After Dad left, she asked which parent I wanted to live with. My father—responsible, dependable, financially stable—won, hands down.
My decision didn't mean I didn't love her. She was my mom, for Christ's sake. I thought about her, dreamed about her, even drew charcoal pictures of her until I was fourteen. I waited, thinking she'd eventually move down whenever she was done being selfish. Instead, she only called on birthdays and Christmases for a couple of years, then never again. And even then, I still loved her.
Then, six weeks ago, her note arrived. In the darkness of Bram's smelly room, I pluck the note from my bag, unfold it, and stare at Mami's shaky handwriting:
Lela, please come home. It's urgent.
In keeping with the strange abilities that have plagued me since I was little—sensing things before they happen and hearing voices—I knew how the note would read even before I opened it. I was thrilled that she wrote to me, so I started making travel plans without my dad knowing, since he was in Bogotá on business anyway. But then, three days after the note arrived, Nina gave me the news. "I'm so sorry, Mica," she said, handing me her phone with about as much sincerity as her glitter nails, "but your mom's dead."
At that moment, I thought my chest would implode. I thought splinters from my ribs would puncture my lungs, and my breath would escape through fissures in my broken heart. I couldn't breathe. Mami—gone.
On the phone, the officer's formal tone cemented it. "At two thirty p.m. on August twenty-ninth, your mother's neighbor, Mrs. Betty Anne Haworth, noticed your mom's cat begging for food. She knocked on her door. She found her collapsed in the tub, Miss Burgos. I'm terribly sorry for your loss."
And so, my mother's lifeless body remained at the Westchester County morgue for seven days. The big September storm prevented us from flying in, so nobody came to claim her. After that, my father had to fly to Colombia again, said he was waiting for some money he needed before we could travel to New York. Eventually, Dad told me it was over—they cremated her.
I never got to say good-bye.
Staring at the note, I wonder—did Mami know something bad was going to happen to her? The way I know when the phone will ring? If she did, why would she contact me when I was too far away to help? Why not Betty Anne? Why snail-mail the note to Emily's house when she'd never even met my best friend before?
I face my restless body to the wall and glance at my phone: 4:37 a.m. I never imagined I'd be sleeping here tonight, but Bram insisted on taking the couch so I could get the "good bed." I don't have the heart to tell him it's not that comfortable, but it does smell like him, which is nice in a weird way. Still, it feels strange sleeping here when my old house is only ten minutes away.
Blunt trauma to the head, the officer's voice echoes in my mind. She slipped in the bath tub, miss. An accident. What had it felt like in those last moments before she died?
"I'm sorry I took so long to get here, Mami," I whisper in the dark, wiping away hot tears. I fling the note back into my bag and let go of a big, deep breath. If I think about it too much, it'll consume me.
In and out through the nose. Quiet your mind, like Emily always says during yoga. Still, my disjointed thoughts pester me. Eventually, they blend into something continuous. It's not until the gray, early morning shadows begin melting into streaks of amber, when the image of my mother's ashes floating in the cold wind leaves me, do I finally fall asleep.
***
The woman glides into my dreams—a human in smoke form. She wears dark petticoats and an old-fashioned hairstyle, like buns on the sides of her head. In her arms is a small, soft bundle. No face to speak of again, just a swirling mask of fog, sobs echoing from a distant place.
He's leaving me.
Who? Your husband? I ask her.
She doesn't answer. On a table beside her, a stack of papers lifts into the air and flies about on its own, as if a window has just suddenly opened, letting in a swirling rogue gust of wind. The woman rises from her chair, bundle in arms, and flies high above a busy, foggy cityscape into the countryside, beckoning me to follow.
This is the part that always scares me more than anything. Where does she want to lead me? What if it's the so-called "light"? Please stop! I feel the apparition's force pulling me. I can't go with you!
Sleep paralysis sets in. I wish my eyes would pry open, wish my legs would budge. I want to scream in my sleep, outside my sleep, anything...but I can't move. Let me go!
After more tugs, my real-life body rips forward, catapulting me into the middle of the bedroom. I stumble into the bathroom, covering my eyes, afraid I'll run into the ghost on the way, and hang my face over the sink. I pant and sweat until my terror dissolves.
Pressing a towel to my forehead, I mutter prayers to anyone who'll listen. Please let her be gone, please let her be gone. But when I look up, a face is in the mirror. I scream and bang my shoulder against the towel rack, and then a pair of strong arms wraps around me.
"Let me go!"
"Mica, it's okay, it's me!" Bram's deep voice cuts through layers of consciousness.
I sob against his shirt, absorbing the solidity of his body. "Bram..."
"What happened?"
"I thought... It's a woman...I don't know who she is."
"You were dreaming. That's all."
"She won't leave me alone. What time is it?"
"Six or seven, I don't know. I thought somebody was hurting you. Jeez, you scared the crap out of me."
I gaze at the shower curtain, dirty floor tiles, and mirror spattered with white dots of dried, toothpasty water. Bram's apartment. "I'm sorry. It's these night terrors."
"No, it's fine. Just...let's get you back to bed."
I let Bram lead me out of the bathroom back to his bed. Shaking, I sit and wipe away tears. Bram falls onto the bed beside me. "What's the deal, Mica?"
I sniff, pressing the knot between my eyebrows with my fingers. "I don't know."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"It's a dream. It's always the same. A woman made of smoke without a face, wearing old-fashioned clothes. She keeps asking me to follow her. I don't know who she is or why she wants me to follow her."
"It's probably your mom."
"No." I shake my head adamantly. "I want to say she has black hair. I don't know how I know that. I just feel it. My mom's hair was brown."
"Yeah, but maybe your brain's making her look different. Maybe she still represents your mom."
"It's not her, Bram. Her voice is different. Plus, these papers kept flying all around, like pages torn from a book, and she was holding a baby. I couldn't see it, but that's what it seemed like."
Bram ponders it all quietly. I know I must sound crazy to him. "How long has this been happening?"
"Since she died. It's been six weeks already."
His lips press together, in doubt, it seems. Maybe it is my mother in some other form. Especially since the woman said someone—he—was leaving her. "He" could mean my dad when he left her for Miami.
"Maybe you came back too soon?" Bram says. "Too many memories here or whatever."
Sobs shudder in my chest. "No, I had to come. I have to find out why she sent that note. I have to see the house with my own eyes. I almost feel like this town...pulled me here, Bram."
His eyes flare open. "That is weird."
Great, I'm telling him too much again. Why can't I keep the crazy-sounding bits to myself?
"Mica..." He sweeps my long bangs aside. "You were born here. You lived here most of your life. Your mom was here. Whether or not you want to admit it, this town means something to you."
"It does. I mean, it did. But I was also miserable here. How do you think I felt going around with an outgrown uniform, a backpack with broken straps, getting lunches for free? I've spent six years trying to forget that."
"So you're scared that being here will remind you."
"No, I'm scared that being here will keep me here. Don't you get it?"
Silence as he stares at me, contemplating. "You say that like it's a bad thing." He nods down the width of the bed. "Scoot."
I slide over for him. "Does your girlfriend know I'm here?"
He laughs. "Ex-girlfriend. Four weeks since the breakup. And...it doesn't matter. Lacy needs to get over it."
Still, Lacy's one more person who won't want me here, to make things even tougher. "What about your mom? I know how much she adores me." I scoff sarcastically. Bram's mother perpetuated the idea that my mom was insane, ruining my chance of making friends for years to come. Ironically, it did nothing to dissuade Bram.
"Shh." He takes my hand and rubs it between his. "Don't worry about them right now. Listen, before you start your closure stuff, I want to tell you something." He looks down at our hands, avoiding eye contact, and for a minute, I remember the old, shy Abraham, the one gathering enough courage to tell me he loved me at Kingsland Point Park. "Mica, I'm really sorry about everything, about your mom, and the stuff that happened between you guys."
"Thank you." I rest my head back against the headboard and sigh. "I appreciate that, more than you know."
"I mean, I'll never understand how you two could quit each other like that, but—"
I slide my hand out of his. "She quit me, Bram." This was one of my hesitations for coming here. I didn't want to have to explain myself to anybody. "Let's say your wife wants you to move to another town with her and your daughter, and you don't want to go, isn't it clear who has the problem? Besides, I was a kid!"
"But you knew your mom. You knew she'd never leave her work or anything Irving-related. Everything she was interested in was here in the Hollow."
He's right—to a point. My mother was stubborn and obsessed with her job as a tour guide at Sunnyside, Washington Irving's historic home here in Tarrytown. She was also obsessed with her dolls. Anyone who created, named, and gave personalities to inanimate playthings could not be very rational.
"Look, let's just forget it." He sighs. "You need sleep. We can talk about it again later if you want." He grabs both of my hands. "You want water? I'll go get you some."
"I'm fine. I just hope I don't bother you with any more night terrors." I drag myself to the edge of the bed. "I'll go sleep on the couch."
He climbs off and wags his finger at me. "Ah, ah. Beauties sleep on beds. Uglies stay on couches."
I force a weak smile. "You're not ugly."
He smiles, proving me right. "Snooze. You have a lot to do tomorrow." He looks at his phone and rubs his eyes. "Er...today."
I lie down again and stare at the water stain. For a minute, all I can think about is how he lay next to me and held my hand. I know he was only comforting me, but a part of my brain wonders if I could ever let myself fall for Bram—if we could ever be more. But right now, I don't know—I can't even believe I'm here again. Besides, I think I'd make for a pretty useless girlfriend, I'm so stressed.
For the rest of the early morning, I gaze at theshadows in the room as they slowly shift down the walls. I watch, contemplating, as the wheels in my brain spin full speed ahead, until thecouple a few doors down starts arguing again, releasing me at last from thetemptation of sleep.