Chapter Two
Irene
"Are you alright, Ren?" My sort-of friend Taylor puts her hand on my shoulder. "Normally, you've already finished your lunch by now." Although she never puts in the effort to be around me, it never ceases to amaze me how much she notices about me.
She sits down in the chair beside me. "I'd say you're stressed."
I shrug, and push my lunch tray away from me, and shrug. "Just not hungry today."
"Oh, come on. You can tell me. Are you worried about the Algebra test? Mr. Tyman likes you. You have nothing to worry about."
I almost said, "it isn't that." I stop myself. She had given me an out. "Yeah, you're probably right," I sigh, trying to sound relieved. "Guess I just needed a vote of confidence."
She moved here last year, and was instantly thrusted into the popular crowds. She sits at a table with the cheerleader girls who think they're so cool during lunchtime, and I generally sit alone.
"I'm always here," she smiles, patting my hand in an odd motherly way. At the call of her name, she looks over to see the rest of her make-up caked piranha pack standing up. "Oh, we're moving." She stands up. "See you later, Ren." She goes to flirt with a couple boys, and I'm alone.
I hate when people give me nicknames like that, but I'm usually too nice to say anything. I stand up, and chuck my entire untouched lunch into the garbage bin.
I still have fifteen minutes before I have to face that dreadful math test, so I start down the hallways to my favorite place in the school; the library.
I feel a lot better once I'm amongst the bookshelves, all on my own. I'm the only student here right now. As usual. The smell of a hundred unread books always seems to calm me. I pull down a book about a planetary system caught in the middle of a civil war, and page through it slowly, skimming the concept. I'd like to visit a faraway place like this before I disappear. The chance of disappearing, being swept away and forgotten, before I get the chance to do all those things I pictured myself doing as an adult hits me full force. I feel sick.
I put the book back, and go to the library desk. "Can I have a pen, please?" I ask. I plan on creating my very own bucket list.
The man behind the desk looks up from his book. And I start.
"You're not Mrs. McPhinnal," I say suspiciously. The man looks slightly unsure of how to respond to that.
"I agree," he replies, his voice bubbling with an unmistakably British accent.
"Are you her new assistant? You can't be." I don't know why he would be.
He leans forward, interested. "Why couldn't I be?"
"Because you look silly."
"What's wrong with silly?" He asks.
"Mrs. McPhinnal doesn't like silly."
The man does look silly. What sort of school staff member wears a bowtie and suspenders?
"Mrs. McPhinnal resigned," he says, "I'm the new librarian. Call me John Smith."
"Call me confused," I say. "Why did no one say she was leaving?"
"It was short notice," comes the answer.
"What happened?"
After a moment of looking at me, he replies, "How should I know? I'm just temporary replacement. Don't mind me. You look awful."
"Bite me," I glare. "Give me a pen."
"Here's your pen, here's your paper."
"How did you know I wanted paper?"
"Because the other option is you writing on the books. You don't have a notebook with you."
I take them slowly. I spot a book on the desk. It's the same one I was just reading in the aisle. "Have you read that?" I motion to it. He looks at it.
"Yes. Have you?"
I shake my head. "No, but I flipped through it. Is it good?"
"Oh, definitely worth a tick. I'll check it out for you." He starts typing on the computer.
I am unfamiliar with British alterations of phrases, but my best guess is that he just said that it's worth my time.
"What's your name?"
I draw myself up to my full height. "Irene Lydia Santher."
"How are you, Irene?" He asks politely, looking my library account up on the computer.
"I'm dealing with the perils of high school, just like everyone else," I reply. Lie.
"Oh, my. This is a high school."
"You didn't know that? I thought you worked here."
"I do," he agrees warmly.
"You don't even know where you work?"
"I try never to know where I work until I've met the locals."
"Are you saying that I'm the first local you've met? What about the other teachers?"
"You call them locals?" He asks me. He has a certain way of speaking as though you should have already known this by now, yet he looks at you as a friend because he gets to retell you.
"Anyways. What high school?"
"Gracious Liberty," I say.
He hands me the book he has checked out for me. He jokes, "If I'd known, I might not have taken the job."
"Yeah," I sigh, leaning against the desk. "Doubt I'll make it out of puberty alive."
He assumes I'm joking, and chuckles. "There's always a silver lining, Irene. Keep your head up, eh?" He hands the book over the counter just as the bell rings. I smile at him before I leave, and he returns the gesture.
His words indirectly give me a sense of hope, and the bounce returns to my step.
Keep your head up.
***
I promised Miss Piksi that I would do this. I stand in front of the old two story house that is across the street from my house. This is the oldest house in the neighborhood, just a little younger than the woman inside of it. I said that I would come help her make her famous strawberry jam today, and I don't back down on my word. I venture inside.
"Miss Piksi?" I knock on the frontdoor frame. "It's Irene. I'm here." I hang up my book bag on the coat rack, knowing how much she hates clutter. I take off my flip flops and set them in an orderly manner directly beside the door on the rug. "Miss Piksi?" Hearing no reply, I wander towards the kitchen.
The kitchen is hot, and steaming so much I can barely see. I roll up the sleeves of my t-shirt. It's almost like someone stuffed an entire cloud in here.
"Irene!" Miss Piksi's voice is very high pitched, so you can never miss it. She's a short, sentimental, plump old lady with a pile of gray hair on top of her head, and a knack for crocheting. She reminds me of everyone's ideal grandma figure.
"Hi, Miss Piksi," I say, smiling. She gives me a warm hug, and I have to lean down to return it. "How are you?"
"Very busy, dear. Thank you for asking."
"Bit stuffy in here," I say, going over and opening a creaky window above the sink. I prop it open with a book.
"Is it?" She asks, squinting at me through the fog. I smile at her oblivious sweetness.
"How can I help?"
Very soon, I'm juggling stirring four boiling pots of pureed strawberries, while Miss Piksi is canning the finished jam. The steam is overwhelming, and I have to concentrate very hard on actually seeing whatever I look at through the fog.
For twenty years, she says, Miss Piksi has been famous among her relatives for her exceptional strawberry jam. Twice a year- once in the winter and once in the summer- she sends out shipments of the stuff to everyone in her extensive family tree, two jars per person. All together- that's sixty six jars to fill, seal, package, and send out to each of her immediate relatives.
I've been helping her do this since I was six, but today feels different. From now on, any time I make jam with Miss Piksi, it could very well my last time. I shake off the thought, trying to stay focused on the task at hand.
Tears well up in my eyes anyway, as the reality of my own sickness closing in on me keeps trying to take over my mind. My hand jerks, and pot I've been stirring goes with it. Jam spills over the edge, and Miss Piksi hurries to find a washcloth for the mess as it sizzles on the stovetop.
"Here you are, not a big mess," she says, dabbing it up.
"I'm sorry," I say, wiping my eyes and shaking myself back into existence. "I'm sorry. I don't know what happened."
I take the cloth from her and finish cleaning up before going back to stirring the pots.
***
I'm sitting in Miss Piksi's living room with her, sipping on lemonade and reading the book that Mr. Smith checked out for me at school.
Miss Piksi looks up from her crocheting. "I know sadness when I see it. What's wrong, Renny?" Miss Piksi is the only one who calls me that, besides my brother. Except Toby knows that I hate it. I don't have the heart to tell Miss Piksi.
I don't know whether it was a gag reflex at the reminder of what was happening to me, or just plain surprise that made me nearly spit out my lemonade at her words. I force myself to swallow.
One thing about Miss Piksi, is even though she doesn't notice done things that are really obvious. She picks up on details very quickly. She's also very direct, and doesn't let you slip out of a question. I know there's no getting out of telling her. If I consistently refuse, she'll badger my parents, and they have enough to worry about.
I take a deep breath, and the whole story comes spilling out; everything from my first visit to the doctor's, to this afternoon when I lied to Taylor. How I only had a year left to live. I leave out the part about Mr. Smith. Since I picked up on a note of dishonesty in the new librarian, I wanted to keep my encounter with him to myself.
Miss Piksi listens intently, stopping me to ask questions once or twice.
"It keeps sort of haunting me," I say. "I don't want to spend my last years haunted. Are you ever scared about dying?" At first I think this might be rude to ask, but she only smiles, and leans over to pat my hand.
"We're all going to die, dear. I'm eighty three years old. I know I have an expiration date. I've come to terms with it. I don't want to waste whatever I have left," she says. "See, Irene, that's the key. Anyone can fake through it. You have to come to terms with it."
I shake my head, lost. How will coming to terms with it help?
"Then what?"
"Then," she says, "You live." She smiles at me, and goes back to her crocheting project. I stare across the room at the hearth. Her words sink in slowly, but once they're in, I know they're never going to squeeze out.
Something catches my eye behind Miss Piksi. I look up, and go still, my eyes widening. Outside the window, a shapeless, dark figure of fog, almost like a floating ghost, hovers. I grip the book in my hands, and decide not to alert Miss Piksi.
I casually twist around to look about the room.
My eyes land on a kitchen knife on the dining room table, but it doesn't take long for me to drop that idea. How do you fight fog?
I stand up, and brush off my shorts. "I-is it alright if I step outside for a breath of air?" I ask Miss Piksi, who looks up. I try to keep my eyes on her, not the dark figure hovering in the window behind her.
Her face relaxes in an understanding smile, assuming that I'm still wrestling with our previous conversation topic.
"Of course, Renny." I force a smile, and hurry to the front door and slip on my boots, and loose leather backpack. I put on my coat. As I pass through the living room to the back door (the house is old fashioned, where it was perfectly acceptable to exit and enter through the back door), the figure is still at the window.
Miss Piksi spots me, and her brow furrows. "Are you going out for long?"
I try to look exhausted, even though I've never felt so awake. "I might go for a little walk. I'll probably go back home afterwards. I'm really tired."
"Oh. Okay. Thank you for coming over, I appreciate the help."
"Er, yeah, no problem. Thanks for the, uh..." I tapped my head trying to get the word back from where it had jumped out of my brain. "Lemonade. That's it."
I turn. The dark figure is drifting away, over the fence. Oh, no.
"Oh, and Irene," Miss Piksi says. I try not to look anxious. "I hope you remember my advice."
I nod quickly. "No. I mean yes, I will. Of course I will. Thank you. Okay, bye."
I slip out the door, and break out in a run down the side yard. I wrestle with the gate latch, and take off running down the street, after the floating blob of black fog.
Halfway down the street, a little boy playing with a couple matchbox cars has spotted the black blob, and is calling his mom to come outside. I recognize those little cars; they were my brother's before he grew out of that phase and sold him to the little boy's mom at a garage sale a year ago.
I keep running. Heart pounding as I gasp for air but I won't stop. It feels amazing. I feel the wind stripping my problems off of me, and I leave them behind me on the hot asphalt as I run.
I reach the forest at the edge of our neighborhood. The forest is big enough to feel intimidating, but not quite massive enough to be scary. There was no way to get lost in there. Especially not while there were train tracks running through the middle.
I chase the shadow figure through the woods, but it conveniently disappears when I reach the train tracks.
Left without a lead, I look around, and wandered onto the tracks, suddenly feeling stupid. Maybe the dark cloud had been a hallucination. Didn't the doctor say that hallucinations could be a symptom of brain cancer? With my brain still charged with adrenaline, and becoming increasingly dizzy, I can't remember.
For some reason, I feel like there was something behind me. My heard beginning to pound again, I turned around slowly, expecting a towering black blob, ready to strike.
Instead, with the deafening sound of a train horn, the last thing I see before it all went black was the front of a train six inches from my face.
***
Am I dead? Is my first thought when I wake up. But I don't think that death could be this cold, and... am I breathing smoke?
I start coughing, and roll onto my side. I sit up, and find that the smoke gets thinner the farther up I am, so I stumble to my feet, and open my eyes a crack, trying to see through the dark. My eyes adjust.
I'm standing on a metal platform with metal rods as a sort of fence mechanism. Ahead of me, a few stairs down to another metallic floor, four wide metal hallways curving away from me, like hungry mouths inviting me into an unsolvable maze. Behind me, a steel wall. Dim blue lights gave the place a faint, haunting glow.
Dust and smoke fill my lungs, and I try not to choke. The components of this unbreathable composition seem to be settling to the ground again, to form a layer of smoke and swirling dust, at least a foot high. My arrival must have disturbed them.
How had I arrived, anyway?
To my right, a tall, blue booth, labeled "Police Public Call Box," stood tall above me.
I can barely register this box, before the door opens, and someone bursts out, and then recoils slightly at the sight of me.
"Ah," he says awkwardly. "Hello."
"Mr. Smith?" I demand, my mouth frozen open in shock.
"Ah, well. Right down to the point, then," says the librarian, nervously glancing around us and fiddling with his hands. "Hello, Irene."