“Thank you,” he retorted, turning around to find the psychiatrist walking toward them. She was carrying a paper cup of water in one hand as the other remained in a closed fist.
“Here, I stopped by the pharmacy,” she said, handing something small to both Claire and Matthew. “Since you have a ride coming, I thought I’d give these to you now. They’re Valium, they’ll help you calm down tonight.”
Claire felt the hard, blue pill in her palm and wondered if she should take it. She felt herself sliding down the rabbit hole, the desk was too big, the chair too small, she was ten feet tall, she was the size of a mouse. The world didn’t make sense anymore and if she took this blue pill would it make it worse? Would she lose herself forever? Maybe that was what she wanted and Claire downed the pill, taking a gulp of water before handing the cup to Matthew, who cautiously and carefully swallowed his own.
“You’ll start to feel drowsy in a little while, but you’re not driving so it’s okay,” the psychiatrist offered. “Here’s a prescription for two days’ worth, but only take them as you really need them,” she informed the couple. She smiled kindly then and Claire nodded at her as she took a seat. She was already starting to feel dizzy and sleepy. Matthew took the chair next to her, he draped an arm around her and Claire hoped she’d fall asleep right there. She didn’t want to be here, she didn’t want to move or think and the very act of being awake was too much for her.
Footsteps came from down the hall a few minutes later and when Claire looked up the doctor was there again, along with a familiar face Claire didn’t recognize right away, she only knew it was familiar. “Your ride is here,” the doctor calmly informed them and Keilly, Matthew’s sister, ran up to her brother frantically embracing him. Claire watched her with Matthew; she was tall like him, thin and blond.
“I’m so sorry, I just can’t believe,” Keilly said, holding tight to her brother, letting go, looking at him, and holding tight once more. “I just… and it’s just that…. I came as soon as I could,” she went on. Keilly had never been the type to speak in full sentences. “And Claire, Claire, are you okay?” she asked, reaching for Claire, who shrugged her away. She liked Keilly, she really did, but she just could not be touched, she could barely be talked to right now.
“We should get going,” Matthew suggested, grasping his sister’s hand as they headed out. “Unless you need us for anything else?” he asked, eyeing the doctor.
“No, not at all. I’ll get you the results of the autopsy. I’m truly sorry for your loss and if I have any more information I’ll get it to you.”
“Thank you,” Matthew replied, seeming to have stiffened up.
“Ohmygosh, little brother, I just can’t believe, I mean I just can’t….” Keilly said, teary-eyed as she walked with Matthew down the long hall toward the morgue’s exit. Claire could see the parking lot through the window. It was after midnight and still the coach was a coach and not a pumpkin; the driver, a driver, the glass slipper, a glass slipper. This was the real world and nothing was going to change.
“I just can’t,” Claire said as they reached the door. “I just. . . .I can’t leave him,” she cried, rushing back toward the morgue and at the secretary’s desk. She could tell Matthew was running after her, she could hear his footsteps on the tile, the way his shadow covered the florescent light. She felt his arm around her, nearly tackling her to the ground as she thrashed to get away. And why did she have to go, why did she have to leave him? Preston was there, no matter what, Preston was there and it didn’t seem right that a mother should abandon her little boy in a place like this.
PRestoN
It seemed as if he were somewhere else. Preston opened his eyes in the woods and the light shifted as if it were climbing down like careful, deliberate raindrops on a spider’s web. The forest floor felt like his bed at home, no twigs dug into his palms, no dirt collected between his fingers and when he kicked his leg, a reflex upon waking, it didn’t feel stiff or asleep. His stomach did not burn and the pain was gone. Preston opened his eyes wider and sat up. The forest floor was covered in an array of leaves colored for fall in purple, red and gold, not the crisp green of summer. He reached out and touched one and it felt like a leaf, any normal leaf, and yet it did not. It was somehow sturdier, crunchier, like it was made of fine paper.
The sun came through the trees; little specks of dust in the yellow light shimmering, first inside the air and then off the forest floor, wading like tiny pools of translucent film. Preston rubbed his eyes, sitting up straighter he ran a hand through his shaggy light brown hair and looked up through the blanket of branches toward the source of the light.
Rustling came from within the woods and Preston quickly turned his head. He knew someone was there, that someone should be there, but he only had a vague memory of who, as if the face and the name, the voice could be anyone—one person—or another—as if he were playing on the school grounds and then—and there had been a school grounds at one time, Preston remembered that, but not much more, as if all his thoughts were fuzzy.
“He’s here,” Preston heard the voice of a boy. “He’s here, he’s in here, I found him,” the boy called and the rustling grew louder as Preston looked through the trees. “Hi,” a boy with short brown hair gelled back said. He was wearing worn red pants and no shirt, only a jacket that looked like a blazer with holes in it. Preston looked at his own clothes, his brown and white striped shirt and blue jeans, they were nicer and newer, the style entirely different from what this other boy was wearing. “Hi,” the boy said again.
“Hi,” Preston responded slowly.
“I’m Starky,” the boy introduced himself importantly, pointing at his own chest. Preston watched the boy’s sagging brown eyes and wondered what it was about him that was so different.
“And I’m Clover,” “And I’m Dilweed,” “And I’m Oregano,” three boys cheered, stumbling out of the woods and talking simultaneously. There was a short, fat blond boy, a tall, lean black boy and a medium built kid with brown hair and glasses. The kid with the glasses swept his hair from his face in a way that reminded Preston of something he’d seen before.
“Hi,” Preston said, putting his hand to his head as he stood up, dizzy. “I don’t know. . .where am I?” He knew enough to question where, to ask why, he knew that there had been something before and that this was the something after, but as to whether this was actual. . .as to what was going on, he had no clue.
“You’re Here,” the boy named Dilweed explained as if Preston should have known better. “Come on,” he invited Preston as the four of them started walking away. Preston, having stood up, started to follow the boys as they trudged across the crispy leaves through the forest. “We’re Here too, but we don’t live so deep in the woods.”
“Hardly anyone goes this far,” Clover elaborated.
“Usually when new kids come, they come all at once, like they’re all waiting for something together,” Oregano added.
“Kids come Here a lot?” Preston asked as they stepped in time together. He tried to fall out of step, but couldn’t. “Where are they, the other kids?”
“Oh, all around, mostly at the tree house, but we go all around, we have the run of the place, not like back home,” Starky explained.
“Where am I?” Preston asked again. The words “back home,” made more sense to him, he’d heard those words before and he had an incredible urge to be there. “Back home, where is that? Can we go there?”
“No,” Starky said simply, shaking his head. “No, not ever again, we don’t go back. Only one of us has ever done that, and come to think of it, that one they found in the woods too, but that was even before my time and I’ve been here almost the longest.”
“Shut up, Starky,” Dilweed cried, playfully