Wildwood

11. Flight or Fight

Flight or FightSunlight warms my face, drawing me to consciousness, and for a moment, I forget where I am. My entire body aches with stiffness. I push myself up on my elbows, longing to stand and stretch.

“I see they didn’t turn you back around,” Lucas’s voice whispers from behind me.

“What are you doing here?” I twist to see him.

“You said to come back.”

“Isn’t it early?” I glance out of the window. The sun is halfway to its peak. I’m not sure I’ve ever slept this late in my life.

“Not that early. I brought you breakfast but it’s probably cold. I brought you a couple extra blankets and another pillow too.” He spreads the blankets across my bed.

“No, thank you. It’s really chilly in here. How did you get them?” I ask.

“I asked for them. No, that’s a lie. I like to wander. I found the supply closet. I noticed you shivering yesterday. Is that weird?”

“I’m not sure,” I say, giving him a sideways look. He hands me the pillow and slides the chair around so we’re facing each other. “Dana wanted me to come first thing. She won’t be by until later because she had an appointment.”

“I’m sure there’s a lot to do at the farm.” I flinch at the thought, and my mood plummets.

“Well, yes and no. I’ve actually heard talk of the owner not wanting to rebuild. Apparently he thinks the property is cursed.”

“That’s ridiculous.” I scoff.

“I think so too. Dana’s pretty upset about it.” He scoots the chair closer to the window. I chew on the inside of my cheek, a storm of emotions rolling inside me. I never considered that Wildwood would never be rebuilt, that I wouldn’t one day be able to return. My gaze lifts to Lucas. His focus shifts from me to the view outside. He moves his hands from the arm rests to his knees and then back to the arm rests. His mark casts a sapphire glow on the threadbare upholstery. Could these marks I see hold a real meaning, like the bruises I saw on Vanessa? Something as simple as a favorite color, or maybe some deeper meaning, like an aura? I can’t stop myself from rolling my eyes at the thought.

“Do you want to tell me what you’re thinking about, or do you want me to start rattling off fun facts about myself to change the subject?” he asks.

“Tell me about you,” I say, relieved to not be the one answering questions.

“What do you want to know?”

“Well… what's your favorite color?” I ask. “Actually, can I guess? I'm testing a theory.” I steal a glimpse of the crevice between his pointer finger and his thumb.

“Sure,” he says with a smirk.

“Turn your hands palm side up,” I say, demonstrating. Lucas stiffens in the chair, drawing his back robotically straight. He puts his hands out and slowly turns them over.

“You seem nervous,” I say. “Is your favorite color pink and you don't want me to know?”

Lucas busts out laughing. “No, my favorite color is not pink,” he says. I stare at his sapphire blue horseshoe. I'm tempted to touch it.

“Is it blue?” I ask, and glance at his face. His expression clouds over as he closes his hands.

“No,” he replies. I sink back, more disappointed than I thought I’d be.

"Okay, I give up. Tell me.” I press my thumb into my palm, wondering what color I would hope to have if one ever shows up.

“I don’t think I should say.”

“Why’s that?”

“It has to do with storms.”

“Tell me anyway,” I whisper.

“You know the silvery purple that forked lightning leaves behind in the sky for just a second after it's struck? That's my favorite color.” He turns back to me, and I realize I've been holding my breath. He clears his throat. “So what's your favorite color?" he asks.

“Charcoal gray,” I answer, forcing a smile. “Not nearly as cool as yours.”

“Mine is pretty cool,” he says, and laughs. “So horses and gray, huh? That's your story?”

“That's it. That's all there is to know about me,” I say.

“Why charcoal gray?”

Because there’s a charcoal gray quilt Dad had as a kid that still hangs over the back of his favorite chair, and neither Mom nor I have dared to move it since the day he disappeared, but I’ve spent more nights than I can count tucked under that quilt, breathing in the last scents of him, pressing down the random short auburn hair I find stuck to it so it won’t fall off, because mom sleeps better in that chair under that quilt than she does in her own bed without him, remembering how he would use his “special blanket” to tuck me in at night when I was a kid and had awoken from a bad dream, or the time he used it for an impromptu picnic dinner on my twelfth birthday when work ran late, or how it was the first thing I slept on when we moved here and the rest of our furniture hadn’t arrived yet.

I blink away the thoughts and the burn in my eyes they evoke. I have to find a different way to describe my father.

“You know how when a storm comes in, a real storm, one where the temperature drops, and the wind picks up, and the clouds are that deep, heavy gray? I love how that color changes everything. It’s like those clouds bring a box of highlighters and color everything. The grass glows, and flowers look so vivid. Even the old, peeling paint on the barn walls looks fresh when it’s against that deep gray backdrop. It’s what that color does to everything else around it that makes me love it so much.”

“Nope, you win,” he murmurs. “That was way more interesting than mine.”

"Alright, Tanzy. Time to check your dressing,” a nurse says as she steps into the room, breaking the spell.

“Right,” I say, and shake off the warm buzz of connection. Lucas glances at the clock.

“I have to get to Wildwood anyway,” he says.

“What are y’all doing there today?” I ask, hope flickering inside. If they’re still working there, maybe there’s a chance the owner will decide to rebuild.

“I’m going to look for Harbor.” He stands. I stare at him, open mouthed.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“Of course.” He stands, and brushes his knuckles along the back of my hand, as if he's done in a hundred times before, and then leaves me with a two-inch streak of goose bumps and a hundred new questions; none of which have anything to do with colors.

“He seems really sweet on you,” my newest nurse replies.

“He’s nice,” I respond, my mind replaying our conversation, my hand still tingling. I’m no stranger to a boy’s touch, but something about Lucas’s touch was definitely a first.

My nurse begins to gingerly unwind the bandage from my leg. The skin on her arms is loose and wrinkly, and her wedding band slides on her finger. I wonder how long she’s worn it, what it’s seen and been through. I wonder if my mom will wear hers, a simple braid of copper, forever. I can’t imagine her ever looking at another man the same way she looked at Dad.

The nurse tsks under her breath.

“This isn’t good, sweetie,” she says. I look at my leg. The surgical incision is flame red and oozing. Red lines extend from the site and up my leg. “Stay as still as a statue, and I’ll be back with the doctor.”

“Okay.” My pulse accelerates and my hands become clammy. I stare out the window, wishing Lucas hadn’t left. If he’s still in the parking lot, I wonder if there’s any way I could get his attention.

“Tanzy?” Vanessa’s smooth voice calls from the head of the room. “Are you in here?” I want to turn and look at her so she’ll know I’m here, but the nurse told me not to move.

“Still here,” I say.

“What did you do to the bed?” she asks, coming around the side. She’s wearing leggings and an oversized green tunic. Her hair is pulled into a top knot, and a plain leather satchel is slung over her shoulder. Aside from her face, she looks like a completely different person.

“I wanted to see out of the window.”

“You could’ve just asked to change rooms.” She smiles down at me, then her eyes shift to my leg. “That looks infected.” Worry creases her brow.

“The nurse just went to get a doctor.”

Vanessa works the corner of her painted mouth through her teeth. She fiddles with her necklace, which has a little, cylindrical charm on the end.

“Do you want me to fix it?” she asks.

“Excuse me?” My brow knits together. “Aren’t you just a psychiatrist? I mean, no offense.”

“I can fix your leg right here, right now. No waiting. No recovery. No rehab,” she says quietly.

“How is that possible?” I shake my head, wondering if I’ve misheard her. Vanessa glances at the door. She moves quickly across the room to close it, and returns to my bedside.

“I wasn’t completely honest with you before. I still believe in the world in the clear, something I’ve begun to call the Unseen world. I haven’t stopped researching it. I’m close to proving its existence. I think you can help me do it.”

“Why are you telling me this now? What does it have to do with my leg?” I hiss. Alarm scurries across my skin.

“I have long suspected that lightning is a tool the Unseen world uses weather, specifically lightning, to catalyze change and send messages on our side. But I’ve never had concrete proof until you.”

“What kinds of changes and messages?” The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. Nothing she’s saying makes sense, and yet, her words pull at something inside of me like a magnet to metal.

“I… I’m not entirely sure yet. But they wrote one on you.” She opens my chart and turns it so I can see the note where her husband sketched the burn mark the lightning made on my sternum. “This mark is one of the most important symbols in the Unseen world. It can’t be a coincidence that it’s on you. Lightning doesn’t travel this way naturally. This was on purpose.”

“What? Why? What the hell are you talking about?” I ask her through my teeth, my mind spinning.

“I’m sorry, Tanzy. I will explain as much as I can to you later, but if you want me to try to heal your leg, I need to do it now, or they’re probably going to keep you in the hospital longer and delay your start in my program until this clears up. Right now, I need you to trust me. I met someone who claims to have come from the Unseen world. She gave me something they use to heal the injured, and I can use it on you. With your help, I can learn so much more about the Unseen world.”

“No way.” I cross my arms.

“If I can prove to you that I know what you see, will you let me try?” she asks. Possibility stirs inside me. Proof of anything would be a relief.

“Maybe,” I say. Vanessa holds up her right hand with her palm open. Her fingers spread apart as her golden horseshoe leaps from her skin like a candle flame.

“What color do you see?” A knowing grin grows on her lips.

“What?” I ask, startled by her question. Did she really just ask me that?

“What color do you see?” she asks again slowly. She wriggles her fingers. Her eyes dart from her hand and then back to me, unfazed by my shock. “I see a color too. I want to know if we see the same thing.”

“I…” I hesitate. Is she for real? In all this time, I’ve just wanted someone to believe me. Now that someone claims to see it too, it doesn’t feel real.

“Tell you what,” she starts, dropping her hand. “I had a feeling this was going to take some convincing. I mean, why wouldn’t it? I’ve already picked the crayon that best matches the color I see in my hand, and I’ve colored a notecard with it.” I watch as Vanessa pulls a big box of crayons out of her bag and carefully plucks a folded notecard from the front pocket.

“Now it’s your turn. Pick which color you see,” she says with a warm smile. She flips the top off the box. “It’s a brand new box, so don’t try looking for the worn tip. There’s no right or wrong answer, but I know you see something.” My gaze leaps from her mark to the burnished gold color smack in the middle of the reds and oranges. It’s not a perfect match, but it’s really close.

“Do you want me to close my eyes?” Vanessa asks.

“No, it’s okay,” I say, and slip the crayon from the box. I wrap my fingers around it. Vanessa opens her notecard and faces it so I can see the color. I open my hand. The color is the same.

“It’s not an exact match to my hand,” she says, showing me her right palm. “But it’s as close as we can get, right?”

“What… how…?” I stammer. “Your husband said everything I was seeing was temporary. A crossed wire…”

“A by-product of a brain injury?” she says, rolling her eyes. “Science explains what we already accept as truth. There’s so much more to our world than what we’ve been told. All science has done is limit our understanding, not expand it. We’ve been looking for extraterrestrial life billions of miles away, when there’s a whole second world co-existing with ours, completely Unseen, divided by some kind of impenetrable plasma veil.”

“How do you know?” I ask in a whisper.

“The moment I was struck by lightning, I was teleported somewhere completely different, somewhere I knew I’d never been before. Yet I had this sensation of remembering. Then the clouds cleared and sunlight shone through, and the picture faded into the light. But for a few seconds, I could see both worlds, and the glittery barrier that separates us.”

In my mind, I see the rainbow that painted the valley the day Dad disappeared. I watch the dark thing swoop through it and soar up, disappearing as it came close to the surface, and my heart begins to race.

“I know how easy it would be to say it was because I’d hit my head, or it was the electrocution, or any number of excuses,” Vanessa continues. “I wish I could say any of those felt like my truth. But in my heart, in my soul, I understood what I was seeing.”

“A world in the clear,” I murmur, my mind jumping forward to the place I saw after I was struck. “So what do the colors mean? And why do only some people have them? I don’t have one.”

“I believe the colors are indicators of the path we’re supposed to be on, kind of like bus lines. When you intersect someone who has your color, you’re supposed to walk at least a piece of your paths together. Just like us.”

Vanessa shows me her mark. I stare at my empty palm, for the first time wishing I saw something there.

“Our colors are the same?” I ask, imagining the same golden glow.

“That shouldn’t come as a surprise,” she says softly. “I have a feeling we are going to discover a great deal working together.” She steals a glimpse of the door, and worry flashes across her face. “As much as I’d like to spend all day discussing the Unseen world with someone who might actually believe me, I need to redirect us here. If you want me to try to heal your leg, I need to do it right now, and I will tell you everything I know later. Otherwise, you could be looking at months of physical therapy and possible complications from this infection. Will you let me try?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” She pulls a small bottle from her satchel.

“What is that?” I ask as I look at her concerned.

“It’s called Tenix,” she begins. “Everything in our world is made up of a combination of four elements: earth, air, water, and fire. Tenix is like the glue. It makes them stick together. Creatures in the Unseen world use Tenix to change the way elements bind together to repair something broken, or make something new. I can use it now to heal your body.”

“How?”

“By realigning your elements.” Vanessa tips the bottle, spilling a small amount of Tenix into her palm. It looks like liquid sand, and has the same baking scent of summer sunlight. Even though she’s still a few feet away from me, I can feel the heat it generates. She rubs her hands together, and the substance bursts into a glowing, pale gold orb. It’s the same color as our marks. My breath stills in my chest. Vanessa looks to me, as if she’s seeking my approval. I nod in response. She settles beside me and closes her eyes, pressing her hands into a prayer position. Then she places both hands on my leg. The substance is warm, tingling where it touches my skin.

“Sana,” she whispers.

“What does that mean?” I ask quietly.

“It’s Latin for ‘heal’.” She opens one eye and peeks at me. “I prefer the formality of Latin.” She refocuses on my leg. A dull ache spreads through it, followed by a growing sting, as if circulation is returning. Within seconds, my leg begins to burn.

“This really hurts,” I hiss as my muscles lock in a cramp.

“It’s going to,” she answers. “I’m accelerating a month’s worth of healing into about a minute. It works better if you don’t talk yourself out of the pain’s existence,” she says softly. “Accept it for what it is. Allow it to do its job. Visualize it. It helps me when I give it a color.”

I draw in a long breath through my nose and let it out through my mouth. Dana taught me to use visualization to focus my mind at horse shows, and it improved my performance every time. I close my eyes, imagining the Tenix going under my skin, finding the bone. The Tenix turns deep silver, the color of the screws and plates holding my legs together. In my mind, my bones turn the same color; the screws back out and dissolve to tiny fragments about the size of sand grains, and then disappear all together. Slowly, the vice- like grip relaxes. The ache is there, but the intensity lessons.

“Well done,” Vanessa says calmly.

I open my eyes. What Tenix remains on my legs is the color of steel. She wipes down the front of my thigh and the Tenix disappears, replaced by a subtle shimmer. I draw both knees up to my chest, staring at my feet as I wiggle my toes.

“Any pain now?” Vanessa asks.

“No,” I whisper. The scar is still there, acting as proof that the accident happened, but the swelling and drainage are gone. How is this even real? And if it is, if my leg is healed, cured by Tenix, what else can Vanessa do? What else does she know? I can’t wait to find out. For the last year, all I’ve had are questions. Vanessa’s research could be a treasure trove of possible answers. Does she see the shadows, too? Are they part of the Unseen world? Vanessa is right, if I can help myself, I can help Mom. We can be whole again.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed, preparing to stand, ready for movement, for progress.

“Whoa, no way,” Vanessa says, stopping me with a hand.

“But you said…” I deflate.

“You’re healed, trust me. But if the doctors walk in and see that you’re standing up…? And you’re just a few days out from being impaled. The Tenix I used will likely circulate through your body and heal any places where your elements have been divided, but I can’t be sure how fast the puncture will granulate.”

“Oh, right,” I say, realization dawning on me. “So what do we do now? Can I get out of here today? I have so many questions. I want to know everything.”

“I’m going to work on getting you discharged soon. For now, go back to looking broken. The doctor should be here any minute. Play dumb, okay?” She gently tosses my legs back onto the bed. I try to settle back into my previous position, but new energy hums through me. Everything is about to change. I can feel it. And for the first time in a year, I can’t wait to see what happens next.