Chasing Midnight (7 page)

The girl . . . is
me.

A prettier version of me, but still, me.

I rush past Bird Lady toward the crowd, but halt at the sound of her voice.

“Don’t get too close,” she warns. “It’s only a glimpse. She will vanish if you push it.”

“A glimpse . . . ,” I repeat, wondering how I am seeing what I’m seeing.

Seeing
me.

Yet there I am—wedged in between James and Brecke, a pink bubbly in my hand and what looks like a laugh ready to burst from my mouth.

My nose is different—small and ski-jump perfect, my long, dark hair smoother and stick-straight, still resting slightly above my elbows like it is now. I’m wearing a black halter dress, the taffeta skirt reaching all the way to my toes, my shoulders bare. The whole group is there beside me and I am at the center, the look in my eyes one of belonging, of being adored.

Of being a lucky one.

“Is this what you want?” Bird Lady says again, her voice everywhere, somewhere in the air, floating around me.

My breath is gone, my body is immobile, but my mind still spins. “I don’t know,” I answer, acutely aware of the sour feeling still twisting my stomach after my encounter with James and the lucky ones.

“You
have
to know. Some time or other.” Bird Lady glides even closer to me until her cinnamon scent starts to burn my eyes. “What will you give?” she asks.

“What?” I ask, confused, tears from my burning eyes blurring my vision.

“Nothing is free, my dear. What’s your offer?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” I say, my mind stuck in this fog. My eyes losing focus. My gaze falling back on the other me—the girl in the middle of the crowd—the girl who has everything.

“It’s your choice. You have until midnight to start the clock.”

“What clock?”

“The necklace. Make your offer and put the charm around your neck, child. When you awake, it will have begun.”

I push through the fog and turn away from the “glimpse,”
blinking hard. My eyes detach from her hypnotic pull. The tears are gone. And then it hits—the volley of voices bouncing back and forth, the clank of silverware on plates, rhythmic laughter mingled with Mozart. The room is suddenly alive, like we’ve all been awakened from death, and the image of me in my velvety black halter dress draping down to my toes is gone.

Brecke is now the one standing in the middle of the group, her red dress a bull’s-eye. I close and open my eyes again, dizzy, my mind slogging through a swamp, still asleep. Cale finishes his drink and hops off his chair. “Here you go,” Fritz says, holding up the tray of lemon champagne gels for me to take.

I ignore them both and spin back around, trying to find a black Mohawk, skimming the horizon in this sea of taffeta and silk, wishing for the scent of hazelnuts and cinnamon to come rushing back to me.

But, just like before, it seems the Bird Lady and her charms have vanished.

five

I
’m not sure if Mom’s boss sent me home early
because I was such a failure at entertaining spoiled teenagers or because she felt sorry for me and my lack of skills. Or, maybe she caught me snacking on all the food, after all. Either way, I was given permission to go home at eleven, despite the Pumpkin Ball not ending until one.

I’ve never been more pumped to leave a party in my life.

Indy ended up in surgery as expected. Mom said they’d be home before midnight, but where did that leave me in the meantime with Ezra sound asleep and Spencer dying in the other room? His coughing won’t stop, either, and it scares me because I know exactly what an asthma attack sounds like, and this is it. He can usually get it under control within a half hour or so; that’s what I’ve been waiting for—the subsiding sounds of hacking so I can quit worrying and get this ridiculous day over with.

But tonight his coughing isn’t getting any better. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s getting worse. And I’m all alone here.

I don’t know what to do.

I don’t know what to do.

I pace back and forth in front of my bed, silently praying Spencer will make it through this okay, even making deals with God. Deals like promising I’ll never complain about anything ever again or that I’ll give all my money to charity.

But either God’s not listening or he knows not to trust me, and Spencer continues to cough as the wind outside grows louder, the tree branches knocking against the side of the house.

I text Mom. No answer.

I call Dad. It goes to voicemail.

I text Dad.

No answer.

Spencer’s coughing abruptly stops and my heart crescendos into my own sort of emergency until I can’t take it any longer. I throw open my door and barrel down the hallway, into Spencer’s room, demanding he let me help him, whatever that means.

“Just tell me what to do,” I call out to him in the darkness.

But Spencer isn’t in his bed.

Instead, I find him curled up on the floor, tucked under the window. In between coughing fits, the sound of wheezing whines from his lungs—a weak, high-pitched whistle accompanying each labored breath. It’s something most doctors listen for with a stethoscope; I can hear it all the way from the doorway.

My legs are already moving before I even register what’s happening. On my knees, my knuckles white in the moonlight, I pull my brother toward me. “Spencer, where’s your albuterol?”

He marks my presence with glossy, lethargic eyes, trying to focus on my face but losing concentration at the next breath. “Empty . . . ” he says, inching his fist forward until it’s in my lap.

I pull from his clenched fingers his inhaler, shaking the tin container near my ear, my heart sinking at how empty it feels. I run to the bathroom and pull open drawer after drawer in search of another inhaler, but every one I find is empty.
Spencer!
I want to yell at him for not keeping up on his prescriptions. Now I get why Mom is so naggy all the time; you have to be when it comes to life and death.

Okay, think . . .
think
. . .

I try to remember the other times I watched Mom or Dad in action during an emergency. This is a regular occurrence at
least a couple times a year, ever since I can remember. So what do they do when the albuterol runs out?

WHAT DO THEY DO?

I run back to Spencer and try pulling him up again, but he still resists. “Come on, Spencer. I’m taking you to the ER ,” I say, not knowing what else to do . . . not knowing if he can wait it out until Mom and Dad get back.

“No . . . ,” he keeps saying. Wheezing.

“Spencer, come on!” I yell, angry at his stubbornness, unable to keep my emotions from bleeding through my voice and catching in my throat. I swallow hard, not allowing myself to fall apart. Not now.

Stupid,
stupid
asthma. Why tonight, Spencer? Any other night but tonight while I’m alone. I lay my head on the carpet beside his. “Please, Spence. Please stand up,” I plead. “Let’s go.”

“No. Just go get the—” But he can’t finish before his lungs betray him and his cough explodes again, this time right in my face. I close my eyes and turn the other way, trying to withhold my tears as his fits of coughing worsen.

The tears come anyway.

I ache inside at this feeling of helplessness, of knowing what to do to fix Spencer but
not
knowing how to get him there. He needs to get to the ER but I can’t carry him. Not knowing what else to do, I pull out my phone again and try Dad one more time. If he doesn’t answer, I’m calling 911. Forget how much it’ll cost us.

I hold my breath as the phone rings and rings and rings . . .

The light flicks on.

I turn my head, squinting at the brightness, ready to collapse in relief at the sight of Dad’s outline in the doorway, towering over us. “What’s going on here?” he says, coming to us in three long strides. He lifts Spencer up and into his bed, carefully propping his head on a pillow.

“I tried to get him up, Dad,” I say, the warmth of tears
stabbing at my cheeks. “I tried . . . Why didn’t you answer your phone?” I can barely get the words out.

“I forgot it at home, Kenzie. Go get the nebulizer.”

Nebulizer. I forgot the nebulizer. “Where is it?” I ask, wiping my face, trying to think more clearly now.

“In the bathroom. Top shelf. The medicine should be with it. Then go get some water.”

I forgot about the nebulizer.

Dad knows what to do. He always knows what to do.

When I race back with the nebulizer, Dad already has a container of distilled water ready to go. I watch from behind him as he holds the plastic mask over the lower half of Spencer’s face while that awful, vibrating motor of the nebulizer I learned to hate over the years is finally nudging my brother’s constricted airways open. His chest is now rising and falling as he sucks the medicine into his lungs, and Dad sits by his side, smoothing the hair away from his face, Dad’s ever-placid façade never faltering.

Never losing control.

Dad comes to me and pulls me into a hug, reassuring me I did fine. That Indy is okay. That Spencer is going to be okay too. But I’m not okay.

This
isn’t okay—doesn’t he understand that? What if Dad hadn’t come home in time? What if Spencer died right here in his room because he was too stubborn to go to the ER and I was too stupid to save him? What if we weren’t so poor, if we had enough money to fix all this a long time ago?

What if things were different?

Easier?

What if I
could
change things? Not by making fake deals with God, either, but through some other way?

Outside, the wind picks up and the outstretched arms of the trees reach across the roofline, the mounting storm accompanying my surge in emotions as I crawl under the covers, still trying to catch my breath.

At five minutes to midnight, a bolt of lightning fractures the sky, followed by the boom of thunder. As I lay in bed, listening to the trees creaking against the roof and the loose shutters knocking on the side of the house, I can’t stop thinking about the “glimpse” I was given tonight, about my list of wishes I made with Aly, about what the Bird Lady said to me at the ball.
“The necklace. Make your offer, then put the charm around your neck, child. When you awake, it will have begun.”

Is she for real, or did I somehow fabricate everything about her in my messed up head?

The clock tower melody wanders up the hill to my window, a haunting prelude to midnight.

Twelve o’clock. Almost.

Almost.

I jump out of bed and run down the stairs into the kitchen, fumbling around in the dark for my school bag. The clock melody ends, and the first chime rings out.
One
. . . Where did I leave it when I got home from work? It seems so long ago that I came in through the front door, and . . .
Two
. . . I run back to the foot of the stairs in the entryway and flip on the light, spinning around.

My bag is by the front door, lying on its side.
Three
. . . I turn it upside down, spilling its contents on the floor. Where is the necklace?
Where is it?
I shuffle through folders, binders, books, makeup, tissues, gum.
Four
. . . Why do I have so much stuff in here? Then I see the gold chain underneath a book, and I lift it up, hesitating at the touch of the metal around my fingers.
“Make your offer, then put the charm around your neck, child.”

Offer.

What kind of offer?

Five
. . . If the bird lady isn’t messing with me, if she truly is for real and means what she says, then I have less than thirty seconds to make a decision. Thirty seconds until midnight to take a chance on something . . .

Anything.

Six
. . . I close my eyes and squeeze the clock charm in my fingers, the edges of the tiny hands poking into my skin.

Offer
. . .

Drawing in a breath, I lift up the necklace and undo the clasp, mulling over in my head the things I think I’d be willing to give up for a better life.

Seven
. . .

For Spencer. For both of us.

How do you pick something like that?

How do you know what you can live without?

Eight
. . . Images flit across my mind—thoughts of anything that mean something to me. They race by in a blur as I try, try to pick just one.

Something worth giving up. Something I can live without.

Nine
. . .

But I can’t pick . . .

I gasp at my indecision, afraid to hold onto even one of my thoughts. Afraid to lose something important.

But then I remember Spencer’s wheezing, I remember my own embarrassment at the ball, my awkwardness with the lucky ones. I think of Dad in his camo gear being bested by a gopher, of Mom in her stained catering apron, of our ugly mustard kitchen, of the lawn mower grease under my fingernails, of my deformed nose, and . . .

Ten
. . .

I let go of the clasp, the necklace falling against my skin while changing the thoughts in my mind into words. Into an offer.

Offer.

Nothing is free.

Not even happiness.

What would I give up?
What?