She could never imagine what kind of wonders would have come from having her mother in her life but she knew if she had been able she would have turned into an entirely different creature.
“So what you're saying is you're probably fine, just sick?”
Her eyes darted at him interrupting her thoughts. She nodded weakly.
His faced looked relieved but somehow angry at the same time, “Well then I’d say enough is enough with the friggen running in the goddamned heat. No more. You go in the morning or the evening, no more midday. It's too damned hot Ari. You coulda cooked out there on that cement. Your mother made me promise on her deathbed that I would raise you like my own and take care of you and love you and I’ll be damned if I’ll be made a liar.” He ran a hand through his sweaty dark hair, “Ugh.”
She laughed feeling worse from the effort it took, “Drama queen.”
He smiled again, “Want some water?”
She nodded.
He poured the water bringing it to her lips, as his hand drew closer her hands burnt like someone were sticking them to the grill. She screamed out in pain taking his hand spilling the cool water down her body. Suddenly as the water washed over her, her feet cooled, her legs and waist felt refreshed. As her fingers gripped his hands the burning worsened but everywhere else seemed to cool like it was being iced, she sighed in relief as the last bit of pressure flew from her finger tips clearing her head as if someone just flicked a switch. Her mind was clear, her body was strong, she was healed one hundred percent.
The air around her was still, it smelled like grapes and honey. She could see her uncles' face, he smiled at her but behind him, rather through him she could see the light switch on the wall.
A picture filled the sparkly air around her. Her uncle was much younger, he was beside her pregnant mother. She gripped his hands begging him to care for Ari. He nodded. Her face was full of terror as she explained the dangers. He nodded telling his sister she would be fine. Tears poured down his face. Machines went crazy and doctors filled the room. He was shoved outside to wait on the bench. Ari cried watching him as he sat frightened until a nurse brought him a bundle in a pink blanket. He held the bundle to his chest rocking her.
Suddenly as if it had rewound her uncle stood again at her mothers' bedside. Her mother begged him but Ari could see a difference in his face. He seemed shut off as he listened. The machines went nuts and he was shoved into the hallway again. This time when the bundle was placed in his arms he watched its little face with anger and fear. When the nurse came to speak to him again he ignored her and handed her the baby. He started to cry and walked away.
Ari looked up at her uncle standing before her, smiling at her. His mouth moved, “I loved you always.” His words were a whisper blowing through the air around her face. She fought the urge to pass out, forcing her eyes to focus on his vanishing face.
He faded completely, her hand no longer held onto his, his gold pinkie ring lingered in the frozen air in front of her face. She reached a fingertip out barely making contact with the small gold band before it dropped to the floor with a sound that resonated around her, echoing everywhere. As the ring hit other noises rushed in.
She shivered looking down at the ring, her eyes fuzzed as if straining to see the floor but she realized it wasn’t the floor anymore. She stood on the street, her clothes weren't her jogging clothes. The dark of the room was the dark of a street she didn’t recognize. Something like she had seen on TV before, it was closed in all around her with balconies and buildings.
It was an alley.
A dark, wet alley in a closed in space she had never seen before. She looked down at the glint coming off the gold ring on the ground in the muted orange light from a street lamp. She bent down reaching with her long thin fingers grasping the warm gold, still warm from his fingers, he had existed, the ring proved it. She clutched it as if it were her only link to sanity. She looked around as she stood up but suddenly a blinding light filled her mind, like it was in the back of her eyes.
She saw an orphanage, she saw her uncle but he was in a suit, he never smiled, she saw a girl with buzzed dark brown hair fighting in combat boots and military pants.
She saw a razor cutting the girls skin. She looked down at her own arm as a scar grew where the razor cut the nearly bald girl.
She screamed out into the dark cold alley as the pain of eighteen years caught up with her. She knew where she was, what street she was on. She knew whose apartment was three stories up and why she was in the street. She was going to steal something, something that belonged to her.
She was an orphan for real, a runaway orphan. Her uncle was in the very back of her mind with a feeling she couldn’t understand, she hated him, his stupid prissy wife and their three horrid spoiled brat kids. She wasn’t even fond of his dog. When did he get a dog she wondered? Everything in her life was at war, conflict was everywhere. The sunlight of New Mexico, the warmth of the wind, the laughter of Cookie, it was gone, no longer memories but rather dreams. In its place the cold of the northwest, Portland Oregon not Maine, her uncle had lied about where he had been from.
“Figures, he lies about everything else.” She wanted to slap herself, she felt like the weird little guy on Lord of the Rings, one side of her hated her uncle and one side loved him as the parent he apparently had never been.She looked down at the tattoos running her arms onto her hands, she hated and loved them simultaneously.
She screamed in pain again as her nose, lip and eyebrow stung, gingerly she touched her fingers to her face where she discovered a ring in the middle of her nose, which she remembered getting in a filthy shop that frightened her old side but thrilled her new side. She lifted her hands running them over her fuzzy head, she had a buzz cut. Her hair that she always loved cause it looked just like her mothers was gone. Her heart broke as the new part of her saw her mothers face for the first time, Portland Ari had never seen the joyful face before. As the old memories caught up with the new she became a ball of emotions. Tears trickled there way down her cold cheeks.
She ran her hands down her jean jacket shivering, the cold soothed one part of her while the other part felt as a flower wilting in the damp darkness. She struggled to find new memories inside her new self where she had enjoyed the beach or visuals of anything cheery but everything was darkness. Dreary dark images of an orphanage where she learned to survive, tears formed in her eyes remembering the horrors small children could suffer, dark images of running away in the black of night while a priest slipped down the hall, she could have killed him but she knew his destination would distract him long enough for her to getaway. She felt sickened disgust for herself.
Her brain was full of dark alleys where money was made, dark places where souls were lost and sold, traded as a commodity. The young and innocent chose a full belly or vein depending on age and preference rather than remain innocent. She lived like a savage on the streets for six years. She remembered every one of them. She felt as the old her and new her melded into one person and everything changed. The world looked different.
“You're certain you wont come home with me child?” She spun seeing an old woman smiling at her, "You look cold honey. It can be just a night if you like. I can't leave you out here to freeze."
The old ladies voice apparently bothered her but the hunger in her guts and cold on her desert skin won over, she nodded at the old woman and walked toward her holding herself in a way no one had ever seen before because no one had ever met her before, not the new her.
She knew the old lady somehow, she had tried to talk to her months before but the new Ari had ignored her. She figured she was a social worker of some kind.
“My name is Lydia Crane.” She spoke softly turning her head to face Ari smiling in a curious way, “And you are, Ari. What's your last name Ari?”
Ari looked at her puzzled, what kind of game was this? “My name is just Ari.” She knew that wasn’t the right response but the new Ari seemed incredibly defensive about privacy.
She nodded her head slowly, “Just Ari, no last name.”
Ari sneered, “No family so no family name.” The tone of her voice had been so biting she nearly winced thinking about how she had spoken to the older woman who had done nothing but offer her kindness. She felt the jaded edges of herself sadly realizing just how sharp and cruel she had become.
“You can fight it, you know that right?”
Ari looked at her confusedly without speaking, her mind was screaming so many nasty things she thought it best to not let them escape through her mouth.
“The other Ari, she doesn’t have to be there if you don’t want her to. The old Ari is the better one anyway.”
She raised an eyebrow, “How do you know me?”
“I’ve watched you for a long time, I’ve seen you both ways and the sunny girl is the better way to live.” She pointed, “We are here.”
Ari looked around confused at how quickly they had suddenly appeared across town. The road turned onto a street that looked as if time hadn’t been around much to improve upon things. The other Ari had never been out this way before, she had heard an evil witch and a weird cult lived out this way. Even the pushers didn’t venture out this far to the East.
Ari felt a shiver as they stepped on Old Oak Way, the street the old lady was pointing to. She looked around wondering about the breeze she had felt but it was gone as quickly as it had come up.
“It’s the guards Ari.” Lydia spoke quietly, “They keep the bad out and the good in.”
Ari looked back wondering what the bad was if the old lady was letting her in, especially in her current state.
At the end of the old road stood a huge mansion, it was decrepit and ancient. It was a three story white gothic house with pitched roofs and a huge front porch. The house was frightening and inviting somehow. She imagined it felt as the witch's house would have in Hansel and Gretel. Huge willow trees and oaks lined the yard and long driveway.
Everything seemed to be as it would have been when the house was made no doubt hundreds of years earlier.