Young Writers Society

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“Lady Amelia?”

I jerked my head up from my folded arms. I hadn’t been asleep, but I’d been near it; lost in the twilight region of my pain and bitter resentment. My memories had tortured me far more than hers. Memories of happy times which would never repeat themselves, memories of bad news, and memories of the pain which had ripped through me when this news had been confirmed.

Now I stared unseeing at Alonsa’s anxious face, knowing she wanted to tell me about her pain. Knowing that when she had finished I would bear the burden of both of these pains. A small image of a donkey appeared in my mind, one heavy bundle packed on one side, and another balancing out the other on the other side. Not that I thought another person’s pain would help me with my own. It wouldn’t be the lifejacket which would keep me from sinking, more likely it would be the weight of another terrified person, so desperate to keep from sinking themselves that they pull me under. Then I am lost to the cold, black waters of pain.

“Why were you so angry?” I asked her in a flat, uncaring voice. I noticed her features transform from that serene mask to a sharper, angrier one. But at the moment I wasn’t really interested in her. I thought of her as the face of my pain, disappearing for so long it was like she had vanished and then reappearing at surprising, unexpected times.

“You do not believe me. You think I am a joke. A dream. Something conjured up by your imagination. I try and make myself seem real to you; like that time when I appeared in the raindrops, hoping that if I scared you enough then you would have to accept I was real. Do you not see? It is vital that you understand me! How can you understand when you don’t even think I exist?”

Her outburst brought me from my pain and into reality. Or close to it.

“I’m sorry-” I started, feeling a little guilty.

“Even this morning, after you told me you would help, you refused to believe it! You may not see me, Lady Amelia, but I assure you I can see you perfectly well. Not only do I see you – that stubborn set of your jaw, your little nods to yourself – but I am certainly able to hear you too. And may I assure you that this is indeed real and it is indeed happening!”

I stared at her, my mouth hanging open and my mind blank except for one repeated thought running through my mind.

I’m sorry.

Her anger instantly changed into despair and the image of her face grew, as if she had come closer. “I am as real as you, Lady Amelia; only I am trapped in this form, unable to pass over. I need you to forget about any misgivings you feel about me, set aside the distrust and anxiety. I will not hurt you; I need only for you to understand me. To know what I have gone through. It is also for your own benefit that you listen to me, but I cannot tell you why just yet. Please, Lady Amelia. I need you to not only listen with your ears but with your heart, also. Please?”

Remember earlier, when I said I was a sucker for emotional blackmail? Well, how on earth do you think I did after that?

“Alonsa,” I said. “I’m sorry, but … I’m so confused! And … scared… Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. You’re probably used to this, ‘cause you’ve been … floating … around for a while… I…” I glanced at her quickly before I looked away. Was I offending her? “That’s if you do float… I-I don’t know… I…”

This was too strange. Too weird. How could I accept this was happening? Last night, when my mind had been drugged with the remains of sleep, I’d been willing to accept anything. Now I was awake and aware. Aware that I was conversing with something from another world. Something that claimed to be as real as me.

“I don’t know.”

“Or maybe you refuse to know.” She spoke softly, but the words shocked me. “For maybe I’m not the only one in this state. Maybe I’m not the only one who has tried to contact you. What if I’m the only one whose voice you can hear, and there is someone else? Someone else who you are desperate to hear from, but what if their pleas fall on deaf ears? What if you cannot hear them; cannot help them? Is that why you refuse to accept the possibility I might be real, Lady Amelia? Because if I am real, then maybe what he might be suffering is too.”

I sat back, stunned. She had hit right on the nail. A bull’s-eye even I hadn’t been aware of. What if she was right and he had been trying to contact me? What if he had been begging for me to listen to him for years now and I had just turned away and happily continued with my life? What if he needed to pass over too?

What if he was here now?

Tears ran down my face. Like drops of rain they fell, scattering onto my bare arms like shards of glass. They glinted like metal caught in twin spotlights. I was helpless to stop the sobs that suddenly racked my body. All I could do was raise my hands to my face and hide from her sorrowful gaze. From the truth.

Through my noisy sobs I heard her comforting voice: “All, is well, Lady Amelia. He has passed over. He is in the Other World now, waiting for you. It is where we all go when we die-”

“Then why are you still here!” I burst out suddenly, my voice thick with my tears. Anger boiled in my blood; anger that she dared use Dad to persuade me. Anger that she was forcing me to think about all the pain I had buried for so long. What was that famous saying? Ignorance is bliss. So why couldn’t she just leave me alone? “How do you know he’s there? Does it even exist?”

“It exists.”

“How would you know?”

It was a venomous comment designed to hurt her. It did. She flinched as though I had somehow reached through the mirror and slapped her. Tears sprung up in her eyes, along with two red splotches on her cheeks. She fought to stay under control and I saw the struggle play out in her eyes. “I – I know. I … felt it … before I was pulled back again. And your f-father, John, he is there as surely as you s-sit there. L-Lady Amelia, I … apologise for in-invoking his name. He…” her voice failed her. There was silence for a moment. A cold, tense silence that seemed to stretch on for ages. Then Alonsa murmured to me: “He is not trapped like I am.”

For a moment I just sat, absorbing her words, and then I nodded. I tried to get myself under control again, but every time I did a sob would break free and I would unravel once more. How could I have lashed out at her like that? It wasn’t her fault Dad was…

It wasn’t her fault.

Alonsa waited patiently until I was as composed as I could be at that moment in time. I was aware of her gaze on me, like the beams from torches. Then, slowly, I raised my head and, as steadily as I could, I met her eyes.

“H-how can I help?”

It was more than a question; it was a promise. I would help her. I would let her tell me her story. Then she would pass over in the world Dad waited in. I had reached this decision because she was right. I’d refused to accept the possibility that this might be happening, because I knew then it wouldn’t be the only thing I was accepting. And she was someone else’s loved one. The young man she’d been happily wrestling with over the hat. He wouldn’t want her to be in this state as much as I wouldn’t want Dad to be. I would hate the idea of Dad having to beg strangers to listen to him. I would hate for him to be refused by them. Couldn’t they just give him one chance? Couldn’t they just listen? It would mean so much to him…

Alonsa gasped. She laughed and clapped her hands in delight, knowing things had changed. Knowing that I really meant it this time.

“Oh Lady Amelia!”

I had the feeling she would hug me if she could. She looked so happy. Her eyes were bright and her smile huge. She even flickered for a moment, so ecstatic that she forgot to project her image on the mirror. It seemed my spiteful comments were forgotten.

She forced herself to calm down, but I saw the smile in the lips she pressed together to keep from grinning. Her eyes were wider than normal and shining slightly from too much emotion.

“Lady Amelia,” she started, sounding a little formal. “To help me all you have to do is listen. That is all I need.” Then she added as an almost afterthought: “And understand. Yes, most importantly. I need you to listen and understand.”