The Astonishing Color of After(27)

Nothing. Only the bright coin of a moon, and the hint of coffee-dark clouds beside it, unmoored.

Maybe if I step outside, she’ll come to me like she did back home.

Without turning on any lights, I make my way through the apartment, my bare feet lending me an extra bit of quiet. I only pause to hook my fingers into the straps of a pair of sandals, waiting until I’m out the door before I slide them on.

The outside air is still thick and muggy, the fluorescent streetlights casting their ghostly beams down into the alley. I stand at the nearest crossroads and wait to see if I hear the wings again. Wait for some sort of sign. A sound, or a smell. A vision. Anything.

Even when I squint my eyes, I can’t see anything moving across the sky. Everything is dark and murky and still. The nearby alleys are all quiet, but I can still hear distant sounds of traffic, of cars wheeling past.

I’m so settled into the emptiness that when I turn and see a man standing across the street under a tree, I nearly jump with surprise. He stares at me long and hard, barely moving, his hands at his sides. I keep waiting for him to walk away, but he doesn’t, and so at last I’m the one to break eye contact and turn back toward the apartment. I hate the idea of him seeing where I live, but when I glance over my shoulder again, he’s gone.

There’s no breeze, but the tree where he stood rustles slightly, and for a second I think I see something like a mist shifting across the branches. And then it’s gone. The tree is still, and it’s just me alone in the alley.

Upstairs in my dark room I sit down on the bed. It happens in a flash, in a blink: My eyes close, and when they open again, the room is bright as day, the ceiling so white it’s glowing—except for the inky cracks branching off in all different directions above me. They’re as jagged as lightning, like something heavy has struck down from the other side and begun to break into my room. The in-between lines so thin, so black—like there’s nothing beyond that layer of ceiling but a gravity-defying abyss. Wind loud in my ears, goose-bumping my skin.

It makes no sense.

I blink again, and the room is dark once more. My fingers fumble to click on the lamp: The ceiling is perfectly fine. Not a crack to be seen. No wind, no sound. Just my heart drumming, drumming.





27





The hands of the clock glow alien green: It’s 4:12 in the morning. Is there any point in trying to sleep? The seconds tick past, louder and louder, echoing in my ears.

Then, over the sound of the clock, I hear it again. The flapping of wings, faint in the distance. Click the lamp on. Swing my legs out of bed.

The noise is gone.

My feet carry me across the moon-cold floor to tug open that same drawer as before. I reach past the flattened pastry bag for the box of incense. The feather is still there, slightly curled, like something asleep. I take that out, too, pinching the shaft between thumb and finger.

I’m still trying to figure out why the bird brought me the incense—if it’ll lead me to her. Or if it’s to help me understand.


I want you to remember



Light the match. Touch the stick of incense—its tip alight and calm as an ember—to the vane of the feather.

What follows is a sizzling. It starts between my hands and rises up like a cloud, the noise surrounding me and filling the room. The feather suddenly oven-hot, but I can’t let go; my fingers are stuck.

Black smoke ribbons out, pulling like taffy, riding some wave of air that I can’t feel—

Here are the swirls. Here are the turns. Here is the changing of the light and colors.

The room goes dark.





28





—SMOKE & MEMORIES—


All I see is black. Black, and the feather. My finger and thumb closed over a red stem.

A jolt of pain hits me: It’s all light and noise and emotion flooding my head, throbbing in my temples.

A burst of cold light. The colors invert.

There’s my mother alone at the kitchen counter, and at her elbow is an empty orange bottle next to a rectangular array of capsules. It’s dark outside and around the edges of the memory; the only light that’s on washes her in a stale yellow glow. Her index finger slides each pill one at a time into the perfectly dotted rows, her lips moving silently, counting.

When was this? Not from this year. She looks too young. Her face pale, but her forehead smooth and relaxed, eyes reserved. Had she already made up her mind?

The colors spark and flicker. The smell changes.

There’s my father on the phone, calling everyone he can think of, his voice shaking as he asks, Have you seen Dory? There’s me on the couch, knees tucked into my chest, eyes unfocused, listening to his strained words.

All the curtains thrown wide, windows dark, clock ticking past dinner, ticking away the time that Mom had been gone.

Dad saying, No, we haven’t seen her in fourteen hours.

Saying, I don’t think we can call the police yet.

I remember this, I do. But here it’s the chemical smell of dryer sheets, and my face is a blur. This is a memory from my father, and everything is so dim and muted, the hues of his worry, the umbra of his fear.

Finally, white beams cut through the heaviness. Headlights roll into our driveway, a car with a dent in the side.

Mom headed out that morning to get a gallon of milk. That was what she said. Be right back.