Beautiful Chaos(46)

Footsteps.

“Ethan Wate, that you?”

“Aunt Prue?”

She came shuffling out of the absolute nothingness. She was there and not there, flickering in and out of sight in her best housedress, the one with the loud flowers and the pearly-looking snaps. Her slippers were crocheted in the same rainbow of browns as Aunt Grace’s favorite afghan.

“Back so soon?” She waved the handkerchief in her curled hand. “Told you last night, I got things ta do while I’m out an’ about like this. Can’t keep runnin’ ta me every time you need the answer ta some durned question I don’t know.”

“What? I didn’t visit you last night, Aunt Prue.”

She frowned. “You tryin’ ta play tricks on a old woman?”

“What did you tell me?” I asked.

“What did you ask?” She scratched her head, and I realized with a rising panic that she was beginning to fade away.

“Are you coming back, Aunt Prue?”

“Can’t say just yet.”

“Can you come with me now?”

She shook her head. “Don’t you know? That’s up ta the Wheel a Fate.”

“What?”

“Sooner or later, it crushes us all. That’s what I told you, remember? When you asked ’bout comin’ over here. Why’re you askin’ so many questions today? I’m bone tired, an’ I need ta get me some rest.”

She was almost gone now.

“Leave me be, Ethan. Don’t ya be lookin’ ta come downside. The Wheel ain’t done with you.”

I watched as her brown crocheted slippers disappeared.





“Ethan?” I could hear Lena’s voice and feel her hand on my shoulder, shaking me awake.

My head felt heavy, and I opened my eyes slowly. Bright light poured in from the unblinded window. I had fallen asleep in the chair next to Aunt Prue, the way I used to fall asleep on my mom’s chair, waiting for her to finish up in the archive. I looked down, and Aunt Prue was lying on her bed, milky eyes open as if nothing had happened. I dropped her hand.

I must have looked spooked, because Lena looked worried. “Ethan, what is it?”

“I—I saw Aunt Prue. I talked to her.”

“While you were asleep?”

I nodded. “Yeah. But it didn’t feel like a dream. And she wasn’t surprised to see me. I had already been there.”

“What are you talking about?” Lena was watching me carefully now.

“Last night. She said I came to see her. Only I don’t remember.” It was becoming more common, and more frustrating. I was forgetting things all the time now.

Before Lena could say anything, the nurse rapped on the door, opening it just a crack.

“I’m sorry, but visiting hours are over. You’ll have to let your aunt have some rest now, Ethan.”

She sounded friendly, but the message was clear. We were out the door and into the empty hall before my heart had time to stop pounding.




On the way out, Lena realized she had left her bag in Aunt Prue’s room. While I waited for her to get it, I walked through the hallway slowly, stopping at a doorway. I couldn’t help it. The boy in the room was about my age, and for a minute I found myself wondering what it would be like to be in his place. He was still sitting up at the table, and his hand was still writing. I looked up and down the hall, then slipped into his room.

“Hey, man. Just passing through.”

I sat down on the edge of the chair in front of him. His eyes didn’t even flicker in my direction, and his hand didn’t stop moving. Over and over, he had written a hole into his paper, even into the sheet underneath.

I tugged on the paper, and it moved, an inch or so.

The hand stopped. I looked at his eyes.

Still nothing.

I tugged the paper again. “Come on. You write. I’ll read. I want to hear it, whatever you have to say. Your masterpiece.”

The hand began to move. I pulled the paper, a millimeter at a time, trying to match the speed of the writing.



this is the way the world ends this is the way the world ends this is the way the world ends on the eighteenth moon the eighteenth moon the eighteenth moon this is the way the world





The hand stopped, a thin line of drool spilling across the pen and the paper.

“I got it. I hear you, man. The Eighteenth Moon. I’ll figure it out.”

The hand began to write again, and this time I let the words write over themselves until the message was lost once again.

“Thanks,” I said quietly. I looked past him, to where his name was written in dry-erase marker on the little whiteboard that was not and would never be on the door of anyone’s dorm room.

“Thanks, John.”





9.28





End of Days


It’s some kind of sign.” I was driving Lena home, and we were tearing down Route 9. She kept glancing at the speedometer.

“Ethan, slow down.” Lena was as spooked as I was, but she was doing a good job of hiding it.

I couldn’t get away from County Care fast enough, the peach walls and sickening smell, the broken bodies and empty eyes. “His name was John, and he was writing ‘the world ends on the Eighteenth Moon’ over and over. And his chart said he was in a motorcycle accident.”