My new friend snorted, and I couldn’t help but laugh, especially with how surprised he appeared that such a sound had come out of his mouth. That seemed to relax Mammina a little because she stopped pushing me behind her, and I finally got through.
“Here,” the boy said, handing a wet and dirty Gilly to me.
I petted her drenched fur down. My fingers grazed over the rhinestones I had tirelessly glued around Gilly’s eyebrows and head after trimming the fur so that she looked like a cross between the capybara she once was and a bone-headed dinosaur. There, she looked better now, not a patch of fur out of place.
“I want you to have her. She’s been my bestest friend forever and ever and always helped me feel better when I was sad. Ithink she could help you too. I want her to help you, but you have to promise to take care of her. Do you promise?”
“Persetta,” Mammina whispered urgently. Babbo laid his heavy hand on my shoulder.
“Non, non, this is no problem.” The boy’s mother’s accent was even stronger than his, but it was kind and gentle. “Your daughter is a lovely girl. You must be very proud.” The lady knelt in front of me. “Persetta, pretty name for a pretty girl. Adrien, take her gift.”
And he did.
“I promise,” he said.
When I took his hand and wiggled my fingers around his, he froze again, riveted to our locked hands. I ignored Babbo’s voice in the background, something about signing a contract between families. Babbo was always talking about contracts and business, whatever all that meant. It didn’t matter. Because I had a new friend, and I had a feeling it was going to be a very good friendship.
“It’s only my hand, silly. I don’t bite.” I swung our hands about and tugged him forward after the casket, since the holders had started walking ahead.
“You are strange.”
I shrugged. “So are you. But I like you anyway.”
He didn’t say anything, but a flash of lightning lit up the hope in his really pretty blue eyes.
Chapter 7
Iwasfloating,driftingabout. No pain. No horrors. No miseries. Nothing to feel or see. Nothing to hear or touch. My world was an empty place, with no purpose past, present, or future.
I hated it. Time lost all meaning here. Minutes, hours, days—they all blended together. I picked a random direction and walked. There had to be an end.
I didn’t grow tired. I never had to stop. I never ate, never drank. The blankness went on. Didn’t matter if I ran or walked or sprinted, that path continued on and on.
Until a bubble appeared. Sparkly and multi-colored. Wavering and effervescent. I had two options: go around or go through. I knew what lay around it—that dismal nothingness I was so exhausted of—so I went through.
It was wet and sticky at first, absorbing its way into my pores and flowing under my skin, with both a chill and warmth this place lacked, until the bubble was me and I was it.
I remembered. Waking on that boat. The smoke, the heat of the flames, the agony of bleeding wounds, the cold water, thenever-ending darkness, and the slap of waves. That man’s voice and touch. How both had calmed me enough to let go and rest. There was only him. His arms, his voice, his calm, his warmth, his strength. Even that felt far, far away. Always just out of reach.
I left that bubble only to find another.
This one welcomed me like an old friend, wrapping around me and filling me with such contentment that I never wanted it to end. Whereas the last bubble made me feel and experience everything but sight, with this one, I heard, I touched, I smelled, I tasted, but most importantly, I saw. Colors, people, a place.
A joyful girl with a flowered dress and shiny black shoes. A grieving, broken boy with a scar down his face and dark-blue eyes I could never forget. The stuffed animal, groomed and beautified, that connected them and started their friendship. It felt as real as the memories on those boats, and yet foreign and distant at the same time. I never wanted to leave, not when he was with me, holding my hand, looking at me in wonder.
A jolt went through my body. The edges of the bubble dissipated, and fire spread through my veins. I gazed at my limbs expecting flames, only to find smooth skin, but by the time I looked back up, the bubbled scene was vanishing. The tombs, the grass, the people—they whisked away into the darkness until all that was left were his captivating eyes.
They were hauntingly beautiful, anchoring me in this sea of nothingness. They creased with laughter. They fell with pain. They became voids of emotion. Those very eyes distorted and aged. Not much, but enough to set and firm. Still, I recognized them, as if remembering a far-off dream. Then they, too, started wisping away into nothingness.
“Don’t go,” I begged. My voice echoed. It was so lonely here, with nothing around, nothing to hold on to. “Please.”
The eyes vanished completely. I was alone again, and yet not. For the first time in forever, outside those bubbles, there wassound. A constant, rhythmic beep beep that slowly tugged me out of weightlessness. The sound sped up little by little.
Everything became heavier. What started as a dull ache everywhere grew stronger and stronger. The pain crested. I groaned in frustration, then moaned for that incessant beeping to end.
The darkness cloistered around me only for another sound to layer on top of it. A voice, sweet but firm, paired with a honeyed-floral perfume overtop the scent of lemon cleaning products. Huh, odd how I focused on that. Her words repeated, wrapping around me and thrusting me to the surface.
“Vous m’entendez?” French, the recollection of the language came so swiftly. Can you hear me, the woman asked. “My name is Dr. Margaux Conde. How are you feeling?”
