Chapter 6
Six
Her footsteps echoed down a corridor so white it was almost blinding.
The floor, the walls, all seemed to emit a pearlescent glow that blurred any detail.
She reached out both arms, searching for the doorways that were always there, but this corridor was wider, and both hands touched nothing but air.
She shuffled a few feet in each direction, but the walls moved with her and no matter how much she reached, she could never quite touch them.
The brightness stung her eyes, and even closed, the light seemed to burn through her eyelids leaving her stumbling along, unable to see where she was putting her feet.
From somewhere in the distance, a whimpering started.
She froze, head tilted to hear better. As quickly as the sound started, it stopped, only to begin again but from a new direction.
The mewling keen of an animal in pain, the terrified shriek of an infant, each new sound was different.
Soon, they stopped fading away, instead building and overlapping until the din was as overwhelming as the light.
“Is anyone there?”
Her voice was distorted, both too loud and too soft at the same time, the words disappearing into the brightness as if it were mist, yet also booming through it.
She clapped her hands to her ears, but it was as effective as closing her eyes. Determined, she continued to lurch forward, but the floor seemed to ripple under her feet, one step landing on thin air, the next stubbing her bare toes.
“Answer me!”
In response, the cries rose to a deafening roar, and it was her turn to whimper. But still she continued staggering drunkenly forward. There was no way out but forward.
The light began to pulse, and her whimpers turned into moans. It penetrated her head and threatened to burst her skull to escape again. But still she put one foot in front of the other.
Until there was no more floor.
Her foot met nothing but air and she pitched forward, arms pinwheeling, her fingers scrabbling for something, anything to break her fall as she plunged down, down, down into the light.
Jal slammed back into consciousness, and for a moment, she couldn’t breathe.
Something soft was plastered around her, bright sunlight glowing through as if she was inside a cocoon.
Her arms and legs thrashed, as she gasped for breath in the cloyingly warm space, unable to fully voice the screams lodged in her throat.
The whole right side of her body throbbed, punctuated with sharper pains as her limbs connected with solid objects that had her hemmed in.
But then a kick straight back broke free of whatever was smothering her and a rush of cooler air flooded in, and with it, a familiar floral scent that made most of the panic dissipate.
Laundry detergent. Coming from the fleece throw she’d fallen asleep under.
A fleece that had become wrapped around her body when she’d rolled off the couch.
Because that’s where she was, on the floor, pinned between couch and coffee table.
Now that she could think straight, Jal wiggled until the blanket loosened enough to get to her knees and then sit back on her heels as she finally tossed it back onto the couch.
Static crackled as she brushed a curtain of tangled curls from her face and looked around.
The lingering scent of pancakes replaced the cloying floral scent.
The sky had been full of thick, black clouds when she’d curled up with a book after breakfast and promptly fallen asleep, but now shafts of sunlight streamed in through the multi-paned windows, one directly aimed at the cushion she’d used as a pillow.
No wonder the hallway this time had been full of blinding light.
She rubbed the grit from her eyes as she climbed back onto the sofa and sat, taking in the room around her while her fingers massaged a lingering ache in her shoulder that must have taken the brunt of the fall. Her cheeks blazed with shame even though the room itself was on the cool side.
You’re being ridiculous, she told herself, scrubbing chilled hands over her face.
How can you be embarrassed when no one saw anything?
She reached for the full mug of tea, long since gone cold, on the coffee table and gulped down its contents.
She’d left the bag in, and the tea was bitter, and did very little to soothe a throat as raspy as sandpaper.
She reached for her phone and set the mug back on the table at the same time, but misjudged the distance.
The mug teetered on the edge but her fingers only brushed the handle before it shattered on the floor.
Cursing, she gathered the pieces up in a fold of her sweater and dumped them in the kitchen trash.
The cabinet door slammed shut as she turned and surveyed the room, taking in the nest of blankets on the sofa and the clothes spilling out of the bedroom doorway from the overflowing basket just inside.
It had been the better part of a week since her friends had visited, and she’d barely left the apartment except to visit the bodega on the corner for essentials that couldn’t be delivered.
The nightmares were not easing up and all she had to show for it was a string of sleepless nights and a laundry situation that had gone from desperate to nothing left.
Hiding away until the dreams passed had been a good plan, it had worked before. This time though, they seemed to be sticking around, and if that was the case, no good was going to come from caging herself inside these four walls.
After she showered and dressed, Jal shrugged into the baggy jacket she usually wore when she was out to make a score or two. She started twisting her hair up to tuck under the slouchy knit cap and let out a jaw-cracking yawn.
She dropped her arms to her sides, her hair cascading down over her face and shoulders, and sighed. This was not the day to go out and do any stealing, not if she didn’t want to get caught. Her reflexes with the teacup should have been enough to prove that.
It didn’t mean that she was going to stay inside and continue to wallow, so she swapped the jacket for a hip-length black coat and scooped up her purse and keys.
The day outside had become as beautiful as it looked through the window. The light breeze had a bit of spring to it even though most of the trees that lined the street had barely begun to bud. Jal breathed deeply anyway, the air so crisp it immediately clearing some of the fogginess away.
She walked a half dozen blocks and entered the park at 101st Street into the shade of a wide canopy of trees. The breeze rustled the branches overhead, as if the trees were whispering to each other, sharing secrets only they knew or understood.
Maybe they were whispering compliments and encouragement to the mother picnicking with her two young children who seemed more interested in using the checkerboard pattern of the blanket as a game of Twister than the food she was serving up on paper plates.
Or maybe they were gossiping behind their buds about the couple cuddling together under a tree lost in the haze of young love.
There was a time when she and Andy had been like that, so caught up in each other that the outside world could have been blown to pieces and they wouldn’t have noticed.
Jal cut that thought off as she crossed the ring road and turned onto the path that circled the baseball diamonds. Not even half an hour out of her apartment and already she was thinking about Andy. Glutton for punishment today, aren’t you?
Most of the baseball fields were empty, but a father and son had taken the opportunity to fly a kite over one of the outfields, and from a little further ahead, there were shouts and the rhythmic thumping of a ball being kicked around.
She crested a rise in the path and saw a group of men playing soccer on a chalked-in field wedged between two baseball diamonds.
They were all down to at least their t-shirts and a few were bare-chested despite the slight chill to the air.
Jal leaned against a tree and watched as they ran back and forth across the field passing to each other, dodging good natured checks and trips.
One of the shirtless men, a young redhead who looked like he spent more time playing soccer with a video game controller than the actual game, laughed as a slender black-haired man tripped over his leg, and ran off with the ball in the other direction.
Another dark-haired guy, dressed in soccer shorts and a form-fitting jersey, stole it back and headed in her direction, leaving his friends in the dust. His muscles rippled as he did one trick after another, twisting, and turning, and flipping the ball up in the air to avoid the few players who made half-hearted attempts at stopping him.
Her lips drew up and she let out an appreciative low whistle as he completed a neat spin around the last remaining defender, tapping his feet in quick succession, two, three, four times, then kicking it through the goal marked out by their jackets.
A burly man cursed and dropped his hands to his knees as the victor pumped his fist in the air and shouted like he had just scored the winning goal in the World Cup. His friends, not nearly as impressed, stood yelling at him to stop showing off and bring the ball back.
He gestured to them with two fingers in the air, and went to retrieve the ball, which had crossed the path and rebounded off the tree at her feet.
As he drew closer, the wide grin on his face froze, then disappeared.
He stopped a few feet away, paying no heed to the ball.
Sweat streamed down his face and plastered a blue jersey already stretched tight across his chest to every rigid muscle in his torso, and there were a lot of them.
He was breathing hard through his mouth, that chest rising and falling with each one.