Chapter 15
15
Bliss
It was very dark.
There was a strange, silent hum in the air around Bliss, outside of her at first, but then it seeped into her somehow, caught in her middle with a hard yank and a roar she felt rather than heard. It was if she’d swallowed Duke’s greasy old chainsaw whole, and it was about to cut her in two.
Panic didn’t pay. She’d learned that lesson long ago, though knowing she shouldn’t freak out didn’t always help her stay calm. Sometimes, it just took the edge off so she could think.
Tonight, standing beside her narrow bed in Katherine Bettencourt’s spare room, just down a back hallway from the kitchen, she shivered, even though she was wearing a flannel nightgown, cut down and stitched back together to fit her, like the dress she’d worn to church the previous morning, and it was a steamy hot night.
She didn’t hear voices or anything like that, but she felt a strong pull toward the yard, the woods, the little cemetery she knew lay hidden among the trees.
It felt like somebody had tied a rope around her middle, ready to lead her to somewhere she might or might not want to go, and they were pulling hard, leaning-back-on-their-heels hard.
Bliss knew she wouldn’t be able to resist, and she was both scared and intrigued.
She’d hidden her worn-out tennis shoes under the bed so Katherine wouldn’t burn them, like she had the shorts and top she’d been wearing when she found herself in this new place, sitting by the creek with her knees drawn up, and with Jack Bettencourt and his dog coming toward her, looking none too welcoming.
Bliss pulled on her sneakers—they were falling apart, for sure, but they were better than the shoes she’d been given to go with the church dress. Katherine had dug those out of a trunk in the attic, and they were at least a size too small.
If she needed to run, either to something or away from it, she’d be a lot better off in her own shoes.
She tied the frayed laces carefully, tightly, in case they came undone and sent her sprawling to the floor. That would surely wake up both Jack and his mother, and then she’d be stuck in the house, expected to explain what she was doing out of bed in the middle of the night.
The invisible rope would still pull on her, but she wouldn’t be able to follow where it wanted to take her, because Katherine would definitely object to that.
The moon was just a sliver of silver, transparent and offering very little light; Bliss had seen it when she’d looked out the window just before she’d climbed into bed.
She bit down on her lower lip, thinking hard.
Wishing for a flashlight.
Here in Little - House - on - the - Prairie -ville, there was no such thing.
She considered swiping a candle, or even the kerosene lantern in the middle of the kitchen table, but decided against both, because the candle would just blow out when the first hint of a breeze came up, and the lantern scared her.
If it tipped over, she might set the woods—or herself—on fire.
So, she decided, she’d wing it.
Find her way as best she could.
When she stepped out onto the back steps, careful to close the door quietly behind her, she realized she literally couldn’t see her hand in front of her face.
She waited. Blinked. Waited some more.
And her eyes began to adjust. Even here, she thought, in what seemed like absolute darkness, there was light. It must have come from the stars, scattered across the sky like diamonds.
A shuffling beside the steps, followed by a huge dog-yawn, told her that Hobo was there, probably keeping watch. Sneaking out of the house was one thing, Bliss realized, but sneaking back in would be another, with him on the job.
“Hobo,” she whispered, her tone urgent, “it’s me. Bliss.”
Hobo made a low, uncertain sound, way down in his throat. It was probably intended as a growl, but it came out more like a rumbly whimper. A canine question.
Bliss prayed the dog wouldn’t bark, though barking would have been pretty logical right about then, she reminded herself. It was Hobo’s job to make noise when somebody or something was moving around in the night—or at any other time—wasn’t it?
“Shhhh,” she said, sitting down on the high threshold and patting his head. “Everything’s okay. I’m just going for a little walk, that’s all.”
A little walk. In the middle of an almost moonless night.
Sure, Bliss.
Heck, even a dog wouldn’t believe that.
Especially not a dog.
“Come with me,” Bliss whispered. “Something’s pulling on me, and I’ve gotta go.” She paused, bit her lower lip again, scanned the shadowy edge of the woods.
At the moment, following this strange inner leading didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but then, neither did falling down and hitting your head in one version of the world and coming to in another, and that had happened.
Unless she was dreaming.
Or in a coma.
Or dead.
Bliss leaned over and pressed her face into Hobo’s furry neck.
In some ways, the new place was harder to live in.
There were no light switches, no cars, not even blue jeans, which Bliss missed more than her shorts and too-small top from Goodwill. Water had to be lugged up out of the well in a bucket and carried inside. Wood had to be chopped and carried in for the cook stove, and those things were just the beginning of the constant work it took just to live out an ordinary day.
In spite of all that, though, Bliss loved the new place.
If she was dreaming, or in a coma, she didn’t want to wake up.
If she was dead, well, this must be heaven.
The air was so fresh, the sky so blue, the grass so green.
And here, with the Bettencourts, she always had enough to eat. More than enough, in fact.
She slept in a real bed, not on a bare mattress like back there, in a room half again as big as Duke’s whole stupid camper, and, best of all, Mrs. Bettencourt—Katherine—seemed to genuinely care what happened to Bliss, referring to her as “the little visitor,” smiling at her, gently combing the tangles out of her hair, tucking her in at night and kissing her forehead.
Thinking of all that, Bliss felt her eyes start to burn, and her vision blurred.
Hobo, loosely tied, panted in her face.
His breath wasn’t the best.
The pull of that unseen rope hadn’t eased off, and even though Bliss could make a much better case for staying than for going, dog or no dog at her side, she sensed there was a reason for the strong tug at her middle.
At least the chainsaw had shut down, though she was still nervous. No getting around that.
“Come on,” she repeated in a loud whisper, and started toward the woods.
Toward the cemetery.
She had no idea why anyone, especially her, should be drawn to a graveyard in the dark, but that was where she needed to go.
Hobo walked along beside her, but slightly ahead, acting as a Seeing Eye dog for someone who wasn’t even blind.
She might as well have been, though.
Thistles snagged her nightgown as she made her way through the dense underbrush, and Bliss was glad she’d brought Hobo along for company. He’d probably run off and leave her if a bear or a cougar showed up, but his presence was soothing, all the same.
When they reached the little cemetery, the very one where she and Madison had met for the first time, Bliss still didn’t know why she’d come there, though she had a strange sense of satisfaction, even accomplishment, as though she’d cleared the way for something new and important to happen.
It was still dark out, and Hobo was still beside her, which probably meant she was still in the new place. The place where she belonged, where she was wanted, looked after, maybe even loved.
She sat where she had so often sat before, in the other time and place, on top of that low, blocky headstone.
Hobo let out a little whine and plunked himself down at her feet.
The pull on Bliss’s middle had stopped, but the buzzing sound was back.
She felt herself slipping. Dissolving.
When she opened her eyes, she had a terrible headache.
It was daylight instead of night.
And Hobo was gone.
Another mystery.
There was no sign of Madison, which was kind of a letdown, even though Bliss hadn’t really been expecting to see her friend again.
Hard to say what she had been expecting.
She sat there for a long time, waiting for the buzzing to stop, and for her stomach to stop doing backflips against her spine.
When she’d recovered enough, she stood, teetered a little as she waited for her legs to stop shaking, and then sort of stumbled off into the surrounding trees.
She found the creek, knelt and splashed water on her face.
That was when she noticed that the leafy trees had turned from soft greens to blazing yellows, oranges and crimsons.
Fall. It was fall .
Somehow, she’d stepped right out of summer, into autumn.
There was a crisp nip in the air, too, she noticed.
Bliss shook her head, more confused than she’d ever been before.
What was happening to her?
She just plain didn’t know, and wondering made her headache worse, so she tried to stop the thoughts racing around and around in her brain, making her dizzy all over again.
Bliss made her way through the woods, staying close to the creek, comforted by its busy, rustling whisper. It hurried along, over rocks and tree roots, as if it were trying to keep up with her.
When she reached the clearing, the camper was there again.
Duke’s truck was parked next to it, and he was inside, leaning forward, passed out on the steering wheel. His dark red hair fanned out around the bald spot on top of his head like a clown wig.
Bliss wanted to cry.
The man was her father, but she would have given anything to be far away from him, back in the other, better place, with Katherine and Jack and poor Hobo, wherever he’d disappeared to. Maybe Hobo hadn’t vanished, though. Maybe he’d just gone off and left her, chasing a rabbit or a squirrel.
Bliss crept past the truck, grateful not to come face-to-face with Duke. He was bound to be in a bad mood; he always was when he’d been on one of his benders.
As she moved, she let herself think about how it was daylight here, when it had been dark in the woods with Hobo.
How could that be?
Maybe she wasn’t dreaming, or in a coma, or dead.
Maybe she was crazy.
She groped for another possibility. Had she fallen asleep in the cemetery, of all places? Slept the night away?
That didn’t explain her clothes.
And it sure didn’t change the fact that she’d been smack in the middle of a summer night one minute and in a cool autumn day the next.
The dizziness returned, worse than ever, and once again, Bliss almost threw up, but she stopped herself, because she didn’t dare make any noise.
Puking was usually a loud business, and Duke, dead to the world as he was, might hear.
Resolved to hold steady, she crept into the camper, looked around.
It was the same as ever: cramped, messy, smelling of stale beer, cigarette smoke, and sweat.
Crap , she thought.
What was she even doing here? Why hadn’t she stayed in the cemetery, waited for Hobo to come back, or for Madison to turn up?
The thought of Madison reminded Bliss of why she’d come here, to this stinky camper.
She definitely wanted to go back to wherever she’d been before, with Katherine and Jack and his dog. But she’d also wanted, all along, to say goodbye to Madison, the only friend she’d ever had, besides her Gran.
Sure, there was Jack, but he could be ornery, and it was possible he wasn’t even real.
Heck, maybe Madison wasn’t real, either.
Maybe she , her own self, wasn’t real.
Quickly, because Duke might come to at any moment and stumble-bum it into the camper, looking for a fight.
He was always furious after a binge, acting as though someone had forced him to drink himself stupid, and he’d been helpless to stop them.
Duke had never been one to admit he might be in the wrong.
Bliss shook off the memories of her father’s crazy rage and scrabbled through empty pizza boxes and other garbage until she found two things, a pen and a used matchbook.
She opened the matchbook, wrote goodbye on the inside of the flap, pressing hard so there would be no mistaking what she’d written. Then she’d tucked the matchbook into the pocket of her shorts.
She found her shoebox, where she kept her treasures—a few pretty pebbles, some colorful postage stamps Gran had given her to keep, a birthday card Mona had given her once when she’d come down with a brief case of motherly love, and the best thing of all, a friendship bracelet, made of colored thread.
She’d woven it herself, one lonely afternoon, hoping she’d have a real friend to give it to someday.
Bliss took that from the shoebox, stuffed the box in the back of the only cabinet in the camper, and sneaked out into the sunshine and fresh air.
Duke was still passed out on the steering wheel.
She tiptoed past the truck again, and her unconscious father, and once she’d cleared both man and vehicle by a dozen feet or so, she broke into a run.
She tore between the trees, through the bushes that scratched her legs and snagged her clothes.
Once again, she was grateful to be wearing her sneakers, instead of those funny black shoes Katherine had scrounged up for her from some trunk in her attic.
She wouldn’t have gotten far in those.
But was there a house at all, with or without an attic?
Was there a Katherine?
Bliss wondered as she ran.
Her head still pounded, and her stomach was rolling around inside her like it had come loose from whatever muscles usually held it in place, but she didn’t slow down.
Duke was a big man, with a beer belly, but when he was mad, he could run real fast, and Bliss knew he could have woken up, seen her speeding for the woods, and decided to catch up with her, grab her by the hair, and drag her back to the camper.
He’d done it plenty of times before.
But this time was different, in more ways than one.
It was daytime, and it wasn’t summer, like it had been when Katherine had kissed her good-night just a few hours ago, but full-on fall.
Either the whole universe had gone crazy, Bliss thought, or she had.
Back in the cemetery, she took the matchbook and the thread bracelet from her pocket, secured the bracelet by tucking it behind the few remaining matches, and set the works on top of the gravestone she had been sitting on earlier.
Afraid both things might blow away since they were so light, Bliss found a mossy rock and used that to hold them in place.
Then she sat down, on the ground this time, with her back to the gravestone, and waited for whatever was going to happen next.
By then, the headache was so bad, she could barely stand it.
Her stomach quivered violently.
She closed her eyes.
And she must have slept for a long time, because when she opened them again, the headache was gone, it was dark out, and Hobo was licking her face.