Chapter One

I saw my first faerie when I was five. I remember the day through the hazy mist of time often present on foggy mornings in early spring, when heavy rain fallen the day before lazily makes its way up to the sky again. Not thick enough for a wall, but thin like a veil. I parted the veil that morning with the help of our screened door, and stepped onto the front porch of my parents’ house and into the soft blanket of mist. Two square white pillars rose from the cement stoop to hold up the little awning that never quite protected its charge, or the porch, from the rain like it should have. Those pillars had seen much and I felt something akin to respect for them, but that morning I glared at them for a moment in spite of that for they were blocking the view.

Standing there, just outside the door and looking to the left, I could see the tall juniper that nearly reached the top of our house’s second story bay window and the shiny green garden hose, coiled upon itself like a snake, at its base. I remember thinking how unnatural the thing looked sitting there unmoving, as though it should have been slithering away at the sight of me. Directly in front of me were two short, wild-haired juniper bushes that, with the aid of their taller brother, stood like sentinels guarding the porch on two sides. They were often the base of many a game of hide and seek, helping to enforce the no peeking clause for those who had the misfortune of being named “it.” And they all were just starting to get their berries, tiny clusters of grayish-blue balls huddling together against the chill morning air.
I inhaled. Mist and morning filled my lungs accompanied by the unmistakable aroma of the junipers, refreshing me. The familiar scent of rain surrounded me like the arms of a favorite aunt bearing treats, holding me in a cool harbor that whispered sweetly of the thunder and lightning past, and always promising more spectacular performances in the future. Looking past those squat junipers brought my gaze to the expanse of our front yard. The lawn, the edges still winter brown, glittered like emeralds in the places where thin blades of grass nearly bent back on themselves, heavy with a crop of dew, a framed canvas of green surrounded by a thin brown picture frame. A red-breasted robin alighted from somewhere behind the house and settled upon a low branch of the large elm tree near the center of the yard. He was so bright against the drear gray sky, chipper and chirping good-morning to all. No doubt he had feasted well on the worms that had made their way out from the saturated earth and onto the sidewalks to breathe. I hoped that a few had escaped fate and the birds’ bellies. That would make the day even more interesting.

A quick movement caught my eye, and my gaze returned to the juniper bushes directly ahead of me. What appeared to be a glowing sphere quickly darted past the small arch created by the bushes, separating them, and out of my sight. I got on my knees and tried to find what could have made that light, it was so bright and golden and clear, but my skin pebbled from a chill that ran up my spine. The chill ebbed and melted into rich warmth that surrounded me with the familiar numbness one feels during a hug. And yet I felt afraid, briefly unable to move. I tried to make myself move, but it was as though my limbs were stuck to me with honey; they moved ever so slowly as I crouched down on my hands and knees to discover what had just moved so quickly while I felt trapped in molasses.

As I peered into the hollow made between the thick trunks, looking carefully through all the branches, I thought about what the light could have been. Perhaps a moth, or another insect, a firefly. I carefully moved the thorny boughs aside one by one, hoping to startle the thing up from its rest and quell my curiosity. The branches scratched at my chill-numbed hands, leaving angry red, puffed up scratches along my wrists and the backs of my hands. Finally, I gave up searching. Whatever it was, I couldn’t find it, and the worms were calling for me to gather them up and replace them in the neighbor’s gardens and front lawns. My morning promised to be full of discoveries, and I was getting nowhere sitting there. So I leapt off the porch seeking a small bucket. And I forgot about it until the next time it happened.

* * * *

It was the summer of my sixth year. The flowers were in bloom. The trees long past that, though they did reach their long leafy arms up to the sun, stretching for light and nourishment. But those greens and reds and yellows from the foliage and blooms seemed washed out and hazy beneath the burning yellow sun. It was early afternoon, and the sun just past its zenith in the cloudless azure sky. After staring up into that sky and then turning your gaze back to your surroundings, everything looked like a fading photograph, yellowed with age. A light breeze stirred, carrying neither moisture nor coolness with it, merely drying my sweat beaded face. But at six, the sun and the heat and the yellow tainted world don’t bother you, just as a sweaty face doesn’t bother you, breeze or no breeze.

I was visiting our next-door neighbor who we called Tante (mostly because her last name was Barlovitch, which, at six, is difficult to say without it sounding like a curse). She was like an “aunt” to my two younger brothers and I, giving us candies and treats for helping out in her yard and at holidays. She had flaming red hair and a dark olive complexion, both of which were unnatural. That summer morning, I was asked over the fence to help her sunbathe. This consisted of helping apply suntan oil to her back and giving her an occasional mist with a spray bottle full of ice water. But until I was needed for those tasks, I had free reign in her huge backyard and garden, each a cornucopia of fruit and vegetables, flowers and trees, none of which my own backyard contained. I would see the tomato vines heavy with ripening red fruit, the deep green cucumbers and zigzagged watermelons, yellow squash and all of the beautiful shades of green. But first on my agenda was to climb the purple plum tree that hung just far enough over the chain-link fence separating Tante’s yard from ours to drop its leaves there in the fall. I was determined to find the sweetest plum for a snack before I had to return to the spray bottle.

The first few limbs were a bit treacherous, but once I got through them the rest was easy going. The branches were covered in a smooth bark that looked coated with a powdery substance, causing the body of the tree to look blue from a distance. I grinned at myself for thinking the trunk had actually been blue just before thinking about how that new knowledge would impress my little brothers. The leaves of the tree, on the other hand, actually were a glossy, purplish-red on one side, and covered with raised red veins on their mossy green undersides. They looked as though they carried blood in them as opposed to the thick, sticky green liquid in the different leaves I’d examined in the past. I plucked two large leaves from a nearby branch and nestled them into the pocket of my shorts for safekeeping. One was for science, to be dissected for comparison with other leaves; and the other was for beauty, it would be traced, pressed, and kept for future reference.

What sounded like a quiet giggle drew my attention to the boughs above me. Looking up, I had to shield my eyes from the sun peeking through the leaves stirring in the soft breeze. It sounded so close, but upon looking directly around me, I found nothing but the dancing claret leaves and the lightly swaying limbs of the plum tree. A flood of warmth and curiosity filled me, along with the buzz of adrenalin entering my blood. I had a feeling that I had felt all of this before tickled my memory, though I couldn’t remember where or when exactly I had felt it. I tried squinting and looking higher to make out what could have made that soft laughter, but I found nothing. Maybe it was just the breeze stirring in the leafy branches I had heard, or a bird. I shook my head, found my plum and was out of the tree just in time to hear Tante’s reedy voice calling me to where she lay outstretched on her blue plastic lawn chair.

“You found yourself a snack, I see,” she said, after shielding her eyes from the sun to peek at me. “Don’t spoil your appetite for lunch or your mom will be upset.”

“I won’t, Tante. It’s just a plum.” I set it on the towel beside her and picked up the spray bottle, squeezing out a fine, cool mist onto her already dark legs and stomach. The water sparkled upon her oiled skin, which still smelled faintly of coconut from the tanning oil, and pooled in her navel and the deep pocket at the base of her throat. I sat down on the towel and ate my plum, its dark red skin giving way to the yellowish pulpy flesh beneath, dripping with sweetness.

The giggle in the tree tickled my mind for the rest of the afternoon. When I returned home, I did my experiments with the first leaf, only to discover that the juice inside the veins was not the color of blood, but a pinkish-green. I was taking a rubbing of the second leaves veiny underside at the kitchen table when I asked my mom if she knew of anything that laughed and lived in plum trees. She could only come up with squirrels or birds, which I would have seen had they been there. My brothers eyed me curiously across the table, still eating the sandwiches that I had been too full to finish. When I had completed the tracing, placed the leaf in my big children’s Bible, and then went outside to play with my friends from up the street. That giggle would have to wait for an explanation; I needed to ride my bike.

The very next day, I was watching my younger brothers splash around in the small inflatable pool my father had filled with air from his own lungs. I had gotten out due to all their splashing and was soaking up the sun on the small incline leading up into Tante’s front yard, just beneath her beautiful yellow and peach colored roses. Except for the occasional bee, the spot was pleasant and fragrant, a good place to catnap in the sun. I thought a tan like Tante’s might look pretty with my sun-lightened blonde hair. Not that I really cared about stuff like that yet, at least not for the sake of impressing boys. But all of the pretty girls in magazines had suntans, and I was almost seven so pretending was still second nature for me.

I pulled one of the low yellow roses down closer to where I lay on my towel and inhaled deeply from its center. They were the roses I always wanted to cut and keep in my bedroom, but Tante would be very upset if she found her favorite roses had been snipped with paper scissors, or worse, merely pulled from the bush. And they really did look prettier against the deep green of the glossy leaves, better than in any vase I could find for them certainly. The peach petals caressed my face like cool silk. It smelled so sweet that I let all of the breath from my lungs and inhaled deeply again, filling myself with its beautiful fragrance. The bloom was so large it covered most of my face. When I opened my eyes and peered above the rim of the flower, what I saw stopped my breath as I exhaled.

Three tiny lights balanced on one of the rosebushes in the back, furthest from me, quivering. I held perfectly still, hoping not to startle them away. They looked familiar somehow, something I’d seen before. With my brothers laughing and splashing still a few feet away, it was difficult to concentrate on what I felt and what I was seeing. The lights glowed, surrounded by a thin golden aura of light. And I could make out something sticking out of those auras, thin, transparent and finger-shaped; they looked like the wings of dragonflies. They carried the same opalescent sheen along their surface and they seemed to move the same way too. One of the lights rotated on the leaf, and suddenly the auras became bright halos surrounding them. I could no longer make out the shape of their wings; to me they became nothing more than bright ovals of golden light. I tried not to move, but the petals of the rose still against my nose were tickling me, and I sneezed. In the second between seeing them and opening my eyes in recovery from the sneeze, they were gone.

I let the rose go and it swung back upright into its place among the others. For a long while I lay still, not noticing the suns warmth on my skin, not hearing my brother in the pool, just replaying what I had seen over and over again in my head. Those were not any insects that I had ever seen before and I doubted that they were insects at all. I thought my mind was playing tricks on me, but before those golden auras had flared up, they looked like very tiny, very thin little girls. They were difficult to make out in even the bright muted glow, but I though I had seen the makings of legs and arms on those spindly bodies. They were so delicate, so thin, that I though maybe my sneeze had sent them flying off in its force. More than likely, I thought, they were startled and flew away themselves. But I held that memory in my head, it being the first instance of many strange encounters that I would store in a little file in my brain, an incident to which I would discover the meaning of many years later, and something I didn’t think possible in my wildest imagination.

A few weeks later, perhaps a month, I was visiting my best friend Anna’s house, just down the street from our house. What I had seen in the rose bushes remained my secret. I didn’t want to be told I was crazy or seeing things that weren’t there, something my parents and my very practical best friend would let slip instantly. I had always been the child with the rampant imagination, the one who made up the stories of all our dolls lives, or our own histories when we pretended to be someone else than who we were. I had a soft spot in my heart for fantasy literature, dragons and unicorns, knights and princesses in distress, daring rescues and magic. I even wrote my own versions about those things. And I wanted nothing more than to remain a virgin (whatever that meant) so I could someday have a unicorn find me in the woods and lay its head on my lap, somehow tamed. Of course, I would have no one cutting off her horn, which would have been ridiculous. And my parents had always encouraged our imaginations, and my friends were rather creative themselves. But what I had seen, I thought, was too much for them to believe. I hardly believed it myself, even seeing it with my own eyes. I kept trying to rationalize them; they were lacewings or dragonflies or fireflies, the ending stage of a glowworm. Trying to explain them would just make it sound even more unbelievable, and so I tucked it into the place in my head where I kept secrets. It would be my special secret.

We had just finished playing a game of hide and seek, boys against girls, in the huge yard of Anna’s family’s corner lot. I was climbing down from the boughs of a stout crab apple tree when the boom of thunder stopped me short. The thunderclap was so loud, so close, that I had to hold onto the branches to keep myself from falling out of the tree and into the sweetly decaying ring of mulch from rotting crab apples and burgundy leaves below. As the initial clap faded into a slow rumble edging across the purple sky, I heard very nearly the same giggle I had heard in Tante’s plum tree. I scrambled higher into the tree, following the origin of the sound. The silence after thunder is deafening, especially a clap so loud as the one I had just heard. I strained my ears. I strained my eyes. But I neither saw nor heard anything before the next boom of thunder pounded through the sky. Anna’s mom called me down from the tree in a frantic voice yelling that if I didn’t come down I was going to get hit by lightning. My mother always said you could tell how close the lightning was to you by counting the seconds between its flash and the following thunder. Just testing the theory, I stayed to count the seconds between the next set. As if to punctuate the warning, a blue-white light strobed overhead followed by thunder only a second later. I hopped out of the lowest branch and headed towards the house.

A half an hour later, Anna and I sat on the carpet in front of the sliding glass door that led out into her backyard, watching with Kool-Aid and popcorn as the hail ripped more leaves from the crab apple tree in its fury. When the hail had finished, the wind and rain tried to knock the poor tree down in short, fierce gusts. I have always loved the smell of rain, found it soothing. But this storm frightened me as it raged through the sky. The rain on the tin roof covering the patio sounded like some mad percussionist screaming on a snare erratically as the sheets of rain pelted against it, like the sky screaming. I felt like crying as I watched, wondering if whatever had laughed at me was going to make it through a storm like this. I wondered if we would.

When the rain finally let up and the wind slowed, Anna’s mom loaned me an umbrella to shield me on the 187 steps between their front door and ours (I always counted the steps). I cast sideways glances at the crab apple tree as I passed it, the chain link fence standing like steel lace between its wind-ravaged branches and myself. I didn’t think I would see anything; I just wanted to be certain I wouldn’t.

* * * *

The summer of my seventh year, I flew out to California to see my paternal grandfather, Chess. I was excited because it would be my first time flying alone and that made me feel grown up. On the flight out, I sat by this boy who was nine named Colby. I remember thinking what a funny name that was, to be named after a cheese. But he had the window seat, so I suffered through him laughing at me coloring in coloring books with crayons to pass the time so I could occasionally look out the window and the ever-shifting quilt of the land far beneath. Cars really did look like ants scurrying slowly along the roads, themselves like thin gray ribbons. And they all got smaller and more difficult to see as the plane steadily ascended. My ears popped, and I pulled a stick of mint chewing gum from my pocket, offering on to Colby, and chewed it. My dad was right; it really did help keep my ears from popping.

Outside the window, the Rocky Mountains gave way to verdant fields, which faded into the sage covered desert of Nevada, then again the lush patchwork of green fields serrated by irrigation ditches. The former followed by the black and white roofs of suburbs, and silver and stone cities with their streets forming neat geometric shapes between buildings, looking like models from a train set, when a white blanket of fluffy clouds didn’t obscure it all from view, that is. Those clouds looked so thick, the thickest I’d ever seen that white, and yet when the plane passed through them, I could still see the tip of the wing. I had expected not to see it at all, but it was only slightly veiled in what looked like a soft mist. I felt very close to what I thought was heaven in those moments when we were engulfed in white mist. Colby laughed at me when I told him that, saying he hoped he had never been that silly when he was seven.

Just as I was about to stick my tongue out at him, the stewardess brought us each a Coke half poured into clear plastic cups; setting the red and white can on the tray in front of us. Why’d they put it in a cup and then give us the can, I wondered with a grin. I finished the cola in the cup, and then drank the rest from the can. I seemed pretty pointless to pour the soda from the can into the cup to drink it. But I watched Colby do it and hoped to myself that I wouldn’t be that silly when I was nine.

When the plane had landed and made its way up to the airport itself, one of the darkly uniformed flight attendants helped me get my backpack down from the overhead compartment. She then led me down the long umbilical to the airport’s receiving area where my grandfather was waiting for me. I remembered the first time I had ever flown on an airplane, when I was three years old. My brother Joshua was just a baby, and Jeremy not even thought of. And so, a flight attendant, dressed very similarly to the one who walked with me now, took me up to the cabin to meet the pilot and co-pilot in an attempt to keep me occupied during the flight. They told me about all of the lights and buttons and showed me how they steered an airplane. They asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I said a ballerina. Then they smiled and the flight attendant attached a pair of golden wings to my t-shirt. I was so happy that I rushed back to show my parents. I didn’t remember anything else about that flight except for the fact that I earned my wings.
The light in the umbilical was tinged yellow from the color of the fiberglass and the fluorescent lights inside the passageway. It made my skin look darker than it really was, like I already had a suntan. I smiled at that. The people walking in front of us lumbered along with their luggage in their hands and trailing huge suitcases along behind them on wheels. I wished that my suitcase had wheels on it. The wheels made a sharp noise upon exiting the ramp between the plane and the reception area; one even got stuck on the raised bit of aluminum grate. I hoped my grandfather would remember what I looked like and find me because I didn’t think I could find him in the huge crowd waiting just outside the square doorway of the umbilical. The woman holding my hand looked down at me and said, “There’s your grandfather, Jennifer.”

And there he was walking towards us wearing a white straw panama hat and a pale yellow shirt with khaki walking shorts that accentuated the tanness of his skin. I was surprised to see him, because he looked like no one I remembered seeing before. I had nervous butterflies in my stomach as I tried to think of how to greet him. But he had the most amazing hazel eyes, piercing and alert, and they put a stop to the butterflies fluttering. He said hello to me and crouched down with open arms and the biggest smile I had ever seen. I nearly ran to him I was so excited. And when we hugged, I could hear him laughing and feel the rumble of that rich laughter beneath my cheek as it pressed against his wide chest. I still remember that hug as one of the best hugs of my life.

* * * *

“Are you hungry?” he as we walked out of the airport and into the dry July heat. He carried my suitcase like it weighed nothing and that made me grin. I nodded in answer to his question. “What do you like to eat? Do you like hamburgers?” I nodded again. “Then I know just the place.”

I had heard my mom talk about Bob’s Big Boy with great fondness, mostly due to nostalgia, but I was seven and I thought it would be the bee’s knees to eat at a restaurant where my parents used to eat. Both she and my father grew up in California and she said that was the hangout during the time they were dating. She said she always ordered a side of fries with bleu cheese dressing to dip them in, and a vanilla Coke. I ordered the same and my grandfather arched a skeptical eyebrow. From the moment we pulled into the parking lot, I had decided that I loved Bob’s Big Boy and that I was going to eat there as much as I could during my vacation. Just the fact that it had a huge statue of a funny looking boy in red and white checked overalls did it for me. We talked about what he had planned for my vacation, which included a trip to Disneyland. I was so happy about that. My parents had taken me to Disneyland when I was three and I wanted to go back ever since. I excitedly told him about school and all my friends, about my brothers and my parents. I also told him about my pressed leaf and flower collection and he was very interested in that.

When we finished eating, grandpa frowned as the waitress took away almost half of my hamburger. The food was good, there was just so much of it I couldn’t eat it all. And I didn’t like the bleu cheese dressing. But the vanilla Coke was better than a milkshake, and I would definitely order those whenever I got the chance in the future. On the way out I asked grandpa to take a picture of me standing near the statue so that my mom and dad could see that I had eaten there too. Then we headed north towards my grandfathers house.

It wasn’t really a house, though it was in my vague memories of that three-year-old visit. My grandfather lived in a trailer home in Hemet, a retirement suburb north of Los Angeles. The surrounding land was desert, but as we drove through the entrance to the trailer park, it looked like paradise. They had an Olympic sized pool and a playground. The trailers were situated around one large figure eight, each with a covered driveway, and some with little white picket fences around their tiny lawns, which, more often than not, held balancing pink flamingos situated very precisely in the grass. Some lawns weren’t even covered with real grass but plastic grass cut very short. There were tall palm trees granting small patches of shade, huge rose bushes and lush flowering bushes that I had never seen before. Most of the trailers were painted brightly with red or green, even pink. My grandfather’s trailer was white, but it had a little awning that looked like a Swiss chalet and a covered patio surrounded by flowers and shrubs that looked cool and inviting. As we walked past it, I noticed the humming bird feeders lining the fence and watched a huge butterfly flutter up from one of the flowering bushes. I was going to like it here.

Inside the trailer was much cooler than even inside the air-conditioned car. There was a low hum coming from the kitchen and when I asked what it was, grandpa said it was a swamp cooler. I fell in love with it then and there. I remembered some things from my last visit even though I was three at the time. There were brightly colored plates hanging above the entrance to the kitchen, hand-painted by my grandmother before she died. There was the rocking chair, covered in gold velvet, which I recalled her rocking me to sleep in one night. The small upright piano directly across the trailer from the front door where she taught me how to play my first songs and chords, and the old ukulele that hung off to the side. There was the old phonograph and the large shelf behind it containing hundreds of records of Mozart, Bach, and Frank Sinatra. My grandparents and my parents had laughed while I danced a waltz standing on my father’s feet in the living room. It was a house full of music, just as I remembered it.

The room I was staying in was at the back of the trailer, what was the master bedroom that my grandfather surrendered for the sofa bed in the main room. The bed was huge, and the room was dark and cool with a small writing desk and dresser. I didn’t end up sleeping there except for the first night, the bed was so big and the room so unfamiliar that I ended up having nightmares and asked my grandfather if I could sleep on the sofa bed with him. He just laughed and said yes, but regretted it the next morning saying I kicked like crazy. But we worked it out and I didn’t have another nightmare for the duration of my stay.

As grandpa helped me unpack and situate my belongings, he asked me what I would like to do. I really wanted to go to the pool, but I didn’t know how to swim.

“That can be remedied,” he smiled.

The only time I had ever been to a swimming pool was when Anna had a birthday party at the local pool that her family held a membership to. I had stayed in the shallow end the entire time, plastered to the wall. But I liked being in the water and I really wanted to learn how to swim. I retrieved my swimsuit and met him on the porch with a towel and we walked to the pool. The asphalt was so hot I could feel it even through the soles of my tennis shoes. After leaving the cool trailer the air outside felt even hotter than when we first stepped out of the airport that morning. Sweat immediately formed on my skin and dripped down the sides of my face. I hoped the pool was cool.

From the wrought iron gate I could see bottom of the pool. It seemed alive with undulating ribbons of light reflected through the surface waves against the painted pool bottom. My eyes were constantly drawn to them, mesmerized by their motion and the calming sound of the water lapping against the blue tiled edge of the pool. I showered quickly and returned to the table where my grandfather was laying out our towels. He handed me a bottle of suntan lotion and helped me get my back after I pulled my long hair up off my neck.

“Get your face too, you don’t want to burn,” he smiled, dabbing a drop onto my nose. “And we’ll have to get you a bathing cap at the store to keep your hair out of the drain.”

I knew nothing about all of that, but I figured that if grandpa said I should, I would. I jumped into the water, nearly forgetting to hold my breath as the cold water closed over my head. When my feet touched the bottom, I sprung back up to the surface just in time to watch my grandfather dive from the diving board at the opposite end of the pool, barely making a splash. I wanted to do that! I had gotten more water outside the pool than not. His head popped up a few feet from me and he told me to try and swim towards him, showing me how to “doggie paddle.” When I had the hang of that, the strokes got more complicated until I felt like I was crawling through the water. But I wasn’t afraid of putting my head under, though I couldn’t open my eyes for the stinging of the chlorine. And I felt safe being there with my grandfather, like nothing could go wrong while he was there, encouraging me.

From that day forward, I have had an affinity with bodies of water, from a fountain to lake, a swimming pool to an ocean. I felt a sort of kinship that day, surrounded by it all, and submerged. It was like a second home to me. And I was calmed by those ripples of light, against the bottom of the pool and against my skin, the sun in the water. It was like magic. And I could swim, well, better than I could before. And in the days following, I only got better. Grandpa said I was like a fish. But there was a presence there that I could not explain, something very similar to the feeling I had inside of me with each of my previous encounters with things I couldn’t explain; curiosity and peace, a deep and warming contentment nestling in the heart of myself. I couldn’t call it anything else but love.

Some days later, my grandfather took me to see the Pacific Ocean. There the feeling was so much stronger, clearer. I stood on the beach for a long while, just staring out into the vast gray-green expanse extending to the horizon, no end in sight. The pale arms of the beach itself faded into the distance, until it too disappeared. After exploring the shoreline and finding mostly thick tangles of seaweed, I walked out into the waves as they rolled up onto the sand and felt their pull. The gravity of the sea called them back, called them home. And they obeyed its plea, drawing back on themselves and leaving the sand awash in foam. I wanted to go too. I wanted to let the undercurrent take me away to whatever was out there, whatever lived beneath the murky green depths. Not just fish and other creatures of the sea, but the things I’d read about, like mermaids and horned whales and giant cities buried beneath fathoms of water, the things no one really believed in. The things I believed in.

Once, my grandfather had to jump in the water and drag me back out. The pull of the tide had been too strong where I was swimming, still not far from the shore, and it sucked me under. When we reached the beach, I was coughing, feeling as though I had swallowed half the water in the ocean and it did not like being inside of me. Sputtering, I pushed my hair out of my eyes and nodded when grandpa asked if I was okay. I looked at the ocean and laughed, if a bit bitterly. It was so big and so powerful and it nearly swallowed me whole without a second thought. But it knew I didn’t belong there, and I was in awe. We stayed until the sun began to sink, and I began to feel the sunburn I’d received sucking the energy out of me through my skin. We did stay to watch the sunset over the water. But the orange and the pink of the sky couldn’t steal the glory of the jade ocean from my memory.

I called my parents after the third week of my visit, a couple of days before I was supposed to leave, and begged them to let me stay longer. They did, and I ended up staying the entire summer with my grandfather. He taught me how to swim and how to dive and rode me on his back while he dove underwater like a dolphin, taking me under with him. We sang songs, silly ones and ones I’d composed on the piano myself into a small tape recorder and sent them to my family in Colorado. We went to Disneyland, where I stood in line for Space Mountain roller coaster for nearly two hours (after barely being tall enough to ride), but upon hearing the people screaming from inside, I got scared and begged grandpa not to make me ride. He was upset and threatened to make me ride it for wasting that amount of time, but he eventually gave in and we rode the Matterhorn instead. On our visit to Knott’s Berry Farm, where a goat in the petting zoo chewed the strap off my sundress and I had to wear my jacket in the heat for the rest of the day for fear of exposing myself to everyone. He showed me how to eat kumquats from the bush in his little garden and taught me how to play Chinese checkers. And when the time finally came for me to leave, I cried, not wanting to say goodbye to my newfound friend. But school was beginning in just a few weeks and I had to prepare. And I did miss Anna and my brothers and my family. So, I reluctantly boarded the plane that would take me home and watched my grandfather as he waved goodbye to me from the big glass window of the airport.

My family greeted me with hugs and kisses at the airport and I went on for the rest of the week about my trip and how much fun grandpa and I had together. My friends endured the same detailed torment up until school began, and then the students heard about it. I started to become more aware of my strange encounters after that summer with my grandfather. I still didn’t know what “they” were, but I knew they were real and not a figment of my imagination. They were seemingly everywhere now; they had been everywhere in California, I was just too busy to really concentrate on them. I saw them now in the white tufted dandelion seeds swirling on the breeze of my breath, the dying grass bending with the wind, the crisp chill of a September morning, and the leaves of autumn trees falling to the ground like shavings of ruby, gold, and amber. All I had to do was look for them with a little concentration and they appeared. And they were beautiful. They came to me in shimmering lights of gold and silver, brighter than the sun in the day or the stars at night. Or fat balls of light, or thin whispery lines, and every color you could imagine, sometimes translucent, sometimes super saturated and bright. Whispers and songs and giggles greeted me on my morning treks to school, and afterwards, playing outside after my homework. It was the most amazing thing; they were my most cherished secret.

* * * *

That winter, my grandfather came out to visit us for Christmas. I was pleased to see him again, and excited for my brothers to experience him as I had. He took us caroling around the neighborhood, and caught falling snowflakes on his tongue. He instigated snowball fights in the backyard, letting us win in the end. And he said the prayer at Christmas dinner, an honor usually reserved for my father and something he took very seriously. Grandpa’s deep baritone did the prayer justice, and I think my dad was proud. The rest of the evening was spent opening packages and telling stories of Christmas’ past, Christmas’ with my grandmother and back when he was a boy in Chicago with his brothers and sister. I was sad when the visit ended after only a week. We all stood on the porch and watched him drive away in his little red Honda, waving until he vanished around the street corner.

The next day, my father received a disturbing phone call, one that left him staring blankly by the end of it, though it was very short. He said he had to fly to California on business and wouldn’t be back for a week, and he immediately started packing. I heard him talking quietly to my mother that same evening, muffled through my closed bedroom door. I didn’t know what they were saying, but I thought I heard my mother crying. The next few days were strange all together.
My brothers were oblivious to anything out of the ordinary. But I knew my mother was receiving phone calls while my father was away that left her in tears. When I would ask if she was okay, she would just nod and say that my dad was having a bad day at work. I went outside to play in the snow with my brothers, feeling something was wrong. But everything felt wrong as I looked out over the snow-covered lawn sparkling with noonday. The sun gave no warmth. Breath became a tangible thing as it escaped my nose and mouth, and the frosty air burned in my throat. My brothers continued to play but I suddenly wasn’t in the mood for a snowball fight.

Above the lawn, I could see them floating like steam, and they made me ache with sadness, these diaphanous and winged things. They were slender, and tinted pinks and greens and blues against the snow’s white canvas. I thought I could hear them singing, which sounded more like a low hum to my ears from that distance. And they seemed, somehow, to be singing for me. I wanted them to tell me everything was going to be fine, and that I was worrying for nothing, but they never said anything that coherent, never anything I could make out anyway. Then I realized that I was staring right at them and they hadn’t flown away, and from what I could tell, they knew I was watching them. I smiled, closing my eyes against the brightness of the sunlight reflected off the snowy ground and listening to the song. But in that instant between light and dark, the song vanished. Opening my eyes again, I squinted against the light towards the lawn. They were nowhere to be found and suddenly I felt empty.

When my father returned the following week, he told my brothers and I the real reason why he had gone to California. He sat us down at the kitchen table and told us that grandpa had gotten into a car accident on the way back to California and that he had died on the way to the hospital. My father had gone to settle the estate and attend the very small funeral service held for him in Hemet. The emptiness I had felt when the song had ended in the darkness reappeared, only ten times stronger. I could hear the song faintly, as though through the glass door which led to the backyard. I couldn’t help but look outside, hoping to see them again. They were not there.

“Will I still be able to go see grandpa this summer?” my brother Josh asked. Three years younger than myself, he was still uncertain how permanent death was, how serious.

“No son, your grandfather isn’t in California anymore, he’s in heaven,” my father said in a tear-choked voice. I didn’t fully understand death myself until that moment, the moment I saw my father cry.

So much became clear to me in that instant. My father had just lost his father and had not been able to deal with it because of what he had to do in California. He hadn’t been able to say goodbye. But neither had my brothers or I. It was a though we had all been hit by some swift invisible blow that had knocked the wind out of us. But when we recovered, we saw that it had done more permanent damage than just taking our breath, it had taken a life.

I ran down to my room and shut the door. It was dark and cold and that suited my mood perfectly. I lay down on the bed and cried for hours, inconsolable. My parents tried getting me to come out for dinner, to eat anything at all, but nothing would bring me out of that room. I tried praying that night, asking God why he had taken our grandfather away. When I wasn’t answered, I tried guilting God, asking Him how He could steal the experiences my brothers would have had the following summer from them without explanations. Finally, I just stared at my ceiling in a daze, searching for the answers to the swell of questions and knowing that they would be left unanswered as some sort of punishment for the privilege I had seeing my grandfather for an entire summer when my brothers would not be able to.

I didn’t leave my bedroom for three days. My parents brought me my meals, which I only picked at, but I guess they thought that was better than nothing. I tried drawing pictures of the ocean with crayons, trying to recapture the feelings I had there, but to no avail. Sometimes I would get up and go to the window and watch my brothers playing in the backyard. That only made my mood worse, a reminder with a stab of guilt. I hoped I might catch a glimpse of those vaporous beings suspended above the frozen landscape. But they too eluded me. In fact, all of them were gone. I couldn’t seem to sense them anymore; I couldn’t feel them. Where had they disappeared to? When would they return? Why did their disappearance leave me so cold and empty inside, like the winter sky? And why now of all times?

* * * *

School began again after the winter holiday, and I struggled in class. I stopped being social, avoided participating in class, and ended up having regular meetings with the school counselor. Even with my friends I felt so alone, abandoned. I was depressed at eight years old and my parents were worried sick about me. Not that they let me see it really, but we started going to doctors who would try to get me to talk about “my grief,” as they called it. They said they could help, that I could trust them. But I knew they were going to get paid whether I talked or not, and I couldn’t talk if I wanted to. Yes, I missed my grandfather terribly, but I missed “them” more. But the doctors and my parents would think I was crazy if I started talking about “them,” about the lights and the voices and the visions. Somehow I knew that. And I did as I always had a kept my encounters with them to myself.

I learned to pretend normalcy with my parents and at school, faking amusement and happiness to ease the concern and to end the visits to the doctors. I started reading a lot, escaping from reality in books that depicted strange and fantastical places, places that were full of life and interesting characters. Places far better than my reality. My father and I would talk about my grandfather some nights before he would tuck me into bed, recounting fun times had by us both with his father. Eventually, I started getting used to feeling alone, and it did become normal for me.

During that time, my parents had purchased the house directly next-door to us and we were to move in the following summer. I was reluctant. What did that house have that our current home didn’t? My father said more space; a larger backyard for the dog and for us kids, and my brothers could each have their own bedrooms. But I had gathered so many memories in our current residence. Would I lose those or forget my old bedroom? Would I lose “them” for good? What if they couldn’t find me? Sure it was only next-door, but what if they lost touch with me forever? What would I do then?

A few weeks before we actually did move in, I took a walk in the large field behind our house. The field consisted of 500 acres of undeveloped ranch land full of trees and tall grass and wildflowers left to grow uninhibited. There were hills and valleys, all with paths crisscrossing and intertwining throughout. I could spend hours there, and in fact I had in the past. Together my friends and I had explored the far reaches of the field, mapping it out on paper, spending days on end pretending to be princesses and jungle animals or primitive warriors trying to survive with nothing but rocks and twigs to defend us against the wilds of nature. The tire swing and the grandfather oak tree were there in a grove that was especially dear to my heart. It was just starting to get warm enough to return, which I was looking forward to with great anticipation. The field and the grove were places I had always felt “them” before, and I walked at sunset whenever I could, trying to find them, listening hard for them. All I usually heard were crickets chirping, their high calls echoing through the early evening haze. That song seemed like a lament to me, but I liked hearing it through my open window, even in winter, singing me to sleep.

I walked to the top of the tallest hill, flattened like a butte on top, to watch the sunset over the mountains. Pike’s Peak stood out against the range, its still snowy cap taking on a shade of deep pink as the sun sank slowly behind. A cool spring breeze stirred and a sparrow called from a tree that stirred down below me, answered not a moment later by an identical call a bit further away. I hugged my jacket tightly to me and turned to go, but something drew me to the opposite end of the bluff. I started slowly up the slight incline leading up to the opposite edge. The sky was a deep, unblemished indigo above the horizon of the hill, darkening as it fell below the line of the far side. As I crested the ridge, I stopped dead in my tracks, my mouth surely hanging open. There, just above the horizon line, hung the largest silvery moon I had ever seen. It seemed as though I could reach out and touch it, so close, so huge. I was struck with awe, so much so that I couldn’t move.

I must have stood there for ten minutes before filtering out the feelings that lay beneath my breathlessness, pure love and pure peace. I felt I was viewing the ocean again, entranced by the embrace of the moon. It was immense and powerful and it looked as though it might try to engulf me as that ocean wave had many months before. And I heard them, quietly humming in the night, their song creating a perfect symphony with the harmony of the crickets and the birds and the night. They had found me again. I was overjoyed. I jumped around on the hilltop, so happy that they had returned. I laughed and screamed and cried and sang along to their song as best I could. I knew then that moving could not take me from them, and that they had not abandoned me. Everything was going to be okay, so long as I had them with me. I tried asking them who they were; I couldn’t likely keep calling them “them.” I only felt that feeling of peace swell. I told them how much I had missed them, that I thought they had forgotten me. I told them how elated I was to have them back with me. I simply felt a flow of love. And as the moon slowly rose from the horizon, it seemed to get further away. The deep indigo of the sky had become a deep blue cloak studded with stars.

I left the hilltop more contented than I had been in the months since my grandfather had passed on. But now, somehow, I knew he still lived, part of him anyway. Partly in me and my family and the memories we still held of him, and partly outside of that, without a body. He didn’t need that body anymore; he only chose it to be with us again. But he was always there, even right then, and if I spoke to him he would hear me. And he always would be. I told him I loved him and felt like I was saying it to the entire world, the entire night, the entire sky. And I knew I was never going to be alone again.

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