Alex Bledsoe - Wisp of a Thing

Then he saw her. She was younger than he was, with long black hair and a strong, lean body. She wore tight jeans and a black tank top that showed off her curves to excellent effect. At the moment, she was on her knees, weeding a patch of flowers that was clearly some sort of shrine.

And she was singing.

He raised up on his elbows. It didn’t hurt. In fact, nothing about him hurt, not even his eye, the bruise on his back, or the stitched lump on his head. When he looked down at himself, there were no injuries, no blood. Except for a little dirt, he was spotless. There could be only one explanation for that.

She looked up and stopped singing. “Back with us?”

“I always thought the idea of sexy angels was just a gimmick to sell lingerie,” he said. “But I’m not going to argue.”

She smiled. “Careful. My boyfriend has a direct line to God.”

He sat all the way up. He wasn’t even stiff. “I expected heaven to be more pastel. Kind of Maxfield Parrish. But I can live with this.”

“You’re not dead, wise guy.”

“Really?” He looked behind him, and there it was. He sat at the base of the sheer cliff he was certain he’d fallen out of. There were several cave openings toward the top, far too high for him to have survived. “I’m pretty sure I fell out of one of those.”

The girl laughed, low and sexy. “Sure you did.”

He got to his feet. Everything was there, and everything worked. There wasn’t even a fresh scratch or new bruise. “I did. I remember it very clearly.”

“And I suppose something just flew in and caught you at the last moment?”

Now that he was upright and the last cobwebs were gone from his brain, he looked at the girl more closely. “You look familiar.”

“So do you.”

“I was on TV for a while.” He offered his hand. “Rob Quillen.”

“So was I. Bronwyn Hyatt.”

Her grip was as firm as any man’s, and he recognized the name. “Yeah, I know you. Well, that is, I know of you. You were in the army, got rescued on live TV. Killed how many enemy soldiers?”

“More every time it’s told. And you were on So You Think You Can Sing? ”

“That’s me. What’s this?” he said with a gesture at the flowers.

“A memorial. My older brother used to bring me here when I was a little girl. He taught me the basic chords and how to sing harmony. He also showed me how a man was supposed to behave around a girl he respected and loved. Set the mark pretty high for my boyfriends later. Too bad I never held ’em to it, like I should have.”

“I take it he’s no longer with us?”

“No. He died back in the spring.”

“I’m sorry. Was he sick?”

“He was stabbed.”

There was nothing polite he could say back to that, so he resumed looking around. He spotted something half-hidden behind some rocks. He picked up the neck of his now-smashed guitar, still attached by the strings to the bridge pegs. “Look at this.”

“Needs more than restringing, I think. It must’ve pissed off somebody.”

“No, this is mine. It fell just like I did. From up there.”

She put her hands on her hips in annoyance. “Well, maybe whoever or whatever caught you only had two hands and did the best he or she could.”

He tossed it aside. “Ah, it’s no great loss.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say about a musical instrument.”

He chuckled. “ John Hiatt wrote a whole song about that. He related to you?”

“He spells his name differently from mine.”

They were quiet for a time. The sadness in her eyes touched him, and he asked gently, “I don’t mean to pry, and it’s totally none of my business, but… you said your brother was stabbed ?”

“Yes. By my ex-boyfriend.”

“Yikes. That’s tough.”

She nodded. “More than you know. They were arguing about me. Hard not to feel responsible somehow.” She returned to the flower bed. “I laid awake thinking that for a lot of nights. If I’d done this, or said that, then it might not have happened. It was all my fault.”

“I know what you mean,” Rob said slowly. The numbness grew within him, threatening to choke him anew. “Had a lot of those nights myself.”

“But I realized something,” she continued as she weeded. “Something real important.”

“Which was?”

“I didn’t hold the knife.”

He knelt opposite her and began helping. There weren’t many weeds, but they had long roots that clung tenaciously to the soil. “Sometimes you don’t have to.”

“Yes, you do,” she said firmly. “Someone kills for their own reasons, not yours. And they carry the responsibility for it, not you.”

“Your boyfriend get that message from God?” he said with a half grin.

She laughed. “Maybe. He did help me understand it.”

They worked together in silence after that. For some reason, Rob felt it was important to help Bronwyn spruce up her memorial. By the time they finished, it was almost noon, and he was starving, thirsty, and exhausted. He realized that except for his brief nap at the bottom of the cliff, he hadn’t slept in nearly two days.

“Thanks,” she said as they stood. “It went a lot faster with your help.”

He tried not to appreciate her sweaty cleavage, but failed. “Always honored to help a war hero. I don’t suppose you could give me a ride? My car’s up there.”

“Sorry, I didn’t drive. But there’s a trail over there behind that stand of cedar trees. Meanders a bit, but goes right to the top. Comes out by the old mill.”

“Thanks.” He paused, then said, “I know Bliss Overbay. And her sister, Curnen. They’ve told me some wild things about the Tufa, but you know what? I believe them. So… thanks for catching me.”

She said nothing, but just enigmatically smiled. As he turned to walk away, she called, “There’s one more thing I learned about sadness.”

“What’s that?”

“It’ll follow you as long as it knows you’re watching. So don’t look back.”

“I’ll remember that,” he said. He walked on, then turned, but as he’d now learned to expect, Bronwyn Hyatt was gone.

Bliss’s truck burst through the briars and nearly rear-ended Rob’s rental car. She jumped out and yelled, “Rob! Rob!”

She ran to the mouth of the cave. “Rob!” she called down, her voice echoing back at her. There was no reply. She took a deep breath, made a gesture of protection, and went quickly down the steps.

The cave was empty.

She gagged on the smell, and almost vomited. But there was no one present. All the fires were out, and even the meth equipment was cold. It looked like it had been abandoned for months.

“Rob!” she yelled. “Goddammit, Rob!”

Her cry bounced around the great rock dome. When it faded, only absolute silence remained.

She climbed the stairs. She felt as if she’d been pummeled, and the slight headache from last night’s moonshine only added to it. There would be nothing to do but look for his body at the bottom of the cliff.

She was about to cry when a voice said, “I thought you couldn’t go down there.”

He stood beside his car, disheveled but clearly in one piece. She ran to him and threw her arms around him. “What happened?” she demanded. “The cave’s empty.”

“Beats me. It was hopping when I left.”

“Left? Where did you go?”

He made a long, descending whistle.

“Are you all right?”