P. Hoover - Solstice

“He asked me to help. Wanted me to do something.” Chloe looks away, and I can finally blink when her enlarged eyes leave mine.

I believe her. She’s talked with Randy Conner’s spirit as surely as I’ve gone to Hell. “What can you do?” When I say it, I’m not really asking her. I’m asking Shayne, but I know he won’t answer. His realm is the Underworld, not abusive dealings of the world above. He’s made that clear.

Chloe sighs, but she doesn’t answer. She wraps her arms back around herself, and turns away. “I did it again, Piper.”

“Did what?” I ask. At this point, I have no idea where Chloe’s disjointed conversation will take me. And I realize she’s not ready for me to tell her anything about my life just yet.

“It was this weird urge,” she says.

“Weird like how?”

Chloe actually lets out a laugh; there’s not an ounce of humor in it. “I cut my sheets into thin strips.”

I try to hold my face steady and act like maybe this is a normal thing. “Oh. Why?”

Chloe shakes her head, making her brown bandana fall askew. But she doesn’t straighten it. “They felt so dirty. I washed them but it didn’t help, so I cut them up. But I still can’t sleep on the bed, Piper, so I moved to the floor.”

My breathing has stopped, but I manage to get words out. “Why did they feel dirty?” Out of nowhere, I imagine Chloe sleeping with someone on her bed and then needing to wash the sheets afterward. I know Chloe’s slept with two guys before, but there’s no one I’m aware of at the present.

Chloe doesn’t turn to me and doesn’t reply.

“What’s wrong, Chloe?”

In profile, I see a tear creep into the corner of her eye, but her lips stay together. I’m tempted to press her—to ask her again. But the wind slams into the house again, and this time, it hits the window and sends glass scattering into the room. I jump up but Chloe doesn’t even move. I hear her mom from the kitchen calling in to ask what happened.

“Are you going to be okay?” I ask.

She nods. “You need to leave, Piper.”

Hurt runs through me. I start to ask why, but she talks again.

“Now, Piper. Just please leave now.”

I nod and stand up and wipe the tears that spring into my eyes. Chloe acts like she’s two different people. But she is right. I need to get out of here. I need to get out of the city. The metal groans again, and all of a sudden, I know what it is. They are opening the growth slats on the domes; they’re going to try to grow the glass. Even though the domes haven’t had time to regenerate, they’re still going to try.

I take a step for the door, but Chloe doesn’t even look at me. Maybe the sheet ripping thing was just like the light bulbs—just some near-death recovery thing. It’s only been a few days. Chloe just needs time to recuperate. I’m almost at the door when it blows open. From the kitchen, I hear Chloe’s mom call out again, but I don’t want to talk to her, so I run out the open door.

The sky is furious. Clouds as black as the River Acheron spin in the sky, and rain comes down so hard, it hurts when it strikes my face. The blast of sirens is almost muted from the storm. I glance up at the steel struts of the dome. Glass is growing fast. In the seconds I watch, it grows downward by a foot. I need to run to get out of the city. I take off and don’t look at anything around me. I don’t look back at Chloe’s house; she’ll be fine once the dome is sealed. She’ll be fine when she gets some rest. Debris fills the streets, but no one is around. There’s no sign of the work crews that had been there earlier. And I’m willing to bet a shuttle won’t come.

Litter flies past me and tumbles down the street. Something hard strikes me on the back and knocks the wind out of me, but I can’t turn to look. I have to get out of here. I’m vaguely aware of my FON vibrating in my pocket, but I ignore it. My mom’s calling, I’m sure, and given this storm, I don’t blame her. It’s like nothing I’ve even imagined before.

I’m almost out of the last steel support of the dome when the metal groans a final time. And then shards of glass start to fall to the ground. I dig into my reserves and run like I’ll die if I don’t. Once I’m free and clear and twenty feet away, I spin around and watch the destruction of the dome the city had prided itself so much on. Glass showers down, mixing with the rain until I can’t tell one from the other. My FON is going crazy in my pocket, so I stop under the overhang of a house’s roof and pull it out.

“b home in a few,” I text my mom. She’s probably absolutely nuts with worry.

“please tell me ur okay,” she sends back.

“fine,” I text.

“i love u so much piper. i never want 2 lose u,” she writes, and I surprise myself when a lump forms in my throat and pushes tears upwards to my eyes. Her words are simple, but she cares so much.

I wipe my tears, and wait until the storm begins to subside. I stand there under the patio roof of the house and watch as the clouds first blow away east of Austin and then nearly evaporate from the sky. The rain stops next, and when it clears, I see that most of the glass from the dome is gone, too. All that’s left is the shattered skeleton near the sides of the steel beams. The sky transitions first from a dark gray to a creamy butter and then to a denim blue. Then it’s back to the color of topaz, and the sun shines down from above, reflecting off every bit of glass littering the ground and the sky. The transformation is so sudden, so complete. There’s been a hurricane in Austin, and now, only its destruction remains.

The city is a wreck, but I don’t head back to Chloe’s house or anywhere near the dome. I need to get home to my mom. Because even with everything that’s happened, I want to be near her. I want her to tell me there’s been some mistake. That she was just angry and that she has no idea who Reese really is. But as I walk home, my stomach starts to turn queasy. My mom knows I went on a date with Reese; they know each other. And she wants us to move. Again. She’s been to see my father, and whatever path we lived on in the past has changed. I just don’t know to what extent yet.

The first thing I see when I get home is Reese’s pink calla lilies, still smashed on the floor, and nearly every pink petal missing. I pick a single stem up, and before I think about what I’m doing, I infuse life back into it.

The blossom moves under my energy, and even the green stem is given rebirth. Power flows out of my hands into the flower, and it bursts into color and vibrancy. I touch the bottom of the stem, and roots grow and twist around my hand and fingers. In turn, I pick up each of the remaining flowers and do the same, and when they’ve all reformed, only then do I stop and realize what I’ve done.

The cut flowers, once dead, are alive. I feel their life with my hands. I’ve had a green thumb my entire life, but this is paranormal. But then again, so is everything else that has been going on in my life recently. If gods walk the earth, then why can’t flowers regrow in seconds? I stick them back in the water-filled vase on the counter.

“Maybe you should just let them die.”

I turn and see my mom standing there watching me.

“I can’t.”

“Throw them out, and tell him to never come back.” She shifts, like she wants to say so much more than she is. Like she wants to run to me and hug me.

I set the plant on a shelf next to the sink. “Didn’t you already do that?” I walk past my mom, brushing her shoulder on my way.