Элизабет Чандлер - Soulmates

"Andrew cares about both you and Philip," her mother replied. "I've been wanting to discuss this with you, Ivy, but with everything so, well, you know, in the last three weeks…"

"Spit it out, Mom."

"Andrew has filed adoption papers."

Ivy blobbed Scarlet Passion on her mother's knuckle. "You're kidding."

"We're going ahead with it for Philip," her mother said, wiping the knuckle off. "But you'll be eighteen soon. It's up to you to decide what you'd like to do."

Ivy didn't know what to say. She wondered if Gregory knew about this, and if he did, what he thought about it. Now his father would have two sons, and it was becoming more and more obvious that Andrew preferred Philip.

"Andrew wants you to know that you will always have a home here. We love you very much, Ivy. No one could love you more." Her mother spoke quickly and nervously. "Day by day, it's going to get better for you. It really will, honey. People fall in love more than once," Maggie went on, talking faster and faster.

"Someday you'll meet someone special. You'll be happy again. Please believe me," she pleaded.

Ivy capped the bottle of polish. When she stood up, her mother remained sitting on the bed, looking up at Ivy with a concerned expression, her red fingernails spread out on her lap. Ivy leaned down and kissed her mother gently on the forehead, where all the lines of worry were. "It's already getting better," she said.

"Come on, let me blast those beauties with the hair dryer."

After Maggie and Andrew left, Ivy settled down on the couch in the family room to watch Jurassic Park'dinosaurs thump and thrash. She stuck a pillow behind her head and propped her feet up on the stool that her brother was leaning against. Ella jumped up and stretched out on Ivy's long legs, resting a furry chin on Ivy's knee.

Ivy petted the cat absentmindedly. Tired from her nonstop performance over the last few days, her cheerful effort to prove to everyone that she was okay, she felt her eyelids getting heavy. With the first tremors from the storm at Jurassic Park, Ivy was asleep.

Scenes from school ran together in a constantly shifting dream, with Ms.

Bryce's pie face, her probing little counselor eyes, fading in and out.

Ivy was in the classroom, then the school halls-walking down endless school halls. Teachers and kids were lined up on the sides watching her.

"I'm okay. I'm happy. I'm okay. I'm happy," she said over and over.

Outside the school, a storm was brewing. She could hear it through the walls, she could feel the walls shaking. Now she could see it, the fresh green leaves of May being torn off the trees, branches whipping back and forth against the inky sky.

She was driving now, not walking. The wind rocked her car, and lightning split the sky. She knew she was lost. A feeling of dread began to grow in her. She didn't know where she was going, yet the dread grew as if she were getting closer and closer to something terrible. Suddenly a red Harley came around the bend.

The motorcyclist slowed down. For a moment she thought he'd stop to help her, but he sped by. She drove around the bend in the road and saw the window.

She knew that window, the great glass rectangle with a dark shadow behind it. The car picked up speed.

She was rushing toward the window. She tried to stop, tried to brake, pressed the pedal down again and again, but the car would not stop. It would not slow down! Then the door opened, and Ivy rolled out. She staggered. She could hardly hold herself up. She thought she'd fall into the great glass window.

A train whistle sounded, long and piercing. A dark shadow loomed larger and larger behind the glass. Ivy reached out with one hand. The glass exploded-a train burst through it. For a moment time froze, the flying glass hanging in the air like icicles, the huge train motionless, pausing before it slammed her to her death.

Then hands pulled her back. The train rushed by, and the shards of glass melted into the ground. The storm had passed, though it was still dark-the kind of sky one sees just before dawn. Ivy wondered whose hands had pulled her back; they were as strong as an angel's. Looking down, she found she was holding on to Philip.

She marveled at the peacefulness surrounding them now. Perhaps it really was dawn-she saw a faint glimmer of light. The light grew stronger. It became as long as a person, and its edges shimmered with colors. It wasn't the sun, though it warmed her heart to see it. It circled Philip and her, coming closer and closer.

"Who's there?" Ivy asked. "Who's there?" She wasn't afraid. For the first time in a long while, she felt full of hope. "Who's there?" she cried out, wanting to hold on to that hope.

"Gregory." He shook her awake. He rocked Ivy hard. "It's Gregory!"

He was sitting next to her on the couch, gripping her arms. Philip stood by her other side, clutching the VCR remote.

"You were dreaming again," Gregory said. His body was tense. His eyes searched hers. "I thought the dreams were over. It's been three weeks-I was hoping…."

Ivy shut her eyes for a moment. She wanted to see the light, the shimmering again. She wanted to get away from Gregory and back to the feeling of a powerful hope. His words ate away at the edges of it.

"What?" he asked her. "What is it, Ivy?"

She didn't answer him.

"Talk to me!" he said. "Please." His voice had softened to a plea. "Why are you looking that way? Was there something new in the dream?"

"No." She saw the doubt in his eyes. "Just at the beginning," she added quickly. "Before I was driving through the storm, I was walking down the halls at school, and everyone was staring at me."

"Staring," he repeated. "That's all?"

She nodded.

"I guess it's been hard for you the last few days," Gregory said, gently touching her cheek with his finger.

Ivy wished he would leave her alone. With each moment she spent near him, the dream's light and its feeling of hope faded.

"I know it's hard facing all the gossip at school," Gregory added, his voice full of sympathy.

Ivy didn't want to hear it. If she could find hope again, she didn't need his or anybody's sympathy. She closed her eyes, wishing she could block him out, but she could feel him staring at her, just like the others.

"I'm surprised your, uh, experience at the train station wasn't part of your dream," he said.

"Me too," she replied, opening her eyes, wondering if he knew she was holding back. "I'm fine, Gregory, really. Go back to whatever you were doing."

Ivy couldn't explain why she held back, except that the light seemed to be growing weaker and weaker in Gregory's presence.

"I was fixing a snack," he said. "You want anything?"

"No, thanks."

Gregory nodded and left the room, still looking concerned. Ivy waited till she heard him banging around in the kitchen, then dropped down on the floor next to her brother, who was watching the movie again.

"Philip," she said softly, "the night at the train station, after you saved me, was there some kind of shimmering light?"

Philip turned to her, his eyes wide. "You're remembering!"

"Shhh." Ivy glanced in the direction of the kitchen, listening to Gregory's movements. Then she sat back against the stool and tried to sort out the images in her mind. She saw the light from her dream as if it were in the train station, on the platform, not far from Philip and her. Had she made that up, or was she finally remembering?

"What did the light do?" she asked her brother. "Did it move?"

”Philip thought for a moment. "He was walking around us, like in a circle."

"That's how it was in my dream," Ivy said. Then she turned her head and quickly put her finger to her lips.

When Gregory entered a minute later, Philip and she were sitting side by side, watching the movie intently.