Paullina Simons - Red Leaves

Until one day, as a lark, they stopped by a street fortuneteller and gave her two quid to read Kristina’s palm. Kristina went behind the dirty paisley curtain, and the hunched woman grabbed her hands and turned them over. Kristina tried to pull her hands away, but it was no use. The hag was strong. The old woman’s heavy Gaelic brogue Kristina barely understood, but the contorted expression of horror on her face was etched into Kristina’s mind. The expression of horror she understood well. She’d seen that expression before. The old witch wouldn’t let go of Kristina’s hands; she kept mumbling, then yelling; she became frenzied. Finally Albert stepped inside and pried their hands apart. As they hurried away down the street, Kristina could still hear the old woman holler shrilly after them. The fortune-teller was the only thing that had marred their one-hundred-and-thirty-day idyll.

The wind was howling outside, and it was very cold. Route 10 had no streetlights, only oaks and maples and plenty of American mountain ash, whose leaves were so delicate and pretty and yellow in autumn. Now, three nights before Thanksgiving, the trees were mere silhouettes on the side of the road.

Kristina drove with her mind in Edinburgh. In the moments before the curve near the reservoir, she was thinking about going to Scotland to live. Deeper in her subconscious, she was thinking of Thayer dining hall and whether they would have macaroni and cheese tonight as they always did on Mondays or whether they would go on some unspecified and certainly unjustified holiday schedule when they only served hamburgers and heroes.

The radio’s country station was playing ‘We Just Disagree.’

And do you think That we’ve grown up differently? Haven’t been the same Since you lost your feel for me…

As she went around the bend in the road, she saw an oncoming car, and because it was dark, and she judged the narrowness of road conservatively, Kristina instinctively turned the wheel to the right. But the lights were rushing headlong toward her. The other car still seemed perilously close. She turned the wheel a little more and heard the noise of her right tires hitting gravel. The Mustang bobbled, and the wheel became unsteady in her hands. To compensate, Kristina quickly turned the wheel to the left.

She overcompensated.

The car jerked, and she panicked and slammed on the brakes. The Mustang swerved, the brakes locked, and the car reeled sideways on the narrow road - directly into the headlights of the oncoming car.

Kristina heard the insistent and unremitting noise of the horn and the screeching of the other car’s brakes. The instant the Mustang was bathed with light, there was a loud crash and Kristina was thrown against the driver’s side window. She heard glass breaking.

The Mustang swirled around twice and flew backward down the embankment. Kristina’s life came to a standstill. She had just enough time to think, ohno, ohno, ohno, I’m going to die, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die! and then the car turned over once in midair, and came down with a thump to stand on its tires, a few feet from the water.

Kristina opened her eyes and closed them again, opened them and closed them. She could see nothing at first, it was so dark. She thought, am I dead? Open-eyed, yet unable to see, just dead. No feeling anywhere. Nothing moved. Dead. But something gave away life. Something. She couldn’t figure it out at first, something real-life, familiar, unotherworldly.

She heard the radio.

So let’s leave it alone, Cause we can’t see eye to eye There’s no good guy There’s no bad guy There’s only you and me And we just disagree...

She reached over to turn the damn radio off and thought, I don’t think they play easy-listening music in the afterlife.

She felt no pain. On the other hand, that was good. Who wanted to feel pain? On the other hand, dead people felt no pain.

There was a rustling of leaves, branches, the sound of feet shuffling down the slope, hurrying. Somebody at her driver’s side window. A man, with terror in his eyes and a bloody nose, mouthing, are you all right? Are you all right?

Kristina tried to roll down the broken window, but it was jammed. Actually, she couldn’t get a grip on the handle. Her hand was not obeying her. The fingers were not closing.

She tried to nod, but that didn’t work either. I’m all right, she tried to reply, but couldn’t hear herself. She just wanted to get out of the car. Wait here, she heard the man say. Wait here, I’m going to go and get help. Just you wait, he said.

She leaned back in her seat. Well, I’m not going anywhere, she thought. Where would I go? And then she thought: home. I wouldn’t mind going home.

But where was home?

My room. My messy room with my little bed and my desk and my dog lying on the bed smelling up all the blankets with his dog smell and dog hair. It’s the only home I have, and I want to be back there right now.

She reached down and tried to pry the seat belt off herself. Was the car still running? She couldn’t hear very well. The seat belt had locked, and was digging into Kristina’s rib cage and right hip. What possessed me to put one on tonight? she thought. Well, doesn’t God protect the wicked and the damned?

She clicked open the seat belt and moved her right hand across her body to the door, which would not open. And the window would not roll down. The headlights of the Mustang weren’t on, though she was sure they had been on. What had happened?

And then she felt cold. She wondered if it was because she was dead, and getting colder by the second. But no, her right hand was moving, and her legs were moving sluggishly. The passenger window was broken.

She slowly moved over to the passenger seat and tried to open that door. It was jammed. So she got up with her knees on the seat and tried to climb out through the broken window. Climbing out was not easy. She couldn’t lift her left arm to prop herself up. Finally she nearly fell out with a thump down to the ground. She fell on her good arm, but not her good side. She was still feeling no pain.

Shit, Kristina thought. Hope I’ll be okay for Saturday’s game. Hate to sit out the first league game of the season.

It was very dark. She tried to orient herself. Where’s the lake? Okay, it’s in front of me, because behind me is the hill, so if the lake is in front of me, that means it’s on the left side of the road, which would be west, and that means Hanover is just a few miles north as the crow flies.

First she had to get up the brutal hill. She couldn’t see. She groped around, lost her footing, and fell - on her left side. A sharp rocket of fire exploded in her arm, and she fainted.

She came to some time later. It was still dark, still no sign of police or an ambulance, still eerily quiet.

All she wanted to do was get back up on the highway and start walking home. Maybe someone would pick her up. She didn’t want the man to come back with help. Help invariably meant an ambulance, which - from everything Kristina knew about ambulances - would probably take her to the hospital.

Kristina hated hospitals. She had been in one only twice in her entire life, and once was when she had been born.

She certainly didn’t plan to be taken to a hospital tonight by a well-meaning stranger just because of a locked seat belt and sore ribs.

So she got up off the ground and tried again, groping at something to hold on to while with one good hand she dragged her body up the hill.

Two cars went by. She heard them slow down - probably to see the car that had hit hers - and then speed on ahead. But the few seconds gave her enough light to see that the highway was only another ten feet up, and there were some shrubs she could hold on to.