I marvel at the man standing before me now, towering. Moonlight shines on his pale skin, a fine marble. His jawline smooth yet angular. Strong. There’s a depth in his eyes, like he’s lived centuries from the few souls he’s carried over.
He’s a conjuring from a dream. Desire fully imagined and alive.
The drum of my heartbeat jumps as he reaches up and pushes the wet strands of my hair out of the way. My breath hitches at the slight touch. That Mona Lisa smile of his twinges at the corner of his mouth.
A clash of thunder punches the night, splitting the sky. It sets off a cascade of loud squeaks and shrills above our heads.
“Shit!”
We duck as a colony of bats flap and flutter erratically around us. Rook bows himself around me, protectively. One by one, they dart for the cave’s opening, shrieking out into the night.
Once the chaos quiets, still cowering as I search the ceiling, I ask, “Are there any more?” Barely any light filters in the cave. The dark a fathomless hole to nowhere.
Rook tugs from his pocket a glimmer of silver and flicks it to life. The flame, a dancing wick, instantly shrinks the cave’s illusion of depth. He scans the lighter near the ceiling, and two more stragglers take off.
“I think we’re good now,” he says after finding no more. Feeling confident enough, he straightens to his full height.
“Shoes don’t shift but a Zippo does?” I nod to his bare feet.
He shrugs. “I think the crow just hates shoes.” He pans the light around.
The shallow space of the cave is not more than twenty feet and a hell of a lot smaller than my ten-year-old memory recalls. The rock ceiling slants so you have to duck lower on one side. The scent of moss so heavy it tastes like earth when you breathe in. The stone floor only allows the vines to grow in between the cracks. Leaf litter claims everything else.
An old puppy and kitten poster curls on the stone floor, long faded. A cracked vanity mirror we used to play dress-up in front of leans against the back wall. The purple velvet of an old Wicked Witch costume crumbles between my fingers.
“This place is... Wow,” Rook stresses, really taking in the space for what it was.
“Yeah,” I say, just as breathless.
From under a clump of weeds, a rusted candelabra pokes out. Rook pulls it free. Dried wax bleeds down the ornate arm. He squats in front of the raised slate of stone, setting the candelabra upright. He heats the wax in one of the sconces until it’s soft enough to hold the stub of a crumbling candle.
The flame flickers a jagged dance across his face and the room comes alive. All of mine and Adaire’s childhood litter is strewn about the space. A flood of memories comes blazing back to life.
Rook inspects a rusted Welcome Back, Kotter lunch box where we kept the arrowheads and Indian beads we found in the creek bed.
“We used to come here after school and on Saturday mornings,” I say, then rummage through a milk crate with old toys, moldy magazines, and a Polaroid camera crammed in the bottom. I click the button a few times and nothing. Corrosion crusts over the batteries. I use a plastic pick-up stick to chip the white flakes away, then reinsert the batteries and flip it over—
A spider skitters over the camera lens, and I squeal, dropping it. The camera cracks against the stone floor, and a bright flash ignites inside the cave. Rook shields his face, blinded.
“Shit. Sorry.” I pick the camera up as it grumbles a motorized complaint and spits out a photo. Stuck partway in the shoot, I rip it the rest of the way out. Only half an image forms as I fan it to life. Mostly of my shoulder.
I pick up a plastic pencil box filled with worthless treasures: stretchy colorful bands of nylon to make pot holders, a few Barbie shoes, a fluffy ball key chain with googly eyes. I shake it and watch them dance, then settle at the bottom.
Another Polaroid, which I forgot existed, hides at the bottom of the box. Taken from down below, it’s Adaire and me, sitting at the cave’s opening, feet dangling, our arms draped over each other’s shoulders. We’re grinning ear to ear, like the world was ours for the taking. I can’t recall who took the picture, but I remember it was the first day of summer after third grade. We were both sporting fresh Dorothy Hamill haircuts.
“We loved this place.” My voice a whisper. Here, we were queens of our own world. No adults to tell us what to do. Just living in our imagination and having a blast doing it.
“I miss her,” I say, not particularly to him, but it fills the silence. I close my eyes. I can almost feel Adaire here. Smell that cheap Brut cologne she stole from Papaw to spritz up the cave so it didn’t smell so musty. Never was she conventional.
I catch Rook quietly watching me. Self-conscious, I tuck the photo in my jean shorts back pocket and turn my attention to a stack of magazines.
“I want to show you something,” he says, and I turn to him as he blows out the candle. He gently grabs my hand, and we stand. “They never completely leave me. All the souls, I mean. I want you to see it.”
The whites of his eyes turn black. An energy builds in his palm and pushes into mine. A soft glittery blue light swims its way up my arm into my chest. My vision tunnels to black until it pops! Illuminating light crackles in the air surrounding him. Floating iridescent dust particles. I reach out to touch one. It tingles the tip of my fingers with a soft electrical buzz.
“It tickles,” I say, giggling.
Rook’s body is alive with these glimmering fragments.
“Soul remnants.” He waves his arm back and forth in the air. They seem to cling to him like staticky bits. He releases me, and the illumination douses.
I blink in the darkness until my sight adjusts.
“That’s incredible. How are you even...you?” I ask.
A light smile plays on his lips, and he shrugs. “You should know, you’re the one who made me.”
I huff a laugh. “True.” But I don’t know how I did it. Well, I know how—I whispered the secret scriptures of a Death Talker to a dead boy. What I don’t understand is how that extra part of me brought him back to life.
“Do you remember the day we met?” I ask. The silence of the night gobbles up my words.
“I remember you said you kissed me.” I hear the smirk in his words.
I chuckle. “Of course you do.” Silly how I’m blushing over something that innocent. “For the record, it was more like a life wish or a prayer for life or—”
“Mouth-to-mouth?” he says, and I want to sock him.
I do my best to tuck in the grin wanting to slip out. “I believe what you mean to say is thank you. So...you’re welcome.” He laughs at that.
