Betweeners

4,438 Words (start of my manuscript)

Everything you are about to read is true. But I suppose it will seem like a fantasy novel to those of you who do not know better, so I’ll start out like this:

Once upon a time there was a girl; she wasn’t a normal girl no matter how hard she tried or pretended to be. Unfortunately, I am that girl and this is my story. Although in a way, it is your story too. You just don’t know it yet.

When I first decided to write about this experience a good friend told me that the only way one can write truthfully is to write fiction, because no one can ever be completely honest in nonfiction. You will always forget a detail or alter something; maybe on purpose and maybe not, but you will. That is one reason that I am writing this as “fiction.”

The other reason is simply this:

You would never read it otherwise and if you did, you would never believe it. There are days I barely believe it myself.

I learned what it meant to be afraid and uncertain when I was just a kid. Honestly, this portion of my life seems so unreal and it feels more like a movie; I keep remembering scenes from than my own childhood. I am not recounting my childhood for a pity party. It just happens to be the beginning of my story and I want to tell it how I remember it; as honestly as I can.

I remember being happy in the way that only kids can be. I was an only child and lived alone with my mom. My father had left when I was a baby and to this day I neither know his name nor do I care to. I also had a lot of what everyone else called my “imaginary friends.” My mom never seemed to mind them or think it was odd that I saw, spoke to, and played with these friends, but other people did. Sometimes people would ask her why she let me have my imaginary friends, but she would always say that I was a creative kid who could do anything with or without her. I can still hear her saying those words in my defense. I used to believe them, but now I know it is not true. Without her I would have grown up alone. Without her believing in me, I could never have believed in myself.

My narrative begins on the day my mom died. I was seven years old and we were leaving the park. I noticed some creatures playing in a nearby tree and ran off to talk to them. I shouldn’t have left without telling her where I was going, but sometimes kids do not think. The creatures looked almost exactly like falling leaves; dancing from the top of the tree to a bush below, then sneaking around to do it all again. Other people would have seen them as leaves but I recognized what they were. The tree was only a few feet from the car and no one was around.

I swear, because I looked!

I had learned, like any other child, to stay away from people I didn’t know. Yet, I talked to these creatures. Suddenly, I looked up to a man standing in front of me. He was a tall man with dark skin, shining black hair, and strange black clothing. He had on a black shirt with shining metallic buttons, each with a different symbol on it, dark pants, faded slightly at the knees as though he knelt a lot, and a long coat of midnight sky colored velvet material that blended in perfectly with the shadows of the trees. I remember thinking that he looked as though he were made of shadows; except for his eyes. He had sparkling, calm, purple eyes.

I was not afraid he would hurt me, but I knew something was wrong. I knew with the same child-like certainty that allowed me to believe in creatures very few people ever saw.

The same certainty that made me obey when he said quietly: “Look me in the eye.”

He looked at me as though he was summing up everything about me in that one moment. Even as a child who saw magical creatures, I wondered what he could possibly see in me. I was dull and plain, with pale skin, light-brown-almost-blonde hair and gray-green eyes that were grayer than green. Even at the age of seven, I knew that there was nothing special about me besides my ability. Perhaps, I thought, that was what he was looking inside of me to see. I felt as though he was looking through; looking at something deeper. Whatever he saw must have been enough, because he held out his hand, palm up, revealing a roughly carved silver, wolf’s head necklace with a brown leather chain.

“I’m sorry. This is all I can do,” he whispered gently with a voice that reminded me of everything constant and reassuring; waves on a beach, the crackle of a fire in a fireplace, or the wind in the trees. I looked away from his eyes, at the necklace, and the moment was shattered. When I looked up he was gone. Everything assuring died that day.

In the next instant, a police officer was pulling me gently into his car while trying (and failing) to shield my mom from my view. It had taken them twenty minutes to get there. My mom had been lying dead on the sidewalk next to a crying, suddenly sober (in a way no breathalyzer would show) man with a cell phone in his shaking hand and an emergency responder still on the line. He stared at the ground; tears streaming. He did not look at me.

“He took twenty minutes,” I told the police officer, looking down at my dirty sneakers. I’m not sure how I knew nor why I felt the need to tell him. Maybe I wanted him to know that I was not standing there waiting during that time.

“I know. I’m sorry. We came as fast as we could, kiddo,” he said back.

I realized he had not seen the man. Of course, he couldn’t have.

“It’s okay,” I said.

For some reason I didn’t cry that day, but the police officer did. I wish I could remember his name.