The Middle Realm Read online

  “Yes, I can handle it,” I said to Nadine.

  “You’re sure?” she asked.

  Wait, am I? Okay, I wasn’t sure. It was now or never. Savannah, make up your mind. Nadine did not have all night. Actually, she did; technically she had all of eternity, just like me. Oh, I hated these questions. Wasn’t a simple “yes” enough? Why do people have to double check? Just take the first answer you get.

  “Yes, I’m positive,” I said.

  “All right,” Nadine said. “Just so you’re aware, your family will be acting as if you are still alive. They won’t be able to see you, hear you, or feel you. They also won’t be mourning your death since they don’t know you died.”

  “I was just wondering? How do you know all this information already?” I asked. ”How do you know that my family doesn’t know that I’m not dead? This is just a little weird that you know so much and I just met you”

  “I have my ways. Don’t worry. Everyone has a predestined time of birth and death. I knew when your time would be and how everything was to happen. That’s really all I can tell you. If I say anymore, the angels will not be happy with me,” Nadine said.

  So Nadine was working with angels. Interesting. Well, her answer was good enough for me.

  “Let’s go,” Nadine, said.

  Ch. 15

  I would always be grateful to Nadine for taking me to see my family. She might have just been doing her job, but still, it meant a lot to me. Nadine grabbed my hand and told me to close my eyes. I felt like Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life.

  After what felt like seconds, we were in my bedroom back home. I looked around. It was just as I left it. I wanted to see the rest of the house, but I didn’t want to open the door. Then I remembered I could walk through walls, so I passed right out through the door. Nadine was right behind me.

  “What a beautiful house,” she said.

  “It is, isn’t it? It was built in 1906. I loved this house. So many happy memories were made here,” I said.

  Since it was the middle of the afternoon, on a Sunday, everyone would be home. I walked past my sister’s room. Sitting on the floor were shopping bags from some department store. It looked like she’d done some damage at the mall this weekend.

  On the way to the stairs, I passed the stained glass window. The sunlight seemed to bring the hunting scene depicted in the window to life. Sleeping underneath it was Boo Radley, my cat. It had always been his favorite place to nap. He woke up. He must have sensed me. He let out a joyful meow, as if to say, “Hey! Long time, no see!” I petted him even though I knew he couldn’t feel it. I guess what they say about animals being able to see ghosts are true.

  “What an adorable cat,” Nadine said. “I’m more of a dog person, but that cat is precious.”

  When I got to the stairs, I froze. I could hear my family talking and laughing. It sounded like they were in the living room. I could hear my dad telling one of his lame jokes. I could also hear our dog Sam playing with his favorite chew toy. I was nervous about seeing them. Like Nadine said, they would be acting just as they normally would. No crying or mourning in this house. For all they knew I was in Paris, learning how to be a fashion designer.

  As I walked down the steps I was so focused on watching my family that I missed the laundry basket filled with clean clothes on the steps. I was sure Arianna had left it there. Of course I had to knock it down. I just wouldn’t be Savannah if I weren’t a klutz. That got the attention of my dogs. They ran to the stairs and started barking.

  “Lola, Sam, it’s okay. It’s just a basket of laundry that fell. Please stop barking. It’s me, Savannah,” I said to them. They stayed at the bottom of the stairs and continued to bark. They were more cautious than Boo.

  My dad yelled at the dogs to stop barking. When they refused, he went to where they were standing at the bottom of the steps and looked up.

  “I don’t know what you two are barking at. I don’t see anything up there,” he said, and then he went to join the living in the family room.

  After a few minutes, the dogs decided to retreat to the living room. Nadine and I went downstairs. We stood in the living room. As soon as the dogs saw us, they began barking again. My dad had finally had enough and grabbed them by their collars and put them in the yard. I felt bad because they were barking at me. It is my fault they were sent to the backyard.

  “Wow, I wonder what got into them. It’s like they’ve seen a ghost or something,” Arianna said. She didn’t even know the half of it.

  “Whatever it is that spooked them, I hope they get over it soon, because I’m not letting them back in if they’re going to keep barking at nothing,” my dad said.

  Poor Lola and Sam. It isn’t their fault I was killed and came back as a ghost. They were just really happy to see me again. I hated to see them out there. They would much rather be indoors with the family.

  You know what I did? I did the opposite of letting the dogs out: I let the dogs in. Who let the dogs in? Savannah did.

  “Savannah, where are you going?” Nadine called after me as I walked toward the kitchen, “You know that you are unable to eat, right?”

  “I’m not getting a snack, I’m letting the dogs back in,” I said.

  “But they’ll just bark at us and your father will send them back out,” Nadine said.

  “I’ll just keep letting them in. After a while he’ll get so sick of constantly having to get up to let them out that he’ll let them stay in the house,” I said.

  “Okay,” Nadine shrugged, “It is your house and your family.”

  It may have been my house at one time, but they were still my family. They would always be my family, no matter what happened to me.

  I went into the kitchen. It smelled of lasagna. My mom’s lasagna is amazing. I would have given anything to be able to eat it. I walked over to the door to the patio. Lola and Sam were staring in through the window. They were a sad sight with their noses pressed up against the glass. As soon as they saw me their ears perked back up and their tails started wagging. I unlatched the lock. I couldn’t get the door open though. It was too heavy. So I told Sam to nudge it with his nose, and he did. Sam burst through the door first. Lola stopped and looked at me with her big brown eyes then followed Sam into the living room.

  “How on earth did you two get back in here? You don’t have thumbs!” My dad exclaimed.

  Nadine and I started laughing. Then Arianna came through the kitchen door. She walked right through Nadine and me. I wasn’t yet used to people walking through me.

  I kept letting the dogs in each time my dad let the dogs out. After letting them out a fifth time, my dad gave up and the dogs won. I said I knew my dad well, didn’t I?

  I decided to go back to up to my room. I had already seen enough of my family and wanted to leave before I started to cry. I’m sure Nadine wouldn’t mind. She probably saw people cry all the time. But still I don’t like crying in front of people I don’t know very well. I went up to my room and Nadine followed. I sat on my bed and just started thinking about how different things were going to be. While I was sitting on my bed staring out the window lost in my thoughts, Nadine spoke.

  “Savannah, we had better get back to Paris.”

  “Can we just go see Alexander real quick?” I asked.

  “We really should get back,” she said.

  “He’s my boyfriend.”

  “Well in that case, let’s go,” she said.

  I was so happy Nadine was taking me to see Alexander. I somehow held myself together seeing my family; I was hoping I could hold it together when I saw Alexander.

  Ch. 16

  Nadine took my hand and I closed my eyes. In seconds we were in Alexander’s apartment. His living room still looked the same, books and magazines scattered about the room, the same mismatched furniture. Surprisingly, there were no dishes in the sink. I was shocked. His tiny kitchen was as neat as it could be for a guy living alone. I was proud.

  His dog’s chew
toys were strewn about the room. Alexander loves to spoil Clyde. He was always buying Clyde new toys. I was going to miss that crazy bull terrier.

  I could hear Alexander in his bedroom playing his guitar. I couldn’t recognize what he was playing, though. It might have been something he’d written himself. Nadine and I stood in the living room listening.

  “The kid is good,” she said.

  “His band just signed a major record deal not long before I left for Paris,” I said.

  “Very impressive,” she remarked.

  It was impressive. Alexander and his band deserved that record deal. They’d worked their asses off. They had spent so much time touring and practicing, so I was so happy when someone finally recognized the talent and the hard work the guys put into the band.

  “Are you going to go in?” Nadine asked.

  “Do you think you could wait out here? I kind of want to do this alone,” I said.

  “I understand. I’ll be right here if you need me,” Nadine said. She sat down on the sofa with her hands folded in her lap, taking in the room.

  “Thanks.”

  I walked through the small hallway, first passing the bathroom and then the tiny guest bedroom that Alexander had turned into a library/office. The closer I got to Alexander’s bedroom, the more nervous I became.

  I had spent many nights in that room. We’ve had some good times in there. And I’m not just talking about you-know-what, so get your mind out of the gutter. I can’t tell you how many times we just put on some music, lay in bed, and talked. Clyde would always wedge himself in between us. We would talk about everything and anything. We also used to play cards and have movie marathons. Those were some of my best memories with Alexander.

  Before I went in, I stopped and prepared myself. The door was already open, thank God. Being the klutz that I am, I knocked over a pile of vinyl records. I gave Clyde, who was lying on his cushion in the corner, quite a start.

  “It’s okay, Clyde. The vinyl records just fell over. No need to panic,” Alexander said to his dog in a reassuring tone.

  Alexander went right back to playing his guitar. Clyde hopped up onto the bed and lay beside his owner. Things were okay until Clyde picked up on me. He started barking. Great, a repeat of what went down at my house. Clyde was going nuts. I wasn’t sure if he was upset or excited to see me. He liked me, so I hoped he was just happy. Alexander tried to calm him, but it wasn’t working.

  “Clyde, what’s wrong? Do you see something? Is a storm coming? Buddy, you need to calm down or I’ll have to drug you,” Alexander said to his dog.

  Clyde was deathly afraid of storms. He would start going nuts long before the storm ever hit. He would pace around the apartment. You could see when he was anxious. He would try to get up onto your lap. Clyde was not a huge dog, but he’s not a lap dog either. Having a sixty-pound dog sitting on your lap while trying to read was just not fun. When it storms, Clyde turns from a bull terrier into a bull terror. That was why Clyde got a pill whenever a storm approached.

  I remember once when Alexander and I went to the movies. He’d left Clyde free to roam the apartment while we were gone. While we were out, a sudden storm popped up. When we got back, a bunch of records, some books, a leather jacket and a guitar had been chewed up. Ever since, Alexander always put Clyde in his crate anytime he has to go out.

  But that poor dog was not sensing a storm right then; he was sensing a ghost. I felt bad. Again, a poor dog is going to be punished because of me. I really hoped Alexander would not give him the pill.

  “Clyde, I’m going to have to give you one of your pills and crate you. It’s in your best interest,” he said, scratching the dog’s ears.

  I felt so bad. That poor dog is being punished because I was there. How unfair. I followed Alexander as he grabbed the dog by the collar and brought him to the tiny kitchen. The dog tried to get away, but Alexander caught him. He put the pill in a treat and Clyde ate it, not knowing any better. Alexander then brought Clyde to his crate, lured the dog in with a toy. Once Clyde was safely in his crate, Alexander closed the gate behind the dog.

  Alexander walked back to his room, and I followed him. When he was back in his room, the doorbell rang. He ran right through me. I walked around the room, taking it in. I went to touch his guitar and knocked it over. I also knocked over his lamp and some action figures. I was hoping my klutziness would go away when I died, but it hadn’t.

  In a few seconds Alexander came back in. The box he had was small. I wondered what it was. I would find out sooner than I thought. He got up and went to his desk. He got a pair of scissors from the top drawer. As he sat on the bed, I sat opposite him. The more I looked at him, the more I wanted him. I got lost in his green eyes. He seemed excited. As he opened the cardboard box I saw something that shocked me. He took out a little blue velvet box. He then picked up his cell phone from the nightstand and dialed.

  “Hey,” he said, “guess what Tim just dropped off? The ring I ordered for Savannah. Yeah, he volunteered to pick it up for me since he would be in the city. He said dealing with the Fifth Avenue snobs was not fun,” Alexander laughed.

  Did, he just say ring? Did I hear that correctly? I listened more closely to what he was saying.

  “It saved me a trip. I was wondering if I could keep it at your place until I fly out to Paris to see her. I really don’t trust Clyde. I don’t want the dog to eat it,” he said. He took the ring out of the box and held it up to the sunlight streaming in from the window. “… Yeah, it was worth the time it took to get it engraved. I’ll drop it off this evening. Man, you should see how this thing sparkles!”

  Oh my god, he was going to fly to Paris to propose to me! I couldn’t believe it. I looked at the ring as he continued to hold it up to the light. It was beautiful. He had been paying attention when we visited a certain jewelry store on 5th Avenue the last time we visited New York together. I really wished I could see what was engraved on it.

  As I looked at the ring, it began to sink in that I would never be able to wear that beautiful ring. I would never walk down the aisle with Alexander. I would never have a family with Alexander.

  “She is going to love it,” he said to himself. He closed the box and put it in front of a picture of us and Clyde at the park that was on his nightstand. He also put the lamp right side up. He saw the guitar lying on the floor and picked it up and started playing one of my all time favorite songs, “Falling Slowly,” from the movie Once.

  That’s when I really lost it. I sat next to him on the bed. I laid my head on his shoulder. He used to play it for me all the time. That was our song. It was going to be the song we were going to play for our first dance as a married couple at our wedding, I had decided. But there would no longer be a wedding.

  I didn’t even notice that Nadine had come into the room. I’m glad she did.

  “Savannah, I think we better get back to Paris now. Maybe seeing your family and boyfriend was too much for you,” she said in a worried tone.

  “No. I’m glad I did. Now I know how much Alexander loved me -- how much he loves me -- I hate knowing I’ll never be able to touch him and feel his embrace again. Why did this have to happen? Why did my life have to end so soon? Things were going so well,” I said.

  “I wish I had an answer for you, but I don’t. Life has this way of blindsiding you sometimes. It’s up to you to either wallow over what’s happened or to pull yourself back up and carry on the best you can. You can’t change things. You can only learn from what happened and move on. The longer you linger in the past, the harder it will be to look to the future,” she said.

  I was definitely blindsided all right. Emma murdering me came out of nowhere. I had to move on. Wallowing in the past and thinking about what could have been was not going to help me. I had to accept my fate. Once I did, maybe things would get better. I don’t think I’ll ever completely be at peace with what happened to me, but maybe I could lessen the pain somewhat.

  Nadine gave me a hug. A
fter that she grabbed my hand and we were transported back to the balcony in Paris.

  “Thank you so much, Nadine. What you did means so much to me. I can’t thank you enough,” I said.

  “I was glad to,” Nadine said with genuine happiness. “If you ever need to talk, I’ll always be somewhere around the city.”

  “Again, thank you so much, Nadine,” I said.

  “You’re very welcome,” she said before disappearing to go welcome some other poor spirit.

  Ch. 17

  Here I was, alone again, back to square one. I wondered what Edgar and Camille were doing -- probably scaring helpless tourists. I went over to the balcony. I pulled my knees up to my chin and stared out over the city.

  I replayed the evening, seeing my family and Alexander, over in my head. They were all so happy. They were blissfully unaware of what had happened to me. I wanted to keep it that way for as long as I could. Alexander was on top of the world knowing that soon he would ask his girlfriend to marry him. He was proud of the ring he had chosen. It was beautiful. I wish I knew what he had engraved on the inside of the band.

  As I stared out, Paris unfolded before me. The lights of the city glittered against the night sky. It was beautiful. I tried to imagine all the possible places where Alexander would have proposed to me. I stopped that quickly. It was far to depressing to think about.

  In distance the Eiffel Tower kept watch over the bustling metropolis. The city was alive tonight, which was more than I could say for myself. I had seen Paris at night many times. I had never really appreciated it until now. Before, I had always taken it for granted that I would always be able to see it. Being dead, I saw the world in a whole new light. The ordinary objects I saw every day suddenly became masterpieces. Well, to me anyway. All the things I never appreciated while I was still alive, I appreciate now. Go figure.

  As I stared out over the City of Lights, I saw many young couples, hand-in-hand enjoying the sights. As I watched these love struck couples, I thought about Alexander and me. I wondered what he was doing that very moment. Maybe he was still playing his guitar. Maybe he had decided to take Clyde for a walk. Wherever he was, I wished I were back there with him. If only I were in the same place, the same world as Alexander, I could be okay.