Glitch

"Hey! Townsend! Don't be late tomorrow! We have to light that friggin' lamp!"

Technically, it is not a lamp it is a cauldron mounted in a frame, similar to the one used for the Olympic flame, just much smaller and prettier, but Allie already knows that. It is lit every year on the morning when the games begin and extinguished on the last night of the festival.

Allie is lying over my lap and chest, hanging out of the car window, to shout at Jasper when the road curves past where he is helping others pack up some tables.

Hearing her, he looks up and blows her a kiss, which she lovingly responds to by giving him the finger. My cousin, the fine and gentle lady.

I giggle while she slithers back into her position between Sindy and me and fastens her seatbelt while giving a long, mournful sigh. She lies back theatrically, closes her eyes and rubs her fingertips in circles over her temples.

"This sucks big fat rotten eggs," she mutters.

"You could just not show up for the flame lighting ceremony," Sindy tells her. "Nobody should be allowed to force you to do it if you do not want to. I'm sure Davy and Agatha would be happy to do it, or Mr. Richards and Mrs. Dun-"

"Nope," Allie interrupts, waving a hand in the air, letting her charm bracelet fill the space around us with magical jingles. "We are going to do it, and we are going to do it so friggin' well and passionately Jasper is going to regret catching the egg! That bastard and I are going to ceremony the crap out of this shit show of a festival, or I'm kicking his ass so hard he'll be sitting down on his face all w-"

"Alexandra!" Uncle Steve exclaims, giving her a stern look in the rearview mirror, his eyebrows drawing together in disapproval.

"Father?" she answers primly, sitting up innocently and folding her hands as if there weren't just a stream of crude words spilling from her pursed lips. I can see the frown on Uncle's face falter at seeing his wayward daughter acting so coyly. He tries and fails to find the words for the scolding he intended.

"Congratulations on finding the egg," he says instead, causing everyone except Allie to burst into laughter. She just grumbles incoherently, but I can see her sneaking a smile at the rearview mirror, making her father chuckle.

This is how I remember my uncle and his family. Joking, teasing, loving... close. I wish it could always be like this. I'm sure it would be like this all the time again if I weren't here as a constant reminder of everything that went wrong.

Everything is wrong...

My throat is closing up, and unwanted feelings and memories are trying to force themselves into my cosy bubble of happiness the way it always does. I don't want to leave the bubble; it is warm and snug and safe and filled with colour and laughter. Today, my bubble has reinforced walls. Robust walls made of strong black denim - workers' material, woven to last.

I dig my fingers into the fabric of Cody's jacket and pull it around me tighter. His smell still lingers, and so does his warmth. I know the warmth is probably just generated by my body heat, but inhaling his fragrance and closing my eyes, I can imagine that he is still inside the jacket, holding me. Smiling, breathing out all the darkness crowding my heart, I let the new memories created today wash over me one by one. They chase the old ones, hell-bent on tearing me apart, back further and further until they're nothing but vague cobwebs in a dusty room, indiscernible from their surroundings.

I remember Cody's smile filled with a million stars and the silvery glint of his mesmerising eyes. I can feel his hand in mine, his palm rough, calloused and strong. I feel his lips against mine, soft and cool, tasting like the sweetest grapes. I can even hear his voice, gentle and dusky, like an old vinyl record, playing my favourite songs on Uncle's old sound system with the record player and tape deck.

"You are real."

"So are you," I whisper.

"Trudy?"

That is not Cody's voice. It is coming to me from far, far away, as if the speaker is speaking to me through water, and I inhale sharply, opening my eyes. Disoriented, I lift my cheek from the window frame I'm leaning on and scan my surroundings with a frown.

"Honey, we're home," Aunt Rosemary says, and I blink at her, confused to find myself alone in the car. It's parked in the carport, beside the garage, straight across from the cattle grid entrance to the yard, at a 90-degree angle to the house. My aunt is leaning in from the front passenger seat to wake me up. I didn't even notice that I'd fallen asleep and dreamed about Cody.

I wish I could dream every dream about him!

Smiling and blushing under her questioning look, I open the door and slide out of the car, bending over and leaning inside to retrieve my bridal candle, which had rolled from my lap during our trip. Auntie follows the rest of her family to the front door of the lovely farmhouse with its creeper-covered stone walls, vibrant flower beds and corrugated iron roof - the best for listening to the rain. Their house is the kind fairy tales are born in. I take my time wandering after them, enjoying the beauty around me a little longer.

The night air has turned unseasonably cold during our journey home, and some clouds are gathering in the dark sky, promising to water the yard. The crops will be so happy, and tomorrow, when the sun rises and glistens golden on every surface, there will be no dust in the fresh air for a while.

Folding my arms and huddling into Cody's jacket, I stroll to the decorative wooden bridge crossing from the rough circular driveway area to where three steps lead to the wrap-around veranda.

There's no water under the bridge unless it's raining and a micro brook creates an outlet to prevent water build-up, but I still like to pretend that I'm crossing a wide and raging river and that the bridge is dangerously high above the frothing water.

In reality, I could walk past the bridge and reach the same steps. If there's water, I could just jump over it. Still, the bridge is pretty. It's made of twisted grape vines and planks, with high sides to hold onto and pretend you're about to fall off it and get swept away. It's painted a soft blue and covered with age and stray ivy strands. A choir of frogs are croaking their song under it, and flowers are blooming at its ends.

When I was much younger, I crossed this bridge back and forth for hours with my little sister, dreaming up wild adventures with dashing knights and valiant princes while we wore the lilac, green and blue princess dresses my mom made... my sister... my mom made... my mom...

"Nooooooooo! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! What did I do? Nooooooo!"

My mother's face is bleeding tears, her voice thin and broken, shrill like the sirens approaching down our street. Despair is twisting the face that's supposed to be pretty, the face I loved, the face I don't recognise now.

I'm underwater, and she's looking down into it, or is it her that's underwater, and I'm the one looking into it? Where did the water come from? There can't be water in our house at the bottom of the stairs where I'm lying, my body screaming in agony.

There wasn't any water that day.

That day...

I'm alive, but I cannot tell her because the world is fading into black, and my head hurts. My wrist burns, and I'm sweating blood while my mother melts away like wax in the heat of a candle.

Mommy...

"Come back! Glitch, do you hear me? Dammit! Come the hell back!"

A woman is screaming. She's angry, but it's not my mother anymore.

I think I'm cold and wet; my fingers are wrapped around the sides of the bridge like curved ice crystals frozen in place. I flinch at the burning sting across my cheek and blink my eyes, blind because of the water streaming into them. So much water, but I'm not under it, looking up at the surface or hanging over it, looking down into it. I'm looking through it like through a curtain. Am I crying?

No, it's raining.

I'm standing on the bridge in the middle of a storm, and the water is coming down in buckets, drenching me to the bone, causing me to fret for Cody's jacket I'm still wearing as my skirt clings to my legs like a second skin. I close my eyes against a wave of dizziness and gasp in shock when another sharp slap stings my cheek.

My eyes fly open and as if a movie has suddenly found its sound and focus, I'm now acutely aware of the rain and the cold wind and someone screaming in my face, the same words over and over and over.

Allie!

"Don't you dare leave me again, Glitch! Don't you dare!" she screams. She's sobbing, her hair is plastered to her head, and she has her hand raised, ready to slap me again. "Last time, I begged and begged you to come back! I begged you! You can't do this again!"

"I didn't leave," I whisper hoarsely, frightened by the sound of my own voice. I really didn't. I'm still standing right here on the bridge where I'd been a second ago, listening to the frogs and remembering... something... I'm about to enter the house like she did less than a minute ago. Why is she so angry?

When did the rain start?

"Don't you dare leave me again!" she screeches, and I realise that it's not only rain washing down her cheeks. It's not anger twisting her pretty features but fear and grief. "Do you know how long we waited and begged and waited for you to come back to us last time?! Do you?!"

She is shaking me, and I want to answer, but I'm so cold, my lips won't hold still, and I cannot free my hands from the bridge rails to grab her hand and stop her from slapping me again.

"Allie!"

Uncle is running down the patio steps, followed by Auntie and Sindy. They're all wearing their PJs, and not even one of them has an umbrella. Uncle Steve reaches us first and wraps his arms around Allie, pinning her arms and pulling her away from me. She lets me go, willingly turning into his embrace to hide her face in his chest while she cries.

"I d-didn't l-leave," I tell my aunt. When she cups my face in her shaking hands and gazes into my eyes, the usually clear, bright blue of her eyes is drowning in worry. "I didn't l-leave."

"I know, honey," she says gently, unwrapping the fingers of my left hand, pulling it clear of the rail, while Sindy does the same to my right, freeing me from the bridge. I don't hear any frogs now; there's only thunder and the water-washed light at the front door, driving back the shadows on the veranda. "We know, baby. It's all right now, sweetheart."

They guide me into the house, each holding onto an arm as if they're afraid I might escape. Sindy stays in the bathroom with me while I dry off and change into my oversized teddy bear onesie. She exchanges her wet PJs for her identical onesie too, and when she hugs me, I smile at the two cuddling teddy bears in the bathroom mirror. I watch her while she silently blow-dries my hair, brushing out the tangled strands, and she smiles when she catches my eyes in the mirror.

"Are you feeling better?" she asks, turning off the dryer and hanging it on its hook.

"I'm sorry, I really don't know what happened."

"It's no biggy," she says, but her lips are tight, and her eyes are haunted, and I know that I am causing her stress.

Since before I woke up and was brought home to my uncle's home, I've caused them nothing but worry, fear and pain. They should have left me at the hospital or placed me in a care facility. Instead, they brought me here where my presence brings them nothing but sorrow, though none of them will ever admit it... except Allie.

My cheek is still a little rosy from her slaps.

"I'm just glad Allie forgot to close her window after doing that thing where she howls at the moon and had to close it because it was raining in... or we might not have realised that you were still out there," Sindy says in a strangled voice.

"She's singing goodnight to the stars," I correct her since it's important that she understands her sister's rituals.

"Yes, let's be polite and call it singing," she chuckles, putting an arm around my shoulders and guiding me from the bathroom and down the hallway to my bedroom. "Come, you had a big day. You got married to a hunk and everything."

Uncle backs away from my bedside table, looking flustered when we enter my room, giggling together. He'd changed his pyjamas, too, which is too bad because I think he'd been wearing his favourite sleepwear earlier. He doesn't like the brown plaid flannel button-down set he's wearing now. He says he looks like his old maths teacher when he wears it.

His math teacher must've been a kind and handsome man with gentle green eyes and sun streaks in his brown hair that always wanted to break away from the neat side part he tried to tame them into. Uncle Steve doesn't look like my maths teacher; he looks like... Mommy.

Swallowing, I turn my face away, taking slow breaths against the rise of panic. The last thing I need to do right now is have a meltdown. Uncle looks guilty, as he often does when looking at me. He is lugging around a huge debt of guilt that is not his to carry.

"I was just... uhm..." 

He lets his sentence die with a dorky laugh, unable to find an excuse for his presence in my room. He doesn't need one because I know what he was doing. He was making sure that the baby monitor was plugged in and functioning so that everybody could hear if I were having problems during the night. They each have a similar monitor paired with each other to make sure that at least one of them will be alerted if I'm having difficulties.

Sometimes, Allie drives us all up the walls by using her monitor as a microphone to broadcast her songs to the entire house. She has a beautiful singing voice, but it doesn't sound as great with the monitors distorting it.

"I'm sorry, Uncle," I tell him, staring at his least favourite pair of slippers covering his feet. Even his favourite slippers must've gotten wet when they came for me. I haven't zoned out that badly in a long time, and they have just started to relax their vigil a little. "I'm really sorry."

What more can I say? I can't even promise that it won't happen again, as I didn't mean for it to happen.

"Oh, love, you're the last person on Earth who has anything to apologize for," he says, pulling me into his arms. I wrap my arms around his waist and, just like Allie did earlier, bury my face in his chest, enjoying the comforting fragrance of his aftershave. Uncle always smells of sunshine and fresh air, even now while the rain is kicking up a riot on the roof. His arms are strong from doing farm work, and I know that nothing could ever harm me while he's holding me like this.

Auntie strokes my hair in passing and places a mug of hot chocolate on my nightstand. It has tiny pink and blue marshmallows floating, like bobbing heads on the foamy surface, and I can imagine their tiny marshmallow bodies paddling underneath to keep them floating while they share the latest marshmallow gossip. The way Sindy, Allie and I always do when we're in the pool.

"Is Allie still mad at me?" I ask Sindy and Aunt Rosemary when Uncle lets me go and, wiping a hand over his eyes, heads out the door.

"No!" comes the barked reply over the monitor, and a smile lights up my face. She's speaking to me! I hate it when Allie doesn't speak to me. It happens too often. She can yell at me all she wants... just as long as she doesn't slap me again.

"Now get your butt into bed; you have to help me get ready early tomorrow," she orders. "You have to turn me into Mount Olympus!"

She pauses momentarily while the three of us giggle, giving each other looks, and then she clarifies.

"Just, you know... if Mount Olympus wasn't a mountain but a sexy goddess of wrath sent to wreak vengeance on Jasper Townsend."

~~~