Seth

“When the blazing sun is set, and the grass with dew is wet. Then you show your little light, twinkle, twinkle all the night….”

The boy lay quietly against her, his small form limp and cool to the touch.

Since she had hastily disconnected the call with Tom forty three minutes before, she had done everything she could to raise the boy’s body temperature. The bottle of corn syrup lay empty and on its side on the kitchen table, and around it sat a crumpled bag of sugar and a large pitcher.

The boy had downed the corn syrup in record time, and out of desperation she had resorted to dissolving an entire five pound bag of sugar into a glass pitcher filled with water. He had drunk this down like a dying man in the desert, but all too soon it was gone. She had pulled out all the leftover pasta from the day before, but he had been too weak to chew it properly and had nearly choked. Frantic, she had poured all of it in the blender along with some warm water, and when it was reasonably liquefied, she had fed it to him in spoonfuls.

The boy endured all of this quietly and without complaint, only now and again whimpering in that heart-rending way of his when the hunger pains tore through him.

The refrigerator, pantry, and cupboards were now bare of anything that he could tolerate, and even in this state of starvation, he still couldn’t abide the sight or smell of meat or vegetables.

“Tom, please hurry.”

The phone lay dark and silent beside her on the kitchen table, and the ticking of the clock on the wall seemed mocking and almost cruel. Amid the clutter of dishes on the table sat the object—apparatus, device, whatever it was—that the strange rocks had become.

It was now more than apparent that they weren’t rocks per se, but were indeed components to something that the boy required in order to return home. Looking at it, it seemed rather simplistic: it was spherical, about the size and shape of a soccer ball. The outer covering bore the same grayish-blue and green mottling pattern as its singular parts, but the innermost structure was still the most complex and—in her opinion—the truly extraordinary part of the object’s physiology.

What she had once mistaken for a geode had now become a complex network of interlacing crystals that resembled a sort of control panel. A soft glow ebbed and pulsed from the object, and if you focused just right, you could almost feel a sort of pleasant vibration just under the surface of your skin. It was undeniably beautiful, but as to exactly how it worked…that was still largely a mystery. The sizeable hole in the side where the missing pieces fit into place bore mute testimony to the fact that despite its apparent sophistication, the object was essentially useless without them. Whatever it had been or was capable of doing depended entirely on those missing pieces being slotted into place.

She had planned to go looking for the missing pieces early that morning, but the boy was simply too weak to travel even that short a distance. He was shivering from both cold and hunger despite being swaddled in two thick comforters in a house that was overheated to the point of absurdity. Condensation had built up in a thick layer upon the windows, and sweat dripped from her brow and underneath the collar of her shirt.

She kept repeating the lines from the poem—a child’s lullaby, really—as she awaited Tom’s call that he was on his way. The words appeared to soothe the boy at first when he had remained conscious, but now they were uttered simply to fill the silence.

The boy’s breathing was slow and raspy as he lay against her. He twitched fitfully even in sleep, his eyes moving rapidly back and forth beneath the blue and fragile-looking skin of his lids. She bit back a sob as she clutched at his hand, which felt so small and cold in hers. The scratches he had received the day before were an angry red color and had swollen to twice their normal size. She had cleaned them carefully with antiseptic but it had only seemed to inflame the skin more. The boy had cried out piteously when she’d applied bandages to them, and only when she had removed them did he quiet.

“Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are….”

The boy whimpered once, almost too low for her to hear. She kissed the top of his head and shushed him, rocking him gently from side to side. His head rested against the crook of her left shoulder and it jostled boneless with the small movement.

In a horrid flash of memory Jennifer recalled the terrible moment when the responding medics had begun to move Seth’s body from where it lay on the dry riverbed to the gurney for transport. The coroner had just officially declared him dead and she, sitting on the far bank wrapped in a foil blanket, had turned at just that moment from where an EMT had been examining her.

She had been in shock and hadn’t really been aware of what was happening around her. The voice of the EMT—who couldn’t have been more than a kid himself—had been speaking slowly and reassuringly to her. His voice and all the noise and light around her had more or less coalesced into one confusing and jarring muddle. She hadn’t even made an attempt to make sense of any of it and had been drifting, lost in the last memory she had of her son moments before he had walked out the door to go exploring that morning.

For reasons she could not explain even now months later, she had broken out of her reverie and had turned her head towards where her son lay on the ground. She vaguely remembered thinking that he could possibly get sick lying there like that and had made a move to get up. The EMT had immediately tried to block her progress, but she was already on her feet, the foil blanket slipping from around her shoulders. The EMT’s eyes were very green as he tried to get her to look at him, to listen to the sound of his voice, but just at that moment when he angled his body towards hers she moved swiftly to the left, trying to get past him.

The illumination from the floodlights the police had set up cast an almost garish glow around the small form that lay under the yellow tarp, and as two technicians knelt down and reached underneath it, the tarp slid off to the side.

She saw what lay underneath for only an instant, but it was enough.

She must have screamed or made some other sound because everyone turned to look at her, all of the faces wearing nearly identical looks of alarm and sympathy.

The next thing she remembered, she woke up on the couch in the front living room, and almost immediately the faces of friends and family members had surrounded her, suffocating her with their concern and pity.

In the days and months that had followed Seth’s death, there had been fewer and fewer faces that came to visit, to talk to her, to reassure her. That had all changed in the past two days, and it seemed that those faces—that of Tom and this miraculous boy—were all that had ever mattered during her lifetime. Tom was on his way—he had promised her he would return within the hour—but this boy, who was a child, being, and something altogether wonderful and mysterious all at once, was dying.

She could never reveal to Tom what had occurred the day the meteor had sailed over the roof of her house. He had seen the damage done to the fencing sure, had heard her account of the strange rocks she had found in the dry river bed out by Wilson’s Pass, but he didn’t know. He couldn’t know the depths of hope and despair, of love and loss she had endured during this time when the boy had come into her care, when she had brought him into her home and opened her heart to him. He could never understand what it meant to have her son back, if only in the form of this being who had given her a second chance at life and of forgiveness.

I can’t lose another child. Not again.

“Please, please….” She tried to repeat the next lines of the poem, but she couldn’t seem to remember them. The boy was still breathing, but each breath—a small victory in itself—was agony.

A faint rumbling came from somewhere seemingly far away, but gradually as she pulled herself out of her despair, she realized that it was coming from just up the road and was headed towards her house.

The rumbling became louder and clearer, and as she carefully shifted the boy in her arms so that she could stand up, she realized that it was the sound of Tom’s truck headed towards her house.

No, not headed towards—racing towards.

She could now clearly make out the sound of the motor as the truck sped down the unpaved road, sending gravel and small rocks spinning and pinging out and away. She glanced down at her phone and saw that the screen remained dark. He hadn’t called or texted her to tell her that he was on his way like they had agreed, and now he was moments away from her front driveway. She would have precious little time to put the boy somewhere close yet out of the way while she made some excuse to Tom that she was not feeling well, yet grateful for his help.

Her legs felt wobbly as she stood up, and the first signs of fatigue, which she hadn’t noticed that morning, were now plainly evident. She was exhausted and emotionally wrung out, yet the boy was counting on her to remain strong while she helped him with the final stage of his returning home.

“Tom, why didn’t you call, why…?” The phone was dead when she picked it up, the screen dark. It had been fully charged before she and the boy had set off for Wilson’s Pass yesterday morning, and even though it had remained on as it lay on the kitchen counter, the battery should not be dead. It had worked this morning when she had called Tom, yet now it was little more than a fancy paperweight.

Before she could work out why her phone was dead, Tom’s truck screeched into the driveway with a spray of gravel that hit the porch railing. He didn’t even bother to shut the engine off before he was up and out of his vehicle, his boots thundering and crunching as he raced up the front steps.

“Jennifer!”

The front door flew open with a loud bang, and the boy, who had been asleep in her arms, bolted awake with a loud cry.

His eyes flew open and they stared wide and frightened up at the ceiling as his back arched in agony. His stomach was making a horrid gurgling sound and he thrashed weakly in her arms, his small hands searching frantically for her.

“Seth! Seth!”

He gave a small, halting gasp and his eyes rolled up to the whites. His small body went limp and she screamed, dropping down to her knees as she shook him, his limbs limp and flopping like a ragdoll.

She immediately set him down on the floor, and thrusting the comforters aside, she began to perform CPR. It seemed an agony while she went through the steps like she had learned, counting the beats silently to herself while she repeated the procedure again and again.

She was dimly aware of Tom standing slack-jawed in the threshold of the kitchen, his hands hanging limply by his side as he watched her attempt to breathe life back into the body lying prone and silent on the floor.

“Come on. Come on Seth, breathe, breathe!”

For a moment it seemed that nothing else could be done to save him, and that he had passed quietly out of this world and into the next. He lay there on his back, his small features composed as if in sleep, his arms by his side. The overlong curls of hair obscured the top part of his face, but otherwise he looked peaceful, a cherub in repose.

The motor of Tom’s pickup continued to rumble noisily in the background, and on the far wall of the kitchen, the clock continued to count down the seconds and then finally, minutes.

“I’m so sorry.” She gathered the small form to her, clutching him tightly. She could feel the despair welling up inside of her like an ugly, black tide, but for now she refused to let it out. There would be time enough for that in the days, weeks, and finally months to come, but for now she just wanted to comfort and be near him while she still could.

She smoothed back the overlong curls of hair away from his face. His eyes were closed and he looked peaceful, as if he were merely sleeping.

I should have cut his hair. He shouldn’t have to go away like this with his hair all wild and unruly like that.

“I tried, Seth. I really did.” She kissed his forehead, which was cool beneath her lips. “I did everything I could to save you, but I’m only human. I’m sorry.”

From the threshold Tom made some small noise but she ignored him.

She carefully wrapped the comforter back around him, swaddling him like a baby. She carefully got to her feet, somehow managing to hold onto him despite the overwhelming urge to pass out herself. A low ringing had begun in her ears, and already the sounds and sights of the room were swimming and turning dark.

“He’s in a better place now, and he needs you to be strong for yourself and your family.”

“Tom, I…thank you for helping me, but I need to be alone now for a while. I need to think—” The room spun suddenly and violently and she stumbled, nearly dropping the boy.

Tom was immediately by her side, his hands warm and steady as he helped to ease her down into one of the kitchen chairs. She let him, but she refused to let him take the boy away from her.

She clutched him tight to her, her chin resting on the crown of his head amid the soft curls of his hair. She knew Tom was right beside her, looking down at her and the boy. God only knew what he was thinking or what he had been saying to her, if anything. It didn’t matter.

“Jennifer.”

She shut her eyes tight, refusing to listen. How many times had well-meaning friends and family attempted to say something reassuring or comforting to her? How many times had she stood in their presence while they went on with their meaningless chatter, convinced that somehow their words would actually have some effect? How many times had she wished that they would simply go away or disappear so that she could grieve in peace? Her own conscience tormented her enough, but to see the looks of sympathy, pity, and finally frustration on nearly every one of their faces when she didn’t respond like they were expecting her to? It was unbearable.

“Don’t.” Her voice was slightly muffled against the soft nest of the boy’s hair, but she knew Tom would understand the words, if not the meaning, behind them. “Just…don’t.”

On some instinctive level she knew that he had understood the reason for her actions and had actually stepped back, giving her the space and time she requested.

How unfortunate all of this is, she thought as she began to rock the boy in her arms. Tom is a rare human being, one who understands what it is truly like to grieve for someone you love, and he came around just as I needed a connection with another person. This being, this child who entrusted me with his life and safety, came along at the same exact moment, only this time instead of leaving me—this world—safe and sound, he leaves me with more memories that cause me pain.

A faint rasping gasp pulled her out of the well of despair she had been wallowing in and sent a jolt of adrenaline whipping through her. She didn’t dare to hope that perhaps her efforts had not been in vain, yet as she glanced down at the bundle in her arms, she could see that the barest hint of color was returning to the boy’s cheeks. His chest did indeed rise and fall the tiniest bit, and with a choked cry, she leapt to her feet, nearly knocking the chair over.

Tom was staring at her and the boy, his expression a mixture of emotions, but above all, wonder and acceptance.

He didn’t need to say anything. His expression said it all.

“He’s not a ghost or a monster, Tom. He needs our help.”

Tom glanced once more at the bundle in her arms and then he nodded. “Tell me what to do.”