There was a creak, and then movement at the corner of my eye, and a little boy appeared. He was seven or eight years old, maybe, wearing rubber boots and a thick wool coat, a wool cap on his head. He had come around the corner from the monkey bars and stood looking at me with his big brown eyes, keeping a wary distance away.
“Hi,” I managed to say, wondering how to sound unthreatening when sitting on a child’s swing, shaking and shivering and bleeding, my arm twisted at the wrong angle. “I’m hurt. Can you help me?”
The boy rubbed his fingers together in a nervous gesture, watching me but not coming any closer. He didn’t speak.
“Where’s your mother?” I asked him.
He pointed behind him, though I could only see the monkey bars and the other side of the fence.
“What’s your name?” I asked him as pain throbbed in my feet, which were no longer as numb as they had been in the ocean. My knee was seizing up, too; there was no way I was ever getting off this swing.
The boy spoke softly at first, and then he repeated himself: “Toby.”
“Toby,” I said. And then it hit me—this lonely place, this little boy, the absence of any other kids or parents. “Are you real?”
His eyes went wide. “Are you?”
Would a ghost ask me that? I didn’t know. Maybe not. “Yes,” I said. “I’m real, and my name is Shea. I need help. Can you find your mother for me?”
Toby took a step back, but he was still staring at me.
“Please,” I said to him, my voice thin with pain.
“Toby!”
A woman came through the gate, running. She was wearing jeans, a thick sweater, and a thick coat. She resembled her son, her hair in short twists, and she looked alarmed. “Toby, I told you not to go to the monkey bars! Get away from that lady!” She stopped when she got to the boy and looked at me. “Oh my God.”
The world faded out for a second, then came back into focus. “I had an accident,” I managed as the woman pulled her cell phone from her back pocket. “Can you call an ambulance, please?”
Stay awake, I thought as the woman dialed 911. Another half-forgotten piece of wisdom—weren’t you supposed to avoid passing out? Was that for a concussion or hypothermia? I couldn’t remember. I gripped the cold chain of the swing and tried to stay upright. I looked at Toby, whose back was pressed into his mother’s legs now. He was still watching me.
“Why didn’t you ask the lady?” he said as his mother spoke into the phone.
“What?” I said.
“The lady behind you. Why didn’t you ask her? Didn’t she want to help?”
I stared at him. I didn’t want to turn around. I couldn’t. “There’s a lady behind me?” I asked the boy, my voice almost a whisper.
He shook his head. “Not now. Before.” He pointed to a spot right behind the swing set. “She was right there.”
I could hear a siren, far away now but getting closer. Toby’s mother held the phone to her ear with one hand, and she dropped her other absently to her son’s shoulder, keeping him close.
Everything spun, and I gripped the swing chain tighter. “Toby,” I said, “I want you to promise me something. If you ever see that lady again, don’t talk to her. Run.”
I thought maybe he nodded. But I couldn’t be sure, because the world faded and I closed my eyes.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
October 2017
SHEA
When I awoke, the first thing I saw was Michael.