Sisters, Long Ago Read online

  “How do you feel, Willow?” Mrs. Evans asked.

  “Great. The carnival was a happy place.”

  “Then it doesn’t really matter, does it, whether you were dreaming or seeing yourself in another lifetime? What matters is how you feel now and if you feel wonderful, it was a good experience.”

  Willow nodded. “I like the white light,” she said.

  “Ah. So you are one of us.”

  “One of you?”

  “Not everyone feels the light. When I explain it, many people look blank. They have no idea what I mean.”

  “I felt it,” Willow said. “I still feel it. It’s all around me. It’s . . .” She searched for words to explain what she felt.

  “It is all goodness and love and kindness.”

  “Yes.” Willow smiled at her. “I know.” She did know. Even before it was put into words, she knew. She also knew that, whenever she wanted to, she could surround herself with the white light.

  It was around her as she left the room. Although the light was invisible, she felt luminous; It radiated from her, and floated up to the stars.

  Her father was waiting for her. As she climbed in the car, she saw the weariness in his eyes and she willed the white light to flow around him, too. She wanted to share her joy.

  “The workshop was wonderful,” she said. “When I get home, I’m going to write everything down. I want to remember the details when I tell Sarah about it tomorrow.”

  Mr. Paige looked down at his hands. “Sarah,” he said, “has slipped into a coma.”

  14

  “I’M GOING back to the hospital,” Mr. Paige said. “Do you want to go there, too? If not, I can either drop you at Gretchen’s or I can take you home.”

  “Is Mom still at the hospital?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll go with you. What does the coma mean?”

  “It isn’t good. We had hoped to have a donor before this.”

  Willow closed her eyes and tried to hang on to the feeling of peace and joy that she’d had when the workshop ended. Instead, she felt like the jar containing all of her worries had just been smashed with a hammer.

  When they got to the hospital, Willow asked her parents if they had eaten any dinner.

  “No. We didn’t want to leave Sarah by herself—and neither of us felt like eating alone.”

  “I’ll stay with Sarah,” Willow said. “You go get a sandwich.”

  Mrs. Paige put her arm around Willow’s shoulder and hugged her.

  As soon as her parents left, Willow stood beside Sarah’s bed. Sarah’s breathing was so shallow that Willow had to watch closely to be sure she was breathing at all.

  She took one of Sarah’s hands in both of hers and closed her eyes. She thought about the white light; immediately, she felt it around her. The calmness returned.

  She visualized the light going from her hand to Sarah’s. It crept under the blanket and encircled Sarah’s body.

  She whispered, “I give you my energy, Sarah, and my strength. Love is flowing from my body into yours. You are now protected by the white light. It surrounds you and it will keep you safe.”

  Willow didn’t wonder what to say or how to say it. The words came from somewhere deep within her; all she had to do was let them out.

  “My love and my strength are pouring into you,” she continued, her voice getting louder. “The white light will help you. Think about it. Feel it around you.”

  Sarah stirred slightly.

  Encouraged, Willow kept talking. “I give you my energy. I give you my love. It will heal you. The white light is all around you. Love will heal . . .”

  “What are you doing?”

  The man’s harsh voice was directly behind Willow. She jumped and dropped Sarah’s hand. Spinning around, she looked to see who was in the room.

  It was Sarah’s doctor.

  “Hello, Dr. Rogers,” she said.

  Dr. Rogers squinted at her. “I heard what you said to Sarah.” He sounded upset.

  Willow said nothing.

  Dr. Rogers moved toward Sarah’s bed, lifted her wrist, and took her pulse. He made a note on Sarah’s chart.

  “I thought you were here in the mornings,” Willow said.

  “I’m on call tonight and I came in for another patient. Since I’m here anyway, I decided to check Sarah, too.”

  “Oh.”

  She wished Dr. Rogers would leave. She wanted more time alone with Sarah before her parents returned.

  He didn’t seem in any hurry. He stood there looking at Willow, as if trying to decide what else to say to her. Finally he said, “I’d like to talk to you for a moment. In the hall.”

  Willow nodded and followed him.

  When they were in the hall outside Sarah’s room, Dr. Rogers said, “I think I should warn you not to give your sister any false hope for a cure. It’s all right to pray with her but be careful what you say. Just because she’s not conscious doesn’t mean she can’t hear you. I believe a patient in a coma hears everything that’s said in their presence.”

  “I wanted her to hear me,” Willow said. “I want to help her get well.”

  “Healing is my job.” He said it emphatically, accenting the word my.

  Willow bit her bottom lip. He acted like she’d done something harmful, something that would make Sarah worse. She wanted to justify her motives, to make it clear that she loved Sarah and was only trying to help her.

  “I learned about the white light,” she said, “and I want Sarah to know about it, too. It’s wonderful! It’s all goodness and . . .”

  “White light?” He frowned. “Do your parents know you do this when you’re alone with your sister?”

  “No. I never did it before.” She couldn’t tell if Dr. Rogers believed her or not. Why was he making her feel so guilty when all she wanted to do was help?

  “I suggest that your first time also be your last. Leave the science of healing to the physicians. We’re trained for it. You aren’t, no matter how much faith you have.”

  It was all Willow could do not to point out that the doctors, despite all their training, weren’t doing Sarah much good.

  Willow fought back her tears as Dr. Rogers walked away. Then she went back in Sarah’s room. She looked at Sarah. She blinked and looked again.

  Sarah’s eyes were open!

  Willow leaned over the bed. “Are you awake? Can you hear me?”

  “Hi,” Sarah said. Her voice was feeble but it sounded glorious to Willow.

  “Do you need anything? A drink of water?”

  “Just talk to me. I heard you talking to me before. I feel better when you talk to me.”

  “Listen carefully,” Willow said. “I have something important to tell you. Things have happened to me. I’ve learned something that you need to know.”

  Sarah looked puzzled but she nodded her head slightly, to tell Willow to continue.

  “It started on my birthday,” Willow began. “It started when I almost drowned.” She told Sarah everything. She described the visions and the dream about Kalos and Amun-Ra. She told Sarah about Helen and about Mrs. Evans. She told her about the white light and the carnival and how she wasn’t afraid of death anymore.

  “No matter what happens,” Willow said, “it isn’t the end. If you don’t live through all this, you’ll go to be with Grandma and Grandpa. I still hope you’ll live—I want you to get well and come home and be my sister for years and years—but if you don’t, at least we know it isn’t the end of everything. You’ll go someplace good and be with people you love. And we’ll be together again, some day, somewhere.”

  Sarah smiled at Willow. “I’m a perennial,” she said. “Like the peonies.”

  “That’s right. Sarah Peony.”

  “I want to feel the white light again,” Sarah said.

  “You felt it?”

  “Yes. Tell me about it again.”

  Willow hesitated, remembering Dr. Rogers’s warning to leave the healing to the doctors.
Then she saw the look in Sarah’s eyes. Hope. For the first time in many days, Sarah looked hopeful.

  I didn’t need Pete Wellington, after all, Willow thought. I’ve given Sarah something to look forward to.

  She grasped Sarah’s hand and looked directly into Sarah’s eyes. “We are surrounded by a white light,” she said. “It’s around me and it’s around you. It keeps us safe.”

  There it was again—the feeling of electric-like current connecting her to Sarah. Sarah must have felt it, too, because she smiled and whispered, “I love you, Willow Sweet Pea.”

  “I love you, too. And love will help to heal you. It’s going into you now, from my hand to yours.”

  Willow talked until her parents returned. When she heard them coming, she stopped talking and turned around. Dr. Rogers was with them.

  “Sarah’s awake,” Willow said. “She’s feeling better.”

  15

  IT WAS five o’clock. Again. Still no letter from Helen. Still no evidence that Helen was trying to communicate.

  Willow sat on her bed, with her knees drawn up. Muttsie was curled in a ball beside her; Willow absently scratched Muttsie behind the ears.

  She felt like she’d been on an emotional roller coaster for weeks. She longed for an ordinary day, the kind she used to have before Sarah got sick.

  She put her head on her knees and closed her eyes. She tried to think about Helen but other thoughts crowded into her mind. In particular, she remembered what had happened that day in her Social Studies class.

  The students were giving oral reports and one boy, Jeff, gave his report on well-known people who use their fame for their own financial gain, at considerable cost to a gullible public. As his first example, he used sports stars who make beer commercials. For his second example, he used a movie actress who wrote a book claiming that she’d lived before.

  “Thousands of people have wasted their money on this trash,” Jeff said. “And on psychics and channelers and the other garbage she talks about in the book. She made up some far-out stories about how she lived hundreds of years ago in China and Africa. People believe them, just because she’s a famous actress.”

  At the end of each speech, the class was supposed to ask questions. When Jeff finished, Willow raised her hand. “Why are you so sure,” she said, “that the things in the book are not true?”

  “Because she can’t prove that she lived before.”

  “Can you prove that she didn’t?”

  Someone snickered and Jeff glared at Willow.

  “I suppose,” he said, “you believe in reincarnation. And in spirit channeling and . . .”

  The teacher broke in. “Let’s limit our discussion to questions and answers about the speech,” he said and he called on someone else for a question. That would have been the end of the matter except that, as the students left the room after class, Jeff came up behind Willow and said loudly, “No doubt you were once the Queen of England.”

  Several kids laughed and the rest of the day they called her, “Queenie.”

  Willow had never had a lot of friends. She got along OK; she was accepted by her classmates and she wasn’t lonely, but she always felt different somehow. Even with Gretchen, she had never completely belonged and lately her experiences had widened the gap.

  Gretchen thought reincarnation was evil. Jeff and the others thought it was a hoax. What would Jeff think if he knew about Kalos?

  She thought about Kalos and Tiy outside the temple. She remembered how she prayed to Amun-Ra and how thrilled she was when the sun’s rays shone directly on the altar. The feeling she had when Tiy touched her hand was the same way she felt now about Sarah.

  “I was Kalos,” she whispered. “I know it! I was Kalos and Helen was Tiy.” Tears welled up behind her closed eyelids. Send me a message, Helen, she pleaded silently. Send me your thoughts.

  She sat quietly. Listening. Waiting.

  I am thinking of you.

  The phrase came out of nowhere. It was not spoken aloud, yet it seemed to echo in Willow’s mind. Willow felt a tingling in her face.

  She waited.

  I think of you every day and wish the best for you and for your sister.

  “I hear you,” Willow whispered. “I know you’re there.”

  She waited again. No more words came.

  Willow raised her head and looked around. Her room looked exactly the same as it did last month. The dotted swiss curtains still hung at the window. Her bulletin board was still cluttered with notes and pictures. Her teddy bear collection still sat on top of the bookcase. Nothing was changed.

  Nothing was changed, yet everything was different. Willow knew she had just experienced mental telepathy. She had communicated with another person, a person who was many miles away. And she knew this experience, like her experiences with the white light and the carnival and Kalos, had changed her.

  She was not the same person today that she was when she woke up the morning of her birthday and prepared to go to Pinecone Lake with Gretchen. She was not even the same now as she was at five o’clock, just ten short minutes earlier. She looked the same, but inside she was different.

  In the last few weeks, she had opened her mind to limitless possibilities. She wasn’t sure where her new ideas and knowledge and feelings would lead her and she was nervous about exploring them. What would happen next?

  Dr. Rogers disapproved of her efforts to help Sarah. Gretchen acted like she expected Willow to sink into hell at any moment. The kids at school scoffed and called her, “Queenie.” Was it worth it?

  When she was alone, her ideas seemed logical. Her dreams and visions seemed wonderful. And the white light. She felt it shining in her, through her, around her.

  Was she going crazy? Or did the white light mean she had a special gift which enabled her to feel love and joy more deeply than most people?

  “You’re one of us,” Mrs. Evans had said.

  One of who? Weirdos who hallucinate?

  And yet . . .

  So far, her new ideas were exciting. The white light didn’t make her feel weird; it made her feel special. She had helped Sarah; she was sure of it.

  Now she had heard Helen’s thoughts, from hundreds of miles away. She wondered if Helen was learning about Egypt. She hoped so, since Willow had not had time to go to the library.

  The telephone rang. Willow wanted to ignore it but it might be one of her parents, calling from the hospital.

  “Hello.”

  “It’s me. Gretchen. Have you seen tonight’s paper?”

  “No.”

  “You won’t believe this. There’s a new ad for a lost dog and they’re offering a two-hundred-dollar reward.”

  “What kind of dog is it?”

  “It says, ‘Lost: Female Welsh Corgi. Taken from family car. Two-hundred-dollar reward. No questions asked.’ Can you believe it? No questions asked. It’s almost as if they know somebody took the dog in order to get a reward. Somebody like your sweet neighbor.”

  “I haven’t seen Mrs. Clauson since the night she drove off with Jericho.”

  “Did you call Jericho’s owners back? Did you find out who found their dog for them?”

  “I called but they were no help. They didn’t know the name of the person who returned Jericho and they didn’t see her car. They said it was a gray-haired lady. Very sweet.”

  “Ha! Sweet like poison. Does she have a dog there now?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t done anything for two days except go to school and go to the hospital.”

  “Go look and call me back.”

  “I don’t know what a Welsh Corgi looks like.”

  “I looked them up in my encyclopedia. They have short legs and pointed muzzles. They look kind of like a Dachshund, only they’re brown and white.”

  Willow went outside and looked over the fence into Mrs. Clauson’s backyard. There was no dog. She walked around to the front and strolled down the sidewalk, trying to see through Mrs. Clauson’s living room windows. She
saw no one.

  She called Gretchen back and reported.

  “Keep your eyes open,” Gretchen advised. “Believe me, if she has this one, it would be the evidence we need.”

  “I’ll try to watch but I’m not home much these days. The only reason you caught me at home now is that Mom sent me to get Sarah’s tape player and some tapes. She thinks familiar music might be soothing.”

  “You sound stressed out.”

  “I am. My folks are, too.”

  “I put Sarah’s name on the prayer chain at church.”

  “The what?”

  “It’s a group of people who agree to say prayers for anyone who’s sick or in trouble. The first person prays and then calls the next one and they do the same. Each one is a link in the prayer chain.”

  “Oh.” She wondered how people could pray for someone they didn’t know. What would they say?

  “You don’t mind, do you?” Gretchen asked. “I know you aren’t a Christian but I think prayers can help and . . .”

  “I don’t mind. Sarah needs all the help she can get. Thanks for putting her name in.”

  After they hung up, Willow thought about the prayer chain. In a way, those people were sending love, just like Willow did. Maybe when she put her hands on Sarah and tried to share the white light, she was doing the same thing that Gretchen’s Christian friends tried to do with prayer. Maybe her beliefs and Gretchen’s weren’t so far apart, after all.

  The telephone rang again. This time, it was Mrs. Paige. For the first time in months, there was enthusiasm in her voice.

  “Dr. Rogers was just here,” she said. “The Bone Marrow Program in Minnesota called him. They have a donor for Sarah.”

  Willow’s heart began to race. “Who is it?” she asked.

  “We aren’t allowed to know who the donor is until a year after the transplant. All he could tell me is that it’s a woman from another state.”

  People are good, Willow thought. A woman who doesn’t even know Sarah is willing to do this for us.

  “When is she coming?” Willow asked.

  “She doesn’t have to come. She’ll donate the marrow in her own city and it will be sent here, in plasma.”