Saving Grace

4

The next time I saw Grace was also the night He made his first move. I remember how thick the air was, clogged up like a drainpipe, sticky and humid. Faintly purple clouds had inched over the moon and stars, leaving the night an icky brown colour, illuminated only by speeding drunks in fast cars and dull streetlights that flickered on and off. I can't tell you where He was at that exact moment, but I do remember my own whereabouts: sat in my room, hunched over my physics revision, feeling my sweat glue me to the leather chair.

"So if that is this," I said, scribbling in my notebook, "then I have to..."

A light tapping caused my ears to prickle, eyes lifting from the page for a fraction of a second. I waited. Silence.

"Come on, Richie," I said to myself. "Focus."

I lowered my pen to paper, ink seeping onto the page in the shapes of threes and fours. My mind began to focus again, narrowing perceptibly, shutting out the incessant thoughts that had been clawing at me for weeks. When my mind was perfectly sharpened, the tapping grew louder, like fingernails on glass. Annoyed, I turned my head toward the window, and my eyes widened.

Grace, crouched on the roof of my porch, smiled devilishly and waved her manicured fingers at me through the window.  My muscles locked for a long second as my lips parted and the pen fell from my hands.

"Grace?"

I could hardly distinguish whether the sighting was real – sleep had eluded me for days, and the fanciful nature of our last encounter had almost convinced me that it had been a dream and she some sort of wonderful figment of my haunted imagination. Yet, there she was – my beautiful ghost, back to consume me again. With trembling hands, I slid the window open, expecting her to vanish when the lamplight touched her face.

"Grace," I said, "what are you doing here?"

"It's nice to see you again too, homie."

Her long legs, fish-netted to the hem of her denim shorts, swung into my room and her red Converses hit my creaky floorboards. When she stood, a strand of her dyed hair came loose from her bun, and she tucked it away behind her ear. I wanted to say something – to greet her, ask her how she had been, something polite – but a paralysing shock had rendered me useless, and when I inspected her closely, I noticed that her attention was drawn elsewhere – specifically, my room. Her lovely dark eyes swept over the space, and I became acutely aware of the state of my bed – all rumpled pillows and tangled sheets. My floor was worse, harbouring an odd length of stained carpet, littered with neatly stacked books and poorly stacked clothes. I cleared my throat.

"I was starting to think I'd never see you again," I managed.

"That's usually a safe bet with the majority of people I meet."

She stepped towards my desk, situated a metre from the foot of my bed. Smiling fondly, her eyes grazed over my notebook, scribbled in, and my textbook, partially highlighted. Then they drifted even further, up to my calendar hanging above my lamp, and the framed picture of my father, smiling, with my brother and I under each of his arms. Her smile widened.

"Is this you on the left?" She asked, reaching out to grab it.

My eyes twitched, heart skipping a beat.

"On the right," I blurted out, grabbing it by its fiery orange frame before she could touch it.

Grace eyed me funnily, but let her hand drop back to her side. I smiled stiffly.

"What can I help you with?"

"Well," she sighed. "I've a favour to ask, actually. I'm planning a crime."