Descent

8 - "If what happens again?"

"Okay," Ms. Eleanor said, dropping a wet tupperware bowl onto the carpet, "Okay Tommy you're okay."

She put her arms around him and held him close, and rubbed his back. It felt good to be held. "I got you, I got you." She whispered softly while he tried to breathe.

He pulled his head away from her and looked into her kind eyes, "Well, hey there little traveler!" She said and he laughed, then started to cough again so she pulled him back close to her. The smell of her dress and the stuff in her hair was like distant flowers.

"Okay," she said, pulling him away again, "Let's try standing up. Nice and slow now."

She pulled him up, one hand on his elbow and the other arm across his shoulders. He was shaky, and wet, but he got up.

"Stand back everyone, please."

Oh god, the whole class was in a ring around him! Tommy kept his eyes down but he felt everyone staring at him. He wondered where Leslie was, and risked a look, but all he got was a face full of Jake.

Stupid fake Jake put his hand on Tommy's arm and asked, "You okay man?" but Tommy brushed it off.

"Let's all have a seat and a snack I think and give Tommy some air." Ms. Eleanor commanded and the kids dispersed in their own time. She knelt down in front of him and rubbed his arm, "You want to go outside for a minute?"

She held the front door for him then went back inside. He stood on the front porch and stared down the long lane way down the hill to the rural road. It was full dark now and the air was cold, especially where his hair was wet. Forest bugs whirred in the silence.

Ms. Eleanor came back with a flowery towel and he used it to dry his hair. She hopped up onto the porch railing and looked at him with kind concern.

"Where did you go?" She asked.

Tommy pretended to be too preoccupied with drying his hair to answer. He handed her back the towel. "I just fell asleep."

She took the towel back.

"Didn't I ask you not to lie to me?" She smiled and her kindness made Tommy's eyes water.

"I just... kinda freaked out." He said, looking away so she wouldn't see his tears.

"Freaked out about what?"

Tommy found an incredible amount of things to look at that weren't Ms. Eleanor. There was a small wooden chair on the porch, and he sat in it to burn a few seconds. He did want to answer her, but found he couldn't remember much about his experience, except for who he had seen lying beneath the earth.

"Did you see a person?"

Tommy nodded.

"Another kid?"

He nodded again. It was much easier than speaking out loud.

"Someone you know?"

He shook his head.

"Someone made up?"

He shook his head again. A cricket started to chirp in the forest.

"A boy?"

"A girl." He said.

Eleanor's eyebrows shot up, "Really?"

That made Tommy really embarrassed but he managed to squeak out, "Yeah."

Eleanor cleared her throat, "Did you-"

She stopped and looked over her shoulder down the lane way.

A pair of headlights was approaching up the gravel drive. Tommy couldn't see what kind of car it was, until the driver leaned out the window and yelled,

"Tommy!"

It was his mom.

He froze. Seeing his mom here felt like a violation, an intrusion into his private life. He felt like he'd been caught doing something he wasn't supposed to.

Ms. Eleanor looked back at him, then hopped off the railing and trotted down the porch stairs to meet the car. His mom got out and walked towards him, "C'mon," she said, "Let's go!"

"You must be Susan." Eleanor said brightly.

"Cartwright." Susan confirmed, seizing one of Eleanor's hands in a brief, firm handshake, then continued up the steps of the porch to Tommy.

Tommy's mom patted him down and held his face in her hands and asked him if he was okay. Before he could answer, she turned on Eleanor.

"Why aren't you at the church?" She demanded.

Ms. Eleanor blinked twice, then said, calmly, "It's the first day of rehearsal. We're-"

"I don't know what that means." Susan cut her off, and hauled Tommy up onto his feet, both hands on his shoulders.

She steered him to the car, around Ms. Eleanor, and opened the back door. As he got in the car, he saw Leslie watching them from the living room window. She waved. Tommy's mom hustled him into the backseat before he could wave back, but he wasn't sure he would have anyway. Susan slammed the door as Ms. Eleanor started to apologize. His mom planted both her hands on her hips and started to lecture his teacher. He heard a few words through the glass, but tuned them out as he usually did.

He looked back towards the house to see if Leslie was still watching, but someone else was in the window. Someone in strange clothes--what looked like a white apron hanging off her shoulders. She was crying blood.

The driver's side door opened and his mom got in. He heard Ms. Eleanor ask if she could speak with him, and his mom grunted, "Sure". Ms. Eleanor leaned over to the closed window and made a crank turning motion.

"Mom." Tommy said and Susan pressed a button on her armrest.

The window descended about two inches. Eleanor pursed her lips and stuck them into the gap.

"Hold out your arm." She asked.

He did and she pulled the cap off a red Sharpie marker. She reached in and drew a little dot on the inside of his elbow; the ink was cool and stung a little. She retracted her arm back out the window.

"Do this." She folded her arm and touched her left fist to her left shoulder, then squeezed her elbow with her other hand.

He did as she did. When he unrolled his arm, the dot on the inside of his elbow had a twin further up his arm.

"If that happens again, press two fingers," She made a "V" with her index and middle fingers, "to those dots. It'll remind you who you are."

He did it. It made him feel better. She pressed her fingers to the glass. Susan drove away.

"If what happens again?" His mom asked through the grate separating the front and backseats.

"Nothing." He said.