Page 100 of Persephone's Curse
At least it was summer, and a soft, mild night, and I slipped into flip-flops to follow Clara out the front door, dragging her small Muppets suitcase behind her noisily (the dream stuck very close to what had actually happened; both then and now I thought to myself,How is nobody hearing this??).
I walked behind her for half a block and in that time her stride went from determined to unsure before stopping altogether. I let her stand there for a moment and then I walked up beside her, making plenty of noise, clearing my throat so I wouldn’t scare her.
“Going somewhere?”
“Winnie! What are you doing out here?”
“What areyoudoing out here?”
She struggled to make herself seem tough and sure of herself.
“Don’t try and talk me out of it,” she said.
“I would never.”
“I’m running away from home.”
“Cool. Where are you gonna go?”
“To the bus station. I’ll go stay with Aunt Bea for a while, until I figure some things out.”
“Not a bad plan,” I said. “You have the money for the ticket?”
She patted the pocket of her shorts. “From my piggy bank.”
“And you’ve checked the schedule?”
“Of course. I’ll have to spend the night at the station, but the first bus leaves in the morning.”
It was just like Clara to check bus schedules, bring money; I was sure if I peeked in her suitcase I would find snacks and a water bottle.
“I’ll miss you,” I said, and I saw a flicker of doubt flash across her face. She had been expecting me to talk her out of it.
“Bernie isso mean,” she said.
“I know. She definitely can be.”
“I’m sick of it.”
“Me, too!”
“She can’t talk to people like that.”
“I agree.”
Clara’s eyes were filling up with tears. “I don’t even love her.”
“I think you do love her,” I said. “Otherwise she wouldn’t be able to upset you this much.”
Clara didn’t know what to do with that truth bomb, and for a moment she just glared at me and continued to produce tears that didn’t quite spill onto her cheeks.
“Just go home, Winnie,” she said. “Mind your own business.”
“Youaremy business, Clara. And I’m not going home without you.”
Here is where the dream departed from real life, because in the dream it started snowing, but the snow wasn’t snow, it was jasmine petals, and everything smelled beautiful and hypnotizing. I caught a petal on my palm and closed my fingers around it. I looked up and noticed, for the first time, a long, deep gash in the sky. The petals were spilling out of the gash, floating down around us, quickly covering the street in a fragrant blanket of white.
“This is weird,” Clara said, sniffling.
