Hurricane Child: Chapters 6–7

There’s an infinite number of possibilities and outcomes for each of those universes, so maybe my mother met my father while he was still living abroad, and they got married and had me while they were living in Paris.

I also learn that there are some who feel ghosts and spirits and demons do not exist but are made up completely in one’s own mind, and especially in the minds of those who are delusional and have been through emotional traumas to help them cope, which makes me fear that the woman in black isn’t real at all, and is only something I’ve made up in my own head—perhaps something to desperately explain the disappearance of my mother.

I also learn that there are some who feel ghosts and spirits and demons do not exist but are made up completely in one’s own mind, and especially in the minds of those who are delusional and have been through emotional traumas to help them cope, which makes me fear that the woman in black isn’t real at all, and is only something I’ve made up in my own head—perhaps something to desperately explain the disappearance of my mother.

It was something I’d only wondered before, but now the possibility of this truth sears through me.

Her existence reminds me of when I think of something so outlandish and silly, such as the desire to hold Kalinda’s hand, and I think of saying this outlandish thing out loud, I realize how ridiculous the thought is.

I continue reading, keep skimming, until I look at the clock and see that I have mere seconds to learn about the woman in black until the bell rings and I have to return to class, until finally in the very last book, in the very last chapter, I do learn one useful thing: a way to communicate with a ghost.

I continue reading, keep skimming, until I look at the clock and see that I have mere seconds to learn about the woman in black until the bell rings and I have to return to class, until finally in the very last book, in the very last chapter, I do learn one useful thing: a way to communicate with a ghost.

Once she comes, she won’t be able to leave, because I’ll have poured a ring of salt that she will find impenetrable, and she’ll have no choice but to stay and speak with me.

So I sit there for ten minutes, which truly feels like an hour, periodically calling for her again and again—but I have a feeling she’s not coming.

One look at her sends my heart beating and bouncing against the walls in my chest, and sometimes it feels like it gets lodged in my throat too, and even though it feels like we’ve known each other since the moment we both came out of our mothers’ wombs, I look at her and I can’t speak a word.

I love being near her. Love how she always smells like lemongrass, especially in the early mornings, yellow warmth radiating from her skin and clothes.

I would’ve been nervous to say such a thing, but she doesn’t seem nervous about her declaration at all.

She sits up with a finality that I guess is supposed to be the period on our conversation, but I know I can’t give up, not that easily.

And the idea gets me to thinking, because it’s never occurred to me before, that we might not even really exist. That we’re the figment of someone’s imagination, some crazy person or maybe spirit or god that’s just dreamed up each and every single one of us.

I wait for Kalinda in the shade of a barren mango tree in the courtyard, away from everyone else.

And then there was the ghost that haunted the library next to her school, a ghost that took no shape at all, wasn’t a man or a woman or a child, but was the overwhelming emotion of rage and fury and betrayal, and anyone who happened to walk through that emotion would come out ready to fight anyone and anything.

I can see a flinch of hurt on Kalinda’s face, though, which turns into a stony anger just a split second later, and I feel guilt twisting my insides.

I would be angry too if she told me she was leaving this world for another that may or may not exist, so flippantly and easily, like I didn’t really matter to her at all.

I’ve never dreaded anything more.

“My aunt Hortensia marched outside in the dead of night to scream at the accordion player, and she tripped over me as I was sleeping out on the front steps, and so now both my father and my father’s sister are absolutely livid. What a turn of events. I never would have expected this to happen.”

And when we come back in from recess a few minutes early just so that we can get out of the sun, in Anise Fowler’s hand is the journal, out of its wrapping paper, open in the palm of her hand like a Bible, the hyenas crowded around her while she reads her scripture.

She reads something, whispering with a grin spread across her face, and the hyenas split into an uproarious screaming fit of laughter.

They look at Kalinda expectantly, waiting for her to answer.

When the woman in black wavers in the corner of my eye, I don’t even look her way.

I rummage through my mind and come up with an answer quick.