Don't Tell Ellie

My mother was constantly telling me to stop asking questions. “Let her be curious.” My father would say before calmly answering me. He wanted me to be hungry for knowledge whereas my mother looked at my constant curiosity as an annoyance.

Looking down at the photograph in my hand I let the tears fall and splatter on his face. My father, happily gazing into the lens of a camera. Except, he is much older then he was when he died. Gray hair, wrinkled brow and a pair of glasses sitting on the brim on his nose. Next to him is my beautiful mother, auburn hair still bright, never graying and to her right, the one person who left a gaping hole in my chest for the past twenty years of my life, Marlow.

“They’re alive?” My voice cracks.

“Technically, no. But, I think the last time I tried to save you, you did something very stupid.”

“What did I do?”

“I believe you went back through that door in my study, there’s no other explanation for their appearance in my future, you must have...” He falters. “Let yourself die when you were seven years old.”

A smile touches my lips. I sacrificed myself and they gained their lives. I never knew I wanted to do something so bad.

“Don’t even think about it, Eleanore. I’ve given up everything for you, my powers...”

“I’m sorry, Benjamin,” I interject, “But, you’re asking me to let my family die in exchange for the promise of loving and being loved by you. The problem is that I already love them. I miss them every day of my life, and the thought that my life forfeited theirs hurts in parts of my heart that I didn’t even know existed. If I can give them back the life they deserve, I will.”

“Do you truly believe they would want you to die so they can live?”

“No, but I know each one of them would do it for me. I’ve already lived my life and I have nothing to show for it, not a thing. You talked about doing the right thing—this is it.”

I jump down for the bed, happiness buzzing through my body in a way that I haven’t felt in years. I know before I go back, I have to talk to Vivienne. Knowing what I know now, I’m certain she had her reasons for taking me, and I owe her a chance to explain. I hesitate as my hand touches the doorknob, didn’t I remember her telling me she’d hurt my family? Was that a real memory? I guess I’ll find out.

I swing the door open and as I take a step into the hall, Benjamin shouts something. “We will have a son!”

I hold my breath staring down the long hallway which feels like it’s just stretched a hundred miles before me, I rock on my heels and turn back to the room. “Michael.” I utter. “I saw him.”

“How?” Benjamin asks, confused.

“I don’t know, it was so real. Like a memory...” Had that moment really happened, in a different time? I feel like I no longer understand how time works, not after doors and loops and harbingers of death.

“Will you sacrifice his life?” Benjamin asks, dread lacing his words.

The question is cruel and it sends a sharp pain through my heart, deflating it and letting the happiness I felt only moments ago spill out and pool somewhere in my feet. Would I sacrifice my son? I close my eyes and remember his small body wrapped around me, his eyes begging me to scoop him up and cover him in loving kisses. Then, I remember Benjamin tearing him away from me and my insides twisting, the gut-wrenching feeling of watching a child—your child cry out for you and doing nothing to help them.

I have no idea what I’m supposed to do and standing in this hallway isn’t going to help me make that decision. “I have to go.”

I hear Benjamin enter the hallway and I can feel his eyes on me as I sprint up the staircase. I grab my purse off the kitchen counter and once I’m in the elevator I push the Ground Floor button furiously until the doors slide closed and the elevator jolts downward.

When the elevator comes to a rattling stop I realize I’m holding my breath and suck in trembling breaths. I step out of the elevator and walk out of Benjamin’s apartment building until I’m standing on the sidewalk in the blinding light of the day. I fish my phone out of my purse and click the calendar. Shit. I completely slept through Thursday. I rack my brain for a moment to try and remember if I skipped work, but I didn’t I was off, thankfully.

I order an Uber and text Vivienne on the way to her house to let her know I’m coming. I hate surprise visitors, especially when the visitor and I aren’t on the best terms.

The Uber leaves me in front of Vivienne’s psychic shop on 3rd Street and I check my phone for the fifth time, but there no response text message from Viv. It’s 1 p.m. and her shop is closed even though the sign on the front door lists Friday as a working day—10 a.m to 9 p.m.

I search for her name in my contact list and call her.

“Ellie? Are you here, honey?” Typical Viv, she answers on the first ring and sounds like her entire world is about to end.

“Yes,” I grunt and I wish I wasn’t mad at her, the only living person who I thought truly knew and loved me. But, she lied to me, betrayed me and my family. I hope her explanation makes everything okay, but I can’t imagine anything that would make what she did seem alright.

“Come on!” she says a little too chipper and the sound of her voice makes me cautious.

“On my way.” I end the call and find my keys in my purse, jingling the keyring until I see the pink tiger-striped key Vivienne gave me as a spare to her shop. I unlock the deadbolt and yank the door forward. The shop is dim and quiet but the smell of incense has embedded itself in the rugs and tapestries. “Viv?” I call as I lock the door behind me, but there’s no response. She must be in her apartment. I walk through the beads into the back room, half expecting tables and chairs to be flipped over in a sign of a struggle, but everything is where it should be.

The second door at the back of her shop is a heavy metal door, the kind that would normally lead to an alleyway, but this one leads deeper into her shop into an apartment that she’s crafted for herself out of the extra space. I questioned the legality of living in her place of business but she just laughed and brushed me off.

“Viv?” I call again as I push open the metal door.

“Over here.” She calls from her tiny living room, cluttered with oversized armchairs, mismatched and discolored.

“Why is your shop closed?” I ask as I plop onto a gray cushion on the ground in front of her.

“We have plans.” Her voice is somewhere strange, in-between dreamy psychic and bored Brooklynite.

“Alright,” I start, crossing my legs in front of me and folding my arms. “Tell me the truth. All of it.”

Viv nods, and her face softens as her eyes wash over me, “Wes is coming for you. Tonight.”