things get. Okay? Can you do that for me?”
I nodded. Unsure if I could really follow through and keep a promise like that, especially if things really did get as bad as he seemed to think they would. Not to mention if the waters went all crazy and churning and scary again, then the rock would be the first place I’d head. But knowing he needed me to agree in order to get on with his task, I nodded my assurance, even though I wasn’t sure if I could actually live up to my promise.
I watched as he floated away, cutting through the current as easily as a fish, before climbing onto what appeared to be a small, lonely island somewhere out in the distance, and what further squinting revealed to be a large, jagged rock jutting out from the sea.
And that’s when I saw it.
And I’m pretty sure that’s the same moment he saw it too.
The second he climbed up and secured himself there, we both watched, from our own separate vantage points, the exact cause of the ghost lady’s anguish for the last several hundred years.
She was a murderer.
A child killer.
Or at least that’s what everyone said.
Falsely accused of what was pretty much the worst crime a person could ever commit — that of killing her very own children.
Her three beloved sons, whom I immediately recognized as the golden-haired Radiant Boys I’d just crossed over a few moments earlier.
Only thing was — she was innocent. She’d done nothing of the sort.
She was merely a poor widowed mother left to take care of her sons on her own, forced to find work right here at the castle, and just naive and innocent enough to trust the wrong person to look after her boys while she was gone.
A stable hand who promised to take them on a so-called fishing trip where instead of baiting a line, he drowned all three of them. Cleaning up nicely and planting just enough evidence to make it appear as though she’d done it — only to vanish nearly as soon as he’d come, never to be seen or heard from again.
And after being tried and punished with death, she took one look at the golden veil of shimmering light that led to the bridge, saw the way it glowed and swayed and beckoned for her, offering nothing but comfort and love and compassion and forgiveness — all of which she’d long been denied. But instead of joining it, instead of seeking the solace only it could provide — she turned her back, and chose instead to wander away. So driven by her overwhelming grief, her insurmountable blame, convinced she’d played a big part in it by being so naive, by not looking after them properly, by not doing nearly enough to keep them all safe, she returned to the very scene where she first heard the news.
To the place where she stood looking for them, waiting for them to return. . .
And suddenly, just like that, I knew exactly where we both were.
We weren’t so much in her head like I’d originally thought. Nor were we settled into a front-row center seat watching the memories she stored in her broken and damaged heart.
Nope.
Where we both were, Bodhi and I, was the darkest part of her soul.
The place she’d shut off from the world long ago. The place she’d condemned herself to. A self-imposed imprisonment for the last few centuries.
And now, like it or not, we’d joined her.
Were locked in with her.
And I had no choice but to watch as Bodhi braced himself against the rock, his arms spread wide, his head tilted back, his mouth open, as he started to take it all in.
Determined to swallow it — every last bit of the horrible grief that’d kept her chained to the earth plane for hundreds of years.
Determined to claim it for himself.
To steal it from her and make it his own.
Bodhi’s body bucked and convulsed, as his eyes rolled back in his head. But when I started to swim toward him, he immediately stopped me in my tracks. Flashing his palm in warning, and telling me to stay back. Telepathically reminding me of the promise I’d made, that no matter how bad things got, I’d stay in my place.
This particular job was his, and I’d better not come any closer or interfere in any way.
So I shrank back, watching as his entire being continued to spasm, realizing he wasn’t exactly fighting against it like I’d first thought. He wasn’t battling against the tsunami of overwhelming grief he took in.
He was fighting against her.
Her refusal to rid herself of it.
To give it to him.
To unburden herself and move on.
It was like she’d stayed so long at that window, spent so many years crying, and moaning, and wailing her nonexistent heart out, she’d gotten to the point where she couldn’t remember anything else.
Her grief had come to define her.
Without it, she feared she might cease to exist — completely disappear.
Unaware of how that very disappearance would actually be the best thing for her.
Sure, the sad, old version of her would fade away without a trace, but only so a new, improved, happier version could find a new life on the other side of the bridge.
I watched the struggle continue, knowing I had no right to interfere, that it was forbidden, that Bodhi wouldn’t allow it. But still, that didn’t mean I couldn’t surround him with hope. Imagining the color in my mind as the most beautiful, radiant, rose-petal pink, I turned it into a giant, glistening bubble, and wrapped it around him as I held the wish near.
Eager for this to be over — for Bodhi to find enough strength to take it from her, release her from her grief, so that she could be free.
All the while trying not to think about what might become of him once he had swallowed her sorrow.
Where would it go?
Would he be forced to take her place at the window and wail for the next hundred years?
Or could he find a way to process it?
Treat it like they do with sewage and waste and gross stuff like that. Reconditioning it in a way where it’s no longer toxic, no longer so completely destructive to live with.
And if he couldn’t process it — if he couldn’t treat it in some way — then what would become of me?
Would I ever find my way out of that bottomless sea?
Or would I be forced to tread in that black, oily water for the rest of eternity?
But still, even though all those thoughts were actively flooding my mind, I kept my promise, and I kept my place. Holding tight to that vibrant, pink bubble ofhope, as my legs moved beneath me, and my arms spun in half circles by my sides. Watching as Bodhi continued to put up one heck of a fight, engaged in a battle of her dark, heavy soul versus his light.
Shaking and trembling, he struggled to consume all her pain, while I whispered to myself, over and over again, that it would all be all right. That the light always wins in the end. In all my favorite books, movies, and shows on TV — that’s just the way it always goes.
Only this was all too real.
And like it or not, Bodhi and I were locked in this together, our eternities depending on how this thing ended.
I closed my eyes, overcome with exhaustion, and not wanting to see any more. Though I still clung to hope — hoping it might aid him in some small, acceptable way.
Hoping she would let go, give up the grief, and move on.
