Always

If I'd known how the day would go, I would have stayed in bed. Taken my time lying in my warm, sun-dappled blankets on that Saturday morning. I could have stretched luxuriously, turned my pillow over to the cool side, and snuggled back into my fantastic dream. How different life would have been If I'd stayed in bed. Before the woods. Before that hateful brown paper box.

Is there anything better than a summer Saturday when you are a brand new 14-year-old? Twenty-four glorious hours of nothing to do and nowhere to go. On Friday night, I was lounging on the couch watching some old movie with my parents while I considered how much of nothing I was going to do. I would have a quick breakfast and then bike down to the creek about a mile from our house.

I wondered if Alec and Rebecca, my best friends since forever, could come too. It had always been us three. From our first big wheels to shiny new ten-speeds, we'd spent every summer together. But last year had been different. Middle school was… weird. While Rebecca seemed to be doing okay – smart and funny, with an enviable and effortless beauty, Alec and I were … not. Last summer, Rebecca could play – I hated that I still called it that; what else were you supposed to say? Was Hang Out more grown-up? Fine, so last year, Rebecca could Hang Out less and spent more time at the Lilyvale Mall with Michelle and Ashley.

But not this year. This year, things would get back to normal. I would ride my bike to her house first thing in the morning. She would bounce down the stairs in ripped jeans and ratty creek-sneaks, her giant blond ponytail swishing behind her. She would smile, hug me, and we would race down to Alec's. Within minutes we would be off. Just like always. Just like forever.

The next morning, I didn't stay in bed. The moment bright sunlight hit my face through gold sheer curtains, I threw off my covers, jammed my legs into some vaguely clean jeans, and tossed on an X-Files tee-shirt. "I want to believe," it said. Me too, I thought. I stopped short, my hand on the doorknob. I glanced down at my slowly growing chest, sighed, and retrieved the horrible torture device my mother insisted I wear.

"You're a young lady. It's the proper thing to do," she told me that day in the department store on Main Street.

"I will never be a lady," I muttered under my breath – low enough I thought she couldn't hear. I caught her sharp side-eye regardless.

Rolling my eyes, I wriggled out of my shirt sleeves enough to strap on the awful thing and took in my reflection. Tall, skinny, mouse-brown hair, freckles, and the beginning of a whopping spot on my chin. I sighed, rolled my eyes, and charged downstairs.

Fourteen seconds later, I was flying out the door, a piece of toast stuck in my mouth. My mother trailed behind me, yelling to be home by five at the latest, and "will you please tie your hair up, Heather? I can get the sewer creek smell out of your clothes, but not your hair!"

I shot a look back at her. Mr. Mercer, our next-door neighbor, stood up from clipping his roses to take in our front yard drama. He levied a quick half-wave to my mother. I rolled my eyes, hoping very much that she saw, pointed to the scrunchie on my wrist, and sped away on my ten-speed.

Rebecca's mother was in her front garden herb bed placing this and that into her gathering basket. I skidded to a stop. Looking up, she gave me kind of a sad wave.

"Is – can Rebecca come p…Hang Out?" I called, leaning into their white fence.

"Oh, good morning Heather – isn't it going to be beautiful today? Are your folks doing anything fun for the Fourth?" I was only fourteen, but I knew when someone was dodging a question.

"Yeah, it's going to be great – can Rebecca come to the creek?"

Rebecca's mother pursed her lips and crinkled her brow – did she always have such lines in her forehead? I couldn't remember.

"Well, you're more than welcome to go see. I don't know if she's still … Rebecca's been very different lately, Heather. Surely you have noticed?" That worrying motherly look seemed permanently locked on this woman's face. For a moment – that worry, and that question, made me very angry.

"I haven't," I lied, "and thanks. I'll go see if she wants to Play." I said the word purposefully, but it came out sharper than I intended. Rebecca's mother had always been kind– it wasn't her fault Rebecca had become…

I slammed a mental door on the thought and left it there to die. I'll never be a lady, I thought defiantly as I barreled up the front steps. I knocked hard on the door. And then there she was. But not in her creek-sneaks, her long ponytail had been cut -when did she do that? And there was no bright smile.

"Oh…" Rebecca said quietly.

"Oh… hi?"

"Listen, I really," Rebecca started, but I cut her off.

"Do you want to get Alec and go down to the creek? It doesn't have to be for long. It could be an hour or thirty minutes or..." I hated my voice. I hated how the question sounded pleading – pathetic.

She must have had a moment of sympathy watching her disheveled old friend practically begged for her to Play.

"Sure…." Hesitation was there, and wariness in her eyes – but she agreed. My heart soared. Just like always, I thought as we kicked off on our bikes. Just like forever.

The bright sun beat down on our heads. I looked up and realized the three of us had been at the creek much longer than an hour. I checked my watch, stunned to see it was 2:30. We had been playing – that's absolutely the only word for it, I was now convinced- for almost five hours. "Throw whatever you can find off the bridge" had been a hit. Alec had won with the huge rusted railroad spike he'd found. It had made an absolutely fantastic splunk-splash. Tired of that, we moved to the more reserved game of "Weird shit in the woods." Alec was also quite good at this since he was the most willing to pick up wet, moldy, and generally gross stuff.

Rebecca had forgotten about her new haircut, Lilyvale Mall, and growing up. She was a kid again. Just like always. Just like forever. Her hair, though shorter, had not lost any of its golden luster. I watched her, standing in a sparkling sunbeam as she retrieved something vaguely slimy from under a rock – a look of exaltation flew across her face, and she smiled. She smiled her smile at me. I smiled back.

For one crystalline moment, that was all that existed in the world: her smile, the light, her golden hair. When people talk about their life flashing before their eyes when they almost die, or are struck by lightning or whatever – I know that if that ever happens to me, this will be the moment of my life I will see over and over again. Rebecca, in the light, in the trees, with her smile.

"Woahhhh!!!! Come see this!" Alec called. The golden moment, as tenuous and frail as a soap bubble, popped, and was gone.

Alec had found a box wrapped in brown paper. It was about three feet long and wide and nearly two feet high and encircled in blue and red packing tape. Strange characters marked the gold and red stamps that littered the top right corner. Finding the address, my heart caught in my throat. In black marker, it said - TO: Heather Monroe.

"Wha..what?" I stammered.

"The heck – why do you have a box all the way out here?" Alec reached to turn the package over.

"NO!" I shouted and grabbed for his arm.

"What do you mean no! Aren't you curious? Your birthday was a few weeks ago – maybe one of your gifts got pitched off a truck or fell out of an airplane?" Rebecca reasoned.

We all looked up, expecting another parcel to fall from the sky.

"It's weird, right? Something from in Hansel and Grettle?" A growing ache of anxiety bubbled deep in my stomach.

"Look, lets… get out of here. Leave it alone for now? My dad can come out here and check it out for us, and I…."

"It has your name on it – a gift! I have to know what it is. Are you going to open it?" Rebecca looked at me with an expression I had seen on my mother, but never on her. A look that plainly said, "grow up, Heather."

That look – as I tell this story, I know the look is when I gave in. I wished I could have been more convincing. I wish to God, and heaven, and all the angels and Artemis too that I had done something more to stop her. But I didn't.

"No… I'm not. I don't think you should either." I pleaded. I looked to Alec for support, but his eyes were greedy with curiosity.

"Fine," Rebecca said. She took two big steps toward the package. Here, there was no light in her hair. All the color in the world had been sucked out of the woods. She reached toward the box. For one second, she hesitated. But, she touched the crinkly brown paper and – nothing. I heard Alec let out an enormous sigh. He had been holding his breath. Rebecca turned and smiled. Feeling around the side of the package, she found purchase on the folded wrapping and pulled. The paper ripped. I heard her gasp. Then, blackness.

I woke up cold. And wet? Then everything came back to me. The package, her smile, the sun, her gasp before the blackness. It was dark; I checked my watch – 5:30. I looked around and saw a figure lying a few feet away. Alec. I struggled to my feet and tried to rouse him.

"Alec – Alec man, wake up!"

In the dim light, I saw his eyes flitter open.

"Are you okay?" I asked as I helped him sit up. "Where's Rebecca?"

"Wha? She …was…." He pointed to where the package had been. A dark rectangle in the mud was the only evidence the box had ever existed.

"Rebecca!" I called, worry twisting in my stomach.

"Rebecca!" Alec called.

"Reb.." my voice caught in my throat. And then, I realized. I knew. There, in the tree, hanging above my head, was a little golden crystal ball. It spun, catching the dying sun and shining the fading light around the dim wood. I had woken up in the middle of a real-life fairy tale, but not one of the nice ones. The ones where the witch eats the children. Where the woodsman cuts out Snow White's heart. Rebecca had been taken. She would rest here. In the woods. Shining and spinning and sparkling. I started to scream.

Two weeks later, the investigators called off the search of the woods. Alec and I had been questioned a million times by police, detectives, shrinks, and worse of all, Rebecca's parents. At first, I tried to tell them. About the package. About how the woods seemed to go all grey and dim, about the golden sphere that I was convinced held my best friend's spirit. They didn't listen. Shock, they said. Too long out in the elements, they said. Bull shit, I said.

Because no matter how many times I see her missing poster on my way to visit her, I know what I saw. I know why it happened. She was my gift. So, I can keep her. Just like always. Just like forever.