Caroline

 I am awakened by the bell.

It’s happening so often now that I’m convinced I’m going crazy—that somehow, someway, I’m beginning to lose my mind. The more I think about it, though, the more I can’t help but wonder:

Is it really, truly just the bell? Or is it my best friend trying to give me a signal from the great beyond?

Oh, Caroline, I think, and close my eyes.

From my place beneath my bedroom window, where I lie beneath the full light of the blazing moon, I try my best not to focus on the incessant ringing that continues to echo from the distance. It is a dark and unfortunate night—filled with doubt just as much as there is grief—and though I fight to keep from collapsing internally, externally I feel like a porcelain doll, just about ready to crack.

Caroline has been dead for a week.

It happened, so far as I’ve been told, like this:

On a normal Sunday afternoon one week ago, my best friend attended mass with her mother. Following the sermon, and the morning chitchat and gossip, the two left the Church of Good Hope and Faith—which stands no more than three blocks away—and began to drive home. It was a completely boring, mundane, everyday Sunday.

At least until they reached the corner of Birch and Main.

This is the point where Missus Baxter, Caroline’s mother, has trouble remembering, or at least processing, what happened next. Perhaps this is due to the trauma she sustained during the accident affecting her brain, or just grief attempting to save her battered, innocent mind from reliving the event as it had occurred.

Regardless, the story plays out as follows:

Missus Baxter advanced into the intersection. Made it only halfway through. Then, a colossal force struck the passenger’s side of her vehicle, causing her small car to spin not once, and not twice, but three times before coming to a stop.

It was only upon lifting her eyes, and turning her head to regard the space where her daughter should have been, that the reality took hold of her.

Caroline was dead, and there was nothing she, or anyone, could do about it.

The coroner concluded that Caroline had been killed instantly upon impact.

I don’t know if that’s a blessing, or even worse: a curse.

It’s been over a week since the accident, and three days since Caroline was laid to rest in the cemetery behind the church. Three days since our small Texas town came together to mourn the passing and honor the life of a girl who wanted to do so much.

It’s also the third night that I’ve heard the bell ringing in the night.

A part of me wants to think that I’m just imagining things—that what I am hearing is also an intrinsic part of my grief—but still, I can’t help but think about what I did three nights ago, after Caroline was buried and the flowers were hung on her grave.

I’d stolen out in the night. Hung a small bell on the hook where the family’s bouquet of flowers were only meant to be hanged. Prayed, in no uncertain order, for an answer to horrible grief.

I’d asked Caroline only one thing that night: to ring the bell if she needed me.

So far, I’ve ignored the bell for three days straight.

I am still unsure what to do.

A part of me wants to believe it is the wind shifting the bell, therefor causing the clapper to clink against its lid. The only problem with that sentiment is that the church is three blocks away, and there is no possible way in Heaven or upon Earth that I would hear it from this far away.

This leads me to only one conclusion:

Caroline is trying to reach me; and I am too scared to answer her call.

As I lie here, in my bed, listening to the sound of the bell chiming and mulling over what I could possibly do next, I find myself dreading what I feel I must do.

I haven’t been to the cemetery since the night of the funeral.

Now, I’m contemplating going back.

But, therein lies the problem:

To get back to the cemetery, I have to leave my home. To leave my home, I have to sneak outside. But to sneak outside, I have to walk past my father, who is normally asleep in my long-gone grandma’s old recliner. This would normally not be an issue, since my father sleeps like the dead. But the creaking door—which is positioned no less than five feet away—is an adversary, as no matter how slowly or how much you open it, it creates a low, whining noise, which may separate me from my ability to get out of my home.

As these thoughts rush through my head, bombarding me as if I am the moon overhead with meteorites crashing onto my surface, I try my hardest not to succumb to panic. To dread. To complete and utter desolation.

How, I wonder, will I do this?

It takes several moments for my mind to break free of the cycle of torment. When it finally does, a single thought occurs to me:

My window.

I could simply open my window and jump out. It isn’t that high off the ground. It’s not like I haven’t crawled through it when we’ve locked ourselves out of the house.

You have to think clearly, I am quick to remind myself. You’re letting your emotions get the best of you.

How can’t they, though, when they are so present, so cruel, so completely and utterly consuming?

With a shake of my head, I crawl from bed, take a moment to consider what I am about to do, then turn my head to the window.

In moments, I am gathering clothes.

In seconds, I am pulling them on.

And in minutes, I am bracing my hands along the windowsill, and contemplating the potential ramifications of my actions.

They’ll never believe you, a part of me says, if you say you were sleepwalking.

I’d stopped that habit long ago. And even if for whatever reason I did still sleepwalk, who’s to say they’d believe that I’d not only dressed, but opened the window and walked three blocks down the road?

People have done worse, I am quick to remind myself.

But I am not some people.

With that thought in mind, I make my decision.

I open the window. Look first up, then down the road to ensure that no lights in windows are on. Then, I jump out.

Landing outside, on the firm but plush grass, leaves me reeling. Reaching up to slide the window back into place, meanwhile, is like opening Pandora’s Box just a crack to see what might be inside.

To think that I am answering Caroline’s call after these three unfortunate days is almost impossible.

But I’m doing it, I think. I’m doing it for you, Caroline.

“My best friend,” I whisper, “until the end.”

It takes only a moment for me to contemplate what I’m doing next.

A short second later, I start up the road.

The night is calm, almost eerily so. There are no cars rolling down the road, no dogs barking along the street. The only thing I can hear is the tinkling of that small bell.

The bell, I think, that is beckoning me with its call.

A part of me still wants to believe that I am being irrational—that no matter how much I want or need this to be true, I am just a delusional girl wandering in the dark, seeking out the ghost of her best friend. The only problem is that, even if I wanted to believe I was delusional, and even from all this time and distance, I can still hear it, plain as day, as if it is ringing no more than a foot away. There is no plausible explanation for that, and no real way to deny it as a result.

In the end, one thing is more than clear:

Something is making that bell chime.

The thought—and the way it is phrased within my mind—instantly draws me to a halt.

Something, I think.

A frown curls my lips. A sudden desperation fills my heart. An insane thought occurs to me—and though as much as I try to deny it, I find myself considering it all the same.

What if it isn’t Caroline ringing that bell, but someone, or something, else?

The idea that my good intentions could have been sabotaged by something real or even imagined leaves me feeling breathless. Panic tugs at my body, my mind, my poor, unfortunate soul. It feels as if, at any moment, I will simply collapse.

Yet, I keep walking—

Walking—

—to that graveyard, that place where my best friend is buried, one week dead and three days in the ground.

I know I should be cautious. I know that I should be scared, especially if something truly malevolent is occurring. And even though the reasonable part of me wants to argue that this isn’t a bad idea, that it can’t be anything other than Caroline, I know for a fact that I must entertain the idea.

Unfortunately, my promise to my best friend is trumping my fear.

It is for that reason that I walk—hands in my pockets, eyes set ahead, ears attuned for anyone or anything that might be lurking in the dark.

My mother always told me not to be afraid of, but always cautious about, the time after dark.

Tonight, little more than lamplight and the overhead moon offers me line of sight.

Fortunately for me, I have walked far enough to where I can now see the church of Good Hope and Faith rising from the darkness, its single peak and the angel atop its surface seemingly glimmering in the night.

I want to believe that I am doing the right thing. That I am being watched over. That nothing ill will come of this. Sadly, I do not know if that will be the case.

As I approach Birch and Main—and see, on the very edge of the crosswalk, those flowers, Caroline’s picture—I find my heart breaking all over again.

This is the place. This is the place where, no more than five minutes after leaving Good Hope and Faith, Caroline was taken from this world by a drunk driver—a teenager coming down from a bender after a night of partying.

A single sob echoes from my throat.

It is answered only by the tinkling of the bell.

“I’m here,” I whisper, turning to face the church, behind which the cemetery lies. “I’m here, Caroline. I came.”

The bell chimes three separate time—as if it is saying, Come to me.

Ding… ding… ding.

Ding… ding… ding.

Ding… ding… ding.

I struggle to swallow my reservations. To fight back the inhibitions threatening to hold me in place. To courageously and stalwartly step forward. Yet no matter how hard I try to move, I find myself rooted to the spot—simply looking, merely staring.

Somehow—someway—I am able to defy the odds.

Moving one foot forward, then the other.

Advancing one step, then another.

Breathing deep, exhaling hard, only to repeat the process anew.

There is no telling what I will find come time I cross the road ahead. When I wander through the passage leading into the cemetery. When I come to face her presently-unmarked grave, at the face of which is a simple stand with flowers, the bell dangling from a single hook.

I want to be brave. I really do.

But deep down, I am scared; and that is perhaps the worst thing of all.

But, like with all things, fear is the result of a reaction, the response to it another link in the overall chain of trauma. To connect those links—to prevent the binds from sinking, the metal from shattering—one must make a conscious effort to move forward. This is why, in the moments that follow, I continue to make my way forward.

Like all good girls, I take the crosswalk. But like most girls would in the dead of night, I do not wait for a sign or signal, a gentle touch to the guardian at the crossroads. I simply pass beneath the traffic light in silence, and jaywalk forward with the determination of a girl scorned by the world and all its woes.

Stepping beneath the church’s shadow, for this one simple purpose, is damning. Knowing that I am soon to face the ghost of my best friend? That is something else entirely.

You can do this, I am quick to remind myself. You know you can.

“I have to do this,” I tell myself. “For me. For her.”

As I approach the passage that leads into the cemetery, I take a moment to consider what it is I am about to do.

Then, I enter.

The cemetery is dark, the atmosphere cold, what little fragments of light revealing only shadows, not truths. Still—I know, in this circumstance, that I do not need light to guide me.

No.

All I need is the sound of the bell.

Ding… ding… ding.

Ding… ding… ding.

I follow its reverberation as if I know this place by heart—as if I have wandered this consecrated land for all of time. Stepping between headstones, crushing dry flower petals beneath my feet, maneuvering, ever so solemnly, toward my destination.

The moment I step up to Caroline’s unmarked grave is the moment everything comes into focus.

Moonlight pierces through the clouds. Shines starkly upon the cemetery. Illuminates everything I could possibly know, including that single rose-gold bell.

“Caroline,” I whisper. “Are you there?”

The bell chimes softly.

“What’s wrong?” I ask as I crouch down to face the bell. “Do you need something from me?”

The bell chimes again.

“I told you to call if you needed me,” I whisper. “To ring the bell if ever you needed me here. But now that I’m here… I… I don’t know what to do.”

The bell chimes once more.

I turn my head to regard the exit to the cemetery—maybe in the hopes that someone will enter, that maybe someone will answer my silent, unheard plea. When I find that no one is there, though, I return my gaze back to the bell—

—only to find that it has stopped chiming.

Crouching down, I extend my hand toward it—to carefully caress its smooth edges, its fragile countenance—and close my eyes as I allow my heart and body and mind and soul to echo into the universe around me.

For a moment, I feel as though I will break.

But how can something already shattered be destroyed even further?

This, I do not know; and this, I try my hardest not to question. For in this moment of utter tranquility—of stark and blessing peace—I feel closer to Caroline than I ever have before.

“Do you—” I start to say, then pause, unsure how, or if,  I want to continue. “Do you want me to let you go?”

The bell chimes softly.

A shudder flows through me—rocking first my torso, then my limbs.

“Is it time to say goodbye?” I whisper.

The bell chimes once again.

“I can’t let you go,” I say, blinking in an attempt to clear my vision, but only offering way to tears instead. “I… I just… I can’t, Caroline. I just can’t.”

The bell chimes again.

“You were my best friend.”

Harder.

“My only friend.”

More insistently.

“I don’t know how to live without you.”

This time, the bell falls silent.

As a sob escapes me—echoing out into this place, this space—I find my heart breaking all over again.

Then, abruptly, a memory strikes me.

I was heartbroken at one point—when, on the night of the junior dance, my date, Tommy Sullivan, was a no-show. Having been told, consistently, that he would show up, I waited beneath the awning leading into the high school auditorium with my head held high and my back straight. Caroline was there, too, waiting for me just as I was for Tommy. She asked if I was coming in, and I said no, that I had to wait, that he would show up. But I knew then and there that Tommy was not going to come—that I was merely hanging on to false hope. So when the tears began to roll down my face, and my emotions along with them, Caroline had set a hand on my arm and said but five words:

You have to be strong.

“Is this a sign?” I whisper, lifting my eyes to face the bell. “Are you telling me that I have to be strong?”

The bell chimes softly in response.

Lifting my eyes, I gaze upon the exposed ground, the supple earth, the place where, six feet under, Caroline Baxter has been laid to rest. I want so desperately for her to say something—to hear her voice one last time—but I know I will ever hear, or see, her again.

It is with that realization—that cruel, damned justification—that I reach up to wipe the tears from my face, and say, “I guess this is really is goodbye.”

This time, the bell does not respond.

As I push myself to my feet, slowly but surely allowing myself a moment to regain my strength, I look down at the single bell, those beautiful flowers, that fresh grave, and say the few words I wish I could have said one last time.

“I love you,” I whisper.

And when finally it comes time for me to turn—to make my way between those gravestones, those crushed petals, those solemn corridors—I wait for a sign, any sign, from Caroline.

But none comes.

At the threshold leading both into, and out of, the Cemetery of Good Hope and Faith, I turn my head to look back at her final resting place, and realize something.

Caroline may be gone—maybe forever to some, but only temporarily to others—I feel, deep down, that she will always be with me.

In me, Caroline lives on.

With that in mind, I turn and walk away.

I do not hear the bell the entire way home.