Free Where Bluebirds Fly by Brynn Chapman

immediately, suffocated by snowflakes.
    My head snaps back, shooting pain down my spine. I sprawl in a heap, sliding backwards on the slick boards. My head darts up, I’m riveted. And angry.
    It’s like a wall.
    The air churns in a rectangle, and whispers come and go. It’s as if the world is cut in two. Snow gathers around my feet, falling in huge white clusters. But only two steps more, on his side, the corn is green, lush and full.  
    I hear footsteps beating up the other side. My heart stutters, knowing it’s him .
    I stand, and rush to the door, placing my hands against it, unsure if he can see me.  
    Little zaps of light envelope my hands, twisting down my fingers up to my arms.
    I can’t move. I’m not afraid. I can’t move.
    He bursts into the clearing. My stomach bottoms, and a hot, driving urge rushes through my veins. It is him. My writer and the man from the other day, they are indeed, one and the same.
    He pauses for but a moment, his face auditioning a cast of emotions; surprise, concern, yearning, and finally joy.  
    He bolts up the other side, yelling,   “Are you all right? Come closer, I—”  
    He collides with the door, hands spread like mine. Our hands overlap, but don’t touch. The door separates us.  
    The rainbow colored lightning overtakes his hands, melding him to the other side.
    I am panting like an animal. His face is so close, I could taste his breath, if not for the wretched door.  
    His blue-green eyes widen before I feel it, but then a shock vibrates me, hard enough to rattle my teeth. His eyes are fearful, I know for me.
    His mouth moves, but no words come out.
    Then I see it, in my mind. The cornfield disappears.
     
    I see him, as a baby, and his crying mother. She slips him into a woman’s outstretched arms, and flees the room, sobbing. She flies past a sign that reads, Applegate Orphanage.
    A swirl of light and pain.
    He’s a boy now. I shudder. I feel his hunger, as acutely as if it’s my own. And his loneliness. It crushes me, and my lips part—I can’t cry out. He swings alone in a dirty play yard.
    More pain, a sensation of falling.
    I see him again, he’s almost his age now, just a little younger. Sitting at a desk, staring at a book with a million letters and numbers that mean nothing to me. I feel the loneliness, though. It feels exactly as it did when he was a boy. Only now, it’s mixed with anger.
    He grabs a container before him, spilling a bunch of small pills into his hand. He glares at them. His hand shakes, sending some flying onto the desk. Seething hatred fills him, fills me, and he pelts them against the wall. I hear their tapping as they rain down to the floor.
     
    I’m back with him now. His eyes are contracting, and widening, not really seeing me. His mouth twitches, and his lips are moving—but I hear nothing. My hands begin to warm by bits, like ice dethawing, and suddenly I can feel his rough hands.
    I am alive, for the first time.  
    * * *
      He feels her presence. The wind is whipping crazy, and Ram will undoubtedly call the psych ward.
    “I can’t go back. Not yet. And now I’m talking to myself.”
    He laughed, but it died in his mouth as he broke through the corn.
    There she was, standing frozen on the center of the bridge, her hands held up on either side of her as if under arrest.
    Her red hair whips around her, and her expression is terrified. She shudders, the rest of her body moving while her hands remain seemingly glued to thin air.
    He charges toward her, covering the ground in seconds.
    “Are you all right? Come closer, I—”
    His hands fuse to the invisible door. A charge like lightning gyrates his arms, legs.
    What’s happening?
    Her eyes stare, boring into him with their beautiful intensity. Her lips, parted and full, an inch away. He licks his lips, a scream building in his chest.
    And then his mind fills. Expanding, bursting—with her memories.
     
    She’s a wee thing, with her family. The sound of shrieks and