Free Apparition by Gail Gallant Page A

beam, leaving one long end dangling down. He tugs at the dangling end, pulling it up, and begins to loop it into some kind of slipknot.
    “Jack, what the hell are you doing?” He drops the loop and it hangs from the beam. I try to sound calm, not to be hysterical. “Jack, listen to me! Can you just come down from there and talk to me for a minute? That’s all I’m asking. Just come down for a minute.”
    How can I get up there? How fast can I climb?
    He’s straddling the beam, almost right over the loop. He’s ignoring me. He’s crying, saying, “She’ll be sorry.” That’s all I can make out. He’s going to hang himself! He reaches down for the rope. I scream his name.
    Suddenly the knot in the rope comes loose. The rope drops from the beam, falling smack down on my shoulder as I duck my head, and then to the ground. I look up and see Jack staring down at the rope at my feet, staring right through me, a look of rage on his face. His eyes look psycho. He bares his teeth, glaring at the rope on the barn floor.
    “Jack! Come down! Can you hear me? It’s me, Amelia.”
    He rises to his full height on the beam and closes his eyes. His face looks frozen.

    He starts to lean backwards.
    Oh my God! “Jack!” I scream.
    He falls backwards from the beam, landing with a sickening crunch only a few feet away from me. The straw sends up a cloud of dust in the moonlight. His eyes are closed, his body bent, lying still, as if he’s dead. I collapse over him, screaming and crying his name, touching his face, frantically searching for a pulse in his wrist, his neck. It’s faint but I can feel it.
    Somewhere behind me, there’s shuffling. Jack’s eyes open wide, looking over my shoulder, and his mouth opens. Then his eyes close as if he’s fallen asleep. I’m afraid to move him.
    “I’ll be right back, Jack. Stay here. Stay right here. I’ll get help. You’ll be okay.”
    As I run for the door I feel something cold and light brush over me. I beat the air but I don’t slow down. I reach for the door. Just as I get through the narrow opening, I catch the letters
D-O-T
carved in the wooden frame.
    Leaving Jack unconscious on the barn floor, I stumble along the dark country road, running for help.

11
    J oyce is stony cold and focused. It’s the way she’s always been, in every crisis I can remember. Ethan and I are in the car with her, and she’s got the engine in overdrive as we head up the hill on 12th Line. She’s already called 911, and the ambulance and police are on their way. Ethan says I look like I’ve seen a ghost.
    In two minutes we’re turning into the Telford farm property, up the drive and over the rough field toward the old barn. Car doors fly open and slam shut, then we’re out and running in the dark. Ethan carries a flashlight and its beam jerks violently in front of us as he runs. He’s excited. Even the worst catastrophe has its entertaining side for him. I, on the other hand, am still crying. Joyce says nothing for now. The moonlight casts pale and wild shadows of us along the ground.
    We get to the barn door, still open the six inches I had squeezed through, and together we push it open all the way. It creaks and moans and scrapes along the straw-covered dirt floor. In the moonlight that peeks down through the rafters, we can see Jack lying ina heap where I left him, and we run to him. His eyes are closed. He is warm—still breathing. We all talk to him at once.
    “Jack. We’re here!”
    “Help is coming!”
    “You’ll be all right. You’re going to be all right!”
    We don’t dare move him ourselves. Something might be broken.
    “The ambulance is coming, Jack,” I whisper, hearing the siren a long way away. “It’s almost here. Hold on, Jack.”
    There is no response from him. I’m looking at him lying there almost dead. I’m holding his limp hand, my whole body shaking. It feels like a dream.
    Joyce finally asks me what happened. I try to think.
    “He had too much to