Chelsea and Ray

The final chapter in Chelsea's Saga.

Spirit Child:

Chelsea and Ray

 

      The day passed quickly and Ray crawled into bed.  He watched a little TV and then turned it off and went to sleep.  Chelsea’s heart beat fast as an idea entered her mind.  Maybe she could comfort him.  Trying to comfort him would comfort her at least.  Chelsea laid beside the silent and unmoving Ray.  She put her arms around his strong, broad shoulders.  Chelsea felt warm and happy.  With a sigh she went into her peaceful rest that similar to sleep�"except she remained conscious. 

       In the morning Ray awoke, got up to go to the bathroom and then crawled back into bed.  Suddenly, Chelsea felt a deep sadness fill him.  She noticed the several tears escaped Ray’s eyes.  Her heart went out to him.

       “Why?” he murmured.  He blinked away the tears and forced himself to stop crying.  “Where are you and why do I search for you my love?” 

        “I’m right here!” Chelsea cried, but he couldn’t hear her.

        Ray closed his eyes and tried to center himself.  Chelsea knew what she had to do.  She focused all her energies on Ray and then leaned over him.  She lowered her head and placed a kiss on his lips.  For one brief moment, she could feel his lips, sweet, moist and warm upon hers and then there was nothing.  Chelsea pulled back and found herself crying. 

        Wondering what had happened, Ray opened his eyes.  He knew he had felt someone’s sweet kiss, but it was crazy because no one was there.  He must be imagining things.  Shaking his head, he tried to forget the moment.  Ray turned over and laid there for a moment before pushing back the covers and getting up.  He wondered into the bathroom to take a shower since he knew he wasn’t going to back to sleep. 

       Chelsea flung herself onto one of the pillows and cried.  When her emotions subsided, she cried out.  “I want to be human for Ray!”  Looking at the bathroom she said more directly, “I knew I wanted to be human for you Ray from the moment I saw you!  I told myself I had to be sure, but now I am.  Do you want me to be human for you?”

       There was no reply.

       “Damn, if I only knew how to be human!” she exclaimed.  “What was it Chad said?  You could only be human if sacrificed everything�"spirit memory and all.  I’ll do it.  I will forget everything I have ever learned.  I’ll do whatever it takes.”  Chelsea looked up to the heavens as if pleading with the creator to let her live. 

        Chelsea waited and waited, but nothing changed.  Nothing happened.

        After a long while, the shower shut off and Ray came out of the bathroom in a towel.  He proceeded to drop the towel and stand in front of his dresser naked. After Ray dressed, he went into the kitchen for a quick breakfast.  Chelsea followed him silently and helplessly. 

         He got in his Porsche and sped along the curvy highway.  He turned on his radio and sighed.  His thoughts drifted and he didn’t notice the stray cat crossing the road.  When he suddenly saw it, he slammed and the brakes and swerved some.  The car slipped on some gravel and slid into the rocky wall the side of the wall.  Ray was thrown forward and hit his head on the steering wheel.  He would have been thrown out of the windshield, but he had remembered to buckle his seatbelt.

         Chelsea screamed as they hit the mountain side.  After a deafening sound of the crash, there was complete and utter silence.  The Chelsea smelled the fumes.  Omigod, she thought, the car is going to go up in flames.  “I have to get you out!” she said to Ray.  She reached over him to open the door, but her spirit hand went right through the handle.  She wasn’t concentrating.  She had to be able to affect him.  His life depended on it.  She struggled, but kept losing her focus.  The smell of the fumes got worse and she thought she saw smoke coming out from underneath the hood. 

        Chelsea took a deep breath and reached for the handle again.  This time it worked.  The car door opened.  She undid his seatbelt and then moved over him.  With effortless concentration, she took Ray’s limp body and pulled it from the car.  They were in the middle of the road, safely away from the car, when it burst into flames.  Chelsea could still feel the heat licking her skin and trying to burn her. 

         Ray regained consciousness then.  He looked up to see who had helped him�"who had saved his life.  When he looked up, he saw the most beautiful face.  Golden blond hair hung around the rosy face of an eighteen year old woman.  Her eyes were the most lucent shade of green and her pale pink lips curved into a smile of relief.  This was the girl who’d haunted his dreams. 

         “Thank you,” he managed to say.  He sat up slowly, but pain shot through his body and pounded in his head.  He touched a bump on his head.

         “That was a close one,” Chelsea said softly.

          “I owe my life to you….”

         “Chelsea,” she smiled.

         “Chelsea,” he smiled back.  “I suppose we’d better get out of the middle of the road before we get run over.”

           Chelsea nodded.  Both stood up and walked to the side of the road.  Ray sat down on rock a little ways away from the burning car.  He knew that he had to rest before he tried to make it to someone’s house to call 911.  He hopped that someone would come along and call them for him.  He was still in shock and unsure of exactly what had happened.

           “I can’t believe it.  Last I remember a cat ran in front of the car.  I hit my brakes and…”

           “I know, I saw.”

           “Where on earth did you come from?”  Ray smiled as he stood back up, “If I didn’t know better I’d say it wasn’t earth you came from.  I’d swear you were my guardian angel!”

           “I’m not,” Chelsea laughed.  “Could an angel do this?”  She kissed him lightly.

           “No, I don’t think an angel could do that.”

           “I was on a walk,” she explained, “when I saw your accident.”

          “Oh,” is all Ray said.  He turned from Chelsea to look at his poor car, still burning.

          “We need to call 911.”

          “Yes, we do,” Chelsea agreed.  “There is a house up the road.”

          “Where do you live?”

          “Far away, by the ocean,” she answered vaguely.  “You live closer.”

          “You seem to know a lot about me.”

          “Yes, Ray I do.  Or I should say I did.  I can’t remember how I know that or why.  I just know that I feel like I’ve known you all my life.”

           “I know what you mean,” Ray said as they started up the road to the nearby house.  “Are you sure you aren’t an angel?”

           “I’m sure,” she said.  Chelsea beamed with joy.  Somewhere, deep inside, she knew that all her dreams had just come true.  Her memory was slipping away fast, but she didn’t care.  Chelsea felt as if she were floating down the road, arm and arm with Ray.  Her birth as a spirit child and days of endless wandering had come to any end and she couldn’t have been happier to be human.