The thing that wouldn't leave

Seizures returned with the heatwave that was now baking the island. Lilith stood in the corner behind her bed, rigid, unblinking. Her parents had laid cushions all around the floor, in case they failed to catch her once she fainted.

“Go away,” Lilith said. She wasn’t talking to her parents. She fixed her eyes on the opposite wall. Her pupils were ink spots, round and large.

“Go away. Move. Leave.”

Her father threw a cushion aiming at the corner of the table, but missed. Her mom managed to catch Lilith around the waist, but Lilith’s head still flopped to the side and hit the table.

The seizures were a part of every summer. Every year the heat came earlier and stayed for longer, and so did the seizures. Last summer, even other children grew used to Lilith suddenly freezing in the middle of a game and ordering someone invisible to leave. The trick was to catch her when she fainted because otherwise she could hurt her head.

“Whoever you are talking to, they don’t seem to be leaving. Why don’t you stop this already?” they said. But Lilith couldn’t stop. She also couldn’t remember anything from the seizures. Every time she simply woke up in the middle of a field that was buzzing with heat and dragonflies as the faces of her friends leaned over her, outlined against the hazy sky.

Lilith and her friends used to chase the dragonflies. If you caught one, you could make a wish and set the dragonfly free to fulfill it.

This summer she would have nobody to catch dragonflies with. The last of her friends moved to the mainland. The island was turning into a hilly desert on a cliff. Tourists stopped coming too. A few collapsed in the heat and had to be airlifted to the city hospital in shiny helicopters that hovered over the cliffs like giant dragonflies. After that, even the ferry came half‑empty.

Lilith would usually calm herself with the thought that her parents couldn’t afford a helicopter, so nobody would airlift her away from home to that noisy and distant thing called mainland, something she never saw and didn’t wish to see. The village doctor was suggesting just that after the seizures had intensified.

“Consider relocating to the city. She needs to live near appropriate healthcare,” he said. Her mom only sighed and dad looked the other way. They couldn’t leave the farm. Crops hardly survived now – water evaporated before it reached the plants. Corn popped in the sun, tomatoes looked like giant raisins, but still the farm was all they had. The farm didn’t allow, and couldn’t support a long-term stay in the city.

Lilith couldn’t sleep because her stitches burnt against the pillow. She got up for a glass of water and saw the light in the kitchen. Her parents’ whispers carried through.

“I’ll take the morning ferry, visit some offices, ask around,” her father said. “The land must still cost something.”

The ground seemed to tilt under her feet. Lilith didn’t pick up her glass of water. Instead, she spun around, went to her window and crawled outside.

The stitches pulsed like a living creature as Lilith ran toward the pine trees on the cliff. She had no plan, only the wish to hide from the horror that stuck to her like glue.

The dry pine needles warmed her feet – nothing cooled down at night. The bark felt like skin of an ancient creature. Lilith tripped over a root and caught a hanging branch. Something moved under her palm. She recognized the buzzing of glass-like wings. The dragonfly must have been sleeping on that branch.

Lilith gasped. She clasped the dragonfly, afraid it might slip out, and hurried to the cliff’s edge. The dragonfly had to fly far to fulfill this wish.

“Make me healthy,” she whispered into her cupped hands, stumbling over a patch of dark grass. “Let us stay. Don’t let us go away.” Her thoughts tangled. Were there too many wishes? Did she have to rephrase? Was it allowed? She stepped over another patch of grass, but there was no more ground under it – just loose blades hovering above the sea. The dragonfly whirred into the night sky as Lilith fell through thick and humid air.

When Lilith came to, the light hurt. Through her squeezed lids the world twisted and whirled into molten gold. Burning stone pressed against her cheek. She opened her eyes a little more. She lay on the stone shelf above the sea. The ripples sent sharp sparkles in her eyes. The roots of pine trees hung high overhead. The golden cliff wall breathed like an open furnace.

An amber shape shifted on the wall. Lilith froze. A gigantic lizard lifted its shiny golden nose. Two glowing eyes blinked and looked at her.

“Who–” she choked on the blazing air. “Who are you?”

“I don’t remember,” the creature said. “I hid for too long. I forgot.” Its breath licked her skin like fire. Lilith winced.

“Everything hurts,” she said. “Why are you hiding?”

“People are afraid of me,” it said. “They throw things.”

Heat rolled from its scales in waves. Lilith pressed her palm to her bleeding forehead.

“There’s so much heat coming from you,” Lilith said. “I can’t stand it.”

“I know,” the thing said, “I always make things too hot.”

“So leave, then.” Lilith eyed the shimmering golden wings. “You can fly. Go away. Leave.”

“This is what you’ve been telling me,” the head nodded. “But where would I go if I no longer know who I am?”

The creature looked at Lilith, but Lilith couldn’t answer. It hurt to think.

“You are not afraid of me, even though you’re looking at me,” the thing said and stared at something in her eyes. “And I can see me in your eyes.”

“It is too hot,” Lilith closed her eyes and lay back on the stone. “You’ll burn the whole island.”

She couldn’t see anything anymore, just glaring red through her shut eyelids.

“I won’t,” the voice said softly. “I remember now. Thank you.”

The wings flapped like sails on fire. The air swelled, too hot to inhale. The heat rushed upward. The world went dark and quiet.

Lilith was unconscious when she was rescued from the cliff by a climber. A fisherman had seen her from the water. He had gone to collect his nets early because purple clouds appeared on the horizon, shooting electric bolts. He swore he’d seen Lilith glow like a star on that cliff perch.

The storm that followed prevented any transport from reaching the island. The villagers hid inside as the skies opened up, unloading a wall of water. The rains continued for a week as Lilith was recovering at home. She slept a lot and dreamed of a golden dragon flying over ice caps that she had never seen.

When the rains finally stopped, she went outside and didn’t recognize her garden. So much green had grown over the yellow grass it looked like a new land. Her parents were tying tomatoes back to the supporting stakes. A dragonfly landed on a cornstalk and swayed on it. Its large green eyes seemed to be watching her.

“Thank you,” Lilith said. She knew she wouldn’t be sick again.