Into the Darkness

by Andrews, V. C.

  Feeling defeated, I started for home.

  When I reached Mrs. Carden’s house, however, I smiled to myself, recalling how Brayden had characterized her as interesting because of the way she spoke to her clothing, her “errant children.” Many of the things he had said to me rolled through my mind. Right now, I wondered if maybe he wasn’t better off than I was when he was made to travel and hop from one school to another. If he didn’t make any satisfactory relationships in one place, he probably just shrugged and looked forward to another. Maybe it never bothered him to feel like a loner, and that was why he wasn’t so enthusiastic now about getting to know more people our age in Echo Lake. Was that sort of independence good or bad? Surely there was a point where you needed close friends. You had to feel you belonged to something, somewhere.

  When I reached his house, I paused and looked up at the bedroom window that had had a shade raised when I left for town. I stared up at it, surprised. It wasn’t raised now. Had I seen that because I was closer when I was looking up at it? When I had seen it before, had it been only an illusion caused by reflecting sunlight? Had the sun been that high by then? I couldn’t remember, but how could it have been up then and be down now? Had his mother come right back for some reason? Had her breakdown been less severe than it seemed? After seeing the portrait she was painting of Brayden, I couldn’t imagine it being less severe. What should I do? Go up and knock on the door again? Open it and call for him if no one responded? I certainly didn’t want to go exploring for myself again, not in there.

  In fact, every time I looked at Brayden’s house, something about it seemed different, whether it was the way the shadows played on the windows and the walls or the way birds, except for an occasional black crow, seemed to stay away from it, even away from the trees and the yard. Looking at it now, I could understand why Brayden wasn’t happy about staying there by himself. Even with the condition his mother was in, she was company, and of course, she was family. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to go through many days without either of my parents right now. Why was his father’s work so important to him, so important that it took precedence over his own family in what might be their greatest time of need?

  Sometimes, even with the silly little things I witnessed between my classmates and their parents, I felt that I lived on an island. There was so much that separated me from other girls my age, and boys, too. For some, my devotion to my parents wasn’t only not cool, it was bizarre. If anything, they accused me of being the immature one. I should be more self-centered, less responsible, and more daring. Who went through all these years without ever having seriously annoyed or disappointed his or her parents? It was as if because of that, I couldn’t be trusted. There were many times, like now, when I seriously wondered if I was too much of a goody-goody, if I enjoyed being Prudence Perfect after all.

  I paused in front of Brayden’s house and continued to debate what I should do. I did feel silly being frightened of a house. At least go up and knock on the door, Amber, I told myself. Otherwise, I would seem indifferent. I approached the house slowly, hoping that if they were really back, Brayden would see me and just come out, but the door didn’t open. I stepped up to it and knocked. I waited and then knocked harder. There was no sound within. I looked at the handle. Don’t do it again, I told myself. No one was home. He would surely have come to the door. Convinced that he wasn’t there, I turned and walked off his front porch and hurried up to my house, as if the horrid vision of that portrait in the attic was pursuing me.

  After I had been home for a while, I began to receive some phone calls from other girls at school who were friendlier to me than most, some of whom I had thought I might call. In every case, however, they were fishing for details about my dates with Shayne, hoping to learn more about the stories Wendi had been spreading. Only Marilyn Myers came right out and asked me if I’d had sex with him.

  “Is it true?” She quickly followed with, “I really wondered if you ever would with anyone.”

  “When I do,” I snapped back at her, “it won’t be just anyone, and it certainly wouldn’t be someone who puts making love to me on the same level as scoring a basket in a basketball game.”

  She giggled. “You sound like you did,” she said, “and now regret it. Right?”

  “Think what you want, Marilyn, but you’re right about one thing. If I did have sex with him, I would regret it.”

  “No one’s going to believe that.”

  “I don’t care. Look, I’m busy doing things that have some meaning. Thanks for calling with your concern,” I told her, and hung up before she could even think of a way to protest her innocence.

  I wasn’t really on any island, I told myself. That was another illusion I had created for myself. If I were on an island, I would be beyond the reach of all of this. Never before did I regret living in a small community as much as I did at that moment. The best thing about living in a city was that you could be anyone you wanted and anything you wanted, because you were constantly surrounded by strangers who didn’t know whether you were lying or telling the truth about yourself. You could find new friends just by crossing the street.

  I tried to calm myself by doing some reading, but that didn’t work. I couldn’t concentrate on anything I read. I was much too fidgety. I had to find something satisfying to do. Finally, I decided that I would prepare dinner for my parents and myself. I called my mother and told her I was going to the supermarket. “What would you two like?”

  “Oh, Amber, this isn’t why I wanted you to have free time. I don’t want you to be concerned about us or the house. I want you to have fun.”

  “I know, but right now, this would be fun for me,” I said as strongly as I could.

  She was silent, and then she asked my father what he would like for dinner. I could hear him in the background.

  “Amber Light is preparing it? Tell her to make what she made for my birthday.”

  “Did you hear that?” Mom asked.

  “Yes.”

  “If you continue to spoil him, what am I going to do when you leave for college and after you get married?” she asked.

  She was joking, of course, but maybe it was part of my problem that I couldn’t see myself leaving home to go to college. Like every other junior last year, I was told I should be considering schools. Some were looking for the colleges that were farthest away. Once going to college was mentioned, it was almost expected that you would say, “I can’t wait to get out of this place.” I never said it. Actually, I never thought of college as a form of escape.

  The only colleges I took seriously anyway were colleges in Oregon, especially Portland.

  “I’ll send home care packages,” I told her, “instead of you sending them to me.”

  She laughed. “Knowing you, you probably will. Okay. You know what to do,” she said.

  I set out immediately for the supermarket. I would be preparing blackened salmon with chipotle squash puree and mango rice. I thought I would make some brownies, too. Dad loved them. Having this to do kept my mind busy, and for a while, I really was happy. Unfortunately, when I turned the corner of an aisle in the supermarket, I ran into Megan Thomas, who had made the word ostentatious hip the year before. I could wait forever for her new word, but the moment she saw me, her eyes widened, and I would soon learn it. She looked so pleased at the sight of me. It was as if she had won the lottery. She stepped away from her mother quickly and literally turned my grocery cart around so that our backs would be to her.

  “Oh, I’m glad I met you. I, for one, never dreamed you would be so promiscuous,” she began. “In fact, I would have bet my college fund against it. I would have said promiscuity wasn’t anywhere near your vocabulary.”

  Before I could respond, she attacked me with machine-gun speed.

  “Tell me. What did he do to get you between the sheets? Were you always hoping he would be the one? I bet you were. Is it true he had to get the sheets washed before the maid saw it and told his mothe
r? Oh, was it painful making love for the first time? It was a little painful for me the first time,” she added, looking back at her mother.

  “I imagine it would be painful for you all the time,” I said when she turned back to me.

  “Huh?”

  “I hate to disappoint you, but you’ve been abused.”

  “Abused? What do you mean?”

  “Your ears have been filled with lies, and they’ve infected your brain and now your mouth. See your doctor or your dentist to have the word promiscuity extracted.” I spun my cart around sharply to walk away from her.

  I saw her glaring at me a few times before I left the store. I’d never had any great affection for her, nor she for me, but there was no doubt that she would rush right to her phone when she arrived home and elaborate on anything she had been told, claiming that she had heard something from me or that her questions had pushed a button, forcing me to reveal things I never would have otherwise. I realized now that this was one of those stories that never went away. They just got fatter and fatter until they exploded. Prepare yourself for more questions and stupid remarks like hers, I thought.

  I couldn’t wait to get home again and throw myself into the dinner preparations as soon as I unpacked the groceries. Mercifully, my phone didn’t ring again before my parents returned from the store. I had the table in the dining room set with our best china and glasses, a vase of wildflowers I had picked in the yard, and a bottle of Dad’s prize white Burgundy from France. When they arrived and saw it all, they were both delightfully surprised. Dad was already salivating over the aromas flowing from the kitchen.

  “Is that brownies I see?” he asked, nodding at where I had them cooling on the kitchen counter.

  “It is,” I said.

  “Oh, honey, this is wonderful,” Mom said. She started to help out, and I stopped her.

  “No, tonight you two sit, and I’ll do all the serving.”

  “But . . .”

  “You’ve been on your feet all day. Please,” I said.

  “I’ll just change, then,” she said. “Gregory? Are you going to follow your marching orders?”

  “Absolutely. I might even put on a tie,” he said jokingly, but he did come down to the dining room wearing one. Mom wore one of her prettier dresses, too.

  The dinner went perfectly. Dad was in a great mood because they’d had one of their best days yet at the store, and the orders for some of his unique jewelry pieces were continuing to build. He even thought aloud about the possibility of expanding the store. The video rental store next door was struggling and could go out of business any day, he said. “We could have the wall torn down between us, and we’d have double the space.”

  Mom was more cautious, but I could see the excitement in both their faces. Their energy, their joy, and our wonderful dinner did a great deal to drive the blues out of me. All of the gossip and cattiness going on around me suddenly seemed insignificant, but I was also wise enough to realize that when we’d be clearing the table, washing up the dishes, and settling into the remainder of the evening, all of it would come back at me for sure.

  And it did, with a phone call from one of the girls, Evelyn Laskin, who sat next to me in two of my classes but rarely spoke to me. I made the conversation short, cutting her off immediately with “I’m on another call.” Lying to her didn’t seem wrong or weak of me. It seemed the perfectly right and normal thing to do.

  I looked in on my parents in the living room.

  “I’m taking a walk,” I told them.

  “Oh? I thought your nature walker was gone for a while,” Dad said.

  “But not nature,” I told him, and he laughed.

  They returned to their reading, and I left the house. Tonight we were having partly cloudy skies with a slightly stronger breeze. The darker shadows cast by the clouds seemed to slip and slide as if they were undecided about where to rest for the night. It was funny. For years, I had looked at Brayden’s house unoccupied, but it had never looked as dark and empty as it did tonight. I guess it’s all my imagination, I thought, and walked on, imagining him alongside me. When I reached the place where he had taken me off the road, between the Knotts and Littlefield homes, I paused. Do I dare? I thought, and surprisingly, with little fear or hesitation, I began to follow the path he had led me on that first night.

  It was quite a bit darker, but somehow I didn’t step into any puddles or mud. I went through the woods easily and arrived at the small lagoon. Just as on that night, I saw all sorts of birds. The clouds shifted, and more stars began to appear. The twinkling light danced on the surface of the lake. Why can’t it always be like this, I thought, quiet, beautiful, and inspiring? When you thought about it, most of the grating and unpleasant noise in this world was made by human beings. Even the persistent caw of a crow had a place in the symphony of night. From way across the lake came the murmur of voices and some laughter. Either some people were in a boat that I couldn’t quite see or they were out in their yards facing the water. It was difficult to make out words, the sounds undulating and perhaps driven this way and that by the breeze. Strangely, all of this beauty suddenly made me feel even sadder.

  And then I heard what sounded like branches cracking off to my right, deeper in the forest that surrounded the lake. It could be almost any animal, I thought, but my heart tripled its beat. The cracking stopped and then started again and then stopped. Any other girl, even most of the boys I knew, would surely turn and hurry away, but I didn’t. I couldn’t explain it, but not only was I not afraid to remain, but I took some steps toward the sounds, listened, and moved ever so slowly between the saplings and older trees and bushes, listening keenly and studying the dark shapes ahead of me.

  When I was a good ten or fifteen yards in, I saw a shadow slip between two trees. It was not a deer and certainly not a fox or a raccoon. I didn’t think it could be a bear. Could someone have seen me enter the woods and walk to the lagoon? Had I been too deep in thought to hear him following me? Of course, there were criminal events here and there in some of the other communities between Portland and Echo Lake, and a girl had been attacked on the highway when she had car trouble the year before. Was I a fool to be so oblivious to the possibilities that hovered around me in this world? Had the relative safety of life in Echo Lake made me careless, innocent, and naive after all?

  As these thoughts occurred, my skin tingled with the cold chill that rushed up and down my spine. I saw the shadow move again. This time, I was positive. There was someone there. Who would be walking alone in the woods at this time of the night? I hesitated, took a deep breath, and thought about turning and running as fast as I could, but I didn’t. I would never be able to explain why I had come here at night alone to anyone, but even more difficult to explain, especially to my parents, would be why or how I drove back my fear and, instead of fleeing, walked slowly toward the place where I saw the shadowy figure. From what well had I drawn this surge of courage? Why did I have such confidence? Or was it simply arrogance and stupidity? I took another deep breath. Finally, I paused and called out, “Who’s there?”

  For a long moment, there was nothing but silence. Even the breeze stopped playing with the leaves, and I could no longer hear the sounds of music and voices floating over the lake. It was as if I had crossed into another, darker world, fallen through some black hole, but unlike Alice, I hadn’t dropped into a Wonderland but into a nightmare. I was too frightened now to cry out again. My legs seemed frozen. I could barely breathe.

  “Who’s there? Is someone there?” I called. I waited for about ten seconds, and then I decided to turn and go home.

  But it was too late.

  “What are you doing here?” I heard on my immediate right, and spun around to see Brayden Matthews.

  13

  Thoreau

  Starlight was captured in his eyes. The rest of him seemed to be cloaked in a shadow that began to lift away with a shifting cloud. For a moment, he looked larger, his shoulders broader, but I soo
n realized that was all part of the shock of seeing him appear seemingly out of nowhere. I stood staring at him, speechless.

  “I thought it was you, Amber,” he continued, his voice soft, soothing, chasing the trembling out of my body. “When I heard someone walking around at the lagoon, I told myself it could only be you this time of night. Who else cares or knows how beautiful it is? Who else would come out here now? But why did you come tonight? Tell me, what brought you?” he asked like someone full of wonder, hoping to hear that it had something to do with him, something magical.

  I wondered myself and stood there caught up in his question, but then I realized that this wasn’t a dream. He was really standing there beside me.

  “The bigger question is what are you doing here tonight, Brayden? And why are you walking in the woods like this in the darkness?”

  “I wasn’t walking through the woods. I heard you come looking for me. I’m going to stay here for a few days,” he said casually, as if it was nothing surprising.

  “What? What do you mean, stay here? Why? What about your mother? Isn’t she still at the clinic? And your father? Is he still there? I don’t understand what’s going on. When you left, you implied that you would be gone for a while.”