“Where are your shoes, Sarah?” The woman asked without turning her head.
“I'm not sure.”
“Did you lose them again? Can't you stop losing them?”
“I, I...” For the first time Sarah was afraid.
“I think I saw them by the piano, little one.” The woman turned towards her now. She was strikingly beautiful and smiling, but her blue eyes told a different story, a painful story.
“Okay, thank you,” Sarah managed to speak. She tried to smile in response as well, but realized that she was now weeping. The beautiful woman was fading out on the edges, just like the grey that lay past the trees and the streetlamp. But her face was becoming clearer, more in focus, and familiar.
“Mommy?!” Sarah sobbed, the tears were now coming in torrents.
“Sarah, shhh...time slips now. You must be quick. Your shoes...”
“I miss you, Mommy!” Sarah cried as she ran across the porch towards her mother. But it was as if the porch was growing and the swing moved further away from her. She couldn't close the distance, even as her legs moved faster.
“Sarah, everything is slippy now. She knows you're here. She knows you see!”
Sarah's mother was now shouting, but it was if her words were drowning or being sucked down a drain. The beautiful woman that once sat on the porch swing was now almost completely faded away into a swirling grey shimmer.
Sarah shouted, “Mommy, I love you!” But it was too late.
The woman was gone and all that remained was the moving porch swing, which now was incredibly too close. Sarah tried to stop, but her legs didn't quite get the message in time and she soon found herself slamming painfully into the side of the swing, and then flipping through the air. She floated in the breeze just long enough to glance- albeit upside down- through the window behind the porch swing. The piano, she thought, and then she crashed. The landing, however, was far softer than what she had braced herself for. Someone had planted a very full flower garden around the edge of the porch and it broke Sarah's fall.
She lay there for a moment, catching her breath, and calculating her injuries. Nothing seemed to be broken. Bruised, yes, but it could have been worse, much worse. The smell of the yellow flowers was comforting after the brief encounter with her long dead mother. How long had it been? Twenty, no, twenty-five years? The sound of the piano pulled her out of her thoughts, and thrust her back into her present reality. Time to get moving. Sarah climbed out of the flowerbed, and up onto the porch.
The music seemed to be getting louder now. The porch swing hung in front of a large window and to the left of the window, was a windowless door to the house. She knocked, thought about it again, and then turned the doorknob. The door opened up, revealing a small room, possibly the family room, with two recliners along the left wall and a sofa along the right. An ugly, knitted, orange and brown afghan was thrown over the back of the sofa. She stepped further inside the room, all the while taking in her surroundings.
A tick-tocking sound echoed out from behind her. A large grandfather clock sat against the wall by the open door. She watched it for a moment, almost hypnotized, everything was so familiar. Again she turned back towards the sound of the piano and walked past the sofa through a narrow archway and another room. There, in the middle of the room, was the piano. It was of the stand-up variety, which was a bit odd, being in the middle of the room, but also because of the height of the thing. In fact, it was impossible to see over the instrument, as the ceiling and the top of the piano were only inches apart. Sarah was scared. Something was wrong here. The air was too thin. It made it hard to think, to breathe. Still, her mother, had said something about, about... What was it? What had she said? Her mind went blank, almost as if the music was leading her away from the answer. Follow me. It seemed to sing to her. Follow me through the trees. Through the trees, come follow me.
All at once, Sarah felt as if she was going to faint. The little butterfly lights began to spin around her eyes, and she dropped down to her bare knees. Tears were once again streaming from her eyes and the piano music seemed to be playing much too fast. The music was speeding up, faster and faster, and with it, the words follow me, come with me, through the trees, follow me. The butterfly lights were speeding up with the music. Faster and faster and faster, it was all moving too fast, and the air, oh, the dry, thin air, was spitting out false answers and false names. And then, Sarah saw them. Setting on the floor by the left side of the piano were her small pink tennis shoes.
“The shoes!” Sarah cried out, as she dove from her knees to the pair of tennis shoes and wrapped them up like a fumbled football.
The music stopped. The singing stopped. Calmness and clarity seemed to unwrap itself in the room. With her mother's words now on the front of her mind, she pulled loose the laces and slipped on her shoes. They almost immediately made her feel somehow safe, and strong all at the same time. Composing herself, Sarah stood up and walked around to the other side of the piano. The piano bench, as she expected, was empty. What she hadn't expected and what made her realize that it was time to get out of this house were the crimson fingerprints on the ivory keys.
For a moment, Sarah just couldn't look away, and her eyes took in the blood trail that led from the keys, to the sheet music, to the long stemmed wine glass that sat on the edge of the piano bench. The next thing she knew she was running. Her shoes seemed to glide over the wood floor without even making contact. She was fast now, and was already out the front door and leaving the small house with the porch swing in her past. She ran and ran and ran, never once turning back. Down the gravel driveway she ran and past the streetlamp. Suddenly, she realized that things had changed again. The grey “boundary” now seemed further away than before, and in its place, on the outside of the outline, was a forest. Come with me through the trees... Her mind slipped back to before. Everything is slippy, Sarah.
She was surrounded on all sides by tall, shadowy trees. They seemed to go on forever into the sky, like the bars on a prison cell. The thought made her shudder. Looking back the way she came, she could no longer see the house, the driveway, or even the streetlamp... only trees, trees and more trees...and a fence? Somehow in her haste, she had missed the tall wooden fence that cut through the tree line. Her eyes traced along the high fence, as she turned around in a circle. Behind her was a large intimidating iron gate. She looked back the way she came once more, but things had slipped again, and now there was no path and more and more trees. One way street, she thought. She took a look down at her shoes, remembered her mother, and took a step towards the gate. As she got closer, she could now make out a sign that hung across the cold looking bars of the tall gate...Gate 17.
“Gate 17.” Sarah whispered, and the doors began to swing open..
As she stared through the growing opening between the gates, a gust of wind blew past her and with it, a tumble weed. It made her think of a Western. Some old cowboy movie. And then she noticed the posters tacked to the fence next to the opening gate. She walked closer and examined the posters. The first, was a picture of a small, orange cat with a message declaring a reward for the return of the missing kitty. Underneath that poster, hung a missing dog poster, another cat poster, and then a missing person poster. The picture on the poster was blurry. She strained her eyes, all the while stepping closer to the fence. Her eyes focused and then her heart stopped. It was a picture of her as a teenager.
After the initial shock, Sarah regained her composure and ripped the poster from the fence. The picture of her on the white page was changing again, almost aging. She stared at the magic between her fingertips. In the photograph her hair grew longer, and changed styles, as did her clothing, and then finally it stopped around her thirtieth birthday. Sarah carefully folded the poster under her arm and walked through the gate.
Chapter 3
New Beginnings
4:15 AM
Sarah's eyes sprang open. The room was pitch-black, but she immediately knew she was back. Back in
her bed. Back in her single bedroom apartment, and judging by the size of her feet, back in her adult-sized body. She flicked on her bedside lamp. The harsh light heightened the shadows beneath the crows feet at the corners of her eyes. She rubbed the back of her hands against her face, and looked at her cell phone. 4:15 AM. The feeling, she thought. She set the phone back down and picked up her little red bottle of prescription pills. She went to pop one pill, and then thought better of it, and put two more in her hand.
“4:15 in the morning, when everything is possible and everything is grey...” Sarah said to the still room.
She swallowed the pills, and shut her eyes… tight.
8:30 AM
Her eyes snapped open some four hours later. She awkwardly reached for her phone on the nightstand, already dreading the coming reality, but still holding out a small hope that there still might be time.
“Shit!” She screamed and jumped out of bed.
She frantically ran to her closet and grabbed the first power suit in her line of sight. Then she raced into the bathroom and brushed her teeth while simultaneously trying to throw her hair up into a “chic” ponytail. Somehow she managed to get ready in only fifteen minutes. When she gave herself one last look in her full-length mirror, she was actually pleased with how well she had pulled it all together so quickly.
After thirty minutes of reckless-defensive driving on the I-10 freeway, with far too many close calls, Sarah arrived at her office in downtown Los Angeles. The mini city, within a city was buzzing already. Sarah’s mind was also busy replaying and dissecting her odd dream from the night before. The edges of the dream were already fading quickly. Sarah forced her mind to peer through the growing grey cloud and remember, but it was all a bit too much for her, and her head was pounding. Of course the headache could have also been the result of taking one too many sleeping pills, but hey, who’s counting?
“I need coffee first,” Sarah croaked.
Once she woke up her brain, she would try to decode the dreams. Since she was already late, she immediately ran across the street to the nearest barista to arm herself with her weapon of choice, caffeine. As she stood in line, her mind began to wander. She wondered if she would ever get a good night's sleep without a little help from her friends. Unconsciously, she tapped her jacket pocket. The pill bottle was still there. It was a new thing to have them with her, because she didn’t ever take them during the day. Oh no, but it made her feel better just knowing that they were there.
That can’t be normal, but then the sudden vibrating and ringing of her phone in her other pocket brought her back to the now. She grabbed the phone and answered.
“Hello?”
“Sarah, it's Rebecca.... is everything okay?”
“Yes, yes, I'm walking in right now.” Sarah said as she hung up the phone and hurried across the street into the tall building with the tiny windows.
Sarah swallowed the last taste of her coffee as she exited the elevator. The coffee hadn’t been hot enough, it was luke-warm to be exact. She hated that about swanky coffee shops that overcharged for drinks, but she was late and she needed it, so she sucked it down in record time. Sarah tossed the empty cup in the trash can and made her way down the long corridor towards her office. She had only made it a few steps before her assistant, Rebecca, popped up and began walking with her.
“Good morning, Sarah.”
“Morning Bex. Okay, what do you have for me?”
“Mr. Collins called he wants to reschedule your lunch meeting-”
“Again? Damn. When?”
“Friday.”
“Friday is no good, I have the Oakland presentation.”
“I know, I told him. You’re free on Tuesday though.” Rebecca said as she handed Sarah a stack of mail.
“Great, set it up.”
She entered her office, sat down at her desk, and quickly began slicing open her mail with a sharp letter opener. She tossed her mail into two well defined piles- Junk, and Not Junk.
“Richard Braverman called to see how the website optimization was going?” Rebecca continued from the doorway.
“Same as yesterday. Next.” Sarah replied.
“Tom wants to see you in his office. He asked you to see him before you do anything else.”
Sarah stopped sorting letters and finally engaged her assistant. “What’s his mood like?” She asked.
“He seemed fine. I told him you were on a call.”
“And that’s why I keep you around.” Sarah smiled at Rebecca. “Give me five minutes.”
Sarah’s smile faded not long after Rebecca left the room. Her head still hurt and the caffeine wasn’t helping yet. She continued to mindlessly flip through the mail, stalling for a few more minutes, before she’d have to inevitably go see her boss. She looked down at the envelope in her hand. Surprisingly, there was a hand-scrawled address on the envelope.
Now this is different, she thought. Sarah looked at the return address. Homewood, Nebraska. She felt gooseflesh awaken on her arms. An overwhelmingly powerful curiosity grabbed a hold of her. Her grip tightened on the letter opener as she hurriedly sliced through the envelope, but her finger got in the way. A tiny bright red drop of blood formed on the end of her finger.
“Damn it” she cried and stuck the pricked finger in her mouth to stop the bleeding.
When that didn’t work, she grabbed a tissue and made a makeshift band aid. She opened the letter. Inside was a legal document from a small law firm notifying her that she had inherited her aunt's house and acreage in a small Nebraska town. Something jingled inside the envelope. Sarah turned it upside down and a set of keys fell out onto her desk. She picked up the keys and examined them for a moment.
“I didn’t even know she had passed,” Sarah whispered to the empty room.
Knowing she had stalled long enough, she put the letter and keys aside and left her office. She was still thinking about her late aunt as she made her way down the long hallway, but soon she found herself standing in front of the partially opened door of her boss’s office. Mr. Thomas Frank, the sliding sign on the door read. Sarah could see through the crack that Tom, what he preferred to be called, was busy typing away at his computer. She knocked on the door timidly. Tom looked up quickly. The expression on his face seemed to change multiple times before settling on a smile.
“Sarah! Good morning.” Tom greeted her.
He was a handsome man in his late fifties, with brown eyes and perfectly white teeth. Tom was all smiles this morning. He must not have known she was almost an hour late to work again. Behind his happy demeanor, however, Sarah detected a fake cheeriness to his voice that made her a little uneasy.
“Have a seat, please.”
“Morning Tom.” Sarah sat down in the leather chair across from his desk.
“Sarah, how long have we been working together... five years?”
“Seven, actually.”
“Right, seven. Time sure does fly.” Tom was pensive for a moment. His smile seemed to falter.
“Is everything alright, Tom?”
“Well, that all depends I guess.”
“On?”
“On you.”
“I’m not following you,” Sarah said.
Tom stood up from his chair and made his way around to the front of the desk as he spoke. “Sarah, as you know, with the economy being what it is, the company has had to downsize. Well it seems they want to scale down even further.”
“More layoffs?”
“So it seems.”
“I’m not getting rid of Rebecca. She’s as good as they get.”
“I’m not talking about Rebecca.” Tom was now leaning back against the edge of his desk. He looked down at the floor.
“So who then? I really can’t do this again. Hashing over who is disposable and who isn’t, it’s brutal. These are hard working people-”
“Sarah...”
“I can’t handle anymore tears. I mean these people need their jobs, it’s tough out there.”
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Tom put his hand up, “Sarah, listen.”
Sarah stopped talking and looked at Tom. He was no longer smiling. It took her only a moment to realize who was getting fired today.
“Tom? Me?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Sarah. This wasn’t my decision.”
“But why? I know I was a few minutes late, but...”
“Sarah, your job performance has been suffering for a while. We have been waiting to see how this played out, but you’re just not that same go-getter, ball of energy we hired seven years ago. The partners have noticed that you’re consistently late to meetings, you’re no longer meeting deadlines, and clients are voicing concerns about not being able to get a hold of you. Frankly, I think you’re burnt out. Maybe it’s time to take a break and regroup.”
“Tom, I know I haven’t been myself lately, but I’m just working through some stuff and I’m great at my job.”
“I know you’re good at what you do, but your mind is somewhere else. It’s better to end it on a good note than to let things degrade any further.”
“I can’t believe this! I have given this firm the last seven years of my life. 60 hours a week, weekends, holidays, this job is my life!”
“No one knows that more than I do, but maybe that’s the problem. Sarah, you’re young, smart and talented. You’ll find something else- another director position somewhere. I’ll give you a stellar recommendation. In the meantime, why don’t you take this as a blessing in disguise? You’re getting a generous severance package, so go on a vacation, enjoy your time off. Get your head together, and look, maybe our paths will cross in the future. My guess is you will be up and running full speed again in no time.”
“Is this effective immediately?”
Tom was silent. He nodded in the affirmative.
Peripheral Vision: A Supernatural Thriller Page 2
