by M Sawyer
Her mind swam. She felt she was finally in the flower garden in the hospital courtyard instead of watching it from the window.
***
The forest never looked so foreboding.
The Shadow huddled under the shelter of the Claw Tree. Rain poured from the night sky in torrents. The trees kept most of the water off, but she wouldn’t have cared if she drowned. She choked and whimpered as tears ran down her face in streams, dripping onto her knees that she pulled into her chest.
So close.
Nolin and Melissa were gone now. Who knew for how long. Maybe they’d never recover at all. Nolin would forever be out of the Shadow’s reach.
She’d have patience. No matter how long it took, she would wait until she could take action again.
The Shadow reached through the cover of leaves to touch the bloody scab on her scalp where Nolin had ripped out a handful of hair. Thunder boomed around her.
She didn’t want to be here. She crawled out of the shelter and sprinted in the direction of the house, flying over the familiar rocks and fallen trees in the freezing rain. She could run this route in her sleep.
The dark windows stared blankly, with no signs of life inside. Paul wasn’t home yet.
She slid out of the trees and across the yard, relying on the rain and darkness to conceal her. The back door was locked. She tried the knob, then put her lips to the keyhole and blew. The latch clicked inside the knob; she turned it and pushed the door open.
The silent house stood still as a photograph. She climbed the stairs, squishing the soft carpet between her bare toes. The stairs creaked like whispering ghosts.
Nolin’s door stood open a few inches. The Shadow pushed it open wider. Her stomach clenched. This room, the memories, would always haunt her. She doubted that Nolin remembered, but the Shadow would never forget.
She stepped into the room and clicked the door shut behind her. The plants on the dresser drooped like sad children. The Shadow flopped on the stark bed, suddenly sleepy. She stretched out on her back and stared at the smooth white ceiling until her eyelids grew heavy.
***
She didn’t hear Paul come home. She didn’t hear his footsteps on the stairs, the creak of his bedroom door, or the muffled sobs from his room.
He didn’t notice the damp footsteps on the carpet. He couldn’t hear the soft breathing in the other bedroom, and he never opened Nolin’s door. The rain stopped, clouds sailed into the distance, and the sky opened to the winking stars.
The trees didn’t speak to each other. They didn’t know what to say.
So they stood silently, waiting, and watched.
Part Two
Ten Years Later
Chapter 17
THE BABBLE OF voices and clattering keys grated on her nerves. Melissa adjusted the microphone of her headset and clicked yet another phone number on the computer screen. Three rings in the ear of her headset, each one a fly she longed to swat away.
“Hello?” chirped a female voice on the line.
“Hello, my name is Melissa,” Melissa said in a canned, pleasant voice. “Would you be interested in taking a quick survey about the upcoming local elections?” The words rolled off her tongue. She’d given the same survey dozens of times a day for over a month; the words were branded into her memory.
“Um, I’m actually on my way out the door right now...” stammered the woman on the line.
“No problem; is there a better time I could call?”
“Not really.”
“No problem, you have a good day now.” Melissa hung up before the woman could respond. She leaned back to peek down the row of cubicles to her boss’s chair on the end. Hopefully, he hadn’t listened in on her calls that day. He’d been pushing the employees to finish the surveys, to say it would only take a moment, to start with the first question before the unfortunate person on the other end was off the line. No matter how hard Melissa tried, she couldn’t make herself care. She almost always hung up first.
She turned back to the endless spreadsheet of numbers. The empty survey form had been open for the last nine calls. She hadn’t submitted a single thing that day, and she’d been working for almost five hours. The supervisors who checked the surveys cared little for excuses. A low completion percentage was grounds for probation.
Melissa peeked over at her boss again. When he set off to the break room with his empty coffee mug, she decided to take a quick breather.
Her cursor flew as she opened Google and typed in her ex-husband’s name.
The usual results popped up in the search. The website for his law firm. A few mentions of his awards and high-profile cases he’d worked on. Some newspaper articles. No social media.
She clicked the link to his firm’s site, Styre Law. The familiar web page popped up with Paul’s picture in the upper right corner. He looked older, with even less hair than he’d had ten years ago and even more gray. Bags sagged under his colorless eyes. Her stomach clenched.
Ten years ago next month. She hadn’t seen him since he’d walked out of the hospital, leaving her alone with Nolin in the mental ward. He’d never contacted her since sending divorce papers, which she’d promptly signed and returned. She doubted he’d contacted Nolin, wherever she was.
He never removed her or Nolin from his insurance. Both of their treatments were covered. Child-support checks had arrived like clockwork each month until Nolin turned eighteen.
Now Melissa’s only source of income was this job, taking surveys for outside companies for nine dollars an hour. She made enough to cover the mortgage, utilities, a bus pass, and a hundred dollars per month for food and anything else she needed.
She clicked through the website, skimming his biography though she’d read it a million times. The website said he practiced in Maxwell, a town a few hours north. It listed his company address and phone number, both of which she’d memorized.
Often, she fantasized about meeting him on the bus or out at lunch. In her imagination, she screamed at him, swung her fist into his face. Sometimes she thought about turning up at his office, picturing herself much taller, glaring down at an unsuspecting secretary, demanding to speak to him. He’d appear, unable to conceal his surprise, and she’d say something that would cut deeply. She was never sure what. From then on, his only goal would be to earn her forgiveness, no matter what it took. She’d withhold it, just so he could know how much she’d had to bear on her own. Not just since he’d left, but before that, when he’d leave for work as early as possible in the morning and, in the evening, not come up to bed until she was already asleep, sometimes not at all. He’d let her waste away in fear and depression without trying to pull her out.
He’d left her long before he’d moved out. That was the unforgivable abandonment.
She knew she was being irrational. He did what anyone would have done in his situation. He’d been generous to send money, at least for a while.
But he’d left her with Nolin.
The rational part of her mind wondered what life would have been like if he’d stayed. Maybe she’d be happy, maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she’d still be in and out of the hospital, staying shut in the bedroom to ride out her highs and lows. Nolin might still live at home.
No, she thought, Nolin still would have left.
She heard her boss’s dry cough. She should get back to work.
As she closed the browser window and clicked back to the empty survey form, the third tab in her browser flashed, announcing an email. She opened the message. Despite the contents, a summons to the floor manager’s office, she felt nothing.
***
Melissa rode the bus home three hours early. The piece of her mind that lived in the real world whirled—the sliver of determination that carried her from day to day, reminding her to eat a scoop of peanut butter or a handful of crackers a few times a day, to pay the power bill and do laundry.
Fired.
How will I pay the mortgage now? her rational self cried. How will I f
ind another job?
While her rational mind chattered, the rest of her felt still as death.
The bus stopped. She exited to walk the half mile home, not noticing children playing in the yards, dogs barking through fences, or whispers of the neighborhood housewives as they sat on their porches. She didn’t hear birds singing, didn’t see blossoms opening on the trees, or feel the cool spring wind in her hair. Every inch of her felt numb. She reached her empty house and let herself in.
Five years had passed since Nolin’s disappearance, since the day Melissa realized she hadn’t seen Nolin in days and that her things were gone. No note or any sign of a good-bye. That was the day she locked the door to Nolin’s bedroom from the inside. There’d never been a key to that room. She never intended to enter it again.
Without Nolin, the emptiness of the house seemed massive. Melissa could almost hear it—a distant, low howl like wind in a faraway tunnel. Years later, she realized that it wasn’t the house.
The emptiness was inside of her.
Paul’s abandonment was nothing next to Nolin’s. Some small piece of her, an important piece, had disappeared with Nolin. The last shred of hope had fled, leaving her completely alone.
She wasn’t worried about Nolin; she could take care of herself, and she wouldn’t want to be found. Melissa didn’t look. It was better this way.
With shaking hands, Melissa made herself a cup of tea. The hot liquid soothed her rattled nerves, brought life back to her numbed body. Nothing was wrong. She’d find a job. Everything would be all right. Then she noticed the mug she’d chosen: the white mug with pink polka dots. The one she’d used as a child. The one Nolin had always used.
Her eyes filled with burning tears. Before she could stop herself, she hurled the mug against the kitchen cabinets. It shattered, raining tea and ceramic shards over the counter and floor.
They’d both abandoned her, Paul and Nolin. She didn’t know whom she blamed more.
Anger. A tiny point of heat glowed within her. Melissa held onto that, clung to the scraps of strength that still burned somewhere inside her. It was all she had left.
***
Miraculously, Melissa managed to sleep that night. Shreds of dreams floated in and out of her mind. A familiar dark eye appeared. She caught a glimpse of dark hair, a smooth cheek, a chin. Never the whole face. The smell of the woods filled her, strangling her from the inside, wrapping her in terrible memories.
Stop it, she thought. Just let me forget.
The images swirled together. She felt cold wind in her hair, numbing her face.
A whisper broke her sleep, the words too low for her to hear. The whisper repeated, louder, again and again, until sharp words hissed in her ear.
You never tried to find me.
Melissa’s eyes snapped open. The bedclothes were tangled around her. She was cold with sweat. She sat up, her head spinning, taking in her surroundings until she remembered she was in her bedroom, in her own bed, safe.
Surely, she’d dreamed the whisper.
Still, she felt unsettled.
She had to go to the bathroom. Heart thudding, she slid off the bed and padded to the master bathroom. She stopped.
No, not that bathroom. She still rarely entered that bathroom. She’d never showered there again, preferring the bathroom in the hall instead.
She stumbled toward her bedroom door and noticed a strange sound. She smelled wood, fresh air.
Her blood froze. Slowly, she opened the door and peered out into the hall. A bead of cold sweat rolled down her spine.
On the other side of the hall, Nolin’s bedroom door stood wide open. Trees thrashed in the wind outside the open window.
No.
That door had been locked for over five years. It couldn’t be happening again. It was quiet for so long.
Leave me alone, she pleaded in her mind. I can’t help you. Just go away.
Melissa thought she heard a tinkling laugh, so soft and strange it might have been the rustling of leaves outside. It could read her mind. Melissa was sure of it. She clamped her hands over her ears, forcing the horrible laughter out.
“Leave me alone!” Melissa shrieked. The girlish laugh assaulted her again though her hands pressed her ears shut.
Chapter 18
THE CHILLY MORNING breeze bit at Nolin’s legs. She dangled her bare feet over the edge of the roof, swaying them back and forth and pointing her toes like a dancer. The headstones in the surrounding graveyard cast long fingers of shadows in the dawn, splitting the early sun into pale yellow slices on the frosty grass.
She loved the graveyard in the morning. She breathed the sharp air and soaked in the silence so she could carry it with her the rest of the day. Mist hovered like ghosts. She felt alone, like she and the ghosts were the only ones in the world, hidden behind the wall of trees that separated the mortuary from the network of narrow back roads. She could have pretended she was anywhere, not just a few hundred miles from where she’d grown up, on the other side of the woods she’d watched from her bedroom window as a child.
She’d already been on her morning run through the woods. Her cold skin was slick with sweat and dew, but she felt warm and alive.
A cherry-red Camry rumbled down the long gravel driveway, kicking up pebbles and blaring classic rock. It jerked to a halt under Nolin’s window. The music stopped like someone had cut it with scissors. Rebecca, with her mass of red spirals pulled into a ponytail, got out of the car and swung a black duffel bag over her shoulder. Though it was only April, she wore a black tank top with no jacket. Sleeves of colorful tattoos wrapped around her arms. Rebecca looked up at Nolin, honey-colored eyes twinkling behind her glasses.
“Don’t do it!” she called. “I don’t want to clean up the mess!”
“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t want to splatter guts all over your new car,” Nolin replied, grinning.
“Damn straight you wouldn’t.” Rebecca cracked a smile and sauntered to the door of the mortuary while she fished a bundle of keys from a pocket of the duffel bag. “I’ve got plenty to do today. You’re welcome to come down to watch if you want.”
Nolin nodded. “There’s a funeral today,” she said. “I mowed and trimmed yesterday, so I’m free.”
“Okay, come on down when you feel like it,” Rebecca said. She disappeared into the building.
Maintaining a graveyard was well worth a free room in the attic of the old church. Eli, the funeral director and Rebecca’s grandfather, told her it was abandoned in the mid-nineteenth century before it was converted to a mortuary. Nolin thought the old church was beautiful with its dark brick walls, peaked roof, stained glass windows, and steeple stretching into the sky. The building had an aura about it; perhaps the lingering force of uttered prayers lived in the walls and held the place together for the past two centuries.
She’d felt more at home there than she ever had in Calder. Every morning and evening she sat atop the pointed roof near the steeple to watch the sun rise and set. Counting on something felt good. For the first time in her life, she could rely on something. She loved getting up every morning, knowing the sun would be there to greet her.
Mourners would arrive soon. Eli would have a heart attack if they saw Nolin perched on the old church like a crow.
Nolin bent down to grip the edge of the eave and stepped off. The muscles in her arms tightened as she swung off the roof and dangled in front of her second-story window. Sometimes, she liked to hang there awhile and watch the ground under her feet. No time this morning. She kicked a leg forward to rest on the sill of the open window, then pulled herself into the tiny room.
Nolin’s bedroom in the attic of the church had originally been a small storage room. It wasn’t much, just a twin bed and a two-burner range on top of a mini-fridge. The only other objects in the room were two cardboard boxes—one full of clothes, the other with books.
It was all she needed.
She slipped on a tee shirt and worn jeans; thrift store finds Rebecc
a had bought her when Nolin had shown up five years earlier with only the shirt and sweatpants she was wearing. Her worn-out work clothes felt soft and familiar on her skin. She slipped on her sneakers and opened the creaky door of her room. Her shoulders nearly scraped the sides of the narrow staircase as she descended.
When she reached the ground floor, a floral aroma filled her nose. The church was always filled with fresh flowers on funeral days. Morning light filtered through the stained glass windows, casting dancing colors on the tiled floor. Dust particles glittered in the blocks of colored light.
She always made herself scarce on funeral days. She couldn’t stand the tears or the heaviness in the air. All the crying, the whispering. It reminded her of the mental ward. Her stomach rolled as she hurried through the lobby. Before she disappeared down the stairs to the basement, she caught a glimpse of Eli in his office. He sat at his desk, writing, with his white hair standing on end and his jaw clenched.
The basement was bare and industrial compared to the upstairs, just a square cement room with a few tall, narrow, stainless-steel coolers and a door with a window at one end. Nolin peeked through the window of the old-fashioned embalming room. Rebecca stood with her back to the door, bending over the pasty white corpse of a middle-aged woman with cropped brown hair, massaging the arms to relieve the rigor mortis. The bottom of Rebecca’s black tank top inched up to reveal swirling tattoos nestled in the small of her back.
