Past Abandon

by Alice Ayden

  Natalie tried to picture Amber. The memories settled back into place like dust dislodged prematurely from a dresser. “He’ll find another one. I’ll be okay.”

  Natalie flinched when she heard her own words. No matter what she did...no matter what she saw, Natalie wanted to recognize her reflection in Grace’s eyes. “I have to survive. I’m the witness.” She lied down on the old dirt and stared at the stone ceiling. “Rachel then a Marie and Tiff made three. Amber couldn’t smile, and Sally’s scream lasted a mile. Jessica’s blood became a flood.”

  Natalie forced herself awake. The air shifted and thickened. Subtle noises outside quieted. “He’s coming.” Natalie forced herself to stand up. She smoothed out her hair and looked at her blood stained hands.

  “What if it’s not him?” Natalie wiped her face. She hadn’t seen a mirror in months, but she had to be decent just in case. The cellar door creaked opened. Natalie waited and dreamed of a police officer with outstretched gun or an FBI agent with his white sleeves rolled up. “Rescue.”

  Pity would surround Natalie for the ordeal. Maybe her mom would feel something other than disappointment. “I mattered. I did it. I survived. You didn’t think I would, did you?”

  Natalie waited. The open door tempted. Grateful for the impenetrable stove, Natalie had no chance of escape. She hated the horror movies when the evil bastard allowed his prey to escape only to hunt them down for more fun.

  Footsteps brought Natalie back to reality. “Not footsteps.” Natalie realized her own machine gun breathing punctured the air. Her eyes darted between the open door and the dark cellar. What if it wasn’t him? Johnston? He’d been warned, but warnings had a shelf life with Johnston. Natalie thought he enjoyed the threats and degradations from yet another broken rule.

  A huge pile of plastic landed in front of Natalie with a thud. Some hair peeked out from the wrapping. “He’s coming.” Natalie didn’t know if she needed to warn the new girl or herself.

  Natalie backed up as far as she could until she melted into the stove. “Relax. Stop shaking.” He expected fear from others; he demanded calm from Natalie.

  The girl in the plastic didn’t move. Natalie could barely see the top of her forehead, but she needed the new one alive and awake. If he was ready, Natalie couldn’t take the chance. She couldn’t survive again what she suffered those early days in the cellar.

  Natalie tried a few times to shift the plastic, but it collapsed back into place. She stretched her foot as far as she could and gently nudged the tarp. A cramp almost stopped her, but she kicked the plastic back and jumped.

  Natalie twisted her head to get a better view of the unconscious girl and leaned back as she thought about what it meant. After a few seconds, Natalie smiled. “I told you to stay out of his way.”

  Chapter 19: Brave

  Downtown, Cora had to bumper car through a group of camera toting tourists as she turned the corner. “Sorry, I’m discombobulated this morning and without wit. Could a wit up and vanish? Crawl away? Seep into the ground? Fly into the trees? Flush down the toilet?”

  The tourists gaped at her, turned their backs, and crawled away as they glanced over their shoulders every few seconds to make sure Cora didn’t spring at them.

  “Okay, not my biggest fans. No problem.” Cora hoped no one would tell the family she was downtown and not at her therapist. Cora was supposed to meet with her shrink three times a week. Cora hadn’t been for a month. She worried what her family would do when they found out she wasn’t going. “At least I can just say, I forgot.” Cora laughed. “There is an upside to amnesia.”

  In front of the stationary store, Cora twirled a plastic bag around her wrist. Even in public, Cora was more at ease and felt more unwatched then being with her family. She didn’t have to quickly change the subject or lob well timed, self-deprecating remarks to melt the tension. And she didn’t have to pretend.

  Something nagged at her. It scratched and clawed to get out – the unsettled feeling that something needed to be said or done or planned. “How did everything get so complicated? I don’t know why I am the way I am,” Cora whispered. “And I’m sorry, but why should I remember? If it’s so bad that I had to forget to deal, why would I want to remember? Why can’t I just be normal?” She’d had her little memory lapses since she was a kid. She didn’t know how it started or why. Therapists told her to take things slow, write things down, talk things out. She’d been diagnosed with amnesia and PTSD and things with too many syllables. For her, forgetting was normal. To others, she was broken and needed constant surveillance.

  A couple tourists meekly smiled at Cora as she talked to herself. They returned their attention to the shy colonials hiding behind white picket fences. Alternating purple, red, and yellow flowers climbed trellises adorned with signs indicating the year of each house’s birth. 1760. 1802. 1816. Across the road, the lone soldier guarded a small park with two hundred year old shady oak trees and benches for the weary.

  Sometimes, Cora pretended to be a tourist visiting Virginia for the first time. Other times, Cora pretended she had full blown amnesia able to forget her name and everything else. Where would she go? Who would she meet? She wondered if she’d have the courage to just leave town and disappear, but Cora knew she wasn’t that brave. If she was, she’d have been able to deal with things like everyone else. Maybe it would be better for her family just to disappear. Cora saw it in their eyes: weariness. Was it better to forget everything or remember all?

  A bell rang as the door to the bakery opened. Fresh baked cinnamon bread unleashed its weapon of knee buckling aroma. Cora looked past the iron gated Bed and Breakfast through the flags flying above the awning of the antique store to the oversized bakery window with the gooey chocolate frosted doughnuts. Their double glazed, extra milk chocolate topping beckoned her. They beckoned everyone. A bite of mouth watering fried chocolate comfort food.

  Some die hard cyclists flew past Cora in her chocolate trance. “Miss Austen,” one said.

  “Hey Cora!” another one called in a yellow blur.

  “Slow down!” a voice screamed behind Cora.

  Charlotte, Ausmor’s chauffeur, emerged from under the car hood. Her favorite pink scarf flowed in the breeze, and her usual cigarette dangled from her blood red lips. “Damn cyclists.”

  “When did you get here?” Cora asked.

  With one bony finger, Charlotte wisped her dark blondish whitish hair behind her ears and wiped her hands against her jeans before perfecting her bowl legged saunter. Charlotte’s real age hovered around eighty, but she had the skin of a twenty year old and the personality of an impatient twelve year old.

  Cora flinched. “How long have you known?”

  “That you haven’t been in therapy?” Charlotte studied the sky. “Evan.”

  Cora sighed. Evan: the smartest of the Austens and Morgans combined. She should have known, but that feeling merged with fear of what else he knew.

  “You headin’ for the holes?” Charlotte motioned to the bakery. “Get me a few. Sprinkles. No dust. Maybe a glaze. Blueberry scone if they got ‘em. And coffee. Extra hot. Plenty of sugar with a dash of cardamom and a couple extra shots of ‘spresso. Gotta be wired for later,” Charlotte added with a wink. She walked back to the car and stared at whatever fascinated her under the hood. “Just give me a few minutes to dick around.”

  Unfortunately, Johnston appeared from the shadows. “C to my J. What happened to your face?” He grinned.

  Cora touched her swollen lip and tasted salty metal. She didn’t know why Johnston made her skin itch and her bowels rumble.

  “For god’s sake, just spit the damned thing out!” Charlotte yelped.

  Cora ducked as a spark plug whizzed by her clinking to the ground.

  Charlotte returned. “Sorry about the near decap. Car’s as good as a soggy peach on a winter’s teat.” She spewed out a long dissertation about the car’s faults.

  The mating habits of pygmy hippos or cars? Cora wondered which she
knew the least about.

  “Damn spark plugs! Damn all the spark plugs!” Charlotte raised her fist to the heavens. “I need to consult the gods.” She stomped back to the car, jumped inside, slammed the door, and shook her finger against the unknown forces.

  Johnston stared at Cora as if expecting her to do something. He leaned in close to her. “If you could acquire an air of insouciance, perhaps all would be sanguine.”

  Cora shook her head to pinball machine the words into a better arrangement, but she realized her memories sifted through a rusty strainer. “Did I ever like you?”

  Johnston looked up towards the sky and shifted his tie revealing red splotches against his clammy neck as if he’d been hit or grabbed. “I must be patient with any accusation you might mistakenly make against me in your quest to regain the truth. So, I will absolve you now for any inconsideration.”

  “You absolve me? Are you a Borgia now?”

  Johnston’s beads of head sweat mutated. He allowed a quick glare to land on Cora before closing his eyes and pursing his lips. “We are the lowly relations.” He sighed to steady his voice. “If mother had only been born first, we would be the Morgans living at Ausmor.

  “You and I under the same roof? I’d rather snack on napalm chips.” Cora hadn’t wanted to inflict violence on anyone since the time she accidentally ate the chocolate covered walnut; it turned out to be Bitty’s own recipe of chocolate covered cauliflower. Gross.

  “You Austens think you’re so superior, don’t you?”

  “Think and know.”

  Johnston grabbed Cora’s arm. “So much braver than you were earlier. You should be nicer.”

  Cora jerked out of Johnston’s grasp. “Don’t. Ever. Touch. Me.”

  Johnston grinned. “You’re not the one who stopped me before.”

  Cora frowned. “What does that mean?”

  Johnston’s smirk sickened Cora. He hinted at things Cora couldn’t remember. She wished she could projectile vomit on demand. Or spit acid. Or rain angry crickets. “I’m starting to...” She hesitated to finish her thought. Cora hadn’t intended on saying it, but she wanted to know where it landed with Johnston. “I’m starting to remember a lot of things.”

  Johnston grinned. “Obviously you don’t remember everything.”

  Cora stepped back to get space between them.

  Johnston didn’t allow the space to exist for long. He lunged closer to Cora. “I guess I can say anything to you, can’t I? All I have to do is…” He looked her up and down. “…something, and you’ll forget.”

  It was the first time Cora realized forgetting didn’t have an upside. What has Johnston been doing to her?

  Johnston toyed with her. “What about Oliver?”

  Cora flinched. She didn’t immediately know who that was, but it sounded so familiar. “Oliver?”

  Johnston smirked again. “Poor Cora. You don’t even know you’re his. Natalie’s been in the cellar for so long, and it’s almost time for you again.”

  “Natalie?” Cora blinked as if trying to stay awake. She had to stay with it.

  Johnston laughed. “You know Natalie’s the key, don’t you?” He waited. “If you remember her, you’ll have to remember everything.”

  Cora shook her head. She hadn’t seen Natalie in years. Natalie had been one of the Stonston housekeeper’s daughters. They used to play together as kids. Then her parents…Cora closed her eyes and then opened them wide. She remembered. “No.”

  Chapter 20: Judgements

  Back in the cellar, Natalie sat with her back against the stove thinking of that first day.

  “By the time I was ten, I had killed more than Jack the Ripper,” a man whispered.

  Natalie recognized the voice. Slowly, she turned around.

  Johnston grinned. “Hello, Natalie.”

  Oliver sent his errand boy. How had he found her? Why had he found her? With the speed of a limping mail man, Natalie ran. She rushed through the alley praying she wouldn’t slip in the melting snow. She retraced her steps. Watch out for the trash can that had fallen. Careful of the dumpster. Where to go? Wait, didn’t a cop hang out at his wife’s florist shop on the corner?

  “He has Grace,” Johnston said.

  Natalie stopped. Cold air stabbed her face. She didn’t struggle when he blindfolded her. She didn’t resist when he pushed her in the trunk.

  “Why do I do this to myself?” Natalie hadn’t escaped that first day. She could have kept running. “Grace.”

  “How many months has it been?” Natalie shivered. “The cellar isn’t damp and dark. I’m not cold.” She glared at her light bulb nemesis, but it wouldn’t burn out even when she begged it to. It illuminated everything. “I don’t know what time it is. I don’t know what day it is.”

  Instead of the dirt and stone embrace, Natalie imagined an inviting blue sky with ripply clouds. The handcuffs and chain dug into her wrist, but, in her mind, she wore a tight bracelet. “Somewhere it’s...” The words stuck in her throat, and tears stopped her from continuing. She wiped them away defiantly.

  She used the stove to push herself up. On the stone wall, her fingers traced the mortar she’d worn away. Months before, the jagged bits would tear and lash. She couldn’t remember how long it took to get it smooth; her fingerprints might never return.

  Natalie breathed in the burning coppery stench of blood. “A field of fresh spring flowers after a morning’s rain.” The shadows menaced from the corners ready to pounce, but something unworldly did not wait to attack. Natalie wouldn’t be afraid of the unseen again. “No more horror movies. Another thing he took from me.” Natalie couldn’t remember the last one she’d seen.

  Natalie understood cruelty - at least from a distance. History books blandly described it; news reports coldly detailed it. Natalie wanted to look away, but the blood splattered and puddled. The violence. The violations. And the worst was the last. The last gasp of their lungs. The last beat of their hearts. The last moments before life surrendered.

  Natalie jumped up and peered around the cellar. “Why would I leave?” A lifetime of therapy? Coming to terms? Coping? Explaining? Justifying? Defending? “I should die here like the others.” She paced back and forth as far as the chains would allow. The iron stove groaned with each pace.

  “They’ll blame me, and what if...” The thought had occurred to Natalie before. “What if he’s killed?” All this time wishing him dead. Natalie’s thoughts raced to her future. “Someone will take the blame. Johnston will disappear. I’ll be the only one left. They’ll crucify me.”

  Natalie covered her eyes and collapsed with her back against the stove. The dead handle dug into her back through her sweatshirt, but she didn’t flinch. She rolled back and forth as if rocking Grace. “I’ll answer their questions. I’ll tell them what they want to know. Then I’ll leave. I’ll take Grace and start somewhere fresh. They’ll never find us.”

  The new one lay crumbled about eight feet away. She couldn’t move far with her hands tied behind her, and black rope wound around from her ankles to her thighs.

  “Relax,” Natalie said.

  The new one peeked at Natalie. Her shoulder length blonde hair clomped to her neck from the sticky blood.

  “You’ve been drugged.” Natalie remembered the disorientation when she first arrived. Everything looped like a broken horizontal hold on an old TV.

  Natalie pried the stove door open and grabbed the red journal. She held it tight slamming the door shut again with a squeak.

  “If I were you...” Natalie flipped through the pages looking for her place. It didn’t really matter what she said. The new one wouldn’t have a lifetime to parse through memories searching for subtext and hidden meaning. “Pray.”

  “Why?” The new one whispered.

  Why? Everyone wanted something, but what did he want? Natalie had plenty of time to conjure an answer to the same question she’d asked herself a thousand times. She didn’t know.

  Natalie studied the new toy.
She knew her, but Natalie couldn’t say the names or write them in the journal until the end of each chapter. He wanted one chapter for each name, and keeping the names until the end haunted. The cops. The family members. He imagined them feverishly racing through the journal’s every sadistic twist and tortuous turn desperate for the identity. Was it their daughter? Their sister? Their fiancée? The agony of reading the details of suffering would overwhelm those still clinging to hope. Sometimes Natalie thought about her mother reading the journal. “Who’ll write what happens to me?”

  The new one moved a few inches, but she fell headfirst. She quickly lifted her head and spit dirt out of her mouth. She didn’t cry. All of them cried. The ground saturated with tears, so why didn’t she cry? “Why are you doing this?”

  Natalie lifted her chain. “This isn’t voluntary. I’m like you.” But not really, Natalie thought. He didn’t touch Natalie; he didn’t torture. He didn’t have to. Not anymore.

  How would they - the ones who came before - judge her? A survivor? Or would they say it wasn’t enough? “Should I have resisted?” Fought back? Tried to escape? What about their families? Natalie’s stomach churned. “They’ll hate me.” She stood up and strained as far as the chain would allow. “What about Cora? Is she starting to remember?”

  The new one laughed. “I wish he’d kill her already.”

  Not a normal response, Natalie thought.

  “Don’t let Johnston hurt me again.”

  Natalie sat back down and watched Tour Guide Anne drift in and out. “Johnston’s not the one you have to worry about.” Natalie glared at Anne. “I never liked you.”

  Chapter 21: Connections

  Maines meandered through the café. Families, business people, and singles with books ate inside. Grand Maeve chatted with the waitress at one of the outside tables.