The Woman Hidden

by Lucas Mattias

  Nathan.

  He had broken into the house, destroyed it all and taken Clarice. Who should be dead outside by then. And probably her psychotic husband was still around, waiting to…

  A snake. Jason noticed when the corner of his eyes captured, under the light that kept on blinking, a huge albino snake with eyes of a scary green sparkly shade on the central island of the kitchen. The animal was easy to identify, even in that situation, due to the dark marble of the counter. And the snake was facing him, ready for the attack.

  Before Jason could confirm that sighting with Marco, the snake slipped away, dragging itself across the floor and the shards of glass, briefly crawling on his feet and disappearing towards the living room. A shiver of horror moved up his spine and arms, but Jason ignored that response from his brains and followed the snake to the living room, ignoring Marco’s calls.

  He passed by the stairs and found himself in front of the fireplace again. The snake was gone.

  He looked around, lost in his own searches.

  “Clarice?”

  By allowing himself that moment of silence, ignoring the calm sound from the fireplace and the howling of the wind entering his house, he heard a sob. Followed by another one.

  The origin was not quite certain and he looked around. He needed a sign.

  “Clarice?” He called again and noticed when, from the corner of the room beside the fireplace, he saw a white figure move. The snake.

  There was a gap between the fireplace and the wall behind it, with its huge rectangular windows covered by plain and dark curtains, and Jason ran to that gap.

  And there was Clarice, recoiled and hugging herself among sobs and crying.

  Jason sighed, relieved, and fell on his knees, not sure how to touch or help her.

  “Clarice.”

  She jumped on Jason, embracing him with her weak and bandaged arms.

  “I heard your screams… I ran…” Her voice failed between the sobbing, but Jason didn’t care. He didn’t want to heart, he was just happy to see her well.” He was there. Outside, Jason…”

  “I’m here, everything’s…”

  “He was here!”

  Although she had tried to scream, her voice came out in a not expected shrill sound, muffled by the tears and her crying. Jason held her and let Clarice sink her face in his shoulder again, her tears warming his body.

  He had trusted himself to protect her. He had trusted his security system, his ability to protect whoever in need.

  Who was he kidding? He was uncappable of that and had almost lost Clarice for a second time on the same day. He couldn’t stand that no more.

  With care, he lifted her and took her in his arms, carrying Clarice back to the sofa. He laid her again, replacing the fallen blanket around her body, that still shivered with fear, adrenaline, the non-stopping crying. Marco, by the kitchen’s door, watched them, not sure on how to proceed.

  Jason looked at his son with the same insecurity. He didn’t know what to do, what he knew was that it would be impossible to sleep in peace that night. With a nod, he pointed the stairs to Marco, who didn’t struggle about going up and locking himself in his bedroom, for security matter, even.

  Clarice was almost asleep again when Jason gave her a kiss on her face and stood up, ready to the waking night until he could guarantee everyone’s safety with the light of the day and a proper protection to the deck.

  As he certified himself she was warm and stood up to check the fireplace again, he saw her.

  Michelle was in front of the flames, observing it all just like a guardian angel. If only she were one. She opened a smile, but Jason ignored her and grabbed the armchair beside the sofa.

  “You cannot sleep.”

  Jason turned the armchair in a way it could be near the fire and Clarice, but giving him a strategical view of the surroundings. Holding the fire poker, he sat as comfortable as he could, but not so comfortable he could eventually sleep. It would be a long night.

  “I won’t.” He mumbled in response to the ghost. If he couldn’t ignore her, the least he could do was to answer in a way neither Marco nor Clarice could hear.

  “The end is near, Jason.”

  He raised his eyes to her, without apparent reactions.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “It will all end soon. The snowstorm is coming.”

  Jason really wanted to understand what that meant, but before he could take the question out of his chest, Michelle had disappeared again.

  It would be a long night.

  Depression

  “July 4th, 2012.

  Allow yourself the suffering. I heard it recently and soaked the idea in to myself. Allow yourself the suffering. And what do you do when the suffering is already big enough to the point it doesn’t fit inside you anymore?

  I also heard that, in pain, the best to do is to surround yourself with friends.

  And I’m alone. I know part of the blame is on me, but I find myself in pain when I realize all that is good grows apart from me, my inability in keeping people around me disgusts me, disturbs me, takes my sleep away. He knew the companions would make me no good and tried to help. Now, as much as they made me no good as he says, I miss them. I miss a friendly word. I miss a hug when all I get is pain.

  Living hurts me. Breathing exhausts me. I don’t want it no longer, sometimes I wonder. What is the reason of suffering so much in life when death seems so pleasant? When death seems an open-armed comfort, just waiting for you?

  I know I’ve already tried this way, I’ve already tried the death and he saved me. Once more he saved me. And it hurt. Not only the physical pain from attempting to leave this plane, but also the untouchable, knowing he sees me as a coward, when I just started to believe that my actions are more of courage.

  I no longer want to live. I see no sense anymore. It would be cowardice to him, it would be cowardice to my son and all the legacy I tried to build…

  But I no longer want it. Suddenly, dying does not seem so scary or terrible no more, not when I feel, day after day, like an animal hurt, alone and lost in the woods, not even sure how it got there or how it allowed itself that much suffering.

  I don’t want to live anymore.”

  I

  The cliff extended itself for miles around it, making a perfect ring around the lake that, miles below reflected the grey skies and loaded with not at all friendly clouds. Despite the constant and firm wind, the pines looked morbid, quiet, watching the quietness they were immersed in, as frozen as the surface of the lake. He liked the view – more in the summer, when it was possible to enjoy the sun and the mild weather – and the calm it brought to him, mainly in troubling moments like the one he was in.

  Marco inhaled the stolen cigarette again and let the wind blow the smoke away, carrying some of his worries along. From there he could see the part of the lake that neared his house, way below and to the east, with its rocky shore filled with dark and shining stones, something magnificent and rarely seen. That part didn’t bring him good memories, it was actually a place that still give him the creeps, thus he’d rather enjoy the view on a further, higher ground, almost in a metaphor to symbolize how much he had overcome from that night, the one that took place three years before.

  Jason wasn’t well. Clarice wasn’t well. He didn’t even know if he was, either. Things were circling the drain and the powerless feeling regarding that crisis only made him more bewildered. Marco knew he was only a teenager and that those problems shouldn’t make him worried, but he was dealing with a crisis from his father and another one from Clarice, which shouldn’t matter so much to him, but that were already important without even trying to be. He feared his father would go back to drinking and change, throwing all those years of sobriety away. He feared Clarice would finally get herself killed. Clarice killing herself wouldn’t affect him that much, it would be hard, painful, but it would pass. He was sure, though, that that end would be a one-way ticket to darkness for his fath
er.

  And Marco hated the darkness.

  The snowstorm was coming, he knew, and he wanted things to be less bad whenever it happened. He also knew the snowstorm had a supernatural ability to bring to the surface the worst in people, that in that moment of confinement, of being surrounded by an endless white, of seeing yourself freezing in a chosen prison that people revealed their true nature. He knew it. He feared it.

  While his father seemed to drag himself around the house, taking turns between looking after Clarice and feeding himself, the woman looked barely alive. She had spent the past days sleeping, which almost led Marco to believe she was in a coma and that calling 911 would be a better option, until she reacted to Jason’s call the morning before and accepted having something light to eat so that she could start recovering. Although he had committed himself into helping his father with the bandages and the care to Clarice, Marco felt extreme discomfort and not only by the violated intimacy, but for knowing the paths a suicide attempt could bring to the people who are close to you.

  He had seen that before. He remembered finding his mother almost dead in the bathroom, the only difference was that she had drugged herself with countless medicine and not tried to cut herself and bled to death. He was only twelve and he needed to learn how to deal with the home first-aid, he needed to learn how to deal with death right on his face, praying every day his mother wouldn’t die and leave him behind. Marco also remembered ho that attempt had affected him and even made him consider, a handful of times, the same fate.

  And he had tried once or twice. The first time he took a whole tube of pills, but he was saved by his father in time. On the second time, he tried cutting himself, but he didn’t have enough courage to do it and gave up on the idea. Both times, the lecture he heard afterwards was enough to dissuade him from the idea for a third time. He got that his father’s way of showing love, often, was tough, but he frequently asked himself if those lectures about being a coward and abandonment had been really necessary in those situations.

  He didn’t think his mother was a coward. Let alone Clarice. Marco also didn’t think suicide was a sign of giving up or cowardice. Sometimes, mainly after talking to Laura about that, he thought that suicide could be, actually, a sign of bravery. Bravery when you let go the certainty of suffering in exchange for the uncertainty of what comes after it. Courage to accept the risks and put an end to the darkness that plagues the minds of many, creating discomfort zones that, most of the time, last for years.

  He didn’t know what to believe in no more. But also there weren’t many reasons to talk about suicide, not when there was a psychopath on the loose and a woman-target at his house. Not when all he wanted was the normality back to his life. He hadn’t in fact connected with Clarice in a first moment, but now he was starting to consider if it would be easy to say goodbye whenever she got ready to leave. At least it would be a goodbye with the hopes things would get better and not a goodbye to a closed casket.

  “It looked like an answer to my doubts.” Laura had told him once, when she opened up to him about the issue.

  An answer. He just wasn’t sure of the question Clarice was asking herself. Or his mother, years ago. He barely knew the answers he was looking for when he took all those pills, lying down on his bed.

  What if he looked for the answer without even knowing the question? And what if Clarice’s doubt was the fear of remembering her past or, perhaps, why she couldn’t remember anything? The search for answers visiting the village she had probably come from didn’t turn out fruitful, besides finding out she was a depressed rich-ass lady.

  Marco sneered. He didn’t know there was another type of rich lady. Could there be trophy wives who were really happy with heir lives? Or would all of them, at some point, get tired of the stagnation of being nothing but a pretty adornment to a rich and empty man? At the same time, he found it hard to picture Clarice, that woman who seemed to be so intelligent and her own person, as a trophy wife, a woman who grinned and faked pleasure in social event and who lived by the shadow of a man.

  But he also couldn’t picture his own mother that way. His father was not, in his entirety, an oppressive monster who owned an empire and who used the deceased wife as a beautiful pendant that would get him the compassion from others. Jason, however, was not an easy man. Not as a father, not as a husband. He knew that because it was scarred on his skin, though he had nothing to complain about; their relationship seemed to have been back on track again and he felt closer to his dad, even when the situation could have been better.

  It was fine. Yes, he was fine.

  Marco threw the cold cigarette butt in the air, making it swirl in long circles before disappearing into the distant and clouded surface of the lake.

  Finally, he stood up, putting himself on his feet, and cast one last glance towards the vastness of the lake, so imposing and mysterious, slowly inhaling the cold, cutting air around. The fog was increasing and the cold, too, it was time to go back.

  Marco checked his shoelaces, making sure they were properly tied up, took a sip of water before putting the bottle back in his backpack again and placed it on his back, already heading towards the trail and starting his light run back home.

  Going down was easier, and he did it in a paced jog, calm, just to set the blood pumping against, slightly speeding his heart up and oxygenating his whole body. Before he could get tired or lose his breath, Marco realized he was almost home, now able to see in distance the cabin and the temporary tarp protection his father had produced to cover the broken glass from the deck.

  Another night of taking shifts with his father to watch the house was to come. Since that last attack, neither of them had slept well. Jason would always take the first watch, keeping himself strictly awake with the crossbow in hands, ready in case her psychotic husband decided to come back. After a couple of hours, Marco would take his position, always with coffee nearby, on the same prowl. For three nights, nothing had happened. Absolutely nothing. And they kept on waiting, exchanging the day for the night.

  The house seemed abandoned. When he walked in and left the backpack and the front, Marco heard nothing. He father must have been asleep or visiting someone at the town, perhaps grocery shopping. Clarice, he could bet, was probably out in his father’s room, trying to recover. Jason was still afraid of leaving her alone and it took Marco three long speeches so that he could understand that, in such state, she couldn’t do much by herself.

  Marco walked upstairs carefully, avoiding noises and, as he reached the upper floor, he sneaked into his father’s room just to check what he already knew. Yes, Clarice was lying among thousands of pillows and blankets, asleep. She didn’t look that pale or weak anymore, but she was out and Jason was not there.

  He tried to listen to the sounds, but his search turned out empty. His suspicions were on point and he was home alone with Clarice. He would take a bath and a nap before his father returned and reminded him of his shift, something that pissed him because of laziness, but that would go away as soon as that door was rebuilt. Soon, his father had told him.

  Marco opened his room door and, ignoring the darkness of shut drapes, he threw himself onto his bed.

  Something was not right. There was a rectangular shaped something poking him, something he didn’t remember having left there. As though as he were aloof sometimes and even absent-minded most of the day, Marco was extremely organized with his stuff. He always made his bed and tidied his whole room, always leaving everything in its proper places. That something that was bothering him was not supposed to be there and, in reality, he didn’t even know what it was about.

  He rolled on the bed, enough to be able to stretch and set away one of the drapes, and patted the bed looking for the unknown object that had lifted his curiosity.

  A small book with a black cover and yellow pages. It smelled of mold and old thing kept in the dark. It was even somewhat humid, which was even more astounding.

  Marco, with that little book in h
ands, jumped out of bed and walked to the door, locking it to guarantee that private moment. That object was not at all unfamiliar to him, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it tried to reach. It was the size of a regular appointment book and it had no identification that mattered on the outside whatsoever, except for a number printed on the low corner of the black leather cover: 2012.

  He opened it and the first page made his heart freeze for a second, a cold wind of unknown origin invaded his room and run over his back until reaching his neck.

  Property of Michelle T. Flyce.

  One of his mother’s diaries. He knew she had many and that also many had been kept by his father at the basement, while other were destroyed by reasons he didn’t quite remember.

  The mother used to tell him it was a doctor’s habit, something she had learned during her resident years, a way to keep all details from what she learned on the tip of her tongue and that, with time, had become a nice therapy, a place where she could say whatever she wanted without the fear of judgment from a third part. Despite his mother’s departure, Marco had never had such a close contact to one of those and, now, one of them was there, on his bed.

  But why?

  A gift from his father, maybe. Something to soothe him and remind him of his mother. It didn’t matter.

  He left the diary on the corner of his bed, closed, while he stared at his own hands. Even if that were a good intention of his father’s, he didn’t know if that was something he was willing to do. He didn’t know if he would find in it day-by-day descriptions written down by his mother or deep confessions that were too intimate for him to read. He missed her, of course, and he had missed her for the past years, but maybe the idealized memory was better than the dissected one.

  However, that small bug in his brain would sleep soon. The curiosity could be annoying and, most of the times, difficult to handle. And he wanted to know. He wanted to understand. It seemed almost incredible how coincidental it was to have found it in the very same day he had wondered about the reasons his mother had to try to kill herself. That was a diary from 2012. The same time.