Shadows Gray

by Melyssa Williams

  I consider chucking it at his head. He didn’t even blink when he saw me. Is anyone that unobservant, especially normally astute Israel?

  “I didn’t say anything,” I mutter.

  “Yeah?” Israel shuts the freezer and fridge doors and looks at me with his eyebrows raised. Finally. Finally he’s going to notice how grown up and even pretty I look. “Well, you should be saying something.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t pretend like you don’t know. Just how, why and where did you take the Blue Beast? Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

  “Of course not, you notice everything,” I reply sarcastically, and cross my arms over my chest. Suddenly the V of the neckline seems too low and I am uncomfortable in my skin. Not that Israel has noticed.

  “Well?” He pushes. His eyes are concerned and narrowed. He stares at me and yet he doesn’t even see me. “Where did you go?”

  “I went to do laundry,” I answer. “Maybe you’ve noticed I’m out of clean clothes?” I gesture half heartedly to my dress. He doesn’t move his eyes off mine.

  “Do you understand how much trouble you would have gotten in if you’d been pulled over? Do you have that kind of money to pay that fine? Because I don’t! And I don’t know if you expected me to come bail you out for driving without a license because let me tell you, I’d probably let you sit there for a while first. That was really irresponsible, Sonnet.” He looks at me like he’s chiding a little girl for sneaking a cookie or a puppy for biting his pant leg. I feel like a little girl now, and I resent it.

  “You’re not my parent, Is,” I shoot back. “You hardly any older than I am! Don’t boss me around.”

  “I’ll boss you around whenever I feel like it, Sonnet,” He steps away from the refrigerator and moves towards me. I back up. “That is my car and it took me hours of blood, sweat and tears to get it. If you want to learn to drive, I’ll teach you, but for goodness sake, don’t presume to take it. What if I had an emergency that I needed to get to?”

  “You’re just an intern – I daresay they can get along without you there helping them save lives, Mr. Hero.” That sounded much less petty and immature in my head. Now I am behaving like a little girl as well.

  “Yes, I’m just the intern. The intern who needs to learn as much as he can so that he can take that knowledge with him when he leaves! Do you understand how important the education I am getting here is? Do you understand that if we leave here and end up somewhere poor and full of disease that I can help? That I can bring back knowledge of antibiotics, penicillin, cleanliness, surgical procedures?” He slams his big fist down on the counter, making me jump. “Sonnet, if we go back I can make a difference! I won’t have to just sit there the way I used to as a boy and watch everyone I love die! I won’t be powerless. I won’t be impotent. I’ll be useful. I can save people.”

  I simply stare at him. I didn’t know this was why he works so hard, why he stays up late at night, sometimes doesn’t come home. “I didn’t know,” I say weakly. “I just thought you liked medicine.”

  “I hate medicine,” Israel replies, passionately. “I hate watching people suffer. I hate blood. I hate mistakes. I hate second guessing myself. I hate the responsibility. But I do it for us. For everyone we will meet who might need me. I do it for you. I won’t stand by and watch anyone else die that I could have helped.”

  I don’t know what to say.

  “How did your family die?” I ask softly. He has never discussed them with me before. I get the feeling it’s now or never, in terms of finding out.

  “Cholera. One of the worst ways to go. My mum, father, sisters and brothers. I was the only one who survived it.” He rubs his face tiredly. “Now do you see why I am finding out as much as possible about this century? Why I work so much? Why I’m angry you took the car?”

  “Yes,” my voice is small and miserable. “I’m sorry, Is.” I move towards him and wrap my arms around his waist. He holds me and rests his chin on my head the way he always does. I feel his hand on the small of my waist through my satin dress. I have long forgotten my dress now and even my night out.

  There is knocking on the door.

  Israel pulls away and lets me go. He looks even more tired now and sinks down in a chair at the table. I go to answer the door, tripping on my way over in the blasted heels.

  “Hello,” I tell Luke as I swing open the door and let him in. He has dressed up too, I’m relieved to see; in a starched burgundy colored collared shirt and slacks. The color of his shirt and my dress even match well. I had a fear that he would be wearing his frayed jeans and I would feel like an overdressed idiot. He looks at me and whistles.

  “That’s some dress, Gray,” he clears his throat. “You look stunning.”

  Aha! Stunning! That was the word I was hoping to hear after the fiasco in the kitchen.

  “Really?” I find myself turning around like a show-off. What is wrong with me?

  “Yes,” his face is wreathed in smiles. I can smell his familiar scent of soap and spiciness. “Very much so. Are you ready?”

  “Mmhmm,” I start to walk towards him but am stopped by Luke glancing over my shoulder with his friendly smile.

  “Luke Dawes,” he says, extending his hand to someone behind me.

  I am sandwiched in between him and Israel suddenly.

  “Israel Rhode,” Israel clasps his hand but his smile is not as ready as Luke’s.

  “Ah. You, um, live here? With Sonnet?” Luke asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Ah,” Luke says again, looking uncomfortable. “I didn’t meet you when I was here the other night.”

  “I was probably working.”

  “Ah.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well!” I chirp in. “I might be gone late, Is. I’ll see you when I get back, okay?”

  I practically shove Luke out of the doorway and speed walk down the rickety steps of my porch.

  Luke catches up and takes my elbow. “He looks like someone you won in a raffle,” he says. “Bit intimidating, don’t you think?”

  “Who, Israel?” I laugh. “I guess so, when you first meet him. He’s grumpy because I stole his car. He’s not so bad once you get to know him.”

  “Car thief, huh?” Luke pretends to look impressed. “You’re a mystery, Gray. Speaking of cars, this is mine.” He stops in front of a silver pickup truck and opens the passenger door for me. I sigh, looking at my feet and tight dress and wonder how to climb up in a ladylike fashion. Finally I manage to struggle my way up and in. Dressing up is for the birds, I think. Luke crosses in front of the pickup and gets in the driver’s side.

  Driving is wonderful, I think. Driving is a miracle. It takes me forever and a day to walk to the coffee shop and we are there in less than ten minutes in Luke’s car. He parks nearby and opens the door to the truck for me again, helping me down by holding onto my elbow. I almost step on his foot in my heels, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

  Inside, the small place is bustling with people. The artists stand proudly by their works and everyone mills up to talk with them and compliment them. There are caterers in their pressed black and white uniforms with large platters of wine and tiny bits of finger food. I help myself to olives and cheese squares on a frilled toothpick, but leave the wine alone. I am unsure that I could pass for the legal drinking age, and besides I grew up drinking wine like water - - everyone did in that time frame – and don’t see the attraction of it. Luke doesn’t take a glass either, but keeps one hand on his plate of appetizers and one on my elbow. I’m not sure if he’s afraid of losing me in the crowd or if he’s simply being chivalrous. He leans over and whispers something in my ear. I am distracted by the noise around me and also by having him so close to me and have to ask him to repeat what he said.

  “There’s something I want to show you after this,” he says. “Something I thought of when I was going through my photos this morning.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll show you later. J
ust have some fun. Here, have some of whatever the world this is,” he offers me his plate.

  We do have fun. The people are loud and friendly and it isn’t difficult to make small talk. I recognize some as regulars from the coffee shop. We wander through the room, looking at all the paintings and drawings and photography. I tell Luke that his skills with a camera are better, and mean it. He holds onto my elbow the whole time and I feel secure and grown up and wanted. Two hours go by and it feels like half that time. Finally, we’ve seen every painting, every piece of artwork and photo, talked to everyone who looks approachable or familiar, and eaten several plates of appetizers. There is nothing to do but end our night and cross the first thing off my bucket list. I feel very accomplished indeed.

  “So, what did you want to show me?” I ask, after climbing back in the truck. I kick off my heels and breathe a sigh of relief, wiggling my toes.

  Luke starts the truck and pulls out of the parking space. “I was looking at some photos I took this summer: still-lives and landscapes and stuff. I spent some time out on the edge of town, photographing these old dilapidated buildings and farm houses. There’s quite a few out there that are just falling apart, roofs caving in and windows boarded up, things like that. Abandoned. They make great shots. You’d be surprised at how many people want shots of that – old Americana and stuff. The most expensive shot I ever sold was one of this field that used to have a house; now there’s nothing left but the chimney in the middle of a field of wildflowers. Anyway, I remembered being there and this one house in particular; there was some garbage around and I thought maybe tramps were living there. So I got a couple shots and got out. It got me thinking that if Rose is staying somewhere, it could be she’s playing house somewhere like that.”

  “That’s a possibility,” I agree. “It’s not unheard of for the Lost to do that if we can find a place. I think that’s a great idea, Luke.” I’m getting excited. “Can you take me there?”

  “Sure. Aren’t you working tomorrow?”

  “I mean tonight! Please?”

  “Gray, it’s late!” Luke laughs. “And it is REALLY dark out there. No streetlights, no electricity. Nothing. You don’t want to go out there tonight.”

  “But it’s on my bucket list!”

  “Breaking and entering is on your bucket list? You really are a little criminal, aren’t you?”

  “Please?” I say again.

  “In those shoes?” He glances down at my feet. “This isn’t town living, Gray. The places I’m thinking of are way out there and you’ll break an ankle in the dark.”

  “No I won’t, Emme made me practice until I could walk in these things on a tightrope!” I boast. Of course, I am completely lying. I almost turned my ankle twice in the art shop and had to grab at Luke to steady myself. I’m certainly not fooling him; he probably has bruises the exact shape of my fingers on both his arms.

  He contemplates in silence as he drives. But I have already noticed we are not turning towards my house; I’ve already won.

  Thanks to the miracle of automobiles, we have left the paved streets behind us for country gravel roads in less than the time it takes for me to rummage through his glove compartment for a flashlight and develop a plan.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Our first trek out of the truck and into the darkness is fruitless. We explore a rundown shack of a house that has no recent inhabitants other than bats and mice and raccoons. Walking in darkness in heels is every bit as difficult as Luke forewarned. I finally take them off and carry them, hoping against hope that I don’t step in something questionable or disgusting. Our flashlight beam isn’t the brightest, but it does illuminate enough to know that Rose isn’t here and never has been.

  “There’s another up the road a couple miles,” Luke says, starting up the truck again. I toss my useless heels behind my seat. My stomach growls and I wish the art show had something more substantial to eat than olives and cheese and fruit in the shape of flowers.

  The truck bounces along the gravel road. We are silent. I feel elated to be doing something to find my sister and scared both at the prospect of locating her or not locating her. How will I convince her of who I am? How will she react? Will she come home with me? And what if I’m wrong and it isn’t Rose after all? What if the only person we find is a crazed serial killer escaped from prison who buries us under the floorboards, never to be seen again? My imagination has never been my friend in stressful times.

  “There!” Luke leans forward in his seat, hunched over the steering wheel as he peers ahead in the darkness. “Did you see that? It looked like a light in a window.”

  I lean forward too. If there was a light, it’s out now.

  “Maybe it was the reflection of your headlights,” I suggest. We are close enough now to see the outline of a two story house. It’s definitely abandoned; half of it has collapsed from the weight of a fallen tree that still leans crazily into the rubble. There are junked cars in the field next to it; their shapes eerie lumps that loom at me. I expect the shapes to suddenly jump up and reveal their true forms: ogres and giants and trolls, but they are only cars.

  “Don’t park too close,” I whisper. “Here’s good.” I suddenly feel as though I don’t want to drive up with our yellow headlights and scare her, if indeed she is here.

  Luke stops the truck obediently and kills the engine. My heart in my throat, I get out. The dirt and weeds and rocks hurt my feet, but I don’t slow. I feel a premonition that I will find Rose here. It’s not like the nervousness of the last house, where we crept along, Luke whispering in an exaggerated voice and me laughing when a bat flew over our heads. I knew instinctively Rose wouldn’t be there and it was only a fun game we were playing. I am not having fun here and we haven’t even reached the house. I keep my eyes straight ahead, and I too, feel as though I see the briefest flicker of a yellow light, like a candle or a weak flashlight beam or lantern as it passes by a window, but it is gone so quickly, I can’t be sure. I blink hard and keep walking. Luke takes my hand in his this time, instead of my elbow. I lace my fingers through his and hold tighter than is probably necessary.

  “Hello!” I call out weakly. I clear my throat and call again, this time stronger. Only the silence of the night and my own echo responds. Gingerly we reach the house and I reach out my hand to try the door, which I realize is silly as half the house has collapsed and we could just as easily go through the gaping holes in the walls if we wanted. Somehow it seems disrespectful to do so. If there were a doorbell, I would ring it. It’s no surprise that when I turn the old knob, the door obediently creaks open. Luke shines the beam of the flashlight inside. Directly ahead of us is a staircase, to the right is the broken wing of the house where the floor is littered with boards and beams and broken glass, to the left is a small room with two doors. Past the stairway is a hallway, but the collapsed section of the house has reached it as well and it is nearly impassable. Here and there is furniture, they loom and list to the side the way the abandoned cars did outside. Their shapes are misshapen and lumpy and unrecognizable until the flashlight beam hits them and then they are clearly a chair here, a small end table there, a bookshelf with broken and missing shelves over here. There is a book open, lying face down as though the page where someone stopped reading is being saved, on the couch. Some of the pages have fallen out and lie on the floor. There is a line of cleanliness down the middle of a table, through the dust, as though someone’s finger had drawn along it as they walked by. Without knowing why, I shiver.

  “Hello!” I call again, ignoring my cowardice. My voice sounds stronger and clearer than I expect it to. “Is anyone here?”

  “Rose!” Luke adds his voice to mine. “Rose Gray, are you here?”

  “Through those doors or up the stairs?” I whisper to him. There is obviously no one here in this room with us, although the book and the line drawn through the dust suggest otherwise.

  “Through the doors,” he jerks his head towards the first one.

&nb
sp; “Great, a closet,” I mutter once I get up the courage to open the door. “No one here but moths.”

  We try the other and it leads to the kitchen. Luke shines the light around to reveal an old stove, a rusted and filthy kitchen sink, cans of unopened food on the floor where they had apparently tumbled out of the pantry and a broken chair lying on the floor. I could be wrong but it doesn’t feel as though anyone has set foot in this kitchen for years and years. And yet, I still feel a presence in this house, a sense of being watched, a feeling that I am not the only one holding my breath and listening.

  “Do you think the stairs will hold?” I ask as we enter back into the living area.

  “Beats me,” Luke replies, as he shines the beam of the flashlight up the staircase. It must be my imagination working overtime again because I think for a moment that I see a flash of something moving in the dark. I take the flashlight from Luke and without a word, I begin the climb first. The stairs seem as though they should shake and tremble beneath us, like the fragile things they appear to be, but they hold our weight well enough and barely creak with our footfalls. The more I climb, the more my flashlight illuminates and I can see the top of the stairway, the hallway to my left with doors to what I presume to be bedrooms over the kitchen area, and a gaping hole in to my right where the tree had crashed through and caused most of the roof to cave in. The cool night air comes through and lifts my hair, causing goose bumps on my arms and drying the nervous clamminess on my body. We obviously can’t go to the right and so I wind the short corner and reach out for the knob to one of the bedrooms. My fingers curl around it and I grasp it and try to turn.

  It’s locked. From inside I can hear a scuttling sound, like something scraping the floor or a body pushing itself away in a hurry.

  I look over my shoulder at Luke. He shrugs.

  “Hello?” I call softly though the closed door. “Is anyone in there? I won’t hurt you. Please open the door.”

  Silence. Nothing but silence.

  I rattle the knob. Still nothing. I press my ear to the door and listen. Is it my imagination or do I hear breathing on the other side? Like the feeling I would get as a little girl after a nightmare when I would huddle under my blankets and swear I could hear the breathing of a monster under my bed. I try to stop my own breathing but the harder I try, the more shallow and loud it seems and the more my heartbeat thuds in my own ears.