Shadows Gray

by Melyssa Williams

  Now was like that time, but in the place of sunlight and deer I am staring breathlessly at shadows and Rose. She doesn’t move and neither do I for what seems like the longest time. I don’t think I am breathing. Finally I lift my hand and press it against the glass where the condensation has proven I am indeed alive and breathing. The second I move, Rose winces as though slapped. I see her feet step backward, out of that pool of dim light that bathes the sidewalk. She nearly disappears in that step, but not quite and with my heart in my throat I can no longer wait motionless. I whirl away from my window and thunder down the stairs. My house is quiet and dark and because I don’t bother flipping a light switch, I nearly trip on an end table as I round the corner at the bottom of the stairs. My toes throb from the collision but I don’t stop, ripping open the front door and stepping onto my porch. I have to stop my feet for a moment, willing my eyes to adjust to the dark and to focus on the streetlight and what lies beyond it. I cannot make out any shape, any woman standing there; only Gladys’ fence and her ivy that crawls up it in picturesque curlicues. I am sorrowed but not surprised to know she is gone, but I will not let the sorrow defeat me or cause me to sink to the porch and cry there in the rain, although God knows I want to. Instead I cross the street, not at a dead run now, but more cautiously choosing my footing, my eyes always several yards ahead of my feet. The rain is still coming down in sheets, soaking me instantly; my nightgown is drenched and cold and the varied coins that I have sewn into the hem over the years clank against my ankles. They feel heavy and like they could drag me down. There is enough rain collected in the street that I splash mightily with every step I take. I wrap my arms around myself for warmth and step exactly into the spot where Rose had been only moments before. I stay there, soaking in the light from the lamp, trying to feel her; her essence, her thoughts, her plans, anything. Anything that I can go on from here. It seems obvious now that she doesn’t want to be found, and yet isn’t she making herself known? Have I really stumbled upon her twice or three times now without her knowledge? That seems too incredible to be true, and yet why would she continue to hide from me?

  This is maddening. I am soaked. It is so dark. Why did I have to move into such a poorly lit community? This is the only street light for nearly two blocks. Whichever shadows Rose has disappeared into are in each and every direction around me. She could be anywhere. She could be four feet from me, watching, or farther away, running away.

  I call her name but my voice comes back to me, void and fruitless and in vain. I walk, calling, until my throat hurts and the shivering takes over. I walk, calling, until I can call no more.

  Then I go inside my house where I pick up Israel’s jacket off the back of the couch. I put it on, wrapping it nearly twice around my frame. I slip my arms into the sleeve and savor the warmth for only a minute. Then, my thoughts repeating an endless refrain of please, please, please, I dip my hands into the pockets. My fingers wrap around the contents and I pull out the car keys.

  ********************

  I debate the wisdom or folly of stopping to wake up Luke and ask for his company. For that matter, I could have brought Israel or even Prue or Dad (surely he has a right to this as much as I do). But I feel as though my sanity is reaching a breaking point and it’s as if I don’t want there to be an audience when I finally come to my own conclusion. And a conclusion is what I am looking for, what I’m driving towards. This shroud of mystery surrounding my sister is going to disappear like the mist tonight; I will make it so. My resolve doesn’t keep me warm and although my arms and chest feel better in Israel’s lightweight coat, my legs and especially my feet are chilled through. My bare feet work the pedals of the Blue Beast, my frozen toes clutching at the pedals. It would only have taken another moment to run upstairs and get my shoes, but of course, I was in no state of mind to be pragmatic. My hair, half of which is still braided from Emme’s handiwork and the rest taken out after she left, drips down my neck. I find the dial for the heater and crank it up as I turn out of town, the way we had gone when Luke took me to the empty house where I felt Rose’s presence as surely as I felt his next to me.

  I find the way with surprisingly little trouble. It’s as though I’m following the trail of breadcrumbs left behind from a little girl who wanted to be discovered. The road is bumpy but straight, the moon playing peek-a-boo with me through the pines the way it did before. The familiarity of that comforts me somehow. Other than that, the darkness is oppressive. If I thought my street was dark, it was a well lit crystal chandelier compared to this heavy blanket of black. It had taken me a few moments to find the switch to the headlights of the car but when I did they shone like a beacon, slicing through the night’s ebony cloak ahead. I drive.

  We pass the first house Luke and I had broken into. It sits, dejected and deserted, like a lonely ugly child at the playground that everyone has run off and left. I can make out the overgrown yard and the caved- in barn next to it as I drive by, not slowing. She isn’t there. I know where she is.

  The next house is my destination and it is dark and still and silent as I kill the engine. The same dead tree sits upon the same tumbled down side of the same house, the same sunken porch is right where I left it, and I can even see the tire tracks of Luke’s truck. There is no hospitable light, no flickering candle or lamp to welcome me.

  The butterflies in my stomach doing unbearable flips and somersaults now, I search Israel’s glove box and backseat to no avail. There is no helpful flashlight for my search. I leave the headlights of the Blue Beast on, shining brightly, and mere feet away from the front door. It is like a headlight, a spotlight on my destination. Through that front door. Through that front door and to my sister. I’ll make her see she has nothing to fear from me, that she can leave this place, that we can take her to meet her very own father, that we will live happily ever after.

  It will happen. I can make this happen. If only I could leave the car.

  It will happen.

  It is so dark and I am so very cold.

  ********************

  I have finally left the warmth of the car, leaving behind with it what seems to be all my courage and resolve. I am a strange mess of emotions as I turn the knob and push open the rusty, drafty front door. My stomach feels as though a hurricane is going on inside it, I am nauseous and shaky at the premonition of being so close to Rose that I almost touch her. I would not be able to explain to Luke or Israel or Dad why I know she’s here; she simply is as am I. We are breathing the same air, holding our breaths in the same places, as we find the valor to step forward and claim each other. The only difference is, I can’t see her. Yet I feel she sees me from somewhere in the dark.

  I speak and I astonish myself by sounding very steady and sure. Inside I am a quaking mass of jelly but to anyone listening, I am granite firm and stable. “Rose? Rose Gray? It’s Sonnet, honey, I’m here to take you home. Rose?”

  My steady, firm call echoes eerily in the stillness. The air feels thick with the hush that is nothing calling back to me. Nothing that answers me. Nothing that responds to my invitation.

  I begin the climb up the staircase.

  The stairs and what lies at the top of them is beyond the reach of the radiant headlights of the car outside. Five more stairs and I will be engulfed in darkness, swallowed by shadows of things I cannot see. Four. Three. Before I can lose what is left of my courage, I take the last two at once and am at the landing. My left hand grasps the old wooden rail with a desperation that I know turns my knuckles white even if I can’t see them. My other hand is clenched in a fist so tight that my nails make half moon shapes in my palm. It isn’t the darkness that is scaring me any longer; it’s the sound I can just barely make out. A soft whisper that at first sounds like a breath. A breath that becomes my name.

  Sonnet.

  “Yes!” I call. My voice is loud and painful to my ears.

  Sonnet.

  I nearly run to where I think I hear the voice. If my blind sense of directi
on is accurate, it’s the room with the mattress that I had been in earlier. The one I was sure had Rose on the other side of the door when I was with Luke, though he had heard no one. I fling the door open with such power that not only does it grant me entry, but it ricochets back again and slams shut with me on the inside. I can do nothing but stand still for a moment and let my eyes adjust to the dark. There should be a window, but instead there is only tiny slits of light on the wall. Where the broken window had been the last time I was here, there is now boarded up planks of woods. The mattress I can just barely make out, but there is no one atop of it. There is the crookedly hung closet door, it looms at me, but it is only a door, not a person. Not Rose.

  With my heart beating so loudly and my breath so labored it is a wonder I can hear anything at all, but I do.

  I hear the unmistakable sound of a key in the lock of the door that had slammed shut behind me as I foolishly rushed in, the scratching sound of a deadbolt being slid into place. The very, very soft sound of someone’s dreadful laughter.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It has been hours. I know because the moonlight visible through the slats of the planks nailed to the window became sunlight hours ago. It has also been hours since I bothered banging on the door, or kicking, or shouting, or whimpering. The rest of the time has been spent staying awake, which is getting more and more impossible by the ticking of my body’s clock. I am terrified to sleep; yet I want to sink into that blissful oblivion more than anything. My body aches and my head pounds and everything that dwells within me, from my kidneys to my heart to my lungs, feel as though they are stuffed with sand and weighing me down from the inside out. Even my hair feels heavy and oh, what a lovely pillow it would be…fan it out around my face and sleep…

  Stop it, Sonnet. Your family is far from here. This is no time for slumber. My thoughts take on a stern, reproaching tone, as if I were my own mother. I stretch my fingers, clench and unclench, watching my knuckles, chewing my nails, anything to stay awake. I stand. I sit. I don’t lie down. And to keep my mind busy, I remember.

  The monk, my favorite monk at the monastery, was young, surprisingly so. In my small child’s mind I had imagined monks to be old and wizened, stooped over and wrinkled. But this monk was young; he still had baby fat in his cheeks which were as smooth as the perfectly carved statue I sat on the floor playing with. I never knew his name, at my age I never thought to ask. I was still young enough to make friends with anyone who would have me, who would pay attention to me, and names or ages or genders didn’t factor. Prue had fallen ill the moment we’d arrived here and had been in bed since, and Dad was around, but not around for me. We had awoken to the sound of a flock of birds and our faces pressed to the very dewy grass. I remember opening my eyes, knowing I would not see what I had fallen asleep seeing, but instead something new, some place new. I could tell by the wet grass pressed beneath my cheek and the new smells that weren’t the same. Would it be nice? I wondered. Would I like it here? I spent so much time lying there, my eyes squeezed shut, imagining my new surroundings - a castle with a princess? A farm with horses for me to ride? – that I very lately became aware of breathing on my face. I lay very still, pondering if this hot stinky breath could be Dad or Prue, and then I heard a snort. With startled reflexes my eyes flew open of their own accord and I was face to face with a huge cow. I screamed like a baby and woke up Prue and Dad.

  We were in a field in springtime and later I would learn it was twelfth century Spain. After the initial shock wore off and after I had apologized most sincerely to the cow, we walked until we found the monastery. They welcomed us politely enough. Visitors were not uncommon; hungry, lost strangers were not uncommon either. We could speak their language – not that much conversation went on in that place – and we blended in as seamlessly as we always had. The lies dripped from our lips as easily as they had dropped from our own Lost ancestor’s lips. I didn’t even feel guilty for lying to monks, though oddly enough I felt guilty for not feeling guilty.

  My favorite monk was silent as a tomb, but he didn’t ignore me; he took me along as he plucked sweet potatoes from the ground in the garden or as he painstakingly copied the Bible, letter by Latin letter. I had learned to read by then, but my letters were terrible. Prue had no patience for teaching me and she would bark corrections at my funny shaped words and tell me I was wasting paper. But this monk wrote every bit as slowly as I did! He took all day to copy one beautiful sentence. He would decorate each and every curlicue, every hole and every loop. When he saw my interest, he handed me my very own quill and ink and let me practice and copy what he wrote and drew. It entertained me for hours, working in silence side by side; the only noise the sounds of us both scratching on the parchment. Gradually, Prue got better and the monks tired of Dad’s constant sampling of their wines and we spoke of moving on, finding our own place to live until some fateful night when we would leave Spain altogether. I cried that last time I embraced my monk and he gifted me with the quill I favored. I had it sewn into my nightgown but eventually it broke, snapped in several places, and the feathers on top all but disintegrated into my hem.

  I hear a rooster now, from a farmhouse that can’t be too far away. If only I could crow as loudly, maybe someone would hear me and come pounding up the stairs to my rescue. Instead the only pounding is that of my heart because I am still frightened of the laughter I had heard as the door locked last night. The rooster makes me wish for Prue’s rooster stew. I must be very hungry if I am salivating at the thought of that chewy, tough bird. She used to make rooster stew in Portugal. Henrique loved it. I didn’t, but I’d give anything for a big steaming bowl of it now.

  “Father says we must be grateful for the way the Lord provides no matter what,” said Molly. The daughter of the missionary was my age, but far nicer and sweeter than I would ever be. She had seen me make grimaces at the stew and watched me pretend to gag and was hoping no doubt, not only to keep me from punishment from her father, but also from everlasting punishment from our heavenly Father. Molly was forever trying to save my soul for me since it was obvious I wasn’t putting in much effort myself.

  “Yes, Molly.” I sighed. She was right, as usual. I forced some of the greasy, chewy lumps down my throat. Dad wordlessly passed me some fiery hot powder that was made from ground peppers that transforms the taste of everything; I dumped a liberal helping into my stew and could no longer taste anything as my tongue promptly felt as though it had burst into flames. Coughing and sputtering, I pushed back my chair from the table and reached for the water which was kept in a large basin in the kitchen. It was almost bone dry and so, still hacking and wheezing, my eyes watering, I rushed out the door and down to the river. I knelt down, my long skirts dragging in the mud, my hated corset making it difficult and painful to bend at the waist, and drank mouthful after mouthful of warm river water from my cupped hands. Finally I had to come up for air, pushing the wet, snake-like tendrils of my disheveled hair away from my face, and saw Henrique standing nearby, watching. Henrique was always watching and the thought of being alone with him always sent shivers up my spine. He was most likely harmless, but he was the sort who tortured insects and frogs and pulled apart worms with his teeth and all in all, was not someone I wanted to be left alone with at the side of a river with no witnesses.

  “Drink?” I offered. Which was ridiculous because I didn’t have anything with which to give him a drink in besides my own hands, and that was certainly not a possibility.

  “No, thank you.” He moved closer. I debated splashing mud in his eye and making a run for it. “You look nice today.”

  I didn’t look nice that day. I hadn’t washed my hair in weeks and it was a hot summer. However, Henrique had no standards. I wore a skirt and a corset that while despised by my aching lungs, did wonders for my fifteen year old figure. Therefore, I evidently looked nice. Nice to chop into small pieces and add to his rooster stew, I thought.

  “Umm, thank you. I’m heading back now. Don�
�t want anyone to think I’ve choked to death!” I said, flippantly. I hesitated briefly seeing as how Henrique was in my way if I wish to end up back at the missionary’s house. I gathered my spunk and marched past him, head held high and the urge to cough still in my throat and lungs. He didn’t follow me back to the house but I knew he stood there watching as I left.

  That next day was the day we met Israel. Matthias and Harry found him while they were out fishing. They knew straight away he was Lost: he had no horse with which to have brought him to our desolate spot, the boatman who typically brought us any visitors had been ill and bedridden, and the village nearby did not know him. He was a stranger with no logical story to excuse his manifestation in our location. That is something I learned later about Israel; he does not lie as readily as the rest of us do. Of course being so tall and intimidating and unapproachable as he is makes people question him less. He can glare or offer some noncommittal response or simply say nothing at all and very few men will press him for answers. He was tired and wounded (from what I still don’t know to this day) and so hungry he ate all of Prue’s rooster stew left over from the night before. He had next to no contact or conversation with me and though I found him interesting and curious and wanted to be near him, I was immersed in my studies and in my avoidance of Henrique and thus had little opportunity to get to know our resident stranger. Later, after we gotten over the discomfiture and awkwardness at being thrown together in life, we would begin to spend longer periods of time talking. He disregarded my questions about his life thus far, but of course, I talked and talked enough for the both of us. Molly was terrified of him and spent most of her time trying to repent of her fear, which she considered ungodly and un-evangelistic. By the time we left Portugal and traveled on, Molly and I had grown apart, Henrique had disappeared, and Israel was one of us.