by Jan Tilley
He refocused and went to work tending to his angel bush. It was the first of the month and time for a monthly sprinkle of ash to keep it healthy. The plant was flourishing in the warm sunshine. Cooler November nights were starting to set in and soon he would need to have Travis help him drag it back inside, to protect it from the frigid Ohio winter.
Business would slow down drastically after Halloween. The winter months were tough on Malachi. He would go for weeks alone, isolated, out in the hollow. Weather permitting, he would trek into town for groceries. Roberta would call and sometimes she and Baxter would stop by to check on him. As irritating as she could be, she was a welcomed visitor in the winter bleakness.
But now he had Travis. Malachi was actually looking forward to this winter. The company would help keep the darkness and depression at bay. Travis was living there full time, so Malachi was no longer paying him a full paycheck. Travis wouldn’t hear of it, not if he was to live there. He said that his services were repayment for rent and board. Malachi still gave him some spending money every week. He remembered what it was like to be a teenager. It felt good to have a few bucks in your wallet and Travis had earned it. He worked hard at the mill, every day. Weekends, he did nothing but chores and deal with maintenance issues. The exterior of the mill was scraped and repainted. With a fresh coat of golden brown paint, the old place looked like a million bucks.
Now, Travis had moved on to the rickety old bridge. It was his goal to get it repaired before winter. Malachi helped him as much as he could. His expertise was really all that Travis needed. Malachi would oversee many of the jobs and explain to Travis what needed to be done. But the actual manual labor was all done by Travis. He was a hard worker and dedicated to the care and upkeep of the old mill. Having never had anything of his own before, he appreciated this opportunity to make a future for himself. He took great pride in his work and beamed when he showed Malachi his finished projects.
Travis didn’t have much time for amulets anymore, but that was something that Malachi could do. They weren’t as intricate and popular as Travis’s, but they got the job done just the same. Travis handled the big stuff that was getting to be too much for Malachi and let him tend to the little things. It was a perfect team effort.
Malachi had distanced himself from the pain of losing his family for so long that he’d grown numb. He’d almost forgotten what if felt like to love and truly care for someone else. Travis had filled the calloused hole in Malachi’s scarred heart and for the first time in a very long time, Malachi felt complete again.
Fourteen
Winter approached and Malachi had become more comfortable with Travis and Rosie. Travis seemed to love that old girl almost as much as Malachi did. The pantry was getting low so he gave Travis a list of a few grocery items to pick up while he was in town.
Even though it was only mid-week, Malachi still had several visitors to the mill that day. He was exhausted and had just gotten around to closing up shop when Travis finally arrived home.
“Hey, Travis. Where’ve you been?”
Avoiding eye contact, he replied, “I got hung up at the grocery store.” He walked quickly to the kitchen, sat the bag of groceries on the table and then went to his room to change his clothes.
Malachi closed up shop, tallied the moneybox and locked the door. He made his way to the kitchen and found Travis already there putting away the groceries. He grabbed a few cans and tried to help him. Travis was so quiet and distant. “Is everything okay, son?”
Without missing a beat or looking at Malachi, he quipped, “Grand and dandy.”
Taking a deep breath, Malachi knew that something was wrong. He worked in silence for a few moments and then tried to press Travis a little more. “School go alright today?”
“Yup.”
“How was that algebra test?”
“Aced it.”
Malachi tried to bring him around. He patted him on the back and said, “Congratulations, son! I’m so proud of you. That was a hard test.”
When he touched Travis’s back, he jumped and turned around nervously. Malachi saw something strange in his eyes. He’d seen that same desperation in his eyes before, during Travis’s darkest time. Malachi’s heart jumped and adrenaline surged. He grabbed the boy with a hand on each shoulder and stared at him with those piercing blue eyes. “Travis. What is it? Tell me.”
Travis looked away and shrugged Malachi’s hands off his shoulders. “Nothing. Just give me some space.” He stormed out of the kitchen, through the screen door and ran out into the woods behind the mill.
Malachi’s heart raced as his mind desperately attempted to figure out what was wrong. Did something happen at school? Malachi was listed as his guardian, so surely he would have been contacted if there was a major problem. What about the grocery store? Did something happen there that had set him off? Maybe his mom or that guy that Junior hung out with, Jeremy. Something had definitely triggered him. He watched through the kitchen window as Travis hurried up the trail and deep into the woods. Malachi continued to put the groceries away, deciding to give Travis some time to cool off. Maybe it was something simple, like issues with a girl that he liked.
As he sat on the back bench with a mug of tea, Malachi patiently waited for Travis to return. He passed the time whittling an amulet. The smell of fall was in the air. A neighbor somewhere was burning leaves and the smell wafted over to the old mill. Usually, Malachi loved the smell of burning leaves, but today his mind was busy worrying about Travis. Although he was finding it difficult to focus on carving an amulet, it occupied his hands and helped disperse some of his anxiety.
Travis was gone for over an hour. When he finally returned Malachi was in the kitchen preparing dinner. He thought that maybe a knock-off Swenson’s brown sugar cheeseburger would be the ticket to making Travis happy. It usually worked for Malachi. Comfort food goes a long way to ease a worried soul.
He didn’t see Travis coming back to the mill through the kitchen window. As he turned around Travis was standing in the doorway like a ghost. He caught Malachi off guard and made him jump, sloshing tea out of his mug onto the floor. He sat the glass down on the counter and grabbed his chest. “Gosh, son. You startled me.”
Malachi picked up a napkin and wiped the floor. Travis never moved. When Malachi had the liquid cleaned up, he looked over at Travis. His face was in the shadows and he couldn’t see him very well. Malachi stepped towards him, close enough to see that Travis was crying.
“What is it, son?”
Travis hung his head and desperately tried to hold back his tears.
Malachi hurried to his side and grabbed his arm. “Travis, I can’t help you unless you tell me what’s going on.”
Travis leaned his head onto Malachi’s shoulder and began to sob. “I’m sorry, Malachi. I screwed up.”
Malachi hugged him, trying to reassure him. “Travis, I’m sure it’s not that bad. Together we can fix it. Of this I am confident.”
“I didn’t mean to do it.”
“Do what?”
Travis pulled away and looked into Malachi’s eyes. He couldn’t say it.
Malachi leaned forward and repeated his words with a stern voice, demanding an answer. “Do what, son?”
Travis simply shook his head and cried. His brown eyes looked broken. Malachi could barely stand it. He motioned to the boy and said, “Come, sit down. Let’s talk about it.”
He pulled out a chair and Travis sat down. Malachi grabbed a Coke from the fridge and sat it on the table in front of Travis. Normally he would have gulped it down. Instead, he laid his forehead on the table and wrapped his arms around the back of his head tightly.
Malachi turned off the stove and brought his tea with him to the table. He sat down and calmly took a sip, trying to diffuse the situation. He placed the mug on the table and said, “Talk to me, Travis. You can trust me, you know that. We can get through anything.”
Travis shook his head and mumbled, “Not this time.”
“It can’t be that bad. Tell me what happened.”
He lifted his head off the table, wiped his nose on his shirt sleeve, took a sip of Coke and looked into Malachi’s eyes. He drew in a deep breath, trying to get the nerve to talk. His leg was twitching like mad. Malachi hadn’t seen that in a while. Travis had become comfortable and confident in his life and the leg twitch had stopped. But today it was back with a vengeance. It was almost uncontrollable and Malachi had to hold himself back from reaching over and forcing it to stop with his own hand.
“Start at the beginning and just tell me what happened, Travis.”
Looking down at the table, he nervously played with the tab on the Coke can. Malachi waited patiently until he was ready to talk.
Travis fidgeted with his tongue piercing, took a deep breath and began, “I stopped at the grocery and got the stuff on the list. I remembered that it was time to replace the batteries at the cry baby cryptic, so I bought some more at the store. I thought that I’d save you the trip back out there, so I stopped by on the way home to change them.”
He paused, lost in his own thoughts. Malachi spoke softly, “Thank you, Travis. I appreciate you doing that for me.”
His words snapped Travis out of his trance and he looked at Malachi with anger in his eyes. “He hit her, Malachi.”
“Who hit who?”
“He was trying to force himself on her. She said no. Then he hit her. Slapped her across the face and tried to tear at her clothes. She was crying and looked so scared. I didn’t know what to do.”
Malachi was trying to keep up with Travis. “This happened out in the woods?”
Travis nodded as he wiped his nose and looked at Malachi. He scrunched up his face until it was distorted and began to cry again. “I’m so sorry.”
Holding his eye contact, Malachi tried to figure out exactly what happened. “Just tell me what happened next. Did they see the cryptic? Is that what happened?”
Travis shook his head. “I don’t think so. I walked away from it, so they wouldn’t see what I was doing.” He stopped and looked into Malachi’s eyes. “I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing.”
Malachi reached over and patted the back of his hand. “Start at the beginning and tell me what happened.”
Travis took a deep breath and closed his eyes as he recalled the details. “I was quite a distance away, but I could still see what he was doing to her. He forced her on the ground and ripped off her shirt. I began to walk towards them, but just about then the girl kneed him in the balls. She broke free and started running like hell. I darted behind a big oak tree and she ran off into the woods close to where I was hiding. Eventually, he got up and cursed at her. Then he took off running after her. I couldn’t let him catch her, so when he got close to me, I tackled him.” He looked at Malachi with those sad puppy eyes, and said, “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“That was the right thing to do. I would have done the same thing.”
Travis held his face in his hands and tears began to flow. Malachi knew there was more to the story. “What happened after that, son?”
Shaking his head in confusion, Travis continued, “I tried to reason with him. She kept on running through the woods and was gone before I knocked him down. He was so pissed at me. Told me that he’d been trying for months to get with her and that she wanted it. He yelled at me and said that girls always say no, when they mean yes.”
“That’s not true, Travis. If a girl says no, she means no. You did the right thing. Did he leave after that?”
Travis stared at his hands as he wrung them in circles. His eyes grew cold and dark and he pursed his lips together in anger. Shaking his head, he replied, “No. He started wailing on me, just like Junior. And then he pulled out a hunting knife. I struggled to get away and run, but then he got up and charged after me. I ran as fast as I could, but eventually he caught me and tackled me to the ground. We struggled and I punched him in the face. When he dropped the knife, I picked it up.” He looked at Malachi with a blank expression on his face. “Before I knew what was happening, I turned it on him. I had to stop him and I did.”
Malachi was at a loss for words. This was so much more than he was anticipating. He was treading lightly, trying not to upset Travis even more. “Is he okay?”
Travis’s face was so cold. He was lost inside himself as he shook his head. “He’s still out there in the woods. I think he’s dead.”
Closing his eyes, the words sent chills down Malachi’s spine. Dead. Did he really just say dead? How were they going to handle this? Taking a deep breath, he tried to process Travis’s words. “We will work this out, son. It was self-defense.”
Travis looked at him in a trance. “At first it was. But, when I started stabbing him, I couldn’t stop. I lost all control and didn’t want to stop. I just kept forcing the blade into him over and over, until he stopped moving. And even after that, I still stabbed him a couple more times. I just couldn’t stop.” He looked into Malachi’s eyes and pleaded, “What’s wrong with me?”
Even though Malachi was shocked by what he just said, he didn’t want to let on. “Sometimes we lose ourselves in the moment, son. What were you thinking when all this was happening?”
He shrugged and began to cry again as he played with the pop tab. “I don’t think I was thinking at all. It was like I’d left my body. Like someone else did it through me or something.” He held up his hands, looked at them and began to sob. “My hands were covered with blood. I didn’t even recognize them. I went down to the creek and washed off.” Looking over at Malachi he cried, “What am I gonna do?” He began sobbing to the point that Malachi could barely understand what he was saying. “You’ve given me so much. You trusted me and I’ve just thrown it all away. My mom always told me that I was worthless and would end up in jail just like my dad. I guess she was right.”
Malachi was not going to accept this. It was self-defense. There was no reason why he should be punished for protecting himself from an attacker. He needed to see what he was dealing with. Maybe the kid wasn’t hurt as bad as Travis thought. There was a chance that maybe he was even still alive. “Take me to the body, Travis. Do you think you can do that?”
Travis wiped his eyes and nodded. “Should we call the cops first?”
“No, just take me there.”
The two made their way down the narrow path that led to the cryptic site. Travis pointed to the east and led Malachi through the woods. They walked for quite a while until they came upon the body. Travis looked at it briefly and then turned around and puked. When Malachi saw the young man’s body, he was shocked. This was beyond self-defense. It was a gruesome murder scene. Travis had slashed him so many times and so deeply, that the kid was almost gutted. His stomach and chest were gaping open from the wounds.
Malachi was so shaken by the scene that he had to find a place to sit down. He found an old fallen tree nearby and sat, wiping his face with a handkerchief. He had to think. Waves of emotion flooded him. This was far more than he’d been prepared for.
Travis wiped his mouth and sat down next to Malachi. He couldn’t even look at the boy. Travis stared down at the ground and kept saying, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” over and over. He began to cry and shake his leg, as he held his head in his hands. Tugging at his shaggy hair, he then hit himself in the head. “Stupid. You’re so damn stupid.”
Malachi pulled his hands away to get him to stop hurting himself. “Travis, stop it. That’s not helping anything.” He closed his eyes, trying to steady his breathing and gather his thoughts. “How could this happen? Travis, what were you thinking?”
He threw his hands in the air and yelled, “I wasn’t thinking, obviously. I don’t know what happened. I just flipped the fuck out and I lost it.”
Malachi rubbed his head and cringed. “This is quite a conundrum we have here, son. I’m not quite sure what to do.”
“Am I gonna go to prison?” He hung his head and began to cry. “Oh, shit. What hav
e I done? I’ve messed it all up.” His tears turned into uncontrollable sobs. “It was just too much, Malachi. I flashed back to my sister and something inside me snapped. I didn’t mean to do it. I’m so sorry.”
“What do you mean? What happened to your sister?”
He shook his head and panted, beginning to hyperventilate. Travis had forced all these feelings and memories out of his mind years ago. It was far too painful. He tried to move on and forget that it had ever happened. Now, it was resurfacing all over again. So many nightmares and so many sleepless nights. So much guilt and pain. He thought that all this was behind him. How could this be happening?
Malachi could see him breaking. He desperately wanted to help his young friend. “Deep breaths, Travis. Take deep breaths and put your head between your knees so you don’t pass out.”
Travis hung his head down and sobbed. Eventually he raised his head, crossed his arms over his knees and rested his forehead on them. He stared at the ground with tears and snot dripping from his face onto the leaves under him. “Shit, Malachi. I really fucked up this time.”
Malachi didn’t want to give up. He needed to know the truth. “Tell me what happened to your little sister, Travis.”
He never looked up. Clenching his jaw, he closed his eyes and cried. “He hurt her for a long time. He’d wait until my mom went to work. Then he’d sneak up to her room.”
“Who?”
“My old man.” The memories flooded back to him fast and furious. Travis struggled to keep it together. “I could hear her yelling for help. A couple of times I went to help her. He smacked me in the face and kicked me out. I didn’t know what else to do. I was just a kid.”
