“Yes,” I would answer, adjusting my posture, and knowing she knew my answer.
“Yes what?”
“Ma’am.”
Mrs. Derundi taught literature when I attended school, and when she taught me alone it eclipsed the other subjects. Though I still had lessons in the other subjects, particularly math, I advanced much farther under Mrs. Derundi in literature than would have occurred in school.
“Mrs. Derundi, aren’t the other subjects important too?” I asked one day as we were wrapping up a lesson on The Odyssey.
“Why yes, they are. They’re very important. But Caleb, I don’t know how much longer I’ll be with you. And by learning literature, and mastering reading, doors are open for you to learn the other subjects. I’m not here to teach you material, but to teach you to learn on your own. With your disability, resources will not be available to you as much as other people. But books will always be there. In science, you can read the Origin of Species or journals. History is but a story that once occurred. And for homework, to prove my point, you will be reading the Biography of Einstein.”
I heard her rustle in her bag and pull out a volume, which landed heavily on the table. Afterward she began quizzing my mental math, an exercise taking ten minutes at the end of each day.
“Four times twelve?”
“Forty-eight, easy.”
“Divided by seven?”
“Six and,” a moment’s pause, “six sevenths.”
“Rounded down?”
“Six.”
“To the second power?”
“Thirty-six.”
“And what was the first question I asked you?”
“Uh… That’s not fair, that’s not math.”
“Life’s not fair. What’s the answer?”
I paused, thinking and working math backward.
“I don’t know. The answer was forty-eight though.”
“Four times twelve. Be attentive, Caleb. The more you remember, the more you can put to your advantage in complicated problems.”
For six months, the lessons continued in the same fashion. I felt myself growing sharper, becoming more quick witted in both learning and conversation. I could replay conversations word for word days after they occurred, and memorization came without effort. Sometimes Mrs. Derundi even took me to the library, where there was a small braille section that I could choose my own weekly pleasure book, and once stopped me when she heard my huffing up the steps to the second floor.
“Caleb, what do you do now for exercise?” she asked as I ran my fingers over the shelves, my breath still heavy.
“Exercise?” I asked. It was rare that I left the trailer, except on weekends when my mother took me to the park. My bike rusted from misuse underneath the trailer, and the streets that I had once known better than the city planners who had built them were a relic in my memory.
“Yes, exercise. A healthy body yields a healthy mind.”
At my silence she implemented gym class into our routine. Between lesson changes she led me to the back of the trailer, where I used the back ladder as a pull up bar. Push ups and sit ups came with her arrival and departure, while jump squats preceded lunch.
I grimaced with each exercise, feeling the remains of the muscles, which had once made me the second fastest kid on the block, feebly respond to my requests. Regimented exercise was a panging reminder of what was once second nature, but now existed only beyond my reach. No exercise compared to the rush of feeling wind in my hair, or the breathless adrenaline after a close race.
But with each passing day, I felt my arm muscles tightening. To Mrs. Derundi’s satisfaction, my posture improved with the development of my back and legs, and after three weeks I no longer panted at the top of the library steps.
My studies increased in difficulty as Mrs. Derundi assisted my difficulties less often and left me with thicker homework volumes to read on my own. And no matter the thickness of the book, I always finished on time, often aided by my lack of sleep. Until one day, deep into our lessons, when the volume remained on the table just where Mrs. Derundi had left it. Mrs. Derundi required me to write a synopsis of each reading and present it at the beginning of the lesson, and today my notebook remained blank.
I heard her take a seat across from me, and waited for her to speak. But she just sat there, in silence, and I shifted in my seat. Ten minutes passed and the pressure mounted, but I held the silence, resilient to the mounting pressure. And finally she spoke, in the chilling whisper that sent chills up my spine and had broken even the toughest kids at Kingston Elementary.
“Caleb, we had an agreement. If you want me to teach you, you must be willing to learn. Why haven’t you completed your work?”
And though the words slammed against my composition, I held my ground, speaking in my own whisper.
“Not this book Ma’am. Any book but this one.”
“Why?” The question was simple enough, but I had no acceptable answer. No person who had not seen what I had would understand that figures leapt from the shadows as soon as I touched the cover. That the braille itself moved beneath my fingers in an attempt to bring me closer. That I felt a fear and fascination equally as compelling until I pulled away.
“Just not this one, Ma'am.” I shivered. “I’ll work double tonight. Even if you leave I won’t read this. I won’t.”
I felt her frown, her pause. And I knew she felt the sincerity behind my words, and worried she felt the fear.
But she sighed, picked Dante’s Inferno from the table, and placed it back into her purse. And just as she never asked questions from the student who turned in an assignment on a paper plate, she never brought the book up again. We moved on in studying, and under her guidance I gained more control over my mind, and the figures appeared less and less.
I think during that time period I was happier than I had been even with sight. But I knew it would not last, just as I knew they were watching from just beyond my senses. And waiting.
Chapter 8 - Eyes
Each day I awoke before dawn and pulled out my reading. With no lights, there was no risk of waking my parents. After I heard movement from their room I stripped and showered. My stepfather would be next to use the shower, so I kept it quick and often brushed my teeth in my room. Even before my blindness, I had performed most of my grooming in my room, as my stepfather had shattered the mirror, rendering it useless.
Last week my stepfather received a comment about his unkempt hair at work, and that Sunday he purchased a cheap mirror from the flea market down the road. With some low cursing and a few splinters from an old hammer he borrowed from Pete, he completed renovations to the bathroom that night. I’m not sure if any of the realtors in the area noticed, but the work probably doubled the value of our trailer.
That Monday I started my shower as usual, lathering down with the generic, strawberry-scented soap my mother had bought at the same flea market. I finished early and dried off, careful for nails my stepfather may have dropped on the flimsy floor.
The toothpaste in my room was out, so I rummaged about underneath the sink, produced a new tube, and proceeded to brush in the restroom. Out of habit I found my eyes drawn to the mirror.
And in the mirror, I saw two pinpricks of red.
Two pinpricks that started to glow both in intensity and size, and held me still.
My hand froze, and foam from the toothpaste dribbled onto my chest. The spots were now as large as golf balls and glowed like embers, a deep dark light resembling the hottest of fires. But where there should have been heat there was only cold, drawing away the stream from the shower and casting a chill upon the outer layer of my skin.
My mouth was still open, but my voice was caught in my throat. After several moments my thoughts reached my feet, and I pedaled backward until my shoulders pressed up against the towel rack. My fingers grasped the corn necklace around my neck, ensuring that it had not fallen away, and that I had not removed it before the shower.
But the fre
ezing cold never came. Only a shadow of it, contained within the embers themselves, radiated into the small room. I caught my breath as they failed to advance, remaining still in the mirror.
And as I moved, the lights also moved. I turned my head, and they turned. With a sweeping motion, I dropped beneath the counter, where they disappeared until I rose again above the sink.
“Caleb,” came my stepfather’s voice from outside, “hurry the hell up. You have thirty seconds.”
So I wrapped the towel about myself where it had fallen to the ground, and, still shaking, turned to leave the bathroom. Behind me I know the dots followed across the mirror. I knew, because I knew the dots were my eyes.
As I tore myself away, I heard my grandmother’s voice in a whisper behind me.
“We’re not so different, you and I.”
Chapter 9 - Departure
Somewhere within myself, I always knew the day was coming. Down where truths are hidden but ignored, forgotten so that the rest of the mind can continue pretending it’s sane. But as the days passed, I felt the nagging feeling grow stronger, and knew that there was not much time left.
I was lucky enough to have Mrs. Derundi tutor me for a full year and a half. Besides the occasional glance in the mirror or at my stepfather, I remained blind. Fall semester slipped into winter as even I noticed the light receding and nightfall seizing larger and larger pieces from day.
And just as winter stole from summer, red stole from my darkness. Most people are afraid of the dark, but I preferred my world without illumination.
Figures grew in number with each passing day. My stepfather’s dull red glow at the corners intensified to an outline akin to a cloud’s silver lining but with an opposite association. They circled my mother each night as she returned home from work, and I heard their arguments grow more drawn out. Mother always won, but I heard a new note of strain in her voice. We contributed to the environment at twice the usual rate as the recycling bin filled with increasing numbers of beer cans.
Whenever I stepped outside the trailer, bundled deep in my coat, and my shoes crunching on the fresh snow, I could see them whirling around the roof and windows of Pete’s trailer. They stretched up and down the lane, flowing in rivulets between each home. Outside our doorway, where the preacher man had stood two years ago, there was a seared circle where the red parted to yield to darkness.
My focus on Mrs. Derundi’s lessons dwindled in those weeks as I grew restless. I listened to the radio with every possible opportunity—the music was my front line of defense. My grandmother’s necklace never left my neck, and the clasp was soldered shut by Luke, an elderly man down the street who fixed broken radios for cheap.
Luke was a kind man, a rare exception in our park. For the past week I’d spent my evenings on his porch, listening to stories about the great war and his dead wife. It was the least I could do for a man who would be joining her in about a week’s time.
Luke himself didn’t know it yet, but I could feel it. A smooth passing out of our world, most likely in his sleep. Turns out it was a heart attack alone in his trailer, and an anonymous tip told the cops that he had passed away. It was the first time I had ever called 911.
The funeral was on a Saturday, and I attended, along with three others, as he was laid to rest. I dropped a small, framed portrait into the open grave. It was a picture of his wife that he had carried throughout the war—stained, faded, and worn—and I knew it was what he would have wanted.
Luke was the first human whose death I could sense, but not the first death I had felt. I knew three weeks before the neighborhood cat was shredded after it crawled into a car’s engine for warmth. I felt Shankey the dog’s departure due to starvation two weeks out, and began leaving the remains of my dinner underneath the trailer until the feeling faded away. And I sensed the two bodies buried under Pete’s trailer from when one of his dealers tried to double cross him.
I couldn’t see what everyone else could, but felt what they couldn’t. At first it made me nauseous, the constant feeling of death thickening in the air.
After a week’s worth of unfinished dinners, my mother noticed my lack of appetite and began taking me on walks around the neighborhood on weekends.
“Is everything alright, Caleb?” she asked, her hand on my shoulder.
“Yes, Mother,” I answered. “My lessons are going well.”
“Why aren’t you eating?”
“I don’t know. Guess I’m not hungry.”
“Hmm. It’s not your stepfather, is it?”
“No. Not this time at least.”
“Ok, well if there’s anything you need to tell me, don’t hesitate.”
“I won’t. And Mother?”
“Yes.”
“I know things didn’t work out like you would have wanted, but I love you, Mother.”
She began to reply as we rounded a corner, but I heard the unmistakable rumbling of Shankey’s growl from near my feet.
“Get on, scat,” said my mother as I held her arm. But Shankey growled louder, and I saw some of the shapes surrounding my mother detach themselves and drift away. He barked, and several lost their grip, and were ripped backward across the street.
“Hold on Mother, I don’t think he’s growling at us,” I said, and felt her turn around to peer behind her. With another bark, the last of the shapes broke free, like sludge from a car’s tire, and Shankey trotted away to underneath one of the many trailers he slept under for warmth during the day.
My mother shivered as a sudden blast of wind raced through the park, and her grip tightened on my shoulder.
“Stupid dog,” she muttered, her words now smoother than before. “Let’s go home.”
We walked back, and she took my coat off, hanging it on the nail inside the door. My stepfather was on the couch, a pile of cans at his feet, the baseball game blaring on the radio.
“Bottom of the ninth, scored at seven to seven. Los Angeles up to bat, two outs, two strikes. Cincinnati prepares for the final pitch, and here’s the windup. A fly ball, heading to right midfield as third streaks home, and—“
I shut my door, cutting off the announcer, though I could still hear my stepfather from through the wall.
“Damn it!” He shouted, words slurred, as the game came to an end.
And then, all too soon, the day arrived.
Chapter 9 - The Day
“Mrs. Derundi,” I said as lunch time approached, “I’m not feeling so well today. Can we skip the lesson after lunch?”
Mrs. Derundi paused from flipping through a copy of Great Expectations by Dickens and tapped her foot.
“No?”
“No.”
“That can be arranged. I’ll expect you to catch up over the holiday though.”
“Yes, of course I can,” I said, relieved that she accepted.
“One extra book, of your choice, plus I want you to read Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography.”
“Ok,” I said, and Mrs. Derundi packed up her bag. Her chair scooted back and she had the door open before I blurted out what I had been meaning to say for weeks.
“Mrs. Derundi, wait. Thanks for coming in all this time. I learned a lot. You taught me a lot. I’m thankful.”
I sensed a smile, and she replied, “You’re welcome, Caleb. It has been my pleasure as well as yours, and you have been an excellent student. I’ll see you in a week.”
I frowned at her last words as she left. No, you won’t.
I had begged my mother not to go to work that morning, but she left as usual. So when Mrs. Derundi had left, I packed my most valuable belongings into a duffle bag, set it onto my bed, and waited.
***
Christmas was just days away, and tinsel trees decorated the windows while blinking light strands straddled the roofs of the next neighborhood over. Christmas was not a high priority in my trailer park, and the decorations stopped at our border.
I could smell the alcohol on my stepfather’s breath before he opened the door
. He arrived home later than usual with my mother, as the mechanics had gone out for a small holiday party after closing the shop. An hour into the party, his coworkers had kicked him out for smashing through one of their windows, bruising both his knuckles and his pride in the process.
By now the entire interior of the trailer had begun to glow red—a sea of movement emanating from my stepfather. Moments after entry, he flipped the table, upending the dishes and books on its surface so they clashed to the floor in a mix of shards and pages.
“Trash of a home anyway. Practically did them a favor. Shitty party. Shitty friends. Shitty job.”
“A job we need to keep us afloat,” said my mother.
“Shitty job I don’t want!”
“Shitty job that you probably don’t even have anymore.” Her voice was muffled, since her head was in her hands and a curtain of her hair surrounded her.
“Heck, we wouldn’t even need the money without that blasted teacher you’ve hired. You hear what she said to me last week? Said she didn’t approve of my parenting methods. Well shit, she ain’t coming back here.”
“The teacher? She’s been working at a third her normal price because she thinks Caleb is her best student. Your alcoholism costs twice that much!”
“Don’t you put this on me, woman. I didn’t want to take the bastard to the hospital. I didn’t want to see the bitch. I didn’t want to see anyone in that messed up, insane, unstable family. Should’ve left them behind years ago, just like his father did when he shot out his own heart,” he spat, and I shrunk back into the confines of my room, my heart pounding.
My mother’s reply came slowly, her voice filled with rage.
“It’s not about that. It’s about your complete ineptitude for being a father. It’s about your failure to this family and to me.” Her voice rose in pitch and volume, reverberating off of the tin can’s walls, and with each sentence I heard her land a blow with her fist against my stepfather’s chest. “Your idiocy. Your irresponsibility. And now, your loss. Caleb, get your things, we’re leaving.” Then she screamed her last sentence, punctuated with a slap that landed square on my stepfather’s jaw. “And I told you to never mention him again!”
Eden's Eye (The Gates Book 1) Page 3
