Shadows Gray

Chapter Sixteen



Once when I was about twelve I came upon a deer and her little baby, drinking from a pond. I was up in a tree at the time and I had a perfect view of them. They didn’t know I was up there and I sat there for the longest time, just watching them and admiring the way their red dappled fur shone in the sun. I so desperately wanted to get closer to them but I was torn: if I left my perch in the tree I would have to take my eyes off of them and if I took my eyes off of them, there would be no guarantee that once I could look again they would still be there.

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 direction 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.