Shadows Gray

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.

I was so pleased to have left corsets behind.

********************

The sunlight which had peeked through the boards in my window so forcefully and cheerfully before had faded to the duskiness of twilight, then to the darkness of another night. I am alone in the dark once more. To the best of my knowledge without a watch to tell me differently, I have been locked in this room for nearly 24 hours. It has been nearly double that since I’ve slept. I am nauseous from the need to relieve my bladder but I refuse to give in and do the unthinkable on the floor, like an animal. The minute I do that I will know I am officially a prisoner.

My thoughts are jumbled and running together. Nothing makes sense. My memories are blended with my dreams, with my imaginings, with snippets of television and movies I’ve seen, books I’ve read, and nothing is rational or logical. I have gone from thinking and remembering to singing. Whatever comes into my frazzled brain: bawdy Irish drinking songs, Spanish love songs, Elvis Presley, children’s limericks set to tune, hymns, Christmas carols, The Supremes. I sing softly at first, then louder, no longer caring if someone sits on the other side of that door mocking me.

My throat begins to hurt from the singing and from the shouting I had done earlier. I had beaten my fists against the door until my knuckles were bruised. In a house that was falling apart how could one old door defeat me? I had kicked and pummeled and pushed the planks that boarded up the one window but the screws and nails used were long and the wood thick and heavy. There were splinters under my fingernails from digging at the wood and trying to pry them away from their fastenings.

My head has gone from pounding to being listlessly quiet and rather empty feeling. I am not thinking at all any longer. My mind is a black hole from which no thoughts echo. I am so tired. I no longer even want to throw up from my aching bladder, but simply want to give up and put my head down. The only distant thought, like something far, far off in the distant of my brain, is that if I sleep I may lose my whole family.

Will they sleep without me? I wonder sleepily. Have they already? Did they travel without me last night, as they lay in bed where they ought to be, while I was traipsing through this haunted house, looking for ghosts? Are they now hundreds of years in the past, looking for me frantically; Prue a mess of worries, Dad searching for a bottle as frenetically as he looks for his daughter, Israel penetrating the surroundings looking for the tall girl with the light eyes who used to be his friend? Will they grieve for me the way they grieve for Rose? Will they say to each other, their arms around each other, I do hope she found a home with Gladys?

Now my head slips down, down, down. Down to the old smelly mattress beneath me. It’s no longer me who wars with sleep, me who wars with anything, not any longer. I give up. Give in. The comfort of my decision makes the corners of my mouth turn up in a slight smile. And I hear the faintest of all scratching noises. If the room hadn’t been so silent for so very long, perhaps I wouldn’t hear it, but I do. As quickly as it started, it’s gone. I want to spring to my feet, but my feet don’t oblige. My legs buckle under my weight and I am back down on the mattress once more. I try to call out but my throat is parched and my words unvoiced. It takes everything I have for a moment just to stand and wobble like a fawn or a newborn colt to the door.

The knob turns as easily as if it has just been oiled.