Page 25
A quick jerk of his hand, and he passes over the cash, and the victory explodes like fireworks inside of me. I’ve only been allowed to the movies a couple times with just me and Brie, and those occasions took a whole lot of coaxing from Maw Maw to change his mind, but this time? I have a feeling it’ll be the best night ever.
The memory slips away, like all the others, and once again, I’m staring off at the surrounding destruction.
Grit, garbage and broken wood lay scattered across the floor, the gravely surface crunching beneath my boots. The walls have been stripped of the paintings I recall hanging throughout the house, spray paint graffiti now in their place. More bible verses in black. Curse words scribbled over them in red. It looks like a war between good and evil inside this house.
Beneath all that, though, is a thrum of something I can’t quite pinpoint. Like a pulse, still beating, but faint. An atrophied heart too weak to do little more than pump a small bit of life.
I kneel down to the floor and set my hand against the gritty surface, eyes closed. Focusing. On what, I’m not even sure, just that I feel a steady hum, like electricity. The unsettling sensation of knowing something was buried alive.
Memories, in my case.
Mindlessly running the key back and forth over its chain, I push to my feet and make my way through the main foyer and pass the parlor on the right. The library on the left. Neither of them like I remember, from the few snippets of memory that flicker and fade. I don’t bother with the once-grand staircase straight ahead of me. Not yet, anyway.
In spite of the heat outside, an uncanny chill lingers inside the house, tickling the sweat gathered across the back of my neck. Feels like something crawling across my skin.
A room beyond the staircase is one I remember as a family, or sitting, room, with an enormous fireplace along the back wall. Like the rest of the house, the floor is cluttered in dirt and debris, its sparse furniture so broken down and ramshackle, it’s a wonder any of it still stands.
I continue on and find the kitchen, a completely unusable bathroom, a pantry, and a few rooms I don’t recall much about. Perhaps just guest rooms at the time, though I don’t remember many guests, aside from Brie, Marcelle, and Maw Maw.
I head up the staircase to the second floor, sweeping through the various rooms, but without the furnishings to identify them, they hold nothing for me. No memory. No feeling. Just empty rooms destroyed by time and abuse.
And no red door, either, which tells me I must’ve dreamed it. How vivid that dream, though, that I could recall so many details of the door.
At the end of the hallway, I peek inside a room with dirty white walls and built in shelves. A faint familiarity lingers here, as I trail my gaze over the simple furniture that gives no insight into whether it belonged to a boy, or girl. A few of the books lay splayed open on the floor, their spines stomped and busted with no care, or concern. I turn one over to a page of faded print, and close it to Grimm’s Complete Fairytales on the cover. It could’ve belonged to any one of the owners who lived here after me, but I distinctly remember reading this book as a child. The one that began my love affair with reading at such a young age.
I set it down to continue my trek through the house.
It’s not until I reach the mouth of a dark hallway that the first trickle of fear skates across the nape of my neck. I flick on the flashlight to expose an empty corridor with no doors. Just one, long alcove that stretches toward an empty wall that’s decorated in red and reflective gold paisley paper and covered in more graffiti.
Confused, I run the flashlight over the surface, trying to recall a doorless corridor from my memories. Surely, a kid looking for places to hide away and read would’ve considered this dark spot prime real estate, but nothing comes to mind. And perhaps I wouldn’t have been so struck by the oddity of a completely useless hallway back when I was a child. Even if I find it utterly strange now.
Not bothering with the empty corridor, I finish my sweep of the house.
Whatever life still pumps through its arteries is faint and hardly palpable anymore.
9
Thierry
“Good afternoon, Mr. B.” The nurse twists around just enough to shoot me a beaming smile, as I enter the room, then goes back to taking my sister’s blood pressure.
In a wheelchair by the window, Frannie stares off with a vacant expression, her long blonde hair twisted into a neat braid. An old, ragged teddy bear clutched to her chest.
“How is she today?” I ask, taking one of two empty seats against the wall across from her.
“Better than yesterday. Had another nightmare around midafternoon. We ended up having to medicate her.”
With minimal, if any, movement, and rarely, if ever, speaking--aside from a few repeated words every so often and mumbling--she’s remained in a somewhat catatonic state for the last five years. At times, she’ll dream with her eyes open, an odd thing to witness, particularly when she screams like someone is hurting her.
“Do you find they’re happening more frequently these days?” Unfortunately, the two-hour drive to get here puts me at a disadvantage for keeping up with her daily progress, but it’s better than anyone finding out she’s alive.
And connected to me in any way.
“Hmm, I’d say so. The doctor hasn’t figured out what’s been triggering them lately. Thinks it might be a change in medication, though.”
“What change?”
“Dosing for her seizures.” After a lengthy pause to record her vitals, she jerks her head toward the door through which I entered. “Can I talk to you outside for a second?”
