Four.

4

The cleaning didn’t take as long as I thought. Wiped up all the water and blood. Disinfected everything and wiped down again. Looks like nothing even happened here.  I look down at the last paper towel clinging to the cardboard tube. I should add paper towels to shopping list. I flick off the bathroom light and exit into the hall. Damn, I still have to clean the dirt I trekked inside.

The house settles and the door at the end of the hall creaks. I forgot about my brother. Maybe he is still in bed. I can only hope. I needlessly tiptoe down the hall. Needless because if my splashing around in the bathroom and my call from the side door didn’t wake him then my padded footfalls shouldn’t wake him either. Pace slows as I reach the door at the end of the hall and push it slowly open. The nape of my neck does the odd prickling thing as my hair tries to stand up again. The room is empty. Well relatively. The room is a mess, as is the usual in my family, but it is defiantly void of life. For the first time a thought occurs to me; maybe it isn’t my brother who is still here. The note was actually quite vague on who else was home. I tentatively walk out into the hall. I’ve that strange feeling I get when I assume something without a doubt and suddenly realize I was foolishly wrong. Back down the hallway and into the living room. Sunlight streams in the windows and pools on the ground; submerging piles of toys and pieces of furniture.

I remember my first assumption on getting home. This place is empty. Who ever was still home, is gone now. For the sake of my sanity, I check all the other downstairs bedrooms. I even go upstairs and check my grandparents’ master bedroom and the basement. The house is indeed empty. They must be out on a walk or something. This property is large and beautiful; it is practically a crime to be inside this late in the day. I return to the kitchen. Grab the broom and sweep up my dirt tracks in the hall. My tracks are thick and scattered in places. The wind blows through the open door and blurs some prints together. I pick up one of my cousins’ toys, which is blocking my broom. It is a simple thing. Plain, yellowed, cotton stuffed toy. Feels heavier then it looks. Handmade and a hand-me-down I guess. I toss it into an armchair with some other toys and sweep the last of the dirt into the dustpan. I deposit it into the trashcan in the kitchen. I head across the kitchen to return the broom to the corner and pause halfway there.

Out of the corner of my eye I see, stuck to the fridge, is a sticky note. What had I done with my mothers note? I think I left it on the counter. I turn to see this entirely new note. This one is not stuck with tape and lacks my dirty fingerprint. I lean the broom against the counter and grab this new note. My family never leaves notes, and now two in one day? I chuckle to my self. Then I read my brothers tight almost elegant writing.

Mom called. They are going to take the kids to some movie tonight and get dinner in Carbondale. So we are alone for dinner as well. I’m out for a walk.

He didn’t sign it but his handwriting is pretty distinct to me. I guess that concludes the mystery of who else is home. But stirs up new questions. When did the phone ring? While I was in the bathroom? I must not have heard it while I was trying to stifle my bleeding all over the damn place. He must have walked right past the bathroom and neither of us noticed. Funny the way things work out. I put his note next to my mom’s on the counter and put up the broom. My stomach warbles and I finally realize how hungry I am. I quickly slap together a roast beef sandwich and scarf it down. My right palm tingles every time I clench to fast, but I'm starting to get used to it. I place my plate in the sink. I can wash them later. Mom wont be home to get upset until after I eat dinner anyway.

I wonder where my brother went. Back out to the meadow? Back to that grove? If he wasn’t pranking me last night then it makes sense. Maybe he did hear the voices. Seeing it all in the daylight may be the best thing for me right now. It’ll let me put to rest the slight gnawing at the back of my head. I no longer care if my brother is there. I have to see it for myself.

I’ll travel under the guise of finding a pleasant place to stop and read. That way if I bump into my brother I don’t have to explain my desire to reassure myself of the mundane. I grab my shoes and book and fill up an empty plastic water bottle with the label peeled off. I carry my shoes outside and place them by the side door and go back inside. I kick aside some more stuffed animals in my path and head to the basement stairs before remembering to grab my dirty and blood-speckled jacket from the bathroom floor. Some time in my bathroom fiasco I had removed it sloppily with one hand while trying not to bleed on it too much with the other. I run down the stairs. I head to my corner with the sleeping bag. I toss my jacket into the dirty laundry pile near my open suite case. I pull my shirt up over my head and let it join the jacket. The jeans I’ll just dust off when I get outside. I grab my WWII gasmask bag and drop in my water and book. It’s a small olive green bag that has often made me the butt of man-purse jokes.

Grab a shirt from my open bag and shimmy into it. All ready to go. Back up stairs and out onto the side porch. I sit on the stairs and tie on my dirty shoes. Step off the porch and back out onto the dirt path to the meadow. Around me the world abides. I pass the lake in no time. Confident footfalls on the illuminated path. The tree line swiftly approaches and soon the speckled shade lessens the sun’s heat on my neck. The edge of the trees seemed like such a barrier last night. A point not to be crossed. A point of no return.

I’m being silly. I'm returning aren't I? Everything is so plainly orthodox around me. A breeze blows and the leaves rustle above me. I crane my head to look up. They sound distinctly like rain. Thousands of aspen leaves clipping each other way above my head and all around me.

Off to my right. Quick and white. Skirting my vision. My head snaps down. I swear I saw something off in the tall grass and tree twisted gloom. A deer? Some times I want to believe in reincarnation, simply so there is a chance I could come back as something as graceful as a deer. This wasn’t a deer though. It looked very white. My gaze flicks from white tree to white tree. The grass sways. A muted gold against the trunks and hiding the bottom three feet of each. Optical allusion?

My feet find their previous rhythm on the uneven ground. Back to my path, I shrug it off. This is daytime. The mystery has no place to hide under the sun’s glow. No shadow is deep enough to hide what I thought I felt was out here last night. Out here calling for me.

Again to my right, it flashes in the speckled light. This time I look up in time. A flap of white cloth whips behind a tree. I have it pinpointed. Fifty yards off the path. This time I can see the arm, as pale as the aspen it clutches, and the sliver of face peeking out. A girl? Out here?

She doesn’t seem to realize I see her. She watches me. I can’t see her expression but she doesn’t feel hostile to me. I want a better look but I don’t want to scare her off.  Back to the road I turn, giving my best look of utter confusion and muttering nonsense under my breath.

To my pleasure, out of the corner of my eye, I see her dart out from behind the tree to another; She is heading in the same direction as me. Who is she? She seems to be intent on watching me. This doesn’t seem to bother me, in fact this feels like déjà vu. A grin stupidly spreads across my face and suddenly, as if I had given her the sign, she stops. She is out in the open and looking across to me. I hesitantly look up, not wanting to startle her. She stares back. My grin slowly fades away as I notice how foolish it feels on my face. She sees my nervousness and smiles. Her long slender arm lifts up and her fingers slowly open. She wants me to take her hand.

I grip my bag to stop it from banging against my hip. I’m half-running through the tall grass towards her. She doesn’t move but the trees seem to change shape and position around her. She doesn’t seem to get any closer either. My heart thrums against my ribs and I smile. Bent forward I full on sprint towards her. And then I’m suddenly only a few feet away and I’m standing still. My breathing is calm and normal. No signs that I ran at all.

She is beautiful. So beautiful. In a simple kind of way. She is about my height though it's hard to tell as we stand on this hill. Her skin is the color of aspen bark and her eyes are like the dark pockmarks that mar their surface. They shine though. Glisten black under the wisps of her dark hair. Her hair is strait and hangs a little past her shoulders. I can’t place the exact shade. I thought it was dark and golden at first but now it seems to shine a dark auburn. There aren’t wrinkles around her eyes but the look in them makes her feel much older then the rest of her appears. Her face is soft. Her cheekbones are visible but not angular or harsh. She is young and slender. Maybe a year or two older then myself. Her white dress looks soft and blows loosely around her. Her feet are bare in the trampled grass. Her toes twine with the grass. She feels like the embodiment of freedom to me.

Her lips are a slightly warmer shade then the rest of her complexion and they make a thin line on her face that slowly bends into a close-lipped smile. Her smile breaks the symmetry of her face. It favors the left side. A warm crooked smile.

Thoughtlessly I reach up my right hand and place my hand in her outstretched palm. In the depths of my sleeping mind a part of me expects her skin to feel powdery like aspen bark. Instead, she is warm and as soft as her features. Her smile broadens. Her other hand comes up to meet our point of intersection. She rotates my hand palm up. My skin looks very olive-tan in her pale hands and the stain on my bandage seems unreal in its vibrancy. She peals back the medical tape and gauze with it. The cut has reopened. The blood pools scarlet in the creases of my palm. It fills the slight cup of my hand. It dribbles over the edge, streaking past my pinky in the creased valleys of skin. It spatters between us on the trampled grass. Everything seems muted in comparison. She cradles my hand in her left. Her right lifts up and slowly dips two pinching fingertips into my palm. Her fingers are like sponges. The blood seems to rebel against gravity in favor of a new force. It drips up her fingers, crawling timidly like the slow racing raindrops on windowpanes. Her fingers move around in the pool as if looking for something lost in a puddle.

A flick of pain ripples up my arm. For the first time since seeing her I get a bit uneasy. My compliance with this strange woman’s inaudible commands scares me. I look up from the droplets on her knuckles and meet her gaze. This entire time her eyes have never left mine. She works without looking. Her eyes are dark and soothing. Her face is emotionless. I once again settle into easy obedience, ignoring the cold that spreads into the tips of my fingers and then slowly creeps up my arm. The drips have made their way to her elbow.

The pain, muted this time by the cold, tickles my elbow. Her fingers, completely red now, have stopped moving. She sideways smiles again before pressing her pinched fingers tighter together and giving an experimental tug. This time the cold does nothing to dampen the spasm that pulses through me. Convinced of her grasp, she tugs again, harder this time. The cold regresses slightly back towards my palm but it feels like it tries taking the rest of me with it. It feels like my heart is playing one rapid high note on the xylophone that is my ribs. She tugs harder again and again. Her left hand no longer cradles. It grips my hand in place as she yanks on whatever she has caught in my palm. Her brow is no longer smooth but is instead creased by three horizontal lines. Her jaw is also set.

 I somehow remain standing as I spasm with each jerk. The cold has receded back to my wrist and then with one last tug, her hand disconnects with mine. A light speckling of blood decorates the nearest trees. The cold whips out of my palm with a squelching pop. Like she was sucking a pea through a straw and the suction finally dislodged it.

Her fingertips are pure crimson and the droplets’ trails streak clean paths along the back of her arm. They spider web out on her skin like an external set of veins. In her fingers she holds a pure white sliver of what looks like bone. And I am speechless. My lips don’t quiver. I don’t try and gag out words that wont come. Nothing like that. For some reason I don’t feel like anything needs saying. My breathing is a bit heavy, but settles as my heart pounds out its last high notes before resuming its usual tempo.

Her clean left hand curls my fingers into my sticky palm.

Three.

3

It’s bright.

Dirt.

Why? Where am I?

My night walk. It wasn’t a dream. That voice… I uncurl from my balled up position along the cramped dirt path. From the feeling in my joints I must have spent the entire night in that posture. The dirt dusting only my left side validates the hypothesis. I lean up on my free left hand and swivel into a cross-legged sitting position. The grass that frames the path is taller then me in this position. I don’t mind. I need a moment to collect the scattered bits of my conscience.

There is a bone in my hand cradled in my crossed legs. For a baffled minute I can do nothing but stare at it. I am not panicked. Not anything really. Only lost. My right fist firmly grasps the long horse rib about halfway. My left sits in my lap beneath it. Palm open, but without contact. My hand observes from a distance. My hand feels wise. The surface of the bone is an off white. Its surface is like fine white bark. Long shallow grooves run its length. Dark soil fills these hairline fissures. My fist is likewise powdered in this dirt. Between my knuckles the dirt is caked to my skin in cracked streambeds of my blood. The dirt turns it as black as the bed of Dead Calf. I peel my fingers slowly back from the bone. There is a second of pain as my scab peels. The wet blood had solidified my cut palm to the bone overnight. A dark patch mars the white surface. The creases in my palm are visible in my palm print of blood; like a rubber stamp on paper. What do I do with it? How did I even get it?

I lean to the side and hoist myself up. The grass parts on either side of me. The grass shows its true colors. A pale gold. The fields are a lot less menacing during the day. The lake off to my left glitters peacefully. No; mockingly. It teases. It saw my fright and laughs.  I jerk backwards and fling the rib as far as I can out into the lake. It lands among the swampy lily pads with a very unsatisfactory splash. My sudden anger drains out in a little laugh that sounds like a sigh. Childish.

I see the wind before I feel it. Grass along the shore bends towards me. The field is a golden ocean in a storm. The surface is wrought with turbulent waves. Then it hits me. My hair pulls back and whips at my temples. The corners of my eyes grow heavy and my eyes slit. I turn away and let it caress my cheek. My hair smears along my jaw and covers my eyes. Tickling my eyelashes. I sigh.

Where did my brother go? I wonder if he is around here also. Asleep in the grass perhaps. I slowly rotate. The grass seems unmarred by human disruption. He probably went home after he scared me. Didn’t realize I fainted. He is probably laughing right now thinking about it over breakfast.

“Hello?” If only my voice had such confidence the night before.

No response. The world seems to be peacefully ignorant of my minute existence. Everything seems so normal this morning. Helps me shake off the night’s odd moments as my overactive imagination. I should head home. Mom is probably wondering where I am.

It’s not really home. My grandparents owned the property, appropriately named Lily Lake after the lake with its skirt of lily pads. My family has an annual trip out here to the Colorado Mountains in the summer. We’ll we used to have an annual trip. It is my first time back in eight years. I was twelve last time I was here. We fly for three hours to Denver and then have a five-hour drive up into the mountains. All that travel for a weeks stay, then an eight-hour trip home. I can’t complain. I love this place and I take any chance I get to see it.

I turn homeward along last night’s path. This place is graceful during the day. The same landscape that terrified me last night spreads out around me almost peacefully. Almost. The world is alive with noise. The grass sighs in the wind. A duck splashes through the lily pads with a chain of ducklings struggling to keep up. Behind me a few birds argue amongst the branches. Arguing politics I suppose.

The thought bends my lips into a smile as I set off. The dirt path opens up in front of me and I let my fingers play along the tops of the tall grass beside me. The sun warms my side as it slowly rises above the trees. My hair gently tosses in the breeze. Without all the dirt and the bleeding palm I feel like a Colorado postcard. ‘Greetings from Colorado.’

The small path dead-ends into the main road. It isn’t quite a road. It is pretty much just parallel tire ruts with weeds growing up in the middle but it does the trick. It doesn’t feel as intrusive on the landscape like a paved road would. Intrusive and out of place.

The house comes into sight as I come around a bend. Metallic roof shining in the sunlight like a beacon nestled in the mountainside. As I get closer the house grows from a miniature into the massive two-story log cabin that it is. I walk past our parked car and the basement door from which I left last night. It is a nice basement. Carpeted and well kept. I’m especially happy for the carpet. With the house full we run out of beds quickly. I end up in a sleeping bag on the basement floor. I don’t mind. I prefer it actually. I get to sleep-in down here in the dark. No sun to blind me when I awake.

I pass it now though. It’s to late for me to go back to bed. I should head to up to the kitchen. Maybe they haven’t finished breakfast yet. I normally skip out on breakfast. Sleep through it mostly, but my walk back has made me quite hungry. I head up the side stairs and onto the large wrap-around porch. The door stands open. No surprise, without the humidity we don’t have to worry about letting the air-conditioning out like we do back home.

The house is surprisingly quite as I near the open door. I expected to hear laughing children and chattering adults. I walk in a survey the chaotic living room. The pillows litter the floor and the books on the coffee table have been swept off. The tracks of the perpetrators litter the entire room in the form of toys. My young cousins are usually the reason I wake up in the mornings. They chase each other around up here and their little feet amplify into the basement.

“Hello?” I feel silly. The house is clearly empty and it feels like ‘hello’ is the only thing I ever say. I cross the chaos and peer into the dinning room and kitchen. The place is indeed empty save for a sticky-note taped to the fridge between a group picture from 2003 and a child’s drawing of a horse. That’s new.

I pull it down. The note is packed with my mom’s tiny scrawl with “i’s” that look like colons. It’s a near-illegible blur of dots and swoops.

Good morning early birds. The kids were getting restless so we packed lunch and went down the mountain to the river. There is food in the fridge for the two of you and I put some Cokes in to get cold before I left. yw. <3 Mom.

And then at the very bottom squeezed into the remaining space:

Sticky note lost its sticky. Had to get creative. Impressive right?

That explains the tape. I guess my brother is still asleep. I’m spared the immediate embarrassment that comes with a retelling of last night’s prank. If he is still in bed I should wake him. It is late in the day. Also it’d be nice to get a little payback scare.

I shift my thumb on the note and a smear of dirt is left in the wake. My hands are filthy. More then my hands actually. A set of dirt shoe prints lead back to the door. I should clean up first. I pull off my shoes and leave them at the back door. I need to wash my hands off first. No sense trying to clean when everything I touch collects dirty handprints. I walk out of the kitchen and down the hall to the bathroom, careful to not touch the walls like I am usually inclined to do. The bathroom door stands ajar and a shoulder it open awkwardly with my right shoulder to avoid using my filthy left side. My fingers leave dirt smudges all over the porcelain cold-water knob. I scrub my hands off and the water turns dark and gritty as it swirls down the drain. The cut on my palm isn’t as bad as I thought. I’m surprised it bled so much. I cup my hands and shovel water over the knob to rinse it. Little streams circle the faucet and knobs then carry the sediment down into the bowl.

I look up into the mirror for the first time. My left cheek resembles the rest of my left side and is covered in dirt from where it remained pressed in the soil all night. I look like I’m wearing a masquerade half mask. A single line cuts through it. A tear track to my jaw line. Like scar tissue on tanned flesh. I let the dirt wash down before I plug the drain and let the water level rise. I cut the water off and lean against the sink. With a forearm on either side I peer into the rippling surface. I pause for a moment and close my eyes. I breathe in and lower my face into the water. My hands grip the edge of the sink. My elbows stick up awkwardly like plucked chicken wings.

The water feels so refreshing. My skin was parchment-dry from lying in the sun and dust for so long. I can practically feel my skin gulping in the moisture. I open my eyes. The water is slightly murky, but it appears that most of the dirt will require some scrubbing to remove. I try to sigh but the result is a noisy gurgle. Smooth. The water turns slightly pinkish on the right side. It spreads through the basin before I register its existence and goes two shades darker before I realize my grip on the sink must have started my hand bleeding once more.

I reluctantly pull my face from the dirty water. The right side of the sink sprouted red veins while I was submerged. They trickle down the side and pool on the tiles. I pull the plug and let the water spiral away dirt and my blood. I’m making a lot of messes today. I run the water again and wipe the last dirt from my face; a task made difficult with my still bleeding palm. Must be a deeper cut then I thought. I wrap my hand in toilet paper temporarily and wipe off my face one handed. I search out the first-aid kit. A double layer of gauze secured with medical tape finally stops the bleeding.

The bathroom is speckled with blood now. Looks like someone had to be amputated in the sink. The lightly humming fluorescents above the counter add to this imagery. How on earth did I bleed so much? I grab some generic cleaner from under the counter and begin to clean. 

Two.

2

“Don’t leave. You don’t have to leave.”

“I can’t stay. I’m sorry.”

“You need me… I need you”

“I-  I’m sorry.”

“You aren’t! You can’t say you’re sorry unless you’ve tried to fix it.”

“… Good-bye. I’ll never forg-”

“Don’t. Just don’t.”

One.

1

Silent. Sudden. Awake. Inhale. Exhale. Silence unbroken. Arms pressed against my chest. My panic fizzles out before it can fully ignite. No need to struggle; I realize they are my own. I pull my fists from my chest and wipe my palms together to dry them.  My sleeping bag feels constricting tonight. My sweaty skin sticks to it. There is something in the air. It soaks into my bones and compels me to shed my covers. Tonight I belong to the night.

I step into clothes and out into the dark. My breath is almost tangible as it pours from my lips. A cough escapes, breaking the silence of the night and dissipating my breath’s illusion. I pause on the doorstep. The orange glow of the side porch light doesn’t ward off the night’s dark fingers that wrap me up and pull me out. My footsteps on the gravel seem an affront to the silent landscape ahead of me. Each mechanical step takes me deeper into my master’s embrace. Gravel gives way to the dirt drive and my footsteps soften. I release the breath I wasn’t aware I was holding as another raspy cough parts my lips in a visible plume.

I step off the road and onto a thin path. Round a bend and my path is blocked. Before me, standing a silent vigil, is a dark figure. His back to me, he stares off along my future path. It seems my brother feels the pull as well. He needs not say it; I see enough written in the long angular shadows of his face. I come abreast and we stare along the road.

“The meadow…” is all I can manage but it seems enough.

His profile bobs slightly in the gloom and I take it as a nod. The world comes into crisp colorless clarity before us and I realize we couldn’t turn back now if we tried. My body isn’t mine at this point; hasn’t been mine since I awoke.

Cough Cough    cough.

Three quick bursts escape before we are again enveloped by the silence. In near unison we lean forward and begin to walk towards the silent voice in the dark distance. Three days from full, the moon bathes us in light from over my left shoulder and highlighting the silhouettes of distant mountains on every side. The night feels otherworldly in its illumination. Our shadows betray the night’s true potential as they cut dark swatches across our path. Their edges are sharp and crisp, but their shape distorts and undulates, as if alive, as the uneven ground passes beneath them. Down a short shallow slope to our left lies the bank of the lake. To our right waist high grass covers the slope up towards a sporadic tree line. Stretching ahead of us the road becomes swathed in moonshade as it enters the woods. Here is true night. Here the darkness is black. I imagine myself pausing at the edge. Imagine that I still exist in a world of rational thought. I need time to think about what I am doing. Enough time to realize that I need to turn back; I have gone further then I can handle already.

The night has a different agenda and it is far too late for me to fight it. Our stride doesn’t even falter as our shadows are devoured by the woodland moonshade. They meld and our outlines are lost. The silence whispers in my ears and I realize it has been talking to me all along. Tempting me out of bed. Leading me somewhere. It grows louder now.

On either side of us slender aspen ascend out of the motionless tall grass. In the dark the grass is the color of fog and has an eerie delicate texture. There is only a whisper of wind at our backs yet the shadows dance at the corner of my eyes. My footsteps feel hurried now but I can’t slow down.

We are getting closer.

An owl protests our march from away behind us across the still lake. It is a warning made in vain; my brother and I can no more stop walking then a raindrop can halt its plummet.

Cough.

Suddenly, as the road goes around a bend, the meadow blossoms off to the left. The voice without words silently roars in my ears and echoes through me. We are nearly there. The grass is short here and we make our way swiftly to the pale stone in the center of the field. The stone is worn smooth and is roughly the size of a tractor tire. Here my brother’s booted heavy footfalls finally come to a rest but my feet wont stop here. Along the edge of the meadow the grove of tall white trees looks like a whale’s grin and it is here my feet head. The whale’s silent voice, as I have come to think of it, whispers me on like a swarm of bees in my head. The world blurs as tears fill the edges of my eyes. I can’t go. I shouldn’t.

As I pass into the first layer of baleen I panic. I grasp the nearest white bristle and force my feet to stop; bracing my weight against the powdery bark. Wide-eyed, I pear into the belly of the beast. The rabbit hole extends before me and I dig in my heals against the gravity.

A breeze nuzzles my back like a mighty inhalation. It sucks me inward. The leaves above my head sound distinctly like rain. I lean my head back and gaze up. I am instantly mesmerized with my throat exposed to the yawning forest that is the whale’s gullet. I am just a troublesome morsel stuck in the teeth of a mighty predator. A single thought breaks through the trance: ‘I should leave before the tongue comes to dislodge me.’ A hand on my shoulder snaps me out of it with a jump. How did I not hear my brother’s approach?

Cough Cough.

“I don’t want to go.” More to myself then over my shoulder to him.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be right behind you.”

My hands release the tree and I dislodge my shoulder from its braced position. I nod, not breaking eye contact with the source of the screaming voice in my head. I raise my foot. The path down the whale’s tract is laid out ahead of me. My foot falls. Leaves flatten under it. My other foot rises. The forest is so dark ahead.

Crunch.

The silence reassures me that the path is easy. The voice has discovered English.

Crunch.

Its vocabulary grows with each step. Its promises grow more flamboyant.

Crunch.

I raise my foot. Away in the distant woods behind me a noise breaks the silence. The trance is broken before my foot hits the ground. The roaring voice in my head ceases. All that stretches in front of me is suddenly only a grove once more. The whale’s baleen are yet again only aspen. The noise that released me now echoes in my head. It fills the void left behind when the silent voice fled. It sounded like a hoof slipping on a rock. A heavy hoof. It came from way in the distance; across the meadow and deep in the woods near the lake. To have been audible at this distance it had to have been a very heavy creature.

Crunch.

I think all this in a split second and whirl around to face the noise. In the middle of the meadow I see my brother turn to look off in the same direction. I brush a snagged stick off my shoulder and wipe the tears from my eyes with the sleeve of my left arm. I hurry out of the tree line and jog across the field to his side.

“What was that?”

“It came from over there. Sounded like from Dead Calf Pond.”

I turn to look at his profile against the night. A shiver slides along the entire length of my spine and were the hairs on the back of my neck short enough they would have been standing strait up. Instead it results in an odd prickling sensation along my neck.

I had just been to the dry pond bed that day and I could still visualize its occupants. What seemed mildly spooky during the day now sent my legs to shaking slightly in the air I just realized was cold. The place was akin to a shambles. The cracked dry earth of the pond was crisscrossed with fallen trees and littered with bones. The bones of the calf, for which it got its name, had long ago been ground to dust but this place never had a shortage of bones. Earlier today I had counted and photographed four horse skulls and a smear of random bones across the bed. What I remembered most vividly and what now stood in my mind was the complete spine that was draped upside down over a fallen log. The pelvis at one end had looked like the deformed skull of a massive frog like creature. The ribs weren’t attached anymore and were instead splayed out haphazardly along the cracked earth.

A fresh breeze broke my thoughts. Wisps of hair detached and were tossed in front of my eyes. I turned to reassure myself that the tree line was again just that, trees. The whale had departed. It fell back into the windless shifting shade. For now at least. I could feel the voice still lingering there in the grove.

How fierce must this new creature of the night be to silence my captor? I jog to catch up with my brother who has begun to trudge back across the meadow, which we had earlier traversed. I keep my head cocked right, trying to spot movement from the pond’s direction. The moon is a great pupil-less eye above the treetops and it gives me what I am looking for. As its gaze pierces my eyes shapes began to twist in the gloom of the trees. My eyes flick feverishly around, but every time they lock on a point, the movement is elsewhere. Ever present in my peripherals.

My coughing distracts my growing panic long enough to realize we have left the wide road home. Where is my brother going? What compels him to wander now? We have left the trees behind. To either side the grass is tall and a ghostly grey. It sways gently now in a breeze I can’t feel. The grass parts ahead of us to let a snake of black earth meander through it. I see only ten feet of path before it bends and is lost in the fields of grass. Over the grass to the left the moon reflects off the lake. The vegetation along the shallow bank makes it look like a swamp.

I no longer have to turn my head to look towards the dry pond. Dead Calf is directly ahead of us. Our path leads us to a large scattering of rocks. It is here my brother stops. Standing abreast once more we gaze forward into the thirty yards of forest that separates us from the dry pond. There is no trace of wind and the night is once again silent. Although tense, this silence is remarkably comforting. It is a true silence.

“Lets get out of here. I want to get to bed.” I hope my fear is properly masked. As far as I know it has been a normal walk to him. I can only guess that he experienced the whispering silence. I turn and hop down. I return into the field of tall grass and begin along the path. My brother doesn’t follow. At least I don’t hear his boots behind me. Ah there it is. He must have just paused for a moment. His steps are like hooves on the packed earth.

“Make more noise why don’t you?” I joke nervously over my shoulder. He must not have heard the laughter in my voice because the noise stops.

“I’m only joking man…” I turn to find myself alone on the dark footpath.

“Um hello? Where did you go?”  He must have heard the other tone in my voice. My nerves are quite apparently thin with my next vocalization. Perfectly punctuated by a crack in my voice.

“It’s not funny man. You can stop hiding.” The ‘hiding’ is only a cracked whisper into the seemingly empty night. My pulse quickens as my blood feels like it solidifies in my veins. My heart beats double quick to distribute to oxidized supply. My world condenses. All I see is the field of pale grass and the black dirt snake winding through it into the unknown. The trees, the lake, the mountains they simple don’t exist anymore.

Alone.

The darkness seems to creep in on my world. The edges of the field darken and fall away. My circle closes in. I have little time. A fit of coughing seizes me. I grip my side and collapse to my knees. The dirt path flies up at my face and I catch it with my right hand. The skin of my palm splits on stone. A trickle of warm blood mixes with the cool soil. The coughing subsides and I rear back on my knees. What is left of the grass is at eye level. The field is little more then a murky white pool in the darkness. I hear movement in the grass and spin my head. Nothing.

Again, this time from behind.

Pivot.

Nothing.

“This is neither the place nor time for one such as yourself. You had your chance.” My mouth falls open and I spin one last time. My bleeding palm leads my swing and connects with something cold. So cold. Like metal in a meat cellar. The puddle of grass evaporates and I faint face forward into the complete darkness.

Moonshade. A story of parts.

Welcome. Thanks for coming to read my ramblings and if you don't know me then you have likely stumbled onto the wrong blog but feel free to stay and read a bit. This is a temporary place for me to post my story as I write it so I dont have to send It to you guys I can instead just post it here as I slowly write each portion. I've never done this before so I'm going to go ahead and make it up as I go; very much like the way I am writing the story.

Moonshade(working title) is a story I started this summer after a late night walk with my brother. We were on vacation in the Colorado mountains, a place very prominent in my childhood and a place which I know well and know nothing about all at once. It's my first writing project which has gone longer then a insignificant flicker of an idea so I'm going to try and keep writing it as long as the characters show me what to write. I'll post It section by section as I write them. These are all rough drafts and most sections I probably will not have reread before posting. I'd love feedback in any form; Questions, Comments, Criticism (constructive or not), Ideas, Images (stuff this reminded you of or vice versa), Quotes (see Images subtext). Anything really is welcome.

And now without further delay I will post the sections I have thus far.