The Remains by Vincent Zandri Page B

tapping ever so gently on
my window, waking me up out of a sound sleep. After climbing back
through she’d get in bed with me, and hold me, and run her hands
through my hair. She’d shush me back to sleep like a mother would a
baby. I’d drift away to her sweet scent and the sound of her
breaths, just the two of us cocooned inside the sheets and down
comforter, no different from the nine months we spent cuddled up
inside our mother.
    Standing
inside the upstairs of that old home, I could almost feel Molly’s
arms wrapped around me. I could almost smell her breath. The
sensations made me want to leave and never come back home. Back
down on the first floor I thought about leaving for good, maybe
putting the place up for sale, getting the past out of my life
forever. But then something held me back. Something had been
holding me back for years now. Like I said, this place and the many
acres of land that surrounded it, was all that remained of my
history. Would selling this place erase it?
    Inhaling a deep breathe I once more made my
way across the length of the living room to the large double-hung
windows that made up the far window wall. I stood only inches away
from the glass, stared out onto the field and the dense foothill
forest beyond it.
    I see myself walking behind Molly as she
enters the woods. I watch her disappear from view as the colorful
foliage consumes her like Alice through the looking glass. I find
myself standing on the edge of a sea of grass; on the edge of the
known and the unknown, the accepted and the forbidden. My heart has
shot up from my chest and lodged itself in my mouth while visions
of my father slapping us with a punishment so severe we won’t be
able to leave the farm for a year.
    After a few seconds (but what seems like
hours) I hear Molly’s voice begging for me through the trees.
    “ Bec, come on,” she shouts. “There’s a
waterfall.”
    Curiosity pulls at my insides. It is
stronger than fear.
    A waterfall.
    A waterfall means a severe drop-off in the
landscape—a cliff of some kind. Maybe a deep pool at the bottom of
it. Is that why my father has forbidden us to enter into these
woods alone? I realize then, the prospect of his little girls
falling off of that cliff is reason enough.
    Still, who can resist chasing a
waterfall?
    I take a few steps forward in the direction
of Molly’s voice; toward the sound of rushing water. Ducking my
head I slip on through an opening in the trees, make my way into
the darkness…

Chapter 24
     
     
    A HOWLING WIND WOKE me from out of my
daydream. I felt a cold draft against the right side of my face.
Looking over my right shoulder I saw that one of the double-hung
windows had been left open. Not wide open, but open enough for me
to feel the breeze.
    Shifting myself to the window, I reached out
with both hands, closed it. That’s when I noticed that the old lock
had been sheered as if someone had tried to force the window open
from out on the porch.
    I had no choice but to investigate.
    Outside on the porch I went to the window and
discovered that it had, in fact, been tampered with. Jimmied. Kids,
teenagers. It was the first thought that entered into my head.
Locals looking to do a little partying.
    But then if that had been the case, there
would have been beer and liquor bottles tossed all over the living
room floor; maybe even the charred remnants of a fire in the
fireplace.
    But the place was clean. No sign of foul
play, least of all a group of teen partiers.
    I made a mental note to call the carpenter to
repair the window. I turned and started for the front door to lock
it back up. It was then that I spotted the photograph. A black and
white photo with a white border that was lying on the porch floor
as if it had slipped out of somebody’s pocket not ten years ago,
but just this morning.
    Bending at the knees I picked the picture
up.
    I felt the floor beneath me shift. The image
was of Molly and me. We couldn’t have been more than twelve