by A. R. Shaw
Then she remembered the pink jacket that caught her attention earlier and though her lungs burned she quickly told her daughter, “Wren, peel off your jacket and turn it inside out. Allez! Do it now; it’s too bright.”
Wren looked at her like she was crazy but complied even though she had to put the wet side against her clothing and let the gray interior get soaking wet.
“Let’s go,” she told them. “We have to find shelter before nightfall.”
Always preferring solid plans, this was the part that she’d dreaded. She had no real idea what was out there beyond Horseshoe Lane. The farthest she’d ever imagined was the house she was headed to at the end of the woods, hoping that those who came for them thought they’d left long ago and didn’t have a clue where they’d gone.
The high school where she’d taught French seemed a different life and at first, she had planned to possibly go there, but realized in all their training, it was more than likely being used as a holding facility for what they were now calling Americans…refugees. At least that was what the initial notices said when they received them after the flood that displaced so many.
She continued to push the girls forward through the brush. The conifers were gaining in height the farther they ventured and the brush denser in this part of the woods, and she knew they were headed in the right direction. Her fear beyond being caught was possibly running into more stragglers out in the woods. It seemed a natural hiding place to get out of sight from the old open farmland where their homes were built.
“Mom, where are we going?” Wren, who was in the lead, asked as she pushed branches out of her way.
“Continue heading northeast. We’ll be there by tonight. We can stop and rest in a while, but let’s get farther away still,” Sloane said, raising her voice an octave above a whisper to counter the increasing rainfall.
“I’m cold,” Mae said with her teeth chattering.
“I know, me too, but we can’t stop now,” Sloane said.
“Where are we going?” Nicole asked.
Sloane expected complaining about the cold, wind and rain. What she dreaded were the questions about their direction and where they might possibly be spending the night. In truth, there was only one place she thought they might be able to hide for a time, and it was a place the girls would not want to go.
She and Finn found it while hiking these woods when Wren was only a three-year-old swinging between their arms as they went. They’d came through the opening in the woods and found a house in a clearing surrounded by trees with only one driveway leading out. The house was an enchanting old model with overgrown rose bushes and hedges showing little care, though Sloane could see the remnants of a once glorious estate. They’d explored the grounds before they found someone watching them. A kind old man sat staring at them from a rocking chair on the weathered porch.
Sloane was startled. Finn wore a navy blue windbreaker that day. He’d grabbed her arm just above her elbow to steady her, sensing she was about to flee. “Hi there.” He’d waved to the older gentleman and they approached the porch.
“What are you folks doing here?” the elderly man had labored to say.
“I apologize for trespassing. We were just hiking through the woods and came upon your place here. We live a few miles that away, as the crow flies,” Finn pointed into the trees.
The old man had nodded, his eyes blue and rheumy. Sloane watched as his gaze traveled down to Wren. Her little hand clutched hers tighter when he smiled and showed little teeth.
“No harm done. You folks are welcome here,” he said and then looked into Sloane’s eyes. At the time, she felt like he stared straight to her soul. There was something about the man that gave her chilling goosebumps and she chided her inner self for her anxiety. He’d given her a smile like he gave Wren and she smiled back at him, hoping his interrogation of them was over with. That’s what it felt like. He measured them like a laser beam detecting ore. He scanned them for something, offering a smile at the end of his service.
Sloane had never had elderly grandparents to compare him with. She assumed old people came with different rules and guidelines for social graces. This old man surely did.
“Well, we’ll be off then. Sorry to disturb your afternoon here,” Finn had said kindly.
They’d turned to leave and then Sloane heard, “You, what’s your name?” She’d thought he was talking to Finn but, when she turned to look at him, found he was addressing her.
“Sloane, Sloane McKenna,” she said. “And your name is?” she asked in return, to be polite.
The question stagnated for a time. It occurred to her that he might be hard of hearing, which was a likely scenario, when suddenly he said, “I’m Garrison. Wayne Garrison.”
She smiled again. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Mr. Garrison.”
“We should go if we want to make it back before dark,” Finn suggested and they waved goodbye again and turned up the long driveway that seemed to lead to the main road. Halfway up the drive Sloane felt the old man’s eyes on them still and when she turned to look, the rocking chair stood empty. She hadn’t heard the man get up or enter the home and thought it odd at the time.
Weeks later, Finn ran to the hardware store in search of a certain size washer and came home after his errand white as a sheet. When she asked what was wrong, he said he’d mentioned old Wayne Garrison’s name, who lived at the beautiful estate, and the old clerk said he’d died ten years earlier.
The home was abandoned and a distant cousin said she’d never sell the place because she thought he haunted the grounds he used to lovingly maintain for his departed wife. She’d laughed then, thinking he was joking with her, but he shivered like he was totally creeped out and for a man of science, she kidded him about it for a time.
“It was probably a neighbor checking in on the place or something, right? Had to be,” he’d reasoned.
They’d never returned there even when she teased him and asked him if he was the least bit curious. Finn was always skittish when it came to things he couldn’t explain. It would weigh on his mind and it was something she loved about him. There always had to be a plausible explanation but this time, nothing came.
The thing was, Wren remembered the encounter too, even as small as she was. She remembered the old man and the house and asked her mother about it after the incident a few nights in a row when she was saying goodnight in the quiet of her room, whispered like an anomaly. “Who was that old man, Mom?” or “The house was scary,” she shared with toddler eyes round in wonder. So much like her father, Wren was. Always needing exact instructions or explanations for the things she didn’t fully grasp.
Sloane knew her daughter already suspected their destination and she expected a coming battle over it but Sloane could think of no better place to hide for at least the next day or two. Surely the abandoned house would be a safe haven until she could figure out where to go from there.
“Mooom?” Wren had stopped in the lead and turned to her with a question. “We’re going to the old house, aren’t we?”
Sloane nodded as the rain pelted them, their eyes blinking in defiance. Nicole shivered with Mae in their soaked gear between them, looking from one of them to the other. It was a standoff in a sense. Wren was a smart girl; surely she could see they had few options? Sloane watched her daughter’s expression. It saddened her but the last few years had matured the girl beyond her years. She looked at her siblings in the rain, cold and shivering. Then only a curt nod was necessary. Wren cut her eyes down and forged ahead.
Sloane’s heart broke right there in front of her eyes. Her daughter, seeing their circumstances, had become an adult. She’d overcome her fears out of necessity, knowing they needed shelter and the scary house of her childhood was the only option despite that fear.
They forged through the increasing rain, her daughter leading and Sloane ushering them from behind. Then, soaking wet with her long brown hair plastered against her alabaster skin, Wren turned to her moth
er asking for directions, only the wind had picked up so much she barely heard her words only four feet ahead of her. Sloane looked up at the swaying trees. Even the forest was becoming unsafe for them now. Sloane shuffled ahead of them, past the other two girls, and took Wren by the arm and pulled the other two close into a circle. She had to yell to be heard, even that close. “Hold on to each other. I’ll lead. Don’t let go.” They all nodded since there was no use wasting their voices. With Sloane holding Nicole’s hand in hers and Mae holding onto to Nicole, Wren pulled up the end holding her sister Mae’s hand. The wind was so strong they leaned into it regardless of the stinging rain and guarded their faces with their arms.
Sloane wasn’t sure of the exact location of the house but knew it couldn’t be much farther. Time seemed to hold no meaning. It felt like ages since the morning raid, and night seemed to dally rather than arrive. It would be my luck to escape into a storm, she thought. Then one of the girls screamed the words, or she thought it was one of them. When she looked, it was Mae, who’d wrenched her arm away from Nicole and yelled repeatedly while pointing through the trees, “Mom! There!” She jumped up and down, repeating the words over and over. Sloane looked and saw the camo greenish tone of something solid in a clearing up ahead. She nodded behind her and went farther still. When they arrived at the edge of the clearing where wild grasses swayed as the air currently played over them like some madman doodling on parchment, one glance at the house and she knew this was it.
Though time had taken its toll, the hidden two-story Victorian house that time forgot was still in an upright position and seemed intact. She crouched at the back edge of the property and had the girls do the same. She needed to study the place in hopes no one was in residence or harboring safely within its walls. The back porch faced her view. A once fully enclosed porch, the now-brittle rusted screens hung in peeled suspension at random intervals though most voids were not as graceful, showing ragged abrupt breaks. She imagined if she attempted to right the material, it would fall apart in her hands, staining them orange.
“Mom, can we go in?” urged Mae, drenched and kneeling beside her in the sloppy brown mud. With no one in sight across the overgrown lawn, only the dark and disintegrating porch greeted them from this angle.
“Yes, but follow me closely. Wren, keep your weapon ready.”
“Yes Mom,” she said and they paced quickly through the sheeting rain, aiming in a cautious line for the back entrance.
Sloane tested the first step of the worn wooden porch, just knowing her foot would fall right through the weathered wood. She pushed her weight onto it and hefted herself up. Surprisingly, the stairs were solid though slick, like a log not used to wear. “Be careful, it’s slippery,” she cautioned. She opened the first partially screened door and ushered them inside.
Just being out of the rain with a tin roof overhead felt better. Then Sloane approached the darkened back door. It was painted over more than once, the color of damp moss with a glass paned window. A curtain kept her vision limited on the other side. She reached for the brass knob.
“Shouldn’t we knock first?” Mae said.
“It’s abandoned,” she said.
“How do we know for sure?” Wren asked.
Still the rain continued its assault, and she barely heard their reasonable objections. She knocked, or rather pounded, on the side of the glass. “Anyone home?”
They waited a time. Sloane looked around the empty porch. No debris or signs of anyone living there. If anything, it looked a bit too clean.
“See, no one’s here,” she said and before she or any of the girls could talk her out of it she tried the knob, cold in her already chilled hand, as she turned and found it locked.
Okay, what now?
“Why don’t we try the front door? Maybe they can’t hear us. It’s so loud out here,” Nicole advised.
Sloane agreed and led them to the front, cautious of any signs someone was lurking there waiting to catch them.
Without the trees to shield them, the rain felt like stinging needles coming at them in a sideways assault. They hurried to the front, where Sloane halted at the corner. She stepped into the garden bed and peeked around the sharp corner of the house. Like the back, no one lingered outside. No cars were parked in the long dirt drive. Sloane shielded her eyes from the storm and realized even the drive itself was overgrown. She could barely make out where the entrance through the trees began. “There’s no one here,” she said to the shivering girls.
Satisfied, Wren asked, “How do we get inside?”
Sloane quickly led them the return trip to the secluded porch. She reasoned a broken pane would be less noticeable in the back window than in the front of the house.
The girls stood around her as she removed her backpack first, and then her own jacket. She wrapped it around her left hand.
“What are you doing?” Mae asked.
“Mom’s breaking into the house,” Wren explained.
Sloane gave her a look.
“What? That’s what you’re doing isn’t it?” Wren asked.
Huffing, Sloane looked at the girls. “I’m going to break this pane of glass and then reach in and unlock the door,” Sloane explained.
“That’s wrong,” Mae said.
Wren must have taken pity on her mother because she intervened with, “Mae, we have to get into this house. We have no place else to go and this house is abandoned. The bad guys won’t find us here.”
Mae nodded as she and Nicole shivered, still aware of the increasing storm. “Well, hurry up, please,” Mae urged. And with that, Sloane punched the glass pane nearest the door’s knob. Unfortunately, the glass didn’t break but Sloane was beginning to think her hand was broken as shooting pains ran up to her elbow.
“Ow! Gosh, that hurt!” Sloane shouted while shoving her hand between her legs. She bent over, unwrapped her hand and examined her red knuckles.
“Here, let me try,” Wren insisted. “You have to aim for the other side of the glass, just like in Tae Kwon Do,” she said as she too wrapped the jacket around her hand.
Still holding her own hand Sloane said, “No Wren, wait,” but it was too late. Wren punched through the glass pane, causing a loud shattering. They all ducked at the sound and waited for the result they feared, but no one came running toward them. No alarm was sounded and as far as they could tell, they were the only ones to hear the breaking glass. Hoping the sound was disguised by the heavy winds, Sloane looked at her daughter. “Where did you learn to do that?”
Wren raised her shoulders. “I don’t know. Dad taught me.”
Sloane sent a silent prayer, along with a thank you, to her deceased husband. Before they could make any more noise, Sloane put her uninjured hand through the broken glass pane and reached for the deadbolt lock. She unlocked the door after staring inside what she decided was the old kitchen for a while. Then she opened the door. Again broken glass made a racket but she was fairly certain the noise was absorbed by the outside storm. After pushing the door inside, she took a few tentative steps within the house with glass crunching underneath her boots. She made the girls come just inside the entranceway and closed the door behind them. She stood there in front of the girls in the dim kitchen. The solid wide plank flooring echoed a history of caring, toil, family, and scars of those left behind. White painted cabinets contrasted with the dark flooring with their black hammered cast iron hinges and door pulls. The storm still raged beyond the white framed windows; shadows of branches swung back and forth through the simple white curtains drawn closed, casting scary shadowed images onto painted pale blue walls. In the center of the large space, an old brown stately table sat with four upholstered chairs mounded with a thick layer of dust; beyond that was a typical large fireplace that was the mainstay of homes this old for cooking everything before the age of the modern appliances took hold. She’d always wanted a house like this; it was a dream home. And it was obvious someone once loved it very much by the looks of the kitchen alone.<
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“Stay here,” she whispered to them. “Let me check it out first,” she cautioned. Sloane left her backpack with the girls and unholstered her Glock, keeping it out for her own protection. She glanced back at the girls, still shivering and dripping water onto the old plank floor, forming puddles around their boots as they stood there frightened, cold and drenched. She had a momentary thought of tossing them a towel to keep the floor from harm but it passed out of necessity. There wasn’t time for that now.
Sloane’s boots squeaked as she stepped through the dim kitchen to a short dark wainscoted trimmed doorway leading to what she could see from the opened doorway was the dining room. If the shadows warring on the kitchen walls hadn’t scared her, the ones racing on the formal dining room certain did. This room too was covered in a thick layer of dust. The same wide plank flooring existed but also an old ornate rug sat under the heavy feet of a large handsome dining table with six chairs surrounding it and silver period candle sticks atop. Sloane avoided stepping on the rug with her wet boots but passed an old buffet table with a gold framed portrait over the top. She guessed the beach scene painting was of Haystack Rock; every home had some similar rendition. The gold frame set off the eggshell blue painted walls. The one thing different about this room was the raw hewn beams traversing the ceiling, causing her to question if she’d literally stepped back in time. It certainly felt to her like living in the 1800s. Another fireplace with a white painted wood mantle sat adjacent the table and Sloane wanted nothing more than to light a fire in it while she and girls gathered around it for warmth. But first she needed to check out the rest of the house.
Sloane stepped again across the hallway leading to the front door and found herself in a red painted room with the same flooring. It looked like a formal sitting room, smaller than the dining room. Again, another white painted wood fireplace lined one wall. Large rough beams traversed the ceiling. A dusty writing desk sat along one wall and next to the windows were two chairs flanking an end table. A few other chairs were scattered about some with brocade pillows atop them so dusty she couldn’t tell their color. Several gold framed portraits lined the walls; she glanced at them wondering if these people haunted these walls, if they minded her presence here or not. She couldn’t tell yet. She needed to be here. She needed this sanctuary and she hoped they understood—that is, if there was a consciousness to this house at all.