IN THE SHADOWS OF FATE
a Novel by
RICK JUREWICZ
Text Copyright © 2016 Rick Jurewicz
All Rights Reserved
For Mom,
Always encouraging my
wild imagination. My
true angel.
For my family,
with love.
PROLOGUE
The leaves cast their shadows dancing upon the grounds of the old Victorian style home, only minutes beyond the midnight hour. Radiant moonlight washed across the expanse of sky, exposing details in the darkness oft not seen by the wandering eye at that late hour of the evening. A subtle breeze snaked across the dense forest landscape. The incessant chirping of crickets, and the rattling of the still emerging foliage of the north wood trees, were the only sounds that could be heard in an otherwise serene late-spring night.
The month of June had already been unseasonably warm in the northern woodlands of Michigan, but the nights brought a chill that reminded you of where you were in the world. There were still a long many weeks out into the coming summer months to get the real sustaining heat that the season can bring, even to the often cooler Upper Peninsula area of the state.
A soft wind carried the scent of the estate gardens from the rear of the house up the hillside to the nostrils of the man sitting in the darkness, hiding away from the moon's brilliant sheen, as he looked down upon the once proud home not far away. He closed his eyes and breathed it in, only for a moment. The sweet aroma that so much time and work had been put into nurturing, year after year, by hardened hands. A labor of love and beauty, carried on for decades, since long before he had ever even set a foot on the property.
The grizzled man, who now looked well beyond his age of almost 50, thought it odd that the garden fragrance had found his nose over the far less pleasant stench of the gasoline that had been poured in abundance around the base of the old home down the hill. Two five-gallon cans, emptied and discarded near the front and back entrances of the house, and a third can that he had dragged along with him away from the house.
A trail of gas had been left behind on the rocky path the man had climbed up the hill. He was only a few feet from where the can had dropped its last drops, and for the past 20 minutes he sat in silence, his eyes lost in the entrancing sway of the shadows.
He smelled as if he hadn't bathed in quite some time, despite those kind folks that had offered him opportunities to do so in the good, little northern town. The residents had felt sorry for the man, but for the most part, he chose to keep to himself and not to cause a bother to anyone. Old man Sherman had offered him a bunk in a back room behind his farm and grain store, but instead the man would often find shelter from the elements in the pole building where Sherman kept his tractor and supplies. It was from the pole building that the man had taken the gasoline, over a three night period. He hauled each full can by hand to the dense brush up the hill from the home he now gazed down upon.
The man had tightly tied strong ropes from the handles of the two main entrance doors of the home to the railings of the large porch that stretched across the entire length of the front and rear of the house. He knew that the fire would burn the ropes eventually, but hoped they would hold tight, for just long enough.
The pain echoed in his head every single night. He had to make it stop. He knew he could not take another night of it; the dreams, the voices that whispered through his every last thought. There was no distinction now between waking and sleeping. There was only the torment he carried that clawed at his heart and burned in his mind, a mind which grew more fragile with every minute that passed.
It was right, this thing he must do. Yes...it has to be, he would tell himself. This act of cleansing would free his soul from the pain and the anguish that ate at him from his insides. There was no other way.
His hand trembled as he raised a cigarette to his dry lips. His face had not been touched by a razor in years, but occasionally it occurred to him to trim down his unkempt beard, now looking as if it had only been a few weeks since his last shave. He flipped a scratched up old Zippo lighter open with his thumb and dragged the wheel down against the flint, sparking the flame that reddened the tip of the cigarette. He then flipped the lid back over the flame and put the lighter away in his pocket.
There was no doubt in his mind that he would be found, and he toyed with the thought of letting the flames take him away as well. But the courage to do so was not in the broken man. It may seem a cowardly thing, this thing that he must do, but it was a necessary one. He had kept telling himself this, and he believed it, although he did not know why he believed it. He had either gone mad, or he had been chosen to do this thing which he was about to do. Whichever it may be, in the end, fate would have its way with Daryl Grimes.
Grimes' hand, shaking with every drag of the Marlboro Red, found itself steady for the final draw of nicotine on that cool June night. The red tip glowed to reveal the reds and grays in his beard, and then with a sharp flick, he sent the still hot cigarette butt into the gasoline trail, instantly igniting the fumes. The flames blazed down to the front porch where the trail had started, and quickly spread around the entire bottom floor of the house. The weathered old wood of the home took to flame fast, and the chipping and flaking paint offered almost no protection from the fire.
Grimes picked up the last gas can and started walking on further up the hill into the forest lands. The winds began to pick up, accelerating the spread of the fire up the outside walls, and engulfing a large portion of the ground floor. But those winds also carried something that Grimes had not anticipated. He could hear, even from his far distance and over the crackling hiss and roar of the flames, the cries of a small child coming from the upper level of the home. He stopped, and his heart began to pound harder in his chest. His lips quivered and his hands began to shake.
Daryl Grimes dropped to his knees, letting the gas can fall to his side. With his hands to his face, he began to sob harder than any other time he had cried in his life before now. He lied down in a fetal position, slowly writhing and convulsing as the tears streamed across his face. With quivering lips he muttered, in almost no more than a whisper, the same desperate plea over and over, until he would speak words no more...
"Please my God, forgive me."
CHAPTER 1
Nineteen Years Later
Miranda woke up screaming, her dark blue t-shirt soaked in a cold sweat. She could feel her breathing beginning to labor as the hyperventilation set in. Clenching her fists in the sheets, she tried in vain to get a grip, but the pounding in her chest made it hard for her to give her breathing the concentration that was needed to slow herself down.
In the darkness, Miranda’s door flew open to the silhouette of a young woman in a long t-shirt standing in the doorway.
“Miranda!” cried the voice from the doorway, and the figure quickly moved to the bed and held a hand on both of Miranda’s shoulders, moving her face in close to Miranda’s.
“Sweetie, you need to breathe. Come on. Short, deep breaths, just like before.”
The girl moved her hands gently to Miranda’s face, and started breathing the short breaths with her as she tried to calm her friend. Miranda started to get a hold of herself again, her face a mix of sweat and tears.
“That’s it…you’re doing fine,” said the girl to Miranda as her breathing returned to a much calmer, steadier pace.
“Lydia,” Miranda whispered.
“That’s right…I’m here. You’re okay. Just keep breathing,” Lydia answered.
Miranda put her face into her hands for a moment, and tried to wipe the wetness from her cheeks. “What the hell is happening to me?”
“Another nig
htmare?” Lydia asked, already knowing the answer.
“It was the same nightmare…the same one from when I was a little girl... I keep having it over and over again...”
Lydia sat silently for a moment, giving Miranda a chance to compose herself a little bit more. Her concerns had been growing for some time now over the sudden and startling upheavals in the nights over the past several weeks. Each one seemed to intensify and were becoming far more frequent.
“Was it always like this when you were having them before...when you were a kid?” asked Lydia.
Miranda swung her legs out from under the sheets and put her feet on the floor. For that moment she seemed to be somewhere else, lost in the dark shadows of her subconscious. She was thinking about the dream again. She thought about how she had had it so many times when she was very young. The dream had always been the same. But now, there was something different.
She would always remember seeing herself in a large room of a very beautiful house. Solid oak walls with paintings of landscapes depicting gorgeous autumn scenes and rocky cliffs with spectacular waterfalls. The floor was the most memorable part of the room; white, pearlescent marble tiles stretching far across the entire span of the room. Then of course, there was the man playing at the large, white piano. At first, Miranda could not see his face, just as she hadn't been able to when she was younger. She walked slowly, closer and closer to the man who was always wearing an all white suit and had blonde hair that went just beyond his shoulders. With every step she took, and the closer she got, the man played faster and faster until finally she was upon him, standing by his side. Sitting atop the piano was a wooden box, intricately carved with designs that may have resembled small flowers, and it was about twice the size of an ordinary cigar box. She could never help but notice the box for only a moment in the dream. Her eyes would quickly move to the man’s face as she stood there by his side, looking down upon him. She could see his side profile clearly; his face looked young and smooth, and his jaw was strong, yet it was what she could only describe as sympathetic. His eyes stayed shut as he played his fiery notes. As soon as her eyes met his face, his playing would stop with a final and furious slam upon the keys with his long, pale fingers.
Then, he would open his eyes. When Miranda was a child, the dream would end just before this part. But not any longer, which made all the difference in how the dream seemed to affect her so drastically now. When the man in white opened his eyes, there was only blackness. Deep, endless blackness. The man would then turn his emotionless and expressionless face towards Miranda, and she could feel the blackness of those dark eyes pierce her very soul, bringing on waves of helplessness and terror like nothing Miranda had ever felt.
That is when the episodes like tonight had started. The sweating. The screams. The humiliation of feeling helpless and scared in front of others. Miranda hated feeling weak in front of others. She hated feeling weak at all. It had been more than 10 years since she last had these dreams, but they were nothing like they were now. At first she thought it was the stress of everything that had been going on in her life lately. Holding down two jobs plus a full class load. Everything seemed to be finally catching up with her.
Miranda had taken on harder things than being a full-time student on a shoestring budget. She made the decision a long time ago that she needed to leave home and do things her own way. Now she was 22, more than four hours and hundreds of miles away from the small town where she had grown up, and she was doing exactly what she wanted to. She was making it on her own.
There had been bumps along the way, and more than a few changes to her college major and her overall curriculum over the last few years, but she was now well on her way to a sociology degree with a minor in journalism. Those who knew her thought that a sociology major was an odd and interesting choice for a girl like Miranda. Although she found the study of societies and culture exceptionally interesting, she herself was not always what one might say the most socially interactive of people. That wasn’t to say that she was anti-social. She had friends and would go out for the occasional night on the town and attend all sorts of events around the city. Art shows were often a favorite of Miranda's, as well as public music performances, whether they be in the local parks or the late night clubs.
Much of the time though, Miranda would find herself either going alone to these kinds of events, or perhaps Lydia would go along with her. She was always very focused and serious about the things that she immersed herself in. There were times when people would just assume that she had a snobby side, which although was not the case, suited Miranda just fine. She was just as well off to do without people that were prepared to judge others without trying to really get to know what they were about, although she was well aware that she didn't often make that easy for people in the case of herself.
Lydia Snow was not the type of person to pass quick judgment on others, always choosing to be open to all of the unique differences that make up who people truly are. Miranda could tell this from the moment they met, and that was one of the reasons the two of them got along so well. This seemed to surprise others though, being that they came from very different backgrounds and had a very different sense of style and personality.
Lydia grew up in Cincinnati, raised in a well-to-do family of some stature in the circles that they ran in. But things like social status and wealth didn’t matter to Lydia. She was a bookworm, always reading a textbook for her classes, or diving head first into whatever the latest popular novel series was; she admitted only to a few close friends her guilty pleasure of reading the latest undead romance series of the moment. But her truly greatest guilty pleasure, which was a significant clash to the things in Miranda's world that she had passion for, was her love of sports. She loved them all, watching and sometimes participating. She knew everything that was going on in college football at any particular moment. Lydia was a cute blonde girl with her hair almost always in a ponytail, slim and athletic, and she loved having on sweats and a t-shirt more than anything else over wearing frilly dresses or the latest fashions. She was, in appearance, a contrast in almost every way to Miranda.
Miranda’s hair was naturally jet black and had some curl in it, which quite often would leave it wild and untamed looking when Miranda was in a hurry on her way out the door and had barely run a brush through it. She often preferred to wear slim-fitting faded denim pants and was herself on more casual days, a plain t-shirt girl. She would often be seen wearing band shirts of obscure music groups from the 1970s through the 1990s. Joy Division, The Cure, Concrete Blonde and Jane’s Addiction were some of her favorites. In her left ear, she wore a small Eye of Horus silver earring, and a black, pearl-like stud in the upper part of her ear. In her right ear were three small silver hoops. She wore little makeup most of the time, but she had a natural glow about her face that didn’t require a lot of work, which secretly made Lydia crazy at times. Even though Lydia had no problem stepping out in her sweats to run errands, she always had to put some sort of a face on first.
Miranda’s favorite accessory was her leather motorcycle jacket. It had been a gift from a former boyfriend back in high school, and through the years of beatings it had taken back in her wilder days, it well earned the worn and weathered character it now had. Although it was a men’s leather jacket, it had been small on her boyfriend, but even running a little large for her small frame, it looked great on her.
Despite the differences in style, background and attitude between Miranda and Lydia, the one thing that helped create a deep respect and appreciation for one another was their common determination to go out into the world and make it on their own. Lydia could have help from her parents at any time, but chose to do things her way, and was willing to work hard to make it happen. She would still receive cards with cash from time to time from home; much of that was put into donation jars at soup kitchens and other various charities. She appreciated what they were trying to do for her, but she felt that if she was willing to work hard to t
ake care of herself, she liked to consider those who couldn’t work and could really use a little extra help.
“Miranda?” Lydia said softly, as Miranda finally shook off her momentary lapse of awareness of the world around her.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know where I was. I think I am finally going off the deep end,” said Miranda.
Lydia smiled and put an arm around Miranda’s shoulders.
“Hey. Welcome to the rest of the world. You’re gonna be all right. Everybody has shit get to them every once in a while. Maybe going home and getting some down time is what you need,” said Lydia.
Miranda put a hand to her forehead when Lydia said the word.
“Home,” she said quietly to herself, seeming to again forget Lydia was right there listening.
“You make it sound like you are going to serve a prison sentence. I’ve met your parents, and they seem like nice enough people. It’s not my business or anything, but did something bad happen between you guys?” asked Lydia.
“No. No, it’s nothing like that. I just…I don’t know. I feel like an alien or something when I am with them the last few years. They always mean well, and I know that. I just feel so out of place when I am there anymore,” said Miranda.
“That’s just how it feels when you’ve been gone for so long,” said Lydia. “You are your own person, making your own way in the world. Going home again is never an easy thing.”
Miranda let out a little laugh and a smile. “Yeah. Especially to Native Springs, Michigan! Population…I don’t even know. It’s small though, that’s for sure. Maybe they’ve got a good coffee shop with Wi-Fi by now. At least there I could feel a little more at home.”
“Native Springs,” Lydia smiled. “Every time I hear that town’s name I start to think you lived in a giant bottle of water.”
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