by Tara Sivec
I watch in silence as she continues picking things up and putting them away.
“Honestly, Ravenna, I know things are difficult right now, but that doesn’t mean you can just behave any way you like,” she complains as she hangs up a pale purple dress in my closet.
When she has most of the items picked up from my floor, she comes over to my bed and sits down on the edge of it, folding her hands in her lap as she stares into my eyes. It makes me just as uncomfortable as it always does, but I refuse to look away. I refuse to cower when she tells me the way I spoke to my father was inexcusable. What’s inexcusable is my being made to feel guilty because I want to know what happened to me, and my mother taking something out of my room that belongs to me.
“We need to talk about something very serious.”
Here it comes…
My mother takes a deep breath before reaching over and grabbing my hands, giving them a squeeze.
“Why in the world is your beautiful pink bedding out on the lawn below your window?”
She looks at me so solemnly that I can’t stop the laugh that bursts out of me. Her eyes narrow in annoyance, and it just makes me laugh harder.
“This is not funny, Ravenna,” she scolds. “Do you have any idea how expensive that bedding was? And you just toss it out onto the grass as if it’s nothing.”
Leave it to my mother to think this is an issue of importance right now.
“I hate those blankets. The color is disgusting, and I don’t want them on my bed,” I tell her.
“You always loved the color pink,” she whispers sadly.
Pulling my hands out of hers, I cross them in front of me. “Well, I don’t like it now. I think it’s pretty clear some things have changed around here lately.”
She bites her bottom lip nervously and finally looks away from me to stare out the window next to my bed.
“Everything is going to be fine, you’ll see,” she speaks softly.
I’m not sure if her words are for me, or if she’s trying to convince herself.
“Nothing will be fine until I get answers, until I can remember all of the things that no one seems to care about helping me figure out,” I tell her angrily. “Until someone tells me why my journal is missing from my room.”
She turns her head back to look at me, tilting it to the side. She reaches her hand out toward me, but I back out of her reach. I don’t want her comfort. I want answers.
“Journal? What journal?” she asks, trying to hide the hurt she felt when I pulled away from her. “Ravenna, I don’t know what this is all about, but of course we want to help you. I would give anything to fix things, but I don’t know how.”
I let the journal problem go for the time being since she really does seem clueless about it. Instead, I focus on the fact that maybe she’s telling the truth. Maybe she really would do anything to make things better.
“You can fix it by telling me the truth. Just tell me the truth, for God’s sake!” I shout, unable to keep my anger and frustration in check no matter how kind and loving she is with me.
“I would never lie to you.”
I scoff and shake my head at her. “Of course you would, just like Dad told you to do. Just keep reminding me who I am, and everything will be fine, right? Just keep doing what he says, even if you know something isn’t right, that something is wrong with me. Don’t worry about having a mind of your own; just keep following along like the obedient little sheep you are.”
The smack across my cheek comes quickly and without warning, although I should have expected it. What I don’t expect is the flash of memory that bursts through my mind as soon as I feel the sting of her palm against the side of my face.
“You disrespectful little bitch! How dare you speak to me that way!”
Pressing my hand to my cheek to ease the sting, I glare at her as the anger on her face quickly fades and is replaced by regret.
“Oh my God. Oh Ravenna, I’m so sorry. I’ve never done anything like that before. I’m so sorry,” she pleads as tears pool in her eyes.
Lies.
She stood in front of me once before, in the spare bedroom with the dark blue quilt I prefer and pale blue walls, her face red with fury as she smacked me across the face and called me names. The thunder boomed outside and the rain beat against the window as she stormed out of the room and told me I wasn’t allowed to come out as she slammed the door behind her.
Even with the depressing way she always looks at me and the way she keeps trying to make me into someone I’m clearly not with the braiding of my hair and the pink bedspread, I still had a small glimmer of hope she would be honest with me and stand up for me after the argument I heard her having with my father. Those hopes flew out the window like that stupid, ugly blanket as soon as she smacked me and lied about never doing anything like that before.
“Get. Out.”
I watch the tears fall down her cheeks, and I don’t even care that I’ve made her cry.
“Ravenna, please,” she begs through her tears. “I’m so sorry. I never—”
“GET OUT!” I scream, cutting her off as I point to my door.
She quickly jumps up from my bed and much like my father earlier in the day, backs out of the room with a look of fear on her face.
Good. They should fear me. If they aren’t going to help me, they damn well better be afraid of the day I finally figure everything out. The only thing that shocks me about the exchange with my mother is that she never mentioned what happened with my father. There’s no way she would have just swept that under the rug. It would have been the perfect opportunity for her to remind me how good and sweet I’m supposed to be. As husband and wife, two people who supposedly love each other, shouldn’t my father have told her what I said? Shouldn’t he have been concerned enough about my odd statement about secrets being hidden that he went to her for help, so they could tackle the problem as a team? Not only are they keeping things from me, they’re keeping things from each other.
“My name is Ravenna Duskin. I’m eighteen years old, I live in a prison, and I will find out the truth, even if it destroys everyone around me.”
Chapter 8
“But, sir. We came all the way out here today just to fill in that hole,” Ike complains.
“I said go home and tell the rest of the men their services won’t be needed tonight either,” my father replies firmly.
Keeping my back pressed to the wall right outside the door leading down to the basement, I stay as still as possible, so no one knows I’m there as the two men argue on the stairs below. I came out of my hiding place when I heard voices, and I know I should have stayed where I was, but I had to know what was going on. I had to know what my father would do to try and fix the problem that he created. Now that I know, it makes me want to laugh. For the last few weeks I’ve seen him ripping into Ike almost every day about filling the hole in the basement and how it should have been done by now. It’s quite hilarious that all of a sudden he’s changed his mind, and now he looks like a fool.
You won’t be able to hide your secrets forever, Daddy dearest.
“I don’t understand, Mr. Duskin. You’ve been asking us to fill in the hole in the sub-basement for months. I’ve been making calls for weeks to get an order of fill-dirt in and I had to call in a lot of favors to have it delivered on a Sunday,” Ike explains.
“How many times do I have to tell you?!” my father bellows, his voice bouncing off of the stone walls in the small stairwell. “I’ve changed my mind. The hole stays.”
“But, sir—”
“GET OUT THIS INSTANT IF YOU WANT TO CONTINUE WORKING HERE!” my father interrupts, his voice rising above the storm that rages outside. “Your stupidity and carelessness has already done enough damage. Figure out a way to fix this mess instead of making things worse.”
I hear a few mumbled curses and the shuffling of feet on the stairs, one set moving farther down them into the basement and the other coming up closer to me. I move as qu
ickly and quietly as possible across the hall to the artifact museum, but I’m not fast enough.
“What are you running from, little girl?” Ike asks.
I slowly turn in the doorway of the museum and watch him close the basement door behind him, before walking down the hallway toward me. He’s a tall man in his mid-forties, well over six feet, and his arms are the size of tree stumps. He’s wearing dark blue coveralls and a t-shirt that probably used to be white at one time, but is so saturated with dirt and sweat that it looks grey. He’s been a groundskeeper here for over ten years and my father recently started letting him do a tour every once in a while when we’re busy. He thinks that makes him special. He thinks that makes him an authority on everything that happens here, but he doesn’t know everything. He doesn’t know what I’m capable of. He’s been watching me for weeks, sticking his nose in my business, no matter where I am or what I’m doing, and I’ve had enough.
He continues moving down the hall until he’s toe-to-toe with me, and I stand my ground, refusing to move or let him intimidate me even when the smell of his sweat makes me gag. Ike leans down until his mouth is right next to my ear.
“You might be able to fool everyone else, girly, but I know what you did. I know what you are.”
I grit my teeth when he pulls back and laughs, his hot breath reeking of onions as it puffs across my face.
“What I am is someone you should stay far, far away from,” I tell him with a smile, cutting off his mocking laughter.
The confidence on his face vanishes, and I smile even wider when I watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows nervously.
The pounding of footsteps up the basement stairs is the only thing that could make me move from where I’m standing. I might not fear the disgusting man standing in front of me, or the one stomping up the stairs, but that doesn’t mean I’m an idiot. With a glance around Ike’s giant body, I turn and run around the stairs toward the front door.
I hear Ike laugh behind me as I quickly yank the heavy door open.
“Run away, little girl, run away! There’s nowhere you can hide now!” Ike shouts, his laughter back as I race down the steps and out into the pouring rain.
My eyes open slowly and I sit up, rubbing the sleep out of them. For the first time in the last few days, I actually remember my entire dream, instead of bits and pieces that don’t make any sense. I don’t wake up covered in sweat, fearing the things I dreamed that I couldn’t remember. I still don’t understand what my memories are trying to tell me, but at least I have another piece of the puzzle to add to my growing pile of mismatched pieces.
Flinging the blankets off of me, I pause as I stare down at the dark blue comforter my mother must have put on my bed when I was in the bathroom, cleaning up for bed. I’m sure it was her way of making amends for what happened, but it didn’t work. Acknowledging my hatred of a stupid color of a blanket doesn’t make up for the knowledge that I officially cannot trust either one of my parents.
Jumping out of bed, I pull open my bottom dresser drawer and yank out the one pair of jeans I own that I found in the back of my closet yesterday when I tore my room apart. Grabbing the pair of scissors sitting in a plastic cup on top of the dresser, I quickly shear off the stiff material from the upper thigh down. I pull the newly cut jean shorts up my legs and under my nightgown, immediately loving the way they feel. With the scissors still in my hand, I take them to the waist of my tank top gown, cutting an uneven line around my body until the bottom lacy half of it flutters to the floor at my feet. Slamming the scissors down on the dresser, I pull the rubber band out of the end of my hair and roughly scrub my hands through my scalp, untangling the braid my mother put in yesterday morning.
When I’m finished, I look at myself in the mirror and finally smile at the reflection staring back at me. The top of the nightgown that is now a tank top is made of flimsy cotton material and if you look hard enough, you can clearly see my breasts through it. The now tiny jean shorts make my bare legs look a mile long, and my thick black hair hanging in loose waves down my back makes me look wild and older than my eighteen years. Turning away from my reflection, I pad softly across my hardwood floor, quietly open my door, and listen for any sounds of my parents. As much as I want to continue pestering and arguing with them until one of them finally breaks and admits something truthful to me, I’m more concerned about my dream and figuring out all of the events surrounding what happened that night.
When I hear nothing but silence upstairs, I move through the living room and down to the first floor. At the bottom, I walk around the banister and head in the opposite direction of the front door. When I get to the back of the stairs, I walk to the door hidden against the wall underneath them. Glancing quickly around me to make sure I’m alone, I take a few seconds to stand here quietly and listen for the sounds of someone approaching. When I hear nothing but the ticking of the old grandfather clock at the opposite end of the hall in the artifact museum, I move forward and stare at the door that leads to the basement—the first stop on the tour of the prison. It’s the one that equally excites and scares people at the same time. Basements in old buildings are always scary, but a basement in an old prison where solitary confinement was located and lots of unspeakable acts were inflicted upon prisoners, some fatally, is chilling.
I know the basement is mostly empty, and the temperature drops a few degrees as soon as one gets to the bottom of the steps. It’s pretty common for that to happen in a room located underground, but there’s something different about the air down there. It’s even colder than it should be and every once in a while, visitors walk through an extra frigid pocket of air that can never be explained since the basement has no windows. I feel like some part of me has never liked the basement just like that same part of me supposedly never liked going into the cell blocks, like my father said. Then there’s the other part, the one screaming to get out, the one who feels freer with her hair down and out of a stuffy dress, who wants to go down there, who feels something pulling her in that direction, just like in the cell block.
My father lost his temper when the men came to work in the basement. I remember so clearly the need to laugh at how resolute he was that no one goes down in the basement. There’s got to be a reason why I dreamt about hearing that conversation. There’s got to be a reason why I itch with excitement to open this door and go down those stairs, why my body practically hums with eager energy, knowing that what lies beyond this door could be the answer to all the secrets I can’t figure out and that no one wants to tell me. Having that dream reminded me of the several times I heard my father arguing with Ike and a few of the other men about the hole in the basement. It’s located in a separate room at the far end and while it gives the tours an additional creepy factor when visitors hear about what happened down in that hole in the 1800’s, it’s also a danger. Located directly over a natural spring, every time it rains the hole fills with water, and my father was growing concerned that keeping it intact was too much of a liability. Why, all of a sudden, was he so adamant that no one goes down there? Why, after weeks and months of complaining about having it filled in, did he suddenly change his mind?
Wrapping my hand around the knob, I quickly turn it and I’m immediately met with resistance. I rattle the knob harder, pulling on the door at the same time, but it doesn’t open. It’s locked. The only doors ever locked in the prison on tour days are the ones upstairs in our living quarters, in case visitors happen to wander where they aren’t supposed to go.
Checking the watch on my wrist, I see that the prison has been open for business for over an hour. Even on days when we don’t have tours booked, people are welcome to come in and check out the gift shop and museum and as long as there aren’t any internal repairs going on, my father will usually allow them to wander through certain areas on their own if they don’t want a guide to explain things to them. No part of the prison should be locked up right now. The fact that the one area I need to explore is closed up tight tick
s me off and I slam my palm against the wood, muttering a few colorful curses under my breath.
“I didn’t realize good girls knew that kind of language.”
I whirl around to find Nolan leaning against the banister of the stairs with a smile on his face.
“Well, luckily I’m not a good girl,” I growl, rolling my eyes as I stomp past him.
He jogs to catch up, racing around me to block me from going out the front door.
“What’s got you in a bad mood?” he asks as I shuffle to the side to get around him, but he easily moves with me, continuing to hinder my escape from this frustrating place.
“People who lie to me tend to piss me off. Now get out of my way.”
I shove him roughly aside and even though he’s got a good sixty pounds on me and could have held his ground, he moves to let me pass. Unfortunately, he follows me right outside. My bare feet slap against the wood as I stomp down the steps and make a left, heading to the lake.
“You want to talk about it?” he asks from behind me.
Realizing he’s just going to keep following me, and I did just decide yesterday that I wanted to talk to him, I stop in the middle of the yard under the shade of a large oak tree and turn to face him.
“Fine, you want to talk? Let’s talk. Tell me how you knew I didn’t know how to swim,” I fire at him.
With my head held high, I try not to think about how dumb I sounded the other day when I had no clue I didn’t know how to swim and the way I freaked out and ran away without saying another word to him. I am not going to let him make me feel silly just because he knows things about me that I don’t remember. I’m going to use it to my advantage and hope that he’s more honest with me than my parents.
“Wow, getting right to the point, I see,” he says with a smile as he slides his hands into the back pocket of his jeans.
I tap my foot against the ground and raise my eyebrow, waiting for him to answer my question. He sighs and leans his shoulder casually against the side of the tree.