Red Water, Shadows of Camelot Crossing

by Lisa Courtaway

  Dad nodded, "Sure thing, Haze."

  Torment seized her chest again, escaping in a feeble whimper as Mom ushered her out of the room. They could hear Dad whispering loving words of goodbye to their family member.

  Dad emerged to find his wife and daughter sitting at the kitchen island. He felt the brunt of their pain more strongly than the sadness of his own loss. "I found the perfect box," he said, realizing those words provided no comfort. "I'm going to check in with Holden, see if he knows anything."

  Hazel followed, needing to find out if Holden had left the cat without a mention. She knew it was unlikely; he wasn't heartless. She sat on the landing bench and watched as Dad knocked on Holden's door, waking him. Dad entered and from behind the door she could hear the murmurs of conversation, deciphering only one syllable from Holden.

  "No!" he said, as Dad delivered the grim account.

  As Dad exited Holden's room, Hazel caught a glimpse of her brother, head in hands, and heard the disturbed intake of breath as he lost the ability to stifle his tears.

  Dad sat next to Hazel and followed her gaze out the window. "Holden never went back downstairs after dinner last night," he said.

  Slowly, dreamily, she replied, "Yeah, I knew he wouldn't have done that. But who did?"

  "I saw her on top of the dryer when I checked the locks last night. She seemed fine. I petted her for a few minutes, and she mustered a purr," he recounted.

  Father and daughter sat in silence for some time, their hearts becoming heavier as the acceptance set in. Dad spoke first, breaking the dull silence. "I need to get back to work. When you are up to it, you and your brother should find a nice spot to bury her. We'll have a little service later today. She deserves something nice, I think."

  Hazel nodded as Dad went through the ghastly list of suggestions of how to go about the task of digging a proper hole, one that would be deep enough to keep scavengers from disturbing the cat's resting place. While it was distressing, it gave her something to focus her grief on. It anchored her to something and reeled her in from her sea of helplessness.

  As he got up, he said, "I wouldn't take too long; the day's heating up." The binary advice added more weight to the anchor of dread, but disallowed procrastination.

  What her family didn't know was that Bailey had not died alone. In the hours leading up to her last breath, Bailey had been joined by a presence. It was one which she sensed as something unknown, but much like the love and warmth and comfort she had felt throughout her lifetime with her people. The presence stroked her face the way she had always loved, until she fell asleep. As she fell deeper, the presence caressed her from neck to tail in soft, lingering strokes. Only Bailey could hear the subdued whispers of peace. She fell asleep purring, and she simply didn't wake up.

  Ten

  Outside, the cacophony of cicadas could not be ignored. The creatures, now numbering in the hundreds, rattled the hot days away, chasing off hungry birds while trying to attract mates. The cicadas' master plan was to multiply and force every Oklahoman to surrender and adapt to the summer's seasonal tinnitus, talking over the buzz and at times having to repeat yourself if you were near a bank of trees numbering more than three.

  Hazel carefully selected a burial plot, the heat of the midsummer day directing her to a small, heavily shaded clearing on the front side of the house. The spot could be viewed by Hazel's favorite reading nook on the stair landing. Hazel liked the idea of being able to see where Bailey lay, and for this reason she decided it would be perfect. The spot would allow them all a chance to acknowledge their bond from two separate planes.

  Holden didn't appreciate leaving the cool cave of his room for such a morbid task, but he owed it to Bailey and couldn't think of a better alternative for dealing with what he referred to as her earthly remains.

  The shade protected them from the searing sun but provided no abatement from the drone of the cicadas, and the twins were submerged in clingy air. Before long, they gave up on conversation and focused their waning energy on digging, both glad they were not in view of the pool as its cool water oasis would have tempted them to drop their shovels and dive in, shoes and all. The earth was more sodden than the air, making the removal of the red dirt easy.

  After agreeing the job was complete, they returned their shovels to the garage, where they found Mom wrapping the box in stretch wrap left over from their move.

  "You two are a mess," she said, stating the obvious. "Grab yourselves some water bottles and clean up a bit while I get your dad. Don't go past the laundry room unless you take off those shoes."

  The jolt of air-conditioned air gave the twins chills as they rid themselves of their muddy chore sneakers and slipped on their slides. The evaporating sweat left a shell on their bodies, and again, thoughts of jumping in the pool sprang to the front of their minds.

  Dad entered the laundry room, distracted by the phone in his hand. He looked up, reset his focus, and silenced his phone, tucking it in his pocket. In the garage, he picked up the box and led the small procession to the site, where he gently placed the box in the hole and covered it with loose rocks. He and Holden took turns shoveling dirt back into the hole, while Hazel and Mom stood arm-in-arm, not hiding their tears.

  Dad smoothed out the earth, leaned his shovel against a tree and spoke. "This is a very sad day for our family. But let's remember how lucky we were to have such a great cat. Bailey picked us," he said, pulling Mom close. "When your Mom and I went to adopt a cat, we almost walked right past her. We were looking for a kitten, but she knew we needed her. She reached through the cage and grabbed me, even put several holes in my favorite T-shirt."

  Mom smiled as the memory flooded her mind. "We decided she was the one while we pried her claws out of your dad's shirt. She adopted Phineas as her unofficial offspring the day we brought him home. She was his mom, whether he wanted a new mom or not. He hated how she held him down and cleaned him every morning."

  They had all heard the stories dozens of times, but the solemn reflection was needed. It felt odd turning their backs on the grave site and leaving Bailey outside, alone. Unlike most of her kin, she had never been fond of the outdoors once she was introduced to the good life inside a house.

  Phineas and Coraline had watched the funeral from the cathedral window and as the family entered the house, they were greeted with the same exuberance they would have had they been gone for days.

  "I've got a few more things I need to wrap up with work before calling it a day," Dad said. "Thanks for taking such good care of Bailey, Haze. Pass the word on to your brother if you see him."

  Holden had already retreated to his room.

  Hazel gave a weak nod and slowly climbed the stairs. Coraline followed in her footsteps. The weight of the loss pulled Hazel down, and she wished more than ever that she could escape the confines of the property, to become immersed in anything outside the walls that might take her mind off her heartache.

  That night after dinner, Mom brought her laptop to the kitchen island where they sat. "I was thinking of ordering this garden stone, like a memorial marker for Bailey," she said, opening the device. She had chosen their favorite picture of Bailey, one taken when she was younger. The cat was perched in a window, and a beam of light created an aura around her as she basked in its glow. Seeing the image on Mom's laptop caused tears to spill from Hazel's eyes. On the stone would be the words, Bailey, thank you for the happiness you gave us.

  Hazel was relieved when Dad replied, "It's perfect." She was unable to speak, overcome again with emotion.

  Dad suggested watching a comedy to lighten the mood. It was a respectable effort, but it fell flat with the glum group. The twins took the dogs on their nightly outing, and afterward Hazel went to the laundry room out of habit. Her heart sank when remembered she no longer had an ailing cat to tend to.

  She saw Mom had removed the litter box and tiny two-sided dish, the cat's only worldly possessions. The absence of the items drained her further; the emptiness grew
heavier. How empty could one become? What would be the source that brought fullness back? Perhaps it was simply the passage of time. She knew it was only the first day, but she wondered how many more days she would feel the pain of losing her sweet cat so strongly.

  Aching, tired, and vacant, she left the laundry room and drifted through the house on the way to her bedroom. As she approached the foot of the stairs, she heard the familiar beeping noise. It sounded distant from where she stood. She lifted a foot to place it on the first tread when the stomping began. The unseen runner moved quickly, closing in on her. Hazel couldn't form thoughts fast enough as the runner gained new dimension, previously only heard, but now felt. She succumbed to the experience as the deafening noise drew nearer. The sound moved through her, her long hair blown back by an invisible force. The atmosphere shivered with an electrical chill and her flesh turned cold, tiny hairs standing on end. For an instant, an earthy bouquet overwhelmed the space. It was a familiar scent, but it took a moment for its complexity to speak to her nose. Rain, but more than rain. It was the way a person smells after coming in from the rain with soaked hair and drenched clothing, the staleness of moisture as it dampened a person's essence.

  As quickly as it had started, it was over. The instability dissipated and the quality of the space normalized, smell faded and flesh smoothed. The effect was dizzying, and she lowered herself to sit on the bottom step. She saw Coraline, huddled in a corner of the farthest reach of the foyer, helpless to defend her owner but unwilling to abandon her. The pup had had an accident, her first in weeks.

  Over the dog’s whimper, Alexa spoke. "Motion detected at the garage door." The AI's announcement offered no resolution, but signaled the anticipated end of the turbulence. She cleaned up the dog's mess and cautiously climbed the stairs.

  As she readied herself for sleep, her reflection struck her as aged, like too much time had passed and etched its forward motion on her young face. She lifted a hand to her darkened eyes, dabbing the swollen swaths below them with gentle fingers.

  In her bed, her mind fought to untangle multiple strings of logic as she replayed the occurrence on the stairs and considered Bailey's deathly posture. The roiling images lost focus as the embrace of the cool sheets and soft mattress soothed her sore muscles and muddled mind.

  Sleepily, she said, "Alexa, play Sleep Sounds." Her leaden consciousness took no notice that this rendering of Sleep Sounds was actually the dreamy intro of "Memories Fade," and she was asleep before the song's anguished lyrics began. The tune was followed by "Mad World," and the two songs leapfrogged each other while Hazel fell deeper into troubled sleep, only ceasing forty-five minutes later when the predetermined timer expired.

  Eleven

  The sun shone bright through the window, forcing Hazel to rouse from a sleep that was anything but peaceful. She lay in bed and her mind replayed the confusing scenes from the nightmare that had deprived her of rest. Her heart raced as flashes of the bad dream flooded her mind. There was a hole, much larger and deeper than the one she and Holden dug the day before; and a violent storm. All of these troubling images faded away as she opened her eyes; in their place, thoughts of Bailey. Knowing she would never again be greeted by the cat urging Hazel to fill her bowl with the tuna-flavored mush that turned Hazel's stomach.

  Coraline granted her a few moments of reprieve before she eagerly pawed at Hazel's arm, insisting her owner get up and let her outside. With a groan, Hazel complied. Departing from their usual routine, Hazel exited the front door. The dog trailed behind, voraciously inhaling the smells of the outside air. Hazel wanted to check on Bailey, and make sure the cat had been left in peace, that nothing had disturbed the fresh grave. As she approached the spot, she stopped so abruptly that Coraline collided with the back of her legs and almost caused her to topple over onto the broken ground. No scavengers had disturbed the plot, but there was a jarring change. Atop the mound were small stones laid out to form the letter B. Bundles of wildflowers wilted in the morning sun, encircling the pebbles.

  She revolved where she stood, scanning her surroundings, certain she would spy the person who had arranged this memorial. Who would have done this? They knew no one in the neighborhood. She felt increasingly uncomfortable and vulnerable outside, even with the protective dog who was now sniffing around the mound curiously. Hazel turned and sprinted back to the house, calling for Coraline as she ran.

  She rushed the dog inside ahead of her, then slammed the door, falling against it, out of breath more from fright than from the short dash. Holden was descending the stairs, hair disheveled, yawning.

  "Go for a morning jog? Ambitious, but you might want to rethink your wardrobe choices next time, just saying," he said, noting her attire. She was still in her usual pajama ensemble of sleep shorts and T-shirt, and a robe that was really too small for her, having only slipped her slides on before going outside.

  While she was certain the headstone was not his style, she asked, "Did you lay flowers and um, other stuff on Bailey's grave?"

  As he left her in the foyer, making his way to the kitchen, he said, "Um, no. What is the traditional gift of mourning for a cat, anyway? Catnip? Sorry, I haven't gotten around to ordering any." He turned to look at her before escaping her line of sight. "My bad."

  She didn't appreciate his sarcasm. She was shocked that he could crack jokes so soon, but she knew he wasn't responsible for the memorial. Pulling her phone from her robe pocket, she scrolled until she found the Ring app. She opened the screen and swiped back, stopping at 1 o'clock the previous day and hoping the grave was in view of the camera. She saw the four of them entering the house after Bailey's service, but was discouraged to see the plot was just out of the camera's scope. She hit play, believing whoever had gone through the effort to craft the heartfelt remembrance would likely come into the camera’s line of sight during the process. The footage zoomed by uninterrupted, but at 3:14 a.m., a motion indicator popped up and the playback slowed to normal speed. Watching intently, she held her breath and waited for the memorial-laying prowler to show up. The flurry of nightly bugs was rendered invisible as a flash of bright light oversaturated the recording. When the flash burned out, the frenzy of winged pests was gone. The replay sped up again, and she swiped back for a repeat of the only motion captured that night. Anticipating the flash of light, she focused on the aftermath. There was no person, but she did see a distortion, and a haziness materialized at the edge of the camera's scope. Like the fog her Dad insisted was the only thing that could be seen when the garage door sensor chimed. She rewound the footage again, and she recalled something her Dad said about the garage door alert. "It's like a camera flash, then a fog drifts by."

  Hazel continued to watch the footage as it sped toward sunrise, and she saw herself emerge from the door, Coraline on her heels. It didn't make sense. For someone to avoid the camera, they would have to approach from the woods and complete the undertaking. It would be much easier and safer to use the driveway. And what was that mist? It wasn't actual fog. It was much too ethereal and seemed to move with purpose rather than roll in to blanket an area.

  There was a childish quality to the memorial. Who let their children out in the woods after dark? If it were a group of children, they would have been hard-pressed to avoid the camera's eye.

  Mom interrupted her investigation as she came down the stairs and asked, "What are you up to this morning?"

  Hazel grabbed Mom's wrist. "You have to come see this," she said, dragging her toward the door.

  "Haze, I'm in my pajamas!"

  "No one is going to see you out here." Hazel held on to Mom's wrist the whole way, leading her to the spot where they buried the cat.

  Mom stood over the fresh grave for a minute. Finally, she asked, "Did you make this? Because I already ordered that stone. It shouldn't take too long to get—"

  Hazel cut her off. "No, no, Mom, I did not make this! I was trying to find out who did on the Ring, but I couldn't see anyone."

  Mom looked
around the isolated grounds. "Okay, well that's really weird," she said, glancing at Hazel. Shifting her gaze back to the mound with its cryptic stone B and collection of shriveled wildflowers, she shrugged. "Well, if you didn't catch the weirdo on camera, then we'll probably never know who did it. Pretty creepy. I need coffee." Again, she resigned herself to acceptance with no rational explanation.

  She paused a moment longer and said, "I miss her already," before she turned and walked away. When she reached the door, she yelled back to Hazel, "It's gonna be another scorcher. Meet me in the pool in an hour or so, okay? And try to talk your brother into joining us."

  Hazel remained at the grave, still trying to come up with a realistic scenario. She thought about the way the cat's body had been found. And now this. The ground was bare when the family left it after their informal service—there was no way the display could have spontaneously appeared on its own. A chill shook her as she recalled an article she’d read about a person living in a family's attic while the family blindly accepted things like missing food or misplaced objects. It was called phrogging. She and Miren had watched a horror movie about it. Mom and Dad would laugh if she suggested they scour the house, searching the attic and all the closets to make sure they didn't have a stowaway in their home.

  She really couldn't come up with a sensible answer. She hadn't just heard the person running down the stairs last night; she also sensed them. She did not, however, see a person. She decided she wanted to learn more about this house Mom and Dad had chosen as their forever home.

  Hazel had always enjoyed a good ghost story; she didn't believe the house was haunted. Besides, the house wasn't that old. It was common knowledge a house should be hundreds of years old to be truly haunted. Despite its ancient appearance, this house wasn't even forty years old.

  The presence witnessed the two discover the memorial and was frustrated by their unquestioning acceptance. Of course, the goal had not been to further its desperate plight. It was done out of respect and love for the animal. But it realized it would have to push harder, devise methods that might force the family to understand it needed help. It stood over the grave of the cat it had known for a short time with sadness in its soul for a moment longer before moving into the forest to bide its time.