The Precipice

by Penny Goetjen

  It was a remarkably beautiful day with a clear blue sky. A pleasant breeze was blowing in off the water. Elizabeth had no idea what time it was, probably mid-morning, but the air was warm and the sun already strong. It felt good on her face. Knowing she had to be careful, she placed her feet methodically on each boulder as she made her way, one at a time. Each wave that crashed gently near her made her gasp and stop momentarily, as she remembered the powerful waves that Mother Nature had unleashed the day before. Eventually she got used to the movement and was able to make steady progress. Reaching the shed, Elizabeth allowed herself a sigh of relief that she had made it that far. She wondered what was in store for her on her climb up the hill, through the woods. She pressed on.

  Immediately she could see the narrow path was quite muddy and littered with branches. She deliberately kept her eyes on her feet and hung onto branches to steady herself while stepping over small branches and climbing over larger ones. The climb up the hill was much more challenging than usual. She was breathing heavy, but didn’t slow her pace. In spite of the impediments she reached the bluff in due time. She stopped to glance out to the lighthouse. It stood there appearing as it had for so many years, belying the fury of the storm from the day before and the sadness that remained within it. Elizabeth closed her eyes. A tear escaped and ran down her cheek. She turned away. There was no time to waste so she continued up the hill.

  The top half of the path was as cluttered as the bottom, forcing her to climb over more branches littering the path. She slipped in spots that were particularly wet. Elizabeth reached the top, huffing and puffing, but did not linger. She started toward the inn but then stopped in her tracks. Her beloved childhood home had clearly taken the brunt of the storm. She gasped. Her eyes welled with tears and she swallowed hard. The inn still stood majestically on the precipice, but it was damaged with broken windows and shutters hanging by a thread. Her car was nowhere in sight. Slowly she turned and walked toward the access road. There would be no reason to go to the inn. She couldn’t get in anyway, but now it might be dangerous to try. She felt so alone. It was as if she were the only one who had survived the storm.

  The access road had its share of trees and branches strewn across it. Elizabeth realized that would pose a challenge for emergency vehicles to get back down the road. She kept walking, trying to think of the nearest place to find a working phone. There were a couple of houses near the entrance to the inn’s access road. She would start there. Elizabeth looked down at her feet and laughed. There was no point in having just one shoe on so she took the lone shoe off of her foot. Winding up like she was pitching at an MLB game, she hurled the shoe into the woods and listened for the soft thud when it landed. She smiled slightly and then started down the access road. Pennington Road. She wasn’t sure exactly how long it was but if she were to take a guess, she would say it was about a mile. Maybe a mile and a half. It seemed so much longer on foot. Especially barefoot. The partially graveled dirt road was not easy to traverse with no shoes on. She was beginning to regret discarding her only shoe. Too late now. She wasn’t turning back for a shoe, especially one that was now lost in the woods. She kept walking.

  Elizabeth was trying to keep her head clear of thoughts and just stay focused on her task. It seemed eerily quiet as she made her way back to Route 72. Her bare feet made no sound on the road. They were becoming sore. The occasional sharp rock protruding through the packed dirt cut into her feet and made her yell out. She thought of her grandmother and kept walking. Her feet were becoming dirty and gritty. Since she was scanning the woods on both sides of her as she walked, she didn’t notice a particularly sharp object lodged in the road and stepped directly on it with her right foot, which absorbed the weight of her body. It was too much for her to recover from. She winced, yelled out for no one to hear, and fell forward into a heap on the dirt road. The fall knocked the wind out of her so she lay there gasping for air. Panic started to creep into her mind. She kept trying to get air and finally the panic subsided when she realized she was going to be fine. She took one deep breath, picked herself up, and started down the road again, oblivious to the cut in the bottom of her foot. There were small tracks of blood forming a staggered line behind her.

  Finally Elizabeth could see the end of the access road where it met Route 72. There was no sound. No cars passing by. This was not a usual day in Pennington Point. She turned left onto the main road and headed toward what she hoped would be civilization and help for her grandmother. The road turned from dirt and gravel to hot pavement. Elizabeth was relieved to have something smoother to walk on. She walked about a hundred yards when she came upon a little cottage on the right side of the road. Just the sight of the driveway made Elizabeth’s heart flutter. It would be a relief to get off of the hot pavement. She turned into the driveway and made her way to the front door. She noticed there were no cars in the driveway but she reasoned that they were in the detached garage. There was a screened-in porch on the front of the dwelling so she opened the door and took a few steps to the front door. It was rather quiet but Elizabeth remained optimistic that there was someone inside. She opened the screen door and banged with her fist on the door. Silence. She listened for footsteps or hushed conversation. Nothing. She breathed in and banged even louder and then listened in silence to see if she had aroused anyone. Nothing. Her heart sank. She decided that the owners either were at a local shelter or had closed up the cottage for the season and headed back to Connecticut, or wherever they were from, and called it a season. She thought about breaking in, but figured even if she did, the phone probably wasn’t working anyway.

  She stepped back and let the screen door slam. Making her way back across the porch, she did her best to talk herself into believing that she would find someone home at the next house. She let the porch door slam behind her as well and headed across the lawn. Onto the next house.

  Elizabeth continued down Route 72. Her feet were becoming so sore that she began to limp. The sun was now directly above her and very strong for early September. Perspiration beaded up on her forehead. Her body was heating up and she was starting to feel dizzy. She couldn’t remember the last time she had anything to eat or drink. Fighting to stay focused, she pressed on to find the next house on the road. She walked in the eerie silence until she noticed she was having trouble walking in a straight line. The yellow line was at her feet. She paused, shook her head, and then adjusted her direction to return to the right side of the road. The pavement was so hot, though, so she decided to try to walk in the weeds along the side of the road. Not very comfortable on her feet, but certainly much cooler. Off to the right of the pavement, she noticed yellow Dandelion blossoms, delicate Queen Ann’s Lace and light blue Bachelor Buttons that dotted the embankment as it dropped down and away from the road. It was taking everything she had to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Her throat became parched. It was difficult to swallow. She paused again as dizziness started to overcome her. Her knees buckled and the last thing she saw before she passed out was the faded white line on the side of the road. Her unconscious body landed in the weeds next to the road, but gravity took over and forced it to roll down the embankment into the gulley. She was on her left side, her arms and legs splayed at awkward angles. She lay there, out of view from passing motorists, in the hot, late summer sun.

  Chapter 28

  Darkness. A muffled voice. More darkness. Elizabeth tried to open her eyes. Her lids were unusually heavy. The voice again. “Elizabeth.” It sounded familiar. “Elizabeth. You have to wake up. Elizabeth!” She managed to open her eyes slightly and moan. The sun was so bright that she closed them again. “Elizabeth! Stay with me.” She tried again. This time the man who was speaking to her was shielding her eyes. She got them open but her vision was blurry. She tried blinking and then squinting. Finally she understood who was knelt over her.

  “Kurt.” Her voice was barely audible. Her mouth felt like sandpaper.
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br />   He put his arm around her shoulders and lifted her into a sitting position. She groaned. “Here. Drink this.” He put a clear plastic water bottle to her lips and she drank eagerly, water dripping down her chin and onto her shirt. He pulled it back after she had taken a couple of gulps. A puzzled look crossed her face. “Not too much at once,” he explained. “We need to get you out of the sun. Let me help you up.” Without another word, he swiftly lifted her to her feet.” She was still groggy and a bit dizzy so she couldn’t support her own weight. He scooped her up in his arms, like a groom carrying his bride over the threshold, and headed up the embankment to the side of the road where his car was parked. He opened the passenger side door and carefully placed her on the seat. Once he was sure she was in safely, he closed the door. Still holding the water bottle, he quickly ran around to the driver’s side, pulling the keys out of his pocket as he went. He jumped in, revved the car to life, and turned the air conditioner to high. He turned to Elizabeth and offered her more water. He needed to get her cooled down and hydrated.

  The fog in her head was starting to clear. She wasn’t exactly sure what had just happened. “How did you find me?” She remembered walking down the road but wasn’t sure how she had ended up next to it in a ditch.

  “Well you didn’t exactly make it easy for us.”

  “Us?”

  “Yeah. When you didn’t show up at the shelter yesterday, we were all worried about you. You and Amelia. Where were you?”

  Suddenly the events of the last several hours came flooding back to her. “Oh Kurt, Amelia is gone. She died in my arms last night.” She burst into tears and relayed the story of how she got locked out of her car and the inn so she sought shelter at the lighthouse, only to find her grandmother when she finally got there. Absentmindedly, she wiped her tears with her scraped and filthy hands and left streaks of dirt on her face, turning her tears to mud.

  Kurt filled in the rest on his own and realized Amelia’s body was still in the lighthouse and would have to be extricated. “Alright.” He glanced at the water bottle that she was holding with both hands. “You stay put in the cool car. I’m just going to make a phone call.” He stepped out into the hot sun and pulled his cell phone out of his pants pocket, closing the car door gently. He thought this conversation needed to be out of her earshot. While he waited for the person on the other end of the telephone to pick up, he leaned his back side up against the car door and used the back of his free hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead. After a few seconds he stood up straight.

  “Lieutenant, we’re going to need the medical examiner.”

  Chapter 29

  A cool, stiff breeze was blowing in off the ocean pushing Elizabeth’s hair across her face. She watched as two men, with black, short-sleeved shirts stamped with MME on the back, loaded the stretcher into the medical examiner’s white commercial van. On it was her grandmother’s lifeless body, covered by a black cloth. A sharp pain stabbed at her stomach. Her eyes stung with tears that were welling. She didn’t think she had felt so miserable in her entire life. Amelia was gone. Forever. Elizabeth was alone for the first time ever. She felt lost….like the young girl who had been a guest at the inn and had not been found before the hurricane hit. Surely she had perished. Or had they found her? Her mind was racing with images of the events that had occurred during the past few days. The back doors of the van banged shut in succession, startling Elizabeth out of her thoughts and refocusing her on the pain of losing her dear grandmother. Dizziness crept into her head, causing her to take a step to the side to shore up her balance. As the van pulled away, her emotions completely took over. She began to sob uncontrollably. Overcome by her grief, she barely noticed the warm touch on her arm and then the tender, strong arms that wrapped around her, pulling her toward his chest. She welcomed the refuge and put her arms around him to hang on. Her whole world had fallen apart. She was desperate to hang onto whatever was left. His strong hand started to rub her back. She was completely lost in his embrace, not wanting it to end. She was glad Kurt was there. He was turning out to be one of the good guys after all.

  With her sobbing under control, Elizabeth stepped back and looked into his eyes. She whispered a grateful thank you.

  He nodded with a concerned look on his face. “You need some rest, Elizabeth. You’ve been through so much, and not exactly unscathed.” He glanced down at the scrapes on her battered legs. She was still barefoot. “We should get you checked out by a doctor, then let you get some much needed rest.”

  “Oh, I’m alright. Don’t worry about me. Really. I’m fine….I probably could use a little sleep though. I am a little tired,” she conceded. Elizabeth took a moment to glance toward the inn. The devastation left in the wake of the hurricane was daunting. The pain in her stomach turned to nausea. Not able to take in any more, she turned away.

  “I’ll give you a ride to the hotel where a bunch of us are staying in town. If there are no rooms left, you can have mine.”

  “That’s really nice of you, but you—”

  “I insist.”

  She didn’t protest any further.

  They rode in silence for the ten minute drive to a local chain hotel. Elizabeth watched as the pine trees along the road zipped past the car. It was starting to make her feel dizzy. She felt exhaustion washing over her, which she fought with everything she had left in her.

  When they arrived, Kurt pulled the car into the circular drive and directly up to the double doors in front. Elizabeth decided to stay put. After the night she had just had, she was sure that she looked rather disheveled. She watched as Kurt approached the entrance to the hotel where he grasped the handle of the door on the right side and then stepped back to hold it for a young mother struggling to steer a stroller through the door while hanging onto the hand of a toddler. Elizabeth smiled slightly. Someday.

  She had just enough time to start dozing off when the sound of Kurt opening the passenger door startled her awake. In his extended hand was a card key. He had been able get a room for her. She took it from him with a sigh of relief.

  “I bumped into Rashelle in the lobby and she is going to stop by your room to drop off some clean clothes for you.”

  Elizabeth nodded in acknowledgment. Clothes and a shower might go a long way to lift her spirits. Time would tell if any of her things were intact back at the inn. She would cross that bridge another time. Kurt took her hand to help steady her while getting out of the car. They left the car where it was parked. Kurt stayed at her side as they entered the hotel so he could be sure she got to her room safely.

  Crossing the lobby, she averted her gaze from the staff at the reception desk. If they were looking her way, she could just imagine the looks on their faces. Better to just avoid the situation altogether. She set her sights on the elevators.

  The ride up to the seventh floor was quiet. Thankfully no one had joined them in the elevator from the lobby and they did not have to stop on the way up to let in any other passengers. The doors opened to the antiseptic smell of cleaning supplies mixed with stale cigarettes. Kurt held onto Elizabeth’s arm as they headed down the carpeted hallway so he could guide her past two large housekeeping carts parked on opposite sides of the hall, a few feet away from each other. They were piled high with clean sheets and towels, unopened boxes of tissues, personal sized soap, and shampoo. Further down the hall was a room service tray, left over from the night before, on the floor next to one door. Kurt yanked her arm just in time before she caught a toe on a water glass that was still half full. At the end of the hall on the right was the room they were looking for. An exit sign hung from the ceiling and pointed toward the doorway across from her room. She slid the card into the slot next to her door and a small red light turned on. She sighed. She just wanted to lie down for a while. She tried three more times, losing patience with each attempt, varying how quickly she inserted the card and how long she left
it in before removing it. Each time the red light appeared. She double checked the room number listed on the small cardboard folder that came with the card and looked up at the number on the door. She was so tired that she wouldn’t have been surprised if she was trying to open the wrong door. It was the right one, however. Before she could try the card again, Kurt spoke.

  “Would you like me to give it a try?” he offered, trying not to offend her.

  She smiled. “Sure. Thanks.” She just wanted to get inside.

  Kurt slid the card in and the green light came on immediately. He stifled a grin.

  Elizabeth just shook her head. “Whatever.” She was too exhausted to get annoyed. “Damn card keys.” She took the card back from him and squeezed it in her hand.

  He pushed open the door and held it for her. “Give me a call once you’ve had a chance to get some sleep and we’ll grab a bite to eat. I’m in room 321.” He closed the door quietly behind her and stood for a moment in the silence of the hallway. He was obviously relieved he had found her.

  Her accommodations were set up as a modest two-room suite. The door to the room opened into a sitting room with a pull-out couch, small desk on the wall across from the couch, coffee table, two end tables, and a kitchenette opposite the windows. The adjoining bedroom held a king sized bed and the bathroom. The décor was tasteful and the room was functional. She flopped on the couch in the seating area and quickly drifted off to sleep, but was awakened by the sound of Rashelle’s voice and a pounding sound. Elizabeth forgot for a moment where she was. She dragged herself from the couch and staggered to the door. Her feet had never been so sore. When she opened it, Rashelle had her right arm raised and her hand formed into a fist as though her knocking had been interrupted.