Beaconfield

by Bri R. Leclerc

  This encounter was exactly what I’d been trying to avoid by sitting in my room all day—conversations with people I really didn’t care for.

  “Mari, honey?” Jean asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.

  I blinked and shook my head to clear my mind. “I’m sorry, what was that?” I asked.

  “I asked where your grandparents are,” Jean said, taking a sip from her drink.

  “Oh, uh, they were busy and couldn’t make it,” I said. I didn’t think my grandparents had even been invited, but I pretended they had. I felt a pulse of anxiety in my chest.

  “Well, that’s too bad. I hope they’re well.”

  I nodded and looked around the room. I hoped they were well, too.

  A chorus of yelling cascaded across the room. The room grew silent, the music continued to play. I glanced over to where the sound had come from and saw a cloud of smoke begin to form on the other side of the living room.

  I pushed through the crowd to find a group of people sitting around our coffee table, and in the center of it was a Ouija board. The smoke was coming from a curtain, the end of it was engulfed in flames.

  I grabbed a cloak off the chair and used it to beat out the flames until they were only smoldering pieces of curtain. The whole room was silent—someone had paused the music.

  “Okay, everyone! Break it up!” My dad yelled as he made his way through the crowd. He looked down at the ruined fabric then to the cloak in my hands and finally to me.

  “Quick thinking, Mars,” he said with a nod. The crowd grumbled in agreement.

  “Oh goodness,” Mom gasped as she came to stand next to Dad. “Is everyone okay?”

  Everyone looked around at each other and nodded, seeing that no one had been injured.

  I folded the cloak up and placed it back on the chair. “What happened?” I asked, wiping sweat from my forehead.

  A group of my parents’ friends sat on the floor around the coffee table, their attention focused on the Ouija board. I saw the planchette and the ominous lettering. I felt a chill go through my body.

  One of the men stood up and babbled, “Uh, we were just playing with the board and then one of the candles fell over and lit the curtain on fire. It was an accident. I’m so sorry, Violet.”

  Mom fussed over the curtain and shook her head. I could tell that she was trying to keep her cool, not wanting to lose it in front of her friends. I could see her glancing at the Ouija board, as someone had obviously brought it with them. My mom would never allow that in our home.

  She took a deep breath and then clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. “Sorry for the excitement, everyone.” She glanced down at the gold watch she always wore on her wrist and continued, “It’s getting late anyway, so maybe we should just pack it up and call it a night.”

  The crowd expressed their disappointment but started collecting their things and making their way out the door. The group around the board continued to apologize profusely to my parents and offered to pay to replace the damaged curtain.

  I was barely paying attention. My eyes were glued to the Ouija board that sat forgotten on the table.

  I felt a sense of dread. It swam around my stomach and threatened to make the few sips of alcohol I’d had come up. I kneeled at the table and placed my hands on the planchette. A chill went up my spine, making me shake.

  “I no longer wish to speak with you,” I said to the board and I forced the triangular piece to the Goodbye in the corner of the board, closing the gateway.

  I felt my dread fade away.

  It was late and everyone had left after the fire. My parents were running around the house, cleaning up after their friends. The music was still playing, though quieter than before, and “The Monster Mash” was on again. I felt that it may have been ingrained in my brain.

  I sat in the corner of the living room eating my third piece of cake. My stomach was turning with the excess amount of sugar, but I continued to shove it in my face and chew absently.

  As people had cleared out earlier, I pulled my hat down over my eyes and snuck large gulps from abandoned drinks, trying not to be noticed. I sat there later eating my cake, feeling it soak up the alcohol.

  A trash bag landed in my lap. I looked up from under my witch’s hat and saw my dad.

  “Why don’t you help us out, Mari?” he asked with the glassy sheen of booze in his eyes.

  I took another bite of the cake. “Not my party,” I mumbled with the dessert in my mouth.

  “I’m sorry?” He rose an eyebrow at me.

  I groaned and stood up from the chair. I opened the trash bag and threw my half-eaten piece of cake inside.

  “Marigold, don’t be like that,” Mom yelled from the kitchen.

  I groaned again and began collecting plates and cups around the living room and kitchen. I shuffled my feet and took as much time as possible. I made my way to the island in the kitchen and began pouring neglected beer from the cups and cans. I sighed loudly.

  “Oh, cheer up. It was a great party,” Mom said as she made her way over to me. “I saw Ned talking to you. What did he have to say?” So his name was Ned.

  I rolled my eyes and continued pouring a beer into the sink. I watched as the stream of pale-yellow swirled down the drain.

  “What’s that attitude for?” Mom asked as she put leftovers into containers.

  “He was just talking about college. No one can seem to find another topic.” I shrugged.

  “Oh, stop it, Mari.”

  I rolled my eyes again, this time so hard my head hurt. I turned toward the living room. In front of me stood a man with a furry mask and long bloody fangs.

  I screamed and dropped the bottle in my hand. The glass shattered as I fell backward into my laughing mother. The man peeled off the mask.

  “Dad!” I yelled, smacking his chest. He was giggling along with my mom.

  “Got you,” he said. He squeezed my shoulder as I tried to catch my breath.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said as I stormed off to the living room.

  “Oh, come on. That was funny!” Dad shouted after me.

  “Absolutely hilarious!” I yelled back.

  I flicked off the stereo and sat on the couch. Dad came into the room and sat next to me, putting his arm around me.

  “Cheer up, birthday girl.” He pulled me into him and kissed me on the side of the head. I squirmed away from him but let him do it.

  “So, what was Ned talking to you about?”

  “Ugh, Dad!” I pushed his arm off and scooted to the other side of the couch.

  “Sensitive subject, Parker,” Mom hollered from the kitchen.

  “Sorry,” Dad said with his hands up in surrender. He looked at me, and when I didn’t say anything, he said, “So—”

  “No, no,” I said, getting up from the couch, interrupting him. “I know what that voice means. I’m not having this conversation again.”

  My dad grabbed my arm and pulled me back down to the couch with him. I slouched and pulled my witch hat down over my eyes.

  “We didn’t get the chance to finish this conversation yesterday,” Dad said.

  I groaned again, aware that I was throwing a hissy fit like a toddler.

  “Come on. What are you doing with your life, Marigold? You’re eighteen now.” The hint of anger in his voice made me stop and caused the breath to catch in my throat. “Well? Are you just going to sit around doing nothing and being rude to us after we threw this whole party just for you? You’re not making me very happy. I know you’re so much better than that.”

  Dad and I stared at each other. I noticed a slight shine of alcohol in his eyes.

  “I . . . I don’t know.” I felt tears begin to well up.

  Dad’s face softened slightly. “Mari, we love you and we want the best for you. We mean this from the bottom of our hearts. In this day and age, everyone needs schooling to succeed. Go to community college, trade school, university, we don’t care.” He ran out of breath then, his face pi
nker with exhaustion.

  I stared back at him, blinking, until I whispered, “I just want to make my own decisions.”

  “I know you’re scared, Marigold,” Dad said, putting his hand on my shoulder lightly.

  “Scared? I’m not scared.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

  Mom sat on the couch next to Dad and looked at me in the same way. “It’s okay for you to be nervous about the future. Just know that your father and I will always be here to help you through it. We love you.” My parents nodded and smiled at me, and I stared back at them. I loved them, too, of course, but they’d always been so overbearing.

  “Okay, I don’t really want to talk about this anymore. I’m going to go to bed,” I said as I stood up from the couch. “Time for bed, Scout!”

  She had come downstairs after everyone had left. I heard the sound of her nails on the tile in the kitchen as she ran into the hallway to meet me at the staircase.

  “Night, honey,” Dad said as I climbed the stairs.

  I lay in bed thirty minutes later with my Halloween pajamas on, Scout next to me, and a book open in my hands. I was content after another argument with my parents.

  I still didn’t think that college was necessary. I mean, maybe eventually, but not now. I’d turned eighteen, my life was now my own, and no one could tell me what to do, even my parents.

  I reread the last paragraph of my book, feeling distracted and not able to retain anything. The main character had just watched someone die a bloody death, but it wasn’t interesting to me. I tried again to focus.

  There was a soft knock on the door. Scout’s head lifted and her ears went forward while she stared at the door. I waited a moment before saying, “Come in.”

  Mom peeked through the doorway. I waved her over and set my book aside.

  “Could we talk for a minute?” she asked.

  “Sure.” I didn’t look her in the eyes, but fussed with the bedsheets instead.

  She sat on the end of my bed, just like she had a few hours earlier. My fingers went to the necklace on my bare chest and I gripped the jewel tightly.

  “Did we ruin your birthday?” She leaned forward, trying to make eye contact with me.

  I looked up at her. “You didn’t ruin it.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  “Your father and I just want the best for you, Marigold. You’re our baby, and we want to see you succeed and realize your full potential.” She said this with stars in her eyes, and I could tell she was thinking of my future.

  “And you don’t think that I want success for myself, too?”

  “No, no, no. Of course, we know you want that. We just want you to be a bit more proactive about it. You understand, right?”

  “I get it, but you have to remember that I’m an adult now and I want to make my own decisions.” I crossed my arms. I was pouting, but I didn’t care anymore.

  “I didn’t want to argue with you,” she said quietly as she laid a hand on my leg. “Just don’t take that tone with your father and I, okay?”

  I nodded and looked away from her, pulling the covers up a bit higher on my body. I knew she was right, and that I shouldn’t get so frustrated with them, but they just didn’t get it.

  I snuggled into bed. My mom turned off my bedside light and blew out the candle, casting darkness across the room. She closed the door softly behind her. The only light in the room came from the hallway light under the door.

  The party would’ve been more fun with my grandparents around. I thought back to the last time I saw them. It’d been Christmas a few years ago. They’d come down from Maine for a few days.

  I could picture them sitting on our couch, Grandad’s arm around Grandma’s shoulders, and them smiling at me.

  I sighed and closed my eyes. Tonight’s gathering would’ve been better with my grandmother. But wearing her necklace at least made me feel as if she’d been there.

  I slowly drifted off to sleep, my hand wrapped around the jewel.

  I looked down at my bare feet. They were covered in dirt and dead leaves, and I was running. My feet were moving faster than they ever had. They slammed into the mud, but I couldn’t feel the ground beneath me or the dirt squelch between my toes. Still, my feet continued to move, faster and faster. My heart was racing in my chest, and I knew that something was wrong.

  Very wrong.

  I tried to look around, but my head wouldn’t move. The trees that flashed past me were tall and dark, their trunks thick and twisted. I wanted to reach out and lean against one of them to stop running and rest, but my body wouldn’t allow it.

  Finally, I crashed through a cluster of trees and into a familiar clearing. A gasp caught in my throat as my heart jolted.

  How long had it been?

  In front of me stood a familiar lighthouse. I craned my neck to see its light spinning around at the top. Each time it came back around, my heart pulsed in my chest. Stretching out before me was a vast field of lavender. The spiked stalks swayed in the light breeze. A wafting scent of the plant with a woodsy undertone reached my nose. A smile spread across my face.

  The sky was dark but the stars still shone down on me. It was a peaceful moment, and my heart rate returned to normal. Each of the stars comforted me, wrapping me in their light, until they didn’t anymore. I watched as they slowly winked out.

  One by one.

  A branch snapped behind me and then a voice was in my ear.

  “He’s gone.”

  I woke suddenly, sucking in a sharp breath. Scout whimpered next to me. I reached out to pet her and then hissed in pain. I clicked on my bedside light and stared at the bloody cuts on my palm.

  They were shaped like my grandmother’s necklace. I pulled the jewel away from my chest and stared down at the assaulting edges. There wasn’t any blood on it. I looked back to my hand to examine it. I must have been squeezing it during my dream.

  I grabbed a tissue from the table and dabbed away the blood. With the light off, I settled back into bed and felt the pulse of my wound. I clasped my hands together over my heart and took a deep breath.

  But just before my mind drifted off to sleep, I heard the sound of the landline ringing. I rolled over and covered my ear with my pillow to ignore the disturbance. My mom would answer it.

  I heard her running as she rushed to answer the phone in the kitchen. The phone stopped ringing and the house was silent again. I started to settle back to sleep when something slammed downstairs.

  I whipped my covers off and ran from the room. Scout was hot on my heels with a soft bark. We met my dad in the hallway, also alerted by the noise. He and I looked to each other and then rushed to the kitchen.

  “Violet? Honey?” my father called. He ran around the corner and rushed to Mom’s side.

  She stood there, a dish towel wrapped around her fist. The phone had fallen to the ground along with a cup of water.

  “Violet?” my dad asked, placing a hand on her shoulder.

  “My father died,” she said with a blank expression.

  I couldn’t process the statement at first. I continued to watch my parents as Mom cried into Dad’s shoulder. She was sobbing, but I couldn’t hear any noise over the roar in my ears. It must have been minutes before I realized that I was crying, too.

  I excused myself from the room and made my way slowly upstairs, with Scout right behind me. I shuffled down the hallway, bumped into the wall, and then gave up. I slid down the wall and pulled my legs into my chest and cried.

  It was uncontrollable.

  My body was convulsing. I felt the soft, cold touch of Scout’s nose on the back of my arm. I picked her up and held her to me, crying into her neck.

  My chest felt hallow and empty, my heart barely beating in the cavity, my lungs feeling like they couldn’t inflate totally. My brain was playing a slideshow of memories with my grandpa Cecil.

  He and I hiking the hills and mountains of Maine. Getting ice cream down by the beach. Going on long car rides up the coast . . .

>   I woke up hours later, lying on the hallway floor in the fetal position with Scout nuzzled up next to me. I blinked my eyes open softly and saw the moonlight streaming through the window at the end of the hallway. I wiped my eyes and rolled over to stare at the ceiling.

  It took a second for me to remember why I was here. Slowly, the realization washed over my body. The grief started at my feet and crept up, taking a second to remain in my chest and then rest heavy in my mind. The feeling made my whole body numb. I wanted to get up from the floor, but moving felt too difficult. A cold breeze blew over me and my grandfather’s face flashed across my mind.

  My grandparents had been a big part of my life growing up. They lived in a small fishing town called Beaconfield on the Maine Coast, and I used to spend my summers there. On the last day of the school year, I’d rush home so that I could pack my bags and get ready to go to Grandma and Grandad’s the next day.

  My parents would drive me up north, and I’d plaster my forehead to the window of the car, waiting to see the outline of the Piscataqua River Bridge. Seeing the bridge’s green arch meant that we were in Maine and halfway there. The signs read, “The Way Life Should Be” and “Welcome to Vacationland.” I’d watch the pine trees rushing by, eagerly waiting for the time to pass.

  When we’d finally see the Beaconfield sign, I’d bounce up and down in my seat. The storm-and-sun-weathered wooden buildings of downtown Beaconfield would roll past. I’d see signs for lobster and fresh vegetables. The sun would beat down on the cobblestone of the walkways. Shop doors would stand open, waiting for patrons. I’d watch children running up and down the sidewalks, clad in their swimsuits, off to the rocky shores to scavenge for sea glass.

  It would only take five minutes to get to my grandparents’ house, and I’d practically count the seconds. The commercial buildings would grow fewer as the large coastal homes grew in number. We’d turn down Lavender Point Road and drive slowly to the last house. Before Dad had even put the car in park, I’d be jumping out of the vehicle and running through the opening of the white fence and up to the porch.