Mercurial

Chapter Five

With this newly acquired free time, I long to sketch, but I don't think I'll be gripping a pencil for a little while. Besides, I don't want to risk going back inside. I may have been excused from ironing, but I'm sure Momma could come up with two dozen other things I could do that don't even require the use of hands.

Instead, I start making my way across the wide, empty field behind the house. I can't help but look back over my shoulder several times, half expecting to see Momma calling me back inside. To my relief, the door remains shut, and no faces appear in any of the windows.

Once the ocean of grass comes to an end, I duck into the woods. There used to be a well-worn path winding through the thick trees back when I was in school; back before my household duties were passed down to Lizzie, then Emma, and now Tommy. Back when I was able to run wild without a care in the world.

Jack and I used to race out here every day after school, rain or shine. Ever since my very first day of school, we were practically inseparable. Pa would grumble about it being "unseemly," but Momma just laughed, shook her head, and called us two peas in a pod. I think she suspected our interests would change as we grew up, and that we'd naturally drift apart. I suppose in the end she was right, but not in the way either of us thought.

Jack and I meticulously kept our great number of "secret" pathways nicely groomed. Every Friday afternoon, we split up and covered all the paths, cutting back branches and clearing the walkways of any twigs, rocks, and especially the spiked balls that fall from sweet gum trees and cover the ground, just waiting to jab into little bare feet.

We kept just as busy on the other days. When it wasn't too hot, we dashed around like mad hooligans, oftentimes playing cowboy and Indian, sheriff and bandit, cat and dog. One time, we tried to play Civil War, but neither of us wanted to be a Yank, so the game ended with both of us going our separate ways in a huff. During the hot summer months, we scoured the blackberry bushes and ate the sweet berries until our stomachs hurt and supper no longer sounded appetizing. And then one year, we hoarded away every spare board we could get our hands on and built a rather impressive tree house. The little seven by seven box high in the trees was our pride and joy until lightning struck the tree later that year, sending our house in the sky crashing to the ground. We didn't have the heart, or the resources, to build another.

You never know the best days of your life until they're gone.

My feet guide me through the woods along the paths that are now only ghosts of what they used to be. I don't particularly know where I'm going, but I somehow end up sitting on my favorite rock by the creek. I always did. As much fun as running, building, teasing, hiding, and exploring was, this rock – just perfect for drawing, daydreaming, and dangling dirty feet into cool water - has always called to me. Jack never understood it. He used to bring his fishing rod on the days I was dead set on going to the creek, but after several days of sitting there without a bite, Jack swore up and down that there wasn't a single living thing in that water, and declared fishing a terrible waste of time. After that, my trips to the creek were mostly alone, and that was fine by me. It's allowed it to be my one sacred spot over the years. A place where so many memories solely my own, not shared with a single living soul. Some days, that's the most important thing. To have something that's mine, and only mine.

But not today. When I sink down on the rock, all I feel is loneliness. The type of loneliness only Jack could fill.

Memories from that terrible day four years ago blow into my mind, circling and circling until it's a full-blown tornado. I remember putting fresh sheets on Emma's bed, and then Momma bursting in the room, making me jump out of my skin. Her face was terrifying; a messy mixture of fear and bewilderment, tears and uncertainty. The upper part of my stomach, just under my left rib cage, immediately took on that anxious feeling, like my stomach is going to up and fly out of my body, through the ceiling, and up beyond the clouds. Somewhere far enough away from any and all problems.

There are few things worse than seeing a parent, the voice of sound reason and reassurance, in a state of panic. I was so scared.

She crossed the room slowly, grabbed my hand, and pulled me down to sit on the edge of the bed. For what must have been at least thirty seconds, she sat there with me in silence, still holding my hand, her tear-filled hazel eyes staring deeply into mine.

"There was a fire last night at Jack's house," Momma finally said, forming each word slowly; almost like the sentence she was forming was a puzzle, and she didn't believe the words she was putting together could fit and belong. "It started sometime after midnight in the barn and spread to the house while everyone was asleep."

Gone was the flighty anxious feeling in my stomach, knocked out with what felt like a hard punch. So hard that my lungs exploded, rendered absolutely useless for what felt like an eternity.

"Official word is that Kitty and Marty were trapped in the loft, and Amelia and Edward died trying to get them out. They found the four of them, once the fire was out."

My head was spinning, and it felt like I was drowning in the creek. Momma kept talking, but I couldn't hear what she was saying. Water had filled my ears, my lungs, my head, my eyes. I truly thought my whole world had ended right then and there. I would never live to see another day.

But of course, life went on mercilessly.

There was a funeral two days later. Four wood coffins, but five wood crosses, all in a row. Each cross had a crude name engraved across it, stretched out and crucified like Jesus' arms. Edward West, Amelia West, Katherine West, Marty West, and then, drove into the ground more so as a memorial than a grave marker, Jack West.

They never found his body in the rubble, but it was decided he must have been there. Where else could he have been? He had taken to sleeping in the barn, up in the sweet hay so that he could have his own space. It could have been his lantern that started the fire in the first place. The barn was already burned so badly by the time help got there, we'll never know what exactly happened there that night.

Two more days of living at rock bottom after the funeral, and then a miracle. I was sitting on the front porch step, matching the array of colors adorning the moody cloud-covered sunset to all the things I was feeling when I saw Ms. Kasha speeding up the drive in her buggy. She jumped down before it had come to a full stop and hugged me. Tears were running down her cheeks, but she was smiling. "He's alive, Norah. He's alive," she kept saying over and over.

Jack had been staying the week at a farm a few miles outside of town to help with the planting and make a couple of dollars. At the week's end, he had returned home to find everything gone.

I was overjoyed that my dear, dear Jack was still with me. Disaster had come, forced a huge spoonful of the bitterest sorrow down my throat, and then somehow left. I was given a second chance. It was a feeling I knew I'd never forget, but for now, I desperately wanted things to go back to the way they were. Jack desperately wanted to be dead.

A frog jumps into the creek, disrupting my thoughts as much as the smooth, still water. I can't help but smile. Jack was wrong; there are living things here after all.